Another commemoration

I’m a few days late with this one, but…yeah.


For my money, the hands-down best song on that whole album would have to be…

Fifty years, huh? Man, that CAN’T be right. Can it…?

Update! Just watched it again, and one thing really stuns me: some of the tastiest, most iconic classic-rock lead guitar riffage of all time, and Scholtz is playing—wait for it—KEYBOARDS? Not that Barry Goudreau doesn’t step up like a man and do a bangup job of it, but I mean, come ON, man! SRSLY?!?

Airport memorializing

Best and most apt Dolly memorial I’ve seen so far.


Only D and DD? Sorry, but I was married to a DD-Plus gal myself, and I can say with no little authority that Dolly was a Triple or Fourple-D, if not even larger than.

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KHAAAAANN!

First up, let’s check out this phat meme (courtesy of Ms Hoyt, thanks!) which is what reminded me of this cool-ass little story in the first place.

Heh. By cracky, that’s just too darn punny right there. Now, let’s get to it.

The Picture That Settles The Khan Chest Debate
It’s been years since I’ve looked at Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but I do remember as a youngster buying into the idea that Ricardo Montalbán, who played the titular villain Khan, was wearing a prosthetic chest.

In case you’re not aware, it’s sort of an old urban legend that has been around for 35 years. Here is what the trivia on the IMDb says:

It has been widely debated that Ricardo Montalban’s chest was actually a prosthetic piece that he wore during the film. In the director’s commentary in the special edition DVD, Nicholas Meyer is quoted as saying that it was, in fact, Montalban’s actual chest and that he was a very muscular man who worked out. During publicity for the movie, during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1982) Montalban explained that he was able to achieve the look seen in the film by doing push-ups. “A lot of push-ups.”

The problem some people had was that Montalbán was an older gentleman at the time of filming and had a chest that was alpha as fuck, coupled with some curious attire positioning and a necklace that in theory would hide a suspect seam, and some poor VHS quality, some insisted it was fake. The layers of crude, fake, makeup Nimoy and Shatner wore — it looks like they rolled their faces in their wive’s makeup drawers — probably didn’t help.

Well, the following pic puts that to rest decisively.

Which, for my money, it….does. I’m satisfied that Montalban’s sculpted, manly chest is/was in fact the genuine article, no prosthetics required. Funny thing is, as a diehard Trek fanboi for pretty much my whole life, I never knew until just now that there ever even was a “Khan’s chest” debate; all along, I had just assumed it was either plastic or some other type of movie-magic fakery. Glad we finally got that all cleared up, aren’t you?

Funniest of all is that in the flick, Montalban’s Khan character was, in fact, a genetically-altered Übermenschen, specifically bio-engineered to be vastly superior in every way to us pathetic, flabby Normals. So in the end, not only was Montalban’s studly bod the real deal, but the man’s Rodin-statue-esque physique was probably a major part of the reason he got picked for the role to begin with. The above article appends another pic from early in Montalban’s acting career that’s even more convincing:

Yep, if THAT don’t persuade you, I can only guess that “Khan’s fake chest” is a position you simply aren’t open to changing yur mind about.

Update! Did a quickie Luxxle search, and whaddya know, further evidence in support of the proposition that Ricardo Montalban had a seriously carved-up, cut-up phyzz.

Montalban 2.

From another of his early movies, 1950’s Right Cross, in which Mr Rich Corinthian Leather portrays (you guessed it) a Mex-American boxing champeen.

Updated update! You wanna see something that really IS fake, phony, and fraudulent? Try this on for size.

Corinthian leather is a marketing term coined by copywriter Jim Nichols with the Omaha-based Bozell advertising agency in 1974 to describe a leather upholstery used in certain luxury vehicles of the Chrysler automobile company.

The advertisements developed the term Corinthian leather to imply a premium product of foreign origin denoting something rich, rare, and luxurious, though the product was in fact made by the Radel Leather Manufacturing Company in Newark, New Jersey.

Though Chrysler first used the term Corinthian leather in advertisements for the 1974 Imperial LeBaron, the term itself would ultimately become heavily associated with the 1975 Cordoba, an intermediate personal luxury car. The success of the advertising campaign closely associated actor Ricardo Montalbán, the spokesman, with the Cordoba’s so-called Corinthian leather. In promoting the Cordoba model, Montalbán described a car interior with thickly-cushioned, luxury seats upholstered in what were variously described as either fine, soft, or rich Corinthian leather.

When asked on Late Night with David Letterman what the term denoted, Montalbán said that Corinthian leather was a marketing term. Montalbán credited commercial writer Jim Nichols for the term. In promoting the Chrysler New Yorker in 1988, Montalbán described the Corinthian leather as a “rich” leather. The term came to include the vinyl upholstering for interior surfaces, such as the backs of the front seats and the head rests, and the lower parts of door facings.

Just in case any of y’all miscreants had somehow conjured the erroneous idea that We Duh Peepul being lied to, led astray, hornswoggled, and duped was something new.

The dirtiest song ever recorded

Is not “Think Twice Version X” by Jackie Wilson and LaVerne Baker, nor is it “Rotten Cocksuckers’ Ball” by the Clovers, nor is it “Shave ‘Em Dry” by Lucille Bogan—serious contenders all, certainly, but for my money the all-time prize for dirty tuneage goes to, of all artists/groups/whatever…erm…the Andrews Sisters?!?

The title is “Rum And Coca Cola,” which got the thing de facto banned upon its (attempted) 1945 release for the mention of alcohol in both title and chorus. What makes this ditty the all-time champ of dirty is the lyrics’ contention that, basically, every female in Trinidad was a prostitute, running down to the docks to peddle ass to US sailors anytime a Navy ship sailed into port. As the lyrics flatly put it, “Both mother and daughter/Working for the Yankee dollar.”

Nope, nothing coy or subtle about that, I must say.

The melody was published as the work of Venezuelan calypso composer Lionel Belasco on a song titled “L’Année Passée”. The lyrics to “Rum and Coca-Cola” were written by Rupert Grant, another calypso musician from Trinidad who used the stage name Lord Invader.

The song became a local hit and was at the peak of its popularity when US entertainer Morey Amsterdam visited the island in September 1943 as part of a U.S.O. tour. The song was then published in the United States with Amsterdam listed as lyricist and Jeri Sullivan and Paul Baron as composers. Although he claimed never to have heard the song during the month he spent on the island, the lyrics to his version are clearly based on the Lord Invader version, with the music and chorus being virtually identical. However, Amsterdam’s version strips the song of its social commentary. The Lord Invader version laments that U.S. soldiers are debauching local women who “saw that the Yankees treat them nice/and they give them a better price.” Its final stanza describes a newlywed couple whose marriage is ruined when “the bride run away with a soldier lad/and the stupid husband went staring mad.” The Amsterdam version also hints that women are prostituting themselves, preserved in the Lord Invader chorus which says, “Both mother and daughter/Working for the Yankee dollar.”

Since the Yankee come to Trinidad
They got the young girls all goin’ mad
Young girls say they treat ’em nice
Make Trinidad like paradise

The song was recorded in 1944 by The Andrews Sisters, crediting the composition to Amsterdam, Sullivan and Baron. The sisters seem to have given little thought to the meaning of the lyrics. According to Patty Andrews, “We had a recording date, and the song was brought to us the night before the recording date. We hardly really knew it, and when we went in we had some extra time and we just threw it in, and that was the miracle of it. It was actually a faked arrangement. There was no written background, so we just kind of faked it.” In under ten minutes they made a record that sold seven million units and sat at number one on the Billboard magazine chart for seven weeks. Maxine Andrews recalled, “The rhythm was what attracted the Andrews Sisters to ‘Rum and Coca-Cola’. We never thought of the lyric. The lyric was there, it was cute, but we didn’t think of what it meant; but at that time, nobody else would think of it either, because we weren’t as morally open as we are today and so, a lot of stuff—really, no excuses—just went over our heads.” Some stations refused to play the song because it mentioned rum, and alcohol could not be advertised on the air, or because it mentioned the brand name Coca-Cola, which was perceived as advertising for the soft drink.

Fret not, people; y’all know I wouldn’t leave ya hanging as to what the song sounds like.

OH, you naughty, naughty girls!

High-tech lynching ’26

This time, of Harry Potter scribe JK Rowling.

J.K. Rowling isn’t an obscure novelist looking for her first break. She’s the bestselling author of the bestselling book series in modern publishing history. Her stories have sold hundreds of millions of copies, been translated around the globe, inspired blockbuster films, and introduced an entire generation to the joy of reading.

If that resume isn’t enough to justify a serious biography, what exactly is? The answer has nothing to do with literature. It has everything to do with politics.

Somewhere along the way, Rowling stopped being judged primarily as one of the world’s most successful authors and became a political litmus test. For some people, her views on sex and gender now outweigh everything else she has ever written, accomplished, donated, or inspired.

You don’t have to agree with Rowling to recognize what’s happening here. You only have to ask a simple question. When did we stop being curious?

Come come, now, Mr Rice, sir. When have shitlibs EVER evinced the slightest willingness to tolerate curiosity of any kind, from intellectual to ideological to the kind that killed the cat? Onwards.

One of the things that struck me during my conversation with Solomon (Schimdt, author of a new Rowling bio) was how straightforward his motivation really was. He wasn’t looking to pick a fight. He looked around and realized something that should have been obvious. How could the woman behind Harry Potter, arguably the defining literary phenomenon of the last thirty years, not already have a definitive modern biography?

Charles Dickens has biographies. William Shakespeare has biographies. J.R.R. Tolkien has biographies. C.S. Lewis has biographies.

But the author who created the most successful publishing franchise of our lifetime had somehow become too radioactive for many people even to write about. That should bother anyone who claims to love books.

As Solomon explained, understanding Rowling’s life helps readers understand Harry Potter itself. Her struggles with poverty, depression, rejection, and single motherhood weren’t footnotes. They shaped the stories. They gave us Harry’s loneliness, the Dementors that captured depression so vividly, and the recurring lesson that courage usually comes at a personal cost.

Biography isn’t an endorsement. It’s an exploration. Somewhere, we’ve forgotten the difference.

Not precisely, no. We’ve allowed the Left to trample difference, uniqueness, iconoclasm, distinction, achievement, initiative, all of those—crushing their faces into the dirt until each in turn had stopped breathing.

In a Yugo

Of all the riotously funny song parodies that ran on the late, lamented Rush Limbaugh radio program, this here one is my hands-down favorite. Don’t know for sure if it’s Paul Shanklin or not, but I assume so.

The bit where the Yugo driver “swerves to miss a baby duck” and then gets “squashed by a produce truck” makes me laugh till my sides ache every single time.

Happy happy joy joy

What better lead-in to the 4th of July holiday weekend than some good old all-American music?

The Aaron Copland-inspired theme for The Magnificent Seven was, of course, composed in the Year of Our Lord 1960 (the year of my birth, actually—GOD, I’m old!) by one Elmer Bernstein, who I assume from the surname is one of them dirty, filthy, genocidal ***(((JooJooJooJOOOOOZ!!)))***

Update! Just gotta inclusde this: what has to be my personal all-time favorite cover version, a surf-twangy instro laid down by the aptly named John Barry Seven.



WHOA, that’s good squishy!

Film clip

Tons of chatter about Uwe Bolt’s magnum opus out there, some pro, some con, but if this extended 7.5-minute snippet doesn’t motivate you to watch the whole thing, you’re probably a damned liberal.

Update! Direct, do-it-yourself justice is busting out all over, looks like.

Mexican Batman Duct-Tapes Alleged Motorcycle Thieves to Lamp Posts
A vigilante nicknamed ‘Batman of Lagos de Moreno’ has become known in the Mexican state of Jalisco for tying alleged motorcycle thieves to lamp posts

Tired of waiting for local police to do their duty and bring criminals to justice, a mysterious vigilante in the town of Lagos de Moreno, Mexico’s Jalisco state, has been duct-taping alleged motorcycle thieves to lamp posts and leaving them for authorities to find. At least five ‘victims’ have been found so far.

The mysterious ‘Batman’ started operating in Lagos de Moreno in mid-June. The first person was found duct-taped to a lamp post, with ‘thief’ written on his forehead, on June 13th. An allegedly stolen motorcycle was also found nearby, suggesting that the immobilized person was a thief. But this was only the beginning, as police have since discovered at least 4 other alleged thieves tied to lamp posts.

Yes, there are pictures, and they’re hilarious. Unfortunately, the “proper authorities” appear to have learned nothing whatsoever from all this (bold mine).

Although most people seem convinced this crusade against alleged motorcycle thieves is the work of a single vigilante, local authorities told news reporters that this might be the work of a gang of vigilantes. Interestingly, so far, the victims have not provided any clarification in that regard.

Jalisco’s Secretary of Public Security, Juan Pablo Hernández, reported that investigations are underway to clarify the attacks and locate those involved. He also emphasized that the five men found bound so far are currently being treated as victims, adding that no one should take the law into their own hands, regardless of their motives.

Yeah well, sorry to have to hip ya to it and all, pal, but people are only gonna take so much official crim-coddling, excuse-making, and hands-off, lackadaisical “policing” before they r’are up on their hind legs and start taking care of business for themselves. Expecting otherwise from them is a mug’s game, at best.

Remember, duct-taping the thieving skin-bags to a lamp post is the MODERATE response.

“Who was the most boring rock star?”

Via my daily Quora Digest email: question asked, question answered. Well, kinda sorta.

Who was the most boring rock star?
I was the music director of a popular college rock station in the early 1980s, and as such, had the opportunity to interview or sit in on interviews with a lot of touring acts, whose A&R people would dutifully bring them by to help boost interest and airplay.

I can tell you there were a few good ones. David Johansen was boisterous and hilarious. Greg Kihn was cool and folksy. Steve Perry and Neil Schon of Journey probably would’ve been a great interview, but we were all punky and new wavy and our edgy drive time guy insulted them so they stormed off the set. Definitely not boring. And Nick Lowe was charming, clever, and full of stories, including a few about his longtime pal and running mate, Dave Edmunds.

You know who was boring as…well, really boring? Dave Edmunds! I don’t know if he was strung out from the road the day we got him, or bummed out to be stuck with a bunch of snooty kids, or whatever, but man, you could not crowbar a word from him. He just slouched in the chair, issuing monosyllabic grunts and such, until the interview mercifully ended.

The guy could really put on a show, and he was an amazing guitarist, and who even knows what he was like in real life back in the day, but in my sole encounter, for whatever reason, he was the most boring rock star. Hopefully someone has a story to counter this impression, so I can put the blame on me.

Been there done that myself, I’m afraid. One of the most embarrassing occasions of my whole life had to be the time we went to a local college radio station the morning after a gig in NOLA for an interview session. It being N’Awlins and all, naturally we weren’t merely hung over when we got there, we were still drunk as boiled owls. So every question received a mumbled, semi-coherent one or two word response. The poor DJ was totally at sea trying to make us sound lively and interesting, poor bastid.

GOOOOOD squishy!

And now for something completely different.

Although I never was what anybody would call a huge fan of Neil Young—when I was a teenager we used to laugh him off as “Neil DUNG”—I do have tremendous respect for his songwriting skills, which are damned near miraculous; the above is probably the best example of that I know of offhand. “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” has been covered by everybody and his sister’s cat’s grandmother by now, and I do mean EVERYBODY: Annie Lennox, the Cowboy Junkies, Chris Cornell, Guns & Roses (!!!), and Paul McCartney, just to name a few. That constitutes a pretty dang powerful endorsement all on its own, actually.

It’s an achingly lovely, haunting tune, both melodically and lyrics-wise, about which Young himself once sardonicized:

On (CSN&Y’s 1971 live album)  4 Way Street, Young says, “Here is a new song, it’s guaranteed to bring you right down, it’s called ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’. It sorta starts off real slow and then fizzles out altogether.” The crowd then roars with laughter.

As well they might’ve. In Korb’s jazz-trio version above, what Salieri said in Amadeus of Mozart’s work is even more apropos: Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall.

Update! Having recently discussed the vital importance of phrasing to any vocal performance, irrespective of musical genre, I would be remiss not to call Ms Korb’s impeccable style to y’all’s attention. Keep a close ear on that piano break, also.

Ruh-roh

Leave it to the fine folks at the Bee to get right to the meat of the matter.


Heh. Who indeed.

Update! Via Stephen, another excellent Xweet that I felt really needed to be on the main page here too.


The ones that really slay me are the ones who, like lying douchenozzle, shithouse pud-puller, and serial female-abuser Adolf Platner, think it’s FederalGovCo’s job to see to it that it never, ever happens again. Just who the actual fuck do you goobermint wastrels think you are, anyhow?

Supreme expression of the parodist’s art

This one is popping up everywhere today, and with good reason: it perfectly encapsulates liberal shibboleths about open borders, feral nig-nogs, RAYCISSISSISM!™, and the innate superiority of violent, savage boogaloos imported from the Dark Continent and foisted onto an advanced civilization they are in no way, shape, or form either interested in or capable of assimilating into.

Getting the band back together

Too bad the original line-up sucked out loud also.


You gotta love the guy

Why? Oh, no reason, I just felt like saying it.


Heh.

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AT LAST, some good news!

The Hut is back, baybeee.

Pizza Hut brings back its old-school restaurant features as nostalgic customers rejoice: ‘So excited’
Back to the good old days.

2026 has proven to be the year of nostalgia. Youngsters are resorting to old-school tech like vintage flip phones and iPods. Others are returning to analog hobbies and activities.

Even beloved restaurant chain Pizza Hut is going back in time, reverting to its retro glory — red checkered tablecloths and all.

Tim Sparks, president of Daland Corporation, a Kansas-based company that operates almost 100 Pizza Hut locations across the country, is helping keep Pizza Hut alive by rewinding the clock and redecorating over 80 annoyingly modern, stark-looking locations to make them look like they did decades ago.

Red roof? Check

Red-checkered tablecloths, vinyl booths and Tiffany-style lamps? Check, check and check.

The beloved salad bar and red plastic cups will be back.

Even the old-school Pac-Man machines will return.

Unsurprisingly, customers are losing their minds over this massive change.

As well they might—although, as a few others in the NYP article point out, what WON’T be coming back is the original recipe for the various pizzas and such-like. FederalGovCo banned all the ingredients decades ago, see. For our own good, of course and as always.

Why, whatever would we do without them? Surely there must be some way we could try just to find out, isn’t there?

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