.

It seems like Fashion Week SS’10 was ages ago, but actually the clothes are just starting to arrive in stores.

I love analyzing collections & predicting what trends are on the horizon. So, after perusing a few slides, I’ve concluded that come April the most fashion savvy among us will be sporting clown suits. Er… at the very least festive, colorful, circus themed pieces.

.

Credit: NYMag.com

^Alexandre Herchcovitch

Credit: NYMag.com

^DKNY

Credit: NYMag.com

^John Galliano

Credit: NYMag.com

^Marc Jacobs

Credit: NYMag.com

^Vivienne Westwood

.

The circus is coming to town!

These photographs/avatars by Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader sure do remind me of clowns. Despite the happiness and bright colors, these photos only remind me of one clown at the moment where the jokes aren’t so funny and the bright colors attribute no appeal whatsoever…

The one and only, Heath Ledger as The Joker.

Batman “everything” has been in the back of my mind lately. My cousin just finished the Batman game, Arkham Asylum. Haha, I regret to be very grim in this post but I can’t help what wanders in my mind after a few long days. The game is interesting with vivid graphics. I enjoyed watching my cousin beat the whole game in two days, but now my head is filled with the fictional sense of Gotham City, Batman, and his many foes haha. It makes up for a rather interesting imagination.

Director – Stephen Chiodo

Cast – Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder, John Allen Nelson, John Vernon, Michael Siegel, Peter Licassi, Royal Dano

Release Year – 1988

Reviewed by John of the Dead

This was one of my favorite horror films ever when I was growing up, partly because I think clowns are pretty damn scary(especially THESE clowns), but mainly because this film is just plain awesome.  Fun and very creative, the writers/director combo The Chiodo Brothers struck cult-status gold with this film and left the horror genre with a film none of it’s cohorts will ever forget.

This flick follows a young couple named Mike and Debbie, who one Friday night go out “parking” and notice what seems to be a falling star land in the woods nearby.  When they reach the landing site they realize that this is no ordinary “shooting star” because instead of a smoldering mass of hot rock they are faced with a giant circus tent.  Curiosity gets the best of them and they enter the tent, completely unaware that a clan of aliens dressed as clowns has arrived to their small town with one goal in mind…to turn all of it’s residents into cotton candy-like cocoons and devour them.

The biggest reason why I love this flick so much is become from start to finish this is a nonstop joyride of horror and humor.  The clowns used in this film are what I believe to be the scariest clowns put in any horror film, and their personas and motions really add to the creep-factor this film has.  I really liked how the Chiodo Brothers wrote in the humor for these clowns, playing off the fact that these are in fact…well…clowns!  The humor was creative and pretty original, and always came with a side of death and in some cases some pretty nice gore.  Could it get any better than that?

All of this mixes very well with this film’s plot, which is overall a simple one but turns out to be quite creative given these are pretty much clowns and not cheezy aliens visiting our planet.  The combination of all of these positive elements is what leads this film to pace magnificently, never losing steam or getting boring with needless scenes.  At 86 minutes, the pacing is perfect and you’ll be glued to the screen right from the get-go thanks to this film taking off so quickly.  I personally cannot believe that the Chiodo Brothers did not become bigger names in the horror community by putting together other films.  They all seem to do this and that here in the horror realm, but it is mainly small things and nothing like what they did with this debut film.

I have no major complaints for this film, but I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again…don’t go into these types of films expecting the best character performances.  The acting is cheezy, and its what adds to the fun of these flicks.  I personally would have liked a bit more gore, but that is only because of this film’s subject matter and how well the gores scenes it did have were done.  If this had been a gorefest I would have had no choice but to throw down a 10-rating for this flick.  No lie.

Overall, this is an amazingly fun horror flick that I recommend to all fans of the genre.  Even non-genre fans should get a kick out of this flick thanks to it’s fun humor and the fact that pretty much everyone on Earth is freaked out over clowns.  Highly recommended.

Rating: 9/10

Like, say, Al Sharpton or Jessie Jackson, or an angry ACORN worker. Or maybe a Code Pink type. But no, it was none of these. it was the President of the United States America.

His arrival was immediately followed by a pithy presentation. Right after his arrival at the conference center, he let it be known to those present: “The time for [mere] talk is over.” He would assume leadership of the negotiations.

Together with Chancellor Angela Merkel, the leaders of Russia, Brazil, Japan, the European Union and of other important countries, Obama went to work. But it did not go quite as the Nobel Peace Prize-winner had imagined. Only Norbert Röttgen, Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety remained optimistic. In spite of the tough negotiations, a compromise can be found, he said. “Today the die will be cast.”

Instead a fiasco had begun making itself visible and felt. It began during the night of Friday and Saturday. A small group of negotiators assembled from among the 30 important and representative countries, among them Germany, were still discussing the main features and principles to be included in a twelve-point document. It was titled “The Copenhagen Accord” and consisted of a three-page collection of vague aims, without specific legally-binding goals that were to be achieved.

Although China is among the worst climate polluters and has had a long ascent in becoming an industrial power deserving of respect and recognition, Premier Wen Jiabao was not among the participants in the talks-not that his participation was not desired. To the contrary!

According to rumors in the Bella Center, US President Barack Obama at about 11 PM, had impatiently asked to speak with Wen Jiabao in order to advance the discussion. But Obama had to wait. Wen, who, it was rumored, had rarely left his hotel room, could not be found. Finally, the US delegation located him in a room set aside for negotiations. A visibly furious Obama, according to reports, stormed into the room. “Are you now ready to talk with me, Premier Wen?” he was reported to have shouted. “Are you now ready? Premier Wen, are you now ready to talk with me?” What a scene for a US president.

Wen was not alone in the room at the time when Obama quite literally burst into the room, according to participants. At the time, the Premier was in a conversation with India’s head of state, Mammohan Singh and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma. Suddenly the group saw itself forced into a conversation with the US president.

This was the guy who was supposed to be better at foreign relations than that cowboy, George Bush? The guy who, through his charm, professionalism, intelligence, etc., was going to win the love and cooperation of the whole world.

Instead we have a community organizing clown who embarrasses our nation time and time again. Which would be okay I guess if his clowning actually accomplished anything. But it hasn’t. Iran continues to build its nukes. North Korea keeps launching its missiles. The Chinese keep doing whatever the hell they want to do. And the big climate change Copenhagen deal is a total bust. Not that last one is a bad thing because it ain’t. It’s a wonderful thing.

Fact is, Barry sucks at this job. He sucks at it worse than Carter sucked at it.  He doesn’t know what the hell he is doing both here at home and abroad. His popularity is already at a low that George Bush hadn’t dipped to even in his last year as president. The vast majority of Americans do not want Obamacare, and that includes liberals, but he and Reid and Pelosi are just too damn stupid or corrupt to care.  It would be funny if they weren’t so damn dangerous on every level.

May a pox be on the houses of everyone who voted for this clown.  If this country goes down you helped bring it about.

QUICK UPDATE:

Really?  This is our president? Who accidentally uses that finger to rest their head on?  Via Theo.

ANOTHER UPDATE:

Barry and his staff put a Mao ornament on the White House Christmas tree. And a transvestite ornament. And a photo of him on Mount Rushmore ornament. Obama, not the transvestite, although both are equally creepy in my opinion. These people are fricken nuts.

CLOWNS
you can NEVER be too careful

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Over the past couple of weeks, I have noticed a depressing trend. People in my social media circles and on the street having been making a great number of disparaging remarks about Old Saint Nick. Most are about mall Santas, but some aim at the icon himself–a jolly old man who flies around the world and lets himself into the homes of little boys and girls. My guess is that this proliferation of ho-ho-horrible is the result of two factors. The first is the H1N1 flu. This has been the season of protecting one’s personal space. Pediatricians are told not to where neckties, there are hand-cleaner dispensers outsides every elevator and rest room, and other measures of insuring under-kill through overkill.

The second, though, is more depressing. It is the trend of Americans in the last thirty years or so to generate humor and an air of personal hipness by denigrating the “motives” of traditional childhood icons.  This is what brings us to clowns.  Clowning had been a popular and revered art form for centuries. The combination of skills possessed by master clowns like the legendary Emmet Kelly were formidable–including mime, dance, magic, juggling and acrobatics to name a few. Then pretty much all at once, sometime around the late Seventies or early Eighties it became fashionable to hate clowns.  There have been three primary social forces working against them–the apocalyptic turn in American films, the growth of ironic comedy, and . . . oh yeah . . . a serial killer who dressed like a clown.

The post Vietnam era is marked by two obvious shifts on the focus of American popular culture. One was what I referred to above as the apocalyptic turn. The tradition of the American hero had always been of one who was slow to fight but good at it. Restrained but effective. The Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers would shoot the gun out of the hombre’s hand, the put their own gun away and duke it out. Lucas McCain, the Rifleman, who try to intimidate his opponents with demonstrations of raw skill before having to face them in the street. Even icons like John Wayne’s characters, Shane and Tom Destry would attempt to solve problems with smallest dose of violence necessary to do the job. Then along came Clint Eastwood who between 1973 and 1985 made three westerns–High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales and Pale Rider–that portrayed the protagonist as millennial scorcher of the earth.  His heroes were bringers of judgment not just to the evil few but too the inherent evil in everyone. The breadth of his destruction was Biblical, and none of us were without sin.  The Biblical judge was balanced by creatures of evil like Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers, who slaughtered the impure and who could not die. For the audience it wasn’t a choice between Saint and Sinner, because all of us were sinners.

Clowns used slapstick to mock our human fallibility, because doing so brought us together. Since we are all fallible, we should all be less quick to judge. When fallibility morphs into original sin, though, brutal and final justice becomes the par.  At the same time the trend in comedy was the pose that nothing is as it seems–everything is a facade, a scam, if not to hide our base intentions at least to hide our insecurities. David Letterman used his television show to mock television. Jerry Seinfeld drew his humor from everyday life and referred to that topic as “nothing.” The Black-White world of millennial right and wrong in parallel with the consensus everything sacred should be mocked spelled the death of slapstick and the tired obvious edifice of farce.

Then of course there was the guy who dressed up like a clown and killed little boys. John Wayne Gacy was probably not the first killer clown, but he has to be the most well known. During a six-year span between 1972 and 1978, he killed at least thirty-three young boys, many of whom he met under the pretext so throwing block parties under the pseudonym Pogo the Clown. Gacy’s crimes were heinous, and the clown angle was regularly played up in their retelling. Soon after than the scary, killer clown meme gained steam.

It might seem like a pretty broad leap from scary clowns to Jolly Old Saint Nick, but it really isn’t. The mood these days is to see every cherished icon as harboring at least a secret agenda and at most the subliminal hegemony of the capitalist ruling class.  See our Pogo the Clown and raise us a generation of predatory priests, and the its open season on any seemingly nice old guy who wants to put Jimmy or Julie on his lap. Just within the last few days, as previously mentioned, I have seen several posts in social media complaining about mean dirty nasty—and of course flu ridden—Santa, some wishing he and all of his cohorts would just go away. Am I just shouting fire in a crowded Styrofoam wonderland? Is it beyond the collective imagination that American popular culture would enthusiastically toss Old Nick overboard for no better reason than the short term “edge” appeal of doing so? I think not. I think Santa needs some vigorous defense. So in the next few days, when you see him in the mall or on the street go out of your way to perpetuate the myth.

Yes, Virginia, there is Santa Claus. And there is a better than ever chance he doesn’t want to kill you in your sleep.

Today I’m blessed withe the clowns (youth group) performing for us.  The did a great job, & Tara & Teresa were in it, too! I’m really glad they made up this “Clown Ministry” thing.

Tasha L. Thomas

I swear my life is filled with unusual and strange encounters.  This is nothing new and I highly doubt it will ever change.  What it does give me is the chance to meet and interact with some entirely bizarre people and some intriguing ones too.

There is the transvestite who was amazingly attractive as a redhead (and always trolled the local bars on Saturdays in his little red sports car and red mini dress).  Or the guy who thought he was Elvis Pressley and would dress up as a cowboy and told me he was a vampire going to bite my neck.  (I told him he wouldn’t have any teeth if he bit me!)   And I can’t forget the insane woman who came into my store one time and said people were going to shoot her if she didn’t rob me and then proceeded to roll around on the floor screaming.

Yep.  I’ve met some real doozies in my day.  Thankfully, meeting these people in my past prepared me for my future.

So it was no surprise that I would go to a restaurant with my family and spot a woman dressed as an elf.  Nope.  Not at all.  I almost lost my food laughing, but hey, a grown woman dressed up the way she was in public, you’d hope she was getting paid to look that way.

Of course, today seemed to take the prize.

I was shopping at Kohl’s and trying to find a nice bag that would carry my laptop and papers for when I student teach when it happened.

“Excuse me, Miss.”

I spun around to address the man speaking to me and it took me a moment to reply.  “Yes?”  I asked as I looked him over from head to toe.  I was trying very hard not to let the shock of what I was seeing show in my face and I smiled politely as if every single day of my life I talked to clowns.  Yes.  Clowns.

The man was standing in front of me wearing a worn out hat over a shaggy orange wig.  He had clown makeup on his face and a funny costume on, including oversized clown shoes.  In each hand he held a purse.  One purse was black.  The other, a blue green.

“Which one of these do you like?  The black?  Or the blue?”

I stood there for a moment looking at the bags.  The blue certainly matched his “colorful” personality, but the black was one that I was leaning towards.

“It’s a gift for my mother.” He said this as though it would make a difference.  In my head, it didn’t make a difference.  Instead, I was calculating where the hidden camera was located.

“The black one.  It’s the safest choice.”

“You’re a bit on the conservative side, aren’t you?”

“You could say that.” I said with a smile.  I may dress conservatively, but my personality is far from it.

So he went around the corner to ask the lady there the same question.  She said the same thing that I did and explained that the black would go with anything.

He soon went back to shopping and so did I.

After a while, I got to thinking…

Yesterday, I met an elf.

Today, I met a clown.

Tomorrow…?  What would tomorrow bring?  Santa?  A reindeer?  A cowboy?  An alien?  What?

Lord, I just hope it isn’t going to take me by complete surprise…

Christmas time is almost upon us and I can’t help but wonder what cool new things I should buy Sebastian’s love with get for Sebastian.  As I scoured the internets I was instead struck by the number of things I will NOT be buying for my baby.  Save yourself the trouble and if you are tempted to buy any of these, turn and run.  far, far away.

The Top Ten Worst Baby Gifts

First of all, let’s set our parameters.  Here is what we are trying to avoid. This is a photo of me with a traumatizing toy from my own childhood.  Can you guess which one it is?

While the freaky half-naked ginger kid on top is a little awkward, the one that haunts my dreams is definitely the creepy ass clown.

Perhaps the worst part was that the body was made of a solid wooden block… I think it was so it could sit on a shelf, but somehow my parents thought it would make a good toy for me.  Honestly, it might as well have been out of concrete.  Goodbye, childhood.  Hello, concussion.

AND SO, without further ado,

The Top Ten Worst Baby Gifts

(subtitled, things I will not buy Sebastian this year)

10. These stuffed toys

What? You will say to me.  That is cute, what is it, a stuffed sun?

No, I will say, it is not.  It is not a stuffed sun.

It is herpes (as demonstrated by the photo to the left). Cute Herpes.  And now, meet Herpes’s friends, Chlamydia, Syphilis and Gonorrhea.  Adorable!

And while this may not be the perfect gift for the child in your life, it just may be for your ex’s new significant other.  Whore!  Ordering Info here. Just please don’t give me the clap.

9. “Where’s the Poop?”

At first glance, this appears to be a book about constipation, which is no laughing matter, truuuuuust me.  Looking closer, however, the little boy appears to be wearing a bib and he is eyeing the penguin suspiciously…

The Amazon review describes the book: “This engaging lift-the-flap book shows children that all creatures have a place to poop: tigers in the jungle, kangaroos in the outback, and monkeys in the rain forest”

Wait, wait, let me get this straight, we are encouraging little boys to search for hidden poop now?  Last I checked, that’s all they do.

8. Baconnaise

As seen on the daily show, baconnaise is perfect for those times it is just too much trouble to fry up bacon, slather it in mayo, and then blend it until you can drink it with a straw.  As tired as I am of babies never getting to sample the truly gourmet products in life…no…  yeah.  just no.

7a. Baby High Heels

Aptly titled “Heelarious” I can just see two women sitting around, eating caviar off ridiculously tiny crackers,

“You know what babies need?”

“A pacifier slathered in baconnaise?”

“What? No.  A little sex appeal.”

“Oooooooooh, fershuuuuure!”

And while there is a good chance at some point Sebastian will want to try his hand at cross dressing…  I’m not going to get that ball rolling for him.  Also–bonus–check out the baby’s static induced mohawk.  that barrette is fighting a losing battle, hun.

While we are on the subject of gender specific items:

7b. Boy-rettes

Barrettes for the little long-hair in your life.  At only $8.50 from Kidcosmic.com, it’s hard to resist… but..

Reason the number one I will not buy them for Sebastian: our baby is hella bald.

Reason the number two: dude still looks like a lady.  also, did I mention Sebastian is bald?

5.  Anything related to Muppet Monsters, in particular, Sweetums

Patrick is (to this day) terrified of Sweetums.  Sometimes when, “Not tonight, honey, I have a headache.” doesn’t work, I pull out the “It’s yummy yummy time!” and Patrick forgets all about it, what with the curling up in a fetal ball and being hysterical and all.

Also, is it just me or is his nose distressingly phallic?  Although he does make a pretty convincing action figure.

4. Bib-a-roo

OK, I get it.  Babies are messy eaters, but this full body bib…

a little creepy.  It’s like a midget jumper mated with assless chaps…. for babies.  Here’s a child actually using it…

Functional?  I don’t know, I guess if your child is more likely to spill on his pants than his sleeves…

3.  Peekaru – ie the baby snuggie

Seriously dudes, wtf?  Before it was an internet meme, it was a real product, called a Peekaru.  As if a regular snuggie were not creepy enough.  For obvious reasons, you can not just upload a picture like that to the internet and expect it to remain inviolate.  My favorite photoshop jobs:

and this one, which expertly isolates the products value

My one question is, why photoshop a product that looks this creepy normally?

Now for fat kid/caterpillar hybrids!

2. This Teddy Bear

It seems innocuous enough, right?  Wait, what’s that?  It looks a little weird?  Well, maybe that’s because it’s made of placenta.  That’s right, bitches, while in some cultures it is customary to eat the placenta, in ours, you can send it off to have it tanned and sewn into a creepy as hell teddy bear.  And when your kid is all, Mom I don’t want to play with it, it says weird things when I’m sleeping.  You can say, “Don’t act like your too good for that bear, it nourished you for nine months.”  And then your kid will throw up in his mouth.

Although it does answer the age old question: what to do with all this pesky afterbirth that’s just sitting around here?

1. My Dinner With Andre Action Figures

Although, if he were old enough and got the joke, that would be awesome…   But still probably the lamest Christmas gift of all time… I’m sorry, I’m just imagining him sitting around trying to play with his “action figures.”  Classic.

BONUS – I will not buy this:

As much as I want Pat to bond with the baby, not like this folks.  Not like this.

Also that is a f-ing lot of milk.  Also Also, these warnings accompany the device:

• Studies were inconclusive as to the future psychological problems that arose in men that wore Mr. Milker
• It is NOT recommended that Mr. Milker be used as a sexual aid. (no shit, sherlock)
• Weaker men may experience back problems from the use of Mr. Milker
• Mr. Milker bladders have been known to explode in pressurized airplane cabins at altitudes over 15,000 feet  (good to know when I’m traveling to those international male breastfeeding conventions)

The Crush Liberalism Objective World News Service (CLOWNS) proudly brings to you, the fine folks who frequent this blog, the CLOWNS Radio Network.

Coming in January, 2010.  Details forthcoming.

I’ve been plaguing your eyes for five years, so why not warp your ears, too? 

McDONALD’S SELL SEX TO SELL BURGERS

McDonald’s is marketing to your kids. They want to snag your juniors early and mold them into lifetime users. In America, McDonald’s ropes tikes in with Playlands, toys in meals and easy going clown/nightmare fodder Ronald McDonald. Japanese McDonald’s, however, know what your kids really want: sex.

Today was the first day of shooting for Troupe Dynamic’s top-ten list for January. I got to wear my Notorious B.I.G. t-shirt and wave a fake gun around, make a fashion statement in a Snuggie, and dress as a clown.

Doug, Timmy, Hugh, Jay, and Janet

That’s all I can share for now. While you wait to see the new video, check www.troupedynamic.com to see our past videos. We’ll also have a small clown teaser up soon.

Remember to check www.thrivedecatur.com on January 1st to see the final video.

And, as always, keep coming back here to see some neat stuff.

“If we discover a desire within ourselves which nothing in this world seems to satisfy, then we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were made for another world.“ -C.S. Lewis

I fear…

* I will not have enough time to do what I need to do in this life.
* I fear the cold side of the bed where my heart once laid.
* Never growing old.
* Never making someone proud of me.
* I fear being alone while I take my last breath.
* My doors not being locked.
* What’s in the dark that I can not see.
* The closet door being open while I am in the bed.
* The company of a man.
* I fear my death.
* Never being able to say “I love you” again.
* Being hated.
* Getting lost!
* Not being able to breathe.
* Tight spaces.
* Gas stoves.
* Silence.
* Losing my “grandparents”.
* Dying in pain.
* My book not being finished.
* My life not touching someones.
* Drinking the last sip of soda in the bottle (spit) ew.
* Sleeping in a car while someone is driving!!!
* Being in a dream and it being scary and me not being able to wake up.
* Sleeping at night.
* Not being pretty enough.
* Clowns.
* Spiders.
* Pushing away love.
* Never hearing someone call me “Mommy!”
* My heart skipping a beat.
* I have a fear of the past coming back.
* I have the fear of someone not loving me back.
* Disappointing the people I love.
* I fear hurting the people I love.I fear not knowing whats going to happen when its time for me to say bye…

I fear I am at my end and I am alone…

Originally printed September 27th, 2007. Had I written this now, I’d of course have included the best idea for a goal song ever: Wail of the Banshee by the Crazy Ivans. Awesome intro, thundering, menacing, pretty much everything you could possibly ask for in a hockey/metal song. Don’t believe me? Check out http://www.thecrazyivans.com for yourself, suckas.

Good morning, hockey fans! Last week, we learned about how Eastern Conference teams and their fans are the tops! I was originally intending to write this week’s column breaking down, statistically, the crucial importance of between-period entertainment at pre-season hockey games when I came across the (in)famous Jeff K’s take on changing the goal song. Jeff K, for those of you who don’t know, is the 50-foot guy on the jumbotron that entertains the fans between periods and during TV time outs, and who also, coincidentally, is the Leader of the HAVOC Fanatics –although some so-called Stars fans (all of whom have day jobs as morticians and librarians) find the Havocs to be annoying, any true hockey fan can see the value of having people at the arena who are enjoying themselves and the game.

But that’s fodder for a future column: this week, we’re going to discuss the merits, advantages and disadvantages of goal songs. Currently, whenever the Stars score a goal in their own barn, they play President Pedophile’s “Rock and Roll Part II” — presumably because it’s instantly recognizable, allows the fans an easy way to say “Hey!”, and helps pay the steep dowries for Gary Glitter’s harem of underage Cambodian significant others. Now, the Stars have repeatedly said that Glitter gets no royalties from the song anymore, having sold the rights nearly a decade ago, but I think the Stars could do better. Here are some of my brainstorming ideas for a new goal song:

Pictured: my idea for the Stars' new uniform

Metallica’s Seek and Destroy: With its head-banging rhythm and barbarian blood rage ferocity, this would be an obvious choice. An added bonus: casual hockey fans would only have to learn four words to sing along — “SEARCHINGGGGG…..SEEK AND DESTROY!!!” Anyone, even a two year old child or SMU business grad could, eventually, learn the lyrics. The ultimate metal sing-a-long.

John William’s Imperial Death March: A decade ago when Juan Gonzalez was worthy of fear and respect, he had this as his regular at-bat music…. and it worked! While it may not exactly work as a song to be played after a goal –the song’s best quality is its menacing, foreboding dread– perhaps the Stars could play this every time they streak down the ice on the power play? Can you imagine how cool it would look to see Sergei Zubov slowly, deliberately bringing the puck up-ice while this song was playing? No wonder they don’t allow that sort of thing during play: opposing goalies would wet their pants.

George Clinton’s Mortal Combat Techno: Again, a song probably best played immediately before a goal, but what kind of hockey fan would shy away from screaming “MORTAL COMBAAAAAT!!!” at every conceivable chance?

Scandal’s Warrior: #1 Drawback: too many words. #1 Advantage: fans can easily go “Bang-Bang!!” and make six-shooter signs with their hands after every goal, thereby reminding enemy netminders of exactly what state they are in and what awaits them in the parking lot if they continue to frustrate us with their insufferable goaltending, defensive team play and hard work.

Shonen Knife’s Konnichiwa: Great chorus, hyperactive punk tempo, and sung by tiny Japanese girls –what’s not to love? An added bonus: after every goal, opposing teams have to suffer the indignity of 17,000 fans screaming “Konnichiwa, bitches!!”

Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick: This song’s 44-minute play should neatly fill in the downtime between Stars goals this season.

Metallica’s Damage, Inc.: I have no idea if this song would be a good goal song, but I include it up here primarily because I’ve love to hear my all-time favorite metal song up on those massive American Airlines speakers.

And even more pressing issue facing hockey fans today is the notion of the goals-against song. Currently, the Stars use “The Darkness” by someone I can never remember, which is far too stark and depressing to be played at any time during a hockey game. Psychologically, that song just adds psychological injury to on-ice insult, bringing Stars fans to the point of metaphysical terror every time anyone ever scores a goal against them. And for once, I’m not exaggerating: I’ve known Stars fans who think that going down 1-0 in the first period of a game in October spells D-O-O-M for their playoff chances in May. Thus, I propose these songs –along with my Psychology 101 take on each one– as the Stars’ official “Goal-Against” song.

Brave Combo’s The Chicken Dance: Rather than bringing the fans down, I think it’s far more effective to pump them up after each enemy goal. Also, this song has the added benefit of humiliating enemy forwards, cheapening the importance of their hard-earned goals and putting polka-laced doubt into their minds for the rest of the game. I can see it now: “Why are they dancing? Don’t they know I have scored the go-ahead goal in the third period? What is wrong with the universe? What does it all mean?”.

Metallica’s Don’t Tread on Me: After an enemy goal, the fans don’t need to sulk in their seats, expecting the worst for their team — they need to get up, stand up for themselves and issue a big middle finger to the guys who just attempted to make their lives miserable by putting a puck past Turco. This song tells fans to cowboy up, shake themselves off and get right back into the game before the other team is even done celebrating and pointing at themselves. An excellent reminder of the Business at Hand.

C'mon, Stars fans: this guy never stopped believin'

The Donna’s Who Invited You: Defiance is key here: you scored on me, but who the hell invited you into my house? C’mon, Stars fans, get angry!

Austin Lounge Lizards’ Industrial Strength Tranquilizer: For those games in which Turco/Smith can’t stop anything, this speedy country paean to strong drink should be perfect.

Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing: Sometimes all fans need is a little hope. And considering the Stars’ amazing regular season prowess at third-period comebacks, there’s no reason why Steve Perry’s soaring vocals shouldn’t be blasted out the AAC’s massive speakers every time Cheechoo scores some first-period garbage goal.

Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: Besides having the obvious effect of reminding fans that a single goal scored against is really no big deal, this song has the added bonus of a potentially-effective, jeering whistle that can be used to denigrate and belittle opposing forwards and their cheap goals.

But why stop there? Here are some miscellaneous songs that ought to be played at certain specific junctures of the game:

Jimi Hendrix’s Manic Depression: For whenever Hagman, Barnes or Halpern spends more than 45 seconds of a shift in the offensive zone without a goal, they could play “Manic depression is a… frustrating miss!”

Sound of Music’s How do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?: For whenever an enemy goalie is putting on a Luongo-esque show of brilliant puck-stoppage.

Frank Sinatra’s Send in the Clowns: For opposing goalie changes.

And finally, Hall and Oates’ Kiss is on my List: For right after the refs break up a potential fight.

There you have it for my ideas: I’m sure you, the Fans, have far more great ideas than myself. Tune in next week when I investigate the scatological subtext of the Stars’ jumbotron crowd-pumper messages.

Photos from ::big daddy k::, - @ndre@ -, robinneilly, Brendan O, and Syed.Munawir.