Friday Music Break - 03/13/09

(Also known as the Just-In-Time Edition. Man, I have got to learn to tell time.)

What with it being Friday the 13th and all...and the second one in a row at that...here's something I thought might be kind of appropriate. Especially considering the week I've been having.



And now I go to pass out. Enjoy!

Friday Music Break - 02/27/09

One of my unspoken missions (in as much as this blag can be said to have a "mission") is to purge some of the Awful out of the world. I usually do that by talking it to death. But on days like these, where the Awful is just so horrible it defies description, there's little that one can do but accept a tonic.

Everyone's tonic is different. I prefer music.



The music of Talking Heads, and specifically David Byrne, have helped me get through a lot of awfulness in the past (I'll explain more in a later post); I can only hope it does the same for you.

Enjoy it in peace.

O, What Joy To Be Over-Hung

(Ugh. Forgive my brevity here; I'm a bit tired and hung over. But thanks again for the party, L.S-A.!)

First up: Who would've thought Rick Santorum would make an ass of himself?

Second: Folks who know me in person might recall how I've got the heart of a champion when it comes to mis-hearing lyrics of popular songs. And by "popular," I mean songs to which everyone has known the proper lyrics for many many years. (My classic example, from Simon & Garfunkel: "Cecelia, you're breakin' my heart / You're shakin' my cock with your steak leaf," which I am utterly powerless to explain.)

Well, someone recently crafted this video:



And I just handed my lyrics-mis-hearing crown to him.

...And now I'm off, to brew more tea, stare at the dishes in the sink, and resume shaking my fist about Friday night's Battlestar Galactica (which I missed) not being available through OnDemand yet. Damn you, Comcast!

(Hat tip to Gawker for the elf vid, and to my librarian for pointing it out.)

Friday Music Break - 02/20/09

So I've been up for three days and I'm already starting with the new features (although I guess, at this point, all features are new....)

For today's musical diversion, we're featuring the performance that jammed itself into my head on the drive in to work this morning, and won't go away. But considering it is the catchiest song in the universe (except perhaps for Lily Allen's "Fuck You"), and a very rare bit of concert footage to boot, I'm willing to give it a pass. And I think we could all use some happy New Wave songs to light a few candles these days, when our throats are hoarse from cursing that ever-loving darkness.

So I'm feeling uncommonly generous to my brain's uninvited guest. XTC, you are hereby welcome to spread out on my couch, put your feet up on my coffee table, light up a stogie and drink all my good scotch.

"Respectable Street," from URGH! A Music War. The greatest concert film of all time.

(PS: And a special Happy Birthday to L.S-A., and to my sister! Let me know when you head back into the studio! ...that last bit of course being directed at my sister.)

Meat...and an Earworm

I'm something of a fan of LoadingReadyRun, a collective of young British-Columbians who serve up weekly doses of home-grown sketch comedy. One of their quasi-regular features is Man Cooking, which I can only assume is a response to the proliferation of such fleshy horrors as the Bacon Explosion and the ubiquitous Turducken.

Their most recent installment of Man Cooking, which I find myself powerless to stop watching, is the fascinating, troubling Swiss Meat Roll:



Astute viewers might catch a reference to the capture of the Brain Bug in Paul Verhoeven's confusingly kick-ass film adaptation of Heinlein's Starship Troopers (featuring the awesome, awesome Neil Patrick Harris as apparently some sort of telepathic SS officer--did I just Godwin myself?).

This association has, unfortunately, managed to trigger my tendency to get the worst possible song stuck in my head. In this instance:



From meat, to space-bugs, to NPH, to virulently insane ex-wives of Andrew Lloyd Webber. My journey is complete.

...And now I'm craving bacon. Hoist by my own petard.