"Star Spangled Banner" Sounds Suspiciously Russian When Played In Minor Key

Comedian and musician Bill Bailey gives us an unsettling
take on "The Star Spangled Banner"

A comedian and musician named Bill Bailey has given us a rather startling musical oddity.

He likes to play around with musical scores, playing tunes intended to be played in a minor key in a major key instead. And he plays songs in major keys in minor keys.

There's a viral video floating about in which Bailey gives examples. The video is at the bottom of this post. At first he plays around with different snippets of songs, then gets to "The Star Spangled Banner," the United States National Anthem.

Like most national anthems, "The Star Spangled Banner" is meant to be played in a major key. As Bailey says, that makes them feel celebratory and uplifting.

He then tries "The Star Spangled Banner" in a minor key. The result is pretty unsettling, given the alleged deep ties between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and the allegations Trump colluded with Russia to get elected.

Yep, in a minor key, the "Star Spangled Banner" sounds like, well, Russian!

Listen for yourself:

You Will Love Or Be Perplexed By This Strange Russian Band Called Little Big

Just one of many bizarre scenes from the viral Little Big
video and dance craze "Skibidi"

Apparently, the latest dance craze is something called the Skibidi.

There's a viral video out there by a Russian rave band called Little Big. (They actually have several viral videos, but this one is the latest, and biggest hit yet.)

The bizarre video that I can't stop watching is at the bottom of this post. The Skibidi mostly involves walking with legs out, doing high steps, while punching your fists crossways in front of your chest.

There's a few intermittent hip thrusts, wobbles and hand motions as well, but you get the idea.

The lead protagonist in this video is a very stern, determined, rather creepy blonde man with a mustache. He's a bit like a scarier version of Borat. In the video, he hooks up with another member of the band, who vaguely resembles a highly maniacal version of Debra Messing.

There's also a potential street fight, which devolves into a Skibidi battle  The song itself is all electronic, with random dog barks and other sound effects. Other creatures get into the song, including a dog, city highrises and a Godzilla-like monster.

In other words, this video is so stupid, so tacky, so tasteless, so absurd, so weird that it's absolutely fantastic and mesmerizing.

Other Little Big videos are hits, too, like Faradenza, in which our blond mustached guy seems to attract the babushka type women. Another tune, called LollyBomb, appears to show North Korean leader Kim Jung-un having a torrid love affair with a nuclear bomb.

They're worth watching, for laughs and giggles.

But really, you have to watch Skibidi. And learn the dance, too. And always do the dance while walking down the street. Just because.  Everybody else has. People are being challenged worldwide to do the Skibidi. On Twitter #skibidichallenge is trending.

The Skibidi video had more than 42 million clicks as of Sunday. You can watch it too, if you haven't already:

Straight Dutch Men Have Perfect Response To A Homophobic Attack; Gay Putin Banned

Many straight men in the
Netherlands are holding hands
lately to protest a recent
homophobic attack on a gay couple

A week ago, a married gay couple were brutally attacked in Arnhem, a city in the eastern part of the Netherlands.

Apparently, the five horrible homophobic teenagers that attacked the couple couldn't stand the fact that the two men had been holding hands as they walked down a sidewalk, something that many, many married couples do routinely.

The teens are in a heap of trouble, of course, and most people in the Netherlands were horrified by the attack.

According to the Guardian, a journalist named Barbara Barend had a great idea to show solidarity to the couple who had been attacked. She tweeted a all for "all men (straight and gay) please to just walk hand in hand."

So, lots of men in the Netherlands are doing just that.  For instance, Button-down Alexander Pechtold, of the Democrats D66 party, showed up at a government meeting the other holding hands with his finance spokesman Wouter Koolmees the other day.

Very straight and macho looking Dutch military personnel posted photos of themselves on social media holding hands with other men. Male workers at Dutch embassies around the world also posted photos of themselves holding hands in solidarity.

Holding hands is just symbolic, of course, and, won't in itself get rid of homophobic violence. But it does put the world on notice, that we're not going to tolerate it. Anything helps.

Meanwhile, in much more homophobic Russia, authorities have banned the meme of Vladimir Putin as a "gay clown" whatever that is.

Vladimir Putin hates this meme of him, so don't share
it with anybody! Wouldn't want to offend him! 

It probably refers to a popular meme that shows Putin with lots of makeup, long eyelashes and bright red lipstick.

The Russian government has tried to depict Putin as super macho, like that famous image of Putin, shirtless, riding a horse, which to me is the gayest depiction of Putin I've ever seen.

Of course, the rest of the world is laughing at Putin being so insecure there can't be gayish images of him.

True, the Russian government is hostile and violent toward gay people, but one tool to fight that is mockery.

Sorry, with all of Putin's evilness, a good response is to laugh at that jerk.

And we might as well let Stephen Colbert pile on:

Donald Trump Doth Protest Too Much As Russia Tries To Seize America

I hope this isn't reality, but it feels like it lately.

This is beginning to feel like a bad James Bond movie.

It's becoming more and more apparent that Russia, Wikileaks and maybe Trump or his minions are trying to turn the United States into a wholly owned subsidiary of Putin, Inc. 

Unless we get a James Bond-like figure to save the day, I worry that this effort might succeed.

Friday, the nation got more details on the intelligence gathering that shows Russia was trying - and succeeded, apparently - at tilting our elections toward Donald Trump last November. Vladimir Putin was personally involved in some of this, apparently.

We have Trump get his top secret intelligence briefing on the issue, and still insisting that there wasn't much to the intelligence gathering that Russia did this...

Maybe most ominously, we got more evidence that WikiLeaks, far from being a way to prompt government and corporate transparancy world wide, is more like Putin's goon squad.

The news from WikiLeaks kept getting weirder and more ominous Friday.

First, WikiLeaks objected to Thursday leaks detailing parts of the intelligence report on Russia to NBC News. 

WikiLeaks tweeted: "The Obama admin/CIA is illegally funneling TOP SECRET/COMINT information to NBC for political reasons before PEOTUS even gets to read it."

(POETUS refers to President-elect Trump.)

But get this: WikiLeaks was critcizing.......leaks. A little hypocritical maybe? Or was WikiLeaks just ,mad because the NBC leak had the potential to make Trump look bad.

Besides, it appears what got leaked to NBC News Thursday was the declassified version of the intelligence report that was widely released to the public Friday.

Much more ominously, WikiLeaks seemed to issue a warning of a witch hunt against journalists and others who discuss, investigate or report on Russian meddling.

Which is interesting, since Trump himself called reports of Russian influence on the U.S. election as  political witch hunt, prompted by sour grapes among those who lost the election.

The worrisome potential WikiLeaks, went like this, as Ars Technica reports:

"A Friday Twitter post from WikiLeaks' official task force declared intent to build a publicly seachable database revolving around a particular group of people: Verified Twitter accounts.

'We are thinking of making an online database with all verified Twitter accounts & their family/job/financial/housing relationships,' the Friday tweet reads.  A follow-up post sought suggestions fro the public and said the group is 'looking for discrete (father/shareholding/party membership variables that can be put into our AI software."

In short it appears that WikiLeaks might want to intimidate journalists into silence by "doxing" them. That means making their personal information such as home, family etc. public so goons who support  Trump can harass, threaten or even assault journalists or others who criticize Trump.

A very Russian thing to do, don't you think?  Suppress dissent, intimidate critics, stamp out free speech.

And WikiLeaks says they're for the truth? Ha!

I'm not sure what's in store once Trump takes office. Trump's constant dismissiveness of Russian hacking indicates either he wants to partner with Puting to squelched democracy, or more likely, Russia thinks Trump is a chump and has the goods on him.

Either way, this won't end well.

Let's hope people - and the media - fight efforts to stop the spread of information about who is influencing what in America, and holding on to the basics of democracy.

It's interesting that an outfit like WikiLeaks which says they want information freely available now so obviously shilling for such an anti-freedom outfit like Russia.

Once press freedom and freedom of speech is suppressed, which seems to be the effort underway, we all sink under the thumb of oppressive dictators.

I hope the resistance is stronger

Trump keeps calling the news about Russian hacking "a political witch hunt."

Trump appears to have gotten a number of important details wrong about the NBC story. No one “gave” NBC the top-secret report, as Trump claimed. As the NBC story notes, the official quoted by the network never even saw a copy of the intelligence report; he or she just repeated to NBC what someone had said about its findings.

On Friday morning, Trump told The New York Times that the ongoing public interest in possible Russian interference in the presidential election was “a political witch hunt.” He also complained the election-hacking story was getting more attention than other instances where government computers were compromised. These previous hacks, however, did not include releasing the stolen information to the public.

OK Go Has Another Music Video Spectacle, This Time In Zero Gravity

Ok Go is back with another one of their extreme
music videos, this one featuring
moments of weightlessness 

The rock group OK Go has always made absolutely wild, extreme, and creative music videos ever since their innovative, insane and highly entertaining Rube Goldbergesque clip for the song  "This Too Shall Pass" back in 2010. 

Their latest video, for the song "Upside Down And Inside Out" was released Thursday and already is racked up two million views on Facebook within the first day.

And no wonder. The thing was filmed in zero gravity. Really!

They filmed the video while flying over Russia in a special plane that cosmonauts use for training, reports Fast Company.

The plane uses high speed flight maneuvers to create moments of weightlessness. The periods of weightlessness lasted only about 27 seconds each, so videographers had to stitch the brief clips together to create a seamless video.

"The physics of this thing are wild," guitarist Andy Ross told Fast Company.

Plus, the experience was doubtlessly difficult on the band, the other actors in the video, and the crew filming it. Not for nothing, the special plane they were on is dubbed the "vomit comet."

Wild music videos are OK Go's niche. "We're always trying to stretch ourselves.....always trying to push the limits," Ross said in the Fast Company interview.

Here's the video:

Found This Old Russian "The Voice" Audition And Am Blown Away

Nargiz Zakirova wows 'em on the Russian
version of "The Voice" back in 2013  

While sick and bored a few weeks ago, I idly browsed YouTube videos, and found the gem you'll see below.

I'm one of those silly reality contest show fans. Well, I like some of them. A lot of them are stupid.

I do like "The Voice," especially the auditions, when the judges, all singers and musicians, can't see the performer, but decide whether they like them based only on the singing voice they hear.

The judges sit in chairs with their backs to the performer. If the judges like what they hear, they push a button, their chair swings around 180 degrees, and the judges then see the performer.

The new season of "The Voice" starts on September 21 in the United States, so that's good for me.

Many of these shows, including "The Voice," have franchises in many, many countries.

Including Russia.

A heavily tattooed, badass looking woman named Nargiz Zakirova in 2013 auditioned in The Voice Russia by singing the power ballad rock anthem "Still Loving You" by the Scorpions.

I really like that song, but Zakirova does it MUCH better than even the Scorpions. I hope we get some talent as good as this in the United States version of the show this year.

Watch:

A Strange Barbie Moment In The Russian Military

Are these Russian Barbie Girls? Find out!  

When marching, military units will often have a big macho chant to accompany their parade around the base.

Sometimes they get weird, though. A group of soldiers in Russia a few years ago had a Barbie moment, given their chant of the awful 1997 novelty song "Barbie Girl" by Aqua.

So we hear the big bad bear Russian army unit marching and chanting:  "I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world. Life in plastic, it's fantastic! You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere....."

Uh, yeah.

The video was uploaded to YouTube in 2012, but seems to have gotten more viral life lately.

Join the Army! Because life in plastic is fantastic! Or something.

Watch and cringe:

Flaming Russian Guy Leaps Off Tall Building Into Snowbank, Another Takes Mento/Diet Coke Bath Just Because

Here is out flaming stuntman jumping off a tall
Russian building on his way down to a snowbank
on the ground. He lived, but probably killed
some of the few brain cells he had to begin with.  

There's always crazy people out there.

Like the stuntman you'll see in this post.

For no discernable reason, other than maybe just to get it off his bucket list, some guy in Russia stood on the roof of a multistory building, set himself on fire. He jumped off the building and landed in a snowbank.

He survived, which is good, but looks the worse for wear, frankly.

But he recovered. He told a small gathering near the snowbank where he landed, "I felt on top of the severity of life."

No, I don't know what that means, either.

For what it's worth, here's his video. Don't try this at home, kiddies!




Speaking of stupid stunts, we have a bonus one for you. Lots of people know if you mix Coca Cola with Mentos candies you get a lot of fizz.

So some guy in this viral video strapped a whole bunch of Mentos to his body and took a bath in Coca-Cola. Just because.

It's not as spectacular as I hoped this would be, but it's fun to see the mess he makes. And to ponder why the hell he did this.

I hope you find more productive things to do with your day. Here's our Mentos and Coke guy:

Weirdest Russian Dashcam Video EVER

The characters inside this van in a still from
a dash cam video are itching for a fight.
Watch what happens when they get out.  n

If you've never in an idle moment searched YouTube for Russian dash cam videos, you ought to. It's a whole different world behind the wheel of a car in Russia.

Russia is full of stupid car crashes, stupid drivers, violence, fights, wreckage, road rage and, occasionally, a strange bit of kindness.

Everybody has a dash cam in Russia, what with unsafe roads, unsafe drivers, insurance fraud and corruption. People need the videos to prove their case.

One Russian dash cam video that recently came out that I'm sharing with you here is almost certainly a fake, or some sort of set up, or joke, and doesn't reflect reality.  But I'll post it anyway because it's so, um, different.

It involves a car that cut off a van, and road rage erupts. It's so bizarre and funny and off the charts you have to watch it to get your Wednesday laugh.

Here it is

Cars Stuck In Traffic, Sinkhole Opens Beneath Them

At least one motorist stuck in a traffic jam in a Tyuman, Russia, about 1,600 east of Moscow, almost dealt with disaster recently.  

Yeah, jams are frustrating, but they are infuriating when the road starts to collapse beneath you and the other cars will Just. Not. Move. Out. Of. The. Way.

At the last second the cars did move, saving the day. But SCARY!

Watch:

Russian School Custodian Makes Awesome Snow Art

I know many of us don't want to think about snow after a long, cold winter has finally ended, but this is too good to pass up.  

Russian school custodia Seymon Bukharin made
this snow art in a school yard with just a broom.  

Huffington Post recently featured photos of what a Russian school custodian named Seymon Bukharin did with just a broom after snowfalls.

He'd go out into the school yard and make beautiful art by sweeping snow away just so.

Maybe I'll hire him to clear snow from my yard next winter.

More snow art by Seymon Bukharin  

One more.  

Canadian Group Has Awesome Olympics Ad Protesting Russians' Hate of Gays

Much has been made of the horrible, hideous attacks on gay people in Russia from the top levels of government on down to many people on the street. 

A still from "Luge" a Canadian group's ad
protesting anti-gay idiocy in Russia.  

The government goes after them, vigilante groups brutally attack gay people there. Disgusting beyond belief.

A silver lining to all this is that the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are shining a spotlight on these abuses. I don't know if it will force any changes, but there is pressure on the government and the people of Russia to back off.

Sometimes, the best forms of protest involve humor, and a group called the Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion put together an AWESOME 30-second, Olympic themed ad calling the homophobic Russians out.

Here's the video, Enjoy:

How To Take A Cigarette Break In Russia

The guy's been working hard at the construction site in Russia, so it was time for a cigarette break.

No lighter? No problem.

Watch:

Meanwhile, In Russia....

Dashcam videos from Russia offer hours of strange entertainment on YouTube.

I'll give you a good one that popped up the past couple of days.

Here's the scene. You can hear two men talking as the speed down a country road in Russia. The driver loses control on a curve and, you'll see what happens.

As you can tell by the tone of voice, it's no big deal, really:




For those of you (almost everybody) who doesn't understand Russian, I found this translation of their conversation, once they landed in the river:

"Oh we float!
Where we go?
 I don't know, maybe to the shore.
Don't steer the wheel. It's useless."

 Eh, we get where we're going eventually, they seem to say. No big deal.

Giant Deer Statue Transport Seen In Dashcam Goes Hilariously Awry

YouTube is awash in videos of dashcam videos from Russia showing ridiculous crashes, bad drivers, stupid people and other assorted weird moments. (All, right, this is supposedly in Kazakhstan, but close enough)

But for some reason, the video in this post struck me as rising above the scrum of Russian dash cam videos. It was certainly enough to have me laughing out loud.

For some reason, somebody was hauling a giant statue of a deer in a dump truck along a busy highway.

Watch what happens:

Abandoned Buildings? Put On A (Sometimes) Smiling Face

I found a page of photos of abandoned buildings and other structures spiffed up by people who painted faces on them. They're really awesome.

The artists used windows, ledges, doorways and other features to help frame the basis of the faces, then went to town.

If a neighborhood must have abandoned buildings, it's nice to know sometimes, someone comes along and spiffs things up a bit.

The work on the buildings is by Russian artist Nikita Nomerz.  His stuff is so worth checking out.

Meanwhile, In Siberia....

People love to play with water when it's really cold

This video is among the best: Watch what happens when you throw a pot of boiling water from a high balcony when it's 42 below celsius.  This is apparently somewhere in Siberia. 

I love how the stripe of ice fog from the water drop lingered in the air forever, as if the air itself is half frozen and semi-supports stuff like a gelatin would.

What fun! But I'd rather live without the experience because I'd rather not be in 40 below weather

P

Russian Truck Driver's Wild Windshield Escape

Here in Vermont, we had two tragic car crashes over the past day or so in which the young drivers, neither wearing seat belts, and both apparently speeding, died as a result of the collisions.

No doubt seat belts save lives. I would have been killed in a crash with a tractor trailer a dozen years ago had I not been wearing a seat belt. So buckle up!

I'm reluctant to post the video, below, that's been rattling around the blogs today, because I don't want to be seen as making light of the two Vermont deaths.

But the dash cam video of a nasty truck collision in Russia does show a very lucky guy who was not wearing a seat belt. He's definitely an exception to the rule, but I guess it wasn't this guy's time. Watch: