Alizée — French Family Entertainment

Petula Clark always sounds a bit amused that the French called her “sexy Pet.” But, then, what do the French know about what’s sexy?

If you’ve never heard of Alizée, you might be in for a bit of shock, because this is what passes for family entertainment in France. But I’ve never watched So You Think You Can Dance, so what do I know? Maybe it would be considered mainstream in America too.

Here is French superstar Alizée, five years ago, age eighteen. Computer gamer types will recognize this from the World of Warcraft. It was the basis for the Night Elf Dance.

RNC — Real Nut Cases

D.F. Rogers has provided a copy of a mailing he received from the Republican National Committee. If you want proof the GOP is still infiltrated by the extreme Neocons spouting their nonsense, this is it.

RNC MailingRNC MailingRNC Mailing

With more than 80% of Americans supposedly feeling the country is on the wrong track, why vote for McCain? Just because Obama is black? C’mon, we’ve got to be bigger and better than that.

The Explosive Sounds of Jackson Paine

There is precious little about humorist Jackson Paine available on the Internet. In fact, there’s nothing at all. Everything that I know about him is on the back of his 1961 LP, “The Explosive Sounds of Jackson Paine: Humor in its Newest Form.”

Jackson Paine liner notes

My dad got this record when he bought a stereo in 1963, a big GE tabletop console. The turntable had an automatic changer that swung down on a hinge, and it included stereo FM, which was quite new at the time. In fact, my father first brought home a GE stereo radio without a record player, but exchanged it. A wise move.

The Explosive Sounds of Jackson Paine

“The Explosive Sounds of Jackson Paine” is one part comedy record, one part sound effects record, and one part stereo demonstration record. I have very fond memories of listening to it when I was a kid, along with the Audio Fidelity Stereo Spectacular record that I featured over a year ago.

I think a lot of the humor holds up pretty well. It’s a real artifact of its time, created by a New York ad man working in the JFK era, as depicted in Mad Men. Each side is about ten minutes long.

Side 1
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Jan/JacksonPaine1.mp3|titles=The Explosive Sounds of Jackson Paine: Side 1]

Side 2
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Jan/JacksonPaine2.mp3|titles=The Explosive Sounds of Jackson Paine: Side 2]

Biden His Time

After a delay in making his announcement, moments ago CNN claims it has confirmed that Obama has picked Biden to be his running mate. I don’t know what led him to make that choice, but I think having two senators on the ticket isn’t a great idea. I would be saying the same thing if Hillary were his pick.

At this moment, the Wikipedia entry for Biden says nothing about him having survived a brain tumor, which is an odd omission. I don’t recall if it was malignant. I know two people who had non-cancerous brain tumors and they have both been fine for over twenty years.

Warning! Ice Cream

Bismo’s son has a humor book of warning labels that has some stickers in it. He put one of them on a carton of ice cream in our fridge.

Ice Cream Carton

Not a bad idea, actually, warning against “brain freeze.” Some people call it an “ice cream headache.” When I was growing up our family called it a “cold fever,” and I still prefer that description.

You Can’t Do That With The Beatles

Another Beatles video that I can do better than what’s on YouTube is “You Can’t Do That,” an outtake from A Hard Day’s Night that was assembled for a documentary about the movie on its 30th anniversary. I have it in stereo. The brief scratchy sounds in the right channel are in the source material.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/AUG/YouCantDoThat.flv 440 330]