Self Help Radio 091416: Bending

(Original image here.)

As one gets older, more & more parts of a person stop bending (he's going to talk about breaking his arm here) (shut up he isn't!).  It's something we'll find out.  Well, not all of us.  Some of us die before we get old, unlike Pete Townshend.  Whether that's a good thing or not, I can't say.  Would Jimi Hendrix have enjoyed prostate exams?  Would Kurt Cobain have continues to embarrassingly dye his hair like Ringo Starr & Paul McCartney do?  Why won't William Shatner just take off that goddamn toupee!?!?!

(That got weird.) (At least he didn't talk about breaking his arm.)

This show, then, can be seen as an acknowledgement of my own growing lack of flexibility (oh no!) (shush!) as well as a kind of fond farewell of a youth I squandered by not really caring if I were agile or flexible or even in a modicum of good health.  The potential bendable me, the potential bendable all of us.  Would that I had bent as much in my heyday as the show this week does.

Also, I did it with a broken arm.  (motherfucker!) (all right, all right)

You can listen to the show over at the embarrassingly rigid Self Help Radio website.  The song about bending are below.  Be careful!  Maybe do some stretches before listening!

(part one)

"Bend" The Icecream Hands _You Can Ride My Bike: The Best Of The Icecream Hands_
"Bend" Jen Wood _Getting Past The Static_
"Bend" Grover _My Wild Life_

"Bend A Little My Way" Nat King Cole _To Whom It May Concern_
"Bend Down" Ernie Smith _The Best Of Ernie Smith_
"Bend Me" Space Ghost _Yeah, Whatever_
"Bend Me Shape Me" The Outsiders _In_
"Bend It" Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich _Greatest Hits_
"Bend To Break" Twin River _Should The Light Go Out_

"Bent Out Of Shape" The Teardrop Explodes _Wilder_
"Bent Out Of Shape" Young Rival _Interior Light_
"The Metal Benders" Dark Day _Window_
"Bending Halos" Drinking Flowers _New Swirled Order_

"Bend Over Backwards" Archie Powell & The Exports _Great Ideas In Action_

(part two)

"Bent Backwards" Mrs. Kipling _Sunny Sunday Smile_
"Hell Bent On Death" Bogshed _Step On It_
"Hell Bent Suicidal Over You, Baby" The Rainyard _Just A Taste: A Summershine Records Compilation_

"Bending Spoons" Oval-Teen _Ten;Ten_
"Hump From Bending" The Hidden Cameras _Awoo_
"Fahr Mit Mir Un Die Welt (Up Around The Bend)" Bernd Spier _Pop In Germany Vol. 6_
"Just Around The Bend" Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs _You Can't Buy A Gun When You're Crying_

"Mind Bending Cutie Doll" The Revillos _Attack Of The Giant Revillos_
"Kneebending" Cowboy _A House Full Of Friends_
"Alexander Bends" Butterglory _Downed_
"Halo Bender" The Halo Benders _Don't Tell Me Now_

"Train Round The Bend" The Velvet Underground _Loaded_
"She's So Bendable" The Bravery _Stir The Blood_
"Bendable Poseable" Hot Chip _Made In The Dark_

Whither Bending?

(Original image here.)

Oh how I wish I had had the good humor & cleverness to think of doing a show about bending directly after my lack of flexibility caused me to break a bone!  Alas, that is not the case.  Also, if I'm talking way too much about my current condition, I'll apologize but one of my limbs is not functioning so I think it's understandable that it's on my mind constantly.

Sob! Only the tramadol understands me!  Let's hang out together this afternoon & nap, friend tramadol!

Did I mention that I get like three robo-calls a day from the Trump campaign? I just got one now. They're really creepy. Not just because of Trump's voice bellowing out of my phone the Friends theme song: "I'll be there for you!!"  But also because they're voice-activated, so if I say nothing, the recording (which says "give generously" with the same tone of voice a serial killer says "tell me you love me") won't begin, so I have played robo-call-chicken, just seeing which of us will hang up first.  For the record, the robo-caller will disconnect after a minute, but I usually just hang up or worse, don't answer.  But my outgoing voicemail message will trigger the robo-call, so I get three or more "messages" from the campaign a day.

Does anyone have any idea how much a call costs?  I'm sure they're cheap, but hopefully after weeks of this, I'm costing the campaign a few bucks.  This is not the proper ground for his poison seed.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, a pill & a nap. But! Self Help Radio's show about bending airs tonight in Lexington from 9-11 pm Lexington time, 8-10 pm Fort Worth time, on 93.9 fm WLXU in Lexington & on the WLXU website everywhere.

Please appreciate that it's a radio show made with only one hand.

Preface To Bending: This Is Not The Time Or Place To Complain About A Broken Bone

Here's something cheery to read: the heat death of the universe.

When I was younger, things like this really disturbed me.  Maybe I was a morbid kid.  I remember realizing that I would one day die about the time I was 10 or 11.  It made me very, very sad.

What's sad is a ten-year-old concerned about death, or being sad about some future he read about where all books are being burned, or, you know, stuff like Neal DeGrasse Tyson tweeted recently:

That shit used to keep me up at night!

Not anymore, though.  The longer I live, the less I really care about the fate of the planet, the human race, its creations, time, eternity, all that.  I do feel exceedingly lucky to have lived in a time when I have clean drinking water, recorded music, modern medicine, the Internet, & vegan diners.  If I had been born a hundred years earlier, I would probably have already died from cholera after watching half my children die in childbirth.  That doesn't sound like fun.

What changed?  I think that as I lost my youthful self-absorption, which carried with it a healthy serving of self-importance, I came to find that humans are not nearly as interesting or important as we think we are.  Furthermore, we just destroy everything - look at our planet!

Luckily there are some nice humans that one can spend time with.  Unluckily, they never seem to be in charge of anything.

Common Complaints About Casts (for broken bones)

Casts are confining.
Casts are hot.
When you sweat in casts (because they're hot), you itch.
You itch under the cast.
You cannot scratch an itch in a cast.
Casts come with slings.
Slings are confining.
Slings hurt your neck.
Casts should be signed by friends.
But sometimes you're new in town & have no nearby friends.
Unsigned casts mock you.
Casts can't get wet.
But you get dirty.
Even in a cast, you need to clean yourself.
You have to cover a cast when you shower.
Covering a cast in the shower is deliriously inconvenient.
Casts are terribly inconvenient.
Stupid casts!

What Becomes Of The Broken-Armed?

(Selfie with sling, taken in the ER.)

It's true, I tripped & fell on sidewalk & broke my arm.  According to my wife, who, among other things, is an anatomist, I broke the neck of my radius.  She says my radius, not my ulna, is the support in situations like trying to stop a fall.  Good job, radius! I wish I could fall better.

Oh, & yes, it's my right arm, & I'm right-handed, so these past few days have been slow-going.  Luckily we as a society are not as reliant on writing by hand as we were, so I can use my left hand to hunt & peck things like this blog post.

But. Will there be a Self Help Radio this week?  I have been taking a lot of Tramadol.  However, I am acting as though that will indeed by the case.  This week's show, with the them "bending," will air as scheduled.

The irony isn't lost on me, though - a show about bending almost waylaid by my lack of flexibility.