Category: Bunk Stuff

Saturday Matinee – Portuguese Man O’ War, Bonanza, David Rose & The Beat Farmers


[Vid found here.]

The Portuguese Man O’ War is amazing, as it’s not a single animal, but a colony of several bizarre organisms, all dependent on the others for survival. One provides transportation, one lures and traps food, one processes it, one cooks, and the other one does laundry and runs the blog.

The harmless gasbag idiot-animal floats while dangling his nasty stinging-tentacled buddies as deep as 160 feet below the surface. How they find each other and decide to hang together is a mystery to me, unless it has something to do with cheap beer, tasers and fraternity parties.

I saw one washed up on a beach when I was a kid without knowing what it was – thought it was an inflatable toy dolphin with seaweed attached. Yeah, I poked it with a stick, and yeah, I found out what the insides of a Portuguese Man O’ War smelled like, as did everyone else within a quarter mile downwind.

When the floating-gasbag idiot-animal washes up on shore and dies, it takes the other idiot-animals with him, and they can’t do anything about it because their free ride is over. Such is the life of a sycophant.

________________________

Okay, bear with me on this next one. Remember the classic 1959-1973 TV show “Bonanza?”  Here’s The instrumental TV theme (with opening credits).

The missus informed me that there were words to that great theme, and she’s right. The closing credits for the early episodes included “The Cartwrights” singing the theme (after apparently stumbling out of a saloon/cat house joint venture in Carson City) and mounting up to pick fights with and wreak havoc on the local populace before they rode back to their fortified enclave known as The Ponderosa:

[Little Joe] I’ve got a flair for women everywhere, Bonanza!
[Hoss] BONANZA! ¡AI-AI-AI!
[All] I’m gonna call on any gal at all, she’s gonna welcome me.

[Ben] I’m not afraid of any pretty maid, Bonanza!
BONANZA!
When I give a kiss to any pretty miss,
She’ll learn a lot from me!

[All] One for four, four for one
This we guarantee!

We got a right to pick a little fight – Bonanza!
BONANZA!
If anyone fights any one of us,
He’s gotta fight with me!

BTW, the best comment on that Utoobage link was posted by someone named 75yellowraven:

“144-441 what does that mean?”

The lyrics and acting were so laughably absurd that the clip was canned. Years later Lorne Greene sang the song with much different lyrics: Lorne Greene singing The Theme To Bonanza.

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But that’s not the weird part. The Bonanza Theme was orchestrated by David Rose, same guy who composed “The Stripper,” a number of TV theme songs, and this horrible piece of 1960s grocery aisle music:

Bet you couldn’t last the whole two-point-five minutes of that, so here’s almost a whole hour of The Beat Farmers circa 1984, featuring the late Country Dick Montana on drums, vocals, beer and belligerence.

Hope that grabs on, holds and squeezes you for this edition of The Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend, even if you have to mow the snow.

P.S. If you ever wanted to sing along to The Chips‘ “Rubber Biscuit” we’ve got the Complete & Accurate day down sum wanna jigga-wah lyrics here.

The .Gif Friday Post No. 314 – Tetherball, Color Queen & Inflatable Raft FAIL

tetherball
speed-queen-spectrum 2
Self Inflating Life Raft

[Found here and here. 2nd one is related to this one.]

Happy New Year’s Eve, Peeps!

Tacky Raccoons Be Crawlin' 300

Another year has passed and we’d like to thank those who took precious minutes out of their lives to visit Tacky  Raccoons. We don’t know who you are, but we know where you live. You’re good peeps.

We’re never sure how much traffic we get is real or from Russian bots attempting to break the spam blockade to sell cheap knockoff handbags and embiggification pills. Muchisimas grassyass to those of you who clicked the “like” button and/or who linked to this site – it reminds us that we’re not alone with the Russian bots.

As for those who took time to leave comments, donkey shane:

Amy Oops, Arnie, Audrey, berdi726, bill126, breakroomstories, Brian, Bunkarina, Calo, charlottecarrendar, Cindy, clementinegoesusa, complicatedpov, Dale Weeks, Dana, Dan Johanson, da_truth36, Dorcas, Duane Helton, ed, Emma, Ezekiel Fish, Feng, fluffstravels, Fritz, Gabriel, George Weaver, GP, IzaakMak, Jacky Torres, Jane, Jason B. Ladd, JMKhapra, Joe, John M., josephfromspain, kdub, kirk, laurendarcybruce, LC Aggie Sith, Lindy Jordan, Macker, Malik, mopowerdon, My father too served in England in WW2, NoNamePlease, oddboxcomics, Opinionated Man, otterhavver, planetross, Richard Huggins, RiverUnderWater, Sad Man’s Tongue: Rockabilly Bar & Bistro – Prague, Scout Paget, smartygal, Soylent Green, studentmissalexis, susank456, theliteraryhorse, The Necromancer, The Watcher, thomasnwafor , Tiki Man, Tony McGurk, VE, wheels, Xraypics, yourothermotherhere and zachandclem.

Happy New Year, folks. Wish you the best. — Bunk

The .Gif Friday Post No. 311 – 16mm Christmas, Coordinated Company Jump, THE House & Stuff

Christmas Tree BW
A Company Christmas
Christmas Lights

Raccoon Christmas

[Found here, here, here and *ahem* here.]

It’s All In The Angle

All About The Angle

I like the real one better because it looks like The Missus, only shorter. She got kinda humpy as I was re-adjusting the image, but the girl’s prolly got a face like a delaminated tire.

Unlike The Missus.

[Original image found here.]

The .Gif Friday Post No. 310 – Big Chief Buffalo Nickel, Garbage In Garbage Out & Animated Banksy

Big Chief Buffalo Nickel
Garbage In Garbage Out
Animated Banksy 13

[2nd & 3rd found here and here. Top .gif is my own.]

8:9:10 11/12/13 – The 8th Second of The 9th Minute of The 10th Hour of The 11th Day of The 12th Month of The 13th Year of The Century

8 9 10 11 12 13 Date Time Convergence

Second : Minute : Hour; Day / Month / Year
Sequential time and date convergence, smallest to largest increments.

A similar sequence occurred at 8:09:10 on November 12 2013, but this one rocks. Unless I’m missing something, we’ll have no more great time/date convergences for a very long time.

Adding the numbers and dividing by 21 (the number of the current Century for those of you not keeping track) results in the Number 3, the minimum number of points to describe a circle, a plane and a non-collapsible polygon; the noblest of all digits according to Pythagoras and one of only 9 Heegner Numbers, the Atomic Number of Lithium (3rd in line after Hydrogen and Helium), the number of physical dimensions we’re able to sense,  and it’s also a crowd.

It all means something, I just don’t know what.

Happy Thanksgiving

Retro Thanksgiving

It amazes me to think that in September 1620, 102 people were so fed up with the English monarchy that they were willing to risk a dangerous late-season voyage across the Atlantic (that lasted over two months at sea) to a new land to establish a free colony.

Disease, scurvy, starvation and weather exposure took their toll, and half of them died before the following spring. In March of 1621, the survivors sought to establish Plymouth Rock, ventured ashore, and met an escaped British slave named Squanto who spoke English.

His first words to William Bradford were:
“Dude. This is a swamp. You f’d up. Y’all gonna die an’ stuff.”
Bradford replied, “Bro, WTF?”
“Here. Plant some of this, but put a fish under it.”
“Dude, no way.”
“Way. Just do it.”
“K.  By the way, we got a plow.”
“Get out. You got a what? What you need a plow on a boat for?”
“We got one. You got an ox?”
“Ordered one on Amazon, but he ain’t showed up yet. They walk slow.”
“Cool. We’re gonna pop some pheasant for supper. Y’all wanna come?”
“Hell yeah. We’ll bag some Bambi and see you about 4.”

And the rest is history.

Have a great holiday, folks, and never forget the Reason for Thanksgiving.

[Image from here.]

8:9:10 11/12/13

8 9 10 11 12 13

Hour: Minute: Second; Month/Day/Year
Cool Date/time numerical convergence.

Don’t Sit Under The Argan Tree

Goats In A Tree

These goats live in a small region in southwestern Morocco where the Argan tree grows. Although the region is semi-arid desert and there’s fodder elsewhere, they love argan berries. They’re goat candy. Since the goats can’t reach them from the ground, they learned to climb Argan trees.

But that’s not the weird part.

When the goats poop, local women pick out the hard undigested nuts, crack them, extract the seeds, mash and grind them up, and produce argan oil – all by hand. It gets stranger: only women are allowed to do it.

Women […] run the entire industry, which is an incredible fact considering that Morocco is a rather patriarchal society. Only women are taught to make argan oil, and they are the sole gatekeepers to the centuries-old method. Much of the country’s oil is made in cooperatives that allow women the opportunity to work and make money independently [via].

Then they rub it on their faces, put it in their hair or eat it. TRUE.

But take this story a step further, and it becomes downright astounding. One sunny day, hundreds of years ago, some Berber women figured it out:

“Hey, Fatima! Bouchra! I found some goat crap under a tree. I bet there’s something in it that we can eat AND wear. Whaddya think? Don’t tell the guys.”

And the rest is history. But wait. There’s more:

The Berbers were the same people that produced Berber carpets, and had a hand in producing purple dye from seashells – the color of Roman Royalty. It’s also interesting to note that a large percentage of Berbers were Jews, Christians and Animists before those sects were marginalized by Islam in the 7th Century. The Barbary pirates were Islamic Berbers, thrived in the world-wide slave trade, and the word “barbarian” has etymological roots to the Berbers as well.

Goats-trees-berries-poop-cosmetics-food-Morocco-Berbers-carpet-purple-Islam-pirates-slavery-barbarians. What a connection, and it all began with Goats In Trees.

Fun Facts To Know And Tell.

[Image found here. Somewhat related post here.]