Category: History

1,292 Posts = 3rd Year Blogoversary!

Wow. Didn’t think we’d still be around this long. Mostly, we didn’t think at all, just got up did it, starting on 3 August 2007, and we’ve since passed 671,000 views!

The year certainly had its highlights. We had our busiest day, 18 October 2009, with over 20,500 hits. I was invited to post on both AmyOops and The Blogmocracy. Amy’s site is kind of a cornocopia of oddness, and The Blogmocracy is more about current events where I provide innocuous fodder for the Overnight Open Thread. It’s all a lot of fun.

We opened up The Tacky Raccoons Store for TR paraphernalia. Our new FaceBook page was hacked and deleted, but it’ll be up again soon. Thanks to all who logged in.

This post is a retrospective of our past year, listing the Top 10 greatest hits of Tacky Raccoons from August 2009 to August 2010. Previous years’ greatest hits are here and here.

So here are the Top 10 of the past twelve months, with last year’s rankings separated by an appropriate slash. NR = no rating,  indicating that the post either didn’t make rank or wasn’t posted last year. Click on the images to see the original posts.

Hey Ho! Let’s go!


No 10/NR: Steampunk Rabbit Hunt


No. 9/NR: The .Gif Friday Post No. 129 – Compound Pendulum, Nematode, Cat Slide


No. 8/6: Southern California Fires –  October 2007


No. 7/NR: Bloody Mushrooms With Teeth


No. 6/NR: How to REALLY piss off a golden retriever


No. 5/9: Lesbian Amputee Dwarf Porn
[The title of this one was pure blogwhoring at its best, and it’s still paying off.]


No. 4/1: Lol Ferret Episode 1
[This was the 2nd most popular post since this blog done be borned, with over 30,6oo hits since 8 November 2007.]


No. 3/3: Giant Woolly Bear Caterpillar Discovered Near Las Cruces, NM, Predicts Global Warming for Decades to Come
[Don’t miss the comments on this one.]


No. 2/NR: Amy’s Motivational Poster Collection

AND THE NUMBER ONE POST OF THE YEAR IS:

No. 1/NR: An Expensive Ignosecond
This post got close to 21,000 hits before we realized that the pictures didn’t show an accident. Those guys knew exactly what they were doing, and they did it with precision.

Thanks gobs to all of you who joined up and stayed with us these past years, keep on clicking on. Let’s hope and pray that the results of this year’s November elections bring us all back to prosperity.  –Bunk

[Tip o’ the tarboosh to this site that produced the top image.]

Saturday Matinee – World’s Strongest Redneck, Derek, Bob, Gatemouth & Johnny, and Buddy Guy

Redneck washing machine. When Steve McGranahan‘s not bending cast iron skillits for charity, this funny guy makes videos.

“Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad?” was one of Derek & The Dominos’ greatest hits.

One of my favorite Wailers songs.

Here’s a 44 year old Clarence Gatemouth Brown with a 32 yearold Johnny Jones playing  “Chicken Fat” in 1968. [via]

Happy 74th Birthday to Buddy Guy, one of the last original bluesplayers.  Here’s a guy who left the south for Chicago and played for sandwiches to keep from starving.

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

Saturday Matinee – Cows & Cycles, Kim Wilson, W.C. Clark, Angela Strehli, Jimmy Vaughan, Little Walter, Coco Taylor, Howlin’ Wolf, Leon Redbone, and a link to Marion Harris


Cows & Cows & Cows. (Tip o’ the tarboosh to Bunkarina.)


If that wasn’t odd enough, try Cycles. (Thanx, Possum.)


Whoa. Whatta lineup. Kim Wilson, backed by Jimmy Vaughan and W.C.Clark with Angela Strehli. Might have posted the vid before, but so what.


Little Walter was an excellent harp player. Here he is with Coco Taylor in 1967, playing Howlin’ Wolf’s “Wang Dang Doodle.”


What was truly pitiful in the 60s was that the Brits were the ones to reintroduce American blues to Americans. (Look who introduces the great Howlin’ Wolf on this clip.)


Let’s wrap up with a healthy dose of Leon Redbone. Poor video, but a nice version of this song from 1916.

Have a great weekend, but be back here tomorrow for more fun.

Saturday Matinee – FAIL fail, Original Star Trek, Robert Klein, Friends of Distinction, Cornelius Brothers, War

FAIL fail = WIN
Reminds me of the 2nd .gif  here.

The original Star Trek was the best. Check out how young Kirk and McCoy look [via].

I might have posted this before, but Robert Klein was truly funny occasionally. If anyone has a clip of his classic “I Can’t Stop My Leg,” lemme know.

Classic summer song by The Friends of Distinction.

Here’s The Cornelius Brothers in Ft. Lauderdale in 1983, reprising their hit from 1972. (The video link above jumps to other stuff; couldn’t find a solitary link of a live show.)

Also from 1972, here’s War‘s live version of “Slipping Into Darkness.” Early 70s funk was awesome. Have a great weekend, folks, and be back here tomorrow for more funk and games.

Happy Independence Day

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Saturday Matinee – Sushi, Percy, Grappelli, AatW, Bob Wills

I kinda suspected this. Not. [via Cynical-C]

Percy Faith’s “Theme From A Summer Place” was one of my favorites for reasons I really can’t explain; I just liked it, especially when the french horns kicked in. [via The Chawed Rosin]

Here’s another song that’s way up in my favorites. “Blue Moon” was composed by Rogers and Hart in 1934, and Stéphane Grappelli treated it with respect.

Asleep at the Wheel paid homage to Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys. [via Huck Funn]

Don’t know who Bob Wills was? Here’s a video to show you what y’all have been missing. Meanwhile, have a great Independence Day weekend, folks, and don’t forget to put your flag out tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – The Clarks, Dan Akroyd, Eubie Blake, Tandy & Randy Newman

The Clarks! Tip o’ the Tarboosh to coldwarrior.

Dan Akroyd plays James Cotton‘s version of Ike Turner‘s Rocket 88.

Eubie Blake was awesome. He was 95 in 1978 when this interview was recorded.

During the break there’s  an advertisement for the troublesome RadioShack TRS-80 computer system, using magenetic tape cassettes for data storage. Only cost $599! That’s about $2,000 in today’s dollars. Later on, after users complained about problems with the cassette drives, Tandy eventually offered an awesome 5MB hard drive accessory, about the same size as a PC today, for $1,500 – a whopping $4,900 today.

Okay, 1978 was probably the peak of the (gag) disco phase, and the birth of R&B pop love anthems. There is absolutely nothing that ranked in the top 20 that I’d post here, except for maybe for the Stone’s “Miss You.” Worst song they ever did IMO.

On the other hand, this song made No. 41, and Randy Newman gets kudos for writing the most misunderstood song of the year:

Have a great weekend, folks, and meet me back here tomorrow.

D-Day – 6 June 1944

Pure balls, guts and subterfuge displaced the Nazis, saved Europe and brought down the Reichstadt.  Here’s to those who fought to the death for freedom.

[Related posts here and here.]

Saturday Matinee – American Dialects, W.C. Clark & the Fabulous Thunderbirds

American regional dialects are curious, and when I hear one I haven’t heard in a while I try to identify where the speaker grew up. If you listen closely, you can hear the ancestral accents and phrasing as well: English to the north, Scottish and Irish to the south. As for me, I have no accent, but Mrs. Strutts says I do… I sound a lot like central Ohio mixed with some faint Texan stuff. (Here’s a simple online test if you’re curious what accent mix you have.)

W.C. Clark backed by The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and featuring Angela Strehli is an awesome mix of Texas blues. Never heard of W.C. Clark? Try this:

Yep, that’s Stevie Ray Vaughan with W.C. Clark. Next question?

Bertha Dlugi’s Contribution to the World

Bertha Dlugi’s invention, patented in 1959, was intended for parakeets and other birds that are allowed to fly freely about the house. “It is … a general object of the present invention to provide a garment to be worn by birds for receiving their excremental discharge to prevent it from being deposited on household furnishings when the bird is at liberty in the home and thereby avoid the consequent unsanitary condition.”

[Image and description from here. Crossposted here.]