Ex Rainbow Ex Machina

Imagine the shortest 13-year-old kid in black poly cotton and shaved head you'd ever seen. Picture him being led hither and yon across the punk-rock troposphere by a cadre of underfed 8th street record store clerks. The Clash? Yes. Bad Brains? Yes. Iron Maiden? Well, ok. Richie Blackmore's Rainbow? Get the fuck out of my store.

And so I went. Back to the suburbs, where it would be years before those bastards had me in their flexuous clutches once again (and even more years before I'd again see the inside of a barber shop). Who needed those assholes? I had Rainbow's "Straight Between the Eyes" on my cheap stereo, the soaring pipes of Joe Lynn Turner flooding my poster'd bedroom with the majesty of rock.

Now, imagine my surprise as I'm reading the Arts and Entertainment section of the Observer. Sonofabitch! It's ol' Joe Lynn back for an encore.

Torn from LasagnaFarm's Legal Briefs

From CNN:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court refused Monday to intervene in a lawsuit over the hit song "Rosa Parks" by the Grammy-winning musical group OutKast.

LasagnaFarm’s legal correspondent, a legal correspondent so cagey he hunts down wild ambulances just for the tort of it (my apologies), has spent the last day and several nights all up in this case’s, er, grill. He’s also prepared some possible civil filings that could be in the offing for the music industry, should the judgment be against OutKast ultimately. “It’s like the court firing up some freebase in front of Richard Prior circa 1981,” said the obviously drunk correspondent, before falling into some trashcans outside his Upper West Side townhouse, and receiving an angry kick in the crotch by a Web editor, who fled the scene.

Ford Motor Company, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler v. The White Stripes, Ltd., Third Man Records, Inc., V2 Records, Inc.
Plaintiff alleges music group “The White Stripes” (heretofore referred to as “The Group”), made unlawfully slanderous comments and published libelous materials insinuating the plaintiffs’ culpability in the death of a child and/or related or non-related acquaintance in the musical work “The Big Three Killed My Baby.” Additionally, plaintiffs allege damage to their corporate reputations from said comments, citing such examples as “their ideas made me want to spit” and “better ideas are stuck in the mud the motors runnin' on tuckers blood” that fall outside the protection of permissible artistic/editorial license.

Good Humor, Mr. Softee (et. al.) v. Van Halen, LLP
Plaintffs charge lyrics of the recorded work “Ice Cream Man” (heretofore referred to as “The Work”) suggest a “guarantee to satisfy” among street vendors of ice cream product. Plaintiffs argue that they (and divisions and corporate partners) hold no such warrantee to be good and proper. Moreover, The Work makes reference to “all flavors and push-ups too,” which implies the availability of said products a matter of due course, an implication of indenture that is disavowed by all plaintiffs. Moreover, the lyric “push-ups too” connotes sexual innuendo that is damaging to the plaintiffs’ corporate branding.

Brass Monkey Beverages Limited v. Beastie Boys, Capitol Records, et. al.
Plaintiff alleges music group “Beastie Boys” (heretofore referred to as “The Group”) willfully disparages plaintiff’s alcoholic beverage product “Brass Monkey” (heretofore referred to as “The Product”) in recorded work entitled “Brass Monkey” (heretofore referred to as “The Work”). Plaintiff alleges damaged viability of The Product as a commercial good, insofar as said reference has increased liability of the plaintiff in incidents of underage drinking, criminal mischief, felonious loitering, property damage and defacement, and judgments related to such criminal and civil charges, as well as personal injury claims related to alcohol poisoning, unprotected sex, accidental dismemberment, fallings, and vomitorious incidentals. Plaintiff also holds one lyric in particular (i.e., “that funky monkey”) to have unduly characterized The Product, in that The Product is not, in actuality, “funky,” insomuch as the plaintiff makes no guarantee as to the actual degree of “funk” characterizing The Product. Moreover, The Product neither contains actual monkey, nor does it include as an ingredient, nor makes any claims to the effect that it contains, any substance of simian origin.

From CNN's CAMPAIGN 2004 DAYBOOK | December 10, 2003:

Wesley Clark
New Hampshire and New York -- Clark holds a "Conversations with Clark" with students at Somersworth High School at 11 a.m. where he will unveil his plan to ensure college education for all Americans. He then travels to New York where he attends a Clark for President Four Star Gala at 7:30 p.m. and later, a late-night campaign event with the Sugar Hill Gang at Club Spirit at 9:15 p.m.

11:00 p.m.: Everybody go, hotel motel Holiday Inn.

You Say You Were Born When? Show Me

As they say, a wickedly hard '80s lyric quiz. I TiVo'd all those VH1 '80s shows, watched them back to back one Saturday afternoon, reminisced like I was in a nursing home, and I still only managed to get 12 of these.

Wicked hard lyric quiz