Central Snark

HERE’S hoping November is as delightful for all of you as October was suck for some of us. Guessing we should be entertaining you with a tale or two of hospital room battles (the bruises will heal in all good time) and/or cross-country missed flight connections (damn those gate attendants in Dallas!) but, on the heels of a particularly lovely-yet-heart wrenching memorial for someone we loved so very much, we find ourselves only able to offer up a sweet picture that is meant to represent a hopefully tranquil autumn month (click on the image to see a larger version). And, yes, there may be a touch of “symbolism” in this particular piece of artwork, but that’s beside the point. The point, which we had before noisily blowing it into our last wad of soggy tissue this past Sunday, is that we really really hope today marks the beginning of an emotional upturn, for us, for those we love, and yes, even for those we don’t. An upturn, we hasten to add, that lasts longer than the crummy box of Kleenex some girl named Shandi handed us, in hopes we could manage to blow our nose a time or two, and which we promptly used up in less time than it took to say “a little snot never hurt anyone“.

THAT said, and moving right along… the wonderful artists responsible for the above whimsical/magical image, also inspired a pretty fanciful Rabbit, Rabbit laden commercial, which we’ve deemed fit for your perusal. Seriously, it’s just all kinds of charming, something we’re in sore need of, today. You can read more about the artists (who are “famous” for a little something called “Bunnyfish“) HERE, should any of you feel so inclined. Otherwise, be on your way, and come back tomorrow, when Diesel asks the musical question: Dennis, what the hell is that thing hovering over your head? Besides your wife, I mean?

~snuppy

S’not like you’ll need tissues to read Humor-blogs.com.

WE trust you all had a wonderful weekend, we know we did. Especially because Sunday was Mother’s Day, that one day each year we find ourselves being treated like royalty by our loving family. If by “treated like royalty” we mean “allowed to sleep in a few extra minutes before getting up to do the laundry and/or fix breakfast”, which, of course, we do. Or did. Whatever. We had a perfectly wonderful day, and hope you all did, as well.

SADLY, because of all that royal treatment lavished upon us (we took a nap), we never quite got around to getting a jump start on our post for today. Not that we’re terribly inclined to to such a thing over any other weekend, mind you, but that’s beside the point. The point, for we’re making one up even as we type, is that we have a few things we’d like to write about, but, because this is Monday, and we have a life, we can’t do that right now. Well, we could, but we don’t want to, and you can’t make us. Well, you could, but you don’t want to, and we won’t let you. Well, we could, but… what’re we talking about, again? Oh, heh heh, Mother’s Day. Word.

AS many of you know, our NBFF extradinoraire, DJ LAMPSHA, treated us to the bluesy-goodness of The Holmes Brothers over the weekend, in what can only be considered to have been a Spectacular Saturday Spin. We pity the fool who thought we’d forget — or would be unable — to do a “musical opposite for the sake of extremely cheap laughs” today, because we believe we’ve got something that fits the bill to a “T“.

“M is for the Moan and the Mis’rable Groan”? Genius! We pity the fool who doesn’t deem that poetic tribute as a sentiment destined to stand the test of time via the inside of a Hallmark card.

TREAT us right, and tomorrow we’ll let DIESEL take over. Surely his fine and/or funny words will help you forget you read this post and/or heard that song, Shirley. That said, play your cards (Hallmark and otherwise) right, and TEH PENGUIN will show up Wednesday, in order to help you forget whatever fine and/or funny thing Diesel wrote. It’s all good. Or will be, by tomorrow.

~snuppy

You could always head over to Humor-Blogs.com right now, in order to avoid all our so-called finery and/or funniness, but why would you want to do that?

LAST WEDNESDAY (the 2nd) we told you about the Great Monty Python Coconut Clap (sounds like a funny variation of a British veneral disease). Imagine. Over 5000 happy/clappy Brits in Trafalgar Square clip-clopping away like there’d be no tomorrow. Fun fun fun. At least we thought so.

LAST THURSDAY (the 3rd) we remained in a British Limey Vein (sounds like a bland-yet-scary tea), by going out further on that Holy Grail limb, with our ridiculous-yet-stupid post about Spam (or “spamments” as we hoped you’d all come to call them, sometime down the road).

THEN all hell broke loose — or we started whining about nothing in particular, we can’t remember which — and we left off without completing our hilarious British Themed Series of Posts (sounds like a stack of communiqués from Cornwallis to his troops). Well, we can’t have that now, can we? No, we cannot. (okay, so maybe we can, but we don’t want to).

THE following — which we initially intended to feature last Friday, is our idea of a hilarious “wrap-up” and/or “tie-in” — a sort of combination of limes (”limeys”) and coconuts (coconuts) in the form of a nifty tune by Harry Nilsson (an old favorite of ours) What can we say? It’s dumb. It’s fun. Come on, it’s Friday — consider this your Moment of Zen. Listen to it two times and call us in the morning (at which time you can thank us for not showing THIS VERSION of the song, featuring Kermit the Frog, which is totally cute, but not nearly as cool). Oh, but make it late in the morning, will ya? After all, it’s the weekend and some of us may want to sleep in. Those of us who aren’t DJ LAMPSHA, that is, who will most certainly entertain with something fantastic — enabling you all to get this particular tune out of your heads.

PS: those of us who have gone through the agony joy of childbirth and/or raising a pain in the ass child wouldn’t mind in the least if our ungrateful darling bastards sons and/or daughters stopped ransacking the house playing nicely in the backyard long enough to remember that this Sunday is Mother’s Day. Not that we expect you to buy us anything, mind you — but a hug and a kiss can go a long way towards softening our resentment making us feel loved.

~snuppy

We bet we’ll find a lot of hilarious Mother’s Day cards on Humor-Blogs.com.

AND other items for this, the LAST day of April — and a Monday, at that.

INDECISION — like indigestion — can be a terrible thing. Never more so than for a blog with ADD. That’s right, we said it. We have ADD. Or, as some of you folks call it, Attention Deficit, uh, something. Delusions? No, that’s not right. Designs? Nope, not that, either. Oh well, it’ll come to us… eventually. These things always do. Now, where were we? Oh yeah… indigestion. Boy, that was some good Mexican food we had last night. It was a perfect complement, we think, to the amazing sounds spun for us by our diligent, delightful, and never-delusional DJ LAMPSHA over the weekend. A’yup, we could play the música fantástica de Rodrigo y Gabriella lunes a viernes, y dos veces el sábado, and never get tired of it — OR them. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about, is it? No, it is not.

ON most Monday’s, we do our best to bring you something we call “cheesy musical opposites for the sake of a few cheap laughs”. And over the past few months, we’d like to believe we’ve come up with a few winning entries. We’d like to believe that, but we don’t. That said, we don’t care. Sometimes it’s all about what makes us laugh, not you. Uh, did we just say that last part out loud? Damn us and our penchant for blurting out the first thing that pops into our heads. Pretend you didn’t hear that. What we meant to say is that we hope you find some of our “offerings” as hilarious as we do. To that end, we’re pretty darn certain we’ve come up with an excellent choice for this fine Monday, something that’s absolutely* out of this world — literally.

WITHOUT further ADDieu, we proudly present THE SPOTNICKS — a Swedish group from the ’60’s, who became famous with a little instrumental number called Amapala. But that’s not what we plan to share here, because honesty, it’s pretty darn good. As is their version of The Spanish Gypsy Song, which might also have made for great viewing, as well. Aieeee. Believe it or not, this group you never heard of was responsible for some decent music — despite the fact they named themselves after a Russian satellite and were so “fashion forward” they looked like they might’ve dropped off the planet at any second. Still, we were more than pleased to find several fine examples of their music. Unfortunately, ADD-bloggers that we are, for a minute or two, we couldn’t decide which one to play — so many choices, so little space (heh). Finally, we closed our eyes, and picked one — a rousing-and-more-than-a-little-curious rendition of, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. Bizarre and entertaining, The Spotnicks play outstanding guitar dressed up like a bunch of guys from the past who tried to look and/or play like there was no tomorrow. Or, like there might be a tomorrow, but it was gonna be strange. Whatever. Enjoy:

AS we mentioned at the top of today’s post, this is the last day of April. Normally, we’d wait until manana to wish you all Rabbit, Rabbit, but since DIESEL will be here with another of his clever musings (a post to reflect every one of our “comments” from Friday? We’ll believe that when we see it) — we figured we’d get a bunny jump start on our good wishes for the upcoming month, in hops, er hopes, it’s a good one for you all. If the Spotnicks aren’t your cup of enbärsdricka, you can always bid us adios and/or goddag, and go get your laugh on at Humor-blogs.com.

~snuppy

*”absolutely” cracked us up for a nano-second, because it reminded us of Absolut Vodka — which is manufactured in Sweden. Some of us may not drink, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get drunk on our own stupid jokes. Or, for that matter, high from winning and/or coming in second in one of DIESEL’S contests — even if it was Lost. (thanks to all who voted, loveyoumeanit)

OH, what we wouldn’t give for a little inspiration on this lovely spring day. A spring day, we hasten to add, that comes on the heels of some extremely crappy weather that’s had us housebound for the past couple of weeks. Flooding will do that. Sadly, now that the weather’s cleared up, every time we sit down and try to write, we hear the birds singing, feel the warmth of the sunshine on our backs, and find ourselves strangely drawn to the outdoors. The fact that our dogs are whining like there’s no tomorrow, and will likely leave a variety of unsightly spots on the new rug in the dining room is beside the point. The point, for we want you to think we have one, is that we need to get outside — and we can’t do that, until we do this.

WHEN we first started to write today’s post, we considered a title based on the punchline from one of our favorite dirty jokes — Feels Good/Looks Bad — which cracks us up every time we tell it. Then we remembered that, more times than not, we’re the only ones to crack up when we tell it. So we scrapped that plan, and decided to go with the more sedate header, in hopes it would still entice you to watch the accompanying video. What can we say? This vintage clip on good grooming is hilarious, made even more so by the running commentary provided by those funny guys from MST 3000. The fact that their amusing and/or clever one-liners means we don’t have to write any of our own is just a bonus. A big, fat, fabulous, thank-you-Jeebus, step-aside-kid-yer-in-our-way, seriously-move-or-we’ll-knock-you-on-yer-crummy-little-ass-’cuz-dammit-we’re-goin’-out-now bonus.  

WE can’t be sure, but we’ve heard DIESEL is doing another — in his hilarious series of — Caption Contests today. But maybe that was just a bloggy rumor we read on Humor-Blogs.com.

Don’t forget Sunday is EARTH DAY, and do something nice. Tell the Earth how much it means to you, but in as few words as possible, so’s not to use up too much oxygen. Buy it a nice card on recycled paper (we’re sure Hallmark will have just the right one). Take it on a picnic, and feed it leftover meatloaf and/or macaroni salad. Or, you could just give it flowers, which is what we plan to do.

~snuppy

BLOGGING. On any given day, it is the absolute bane of our existence. Not that we don’t enjoy it, mind you, but still, who hasn’t suffered under the extreme pressure of content conjuring? Not us, baby, not even on days we think we do have something on our minds (a rarity, to be sure, but it has happened). All this to say: we intended to be brilliant today, but the best laid plans of men and bloggers are sometimes thwarted by forces decidedly more powerful than, well… than us. So, instead of amusing and/or entertaining you with our wit, we figured we’d attempt to put you inside our shoes, in hopes you can gain a little insight about our writing process and/or those aforementioned forces that will surely keep us from realizing our dream of becoming world-class writers anytime soon, Shirley.

IT is a dark and stormy night. You go to bed early, in hopes you’ll sleep well and wake up full of vim, vigor, and, er, brilliance. Suddenly (let’s say around 3:11 am) you’re awakened by the sound of your dogs snorting, scratching and sniffing (especially around the corners of your bed, a spot one pup once “soiled” 2 years ago). You hop up before your partner does because A) he’s the one who usually gets up, and you’d like to let him sleep for a change, and B) you need to pee. So out of bed and down the stairs you go, in order to take your precious doggies out to do their “business”. And “out” they go, into the far reaches of your backyard. And “out” they stay, into the far reaches of the early morning. So “out” you go, wearing little more than a tiny tee-shirt & skimpy undies, after grabbing the first warm thing in sight — which happens to be a heavy coat, 3 sizes too big, that barely falls below your rear end, and a pair of snow boots, 4 sizes too big, that barely stay on your feet.

It’s dark. It’s cold. It’s wet. You stumble up the hill, squinting into the inky recesses of the yard, for wearing your glasses would have made too much sense, what with it being late, and the dogs merely needing to pee, and you being so tired, and all. You can’t see well in the daylight without your contacts and/or glasses, so, for all intents and purposes, you’re blind as a bat. A stupid bat. A cold wet bat. In big floppy shoes.

You forge ahead, because, goddammit, those dogs have had enough time to mark every tree in the yard. How long does it take to lift a leg and pee, anyway? Hell, you needed to pee and come to think of it, you still do. Could you lift your leg and relieve yourself against that large rock? You could, were it not for that stupid coat, those over-sized boots, and the fact that you’re not a pathetic uncivilized maroon, despite evidence to the contrary.

Where are those dogs? Is there a hole in the fence? Would you be able to see the hole, when you can’t even see the fence? Damn you, anyway! Why-oh-why didn’t you put on your glasses before going outside? Why-oh-why did you put on your husband’s coat and boots, instead of your own? Why-oh-why are you asking yourself these questions when you need to be thinking of something to write for that post that won’t be writing itself, despite your desperate attempts to “think” it into existence?

You see a flash of lighter dark, visible against the darker dark of the trees and/or shrubs (please, dear G-d, let those other shapes be trees and/or shrubs), you call out to your puppies and the two lighter dark flashes come racing towards you. For a second it occurs to you those flashing dark lights might be bands of rabid raccoons and/or coyotes, and you consider running, until you remember those boots, your bare legs, the rain (did we mention the rain?) and you realize you’d most likely land on your ass in a puddle of mud, where you’d be torn to shreds by those rampantly rabid (and/or skanky?) scavenging raccoons and/or coyotes. Oh the humanity. No, the dogs. Whew. It is the dogs. You’re okay. You heave a sigh of relief and hope you remember to wipe that dribble of pee off your leg when you get back inside.

As for the post? Eh, you figure something will come to you in the morning.

~snuppy

footnote: The sun is always shining at humor-blogs.com.

WE messed up. Last night we gave in to the temptation of “going to bed”, instead of staying up until all hours of the night in order to bring you a piping hot post fresh from our mind’s oven first thing in the morning. Not that we know what a “piping hot post fresh from our mind’s oven” would look like, but we’re pretty sure it would be flaky on the outside, soft and warm on the inside, and go down nicely with a cup of coffee and/or tea. At least in our heads that’s what happens. Maybe in your heads it’s ladled into a bowl, where it’s drowned in milk and/or brown sugar then spooned steamy sweet into your mouths. Or flipped hot out of the skillet onto a plate, alongside crisp hash browns and bacon, then smothered in butter and/or maple syrup. Or maybe we should’ve had breakfast before stitting down at our computers this morning. We can’t be sure of anything right now, what with our lack of inspiration and/or growling stomachs. But that’s beside the point. The point, for we plan to come up with one before the end of this extremely long sentence, is that we forgot to work on our post yesterday and now we’re left with a computer screen as empty as our bellies.

Don’t blame us for our lack of foresight, we know we don’t. Instead, blame this past weekend’s Saturday Spin ala DJ LAMPSHA. After listening to the amazing/inspirational music provided by THE SIERRA LEONE REFUGEE ALL STARS, we just couldn’t wrap our brains around anything “fresh”, let alone “snarky”. Which is why we’ve decided to keep you all in “the zone” for one more day. And by “the zone” we mean Zen. The Zen Zone. Zen Zone? Sounds like a good place to go for a plate of organic fruit, topped off with yogurt, but it’s not (tho’, it might be, once we finish writing this post).

THE following is a trailer from BUDDHA-BAR NATURE, a beautiful film (as far as we can tell) described as a “sensory journey” through all that is natural and beautiful in our world. We stumbled over (as opposed to “in”) the BUDDHA-BAR last week, and were completely charmed by the music this world class establishment has become famous for over the years (”famous”, despite the fact that we’d never heard of the place until last Friday). Anyway, we figure this might be a nice way to ease into a new week and/or out of Passover (which ends tomorrow) and we hope you agree. Or at the very least, pretend to agree, because we’re feeling all “Zen” and “loving” and “peaceful” right now, and we’d hate to have to come down off our mountain and/or cloud in order to smack you in the head.

NO worries about the lack of laughter and/or snark around here — tomorrow all will be as it should, assuming DIESEL stops basking in the glow of his “new-found” popularity long enough to write something. That said, his new version of the ”Caption Contest” is pretty darn clever and/or fun — and we happen to think a couple of our own offerings were especially hilarious. Not humor-blogs.com hilarious, mind you, but funny/haha, nonetheless.

~snuppy

Remember how we said we lost Monday’s post? Well wouldn’t ya know it was in the queue all along, we just didn’t see it earlier because the place is a mess. Since we have nothing new to offer on this fine Friday — and since last weekend set off a flurry of odd little posts in which Saturday’s spin didn’t get posted until Sunday, and went downhill from there — we decided to go ahead and tack this one up, in hopes of bringing the entire week of Dayzed and Confused postings full circle and/or to a Bump ’n Grinding halt.

HOW the hell can it be Monday? For that matter, how the hell can it be Monday, the 2nd of April? Is it just us, or did March roar in like a lion then slither out like a snake, after unlocking its jaws and swallowing this past weekend whole? What does that mean? It doesn’t mean anything, you dope. Okay, that’s a lie from the pits of hell, because it does mean something, but nothing that concerns you. Unless you’d planned to slip into the Snark today for a few cheap laughs/musical opposites, that is. Because guess what? We don’t have any. Mostly because we weren’t planning on today being Monday. For all we knew, this was Sunday, and we were still sitting around enjoying the musical magic of CALEXICO, the latest band featured by our dear and oh-so-delightful DJ LAMPSHA (spinning out of control since 2006). 

Nevertheless, here it is, and here we are, and here YOU are, so let’s see if we can’t make the most of it, shall we? We shall. You go first. Hahaha. Kidding. We kid. We do have something to share that we happen to think is rather entertaining. For not only is today the 2nd of April, it’s also a big anniversary, of sorts (oh the things you can learn if you’ve the time and/or The Google). Back in the day – April 2, 1902, to be exact — folks gathered inside a large circus tent and were treated to… Koolaid. No! (sorry, in our heads that was funny). Where were we? Oh yeah… 105 years ago, a small group of thrill-seeking Los Angeleans experienced the ”Electric Theater”, and thus was born one of America’s favorite pasttimes — paying a ridiculous amount of money for popcorn. Heh. And thus was born the first “official” Movie House. Now, if you’re really interested, you can read about it HERE, because you sure as hell can’t read about it here (as in “here”, right here, on this page your eyes are scanning even as you try to get the gist of this post without reading each and every syllable, which is how we usually read your posts, too.)

THE following video (of sexy female Vaudevillian dancers) is NOT what folks saw that day (we’re guessing it was something gripping, like “New York in a Blizzard”, and wasn’t so much a “film” as a bunch of white frames pasted together — or a giant flip book of blank pages), but probably represents, in part, the kind of thing available back then, before ”visionaries” like DW GRIFFITH created films with a bit more, shall we say, “content”.

OUR dear and clever DJ LAMPSHA never fails to dazzle US on weekends with her amazing/entertaining spins, but none of those have ever made us as dizzy as the above clip just did. Still, we thought it was pretty cool, and we hope you agree. Okay, we could care less if you agree, we’re just glad we’re finally done with this post. Especially since we won’t have to do another one until Wednesday — assuming DIESEL isn’t suffering from the same “What? It’s Monday/Tuesday? How the Hell did that happen?” thing that caught us off guard, and forgets to do one of his HUMOR-BLOGS.COM worthy posts we’ve ALL come to expect, love, appreciate and/or depend on every week…

~snuppy

EVER wonder why we’re sometimes A) late writing posts and/or B) lame once we finally get around to committing to a topic? We wish we had a grand excuse for our lateness/lameness, alas (and alack) we do not. Blame it on our lack of sleep. Blame it on our sick kitty. Hell, blame it on the Bossa Nova for all we care. As for us? We plan to blame our posting woes on 1. Spring Fever (catch it!) and/or  2. our rotten/evil son (throw him out!), who forces us to look at “hot/new!” websites with dumb-yet-addictive games that distract us from the mission at hand, in order to try our hand at something we are, as yet, really bad… at. In. Doing. Whatever.

What we’re trying to say — badly  (spit it out) — is this: despite the fact we can’t play THIS STUPID CARD TOSS GAME to save our lives, that didn’t stop us from spending an inordinate amount of time trying. To play the game. To toss those goddamn cards. To hit that freaking hat. To get past Level 2. Whatever.

Good luck to those of you willing to give it a shot (shot? good one). Trust us, this is a difficult-yet-delightful distraction — which happens to be one of the best ways to waste time we’ve seen since, well, since THIS PAPER TOSS GAME came to be bookmarked in our side-bar (we shot! we scored! 59 points was our all time high! we need to find better ways to spend our time).

No one’s doing the Bossa Nova on HUMOR-BLOGS.COM.

~snuppy

OH bugger. Can it be Monday already? Already? Monday? Really? Rats. Not sure you can tell, but we’re not ready. Not no way, not no how. Not know how we’re gonna do a post in this condition.

IN case it’s not abundantly clear, some of us continue to be in the midst of recovering from our whirlwind tour of the East coast, as in: we had a beautiful PENGUIN underfoot last week, and we wanted to make sure she had a swell time while she was here, so we whisked her up and down Interstates 95 & 91, the Jersey Turnpike, the Merritt Parkway, and, over, under and/or through a bunch of bridges and/or tunnels with names we forget, in order to properly criss cross as much of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts as possible in 6 (count ‘em SIX) short days. Yes, that’s right, we said Massachusetts. Shut up*.

BUT none of that matters now. Oh no. This is Monday, everyone’s trying to get back into some semblance of normalcy, and we’re here doin’ our cheesy “musical opposites/cheap laughs” thing — as we’re wont to do when we can’t come up with any other clever way to seque out of a DJ LAMPSHA SUPER SPECTACULAR SPIN (oh how we lovelovelove that woman and/or her spins). Nonetheless, we’re tired, FRENCH and SAUNDERS as the THE CORRS are funny, Bob’s O’Malley’s yer uncle (we kind of missed out of Saint Paddy’s day, cut us some slack), and looky there, another post is done. Since Lampsha featured not one but 2 (count ‘em TWO) artists from the UK, there’s nothing not timely about our sharing this one with you. In fact, we’re bloody brilliant, if we do say so ourselves, which, of course, we do.

LAME? Us? Well, yeah. What about “we’re still trying to recover from last week” did you not understand? You can find funny all over the place, just ask DIESEL. While you’re there, for godssake offer up a caption for his little contest. Honestly, he’s been whoring up the blogosphere for the past 5 days in a pathetic gallant effort to get folks to participate, so do us all a favor and pitch in. Or, if you prefer, come back here tomorrow when he’s sure to do another, in a series of his own Super Spectacular Posts — unless, of course, he forgets, in which case we are SO gonna go over there and smack him on the back of his bald head (which isn’t bald, but looks that way in the picture, and stop looking at us like that, if you’d taken 2 seconds to go over there yourself we’d be through now, and taking our nap).

*We do plan to share more about the activities of last week — with any kind of luck, rest, and/or typing ability, we might even have something for you as soon as Wednesday. If we’re not here, you can find us looking for material over at HUMOR-BLOGS.COM.

~snuppy