Musical Gas Pumps 4: Holiday Magic at FastStop

 

The tuneful authorization of pumping gas outside but paying inside doesn't stop just because children are sleeping with visions of sugarplums in their heads:

Jingle Bells

Hey, Pump 2, when you're through

Come inside to pay

Away in a Manger

Good morning, Pump 13, we ask you to pay

Inside of the store before driving away

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Hey, Pump 10, you're getting fuel

You chose FastStop, and that's so cool

Come inside to pay

Before driving away

Driving in a winter wonderland

O Come All Ye Faithful

O come ye, Pump 15

When your tank is filled up

O come ye, o come ye

Inside the store to pay

My Favorite Things
Hey Pump 11, you're getting some fuel
Come in to pay when you're done, that'd be cool
Thank you for stopping at FastStop today
Really, that's all that I needed to say

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

I see you at Pump 16

Out there getting some gasoline

We know that you'd never be mean

So come in to pay

Let It Snow

Oh the weather at Pump 7 is frightful

But you chose FastStop, that's delightful

I've got one more thing to say

Don't forget to come inside to pay

To see/hear Dewey singing these tunes, go to YouTube: https://youtu.be/GvZWCiWnHWg

Retooling Movies for Christmas

 

Three years ago, I helped shore up the supply of Christmas movies by suggesting the festivalization of several movies. Well, the time has come for me to come to the rescue once again. Look for these holly-jolly remakes to be coming to a theater near you in the near future.

• The Shawshank Gift Redemption
• The Godfather Gives Gifts You Can't Refuse
• Schindler's Shopping List
• Gone With the Wenceslas 
• Rudolph Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

• Christmas Tree Farm Gump
• The Silence of the Reindeer
• The Manger on the River Kwai
• Glad (Tidings) Iator
• Sleighing Private Ryan
• Mr. Smith Goes to Walgreens
• A Streetcar Named Blitzen
• Butch Kringle and the Sundance Elf
• The Good, the Bad, and the Battery-Operated

Vroom Vroom Doom

 

The teen-tragedy tune, "Leader of the Pack", performed by the Shangri-Las, comes in at number 447 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and has all the angst and deep, deep drama one would expect. Check out Wikipedia's straightforward description of the song's plot:

The song is about a girl named Betty, who is asked by friends to confirm that she is dating Jimmy, the leader of a motorcycle gang, whose ring they see on Betty's finger. After singing of love at first sight ("(By the way, where'd you meet him?) I met him at the candy store/He turned around and smiled at me/You get the picture?/(Yes, we see) That's when I fell for the Leader of the Pack"), Betty's heart turns to despair as she bemoans her parents' disapproval. The parents claim Jimmy hails from "the wrong side of town" and ask Betty to tell Jimmy goodbye and find someone new. Betty reluctantly does as she is asked, and a crushed and tearful Jimmy speeds off on his motorcycle. Moments later, Betty's pleas for Jimmy to slow down are in vain as Jimmy crashes on a rain-slicked surface and dies.

There have been plenty of parodies produced:

• Leader of the Laundromat
• Leader of the Sect
• Packer of the Leads
• Leader of Iraq
• A Leader like Barack

I thought I'd kick around a few ideas of my own; maybe get Weird Al to record one:

• The sad tale of a plumbing accident  -  Leader with a Crack
• A hemophiliac gang member  -  Bleeder of the Pack
• The world's Jenga champion  -  Leader of the Stack
• An inept handyman  -  He Doesn't Have the Knack
• An apprentice computer criminal  -  I'm Learning How to Hack
• The desperate plea of a breast augmentation client  -  Gimme What I Lack

Financial independence, here I come.

Observed Absurdities™ 52 - Toys That Trouble the Mind

 

Right off the bat, let me give a big thank you to B-Rad DontWingDuck for observing today's absurdity and bringing it to my attention just in time for Christmas shopping. It has given me much to ponder...well...at least enough to create a post.

For any vision-challenged members of the congregation, allow me to describe the picture I now set before you. It is a plastic bag with a low-grade cardboard seal, upon which are printed words declaring the contents of the bag to be an ACTION PLAYSET featuring Godzilla (King of the Monsters) vs. Jesus (King of the Jews). The contents of the bag are proudly listed as Godzilla™, Jesus™, and Military Figures.

The size of the military vehicles and infantry personnel, in comparison to Godzilla, appears to be fairly accurate. It makes Godzilla look big enough to wreak significant havoc in Tokyo.

However...

Because Jesus appears to be the same size as Godzilla, that would seem to indicate the Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio de Janeiro is actual size.

I have a few unresolved questions:

Who trademarked Jesus?

If Jesus and Godzilla are duking it out, which one feels the need to involve the U.S. Military?

What match-ups did Forked Tongue Toys reject before deciding Godzilla vs. Jesus was appropriate?

• Mothra vs. Gandhi?
• King Kong vs. Abraham Lincoln?
• T Rex vs. Tom Hanks?

Forget trying to figure out cold fusion. Get me the answers to these questions so I can start sleeping soundly again!

Not All Women Can BE Surprised, Let Alone Like It

 

Earlier this year was my 42nd wedding anniversary with Beloved. In that time, I have learned many a lesson about human husbandry. The story that follows is how I learned to just give up trying to surprise the woman I love.

Once upon the early Eighties, I was a married college student with one daughter, studying to become a youth minister at a Bible college in Cincinnati, Ohio. (From whence springeth my undying devotion to Skyline Chili.)

In one class session, my youth ministry professor, Rave Streetmug, gave us a plethora of ideas for making our personal visits with the teenagers that would soon be within our spiritual care something memorable. One of those ideas was to take them to McDonald's for a Coke and a conversation...but take along a tablecloth and candles and cloth napkins and glistening stemware to create a semi-formal atmosphere.

I thought that sounded hilarious and that I could use it not only in the context of making a memorable visit with my future youth group members but in livening up a date with Beloved; a date that had to be cheap (see "married college student with one daughter", above).

I secretly gathered the required props: a piece of gold lame' cloth to use as a table covering, a white candle, a gold-leaf candle holder, glasses that didn't have cartoon characters on them...

I printed out an invitation for "a private, semi-formal evening in the company of the man who adores you" and got her to RSVP six days in advance.

The magic evening arrived. I had surreptitiously placed the props in our car's trunk. I had appropriately complimented my bride's beauty and was opening the door to our apartment for her when she said, "We better not be going to McDonald's or something."

The silence that followed was interrupted by the sound of my balloon of hope being deflated with a decidedly flatulent tone.

Blowing My Mind With Heroin

 

I'm a child of the Seventies, which is to say, my coming-of-age just missed "The Summer of Love" but was in full swing in time for the bicentennial of the U.S.A.'s Revolutionary War.

There was definitely a "drug culture", even in my rural high school, but it centered on wacky tobaccy. Add to that my tendency to be a rule-follower and my foundational fear of having my parents catch me doing anything illegal or immoral, and you will surmise that I had no practical knowledge of the harder dopamine-releasing substances like cocaine, heroin, or sexual fulfillment.

And so...

When I saw that Number 448 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time was "Heroin" by The Velvet Underground, and read lyrics like "Cause it makes me feel like a man when I put a spike into my vein" and "Heroin, it's my wife and it's my life because a mainer to my vein leads to a center in my head, and then I'm better off dead because when the smack begins to flow, I really don't care anymore about all the Jim-Jim's in this town and all the politicians makin' crazy sounds and everybody puttin' everybody else down and all the dead bodies piled up in mounds"...well... I saw all that and I started picturing a shirtless 80's punk rock band screaming into cheap microphones.

Imagine my shocked surprise to learn that Lou Reed wrote the song in 1964.

1964!

As in "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Last Kiss", 1964!

As in Louis Armstrong singing "Hello Dolly" was Number Three, 1964!

The big groups were the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Supremes. "Velvet Underground" sounds like the title of a cheap porn film.

I was today years old when I learned that I have always been an old coot.

If I Had Been Cast Instead Of...

 

I've been having fun with an app called ReFace, and it has allowed me to show Hollywood the grave mistakes they made when, instead of casting me, they gave significant roles to...

...Ian McKellen

...Michael J. Fox

...Jackie Chan

...Steve Carell

...Clint Eastwood

...Tom Hanks

...Johnny Depp