Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Bark louder, little dog.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Come on, man.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Not all heroes wear capes.

I really should read my own blog.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Consistently wrong since 2002

You are here: Home / Music / Friday Afternoon Musical Interlude (Open Thread)

Friday Afternoon Musical Interlude (Open Thread)

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For your listening pleasure:

Does anyone know the origins of the “Rubberband Man” concept? Wikipedia (don’t get me started) says, “The song, written by producer Thom Bell and singer-songwriter Linda Creed, was about Bell’s son, who was being teased by his classmates for being overweight. Intended to improve his son’s self-image, the song eventually evolved from being about “The Fat Man” to “The Rubberband Man.”

Okay, but why a rubberband? Oh well. Sometimes you have to just let art wash over you and not analyze it too closely. Open thread!

Reader Interactions

81Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    It was the 70s. It was a more innocent age. Or something like that.

    It’s Friday, I have physio after work, and then a huge round of adulting to do tomorrow. In the meantime I’m trying to come up with a good reason to not get blitzed out of my gourd tonight.

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’m only guessing here — have never heard (or heard of) either the song or the singers — but isn’t stomach-reduction surgery often called “rubber band surgery” because they essentially section off a piece of the stomach (or intestines, or something) with what is, basically, a big stretchy rubber band?

  4. 4.

    geg6

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    That surgery became common long after the song was popular.

    That said, if the songwriters had been from Pittsburgh, the song would be titled “Gumband Man.”

  5. 5.

    tallmutha

    According to the website “songfacts.com”:

    “At first, it was called ‘The Fat Man,’ since his son Mark was rather large, and that’s what his schoolmates called him. Bell wanted to change the perception of this nickname, so he wrote a song about a big man who can really move. He’s the guy everyone waits for at the party, since when he arrives, it can really get going. Said Bell, ‘It was written for big people who were hip, to change the whole idea of a person being large being sloppy, slow.'”

    Now, what was it about this particular endomorph that made him such a party starter?

    “This is about a guy who makes incredible sounds with a rubber band stretched between his toes. The rubber band sound is simulated in the bassline.”

    Asked and answered.

  8. 8.

    joel hanes

    Saw a peanut stand
    Heard a rubber band
    Saw a needle that winked its eye —
    But I think I will have seen everything
    When I see an elephant fly

  10. 10.

    ArchTeryx

    Heh. Probably shows my age that I remember when the song hit the mainstream – when it appeared in the movie Stripes (during the mud wrestling scene).

  11. 11.

    Yutsano

    @joel hanes: I have to say that Disney has come a LONG way when it comes to the racism in their cartoons. I watched a clip from The Aristocats the other day and WOW there’s some blatant stereotyping in there.

  12. 12.

    lamh36

    Hate to be a Debbie Downer but this is the new Trump America that i am afraid of!!!

    Does ANYONE AG Sessions or anyone in the Trump KKKAdministrarion gonna give two shits about this!!!

    ‪Joe McKnight’s shooter, Ronald Gasser, released from custody‬

    Oh and the latest from the trial for the officer hat shot Walter Scott

    @arimelber
    New: In trial of officer Michael Slager, who shot Walter Scott, jury just said it can’t reach consensus on a verdict.

  15. 15.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @lamh36:

    I’m just so beyond my ability to emotionally deal with any of this. I feel like I’m being chased by zombies trying to run in quicksand and my legs just won’t work and there’s no place to go for hope.

  18. 18.

    Mike in dc

    @lamh36:
    I suspect that it’s better for the country if the president elect does NOT comment on any of this. I imagine that going poorly 99.5 times out of 100.

  20. 20.

    trollhattan

    @Pogonip:
    It’s a harness thingie the fam decided he needed, because reasons. I suspect primarily a handle to retrieve him by in the event he decided to swim towards Japan. Luckily, and unlike the many Labs at the beach, he’s not especially drawn to diving in (first trip to either a beach or the ocean, one never knows).

  22. 22.

    Jeffro

    This works for a Friday afternoon (especially since everyone else has left for the weekend): Renegades of Funk

    As Betty says, sometimes you have to just let art wash over you and RAWK OUT

  23. 23.

    joel hanes

    @Yutsano:

    Dumbo came out in 1941

    Until 9 November, I would have said that the entire nation has come a long way since then wrt racism.

  24. 24.

    Phylllis

    @lamh36: Watching the live feed from the courtroom right now and it looks as if that is the case. Apparently there is one juror who is the holdout.

  26. 26.

    Schlemazel

    Rubberband refers to the tubing used to tie off your arm

    Guaranteed to blow your mind
    So high you won’t come down . . .
    You’re bound to lose control
    When the Rubberband starts to jam

    and between the toes is an alternate injection site

    When I saw this short fat guy
    Stretch a band between his toes

  31. 31.

    Schlemazel

    @lamh36:
    Macy’s has offered a black santa option in their store for 20-30 years that I am aware of. a ‘secret’ is that there are multiple santa’s working at any one time. Who you got depended on chance unless you were AA or asked specifically for one or the other (but you had to know the secret)

  32. 32.

    Phylllis

    @Hal: Apparently whoever it is wrote a letter to the judge earlier today indicating they could not get to ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’.

  36. 36.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Apparently the shit gibbon has caused his very first international incident by having a conversation with the President of Taiwan.

  43. 43.

    Shell

    Does anyone know the origins of the “Rubberband Man” concept?

    Well , it did make a good background theme for that OfficeMax commercial.

  48. 48.

    Mary G

    THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.

    Same as it ever was. As true today as it was 240 years ago. It has always reminded me of George III from “Hamilton,” and a lot of the Revolutionary War stuff is comforting me and reminding me that there is nothing new under the sun.

    Also, too, General Stuck:

    these things happen as a vital part of maintaining those long since battles won, imo. The culture wars take eternal vigilance, and sometimes out in the open re fighting the same fight, to remind people of what we are dealing with in this country

  55. 55.

    Suzanne

    Lying in dentist’s chair, drooling from Novocain, waiting for crown to be put on. I look sexy.

    Pottery time soon.

  56. 56.

    Feathers

    From the previous thread and the Hamilton Wedding Cake – the Dinner:Impossible Williamsburg episode This was a very silly show on Food Network that had at least one great episode – Robert Irvine and co. had to cook a 18th century dinner with 18th ingredients and tools over an open fire. The amusement of the experts on historical cooking working with them is wonderful.

    It’s pricey, but actually staying in the historic houses in Williamsburg is worth putting on your bucket list. They serve a historic dinner by fireplace and candlelight. The candlelight events at the Governor’s mansion makes you realize that the human eye really does adjust to candlelight. All those movies with huge blazing banks of candles aren’t historically accurate. It doesn’t take very many candles to light even a large room.

  57. 57.

    CapnMubbers

    Lynda Carter and the Muppets did Rubberband Man (they’re on YouTube). I saw that years ago while in an, ahem, enhanced state….

  58. 58.

    Jeffro

    On the one hand, I’m encouraged that several media sources (WaPo, NYT, CNN) seem to be noting that Obama is “handing off” a roaring economy to Trump.

    On the other hand, Orangemandias is still skipping intelligence, defense, and state dept briefings that would have helped him avoid obvious stupid stuff, like hanging out on the phone with the leader of Taiwan.

    Trump, you dick, the deal is that you get to run around for four years at your stupid rallies but won’t do anything to get a world war going.

  60. 60.

    Zednaught

    KTSUFM dot ORG
    Click the Listen Now button at the top (opens TuneIn station).
    Every Friday 6 am – 10 pm Listen’ Back oldies.
    Texas Southern University Jazz in Houston.
    From this thread it looks as if a lot of you would like this.

  62. 62.

    ThresherK

    @Feathers: Did they ring the accuracy bell on tallow candles?

    I went to a chandlers and the way they described the olde-fashioned candles was awful for those of us with allergies. The ordinary smokeless candles, beeswax or not, are an unrecognized boon.

  63. 63.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Isn’t the rummor the Chines were helping the Orange one also? So Trump screws China on Tawian, Russia on Iran and the Tea Tards by bringing in Washington Insideers. It’s almost like the banks are right Trump is a bad credit risk.

    And all snark asside, a politican who can’t stay bought is going find his support drying up.

  64. 64.

    gratuitous

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Wotta nitwit. For anyone who thinks our good friends the Chinese (the ones with the nukes) will just pass over this, think again. I had a friend assigned by his company to work in China for a couple of years. Naturally, he wanted to take his wife and kids, but there was a weensy problem: His marriage certificate listed his wife’s place of birth as Taiwan, and China wouldn’t recognize his marriage because his wife was born someplace that didn’t exist.

    They got married again with a fresh marriage license listing her nationality as American (she had been adopted by an American couple as an infant). Once that was cleared up, China recognized their marriage and they passed a fairly nice sojourn there. But yeah, the Chinese are still pretty sensitive to this.

    Compare and contrast President Elect Dumbass’ blunder with George W. Bush’s blunder from early in his presidency. An American spy plane wandered too close to Chinese air space, and was forced down. The Bush administration made all kinds of belligerent noises, but the Chinese didn’t care. They held the plane’s crew hostage (a major diplomatic coup was pulled off by the Bushistas when the Chinese gave the hostages Bibles), and meticulously disassembled and examined our state-of-the-art spy plane. When they got tired of doing that, the Chinese released the flight crew and the plane to the custody of our other good friends the Russians, who brought crew and plane back on a slow boat back from China. No doubt they, too, had a good look-see at the component parts of the plane.

    Four months later, the September 11 attacks happened. I’m not saying there’s a bright-line cause-and-effect at work, but the Bush administration’s impotent haplessness probably wasn’t discouraging to the 9/11 plotters. Who’s watching Trump from some dark corner of the world and thinking, “This guy is strictly amateur hour”? Besides Putin, I mean.

  68. 68.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Suzanne:

    Pottery time soon.

    Dear god, I read that as “Potty time soon.” (Note to self: make appointment with optometrist, soonest.)

  70. 70.

    Pogonip

    @Feathers: They need all those candles in the movies because the camera does not adjust to candlelight.

    Do you recommend a particular Williamsburg package?

  75. 75.

    Roger Moore

    @Feathers:

    All those movies with huge blazing banks of candles aren’t historically accurate. It doesn’t take very many candles to light even a large room.

    Depends on what you’re trying to do. You don’t need much light to eat dinner, but you do if you want to do anything that requires real detail, like reading and writing. And, more to the point, you need a lot of light if you want to properly expose movie film, so the high lighting levels are necessary for the production. Even Barry Lyndon, which was famous for filming its indoor scenes using a special super fast lens developed for NASA, needed huge banks of candles to make the indoor scenes work.

  76. 76.

    Botsplainer

    Oh shit – I just realized – we’re living Back to the Future II, just a couple of years out of the cycle.

    Biff Tannen is President, but we got no way to correct space-time.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    And, of course, it’s changed again because digital cameras are much more sensitive than film, so you don’t need nearly as much light to shoot film and TV anymore.

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:
    Digital is more sensitive, but lenses like the one Kubrick used (f/0.7!) aren’t generally available, either. So you can shoot in lower light than you used to be able to, but you still need more than the unaided eye if you want it to look good.

  79. 79.

    Feathers

    @ThresherK: No idea. It was the experience of being in a period room actually lit by candles that fascinated me.
    @Roger Moore: @Pogonip: Barry Lyndon is a particularly favorite film. Looking at some clips online, the amount of candles seems about right. The difference is the falloff in the light, which makes sense. The eye can adjust to the dimness better than the filmstock. Also, white or pale walls really do help. BTW – the BFI just did a restoration that showed in Brit theaters this year – hope we get it here – too bad there aren’t as many huge screens anymore. Barry Lyndon deserves to completely fill your field of vision.

    As to Williamsburg travel, my mother and some of her divorced friends would take a women and kids trip between Christmas and New Years, renting one of the houses, with grownups in the beds and kids (mostly teens who’d known each other since preschool) in sleeping bags on the floor. I got to go along a few times when I was in town and there was space. Can’t really help except to say that staying in one of the colonial houses is recommended. I know that people do go, stay in regular hotels and then do a night in a colonial house. The one bedroom houses book up way in advance for honeymooners. Many of the houses in Colonial Williamsburg actually have people living in them. You have to agree that the outside of the house will be completely period at all times, can’t leave a bicycle outside. There are several taverns where you can order either period food or a hamburger – which of course can be rustled up out of the same ingredients as the period food. Even if you don’t stay in a house, I would be sure to go to one of the evening candlelit events. It definitely has helped my experience reading historical novels! Probably very wrong to say, but it does feel very Jane Austen. It took me a while to realize that “Colonial” and “Georgian” were the same thing. Duh. There is a lot to see in the area, Jamestown, Richmond and Norfolk, as well as the Busch Gardens amusement park and lots of golfing. The Virginia beaches on Delmarva are great and not as built up as most of the Outer Banks ones. Hope that helps.

  80. 80.

    gratutious

    @Baud: The media also praised Bush the Dim Son for “keeping us safe.” Well, except for that one time that we all agree shouldn’t be mentioned. Never forget!

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