Recently in Humor Category

This time the toys are bad in a dangerous way. Radar Online has an article that looks back fondly on the 10 most dangerous toys of our modern times. Although I do remember having Jarts, I'm afraid I never had anything as cool as an Atomic Energy Lab! That's the sort of thing one could get into all kinds of trouble with!

So I had this idea. It sort of popped into my head as I was listening to some of my favorite tunes.

In this day of age, one can turn on the tube and see commercials sporting songs from the great heavy/hard rock bands of the 70's like Led Zep, the Who, Queen... I even saw a Nissan truck being advertised with Black Sabbath's Iron Man. If you had told me 20 years ago that advertisers would be using Black Sabbath to hock their wares, I would have laughed hard enough to spill the bong water. But it's true, and It's all some attempt to advertise to my generation in a contrived (but most likely effective) hip and cool way.

So what's the next step in fake corporate hipness in advertising? Clearly it's the The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (frequently abbreviated as NWOBHM or N.W.O.B.H.M.) The NWOBHM was that great movement in music that brought of such metal luminaries as Iron Maiden and Motorhead. But why not start with the band that influenced the entire genre? I'm talking about the Priest... Judas Priest. Priest had been around long before the whole NWOBHM thing had been a recognizable category, and ultimately they are in a class of their own. But there can be no doubt that Judas Priest influenced all post 70's Metal styles both musically and fashion-wise. Yes, Priests sound can be heard in anything from Thrash Metal bands to Pop Metal bands... and thanks to screamin' lead singer Rob Halford, the look of 1970's gay bars can bee seen being worn by metal bands and fans all over the world. Which reminds me of a story...

Let's take the way back machine to one night in the late 80's. I was at one of the many wild parties that when strung together form the entire content of six years of my pathetic young adulthood. A group of us were getting skunk faced and sitting in a circle discussing the finer points of music using the "What's your favorite band?" method of critique. After a a string of interesting choices such as "Def Leppard" and "Poison", I answered "Queen".  Now everybody that knows me, knows that I am and always have been a huge Queen fan, and that I have never been a homophobe.  But there was this one guy there that had a huge problem with my choice. It was the tired, "What a bunch of fags." and "What are you, a queer?" shtick.  I defended my choice, stood up to this jerk and had no problem when it became clear to him that the rest of the folks there liked Queen as well. At any rate, someone urged an end to the uproar and the conversation continued. Oh how I laughed when it got to homophobe boy and he proudly proclaimed his allegiance to Judas Priest! I laughed loud enough to elicit a "You gotta problem with that?" from him. I wish I would have said, "No, but you should!"  I do remember saying something like, "Boy, are you in for a surprise!" and "I thought you hated fags." We nearly came to blows again. This time people were trying to hold him back from me. Rob Halford's sexual preference was pretty much an open secret that homophobe boy was hilariously clueless of. I just laughed and laughed.

Anyhow, Judas Priest is hands down the most pure heavy metal band that ever was. Others have tried, but they didn't last. And they died as they tried. But Priest will live on forever in the annals of Metaldom! As for where this whole article started... I am sure Priest's lyrics, rife with great imagery, can be twisted into selling products like confectioneries and cleaning solutions as well as cars and guitars. 

I wonder if I will live to see day when the ad houses are churning out commercials featuring songs by Rage Against The Machine or N.W.A.?

Take a moment to view this stunning piece of flash animation in which a young girl learns the meaning of honor, an age old mystery is revealed and a giant flying robot shoots lightsabers from its mouth. Then marvel at the history of the question, "Who would win in a fight: pirates or Ninjas?"