Everyone on the Wake Up Call loved the enthusiasm of the late Billy Mays.  I’ve purchased his products.  I’ve watched his show Pitchmen.  I saw his latest appearance (with Andrew Sullivan) on the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. He is gone way to soon.

We recently started something we call “Sock Soup.”  Plain and simple, we do sock puppet shows of different things going on in pop culture.  When Billy Mays passed away, we thought about what he would be like in Heaven.  We think it would be something like this!

So will it be “Thriller” or The Black Eyed Peas “The E.N.D.” selling the most copies this week?  Early estimates have “Thriller” as well as two of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits CD’s selling about 100,000 copies EACH this week!  The Peas, who had the #1 CD two weeks ago, are estimated to have sold a similar number this week as well (Jonas Brothers, who had last week’s #1, evidently dropped off a bit this week).  How cool would that be to have “Thriller” back at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart as one last tribute to the entertainer?  It was the #1 selling album in the country for an incredible 37 weeks back in 1983-84!  We’ll find out the official totals and rankings tomorrow (Wednesday), but here’s the problem… ”Thriller” is not eligible to chart on the Top 200 Albums chart anymore!  Lame!  Billboard, the magazine that prints all the music charts, actually has a separate chart for older CD’s called Top Catalog Albums, which is where “Thriller”, as well as many other MJ albums, should dominate the Top 10.  But if it sells more than The Black Eyed Peas, I don’t see why it couldn’t be put back on the main chart!  This is obviously a very rare occurence, where an old album actually sells enough copies to place on the regular albums chart, but evidently Billboard is going to abide by their rules, and not make an exception for MJ.  So even if “Thriller” actually sells more copies than any other CD in the country this week, it sadly won’t be #1 on the Top 200.  And that’s kind of a bummer.

A Brazillian designer has figured out a way to use 3-D printing to create caster, life size, models of unborn babies. Why would a mom to be want a replica of their growing fetus?  Scientists say it could help women who have a naturally hard time bonding with their child…which begs the question… WHY ARE YOU HAVING A BABY IN THE FIRST PLACE IF YOU DON’T THINK YOU CAN BOND WITH IT???

Anyhow, click here to read all about it. What do you think ladies?  Would you want one of these?

I can’t think of one artist that means enough to me that I would spend the time to put something like THIS together.  It’s one fan’s 64-track acapella rendition of “Thriller”.  It just has to be seen to be believed

Watch this video.  Just watch it.  At 1:30 into the video, it gets crazy!!  I couldn’t look away.  What a sad, sad, FUNNY, FUNNY video.  I don’t know the outcome of the case, but I do know that this video is phenomenal!

This is Jason, and I wanted to let you know that I changed my Twitter account to www.twitter.com For those of you who don’t understand Twitter, or think it is dumb, you aren’t alone! I was one of them. Then I got on Twitter and started to play around with the simple features. Once you figure it out, you will get hooked!

In the past few weeks, Twitter has been a huge part of the protests in Iran. Twitter has also been a great way for fans to pay tribute to their fallen heroes like Michael Jackson.

Don’t worry about the dumb jokes about Twitter. Twitter is only what you want it to be based on your personal interests. Here is how Twitter works….

Let’s just say that you are a huge fan of (insert celebrity name). You simply sign up for Twitter and click “follow” to see their updates. If it’s a movie star, you might get updates from them live from a movie set. If there is a big news story, you might get their personal point of view. If there is hot Hollywood gossip, you might get their inside information.

When Infomercial King Billy Mays died, I found his son on Twitter. It’s been heartwarming to read updates from his son in the hours since his father’s passing. There are people who might be reading this and thinking “that is so lame to bug a guy when his dad just died.”

That’s the thing! Billy Mays son didn’t have to tell us anything. He has posted “tweets” (Twitter messages) claiming that he has remained strong since his father’s death by reading fan comments about his father. He was so moved by his father’s fans that he decided to post updates telling us how he was feeling and he even gave us links to personal family photos of his Dad.

Sports stars, movie stars, your favorite websites, and even a guy from your favorite morning radio show (I’m hoping that show is the Wake Up Call) are on Twitter!

Follow who you want and if you need a personal Twitter-Tutor, I would be happy to help you out!

Go to Twitter and sign up! It only takes a minute or two. After you sign up, go to www.twitter.com and follow me! My name on Twitter is @JasonWakeUpCall.

I have been posting info about our show, behind the scenes information about 107.9 the End, and I’ve even done some prize giveaways for ONLY my Twitter followers. How’s that sound? You can play radio contests and compete with over 300,000 listeners, or follow me on Twitter and compete with a few hundred. Cool deal, huh?

Thanks for reading this and I hope to see you guys on Twitter soon. It has a bad rap for being lame, but I’ve met some cool people and learned some pretty cool things while reading “tweets” Quick quiz…What is a “tweet”? Yup a message you send on Twitter!

I love you guys for listening to the Wake Up Call!!

Jason

So there I was last Thursday having a late lunch in the Santa Cruz hills, enjoying the beautiful view of Monterrey Bay, when my cell phone rings and my friend tells me that Michael Jackson is dead.  I had just gotten into town and was beginning what was supposed to be a relaxing few days vacation on the beach, when it dawned on me that I was going to miss out on being on the radio on one of the biggest, albeit saddest, days in music history.  I don’t intend that selfishly at all, but having grown up enjoying much of Michael Jackson’s music like most of you, I would have been honored to be able to discuss and remember his life and music on the radio with everybody that day.  Instead, from now on Santa Cruz and Michael Jackson will be forever linked in my mind, because even while on vacation, that story would dominate my next few days there.  I found it a little peculiar sharing Michael Jackson moments with the hippie crowd which frequents the Santa Cruz area, a group of people I wouldn’t normally peg as being big MJ fans.  For instance, on Friday night I was enjoying a milkshake at a late-night diner which was playing nothing but MJ over their speakers, and noticed that even the rastafarian types there were bobbing their heads and smiling and singing along to Thriller, The Way You Make Me Feel, and Wanna Be Startin’ Something.  But I think that’s exactly why Michael Jackson was so immensely popular, because his music really appealed to so many different and diverse types of people.  I imagine that just about everyone over the age of 14 can name at least one MJ song, which is very unusual for an artist that hasn’t had a legitimate hit in as many years. 

My first memory of Michael Jackson was during the Thriller album years.  I was too young to be interested in pop music at that point, but I was vaguely aware of his name because an older friend of the family that I knew had the Thriller cassette tape, but had to hide it from his parents because they didn’t want him listening to it.  Some things never change!  By the time the Bad album (CD’s were available by then, but I didn’t have a CD player yet, haha!) came out in 1987, I was just starting to listen to the radio and did like some of his songs, Smooth Criminal in particular.  Man In The Mirror, one of my fave MJ tunes now, was also on that album, but I recall not particularly liking that one as a kid.  It’s funny how your attitude toward songs can change as you grow up a bit.  I also remember what a big deal each new Michael Jackson video was back then.  MTV would always make a huge deal about the premiere of one of his new videos, which were generally more like short films, often about 10 minutes long.  And whenever MTV would count down their Top 100 videos all of time, Thriller would always be #1.  I wonder when MTV stopped doing those countdowns?  Most likely in the mid-90’s I would imagine, when they stopped playing videos altogether! 

The 90’s weren’t so friendly to MJ.  The sexual molestation allegations hit, and his songs just weren’t as good as they were in the 80’s.  Black Or White was definitely a classic from his Dangerous CD in 1991 (yes, I had a CD player by then!), and he had a few more hits off of that album, but those aren’t the ones we love to hear these days like his previous material.  By this time he was starting to have lots of plastic surgery, he got married, got divorced, got married again, had more plastic surgery, and began mixing up babies in petrie dishes.  At the point he hit the Top 10 for the final time of his career, 1995’s You Are Not Alone, his strange behavior was definitely outweighing his musical successes in the public eye.  And that’s sad. I guess that means if you’re in your twenties or younger, and started following MJ’s career in the 90’s, you know him more for being a freak or a child molester than for being a legitimate pop star.  But did he really molest those young boys?  I have no idea of course, but keep in mind he was never convicted of the charges against him.  And it seems to me if your kids were really violated in such a manner, you as parents would want the offender to be pronounced guilty and sent to jail as opposed to just paid off financially.  But who really knows?  Now that Michael Jackson has passed, I hope people can separate the music from the man and really appreciate what a musical revolutionary he really was, and the unparalleled success he had.  Like the 17 Top 10 hits he had in the 80’s alone, including an unheard of 8 Top 10’s from his “Thriller” album alone!  It’s sad that it takes Jackson’s death to get people focused on his music again, instead of the tabloid fodder which was always in his shadow for the last two decades of his life. I for one am glad that I can remember at least some of the 80’s, and was able to enjoy his music before forming an opinion about his personal life.

Only 12 hours before his shocking death, legendary pitchman Billy Mays was involved in a rough landing after flying from Philadelphia to Tampa, Florida. After getting off the plane, Billy talked to some reporters.

How is this for a wake up call? I think another radio station was doing a contest looking for the “biggest” things. Not a bad idea. Maybe we’ll steal that down the road. Either way, check out this dude’s alarm clock. I wonder if he would have other uses for this if he weren’t single and living at home. Ok, in full disclosure, I don’t know if he lives at home or not. My guess is that he does still live at home because I can’t see a guy with a girlfriend having the time to build such a bizarre project.

World’s Biggest, Most Annoying Alarm Clock – Watch more Funny Videos

Let’s be honest, not everyone looks great in a two piece. So our friends at the Frisky of put together a collection of hot one piece swimsuits for the summer. Click here to check them out