Saturday Matinee – Alexandre Nicolas Theroude, Joe Rinaudo, Mayer Hawthorne & The Beat Farmers

“Au siècle de la révolution industrielle, la technologie des automates est maîtrisée principalement par les artisans français. Alexandre-Nicolas Théroude, le créateur de cette pièce pour laquelle il a déposé un brevet en 1866, est connu pour avoir le premier su enfermer le mécanisme dans le corps de l’automate.”

“Flautiste” – Life-size Flute Player Automaton by Alexandre Nicolas Theroude (1807-1883), Paris, France, c.1869-77.

Joe Rinaudo and the American Fotoplayer  on “California’s Gold” with (the late) Huell Howser, Season 17, Episode 7, February 18th, 2006.
From the YouTube comments:

  • “Ladies and Gentlemen: Please rise for our 2020 National Anthem.
  • If people could read my mind, this is what they’d see.”
  • “This is baby makin’ music for clowns.”

Mayer Hawthorne has the Motown sound down. I heard this and thought “Why don’t I remember that one?” He once stated that, when working as a hip hop DJ, he began recording his own Motown-style tracks to avoid paying fees for sampling other artists’ work. That video made me grin. An excerpt of “The Walk” was used in a Blue Moon beer TV commercial in 2017.

The Beat Farmers were a great band from So. California. I got to see them several times in the 80s, and Road of Ruin seems appropriate for our times. (Two of the original members are gone: Country Dick Montana and Buddy Blue.)

Yeah, we may be on the road of ruin depending on how you look at things, and I’m not talking about the current election fraud. It’s the bigger picture that concerns me. Not much I can do about it.

See you back here tomorrow, rain or shine, and we’ll do something stupid together.

Aw hell. I just gotta post this. GOTTA.

Grumpkin 2020

The sketch & template are mine, the missus did the evisceration.
Previous grumpkins here.

Will it be Covfefe or Trunalimunumaprzure? Election Day 2020

If in doubt on a Proposition, vote NO.
If in doubt on any Candidate, ABSTAIN.
If anyone asks you how you voted, LIE.


ICYMI: 1st unintelligible word in title is Trump‘s classic;
2nd babblecluster is Biden‘s.

[h/t AoP.]

Día de los Muertos

[Images found in our living room. Día de los Muertos archive here. ]

Saturday Matinee Halloween Edition – The Ramones, Sally Cruikshank & Oingo Boingo

First recorded in 1976, The RamonesI Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement is sort of appropriate.

Sally Cruikshank‘s animations are Betty Boop on acid.
Face like a Frog (1987) includes the Cab Calloway-esque song Don’t Go In The Basement (starts at 02:26 ). In 2017, Cruikshank herself added this to the YouTube comments:

Danny Elfman composed the track for this film. Period. Copyright mine. Then a year or two later I gave his agents permission to include it on a compilation LP, I guess put out by [David] Geffen. Now they claim I got the music from the album or something. They’re wrong. My film came first. My husband’s going to get into it with Geffen.”

“I don’t always listen to Dead Man’s Party, but when I do so do the neighbors.” – YouTube comment

Oingo Boingo was a standout band of the 1980s, combining ska, punk, jazz & rock, and Dead Man’s Party became a Halloween party standard. According to Wikipedia:

The lyric, “I hear the chauffeur coming to my door / Says there’s room for maybe just one more,” is a reference to “The Bus-Conductor,” a short story by E. F. Benson about a hearse driver, first published in The Pall Mall Magazine in 1906.

Video is from the 1986 movie Back To School. Yeah, 34 years ago…

Happy Halloween, folks!
This year I’m gonna scare half the neighborhood by NOT wearing a mask. Hope you get all the tricks you deserve and all the treats that you don’t.

[Paranoia moons previously posted here. More Halloween-related posts in the archives.]

The .Gif Friday Post No. 656 – Smiley Fireus & The Ska-letones

 

[Flaming emoji found here. Don’t remember where I found the other guys.]

Siats Meekerorum

It lived in what’s now Utah. An average-sized Mormon is on the left.

[Top image from here via here. More info here.]

Humuhumunukunukuapua’a Hot Links

Hapa Haole Hula Girl (My Honolulu Hula Girl), Alfred Apaka with Danny Stewart’s Hawaiians (1951) Decca Records“Alfred Aloha Apaka (1919–1960) was one of the influential performers in the history of Hawaii’s popular music. Although he recorded for less than a decade, Apaka set the standards for modern Hawaiian music with his joyful, baritone vocals and highly entertaining performances.” (BTW, “hapa haole” doesn’t translate to “Honolulu,” and is also a style of music.)

Schooled.

Dan Getkin.

THIS is disgusting.

A Handful of Phasmids.

NIce woodworking project.

Let’s Talk Dirty In Hawaiian.

NASA/NOAA prevented Global Cooling.

Binaural beats are considered auditory illusions.

This is the best game of hide-and-seek ever.” [via]

Kiddie board games imagined as horror flicks. [h/t Nate L.]

Escaping through a predator’s butt can be a lifesaver [via].

[Top image: artwork by Derek Yaniger.]


From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.


Let’s Meat In The Park.

It’s so nice out I’m gonna leave it out.

[Found here.]

My WebEx Meeting Notes – August & September 2020

Pen on paper, 8-1/2 x 11, 6.25 square inches per meeting.

Business has slowed down for the folks I’ve been doing consulting work for and so has my participation in the daily phone convos. In fact, I’m looking for work, or some semblance of a cash flow. Other things are in the mix, and one of these days I might post about them. Or not.

Hopefully the ‘vid mongers stop this shut down insanity soon, but the big money is still skittish. The election poses more uncertainty, not so much for the outcome, but for the probability of more violent mayhem caused by the unshackled terrorists and a cesspool of governors and congressmen who sold their souls a long time ago.
Guess we wait and see…

[Previous WebEx meeting notes here.]