Meat Demotion: The 408th Greatest Song of All Time

 

Rolling Stone called Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" the 408th greatest song, but once again, they are proving themselves desperate to pad the list. Sure, by making it to Number 36, it was Aerosmith's first Top 40 "hit". But the almost non-existent melody and generically-suggestive lyrics leave me feeling...meh.

As if they were singing about vegetarianism...and bored about it.

Meat demotion

Meat demotion

Talk about things like cabbage and beets

Eating other things that nobody eats

You're grilling a steak but I got to make clear

That's a place I just won't go near

Some wannabe mama who looks like a dork

Said my favorite thing is barbequed pork

Well I got good news, she's a real good liar

'Cause I don't touch pig that's been through the fire

Meat demotion

Meat demotion

I pulled into town, didn't know where to park it

Your daddy said go to the farmer's market

You're telling me things that you want me to buy

Like two dozen eggs and a big ribeye

You stand in the front just a-chewin' your chicken

But my tofu's the thing that keeps me tickin'

I'll talk about something you can sure understand

I'll never eat nothing not grown from the land

Snacks Nobody Is Looking For

 

I admit to becoming temporarily enamored with the ability of artificial intelligence applications to create images out of thin air by just responding to my warped imagination. THAT'S how the following graphics of foodstuffs-searching-for-someone-to-love-them came into existence.

For vegetarian cookie-lovers:

Making Brussel Sprouts palatable by covering them in chocolate:

Putting new meaning to the term "cat-lover":

The original concept for lutefisk:

My favorite: "Slow-cooked", HAHAHA!

#PutAnAnimalInASixtiesSongTitle

 

The Sixties brought us girl groups, sit-ins, and power to the non-people.

Jumping Jack Rabbit  -  There is some controversy about whether this Rolling Stones hit is actually about a bouncing bunny.

Ring of Fireflies  -  ♫♪ "I fell in to a burnin' ring of fireflies. They went round, round, round. Couldn't follow them with my eyes." ♪♫

My Gorilla  -  The Temptations sing about sunshine on a cloudy day and the joys of owning their own exotic primate.

Stop in the Name of Dove  -  ♫♪ "Stop in the name of dove before you fly away." ♪♫

The Tracks of My Bears  -  Smokey Robinson & the Miracles' take on hunting several grizzlies at once

Mouse of the Rising Sun  -  ♫♪ "There is...a mouse...in New Orleans..." ♪♫

Penguin's Got a Brand New Bag  -  James Brown was one of the first to jump on the ecology bandwagon when he sang this song about relocating penguins.

Bad Coon Rising  -  ♫♪ "I see a racoon in the corn field. I know there's trouble on the way." ♪♫

She Loves Ewe  -  The Beatles had a huge hit with this reworking of "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

The Hound of Silence  -  ♫♪ "And the people whistled loud for the dog lost in the crowd. They put a sign up in the local park about the puppy that just couldn't bark, And the sign said, 'Call this number if you find him and you've got a phone. Poor dog's alone. We're missing the hound of silence'." ♪♫

Wicked Guitar Solo of the West: The 409th Greatest Song of All Time

 

Eric Clapton played lead guitar.

That's probably why this made Rolling Stone's list of the greatest songs of all time, because other than that, it's a pretty standard blues progression with unimpressive words. In fact, they might benefit from a little almost-style explanation:

I went down to the crossroads
       Apparently, some of the streets in Los Angeles are not happy

Fell down on my knees
       Fun Fact: Clapton filed a workman's compensation claim after recording this song

Asked the Lord above for mercy
"Save me if you please"
       Sources are not convinced this was an authentic conversion experience

I went down to the crossroads
Tried to flag a ride
       Cream bassist, Jack Bruce, attempted to be the starter for some street drag races

Nobody seemed to know me
Everybody passed me by
       Being passed by cars had nothing to do with being unrecognized and everything to do with the fact he was standing in the middle of the road

I'm going down to Rosedale
       An enclosed shopping mall in Roseville, Minnesota

Take my rider by my side
       Talk-to-text technology misspelled this reference to going to the mall with his lyricist

You can still barrelhouse, baby
On the riverside
       A veiled threat that if this song doesn't become a hit, the writer may return to being homeless and living in a large wooden cask next to a van down by the river

You can run, you can run
       The person being sung to is able to rapidly move forward by foot

Tell my friend-boy Willie Brown
       Coded message that is actually asking if the singer's boyfriend is planning on getting a tan

And I'm standing at the crossroads
Believe I'm sinking down
       "I'm melting! Melting! What a world! What a world!"

#PutAnAnimalInAFiftiesSongTitle

 

The Fifties were years of rocking, rolling, and pure animal energy.

Donkey Cruel  -  Elvis sings of a heartless burro.

That'll Be the Jay  -  ♫♪ "That'll be the jay; the bird that's so blue. That'll be the jay just a singing for you. That'll be the jay, learning to fly. That'll be the jay-ay-ay in the sky!" ♪♫

Blueberry Krill  -  A fruity seafood dish where Fats Domino found his thrill

Ain't Cat Ashamed  -  ♫♪ "You made (boom, boom) me cry (boom, boom) when you scratched (boom, boom) my eye. Ain't cat ashamed? My tears fell like rain." ♪♫

Rock and Vole Music  -  A little tune for a little mouse by Chuck Berry

Groundhog*  -  ♫♪ "You ain't nothin' but a groundhog, diggin' in the ground..." ♪♫

Stoat Gets in Your Eyes  -  The Platters sing a warning about a weasel.

Hart Breaks Hotel  -  ♫♪ "When Bambi crashed into the lobby, it was quite the tale to tell. The headline read next morning: "Hart Breaks Hotel" ♪♫

Snake Up Little Susie  -  The Everly Brothers sing the terrifying tale of a girl, a snake, and a toilet.

_______
* Yes, it IS weird to take a song that alREADY had an animal in the title and almostify it.

The Third and Final #MakeAMovieEdible

 

I just can't eat another bite.

There Will Be Blood Pudding  -  A story of family, religion, hatred, oil, and gross UK cooking

Filleting Nemo  -  Oh my, let's skip the description here, shall we?

Monty Python and the Holy Quail  -  "Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of ornithology."

Dial M for Mackerel  -  A former tennis star arranges the murder of his adulterous wife by blunt force trauma with a fish.

Lox, Stock and Two Smoking Bagels  - High-stakes poker at a local deli

Gone With the Rind  -  "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a lime."

Harry Potter and the Takeout Order of the Phoenix  -  A mythical bird rises from the ashes and gets the orange chicken.

The Sound of Mueslix  -  Sister Maria chews her breakfast with her mouth open.

Dead Poultry Society  -  "Seize the drake, boys!"

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Bean Chili  -  And you thought being one of the undead was bad...

Proof the Editors of Rolling Stone Were Actually Stoned: The 410th Greatest Song of All Time

 

"Monkey Gone to Heaven" by the Pixies is NOT a great song.

Behold:

• Its melody is almost nonexistent.
• Its lyric is, as confessed by its composer, Black Francis, lacking coherent meaning.
• It never made the charts.
• The phrase "monkey gone to heaven" never even appears in the song.

The phrase that DOES get repeated and repeated and repeated is "This monkey's gone to heaven."

After a while, it even stops sounding like that's what they're saying...

This monkey's gone to heaven

This money's long too leavened

This muck keeps bongs in head bed

Thick mud seeps strong to deadheads

The Second #MakeAMovieEdible

 

Movies to get hungry by.

Gladcontainer  -  A former Roman General keeps his leftovers fresh.

The Fryin' King  -  Mufasa tries to teach his son everything he knows about being a short-order cook.

Quesoblanco  -  "Of all the Taco Bells, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine."

Hot Pocket Lips Now  -  Go on. Just look at Marlon Brando's face and tell me this doesn't make sense.

Drive-Thru Window  -  A photographer in a wheelchair spies on his neighbors from his job at a fast-food restaurant, and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.

Crullers of the Lost Ark  -  "Indiana Jones. I always knew some day you'd come walking back through my door. Want a doughnut?"

Cocoa  -  Aspiring chocolatier Miguel, confronted with his family's ancestral ban on candy, enters the Land of the Dead.

Good Dill Hunting  -  A janitor at M.I.T., has a gift for pickling but needs help from a psychologist to find just the right spice.

The Waffle of Wall Street  -  "Let me tell you something. There's no nobility in poverty. I have been a rich man and I have been a poor man. And I choose rich every bleeping time. Because, at least as a rich man, when I have to face my problems, I show up in the back of the limo, eating the best breakfast buffet money can buy."

To Grill a Mockingbird  -  Atticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a black man against an undeserved negative restaurant review.

The First #MakeAMovieEdible

 

The concept isn't originally mine, but the following executions of said concept are:

The Shawshank Reduction  -  A prison's population is reduced in volume through evaporation over a medium-to-high heat

The Codfather  -  A Sicilian crime boss launders money through his chain of seafood restaurants

The Dark Chocolate Knight  -  "I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the raspberry drizzle."

12 Hungry Men  -  A sequestered jury can't agree on what to order for dinner

The Lord of the Onion Rings  -  Well, this one can't be all that original, seeing as how I found this graphic on the World Wide Wackfest.

The Good, the Bad & the Sushi  -  "You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who roll rice and kelp. You roll."

Star Wars: Episode V - The Potato Salad Strikes Back  -  Food poisoning in a galaxy far, far away

One Stew Over the Cuckoo's Nest  -  A precariously-placed crockpot threatens an entire hospital ward

It's a Wonderful Loaf  -  "Zuzu's sourdough!"

Back to the Buffet  -  The merry adventures of a time-traveling gourmand

The Birth of MY Blues: The 411th Greatest Song of All Time

 

I know I've whined before about how I don't think a particular song belongs on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time," but seriously...

I Feel Love, by Donna Summer, is an experiment in totally computerized (Moog synthesized) instrumentation with a thin veneer of smooth vocals consisting of the repetition of seven short phrases and the word, "ooh".

• Ooh
• It's so good
• Heaven knows
• I feel love
• Fallin' free
• You and me
• I'll get you
• What you do
• Ooh
• I feel love, I feel love, I feel love

The word on the street is that this song broke open a new territory of sound and ushered in electronic dance music.

Just one more reason for me to not like it.

Ooh, I feel sick, I feel sick, I feel sick...

Observed Absurdities™ 66 - Vroom Vroom

 

Yes...I realize this ad, photographed in a mode of public transportation, is really TWO ads that, through the rules of happenstance, have been partially destroyed to the point of them blending into each other...

...and creating an amazing mental image of tater designers building a poultry-powered vehicle that can be driven under the influence of hallucinogens.

My Semi-Embarrassing Afternoon with William Windom

 

It was 1979...maybe 1980. I managed the box office at the historic Embassy Theatre in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. Coming up on a particular evening was a one-man show featuring the works of James Thurber. The one man starring in said show was none other than William Windom...a name meaningless to most people under the age of 40...an awful lot of people over 40 can't quite place it either.

But make no mistake, William Windom was a real-life Hollywood quasi-big shot. In the Fifties and early Sixties, he appeared both on Broadway and in many television shows like Hallmark Hall of Fame and Twilight Zone. He is most well-known for his co-starring role with Inger Stevens in The Farmer's Daughter (Those who remember it at all remember the chair/escalator that ran along the stairs to the second floor of the house.) and his starring role as a cartoonist with a wild imagination in My World and Welcome to It.

If you're a fan of 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird, you have seen him go up against Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch in the courtroom.

In later years, he also had a recurring role in Murder She Wrote as Dr. Seth Hazlitt.

It was Windom's work in My World and Welcome to It that led to his one-man show and his arrival in the Summit City: Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Ticket sales were less than impressive, so in an attempt to get more tushes in the theatre's seats, we had arranged for a meet-and-greet with Mr. Windom at a high-end department store in Fort Wayne's largest mall. I was his only companion at the event...me and the supply of tickets I had on hand to sell to the fawning crowd.

There we were, sitting at a table not far from the fragrance counter, hoping people would wander by, recognize his face, and go, "Well, now that I've met the guy, I simply must buy some tickets to his show!"

About halfway through the afternoon, a high school classmate (named Andy Williams...#NoJoke) walked up to the table because he was excited to see ME. I kind of had to interrupt Andy in order to introduce him to Mr. William Windom. Andy heard my intro, looked at the Emmy-winning star and said to him, "Hey! Did you know that Dewey is a really good actor, too?"

I was grateful for the positive evaluation and all but seriously, I felt like hiding under the table.

It was like I had turned to Buddy Rich or Ringo Starr and proudly announced that I played the bass drum in my freshman marching band.

Mystery Solved: The 412th Greatest Song of All Time

 

For 14 weeks in the late summer and early fall of 1967, Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billie Joe climbed the charts to number one and dominated the talk around water coolers, gym lockers, and sewing circles across the country:

• Was it really the family's daughter who was seen with Billie Joe throwing something off the Tallahatchie bridge?
• What were they throwing, anyway?
• And what were the two of them talking about after church last Sunday?
• And for crying out loud, why in the world did Bille Joe MacAllister jump off that bridge?

Here we are, almost 57 years later, and our researchers at Almost the Truth are pleased to announce the answers to all these questions raised by the 412th greatest song of all time.

Was it really the family's daughter that was seen with Billie Joe, throwing something off the Tallahatchie bridge?
       Yes. Yes it was.

What were they throwing?
       Something.

What were the two of them talking about after church last Sunday?
       A personal matter.

Why did Bille Joe MacAllister jump off the bridge?
       He wanted to die.

See? It wasn't so all-fire mysterious.

Almost the News XXVIII

 

Real Headlines. Fake News.

Charges Filed Over Stolen Tax Returns
State Attorney Lokk M. Allup said, "It was an elaborate set-up involving pulleys and hydraulic lifts, but we were able to file the charges in the exact location we wanted."

Record-Breaking Coho Salmon Caught
"The slippery devil smashed all my Beatles albums! But we've got him now!"

Moderate Republicans Bring Down Jim Jordan
Yeah, they don't do anything for MY mood, either.

Superintendent Finalists 'Very Strong'
School board member, A. Roma Picky, says, "I can smell them from across town."

Author Drew on Seedy People from Childhood
Starting at the age of 7, Vincent Patrick practiced his limited artistic skills on the arms and faces of the ne-er-do-wells in his neighborhood. A local art critic has been quoted as saying it was "a blessing he turned to writing. His sense of perspective was abysmal."

Scientist in Hawaii Was Cloning Pioneer
Mac A. Damian died recently while on the verge of a breakthrough in his efforts to genetically copy Daniel Boone.

MN Man's Body Recovered from WI Lake; 1 Still Missing
Sheriff Brody stated: "That lake was right here a minute ago, but now...?"

Lake Elmo Drops Its City Administrator
File Under: Some jokes just write themselves

Observed Absurdities™ 65 - Pigfish Restaurant?

 

I have a hard enough time deciding on what to eat at a new restaurant. Imagine my dismay when met with the choices available at the home of this sign:

• Eel Cutlets
• Sardine Chops
• Baby Back Barracuda
• Octopus Loin
• Herring Bacon
• Crab Sausage
• Oysters on the Half Hoof

Beware Boys!: The 413th Greatest Song of All Time

 

Way back in 1956, a little motion picture aspired to be "the rockingest, rollingest shindig" anyone had ever seen. So they filled the cast with a truckload of music stars...not the least of which was Little Richard. They even got him to sing the title song.

With a title like The Girl Can't Help It, the natural question to ask is, "What can't she help?" The song lyric supplies the answer:

If she walks by, the men folks get engrossed

If she winks an eye, the bread slice turn to toast

She got a lot of what they call the most

She mesmerizes every mother's son

If she's smiling, beefsteak become well done

She make grandpa feel like twenty-one

The girl being sung about is Jayne Mansfield, well-known for being well-endowed. In fact, to include her complete figure in the frame, they had to film the whole movie in CinemaScope.

That's a lotta girl...but she can't help it.

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

 

Ron Howard has included the place of conception in the names of his children (e.g., Bryce Dallas Howard)

The producers of Golden Girls wanted Betty White to take the role of senior citizen sex kitten, Blanche, but she refused, giving life to the dim-witted Rose instead. White said that Blanche would have been too much like her previous TV role, Sue Anne Nivens, on Mary Tyler Moore.

At the end of every episode of Glenn Campbell's television variety show, he said, "Keep the latch string out and the dog tied up, 'cause I'm coming home!"

Jerry Garcia (from the Grateful Dead) played the pedal steel guitar for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's "Teach Your Children".

Disney should make A Frozen Christmas Carol. Here's the tagline for it: With Elsa as the Ghost of Christmas Future, the phrase "cold as hell" becomes literally accurate.

The Chinese word for "crisis" is comprised of the symbols for "dangerous" and "opportunity".

Debrief = The opposite of a wedgie

♪♫ Spider-Man! Spider-Man! Does whatever a spider can. Spins a web any size. Catches thieves just like flies. Look out! Here comes the Spider-Man. Is he strong? Listen, bud, he's got radioactive blood. Can he swing from a thread? Take a look overhead. Hey there! There goes the Spider-Man! In the chill of night at the scene of a crime, like a streak of light, he arrives just in time. Spider-Man! Spider-Man! Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man! Welcomed, then he's ignored. Action is his reward. To him, life is a great big hang-up. Wherever there's a bang-up, you'll find the Spider-Man!♫♪

Gag Reel:

I used Bing's AI creative chat feature to create the above graphic of Elsa and Scrooge McDuck, but here's its first attempt:

And then I asked it to make Elsa look more threatening and Holy Farnsworth!