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Because our legislature apparently thinks Nebraska is a utopia free of social maladies, senator Carroll Burling has drafted a bill that would change our state song to something that 'fits better today.' The current song, "Beautiful Nebraska" was written by Russian immigrant Jim Fras back in 1960. The proposed anthem is "I Love Nebraska", written and performed by Hastings TV reporter Ginger ten Bensel.
The Lincoln Journal Star ran the story last week (http://journalstar.com/articles/2007/01/13/news/local/doc45a8286ed53e1043974172.txt). The average Nebraskan's first reaction was 'Huh? We have a state song?' But then they started listening to "I Love Nebraska." And watching the music video on YouTube. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7bzaD6G4vE) From the ensuing response, you'd think that "Beautiful Nebraska" was the "Whiter Shade of Pale" of state songs.
For those who say that this is being blown out of proportion... actually, I don't think I've heard anyone say that. If anyone were saying that, though, I'd dare them to listen to the song. With an upbeat country melody, it contains such moving lyrics as 'I live in a state/where the wildlife run free' (and get shot by ranchers) and 'the third largest city is Memorial Stadium.' This cringeworthiness is compounded by the fact that ten Bensel's voice often cracks worse than Peter Brady at an American Idol audition.
The real gem, ladies and gentlemen, is the video. It's got everything! Cornfields, stock footage of sandhill cranes, rodeos, tractors, more rodeos, and some mulleted dude in wrap-around fauxkleys and a fluorescent green muscle shirt driving a Bobcat, all captured with the quality of an 80's-era RCA camcorder. And, of course, it has Ginger ten Bensel, wearing a black suit like she was filming this on her lunchbreak at KHAS. For some reason, she makes odd hand gestures throughout, suggesting a possible affiliation with the south-central Nebraska chapter of the Bloods. That, or she has cerebral palsy.
Upon viewing, you find yourself thinking: "This is a joke, right?" Yes, but an unintentional one. Which makes it either nauseating or monstrously funny, depending on your appreciation of schadenfreude. My favorite comment from YouTuber Traylude:
"Here's an unofficial count after one viewing:
# of eagles in video--- 4
# of sandhill cranes--- 4,000
# of planes/trains/farm implements---- 43,345
# of awkward stage gyrations by Ginger---- 14
# of churches with ringing bells-- 2
# of white people in video---- 3,243
# of minorities in video---- 0
Ginger's video just accidentally made our state look like the perfect place to live if you're a white supremacist who enjoys bird watching."
The worst of it is the fact that the chorus declares 'I'm from Nebraska/I believe that says it all." If your goal was to reaffirm the continental United States' opinion of Nebraskans as corn-pone good ol' boys with no grasp of modern technology or multiculturalism, then yes, yes, that does say it all. |
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Filth!
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Nov. 10th, 2005 @ 08:20 pm
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Studied Jimi Hendrix in my History of Rock class today. We watched a clip of him from the Monterey Pop Festival and it was rife with auto-eroticism. Guess Hendrix followed The Who's act. Naturally they had trashed the stage- how do you one-up a stunt like that? Why, by making sweet sweet love to your guitar. Dude seriously laid it out on the stage and started humping it, then poured lighter fluid on it in such a way that... you know. Then he lit it on fire and destroyed it. Supposedly Pete Townshend was pretty pissed. I've never been a real fan of acid rock.. not Hendrix or Janis Joplin or The Doors. For some reason I get mad when I hear The Doors on the radio. They're really overplayed and in my opinion, overrated. But that's just me.
Stacy liked our ads so far for Campaigns, which really helped calm me down. I'm going to work on some redesigns and countless rewrites this weekend. Sometimes it sucks to be a copywriter. |
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Remember when you were four years old, and the only thing you had to worry about was getting your arms in the right holes of your jacket? Wasn't that a sweet, tender time? Dear God, how I wish I could go back, if only in my dreams.
Now is the most unhappy time of my life. Depression, as George Burns would say, is a hideous bitch goddess. It wraps itself around your brain like a snake and constricts it until happiness is no more than a few fleeting neural transmissions. Add anxiety to the mix and you might as well be dead. Which is how I feel sometimes. According to the basic psychological definition, I am suicidal. I fixate upon death every time I take my medicine for the night, wonder just how many pills it would take before I'd keel over. The other evening I held a knife to my arm until the tiniest drop of blood beaded. And it scares me more than anything. How many eons of counselling and medicines and panic attacks and vacuous sleeps will it take before I can function correctly?
Of course, school aggravates the problem. Campaigns class is kicking my butt. I can't seem to coax any of my creative work from my head, and our final presentation is in less than a month. So much work to be done, so many ideas to throttle, so much arrogance and animosity between the teams. We all hate each other. My golden retriever soul asks, 'Why?'
There will be brighter skies ahead, my child, of this I assure you. |
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Oooh- Lincoln is an arctic wasteland today. No school for the little monsters, which means that my mother and I had to take care of two of my nieces. Lauren doesn't like snow. What kind of seven-year old is that?
I'm not used to having a job that I don't actually have to GO to... stopped by Animal Control today for about an hour, and there was nothing to do. So I left. Which made me a little hot-headed, because there were five inches of snow on top of a solid sheet of ice upon which I had to maneuver my little Accord. I guess it's fun if you want it to be. I think I'm going to hitch my dogs up to a sled and see what they'll do.
My heart is giving off PVC's again. I have to wear another Holter Monitor in a couple weeks- I hope to God the docs don't recommend surgery again, for my sake, and that of the operators. I'm like a backseat driver in the OR.
YAY!!! Shopped on Amazon.com today and bought the Sherlock Holmes "Casebook" collection with my darlings Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke. Isn't it wonderful how obsessions begun in 8th grade can be so profitable? How I wish JB were still alive today. I got the "Memoirs" for Christmas and have the separate DVD's for the "Return," but I'm planning on getting the box set and selling what I already have to my therapist (seriously).
Classes start up Monday. Let the procrastination begin.
Wow. THIS is insightful.
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I knew the warning label said to avoid direct sunlight, I just chose to ignore it. My medicine has made me ultrasensitive to our closest star, and now I have a sunburn that looks like a port wine stain. Not unlike Mikhail Gorbachev's. Feh. Now I'll just stay inside and get rickets.
By the time Charles makes his appearance in the MASH cycle, I always, for some reason, find myself studying the character to see when his overbearing snobbery lessens to a somewhat humbled arrogance. I know it doesn't work that way, and I realize now that it's the reason that Charles is such a fascinating character to me. He never fails to remind us that he is a Winchester, better educated, bred, craftier and more skilled a surgeon than anyone, yet there are glimpses into his humanity- philosophizing about death, despairing over his musicians, tenderly kissing the unfortunate Korean-American infant as she is left at the monastery- to make us realize that he has depth and dimension. He occasionally contributes to pranks, smirks at Hawkeye and BJ's shenanigans, and schemes with Klinger, to remind us that he's not another Frank. I would detest him in real life, but on the screen it's easier to see his redeeming qualities.
Enough character study, yes?
Phlox |
| » Refrigerate to make more palatable |
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Haven't been to the computer at all in a few days. Pity. Oh well.
Had my CAT scan today. Not too bad, except you have to fast and choke down this horrible, chalky barium sulfate suspension. Had an IV in my arm for the first time since I was six. I am the bane of every blood-drawer, because I have the deepest veins the likes of which ye've never seen. The radiologist dug and poked, and finally got it. A second later something was softly trickling on my arm, and when I looked, a stream of blood was running from the needle. I think I bled all over the carpet. Pretty gross, but I just started laughing. What can you do?
The scanner was like a big donut with the GE logo on it. I had to wear these MC Hammer scrubs and lie back on a raised platform while the machine did its magic. When the IV was started it felt like someone poured hot water into my blood. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just very curious. It's almost positive that the results will be good, so I'm excited to see them.
Buddy, one of the Domesti-PUPS dogs, got caught in the tornado in Hickman a few weeks ago. For some reason he was outside when it hit- Buddy was found three miles away, all scratched up, and God knows where his kennel flew off to.
Buddy was supposed to be a school facility dog, but now has a fear of storms, obviously, so we can't have him around little kids, barking and growling at lightning. He was living with the principal of an elementary school, whose house was destroyed in the storm, and isn't going back. I'd take him if I weren't at my limit. My brother Larry is taking a look at him tonight. He's such a sweet dog. Has some Akita in him, in my opinion, so he might be a tough one to adopt out.
Hee hee. Larry got a Trapper John shirt for Father's Day from his two little foster kids. We need to build a still in the office.
I took Ernie to visit at the nursing home last night. There's a guy we always visit named Carl, and something has happened to him that he's pretty much paralyzed. I have to hold his hand so he can pet Ernie, but usually don't get much of a response. Last night Carl moved his fingers on Ernie's muzzle, and I saw him smile for the first time. Pretty amazing. Go puppy dogs.
Jun. 23rd, 2004 @ 09:10 pm
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| » What's the English equivalent of *drool?* Transcendent! |
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Oh, Mr. Rickman, but you are a gorgeous man. Purrrr.
I finally got a copy of Sense and Sensibility on DVD yesterday, showcasing Alan Rickman at his swooniest. Colonel Brandon can request my hand in marriage any day.
Apparently my Newfie/Chow Chow puppy, Stella, finds the rug I left upon my entertainment center incredibly sinister, because she has been barking and growling at it for the last ten minutes. Goofball of a dog.
I've been good on my Scientific American Frontiers-inspired weight loss plan as far as eating goes, but I haven't really "exercised" these past couple days. Yesterday I was too busy, what with going to class and buying supplies and all, and today I woke up at 5:50 because my mutt Ernie was breathing on my face. Too tired. I actually did some housework, though, so I guess that counts for something.
Dreamed the other night that I was at the 4077th, and Charles Winchester was taking care of me. No idea of anything beyond that, other than he gives good hugs. Wasn't romantic or anything, he was just a big cuddly guy.
My brother and I had a great discussion about MASH the other day- he said that UNL should offer a course on it, so that writers can see how it's done. Enough comedy and drama to keep everyone happy, he said. I concur. I've decided that the Henry seasons had the most bitingly funny episodes, and the later, Potter-post seasons had the best character interaction. It didn't need loud stereotypes or the faux-hipness of today's shows, which is why I don't watch sitcoms of today.
Yay! Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes is back on the Biography channel, which makes me want to boogie with as much enthusiasm as the Victorian era will allow. We are most amused.
-Phlox
Jun. 11th, 2004 @ 08:57 pm
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| » Smithers, who is this gelatinous gastropod? |
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I watched Scientific American Frontiers last night. Alan Alda is our ubiquitous renaissance man- he's everywhere you wanna be, baby!
The show was about the science of weight loss, and chronicled the attempts of 12 people (including Alan) in their quest to lose weight. I always thought Alan was a beanpole! He actually did really well on the WeightWatcher's online diet- started out at about 196 pounds and ended up at 178. He looked younger and much healthier. Good for you, my friend.
Another guy tried the Atkins diet, and it didn't work for him. I'm scared of Atkins.
Two people got gastric surgery- amazing how quickly you lose weight. I don't think I could stand having a 1 oz. stomach, though. And your skin gets very loose and saggy. But it does wonders for their health.
It was a bit depressing- people usually gain the weight back within a few years. I think America should do a better job of making sure people don't gain the weight in the first place, and I applaud McDonald's for getting rid of the Super Size crap, even though I hate McDonald's.
What I really like about Alan Alda on this show is that he's not just a narrator; he's learning with the rest of us, and is genuinely amazed by what he observes. It would be cool to meet him.
So I've decided to do my own little weight loss diary program thingie. Maybe this will give me more motivation.
Weight today: 164
Goal: 154 (I'll start small)
Method: Eating sensibly and exercising
I weighed about 180 pounds when I was 14. Five years later, I've lost 16 pounds. I hope it doesn't take that long again.
Please don't let the Oreos hurt me.
-Brady
Jun. 9th, 2004 @ 11:54 am
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| » i ran today! |
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Wow, first entry. I've tried (unsucessfully) to be a good blogger before, but it hasn't worked. Let's see if I can keep on updatin' with this one.
I actually got in to see Prisoner of Azkaban on Friday afternoon. The majority of the audience consisted of 16 year olds, fresh out of their last day of school, one of whom, sitting behind me, breathed, "Aw damn," whenever something bad was going down. Aw damn, indeed, my friend.
Yes, it was better than the other two movies, because it keeps the spirit of the books without leaving you feeling like a cartoon could have been just as effective a movie, and cheaper too. This go around it's more of a film, with some astonishingly beautiful camera work, especially with the Dementors- almost as creepy as the Nazgûl in LOTR. The kids are better actors, most of the time. Emma Watson needs to stop talking like a newscaster, though.
My major beef- avert your eyes if you haven't seen the film! Now! I command thee!
Nothing nothing nothing about teenage Severus Snape encountering Lupin in lupine form, or James Potter rescuing him. Instead we have a fight between dog! Sirius Black and werewolf! Remus Lupin. The three little heroes are caught in the middle of it, and Snape, after staggering from the Whomping Willow, shields them, with the kids basically clinging to him. Not a very Snapey scene, but I guess if that's how they wanted to develop Snape's character, then good for them.
But leaving out the scene from the book? It's important for character development, it is one of the reasons why Snape hated James and hates Harry- yet he is obligated to protect him. It tells us more about Sirius's character, and the rivalry that continues between them in later stories. When they get the OOTP adaptation out, hopefully before the child actors have beards and boobs, I think the omission in POA will bring some difficulty in making the relationship between the Marauders and nuestro Severus clear and understandable.
You can look now.
Hmmm. That was pretty painless. I should do this again soon.
Thank you for your support.
-phlox
Jun. 6th, 2004 @ 10:08 pm
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