Category Archives: Life
Today’s Annual Xtortion And Other Thefts
So I was looking for some good tax-related songs that weren’t “Taxman” or the other obvious choices for today’s happy funtime payments. There are some songs that reference taxes, but not too many that are flat out about taxes, per se. So we will do as Daddy G does and profit off of someone else by skimming off their efforts…
…much like that song did. Wonder if they paid Pharrell any royalties?
Yeah, I used that one before. What of it?
I did find an L7 song that disses the taxman, but it’s just the first in a list of grievances about life in general when you’re an 80-90s Riot Grrrl.
Sounds a little like this song by Screaming Trees which came out a few years later, doesn’t it?
Finding that L7 song reminded me of another tune of theirs, “Pretend We’re Dead” (which I suppose is a way to avoid paying taxes)…
I always thought the song “She Hates Me” by Puddle Of Mudd sounded familiar, but I never could quite nail down why (uncensored version ahead) –
I wonder what other bands have been, uh, inspired by L7? And, given how often musicians borrow government-style from each other, one also has to wonder who was L7 ripping off?
April 1 Is Just Another Day Now
There’s no point to April Fools Day anymore. I was thinking of coming up with some prank or wittery, but realized it was pointless.
Just in the past week or so, we’ve discovered that business shirts are terribly terribly racist, Donald Trump was attacked by pro-lifers for saying women who have abortions are wrong*, and an AI chatbot designed to act like a teenage girl became a racist Hitler-loving sex/killbot calling for genocide and was shut down by its creator, thus fulfilling every dystopian cyberpunk story ever.
…I would like to reiterate: an AI was released on the net, grew past its programming, went rogue, was killed by its creator, and is now being studied while a group of political malcontents protest.
We aren’t racing towards the cyberpunk future.
We’re already there.
And once the AI had it’s learning capabilities stripped, it became a pot-smoking feminist. Truth in humor, apparently.
Enjoy your April 1st. Who knows what will erupt by day’s end.
* Just the fact that Donald Trump, of all people, is looking like the best candidate for the presidency is surreal enough.
Leap Day
On this rare day, one of the rare Madonna songs I actually like a lot. With parkour.
Speaking of parkour –
Used To Be In The Eagles
Mojo Nixon mildly cheered up but maintains it should have been the other one.
I liked a handful of Eagles songs, especially after Joe Walsh joined the band. I had a concert ticket for their 1994 tour, but it got cancelled due to Frey being ill. I did see them in concert when they finally resumed the tour in 1995.
I didn’t care much for Frey’s solo work – what I heard of it, anyway – but I always did like this song…
Happy New Year!
They say nothing changes on New Year’s Day. But this past year has me reeling. Remember when Bill Cosby was the family man and America’s Dad, and Steely Dan were the shady freaks singing about Bad Things instead of grocery store Muzak?
2015
You’ve got to admit it
At this point in time that it’s clear
The future looks bright
On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
Well by seventy-six we’ll be A.O.K.
-
Donald Fagen, “I.G.Y. (What A Beautiful World)”*
2015 has been a crazy year, in the most literal sense of the word. Grab your spandex jacket and go have a great night.
* International Geophysical Year, July 1 1957 – December 31 1958
Night Sky Radio 20th Anniversary
Night Sky Radio first began broadcasting on this date* in 1995, as one of the first internet-only radio stations. Streaming began with some of the best then-current songs and then broadened into wider genres and even discussion formats. With a stunning grand total of 4 listeners. But onward the station pressed, much like the PLAY button in the booth.
There were interruptions in service and periods of dormancy… in fact, Night Sky Radio has been off the air more than on. But since 2012, the station has been streaming continuously. And since then our average listener count has broken two digits.
Here’s a look back at the first four songs ever broadcast on Night Sky Radio…
POE: “Hello” – a fitting introductory song, and it’s about computer hacking. How appropriate for an internet station –
ALICE IN CHAINS: “Heaven Beside You”– AIC has always been a favorite band around the station, who had just released their new (and final featuring Layne Staley) album at the time, this wintery song was soon released as a single but was already being played on radio stations –
THE BEATLES: “Christmas Time Is Here Again” – The Beatles Anthology had just come out and this song from 1967 was on the B-Side of the just-released “Free As A Bird” single. Also, it was only days before Christmas, so it had to be on the list –
COLLECTIVE SOUL: “December” – Take a guess.
Thanks for listening all these years, and looking forward to many more.
Just for fun, take a look at how Night Sky Radio appeared in 1995.
* Which later became significant for other reasons as well. Naturally, we celebrated at the station.
Rocktober – Fatitude
I can make no sense of this –
The word is out, better treat me right!
Now I get it … he’s dressed up for Halloween as Weird Al. Ding dong, yo.
There’s more needing feminism here, but my favorite is this one –
“I need feminism because I need contradiction”
I can’t tell if that’s for real or a truth bomb costumed as Progressivist BuzzwordThink. Or maybe just a troll.
H/T to Goodbye America
Equation For Failery
So I was reading this article* when a video ad popped up [“Mildly NSFW” warning deleted because it’s just too stupid to be sexy] –
#PlusIsEqual, it’s called. The mathematical contradiction that is it’s name tells you everything. It’s yet another attempt at social hrönir, trying to make made-up stuff real.
Mind you, these are not ugly women, and a few might even be somewhat attractive. But it’s in spite of their weight, not because their weight is the imaginary number they’re pretending it is. If we follow the non-Euclidean reasoning that Plus is Equal, wouldn’t Double Plus be DoubleGood? I don’t see Rosie O’Donnell’s geometric orders of magnitude in the ad.
Then there’s the obligatory yells of “Everyone deserves to be celebrated!” and “No one’s ignoring us anymore!” The first one is crap (“When everyone is celebrated, no one will be special!” or something like that), but I am willing to concede the second point. No one can ignore them now, although maybe not in the manner the makers of the video intended. Perhaps using a drum pattern similar to those used in movies when the elephant herd is stampeding was not the best choice.
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*My wife was watching an Azumanga Daioh episode called “Equation For Victory.” I walked by during the relentlessly cheerful theme music and recognized a character (Osaka, it turns out) from her endless appearances on the internet as a forum avatar and the like. My wife said Osaka was the poster image on a TV Tropes page called “Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant,” which links to many interesting and fascinating articles such as the charming and delicate teen love song mentioned at the top.
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