Snapshots #332: A Hit Record Top Ten

Here's a man who knows a thing or two about making hit records... unfortunately.

I think it's fair to say that all these songs are better than anything Simon Cowell ever had a hand in... but that's just, like, my opinion, man.

10. Pinball champion becomes Superman.

Tommy was the pinball wizard... Superman is the Man of Steel.

Tommy Steele - Hit Record

9. He's a pro trembler... 

"A pro trembler" was an anagram...

Robert Palmer - Top 40

When I make my Top 40
Smash hit
Rock ‘n’ roll record
Everything’s gonna be just fine

8. Short-lived fellas.

They were all done in a minute.

The Minutemen - #1 Hit Song

7. Sexy sandwich fish.

Wow, that's some hot tuna!

Hot Tuna - Hit Single #1

6. Fired The Gun in a Three Man Army.

He was in The Gun, and one man in the Three Man Army. But he'll most be remembered (in dodgy easy listening circles) for penning this badly-rhyming "classic"...

Adrian Gurvitz - Classic

My first boss hated that song with a passion. "Classic does not rhyme with attic!" he used to scream. Ah, the good old days...

5. Piper known for luck and law.

Peter Piper has Murphy's Luck and suffers Murphy's Law.

Peter Murphy - Hit Song

4. She was an O, and smelled of an Irish river.

Jackie was an O, as in Eau d'Shannon... it's all there if you think about it.

Jackie DeShannon - (If You Never Have a Big Hit Record) You’re Still Gonna Be My Star

3. Regional Intelligence Liaison Offices that you can't get out of your head.

The Regional Intelligence Liaison Offices are known as RILO (google it if you don't believe me). Kyle can't get you out of her head.

Rilo Kiley - It's A Hit

2. The prettiest pole, according to penguins.

Penguins live at the Beautiful South Pole.

The Beautiful South - Song For Whoever

And I love the PRS cheques that you bring...

Still one of the greatest lines ever written.

1. The awards nobody in Hollywood wants.

Nobody wants a Razzie...

The Raspberries - Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)

Thanks for playing. More hits (and misses) next Saturday...

Self-Help For Cynics #12: Prejudice

Some people say bowling alleys got big lanes

Some people say that bowling alleys all look the same

There's not a line that goes here

That rhymes with anything

Take the skinheads bowling - take them bowling!

Camper Van Beethoven - Take The Skinheads Bowling

Racism, sexism, homophobia, hating New Order and Audi drivers... can they all be explained by the storytelling brain?

I heard one today about the one I love

I heard one earlier that shook me up

I heard one the other day, can't believe it's true

I heard one by accident wish I hadn't

I heard one so many times, couldn't care any more

Minutemen - Stories

 
In my past two Self Help For Cynics posts, I've looked at how the brain uses stories to build neural pathways. This can be a positive thing in that it helps us learn knowledge, skills and how to survive… but it can also be negative if the stories we use to learn end up reinforcing bad habits, unpleasant ideas or defeatist emotions. Last time, I explained how a nasty teenage experience had created neural pathways in my head that made me hate New Order. However, just the act of writing about that experience has honestly lessened the animosity I feel towards a band that’s never done me any harm. 

Every time I think of you

I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue

New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle

There are two explanations for this. Firstly, understanding why we think the way we do is the first step towards changing the way we think. (That’s the main reason I’m writing this series.) Secondly, you can overwrite bad neural pathways with good ones by replacing negative experiences (stories) with positive ones. Here’s another example from my terrible teens…

Chumbawamba - Homophobia
 
Was I a homophobic teenager?  
 
I grew up in the 1970s and 80s. Positive representations of gay people in the media were limited to Larry Grayson and Mr. Humphries from Are You Being Served? Camp, limp-wristed caricatures. In the pop world, we had the Village People and then Boy George. Many less stereotypically gay stars like Elton John and George Michael kept their secrets for a long time. Even Freddie Mercury – one of my teenage pop heroes – refused to confirm his sexuality, right up to the point he told us he was dying of AIDS. Tom Robinson might have proclaimed himself glad to be gay in 1978, but I certainly didn’t hear about it.

Pictures of naked young women are fun

In Titbits and Playboy, page three of The Sun

There's no nudes in Gay News, our one magazine

But they still find excuses to call it obscene

Read how disgusting we are in the press

The Telegraph, People and Sunday Express

Molesters of children, corruptors of youth

It's there in the paper, it must be the truth

Tom Robinson Band - Glad To Be Gay

 
Far worse than the clichéd media portrayal of homosexuality was the strong undercurrent of homophobia fostered by straight male society. “Backs against the wall, lads”, “shirtlifters”, “poofters”… these were phrases I heard on a weekly basis from my peers, my elders… even on TV. Add to this that the only openly gay person in my school was a bitchy viper of a boy (probably a defence mechanism, and I can hardly blame him for that)… well, you can see how my storytelling brain was busy building negative neural pathways throughout my early adolescence.

Pushed around and kicked around, always a lonely boy

You were the one that they'd talk about around town as they put you down

Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy

 
Things did start to change in the mid 80s, with more openly gay celebrities, and alternative music and comedy which celebrated LGBT culture. It was at this point when I finally started to question the prejudice I’d been a part of in my early years of high school. But it wasn’t till I started working in radio, at 16, that the stories in my brain were completely rewritten. At the radio station I worked at, there were a lot of openly gay men. And as I got to know them, I liked them. Often more than I liked some of my more hetero, alpha male type colleagues. Some became lifelong friends and so my storytelling brain was forced to write new, stronger neural pathways that cancelled out my old prejudicial ones.

Spearmint - Your New Gay Friend
 
All this just reinforces the value of positive representation in the media, in my mind at least. The anti-woke brigade rail against the fact that every TV show these days has to feature a variety of sexualities, skin colours, genders and differently-abled individuals. But only through frequent exposure to people who are not the same as ourselves will our brains stop fearing these unknown beings who are actually just like us, for good and bad. This all seems a bit obvious to me, to the point where I’m not sure I needed to write it… certainly not for the open-minded folk who read this blog. I’m preaching to the converted. 

Rufus Wainwright - Gay Messiah

Those that are harder to convert – the ones who turn off their TVs whenever they see a gay kiss, for example – maybe they’re beyond help. And there are certainly plenty of storytelling options available to them (particularly online) which feed and reinforce their own negative neural pathways. We’re a long way from a utopia.

As to the Audi drivers… I keep hoping one day I’ll have a positive experience that allows me to rewrite the neural pathway prejudice I feel towards them. They can’t all be bad…?

Snapshots #243: A Top Ten Vietnam Songs

Many, many songs were written about the Vietnam war. Here are ten of the best...

10. Tough clue, starring Nathan Fillion.

Nathan Fillion was the star of the TV show Castle. Which you might have found a little hard.

Paul Hardcastle - 19 

9. Looks like tiny blokes.

Minutemen refers to the unit of time, but it could also mean they were really small.

Minutemen - Viet Nam

8. A riddle, found in Dover.

A Jimmy Riddle, found among the white cliffs.

Jimmy Cliff - Vietnam

7. Always had wet hair.

Because raindrops keep falling on his head.

BJ Thomas - Vietnam

6. Barbie & Ken do Manhattan.

The New York Dolls - Vietnamese Baby

5. An Innocent Baby.

Grows up to become An Innocent Man.

Billy Joel - Goodnight Saigon

4. Goes well with a sledge hammer or an ice pick. 

Cold Chisel - Khe Sahn

That's a great tune.

3. Elton & Bruce prepare for fishing.

Elton John & Bruce Lee get their hooks ready.

John Lee Hooker - I Don't Wanna Go To Vietnam

2. How do you know when a duck is getting old?

It's bill withers, of course.

Bill Withers - I Can't Write Left-Handed

1. He's representing cubs.

"Representing cubs" is another beaut from God's Gift To Anagrams...

Bruce Springsteen - Born In The USA

This Is The End, beautiful friends. But there will be more next Saturday...

Saturday Snapshots #66 - The Answers

Ground control to Major Tom - check your Saturday Snapshots answers and put your helmet on...

Let's hope Brexit (if it happems) doesn't put an end to our European friends from taking part in Saturday Snapshots... because this week saw our Danish and German blog-friends take a clear victory. Well done to Chris and Walter, who got seven of the answers before any of our U.K. contenders even got out of bed. Charity Chic, Rigid Digit and Mr. C solved the rest, but the hard work had been done by the time they (and Alyson) arrived.


10. Undetached hedgehog calls last orders.

Sonic the hedgehog.

An undetached house might be a semi.

Last orders comes at Closing Time.

Semisonic - Closing Time

9. American revolutionary soldiers visit Chinese medicine man.

Check your history books.

The Minutemen - Dr. Wu

8. DNA Friendly Bing, doubles the aristocracy.

DNA = Gene.

Chandler Bing was in Friends.

Duke & Earl are two titles of the aristocracy.

Gene Chandler - Duke of Earl

7. Afternoon cinema blackout starts World War.

WWI began when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assissinated.

Franz Ferdinand - The Dark of the Matinee

6. Homer in space; Brooklynite.

Homer wrote the Odyssey... but not the Space Odyssey.

Odyssey - Native New Yorker

5. Old rope from terrible circumstances.

Dire Straits - Money For Nothing

(Yes, that really is Dire Straits... at  their first ever gig!)

4. Feline superhero at home in the pub.

Cat Power - Lived In Bars

3. Broadway coffee award-winner found in Hammersmith Palais, eating greens with a gator girl.

A Tony is a Broadway Award.

Coffee is Joe.

White Man In Hammersmith Palais.

Listen to the song for the rest...

Tony Joe White - Poll Salad Annie

2. I am on swirl: the object of my desire.

I am on swirl is an anagram...

Mari Wilson - Just What I Always Wanted

1. Bob's future is in hand: great detective work.

Palm-readers tell the future.

Detectives look for clues.



Let's Dance again next Saturday morning...