Inspirational Science Fiction Westerns

 

Saw this sign at the library and thought, "Now THERE'S a fairly specific genre!"

How many titles could there possibly be on that shelf?

• Start with Why the Matrix Reloaded Rio Bravo
• Tuesdays with the Man Who Shot Mad Max
• Planet of the Blazing Saddles Less Traveled
• Back to the Purpose-Driven Assassination of Jesse James
• Star Wars: The Magnificent Seven Can Heal Your Life
• Butch Cassidy and the Last Lecture of Kahn
• Man's Search for Close Encounters of True Grit
• The Untethered Jurassic 3:10 to Yuma
• The Good, the Bad, and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Terminators

Pleasant Dreams? : The 399th Greatest Song of All Time

 

Being a non-fan of heavy metal and hard rock, I had never heard "Enter Sandman" by Metallica. So, I looked up the lyrics. They start out like a pleasant lullaby, but quickly get a little creepy:

I tuck you in, warm within

Keep you free from sin

Till the Sandman he comes

Sleep with one eye open

Gripping your pillow tight

As if the driving drumbeat, fuzzy guitar, and gravel-filled vocal weren't enough, they up the nightmare inducement in the second verse:

Something's wrong, shut the light

Heavy thoughts tonight

And they aren't of Snow White

Dreams of war, dreams of liars

Dreams of dragon's fire

And of things that will bite

As I was reading these words, I thought, "This is as bad as 'Now I lay me down to sleep...If I should die before I wake'." Then I saw that Metallica quotes that What-Were-They-Thinking prayer as part of the bridge.

But wait! There's more!

Hush little baby, don't say a word

And never mind that noise you heard

It's just the beasts under your bed

In your closet, in your head

At this point, I wonder why they stopped there. They could have lengthened the tune with even more childhood fears:

London Bridge is falling down

Jack fell down and broke his crown

Be you alive, or be you dead

I'll grind your bones to make my bread

Best beware of the farmer's wife

She'll cut off your tail with a carving knife

Ashes, ashes, all fall down

You'll be six feet underground

Almost the News XXX

 

Real Headlines. Fake News.

EV Maker Tesla Breaks Ground on Megapack Energy-Storage Battery Factory in Shanghai
Local officials are baffled why Tesla would bother throwing clods at the Shanghai facility instead of just using a hoe.

Red Knights Down Defending Champs
Boys lacrosse coach, Runnit Uhgin, said, "The hardest part was liquefying the other team, but then it was just chug-a-lug!"

Gulf Coast Braces For Flooding
A loose-knit association of northwestern Florida orthodontists has released a statement favoring high water levels.

Attorney General Says Flawed Youth Charity Will Dissolve
"Just watch as I drop it in this vat of water."

Islamic State Group Says It's Behind Knifings in Germany
...but it's trying to catch up.

Observed Absurdities™ 69 - Oh the Places My Mind Will Go

 

It doesn't take much to send my mind on a swirling adventure. It can happen when I see something as simple as an instructional sign:

I read that and I wonder:

• Am I  allowed to smoke neither bare feet nor pets?
• Am I prohibited from smoking a barefooted pet?
• If a dog or cat has had the fur burned off their paws and is still smoldering, must they remain outside?
• Will any barefooted pet with a cigarette be evicted?

Kicks: The 400th Greatest Song of All Time

 

You know how "We've Only Just Begun" began as a commercial jingle and then got turned into a breakout hit by the Carpenters? (Click here to read a post about that.)

Well, "Kicks," by Paul Revere and the Raiders, took the same road, only in the opposite direction.

Reaching Number 4 on the national charts, "Kicks" was the group's first Top Ten hit and led to them being taken under Dick Clark's wings as the house band on his teen-oriented TV series, Where the Action Is.

Never being the kind of guys who would turn down a money-making opportunity, they accepted a proposal to take the anti-drug song, "Kicks"...

Girl, you thought you found the answer

On that magic carpet ride last night

But when you wake up in the mornin'

The world still gets you uptight

Well, there's nothin' that you ain't tried

To fill the emptiness inside

But when you come back down, girl

Still ain't feelin' right

And don't it seem like

Kicks just keep gettin' harder to find

And all your kicks ain't bringin' you peace of mind

Before you find out it's too late, girl

You better get straight

No, but not with kicks

...and turn it into a rockin' commercial for a cereal brand popular with children:

Girl, you thought that Frosted Flakes

Was the best thing on the shelf to eat

'Cause when you wake up in the mornin'

You're yearnin' for somethin' sweet

Well, there's somethin' that you ain't tried

To fill the emptiness inside

And when you swallow it down, girl

You'll know it can't be beat

Hey, silly rabbit, now

Kix just keep gettin' harder to find

Because our Kix fly off the shelves all the time

Now that the price has really dropped, girl

You better go shop

Yes, and get some Kix

P.S. The first and third paragraphs above are actually true.

P.P.S. Yes, I know the "silly rabbit" is the mascot for Trix, not Kix. Let me remind you that this is ALMOST the Truth.

#MakeDisneySciFi

 

What if Walt Disney had been a science fiction fanboy?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Starship Willie  -  Mickey's first starring role as a swashbuckling intergalactic captain.

Snow White and the Seven Ferengi  -  ♫♪ "Whistle while you floss..." ♪♫

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Spock  -  Audiences found this one "fascinating."

Alice in Alderaan  -  "Curiouser and curiouser. It's getting quite hot. In fact, I think this place is about to explo--"

Davey Crockett: King of the Final Frontier  -  Fess Parker stars as the famous frontiersman wearing a tribble as a hat.

Peter Pandora  -  ♫ "What makes the blue man blue?" ♪♫

Transporting Beauty  -  An evil fairy's curse renders Auroa unable to stay in one place for more than two minutes without being beamed to a different location.

The Lightsaber in the Stone  -  "Whoso pulleth out this lightsaber of this stone and anvil and can get the blame thing to turn on is rightwise king, born of Darth." 

The Mechanical Mermaid  -  Ariel the Android runs off with a silverware manufacturing unit.

Beauty and the Transformer  -  ♫♪ "Gosh, it disturbs me to see you, Megatron, with such a big dent in your rear. Every guy here wants to be you, Megatron, even when stuck in first gear." ♪♫

Observed Absurdities™ 68 - Wyoming Edition

 

A-way back in the middle of last month, Beloved and I took 10 days to drive to, around, and back from the 44th state of the union, Wyoming.

In spite of the fact that Wyoming was the first state to take the progressive step of giving women the right to vote, it is mostly an old-fashioned, hard-core center of GetOffMyProperty individualism.

But that did not keep us from observing some decidedly absurd things during our visit.

Take, for instance, the following storefront sign that refuses entrance to any humans:

Or this confusing bit of mislabeling:

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

There was one sight that, while being absurd, was certainly not humorous.

We toured the Heart Mountain WWII Memorial Japanese Relocation Center near Powell, Wyoming. It shed light on a shameful, but mostly forgotten, chapter in the history of the United States...when thousands of Americans of Japanese descent  -  most of whom were U.S. citizens  -  were taken from their homes, stripped of any possessions that wouldn't fit in a single piece of baggage, and imprisoned in thrown-together towns of wood-and-tar-paper barracks surrounded by barbed wire and equipped with armed guards.

One of the most surprising sights at the site was this editorial cartoon, depicting Japanese Americans as potential saboteurs. What was so surprising about it, you ask? The fact that it was drawn by Dr. Seuss!

Green Eggs and Propaganda?