Category Archives: Family

Monstro escapes, terrorizes Eastern seaboard

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The world is your lobster 

Yep, I wouldn’t wanna be a Massachusetts mussel with this insatiable leviathan prowling around out there.

Monstro the monstrous lobster has been set free to slake his bloodlust once again on the unsuspecting bivalves of the Atlantic coast. After holding the rapacious crustacean thirty days in captivity, his captors bowed to pressure from special interest groups and released him, to prowl the sea bottom once again. Truly the End Times are upon us; note the name of his temporary resting place: quaintly charming, or sinisterly forboding?

The giant lobster caught 100 miles off the Massachusetts coast spent last month in the lobster tank at Angelica’s Restaurant in Bethlehem. He recently was returned to the water, just off the southern tip of West Island, five miles from New Bedford, Mass.

Fred Cunha, the restaurant owner, bought the 37-inch Monstro with his 15-inch-long claws from a New Bedford fishing boat in mid-October. Cunha estimates Monstro is 50 years old…

After persistent lobbying from diners and his 7-year-old daughter Angelica, Cunha decided to raffle off Monstro, with the winner deciding whether to send him to the ocean or the cooking pot.

So Monstro lounged in the restaurant’s tank with Mr. Crabby, Angelica‘s pet 2-pound lobster, feasting on minced crab and scallops…

Until…

monsterpiece theatre: the 39 stairs

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made by some guy named Alfred. And starring some guy named Grover. A moving cinematic exporation of the inherent futility of aspirationalism.

art appreciators unappreciated

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Hoodie art 

The security guys at the Lowry centre are obviously not Tories; they don’t seem to want to hug these hoodies. They’re far more focused on preventing them from entering the public gallery to view the art their parents paid taxes for them to be able to see.

How fortunate for us that, in amongst the various hoodlum accoutrements, they had a hidden camera and microphone.

Armed with camera phones and a tape recorder, the Salford Star team sent a group of lads to the Lowry centre. “We won’t last two minutes,” was the teens’ prediction.

“They’ve got to let you in – it’s a public building, paid for by your parents … of course they’ll let you in,” responded the Star. “They’re talking all the time about how they want to reach out to ‘young people in the community’…”

Here’s what happened…(follwed by a rather glitchy slideshow, with decent-quality audio accompaniment)

Afterwards, the Star spoke to the six lads again about their experience
Josh: I knew they were going to kick us out straight away, because we are a local group.

Would you ever go back?
Carl: No, because it’s rubbish

What did you think about the Lowry’s attitude towards you?
Kane: It was really bad, just because we had our hoods on.
Rees: They said it wasn’t open to the public and it was.

Do you get treated like that all the time?
Rees: It happens everywhere.

Do your parents pay council tax that funds the Lowry?
Carl: Yes – they shouldn’t have to pay towards it if we’re not allowed in.

the question is: what IS a manah manah?

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It is time.

And some fascinating trivia about the song, via a comment here from Christefano. Given the shape of those muppets, it’s quite interesting to note that the song was written to score a Swedish porn film.

“Mah Nà Mah Nà” is a well-known pop music song, written by Piero Umiliani. It was a hit in many countries, including the USA, in 1968–1969. The song’s lyrics contain no actual words, only nonsense words resembling scat singing. The original version interpolates melodies from “Swedish Rhapsody” (“Midsommarvaka” (“Midsummer Vigil”)) by Hugo Alfvén, “Santa Lucia“, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy“, the jazz standard “Lullaby of Birdland“, and others.

“Mah Nà Mah Nà” debuted as part of Umiliani’s soundtrack for the Italian softcore pornography movie Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso (Sweden, Heaven and Hell) (1968), a pseudo-documentary film about wild sexual activity and other behavior in Sweden (“Mah Nà Mah Nà” accompanied a scene set in a sauna). A soundtrack album, “Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso” was released in 1968. The movie was also released under the English title Sweden Heaven and Hell.

 

comment o’ the day: counting on the Count

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Count von Count, ah ah ah!The Count is, bar none, the coolest character on Sesame Street. Forget your Leftys, forget your Oscars, the Count, Count von Count, was the only one who would have sneaked into your bedroom in the middle of the night and turned you into a numerically-obssessed, undead creature of the shadows. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the bar for cool around the ol’ raincoaster blog, and that is the secret behind Keith Richards’ enduring popularity; the threat of supernatural eroticism.

Where’s your Big Bird now?

Sesame Street is, as we have noted time and time and time again around these parts (even without getting into Grover is Bitter, which we will some day we’re really stuck for a post) an endlessly fascinating topic and a true microcosm of the urban reality which surrounds us, pervading every aspect of our lives. Truly there is no contemporary city experience which cannot be examined through the lens of this iconic children’s program.

Jimmy Canuck is on to this; he’s currently enjoying a long run in WordPress’s Top Posts for his 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Sesame Street, and I am proud to report I did, in fact, know most of them, including Guy Smiley’s real name. I even know Grover’s! It’s an interesting post, for who among us can say they already knew Baby Bear was Jewish?

He doesn’t look it.

But deep in the comments section I found this little gem from cole. Read it and weep laughing.

I actually know the guy who did the orginal Count voice. He is in a fiddler band and one night while I was cocktail waitressing I asked him to do the voice and he said…

“Fuck off” and “No”

I said , please oh please, not detered…he said,
“I only work for money.”
I offered a dollar, he said “Fuck you, two.” I agreed and he said,
“I see von green eye, two green eye…ah, ah, ah, ah, ah! Now go and get me a fucking drink.”
I love Sesame Street.