Stuph That Has No Reason Being in My Head, Vol. XI

  

I've always known that Donny Osmond and Michael Jackson were about the same age, but it boggles me that Prince (born June 7, 1958) was actually over two months older than MJ.

You know when someone sneezes and you say "Bless you"? THAT sounds like a sneeze, too.

Even though they were originally voiced by two separate people, since the late 1990s, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger have been voiced by the one and only Jim Cummings.

Snap, Crackle, and Pop were the first breakfast cereal mascots.

If you replace W with T in the words what, where, and when, you get the answer to each of them.

Julie Andrews was not cast to recreate her Broadway role of Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady, making her free to star in Mary Poppins instead . . . for which she won an Oscar.

The canine television sensation, Lassie, was always played by a male dog.

Speaking of dogs, we all know what a female dog is called, but I had to ask the WorldWideWackfest what the term for a male dog is. I learned that dogs used to be called hounds and that dog was the term for a male hound until it started being used for the whole species.  So now there is no specific term for "a male dog."

Whenever I write or type the word "Wednesday," I say three syllables to myself: wed - nes - day.

♫♪ The Mate was a mighty sailing man

The Skipper, brave and sure

Five passengers set sail that day

On a three-hour tour

A three

Hour

Tour ♪♫

How a Dead Tree Made My Thigh Twitch

Sometimes, my train of thought runs at breakneck speed and easily jumps onto a parallel track quicker than a cheetah with dysentery.

Case in point . . .

During a recent trek across South Dakota on I-90, Beloved was driving, and I was staring out the window at mile after mile of nothingness. Suddenly, just off the highway at an exit ramp, I saw a deathly-white tree, devoid of any leaves, and the train left the station.

That reminds me of the tree in "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Man, Christopher Walken was super creepy in that. Who else was in  -  oh yeah, Johnny Depp. He was in "Sweeney Todd," too. Talk about super creepy. I can't believe high schools do that musical. At least "Little Shop of Horrors" has fun songs and a sense of humor. ActorBoy did great in that, but boy, when he jumped into the carnivorous plant/puppet at the end and stabbed his leg on an exposed bolt...eww.

Then Beloved asked me why I grabbed my inner thigh, and she got all confused when I said, "Did you see that dead tree back there?"

Repetition, Thy Name Is Bo: The 369th Greatest Song

 

According to the magazine Rolling Stone:

The B side of Diddley's first-ever single was built around a four-note guitar stomp that was a trademark of mid- Fifties Chicago blues. Songwriter Willie Dixon, who supervised the 1955 session, said it was Diddley's sense of rhythm that set him apart from everyone else at Chess [Records]: "The drums are speaking, and he'll tell you what the drums are saying."

Hmmm...

If Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man" is telling me what the drums are saying, I cannot help but be reminded of a Far Side comic wherein Larson translates the barking of dogs into English: We see a dog chasing a car and another dog excited about a person walking down the street and still another dog squaring off with something up a tree  . . . and in each instance, the dog is saying "Hey! Hey! Hey hey!"

In other words, the song is that four-note guitar riff (Da-DAA da-dah), endlessly repeated.

Over and over.

And over.

With Bo's two-note melody expressing lyrics that may not even be worthy of that many notes:

Now when I was a little boy (Da-DAA da-dah)

At the age of five (Da-DAA da-dah)

I had somethin' in my pocket (Da-DAA da-dah)

Keep a lot of folks alive (Da-DAA da-dah)

Now I'm a man (Da-DAA da-dah)

Made twenty-one (Da-DAA da-dah)

You know baby (Da-DAA da-dah)

We can have a lot of fun (Da-DAA da-dah)

I'm a man (Da-DAA da-dah)

I spell M (Da-DAA da-dah)

A (Da-DAA da-dah)

N (Da-DAA da-dah)

Man

I seriously (Da-DAA da-dah) cannot imagine (Da-DAA da-dah) picking this song (Da-DAA da-dah) over Chicago's totally different song with the same title...which didn't even make Rolling Stone's list.

Da-DAA da-dumb!

Pizza Delivery & the DJ

 

It was a dark Sunday night in late November.

I was co-starring in a strange little play titled Winterthing in a strange little midwestern town called Fort Wayne.

One of the co-stars I was sharing the stage with was an eight-year-old wonder named Melanie. Her part required her to be a whiny little snot that inspired everyone to want to slap her. The good news was that even though she did the appropriate face-slapping inspiration on stage, in truth, she was a sweet gal with dark, shoulder-length hair, black, round-rimmed glasses, and a smile that could melt the hardest heart.

On the Sunday night in question, Beloved and I had been enlisted to take Melanie home with us for a sleepover while her parents were out of town. All three of us were looking forward to it, partly because it would involve Beloved and Melanie going with me to a strange little radio station while I did my once-a-week shift on the air, playing whatever songs I felt like. (Oh...those were the days!)

Part of the fun was ordering a pizza from the strange little shop across the street. (Are you old enough to remember when getting a pizza delivered was a smile-inducing, unique event?)

Melanie was oh so happy as she practically skipped into the studio carrying the pizza and gleefully placed it on the turntable that was playing the song currently going out to the tens of people listening live.

I screamed. Melanie screamed. We all screamed.

The pizza survived. The song did not. Melanie’s sense of confidence and well-being may have sustained a deadly blow.

Almost the News XXXVI

 

Real Headlines. Fake News.

Man to Appear in Court After Fatal Hit-and-Run
This marks the first time a corpse will have been called as a witness.

Minneapolis City Council Denies Developer for George Floyd Square
"Actually, he's the coolest cat we've ever met. Not square at all."

Deputy Working at School in Georgia Accused of On-Duty Sexual Assault at Nearby Home
Sheriff Uttoh states: "What a person does on their own time is their own business, but when you're on the clock..."

U.S. Launches More Strikes in the Middle East
Accordingly, they are leading in the World Bowling Championships currently being held in Lebanon.

Large Police Presence in Inver Grove Heights Neighborhood
A local resident who wished to remain unidentified is quoted as saying, "There are three or four of 'em in my front yard, and they're each at least seven feet tall!"

New Report Shows Crime Trending Down in Minneapolis
Meanwhile, crime isn't a trendy thing at ALL up in Duluth.

Explosive Diarrhea-Causing Parasite Infects More than 1,000 People
The trick is to get the parasite to explode before it infects you.

Video Shows Tense Moments During South Minneapolis Standoff
"Let's take a break from this standoff and watch a clip of Indiana Jones outrunning a boulder."

And the Wind Cries "Squirrel!": The 370th Greatest Song

 

It's not often that Jimi Hendrix wrote a ballad.

Then again, it probably wasn't all that often that he and his girlfriend had a dish-smashing argument.

All I know is, "The Wind Cries Mary" is fairly depressing:

After all the jacks are in their boxes

And the clowns have all gone to bed

You can hear happiness staggering on down the street

Footprints dressed in red

And the wind whispers, "Mary."

And it goes on from there with talk of a crying queen and wifeless king and blue traffic lights and a tiny island that sags downstream and the wind with a bad memory and a crutch and what were we talking about anyway?

Hack to the Future: Great Scott!

 

Admittedly, it doesn't take much to send my mind swirling down a rabbit hole of pop culture references and parallel universes. It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that's exactly what happened when I stumbled upon this AI-created mash-up of Taxi and Back to the Future:

Biff Reiger: Why don't you make like a tree and go to Central Park?

*  *  *

Bobby McFly: Calvin? Wh... Why do you keep calling me Calvin?

Lorraine Nardo: Well, that is your name, isn't it? Calvin Klein? It's written all over your hack license.

*  *  *

Latka McFly: I'm your density...ibbi da.

*  *  *

Bobby McFly: Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Doc. Ah... Are you telling me that you built a time machine... out of a taxi?

Dr. Rev. Jim Brown: The way I see it, if you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with an opportunity for extra income?