Song Subjects: Where Are They Now?
Musicians and songwriters are a lazy bunch of nogoodniks; when they’re not writing or singing about love then they’re almost inevitably writing or singing about a person. Where are the songs about giraffes flying blimps? Where are the songs about streetlamp demons unable to find late-night pharmacies on a Sunday? Call themselves artists? Rubbish! There’s no bloody art in doing the same piece over and over again. Do you think the people at the Louvre would replace their perfectly overrated Mona Lisa every time some nobody with a PR team from Warner turned up and said "This spunky, fresh, exciting teenager has just produced a spunky, fresh, exciting copy of the Mona Lisa but brought it up-to-date with a spunky, fresh, exciting, street look that only people of no taste would mistake for talentless crayoning"? No, they wouldn’t. That’s possibly because they’re French and obstinate but the point stands. I’m going off on a tangent. Let’s get back to what I was going to talk about: people in music. Songs have been written and performed about people for decades. Occasionally, those people-centric ditties are fabricated entities in their entirety. Works of fiction. Musical pieces with dribbles of imagination. Most often, however, the songs are about genuine people that the writers have known in real life. You may be wondering: "I wonder, in my current state of wonderment, just what wonderful thing has happened to the wonderful people mentioned in those wonderful (sometimes) songs." If you’re not wondering that after all the effort I’ve gone to to put that thought into your head then you should probably stop reading now. Sister Sledge – He's The Greatest DancerUploaded by PeteRock Sister Sledge – He’s The Greatest Dancer From The Song: This funky disco song – sampling heavily from Will Smith’s Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It – never tells us The Greatest Dancer’s actual name but we do learn from it that the dancer liked dancing in San Francisco, had a great body, attractive face, wore designer clothes from the likes of Gucci and Fiorucci, and never left the disco alone. After The Song: Obviously, the greatest dancer was a flaming homosexual. After the song’s release he continued to dance and wow everyone until his abilities started to wane, the result of a hard-to-clear bout of pneumonia. He became known at this time as The Greatest Early Sufferer Of Gay-Related Immune Deficiency and, later, The Greatest HIV-Sufferer. Nowadays, he’s better known as The Greatest Corpse. ***bee_gees__more_than_a_woman***Uploaded by maverick0808 Bee Gees – More Than A Woman From The Song: Controversy has always courted the songs of the brothers Gibb, writers of this track featured...
World’s Worst Sports Events
I’m something of a sports fan. Something is about as descriptive a term as I can come up with. I like sports. Well, I like watching sports. Taking part is another thing altogether. That leaves you hot and sweaty and in pain in several areas of your body where you didn’t protect yourself adequately. I get enough of that from bi-weekly tramp-raping as it is, thank you very much. I don’t like all sports or sporting events, though. This is because I’m a discerning sports fan. I like sports that make sense and produce excitement or admiration for the exposure of sporting prowess. It may be a bit of a stretch for me to label those that fall outside my personal realm of worthy sports as the "world’s worst sports events" but I’m nothing if not full of my own importance. Basketball Basketball is a sport that appeals to – and actively discriminates against those of us who are not – freaks of nature: failed high-jumpers; the offspring of medieval torture-rack victims; aberrations in the eyes of God; stunt doubles for that head alien at the end of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind: Pick An Edition, Any Edition. Basically, people who shop at Tall And Gangly are drawn to Basketball. The rules of the sporting event, as I have determined them, are: Team A scores Team B scores Repeat until owners of building throw everyone out The excitement in basketball only comes when you’re really tired, lost track of the score somewhere around 480-478, are barely able to keep your eyes open, and your brain tranposes the figures of galumphing, inelegant mutants on the court in front of you with giraffes. Suddenly you’re in the heart of Africa and the animals are bouncing balls with their long beaks (I don’t know much about giraffes to be honest) and the sport has taken on a whole new, thrilling meaning! It means… you’re losing it big time! Quite frankly, there are quicker, less tedious ways to experience hallucinatory highs. Baseball One of the reasons I’ve heard cited for why the sport known as football to the vast majority of the world or the sport known as cricket to everyone in the world have never really taken off and become super-popular in America is that these sports lack the high-scoring and high levels of thrillomatic thrillgasms present in really thrilling sports like basketball (which we now know has none). And, apparently, that’s a precondition to something being enjoyed by Her Majesty’s Canada’s neighbours. Yet, perversely, Americans (and, yes, other weirdos around the world too (I’m looking at you Japan, you tentacled-girl-loving...
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Recast
In the wake of J. J. Abrams’ new Star Trek, and inspired by this thread on FriendFeed, let’s take a look at a possible recasting of Star Trek: The Next Generation should the studios ever decide to remake it too (or they could come up with something original (but I haven’t so I can’t really talk)) and were it to happen today. The actors have been selected either because of their physical similarities to the original cast, or because of acting history that is shared with their characters. Importantly, all actors also have some connection to the Star Trek universe, the characters, or the original actors in some way. Vin Diesel as Captain Jean-Luc Picard The necessary characteristics of the captain of Starfleet’s NCC-1701D through G or possibly further are: articulate, intelligent, diplomatic. Failing all those, bald. Thus, it was either Vin Diesel or Jason Statham and of the two one is slightly less likely to issue the command "Conk those bleeders on the noggin and let’s scarper!" in the heat of battle. Star Trek Fact: Vin Diesel’s real name is an anagram of "Romulan Warbird." Tom Cruise as Commander William T. Riker Any fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation will tell you that when Will Riker is around women, everyone starts to feel a little uncomfortable. Maybe it’s his smarmy smile. Perhaps it’s the way everyone acquires Betazoid powers of knowledge into what’s going through his mind whenever the opposite sex are involved. Most likely it’s his penchant for standing with one leg resting on a console, log, a chair, or the back of an ensign in order to splay a little and show off "the package" in the presence of ladies. Whatever the answer, when it comes to actors who come wrapped in a cloak of caution then there’s nobody better than Tom Cruise. Extensive use of CGI, interesting camera angles, and convenient boxes may be required. Star Trek Fact: Tom claims to be an expert in dealing with Thetans; I think they were the orange aliens on rollerskates in the original series. Christian Bale as Lt. Commander Data Playing a Vulcan is easy; you simply have to suppress the emotions you have. Playing an android is more difficult. Gone are the days when you could get away with replacing "Yes" with "Affirmative" and adding "Bee Boop" at the end of every sentence. Today’s cinemagoers demand just a little more. Emotionless Data needs an emotionless actor; an actor actually willing to have actual brain surgery to actually remove actual tissue in the area responsible for actual human feelings. Christian Bale – in numerous roles – has...
Mayjah Movie Mayhem
This is Melissa a.k.a. Mayjah. I think it’s Japanese or something. These are also Melissa a.k.a. quick and crummy Photoshops. I think they’re what you do when you haven’t got anything else to do or...
10 Must Avoid Movies
I was reading through Yahoo!’s 100 Movies To See Before You Die list when I thought to myself: "coming up with a silly list of things that express my personal taste and which won’t be the same as anybody else’s list of things that express their own personal taste in a manner that’s very similar to hundreds – if not thousands – of other lists of things that express personal tastes on TV, the internet, or in print is a great idea for a post when it’s been a few days and I haven’t really got much time to come up with something dazzlingly original anyway." That’s the sort of thing I think when I read things. Long sentences, rambling thoughts, lazy ideas; yeah, I’ve got them all. So, how about 10 Must Avoid Movies To Not See While You’re Alive? I’m not really asking you. I’m going to go ahead and list them regardless of your response. 10 Must Avoid Movies To Not See While You’re Alive 1. Alien Versus Predator: Requiem Plot: Aliens are fighting Predators who are fighting Aliens who are all fighting the inbred inhabitants of a small town in America somewhere. Why You Must Avoid It: I like the Aliens films (well, not all of them obviously) and I like the Predator films. I even liked the first of the Aliens Versus Predator films because it was an unusual time and location setting and there was a nice Predator Likes Girl plot going on too. This film, however, is total shit. It’s a 1970s college teen horror film with an increased budget allowing the producers to replace "Man In Cheap Mask" with "Man In Alien Suit" and the result, from quite early in the film as it happens, is that you find yourself rooting for anything but the townspeople to win because they’re all so astoundingly unlikeable. And not because they’re acting unlikeable. They’re just unlikeable. 2. Blade Runner Plot: In the future it’s dark and neon manufacturers are making a killing and there are android-robot-cyborg-things on the loose and only one man can catch them. Or is he a man? Yes. Or is he? No. It depends which version you watch. And which of the twelve thousand re-releases of the film had the sheep in it again? Why You Must Avoid It: It makes every fecking "best" list in the world. And near the top too. It’s an okay film. It’s just not that good. The only reason it gets in lists is twofold: firstly, because it was released at the start of the VHS boom when video shops stocked it, Porkys, Beastmaster,...
Pretentious Book Reviews: Mr Greedy
The pleasant, friendly appearance of the title character belies the insatiable inner person that author Roger Hargreaves chooses as a metaphor for selfish destruction in the second book of his satirical world mythos inhabited by the eerily-named Mr Men. In 1887 John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834 – 1902) wrote in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Mr Greedy is the on-the-surface child-friendly representation of this but this is no child’s book; rather, it is a fable that crosses boundaries of age and background and it warns of the ultimately doomed dangers not just of power but any addiction. Hargreaves simplifies the 19th century message and substitutes power with the physical substance we all know: food. This is a master’s stroke of genius on the author’s part. The seeking of power is not, after all, universal; there are those who are content to simply be. But the need for food is a craving we cannot simply turn off or something to which people either take or leave. It is always there. For an addict – power, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, religion, and so on – there is a similar need but the vast majority of people are not addicts. Baron Acton’s stark warning strikes a chord; Roger Hargreaves’ Mr Greedy character sets free a macabre symphony from the orchestra. Selfish destruction is self-serving says Hargreaves. Mr Greedy likes to eat. Eating makes him fat. Becoming fat makes him hungrier. Ad infinitum. He lives in a house, says the author, "that looked rather like himself." It is the nature of the addict to barricade his or herself with reinforcing surroundings. The roly-poly house of Mr Greedy is instantly recognisable as the Yes Men that protect the tyrannical business executive from reality. There is a similar fantasy that encases everyone who falls for destructive addiction. The physical appearance of Mr Greedy lets us know that what we are reading about is wrong, as if we needed telling. Yes, this is a personable character, a smiling character, perhaps someone we might enjoy being around. But Hargreaves doesn’t want us sympathising too much; at the heart of the story is a great exclamation mark: stop! Enough! Mr Greedy is fat and we all simply know without needing to be told that fat is bad. Each page turn heightens the anticipation of Mr Greedy’s undoing. Hargreaves’ writing style is superb in keeping us alert for the come-uppance and yet simultaneously lulling us, rocking us gently along. As humans we recognise this; it’s when we know we’re doing something wrong and we think...
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