“Dear Friends,

This is a difficult time in the world, and I would like to ask each of you to find ways to be a part of positive solutions.  There is something that each of us can do, and it’s just a matter of searching your own soul to find the way that you can give to others.  Some of us can give of our time and talent, and some of us can donate money or items. The trick is to give without looking to receive – to give of yourself to your family, your friends, your community, and the world community with love.”

–Solomon Burke
(March 21, 1940 – October 10, 2010)

It’s strange that Solomon Burke isn’t quite the household name that James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes or Barry White became. Quoting author and musicologist Tom Reed, Burke was a “founding father of what was defined as soul music in America in the 1960s.” He paved the way for them all. The man was just as influential a King of Rock n’ Soul, and an original Blues Brother.

He may be gone now, but listening to dozens of recordings of that huge, kindly voice, it’s impossible to feel too sad. He was a giant who has left behind a giant legacy. (Not to mention 21 children, 90 grandchildren, and 19 great grandchildren.)

He liked to say, “loving people is what I do.” We love you, too, Big Soul. Rest in peace.

Via The Daily What, “the most moving lip dub of Queen and David Bowie’s ‘Under Pressure’ performed by a homeless man holding two Kermit puppets you will see today, guaranteed”:

Currently there’s no solid information listed about the talented puppeteer, just a general link to nonprofits. It’s unclear if he’s homeless, or a performer trying to raise awareness. Either way, I’d love to put some dollars in his hat.

(EDIT 5/9/10: More information on this clip has surfaced! Read all about it at NY magazine. The puppeteer’s name is Sky Soleil, and the director of the video is Brian Maris. Thanks for the tip, alumiere!)

Hurrrrr, neuTRON dance… geddit? (Via BarbieHead, reigning Coilhouse clan queen of Disney trivia/ephemera.)

It’s 1985. It’s Disneyland. It’s the Main Street Electrical Parade. It’s the Pointer Sisters performing their hit single “Neutron Dance”. It’s two dozen exuberant jazz dancers in Tron leotards. It’s a gargantuan glowing mushroom. It’s a spinning, leering, ten-foot-tall bumblebee thingummer about to annihilate the Pointer sister furthest to the right (look closely– you can see the terror in her eyes). It’s a blinking, zigzagging caterpillar conga line. It’s Pete’s friggin’ Dragon farting up the joint. It’s… it’s full of stars? No, wait, it’s just another Monday morning cultural acid flashback, and we all head off to work singin’ “I’m on fiiiiiighYAH!” (Woo hoo!)

It’s a Coilhouse first: three BTCs in one friggin’ day. Can’t be helped. (You guys don’t mind, do ya?) OK Go just uploaded their latest one-take music video triumph to YouTube, AND IT HAS DOGS IN IT:

With apologies to any odontophobes reading, looks like you guys are getting two alveolarly stimulating BTCs in one day.

Our longtime friend and contributor David Forbes, who likes Ween, once said, “I’ve always found this song simultaneously cheerful, absurd and ominous. Perfect, in other words.” Yep. Very true, and very David. Hey there, fancy pants, happy birthday to you! Hope it’s faboo.

Good morniNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNg. Don’t forget to floss.

[Via the toothsome Ms. Darla Teagarden.]

Squee-inducing multiculti meme du jour:

[Bricey! Thank yooooo!]

Riverdance veterans Suzanne Cleary and Peter Harding are taking the internet by storm with their Irish hand dancing, thanks to this video shot and directed by Jonny Reed. Their collective name is Up and Over It! There’s something so charmingly Keatonesque about their placid faces and frantically leaping limbs, isn’t there?

That ultra catchy song they’re dancing to is “We No Speak Americano”, a collaborative track by Yolanda Be Cool and DCup that heavily samples the 1956 hit “Tu vuò fà l’americano” by the lively Italian singer/pianist Renato Carosone.

Rise and shine, comrades. Time to face another Monday morning. You know what might help? A hot shower. With Stephen Shellen. In a pair of tighty-whities:

“Oh gawd I’m getting all tingly.”

Gimme An ‘F’ was the slimy, raw Meatballs-textured afterbirth that slid out of the ass end of 1984 while Footloose and Flashdance were still showing at drive-ins. Kudos to Katrina Galore for toilet-plunging its most memorable scene up from the depths. (Katrina, delightful pervert that she is, just made it known that she’ll be co-editing an upcoming anthology of Dystopian Erotica. They’re currently calling for submissions. Go git ‘em!)

An exotic new craving on this post Labor Day morning before the start of the work week, even, perhaps, before one’s first steaming sip of strong coffee: a concoction consisting of toasted bread, processed meatstuff, a limp, plasticky piece of American cheese, and a slice of canned pineapple possibly past its expiration date.  This, apparently, is “Hawaii  Toast”, a delicacy whose existence I was very much ignorant of until just yesterday. Just look at it! Delicious, or what?

Judging from his orgiastic consumption of the things, it would seem Alexander Marcus finds this to be true as well.
His… um… excitement, you’ll soon see, is quite evident.

Thanks, Mathyld for sharing this!

(via wikipedia) Alexander Marcus … is a persona of the German music producer Felix Rennefeld…
Rennefeld’s music is a mixture of modern electronic club music and folk music, which he has named ‘Electro Lore’, a combination of ‘electro’ and ‘folklore’…Marcus exaggerates many of the clichés present in pop music, and his music videos feature “trashy” objects, such as a recurrent plastic globe called “Globi”. Spiegel Online sees the character as a typical example of a return to pop-art social criticism. Never breaking out of character, he leaves the question of whether he is a parody unanswered:

The idea that the guy might really be as barmy as it seems, remains at least possible.

—Uh-Young Kim for Spiegel Online

And, for added hilarity, a translation of the lyrics. Guten apetite, indeed.

Let’s kick off the week with a little extra vitamin C:

(Thanks for reminding me, Dusty!)

All hail the caterwauling Carmen Orange. Venerated demigod of public broadcasting, mesmeric and disturbing in equal measure, she haunts the collective memory of multiple generations of Sesame Street-watching children. According to a couple of unconfirmed reports online, she was animated by Jim Henson himself.

Really, would anyone be surprised if that were true?