the blog quebecois

When I first saw this mugshot at The Smoking Gun, I thought that the cops had hauled in a man in the middle of "marcelling," a hair-straightening treatment used by blacks (think Al Sharpton, James Brown, or New York congressman Charlie Rangel), which leaves the wearer with a large, wavy pompadour. Alas, on further inspection, it appears to be a woman, albeit one of the less-comely representatives of the sex.

But what do I care? My headline still fits.

I was somewhat perplexed by the controversy surrounding rapper Ice-T's 1992 song, "Cop Killer." If you don't recall it, there was much outrage about it from various police associations and politicians, to the point where Time-Warner, which released the album it appeared on, withheld it from subsequent pressings. (And I still haven't heard it to this day.) With all the hoo-hah about "freedom of speech" and "inciting violence" and "the nature of the black experience in America" there seemed one obvious defence that no one was making, though Ice-T later would hit on the essence of it:

"I'm singing in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality. I ain't never killed no cop. I felt like it a lot of times. But I never did it. If you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut," in reference to Bowie's song "Space Oddity."

Or that Mick Jagger is a "Street Fighting Man," etc.

In other words, we are dealing with works of fiction here, with the singer (or by extension, the band) stepping into the equally fictitious role of the protagonist.

Now, keeping all that in mind, I present this completely fictional song, in which I attempt to imagine how it is for all those poor slobs out there stumbling through life. Because, if you must know, I am so incredibly cool that it would make you sick.

Did I mention that I MADE ALL OF THIS STUFF UP??!? Sheesh.

========================

[Verse]

I farted in church loud and clear as a bell
It rattled the preacher
From his pulpit he fell
There was no denyin'
The shame i felt
And worst of all
It really smelled

-------------------------------------------------

[Verse]

The whole damn crowd turned to look at me
They was sniffin' the air like it was blasphemy
I felt like crawling
Under the pew
I mean I felt
Like, you know, that this was uncool

------------------------------------------------

[Verse]

I got real drunk and I asked a lady
I said how'd she like
To carry my baby
She slapped my face
And out I went
To nurse a hangover
and forever repent

---------------------------------------------

[Chorus]

Life's embarrassing moments
Yeah, life's embarrassing moments
These really should pass without comment
But I need a song
Won't you sing along

-------------------------------------------------
Walked into a meeting
With my fly undone
I looked like a derelict
O-on the run
My new proposals were rejected by all
They shook their heads
Said they'd give me a call
-------------------------------------------------

[Chorus]

-------------------------------------------------

[Bridge]

I phoned an old acquaintance
And said: Could I speak to Paul?
Unfortunately he's to be buried next week
And that was all
My condolences to his family I paid
And then I went to his funeral
and tripped over a spade

-------------------------------------------------

[Chorus]

-------------------------------------------------

[Verse]

I had a girl
Man, she was really hot
We wrestled all evening
I pinned her to the cot
But when the chips were down
My passion fled
She cut me up with words
And kicked me out of bed

-------------------------------------------------

[Chorus]

-------------------------------------------------

[ad. lib., out]

Yeah, life

=========================

Life's Embarrassing Moments Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.

Alternate: Unfortunately it isn't a streaming site, but you can click on the download link, and when the Windows or equivalent dialog box appears, you can elect to save it to disk, or (first choice) open up the song with the default media player, like iTunes, WinAmp, or Windows Media Player. Life's Embarrassing Moments

Previous:

Cry Me A River
I Got A Girl
The Very Last Man On Earth
Golddigger
Hangin' In The Park
Just So You Know
Caught By Computer
Me & J.B.
By The Lake
Dirty Little Secret
Fire In The Waxworks
Warning Shots
The Chase
Just Like A Woman

to write an article like this, because a man would never dare.

Charlotte Allen of the Independent Women's Forum plays agent provocateur in the Washington Post:

Here's Agence France-Presse reporting on a rally for Sen. Barack Obama at the University of Maryland on Feb. 11: "He did not flinch when women screamed as he was in mid-sentence, and even broke off once to answer a female's cry of 'I love you, Obama!' with a reassuring 'I love you back.' "

Women screamed? What was this, the Beatles tour of 1964? And when they weren't screaming, the fair-sex Obama fans who dominated the rally of 16,000 were saying things like: "Every time I hear him speak, I become more hopeful." Huh?

"Women 'Falling for Obama,' " the story's headline read. Elsewhere around the country, women were falling for the presidential candidate literally. Connecticut radio talk show host Jim Vicevich has counted five separate instances in which women fainted at Obama rallies since last September. And I thought that fainting was supposed to be a relic of the sexist past, when patriarchs forced their wives and daughters to lace themselves into corsets that cut off their oxygen.

I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?

Grateful Obamaoids weigh in:

Is this an April Fool's joke printed a month early? As to why women were fainting at Obama rallies, many people have been sick this winter. Maybe they hadn't eaten and had to wait in long lines to see Obama. Maybe it was hot in the auditoriums and they got light-headed.

The Minnesota Timberwolves' Rashad McCants shoots a jumper in a game last night. In related news, Kyle Korver of the Utah Jazz has apparently spotted a spider or a mouse or something real icky on the floor.

Via nba.com

A game based on a TV series, City Of Vice, by Britain's Channel 4. You play a Bow Street Runner, proto-detectives who became one of England's first professional police forces in the 18th century.

The game is the standard point-and-click type; however, it looks very deep and graphically-interesting, with professionally-acted cut-scenes. You play in your browser; there's nothing to download or install. You don't have to register, but you might want to if you like the game and want to save your place (new episodes will be released in the future).

Warning: As the picture might indicate, the content can be violent, and the language might offend. If you're sensitive to Georgian cursing, that is. Sound you can turn off with a button at the top right.

A smashing tank modification, but with a terrible camo pattern; useful only, I'd guess, for an assault on the local Clown College.

Honk! Honk! Blam! They'll never know what hit 'em.

When Sting wrote "Message In A Bottle" he presented it to the rest of the band with a guarantee that they had a #1 hit on their hands. Inspired by this, I made the same boast for "Fashion Patrol," but the security guards threw me out before I could properly introduce myself. Security guards, I have found, are terrible judges of music.

I was fooling around with the drum machine one day, and erased (whether deliberately or accidentally I can't remember) some of the instrumentation (you could program the bass and snare drums, and the hi-hat and ride cymbals independently) from a fairly standard rock pattern and wound up with an odd, loping beat. That immediately suggested the bass riff, and the song was built out from there. The lyrics I slapped together in about five minutes for the purpose of having something to sing, with the intention of someday rewriting them -- keeping the same theme, but smoothing out the glitches and maybe adding a new verse.

So, the premise was that we were a special unit going around arresting anyone who didn't meet our lofty sartorial standards. Given our usual get-up of jeans and T-shirts, I can only conclude we were hitting the "Irony" button pretty hard; but hey, it would have been a pretty cool job. Not unlike, um, the religious police in Saudi Arabia. But with a more highly-developed sense of irony.

=====================

[ad. lib. in]

-------------------------------------------------
[Verse]

Yeah

I said this town's all locked up
And there's nowhere to go
City's shut down
We are in control

There's a new year
No appeal to reason
Bureau of Vanity predicts
Conflict in the fall season

-------------------------------------------------

[Chorus]

We are the fashion patrol
Armed with rock
And ready to roll

Yeah the style police
Bringing law and order
to these messy streets [2nd chor. rpt. 2nd stanza]

-------------------------------------------------

[Verse]

-------------------------------------------------

[Chorus]

Check out that guy
Does he have papers?
Is he a suspect
Or a perpetrator?

And then: how about that woman?
Is her apparel illegal?
Is she a conscious delinquent
Or something more lethal?

-------------------------------------------------

[ad. lib., out]

=========================

Fashion Patrol Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.

Alternate: Not a streaming site, but you can click on the download link; when the Windows or equivalent dialog box appears, you can elect to save it to disk, or (first choice) open up the song with the default media player, like iTunes, WinAmp, or Windows Media Player. Fashion Patrol

Previous:

Life's Embarrassing Moments
Cry Me A River
I Got A Girl
The Very Last Man On Earth
Golddigger
Hangin' In The Park
Just So You Know
Caught By Computer
Me & J.B.
By The Lake
Dirty Little Secret
Fire In The Waxworks
Warning Shots
The Chase
Just Like A Woman

I'm just guessing here, but I'll bet there aren't any kids in this household. That glass enclosure would be one continuous smear of fingerprints and PBJ residue.

Or in my case, fingerprints and sweat as I grabbed for the invisible handrail. Bigger picture (and a couple of other designs) here. Warning: Picture on the right side might be somewhat (female nudes in a circle, shot from above like one of those old Busby Berkeley numbers) NSFW.

High Dynamic Range photography is a method of enhancing images that I don't really understand, so I'll leave the explanation to Wikipedia:

In computer graphics and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.

HDRI was originally developed for use with purely computer-generated images. Later, methods were developed to produce a high dynamic range image from a set of photographs taken with a range of exposures. With the rising popularity of digital cameras and easy-to-use desktop software, the term "HDR" is now popularly used[1] to refer to the process of tone mapping together with bracketed exposures of normal digital images, giving the end result a high, often exaggerated dynamic range. This composite technique is different from, and generally of lower quality than, the production of an image from a single exposure of a sensor that has a native high dynamic range. Tone mapping is also used to display HDR images on devices with a low native dynamic range, such as a computer screen.

Well, whatever. The results are spectacular. The picture above is by a photoblogger named David J. Nightingale. Full size and many more examples here (scroll through them using the menu on top).

Cracked recently ran a Photoshop contest, soliciting honest banner ads from readers.

Warning: Language, and some nudity (you have to click through to see it, though). Also check out their new theme, Inappropriate Children's Books. (Some content NSFW.)

How do you say it . . . tension between the anchorman (a dead ringer for The Simpsons' Kent Brockman) and the reporter in this clip from a New York FOX affiliate. It is subtle, but alert viewers may be able to spot it.

http://view.break.com/467869 - Watch more free videos

I admit, I was skeptical at first, but this uncanny image of Barack Obama burnt (or possibly stenciled) onto a piece of toast is proof enough for me. It is The Sign we were promised.

O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!

I only had the first two verses, so wound up repeating them. A third verse was needed, explaining that, say, while the character desperately craved his freedom, and yearned to break free, he was unable to do so; because, he was presently shackled to the furnace. For instance. This would immediately create "dramatic tension," and ignite in the mind of the listener many important (and perhaps, unsolvable) questions, such as:

a) Who chained the singer to the furnace? and,

b) Isn't that a violation of the Building Code? and,

c) How much did I pay for this album, anyway?

Having said that, this was one of the more melodious and well-crafted things we did, helped out in no small part by my cousin's very pretty and understated guitar solo. In fact we hit it nearly perfectly (never mind the two false starts), so much so that I became excited and overloaded the mike at the end. That would explain that thumping sound you hear on fade-out -- me whacking myself in the forehead with the microphone when I realized my mistake. (There's a similar "effect" in the last song, "Fashion Patrol," but it's unclear what set me off that time.).

Never let it be said that I haven't suffered for my art.

========================

[Verse]

Cant afford to leave
Nor bear to stay
Can't buy no ticket out
I gotta walk away

Walk away, walk away

-------------------------------------------------

[Verse]

You don't need a plastic card
With your name stamped on it
A wallet filled with cash
You just ain't got it, no

Walk away, walk away

-------------------------------------------------

[Instrumental]

-------------------------------------------------

[Chorus]

Because first you break your heart
Then you break your nerve
Then you break your promise
And then it gets worse
And search as you might
There's only one cure

Walk away, walk away

-------------------------------------------------

[Instrumental]

-------------------------------------------------

[Bridge]

Don't need it now
That face those habits
Your feet hit the floor
And head for the door

Walk away, walk away
-------------------------------------------------

[rpt. Verses 1 & 2]

-------------------------------------------------

[Chorus]

-------------------------------------------------

[ad. lib., out]

Walk away, yeah

=======================

Walk Away Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.

I finally found an alternate site that seems to work most of the time: Walk Away Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.

Previous:

Fashion Patrol
Life's Embarrassing Moments
Cry Me A River
I Got A Girl
The Very Last Man On Earth
Golddigger
Hangin' In The Park
Just So You Know
Caught By Computer
Me & J.B.
By The Lake
Dirty Little Secret
Fire In The Waxworks
Warning Shots
The Chase
Just Like A Woman

Boston Dynamics' latest iteration of BigDog, a battlefield robot being developed for DARPA (the folks who brung you the Internets). Look at it regain its balance after slipping on ice or taking a hefty shove. This thing is eerie.

Me, I'd make some kind of robotic pig's head for it before unleashing it against Al Qaeda, but that's just my juvenile sense of humor at work.

Warning: Video has sound -- some ungodly grinding, whirring noise that's even creepier than the robot.

We're not saying we know everything there is to know about sex, though we have spent a lot of time, uh, reading about it. But in none of our experience have we happened upon a case when bagging someone up like a Christmas tree on its way to the dump was a way to initiate coitus.

Warning: Language.

I was perfectly happy writing songs about girls and stuff, but once every hundred or so songs, I would remember that this was supposed to be a political band, like The Clash. Well, sort of like The Clash, but stuck on a "Train In Vain" loop most of the time. Truth was, we were as much of a 'political band' as this is a 'political blog'` -- I write about politics when I bloody well please. (Or when I really, really want a link from Kate.)

Truth was, my political views were rapidly changing, inspired by reading The Gulag Archipelago and the eye-popping stupidity of the Left. Also, I was starting to secretly admire one Ronald Wilson Reagan. He might have been a genocidal maniac on the loose, but any kind of genocidal maniac who can come up with a line like:

I have left strict orders to be awakened in the event of an emergency, even if I'm in the middle of a cabinet meeting.

is my kind of genocidal maniac.

But appearances must be kept up, so I sat down to write a political song. Problem was, I wasn't really following politics at the time, so I used one of the standard templates (available from your finer music stores), cheap anti-Americanism. Thus I chose for my topic the most terrible atrocity of the 20th century. Well, OK, maybe Auschwitz topped it for sheer numbers. But I mean, it was worse than when the cappuccino machine in the Employee's Lounge broke, if you can believe it. At least that was the CBC's opinion, and if you can't trust the CBC . . .

I refer, of course, to the House Un-American Activities Committee, and its hearings into Communist infiltration into Hollywood, which eventually led to the blacklisting (by the major studios, not the government) of a handful of hack screenwriters and other bit-players. (And anybody who willingly served as a propagandist for the Soviet Union, is, by definition, a hack.)

Accuracy not being my strong point (which would come in handy in my later career in blogging), I seem to have conflated the H.U.A.C. with Senator Joe McCarthy and other playas of the era. I believe I even worked in a reference to Harry Truman's controversial loyalty oath. In short, I didn't have a clue what I was talking (well, more like controlled shouting) about. But it all works out in the end: America is Evil. Who you gonna believe, George Clooney, Woody Allen, and me? Or your own lyin' eyes?

So, lyrically, I would dismiss this as uninformed and trite. Fortunately, I have quite a high tolerance for stupid lyrics, having written so many of them in the past.

Musically, though, it works quite well. The guitars are appropriately snarly, the vocals are a good fit, and we maintained a consistent rhythmic punch throughout.

========================

[Verse]

Well we had him up last week
And he said that you had lied
He delivered your entire conspiracy
And all its alibis

H.U.A.C.
H.U.A.C.
-------------------------------------------------

[Verse]

We knew you was a traitor
You wouldn't take the oath
For reasons of security
We've got you by the throat

H.U.A.C.
H.U.A.C.

-------------------------------------------------

[Chorus]

Congress of contempt
Questions loaded for bear
If you ain't one of us
You`re gonna freeze out there

You can take the Fifth Amendment
You can fuck * yourself
We can fire the librarians
And all the books on the shelf

There's a new agency
(and its name is)
H.U.A.C.

-------------------------------------------------

[Instrumental]

-------------------------------------------------

[Chorus]

-------------------------------------------------

[Bridge]

-------------------------------------------------

[Verse]

This is bitter war we wage
And you're cryin' for your lawyer
Your indignation amuses us
We`re gonna destroy ya

H.U.A.C.
H.U.A.C.

========================

If only there were some four-lettered acronym for a government agency that represents a real and existential danger to our hard-won freedoms. What's that, you say? There is?

So here's an offer to all those brave Canadian rockers out there. You can have the song for free, and I'll write new lyrics for it, tailored to today's realities. Instead of railing at some dusty old, long-ago mothballed quasi-court, in a different country, you can be at the cutting edge of today's political climate.

'Cause it's all about speaking truth to power. Right?

Right?

-------------------------------------------------

* Apologies for the language. Jes' keepin' it real for the homies in my crib. Or something like that.

-------------------------------------------------

H.U.A.C. Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.

I finally found an alternate site that seems to work most of the time: H.U.A.C. Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.

Previous:

Walk Away
Fashion Patrol
Life's Embarrassing Moments
Cry Me A River
I Got A Girl
The Very Last Man On Earth
Golddigger
Hangin' In The Park
Just So You Know
Caught By Computer
Me & J.B.
By The Lake
Dirty Little Secret
Fire In The Waxworks
Warning Shots
The Chase
Just Like A Woman

One of the responsibilities of a songwriter is to note common human traits and invest them with special -- nay, profound -- importance by writing a song about them. And they are of profound importance. Otherwise, why would someone write a song about them? Q.E.D.

In this case, I had divined that people, driven by some mysterious impulse, tended to become specialized, experts in one field or another. Where did I obtain these shattering insights, you ask?

Beats me. I do sort of remember that I was myself somewhat of a "specialist" on marijuana at the time; this might explain it, among other mysteries.

I didn't have a lot of lyrics for it, but no problem. I would "improvise" the rest, a la Jim Morrison.

Do not be alarmed by the person who apparently wanders into the session, randomly intoning the word "Four." It's just me, counting out the last half of the backbeat. (Most rock music uses a heavily-inflected backbeat, viz. one-TWO-three-FOUR.)

Or possibly I was imagining that I was on a golf course, shouting "Fore!" Those years are all a blur. (See above, "marijuana.")

========================

[Verse]

Got you a problem you can't ignore?
Are you a victim
Wanna even the score?
File a class action
But your class is too poor?
You need the specialist

The specialist is a programmed man
The time/motion expert
He's got a plan

Dissect the situation
A dedicated fan
You need (yeah you need) the specialist [rpt.]

-------------------------------------------------

[Chorus]

Portable computer
And eyes like an eagle
Flowchart folders
And nose like a beagle
Shortcuts
And they're all sort of legal

Got an M.B.A.
A B.S.C.
A PhD
A doctorate
An L.L.D., a C.P.A.
an LTD, a monkey wrench

Designated hitter
Coming off of the bench

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

[Let the improvisation commence!]

Specialist!
Expert texpert exorcist
Terrorist
Got you one kiss
For the specialist [rpt.]

[Let the improvisation cease, already!]

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

[rpt. 1st Verse] ad.lib. out]

========================

I have no idea what that was about. "Got you one kiss/For the specialist"? Sounds like "Give your accountant a hug" or something.

So, that's it, then. I've got other things, but they're too weak or stupid or long (our commonest fault) to inflict on even the most patient of you. This is one of the last things we recorded, but the breakup of the band was by no means acrimonious -- my cousin was getting married to DamnYoko™ and moving to another town in a few weeks. Ah, well. Sic transit gloria and all that.

The Specialist

Alternate site: The Specialist Warning: Both links are embedded QuickTime audio.

Previous:

H.U.A.C.
Walk Away
Fashion Patrol
Life's Embarrassing Moments
Cry Me A River
I Got A Girl
The Very Last Man On Earth
Golddigger
Hangin' In The Park
Just So You Know
Caught By Computer
Me & J.B.
By The Lake
Dirty Little Secret
Fire In The Waxworks
Warning Shots
The Chase
Just Like A Woman