Self Help Radio 061315: Fight! Fight! Fight!

I've never actually been in a fight, I don't think.  (I don't really count all the times I fought with my little brother when we were kids.)  I'm sure I could've been in one if I wanted.  I was pretty scared of being beaten up, though, so if someone wanted to start a fight, I probably walked away.  Self-respect be damned!  Later on, when I grew a bit & was a little more threatening, I occasionally put myself in the way of someone, threatening a fight, & whoever it was backed down.  I am pretty sure they could've taken me - I was totally bluffing.

Non-physical fights I've had a lot of.  I don't keep count but I bet I've lost more than I've won.  Jeez, sometimes I think waking up in the morning is a fight I've lost.  But that's not what this show was about.  It was about real fight!  Fights I'll never have.  Fisticuffs! Combat! Rivalry!  & maybe a little about the non-physical fights.

You can listen to me chat with Hollywood guru Mark Miller!  Also with street-fighting promoter David Fruchter!  Plus, another entry in my snobby series, Dramatic Readings Of Classic Rock Songs!  Richard Edward Oliver Speedwagon does not know what's coming to him!

The show is available now for your bellicose listening pleasure at the Self Help Radio Fight Club Web Site.  Play attention to password info on the page.  The belligerent songs I played are listed below.

Thanks for listening - or are you just cruisin' for a bruisin'?

(part one)

"Looking For A Fight" Bleached _Ride Your Heart_
"Learning How To Fight" The Cribs _The Cribs_
"Fight" Tanya Tagaq _Animism_

"This Is Worth Fighting For" Richard Dawson _Hogan's Heroes Sing The Best Of World War II_
"Stand Up & Fight" Bush Tetras _Boom In The Night (1980-1983)_
"This Is Why We Fight" The Decemberists _The King Is Dead_
"Fight Scene" The Kamalas _The Kamalas_

"Lovers Town Revisited" Billy Bragg _Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy_
"Fight" Art Brut _Bang Bang Rock & Roll_
"Fight Music For The Fight" Bromheads Jacket _Dits From The Commuter Belt_
"Street Fighting Man" Lake Trout _Not Them, You_
"I'm A Lover Not A Fighter" Lazy Lester _Authentic Excello R & B_

"Fight Fiercely, Harvard (Live)" Tom Lehrer _The Remains Of Tom Lehrer_
"Fight Song" The Electric Company _The Electric Company_

(part two)

"Academy Fight Song" Mission Of Burma _Signals, Calls, & Marches_
"A Boy Named Sue" Johnny Cash _Johnny Cash At San Quentin_
"Lovers Not Fighters" Milky Wimpshake _Lovers Not Fighters_

"Kung Fu Fighting" Robyn Hitchcock _Uncarved Pumpkins: Live Rarities 1987-1994_
"You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party" Hot Rats _Turn Ons_
"Dog Fight" The Twistaroos _Twisted!_
"Pillow Fight" The Sixths _Wasps' Nests_

"Fight Fire" The Fantastic Dee-Jays _The Fantastic Dee-Jays_
"Fight Fire With Fire" Frances Nero _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 6: 1966_
"Fight Fire With Fire" Shay Holiday _It's Not How Long You Make It_
"Fight Fire With Fire" The 2X4's _The 2X4's_

"Fight" The Cure _Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me_
"Rabbit Fighter" T. Rex _The Slider_

Whither Fight?

I can't remember why I decided to do a radio show about fighting.  I can say with one hundred percent certainty it had nothing to do with the REO Speedwagon song "Can't Fight This Feeling."  I only mention this because, every time in the last few weeks I've been thinking about doing a show with the theme "fight," that damn song - which I can't possibly have really heard since I was a kid, but which of course populates old movies, new movies (thanks, Adam Sandler), & commercials - pops into my head.  But I didn't find a good cover of it (could there be a good cover of such a bad song?) & I refuse to play it.

Okay, maybe I'll play it.  What?  Stop!

The show is on tomorrow from 7-9am on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington, which I am told is streaming again at wrfl dot fm.  I'll archive the show later that day on the SHR website because I wouldn't be up that early on a Saturday if I didn't have to be.

Bonus radio!  I'm doing a show called Sugar Substitute from 6-7am!  Plus I will be subbing the children's show Ages 3 & Up from 9-10am!  If you can call that bonus radio.

I can't fight this feeling anymore.  I've forgotten what I started fighting for.  God damn it!

Preface To Fight: Non-Confrontational Guy

One imagines that I could take an assertive class if I wanted to.  One also imagines that I might not pass it.  Because I just hate confrontation.

It's absurd - because it causes me all kinds of personal anguish - but I generally expect people to act as decently as I would.  I know.

I've learned to accept that drivers will cut me off; that people who imagine their time more valuable than everyone else's will cut in line; that in general the average person will default to rude for whatever reason.  But the great disappointment is when you're part of some community - it might be a job, it might be a volunteer organization like, oh, let's say, a non-commercial radio station - & someone there is inexplicably rude & douche-y.  It shouldn't happen - but of course the same people who are aggressive asswipes or thoughtless fuckwads in the rest of the world inhabit those places too.

I'm thinking about something that happened recently.  I subbed a show while a person at the radio station was working on the new studio.  I understood he had to be there - he was essential to the operation of the station, troubleshooting everything so we could broadcast without problems where we'll be for a couple of years plus.

This person boasted to me that he'd been working in radio for nearly three decades.  & I had no problem with him wandering around, using a drill & other instruments, picking things up, putting them down, while I was playing music.  But - listen - if you're ever in a deejay booth & the sound disappears & the deejay is about to go on the mic, you will stand very quietly, if you have any experience in a radio station, while the deejay talks.  You know any noise you make might go out over the air.

If you have any experience in a radio station.  Well, not this guy.  With nearly three decades in radio.  He proceeded to wander around the deejay booth, including several times walking behind me, occasionally bumping me, whenever I went on the air.

But did I say anything?  Of course not!  What good would it have done?  What if I my tone of voice somehow offended him?  I just suffered through those two hours while he puttered around & did his job, making my job a lot more difficult.

Maybe I should take one of those assertive classes after all.

Xpletive

Accidentally, I received a text.  Apparently, I was added to a group text although I didn't know it because I had my phone turned off while I was subbing a radio show & besides the current station set-up is deep in the bowels of a building where famously everyone complains that there's no cell phone reception.  Understandably, I joined the conversation late.  Interestingly, someone was invited to the conversation who was a wrong number.  Unsurprisingly, they were unhappy with their inclusion.

Sidebar, your honor: what are the odds that a random phone number screw-up, dyslexic-like, would actually be to a cellular phone that received texts?  Probably greater as the time goes by, but still.  Not all phone numbers are taken, right?

Back to the action:

This person was also offended by the use of the word "fuck" in an early text.  They wrote this: "Did not appreciate the xpletive on my phone."

Finding myself fascinated by this, I began to wonder about this warrior against errant texts.  This isn't a new thought - a million & more people have asked this question - but how does this person live through the world without at the very least hearing a baker's dozen of "xpletives" every day?  If this person goes to a web site on their phone, surely there's an "ass" or a "damn" that's bound to rile them.  Do they shoot out an angry email?  A text in which the word "expletive" is abbreviated by one letter?  Does it make the word dirtier if you start it with the letter x?

I've read about cult communities where the leader controls all the information coming in & going out, & of course there are people of fundamentalist religious orientations who make sure they're surrounded by nothing but people who believe the same things, but isn't a cell phone a slightly different proposition?  I mean, someone sent a text at this person &, evil outside world that it is, the text included the letters k, u, f, & c organized in a manner that causes offense to (I believe) a smaller & smaller amount of people.  But that got through!

It must be a strange, sheltered life, a life perhaps lived with a kind of siege mentality.

The person was removed from the group text, whereupon other members of the group remarked that that the person seemed like - a word also that might offend - a "douche."

Sugar Substitue Episode # 160

During the summer, I'm on the air for three hours instead of two, & so this summer, I've revived my freeform radio show, which I call Sugar Substitute, for that first hour & just play lots of pop-type music I dig.  Like the new Close Lobsters single, the sleeve of which is the picture up there.  It's really good!

Anyway - if you'd like to hear an hour of freeform music separate from a themed radio show - god, three hours of Self Help Radio would totally suck! - you can listen to this show at the Self Help Radio website.  Pay attention, you know, to password info.  The songs I played on the show are below.

Thanks for listening!

"William & Mary" The Lucksmiths _The Green Bicycle Case_
"No More Honey" Blonde Redhead _Barragán_
"Now Time" Close Lobsters _Kunstwerk In Spacetime EP_

"You're Gorgeous" The Cannanes _Short Poppy Syndrome_
"Tahitian Ambrosia Maker" The Mountain Goats _Sweden_
"Some Dreams Come True" Sw/Mm/Ng _Feel Not Bad_
"I Love You Like A Ball & Chain" Eurythmics _Be Yourself Tonight_

"Fresh Milk" Katie Smokers Wedding Party _Split 7" With Atatakakatta_
"Black Pitch" Deerhoof _La Isla Bonita_
"La Isla Bonita" Mega Emotion _Uncomfortable_
"In Her Diary" The Go Betweens _Bright Orange Bright Yellow_
"Boa Constrictor" The Magnetic Fields _69 Love Songs, Vol. 1_

"Prawns In The Bin" Haircut _Sweatshop_
"L.O.V.E. Love" Orange Juice _You Can't Hide Your Love Forever_
"Foxglove" Young Magic _Breathing Statues_