Today's public service announcements are all information and no imagination--but yesteryear's? Those were full of drama, plot lines, and cameos from B-grade celebrities, all wedged into one minute of absolute fantasticness.
Consider this a trip back in time to when PSAs were sometimes worth watching more than the Saturday morning cartoons.
Today: I'm not sure which puppet will be giving me more nightmares tonight
Random Thoughts and Questions: 1.) Kukla and Ollie were a popular children's show from 1947-1957. They made a resurgence in the late 1960s and early 1970s--when those kids grew up and were now on acid. So, this explains a lot.
2.) You know it's the '70s when everything is a lovely hue of sepia. 3.) What has Smokey so busy that he's too busy for a Public Service Announcement? Isn't that his only job? Does Smokey get vacation, sick time, holidays, and a sensible 401k plan?
4.) Always breaking matches in two somehow magically puts the flame out. How, I don't know. Try it at home and see if your house goes up in flames. 5.) Ollie is apparently a dragon. I had to look that up because he looks like a deformed lion in need of Invisalign.
6.) Somkey's face is placed onto matches. Pause and let that linger for a second. Some marketing guru thought using Smokey's face to make a flame was quality branding.
Here we'll occasionally dive into mugshots of the criminally-inclined writers who found themselves in the big house. Crime doesn't pay, although literature does sometimes.
Today: Nelson Algren
Someone had a tough night.
The name might not be as famous as Ernest Hemingway or Virginia Woolf, but Nelson Algren's literary star burned brightly for a while. His most famous work was his 1949 novel The Man with the Golden Arm, about a man spiraling into morphine addiction, which won the 1950 National Book Award and was later made into a 1955 movie starring Frank Sinatra.
If the image of Frank Sinatra as a junkie is throwing you off, so might the idea of a writer getting caught up with the police. But Nelson Algren went to the slammer...twice. Because if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
The first dalliance with crime occurred when Algren was a wannabe drifter after college in the 1930s. Struggling for a career as a writer, he moved to Texas, where he held a series of odd jobs, including pumping gas and a salesman. From there, the facts of the story are vague, but in either 1933 or '34, Algren stole a typewriter and was promptly arrested. Listen, those National Book Awards aren't going to just write themselves.
In 1967, Algren went to the cooler again. This time it was for marijuana possession. Shockingly, people in the late 1960s smoked a bit of the devil's lettuce. Ever the criminal mastermind, Algren somehow was caught. This time, charges were dropped quickly and all we have left of the incident is Algren's mugshot, which channels all the mystique of someone outside of a 7-11 convenience store at 3am.
Oh, by the way, while we're on the topic. Frank Sinatra? He was once arrested, too. His crime? Seduction.
That's the face of seduction, baby!
Yes, that's actually the crime, which was once illegal. In 1938, a 23-year old Frank Sinatra was arrested in Bergen County, NJ, for seduction of a single woman. The 1930s were a heady time of hedonism, and Old Blue Eyes apparently wooed someone he shouldn't have. The crime of seduction involved sexual intercourse with a single woman with the promise of marriage and then reneging on the deal.
Sinatra was quickly released after police determined the woman was actually married. Small mistake! Yet, that led to Sinatra being arrested again, this time after the first charges were revised and he was charged with adultery. No one ever said New Jersey made sense.
Like Algren, charges were eventually dropped against Sinatra.
Thus, this ends the lamest crime log you'll ever read.
Nobel Prize Laureate J.M Coetzee was once a computer programmer back in the 1960s who worked on designing the United Kingdom's Atlas 2 supercomputer. (It was the '60s. Picture the cut-and-paste set of the original Star Trek with glowing buttons. That was how snazzy the Atlas 2 was. Just swap out Spock for Coetzee.)
According to University of Texas research, while developing the computer Coetzee spent his evenings placing algorithms into it to select words and create repetitive lines to construct "computer poetry." What we end up with explains the 1960s in a nutshell.
"OUTSPREAD LEAF PLANT THE GRAVEDIGGER"
"GLACIAL TAILOR MIRROR THE LEMNISCATE"
"SAD SPADE JOIN THE ENTROPY"
"FRENETIC TETANUS DEADEN THE DOCUMENT"
No offense, but this computer sounds like it needs a good scotch and a couple of anti-depressants to lighten up. Sylvia Plath comes across as rainbows and sunshine compared to this.
When I was a kid, I memorized The Golden Girls and Cheers theme songs, like it was a Jeopardy category. I was made for karaoke at Japanese bars or to entertain 80-year old grandmas in their living rooms with my dulcet tones.
If you're over the age of fifty--or you're someone who was raised on Nick-at-Nite reruns by nostalgic parents--there's a chance these musical theme songs sound familiar to you. The definition of an ear worm is what these theme songs represent. You'll hum one of them for the next week while standing in line at Starbucks for a unicorn frappuccino. You'll hum them at a bus stop. You'll hum them walking down the street.
In the end, you--will--hum.
It seems many television shows from bygone eras with catchy themes had lyrics all along, except we never knew there were any words to them. THERE WERE WORDS.
So, here are eight television shows that were always known by a musical theme, but apparently had lyrics all along. Impress your grandma and sing them to her the next time you see her.
1.) The Dick Van Dyke Show
If you're over 60-years old, skip ahead. You're humming it right now as you read this.
If you're under 60-years old, The Dick Van Dyke Show was one of the most popular shows on television in the 1960s, routinely airing in the top-10 most watched shows. Its stars, Dick Van Dyke (shocker) and Mary Tyler Moore, both won multiple Emmy Awards for their roles.
And the theme song heavy on the brass section actually had lyrics all along:
So you think that you've got troubles? Well, trouble's a bubble So tell old Mr. Trouble to get lost! Why not hold your head up high and Stop cryin', start tryin' And don't forget to keep your fingers crossed. When you find the joy of livin' Is lovin' and givin' You'll be there when the winning dice are tossed. A smile is just a frown that's turned upside down So smile, and that frown will defrost. And don't forget to keep your fingers crossed.
That's passively-agressively depressing in a lyrical form. Just a hunch, but maybe that's why the producers of the show just went with the instrumental version.
It sounds better when the actual star of the show, Dick Van Dyke, actually sings it, as he did a few years ago on Rachael Ray's show, of all places.
When the 90-ish year old, white-haired star of the show sings it in a grandfatherly tone, it sounds quaint and adorable.
Hat-tip to Mary Tyler Moore for the sound effects.
2.) Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes took all the rib-tickling hilarity of Nazi POW camps and made a sitcom out of the situation. If you can't laugh at your own potential extermination, what can you laugh at, amiright?
The jaunty lyrics never sung before the show sound like a propaganda film come to life. A public service announcement for the U.S. Marines has less machismo then these words:
Heroes, heroes, husky men of war, Sons of all the heroes of the war before. We're all heroes up to our ear-o's You ask the questions We make suggestions That's what we're heroes for. All good heroes love a good, big fight Open up the bomb bays and brighten up the night. We earn laurels solving your quarrels You pull the roses, We punch the noses, That's what we're heroes for. What's a hero do? Well, we're not gonna tell ya Cause we wish we knew. That's why we heroes are so few. We've got a slogan From Colonel Hogan And Colonel Hogan's a hero too. Never flinch, boys, never be afraid, Heroes are not born, boys, heroes all are made. Ask not why, boys, never say die, boys, Answer the call, remember we'll all be heroes forever more
Well, after hearing that, I've already called my local recruiting office and signed up for a tour of duty.
Side note: Hogan's Heroes ended without World War II ever ending. Did the war ever end? Don't spoil it for me! I want to be surprised!
3.) Bonanza
There was a cute time in America--mainly around the 1950s and '60s--where everyone was in love with cowboys. The whole craze single-handedly kept John Wayne with employment for a solid two decades.
Bonanza aired for 14 seasons AND 431 EPISODES on NBC. Seinfeld, by comparison, in the 1990s had only 180. (And if you think that's insane, another cowboy show, Gunsmoke, which aired during the same era, HAD 635 EPISODES on CBS. Americans loved themselves some rootin'-tootin' stuff in the 1960s.)
The theme song of Bonanza was catchy, though. The version with lyrics never aired, but the original pilot episode had the cast sing them at the end of the episode.
I'm not afraid of any pretty maid — Bonanza! Bonanza! When I give a kiss to any little miss She'll learn a lot from me Hair of brown, hair of gold I'll take what I see We're not a one to saddle up and run — Bonanza! Bonanza! Anyone of us who starts a little fuss Knows he can count on me One for four, four for all This we guarantee
All the appeal of sexual aggression and brouhaha antics that usually leads to arrests and a court date. Sounds delightful!
4.) M*A*S*H
M*A*S*H was originally a 1968 novel made into a 1970 movie, which then became a 1972 television series that lasted eleven years. This is to say it was a cash cow.
It all had to deal with the hilarity of surgeons out in the field of battle of the Korean War--a war which, itself, only lasted three years. Nothing brings a hearty chuckle like extending the thought of warfare by a decade.
But M*A*S*H's theme had lyrics, written originally by the film director Robert Altman's teenage son. The song's title? Suicide Is Painless.
Clearly, it's a comedy built on a speedball of lyrical depression.
Through early morning fog I see Visions of the things to be The pains that are withheld for me I realize that I can see That suicide is painless It brings so many changes And I can take or leave them if I please The game of life is hard to play I'm gonna lose it anyway The losing card of some delay So this is all I have to say The sword of time will pierce our skin It doesn't hurt when it begins But as it works its way on in The pain grows stronger watch I bring A brave man once requested me To answer questions that are key Is it to be or not to be And I replied oh why ask me
What? No references to Lou Gehrig's Disease and cancer while you're at it? Where are the chuckles?!
In case you have short-term memory loss, remember that these weren't the lyrics to some horrifyingly depressing medical drama. This was a comedy show. But apparently nothing tickles the insides like the thought of suicide.
5.) Bewitched
Theme songs in the 1960s were always jaunty little 30-second numbers that apparently had a secret jazzy life, as we see with Bewitched's theme.
Here's Steve Lawrence, famous for being from the husband and wife duo of Steve & Eydie, but also known for a head of hair that required amazing amounts of styling products and creepy Vegas lounge club vibe where he's winking at you nonstop from the stage while he takes a drag from his menthol cigarette.
Bewitched, Bewitched, You've got me in your spell. Bewitched, Bewitched, You know your craft so well. Before I knew what I was doing I looked in your eyes That brand of woo you've been brewin' Took me by surprise. You witch, you witch, One thing is for sure. That stuff you pitch Just hasn't got a cure. My heart was under lock and key, But somehow it got unhitched. I never thought that I could be had But now I'm caught and I'm kinda glad To be Bewitched.
I'm just taken by any song that uses the word "woo" seriously in its lyrics. That takes some moxie.
6.) I Dream of Jeannie
1967 was the Summer of Love, which is to say everyone was in a haze and cloud of various, uhhh, medicinal products freely passed from one to another.
This also explains how two television shows about a witch (Bewitched) and a genie (I Dream of Jeannie) could somehow be the peak of television ratings then.
Jeannie had a boppy little musical intro which had lyrics thrown away by producers. Because when you're high on LSD, odds are the lyrics don't make much sense anyway.
Jeannie, fresh as a daisy. Just love how she obeys me, Does things that just amaze me so. She smiles, Presto the rain goes. She blinks, up come the rainbows. Cars stop, even the train goes slow. When she goes by She paints sunshine on every rafter, Sprinkles the air with laughter, We’re close as a quarter after three. There’s no one like Jeannie. I’ll introduce her, To you, but it’s no use, sir, Cause my Jeannie’s in love with me. She’s in love with me.
Oh, that not-so-subtle second line of how "she obeys me" can't go unheralded. The 1960s were such a hoot for casual misogynism!
7.) Star Trek
It's incredibly hard to find a video of the lyrics to the show without some fanboy of Star Trek dressed up like Spock or some random green alien singing the theme while snacking between their latest Taco Bell Supreme.
Many hours of my life were lost to find even just this basic video. Feel my pain.
Beyond The rim of the star-light My love Is wand'ring in star-flight I know He'll find in star-clustered reaches Love, Strange love a star woman teaches. I know His journey ends never His star trek Will go on forever. But tell him While he wanders his starry sea Remember, remember me.
Whosa--whatsa--whosa singing these lyrics? Is this a mystery woman? What just happened?
Now, Captain Kirk macked on a few women during his travels over the years, but these lyrics are straight out of Days of Our Lives. And a "star woman"? I didn't drink enough to understand what's going on right now.
8.) I Love Lucy
The timeless show--in that it's insane that after all this time people still know of I Love Lucy. It's only pushing seventy years at this point. No rush.
Move on? Pssh.
I love Lucy and she loves me We're as happy as two can be Sometimes we quarrel but then How we love making up again Lucy kisses like no one can She's my missus and I'm her man And life is heaven you see 'Cause I love Lucy Yes, I love Lucy And Lucy loves me
I have to call these lyrics out. The whole show was about how they argued 24/7 over everything, and yet their marriage was full of love? Really? Maybe Lucy doesn't actually love you, Desi--ever think of that? It's lovely to hear some smooth ballad crooned to your wife, but the remaining 23.5 hours of daylight you're yelling at her.
There's a reason Lucy and Desi had individual beds on the show.
The Phillipsburg Free Public Library in Phillipsburg, N.J. loaned out the Jules Verne book Dropped from the Cloudssometime in late December 1966, with a due date of January 5, 1967.
The library charges a late fee of 10 cents a day. The multiple decades late fee results in a total of $1,800, which the library says they'll cap at $3 if the person who dropped off the book comes forward with their story.
Library director Deb Messling told Lehigh Valley Live that the book was in rough shape, though. "It looks like someone loved it for a long time," she said. "Hopefully it did some good out in the world."
If you're scratching your head as to how you've never heard of this book, you're not alone. Apparently 99.9% of the American population hasn't either, as it has only one review on Amazon.
It costs $7.95 on Amazon, though. But I hear you can borrow it from The Phillipsburg Free Public Library for fifty years and only pay $3.
Are writers ever normal? No, otherwise they'd be productive members of society. 'When Writers Go Weird' is when we remember writers acting strange, odd, off, or--yeah--just plain weird. Also known as Tuesday to them. Today: That time Ken Kesey faked his suicide.
Contrary to what Hollywood would make you believe, faking your own death to get out of something isn't a common occurrence. This is because faking your death is hard work with you still being alive and all.
Kesey thinking up ways to not kill himself.
This brings us to Ken Kesey. Kesey--who looked like a middle-aged patron in a South Boston back alley bar--is in that group of one-hit wonder authors, but with only a fraction of the fame of your J.D. Salingers and Harper Lees. He wrote more, it's just that none of it was memorable. His most notable work was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a massive hit made even more popular with its 1975 film adaptation starring Jack Nicholson.
Kesey sprung to critical and commercial success in his mid-twenties for Cuckoo, which was partly inspired by his time spent in an illegal medical trial run by the CIA for psychoactive drugs run. The trial tested drugs like LSD, cocaine, and mescaline, creating all of the allure of a club scene but without the great dance beats, which Kesey detailed in his writings. Not surprisingly, Kesey continued the medical trial long after the medical trial ended. Drugs are funny that way.
After Cuckoo garnered success, Kesey moved to a ranch in La Honda, CA, south of San Francisco. There, Kesey and a large gathering of acquaintances and friends dabbled in then-legal psychedelic drugs like LSD (notice a pattern yet?), and held parties dubbed "Acid Tests." The group came to call itself The Merry Pranksters and criss-crossed the country in a bus painted for a bad trip--a trip on acid, not Interstate 95--for no other apparent reason than they could.
There's probably at least three dozen
illegal things going on with this bus.
By 1965, Kesey was arrested for marijuana possession, one of the few illegal drugs at the time. Then he found himself busted a second time for the same crime. For reasons unknown--paranoia? fright? looking for a thrill? a history of bad decision making?--Kesey decided to create a faked suicide to escape pending jail time.
Driving up to northern California, outside Eureka, Kesey parked a truck near a seaside cliff and left an elaborate suicide note with the line "Ocean, Ocean, I'll beat you in the end." Suicide never sounded more poetic or romantic. Then, through the help of his friends and luxurious trunk space to hide, Kesey snuck over the border into Mexico to hide from the FBI for his marijuana arrests.
Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, then Manzanillo all received a visit from Kesey, his friends, his family, and even the bus. The FBI didn't buy the supposed suicide, although the media reported Kesey's death as fact. U.S. authorities tracked the author to Mexico, enrolling the help of the Mexican Federales, but Kesey remained largely hidden, even escaping undercover stings a couple of times. For eight months he hid in plain sight in the town with friends. As the New York Times later recounted, a former hotel owner in Manzanillo, Bart Varelmann, wrote in a memoir that "[t]he interior of Ken's bus was a cornucopia of strange pills, exotic herbs, magic mushrooms, peyote buttons, LSD, uppers, downers, poppers, and of course marijuana." Varelmann also noted that "[o]n a windless day one could get stoned just strolling past the bus." If you think this sounds ideal, clearly you were alive for the 1960s.
Then, as randomly as he faked a suicide, as abruptly as the hijinks began, and as if the vacation was over, Kesey headed back to the United States and accepted five months in jail for his prior arrests. The ruse of a suicide was over.
Can you fake a rebirth? If so, Kesey tried his best version of it. The general absurdity of the previous two years faded as Kesey, out of prison, moved to rural Oregon and wrote largely forgettable material for books and magazines, including a memoir and tour in a new version of the psychedelic bus. He remained largely uninteresting--dare say, normal--until his death in 2001.
The weirdest thing Kesey did at the end of his life was that he became boring. And that was maybe the most criminal thing of all.
Today's public service announcements are all information and no imagination--but yesteryear's? Those were full of drama, plot lines, and cameos from B-grade celebrities, all wedged into one minute of absolute fantasticness.
Consider this a trip back in time to when PSAs were sometimes worth watching more than the Saturday morning cartoons.
This week's PSA: Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na...Cheap Boss!!
Random Thoughts and Questions: 1.) Wait, superheroes were being paid in Gotham all this time? 2.) Wait, wait, Robin was being paid as well? The Orkin Man does more work than he does. 3.) Batman sounds like he's nursing a hangover. 4.) Batman would rather die than pay Batgirl. That tells you his priorities in life right there. 5.) "Holy act of Congress!!" Apparently Robin votes Republican? 6.) I always kind of pictured Spiderman as a deadbeat employer, but now the truth comes to light.
Manchester Metropolitan University lecturer John Hyatt claims he has photographic proof that fairies exist. Tinkerbell and her frolicking friends were snapped by Hyatt while he walked in the Lancashire countryside at various points during the last two years, apparently enjoying an early evening social.
As he told the Manchester Evening News, “It was a bit of a shock when I blew them up, I did a double take. [...] I went out afterwards and took pictures of flies and gnats and they just don’t look the same."
Sounds like a legit scientific discovery to me!
But Hyatt has some issue with how fairies are portrayed. "I don’t believe they are just smaller versions of us and go home and have a cup of tea at the end of the day," he tells the website. “And one is suggesting they have any special powers. From my experience they were just enjoying themselves and there was a little dance in the sunlight going on."
Indeed. Let's not get crazy here. We're talking about dancing flying fairies here. Not fairies with special powers and a tea jones. HUGE difference.
Buzzfeed has a photo of an old Associated Press report telling of Hunter S. Thompson's daily routine.
Tip of the day:
After going on a two hour midday binge of cocaine, you'll want to smoke a little weed to take the edge off. That's the kind of tip Dr. Oz isn't going to give you on Oprah.
The man still got 7hrs of sleep. That's more than me, and I don't even go for the booger sugar.
[Sometimes
words die out of fashion. But sometimes those words are good words,
words with a certain appeal that can't be denied forever. Those
words should be brought back into fashion, used frequently and used
often. These are those words.]
Word: Jamoke
Definition: noun
1. Coffee.
2. An individual who isn't particularly intelligent.
Professor Jonathan Lighter once suggested that the word started as a nautical term bandied about by sailors in World War I as a nickname for the not-so-bright amongst them. Picture Curly from The Three Stooges in a sailor hat.
Meanwhile, the good folks at Merriam-Webster don't even acknowledge the definition of jamoke as a reference to human beings. They're a very polite crowd over there.
What we do know is that somewhere between 1880 and 1915, the word gained traction not as a reference to coffee but as a signifier of an average, plain, boring, kind of dumb guy.
Somehow, by the 1960s, jamoke turned into slang for the male anatomy. Use your imagination, or tune into Skinimax sometime after midnight for a visual description. Most obscure Urbandictionary.com definition of jamoke:
10. A person who thinks they are better than others. Example: the man who works out and then walks around everywhere with a cut off tee.
Used in a sentence:
1. Some jamoke just walked right out in front of my car, and I nearly hit him!
2. All of these jamokes have an opinion on why the Red Sox season was an epic failure!
[It's probably best to use jamoke in an excited manner. Throw an exclamation point into your voice when using it.]
That includes academics, law professors specifically, who are holding a conference about Bob Dylan's songs dealing with the law, according to the Associated Press. One professor, Bruce Green of Fordham University, says, "We think it's important once in awhile to have fun, and to free the scholarly imagination." If there's anything I like to see in academia, it's that people make sure fun only happens once in awhile. You wouldn't want anyone to enjoy their line of work all the time or anything.
But I digress. Back to Bob.
Abbe Smith, a Georgetown law professor, says that Bob Dylan songs, while "beautiful," played fast and loose with the facts of criminal cases. Professor Richard Underwood from the University of Kentucky College of Law says Dylan "was not necessarily concerned with true facts. He took a lot of poetic license."
Nooo. Not our Bob Dylan, plagiarist extraordinaire!
As an aside: shouldn't a professor know to avoid using "true facts" in a sentence? The great comedian/social critic George Carlin included "true facts" on his list of Favorite Redundancies from his book Brain Droppings. Those redundancies included "future plans," "lag behind," "join together," and "occasional irregularity."He included a giant list, which sometime soon I'll talk about on this blog, if only because he's more interesting than Bob Dylan. True fact!
This is part of a continuing series where we examine the codes of conduct at various colleges and universities.
I can't make this stuff up.
Next up:
Liberty University
Located in Lynchburg, VA, Liberty University takes a very old school approach to education, the kind you usually only see when referencing a butter churn. That said, they take a modern approach to the word "liberty" and make sure there is as little liberty as possible on campus. How progressive!
How restrictive are they? Well, for one, they have curfews on campus. That's not terribly unreasonable. But they have a schedule:
Now it's time to turn our attention to the greatest musical act of the past 100 years: The Beatles.
John, Paul, and George (sorry, Ringo) usually wrote about sweet, lovey things. Except for the fleeting songs about spousal abuse and threats of murder. In other words, puppy love!
Song:Getting Better Written by: Lennon & McCartney (mainly McCartney though) Lead singer: Paul McCartney Album: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Life can be difficult. But no one likes a complainer. That's why all of life's troubles sound better when you let the hurt out.
I used to get mad at my school (No, I can't complain)
The teachers who taught me weren't cool (No, I can't complain)
I used to get mad at my elementary school, too. Usually my mornings started out with shaking a first of anarchy at the front door of my school and grumbling for freedom. Then snack time happened and I was easily distracted. Look! Twinkies!
Me used to be angry young man.
Me hiding me head in the sand.
You gave me the word, I finally heard.
I'm doing the best that I can.
That's not what your teachers are saying at school. "Doing the best that I can"? Sounds to me like someone has underlying daddy issues. You're only going to disappoint yourself with that kind of attitude.
I used to be cruel to my woman,
I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved.
Somewhere, Ike Turner feels like this song cuts a little too close to home.
Man, I was mean, but I'm changing my scene,
And I'm doing the best that I can.
Ri-i-ight. Listen, he's already told you he's doing the best that he can--so you're just going to have to accept a few punches being thrown. No harm. It's like a reflex at this point. One man's domestic violence is just another man's misunderstood wild gesticulation.
Song:Run for Your Life Written by: Lennon & McCartney (mainly Lennon, though) Sung by: John Lennon Album: Rubber Soul
All love can turn sour, and at some point someone is going to need to file a police report on their ex. That's where John Lennon comes in.
Well I'd rather see you dead, little girl,
Than to be with another man.
So, in other words, he's saying he's a lover, not a fighter.
Well you know that I'm a wicked guy,
And I was born with a jealous mind.
And I can't spend my whole life
Trying just to make you toe the line.
Everyone knows that women love a bad boy, so we can see what went wrong with this relationship. He looked cool. He looked dangerous. Maybe he drove a motorcycle and wore leather in a non-creepy way. His girlfriend thought she could change him, maybe mold the bad boy into a good guy. But it turns out her boyfriend is one jealous rage away from modeling the latest in bright orange jumpsuits.
Let this be a sermon.
I mean everything I've said.
Baby, I'm determined,
And I'd rather see you dead.
Having drive and determination isn't necessarily a good thing. This is proof positive that your parents aren't always right with the advice they offer.
Song:I Saw Her Standing There Written By: Lennon & McCartney (mostly McCartney though) Sung By: Paul McCartney Album: Please, Please Me
Paul cuts to the chase with how he feels about a young woman that's caught his eye.
Well, she was just 17.
You know what I mean.
Uhh, that she wasn't old enough to vote?
Song:She Came In Through the Bathroom Window Written By: Lennon & McCartney (mostly McCartney) Sung By: Paul McCartney Album: Abbey Road
The story of a woman who finds bathroom doors lame.
She came in through the bathroom window.
Protected by a silver spoon.
Now, I'd think sucking on a silver spoon while climbing through bathroom windows might be a choking hazard. But that's just me.
She said she'd always been a dancer.
She worked at fifteen clubs a day.
If anything, with that kind of work schedule, you have to say she's driven. But so was John Lennon two songs earlier, and we saw how that turned out. It's probably best that we keep him away from her.
And so I quit the police department,
And got myself a steady job.
Might I recommend working at a doughnut shop? All those cops have lunch breaks after all.
Song:Mean Mr. Mustard Written By: Lennon & McCartney (mostly Lennon) Sung By: John Lennon Album: Abbey Road
Getting old must be a miserable experience. And who doesn't want their elderly eccentricities put to song?
Mean Mr. Mustard sleeps in the park
Shaves in the dark trying to save paper
Sleeps in a hole in the road
Saving up to buy some clothes
Keeps a ten-bob note up his nose.
Well, I think it's safe to say Mr. Mustard might need to be committed. Oh, I don't know. Pick any fact you like. He's sleeping outdoors in potholes. He's shaving in the dark. He's jamming British currency up his nostrils. Although, admittedly, you never know when a debit card might not work, so having some stray cash on hand never hurt anyone.
His sister Pam works in a shop,
She never stops, she's a go-getter.
Takes him out to look at the queen.
Only place that he's ever been.
Always shouts out something obscene.
Why doesn't social services jump in here? Clearly Pam is a poor guardian of her brother. The poor man has only been taken to one location his entire life--to see the queen. And from the looks of it, he sleeps in a pothole right after that. This sounds like the plot to Rain Man, without the road trip to Las Vegas and Judge Wapner shout-outs.
Song:Polythene Pam Written By: Lennon & McCartney (mostly Lennon) Sung By: John Lennon Album: Abbey Road
Not to be outdone, Mr. Mustard's deadbeat sister gets her own song.
Well you should see Polythene Pam.
She's so good looking but she looks like a man.
Well you should see her in drag dressed in her polythene bag,
Yes, you should see Polythene Pam.
Wait--I'm confused. If she's a woman, yet looks like a man, but then dresses in drag--does that mean she looks like a woman again? How does this work? At least we know why she's neglecting her brother now. She's too busy getting dressed.
Get a dose of her in jackboots and kilt.
She's killer-diller when she's jacked to the hilt. She's the kind of a girl who makes the "News of the World."
Yes, you could say she was attractively built.
((Sigh))
I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out if she's transgendered or not.
Beloit College came out with their annual College Mindset List for the Class of 2014. Really, it's just a couple professors with extra time on their hands. The summer months get a little slow, you know? The list showcases the various cultural things incoming college freshmen have always known that seem odd to people older than them--not including the national love affair with Snooki.
Small-time colleges always pull these sorts of stunts to gain national attention for 45 minutes some random day once a year. Lake Superior State University pulls their own stunt in late December/early January about words they choose to ban. Beloit College, as their vibrant name suggests, hears crickets 364 days a year. They're located in--wait for it, wait for it--Beloit, WI, a bustling metropolis of 35,000 people, of which we assume all work for the college in some capacity.
Some of the 75 things incoming college freshmen know we older folks take for granted?
1.)Very few of them know how to write in cursive. (I hope they know how to sign their name to cash a check. Or to at least sign it over to me.)
2.)Email is too slow, and snail mail rarely gets used. (Even slower? Blogs.)
11.)John McEnroe has never played professional tennis. (You cannot be serious!!)
12.)Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry. (Little known fact: Dirty Harry was sensitive to gun powder burns.)
18.)Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess. (But "My Humps" is a royal anthem.)
27.)They don't wear wrist watches. (Admittedly, it does leave tan lines.)
30.)"Viewer Discretion" has always been an available warning on television. (Sadly it doesn't warn people about "Two and a Half Men.")
46.)Nirvana is on the classic oldies station. (Now that's not true. My elderly musical tastes let me know this much.)
58.)Beethoven has always been a dog. (Tell me about it. That 2nd Symphony of his? He mailed it in.)
60.)WalMart has never sold handguns over the counter in the lower 48. (But feel free to practice that pistol-whipping motion in Alaska and Hawaii.)
Any day now, Southeastern South Dakota State University should be coming out with a list of the favorite books of high schoolers or the best tractor pulls in the nation. Just to fit in.
This is a video of Leonard Nimoy (Spock, of the original Star Trek series) singing. Specifically, singing a song about Bilbo Baggins. Yes, that Bilbo Baggins. The hobbit.
I'm not sure what's going on here. We've got Spock (sans ears) rocking out while a bunch of women do their best impersonation of Beach Blanket Bingo. And the women are wearing some sort of Vulcan/Hobbit ears while they bust a move on the beach--again, to a song about Bilbo Baggins. And everyone seems to be head-butting everyone else at some point for no apparent reason. If it made any less sense we'd all be committed to a psych ward.
My best explanation? It was the '60's. That explains everything.
Really, how often are there songs about literary characters? More importantly, how long must I wait for the Uhura tribute album to the Twilight books?
