3 Minute Climax - The Boy Scout Copyright Police

Mixed Meters finally returns with another musical comment on important stories in the news.

Click here to hear The Boy Scout Copyright Police inspired by this news story about the Los Angeles Boy Scouts' new "Respect Copyright" badge - which youngsters can earn by learning about and respecting other people's copyrights.

The Boy Scout Copyright Police is based more or less on the six musical notes visible on the patch. Click on it for an enlargement. There are three movements - entitled Scouts Dishonor, Thy Neighbors MP3 and The Lockstep March.

Copyright (c) 2006 by David Ocker - 2 minutes 53 seconds

3 Minute Climaxes may well replace 30 Second Spots (which have been getting longer and longer anyway). This one is really just 3 Spots all based on the same musical motif from the patch. I wonder if the Scouts copyrighted it. Explanation of 30 second spots

(Special request - this mp3 file for The Boy Scout Copyright Police is in a new location. I'd appreciate any comments about how easy or hard it is for you to hear it. Thanks.)

Tag Alongs: 30 Second Spots. . . 3 Minute Climax. . . Mixed Meters. . . Boy Scouts. . . respect. . .Copyright. . . activity patch
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30 Second Spots & Blank Wall 4 - Macaca's Jewish Mama

Only Mixed Meters dares to comment on current news stories in the form of instrumental music.

click here to hear Macaca's Jewish Mama - in honor of Virginia's Republican Senator, George Allen, a man who would be our President, already accused of bigotry because he called a person of Indian descent "macaca", who reacted to the revelation that his mother was Jewish (which means he could be Jewish too) in a way that leaves no doubt. Read a little bit more here and a lot more here. and way too much here.


Copyright © September 22, 2006 by David Ocker - 31 seconds

Many of us in the United States are living through history's greatest Golden Jewish Era. But remember IT CAN Happen Here. How easy would it be? Watch this hysterically frightening video of Borat singing a country tune about Jews to a group of my fellow Americans.

Here is BLANK WALL #4


Explanation of 30 second spots

Taggies: 30 Second Spots. . . Mixed Meters. . . George Allen. . . macaca. . . Borat

Blank Wall 3 - God and George II

"Let me explain the government to you. There's God, then there's the president and then there's my father."

Jack Roberts, 6-year-old son of Chief Justice John Roberts, overheard speaking to one of his young peers on the last day of summer camp.

This article came from here. I learned about it on The Debate Link a blog listed on Planet Carleton.

And here's a video trailer of the movie Jesus Camp (in which I've heard children are shown worshipping George Bush).

Someone has to train our side's fanatics for the upcoming mutual annihilation with their religious fanatics. But if that doesn't happen, these kids are going to become really nutcase adult citizens.


(Thanks to Tom Brodhead for the movie link. Click here if You Are Looking to Buy In Cleveland)

Pointless Tags God Bush John Roberts Jesus Camp fanaticism
Even More Pointless Tags God Bush John Roberts Jesus Camp fanaticism

Blank Wall 2

My suggestion that we could reduce suicide bombings in the Middle East by trying to convert potential bombers to fundamentalist Mormonism is one of Mixed Meters most metrically mixed moments. By changing religion they could enjoy their virgins before they die instead of after. Here's the entire post "The Power of Commercials, The Supply of Virgins" (Since then Warren Jeffs has been captured - without a shootout.)

The product of the downtown L.A. film "shoot" I mentioned is now online. You can watch the Anti-Suicide Bombing Commercial here. The explosion isn't a great special effect.. Maybe a more realistic looking one would placate more bombers.

Meanwhile Iraqis are sending commercials our way also. Would you believe I saw a TV commercial promoting Kurdistan, the Other Iraq. (Do they have nice beaches in Kurdistan?)


Tag Along: Iraq suicide Bombing polygamy Mormonism TV commercials

Winning our wars with sugar

I saw an LA Times article entitled Coca-Cola Goes to Afghanistan which reports that Coke is the "only major business to open in Afghanistan in more than a decade." (Don't want to register at LA Times? Here's another short article on the subject.)

Heck, what have we been waiting for? It's been nearly five years since we toppled the Taliban and I'm incredulous that we're just now pulling out our most powerful weapon - SUGAR!!! (Well, corn syrup probably, which is even more deadly.)

Of course, Coca-Cola might not be able to subdue the Afghan populace alone - I hope Phillip Morris will join the battle soon.

Here is a 1954 advertising movie, Members of the Family, part of Coca-Cola's successful campaign against the Phillipines. I suggest you count the number of times the announcer, with his hypnotic delivery and American accent, uses various forms of the word the F-word (um, in this case it would be "friend").

Here's a super-similar film aimed at Arabs. The musical number is more interesting in my opinion. Too bad we didn't use this weapon on Castro.

Disclaimer - the picture above is not a real bottle of Coke. Click here if you're curious what it really is. I think you'll be impressed.

Tags Along Coke Sugar War Terror Afghanistan

Lowered Expectations 2 - Blank Wall 1

According to a local TV station today is "a day the whole world will remember."

If we really wanted the whole world to remember we would say "September Eleventh", not "Nine Eleven". Do we know or care that the rest of the world might celebrate on November 9th.

But September 11 fits just so excellently into the U.S. political calendar; it's already a primary tool for manipulating our emotions and heightening our national desire for vengeance and revengeance.

Someday another attack, from the place we least expect, will start the cycle again. Want to start an office pool to guess the opening date of Gulf War Three?

ABC's The Path to 9/11 is getting a lot of notice for fictionalizing the pre-history of 9-11. The Power of Nightmares, a 3-part series from BBC would be a fine antidote.

Chapter One details the philosophical origins of our current religious & cultural war. Do you recognize these names: Sayed Qutb, infuriated by a coed church dance in 1949 Colorado, or Leo Strauss, who thought America ought to model itself after the TV show Gunsmoke? No, I never heard of them either.


Tags, Damn Tags and Statistics tv 9-11 terrorism Mixed Meters

Fallen Avocados 4

• A piano player in a high class men's room?
• Driving a baby grand on the streets (and waterways) of London?

Check out this video The Ad Lav Club with Dudley Moore at the keyboard, Peter Cook as the American television interviewer Hiram Pipesucker who impersonates the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (sorta), and John Lennon as the doorman.

Meanwhile, if you need to brush up on the personalities (and psychoses) of orchestra members (as seen by a conductor), read The Honest Person's Guide to the Orchestra (or try this link)

It has helpful info like:

• Woodwind players have IQs in the low-to-mid-genius range. Nerds with coke-bottle glasses and big egos,
• People who play the cello are simply not good looking.
• The clarinet is, without a doubt, the easiest of all orchestral instruments to play.

Tags you're it: Avocado Peter Cook Dudley Moore John Lennon orchestra

Fallen Avocados 3

Something I wonder about: Why is the CIA running Help Wanted advertisements on Fox Television during the Simpsons? Just what sort of people are they looking for? Someone like me?

LINK: Here's more help for lazy music students - learn to play the guitar, the electric bass and the drums all at the same time by watching this exceptional "video" (or "tape" or "show") called Three Piece Band - Kel McKeown splices 3 instructional videos (It's the one in the center; I've linked to it before - Maths, the video at the top, is a pleasant bit of English weirdness.)

PICTURE: Avocado, small and green, seeks hungry Squirrel.


Tags Avocado CIA videomashup advertising Kel McKeown

Fallen Avocados 2

Today's Link, more help for the harried music professor - this in the form of the 1953 Walt Disney wide-screen animated orchestration text Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom - in about ten minutes your students will learn everything they need.

Some background (including "Disney vs. the union" history) is available at This is Not My Blog. I can't tell if anyone was even credited for the pleasingly out-there multi-stylistic score.

Today's Picture - another squirrel meal, served on a bed of (mostly) fresh greens.



Tags: animation Disney avocado orchestration

Lowered Expectation - Fallen Avocados 1

In a time of deadlines here's a new MMF (Mixed Meters Feature) - The Lowered Expectation: one picture, one link, no rhyme, no reason, more often.

Link: Are you a professor of music history unprepared for your lecture on late 20th century electronic music? Play this piece for the little urchins and take some time off: Raiding the 20th Century by DJ Food. Always fascinating, completely illegal, mildly instructive, occasionally beyond brilliant.



Picture: squirrel food on our driveway

Tags that don't work:Mixed Meters DJ Food Avocado
Tags that do work:Mixed Meters DJ Food Avocado

One Market Under God

Not interested in boring book reviews? Here's a cat picture at Cute Overload. (And check back on Sunday for the Super Bowl Baby)

I'm not a fast reader (like some people I'm married to) - After months I finally finished One Market Under God by Thomas Frank. The subtitle: "Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy". Dense. It's basically about Business in the Nineties seen from the outside. (Still time to check out the cat picture.)

But if you ever wondered about the origin of our "capitalism solves everything" dogma - for example, the current nut-case Medicare Prescription Part D program - read this book. If it weren't happening to us it would be pretty funny.

In Frank's own words: "This is a book about the faiths and beliefs of business . . As a faith, as a simple, abiding belief, market populism is capable of answering all doubts and silencing all doubters." (p.98) A religion that businessmen can believe at the office.

Thomas Frank (his name links to his homepage) details an intellectual revolution - about how "great thinkers" (mostly authors of Business Management books) managed to convince the nation that democracy occurs at the check-out counter not in the voting booth. Just why did people think that any rich CEO is qualified to be president? And exactly what is a Cult Stud?

With examples from books, magazines and especially advertising Frank shows how completely the revolution was put over on us. The book should include a DVD - I really want to see the 1998 Super Bowl commercial for Oracle which compared that company to the Khmer Rouge (p.173). With other revolutions in the dust, businesses paid for a rewrite of history - with themselves as winners.

One Market Under God deals with a specific decade (the gray nineties) when the stock market would rise for ever. It was before the "War on Terrorism" when there was only one "George Bush". But ideas from back then are still steering the ship of state now - without much notion of how close we're getting to the rocks.

I look forward to reading this authors other books, like "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

Tags: Thomas Frank, Media, Business, Religion, Mixed Meters

Tags: Thomas Frank, Media, Business, Religion, Mixed Meters