This is a Real Song!

I heard a song, once, on the radio when I was little. The lyrics were simple. “I’m a neanderthal man. You’re a neanderthal girl. Let’s make neanderthal love in this neanderthal world.” Stupid, but they stick with you.

But then I never heard it again. And I never met anyone who had ever heard of it. So, I convinced myself that it was maybe a novelty song by a local Chicago band from the 70s, so there was no use in ever hoping to hear it again.

I still sang it to myself every once in a while, though, because, well, when a song you hear once can get stuck in your head for almost 30 years, you have to honor it by singing it.

So, tonight, I read this story, which, for obvious reasons, gets me thinking of the song. And I found it on Youtube! It’s a real song. It exists and you can listen to it, just once, and then sing it to yourself for 30 years. It’ll be great.

I honestly can’t believe they got four minutes out of this material, but hey, what can I tell you?

Edited to add: Oh, my god, forget that video. Check out this one.

The Flowers are Undaunted

Newsweek?!

Here.

Edited to add: If any of you conservatives can confirm that this just happened, I would appreciate it.

Edited again to add: Apparently it was the hockey column. Whew. I didn’t want to have to make sense of that.

Links

I got nothing, folks. Just some links.

JR mocks the Green Vest. Okay, not really “mocks,” but pokes fun of. And the Governor’s Green Vest is my happy place. I imagine the Governor slipping me in one of the pockets and carrying me to safety, all the while lecturing me about how I need to spend more time at Walmart. I will also say that, if the Governor actually does this, I will about fall over from shock. By “this” I mean slow walk the bill, not put me in his pocket, though that would also be surprising, as I’m quite large and he doesn’t appear to be. Anyway, I will learn how to say “Don’t even kid about the Governor’s Green Vest!” in Welsh and stand outside JR’s office shouting it. If I’m going to protest Lind, I want to do so in a way that will amuse and delight him.

Trace is finding the limitations of the media, new and old, are having wide-ranging effects.

Look at this awesome cartoon Beth Cravens did.

I love this picture. The girl is all “I will kill you, eat you, and suck the marrow out of your bones in front of your children.” and the dog is all “Oh. my. god! She will!”

And here’s a post I wrote for Pith.

Word is that the Ashland City Walmart is no more. On the one hand, thank the gods. That place was a dump and the bathroom up front regularly required you to rely on the kindness of other patrons to get into and out of safely. On the other hand, this means that the people of Ashland City are going to be a good while without a place they can run over to to get toothbrushes or deodorant or new underwear, so that sucks. If someone knows how to get shit to Ashland City, pass it along.

So, Your Town is Under Water…

I have been thinking a lot these past few days about the people of Keithsburg, Illinois, whose town flooded, in part, to try to save the whole town. The Corps blew a levee along a creek to try to take some pressure off the levee along the Mississippi.

We moved near there the next year.

My co-worker that year was a woman whose house had been intentionally sacrificed to save the town, which sat under water for many, many weeks.

I have been thinking about her lately and her family and friends, for obvious reasons, but also because I think there’s this idea setting in that, if only we all pitch in and clean up and get things back how they were that everything will be okay.

And I just want to say, out loud, that that’s not going to happen. We are not going to get things back how they were. You don’t often get a clear demarcation between ‘how things used to be’ and ‘how they are now,’ but we have one.

I’m not saying that things won’t be okay. Eventually they will be.

I’m saying, this is going to fuck us up. Already, people are doing fucked up shit–even if we weren’t having a water shortage, who would water their flowers after all the rain we had this weekend? A person who is doing some fucked up shit, that’s who.

I can’t quite put my mind around how I want to say this. So, this isn’t going to be eloquent.

But here’s the thing. We’re not going back to how it used to be. Even if the physical city ends up looking the same, we have changed. We have changed in ways that will be very fucked up. And it’s okay. Just be aware.

And we need to have mercy on each other about this. The hard part is not what happened over the weekend. The hard part is going to be living with what happened.

Anyway, that’s it.