Life List: Song Sparrow

There are sparrow sparrows, from the Old World where Karl of Linne was doing his big naming project, and decided they were the for real deal.  Then there are embirizids or New World Sparrows, which include most of what this amurrican would ever talk about.  Of those, the song sparrow is one of the most common and most commonly heard.

I feel like there was a Calvin and Hobbes comic with a very realistically drawn song sparrow in it, but don’t recall for sure.  At any rate, they are streaky brown and grey things like every other sparrow around here so who cares?  But they sez god jeezy has his eye on the sparrow, so… get judged, fools.

I didn’t know song sparrows were so common because they aren’t so easy to see.  Maybe if I had a bird feeder to watch all day.  For years after I started paying attention to birds, I never saw one with the clarity to ID it.  Only once I used the birdy app to recognize calls did I find out just how common they are.  And, having become more familiar in that way, I finally took some notice of them visually.

Still not very often.  One time they blew past me like lightning at the rhododendron garden in Federal Way, one time I saw them cross the footpath in the wee hours outside my old place of work, and one time I saw them in the rose bush in front of my house.  But if you know the calls, they are everywhere, all the time.

And yet… I don’t know the calls.  Just don’t have a good memory for ’em.  The list of birds whose calls I recognize is much shorter than the ones I know visually, and the more varied and complex a bird’s calls are, the less I can remember them.

Why am I writing about a bird I barely recognize, am not impressed by, and have no stories about?  I needs an angle…

Song sparrows are drab little brown birds that compensate with a fancy song.  Some people are like that.  I was reaching for this in my head and first person that came to mind was Teena Marie, the very ’80s singer who did not look amazing.  She looked fine, like any rando you’d meet working the counter at the bank or the grocery store, but had a big voice – and she wrote her own songs?  That’s a skill that a lot of singers don’t have.  Good job.

Then I find out she died of unknown presumed natural causes, not even 55 years old.  Life is cruel and sheisty.  Hey, I’ve got 6 years until I’m as old as she was when she checked out.  Gotta watch my back for scythes.

Anyway, the art of writing a tune is real business and I don’t think I always appreciated it, until listening to a bunch of bob dylan covers on a random lark one time.  The best way to tell if a song is really well written is to divorce it from its original style completely and see if it still stands up, and the more covers you have, the more evidence you have to weigh and consider.  Nobody’s gonna cover Teena Marie, so we’ll just have to decide about her qualities for ourselves.

As far as I’m concerned?  She’s alright.

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Lostwave

You might not be aware, but there is a whole internet subculture bent to the task of investigating cultural obscurae.  Presented with an image or a snippet of audio or a video clip, they try to find the origin.  This is not always possible, because despite idealistic dreaming and much human effort, you literally can not find everything on the internet.  Much of humanity’s artistic and intellectual output, even from the internet age, has been lost forever, or was never recorded in the first place.

With regards to music, they call this “lostwave,” a genre defined by what you don’t know about it, and nothing else.  There were a number of lostwave songs that people had just about given up hope on having their origins revealed, when recently they came to light.  Check out the reddit community to see a lot of interesting stories of independent research, and observe some odd bits of culture that were nearly lost forever.

I just want to talk about one such story briefly.  A guy posted a clip of a song and asked if anybody could identify it, then the poster disappeared.  I forget what reason he gave, for why he had a clip but didn’t know the origin of said clip.  Speculation was intense, the mystery lasted a few years.  But at last, it was revealed to be a studio song used in the pornographic film Angels of Passion.  You can find that moustache-tacular porn its entirety online, if you are so inclined.  I skimmed it.  Anyway, the guys that made the song published a remaster on yewchoob, so we can all check out this porn quality jam together…

The best part of this little tale is that you can tell from the clip the original poster had presented that it was carefully cut around the moans and groans of 1980s style fucken.  He knew where he got it, set people up to get pink-faced about it, and bounced forever.  Good one, man.

The song shows up at about 1 hr 7 min 30 sec into the porno, depending on which copy you’ve found, probably.

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Fat Middle-Aged Genderqueer ASMR Unbagging Reaction: Trader Joe’s Crispy Dried Watermelon Chips

Need one o’ them there meridian responses?  Like unboxing and reaction videos?  Product reviews?  You like slow paced grainy video where the loudest sounds are packages rustling and fans whirring?  If ya want my body and ya think I’m sexy, come on baby let me know.  Sorry for rod stewarting at you there.  Point.

I referred to an inanimate object as crazy, in violation of my ableism policy, but I don’t know how to bleep it.  Enjoy this little walk on the wild side.  And go to sleep!

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Make Your Own

There’s this song by Triple Six Mafia called Bin Laden Weed.  It’s actually got some emotional heft to it, for a rap song.  Usual content warnings for rap: misogyny, violence, self-harm, drug abuse, homophobia, some of those worse than others.  Anyway, I listened to this like a thousand times before I realized the recipe is right there in the chorus.  You too can make your own Bin Laden weed!

It’s “three types of weed grown all together,” and those types are “hydro … light green … bobby brown.”  How do you grow them together?  Just the same soil?  Grafting?  If you graft, what precise arrangement mingles their properties to produce this stuff?  We don’t have specifics, but we do have ingredients.  And I think at least one guy from this band is still alive, so maybe he can let us know.

Let us know!

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Igon and the Joy of Overacting

There’s a guy in the Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree named Igon, who is just deeply hilarious.  The first time you become aware of him, he’s yelling and moaning in the distance.  As you approach, you find a crippled guy laying in a heap, alternating between over-wrought sobs and wailing about his agony, and thunderous self-righteous rage at the enemy who has laid him low.  CURSE YOU BAYLE!  oh, take mercy upon my broken body, do not savage me so.

Overacting is really good for a laugh.  Maybe I’d feel differently if I was drowning in it; I only see it occasionally.  This clip from the old cartoon Home Movies illustrates:

What can I say?  Me like funny voice.

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Once Again I Rule Freethoughtblogs

It was brought to my attention that I am the only one posting within the very recent, and that gives me a chance to rule FtB with an iron feest.  What luxury!  What decadence.  I post a compilation of an American character in a Japanese cartoon swearing and freaking out.  And you will suffer it, presently.

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Sexy Pew Pew

You ever hear Sex Shooter, by Apollonia 6?  No?  I’m sorry, but now we must all experience it together.

This is profoundly unsexy and awkward.  I fucking love it.  It’s so funny to me.

These aren’t outfits, they’re underwear.  They’re wearing panty hose under their lingerie.  The side girls look like office ladies.

OK, I’ve got a bit of an “everyday people fetish” so the office ladies are a little hot, but still.  This whole production is embarrassing.  I like how lead girl is aiming for Marilyn Monroe but just coming out like she’s got a respiratory abnormality and needs to see an ENT.

She exhorts us to sing along.  Can you fucking imagine?  What crowd anywhere in the world would want to sing these lyrics back to the girls?  The fail, the cringe.  It’s adorable.  It feels like Rebecca Black trying to be cool.  I love you, pathetic girls.  I hope you’re in a better place now.

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EDIT:  Found out a little more.  Apparently these people were all wildly successful for being sexy and cool.  Who knew?  Lead singer there dated David Lee Roth and Prince, and starred in Purple Rain.  Skinny girl dated Prince and other famous dudes.  They are actually all singers, not just dancers or models…  This production really hinders the glamor, that’s for sure.

Incidentally, the song was written by Prince and he recorded a version of it, haha.  They can’t all be winners.