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You are here: Home / Open Threads / (Good) Friday Morning Open Thread

(Good) Friday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie|  April 18, 20144:46 am| 55 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Popular Culture, Religion

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Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell first emerged when I was attending a parochial high school, so I can still sing most of both soundtracks from memory. I always preferred Godspell, but I know mine is the minority opinion, so here’s some happy news for those of you who are, or once were, practicing liberal Christians and/or Muppet aficionados, via Paul Constant:

Just in time for the upcoming Easter weekend comes Muppet Christ Superstar, an “album” of nine songs from the 1971 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar—with the lead characters recast as Muppets. Kermit plays Jesus, of course, with Gonzo playing his backstabbing friend Judas and Miss Piggy filling the role of Mary Magdalene.

And voicing all those roles is 20-year-old songwriter Christo Graham, the mastermind behind the parody and a drama and film student at Bishop’s University in Quebec. Graham told us he recorded the album over a couple nights in his bedroom, and although he plays several instruments and has already released five albums of original music (available on Bandcamp), he used karaoke tracks for Muppet Christ Superstar, singing all parts (even the backing vocals, ostensibly from the Electric Mayhem, and Gonzo’s chickens)…

(Warning: While you should be able to play the entire soundtrack by clicking on the link below, the volume is set on HIGH and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it down in the embed. Adjust your speakers accordingly!)


***********

Apart from nostalgia and related silliness, what’s on the agenda today?

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55Comments

  1. 1.

    danielx

    April 18, 2014 at 6:10 am

    Let’s see…local homeboy John Mellencamp does not like Scott Walker (R-Koch) using his music at campaign rallies. Mellencamp is a strong supporter of unions, among other things, and for some reason I’m at a complete losss to explain does not think his political views are in tune with Walker’s. Mellencamp can be a complete prick* at times, but his heart is generally in the right place. Walker, naturally, says he plans to keep on playing the Mellencamp tune in question (Small Town). You can lead a Republican to water, but sometimes you have to hit him between the eyes with a two by four (or legal motion) to make him drink it.

    *To do him credit, he is fully aware of this particular personality trait; he once titled himself as “Little Bastard” as producer on the credits for one of his early recordings.

  2. 2.

    raven

    April 18, 2014 at 6:11 am

    It’s sucks to go to bed having seen Nicole Wallace on Rachel and wake up to her on MJ! Her whiny ass is bitching that “the President is touting the numbers of ACA signees when they are just people following the law”!

    What a fucking scumbag this woman is “I have a feeling every time a single person signs up the president puts on a coat and tie and says ‘get the camera ready, another one signs up’.

  3. 3.

    Betty Cracker

    April 18, 2014 at 6:35 am

    @raven: Ugh, Wallace! At least we can think of her hellish time as Sarah Palin’s flunky and laugh at her.

    On a sadder note, Raven, can you link that quote you’ve cited upon the death of a pet? I can’t remember much of it, but something to do with “lives even more temporary than our own”? My sister lost a dog to old age…

  4. 4.

    Mustang Bobby

    April 18, 2014 at 6:37 am

    Should be a quiet day here at work since it’s a teacher work day and a lot of believers are taking the day off. I just finished writing up a 1,000+ line journal voucher with a 184-page payroll certification as back-up, and it balanced to the penny. (I know that is gibberish to most people, but it’s what I do, which is an interesting job for someone with three degrees in theatre.) Now I hope it uploads without being vomited back.

    I had Jesus Christ Superstar memorized within two weeks of getting the album when it first came out. That was before I realized that Andrew Lloyd Weber is the devil.

  5. 5.

    Ramalama

    April 18, 2014 at 6:37 am

    OK for the past few weeks I’ve been singing a hook from Jesus Christ Superstar but for me I much preferred Godspell. I don’t know why I’ve been singing it. Easter, anyone? I wasn’t crazy about that musical. But I love this Gonzo rendition. Go Quebec!

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 6:37 am

    Kermit sure doesn’t look Jewish…

  7. 7.

    Mustang Bobby

    April 18, 2014 at 6:46 am

    @NotMax: Yeah, how do you give a frog a briss?

  8. 8.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    April 18, 2014 at 6:47 am

    @raven:

    What a fucking scumbag this woman is “I have a feeling every time a single person signs up the president puts on a coat and tie and says ‘get the camera ready, another one signs up’.

    Didn’t she work for the guy that landed on a carrier in a flight suit and gave a speech about “Mission Accomplished”?

    I was still drinkn’ in those days so my memory may be a bit fuzzy. BTW, Andrew Ross Sorkin can also go fuck himself.

  9. 9.

    Schlemizel

    April 18, 2014 at 6:50 am

    @Mustang Bobby:
    Miss Piggy would hardly be kosher!

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 6:51 am

    @Mustang Bobby

    There’s a very fractured fairy tale in there somewhere about an enchanted frog and a princess who is hard of hearing.

  11. 11.

    Schlemizel

    April 18, 2014 at 6:55 am

    @Mustang Bobby:
    Webber is one of those guys that had he died early in in career people would be going on and on about what a loss that was and all the great work he could have done if only he had lived. Unfortunately, for Broadway, he didn’t die and so people have to live with what he has produced instead of what they imagine he would have.

  12. 12.

    JPL

    April 18, 2014 at 6:56 am

    @raven: Does Wallace have a real job or does she just get paid to bloviate.

  13. 13.

    Davis X. Machina

    April 18, 2014 at 6:56 am

    Joe “Nighhorse” Manchin is getting his ‘I didn’t leave my party, my party left me!” speech ready, in case the Senate is close to split after the elections. Whether he cribbed any of it from Angus King (I-ME, me, mine) is not yet clear.

  14. 14.

    low-tech cyclist

    April 18, 2014 at 7:00 am

    Ah, JC Superstar and Godspell! The music of my days as a young Christian. I genuinely liked Superstar, which upset some of my friends of a more conservative bent. (Liked Godspell too, but that didn’t bother anyone, of course.)

    @Mustang Bobby: No, no! Andrew Lloyd Webber was just ‘of’ the devil!

    40 years ago, when I was spending way more time with fundies than I have since (an occupational hazard of a teenager who’s recently had a born-again experience), I remember repeatedly asking what the phrase ‘of the devil’ meant, just what connection it implied between Satan and the person or thing the phrase was being attached to.

    I can’t remember ever getting an answer with any clarity, which would have bothered me less if they hadn’t tossed that phrase around like it was confetti. It was clearly just a way of saying something extremely derogatory about something without having to be specific about what made that something a bad thing.

  15. 15.

    Schlemizel

    April 18, 2014 at 7:03 am

    Sitting here waiting for the car pool staring at the page & it occurred to me tha nobody had made fun of gun counter gomer recently so I clicked the link. The site is up but empty and it appears he has given up the fight! Thats nice news after another horrible rotten no good week. I do hope he became dispirited and broken when it ended.

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 7:08 am

    Perhaps nearly alone in remembering the other Jesus-y rock opera from the same period, Truth of Truths (which was not very good and sank with nary a trace).

    Only time I met Jim Backus (at the launch party for the album) and got a wonderful spit take and belly laugh from him by describing his voice acting career path as going from “Magoo to God.”

    Imagine Thurston Howell III loudly intoning “From Magoo to God. That’s a good one! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!”

  17. 17.

    low-tech cyclist

    April 18, 2014 at 7:10 am

    @Davis X. Machina: Yeah, the Dems have become so much more liberal over the past several years! (If only. Sigh.)

    What I want to know is, if either of them switches after this fall’s elections, are they gonna cheerfully stay in the minority after the Dems pick up a bunch of Senate seats in 2016, or are they gonna try to switch back just to be on the side that’s winning?

  18. 18.

    low-tech cyclist

    April 18, 2014 at 7:19 am

    @NotMax: I remember a friend inflicting a track or two of Truth of Truths on me, back in the day. It wasn’t bad so much as just forgettable, and a blatant attempt besides to cash in by jumping on the bandwagon that Superstar and Godspell had set in motion, only in a way more acceptable to fundie tastes.

    Now that I’ve had time to remember that era, I do remember going to see Godspell at Ford’s Theatre in DC with a bunch of fundies back in 1972, and they were upset afterwards that it was insufficiently specific about something, probably about the Resurrection but I can’t remember for sure. It was like they were going, “I can’t enjoy this until I know it’s checked off all the fundie-appropriate theological boxes.”

    One more reason why I could never quite be one of that tribe, even when I was young and still at least somewhat willing to go with the crowd in order to fit in.

  19. 19.

    Botsplainer

    April 18, 2014 at 7:24 am

    Worst saving roll ever.

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/17/mt-gox-investors-seek-creditor-support-to-save-bitcoin-exchange/

    (Reuters) – A group of investors, which is seeking to buy Mt. Gox, has launched a website to garner support from creditors of the bankrupt bitcoin exchange to prevent a liquidation of its assets.

    “We need your help to stop a liquidation, which would be good neither for Mt. Gox creditors nor Bitcoin’s reputation with the general public and regulators,” the investors wrote on the website.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    April 18, 2014 at 7:26 am

    @raven:

    “I have a feeling every time a single person signs up the president puts on a coat and tie and says ‘get the camera ready, another one signs up’.

    Good. He should strut. Obama did a good thing in the face of a lot of headwinds.

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 7:35 am

    Yoicks. Mini-moment of panic as realized today is a state holiday. Have a major shopping trip planned for foodstuffs to cook for Saturday’s dinner gathering, and the banks will be closed.

    Thanking the appropriate entities profusely for ATMs.

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    April 18, 2014 at 7:41 am

    @Baud: He should do a Richard Sherman in the face of every Republican he meets.

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

    April 18, 2014 at 7:52 am

    @raven:

    with you about Wallace.

  24. 24.

    Baud

    April 18, 2014 at 7:52 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I’m the best president in the game! When you try me with a sorry speaker like Boehner, that’s the result you’re gonna get. Don’t you ever talk about me. Don’t you open your mouth about the best, or I’m gonna shut it for you real quick!

  25. 25.

    Juju

    April 18, 2014 at 8:05 am

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t know what quote you mean, and I am not raven, but this poem has always worked for me for the loss of a much loved pet.

    Grieve not,
    but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you… 
    I loved you so… 
    twas heaven here with you.

    ~Ilsa Paschal Richardson 

  26. 26.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    April 18, 2014 at 8:14 am

    Got the results of my neuropsychological testing yesterday.

    I am a high functioning, moderately guarded, independent person,

    Essentially a smart jackass. Go figure.

  27. 27.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    April 18, 2014 at 8:16 am

    Oh yeah…back to work today (no patient care for a couple of weeks, though) after my aftercare appointment.

    I told my boss I would be leaving early every day so I can try to catch a meeting.

  28. 28.

    Bobby Thomson

    April 18, 2014 at 8:21 am

    @Mustang Bobby: Very carefully.

    What, you didn’t cover that in the eighth grade?

  29. 29.

    Poopyman

    April 18, 2014 at 8:21 am

    A little prodding by Omnes last night sent me looking for an Edmund Burke quote, and I found a ton of ’em that apply so well in these times.

    Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

    Hard to claim persecution when no one gives a shit. Well, hard to have folks believe it, perhaps.

  30. 30.

    Poopyman

    April 18, 2014 at 8:22 am

    @GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): Job application?

  31. 31.

    Mophene

    April 18, 2014 at 8:24 am

    I always loved Carl Anderson as Judas in JCS, but this Gonzo guy is giving him some real competition.

  32. 32.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 18, 2014 at 8:25 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    Betty, I think this is the one you have in mind (apologies for stepping on Raven, but I had it handy):

    We who choose to surround ourselves
    with lives even more temporary than our
    own, live within a fragile circle;
    easily and often breached.
    Unable to accept its awful gaps,
    we would still live no other way.
    We cherish memory as the only
    certain immortality, never fully
    understanding the necessary plan.
    — Irving Townsend

  33. 33.

    Betty Cracker

    April 18, 2014 at 8:29 am

    @Juju & @SiubhanDuinne: Thanks, guys. Both of those are perfect.

  34. 34.

    MomSense

    April 18, 2014 at 8:31 am

    @Davis X. Machina:

    Yeah they are both cued up for their “come to Teasus” moment should the house go Republican.

  35. 35.

    El Tiburon

    April 18, 2014 at 8:33 am

    I wonder if Betty Cracker and all you other Greenwald/Snowden haters have any thought a here.
    http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140418/00394026952/snowden-calls-bs-putins-answer-says-he-was-playing-role-ron-wyden.shtml

  36. 36.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 18, 2014 at 8:37 am

    @low-tech cyclist: When Churchill moved, switched parties for the second time, this time moving back to the Tories, he said, “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.” Neither of them is a Churchill.

  37. 37.

    MomSense

    April 18, 2014 at 8:38 am

    @GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):

    I just want to send you my support, and some big hugs!!

  38. 38.

    mai naem

    April 18, 2014 at 8:38 am

    @raven: If it was W, Kkkarl Rove would have him on TeeVee with a bunch of old white men with a gazillion American flags in the background talking about what an awesome awesome awesome that, he,W, personally had done on the programming for the PPACA website, and how the Dems were the ones who had screwed everything up because they were treasonous. Also, Wallace then made a crack comparing some NY cabbie getting away with not paying bridges tolls to the Nevada moocher rancher. Why are GOOPrs always so nasty and petty?

  39. 39.

    Chat Noir

    April 18, 2014 at 8:46 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: Thanks for finding that. I’m getting ready to take my beautiful tortoiseshell cat to the vet because she is so ill and I don’t want her to suffer anymore. She got sick a week ago with pancreatitis and she has completely stopped eating. I am so sad but she has had 14 excellent years — this is the first serious illness she has had so she’s had a good run.

  40. 40.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 18, 2014 at 8:47 am

    Legal good news out of Madison.

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    April 18, 2014 at 8:47 am

    @El Tiburon: Here’s my thought: Snowden is a naive chump, albeit one to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for shedding light on a serious issue that needed to be addressed. I thought that when the story first broke, and nothing I’ve seen in the interim has disabused me of that notion. Certainly not the softball question Snowden lobbed at Putin yesterday, nor his precious conceit that his appearance as a propaganda tool mimicked the power dynamics of Wyden vs. Clapper.

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    April 18, 2014 at 8:49 am

    @Chat Noir: I’m so sorry. It’s such a hard thing to do, but the right thing.

  43. 43.

    Chat Noir

    April 18, 2014 at 8:51 am

    @Betty Cracker: Thank you. I was thinking of you earlier and what you went through with your mom.

  44. 44.

    Just One More Canuck

    April 18, 2014 at 8:53 am

    @mai naem: it’s what they do – it’s who they are

  45. 45.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 18, 2014 at 9:24 am

    @Chat Noir:

    Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Torties are beautiful, and 14 is a very respectable age. You are doing the kindest possible thing for her in not prolonging her suffering. {{{{Hugs}}}}

  46. 46.

    Johannes

    April 18, 2014 at 9:33 am

    @Chat Noir: So very sorry. I know it’s tough–la Caterina and I had to do it for a wonderful kittie a few years back–but it can be the last service we render our feline companions, sometimes. Our thoughts will be with you today.

  47. 47.

    Mandalay

    April 18, 2014 at 9:39 am

    @El Tiburon: Here is what Snowden wrote in the Guardian today:

    On Thursday, I questioned Russia’s involvement in mass surveillance on live television. I asked Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, a question that cannot credibly be answered in the negative by any leader who runs a modern, intrusive surveillance program: “Does [your country] intercept, analyse or store millions of individuals’ communications?”

    I went on to challenge whether, even if such a mass surveillance program were effective and technically legal, it could ever be morally justified.

    The question was intended to mirror the now infamous exchange in US Senate intelligence committee hearings between senator Ron Wyden and the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, about whether the NSA collected records on millions of Americans, and to invite either an important concession or a clear evasion….

    …if we are to test the truth of officials’ claims, we must first give them an opportunity to make those claims.

    When Ron Wyden does it he’s a hero. When Snowden does it he’s a traitor.

  48. 48.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 18, 2014 at 9:50 am

    @Mandalay: Call us when Snowden has subpoena power and can compel sworn testimony.

  49. 49.

    Betty Cracker

    April 18, 2014 at 9:53 am

    @Mandalay: Except that Wyden, a member of the legislative branch, was questioning Clapper, an administrative official, at a hearing. Snowden taped a pre-fab question for a call-in show on a government-run channel that allowed Putin to recite his talking points unopposed. Do you really not understand the difference?

  50. 50.

    El Tiburon

    April 18, 2014 at 9:53 am

    @Betty Cracker: a “naive chump”. And a “complete tool” is how you describe Snowden. Perhaps you should turn your all powerful perception inward. This guy perhaps just sacrificed his life away for a cause we all claim to believe in. Yet, that he’s aligned with GG and ??? he is a chump and a tool.

    Here’s to hoping we have more chumps and tools willing to do what most of us here are too afraid to do.

    His contributions should forever shield him from such unfounded and spurious character assassinations based mostly on juvenile tendencies due to animosity towards GG.

  51. 51.

    Mandalay

    April 18, 2014 at 9:54 am

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Call us when Snowden has subpoena power and can compel sworn testimony.

    How about you call us when Clapper faces any consequences for what he did? You’re on pretty thin ice with that line of argument.

  52. 52.

    Yatsuno

    April 18, 2014 at 9:56 am

    @Betty Cracker: Forget it, Betty. It’s brogressive town.

    Are your girls popping out eggs like mad now? I know Florida doesn’t exactly have seasons, but the girls have internal clocks.

  53. 53.

    Mandalay

    April 18, 2014 at 10:02 am

    @Betty Cracker: Snowden taped a pre-fab question for a call-in show on a government-run channel that allowed Putin to recite his talking points unopposed. Do you really not understand the difference?
    So? Clapper was spoon-fed his question 24 hours beforehand by Wyden.

    Snowden’s argument is that he did this to put Putin on the record. You may well think that the short term PR value to Putin outweighs any long term benefit from Snowden having asked the questions on the record, but I don’t think that Snowden’s position can just be dismissed with a sneer and a wave of the hand.

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    April 18, 2014 at 12:37 pm

    Several people at my office are taking the day off for their new religious holiday — WonderCon! It is apparently the smaller, less corporate brother of ComicCon.

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    April 18, 2014 at 12:39 pm

    @Mandalay:

    So how is what Snowden did any different than if Putin made an appearance on “Oprah” to say the same thing?

    And, yes, testifying in front of Congress is slightly different than appearing on a talk show. I know the Republicans are making it seem like the same thing, but it really isn’t.

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