Feminist Perversions: Sea Shanty Edition

Right then. A little while back Cat Mara on WeHuntedTheMammoth came up with the idea of WHTM-themed sea shanties:

[W]hat would a blog’s comment section be but a mutual admiration society? Why else would people come here and leave comments if they didn’t like the other people doing so? One could just lurk, or read the articles posted on the main page passively through an RSS reader. It’s not the Army. We didn’t enlist; we weren’t pressganged…

At least I wasn’t. If David approached any of you in a seedy waterfront bar and said, “aaar, I be formin’ a blog and be in need of trusty hands to work the bilge in the comments, will ye take me shilling?” you’d tell me, right? Are there shanties? Tell me there are shanties!

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Appropos of Kavanaugh nothing: A few songs

Gods, I’ve written three e-mails to each of Oregon’s senators in the past week and given each one phone call. I’m resisting, but damn I’m exhausted. So without any more preamble, let’s do this:

 

That felt good.

And while you may feel like swearing, that’s blocked in your country, you USAmericans:

 

And maybe something that an unnamed SCOTUS nominee should probably have been told a time or two when growing up:

An explanation for divergent testimonies:

 

And, while we’re at it, why don’t we just

 

Try not to tear yourself apart, though. We are the

 

 

 

Radio Announcers Unclear on Clinton’s Concept

So on the reissue of Funkadelic’s “Free Your Mind… and Your Ass Will Follow” they included a few bonus tracks. One of those bonus tracks was a 60-second radio advertisement for the album which featured only the first independent clause of the album’s title (as did the modest album cover itself, though the inside material made clear that the full name of the album included the shocking word ‘ass’).

The ad was read by an announcer who is funny in many ways, all of them unintentional. From the unironic use of 70s slang now rarely used without irony to the stilted, white-accented approach to lauding an album that is anything but stilted or white, this audio clip fully deserves its place on an album that went platinum…

 

 

Guided By The Beauty Of Our Weapons

Leonard Cohen wrote the title of this post, but many of those depraved on account’a they’re deprived might have first encountered them when Brian Williams wet his drawers on national TV over the awesomeness of US warships launching missiles with big, big fire. For Williams, the awe at the destructive power of the missile was somehow an affirmation that the US was right, that the US was working good.

Of course, Cohen never intended to mean anything like this. Cohen’s the kind of person who might have said this sarcastically, meaning to satirize the Brian Williams of the world, but in fact he didn’t even intend that. Instead, in Cohen’s song First We Take Manhattan he’s talking about changing the world not militarily, but through individual effort:

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For Your Enjoyment: Matt Dillahunty Wears a Kilt?

One of the silliest music videos ever crafted was created by a band that I understand*1 is categorized in the UK as a “Pub Band”, and not just any pub band, but the quintessential Pub Band: Slade. You may or may not enjoy the music, and you may or may not enjoy the video, but the whimsical, purposeless glee of the band and the others appearing in this video simply makes me smile and I hope it does for you too. And if you can’t smile at the goofy closeups of the lead singer, maybe, just maybe, as a member of this community you’ll notice a man acting just as silly who happens to very suspiciously resemble the Atheist Experience’s own Matt Dillahunty. Or at least, Dillahunty instantly came to my mind when I saw him.

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For Your Enjoyment: Do not attempt to adjust your browser

Good morning:
Do not attempt to adjust your audio, there is nothing wrong. We have taken control as to bring you this special show. We will return it to you as soon as you are grooving

While Nadéah’s Too Drunk To Fuck cover is certainly amazing, and while it comes fairly close – far closer than most musical acts – to what I would play if I could create my own music, that doesn’t mean it’s the only musical style worth knowing or playing. If I had technical skill, but no musical creativity, I would sure as heck play Bootsy Collins when my friends came over. While Trump is inviting a Bruce Springsteen cover band to play his inaugural, my (imaginary) cover band will be tuning up and tuning in to an entirely different art form: not soulful rock, not even soul, not even simply funk. As amazing as James Brown was without the (original) JBs, as amazing as George Clinton was in his solo work, Bootsy Collins gave the work of those men – and so many others – a kick like no other. Michael Hutchence couldn’t come close to a kick like that. No, as long as you’re going to give me the funk,

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For Your Enjoyment: Too Drunk to F*ck

So, like just about everyone, I’ve had my fantasies of musical competence, even of musical creativity. Sometimes I’ve even fantasized about being so good people might drop a looney or two in a bucket set up by the front door of a café where I’m playing. In my absolute wildest dreams, I’ve even managed to convince a few gullible people who can actually play real music to make me a part of their band, and then have people show up to drop a looney in the bucket to see my band play.

But unlike most of the people that I know, I don’t have fantasies of playing rock and roll. Unlike a significant minority of people I know, I also don’t fantasize about playing orchestra or symphonic music. No, I (futilely) aspire to something much different.

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