Pop Music

Posted on April 22, 2019 by

Sigh, it’s gonna be one of those days….

People have a special day honoring everything from Star Wars culture to talking like pirates… appreciating squirrels to glorifying irrational numbers… getting drunk like the Irish or getting drunk like the Mexicans.  So why not have a holiday that puts our entire planet up on a pedestal?  Yes, it’s Earth Day… which also happens to fall on a Monday this year.  You know the drill… that’s the day we here at The Nest save the endangered earworms by sustainably digging up another lost classic out of that big green recycling bin of renewable music we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive!  DJ Scratchy’s got another moldy oldie whose carbon footprint wasn’t as big as it should have been, while the Sponkies pick up the litter from that wild Earth Day celebration The Nest threw in the park.  Oh mercy mercy me….

Men Without Hats is almost the prototypical one hit wonder act that the musically diverse 1980’s were rife with.  They were an otherwise obscure act with a silly name and an iconic hit song that had a memorably cheesy music video.  Their 1983 smash “The Safety Dance” became an international success, and nobody will ever forget seeing lead singer Ivan Doroschuk dance around like an idiot with a ditzy blonde and a midget at what had to be the world’s worst Renaissance Festival…

Let’s go, Shorty! It’s time for the dwarf tossing contest…

You know what else makes Men Without Hats very much like every other 80’s OHW?  The fact that they actually had more than one song hit the pop charts.  Four years after the hatless Canucks taught everyone how to do (and spell) the safety dance, they emerged with another song that became a Top 20 hit in the US, but which is rarely played today.  It’s quite possible you’ve even heard it before without knowing who performed it.  Let’s give an Earth Day salute to that other Men Without Hats song, “Pop Goes The World!”

This song and its video may be even more nuttier than the work that put them on the map.  “Pop Goes the World” makes rather unique use of synthesizers to create some interesting sound effects that very much accentuate a song that was inspired by a children’s tune.  The lyrics tell of a duo named Johnny and Jenny (Not the one at 867-5309, we’d assume) who’re in a band called The Human Race… which sounds kind of stupid.  It’s really just a dressed up version of the nuclear apocalypse theme that was common in many of the 80’s most notable songs… after all, the last thing to “pop” in the video is literally the world itself.

Happy Earth Day!

I hope you enjoyed what may be the most earwormy of all earworms I’ve posted on the DVA!  Be sure and come back next Monday for even more music that could have only come from planet Earth…

Advertisements
Posted in Dusty Vinyl Archive | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Lettuce Rejoice

Posted on April 20, 2019 by

How could those stupid two footers throw away yummy stuff like this?

This was the first picture I took not even 30 seconds after I got out of my car when I went to the park a week and a half ago.  This squirrel found a piece of lettuce in the garbage can near a picnic shelter!  He darted off after I took this first picture.  Squirrels can run, but they can’t hide from the staff photographer at The Nest…

Can’t a squirrel enjoy a stolen meal in peace?

Finally got rid of that creep! YAY!

Yeah, sure you did, pal.  Don’t worry…. if your mother happens to be reading my blog, she’ll be quite proud of you for eating your greens.  And thus ends the story of another happy and healthy Saturday Squirrel!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Posted in Saturday Squirrel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 29 Comments

To The Moon

Posted on April 19, 2019 by

EVIL SQUIRREL: Are you about done typing that script up for this week’s Good Friday episode, numbnuts?

TROLL: You mean the one where Buster gets nailed up on the cross?  Uhhhh, not yet sir.

ES: How much more is left?

TROLL: Errrrrr….. all of it, sir.  I flunked out of typing class, so I can only hunt and peck.

ES: Grrrrrrrrr…….

TROLL: And it doesn’t help that this keyboard is so sticky for some reason…

ES: What have I told you about watching porn on my personal computer!?!?  Get out of here and get my toilets scrubbed before I hang your nuts off the back of my pickup truck!!!

Troll covers his crotch and quickly vacates the keyboard.

ES: Lousy good for nothing help I have around here.  There’s no time now, so I’ll have to save that script for next year.  Good thing Good Friday always falls on a Friday.  Well, I guess it would be a convenient time to take care of that stupid promise I made last week…

ES: So Pam wants to see what happens when Mitzi meets the man in the moon.  Damn, I sure have a kinky bunch of followers here…. I can’t imagine why.

Yoooooooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

MITZI: Did you, like, call for your CandyCorn?

ES: No, but I guess you know when you’re wanted.

MITZI: Mitzi’s always wanted by everyone!  And besides, I, like, totally have extra century reception!

ES: So, how would you like to meet the man in the moon?

MITZI: OM to the G!  I totally don’t think he’s in my little black book yet!  Does this mean Mitzi gets to ride on a rocket?

ES: No…

MITZI: Mitzi lurves riding on rockets!!!  Specially, like, red rockets!!!

FLEABAG: BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BOI-OI-OI-OI-OI-OING!!!! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK!

MITZI: Ooooooh, yes please!!!

ES: Absolutely no rocket riding!  I don’t know if this would qualify as bestiality, but I’m pretty sure it’d be illegal in most states… even West Virginia.  TROLL!!!  Come take this horny mutt to the Chinese buffet!

Troll grabs Fleabag with his unwashed toilet scrubbing hands and removes him from the set…

MITZI: So how is, like, Mitzi going to get to the moon?

ES: Come, I’ll show you…

ES grabs Mitzi by the chest and leads her to a different set…

ES: Here we are, welcome to the moon!

MITZI: This, like, totally isn’t the moon!  There aren’t even any craters!

ES: This is the soundstage where the government shot the moon landings!

MITZI: No way!!!  Louis Armstrong, like, totally went to the real moon!

ES: You really believe that shit?  No, they filmed that right here.  Want proof?

MITZI: Like, whatevs.

ES: OK, I’m gonna head to the control room to act all important.  Good luck, Mitzi!

MITZI: Wait!  Don’t leave me by myself on the moon!!!  I’m, like, totally creeped out by otter space!!!

Looks like Mitzi will be on her own seeking out the “man” in the “moon”…

MITZI: YAYSIES!  I, like, totally found him!

FUZZYWIG: Found who?

MITZI: The man in the moon!

FUZZYWIG: Uhhhhh, yeah, sure.  I go on “trips” like this every day at 4:20 myself.

MITZI: Do you totally have any green cheese?

FUZZYWIG: My cheese all comes from the government, and it never expires and turns green.  But I do have something green I can share with you…

MITZI: I didn’t know you could, like, grow grass on the moon!

FUZZYWIG: You can in the Sea of Tranquility.  And this stuff will make you very, very tranquil…

Mitzi tackles her man….

MITZI: So are we gonna, like, get it on?

FUZZYWIG: Only if you’re talking about lighting this stuff up.  We should get high before we light up the sky…

VOICE: AHEM!!!!

UNCLE SAM: Just what in the name of Buzz Aldrin is going on here!?!?

FUZZYWIG: Houston, we have a problem.

MITZI: Mitzi’s, like, totally recreating the Apollo 69 mission!

SAM: Is that pot!?!?  I will not tolerate any hanky panky or MARIHUANA on my moon!  Do you understand me, degenerates?

FUZZYWIG: Your moon?  I think your executive powers have officially gone a bit too far, Napoleon.

SAM: You see this flag?  It’s been here for fifty years, and that makes this MY moon!  And I aim to make my moon great again!

SAM: (Looking at Fuzzy) You have exactly five minutes to go back to whatever planet you came from, or my secret weapon will burn every cannabis laced hair off your body!

FUZZYWIG: It’s sad that you can’t even get away from politics on the moon.  Fine, whatever, I’m outta here…

FUZZYWIG: That’s one small jerk for a critter, but one giant jerk for critterkind…

MITZI: Why did you make the man in the moon go away you big meanie!?!?

SAM: Because he didn’t belong here! But you….

SAM: I’m looking to plant my flag in a different crater, if you know what I mean.

MITZI: Well, I guess you’re a man and this is totally the moon…. so…

SAM: (Undoing his star spangled pants) This is awesome!  I’ve always wanted to join the 238,000 mile high club!

MITZI: I hope your flag isn’t all wrinkly!

SAM: Damn, this is hot!  In fact, I’m getting a warm sensation on the side of my face…

MITZI: Uh oh, Spaghetti O’s!

SAM: What’s going on!?!?  My secret weapon is going rogue like the Fake News!!!!

ROBOFOX: Must disassemble President!!!

Uncle Sam runs like hell off the set with his red, white and blue uniform smoldering…

MITZI: OMG!!!!  Your shiny eyes are, like, so kyooooooooot!!!!!

ROBOFOX: Robofox tired of never getting any!  Robofox wants to stick adapter into female socket!

MITZI: I, like, totally IDK what you’re talking about!  But Mitzi could totally go for some lunar rover right now!

MITZI: Oooooh!  This is just like the time Mitzi’s battery operated toy totally shorted out and made Mitzi do the electric slide!!!

ROBOFOX: (Sputtering and smoking) Malfunction!  Malfunction!  Circuits overloaded!

MITZI: Mitzi needs, like, input!!!!

ES: Well, that sure lit up the sky just like Pam had hoped for.

FUZZYWIG: Just what we needed, more light pollution.

SAM: I’m going to deport the idiot who wrote me out of this scene!!!!

ES: Well, this didn’t turn out too bad for a last minute rewrite…

ZEEBA: We’re here for the crucifixion!!!  Where’s that possum!?!?  I’m gonna stab him right in the balls!!!  Make him bleed for my sins!!!

ES: Errrrr, sorry little girl, but we canceled that episode today.

BEARCAT: Well, darn sis!  I guess we’ll have to go home….

ZEEBA: That’s BULLSHIT!!!!  It isn’t Good Friday if the possum doesn’t die!!!  Good rhymes with Blood, and I want my Blood Friday BLOOD!!!!!

BEARCAT: Settle down, sis!

ZEEBA: Not until there’s BLOOD!!!!!  BLOOD on the cross!  BLOOD on the moon!  BLOOD on the tracks! BLOOD!BLOOD!BLOOD!BLOOD!BLOOD!BLOOD!!!!!

BEARCAT: Silly Zeeba!

Posted in Shelf Critter Theatre | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Missing Miss Gypsy

Posted on April 18, 2019 by

I haven’t been running many Picture Day posts on my blog recently, and I guess the reason why is that I haven’t been taking many photos lately.  One of the main reasons for that may be that I’ve been without one of my favorite photography subjects from the past year for a while…. which became painfully obvious to me as I looked through my archive for other unused pictures.  The outdoor cat I named Gypsy was at my door nearly every day since I first tried to feed her in March of last year… and above is a picture I took of her on what would be the last day I saw her, which was March 8th.  Someone had taken a scissors to the long fur she had on both sides of her body and I was absolutely livid about it since we were not out of the winter cold yet.

Whatever happened to her, I can only guess at.  There are a handful of potentially good scenarios… maybe someone took her in, maybe she wound up at the shelter and was adopted… maybe, possibly, perhaps.  But there are probably more likely bad outcomes.  Either way, after six weeks MIA, I don’t think she’ll be coming back to my door.

And so in a bittersweet tribute to the favorite of the three outdoor cats I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and feeding in the past few years…. here’s a collection of some of my favorite snaps I took of the picturesque Miss Gypsy:

A picture from the morning I first met Gypsy…. March 17, 2018.

She grabbed the butter knife of food out of my hand because she was so hungry.

I invited her inside a few days later.

She didn’t like it in here, and I paid for it all summer long with a breakout of fleas.

She eventually accepted regular meals on the porch… here with Sewie.

Rain or shine, she almost always showed up

She loved sitting on the neighbors truck tire…

No matter the weather…

You could see her even in the middle of a power outage.

Do I really have to be out in this shit?

Totally not interested in squirrels.

I absolutely adored her winter coat she grew.

And that white tip on her brown tail.

And those blue eyes. That’s what my Mom called her… Blue Eyes.

Helping keep my notebooks warm

You gonna put some more food out here or what?

Oh, hello!

Thanks for a year full of memories and great pics, Gypsy. I hope wherever you are now, it’s a better place than what you had here…

Posted in Picture Day | Tagged , , , , , | 27 Comments

Earl The Squirrel

Posted on April 17, 2019 by

a box full of junk

The world is random.  At The Nest, we strive to make your Wednesdays even more unpredictable with a little feature we call Random Image Inspiration.  Let’s pick a few numbers and see what glorious picture will guide us to salvation this week…

34, 14, 67, 11

The 34th post in my Reader this morning was this one by Juliette

The 14th word in that post is “I”

The 67th word in that post is “of”

Well geez, this could go anywhere it would seem.  Typing “I of” into Google Images brought this up as the 11th result…

earl dudley

It’s….. uh, Robert Dudley… Earl of Leicester during the reign of Elizabeth I.  The two apparently had the hots for each other as well…. no doubt due to their fondness for each other’s neck ruffles.  What in the name of Billy Shakespeare was up with those stupid looking things anyway?  Those had to be uncomfortable to wear…

So this picture got me looking up just what exactly an “earl” is.  About all I could grasp was the fact that they’re apparently somewhere between a marquis and a viscount on the made-up fancypants title pecking order.  Oh, and there is no feminine title for an earl.  A lady can be a baroness, a countess or a duchess… but not an earless apparently.

I guess it looks too much like a title that should go to this guy.

Here in America, we may have Count Chocula and the Dukes of Hazzard… but absolutely no earls.  And the only British earl we know is the guy who is credited with inventing the culinary version of the wheel…

A meal truly fit for nobility.

That would be the most famous earl who ever earled early in the morning… John Montagu (1718-1792), aka the fourth Earl of Sandwich.  According to legend, the good Earl got so involved in his hot poker games with assorted archdukes and lords that he requested his servants to put some meat in between two slices of bread so that he wouldn’t die of starvation while he was losing his breeches at cards.  The concoction was popular enough with his gambling buddies, that they requested to be made “sandwiches” as well.  The next time you whip up some grilled cheese, be sure to thank the food gods that the Earl of Sandwich didn’t know when to fold ’em…

Would you be interested in, like, a furburger early wearly?

Besides inventing a modern culinary staple and having some islands somewhere in the world named after him, the Earl of Sandwich was also into what he termed “ancient music”… or music that was “at least two decades old.”  If the Earl were alive today, he would probably enjoy my Dusty Vinyl Archive.  He would probably also turn up this “ancient” song that, if you weren’t humming it at some point while reading this post, there’s either something wrong with you, or you’re too damned young!

Evil Earl’s Nest will have another post inspired by a random picture next Wednesday!

Just be careful not to choke on your ham sandwich…

Posted in Random Image Inspiration | Tagged , , , , , | 18 Comments