I’m not really sure whether to classify this as a full post or a What the F*** for today, as it shares a little of both.

All I really know of this is that it is the opening to some sort of Japanese Shakespearean Musical. The ending has the same tune, only all the actors were ghosts.

Now here is “To be or not to be” turned into a song and dance number, the ‘Mondai’ song. Think this is the same musical. This has Tatsuya Fujiwara as Hamlet. I so wish I understood Japanese.

And here is Hamlet seeing the ghost of his father when trying to have sex with a fat Valkyrie. The kid has issues. ^_^

Now that I’ve got yesterdays post out, time for my real post for today.

I’m going to detour from Culture Club because I noticed there are a lot more Heather Alexander songs on youtube then there used to be, and there are several I’ve been wanting to play.

This song is from an album of hers called Insh’allah: The Music of Lion’s Blood. As you might gather from the title, it’s a album written as music to a book by Steven Brust Barnes, Lions Blood.

That’s where it gets a bit complex, because that book is an alternate history novel about a world where Europe is mostly underdeveloped nations, and  Islam is the major world power.

And America is where a bunch of black plantation owners live, and like the plantation owners used to in our reality, they have slaves working the fields that they had slave traders capture from less developed parts of the world. In this case, Ireland.

Never read the book, so I could have mucked up parts of that summary, but that’s part of why I think this song is so cool. It’s exactly the type of song slaves working on a plantation would sing, but its distinctly Irish.

It’s subversive, too. Pay close attention to the last verse, as it changes, and underscores what the song is really about.

Don’t really mean to be posting every other day here, but I’ve been a bit busy.

I’m continuing with Boy George and Culture Club for now. They have good music, and Sean hasn’t shown up and posted to give me inspiration. (But then, I know of a number of things he’s likely to be busy with.)

This song was the B side to Karma Chameleon (if you’d believe it) and is called That’s The Way (I’m Only Trying To Help You). And yes, the lyrics are important. If you aren’t paying attention, you might find yourself being caressed by clowns.

Powerful lyrics, anyways.

Mama had tears in her eyes
She’s the only one who never cries

Oh, I know what route I go down when I experience too much kawaii, too, Sean.

Admittedly, it first involves porting it here, where everyone can see it. But afterward, there are antidotes. In this case, I got together with a friend from work after work and played a board game he has with him called Arkham Horror.

Cthulhu won the first game, but we managed to beat an elder god the second time, though we house ruled one or two things. (Mainly because of only having two players.)

In honor of that, I thought I’d play a short creepy animation called A Lovecraft Dream. I think it speaks for itself.

Well, dude, the only Musical Cowinkydink that I’ve got is another Killing Joke song, Eighties…

… which sounds suspiciously like Nirvana’s Come As You Are.

Don’t believe me? Then believe Rolling Stone. They’re smart. Hell, they published Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas before it became a book. They even dared suggest that George W. Bush might be the worst president ever. That’s how smart they are.

Eighties courtesy of dentoxic. Come As You Are courtesy of 910913.

Nope, no Barry Manilow-induced themes here today.

Don’t know if you heard, but Ed McMahan died yesterday. Cause of death hasn’t been specified, but he’s known to have, as I recall, a broken neck, cancer, and pneumonia. So it was probably one of those.

And the moment I heard that news, I knew exactly what song I was playing today. This song is from Weird Al’s Polka Party cd, and is entitled Here’s Johnny!. Catchy song, actually, from one of these Weird Al cds you rarely here about (though I own it, of course).

Ah, so that’s where you’d gotten to, Sean. You’ve been playing a teenage machine gunner while I was playing Teenage Prostitute. Ah well, it happens.

So now you’ve played Daft Punks Superheroes. And you know, I remember the post you did about Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. You talked a lot about music sampling in relation to it[1]. And having heard Superheroes, I think it’s a good time to play Barry Manilow. Specifically, Who’s Been Sleeping In My Bed?.

You heard the lyrics at the beginning, right?

I hope so, since Daft Punk repeated them over and over again in Superheroes.

And now you know what it takes to get me to play Barry Manilow on the blog. And here I was thinking of playing the Mama’s and the Papa’s as the likely consequence of a Teenage Prostitute and Easy Meat. Or just more Frank Zappa.

Perhaps next time.

[1] Which is one reason why I remembered it. I like that sort of thing.

For the lack of any other direction in my posts, I’m going to go from Popotan back to Frank Zappa again.

First, a song along similar themes to the one I played earlier, Teenage Prostitute. This song is called Easy Meat. Questionable themes or not, this song rocks. Though I’m not sure what her kink about beating people up with a copy of the Rolling Stone Magazines all about…

(But then, I’m not a robot.)

And how can you have Easy Meat without her uncle, Uncle Meat? This is an instrumental. Art style on the music video is pretty neat. I’m normally not much for yellow, but this looks pretty cool.

We interrupt this John Lennon train (yet again) for this brief semi-coherent message.

Okay, I just saw Star Trek (you know, the one that, according to the Onion, Trekkies hate because it’s fun and watchable?). So what does this particular Trekkie think of it? Let me put it this way:

The Enterprise has transporters. Said transporters can apparently pluck two people falling at terminal velocity out of the air. I saw them pull off this handy little trick myself.

But ask them, just five minutes later, to beam up five people standing stock still on solid rock, and suddenly they’re not up to the task. Suddenly beaming up with said transporters is slower than molasses in Reykjavik… slow enough, in fact, to kill off the mother of one of the main characters.

This is not Trekkie tech nitpicking. This is a big fucking plot hole. It’s also manipulative and, if you catch it, pisses you the hell off, like it did me.

Need I add that the whole movie is full of shit like this?

Star Trek, it turns out, is just like a rollercoaster – fun while you’re on it, kind of dumb on reflection. And that’s what this latest incarnation of Star Trek is: just another dumb summer movie. It’s got big special effects that you’ve probably seen before, loud music and characters and plot that, really, could have been lifted from a hundred other Hollywood movies. Even the Enterprise is characterless: the bridge looks like one of Bill Gates’ wet dreams, and the rest of the ship looks like a municipal water treatment plant.

But, really, this YouTube movie, courtesy of FernandaGollo, says it so much better than I could. So, aside from asking Hollywood to please please please put down and step away from their copies of The Hero With a Thousand Faces, I give the floor to My Favorite Movie.

We now return to the John Lennon train. Or maybe we don’t.

Well, Sean, I don’t think either of us could ever be the solid citizen fnord , the fnord happy fnord patriotic fnord blue collar worker fnord. We both tend more to be loners, outsiders, just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.

And I like it that way. There’s a reason why the song The Big Country appeals to me[1], with the chorus of:

I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.
I wouldn’t live like that, no siree!
I wouldn’t do the things the way those people do.
I wouldn’t live there if you paid me to.

Hell, that’s half of why I ended up as a pagan and a Discordian. A religion that tells you that you don’t have to be mundane. You can leave Greyface behind you, play Mind Games with the world, and dance around with bananas in your underwear.[2]

I’m sure John Lennon felt the same way at times. He wrote this song, after all:

[1] And, yes, both songs in that post have been taken down by the man. fnord! Wonder if song content had any influence on that?

[2] The Monk realised that the God must be waiting for him to make an act of worship, so he reverently danced up and down twisting his fingers in his ears.
His God stared at him for a moment, caught hold of him, twisted him round, slammed him forward spreadeagled over the car and frisked him for weapons.[3]

[3] And yes, Sean, this is a direct quote from a book you’ve probably read…