Soundtracks For Summer: Walk The Dinosaur

Part 13 in my ongoing "Soundtracks For Summer" series.

Here's an entry that I've been wanting to do for a while, but could never write it down.



"Walk The Dinosaur," the biggest hit for the band Was (Not Was). I'm highly aware that this isn't the original, iconic video. It can be found here. Damn record label not allowing embedding.

This is actually the first song in this series that I have no experience with whatsoever. It's mostly due to this song being my most requested entry. Still, this is a pretty damn good song. Here's what I do know about it: Released in 1987 during MTV's heyday, it was one of those songs that experienced quite a heavy rotation, and thus, becoming quite ingrained in viewer's minds. The visuals certainly help. 80's Pop? Yes. Lame Dance? Yep. Hot women? Hell yes. Cheap soundstage? Check. Public Domain Looney Tunes? Checkmate. All for an awesome video.

I can quite imagine this song playing on a boombox during a beach party in the late 80's and beyond. It also reminds me of someone boldly attempting to pick up chicks in a beach-themed bar with this song playing. Then getting rejected. Then getting trashed. Then repeating the cycle. Good times.

I've also got this memory from regular reader and blogging friend Dan:

One of my personal fave's! I remember I was about 16 or 17 when I went to my sister's place out in the middle of nowhere for a bonfire/weenie roast. This song came on the radio and everyone was singing along and dancing (poorly) to the music. It's such an odd song anyway but it'll always have a spot in my heart.

And it's a good thing that I saved this entry until now, it's actually been getting a slight resurgence thanks to appearing on the soundtrack for Ice Age 3. It's a cover by Queen Latifah, but still. It's also been more famously covered by George Clinton (& The Goombas) for the Super Mario Bros. movie. I'll let you be the judge of which one is freakier/more awesome.



BTW, I'm also taking reader submissions for future "Soundtracks For Summer" entries. The next few Soundtracks For Summer entries will be: Paradise City, Holiday Road and Californication. If you've got an idea, pop me an email at beamingforbunnies@gmail.com with the name of the song, and a reason or two why it defines "Summer" for you. You'll be glad you did.

Also, does anyone know the name of that Red Hot Chili Peppers song where the music vid was them just riding in a car? That one's perfect for a late summer entry.

Become a Fan!

Hey y'all, I finally put the ol' blog up on The Facebook for all to follow! Become a fan and receive regular updates. It's mostly so I don't have to write notes and tag everyone now.

Click this sentence to add me today!

Btw, the next entry will definitely be a Soundtracks For Summer entry, and I'm aiming for Walk The Dinosaur.

Soundtracks For Summer: School's Out

Part 12 in my ongoing "Soundtracks For Summer" series.

Okay, I'm starting to slack on entries, but here's a new entry for once! I've been meaning to write this particular one for the past 2 months, but never got around to it.



Alice Cooper's classic "School's Out." The perfect song to be blaring out of your boomboxes the second you get the hell out of your last class for the summer! What comes right to my mind when hearing this tune? Why, generalized mayhem! Hell, Alice Cooper says that the school's been blown to pieces, and I'm assuming that he was awesome enough (and he is) to have done it himself.

The song serves, at least to me, as that awesome reminder that you've got the next two months or so to do whatever the hell you wanted...until you needed to be driven somewhere by your parents. But then you get your license and it REALLY becomes awesome when the sky became the limit, as John Travolta owned the only muscle car that was able to fly. Then the Simpsons got a hold of it by Principal Skinner changing the lyrics to "School's back! in! session!" when the 15th first day of school arrived. And thanks to my Simpsons quoting logic, I just now reminded myself of the "Nobody EVER suspects the butterfly!" scene from "'Round Springfield." Take what you will of that one.

Of special note is the video itself, taken during Alice Cooper's infamous appearance on the Muppet Show back in Season 3. You might remember this song appearing on my Top 20 Muppet Show Moments entry from last year. (Some of the vids might not be working after a year. BTW, sequel post coming soon!). Here is what I said about it, since adding new material would just be repeating it:

The most common question raised by Muppet fans and Alice Cooper fans alike when they watched this was "What the hell is Alice Cooper doing on the Muppet Show?!"

At a time before associating Alice Cooper with selling out, golf tourneys, and back-to-school ads, he was as metal & dark as the rest of them. He was the guy who had someone throw a chicken at him onstage during a concert, to which he responded with by throwing said chicken back into the crowd to have them rip it apart. It seemed like a bizarre experience as to why he of all people would be on a family puppet show.

Indeed, Alice Cooper was a natural fit on the show, with Henson & Co. providing the great backdrops to his performance. Contrary to those naysayers, Alice Cooper is not the most "WTF?!" guest star by a mile.

You'll have to visit the link to see who beat him out.


BTW, I'm also taking reader submissions for future "Soundtracks For Summer" entries. The next few Soundtracks For Summer entries will be: Walk The Dinosaur, Paradise City and Holiday Road. If you've got an idea, pop me an email at beamingforbunnies@gmail.com with the name of the song, and a reason or two why it defines "Summer" for you. You'll be glad you did.

Also, does anyone know the name of that Red Hot Chili Peppers song where the music vid was them just riding in a car? That one's perfect for a late summer entry.

Soundtracks For Summer: I'm on a Boat

Part 11 in my ongoing Soundtracks For Summer Series

We're nearing the halfway point into July, so it's time for another one of these entries! How about a song that appeals to my age group?



A rather recently recorded entry in the series, there's a lot of "summer" invoked into The Lonely Island's video for "I'm on a Boat." This song is pretty much straightforward: I'm on a boat with my buds, and it's AWESOME. Meant to be a parody of modern hip-hop music with all the trimmings: Hi-def shaky camera angles, hot women in skimpy clothing, helicopter shots, wine, fancy clothes, expensive locales (in this case, one of the rivers in Manhattan on some kind of fancy boat), gratuitous swearing, and, of course, T-Pain. It all turns out hilarious, awesome, and catchy. With all of those things, the video also happens to be bright and sunny the whole time, so that's Summer right there!

Like most of the stuff The Lonely Island churn out, I can quite imagine that its origins could be traced back to someone writing down "I'm on a boat" and then a whole song is written to revolve around it. See "Lazy Sunday," "Jizz in My Pants," "We Like Sportz," and "Like a Boss." A previous entry I made about Curling was inspired by these songs, especially since I picked up their album.

Continuing the tradition of emebedding two videos per Soundtracks For Summer entry, here's an a capella version of the song:



BTW, I'm also taking reader submissions for future "Soundtracks For Summer" entries. The next few Soundtracks For Summer will be: School's Out, Walk The Dinosaur, and Paradise City. If you've got an idea, pop me an email at beamingforbunnies@gmail.com with the name of the song, and a reason or two why it defines "Summer" for you. You'll be glad you did.

Stuff on My Phone

Apparently, July is "National Blog Posting Month" in addition to it being National Hot Dog Month and National Ice Cream Month. So why can't it be all 3? If I had more ambition, I would've celebrated all three of these occasions in the same entry, but that ain't happening right now. This arbitrarily chosen month should be celebrated by posting an entry every day. I'm doing good over at In 10 Words, but here...not so much, sadly. Eight days into July with nothing...but that's about to change.

A few friends of mine recently did entries about pictures of weird crap on their cellphones. Well, readers, that time has come for me to jump on the bandwagon. I've got a phone that's in dire need for an upgrade, it's at least 3 years old with the first pictures being taken in March 2007. Since my phone in particular is probably older than that, it's a good chance that the specific size of the memory card, a MiniSD, is probably not even made anymore, causing uploading of pics to be quite difficult (no, not a MicroSD, as I found out the hard way. It's completely different). I can always E-mail them to myself, but sadly, pixture text rates DO apply, and my dad usually freaks out over a $5 charge thanks to these things plus to occaisional month where I went over my limit before switching to unlimited texts to Verizon phones only, due to him working at the company for about 35 years (along with its several name changes)

Before I digress, I'd like to share five of my favorite pictures on my phone. Oh, there's several more that are pretty good, but that's for another post. Plus, there are quite a few...personal pics that I've sworn to myself to never, ever, EVER share, but I just didn't have the heart to delete. Sorry folks, but you'll just have to settle for these pictures. Because this is an older phone, I apologize for the quality of a few of these images.



This is by far my favorite image on my phone. This picture was taken in December of 2007 in the second floor men's room at St. Joseph's College. It was above a stall that I just happened to be doing my business at and just pissed in awe of its sheer absurdity. It looks it came out of an xkcd strip. Seriously, was this one person, or someone's nerdy graffiti that was appended by some other nerd? The writing implement is the same color, and the handwriting is exactly the same. Sadly, when I went back that following January to prove to other people that it existed, it was gone, with this picture most likely being the only proof.




I bet you've seen that image of the "real-life" version of Peter Griffin from Family Guy. I found this picture at some Knights of Columbus hall on LI and quickly took its picture, as he looks like Bruce, the Gay Performance Artist. I can only imagine this guy saying "7up's the whole reason I came down here in the first place. You know what, I'm not gon' need the V8 cause I can just get some tomato juice at the mini-mart down the street. It's a little more expensive, but that's okay I like to help out a small business. I hope it's okay if I pay in pennies. "



You might remember last year that I attended the Strawberry Shortcake Eating Contest and simultaneously earned the ire of competitive eater "Beautiful Brian" Seiken. If you're reading this, Brian, I wasn't at this year's competition. I couldn't get off work that day...and also being afraid that he would find me, despite him not knowing what I look like. Well, as proof that I was there, here is a pic of Crazy Legs Conti. I believe that that's Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti standing next to him. I didn't have a regular camera at me, nor the guts to ask for a picture with him. Sigh.



Here's a picture of my old car reaching 100,000 miles. Turns out that the phone's cover was on at the time, so I had to drive the car in reverse until the odometer rolled back again.



Finally, this pic was taken just last week at Cheeburger Cheeburger. My friends Danny, Steve & I all finished their 20oz burger, so we got our picture taken and put up on the wall. If you ever wanted to know what I really look like, I'm the one in the Mr. Sparkle T-Shirt American Roadside's challenge is coming soon!