#0056: This Week On The Air–April 7, 2026

Talkie Time: Comic Weekly Man - Ep. 288 (Oct 26, 1952) / Ep. 316 (May 10, 1953)

Look dawg. I do The News on occasion, covering protests, and writing about us trans folk in history and in the news, and lemme fuckin’ tell ya: the news is all gloom and doom.

We have a half-sentient hi-viz spray-tanned fascist fashion victim for a Commander In Chief who’s all pissed off that he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, so he’s up on Racism Twitter 2: Racism Harder going on about how he’s about to glass half the fertile crescent¹. Every single time I check the “places I’m allowed to go” map there’s at least another quarter of the country who seems dead-set on declaring me an Enemy Of Christ for the crime of having a better ass than their wife and having a bigger dick than they do. And to top it all off, the Blues are still second-to-last in their division, and if they don’t get their asses into that Wild Card bracket and do something with it my femmy gay ass is gonna be out twenty bucks. And, given how that war in Iran is going, I’mma need that shit for gas.

Fuck this shit, man. We’re diving into the funny pages tonight. The sexy, sexy voice of the Comic Weekly Man (who, as Land Of Cerpts And Honey points out, is none other than Lon Clark, who astute listeners may recognize as the leading man in Nick Carter, Master Detective) is here to read the funnies to you and take your troubles away.

Tonight, we’ll be listening to two episodes in the long-running series; namely, episode 288, which originally aired on Oct 26, 1952 and episode 316, which originally aired on May 10, 1953.

And, while I don’t have a direct link to any of the funny-pages that he’s reading from on either of these episodes…if you happen to be curious as to what they would have looked like back in the day, Mike Peterson over at The Daily Cartoonist put together a sampling of some of the strips that ran during the week of August 6, 1950, as well as a Youtube link to Episode 172 of Comic Weekly Man where he reads nearly all of those strips and more.

Turn off your doom-scrollin’ and come sit down and listen to The Comic Weekly Man with us. The news will be there when you get back. Or, y’know, it won’t, if we all get nuked. Who knows? Modern life is a knife-throwing act put on by ludicrously rich psychotics, and we’re all stapled to the target board. Come read your damn funnies.

The Jazz Program Goes A’-Crate-Diggin’ In The Dollar Bin: Buckwheat Zydeco - Five Card Stud (1994) / On A Night Like This (1987) / Trouble (1997)

In other “Piper desperately needed a break from The Horrors” news, a buddy and I went to the local media-resale shop this week and hit the dollar bin. And, after about an hour of laughing my ass off at some of the worst album covers and goofiest album titles I’ve ever seen in my life (and after we were ahem politely asked to tune it down because the “family friendly” vibe of the place clearly couldn’t handle two gender-fucky goobers loudly yukkin’ it up) I walked out with a gigantic fuck-off bag of CDs from the dollar bin.

A long while back, we had an old segment in the Photo Rolls section where I’d go to the record store and post all the records I found. Maybe one day, I’ll re-upload that photo roll and post some new ones with these new finds, but that’s for later. Right now, we’ve got a stack of records to start going through, and we’re starting with three selections from the late, great Buckwheat Zydeco.

For those of you who don’t know, zydeco is a unique, Louisiana Bayou-regional fusion of soul and blues with Creole folk music. Have you ever heard some damn good blues and thought “man, I wish this had a washboard and an accordian and a helluva lot more get-up-and-go to it”? If so, you’re in luck; Creole folk have been runnin’ exactly that for the past hundred plus years, and we’ve got one of the legends of the genre for you this evening.

With a career spanning four and a half decades that includes “played at the closing ceremony at the Olympics” and “recorded with Eric Clapton” in the highlight list, you’d be hard pressed to call the late Buckwheat Zydeco anything but a superstar. He put out a staggering twenty-six records in his career, signing with Island Records in the late ’80s (shortly after 1985’s Waitin’ For My Yaya, which I have in the pile but will be saving for another night), and continuing to release music well into the 2000s. We’ve got three of them for you this evening.

First up, it’s Five Card Stud, released in 1995 on the aforementioned Island label and featuring none other than Shotgun Willie himself, Willie Nelson, who plays guitar and has a short vocal spot on the third track, “Man With The Blues”.

After that, we’ve got 1987’s On A Night Like This, his first Island release in 1987.

And finally, we’ll be closing it out with Trouble, released on Stanley Dural and Ted Fox’s zydeco-focused label Tomorrow Recordings in 1997.

All sales are final, all prices are slashed, and all these records are primed to move. Dollar Bin Night is back on The Jazz Program. Hope you can join us.

That about covers this week’s show! Assuming I’m not booted off of the Datafruits roster for my atrocities against everyone’s sensibilities and good taste, we’ll be back next week with normal programming. Well, as “normal” as we get around here, anyways.

If you’re reading this the day of, and you can make it in tonight, you should come hang out in the chat with us on Datafruits! We’ve got a good crowd of folks in the chat every week, and whether you have a suggestion for a future show or just want to hang out and chat with fellow jazz enjoyers, you’re welcome here with us.

You’re all amazing and don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not. Stay safe out there, and I’ll see you back again next week. Same time, same station: on datafruits dot fm..

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