Mix And Stones

Posted on May 17, 2021 by evilsquirrel13

Stones…. not Stoned!

Ready to get another week started with the sound of muzak?  Good!  Because it’s Monday, so that means we’re ready to yank another lost hit out of that trusty stash of musical rarities we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive!  DJ Scratchy and the Sponkies….. well, we don’t know what they’re doing since this intro had no theme.  Just listen to the music…

The Beatles will likely always occupy the number one spot when one thinks of the greatest rock bands of all time.  Coming in at number two on most of those lists would probably be one of the most enduring acts in popular music history… none other than the Rolling Stones.  The Stones emerged on the world stage around the same time as the lads from Liverpool did, only they never had a Yoko Ono to break them up.  Now well into their sixth decade of rocking sold out arenas, and with three original members still in tow, the Stones continue to get their satisfaction in the spotlight…

The instruments double as walking canes…

The Stones have hundreds of songs to their name, and over a dozen albums whose names you’re likely familiar with.  But as far as classic rock stations are concerned, Mick and the boys may as well have split up after Tattoo You in 1981… as “Start Me Up” is the most recent Stones song you’re likely to hear on the radio today.  While they may not have been as prominent in the 80’s as they were in the previous two decades, the Rolling Stones didn’t go into hiding when MTV forced rock stars to become video stars.  They had a handful of hits during my formative years that seem to have been lost time… one of which I’m featuring today, “Mixed Emotions.”

“Mixed Emotions” was the first single of their 1989 album Steel Wheels, recorded after tensions between the group’s most prominent duo, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, had eased up considerably.  It was a #5 hit in the US, and a flat out fun little rocker that is one of my favorite songs by the band… including even their legendary hits.

But that video….. oy!  In an attempt to be lighthearted and show everything with the group was just hunky dory, they seemed to try a little too hard to look cool….

Someone must’ve missed the auditions for the Get In Shape Girl ads.

What in the everloving hell is Mick Jagger wearing in his dance scenes?  Not even Jane Fonda would let someone dressed that hideous onto the workout floor…

Andy Warhol’s look didn’t really need another fifteen minutes of fame…

Charlie Watts has always looked like some random goofball the band let tag along with them so he’d think he was cool… but that doesn’t excuse that godawful hair he’s totally NOT rocking in this video.  Vidal Sassoon isn’t looking too good today…

Looks like he snorted the ashes of Ponce de Leon…

And how much makeup and botox did it take to make Keith Richards not look like some chain smoking old man from the local flophouse?  The jokes about Richards looking “dead” were already floating around at this time… and he looks too damn fresh in this video for being about 89 years old.

Just kidding, Keith. We know you’ll outlast the cockroaches…

I know it’s only the Dusty Vinyl Archive, but I like it.  And if you like it too, then come back next Monday for some more brown sugar…

Posted in Dusty Vinyl Archive | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Weekend Threesome – 5/16/21

Posted on May 16, 2021 by evilsquirrel13

It’s time for three more tidbits from The Nest’s week that was… and not one of them will include my ER visit last Sunday morning for what turned out to be cellulitis!  I’m fine…. don’t worry… and it just made my already planned five day staycation this past week even more interesting.

After a bit of a rainy pattern in late April and early May, the weather this week was cooler than normal, but otherwise beautiful.  I took advantage Thursday to get out to the park and add to my squirrel photo collection… one of which you already saw in yesterday’s Saturday Squirrel.

I already had the story in my head as I was taking it…

As an antisocial introvert, I utterly HATE running into people I know out in public…  particularly when I appear to be an escaped mental patient looking up in trees at the park and taking seemingly random photos of nothing.  So I got a chill down my spine when I was minding my own business and all of a sudden heard, “Bill?  Is that you?”

Who wants to know?

I didn’t recognize the lady at all…. not that that means anything.  I’m better at recognizing people I haven’t seen in a while by their voices and not their faces…

“Aren’t you Bill that used to work here?”

As in working at the park?  No, thank goodness…. now go away!  It’s a bit scary to know I might have a doppelganger that even shares my first name, though…

I guess I could get confused with worse Bills…

I stopped at Mickey Dee’s for lunch on my way back home from the park.  No order screw up this time, but I was behind this vehicle in the drive thru…

Good to know you have a kid into bestiality!

Seriously?  This brings back bad memories of when I’d bring my Dad over to my house after Thursday lunch, and he’d call Ody his grandson.  I know a lot of pet owners love to use the familial relationship with their animals, and that’s fine….. for them.  But it’s always made me cringe.  Maybe that’s just the “I’ll never be a parent” in me talking, but I don’t consider my cat to be my child, nor myself to be a father to my cat.  Doesn’t mean I don’t love him… my bond with Ody has actually gotten closer since Biskit died and left the two of us alone.  But he’s no son of mine, and I’ve long been on record with that…

The only time I want to hear the word “furbaby” is in one of my comics.

I hate birds, but….

I don’t owe you any rent, jackoff!

I’m pretty sure this robin is the bird who was desperately trying to build a nest behind my porch light a few weeks ago, and I kept pulling out the stuffing when I’d find it.  So she moved operations over to the downspout next to my garage door… and I caught her sitting in (and maybe on) her pride and joy when I returned from my walk Wednesday.  I don’t really take kindly to birds squatting on my property, but I didn’t have the heart to evict her…

Posted in Weekend Threesome | Tagged , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Keynut Speaker

Posted on May 15, 2021 by evilsquirrel13

Can I get a little Pomp and Circumstance?

Boys and squirrels of the Class of 2021….

Today marks a huge a milestone in your sciurine lives.  For the past 18 weeks, you’ve climbed the ranks from kindergarten to high school… and for much of that time you probably wondered what practical use any of those lessons would have in your adult lives.

No doubt, you found algebra to be a bore…. yet its mathematical foundation will help you know when your cache of acorns has been pilfered from.

Squirrel History probably didn’t excite you very much… yet knowing how to avoid our enemies like humans and hawks will keep you from repeating the mistakes of your ancestors.

You may not have been very interested in physical education… yet that training will save your life the first time you need to make a midair jump from 150 feet off the ground.

Those language arts lessons you despised will come in handy when you need to alert your comrades that there’s a dog in the vicinity.

Those mind-numbing physics equations will keep you from starving during the winter when the only available food is in a lofty birdfeeder that the humans think you can’t access.

I could go on and on, but you get the point.  The time you spent in school when you’d have rather been out chasing your friends all over the street will be the key to your success as adult squirrels.  I am so very proud of all each and every one of you in the 2021 Class of Saturday Squirrels….

Now…. go out there and grab life by the nuts!!!!!

HOORAY!!!!

And have a great weekend everyone!

Posted in Saturday Squirrel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

Share Your World – Week 123

Posted on May 13, 2021 by evilsquirrel13

Crap!!! Goddamn fucking Mecca!!!

Last week for my SYW intros, I started a mini countdown of ten consumer items that were largely unimportant or irrelevant when I began working at Mecca in 1998, but that have since grown into their own huge categories with entire shelves dedicated to selling them.  So what else besides collectible mini toys has exploded in the past 23 years?  Coming in at #9….

Perhaps this won’t come as a surprise to those who consider America to rank only slightly better Afghanistan on a list of the world’s most violent countries…. but home security has become huge over the past decade, and security lights in particular are now prominently sold in our hardware department in one entire four foot section.  Yes, leaving the front porch light on like I always have has long since become passe and too dangerous…. now if you don’t have huge 10,000 watt motion detecting flood lights applied to every corner of your house, you’re just asking for Joe Burglar to take you for everything you own, and possibly even step on your cat in the process.  Oh, and those lights will help your intruder see your “We don’t call 911” sign you got with your NRA membership that’s tacked on your screen door at 2 in the morning…

Alright, now that we have everything locked up tight so the bad guys go murder the neighbors instead of us, let’s get on with sharing our world!  Questions, as always, by Melanie…

Hey! Hands off my world you bloody thief!!!

What do you believe but cannot prove?

That squirrels have long been plotting to take over the world…

The sciurine revolution can’t come soon enough if you ask me…

Do animals have morals?

I’m gonna say no….

Is there inherent order in nature or is it all chaos and chance?

I’m always going to side with chaos and random, because I honestly think it’s neater that way.  To hell with all those people who think life has to have some kind of purpose or be part of some grand plan.  Although mathematical patterns like the golden ratio and the Pareto principle kinda point towards some kind of order in nature, I think on a whole…. yeah, billions of years of cosmic Yahtzee are responsible for what we have today.

Sometimes nature has to scratch its large straight.

Where is your least favorite place in the world?

Since I’ve only been in about 0.00000000069% of the world, it’s a good bet I haven’t found my least favorite place yet, and likely never will.  See!  There’s one advantage to not being much of a traveler…

More reason to just stay at home and watch porn…

Feel free to share something about the seasons that makes you smile!

Nothing quite makes just about any food taste better than a little salt and pepper…

Yeah, push it real good!

Posted in Share Your World | Tagged , , | 20 Comments

Wouldn’t You Like To Be A Pepper Too?

Posted on May 10, 2021 by evilsquirrel13

Glass soda bottles….. yep, this is the Dusty Vinyl Archive.

If your week is starting off a bit flat, then let The Nest add a little fizz to your ears on this Monday!  Don’t worry, that sound you hear is just the popping and cracking of another refreshing lost record poured out of that two liter bottle of sugary goodness we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive!  DJ Scratchy is always fully carbonated, and ready to wake you up with some more audio caffeine, while the Sponkies should probably just drink the Kool Aid.  This week’s song goes well with a can of New Coke…

For as long as popular music and Hollywood have co-existed, there had always been a bit of a crossover between the two art forms of the famous.  Elvis, Will Smith and even Marky Mark took time away from the recording studio to become film stars… while established thespians like John Travolta, Patrick Swayze and even Bruce Willis took a few moments out of their acting careers to hit the Billboard charts.

You got a problem with my singing, pal? (BLAM!) Huh? (BLAM! BLAM!)

Some of these two-way stars were never really “stars” in either realm.  That brings us to this week’s featured artist, a man by the name of David Naughton.  Aside from a couple of early bit roles on TV shows, Naughton’s first real exposure to American audiences came in the late 70’s when he was tabbed by Dr. Pepper to sing the praises of their icky flavored soda on the air waves.  Someone at ABC thought the Dr. Pepper guy should get his own sitcom, which wound up being a terrible idea, as it lasted a whole nine episodes before getting canceled in 1979.  But at least its theme song, sung by Naughton, was solid gold…

While Makin’ It the TV show didn’t make it, “Makin’ It” the TV show theme song made it all the way up to #5 on the US charts.  It’s a cheesy but fun three minutes of schlock that sadly got buried deep within the lighted glass floor mausoleum of disco once the 80’s rolled around and people no longer wanted to be associated with that era.  And like just about every other fun record from the late 70’s and early 80’s, this one was issued by RSO and has the familiar red cow on the record label!  Mooooooo!!!!

The cows are… um…. makin’ something else.

While Naughton initially made it with Dr. Pepper, the soft drink company from the conservative state of Texas was not too thrilled with his starring role in the 1981 movie An American Werewolf in London, since he was makin’ it in the buff… and thus shortly after its released ended their relationship with the howling man.  Apparently, even hairy wolfmen needed to wear clothes back in the olden days…

Looks like all that Dr. Pepper put some hair on your chest!

So, what song will be makin’ it onto the DVA next Monday?  Come back and find out next week…

Posted in Dusty Vinyl Archive | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments