Category: humour

Crappy Album Covers #86 — Bad Hair II

album_cover_crap_121_-_hair_franklarosa_com I have no idea how many remakes of the Hair soundtrack there were. You know, this hippie chick looks like she has a case of running out of conditioner and shampoo. While this doesn’t hurt album sales in the least, it is still part of the problem.
Once again, we see a gorgeous naked woman but for her hair, “Hair” in large letters and “Music from” in small letters. In the same small lettering are the performers, called “The Sunshine Generation”.Would you rather hear songs like Aquarius and Good Morning Starshine from The Sunshine Generation or from The 5th Dimension and Oliver respectively?
album_cover_crap_109_-_howtosaveamarriage This was not going to be a bad hair album until I realised that the lady in this photo is wearing a wig.

The plot line to the movie is something like: A bachelor tries to save a friend’s marriage only to end up getting married himself, I think, to the friend’s mistress. This is a soundtrack to this 1968 comedy starring Dean Martin opposite Stella Stevens, with music by Micheal Legrand.

 

Visits: 95

Crappy Album Covers #85 — One up for the ladies

album_cover_crap_115_-_ragtime Never mind what the (usually male) record company exectives tell you. The real record salesmen are women. All they need to do to sell a record, regardless of its quality, is take off some or all of their clothes and pose for the album cover. Too bad the ones in this blog are entry are nameless, as they are most of the time.
album_cover_crap_111_-_dances This model  remains possibly clothed and looks suggestively at the camera lens. Definitely a “money shot”. Believe me, I have nothing against women who play no part in the music performance on album covers, but what makes this cover crappy is that it has little else going for it. Just a spinning globe in the forground to keep the guys guessing.

Visits: 95

Time to plug your ears

William Shatner (who played Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek) recites “Lucy in the Sky”. The animator wins big for visual accompaniment. It is kitschy in exactly the right way. Guest starring Lucille Ball and Lucy Van Pelt. Cameo appearance by Ricky Ricardo and The Flying Nun (with Shatner’s face pasted on).

Visits: 153

Crappy Album Covers #82 — Classic Crock

album_cover_crap_120_-_beatles_franklarosa_com Rock set to classical music, especially in the 60s and 70s, was done with no small measure of contempt for the rock genre. Here, the greater works of The Beatles is set to opera. 

I can see Elanor Rigby being set to opera, or Yesterday, but Can’t Buy Me Love? Or the song Revolution?

And the line drawings on this cover is an obvious send-up to similar drawings of The Beatles’ Revolver album, which has some of these tracks on it. If it were really a send-up to Revolution, what artwork would they parody? The White Album?
album_cover_crap_123_-_shatner This 1968 album cover is not really crappy, since the general design would be predictable for Shatner: kitschy late 60s computer lettering; Shatner in a trance; and so on. 

What is legendarily horrible about this album lay in its contents. The album’s pièce de résistance for masochists was in his reading of the Beatle’s Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. Those who boldly assert that Shatner’s talents extended beyond acting usually quiet down whenever they hear Shatner take a hatchet to recite this track.

I have a link to a video of Shatner doing Lucy, which is so brilliantly done and animated, that I felt it deserved its own entry.

Warning: Once you view the video, you can’t UN-view it. Sorry.

 

Visits: 228

Crappy Album Covers #81 — Crappy By Request

Bunk Strutts has requested that I look at a link he sent me, and here is what I am coming back with. He had sent me a link to Franklarosa.com some weeks ago, and only now I am coming around to the requests. So, you might have to wait up to 3 weeks, since I post a couple of weeks in advance, before people actually see it.

album-cover-crap-106_-_hit_70s_tv_franklarosa_com A group called “The Pop Singers and Orchestra” has this album called “Themes from TV Hit Shows”, obviously from the late 70s/early 80s.

Get a load of these cartoony impressions of the stars of these programs. Kind of makes it look mindless. Just the way I remembered those programs. It’s just that the offerings by networks these days make these 70’s programs look like “University on the Air” by comparison.

We witness Valerie Bertinelli, the hearthrob from One Day At A Time, looking as if she has Down’s Syndrome; Angie Dickinson (Police Woman) gritting her teeth instead of smiling; Jack Lord (Hawaii Five-O) looks like Dudley Moore; and Lindsay Wagner (Bionic Woman) looks like an 18 year-old valedictorian. Archie and Meathead look like they’re gonna kiss and the ladies look terribly worried; and Sanford is going to be strangled by his son.

Michael Landon (Little House On The Prarie) looks like a seventies’ lead guitarist surrounded by his child-age female groupies (Hold it! That’s exactly how he looked on the TV show!). Lee Majors (Six Million Dollar Man), whose portrait presented here was drawn during his brief encounter with a moustache, looks sad that Charlie’s Angels has borrowed all three of his pink turtlenecks, and he had to settle for wearing a crappy orange one.

Then, there’s The Waltons. Look, I grew up on this program. It was my mother’s favourite, since she grew up in the praries in the ’30s, the same period of the program. This means that the theme is forever burned on to my cerebral cortex. Why on earth does someone feel the world needs yet another rendition of that infernal theme?
album_cover_crap_121_-_cabot_franklarosa_com Going back a decade, Sebastian Cabot played the butler Giles French in the sitcom “Family Affair”. Here, he recites (not sings) the greater works of Bob Zimmerman (nee Dylan) in his album “Sebastian Cabot, Actor/Bob Dylan, Poet”.

I am unsure why the silhouette of Dylan is distorted near Cabot’s head. Looks like Dylan’s harmonica is trying to eat his face.

You have not lived until you have heard Sebastian Cabot read (not sing) “It Ain’t Me Babe”. I can’t seem to find an MP3 of this, but he recites it like he is reciting Shakespeare. I heard it once years ago, and I recall it was unintentionally hilarious. The “music” is in the same league as William Shatner’s “Transformed Man” made around the same time. Recall that in that album, Shatner distinguished himself by reciting (not singing) “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”. Or you’re maybe better off not recalling that one.

I went through his track listing, and he thankfully does not do “Subterranean Homesick Blues” or “Lay Lady Lay”.

This album has since been re-released in 2007 on CD, and is sold on Amazon, if you really want to hear “It Ain’t Me, Babe” that bad. You can download the individual MP3 from there, I believe.

Actually, I have found the song embedded in a video from You Tube:

Visits: 170

Crappy Album Covers #80 — Wanna Come to My Place?

bongodate This is Jazz artist Mike Pacheco with his 1957 LP “Bongo Date”. Back then, there was the fascination with Beatnik culture. It was the Hip-Hop of the 1950s. 

Guy says to the girl: “Wanna come to my place and I’ll show you my instrument?” And the pick-up line actually works! It’s a date! Or maybe the girl is saying it to the guy. For me, it works both ways in this photo. Cherche la femme, indeed!
harmonicagang Johnny Puleo (1907-1983) was a pantomine artist, dramatic actor, and in his later years, master of the harmonica. He has recorded at least two albums with “His Harmonica Gang”, and has had at least two solo efforts. 

He’s the short guy in the foreground. Standing at 4′ 6″ tall (1.37 metres), he would show up on Ed Sullivan playing a bass harmonica that was almost the size of his head. He started in Vaudeville playing all of the large night clubs in the United States. His last performance was on television in 1982, when he appeared once on SCTV.

Visits: 117

Crappy Album Covers #79 — Crappy to Infinity

album_cover_crap_105_blonde_redhead-23 Proof that the lady on Blonde Redhead’s 2007 album “23” has an infinite number of legs: 

1) This woman has 4 legs

2) 4 is an even number

3) 4 is an odd number of legs for a woman to have

4) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity

Therefore, this woman has an infinite number of legs.

Tennis, anyone?

I have this one in my collection. The contents are pretty good, and the CD has had great reviews. 23 was one of the top 10 alternative albums of 2007. I’ve heard comparisons with other bands; but no — they stand on their own. They are very melodic and very listenable.

I think the reason for the crappiness of this cover is that, on one hand, it doesn’t look “alternative”, but it doesn’t look terribly normal. It’s a cover which confuses its audience. It also is not really an indication of what is inside. What’s inside is pretty consistent, well-done, and not so “weird” as this cover would suggest. The cover has since been modified.
album-cover-crap-107_-_polka_disco_franklarosa_com As was mentioned by this blogger, with this 1979 album by Jimmy Sturr and his Orchestra, we witness the union of the two most repulsive words in music. 

And to make things worse, it is actually a double album. But one has to realise that this album wasn’t made to further tighten the noose on disco; it was done to popularise polka. Jimmy Sturr still makes music and has his own website, sponsored by Mrs. T’s Perogies.

Visits: 101

Crappy Album Covers #78 — Crappy on many levels

tubby_boots I can’t resist adding this second Tubby Boots album, called “Goes Topless”.Whoa. 

This one is crappy on so many levels. Recall in our first Tubby Boots record shown last week that he thought he was a hipster. Now he thinks he is a female stripper. A female stripper wearing a Roman war helmet. And pink underwear with a bearded man drawn over his crotch. And, of course, the pasties.

On the bottom it says: “For the Mature-Minded Adult”. I am unsure how many “mature-minded” adults would be seen with this record. But if you are an adult and not mature-minded, you are obviously spared from having to buy this record.
cartyparty Bill Carty’s album here is also crappy on many levels. Imagine pulling up your blinds, to be confronted with this guy staring back at you?We have already seen Carty’s head go into orbit with the last album we saw, when we witnnessed him as the world’s first suicide bomber. Now his head is landing in front of your window. 

His eyes popping out of his head could be a mirthful look, or it could be hyperthyroidism. Or it could be his forever frozen look of surprise when he found out all he needed to set off the grenade was to pull the pin.

Visits: 69

Crappy Album Covers #77 — Big Heads II

billbarner1 Comedian Bill Barner was a comedian for a short stint in the Florida area in the 1960s. His comedy records are one of the earliest to appear. However, his career didn’t go too far, according to my informants (actually, it was from an interview between Woody Woodbury and WFMU in New York, which was podcasted). 

You can see clearly this is some kind of ’60s anaesthetic aesthetic. A woman is showing herself off, and Barner seems to show his appreciation.

Barner had to travel to San Francisco to get this recording made, signing up with Arrow Records. Lots of hints that this is from SF: Recording is done in “Mirth-Quake”; and Barner is standing (sort of) on a trolley.
billbarner2 Perhaps Duo and Arrow Records are the same company, since both have the “Mirth-Quake” monacre, and both have mostly the same messages on top and bottom as a whole. Both also show the same love for excessively large heads in the album artwork. 

Barner apparently plays piano, and does so live in front of a night club audience (as was the above album). They don’t say which night club allowed them to record. It would have been great publicity for the night club. But for all we know, a laugh track may have been his only audience.

He has released six other albums that I am aware of. Those lack the requisite big heads to be in this entry, but they are still pretty bad. One of them is a sequel called Trolley Bar Party II. Some of these records, depending on the condition, are collectors’ items.

Visits: 113

(video) Proof that all songs since the late 60s sound like Waltzing Matilda

The comedy rock group Axis of Awesome will set out to prove that all songs since the Beatles’ Let It Be sound like Waltzing Matilda, and that Waltzing Matilda sounds like intro to “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey. By syllogistic reasoning, therefore, all songs sound like Journey. This is only a five-minute video, but it’s five minutes of the same four piano chords, without tempo changes or changing the order the chords that are played. That may take some patience. But the fact that it applies so widely over 45 years of music fascinates me, although it could easily apply over 100 years. I could imagine singing “Should auld acuaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?” to those chords. And since Robert Burns wrote Auld Lang Syne over 300 years ago, that would make Journey a band of Johnny-Come-Latelies by comparison.

Waltzing Matilda is heard about halfway through, just after that other Australian hit, “Down Under”, by Men at Work. Quite compelling.

[media id=70 width=500 height=375]

Visits: 79

Crappy Album Covers #76 — Keyholes and topless women

keyhole_woodywoodbury_wfmu1

Guys, keyholes and topless women are a staple in the CAC blogosphere. This is Woody Woodbury’s big comedy album from the 1950s, Woody Woodbury Looks at Love and Life, put out by the Stereoddities label. This was one of the first comedy records ever made (probably the first), and are considered innovative. Woody put out comedy records before Bill Cosby, or Bob Newhart, or any of the other ’50s and ’60s comedians.

Woodbury was a big name, and he almost had the job of hosting The Tonight Show, except that the plum job was instead taken up by some wisecracker named Johnny Carson. Woodbury was a guest host of that talk show in the past, and thought he had the job.

album-cover-crap-100_lpcoverlover_comProving that the suckiness of album covers are never limited to English-speaking countries, we present Jacinto O Donzelo, looking into a keyhole of his own. When this name came up in most searches, it appeared without the comma.

From what I can make out, Jacinto has made what appear to be comedy records, well into the 1980s. He has sold apparently well in Spain, Portugal, and Brazil. MP3s of his comedy are ripped and traded on several websites.

I shall declare that this cover is so bad, that merely gazing upon it will make you feel as though you stepped on something warm and brown. I’ve called the cops, Jacinto. They’re on their way down.

The photo of Jacinto and the keyhole was photoshopped at lpcoverlover.com, who uses the photo as an overlay to indicate that the album cover “underneath” is X-rated. It is not so much serving as a warning, and more like an urging to “click here you idiot if you want to see some nudes”. Great system they have. Anyone who is highly moral has to put up with having to stare at Jacinto eternally pointing at the keyhole, which by itself simply forces visitors to click on the photo if they want to make Jacinto go away. Once they do, they see the album cover depicting nudes underneath. Prudishness is inherently maladaptive in the blogosphere.

My blog isn’t nearly that high-tech. I put “Adult Content” in my title as a warning, telling patrons that they should visit my site as an invitation to see a really cool posting. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? Every time I view a movie on TV that has an announcer saying “This movie may involve mature subject matter and scenes of sex/violence/coarse language” what the television folks are really saying is “whoa, this show is really cool, folks — watch this one!!” Just imagine that if they didn’t use that disclaimer and you didn’t know the movie, would you really watch it? I almost never do. And I think that the TV folks know me, since I think they make that disclaimer in almost evey movie. I think I even saw it once on Bambi. That’s for the part that when Bambi’s mother dies, I think I heard Bambi say something like “Oh, shit”. Of course you have to keep kids away from that kind of nonsense.

Visits: 106

Crappy Album Covers #75 — Big Heads I

album-cover-crap-95_lpcoverlover_com 1960 crappy album cover (CAC) maker and, oh yeah, comedian to boot, Bill Carty has a variety of albums which all fit the high standards of crappiness that gives this blog such longevity. Here, we see a standard technique for CAC making that has been imitated by many CAC makers in many countries worldwide: thoughtless photo retouching.Workers at a construction site on the other side of Pompano Beach were probably scratching their heads after it appeared that ten of their blasting caps went missing.If Bill Carty is really “Blasting Off”, it’s only his head that is blasted off. Spectators below stare aghast at this horrid spectacle. This would mean that the late 60s the audience in The Space Sattelite Motel in Pompano Beach, Florida were witness to the world’s first suicide bomber. In those days, they didn’t have Homeland Security, either.

The Space Sattelite Motel, which was located in a city located north of Miami and closer to Fort Lauderdale was the epitome of 50s kitch. Carty would have been placed on a stage in the middle of an audience and a bar which surrounded the stage. The motel does not show up anywhere I have looked in the Pompano Beach area, and it may no longer exist.

lpcoverlover.com says this is from “Stere Oddities”, but I think that on seeing another record from the same label, I think it should be “StereOddities”.
ninonanni_bighead This is the other record I saw. See? The words are closer together. StereOddities just seem to love big heads on their records. And there are more. Many more. CAC collectors even have a special section for albums depicting disproportionately big heads (or disembodied big heads) of the artist on their covers. This is true for lpcoverlover, and it is also true of another account of a curio record store in the states that I have heard about.Nino Nanni (b. ?- d. circa1991) was another comedian on the same label. Both Nanni and Carty are mentioned in WFMU’s Beware of the Blog as “Nobodies”. Nanni did in fact have a great braritone voice, and perfect enunciation, apart from his talent with the piano. The main attraction from Stereoddities will be presented later in this series.

Both of these albums are rare, and are discussed at length, halfway through this WFMU podcast, starting at about 30 minutes:

Visits: 87

(Video) Miraculously good/bad luck (link repaired)

A French vid (no words) from Daily Motion.Com. I believe these stunts were totally unintended. I imagine that people get hurt in many of the car scenes, but take a look at how close the pedestrians came to getting killed or seriously injured, instead coming out unscathed.

Visits: 101

(Adult Content) Crappy Album Covers #74 — Why sex is like chocolate in record cover design I

You have heard that some women think that chocolate is like sex. Well when designing crappy album covers, the reverse is true: sex is like chocolate.

For one thing sex sells record albums.

For another, when a food goes rancid one can cover up the rancidity by covering the food in chocolate. Similarly, nudity can be used to hide the fact that an album cover is otherwise artless.

album-cover-crap-92_lpcoverlover_com This is a rare cover for Kool and The Gang’s 1971 album, their second before there was any hint of a commercial breakthrough. The one that shows up on Wikipedia is a more “normal” album cover, with some artfulness within the realm of a “typical” disco album.I’m not sure their cover of   “Wichitaw Lineman” works as a disco tune. 

But they needed more than sex to sell, since this album was a commercial flop.
album-cover-crap-101_lpcoverlover_com You know, if you are not really The Beatles and you are making a tribute album, the only way you can make people buy this record is to put “The Beatles” in large lettering, the word “Tributing” in small lettering, and get a young lady to pose topless for the album cover and hope that no-one notices that this is not a Beatles album.What better analogy to chocolate can there be? You know this album is going to sound a bit “off” and will most likely have third-tier Beatles imitators at best, but having a semi-nude on the cover makes it palatable.

 

Visits: 135

Crappy Album Covers #60 — Creepy Similarities III

album-cover-crap-74_coverbrowser_comBruce A. Tweten was once known as “Mr. Bat”. This is his 1981 album, called “Mr. Bat Sings”. What else does he do in his spare time? He probably also scares the hell out of small children. If you play the album backwards, you may hear the sound of children screaming in horror as he pummels them with his fist he is now waving in the air. While you are keeping an anxious eye on your loved ones and holding your children a little closer tonight, let Mr. Bat teach you the meaning of coulrophobia, firsthand.

Much rumors and speculation abound as to what he does these days. This blogger speculates that he might be playing “Mr. Moth”, while his wife plays accompaniment on something called a fart horn (I thought this was a made up slang, but such horns really exist, and one such horn is being auctioned off for 20 bucks on E-Bay as I write this) every time he hits a high-C. I have also now learned that there is such a thing as a butt-horn fart, defined as a fart that sounds like a horn. So, he should forget about playing high-C and start playing flautulent duets. They would have to play in tune, of course, and if Bruce can still fart in high-C, that would be worth the price of admission.

buttholesurferslocustabortiontechnicianWell, I do recall around that same decade, a 1987 punk rock album from The Butthole Surfers, called Locust Abortion Technician. But this time, the clowns had smiles on their faces.

Like Mr. Bat, having clowns showing up on an album with a name like that does not generally give a positive portrayal of clowns.

Like much of this blog, this all has a precedent. One example of a clown with issues was mass murderer John Wayne Gacy, who also went by the name “Pogo the Clown”.

gacy2Gacy was known as “the Killer Clown”, and here he is, standing in front of his house. 30 bodies were found in his basement by 1974. He is depicted here in this black-and-white photo.

It would seem that once the Gacy murder trials started in the Early 80s, that left a void in the evil clown market, which is about the same time that Mr. Bat took over to fill in the clown shoes left behind by Gacy. Gacy, beset by legal problems (arrests, trials, convictions and jailtime can cramp your style, you know), was finally put down by lethal injection in 1994. What makes Gacy particularly repugnant is, that unlike Charles Manson, he did not produce any crappy albums, nor crappy album covers. Society will never forgive him for this heinous crime.

Enter Mr. Bat, who obviously wants to restore dignity to the good name of evil clowns everywhere. Bat has a big job to do, and big clown shoes to fill. He now must perform evil and terror-filled acts, but in a law-abiding way. We still await the outcome.

Visits: 138

A Tale of Two Joes (Joe Sixpack and Joe The Plumber)

It was the best of Joes, it was the worst of Joes; it was the age of connectedness, it was the age of alienation; it was the moment of truth, it was the moment of lies; we were shown the light, we were all kept in the dark; it was the dawn of Change, it was the twilight of monotony; we had everything to gain, we had everything to lose; we were taking the highway to Heaven to listen to Elvis, we were taking the highway to hell to listen to AC-DC.

— Chuck Dickens (I had to get that out of my system)!

Disclaimer: This was meant as a joke and does not confer a preference for the greater works of Elvis Presley on my part. And to put the Elvis fans to rest, I am also not a fan of either the greater or lesser works of AC-DC.

I have heard on the net about people commenting that Joe Sixpack and Joe Plumber have no place in political discourse. Joe Sixpack would likely desire intelligent discourse with a sober Palin maybe after chugging a sixpack or two. Then, sufficiently inebriated, would then proceed to have what would seem to the inebriated mind an intelligent discourse with Palin. This is also how a Joe turns a dog into a fox.

Joe Plumber, unlike Joe Sixpack, is not fictitious. He is properly nicknamed “Joe The Plumber”, and was first reported talking policy with Obama. Joe The Plumber’s actual name consists of neither “Joe” nor “Plumber”. His real name is Samuel Wurzelbacher. So, I guess he is kind of fictitious as well.

Joe Sixpack looked like a hard-working guy and the press has been all over him. It is as if they, after looking strenuously across America for an everyday person to talk to (it being so difficult to locate everyday people in the lower income brackets, consisting of over 60% of the country’s population), they found Joe The Plumber, who is presented to us as just a common hard-working guy grossing about a quarter million per year, as he told Obama. In whose universe is someone with such an income an “ordinary American?” Joe The Plumber does not exist in the sense that the media is fabricating the narrative, anymore than Joe Sixpack would exist anywhere, at any time.

We all await a successor to George Bush The Lesser.

The “real” Joe Sixpack weighs in, with the truth behind the hoopla, as shown in this mockumentary:

And, yet another Joe, some running mate of Obama’s who goes by the name of Joe Biden in this video, is said to “rip apart” McCain and Palin. All sensationalism aside, Joe Biden is simply telling it like it is.

Visits: 174

Sleeping with Martha

My wife persuaded me to sleep with Martha. She said that it will make me feel good, and that it was good to have her in bed with us. When I tried to do it with Martha I was spoiled for anything else, and my wife wasn’t even jealous. However, I noticed, that while Martha was good in bed, she kept my head up a little more than made me comfortable, and I wished it would stop. But after a while I got used to it. I told my wife that these were the best Martha Stewart pillows she ever bought, and I had to have more.

Visits: 125

I laughed till I choked

Great family planning advice.
 This was originally discovered at Patti’s Random Noise. A Google search shows that this one is all over the ‘net, with a complete history behind the sign and everything. I laughed so hard, I could barely breathe; I was even in pain. And, yes, I suppose that particular clinic doesn’t see many clients, having already gained useful advice before they even enter the parking lot.

I wonder what the Pope would think of this kind of family planning advice?

The sign was for a family planning office in Northampton, England. The “NHS” logo stands for Britain’s National Health Service.

Visits: 218

I Can’t Get Behind “I Can’t Get Behind That”

I Can’t Get Behind That — William Shatner and Henry Rollins
Never charted anywhere

From the album “Has Been” (2004)

See/Hear it here, if you dare. You hear it, but you only can view muppets lip-syncing to the song. You can also get the mp3 and the rest of the album from EMusic. My understanding is that no muppets were hurt in the making of the video or the song. I don’t believe it, though.

What do you get when you place the former Captain of the Starship Enterprise in the same studio with a former frontman for the punk rock group Black Flag?

I don’t know, but whatever it is, I can’t get behind that!

We expect an embarrassing level of tackiness from the likes of Bill Shatner (anyone remember “Transformed Man”?), but no matter how much Henry Rollins and producer Ben Folds try to make this sound cool with manic music arrangements, the result is, well, a tax write-off for them both, because I am not sure of any other uses for it. Adrian Belew is on Guitar, Henry Rollins says in an interview. If anyone recalls, Belew made his name touring with Frank Zappa, then David Bowie, and afterward became a band member in the 1980s re-formation of King Crimson with Robert Fripp at the helm. But mostly you hear the manic percussion instruments, not much guitar. The percussion is something along the style of the Hawaii 5-0 theme.

I heartily agree with certain observations. For example, I believe also that there truly is no modern invention more futile than a leaf blower. And “futile” is an excellent word to describe leaf blowers.

As for some kind of overall rating, Shatner’s work must be rated with stars of a different galaxy, for I have none to offer.

Continue reading “I Can’t Get Behind “I Can’t Get Behind That””

Visits: 104

New ways of going insane

“Excessive text messaging and email” is now proposed to be included as new mental illnesses in an update to the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV). These are not the only silly classifications they have.

One proposed mental illness that I have heard from that seminal magazine, the Journal of Polymorphic Perversity, is “Consensual Validation Disorder”. That is, if someone doesn’t like you, then you’re one card short of a full deck. The rest of what I have here sound just as silly, except that they are for real.

Suck at math? Well, not only is math “not for you”, but you’re 8 pawns short of a gambit. You may have “Mathematics Disorder”, or dyscalculia (315.1). This includes the inability to copy things down as you see them, forgetting to carry, forgetting signs, and so on.

Like the taste of coffee? You could win a trip to the funny farm. You could fall into one of the classifications for the “Caffeine-Related Disorders“. They had to give it its own classification, because the disorder they have in mind does not constitute substance abuse. But you’re still one drop short of an empty bladder.

Can’t sleep after too much coffee? It’s not a natural outcome of drinking too much coffee. According to DSM, you are a crouton short of a salad. You have caffeine intoxication disorder (305.90).

Like to have a cigarette after a good dinner? Then you are a few fries short of a happy meal. Nicotine dependance (305.1) is a mental illness.

Trying to quit smoking? Then you’re one sultana short of a fruitcake. Nicotine withdrawal is also a mental illness (292.0).

Can’t write legibly or can’t express yourself in writing? It’s not that you have lost your muse. You’re one weenie short of a roast. You have a disorder of written expression (315.2).

Do you snore when you sleep? It’s not just a minor irritation spouses have to put up with anymore. If you saw logs, then you may be a chocolate chip short of a cookie. You probably have Breathing-Related Sleep Disorder (780.57).

If your son or daughter is rebellious, then it is not because the world is unfair to them and most certainly not because they are expressing their independence from their parents. Your teenage son or daughter is actually a doughnut short of a cop. He or she has Oppositional Defiant Disorder (313.81).

Visits: 183