fapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapOH GOOD MORNING COMRADES I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE.
What’s that? Oh, um. I was just, uh, playing with my tribble.
Ariana showed me the following picture last night…
…which spurred me to revisit that notorious “Closer” slashup, the gravitational pull of which sent me spiraling down a long, twisted YouTube wormhole of Trekkie aberration and depravity. Woooo!
To help you get your sluggish blood pumping, I’d like to share a bit of what I found with you. Just the tip…
[Good morning, dear comrades. I’m chugging redbull and running to catch a ferry in a few minutes, so please forgive the sloppiness of this edition of BTC!]
Last night, I and ten other curious folks took a guided nocturnal hike through the Karori Sanctuary. A dense and verdant square mile of forest located mere minutes from downtown Wellington, the preserve is surrounded by a predator-proof fence (specially designed to keep out invasive species like hedgehogs, possums, cats and dogs), and has become “a safe haven for some of [New Zealand’s] most iconic and endangered native animals, including tuatara, little spotted kiwi, saddleback, hihi and giant weta.”
Our lovely tour guide, Tracy, told us that there are approximately 100 little spotted kiwis living in the sanctuary. They’re extremely shy and elusive critters, so there was no guarantee we’d get to see one. But we lucked out and encountered one foraging in the underbrush mere feet from the trail. He was one of most adorable, lovable creatures I have ever seen. I will cherish the memory of his fuzzy rump bounding off through the twilight for the rest of my life.
There are hundreds of different factoids I could share about his species. Perhaps when I return from my travels in a few days, I’ll add some of them in comments. Hopefully some of Coilhouse’s more knowledgable NZ and/or birding readership will chime in as well?
For now, here is the Maori legend of New Zealand’s beloved hairy little whiskered flightless bird, imparted by Ben, Hayden and Gavin, three young storytellers from Mangakahia Area School in Titoki, Northland:
The Maori Legend:
Why Kiwi Lives on the Forest Floor
One day the king of the forest, Tanemahuta, was walking through the forest. He looked at his trees and noticed that they looked sick. They were being eaten by the bugs that lived on the forest floor. Tanemahuta told his brother Tanehokahoka (King of the sky) what had happened to his children the trees.
Tanehokahoka wanted to help his brother so he called all the birds together for a meeting. Tanemahuta said to them all
“The ground bugs are eating the trees. I need one of you to give up your life in the sky and come and live on the forest floor so the trees will be saved. Who will come?
Tanemahuta and Tanehokahoka waited and listened – but everything was quiet, and not a single bird spoke. Tanehokahoka turned to Tui…
Uncanny isn’t it? We could very well be twins, Chris and I– separated at birth, but forever bonded on some bone-deep, intuitive level by our mutual love of awkwardly protracted silence and sensual mouth-breathing. The only real difference is, my tits are hairier.
On a purely philosophical level I have never been down with the title of “Better Than Coffee”, for coffee holds a wondrous and special place in my heart; and anything that might replace coffee as a superior means of jolting me into stubborn wakefulness strikes me as decidedly unpleasant like a cattle prod to the groin, or opening your eyes to a dozen clowns surrounding your bed, leaning over to peer down at you, or looking in the mirror and discovering that sometime, while you slept, you had turned into Ann Coulter. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We are here, so to speak, so we should get this show on the road. Your usual host has come down with gnomes, which is unsurprising considering her current locale. We all warned her that, unlike chicken pox, you don’t get gnomes once and that’s it. Your body develops no tolerance to gnomes. Poor girl didn’t listen.
5 Second Films is a brilliant idea that harks back to the likes of Earnest Hemingway and his famous, six word story “For Sale: Baby Shoes – never used.” born from a society whose attention span has diminished to almost nothing. At a time of the day where my ability to concentrate is on par with my Jack Russell Terrier this sort of delivery is ideal and functions, in a way, to mirror my own creative process, in which I will oftentimes write short, nonsensical stories of no more than a sentence or two for random photographs I find on the internet in order to jump start my brain.
There are a few clunkers here, to be sure, but the ones that work, like “Never Switch a Switcher” are a testament to both brevity, and the hammy overacting that only helps to carry the story. Check out a few more after the jump.
There are some days when one cup of coffee, can of Jolt, or installment of Better than Coffee just isn’t enough. This Monday was such a day for me, until I stumbled across this lost masterpiece of punk rock. Hot on the heels of this morning’s regular BTC installment (Mer discussing the infectious Hindi rock n’ roll ditty Eena Meena Deeka), here’s an extra shot for all you late risers and morning zombies. Ladies and gentlemen, The Queenhaters!
This punk parody appeared on the Canadian sketch comedy show SCTV in 1983, featuring Martin Short as the lead singer, Andrea Martin as the lead guitarist/back-up vocalist, Eugene Levy as the second guitarist, Joe Flaherty on bass, and John Candy on drums. It later received its very own cover by Mudhoney.
Via Milly, who adds that she totally wishes that these guys were real.
Popularized by singer/actor Kishore Kumar, “Eena Meena Deeka” is a highly addictive, nonsensical tune written for the 1957 film Aasha. It is noteworthy for being one of Hindi cinema’s very first rock n’ roll numbers. If something about the lyrics reminds you of the childhood limerick “Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe”, it’s with good reason: the words of the song were inspired by kids playing outside composer C. Ramchandra’s music room. Via Wiki:
Ramchandra and his assistant John Gomes were inspired to create first line of the song, “Eena Meena Deeka, De Dai Damanika”. Gomes, a Goan, added the words “Maka naka” (Konkani for “I don’t want”), and they kept on adding more nonsense rhymes till they ended with “Rum pum po!”
I’d never heard this alternate, feminine version until the lovely Mme Darla Teagarden posted it on her Facebook. It’s just as faboo as the Kumar version:
There’s just something about golden era Kaiju that sends me, I’m not sure why. Other girls may swoon over a kitten in a teacup, or a ginchy pair of boots, but for me, happiness is a wonky rubber suit monster that goes “RAWR” and breathes fire.
RStevens showed me a random image last week that made my innards all floopy:
“Family reunions were always tense after cousin Toshiro married an illegal alien.” (Via Neatorama.)
He had no idea where it came from, and neither did I. Oddly compelling, innit? Without context, it looks like an old snapshot of an intergalactic exchange student taken for Mom & Pop Kaijin back home. Our friend Ariana used her formidable web-sleuthing abilities to try to track down its origins. This was as far as she got. But I had to know more… MORE… MOOAARR! I sent out a mass email to all of my most knowledgeable, righteously nerdy friends, imploring them to share any info they might have concerning this mysterious beast. Within 24 hours, Gooby had an answer, bless him:
Mystery solved! Captain Ultra was a short-lived, much-loved tokusatsu program that aired on the Tokyo Broadcasting System in 1967. It’s an invigorating world of primary-colors, rubber suit monsters, brave jetpack-wearing/raygun-wielding heroes, scrappy robots and beautiful space cadets. YouTube user Tokusatsugod26 has uploaded scores of clips from the show to his channel for our enjoyment. Click on Ghostler’s face to get there:
Have I mentioned lately that Archive.org is the sh…
…aving cream? It really is. You could stand to spend more time over there, trust me.
Avid listeners of Dr. Demento will recognize this song by Benny Bell. I’m too young to boast that I listened to Dr. D back in the day, when he first brought about the Jewish-American singer/songwriter’s revival. However, I was lucky enough to live down the block from one Mister Goodman, a charming alcoholic widower with a portable record player. On balmy late summer afternoons, he’d sit on his front porch nursing a tall glass of “ice water” and playing old LPs. Naturally, Benny Bell’s relentlessly juvenile double-entendres were a huge hit with the neighborhood kids.
Mr Goodman was more than happy to play us classic Bell ditties like “Without Pants”, “A Goose For My Girl” and “My Grandfather Had a Long One” over and over again, provided we promised never to sing them in front of our parents. We were more than happy to hang out on his lawn for hours, sipping cans of 7-UP and shouting “SSSSSHHHHHAVING CREAM” at appropriate (and inappropriate) intervals until Mr. Goodman fell too far into his cups and started muttering darkly about Korea. At which time we’d all claim we heard our mothers calling and head home for dinner.
