I'll have the time to write, but not the time to watch. Stupid work filters.

Are there no libraries in your town - you owe me this.

That is somehow the worst AND funniest music video I have ever seen.

I want the rainbow guitar strap for my banjo.

I could watch it at home but won't get to it until tomorrow morning. I'm a busy woman, you know.

Twas the night before Monday and all through the Ikea
Not a creature was stirring
Except for a gang of Bilbo cleaners
hopped up on sammi sausage and vita crisps
They rocked their world
While willfully daring each other
to show more and more but crack.

At the end of the show
that nobody would know
about,
Not even Leif Allenkey
could put all the smashed shit
back together again.

I used to like that song, Alan. Holy cow. Now, I'll never get Grizzly Adams' voice out of my head.

gary,

in defense of hurra torpedo i have to say i'm disappointed in you. yeah it's funny, very funny........but awful? cmon. what could be more awful than the bonnie tyler version. nothing. imagine this gary, you're a pale skinny pock marked kid from norway with a crude grasp of the english language at best and one day you hear a song, a perfectly horrible song, a song that very clearly (even without seeing the video which, if you remember it, was no less funny than the one currently in question), just from the production values alone, represents every excess and puss filled scar that the 1980's (90s?)wrought on the previous generation. and what do you do? you look at at the snow and relentless gloom on the arctic landscape and you reimagine that awful song broken down to its constiuent elements played on kitchen appliances. simple as that. and your vision is all of piece, the lyrical and gentle way the guy stirs the soup in the beginning, to the blue track suits, even to the way the guy's pants gradually slide down his back to reveal his skinny white nordic ass. i mean sure it's funny, really funny. i've seen it 500 times now and i lose it every time the guy starts whaling on the stove. but it's beautiful too. put it in a museum next to duchamps's fountain or van gogh's sunflowers. show it to schoolkids and tell them that anything is possible, that you can make an atom bomb from a box of bisquick if you think about it hard enough; this is an absolute genius work of the imagination, and, as such, a life affirming and beautiful thing. beauty is everywhere gary. and laughter is an a deep and beautuful human emotion.

That was a well-designed moment: you wait for half the video, wondering why the guy on the right is standing there like the statue of liberty with that big pipe and then in one fell swoop you get it: he's part of the rhythm section too! And then again, you wait!!! Are his pants going to fall off his ass?????? IS THE SOUP POT GOING TO STAY ON TOP OF THE STOVE????? HOW COULD IT!!! He's whaling on it!!!!! DOES THE RAINBOW STRAP MEAN THE LEAD SINGER LIVES AN ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE???????? And last of all, is the exhausted guy in the middle with the drumstick and freezer lid...can't even lift his head.

I support the death penalty + coating in honey and fire ants for anybody who covers or even innocently hums anything from the Bonnie Tyler discography.

Original songwriter Jim Steinman gets a reprieve -- barely -- for his work with Meat Loaf. But he should still be ashamed of penning such a thing.

Somedays, I question the appropriateness of our system of funding the arts in Canada. Seeing things like "voice of fire" hanging in the national gallery, caused me to have doubts. Seeing this video, I know, we are better off than some countries, where "artists" truly should be rounded up and forced to pass a test of "Viable artistic Merit" prior to being funded or shipped to the salt mines for re-education.

On the other hand, it was rather orgasmic/climactic when buddy finally started whaling away with the big pipe thing..

The best system is to leave it up to the patrons. I like classical music, so I buy TSO tickets. I like the work of a couple local photographers in High Park, so I buy their photos. I like the work of a local theatre company, so I buy tickets to certain performances. I enjoy the work of some local authors and buy their books.

The notion of the government acting as societal meta-patron is perplexing; why should it buy art that can't generate the interest of private citizens / consumers of that art? Or put another way, how many mulligans should an artist get? The accountant, baker, electrician or lawyer whose product is not deemed worthy by his customers does not get regular government dole because we need to maintain a healthy accountant, baker, electrician or solicitor community.

I agree Chris.. Art for Art's sake does not ring with me very well. Then again, much to my wife's dismay, to me, poetry that doesn't rhyme or follow a syllabilic pattern such as a haiku is really just a series of poorly formatted sentences strung together to get a simpe point across in a very convoluted way.

That being said:

A relavent 21st century Haiku for Friday

Bob is an artist
Which in French does translate to:
"Thinks he's talented"

For the love dog who will blog for Uncle Bobby!?

There's a whole raft of Japanese arts that don't make any sense to me =) <i>Ikebana</i> would be one, along with <i>haiku</i>.

Here's my Friday work haiku:

BlackBerry buzzes
Angry wasp skittering across desk
Server not responding

as long as its not you in charge gorthos. i'm defending hurra torpedo. that was a work of genius. i imagine you'd have the nat. gallary buy a bunch of renoirs and other paintings for girls.

Hurra Torpedo comes across as entirely free market to me.

The concept of kitchen appliance bands is genius, sure. But the song... is frackin' <i>Bonnie Tyler</i>.

On the Timberlake Continuum of Lameness, Bonnie Tyler can be represented by the equation (Sheena Easton + Barry Manilow) x Juice Newton, to the power of (Sedaka + Charo + Steely Dan)

point taken chris and i agree with you about bonnie but that's a part of the whole thing. an original song done like that like that and it's a clever ginmick (these guys do originals, they are clever). but a really bad song reimagined like that, taken apart like that and layed cut up out on the table for us all to see it's rotting insides, and that's something different. i'm still voting for genius.

and gorthos i overreacted. i went after you personally, called your taste into question. i'm sorry.

Anti climactic. Poorly rendered kitsch. If you're going to beat and smash up kitchen appliances, then make some fucking noise. And plumber butt? Flea and the Chili Peppers have been exposing themselves for years.

Portland:

No offence taken..

My artists of choice are usually Japanese or of the "Orientalism" schools..

No No, Portland, if anybody deserves personal abuse it is Gorthos: heap it on I say, with fire ants!

JUICE NEWTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The tunes that stick in my head as BAD or maybe worst, the two most popular of 1979: 'Blue Bayou' by Linda Ronstadt and gawdamn 'Hotel California' by the Eagles............

I really wish that The Who would just hang it up already....

Good lord. I don't think I could have coped with this yesterday. How does this differ from, say, Hotel California played on acoustic guitar at the bar of the Royal York? Or does it?

That is way, waaaaay too specific to be random, cm. =) You have been to the Library Bar and seen such a thing, haven't you? Admit it!