Well grab a load of this……

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIzLsARZrhg

Lamb on the menu, anyone?

Cheers.

Paul

I knew you were a Renaissance Faire hippie. What is the appeal of this aesthetic? Is it the figure of the long-haired hippie is jester-like regalia, or the idea of being closer to the squalid earth

But then, we already know I’m a dirty hippie.

What? Men Without Hats are Canadian? Well, there goes my theory…but wait, wasn’t Canada still part of England in the early 80s? If I recall correctly, you got your independence sometime last month, am I right with this? How’s that transition going by the way?

My kingdom for a “non-sinister midget.” That, my friend, is an epic comment And just goes to prove what a shame it is you don’t blog.

I have a different theory for the genesis of the Renaissance faire quality of a strain of British rock, as well as this odd ball New Wave band. It is empire envy. After the Brits lost the empire to the rising star across the pond, they had to return to a time before true culture in order to erase the fact that the colonies were kicking some global ass.

More than that, the very fact that they had to return to this cultural womb made them ever more cognizant that the very ideas they were trying to re-appropriate new origins for, i.e. Rock and Roll, had always already been an American product. Making such a mythical return to the Renaissance aesthetic not only painful for their US fan base who had been able to exempt themselves from such ridiculousness given their relatively late arrival onto the global scene, but a clear case of unbridled and misdirected nationalism that ultimately resulted in bands like Screwdriver and political organizations like the National Front.

In fact, Renaissance fires are in many ways responsible for the rash of violence against extra-nationals throughout the globe because it premises beginnings and identities that no one who wasn’t from England could ever take half-way seriously. Point being, Renaissance faires have always already been the precursor to hate crimes, and this video is tantamount to a happy-go-lucky hate crime.

Can you dig?

Say what you will about the video, it makes sense to read it as a new-Romantic, ludic appropriation (and subsequent domestication) of elements of a dark, bleak, and strangely reverent genre. Also, that bit of a montage at the end lends it an unexpected bit of Cold War anxiety which, almost but not quite, rescues the video for me insofar as it recasts all that frolicking as an attempt to escape the specter of what then felt inevitable — global thermal nuclear war. Props for that at least.

And, finally, this, which has nothing to do with the safety dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjbpuK_H2VY&feature=related

You are officially my favorite psycho. You are out of your mind and I love it.And let me tell you something, mister, the Ru of Gu is very, very hot! Flickr should be illegal for people like you.