Now, all Sallys, Violets, and Lucy Van Pelts get on the floor
I think we all can agree that the Internet is terrible, but occasionally, like finding corn kernels amongst the turds, we find gems of wonderful content amongst the offal.
For me, for the last 18 years, Christmas just hasn’t been Christmas without watching the Peanuts gang dance to Outkast’s 2003 hit “Hey Ya.”
The original of this video by “CommyOstrich” (or at least I think it’s the original) has been viewed more than 3 million times. In 2010, someone calling themselves “TheVideoRelaxant” remastered the video using a clean digital copy of the video and stereo audio.
I am eternally grateful that neither the Charles Schulz estate nor the notoriously litigious BMG corporation, which owns Outkast’s record label, have forced YouTube to pull down this video.
Watch it with your neighbor on your baddest behavior.
Someone sent me a cute Christmas video from a British band, the theme of which was, “it’s too early for Christmas, but what the heck, let’s celebrate anyway.” I thought, OK, this is cute. So I clicked on the link to download the song to play on my show this Saturday.
The link took me to their website, where I put in my email address to get the MP3 … and immediately, I learned the band members are all adherents of a certain religion, whose name I won’t put here, because the religion — practiced by a number of somewhat colorful Hollywood celebrities — is notoriously litigious.
Look, in general, when it comes to someone’s religion or lack of religion, I’m very much “live and let live.” Frankly, I’d say most of my friends are probably “none of the aboves” or nominal adherents who attend a church or temple on special occasions.
Generally speaking, like Rev. Lovejoy in “The Simpsons,” I tend to think all of them are pretty much the same. Whatever gets you through the night, as John Lennon sang.
But one of the hallmarks of this particular religion is its need to trick people (such as, for example, middle-aged oldies disc jockeys who are just trying to download a Christmas novelty song) into following them, which is one of the main reasons you know it’s a cult.
You shouldn’t have to try to force people into worship. Nothing says “freedom” like demanding that kids pray and read the Ten Commandments against their parents’ will. Indeed, I’ve never heard of anyone converting to a religion because they were forced to pray. Kids who are forced to practice a religion they hate always seem to resent it, and in my experience, it never seems to stick. It always makes me wonder what the point of forced prayer is, other than as a show of control and dominance.
And you certainly shouldn’t have to trick people into joining. Catholics don’t try to hide that they’re Catholic, and the Salvation Army wears uniforms, so you can even spot them in a crowd. I’m an Episcopalian and we don’t lure people into a rock concert and then lock the door behind them and say, “HA HA! Now we’re going to hook you up to this electronic gizmo and then we’re going to brainwash all of you into making Jell-o salads for the annual parish meeting until you ascend to a higher level of consciousness.”
Anyway, you wouldn’t believe how fast I got off of this band’s website. I didn’t know you could burn rubber with an Internet browser but I swear you could hear Firefox’s tires squealing as I left.
Some jagoff signed up for a text messaging service (“TextNow”) yesterday using my email address. Unfortunately for him, the dummy forgot his password today and tried to reset it.
Fortunately for me, I got the password reset email, and to be nice, I helped out by responding to his friends.
There once was a fascist from Pretoria
Whose opinions were startin’ to bore ya
His bleatings on X
Didn’t bring in any checks
But the ketamine gave him euphoria
“Burma-Shave”
It’s like r-a-a-a-a-a-a-i-n on your wedding day That shorts out your Tesla And turns your son gay
Jay’s local drug store. Jay is standing in line to pay for a prescription. Behind him is an older lady, picking up a large bag of prescriptions. The pharmacist is at the cash register.
Pharmacist: “Don’t bother writing a check, your co-pay is only $3.”
Jay: “Well, then I’ll pay cash.” (Takes out wallet, drops money on the floor)
Pharmacist (laughing): “Anything that falls on the floor is property of the store.”
Jay (laughing): “Did you ever hear the one about what the pastor did with the collection after church? He threw all of the money up in the air and said, ‘Whatever God wants, He keeps, and whatever comes back down is mine.'”
Older Lady (clears throat)
Pharmacist (clears throat): “Actually, Sister Mary Ann is here picking up prescriptions for the rest of the nuns in the convent.”
Jay (turns red)
Older Lady (laughs): “Nevermind, actually, I thought that was a pretty good one.”
Something that lives rent-free in my brain, as the kids say, is how the late Bill Burns — long-time news anchor on KDKA-TV — pronounced “Boulevard of the Allies.” He used the pre-war pronunciation: “ahh-LIES,” with the emphasis on the second syllable, rather than “AL-eyes.”
(My Webster’s 12th edition, copyright 1960, says “The difference in accent often depends on the position of the word in a sentence; also, the plural form is perhaps more generally accented on the final syllable than the singular is.”)
Burns has been off of TV since 1989 and died in 1997, but whenever I’m on the Boulevard of the Allies, I think of him: “Boulevard of the ahhh-LIES.”
Which then makes me think of how he pronounced the name of former Pittsburgh mayor and Allegheny County commissioner Pete Flaherty, in an exaggerated Irish accent: “fluh-HAIRT-tee,” reportedly much to the mayor’s annoyance.
I found an article from 1975 about an American Federation of Radio & TV Artists roast of Bill Burns in which the emcee, Don Brockett, said “we’re here to honor a guy who works in a city where he cannot pronounce the mayor’s name.”
In the same article, Burns’ co-anchor, Marie Torre, is quoted as saying, “when Archie Bunker came on TV, they called it a new concept in programming. I’ve been working with him for 12 years.”
Bill Burns was a character. Marie Torre and Don Brockett were themselves also Pittsburgh characters of a kind we will probably not see again. I suppose among still-active broadcasters in the city, Sally Wiggin and Larry Richert come closest to having that kind of public impact and name recognition.
But we won’t see another Bill Burns ; when Burns was anchoring the 12 noon and 11 p.m. news, Pittsburgh was the 10th largest media market in the United States, and KDKA Radio was — by itself — the ninth-most-listened-to radio station in the country, and the flagship of Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Broadcasting, the fifth-most influential chain of radio stations in the 1970s.
Now? Pittsburgh is 28th (behind Nashville and Salt Lake City) and in danger of slipping out of the top 30. As Rob Owen pointed out in the Tribune-Review last week, KDKA-TV’s newest reporter was hired directly out of journalism school. One used to require a few years in the sticks before they moved up to Pittsburgh, which was seen as a career destination, not a stop along the way.
In case you’re wondering, I have no point to any of this, except that I drive on the Boulevard of the ahh-LIES several times a week and always think of Bill Burns. Apparently I’m turning into James Lileks, or possibly Larry King. Based on their popularity and longevity, I suppose there are worse people to rip off.
In other business: I notice that Pittsburgh is installing more “traffic calming devices” — aka speed bumps — this time on Hazelwood Avenue. I’m starting to think that Mayor Ed Gainey is in the pocket of the speed-bump lobby.
Coming up tonight, Eyewitness News investigates: Does Big Speed Bump control the mayor’s office? Film at 11.
You must copy and paste this warning into your Facebook exactly. A man in Wilmerding received this warning and didn’t follow it, and his iPhone got chlamydia. A woman in Bethel Park, meanwhile, followed this warning precisely and today she received in the mail, completely free of charge, a coupon for $2 off any value meal at Arby’s.
Signed in at 11:00 am. Tomorrow starts the new Facebook (aka META) rule where Mark Zuckerberg can sneak into your house and try on your underpants. Yes, even boys underwear!!!! This will bypass the system… He who does nothing consents. You can deactivate this feature by holding your right finger somewhere in this message and pressing “COPY.” Then, while facing magnetic north, lick your left finger, stick it into your right ear, then squat down and fart as loud as you can while yelling, “I DECLARE META BANKRUPTCY!” Then get into your car, drive the Pasadena Freeway to the Hollywood Freeway, take the Hollywood Freeway to the Golden State Freeway, take the Golden State Freeway to the Slauson Cutoff, get out of your car, cut off your Slauson, and drive six miles until you see a giant inflatable Elon Musk having a conjugal visit with Bob’s Big Boy, then stay tuned for Joan Van Ark, Dick Van Dyke, Dick Van Patten, Van Johnson, Van Morrison, Morris the Cat and Gertie the Wonder Toad in “The Bowery Boys Meet Linda Lovelace.”
We bought a new house last year from an older lady who had found the upkeep a bit too much. As a result, this spring, we’re gradually catching up on some deferred maintenance.
One of the things we need to replace are the fabric awnings, which are dirty, faded, and starting to become threadbare.
I called three companies for estimates. One came in substantially higher than I expected. The second guy visited about three weeks ago.
He showed up for the appointment, visibly rattled, and asked if he could borrow my tape measure.
“I just came from a job over in (neighboring borough),” he said. “The guy had a huge pile of cocaine on the coffee table and I swear to God he had powder all around his nose. I couldn’t wait to get out of there and I think I left my tape measure at his house, but I don’t want to go back to get it.”
Three weeks later, we still don’t have an estimate from that guy. Maybe he went back to get his tape measure and they decided he’d seen too much.
Also, if the awning guy were going to come over and give you an estimate, wouldn’t you hide your cocaine at least temporarily?
“In America, first you get the money. Then you get the power! Then … you get the awnings.”
