New Years

I knew I was forgetting something, so I decided to throw in a special post, completely aside from my normal posts, to wish everyone that is celebrating New Years today a happy new year.

Happy New Year – Spike Jones & the City Slickers

Blame

Well, you know, I’m just not sure of the best way to respond to a video featuring Jesus, a hod rod, and two dildos. That leaves me unsure of what to post today. And unsure how to assign blame. Got to blame it on something; Blame it on the Rain?

Nah. The linked version is the only one I was interested in playing, and it has embedding disabled. Shame; it’s rather unique in that it has the surviving member of Milli Vanilli singing live.  And not lip-syncing.

So what else can I blame? Ah, I know:

Blame It on the Boogie – Jackson 5

This is just a funky fun song featuring that most unique of things: a grown up Michael Jackson lead singing who is black and has a nose. Hard to find, that[1]. Sadly, I really enjoy the special effects on this video. Put then, I do tend to enjoy classic Jackson 5 songs.

And did we ever decide who to blame? Eh, no one, I suppose:

No One Is To Blame – Howard Jones (with Phil Collins)

Oh well, back to our normally scheduled music tomorrow, I suppose…

[1] Especially as he broke his nose the year after this was recorded…

12-30-08 Jesus Built My Dildo-Chuks

Well, Shanoah, I wish I could follow up on your George Harrison post. But first I have to make up for a rather glaring oversight of mine from two weeks ago.

You may remember my ten (or so) (more like 30) (or so) favorite fan videos of 2008 post on Dec. 20, 2008. Well, I had intended to include a fan video by CollotsSpot for Ministry’s Jesus Built My Hot Rod. But YouTube said it wasn’t available, so I regretfully had to pull it off the post.

Guess what I found back on YouTube two days later?

So, in order to make good, I now present CollotSpot’s video for Jesus Built My Hot Rod, one of the best videos, bar none, that I saw in 2008 and which definitely deserved a berth on my ten (or so) (more like 30) (or so) favorite fan videos list.

Not Work Safe, for reasons that you’ll soon see.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I can understand why the woman would have a blue dong. I even understand why she’d have two blue dongs.

But why the Eugene Hütz-lookalike would have two blue dongs, why he’d be committing high holy blasphemy by showing off his mad dildo-chuk skeelz with said two blue dongs and why there are two blue dongs in this video in the first place is a mystery to me.

But it works. So does that two-sunglasses look.

Faster

Well, you know, in stress, he does use one drug – lots and lots of caffeine. Fantastic’s just gone further, into prescription drugs.

Both songs have that maniacally fast tempo to them, though. So now seemed an appropriate time to lead into another song I’d been wanting to post, George Harrison’s “Faster”:

Faster – George Harrison

This is from his first self-titled solo album. This song actually came about because he spent a bunch of time in 1977 hanging around racetracks.

Since I’m playing this, I thought I’d play a few other George Harrison songs I enjoy.

Blood From A Clone – George Harrison

This song is from the album “Somewhere in England”. You’ll notice a bunch of interesting annotations on this video talking about the song. So I don’t really have to, I suppose. I will note that at one point, I owned all three of the albums in this post.

“It Is ‘He’ (Jai Sri Krishna)” by George Harrison

And here we have undoubtedly my favorite track from the album “Dark Horse”. If you ever want some quality time chanting mantras, just crank this up, set it on repeat, and sing along. It’s catchy enough that you miay just do that without feeling devotional, even.

12-29-08 Jim’s Big Ego – Stress

Well, Shanoah, looks like Jonathon Coulton needs to meet Jim Infantino. He doesn’t need drugs to get high. He gets high on life!

And his life is very stressful.

This AMV - appropriately titled Disney Guys Are Addicted to Stress, courtesy of Calledkidblast - is based on a version of Stress that showed up on Dr. Demento’s 30th anniversary collection Dementia 2000 . Infantino later formed Jim’s Big Ego and cut a down and funky version on the band’s 2000 album Noplace Like Nowhere. And what cartoon character is funkier, or has more stress in his life, than Cowboy Bebop’s Spike Spiegel?

Courtesy of crackfiji42. 

Fantastic

You know, I probably would like him. So, an evil processor. From Intel, I take it?

I probably should follow up with a song about computers or robots, but hell, I’m still on a Jonathan Coulton kick…

I Feel Fantastic

The somewhat too fast, maniacal pace of this song fits perfectly with a song, that, as I’m sure you noticed, is all about drugs. And by the end you really get a feeling for how overmedicated the singer is even with him always being positive, even enthusiastic about everything he takes.

Where do you get a “steak tastes better” pill, anyways?

12-28-08 “Today’s your lucky day. I got an evil processor.”

Weh-heh-hell… since the subject was killer robots – and it’s late – let’s catch up with Frank and Eugene as they build their own Todd the T1000 in Frankenrobot.

Courtesy of daneboe and Gagfilms.com.

“Today’s your lucky day. I got an evil processor.” Sounds like your kind of guy, Shanoah.

Todd

Well, since we are doing Science Fiction, why don’t I go ahead and bring things back around to Jonathan Coulton, with the song that was playing during the credits of the last Jonathan Coulton song I played?

Todd the T1000 – Jonathan Coulton

Can’t blame him on this one; I’d find it rather scary if I hired a robot maid and it turned out to be the terminator, too. And I really like the phrase “big smashy claw”…

12-27-08 The Firm – Star Trekkin’

Well, if Firefly is a western in space… hmmm… I wonder what else could be a western in space… sort of a Wagon Train to the stars, if you will…

You don’t normally associate Star Trek with Firefly, I’ll admit. That’s because the first is in an optimistic and enlightened future where our leaders lead with wisdom and compassion and all races live in peace and harmony, and the second, well, isn’t.

It’s interesting seeing which TV viewers prefer. Next Generation had the United Federation of Planets playing nice with the Klingons, and yet, by Deep Space Nine, you had the Borg, the Jem’Hadar and political intrigues with the Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians that you needed a program, a scorecard and closed captioning to keep track of. The optimism of the original series was, by and large, forgotten.

Personally, I’ll take the smaller, sweatier and more immediate concerns of the crew of the Serenity over the galaxy-spanning, imagination-choking sweep that Star Trek acquired in DS9, Enterprise and, to a certain extent, in Voyager. But then, that’s me.

So let’s have a tribute to those halcyon days on TOS, when the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s were long behind us and letting a black woman on the bridge made headlines. I’ll admit Star Trekkin’, by the Firm, isn’t what most people would call a tribute. But it was this or filk.

Courtesy of roopert.

Jayne

That’s all right, Sean. I can see the draft for it in the list, anyways. You must have just forgotten to either hit publish, or schedule it.

Being a Firefly fan, though, I can’t really let your last post go past without posting the other song from Firefly[1]:

The Ballad of Jayne

Now, this is actually a clip from the show when you run into the piece, so there is some conversation before you get into it. I have to appreciate this song as having all the earmarks of a genuine folksong, but being entirely written by Joss Whedon for Firefly.

[1] With lyrics, that is. There are other instrumental pieces around.  The music from “Saffron”’s wedding, for example.