R.I.P. Chuck Berry (1926 – 2017)

Wow. What a legend. No reason for me to do a write up for someone so well known for so long, but I’ll admit this: I didn’t care for his music that much when I was young. Although I appreciated his talent and his importance in the early days of R&B / R&R, the songs sounded the same to me.

In 1972 someone gave me a copy of “The London Chuck Berry Sessions.” It impressed the hell out of me, and I became a true convert. I played that album so many times that light showed through the grooves.

Like an old song said, “If there’s a Rock and Roll heaven, it’s gotta have a helluva band. Hail, hail, indeed.

Corned Hot Links on Rye with Sauerkraut & Swiss

From the Fun Facts To Know & Tell Department:

“On my first trip to Ireland I was told how the fisherman’s sweaters were woven to indicate origin so washed up bodies might be identified.”

Wanna chip in and buy a town? Tiller, Oregon is up for sale.
Let’s do this.

Vitiligo is a non-fatal yet incurable disease that causes patches of skin to lose pigmentation. This young woman pwns it with markers.

The U.S. Navy’s “Fat Leonard” corruption scandal investigation is still ongoing with more indictments. Here’s the timeline.

Lost your Official Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon Ashtray again? Get a replacement here.

Guy nailed himself with a bear tranquilizer and lived [via].

Amazing door lock from 1680 tracks the number entries [via].

I forgot to ask. How’s your mesentery doing?

Did your Samsung TV stop showing program listings? Ours did, so we unplugged it, plugged it back in. No dice. Did the same with the antenna. Nope. Replaced the batteries in the old remote. Didn’t work. Bought a new remote. No success. Samsung tech support couldn’t suss it out either. The Missus figured it out – we’d had a power outage, and when she reset the date and time, she missed resetting the year. PROBLEM SOLVED.

[Top image:  Napoli amusement park, 1950.]

Saturday Matinee – The Pogues, Ron Kavana & Rex McGhee

Every true Irishman knows that Saint Patrick’s Day doesn’t start at midnight. It begins at sunrise and ends at sunrise if you’re doing it right. My ancestry is Scots-Irish, which means I can drink without having to wear a kilt to play golf, and I don’t have to go to Confession afterwards.

One of The Pogues‘ classics.

Here’s another Pogues’ classic song, “Young Ned Of The Hill,” as performed by the original songwriter Ron Kavana (who didn’t write it).

This my favorite Irish Rebel Song:

Nell Flaherty’s Drake is a nice tune, but the original Broadside was pure sarcasm.

Have a great weekend, folks, and if we’re not back up on Sunday it’s due to an ongoing malware battle with a faux svchost.exe daemon.

 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Apparently this phrase is now verboten, untersagt & unerlabt as dictated by the Amerikanisch-faschistisches Wort Polizeii:

Tá sé Lá Fhéile Pádraig! Póg mo thóin!

[Images found here, here and here. Related Archived posts here.]

Truck Funk

Click on any image for massive enjoyment. [Images found in here.]

[Update: Greetings to all Feral Irishman fans who showed up today. You’ll like what’s coming up next. –Bunk]

Beetle Ball

beetle-balls-1

[Found in here. Related posts here and here.]

Blizzard Forecast for Northeastern US; Canadians Say, “Hold My Beer.”

[Found here and here and.]

“Smelt ya comin’ a mile away.”

fisheyes

[Found here.]

Beware The Ides of Hot Links

“The Ides” is a day of the month in the Roman Calendar that falls on the 15th in March, July & October, and on the 13th in other months. The word is derived from the latin idus, so I cranked up Google Translate. In English, idus means ides. Go figure.

In poverty-stricken communist Cambodia, women are beautiful when they’re bucket fishing and catching snakes.

From the ICYMI Department:
What if Hillary Clinton were male and Donald Trump were female during the Presidential debates? A political science professor at NYU intended to prove that sexism played a part in the 2016 Election, but the result of the experiment wasn’t what she or others expected. Supposedly they’re going to release a video of the full fauxdebate in costume, but I haven’t see it yet.

Cool 24-hour time-lapse from somewhere north of the Arctic Circle.

You ever read this short story by Jack London? No? Do it.

Trolls pwnd Shia LaBeouf’s anti-Trump live cam:

Shia LaBeouf was hoping to livestream his protest of Donald Trump for four years. But trolls kept crashing the party. After having his “He Will Not Divide Us” exhibit shut down in both New York and Albuquerque, he moved it to an “undisclosed location” to keep it safe from trolls. But the trolls only said, “Challenge accepted.”

The 7 shortest rock songs to hit No. 1 on the charts. As far as I know, “Stay” by Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs still holds the record, clocking in at about 1 minute 30 seconds.

Infinite Jukebox is cool. Choose a song you like that seems to end way too soon, and it messes with it indefinitely. It doesn’t just loop the recording, it turns it into a helix so you can listen to the song until you can’t stand it anymore. So I gave it a test run, plugged in another short hit: The Letter by The Boxtops, and got this unending version – click on “play.” I’m impressed [via].

BTW, Alex Chilton, the gravel-voiced lead singer on “The Letter” was only 16 when the 1967 hit song was recorded.

Meepzorp reports that some great bloggers have moved on:

It is with great sadness that we say farewell to some of our favorite long-time bloggers who have recently passed away:
Gerard Vlemmings: The Presurfer
Kevin Norman Gray: Nothing To Do With Arbroath
Mark Woods: wood s lot

I didn’t “know” them, but I’ve linked to their sites occasionally and they linked back. In the early days of this blog, they were inspirations. R.I.P.

Not sure who that guy is up on top? It’s Jim Peterik.

Saturday Matinee – Three Minutes Till Showtime, The Ides of March, Pink Floyd & Greensky Bluegrass

It reminds me of this song. The Intermission Elf with the dancing hotdogs were scary enough when I was a kid, but this one beats them all [via].

The Ides of March perform their 1970 hit “Vehicle,” (complete with clips of the 1969 lunar landing).

Pink Floyd‘s “One of These Days” was the first track on their 1971 album “Meddle,” performed at Earls Court London in 1994. I love that echo bass hypno jam.

Greensky Bluegrass plays “Time” from Pink Floyd‘s “Dark Side of the Moon” album, and it works.

Have a great weekend, folks. See y’all tomorrow.