Five Song Friday: Welcome to the Doom Buffet
This Week: Lucky Bags, Lower Cases and Bass Line Bangers
Oh boy, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
I don’t want to sound alarmist, but things are super weird right now.
I feel like Mark Wahlberg in an M. Night Shyamalan movie surrounded by dead birds and sinister winds. Or the first guy who sees the shadow from the giant alien spacecraft. A cat right before it turns around to see a cucumber.
I can’t put my finger on it, but the hairs on the back of my neck are straight up and the tide just got sucked out to sea.
Mark my words: we are heading for epic strangeness.
Or… maybe it’s just the side effects of weeks of relentless election advertising filling my head with warnings of catastrophe. All-you-can-eat doom and gloom.
According to the commercials, if Candidate A loses to Candidate B, the end times are nigh. They say that Candidate B wants to harvest my organs while I sleep. Candidate B wants to kidnap my children and sell my pets for meat.
Candidate B wants to rearrange all of my bookshelves by spine color.
I know it’s all hyperbole, but I’m only a stupid human meat bag. Repetition works.
If you keep poking the soft part of my brain that gets scared? At some point I’ll start worrying.
I like my spleen where it is. And if you try to turn my living room library into a Lowe’s paint swatch kiosk, I’m going to have to do violence on you.
This is how politicians ruin everything. They manipulate our emotions like pay cable networks who run Erin Brockovich on a Wednesday night.
(Goddamnit Starz, I had stuff to do. Now I have to sit here and keep watching until Julia Roberts tells the cancer lady that she’s getting millions of dollars. Great, now I’m CRYING? How am I supposed to fold laundry now that I’ve gone full Viola Davis in Fences?)
They work us into a lather by stretching and manipulating the truth. They press all the hot buttons and paint every worst case scenario in bold and brilliant colors.
They turn Candidate B into the Final Boss.
Then they tell you the good news: you don’t need to press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A to defeat them. All you need to do is vote for Candidate A and hooray, you saved the day.
But if you ask Candidate B, this is all coming from an opponent who is basically the human version of one of those cursed porcelain dolls. Candidate B wants you to know that Candidate A once shot a man in Reno “just to watch him die.”
Candidate A hates babies and the American flag so much that if they saw a toddler in Stars and Stripes footy pajamas, they would probably have a hate-stroke and immediately drop dead.
I’m not a political scientist. I’m not even a regular scientist. But I’m pretty sure that there can’t be two Worst Persons in the World. Worst is a superlative. There can be only one.
I also don’t know much about world history, but I’m also pretty sure that the person running for local or state office isn’t a cannibal, an international war criminal or the director of Jurassic World: Dominion.
I say vote for whoever you want to vote for. Cast your ballot with your conscience. Stick to party lines. Or just flip a coin.
Just do the whole world a favor and ignore the over-the-top bullshit buffet. Tune out the hysteria. Don’t believe the hype. Give your lizard brain the day off.
I’ll bet good money that nothing changes no matter who wins.
The world will continue spinning on November 9th.
I’ll still have two kidneys and one liver.
And my books?
They will remain arranged like the books of a non-insane person.
I’m DJ CrankyPete and I approve this message.
Five Song Friday 037
“Mojo” - Telquist
Muddy Waters sang about getting his mojo working in 1957. Jim Morrison sang about Mr. Mojo Risin’ on the 1971 Doors song “L.A. Woman.” The German musician known as Telquist gave it a go in 2021.
But what is mojo, really? According to the spiritual practice of hoodoo, it’s a flannel bag of magical items meant to bring good fortune or special power to the wearer.
That means my fanny pack full of lucky seashells is mojo. I have mojo!
“Juliette” - Toth
Brooklyn singer-songwriter Alex Toth isn’t fooling anybody.
When he performs as Toth (rhymes with “both” and yes, I know it’s supposed to have a funny line over the ‘o’ but I couldn’t figure out how to type it on the keyboard so just use your imagination), he doesn’t even try to hide. His stage name is spelled the exact same way as his actual last name and he doesn’t even wear a mask on stage.
I’m not trying to be critical, but would it kill him to at least wear a hoodie and some shades?
“Ride” - joe unknown
London-based joe unknown don’t need no capital letters.
“Gettin’ Happy” - Dolly Parton
If you don’t love this lady than I don’t know what’s wrong with you and you should probably go get yourself sorted out.
“The Birth of a Nation” - Enola Gay
The Irish noise-punk 4-piece Enola Gay formed in 2019, just in time to be derailed by the pandemic. Inspired by Black Lives Matter protests in Belfast and around the world, they released this song as their first single in 2020.
I liked this song from the first listen, mostly because the opening bass line made me feel warm and tingly in my downstairs.
Listen on Spotify
Listen on YouTube Music
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!
“Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.” - Kurt Vonnegut