Almost The News XXXIV

 

Real Headlines. Fake News.

Ghislaine Maxwell Pleads the Fifth During Her Deposition
"I'm sorry, I just drank 750 milliliters of whiskey and cannot answer coherently."

China Critic Jimmy Lai Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison
That'll teach him to badmouth our best dinnerware.

Minneapolis Council Member Suggests Moving Millions to Help Businesses
"I mean, I know that much money would certainly help MY business!"

Trump Threatens to Block Opening of New U.S.-Canada Bridge
...and all it will take is for him to lie down like a beached whale

House Votes to Slap Back Trump's Tariffs on Canada

https://youtu.be/7jySjwzktns?si=ApDosOy6MshrCYHN

The Most Unexpected Cameo in Rock History (Hint: Barbed Wire Is Involved)

 

"Pride (In the Name of Love)," was U2's first Top 40 hit. It only reached 33 on the Billboard charts, but went all the way to Number 378 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

It's a fine stadium rock anthem with the numerously-repeated subtitle easily sung along with.

According to songfacts.com, the song was inspired by a visit to the 1983 Martin Luther King, Jr. exhibit at the Chicago Peace Museum and calls to mind singular men who lived their lives in a way they could be proud of...lives dedicated to love for all of humanity:

The words, "Early morning, April 4, shot rings out in the Memphis sky. Free at last, they took your life. They could not take your pride" allude to Martin Luther King, Jr. (even though he was actually shot around 6 PM. No matter, Bono has since apologized for the historical inaccuracy.)

When he sings "One man come in the name of love" and "One man betrayed with a kiss," we are meant to think of Jesus and how Judas identified him to the arresting officers.

And then there's "One man caught on a barbed wire fence," which obviously is a tribute to Captain Virgil "The Cooler King" Hilts; the character in The Great Escape played by Steve McQueen.

Well, maybe not.

Drawing on My Imagination...Well, CoPilot's

 

To get caught up, you may want to go to the earlier post, "My Graphic Rabbit Hole," to get the origin story of these flights of fancy, wherein Microsoft's A.I. engine, CoPilot, reimagines a portrait of me as...

a friend of Calvin & Hobbes

a member of the Family Circus

an anime character

drawn by Charles Schulz

or, best for last (as always), part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe!

Almost the News XXXIII

 

Real Headlines. Fake News.

Russia Continues Attacks Amid Talks
Suspicions were confirmed when Soviet missiles hit the site of the peace talks a mere 30 seconds after the Russian representative was seen running from the building, screaming into his phone, "Now! I said fire now!"

Judge Denies Trump Bid to Toss Guantanamo Suit
"I doubt he has the upper-body strength to toss a salad, let alone a jacket, vest, and pants."

Staffer's Spending Among Highest
U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad would have had no problem with his chief of staff emptying the petty cash fund if he just hadn't done it while surrounded by his marijuana-infused friends.

Official Contradicts U.S. on Abrego Garcia
...while Señor Garcia screams, "Get off of me, por favor!"

Marco Rubio Tells Senators Venezuela Transition Won't Be Fast or Easy
"I mean, they've got to go through all the hormone treatments and counseling before you can even start thinking about surgery."

Super Bowl 60: Teddy Swims to Headline Tailgate Concert
Odd choice of transportation and pretty amazing, considering Levi's Stadium is around 35 miles from the coast.

It's Not My Fault: The 379th Greatest Song

My personal history with R.E.M.'s "Radio Free Europe" begins with my seeing that it is number 379 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Having never heard it, nor heard OF it, I go to YouTube and watch the music video they created for it. I can only understand 3 or 4 words in the whole song, and the video is giving me zero clues about its meaning: There's a guy, then two, and finally three guys wandering around a field and an overgrown lawn-and-garden outlet. Oh! And there's a guy sitting at a Bob Cratchit-style desk. Maybe he's writing about the guys in the field and overgrown lawn-and-garden outlet?

So I head over to azlyrics.com and read the words to the song.

This may or may not come as a shock to you, but I still have 100% no idea what the song is about.

So...it's off to songfacts.com. And it is here that I learn what I had been kind of suspecting all along:

There was a good reason for Michael Stipe's infamously indecipherable lyrics on this song: He hadn't finished them by the time they recorded it. In a 1988 NME interview, Stipe described the lyrical content as "complete babbling."

I feel SO justified!

#ReplaceMovieTitlesWithSynonyms

 

This is the kind of thing that could have been strung out over a multitude of #TuesdayTrivia entries on the Almost the Truth™ Publishing Facebook page, but (to almost quote Back to the Future's Doc Brown) then I figured, what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks?

• The Diety Male Parent
• The Lightless Templar
• A Dozen Furious Fellows
• The Nobleman of the Finger Circlets
• Lurid Unreal Narrative

• The Excellent, the Awful, and the Unattractive
• Altercation League
• One Swooped Above and Past the Fool's Structure of Twigs, Grass, and Mud
• It's a Marvelous Animate Existence
• The Noiselessness of the Young Sheep

Stupid Stories™: Ms Wack, Loan Officer

 

Patti Wack was recently hired at a local bank as a loan officer and was having trouble deciding whether to lend money to a particular applicant.

The first red flag for Ms Wack was that the potential customer wasn't human. He wasn't even a mammal. The "person" applying for a loan was a frog.

A frog!

How was she supposed to deal with a googly-eyed, web-footed, amphibious creature who wanted the bank to entrust him with cash? He had no job other than sitting around in a swamp.

"How deep is this swamp you sit in, sir?"

"Knee deep. Knee deep."

"Be that as it may, I see no reliable source of income from which to repay this loan you're asking for. Do you have anything you could put up as collateral?"

The frog handed Patti a ceramic figurine of a red-winged blackbird.

"Excuse me, sir, let me consult with my manager."

Patti took the figurine to her manager and, after explaining the whole situation, said, "What am I supposed to do? I mean, I don't even know what this thing he's calling collateral even is."

The loan manager looked her in the eyes and, in a condescending tone, said, "It's a knick-knack, Patti Wack, give the frog a loan."