Music Videos @ MindSay

So, here's a decent summarization of my day:

1) wasted the day away and woke up at the lovely hour of 10:01am.
2) got online and spent the rest of my morning and a large portion of my afternoon chatting, blogging, listening to music, and commenting.
3) realized I should get off my ass and start getting ready to attend the wake of my dad's former C.D.'s manager who passed away Thursday.
4) hurried hurried hurried to find something that a) was appropriate (i.e. nothing low cut/too revealing which in and of its self is nearly impossible in my wardrobe) and b) didn't make me look like some kind of frumpy crap bag.
5) flew out of the house, made arrangements to meet my brother for lunch after the wake.
6) left wake and decided to go to Ryan's (in our defense, the choices in Gville are depressingly slim) where I dished out $60+ for a party of 5 (which wouldn't bug me if it hadn't been Ryan's. I mean, come on, the majority of the stuff on the bar is non-vegetarian which is sucky when the majority of the party is vegetarian. Plus, their cooked veggies sucked. Good salad bar and soft serve fro-yo though).
7) attempted to lay the ground work for a better relationship with my dad. Keep your fingers crossed--I want to be happier and I want him to be happier....so maybe things will go well. I don't know.
8) came home and changed out of the fuschia stilettos that I had been been glared at as a result of having worn (a woman in Ryan's looked at me, then my shoes, then gave me the look of death. I didn't realize fuschia stilettos = She devil/flaming whore/skank/slut of the century/etc).
9) decided to go see 27 Dresses with my mom and sis. Enjoyed myself as well as the movie thoroughly. I want some sexy writer to carry on sarcastic banter with me and make me swoon for him, too. In case the previous sentence didn't make it clear, the movie was good and if you like a lovely romantic comedy then you should go see it.
10) came home and gave you a recap of my day.
11) I'm beginning to think that I should have grown up in the 1970s. Just a thought...

Also, I'm seriously loving The Kooks. Some of their videos are as follows (the videos are so-so but I'm posting them for the music):


She Moves In Her Own Way


Ooh La - I see Paris! <3


Seaside

The Schoenberg Center and the Schoenberg family, pursuing their open-door policy toward the legacy of the extraordinary Arnold, has deposited forty videos on YouTube, containing some really rare and fascinating material.

Is it just me, or does Beyonce look a bit like Whitney Houston in the shots where she's got her hair up?

There's a video that, upon first watching it when I was fourteen, scared the crap out of me: "Adult Education" by (of all people) Hall & Oates. I was never a big fan of this duo, but this song in particular hit home for me because I was at the age when I was first discovering and exploring my sexuality. Yet that's not the only reason why this song still gets to me. It was the video!

First, some back story... The spring of 1984 (the time when this song hit the top ten on the charts and was getting a lot of air play on the radio) was at the hieght of a Satanist hysteria in the Midwest and the South. Not only did we have The Bomb that could bring about the end of the world at any moment to worry about, families were being warned that there were Satanist groups out there preying on children. For some reason Satanic Ritual Abuse was running rampant. People were going through therapy claiming that they were abused as children by Satanists. And, for some reason, anyone could be a Satanist. Dressing all in black could mark you as a possible Satanist. So, the perfect way to rebel in order to get attention (plus get sent home from school), was to dress in black, wear gaudy jewlery, and carry Dungeons-n-Dragons material with you where ever you went. I lived in the buckle of the Bible Belt (Springfield, Missouri, the headquarters of the Assembly of God church) and it was not a friendly place to be for an imaginative, rebellous teenager in the 1980's. I have to admit, however, that some of the scare tactics people used at the time to convince us that there was this Satanist threat, really did a number on me. Until I learned that it was just another bull shit way for adults to get children to behave, I developed anxiety over seeing any kind of symbolism as something seemingly demonic -- basically anything that was unusual, artsey, or culturally different was experienced as forbidden and, therefore, felt forboding. Still being a child, I was prone to follow suit and make up my own fantastic lies about The Satanic Threat. At the time I didn't know shit about Satanism, never met anyone who was a Satanist, and was totally ignorant about real magical ritual.

Well, all that innocence changed after my mother sent me to a cult deprogramming camp for a week in May of 1984. After I was caught sneaking out late at night to play Ninja with my friends (and, of course, we were all dressed in black -- we were pretending to be Ninjas, afterall!) my Mom was convinced I had been seduced by the Devil. I don't want to go into the gory details of my supposed "deprogramming" but what I want to tell you is that it taught me how to lie and pretend to be someone I wasn't just to please my Born Again Christian mother. I had not been in congress with The Beast nor was I out drinking goat urine nor was I performing Satanic rites with the neighbors. I would've never known ANYTHING about Satanism or magick at all if it hadn't been for that fake deprogramming experience. So later in life I became the very thing the community feared; a Witch. But that's a whole 'nother story...

When I hear or see the video for this song, I am reminded of those times, and how I used my first initial negative reaction to the video as a way to scare the beejeezus out of my community! I first thought the video was a recording of a Satanic Wedding! I considered the old fart with the baseball cap to be a Satanic High Priest. The cave that they're in, I was convinced, was an underground temple where bloody sacrifices were made and virgins were deflowered in the name of Lucifer! Weeks later I learned the truth; I saw Hall & Oates talking about the video on MTV, how it was a symbolic experiment on the part of the director, Tim Pope. Everything was, innocently enough, made up as a metaphoric emotional journey of old man passing on his adult wisdom to a young teenage couple about to copulate for the first time. Instead of showing a stereotypical class room scene, the musicians and actors are seen in the womb of Mother Earth -- a place where all things begin and where life is nurtured. In the first sequence, the symbol for Leo is shown on a paper lantern. In another opening sequence, there's a lighted disco floor with six symbols for food, fertility, time, the seasons, and the elements. When the couple is standing before the old fart, he holds a makeshift Statue of Liberty before them and he seems to be blessing them with it. John Oates later said the video resembled the "Survivor" TV show on acid. What I got out of it? A great music video that I could use to add fuel to flames of the Satanic hysteria around me.

I later regretted boldy claiming that I knew it was a portrayal of a Satanic Wedding. It got me into more trouble for watching it, plus I was barred from listening to pop music for a long while and my mother tore apart the posters of Duran Duran in my bedroom (that made me weep like a baby for that). Now, as an adult, I can laugh about those earlier times, and laugh at myself for being such a silly girl! I now know REAL Satanists and they are nothing like what I was taught to believe about them. Satanists don't abuse children or themselves, what they're about is rebelling against conformity out of the common sense of post modern American Atheism practiced with ritual psychodrama (a group working method, in which each person becomes a therapeutic agent for others using strong elements of theater, often conducted on a stage with props and masks). In fact, as I've gotten wiser in my later years, I've grown to realize that the true abusers of children are often people with Christian backgrounds -- people who sacrifice their teenagers to God and forbid them from engaging in their natural instinct to explore their sexual feelings. When you're taught to regard your genitals as ugly or dirty, everytime you have sex later in life, you're going to fulfill the prophecies of your God-fearing, body-hating parents.

I know, I know, this is a lot to swallow, all inspired by me looking back on a memorable music video from the '80's! But it serves to show that, even now, as an adult I can still learn from my past and can appreciate things I didn't know about then as an adult now. Does that make sense?

 

Here's the video in its full glory. Watch it and tell me what you think about it.  I'd be interested to see what a newer generation has to say about the song and the accompanying video (I still like it and count it as one of my favorite songs from the '80s):

Adult Education

It's afternoon in the homeroom they're about to let you go
And the lockers slam on the plan you had tonight
You've been messin' around with a boyfriend maybe better left alone
There's a wise guy that you know could put you right
In the lot the boy that's idling by doesn't rev your heart
Cause it's only lonely spots he shares with you
The long halls not the grey walls are gonna split apart
Believe it or not there's life after high school

The student body's got a bad reputation
But what they need is Adult Education
Back to school it's a bad situation
But what you want is an....Adult Education

The teacher don't know about how to deal with the student body
And the underclassmen are flashing hot and cool.
All you girlfriends care about the watch and wear and talkin' about it
Believe it or not there's life after high school

They're calling it a preparation
You're waiting for a separation
You're nothing but another odd number
Memories you won't remember
So you got a little education
And a lot of dedication
But you want a little nite school
Maybe some of it'll rub off on you
The boys are busy in the mirrors
Trying to imitate their heroes
You make it with false surrender
More memories you won't remember
The seniors with the Junior Miss' ah
I wonder what the junior wishes
That she could graduate to adult
That she could graduate to adult kisses.

Okay, it's been a long while since I wrote in this blog, but I'm not going to go through with reasons why.  Since it's October -- my favorite month -- it has given me the excuse to start picking out Halloweenie Goth music for ya all.  Today's music comes at you first from MOTORHEAD: "Hail to the King of Kings" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again, not officially a Goth song, nor is it a song on the soundtrack of EVIL DEAD, but a clever person on YouTube.com made such a lovely tribute to our man, Ash, that I couldn't resist putting it up.

So, you're wondering, is it possible to turn a B-movie horror film from 1981 into a kick ass musical? I'm not sure. But a few folks have done it, and from what I've seen it's definitely possibly a cool thing. Witness, if you dare, this clip from EVIL DEAD: THE MUSICAL...
The scene below is part of the opening where Ash (our hero) is romancing his girlfriend in a remote cabin deep in the woods where, unknown to them both, demons await to possess their friends once Ash discovers THE BOOK OF THE DEAD.

This musical would be better viewed live, me thinks. It seems to have the feel of CANNIBAL! THE MUSICAL -- of which I will feature later this week!
Here's the original movie trailer for EVIL DEAD:

I have to admit that this movie scared the shit out of me when I was 11! Waaaaay before "Nightmare on Elm Street" or "Friday the 13th" this movie had me keeping the lights on late at night. Watching it now, I notice the cheesy effects and melodramatic acting and it just warms my dark lil' heart. Yeah. Here's to the King, Baby!