April 2010 Archives

Aside from one intensely unhappy week back around 1995 or thereabouts, I have proudly worn a full beard for two decades now. That's not an easy thing when you live in a community that places a high value on conformity, and where the local ideal of how a respectable male is supposed to look hasn't changed significantly since the Eisenhower Administration.

I've had girls tell me they wouldn't go out with me because I have a beard.

I once had an interviewer ask me to shave it off in exchange for a minimum-wage job working essentially alone in a warehouse, where nobody would ever see me. I've had other interviewers who haven't said a word, but who've visibly lost interest in me as soon as they got a good look at my face. On one memorable occasion, I was told not to even bother filling out an application until I came back "presentable." (I told that doughy-faced spud-nugget what he could do with his discriminatory and frankly chickenshit application process.)

And I've put up with sidelong glances and silent disapproval from countless fellow Utahns, who can't say why, exactly, but just know that there's something wrong with men who have beards.

The irony, of course, is that many of this state's founders were impressively bearded themselves. No less a figure than Brigham Young sported a mustache-less Quaker-style beard in his latter days (forgive me, I couldn't resist). Presidents of the Mormon Church Lorenzo Snow and Joseph F. Smith -- not to be confused with his uncle, the Joseph Smith who founded the Church -- were both approaching ZZ Top territory with their lengthy neckwarmers. And Brother Brigham's righthand man, the infamous gunfighter Porter Rockwell, would've fit right in with the Allman Brothers Band. But I guess that kind of glorious hirsuteness went out with polygamy and the coming of statehood.

If I sound bitter, well, it's sometimes hard not to be. After all, I'm a nice guy, and I've always kept my facial fuzz neat and clean. My beard is a symbol of my individuality and masculinity, and also kind of a family tradition to boot -- my father has worn a beard most of my life, as did my uncle Louie, the one who died from ALS. And damn it, I just like how I look with it better than the way I do without it.

I've long comforted myself by rationalizing that the rampant beardism I so often encounter is just a parochial Utah thing, that things are surely different out there beyond the Zion Curtain. And you know what? I was right:

A recent study in the Journal of Marketing Communications found that men with beards were deemed more credible than those who were clean-shaven. ... The researchers say the implications of their findings could extend far beyond advertisements. For instance, male politicians might want to consider not shaving because the "presence of a beard on the face of candidates could boost their charisma, reliability, and above all their expertise as perceived by voters, with positive effects on voting intention."

More credible? Charisma, reliability, and expertise? Now that's more like it! But perhaps you're not yet convinced. In that case, consider this chart:

You'll have to click on it to blow it up large enough to read; be prepared to scroll, it's pretty big. And after you've clicked and pondered, then tell me you don't have a new-found respect for my beard. Go on, just tell me. Because charts prove everything, right?

Ever feel like the summer blockbusters are all basically the same? Like maybe there's a single mystical ur-movie and everything else is merely an imperfect iteration of it?

Yeah, me, too...

Yawn. I can't recall ever feeling so completely apathetic about the approach of the summer movie season. Oh wait... last summer was pretty lame, too, the first time in decades that I consciously chose not to bother with most of the new releases. Looks like that's probably going to be the pattern this year as well.

I still want to see Iron Man 2, though.

(For anyone who cares, this mash-up trailer features clips from 24 upcoming features. I'm placing a list of them below the fold. If you care...)

I seem to be writing and thinking about music quite a bit lately, thanks in part to my Friday Evening Videos feature, but also because I've recently experienced a genuine reawakening of interest in the subject. Blame it on the iPod I got for my birthday a few months back. I'm still not entirely sold on the iPod/digital music concept; I find I'm not inclined to carry the thing around with me the way many people seem to, and I'm still uncomfortable with the thought of my music existing as intangible data that could vanish in the wink of an eye if something goes wrong... and let's not even get started on the OCD-fueled dilemmas I'm having over the choice of what, exactly, to rip into my iTunes library! (No, I'm not ripping everything in my collection, for various reasons.) But having a new toy has inspired me to start seeking out new songs and albums again after years of honestly not caring much about music at all, so that's something.

Given all that, I'd say this is the perfect time to do the lengthy music meme I spotted over at Byzantium's Shores yesterday morning. And one... two... one-two-three-four!

I had a fairly grandiose idea for this edition of Friday Evening Videos. I was going to do a survey of music vids that used science-fiction imagery or themes, even when they had nothing to do with the song itself, as in the case of last week's Queen clip. This practice was more common than you might think, especially in the early '80s when the Star Wars-inspired sci-fi boom was still cresting.

But you know, I started thinking today that most of the vids I have in mind were less feelgood space opera than grim, post-apocalyptic dystopia. And given that it's a gray, gloomy day in the SLC and that my mood has been teetering toward melancholy all week anyhow, I decided I really didn't want to go to that place.

Besides, I've had this song stuck in my head for the past several days:

Scandal is better known for its hit "The Warrior" than this one, but I remember "Goodbye to You" getting a fair amount of airplay as well, and honestly I think it's a much catchier tune. In fact, it's a nearly perfect example of the guitar-driven power pop that seemed to be so plentiful right around the time I was getting interested in music. I loved this stuff then, and I still love it now.

Too bad the video for such a great song isn't especially noteworthy. It reminds me of the lip-sync competition we had one week in my high-school drama class, just a bunch of kids practicing their dance moves and vamping at each other. But that simplicity is kind of appealing in its own way, and the video does present a nice time capsule of the state of fashion circa 1982. I really like these looks, actually. They're distinct from the decade before, definitely "Eighties," but not yet taken to the ridiculous extremes that would mark the latter half of the decade, i.e., the huge hair and the shoulder pads and such.

And of course Scandal's lead singer, Patty Smyth, was easy on the eyes. What is it about these pouty brunettes, anyhow?

Scandal disintegrated in 1984, not long after they released "The Warrior." Smyth went on to record a number of solo hits, most notably a duet with Don Henley called "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough." I think I heard recently that Scandal has reformed and is supposed to have a new album out some time this year.

And with that, I'm off to see if I can shake these blues... have a better one, kids!

I've just run across something very strange: a highlight reel from a 1954 episode of an anthology series called General Electric Theater starring -- are you ready for this? -- Ronald Reagan and James Dean.

That rending sound you just heard may indeed have been the fabric of space and time giving way like cheap nylons that've been left in the sun for a year. It's mind-boggling to think two men who would become such polar-opposite symbols in our popular culture -- one, a rock-jawed, law-and-order establishment man, the other the embodiment of youthful restlessness and psychological frailty -- could have ever crossed paths either socially or professionally. You just don't think of them existing in the same world, really. But here they are, in glorious black and white, both playing essentially to type.

I was just looking through my clippings file -- yes, I'm a big enough nerd that I keep a file of stuff I'd like to blog about! -- and I see quite a few items I've been meaning to comment on for a while, but haven't yet gotten around to. Here's a selection of them, briefly noted:

I thought this was funny, if somewhat uncomfortably close to the mark for those who were quite convinced they were going to lead extraordinary lives when they grew up and are recently feeling more and more disappointed in themselves. Not that I would have any idea what that's like, of course...

Source, via.

As previously stated, I have never smoked pot nor do I have any inclination to ever alter that condition. Nevertheless, I have become convinced that it's time to change our nation's destructive, expensive, and ultimately futile drug policies. Consider the following (just ignore the psychadelic animation, retro film clips, and moldy damn-hippie music, which regrettably trivialize the otherwise rational argument being presented):

Here's a little more food for thought: that promised $6 billion in annual tax revenue is exactly the amount by which President Obama is proposing to expand NASA's budget. You want to go back to the moon or to Mars? It just might be possible -- or at least a little more plausible -- if we get practical about turning mary-jane and other assorted money-sinks into revenue streams.

My thanks to Sullivan for posting this video. Oh, and if you're wondering about the "4/20" reference in this entry's title, it seems that this date, April 20, a.k.a. 4/20 or just 420, has become a sort of counterculture holiday. The University of Colorado in Boulder hosts the pre-eminent celebration of this day; every year, thousands of people gather on the U of C's quad and light up at exactly 4:20 PM in a sort of communal mass toke. Not my sort of thing, but hey, I'm basically a live-and-let-live kind of guy...

Shuttle Discovery is back on the ground this morning after 10 days in orbit, servicing the International Space Station. A nice video of the picture-perfect landing is here.

Next up will be the final flight for shuttle Atlantis, then the swan song for Endeavour, and finally Discovery will fly one last time to close out the shuttle program.

I feel like a child is dying.

After this morning's grim entry, I'm feeling the need to lighten the mood a little, so here's a Star Trek-related meme that was recently done by both Jaquandor and SamuraiFrog. Seems I'm always the last one on the block to catch the latest meme these days... sigh.

As we go about commemorating what happened in Oklahoma City fifteen years ago today, I'd like to point out a few things that have been forgotten (or intentionally obscured for political reasons) during the intervening years:

Terrorism is a tactic, not a creed, a religion, or a race. Terrorists do not all come from a specific country or speak a specific language. Other people who happen to share a creed, religion, race, or language with terrorists are not necessarily terrorists themselves.

Terrorists cannot be identified merely by the way they look. Indeed, they are most effective when they look just like us. Sometimes, they are us.

Terrorists don't resort to terrorism because they're afraid of a "fair fight." Terrorism is a technique employed by those who don't have the resources to effectively combat a larger, better equipped military force. Terrorists are not cowards. They may be desperate and/or misguided, they may be lacking what we would think of as honor, they may even be insane, but they are most certainly not lacking in courage. And thinking of them that way only underestimates them.

The point of terrorism is not specifically to kill people, but to make the survivors afraid, to make them lose the will to continue doing whatever it is the terrorists don't want them doing. The best way to deny terrorists their victory is to "keep calm and carry on."

Most importantly, there is no way to stop terrorism per se. You can stop a particular terrorist plot or terrorist group, but terrorism itself is an idea, and you can't destroy those. If we exterminated al Qaeda to the last man, if we finally decided to go all-in and turn the entire Middle East into radioactive glass, it wouldn't mean that there would never be another act of terrorism.

Just some food for thought as we remember those who lost their lives to the most destructive act of terrorism perpetrated on US soil until 9/11/2001. May they rest in peace.

I'm a little late posting up this week's music vid, but hey, it's still before midnight, right? Just consider this my homage to the good old days of middle school, when we kids who lived out in the sticks had to stay up 'til the wee hours to see Friday Night Videos because we didn't have cable service -- and thus the holy font of all that was cool, circa 1983, MTV -- like the lucky urbanites to the north.

I planned to write yesterday evening about the gorgeous weather we're having this week, and the pleasant lunchtime walk I took and the nostalgic mood it engendered... you know, my usual sentimental drivel. But then the earthquake struck.

No, I'm not kidding.

The actor Robert Culp, who unexpectedly died a couple weeks ago at the age of 79, has long struck me as an example of an increasingly rare type of American male. Like Peter Graves, who also recently passed away, Culp always seemed to project an air of confident masculinity. Or masculine confidence, if you'd prefer. Either way, he was a good old-fashioned "man's man." Not macho, with all the arrogance, cruelty, and phoniness often implied by that term, and not misogynistic, either, but simply a man who had no hang-ups about being a man. It was a trait of his generation, I think, something as instinctive for them as breathing. And they were the last generation for whom carrying the Y chromosome would come so easily.

Now, I've got nothing against feminism per se -- I think the women's movement of the '60s and '70s was both necessary and generally resulted in positive change -- but it did make being a man considerably more complicated for those males who grew up in the aftermath, especially those of us who looked to pop culture for guidance. What the hell were we supposed to be like, anyway? The sensitive Alan Alda/Phil Donohue intellectual types that were lauded in the '70s as "the new man," or the reactionary, bodybuilding action heroes who took over the big screen in the '80s? How can we be kind and noble without being self-loathing and tortured, strong without being hypermasculinized caricatures? I'm 40 years old and I'm still trying to find the proper balance between those extremes, to figure out just what being a man is all about.

But guys like Robert Culp, Peter Graves, Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Clint Eastwood -- God, yes, Clint! -- they just seemed to come into the world already knowing. No, that's not quite right... they wouldn't have even wondered how to be a man. They simply were. And that I think is the secret of their enduring appeal, the reason why we still think they're cool even now, years after the prime of their careers and even, in many cases, their deaths. I admire men like this, and I envy them. And I'm really starting to miss them now that there are so few of them left.

Jaquandor points us today to an opinion piece by comic-book writer and novelist Warren Ellis on the public's waning enthusiasm for manned spaceflight. Ellis is a bit more curmudgeonly than myself -- I know, difficult to believe, but as misanthropic as I sometimes get, I can't quite bring myself to suggest that Twilight fans "could be rendered down into their constituent chemicals and scattered on barren land as organic fertiliser." The woman I love reads those books, you know, and I'd rather not see her turned into Gro-Mor. Go figure.

I also don't share Ellis' concern with getting people into space as a hedge against extinction. This is a good reason for colonizing other worlds, to be sure, and it's one many people believe ought to be paramount, but I myself have never been able to warm to this particular line of thinking. I'm just not enough of a doomsday-ist, I guess; I am less inspired by fear than by nobler sentiments.

Which is why Ellis' rant doesn't start to echo my own thinking until right about here:

Exploration has always been central to the human drive. Not because of population pressure, nor trade necessity, but because it's in our essential nature to wonder what and where is next. We are unique in the biosphere as creatures of imagination. Robot missions do not thrill us because the empathetic engagement is on a level with watching a Roomba do a decent job of hoovering some carpet fluff. It is nowhere near the same as seeing and hearing one of us walking somewhere brand new and telling us about it in the knowledge (however misguided that might eventually prove) that more of us, the rest of us, will follow.

We're almost resentful of human space flight now, because politicians and greedy technocrats screwed us out of the translunar Martian colony future we all thought was coming. We're just a little too resigned to another few years of puttering around in low Earth orbit, of quickie space tourism and trying not to fart in the International Space Station for 30 days at a time. Even the Chinese, the current eager lions of crewed missions, admit that their Moon missions may prove to be robotic.

In my life I've seen a species go from believing it will live in space to accepting, all too easily, that it will die on the same old dirt its ancestors rot in. Having a nice robot phone is not an acceptable substitute for a future.

Here, here. I have a lot of respect and affection for those Mars rovers that Ellis sneeringly dismisses as "skateboards" (actually, I think I'm guilty of calling them that myself), but it's the idea of human eyes looking out on those fantastic, literally unearthly landscapes that fires me up. Being human means you do some things simply because no one else has ever done them before, and somewhere along the line, I think we've lost touch with that aspect of our nature. I couldn't care less about the latest cell phone, myself. Buttons, touchscreen, telepathic interface... who cares? It's a phone. But crossing the horizon, just to find out what's over there? Now that's exciting!

After a stressful week at work that included the passing specter of layoffs (thankfully averted) followed by one night when I was at the office until 10:15 PM, as well as a busy calendar of late that's left me feeling behind on a lot of household chores, errands, and projects, I decided to take today off and try to catch up. Or at least catch my breath.

I awoke this morning a bit later than usual, feeling atypically refreshed. There were blue skies outside, my adoring kitty Blackjack was at my feet, and I was all ready for a hot breakfast and a cup of good coffee, precursors to an excellent and productive day.

Savoring the warmth of the mug in my hand and feeling a mild sense of pleasant anticipation, I took my first sip of go-go juice. There was something... odd... about it. I took another sip. Odder still, but I still couldn't place it. It was an aftertaste, something vaguely floral. And it seemed to be getting stronger, too. On the third sip, I started to think... lavender maybe? Yes, definitely lavender. Lavender with... ylang-ylang essences, whatever the hell they are... dish soap, in other words! I hadn't rinsed the basket from the coffee maker well enough the night before and I'd just brewed an entire pot of Peet's House Blend premium roast with lavender and ylang-ylang essences.

I may not be at work, but a Monday is apparently still a Monday.

It's that time again, the end of a long and (for me, anyway) especially grinding week. I need to decompress, but since I've never gotten around to replacing the bottle that used to be in my bottom desk drawer, I think maybe I'll head on over to the student union... find myself a spot in front of that projection TV the size of a bank-vault door... I've got a paper tray filled with those greasy English chips I like, a big splotch of ketchup in the corner for dipping... what's on today? Oh, this is good! It's that song I used to consider my personal anthem back in my, shall we say, less settled days:

I realize there's a certain redundancy in the videos I keep choosing... Look, it's another cavernous performance space filled with moody shadows, except for the shafts of light silhouetting the band. Look, more self-important posturing while wearing ridiculous outfits! Look, more hair!

Meh, whatever. I like the song. It resonated very strongly with me for a couple of years, all that stuff about "another heart in need of rescue" and "the lonely street of dreams." It fit my notion of myself as a Byronic hero brooding in the dark about lost love. Or maybe it was frustrated lust. So hard to remember now.

Speaking of lust, incidentally, I really like the redhead who is, to paraphrase the immortal words of Bowling for Soup, shaking her ass on the hood of Whitesnake's car. You might recognize her; she's a model-turned-actress named Tawni Kitaen who had a few good years in the late '80s and early '90s with frequent guest spots on TV series such as Seinfeld, Married... with Children, and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. She also appeared in the movie Bachelor Party (the one Tom Hanks doesn't put on his resume any more), co-hosted America's Funniest Home Videos, and had a starring role in the short-lived syndicated sitcom The New WKRP in Cincinnati (which is actually where I first noticed her, as best I can recall).

And she provided eye-candy for a number of Whitesnake videos in addition to this one. That's not surprising when you consider she was dating the lead singer, David Coverdale, during the band's most successful years. (Did you notice that they share essentially the same hair style?) They would later marry for a brief, tumultuous period.

Sadly, time hasn't been very kind to her since her heavy-metal heyday. After several years in obscurity, she roared back into the public eye in 2002, charged with beating up her then-husband, a pro baseball player, and appearing in an infamous (and not very flattering) mugshot. Since then, she's had various substance-abuse and anger-management problems and is widely viewed as a bit of a nut case. (Perhaps we should've taken the end of the video, when she drags Coverdale into the back seat of a moving car, more seriously!)

She may be a wreck today, but back in her prime... wow. Remember what I wrote a while back about Kirsten Dunst sometimes getting a certain look in her eye that I find very, ahem, appealing? Tawni gets that look, too... it's especially nice right around the 4:05 mark, when she's mussing her hair. Yeah... that's a nice image to end the week on, don't you all think?

My friend Mike Gillilan sent this to me last night, and I thought it warranted sharing:

That's the space shuttle Discovery (obviously) arriving at the International Space Station. I believe the structure in the upper part of the photo is one of several Russian spacecraft currently docked there; the Soyuz and Progress capsules serve as taxis, resupply ships, garbage disposal units, and, in an emergency, escape pods for the station crew.

Sorry the thumbnail is so small, but this is apparently how Twitter codes images for embedding on other websites. If you click on it, you'll be taken to the full-size Twitpic version. It's worth a click, believe me; the sharpness of the original is breathtaking.

After you look at this picture, be sure to check out the entire feed. It's the personal Twitter account (or whatever the hell you call it) of a Japanese astronaut named Soichi Noguchi, and he posts at least a couple new photos every day. Here are a couple of my recent favorites:

That's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the day Discovery launched. The two roundish features to the right are the launch pads, one of which would've been occupied by the shuttle when this was taken. And here's one that's not so great, technically speaking -- there's quite a bit of "noise" in the image -- but is beautiful and awesome -- in the original, pre-1980s sense of that word -- nonetheless:

The green glow that looks like classic Star Trek phaserfire is in fact the aurora borealis, the famed northern lights; a pair of Soyuz capsules are in the foreground.

As much as I gripe about the way the 21st century has turned out (as opposed to the way we all imagined it), how incredible is it that we have people living in space, taking photographs of what they're seeing, and sending back to us via the Internet?

Just listening to some music while I sort through some photos, and the following verse from The Who's "It's Your Turn" jumped out at me:

There's a young kid inside me somewhere
He stays up all night, a vampire that never dies,
With the blood and the moon in his eyes
I hear his voice when I'm comin' down,
Sleep is for fools, who never see the sunrise,
Who never get to live twice.

Like most Who lyrics, that's a little obscure, but I think I get what they're saying, and it sounds a lot like how I feel these days. I've always been something a night-owl, and just lately... well, I haven't been sleeping much the last few weeks. I wouldn't mind so much if I was at least getting some things accomplished with my insomnia-derived extra time. But no, I simply seem to be awake...

UPDATE: Hmm. Curious. What seemed to so clearly mean one thing in the bleary-eyed night seems to have an entirely different meaning in the bleary-eyed morn. Looking at these lyrics now, I see they're about missing that feeling of being up all night, of being young and energetic and not wanting to miss anything. The vampiric inner kid is chastising the (adult) singer for giving in to the need for sleep, and the singer seems to regret that he can no longer stay up until sunrise the way he used to. Which I can, indeed, relate to.

But last night, I was thinking the verse was more about burning the candle at both ends (and in the middle, too), and the bit about sleep being for fools was a grimly ironic bit of gallows humor, i.e., someone who can't sleep resorting to sarcasm and saying, "eh, who needs it?" Which is where I've actually been lately. So I guess I can relate to this song any way you spin it.

I'm sure none of this is remotely interesting to anyone else, though. Sorry...

Would any of my Loyal Readers be surprised in the least to learn that I just scored 100% on the Boing Boing Star Wars Sound Effects Quiz?

Curiously, I had no problem identifying even those effects that come from the prequels. The only one I dithered over was something from the revised edition of the original film. Make of that what you will...

This was the scene in Florida early this morning as space shuttle Discovery lifted off before dawn for a rendezvous with the International Space Station:

Watch that video a couple of times, kids, and savor it with a bit of melancholy nostalgia, because this will be the last time anyone ever sees the golden flare of a space shuttle's main engines and solid-rocket boosters combined to banish the darkness. This flight is the last scheduled nighttime launch, and the last that will feature a full crew complement of seven astronauts. After this, only three missions remain before the surviving shuttles are sent off to the museums... and the way things are going, manned American spaceflight may be going with them.

I've been wanting to write for some time about the impending end of the shuttle program, as well as the president's desire to spike the Constellation program that would replace it, but it's such an emotional issue for me, and I am so ambivalent about the details, that the subject tends to elude me. Still, here are a few quasi-coherent thoughts:

You know, it's really not my intention to turn this blog into all music videos, all the time... I've just been too busy and/or exhausted lately to write about anything more substantive. I apologize for that, and hope to get back to something more interesting soon. In the meantime, I hope my Loyal Readers are at least enjoying these goofy retro-licious awesome! things I keep dredging out of the InterTubes.

This week's selection is yet another one I remember from the student-union TV lounge back in my early college days. This was apparently a highly impressionable time of life for me, or else there's something bubbling away in my subconscious these days that keeps pulling me back to that place. I'm half afraid to speculate what that might be. Anyway, here we have a solo hit from the Red Rocker, Sammy Hagar, in which he tries to show a bit more introspection and sensitivity than he usually displayed in his work with Van Halen, or his best-known solo monster-smash "I Can't Drive 55." This is "Give to Live" from the album I Never Said Goodbye (for those who care, Sammy cut this one in between the VH albums 5150 and OU812):

I know, I know... the pretension, the "peace and love" messaging, the hair, that jacket. If it helps any, the only part of this clip that's stayed with me over the years is the bridge, when he's sitting on the mountaintop talking about fate. I'd utterly forgotten all the clips of Hitler and mushroom clouds. But I still like the mood of the song, and hearing it again is evocative for me in the same way that "Hysteria" is. And it is kind of an interesting artifact of the final days of the Cold War, when global thermonuclear war really seemed possible. I remember worrying about that on almost a daily basis. I don't think the children of Gen X can possibly understand that. Neither terrorists nor even climate change represent the same kind of utter existential threat we felt like we were living under then. As recent as the '80s often feel to me, this sort of thing really pounds home just what a different and distant time it was.

But rather than dwell on obsolete cultural dread, let's do like we did then and turn our attention to more frivolous pursuits. This week's bonus video is David Lee Roth's solo hit, "Just Like Paradise," released around the same time as "Give to Live," as I recall. I find it interesting how closely these two videos parallel each other:

Well, they're similar in the sense that they both alternate studio performance footage with rock-climbing scenery, anyhow. But where Sammy is trying to say Something Important, Dave's song is just about flash and fun and gettin' laid. Come to think of it, that's a pretty good encapsulation of the difference between Roth's work with Van Halen and Sammy's "Van Hagar" stuff.

Incidentally, I remember having more than one argument over this song with Shelly, my then-girlfriend. She was a New Wave girl and didn't have a lot of use for Roth (or Sammy or Van Halen, or pretty much any of the music I liked), and would always try to get me to change the station whenever "Just Like Paradise" came on the radio of the little VW Rabbit in which I commuted to the U of U. I, of course, would refuse and proceed to sing along at the top of my lungs, throwing in a leering waggle of my eyebrows at the more suggestive lyrics, no doubt hoping she'd eventually come around to seeing the debauched wisdom of ol' Diamond Dave and let me investigate that whole paradise thing. Good times...

The Muppets strike again with their latest viral music vid:

I don't think this one is quite as funny as that insane version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" or the Beaker video I posted a while back, but it's a welcome throwback to the violent, early incarnation of the Muppets that was seen on The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live, among others, before they were domesticated (i.e., sanitized) and came to be thought of as kids-only fare. As I've said before, I think Jim Henson would be tickled by these new virals that are working so hard to recapture the wild, subversive energy his creations used to have. I know I am.

Have I mentioned, incidentally, that "Stand by Me" is one of my all-time favorite songs?