Musings on the byways of popular culture
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It’s Week 13 of the Chubby Checker voyage. That’s three whole months of this changeathon thingy. Are you still keeping those bad habits at bay? Are you waning and paining and gaining? Or are you choosing less boozing and losing? Check in in the comments below…
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Apologies for the lateness of this week’s Chubby Checker post. I was busy converting the bus into a boat, plus there was all that posing I had to do for the publicity shots.
Anyway, the heart will go on, and all that, so check in below with tales of your titanic efforts this week…
http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a493/drakeygirl1/Chubby%20McChubface%20edit_zpssdtdlwbw.jpg
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All aboard on the Chubby Checker bus, which I am thinking of turning into a boat and re-naming Chubby McChubface. (This will make sense, honestly, if you click the link at the foot of this blog post).
I thought we’d do something different his week: if you want to, when you check in in the comments below, tell us about the thing you find most difficult. If you’ve found a way of overcoming it, share it. If you haven’t, maybe the rest of us can come up with some ideas?
Over to you…
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Good morning, Checkers. Those of us who signed up in January to make changes have been doing this for ten weeks now. So how the devil is it going for you? Check in in the comments below…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBBGrH9R1A4
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We have marched into a new month, and our mission continues. For those of you unfamiliar with the aims of the Chubby Checkers, they are as follows (members can pick and choose which apply to them):
to campaign for Let’s Twist Again as the new national anthem to knock a few Xs off our band T-shirt sizes to shape up a bit to sober up a bit
It’s your weekly opportunity to give us an update on your progress, share tips, or do whatever the hell you like if it helps you.
Check in in the comments below…
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It’s time for your Monday morning check-in. Hop on the bus, chuck your baggage in the rack, and let us know whether you’re getting value out of that season ticket you bought.
You can report in in the comments below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcFAZUdIOsU
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I enjoyed this video from Malinda Kathleen Reese. The alternative lyrics came about by sticking the song back and forth through Google Translate a few times, as you do.
As a little bonus, I’ve jiggery pokeried the lyrics to another song in the comments. The first person to guess it gets a free car battery.
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The Chubby Checker bus keeps rolling on. Yes, we’ve lost some passengers, who got off for a wee break and didn’t come back. So there’s less of us, and…er…also less of us.* (*anyone who says ‘fewer’ will be chucked out with the rest of the grammar pedants). We’ve now got room to string up a disco ball, get the smoke machine on, and have a dance…
Check in in the comments below:
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Good morning, Checker-mates! Spring is thinking about sprunging, and hopefully you’re still with me on our collective mission to: a) lose weight b) shape up c) be more narcissistic d) all of the above e) what exactly are you doing on this thread?
Check in in the comments below…
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It’s Monday, clock-in day for the Chubby Checkers. I won’t dock the pay of anyone who doesn’t fancy punching their card (ooer missus), but you should really let us all know that you’re still a line-worker in the Checker Factory. (Nope, I have no idea how this analogy started and where it’s going, but hey, I’ll just post the Rose Royce – Funk Factory video and have done with it…)
Check in below!
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Venue:
Cambridge Corn Exchange
Date: 03/02/2016
Former Czars frontman John Grant won plaudits for his beautiful debut album Queen of Denmark, full of sweeping love and hate songs skewed with bitterness and off-kilter humour. A smattering of eerie synth sounds were heard in the undergrowth, but it wasn’t until his next record, Pale Green Ghosts, that they broke cover. This lost him some of his fans, who preferred the more simple acoustic balladry; but it was when he won me over. Live, Ghosts is always astonishing: last night was no different, with a smiling Grant conducting the eyeball-rattling beats, throbbing synths, and faux-brass stabs like a dad-dancing preacher. Looking like a Viking discovering ecstasy for the first time, he continued hip-wiggling to the funkier offerings from his latest album Grey Tickles, Black Pressure – with the adrenalin-charged live arrangements adding weight and exuberance to songs like Guess How I Know, You And Him, and the soaring Disappointing.
Grant’s regular touring band is an impressive unit: Petur Hallfrimsson on guitar and Jakob Smari Magnusson on bass bring industrial heft and their own brand of Icelandic funk; and Coventry-born keyboard virtuoso Chris Pemberton is a master knob-twiddler who can also do » Continue Reading.
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January is over and those still on board have clocked up four weeks of chubby checking. How do you all feel? Are you fed up? Or have you made changes you think are long-lasting? If you’ve been blubber-busting, muscle-making, or alcohol-avoiding, let us know by checking in below.
You can also share any Top Tips, like this one:
Chubby Checkers: Avoid that devilish temptation to nibble at a chocolate bar in the cupboard or fridge by not buying the f**king thing in the first place, you fat bastard.
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It’s week 3 already, so we’re already at the stage where our posts are starting to irritate people. Yippee! Check in below with your progress at whatever it is you’ve vowed to progress with. And here, have some Salad.
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I was out last night with the girls. (‘Girls’ may be a bit disingenuous, as most of us were in our 40s, apart from an anomaly who was born in 1997. Being born in 1997 is just plain wrong). It was someone’s birthday, so we met up and hit a few pubs in the seething metropolis that is my little town in the beating heart of Bedfordshire. And I found the evening unusually entertaining in a sociological kind of way for one simple reason: I was sober and everyone else was trollied. Read on for my non-blathered blatherings…
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We’re into the second week of Chubby Checking, and what do you know – we’re all logoed up again, after I found this design ‘classic’ lurking in a dusty folder on my hard drive. Those on board the bus know the drill: it’s time to check in with your updates on the updated you. Don’t forget there’s always room for latecomers if any fresh chubs want to squeeze in… So, how are you doing with your Chubby Checker goals? Check in in the comments below… (Song for this week is Laura Lee – Two Lovely Pillows, for all the Afterword Birds, who know that if you do lose weight, the first place it comes off from is your boobs).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZpmTfa0aMY http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a493/drakeygirl1/Chubby%20Checker%20logo_zpsqauikp8l.jpg
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Parp! That’s the sound of me honking the Chubby Checker Charabanc’s horn as it rolls into town. (It might also be the human exhaust pipe sounds being made by onboard Afterworders who’ve dramatically upped the fruit, veg, and fibre elements of their diet, but we’ll gloss over that). Some of you signed up last week and vowed to blubber down/muscle up/exercise more/or just be a bit healthier. So how did your first week go?
http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a493/drakeygirl1/Chubby%20Checker%20Bus_zps6frori4q.jpg
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Some of you may remember the Chubby Checkers from Word days. It was officially the hippest free weight loss club on an internet music site. (The competition for the title was fierce, I tell you, fierce, particularly from desperate challengers the Mojo Motivators and the Pitchfork Porkers*). *I may be making this up.
But it’s back! By popular demand (when I say popular, I mean one person mentioned he missed it).
The time is right: I have it on good authority that despite some long-term successes, several former members have bulked back up. I include myself in this blubbery fall from grace; I have continued to be a chubby checker, but every time I’ve checked my chub, I’ve discovered more of it.
If you’re not sure how Chubby Checkers works, it’s simple. It’s a kind-of-a-weight loss club, but it’s whatever you need it to be. You might just want to exercise more, eat better, muscle up, or just become less Weeble-like. You might want to tell us about something you’re giving up, or something you’re taking up. Every Monday, I’ll post a new thread where members can check in and let eachother know how they’re doing. If people do » Continue Reading.
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Dance clips from 66 old movies edited to Uptown Funk. Watch it all – it’s full of wonder and delight – but definitely watch the astonishing moment at 4:30, which caused my son to exclaim: “OOOF! They must have squashed their willies!”
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Brilliant things about this Kennedy Centre Honours performance by Aretha Franklin:
The nonchalant walk across to the piano. Nonchalance is a real feat when you’re clutching a jewelled purse and rocking a full length mink coat Her ‘Fuck, yeah, I’m going to play and sing the shit out of this, what of it?’ look as she hits the first few notes on the piano Carole King’s face lighting up and turning excitedly to others around her as she realises what the song is Several people tearing up, including the President Of The United States Of America Aretha’s ‘So, yeah, now I’m getting up and going to the front of the stage to sing the shit out of this’ expression Aretha’s ‘Time to lose the coat and get a standing ovation’ face Her general ‘So what if my always matronly bust is now the size of a whole nursing shift? I don’t give a bingo-wing flying fuck’ demeanour Carole’s mad gesticulations encouraging Aretha to give it some more welly
They’re both 73, you know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RIgeu-6Jcs
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In 1950s Soviet Russia, citizens craved Western music, but smuggling records was dangerous, and – in the days before tape recorders – the vinyl needed to copy the records onto was impossibly expensive and scarce. So dissident music-lovers came up with an innovative solution: ‘bone music’ – Western jazz and rock ‘n’ roll tunes, encoded onto exposed X-Rays salvaged from medical archives and hospital bins. Cut into rough circles, with a centre burned out with a cigarette, the skeleton records were sold covertly on the street by black marketeers, who hid them within their trench coats. They risked arrest and long, chilly prison sentences.
I discovered this fascinating story in an excellent edition of the 99% Invisible podcast (made in collaboration with The Kitchen Sisters, who themselves found out about bone music from Sergei Krushchev, son of the late Soviet leader).
I suppose I could throw this thread open to ask what interesting facts have you discovered when in conversation with the relatives of dead communist leaders, but I think that would be stretching it. So this is just to give you a link, and to recommend the podcast, which clocks » Continue Reading.
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I heard the splendid Carol Burnett being interviewed on Alec Baldwin’s Here’s The Thing podcast recently and thought I’d share a couple of her anecdotes regarding John Huston when he directed her in the 1982 film of the musical Annie, in which she played (We Love You) Miss Hannigan.
“Two takes, that’s it – print. He knew what he wanted. One of the funniest pieces of direction I got was when I went to him and I said: ‘You know, I think she should drink…knock ’em back every so often, because she’s miserable and hates these kids…and it’s the only solace she gets.’ So he says: ‘That’s a very good idea.’ And so the first scene was with Hannigan and the secretary who is coming in to get Annie, so I said: ‘Mr Huston…’ ‘Call me John, dear.’ ‘Mr Hu…John, how do you see this, how do you want me to play this?’ ‘Just cavort, dear.’ ”
Carol then told the tale of how the song Easy Street had originally been filmed as a massive song and dance number with hundreds of dancers somersaulting along the road and jumping on and off fire escapes, etc.
“At the » Continue Reading.
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Mr Drakeygirl can head off to work with a swagger in his step this week with the knowledge that he is a fashion guru to the stars. CeeLo Green appeared on Later last night, gloriously bedecked in full hi-vis clothing, looking a little like a giant, luminous tennis ball. “Fuck me, he’s had a rummage through our stores!” announced a startled Mr DG, who wears an identical flourescent yellow jacket/trouser combo for his maintenance job on the motorways. “I think you’ll find it’s Fuck You,” I responded. There then followed an ‘interesting’ exchange in which Mr DG pointed out some insider facts vis-à-vis the hi-vis. “Now, CeeLo there, he’s wearing long sleeves, with two reflective stripes on his arms, which means he can work in high volume traffic. The sleeveless tattoo-friendly numbers on the other two there are for low volume traffic only.” I raised an eyebrow when I realised there was more. “But CeeLo has got a little problem with his trousers. The same as Fat Gary at work.” (Fat Gary was a new one on me – I know many of Mr DG’s workmate’s nicknames, such as Cheap Suit – » Continue Reading.
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It’s The Swedish Chef from The Muppets doing Rapper’s Delight. You’re welcome.
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Just noticed that details of Eels’ DreamWorks vinyl boxset have gone up on the band’s website. That’s my birthday pressie sorted, then. Mr Drakeygirl is pleased with the lack of effort needed on his part (I’ve just ordered it!)
