Well, he is the King in Sweden anyway, which shows you just how desperate they must be. Here’s a charming, if bizarre (or is that BECAUSE bizarre) video of him performingElvis Presley‘s A Little Less Conversation, a Little More Action on Swedish television.
It is heartening, is it not, to realize that, even in the complete absence of musical or dancing talent and equipped with nothing more than a Master’s degree in chemical engineering, one can claw one’s way to the very top of Swedish variety showdom and become the butt of jokes worldwide.
Weird Al couldn't believe his luck on PlentyofFish
Now, I don’t like to brag (as all my millions of fans know) but I’m kind of a big deal on Twitter, and you may make all of the one-eyed-man-in-the-kingdom-of-the-blind references you like, but it won’t change the fact that I’m the queen of the 140-character realm. One of the reasons for my vast popularity and nearly unstoppable power on the platform of choice for the short of attention span is this video: Mylene Farmer‘s L’Amour N’Est Rien or Love is Nothing.
If you clicked to play the video, then how it contributed to my sudden popularity will come as no surprise, for it is nothing less than a striptease in which the chanteuse gets her kit, as they say, if not her rocks, entirely off. For those of you who did NOT click to play the video, we’ll wait while you rush back to do that.
It’s not the first time we’ve featured the Divine Miss MF around these parts (nor even, it seems, the first time we’ve posted this video, although the other version is down). What elevates this from mere cheesecake to feminine empowerment? It’s a fine line, and Farmer walks right up to it, puts her toe across and then snaps it back in a Fosse-like flourish. To me, what elevates it is, as always with Farmer, the lyrics; she is happy to play on her looks, which she knows are exquisite, and use her body as honey to draw the audience in so it’s at least minute 3:20 before they realize they’ve been listening to a song about how women don’t need to be trapped by the old fairy tales of chivalric, perfect love, or the new ones of political correctness. They’re both cages: one gilded, one woven of hemp, and she doesn’t need anyone’s permission to say she’ll have nothing to do with either of them. She is free to say what she wants, free from the need to apologize for it.
With an intro like that, what can this fabulous, magical Unicorn Chaser possibly be? Well, when looking for a unicorn chaser there are few key elements any savvy consumer should check for:
music, particularly poppy, vaguely druggy Sixties music
velour. Lots and lots of velour. Bell bottoms and pukka shell necklaces if you got ’em. Flower headbands are bonus points, particularly on the guys. What? I’M SERIOUS!
Consequently, when I ran across the following on YouTube, I knew I had to have it. Not only are the Monkees themselves absolutely made all of the things above except possibly unicorns (I’ve never placed them in a pentagram and spoken the Words of Command, so I just don’t know) but this video is a satire, one of the Literal Video versions in which the subtitles and redubbed vocals (hey, that’s a pretty good Davy, but the chorus can’t carry a tune in a lolrus bukkit) simply narrate what is actually going on in the video. The greatest of these, of course, is the Bonnie Tyler “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” itself a high water mark of musical geniositosnouss. While this much simpler video does not reach those heights, depths, or whatevers, it’s still fun and cute and hey, I still dance better than Davy ever did, so GO ME, right?
It’s a bad sign when you need a Unicorn Chaser for the week and it’s only dawn on Wednesday. At least this is a good one: the world-famous OH MY GOD DOUBLE RAINBOW video, autotuned into perhaps the greatest piece of music since Yanni retired.
If you would like to do your part to cheer me up, you can either send booze or drop a comment on my Mummified Fairy post: it needs fewer than 90 to get to an even 2000 comments! I’m somewhat cheered up to note that I outrank BoingBoing and Snopes on searches for “Mummified fairy,” but it can’t hurt to add a comment anyway, I might backslide at any moment!
Michael Jackson, polarizing cultural icon, musician, actor, dancer, and child molester, has been dead exactly one year. Despite the worldwide health-focused publicity at the time of the tragic event, some people are only now waking up to “Michael Jacksonism” and realizing what critical health issues they should have addressed long ago.
raincoaster 