I actually do need a doctor. Several, in fact, and many nurses and technicians.
Shit, lotta people need doctors right now.
This was a poor choice of song.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Tag: ray charles (Page 1 of 2)
Brother Ray’s version is so much better than the Dead’s that it sounds like an entirely different song.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: It is, in fact, an entirely different song.)
The man’ll never steer you wrong.
“I thought you said this was a crowd scene.”
“We’re gonna add them in post, Mr Charles.”
FUN FACT: This clip is from a 1964 film called Ballad In Blue, which was directed by Casablanca‘s Victor Laszlo, Paul Henreid.
You can kill yourself by putting your head in an electric oven, Enthusiasts. You just also need to add your hand, and be holding a gun. You don’t need to know how to tie a proper noose to hang yourself, either. The traditional coiled knot exists to give the rope enough heft so that your neck can snap against it when you drop six feet; that’s why it’s placed to the side rather in back. Any knot will do if you’re just gonna choke.
And when you choose your end, please leave a note–it’s rude not to–outside the room you did it in. Don’t let family walk in on your fresh corpse. Having trouble finding the words? Let TotD help:
Dear Cruel World,
I just don’t have the strength for the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock. It’s going to be unbearable. One intuits such things.
Sincerely,
Lester Bangs
It’s gonna be dire, Enthusiasts. There will be documentaries and articles and lists and thinkpieces–the content, my God, the content–and you’ll get tricked into watching that moribound, stereoscopic slog of a film, and then ingesting content–CONTENT–about the film, and whoever’s still alive from the roster will be touring as hard as their hips can handle. The codgers, my God, the codgers. It’s gonna suuuuuuuck.
And I’ll get to it. I’ll do a big post about the festival and one of them real-time jerkoff posts about the movie. For now, we concern ourselves with the event announced this week, Woodstock50©®™. What’s left of the Grateful Dead (Touring Version) is headlining on Saturday night, preceded by every 50-year-old white guy’s favorite hip-hopper, those ugly guys who write songs for commercials, the fellow with the interesting name, and a Zeppelin cover band.
Also noted within the lineup:
- The Earl Sweatshirt?
- Pussy Riot is Quiet Riot’s cousin.
- Common is the focus-grouped, corporate version of KRS-ONE.
- Alternately, he is the male Alicia Keys.
- In 20 years of knowing of Hot Tuna’s existence, I’ve never once been curious to listen to them.
- Pick a non-disgusting name, Hot Tuna.
- I’m never gonna not think that Vince Staples is a country artist.
- No Ye?
- Where the fuck is Ye?
- Whoopity scoop?
There’s a website, of course, and there’s merch available, of course, and one piece is the Woostock Psychedelic Tube. You heard me.
The misspelling is not reassuring as to the item’s quality, nor is the fact that “tube” is not a recognized sub-category of clothing. No, what these mud-brained ninnies are selling is the makings of clothing.
Look at this bullshit:
Fuck you, Woodstock50©®™. Don’t sell me a piece of fabric and some instructions and try to pass it off as “clothes.” Also: one of the 13 ways to wear the Woostock Psychedelic Tube is as a blindfold. Are there to be executions during Imagine Dragons’ set? Will the undesirables receive a last cigarette in addition to their Woostock Psychedelic Tube?
Oh, hey, remember how I opened this post by telling you to kill yourself?
Seriously: kill yourself. This will be awful.
For those of you without the courage to end it all, here is Ray Charles singing Hank Williams. Neither man will be at Woodstock50©®™.
Why are you like this?
“I sensed danger, and instinctually turtled up.”
That’s your instinct?
“More muscle memory. See, my toppermosts are all bulletproof.”
Really.
“Yeah. They’re stoppermosts.”
You’re unbearable.
“The cotton is impregnated with kevlar, and then carbon fiber is weaved in. It’s not easy to weave with carbon fiber. Most looms break.”
So that thing is bulletproof?
“It can take a shot or two.”
Awesome.
BANG!
“OW! It still hurts! Don’t shoot me!”
Wasn’t me.
“Then who did it?”
BANG!
“OW!”
“Little to the left, Ray, and then give ‘im the old bingle-bangle flizzum flop!”
“All right, then.”
BANG!
“OW! Hey! Jackass!”
Moi?
“Vous. This is stupid, and don’t take Bill Cosby out of the Problem Attic.”
I’ll pull down the steps to that place for whomever I choose, thank you.
*Admit it: you were surprised when you saw him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZExIPu5WTo
Just remember, kids: anything a human could sing, Brother Ray could sing better.
(With thanks to Valued Commentator JES for the tip)
And America, too. And all us goddamned sinners and the ones that didn’t stop us from sinning out of love. And the mornings and the evenings and all the funerals and parades. And the hatred and lies and the piles of donations and the water which will rise of its own accord. All those broken soldiers and the park benches with the initials of young love carved into their faces. And the history books and the gallows and the Colt .45 that tamed the west. Jesus, too. And the misfits and the coders and drunks in hallways who could not make it to their beds.
Shallow graves and deep pockets; God bless you, America. The Wampanoag and the Clovis and Vinnie from Bayside. Fishermen and widows and no-longer-Nazi rocket scientists and shortstops. Hitchhikers and serial killers, and cops and whores, and oilmen and trappers. And all these motherfucking rivers with their motherfucking gamblers. Beer and whiskey and hatchets and war and all of it America.
God bless us all, all us sinners.
WE’RE SORRY, SIR!
“Stop, er, yelling at me. I can hear you. What are you sorry for?”
Literally everything.
“You all have, er, botched things up, haven’t you?”
We have, yes.
“Jap destroyer ran over my boat. I swam through the ocean four miles towing an injured man with my teeth. I, er, did that for my country. Could have gone to Wall Street. Gotten rich. I entered pubic service. I did that for my country. Do you know how much gonorrhea I’ve gotten for my country?”
So much.
“Jack’s a pussy man, son.”
Ew.
“I am, er, the President of Pussy.”
You’re not.
“I am.”
Okay, you kind of are.
“What have you done with the America I left you, son? Have you finished what I started?”
What did you start?
“Moon.”
We went there.
“Excellent. Is it now, er, some sort of colony?”
No, we stopped going because everyone got bored with it.
“What? What about Mars? How long have we been going to Mars?”
We sent robots to mars. And we have a space station.
“Wonderful. How many people live there? Has the first generation of Space Americans been born?’
It’s not like that. The International Space Station is basically a half-dozen tin cans lashed together.
“What you’re describing sounds like the definition of ‘the least you could do.'”
Kinda.
“Cuba?”
Castro died!
“Great news, great. When?”
Four months ago.
…
“You’re shitting me.”
That guy was the Michael Jordan of not dying.
“How is Gina Lollabrigida?”
Either dead or very old.
“Me and Bobby made a bridge out of Gina.”
Wonderful joke, Mr. President.
“Good times. Bobby would often join Peter Lawton, Frank, myself for a little hanky-panky. Then, after the hanky-panky, we would start fucking.”
That’s a lovely story.
“Peter Lawton never paid for a whore in his life. Not a meal, not a whore. I learned that very early in life: always, er, pay your whores.”
Good advice.
“Now tell me what’s going on in the White House, son. This is an untenable situation you have here. There is, er, chaos. There is, er, confusion. There is, er, nepotism.”
Well, maybe you’re not the best one to accuse people of nepotism.
“I appointed Bobby as Attorney General because he was the most qualified member of my family.”
Another wonderful joke, sir.
“I am, er, very charming.”
You are.
“My brother Bobby was a United States Senator. He was approved by the Senate. Once in office, he took on the Mafia, and the Teamsters, and he fought for civil rights.”
Jared owns hotels and Ivanka sells shoes.
“Right, right. And the fellow is just unpleasant looking. Like a dog’s balls that someone took a cheese grater to.
True.
“Look at me. Look at how handsome I am.”
You’re very handsome.
“Admire my vigor.”
I like the way you say that in your accent.
“Admire my vigor!”
Yes, sir. Nice vigor.
“Who was the last one? The negro fellow?”
Not a negro.
“Son, I’ve seen negroes before. I know what they look like.”
Black. Negros are black now.
“Good for them. Anyway, the tall one. Dignified. That’s what a president should look like.”
I agree.
“What was his name?”
Barack Obama.
“Googa magooga.”
Please stop being from 1961. His name was Barack Obama. Perfectly normal name.
“Middle name?”
Didn’t have one.
“I bet that Obama’s a pussy man, too.”
He is not. You’re worse than Nixon in many ways.
“What’s he doing now? I should call him. Presidents’ orgy time.”
He will not do that.
“I have orgied with many negroes.”
I would honestly rather talk to Nixon.
“Well, Nixon is busy right now, young man. Come back after Mr. Charles is gone.”
Mr. Charles?
“You talking to the pretty boy?”
Yes, sir.
“Well, go make your gaga eyes at him. Nixon will, uh, be here with Mr. Charles, whom I am informed is referred to as Brother Ray.”
“You know it, baby.”
“Go back to Harvard Boy.”
Aw.
Come back, Ray. We didn’t listen. We never fucking listen.
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