Rob Bell Incorporated Wrote A Book
PG saw a link for “What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell.” The first sign of trouble was the video starting by itself as the window opened. Auto start is the work of the devil.
So, the equal sign/arrow duality was clicked (does anyone know which is stop and which is play?), and the man started to talk. He had the preacher cadence, his voice rising and falling in every sentence. At one minute and one second, he said that for many people today, G-d is like Oldsmobile. There is only two minutes and nine seconds left, so it won’t hurt to listen to the rest.
There were few surprises in the rest of the video. Some people don’t agree with what they are told about G-d. Others believe, but don’t like it. Mr. Bell, in the biggest non surprise of all, has a book coming out, What We Talk About When We Talk About G-d. The video is a sales pitch for the book.
While looking for material to go with this post, PG found a 1932 cartoon. A young man rescues Lucille, and takes her driving in his Oldsmobile. The man and woman get married. The Parson does not look, or sound, like Rob Bell.
The youtube comment crowd is pushing pixels. javawocky I think you need to decide who you are going to trust – Rob Bell, or Jesus Christ. You may have noticed the Rob never quoted a single scripture here, its just his ideas. Rob never performed miracles, he never rose from the dead, and he never lived a sinless life. I strongly urge you go back and seriously study what the bible says not Rob Bell. kueagle1 No, I disagree. You believe or you don’t believe. Preachers like Bell are preaching to tickle liberal ears, not what is in the bible. The preacher here is talking about advocating the new modern liberal attitudes of reinterpreting the bible in ways to support their present opinions. What is written plainly in the bible doesn’t seem to matter, only the liberal heresy.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Gloomy Sunday Number Thirteen
PG stared out at the gray sky. He thought that the first sunday in march might be the most depressing day of the year. The ever cheerful blogger had an idea for a repost. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The people on a Baltimore streetcar seem to be happy.
Billie Holiday had a hit with”Gloomy Sunday”in 1941. The legend is that people would listen to the song, and kill themselves. As a result, the song was banned from the radio. Or was it?
“Gloomy Sunday” was written in 1933 by Rezső Seress. Additional lyrics were later written by László Jávor. It became known as the ” Hungarian Suicide Song”, and was reportedly banned in Hungary. An English translation (which is said to not do justice to the original Hungarian) was rendered.
The song has a melancholy sound, even as an instrumental. The story is about a person…it is not gender specific…who decides to join a loved one who has died. A third verse was added, to the english version, where the singer says it was all a dream.
The song became popular in the United States. And the suicide stories started to spread, along with rumors that the song had been banned from the radio. (It was indeed banned by the BBC.) There are indications that these rumors were part of a publicity campaign.
The urban legend busters snopes. calls the story “undetermined”. Legends like this get a life of their own. A grieving person hearing this song on a dreary Sunday is not going to be uplifted. One thing is known for sure…the original composer did take his own life. Rezső Seress jumped off a tall building in Budapest in 1968. The legend is he had never had another hit song after writing “Gloomy Sunday”.
The Grease Of G-d
A longtime friend of PG wrote: The death of Mindy McCready has given me pause to stop and think. I wonder who thought it would be okay for a grieving woman with suicidal tendencies to stay in a house where her significant other killed himself just a month before? I read an outcry by people who blamed the lack of gun control as the cause. Her weapon of choice was not a gun, it was her depression. If pills had been close I guarantee she would have chosen that path of destruction taken to it’s end result. When she was thrown in jail for her drug fueled probation violation, I knew that was not the action to take. But who am I to say anything other than, but by the grace of God, there could go I.
To begin with, PG does not follow country music. The first time he had heard of Mindy McCready was the news of her suicide. It is like turning the tv onto a movie in the last five minutes.
That said, and with a certain ignorance of the story affirmed, there are a few comments springing out of the discussion. One is the comparison of guns to pills. Most pills have a medical purpose. The misuse of these substances through self medication seems to happen, no matter how many rules get made. A pistol, on the other hand, is designed to kill or intimidate.
A pistol is much more efficient at delivering death than a pill bottle. Yes, excessive consumption of substances can lead to an early grave, but there is always the chance that you can sober up, get detoxed, and live a few more decayed decades. If you decide that your troubles are too much, and you use a pistol, then the odds of recovery are slim. It should be noted that the judgement used to make this decision is often clouded by the pills in question. The decision to end your life is usually not made with a clear head.
There was one more saying that caught PG… “but by the grace of G-d, there could go I.” As readers of Chamblee54 know, PG has conflicted views about G-d. Religion can be a source of misery, and making excuses for the spirit at the center can get old.
There is another, broader view of this saying. If you see G-d as being the feng shui of the planet, then it makes a bit more sense. PG has taken more than his share of chances. Some of them have been incredibly foolish. He has been caught a few times. Still, he is here, writing this post, fifty nine years after it started. Maybe it is the grease of G-d that lubricates life, so that the gears continue to turn.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Better To Be Hated
“It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.”
Kurt Cobain is credited with that quote, and he may have been coherent enough to say it at one time or another. A French author named André Gide said it, and is given “credit”. Maybe Mr. Cobain gets the debit. Mr. Cobain played electric guitar better than Mr. Gide, who was not married to Courtney Love.
PG is not so sure about this quote. Being hated gets old, even if you still have your wonderful integrity to be proud of. There is also the possibility that are are being hated for what you are. You might think you are hated because of your idealism, when in fact people are tired of you stealing money to buy drugs.
There is a difference between true wisdom and a clever turn of words. This is the case when these wonderful words are set in sans serif glory against the Northwest sky, with Kurt Cobain wondering where his next fix is coming from.
Mel Brooks And Buddy Rich
When Mel Brooks was a young man
Buddy Rich was a star
The Star showed the young man drumming secrets
When Blazing Saddles was a hit
There was a party to celebrate
Mr. Rich told Mr. Brooks
You could have been a good drummer
Jesus Gets A New Nickname
There is a video making the rounds now. The title involves Jesus, and a certain racial slur that is delicately known as the N word. When you go to many links, you get this message. “Jesus is my N…” This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Brian Spinney, LLC.” You should not worry about missing out. Just go to youtube, and search for the phrase that pays. Someone else will have posted the video, and you can feel the magic for yourself.
Here is a story about the song, with the edgy language bleeped. “One pastor is trying to spread the word of God with an edgy rap song. The rapping pastor and his wife claim they have “Christian swag” while tossing around the n-word. “Jesus is my ni**a!” Proclaims the pastor in one verse. The video of the rapping pastor was recently uploaded to YouTube but it’s not clear when it was filmed. It was taken at a church in Iowa which closed in 2004.” Another helpful interneter has the lyrics.
In case you didn’t know, Pastor Jim Colerick, and Mrs Mary-Sue Colerick, are melanin deficient. They are, as Bette Midler once said about Karen Carpenter, so white they are invisible. It is not considered good manners for Caucasians to use this word, with or without salvation.
There is another angle to this equation. Many Jesus worshipers see not using cusswords as a sign of righteousness. As a result, many Jesus worshipers use the words G-d, and Jesus Christ, as tools of their anger. This violates the third commandment. Now, this use of a sacred name, as profanity, is being extended to using a sacred name as a racial slur.
When you call a book “the word of G-d”, you give certain words too much power. When you decide that the lazy way of saying black is a super duper naughty word, you give those five/six letters way too much power. Now, we see the convergence of these two taboos. Let the party begin.
Pictures of Pastor and Mrs. Colerick are taken from the video. The other images are from The Library of Congress. This was written like Stephenie Meyer.
Limits
44 word limit here
that is less
less is more
limits can be liberating
indeed
and what is our topic of discussion?
anything but Beyonce’
so you like music?
was the halftime show music, or special effects?
Mister Giggle
Louie Giglio
Pounding passion putrid poop
Idiot shut up
Just a gigolo
Louis Prima song and dance
Ain’t got nobody
Mister giggle high
Louie Louie way down low
We gotta go now
What Is Dirty About Louie Louie?
The sixties were a great time to be a kid. As long as you were too young for a Vietnam Vacation, there were kicks to be had.
One of the more enduring legends was the dirty lyrics to “Louie Louie”. Recorded by an obscure band called the Kingsmen, the song was a massive hit in 1963 ( It never was Number One). When WQXI put out lists of the greatest songs of all time, “Louie Louie” was at the top of the list. This is despite, or because of, the raucous sound. The song was recorded in one take, when the band thought they were playing a rehearsal. The vocals are difficult to make sense of, and rumored to be obscene. No one was ever quite sure why .With the garbled sound on the record, the listener could hear almost anything they wanted to.
The Governor of Indiana, Matthew Welsh, banned radio stations from playing the song in that state. On February 7, 1964, Attorney General Robert Kennedy got a letter from an outraged parent about the lyrics to “Louie Louie”. An F.B.I. investigation followed. After thirty months of investigation, the Bureau concluded that they could not make sense of the lyrics.
PG had a neighbor named Carol. A tomboy who could whip most of the boys, she had a pet skunk named Napoleon. Carol claimed to have heard a band at Lenox Square play “Louie Louie”. “He said the words real slow so you could understand them. I can’t repeat what he said,but it was dirty”.
Louie, Louie Oh no, me gotta go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, said, ah
Louie, Louie Oh, baby, me gotta go
A fine little girl she waits for me Me
catch a ship for cross the sea.
Me sail that ship all alone Me never think how I make it home.
Ah, Louie, Louie No, no, no, no, me gotta go.
Oh, no. Said, Louie, Louie Oh, baby, said we gotta go.
Three nights and days I sail the sea Think of girl, oh, constantly.
Ah, on that ship I dream she there
I smell the rose, ah, in her hair.
Ah, Louie, Louie Oh, no, sayin’ we gotta go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but, ah, Louie, Louie Oh, baby, said, we gotta go.
[Yelled] Okay, let’s give it to ‘em right now! [instrumental]
Me see Jamaica, ah, moon above.
It won’t be long, me see me love.
Take her in my arms again, I got her; I’ll never leave again.
Ah, Louie, Louie Oh, no, sayin’ me gotta go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
But, ah, Louie, Louie Oh, baby, said, ah, we gotta go.
I said we gotta go now, Let’s get on outta here.
[Yelled] Let’s go.
Transcribed by David Spector Sept. 2000 Public Domain. If anyone reading this can explain what was so dirty about this song, please leave a comment. Thank you Wikipedia for your help in assembling this. This is a repost. Pictures by The Library of Congress This was written like Vladimir Nabokov.
David Bowie
This is a repost. David Bowie is 66 today, and Elvis is 78, The Falcons are the number one seed in the NFC playoffs, and will play this weekend. Sarah Palin is obsolete.
A webpage called CaptainsDead has a download of a David Bowie concert, that can only be called a Christmas present. Most Bowie live recordings are pretty dull. While the Thin White Duke is renowned for his concerts, they tend to be live events, that depend on staging and costumes as much as music. This show, from 1974, is different. Focusing on material from “Diamond Dogs”, the sound he produces comes close to matching the studio sound, and in a few cases surpasses it.
The next move for Bowie in 1974 was the “white soul” sound of “Young Americans”. He is moving in that direction in this show, even while he lingers in the glitter apocalypse. This tour included a stop at the Fox Theater, the first Atlanta show for Mr.Bowie. On the way to Florida for the next show, the truck with the sets and costumes crashed into a swamp full of rattlesnakes. The show in Tampa was performed in street clothes.
Maybe it is time for a Chamblee54 tribute to David Bowie. The Falcons and the Saints is on the box, and hopefully the Falcons can quit fumbling and score some points. The Georgia Dome has not hosted that many concerts…hopefully, the era of concerts in football stadiums is fading away. (The Saints wound up winning. At least PG did not have to see the obnoxious “Rise Up” commercial.)
The first album by David Bowie that PG heard about was “Hunky Dory”. At the time, Mr. Bowie had generated some buzz by admitting that he fancies blokes, or some uber british expression for being queer. In time, this would be seen as more publicity stunt than brave confession. The RCA debut got some good reviews, but not much else.
The next year produced “Ziggy Stardust”, a concept album. At about this time he did a tour of the United States, with costumes and onstage antics that generated even more publicity. More and more people started listening, some in spite of his outrageous image, and quite a few more because of it. He broke up his band, the spiders from mars, and announced his retirement. The band learned about this while standing on stage behind him. Mr. Bowie, for all his genius, is not always a nice man.
In 1974 there was an album, “Diamond Dogs”, about the decadent urban life in the scifi future. A stage show based on this album…the source of the download mentioned above…marked a return to the concert stage. The next year gave us “Young Americans”, and the year after that “Station to Station”. Every year was a different sound and vision.
Meanwhile, the artist was not doing so good as a human being. According to all reports, he was doing mountains of cocaine. (There is a story of going to meet the parents of Ava Cherry, one of his girlfriends. He shows up at 3am, and does coke on the dining room table.) There was an interview in Playboy( or maybe it was Rolling Stone ) where the first thing he says is, don’t believe anything I say. He went on to say that he admired Adolf Hitler. Have we mentioned the physical appearance of David Bowie in 1975? He looked like he was dead, and nobody bothered to tell him.( By contrast, in recent photo collections of rock stars, Mr. Bowie looks pretty good for a man who is 63 y.o.)
This was the era of Rocky Horror show. At one point, Riff Raff sings (Tim O’Brien wrote the show, and gave himself some darn good lines ) Frank n furter, it’s all over, your mission is a failure, your lifestyle’s too extreme.I’m your new commander you now are my prisoner we return to transylvania prepare the transit beam While this may not have been directed at David Bowie, he took the hint.
We interrupt this David Bowie tribute with an emergency announcement. The new orleans quarterback likes to make these silly little passes when he is in trouble. The falcons just intercepted one, and ran it back for a touchdown.
So David Bowie saw himself at a dead end, and possibly a dead life. He moved into a little apartment in West Berlin, on top of a garage. Brian Eno offered his assistance, and a series of electronic albums was the result. The next few years saw rock and roll, dance music, and finally, crap. PG bought a Bowie album in 1984, the first time he saw it on sale, and was immensely disappointed. The last David Bowie album that PG got was a free cd that was given to people buying a magazine.
Around 1981, MTV was born, and radio was suddenly obsolete. A visual artiste like David Bowie was a natural for video. Unfortunately, many of these videos are not available for embedding in blogs. Ashes to Ashes was a staple of early MTV. Boys Keep Swinging , off the “Lodger” album, is a return to the gender bender Bowie of younger days.
David Bowie continued to do tours, and PG got to see two of the shows. In 1987, something called the “Glass Spider Tour” came to the Omni. (In a later interview, it turns out Mr. Bowie was extremely unhappy during this tour, and close to suicide at some points.) The Glass Spider was this mass of lighting effects that hovered over the stage, and was used to best advantage during “Scary Monsters”. The show featured Peter Frampton on guitar, and had a pack of dancers. (One apparent female took her drag off during the finale.) A good time was had by all.
In 1990, another retirement tour came to the Omni. This one had movies projected on a screen behind the stage, and featured guitar hero Adrian Bellew. The night had the feel of a contractual obligation. David Bowie is too professional to give a bad show, but this one did not have the fire of “Glass Spider”. PG had a new set of contact lenses, and his eyes were painfully dry most of the night.
This is a repost.
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Tag some others who might enjoy this. You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think! Re-post as “my life according to (band name)”Pick your Artist: David Bowie
Are you a male or female: The Bewley Brothers
Describe yourself: Quicksand
How do you feel:Always crashing in the same car
Describe where you currently live: Life on Mars
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Width of a circle
Your favorite form of transportation: Queen Bitch
Your best friend is: Young Americans
You and your best friends are: Kooks
What’s the weather like: Changes
Favorite time of day: Eight Line Poem
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Scary Monsters
What is life to you: Panic in Detroit
Your relationship: Fame
Your fear: Sound and Vision
What is the best advice you have to give:Somebody up there likes me
Thought for the Day: Hang onto yourself
How I would like to die: Ashes to Ashes
My soul’s present condition: Moonage Daydream
My motto: Andy Warhol
The Rudolph Story
The story below is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This was written like James Joyce. There is an appearance by Gerald Rudolph Ford, and his women. Betty was a merry soul.
Someone posted a bit of revisionism about a holiday classic. As he sees it, “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” is about racism.
In a bit of yuletime synchronicity, the urban mythbusters at Snopes posted a piece about Rudolph the same day. It seems as though the Rudolph story was originally written for the Montgomery Ward Stores. The idea was to print a Christmas booklet to give to customers. A staff writer named Robert L. May was picked for the job.
Originally, there were concerns about the red nose, and the connection to heavy drinking. At the time, the original meaning of “merry christmas” had been forgotten. Merry meant intoxicated, and a merry christmas was a drunken one. The booklet was released anyway, and was a big hit with shoppers.
Mr. May had a brother in law named Johnny Marks, who was musically gifted. Mr. Marks wrote the song, and somehow or another Gene Autry came to sing it. A story (which PG heard once, but cannot find a source for) had Mr. Autry doing a recording session. The session went very smoothly, and the sides scheduled to be recorded were finished early. There was a half hour of studio time paid for. Someone produced copies of “Rudolph”, gave them to the musicians, and the recording was knocked out. It became a very big hit.
Gene Autry had a radio show, “Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch”. He created the “cowboy code”. Number five gets our attention today. Under this code, the cowboy must:
1. never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2. never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3. always tell the truth.
4. be gentle with children, the elderly and animals.
5. not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6. help people in distress.
7. be a good worker.
8. keep himself clean in thought, speech, action and personal habits.
9. respect women, parents and his nation’s laws.
10. be a patriot.
“Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” has become a beloved standard, without the troubling religious implications of many holiday songs. It is the second biggest selling record of all. The only song to sell more is “White Christmas”. You just can’t get away from race.
Barlow
PG has worked, off and on, for many years in blueprint shops. One thing you do is pull staples out. A while back, PG got tired of constantly looking for a staple puller, and began to use a pocket knife. The blade he uses today has a black handle, with two blades, a screwdriver, and bottle opener. PG found it under a dresser, while pulling up a carpet.
Until a few minutes ago. PG thought this was a Barlow. The four blade knife has the word “Imperial” stamped into the base of the largest blade, with no other lettering. Another knife, which looks somewhat like the four blade knife, has the word “BARLOW” stamped into the bolster.
In the embedded video, Bessie Smith sings “I cut him with my barlow, I kicked him in the side, I stood there laughing ov’r him while he wallowed round and died.”
The Barlow that PG owns is a CAMCO 551. It was made in 1948, and is worth $42.95 in good condition. The unit PG owns spent a winter under the seat of a Toyota Corolla in 1986.
Pictures,from The Library of Congress. are Union Soldiers, from the War Between the States.
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