Self Help Radio 030615: Shut Up

What a rude radio show!  My deepest apologies.  A radio show should not be in the business of telling anyone to "shut up."  It should not tell people to "hush your mouth" or "be quiet" or even hold a finger to its lips & say "shhhh."  It's entirely inappropriate & if you want I'll take it all the way to management.  Shut up, I'm being honest here!

Actually, I talked a lot (how unusual) so being told through song to shut up over & over does not seem to work.  I believe you're safe from offense.  This time.  I'm pretty glad, however, that FCC rules (plus, probably, actuals songs) preclude me from doing a show with the theme "go fuck yourself."

The show can now be listened to at the old Self Help Radio website.  Pay attention to password/login info!  The show is in two parts (as you will see) & the songs I played are below.

It's just a radio show!  You don't have to shut up if you don't want to!

Thanks for listening.  I'll shut up now.

(part one)

"Shut Up" The Slaves _The Essential Pebbles, Volume Three: European Garage_
"Shut Up" The Monks _Black Monk Time_
"Shut Up" Graduate _Acting My Age_

"Shut Up Woman" Bo Diddley _Tales From The Funk Dimension 1970-1973_
"Shut Your Mouth" Joe Sims & Clarence Williams _The Rise & Fall Of Paramount Records, Vol. 1: 1917-1927_
"Shut Up Sidney" Denim _Denim On Ice_
"Put Up Or Shut Up" Little Jonna Jaye _Jukebox & Doo Wop Girls, Vol. 8_

"Shut Up & Drink Your Beer" Merle Travis _Guitar Rags & A Too Fast Past_
"Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut" Ugly Ducklings _Somewhere Outside_
"Shut Up" Jet Black Factory _House Blessing_
"Shut The Funk Up" The Bar-Kays _Flying High On Your Love_

"Shut Up & Quit Talking" Gene Marshall _The Human Breakdown Of Absurdity_
"Shut Up & Dance" Pearl Harbor & The Explosions _Pearl Harbor & The Explosions_

(part two)

"Shut Up & Listen" Age Of Chance _One Thousand Years Of Trouble_
"Shut Up & Let Me Go" The Ting Tings _We Started Nothing_
"Shut Up & Kiss Me" Pony Up! _Pony Up!_

"Shaddup You Face" Joe Dolce _Shaddap You Face_
"Shut-Ups" The Wild-Tones _Las Vegas Grind, Vol. 1_
"Keep Your Big Mouth Shut" Jesse Stone _Get It While You Can_
"Please Shut Up" The Rondelles _The Fox_

"Tell That Girl To Shut Up" Holly & The Italians _Poptopia! Power Pop Classics Of The '80s_
"World Shut Your Mouth" Julian Cope _Saint Julian_
"Learning To Keep My Mouth Shut" How Many Beans Make Five _One Last Look_
"Shut Your Mouth" The Ordinary Boys _How To Get Everything You Ever Wanted In Ten Easy Steps_

"Shut Up" Tania Rivas _Shut Up_
"I Love You, Shut Up" Boyracer _Go Flexi Crazy_

Whither Shut Up?

The view from my front door this morning

Jeezy chreezy.  Another record snowfall.  I feebly helped my amazing super-strong wife dig out our ridiculously long driveway so I'd be able to make it out in the morning, but there's no guarantee that, once I've left the warm, relatively safe bounds of my home, I won't get stuck in the ice & snow somewhere on the way to the station & freeze to death in my car.

Shut up, Gary!  You'll make it!

We'll see.  The weird thing is, I'm a huge pessimist, but part of me couldn't believe the weather would get as bad as this.  Granted, we are forecast to be free of snow for the next few days, & the temperatures will rise, so this snow won't stay as long as the last snow (the sun even made it out today), but there was a naïve part of me that said, "It can't possibly get as bad as it did two weeks ago."

Two weeks ago!  Holy cracker on a cheese stick!

Tomorrow's rude show will, I hope, go as planned.  It's on from 7 to 9am (when I am traveling to the station around 6:30 in the morning, it's supposed to be -1 degrees Fahrenheit) on WRFL in Lexington at 88.1 fm & online at wrfl dot fm.  If I make it home alive, I'll put it on my website toot suite.

I was supposed to talk about something else today, I'm sorry.  I just have snow shoveling on my mind.  If I were a songwriter, I would've written fifteen songs about snow shoveling already.  I am wiped out.

Preface To Shut Up: Shut Up All Over The World

As I write this, there's a winter storm heading our way.  The initial estimates of a foot to a foot & a half of snow falling on Lexington overnight have been rounded down to a foot, but having just lived through the worst snowfall in seventeen years in the city, you may well imagine how exhausted everyone here feels.  Watching weather radar is a weird habit to develop.

So I am glad for the distraction, & weirded out/happy I found a website, called youswear dot com, which has an entry called How to say shut up in any language!.  I'm sure the first thing you want to do when you're in a foreign country is sharpen your rudeness skills.  Or maybe this is for online arguments?

It's not a very good list, alas.  From the first entry, which suggests that in American English we say "Voldemort's nipple" as a means of quieting someone, to the weird designation of "Firefly" as a language, the list looks like it may have been cobbled together from a drunken night of sloppily researching the Urban Dictionary.  Though I suspect I am insulting the fine contributors to that modern online marvel.

Are you going to make me use Yahoo answers?  Please don't.

At this point, you might be asking, why in the world would anyone do a radio show about such an unpleasant phrase?  No one ever wants to be told to shut up.  It's the sort of thing one says in anger or in frustration.  But I suppose I can answer that question tomorrow.

Meanwhile: Here's a profile of WRFL, where I deejay.  It's nice!

Thank You Note

I am pretty terrible at promoting my radio show, which may be because I am a little ashamed of it, so I hope you don't mind if I take a second to write about it on this blog that I'm sure is only read by a few odd sorts.

You know about my website.  I think there's a link to it on this very blog, besides the one I just added.  Plus it has links to almost everything I'm going to link to below.

Like my Twitter account.  I don't do much there, just let people on Twitter know what I'm playing during my show, but occasionally I make an observation that, probably, isn't all that funny.

Then there's the show's Facebook page.  I don't do a lot of stuff there, either.  I just let folks know when I'm going to be on the air, & then I let them know when the show makes it to my web site.  Sometimes I post videos.  Or links to a pertinent blog entry.  I should do more.  I don't know why I don't do more.

Both of those links work whether you "follow" the show on Twitter or "like" the show on Facebook, but if you do either of those things, it makes me happy.  I'm silly that way.

Something else you don't have to follow is my Tumblr page.  I put my amateur photos on that page.  It has nothing to do with the radio show at all.  I have three dogs & four cats so there are lots of photos of them.  Lots.  But also other dumb things that caught my eye.

Here's one last link that I don't think I've ever shared: this link is to my personal Facebook page.  If you'd like to be my friend on Facebook.  I post the same pictures I put on the Tumblr page plus funny internet detritus.  I also tell folks there when I am doing a show, & also when a show is on my web site.  When I sub a show on RFL, I mention it exclusively on the Facebook page.  That's one thing I only do there.

Hmm.  I don't know exactly why you'd want to be friends with me on Facebook, but I thought I should go ahead & put it out there.  If you think I'll regret it, I'll just note that I regret pretty much everything.

You already knew that.

Leonard Nimoy R.I.P.

A friend of mine, being a snot on Facebook, wrote this the other day, after the great Leonard Nimoy died, & people started expressing their feelings about what he meant to them:

"I was saddened to learn of the passing of Leonard Nimoy, but not surprised, since Mr. Nimoy was 83 years of age. What has been surprising has been to learn that so many of my Facebook friends knew him personally."

Disregarding the first sentence, which is weirdly worded & a bit nonsensical (Nimoy's famous co-star William Shatner is 83 & seems in great health; the assumption that all 83 year olds are near death is a little dumb), it is very rare, I think, to see such an amazing example of someone who just really, really doesn't get it.

It may not be obvious to you, but I do know this friend couldn't give a shit about Star Trek or science fiction in general, so he can be forgiven.  What he wrote is supposed to be a joke - somewhat barbed, I guess (in the Shatner "Get A Life" sort of way), but a joke nonetheless.

Here's the thing: it was the power of Nimoy's inhabiting of the character of Spock for decades that, for those of us who do get it, made you feel you knew him personally.  There are great actors out there who are terrific, even stunning, in movie roles.  But the minute I, as a child, became entranced by the super-strong, magic Vulcan-nerve-pinching, cold & logical, pointy-eared character on the screen, I was not simply going to thrill to the sort of thing a comic book loving nerd child would always love, like Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk or anyone holding a laser gun.  No indeed.  As I grew older, I came more & more to appreciate the nuance that Nimoy put into Spock.  I came to see that, despite often silly plots & cheap-o sets, Nimoy's chemistry with William Shatner & DeForest Kelly made that show.  So many plays, movies, television shows fail because there's no connection between the leads.  Nimoy was instrumental in making us believe there could be such a thing as a half-human, half-Vulcan Science Officer on board a starship in the future.  We shared his struggles.  We cared about him.

I never saw Nimoy in person.  I am a huge Star Trek nerd but have never been to a convention.  But I have watched his performances & presentations on Youtube & read transcripts, & by all accounts, he was a kind, generous, warm, wise, & funny man.  Buzzfeed gave us a list of 21 reasons why he was so awesome, & I have no reason to doubt any of it.

It's funny, he, as an actor, struggled with being typecast as this monumental character which he, in the 1970s, had no idea would become a cultural icon.

It's a dilemma most of us will never have to ponder.  After the success of the movies - plus his emergence as a fine director - Nimoy obviously found Spock to be something worth embracing.  While I think we, as fans, might have sympathized perhaps with his ambivalence, most of us were a little baffled that he would even need to struggle.  Because we saw his performance as Spock, & it utterly mesmerized us.

I took his death personally.  I cried, I cried at the loss of someone I deeply loved.  A true artist, as he was, has the capacity to make you feel as though he or she is someone with whom you have a personal relationship.  It's not foolish, or delusional, to feel grief from such a loss.  The connection is real.

I'm sad that I now have to live in a world without Leonard Nimoy.  I am happy I got to grow up in a world that had Leonard Nimoy in it.  Because of how great he was, he made me feel I knew him personally.  & I think he would be flattered & humbled by that statement.