So just what is the essence of Big Rude Jake? Perhaps the following list, cribbed from a well-worn t-shirt, may be illustrative:

SWING, Lagavulin, Polanski, Tarantino, Ren & Stimpy, Bolivar, Oscar Wilde, Anton LeVay, Beethoven, Russ Meyer, Hellblazer, Big Joe Turner, Sex Pistols, Springsteen, Rockabilly, Foster Hewitt, Conn Smythe, Nick Cave, Jimmy Hoffa, anti-social vs immoral, Tijuana Bibles, Betty Page calandars, Sommerset Maugham, cunnilingus, Taoism, Mahatma Gandhi was a motherfucker, the Beastie Boys, car alarms, syringes, Hitler/Elvis, The Knights Templar, cats pyjamas, T.S. Eliot, Pierre Trudeau, school janitors, Mickey Mantle, millionaire butts, Because reindeers are assholes! Alphabet City, Damon Runyon, Captain Kirk, Deforest Kelly as God, Is the fucking you're getting worth the fucking you're getting? St. Augustine, Lily St. Cyr, "Wayne, Wayne, who fixed the game?" Instate Shoeless Joe! Save Tiger Stadium! Ragtime, Vito Corleone, Coen Brothers, Columbo, Adam West, "God's lonely man", Kurt Weill, corned-beef hash, Salvador Dali ties, lemon gin, booze-cans, The Last Days of Pompeii, Mushroom Cults, hating post-modernism, rotweillers, dark ales, The Lindy Stomp, push-up bras, Gutenberg Bibles, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sam Spade, Gene Autrey, The Solid Gold Dancers, Renes Descarte, "King" Clancey, "Rocket" Richard, subway tokens, Biltmores, Packards, "Closely Watched Trains", Roger Ramjet, Joseph Conrad, Venus De Milo, PUNK.