VIDEO: "ET MOI ET MOI ET MOI" BY ME

I recorded "Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi," a cover of a cool Jacques Dutronc song about a year ago, which surprised me by proving to be one of the most difficult recording projects I ever took on. The song is completely in French, is kind of long and fast, and repeats very few words. I don't speak French, not even a little, and couldn't memorize it fast enough (or probably ever). So I had to resort to writing out the whole thing phonetically after listening over and over to both Dutronc's recorded version and a live one. I am positive that my American-Midwestern phonetic French singing is to the French what Japanese-phonetic singing is to me: FUNNY. Therefore, this has value! It also has a cool feedback guitar in it, so there!

Anyway, a friend said, you know, why don't you make a video for that, and I said, well, OK. So I did. Oui oui fromage un deux trois! (If you actually like this song, you can download it from my Soundcloud page.)

Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi - Marianne

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SCREW KEYBOARD CAT, HERE ARE DOGS THAT CAN REALLY PLAY THE PIANO

These lovely German dogs show off their perfect pitch and some serious dog treat motivation by playing notes on command. I would like to teach our Ellie to do this, but I don't know where to buy a dog piano. Also, the tone of the ocarina makes me want to slay things. Please to enjoy!

Dogs Perfect Pitch Piano Playing



The Same Two Dogs Playing The "Flea Waltz" Together On Piano

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THE NIGHT STORIES

My mother likes to recount stories of my babyhood, as most mothers enjoy doing so about their children. Whether they are touching, dramatic, funny, or just marking a moment in time that has slipped into the ever-more-distant past matters little; the act of telling the stories is a gift.

All mothers are familiar with long nights spent trying to comfort and soothe their infants to sleep. Countless hours are spent holding and rocking and walking, singing and shushing. My mom tells me that I was a good baby, not prone to crabbiness nor upset, but that I much preferred being awake to being asleep. She recounts one night as she held me on her shoulder, patting my back to burp me after a late feeding. Pat-pat-pat, in triplet-time she would tap my tiny back, pat-pat-pat, pat-pat-pat. And then…

Pat-pat-pat.

My hand, unsnuggled enough to reach to my mother’s own back, patted her in return, in triplet-time.

Impossible, she thought, as she stopped burping me. A test:

Pat-pat-pat.

Pat-pat-pat.

Pat-pat-pat.

Pat-pat-pat.

From then on, she says, I would always pat back, and she and I would smile at each other, our little rhythm set.

********************

A few years later, in my bedroom, I was often plagued by strange floating visions as I tried to sleep. They were always the same thing: newsprint and text, chunks of words that swooped like horrible ghosts wherever I looked, becoming wildly large or minuscule in great swings, my eyes closed or open. In thinking about it now, I suspect an over-worked, immature optic system, but then there seemed to be no reason nor answers nor any way to stop it. In the dark room with just the yellow vertical sliver of light coming through my slightly-opened door, I would call out for my mother, distraught. She would come to the end of my bed and sit there, asking me what I was seeing, how she could help, sad that I was sad. She would sit there, hours sometime, calming me just by being there, until the ghost print went away and I could rest.

********************

Any speck of light in my bedroom drives me crazy now, whether from a tiny gap in the curtains, a blinking red dot on the DVD player, or the glow from the alarm clock on my nightstand. Light, any light, wakes me up, irritable for it.

My daughter, now nine years old, sleeps every night with her lamp on. For as many times as I creep in to silently turn it off, I will find that she has turned it back on. I don’t fight it now; the glow of her pink lampshade brings her comfort, brightening the corners, taking away the strange shadows, as the complete, dense, unseeable blackness of my room comforts me by illuminating nothing at all.

********************

I see my mother only once a year now. She and I will hug each other, me now taller than she, her bones felt easily through her sweater. Pat-pat-pat, I will slowly and deliberately tap on her shoulder. She will smile broadly, hug me tighter, and pat-pat-pat my own shoulder, curving across her own, fifty years on.

(Me, 1962, taken by my mom)

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GUEST VIDEO REVIEW BY MISS NINE: "CANDY CANDY" BY KYARY PAMYU PAMYU

Mick Collins of the Dirtbombs sent this...hmm...very interesting Japanese music video over his Twitter stream last night. Take a look.

きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ (Kyary Pamyy Pamyu) - CANDY CANDY

(English translation)

Maybe in the desk, maybe in my pocket, maybe in my bag
I’m always forgetting all the time, I ponder my selections
Just a little, just a little, for real – just a little, happiness is coming alive
A sweet smell lingers in this fluffy atmosphere

Candy candy candy candy candy
Sweetie sweetie girls love
Chewing chewing chewing chewing chewing
Cutie cutie ch-ch-ch-chewing love
Candy candy candy candy candy
Sweetie sweetie girls love
Chewing chewing chewing chewing chewing
Cutie cutie, so candy love

Ah, but, this or that, everyone
Wants to be amazing
I heard your request, but I had no time to tend to it
Because, because, I’m a girl after-all, so I treasure “now”
A sweet smell lingers in this fluffy atmosphere

Candy candy candy candy candy
Sweetie sweetie girls love
Chewing chewing chewing chewing chewing
Cutie cutie ch-ch-ch-chewing love
Candy candy candy candy candy
Sweetie sweetie girls love
Chewing chewing chewing chewing chewing
Cutie cutie, so candy love

Candy love candy love
Candy love candy love
Candy love candy love
Candy love candy love
Ch-ch-ch-chewing love

Candy candy candy candy candy
Candy candy candy candy candy

Candy candy candy candy candy
Sweetie sweetie girls love
Chewing chewing chewing chewing chewing
Cutie cutie ch-ch-ch-chewing love
Candy candy candy candy candy
Sweetie sweetie girls love
Chewing chewing chewing chewing chewing
Cutie cutie candy love

I, in turn, forwarded the YouTube link to MissNine, who wrote back with this review:


"what the heck you can see the stages, the girls have numbers on their faces, she has bread in her mouth, and why the heck is there a onion that is not even candy"

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DOGS SCARED BY FARTS

I'm pretty tired today, but I'm still 100% committed to bringing you quality internet entertainment. Here are videos of dogs scared by farts. You are welcome!

The Sheltie

The Pug



The Westie



The Weimaraner 



The Pit Bull



The Boxer



The Pomeranian



The Bulldog

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I MADE YOU A POLITICAL CARTOON

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IPHONE PHOTO ROUNDUP: LE TUB SALOON, HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA

From our recent family vacation to SoFla, a few iPhone photos from Le Tub, a most unique restaurant in Hollywood, Florida, which lies between Miami and Fort Lauderdale on a long stretch of Atlantic Ocean beach. Did we head over to Le Tub because Oprah said she liked it? NO, I HATE OPRAH. We went because we heard the burgers were spectacular and the place was decorated with lots of old toilets. That is MORE than enough for me!

We were lucky enough to get a very rustic wooden table during the busy lunchtime rush, and chose to sit outside underneath a copious canopy of trees. Both the kids got pooped on by the loud tropical birds that hang out there, which kind of horrified them but that I found karmically beautiful, as they both had been bickering earlier in our VERY LOVELY HOTEL ROOM. The avian goop-blast didn't bum them out too badly, and just added to the memories.

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LUST, LEWDNESS, LOONS, & LOTS OF LESBIANS: MY FAVORITE PULP NOVEL COVERS

I am just old enough to remember the last of the Golden Years of the Pulp Novel, those gloriously tawdry, cheap paperbacks that featured wildly-lurid art and titles, and tales of all kinds of taboo, salacious activities like Martian rape and girl-on-girl sweater-sharing. Of course, my family would NEVER EVER have had any of these around, but every so often I'd see one at a newsstand or in the hands of a sweaty neighborhood teenager. You couldn't help but look at them, as they usually featured busty, scantily-clad ladies, guns, aliens, and exclamation points, but then you'd worry someone SAW you looking, which would be unbearably embarrassing. In some way, these were even worse to be caught with than Playboy or Penthouse; not only were they overtly sexual, they were overtly stupid. Many, I believe, were written by dogs.

Let us celebrate these days with a few brilliant pulp novel covers of the mid-20th Century. They don't make 'em like this anymore...mainly because you can see everything you ever could think of on the internet now. What a world.

Terrifying Newt Wars!!! AAHHH! Actually, "Newt Wars" takes on a much more frightening prospect these days, if you think about Gingrich and his moon base.

"Ann's price was high..." For fifty bucks, you won't even get me to take off a sock. FAIL, Ann.

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A DARLING LIGHT: THE SHINS "SEPTEMBER"

It's probably sort of odd -- for someone who writes as much as I do and who loves music as I do, lyrics are not at all my focus in a song. It's the sound that pulls me in first, whether that's the three-chord smash-n-bash of my beloved garage rock, a clever melody, or an unexpected harmony that makes me smile. The immediate emotional rush of sound fits my nature, I suppose. But there are so many great song lyrics, of course; funny or thoughtful or wickedly phrased, using words as percussive elements, seamless with the music. And sometimes, I come across a song where the lyrics are just so good they appear in my head days and weeks and even years after the song is over, and remain as little floating fragments of perfectly expressed humanity, long examined and held dear.

That damned James Mercer. Not only is the leader of the Shins a near-flawless vocalist, but he's now written one of the loveliest songs I've ever heard. "September" was composed for his wife, Marisa Kula.  As he recently said at Twenty-Four Bit, "The trouble that I got in was that I told Marisa, 'This is going to be your song,' so I knew the lyrics had to be right on. I wanted it to be a diamond -- and I feel like the work paid off."


It did. A measure of a gifted writer is an ability to take something deeply personal and craft it in such a way that the words sing to the souls of strangers as well. To be able to pull from the air just the right words and phrases that express the intimacy, timelessness, and astounding random fortune of love in 3:34 minutes reminds me that Mercer is one very talented guy, and that Kula must be one amazing woman to have inspired such lyrics.

Thanks, you two.

"September" will be available on the Shins' new album, Port of Morrow, on March 20th on Amazon, iTunes, or your local record store.

"September," The Shins

Into this strange elastic world,

Pontus kindly gave up a pearl.

of his eternal stone and mud,

and ain’t she lovely,

bone and blood.

Born of the sea

a thousand miles

away from me.

A court of angels,

wards of the sun.

The future forming,

a curse undone.

Under our softly burning lamps she

takes her time

telling stories of our possible lives,

and love is the ink in the well

when her body writes.

I’ve been selfish and full of pride,

and she knows deep down there’s a little child.

But I’ve got a good side to me well,

and it’s that she loves in spite of everything else.

A song in the tree has distracted her mind.

Some other curious form of life

has made its presence to her known

and coos so gently,

soft and low.

Her shining face in a million reflections

on tiny raindrops that fall in a veil

over our city like notes from above.

It overwhelms me.

I just ain’t that tough.

It’s not that the darkness can’t touch our lives,

I know it will

in time,

but she’s no ordinary valentine

and now,

when the sun goes down, she sheds a darling light

I’ve been selfish and full of pride,

and she knows deep down there’s a little child.

But I’ve got a good side to me well,

and it’s that she loves in spite of everything else.

The Shins: “September” (b-side of “Simple Song” 7”) from Record Store Day on Vimeo.

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I MADE YOU SOME GET WELL CARDS

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CRACKED COFFEE, KYP, CRONIN, QUINTRON, KHAN CONCLUSION: BRUISE CRUISE 2012, PART FIVE

Welcome to the fifth and final installment of this year's Popthomology coverage of Bruise Cruise 2012! (Click on these for PART ONE, PART TWO, PART THREE, and PART FOUR.) It's been a month to the day today that I went to the first of the BC preshows in Miami, and I'm already ready to do it all again, but I'll have to wait another 11 months or so. We left off in Part Four with all the woozy boozy snoozy Bruisers heading back to the Carnival Imagination ship at 2AM after a wild concert night at Senor Frog's in Nassau, Bahamas. I fell asleep in my Murphy crib in my cabin, thinking I was in pretty good shape, party-wise, and should have no problem getting up in the morning to get a place in the Shangri-La Lounge for Miss Pussycat's "Puppets and Pancakes" at 11:30AM. I also figured lots of other Bruisers would sleep in, but I was wrong! Getting to the Lounge just a little late, it was jam-packed and so I missed it. Ah well, there were no pancakes there anyway, I heard.

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THE WORST CHURCH SINGERS IN THE WORLD

Some of the world's very best pop and soul vocalists have come directly from the traditional black churches of the American South -- Aretha Franklin, Mavis Staples, Mahalia Jackson, Al Green, Sam Cooke, the list is long. There is nothing like the authentic grit, soul, and power that comes from gospel music. However, despite their best intentions I am sure, some church singers would best serve their lord by sitting down in the congregation and never singing again. I'd like to provide you with some examples of "Gospel Gone Wrong."

Well. Hmm.  This woman certainly has the spirit, but seems to be possessed by Campbell's Soup. I'm considering covering this. Catchy!



This guy recently made the viral video rounds, deservedly. The assembled here must be the most saintly, patient congregation ever for not pelting this guy with collection plate coins. Oh, my. My dog just woke up.



This man perhaps should have slept in on Sunday. For many, many years.



If this church were here, and was like this the whole time, I would go every single week without fail. I'm not kidding.



Grandma gets moved by the spirit at about :10 in, but the pastor knows when to end the show. He's a pro.



And to end with...this is why the internet was made for you and me: "Church Lady Shouts Her Wig Off." Besides that being the greatest video title ever, AND that the musicians sound more like one of the punk bands I like, the fact that she really does shout her wig off fills me with spiritual joy.

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RUSH LIMBAUGH & THE SLUTSTAKES CONTEST FOR AMERICA

The ongoing sideshow that stands in for U.S. politics these days continues. This week's distraction from useful nation-building is the Rush Limbaugh - Sandra Fluke Slutstakes Contest, wherein a reasonable and composed Georgetown Law student testifying before Congress about the need for comprehensive female health care is labeled a "slut" and a "prostitute" by our nation's #1 radio personality. Please re-read that last sentence, and stop to consider that reality: Rush Limbaugh is the most widely-syndicated, most-listened-to radio broadcaster in America. Now, I feel pretty confident that most citizens would agree in principle that the ability we have to speak before our lawmakers is a precious right, and that America was formed to give that voice to all, to coalesce differences into shared visions, to benefit from our rich personal diversities without fear of reprisal from lords, kings, or fellow citizens. Furthermore, we are taught from preschool on that respecting others and refraining from hurtful, baseless name-calling is part of the Golden Rule that makes up the very foundation of a civil, functional society.


So why is it we have made Rush Limbaugh, who gleefully follows none of these cherished American tenets, into a millionaire with huge political influence?


What is it, exactly, that we believe is right? Who is it, exactly, that we wish to emulate? What need is it that someone like Limbaugh fills for so many here? It's simple (and correct) to place blame on Limbaugh for his smearing, strange attack on a private citizen, but what we forget is that in the end, he is nothing more than a reflection of his listeners. If his vitriol wasn't resonating with millions, he wouldn't be where he is today. He is no leader; he is a shrewd, merciless mirror. That Limbaugh chooses to profit handsomely off the bitter righteousness of those who support him isn't unusual; someone will always step in if there's money to be made. What we must face and reconcile is that the lessons of preschool behavior, the Golden Rule, and the idea that America's strength is based on respect and diversity and free will are utterly lost on a great swath of our citizens. They are the ones who feel victimized and voiceless, remember; they feel unheard and undervalued, so much so that a man like Limbaugh isn't seen as a bully, but as a hero.


Perhaps it was inevitable. For as much as we give lip-service to tolerance and kindness, our society isn't really set up to make that flourish. Bullies and extremists arise and thrive in climates of neglect and need; it might be no coincidence that the successes of "shock jocks" like Limbaugh, Howard Stern, and Don Imus coincide with a 30-year slide into massive American wealth inequity, and jobs that have disappeared into technological advances and human outsourcing. Add in a media-saturated public, whose attention can be assured in a choice-riddled landscape by salient programming: more sex, more violence, more outrageous behavior, more outrageous speech, acting as shameless, blameless comfort and catharsis. Top it with the lasting impressions such programming leaves, that traditional morals and values are circling the drain to leave the United States with nothing but welfare-abusing, sex-addicted, drug-gobbling, gang-banging single parents with non-white skin. Someone has to say something about it!! Someone has to do something before it's too late!!


Enter Rush Limbaugh. Let's deconstruct his "Fluke comment," from both sides. From his show transcripts:


"What does it say about the college co-ed Susan (sic) Fluke who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? Makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We're the pimps."


Limbaugh knew what to hammer home here to his listeners: over the next few days, he repeated the sentiment that Fluke "wants to make you and me, the taxpayers, pay her to have sex" by including birth control as a required covered health benefit. If you go no further down the line with this reasoning, it's an easy sell. Despite the fact that 95% of all Americans have sex before they are married, there remains a persistant, church-fueled shame bomb hurled at women who have the responsible foresight to avoid unwanted pregnancy by using birth control. In the simplistic reasoning of Rush World, if ya don't want to get knocked up, don't have sex, or pay for your own whoring around! Supporters pooh-pooh the seriousness of Limbaugh's words, calling him "an entertainer" and "absurdist," to deflect intent and very carefully-chosen crosshairs. "He's just kidding! Get over it! What, Little Law Lady, dontcha have a sense of humor?"


But Rush World is not Real World, no matter what religious leaders or sexual hypocrites might wish. In the real world, and as it has been for all time, people have sex. They have sex for all kinds of reasons, at all different times in their lives, and with all different kinds of people. It's a basic piece of human life and natural biology. And even if it's a dumb thing to do, you know what? They are still gonna do it, no matter what. Can sexual urges and desires be controlled by willpower and cultural norms? Yes, and they are, of course. You don't really know too many drooling pansexual hedonists, do you? I don't either. Most Americans have pretty tame sexual histories, tending towards a low number of partners and serial monogamy. Birth control has not so much changed sexual behavior; people still like to fall in love and not be anyone's Flavor-Of-The-Month. What birth control has done is provide women (and the men who actually have the sex with them) control and choice over when and with whom they'd like to start a family.


So, hopping on the Logic Train, we know that:


1. People are going to have sex with people they aren't married to, and also have sex with the people they are married to but not want to have a child every single time.


2. No church, no political pundit, and no misogynistic laws have ever changed that, or will change that. Don't even bother suggesting people be celibate, have sex for procreation only, or give their unwanted children up for adoption. Not gonna happen, no matter how badly you think it should or how many times you can call one of the 95% a "slut."


3. Reproductive health is a huge part of every woman's life, and affects many different aspects of general well-being. Every women should be taught to be proactive and responsible, and given full access to birth control choices. Cost is part of what "full access" means.


4. Birth control and family planning has strong health and social benefits that impact us all. Unwanted pregnancies and unwanted children are socially expensive, costing taxpayers far more in health care costs, ongoing child support, and lost educational/economic opportunities for women. Birth control is cheap and effective, costing taxpayers far, far less.


5. Conservatives like to pay less in taxes and social services, therefore should support birth control in any insurance health plan.

6. All five points above aren't going to make a damn bit of difference to Rush and his listeners.

Why? Because they get more juice from shaming, blaming, ranting, and hating than they care about where their tax dollars go. It's not about money. It's about power, and how to feel a little piece of that in lives that, to them, feel increasingly powerless and frustrating. It's about finding someone else to push your own misery on to avoid facing a world that cannot, and never could, move backwards. It's the thrill of having some big fat morally-bereft creep say the words you wish you could say, but can't. Rush Limbaugh does the dirty work, gets paid very well, and the imitators and ignoramuses spread his message, a cancerous, threading, intractable tumor that threatens to take away our voices, one chokehold victim at a time.

What is it, exactly, that we believe is right? Who is it, exactly, that we wish to emulate?

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THE WEIRD & WONDERFUL WORLD OF COUGH ADS

Getting closer to bringing you the last installment of the Bruise Cruise 2012 reportage, but it ain't gonna be today as I am slowed by this ongoing mighty cough that is whipping my ass but good. We might as well all get something good out of my illness, though, so how about we watch some very odd foreign and domestic cough remedy commercials?

I love how this commercial GETS how I feel. It's JUST LIKE having human-faced chickens in my chest!



Um. Well, I hope THIZZ is real and that it really looks like that and also that I never, ever have to taste it. I like Godzilla, though.



What does this fancy lady coughing on a couch and then submersing herself in a lake have to do with anything? Nothing, because this is a Japanese commercial.



I think the translation here is, "I am actually 32 years old, but dress like a schoolgirl. Do you like my pig? Cough!" It's also Chinese.



This Smith Brothers ad is American, but DESERVES to be Japanese.



Is there any doubt whatsoever that Australia's Y-Cough was nothing but straight bourbon, and the room freshener thing was solely to rid the room of the alcohol smell? Mother's Little Helper!



In which Malaysian child mango-stealers redeem themselves by helping the old man they are robbing to get some cough syrup.



And finally, this Thai ad for Strepsils, where the protagonist gets relief, only to spew his germs through his horn at the audience. Ahhhh..

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IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A REALLY UGLY SWIMSUIT IN 2012...

...I know right where to send you: Urban Outfitters. My guess is that the swimsuits must have been designed by a bitter, friendless 13-year-old Japanese girl; they are creepily whimsical, unflattering to all, cheap-looking, and inexplicable. UO also hired the sour-faced and slumping Waify McRib to model for them this year, which doesn't help. Here are five of the worst, or best, depending on your comic perspective.

There's no winning with this one. If you have one single pound more on you than Waify here does, your fat is going to spill out of all those punchholes like little flab cupcakes everywhere. If you are super-thin, this suit will just make you look like a skanky truckstop stripper from 1967. $165.00.

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