Belles! Belles Belles!

If you listen to 1960's French teen idol Claude Francois singing Belles!Belles! Belles!, his 1962 hit cover--en Francais-of an Everly Brothers song, you might think it is a happy go lucky song, especially if you have seen the Scopitones footage of Claude doing the Twist in the snow while miming the song.

If you want to see the Scoptones video of the song, it's on YouTube.

However, the lyrics of the song are a little bittersweet. The rough English translation will show you what I mean.

Nice song, though. If only his French cover of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was on the same CD. :)

Techonrati: Claude+Francois Belles+Belles+Belles Belles+Belles+Belles+video

"Most favourite German identical twins"

Here is a tribute page about Alice & Ellen Kessler. They are twin sisters who played Vegas and did a cover version of "Johnny Angel" (?!?) on their way to becoming singing stars in Italy and Germany. Warning, English mangled freely!

Or you could try this Wikipedia entry in English, if you like.

Technorati: Kessler+twins Die+Kessler+Zwillinge Alice+Kessler Ellen+Kessler

The Burning Log starring "The Hand"

Over the holidays, The Province newspaper interviewed Craig McAllister. No, you don't know who he is, but you do know his hand.

Mr. McAllister made The Burning Log, that video shown on TV stations as far away as New York state, which shows logs burning in a fireplace. That's his hand that you see poking at the logs and adding wood.

You may read the story here.

Technorati:The+Burning+Log Man+in+The+Burning+Log+Fireplace+video burning+Logs+in+fireplace+video, fireplace+video roaring+fireplace+video

Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore

I was rereading this post from a year ago, and I thought that may be so much interest in my explaining what really happens at a charismatic healing crusade that I should post it again. This particular post came to mind because I've come to befriend someone else who was at the meeting, unbeknownst to me. Like the young lady in this post, she also gets "zapped" by God at the drop of a hat. And sometimes even without the drop of a hat.

I'm still at the Dan Aykrord-like "What light?" stage, but my friend is working on me. :)

You may recall that I was wondering about the lyrics of a 1950s pop song. Specifically, I was wondering what "She did the chicken in the middle of the floor" might have looked like.

Well, after recently attending a charismatic Christian religious meeting in Vancouver, which featured a "fire tunnel", I think that I may know. :)

Charismatics, as you may know, believe that the Holy Spirit works today as He did in the days of the book of Acts. Some of these manifestations can be speaking in tongues, or being "slain in the Spirit" (being prompted to faint due to God touching your heart in some way). One technique in the more "out there" edges of charismatic practice is called a "fire tunnel". In a fire tunnel, ministers and prayer team members form two rows facing each other. Those receiving prayer walk between the two lines, allowing those praying to lay hands on them and pray for them to be blessed.

I was at the meeting for another reason that didn't pan out as I had hoped. After a good message (I attend a church with Pentecostal leanings, so I am not averse to trying to glean Biblical truths from charismatic ministers), they announced that there would be a "fire tunnel" at the front of the auditorium. Not seeing any
baskets of snakes for the assembled worshippers to pick up and play with nearby, I decided that it might be interesting to look and see what was happening. (Once a reporter, always a reporter. Although I may not be working in journalism for the time being, I expect that my "news nose" will never lose its sense of smell.)

I got in the line-up as it snaked up and down the aisles of the church. I noticed one young lady about four or five people in front of me. She seemed a bit inebriated, but I knew that she certainly had not been drinking. She was doing half-twirls, and then falling to the ground giggling. She kept bending at the waist. It all looked involuntary on her part, but she had a big smile on her face.

I mentioned to another lady beside me "You know, I think the tunnel is supposed to be down there at the front." She just smiled.

We eventually meandered our way down to the front on the auditorium. I entered the tunnel. At first, it was relatively calm, with people gently laying hands on me as I walked past and saying things like "Fresh fire." and "More Lord".

As the tunnel progressed, those who were praying seemed to build in intensity. I noticed that people further in front of me were starting to be bent backwards or forwards for some reason. Others were slumping to the floor.

As I got toward the end of the line, the pray-ers were doing things like jumping up and down like pogo-stick users. One guy roared in my face, and I just laughed a bit back at him, only to feel a lady blowing on my face. I could tell this, infortunately, because I felt a drop of spit fall on my face.

As that demonstrative young lady that I had seen earlier went around to the back of the line for another go, I stayed down in front to watch, as people went through. Now the pray-ers were hopping, moving back and forth and jumping up and down. It reminded me of the toga party in the movie Animal House without the liquor and debauchery.

Finally, the prayers went into the line themselves and the tunnel collapsed into itself with groups of twos and threes of people laughing or crying softly.

The evening was wrapping up, and as I was leaving, I saw the young lady who could not wait until she was in the tunnel. "I hope that you were blessed," I told her. "It looked like you were having a lot of fun." She said "Thanks!", and I left.

At the other side of the auditorium, the young lady caught up to me. "Hey," she said. "Can I pray for you?"

"Okay, but why would you want to do that?" I said.

"Freely you have received," she smiled, "Freely give."

So, I let her bring me back to her friends, and they prayed for me. The young lady prayed that my hunger for God would be satified and that He would touch me.

"Do you feel warm or hot?" she asked. (Warmth is often a test amongst charismatics to see if the Holy Spirit is working on someone.)

"Yes, I feel a little hot," I said, "but I am wearing my jacket." I felt a little bit like Dan Akyroyd's character in The Blues Brothers when John Belushi's character has his revelation from the Lord in James Brown's church. [Belushi is bathed in sunlight while Aykroyd is reduced to asking "What light?"]

Looking back at all this, I am grateful for that sympathetic young lady's sweet intentions that I should be blessed too. If I were to think like my old Report colleagues Colby Cosh and Kevin Michael Grace, I would also have to ask myself if I was laying myself open to empty emotionalism.

I do have one thought, though. So often faith is an intellectual thing, where the mind observes a set of moral principles. That said, men are beings that feel, with hearts and emotions.

For faith to work it has to touch both the mind and heart.

So, when people are looking for a light at the end of their tunnel, I'm not surprised if they happen to look for this light at the end of a "fire tunnel".

Technorati: fire+tunnel

I will

Here's a link to a YouTube video of Billy Fury singing I Will from 1965. It's his cover of Dean Martin's hit and probably comes from an Engish television show such as
Ready+Steady+Go.

It's nice to see Billy+Fury performing I+Will as it is one of my favourite songs of his. It's nice to see a Billy+Fury+video, even with Portuguese scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

Are Christian ladies sexually promiscuous?

Blogger Anthony, at The Institute, suspects, based on a post in his comments, that young Christian ladies are sexually voracious, bouncing from bed to bed:

I'm pretty sure this is something that your church does not talk about. There was a guy at my church that had a girl actually break into his apartment just seduce him into having sex (I'm not sure where she was spiritually, but I know that this is not an isolated case).

What I would like to see is some polling and surveys. I think that perhaps you might see sex amongst the engaged, but rampant casual sex in Christian environments is something that I would not suspect is happening. I sympathize with Anthony's moral watchdog stance, but in the various church circles that I have frequented, I don't see a lot of evidence of this. (Granted, I go to morally conservative churches. If we are talking about the U.S. equivalent of the United Church of Canada, all bets are off.)

Not to be unkind, but this scenario reads like something that one would read in a porn magazine. "I attend a small mid-western church. I thought that everything that I read in your magazine never happened. However, after a Bible study last week, I...."

Anthony is right that we should consider this issue, but I would like to see more evidence before deciding that we have a problem.

If things do not get any easier after I understand, the songwriters will give me a refund?

Bad

Bad is when you buy a 49 cent single of the song that was even dramatized on Incorrect Music due to its mawkishness: Things Get A Little Easier (Once You Understand) by Think. Alas, due to a nasty crack, it skips, but I might be able to make it playable. (I already have it taped off the Incorrect Music show.)

"Your son is dead!"

(It's one of my guilty pleasues this week, along with the instrumental version of The Teddy Bears' Picnic, by Australian surf-rock band The Atlantics.)

Worse

Worse, however, is when you are a nighclub deejay and you mix this song into your dance music medleys as this person did:

"One of our best mixes with that song came when we mixed it with the Moody Blues 'Question' and Alice Cooper's 'Clones'. This combitnation was made for each other. "

The Freddie, Frankie Avalon, this post has it all!

Some kind soul has posted a video of I'm Telling you Now where you can see Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello bravely trying to learn what became The Freddie.

The Scopitones video of The Tornados performing their instrumental Robot while costumed in robot outfits is even more surreal. If you think that the video is horrible, you can cheer a little when the French riot police show up at the end.

Do the Freddie!

In honour of the late Freddie Garrity, a link to a TV performance of
Do The Freddie, the short-lived dance craze that did not quite sweep the country.

If something less frantic is to your taste, here's a link to the Joanie Sommer's cover version of I'm Telling You Now, in which the singer looks like she has taken a couple of "crankylyzers" before the TV cameras were turned on.

Technorati: Do+The+Freddie

Free sandwich with each post

I see that Jon Lovitz has a blog. And 44,000 MySpace friends too.

You know you're a blogger when...

...you have a dream that you were woken in the middle of the night and couldn't fall asleep again, so you posted on your blog!

It's never happened in real life, and no,I didn't eat pizza right before going to bed.

Mmmm, Camel helper

Courtesy the Hillbilly Housewife website, a brief list of various
foods mentioned in the Bible.

Press sein gluck

Here's an interesting fan site about the German edition ofPress Your Luck, and other game shows.

Can God heal "bed head"?

It looks like Danish faith healing evangelist Christian Hedegaard has a neat ministry, despite the fact that he looks like he just woke up in some of the pictures he posts on his website.

I just hope that he is forgiving as well as godly. :)

Uncle Don, Howard Stern guest host

Those liking bloopers might be interested to read this explanation of an urban legend: Did children's radio show host Uncle Don say "There, that oughta hold the little bastards!" while on the air?

Turkish Superman is better than Superman Returns. No, really.

I see that the inimitable Seanbaby has finally updated his website

Mein Kampf, the movie!

I read an intestng book lately. It's The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made", by Chris Gore.

Author Chris Gore has found some fascinating examples of movies that never made it to the screen. However, I find it hard to believe that David O. Selznick saved the rights to the words "Mein Kampf" in case he decided to make a movie based on Hitler's book.

Aparrently, Selznick went so far as to consider using Ben Hecht and Alfred Hitchcock to make the film. Wow.

If you look for dates at a family reunion, you might be a bogan

Tim Blair has found a website devoted to the Australian version of the redneck, the bogan.

The Flannelgraph Antichrists, starring Warren Kinsella on tuba

What could be a cuddlier way to explain the end of the world? Try Stories in Revelation for Tots to Teens--in flannelgraph form!

Update: I think that "The Flannelgraph AntiChrist" would be an usual name for a blog, now that I think about it. I wonder if someone is already using it.

Actually, it would make a better name for a punk band, now that I think of it

I didn't know that Estes wasn't a defense contractor

Now it can be revealed--1950s footage of ICBMs exploding when they are not supposed to, namely during top secret tests.

The Great Energy Crisis of 1996

Here's Superkids, a 1975 propaganda comic by the Canadian federal government which explains that if we don't save energy there will be a huge energy crisis in 1996.

Hat tip: Colby Cosh.

What's really sad is that I remember reading that comic in elementary school!

The Masked Pooper strikes again

Finally, a website that asks the question "Who is the mystery pooper annoying the custodians at a small Eastern U.S. college?" I think that The Diarrhea Bandit! is probably a put-on, but you may be amused enough by the idea to check it out yourself.

Show us your bullet-proof vests!

Here's a series of pictures of pretty soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces. (Who knows, maybe this will result in search engine hits for me other than "Is Ben Mulroney gay?)

Hat tip: Tim Blair.

There is no evolution. There is a list of animals that Chuck Norris allows to live

Sam Kirk has posted some amusing "facts" about Chuck Norris.

Moderately Secret

Recently, I read a potboiler on the End of the World. I was intrigued to find, however, that it was the second novel that I had read in the space of a year to mention Mount Weather as part of the plot.

Mount Weather, as the link about will tell you, is a small bomb shelter facility near Washington D.C. deigned to help U.S. government officials survive a nuclear attack. Its status as secret notwithstanding, we do know that Mount Weather is relatively small and spartan. However, according to the novels that I read, Mount Weather is the space of a small city with its own subway and even a manmade lake.

Let's hope that Mount Weather becomes obsolete, shall we?

The ur-MST 3K

It seems that there was an early ancestor of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, the show which featured a man and his robot friends in silhouette, adding wiseacre comments to a film as it was shown on your TV.

A few months ago, Turner Classic Movies aired The Movie Album, a Vitaphone short from 1931. Warner Brothers collected some snippets of old silent movies and had a narrator comment and joke on the soundtrack. It's nowhere near as funny as MST3K. Yet, it is interesting to see that the latter idea for the TV show may have been so smart that a diiferent version of it had been tried before. (Not to mention the Fractured Flickers TV show.)

Was there an ur-MST3K?

I wonder if the MST3K writers ever heard of or saw any of the Movie Album shorts. Probably not, as only a handful of the Vitaphone shorts appear to have been made.

Vacation pix

Blinkit has a series of very interesting posts about his trip to Bavaria this summer. He's posted some photos as well.

Jeremy Lott, the man, the legend

I'd like to remind you that my former colleague, Jeremy Lott, has started a new blog to promote his new book In Defense of Hypocrisy.

This geological formation, endorsed by Joe Meek

Some eBayer is offering a pebble that he found on the ground near 304 Holloway Road for sale. No bids yet, but when you can see a mutant giant Cheeto sell for over a million in one eBay auction, who knows what will happen?

No, Mom, I don't want it for Christmas. :)

What, no "She was poor, but she was honest"?

Ruggers know that rugby songs are supposed to be naughty, right? Well, this site of Rugby Songs must belong to a church league side because the selections include the lyrics of songs like Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Danny Boy and I Want To Hold Your Hand!

I'm waiting for The Goldwaters' world tour

After reading Kathy Shaidle's post on National Review's list of 50 Greatest Conservative rock songs, I am again reminded of why it's dangerous for me to be asked to participate in most such surveys of this type. I have an affinity for the awful, and I would put some selections by a group like The Goldwaters on my own list.

Suffice it to say that the lead singer of The Goldwaters observed many years later: "Our album wasn't 'nearly' unlistenable...it was completely unlistenable."

Sumo!

Here's an interesting post on one blogger's visit to a sumo wrestler training academy.

A killer lede

To kill or not to kill, that is the question. But before answering, let's pause for a moment.

Nature columnist Sharon Wootton, whose photo in The Olympian newspaper reveals her to be a sweet looking old lady, begins her column "Killing not effective solution to problem of crows" in a newspaper from earlier this year.

The Playboy before Playboy

Here's a link about The National Police Gazette, the first men's tabloid. Your turn-of-the century ancestor might have snuck a peak at it while waiting for a haircut at a barbershop near you.

These 1940s Police Gazette cover girls will give you an idea of what the magazine looked like.

I wonder if they are hiring. :) (Trap For Subway Mashers! West Virginia's Shocking Film Racket! Sorry, just practicing...)

Run O.J. Run!

O.J. Simpson poses for a comic book ad for sneakers in the 1970s.

It talks. It Slices. It Dices. It Makes Juiliene Fries.

Blogger Lee Hartsfeld has posted a 1961 recording of Bell Telephone's first attempts to make a computer talk.

Der Pfeffermint Twist?

In the 1960s, you could count on every American hit song spawning various European language cover versions. A German-language cover of The Peppermint Twist, which I picked up for 50 cents at the Vancouver Record Collectors Association swap meet on the weekend, is just one example of many that I could cite. It was sung by Caterina and Silvio (with "Werner Muller und sein Orchester"!).

My German is almost non-existent, but I can tell that the lyrics of this cover version were rather freely translated. I'll give it a 78, though, because it has a good beat and it is easy to dance to.

Mah Nah Mah Nah, tonight on Spice

Here's an interesting item about Mah Na Mah Na, that annoyingly persistent tune. I must add, however, that I do not believe Wikipedia's assertion that the song made its debut in a Swedish soft core porn film.

Support the Dartmouth Indians

I'm pleased to see that there's a new book about the history of The Dartmouth Review, the conservative U.S. student newspaper.

As someone who did a feature on one of the controversies plaguing the Review back in my CUP days, I'm pleased to see that the paper is still chugging along.

Dartmouth Review fans will be pleased to know that I wore a Dartmouth Indian T-shirt duirng my days at UBC. My colleagues at the very liberal UBC student newspaper didn't understand that they were supposed to be annoyed at me when I wore the T-shirt in SUB241k.

Of couse, I may have annoyed lots of people with my T-shirts back then. I also wore my Christian-made "No Surfin' In Hell" T-shirt to church.

Victor Appleton, taken behind the woodshed

Like many fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which made fun of bad movies and film shorts for many years on Comedy Central and the SciFi Channel, I regret that the show is off the air. However, wiseacre fans are borrowing the show characters to take wisenheimer pot shots at Internet spam and other printed materials using the same format as the original show.

Here's a link to John Nowak and Matt Plotecher's wonderfully funny take on Tom Swift and His War Tank, an inane boys book from the World One era. They make fun of the entire book.

"Misting" is now a verb describing giving something in print the MST3K treatment. It's something I would like to try someday...it looks like fun. By the way, a hat tip to Keith Palmer for posting one of my fave MISTings.

I think I went to high school with Zizi La Twisteuse

Everyone needs to watch a video of Sixties rockers The Tornados performing their song Robot while dressed in robot outfits. You can get a DVD copy of this at a new site about Scopitones, that early French ancestor of MTV.

Beware though...it seems that Scopitones are popular amongst U.S. troops serving in Task Force Scopitone overseas.

If you've never seen Les Classels, Quebec's singing Men From Glad, one of their hits is mentioned at the site too.

If I understand but things do not become any easier, can I ask the songwriters for a refund?

Bad

Bad is when you buy a 49 cent single of the song that was even dramatized on Incorrect Music due to its mawkishness: Things Get A Little Easier (Once You Understand) by Think. Alas, due to a nasty crack, it skips, but I might be able to make it playable. (I already have it taped off the Incorrect Music show.)

"Your son is dead!"

(It's one of my guilty pleasues this week, along with the instrumental version of The Teddy Bears' Picnic, by Australian surf-rock band The Atlantics.)

Worse

Worse, however, is when you are a nighclub deejay and you mix this song into your dance music medleys as this person did:

"One of our best mixes with that song came when we mixed it with the Moody Blues 'Question' and Alice Cooper's 'Clones'. This combitnation was made for each other. "

The Freddie, Frankie Avalon, guitar-playing robots...this post has it all!

Some kind soul has posted a video of I'm Telling you Now where you can see Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello bravely trying to learn what became The Freddie.

The Scopitones video of The Tornados performing their instrumental Robot while costumed in robot outfits is even more surreal. If you think that the video is horrible, you can cheer a little when the French riot police show up at the end.

Do The Freddie!

In honour of the late Freddie Garrity, a link to a TV performance of
Do The Freddie, the short-lived dance craze that did not quite sweep the country.

If something less frantic is to your taste, here's a link to the Joanie Sommer's cover version of I'm Telling You Now, in which the singer looks like she has taken a couple of "crankylyzers" before the TV cameras were turned on.

Free sandwich with each post?

I see that Jon Lovitz has a blog. And 44,000 MySpace friends too.

You know you are a blogger when...

...you have a dream that you were woken in the middle of the night and couldn't fall asleep again, so you posted on your blog!

It's never happened in real life, and no,I didn't eat pizza right before going to bed.

I'll pass on the Camel Helper, thank you

Courtesy the Hillbilly Housewife website, a brief list of various
foods mentioned in the Bible.

(Dr. Evil voice) "One MILLION Dollars!"

Technorati Profile

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Nahasapeemapetilon

Typepad has spotted Filmigeek, a blog about Bollywood films.

I must confess to an abiding fondness for Bollywood films. With English subtitles, they can be fun to watch, even with their odd moments, such as naming a supervillain "Don Quixote". Or two conflicting armies starting to sing and dance with each other in the middle of a battle.

One film that I saw was unitentionally amusing, due to it being filmed in B.C.'s Lower Mainland. It was funny to see a couple cavorting on the Capilano Suspension Bridge, then along the beach in White Rock, then in downtown Vancouver...when all these locations are quite far away from each other in real life.

What's the German for No Whammies?

Here's an interesting fan site about Press Your Luck and other game shows.

Can God heal "bed head"? :)

It looks like Danish faith healing evangelist Christian Hedegaard has a neat ministry, despite the fact that he looks like he just woke up in some of the pictures he posts on his website.

I just hope that he is forgiving as well as godly. :)

Little bastards update

Those liking bloopers might be interested to read this explanation of an urban legend: Did children's radio show host Uncle Don say "There, that oughta hold the little bastards!" while on the air?

Oh, %*&%$@#, we forgot the editorial!

Once a Ubyssey old hack, always a Ubyssey old hack. I suspect that this Ubyssey editorial about the Vancouver Canucks was written late on production night because they had nothing else to write on.

I've seen a few of those kinds of editorials happen back in the day. Yes, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and ate people hanging out on the balcony of SUB241K.

I wonder if they ever found the slice of pizza hidden above the ceiling tiles where The Ubyssey's office used to be?

I wonder what happened to the "Sex Couch"?

Filling your Turkish ET needs since some time recently

I see that the inimitable Seanbaby has finally updated his website

His alibi for the Black Dahlia murder is pretty airtight because the diner where he works is in Bournemouth, England

I see that someone else who has seen Brian de Palma's The Black Dalhia also noticed that the diner where the victim's father works in Los Angeles has a cash register that reads "4D". That would mean that the blue plate special was only...fourpence?!?

However, no one seems to have yet noticed that a 1940s prisoner would have been unlikely to have been "talking trash" while in the stir!

Mein Kampf: The Movie!

I've been reading an intestng book lately. It's The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made", by Chris Gore.

Author Chris Gore has found some fascinating examples of movies that never made it to the screen. However, I find it hard to believe that David O. Selznick saved the rights to the words "Mein Kampf" in case he decided to make a movie based on Hitler's book.

Aparrently, Selznick went so far as to consider using Ben Hecht and Alfred Hitchcock to make the film. Wow.

MST3K goes digital

Mike Nelson of MST3K fame is now doing Rifftrax, which provides weisenheimer commentary that you can play along to all sorts of movies. Like the authors of Satellite News, however, I'm suprised that Dave Watson of The Georgia Straight can discuss Mystery Science Theater 3000 without apparently knowing that it aired on the Comedy Channel and the Sci-Fi Channel in the U.S..

(I wonder if the fact that I found MST3K on Comedy Central, via my parents' satellite dish one Saturday morning while my parents were sleeping, before Mr. Watson discovered it makes me hipper than he is. :) Probably not.)

Watch animals live!

This link will take you to a live webcam showing animals at an African watering hole. I'm told that you should try to time your watching for sunrise and sunset times there.

Watch animals live!

This link will take you to a live webcam showing animals at an African watering hole. I'm told that you should try to time your watching for sunrise and sunset times there.

I'm cutting prices to the bone!

Australia's Nine Channel has posted a photo set about the history of shopping in Australia, which includes a photo of the Jack the Slasher Food Barn.

Hat tip: Tim Blair

Australian rednecks

Tim Blair has found a website devoted to the Australian version of the redneck, the bogan.

Run! It's the Flannelgraph Antichrist!

What could be a cuddlier way to explain the end of the world? Try Stories in Revelation for Tots to Teens--in flannelgraph form!

Update: I think that "The Flannelgraph AntiChrist" would be an usual name for a blog, now that I think about it. I wonder if someone is already using it.

When going with the lowest bidders may not be the best idea

Now it can be revealed--1950s footage of ICBMs exploding when they are not supposed to, namely during top secret tests.

I missed the great energy crisis of 1996. I guess that I was off the planet at the time

Here's Superkids, a 1975 propaganda comic by the Canadian federal government which explains that if we don't save energy there will be a huge energy crisis in 1996.

Hat tip: Colby Cosh.

What's really sad is that I remember reading that comic in elementary school!

Show us your bullets!

Here's a series of pictures of pretty soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces. (Who knows, maybe this will result in search engine hits for me other than "Is Ben Mulroney gay?)

Hat tip: Tim Blair.

Beware of the Masked Pooper!

Finally, a website that asks the question "Who is the mystery pooper annoying the custodians at a small Eastern U.S. college?" I think that The Diarrhea Bandit! is probably a put-on, but you may be amused enough by the idea to check it out yourself.

Chuck Norris lost his virginity before his father did

Sam Kirk has posted some amusing "facts" about Chuck Norris.

"Top Secret"? No, "moderately secret" will do.

Recently, I read a potboiler on the End of the World. I was intrigued to find, however, that it was the second novel that I had read in the space of a year to mention Mount Weather as part of the plot.

Mount Weather, as the link about will tell you, is a small bomb shelter facility near Washington D.C. deigned to help U.S. government officials survive a nuclear attack. Its status as secret notwithstanding, we do know that Mount Weather is relatively small and spartan. However, according to the novels that I read, Mount Weather is the space of a small city with its own subway and even a manmade lake.

Let's hope that Mount Weather becomes obsolete, shall we?

The MST3K before MST3K

It seems that there was an early ancestor of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, the show which featured a man and his robot friends in silhouette, adding wiseacre comments to a film as it was shown on your TV.

On Sunday night, Turner Classic Movies will be airing The Movie Album, a Vitaphone short from 1931. Warner Brothers collected some snippets of old silent movies and had a narrator comment and joke on the soundtrack. It's nowhere near as funny as MST3K. Yet, it is interesting to see that the latter idea for the TV show may have been so smart that a diiferent version of it had been tried before. (Not to mention the Fractured Flickers TV show.)

Was there an ur-MST3K?

I wonder if the MST3K writers ever heard of or saw any of the Movie Album shorts. Probably not, as only a handful of the Vitaphone shorts appear to have been made.

Merci, Charles

Those who remember Charles de Gaulle's
1967 announcement of "Vive Le Quebec Libre!" at Montreal's City Hall may be dismayed to learn that it is a T-shirt slogan now.

At Bang On, a hip clothing and accessories store in Burnaby's Metrotown Mall, I spotted a T-shirt graphic of le grand Charles, with arms upraised. It includes the slogan Vive Le Quebec Libre!

The evil that men do lives after them...on the fronts of T-shirts anyways. I am sure that it will sell well to the thousands of local teenagers who happen to be Quebec nationalists. :)

Don't mention the war

Blinkit has a series of very interesting posts about his recent trip to Bavaria. He's posted some photos as well.

Lotts o' blogging

I see that my former colleague, Jeremy Lott, has started a new blog to promote his new book In Defense of Hypocrisy. Good luck!

The sweatiest office? I have a winner here...

Paul Tuns is noting that a survey has found that Phoenix, Arizona is the "sweatiest city" in the United States.

As endorsed by Joe Meek

Some eBayer is offering a pebble that he found on the ground near 304 Holloway Road for sale. No bids yet, but when you can see a mutant giant Cheeto sell for over a million in one eBay auction, who knows what will happen?

No, Mom, I don't want it for Christmas. :)

Perhaps unclear on the concept

Ruggers know that rugby songs are supposed to be naughty, right? Well, this site of Rugby Songs must belong to a church league side because the selections include the lyrics of songs like Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Danny Boy and I Want To Hold Your Hand!

Politically incorrect and awful? Where can I find it on eBay!

After reading Kathy Shaidle's post on National Review's list of 50 Greatest Conservative rock songs, I am again reminded of why it's dangerous for me to be asked to participate in most such surveys of this type. I have an affinity for the awful, and I would put some selections by a group like The Goldwaters on my own list.

Suffice it to say that the lead singer of The Goldwaters observed many years later: "Our album wasn't 'nearly' unlistenable...it was completely unlistenable."

Insert joke about "FBI agents to next dig inside Rick's house" here

FBI agents, it's says here, are digging at a Michigan farm to find the remains of Jimmy Hoffa.

All sumo! All the Time!

Here's an interesting post on one blogger's visit to a sumo wrestler training academy.

Lede of the week

To kill or not to kill, that is the question. But before answering, let's pause for a moment.

Nature columnist Sharon Wootton, whose photo in The Olympian newspaper reveals her to be a sweet looking old lady, begins her column "Killing not effective solution to problem of crows" in Saturday's newspaper.

The Playboy before Playboy

Here's a link about The National Police Gazette, the first men's tabloid. Your turn-of-the century ancestor might have snuck a peak at it while waiting for a haircut at a barbershop near you.

These 1940s Police Gazette cover girls will give you an idea of what the magazine looked like.

I wonder if they are hiring. :) (Trap For Subway Mashers! West Virginia's Shocking Film Racket! Sorry, just practicing...)

Run O.J. Run!

O.J. Simpson poses for a comic book ad for sneakers in the 1970s.

You can find neat things in thrift stores

Here's something cool. Blogger Lee Hartsfeld has posted a 1961 recording of Bell Telephone's first attempts to make a computer talk.

Hooray for Hollywood, eh?

Film buffs will be pleased to know that Canada Post will be releasing a set of four postage stamps on May 26 honouring famous Canadians in Hollywood.

Cardston, Alberta native Fay Wray, who is best known for her role opposite the tallest and darkest co-star available to "act" with her in a certain 1933 film, will be one of those honoured.

Canada Post is keeping the identity of the other three Canadians to be honoured top secret for now.

Fay Wray is a good choice, but not an obvious selection. I would add that Mary Pickford, who was born and spent her early childhood in Toronto, should be an obvious choice for this series, given that "America's Sweetheart" was very influential in the Hollywood of her time. (However, given that Canada Post can be politically correct, I would not be surprised to see a choice like Nell Shipman as one of the four. Mrs. Shipman, recently the subject of an approving feminist biography, is best known for frolicking naked in the outdoors in the silent version of Back to God's Country.)

Keeping in mind that Canada Post has a rule that those honoured by a stamp should be dead, it might be fun to guess who the other three Canadians to be honoured in the stamp series will be.

Das Peppermint Twist

In the 1960s, you could count on every American hit song spawning various European language cover versions. A German-language cover of The Peppermint Twist, which I picked up for 50 cents at the Vancouver Record Collectors Association swap meet on the weekend, is just one example of many that I could cite. It was sung by Caterina and Silvio (with "Werner Muller und sein Orchester"!).

My German is almost non-existent, but I can tell that the lyrics of this cover version were rather freely translated. I'll give it a 78, though, because it has a good beat and it is easy to dance to.

Mah Na Nah Na?

Here's an interesting item about Mah Na Mah Na, that annoyingly persistent tune. I must add, however, that I do not believe Wikipedia's assertion that the song made its debut in a Swedish soft core porn film.

Hooray

I'm pleased to see that there's a new book about the history of The Dartmouth Review, the conservative U.S. student newspaper.

As someone who did a feature on one of the controversies plaguing the Review back in my CUP days, I'm pleased to see that the paper is still chugging along.

Dartmouth Review fans will be pleased to know that I wore a Dartmouth Indian T-shirt duirng my days at UBC. My colleagues at the very liberal UBC student newspaper didn't understand that they were supposed to be annoyed at me when I wore the T-shirt in SUB241k.

Of couse, I may have annoyed lots of people with my T-shirts back then. I also wore my Christian-made "No Surfin' In Hell" T-shirt to church.

Victor Appleton, taken behind the woodshed

Like many fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which made fun of bad movies and film shorts for many years on Comedy Central and the SciFi Channel, I regret that the show is off the air. However, wiseacre fans are borrowing the show characters to take wisenheimer pot shots at Internet spam and other printed materials using the same format as the original show.

Here's a link to John Nowak and Matt Plotecher's wonderfully funny take on Tom Swift and His War Tank, an inane boys book from the World One era. They make fun of the entire book.

"Misting" is now a verb describing giving something in print the MST3K treatment. It's something I would like to try someday...it looks like fun. By the way, a hat tip to Keith Palmer for posting one of my fave MISTings.

I think I went to high school with Zizi La Twisteuse

Everyone needs to watch a video of Sixties rockers The Tornados performing their song Robot while dressed in robot outfits. You can get a DVD copy of this at a new site about Scopitones, that early French ancestor of MTV.

Beware though...it seems that Scopitones are popular amongst U.S. troops serving in Task Force Scopitone overseas.

If you've never seen Les Classels, Quebec's singing Men From Glad, one of their hits is mentioned at the site too.

The most dismaying question that I've heard this morning

Slate's Examiner asks My eyeball just fell out of its socket. What should I do?.

50 million fans can't be wrong

Street Cow looks to be an amusing site.

Joe Meek: the movie

A new documentary about Joe Meek is just being finished.

Joe Who? Try Telstarweb's new blog, complete with MP3 downloads.

Sky Men, Sky Men!
Where do you come from?
Where are you going to?
Sky Men!

What would you do if you saw a UFO?

Well, if you were early 1960s British songwriter Geoff Goddard, you'd write and record Sky Men, with Joe Meek producing the song.

The song features a couple seeing a UFO, and then hearing a voice from the flying saucer.

97 pound weaklings, please take note

The Charles Atlas company is still in business, selling its isometric exercise programs.

But what if I don't mind having sand kicked in my face?

Just like Tech Sergeant Mom used to make

In my poking around, I have found an interesting recipe.

My readers who have served in an army may remember chipped beef on toast, also known fondly as "shit on a shingle."

Well, if the Second Armoured Division drops by for dinner, here is a platoon sized recipe for the recipe, which you may find in The Army Cook (published by the U.S. Government Printing Office in 1942).

Beef, Dried, Chipped on Toast

2 pounds fat, butter preferred
1 pound flour
4 13 ounce cans evaporated milk
4 gallons beef stock
7 pounds chipped or sliced dried beef
2 bunches parsley, chopped fine
1/2 ounce pepper
130 slices bread, toasted

Melt fat in pan and add flour. Cook a few minutes to brown flour. Add milk and beef stock, stirring constantly to prevent lumping. Add dried beef and cook five minutes. Add parsley and pepper. Serve hot on toast.

I think that this technical manual must have had a lot of recipes for dried food. I have a World War Two-era issue of National Geographic which has an article which explores how the U.S. Army tried to save space on supply ships by drying as much food as possible. Two pictures with the article show a big mountain of food and the car-sized bundle of food parcels that it made once it had been dried and preserved.

An Emily Litella moment

Please excuse this test post.

"Never mind!"

"There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals that Chuck Norris allows to live."

More little-known Chuck Norris Facts for your amusement.

"This comic strip sucks in all cultures"

The inimitable Tim Blair reposts some amusing examples of what might happen if popular cartoons had their own take on that Muslim cartoons fuss.

Movie sign, er I mean, tract sign!

Two of my favourite things are combined, as some online wags do a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 debunking of a Jack Chick tract.

Quiescent all over

About two weeks ago, the CBC aired a documentary called Shakin' All Over.

I thought it was good as far as it went, but it had some flaws.

How can you *call* a show "Shakin' All Over" and not talk about the pre-Burton Cummings Guess Who and their interesting experience with their cover version of that song? It was one of the first Canadian hits in the U.S. top 40.

Inexcusable, since even Les Classels, Quebec's singing "Men From Glad", got a few seconds of screen time.

The show assumed that Canadian pop and rock had to wait for the Baby Boomers to come along, before it started to have an impact. That would be news to Paul Anka (whose popularity in the U.S. was such that the National Film Board made a documentary about him, Lonely Boy, in the early 1960s). It would also be news to Bobby Curtola, The Beau-Marks, The Diamonds, etc., all of which had some hits in the U.S. in the late 1950s and 1960s.

You could detect a subtle attitude that the filmmakers had. Canadian rock only started to exist when leftish baby boomers with their free attitude towards sex (the CBC aired some footage of a topless dancer that one band had hired as part of a publicity stunt) and their progressive attitude towards politics (Buffy Sainte-Marie was profiled at some length) came along.

The CBC can put subtle biases even in an interesting documentary like Shakin' All Over.

I don't believe it

Here's Girl on the Right, playing along with one of those blogger "tag" games that I am never asked to participate in:


Four jobs you've had:

Florist, escort/dominatrix, recruiter for an oil company...

I think that she can't be at all serious with that particular answer. What do you think?

An investment

My blogging friend Kevin Michael Grace is hoping that you can help him to make some improvements to his swell blog. Do lend him an ear.

If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.

40 Things That Only Happen In Movies

Wunderbar, wunderbar!
What a perfect night for love
Here am I, here you are
Why, it's truly wunderbar!

I've been listening to my copy of the Kenny Everett compilation The World's Worst Record Show.

One particular track, Zarah Leander's Wunderbar is so over the top that it always brings a smile to my face. (Imagine a lady with a deep voice singing to the accompaniment of musicians who sound like a cross between a Strauss waltz orchestra and a beer garden oom-pa-pah band.)

Imagine my dismay when I find, upon looking at the record label, that Wunderbar is a Cole Porter song! (I think it's from Kiss Me Kate.) Cole, how could you!?!

Have a dog poop on your least favourite website

Net Disaster allows you to type in a website address. The software then visits various animated disasters upon it, such as being attacked by Martians, etc.

Hat tip: Antonia Zerbisias.

Good to see

I see that Linda Frum is writing again, doing feature interviews for Maclean's magazine.

I've always liked Ms. Frum's work, so I shall forgive her in advance for writing for the Report magazines' chief competition. :) Good luck to her.

Tod K. Maffin, boffin!

Before Tod Maffin became a technomedia guru he was my successor as the B.C. Bureau Chief of Canadian University Press.

"Bureau Chief" was a relative term, of course. The bureau had one person.

I tried to become the National Bureau Chief, in charge of CUP's news service, but was thrashed in the election to that post. It was all for the best though. Had I moved to Ottawa, I would never have met my friend Rajiv and started going to his church. The church remains a very cool place to go.

Too much time on my hands

The Bionic Woman Files is a tribute page about the Bionic Woman TV show.

Could you survive in 1973?

The BBC, which has a new TV show about a cop who has been time-travelled to the year 1973, has a fun quiz asking Could you survive happily in 1973?

I flunked the quiz because I am too modern, which surprised me.

Memoirs are better when you lie

John Gushue cites two interesting and recent examples of "memoirs" that are heavily embellished.

Won't get fooled again, as the title of that old rock song says.

"He's quite the boy"

Here's a recent newpspaper feature on Chad Allan, the first lead singer of The Guess Who. Mr. Allan, who I was fortunate enough to know briefly during my teen years, now sings in seniors' homes.

Understandably, the fellow who sang lead on Shakin' All Over includes a couple of uptempo 1950s R and B songs in his set. He also told The Vancouver Sun that as baby boomers age he might be able to include a Beatles or Rolling Stones song in his act.

The CBC version of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 would make the little baby Jesus cry

Something Awful humorously speculates what several U.S. TV channels would do if they decided to bring back Mystery Science Theatre 3000 on their networks.

Hat tip: Satellite News.

Chuck Norris lost his virginity before his father did

Sam Kirk has posted some amusing "facts" about Chuck Norris.

I am woman!
Or, why cribbing can be dangerous

Buckets of Grewal has found some bloopers caused when workers for Ontario Tory candidate John Sprovieri just lifted an "issues page" from B.C. MP Nina Grewal's page without changing some entries.

Voters, Buckets of Grewal chortles, were no doubt surprised to learn, until the bloopers were fixed, that Mr. Sprovieri is married to outgoing Tory MP Gurmant Grewal. Moreover, they at first forgot to change the part where Mrs. Grewal noted that she was pro-choice because "I am a woman. End of discussion."

Dief the Chief must be spinning in his grave. :)

The 9th wonder of the world

Popular Science reports on the invention of Silly Putty in 1945.

The greatest writers of all time!

Poking around the internet, I have found tribute sites to two great writers.

First, Lionel Fanthorpe, who didn't let the pressing deadlines for his science fiction novels impair his efforts to produce quality writing:

"To meet his grueling deadlines, Fanthorpe employed an unusual technique. He dictated his masterworks into a reel to reel tape recorder, oftentimes under the cover of a blanket to enhance his concentration. He would then ship those tapes off to a pool of typists for transcription. This created many unique problems. People who die in one chapter reappear a chapter or two later because it was forgotten that they were dead..."

If mysteries are more your style, you may learn more about Harry Stephen Keeler, who is thought to be the worst mystery writer ever:

"...In the late thirties, Keeler's style began to depart even further from normal prose. His books were dripping with outre elements (such as bordellos of freaks) and twisted into supremely convoluted webwork plots--but in many works, he removed almost all of the action from the immediate scene and presented it through dialogue. And often this dialogue consists of page after page of thick, artificial dialect..."

Springtime for you-know-who

As someone who also loves the 1968 movie The Producers (so much so, that I have almost memorized big chunks of the film), I found myself agreeing with a lot of Roger Ebert's take on the 2005 remake of The Producers.

That said, after seeing Uma Thurman's take on Ulla, I have decided that I need a receptionist. Now!

:)