| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Home Front: WoT | |
| Gitmo no place for pop princess | |
| 2005-06-20 | |
Music as weapon is a brilliant tactic. Just ask former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. The problem at Guantanamo wasn't music. They used the wrong music and failed to call me first. Amateurs! Dilettantes! I could have told them about the Worst Song in the World: "Ballerina." In it Vaughn Monroe--known as "The Voice with Hair on Its Chest" and "Old Leather Tonsils"--annoyingly croons, "Dance, ballerina, dance." If you're online and an official terrorist interrogator and wish to hear a sample of the deadly tune--a measly snippet since Tribune lawyers are too chicken to violate copyright laws--then click here. If you're reading this in the paper, too bad, I'm not going to sing it, but go to chicagotribune.com/kass (ka-ching). Intelligence officials did their best to break the terrorists with unspeakable torments, including offering plenty of honeyed chicken, fruit, various breakfast cereals and, for the less devout, photographs of naked women. Then they blew it big time by using Aguilera. Her music reportedly was piped into the cell of Osama bin Laden's henchman Mohamed al-Qahtani. He allegedly was the 20th hijacker, the only one kept out of the country, so he couldn't make his plane on Sept. 11, 2001. "I will tell the truth," he was quoted as saying in Time magazine. "I am doing this to get out of here." Then he shut up. Because I'm not 13, I've never heard Aguilera's music. But a photograph in a tabloid depicted a blond showing cleavage, with her pants spray-painted on. Obviously, she's talented. But U.S. intelligence officials failed us once again. Had they spent any "time in the field" they'd know that hardened criminals prepared to murder thousands of Americans with jets would never be intimidated by some pop pixie. So, what's needed at Guantanamo is the Worst Song in the World, something so bad it would drive bin Laden to church, and not just so he could blow it up. I offer "Dance, Ballerina, Dance" freely to my nation. It would break any terrorist; and it could be used as part of the soundtrack in the next Quentin Tarantino movie during a killing spree, say Pam Grier with an egg slicer, the kind with wires. Others are now rushing forward in their own patriotic frenzy, offering their own Worst Songs in the World, hoping to break the terrorists before other nations make fun of us for the Aguilera tactic. "How can you talk about the worst song? You don't listen to music," said Mrs. Flynn, who once helped me with the column. She suggested "Unskinny Bop" by Poison, a hair metal band. And "Lonely," sung by Akon, which sounds like a chipmunk being skinned with a butter knife. "It makes you sick, the chipmunk thing, the high chirpy voice like Alvin, and they're playing it on the radio all the time now," she said. The Swede who helps these days offered up a '70s band, perhaps to curry favor with the geezer who hired him. "Anything by the Bee Gees," he said, fully aware that I liked Black Sabbath then. "The Bee Gees sound like castrati." Others mentioned sensitive punk rockers Dashboard Confessional, which is chock full of incessant whining, sort of like U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin worried about America abusing terrorists. "Baby Got Back" was offered, since it contains the immortal line "I like big butts and I cannot lie," but it is unsuitable for terrorists and children. "Cracklin' Rosie" by Neil Diamond was nominated, as was Donna Summers' "MacArthur Park" and "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl. What a Good Wife You Would Be)" by some crappy band nobody cares about. Yet let's not forget that the Worst Song in the World is "Dance, Ballerina, Dance," sung by Mr. Tonsils. I heard it while stuck in Hubbard's Cave on the Kennedy Expressway during rush hour. The air conditioning and the radio were broken and the only available station was an oldies one I despised, being then in the "Sweet Leaf" mode. So breathing truck exhaust, trapped in a rusty Datsun, listening to "Dance Ballerina, Dance" and snickering at my misfortune, it stuck in my mind lo these 20 years now. If I hear it repeatedly, I'll confess to anything. "Dance, ballerina, dance/and do your pirouette in rhythm with your achin' heart. Dance, ballerina, dance/You mustn't once forget a dancer has to dance the part ..." "Whirl, ballerina/ once you said his love must wait its turn/You wanted fame instead/I guess that's your concern/We live and learn ... So dance, ballerina, dance." A couple spins of that and any terrorist would sing. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #10 The three best torture songs: The frog song which is #1 in the UK. Hamsterdance. and finally the Barney song. |
| Posted by: Hammurabi 2005-06-20 22:37 |
| #9 I'd recommend the European Song Contest Wouldn't that violate the Geneva Conventions??? I mean, there's a fine line there TGA .... |
| Posted by: rkb 2005-06-20 21:26 |
| #8 Great Movie that was! |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-06-20 21:13 |
| #7 I'd recommend the European Song Contest. If that's not torture I don't know |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-06-20 21:12 |
| #6 cher wulda werk justn azwel |
| Posted by: muck4doo 2005-06-20 21:10 |
| #5 Blockbuster has it on rental. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-06-20 19:32 |
| #4 Oh, yeah. The name of the Movie is 1-2-3. It's not easy to find; I got mine at Virgin records. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-06-20 18:26 |
| #3 In the early 60's Jimmy Cagney made a B&W comedy about being a Coca-Cola VP in Berlin. His daughter wants to marry an East German border guard. At one point, the EG's capture him, thinking he's a capitalist stooge, and torture him by plaing "Itsy, Bitsy, Teeny-weenie, Yellow Polka-Dot bikini" with the hole drilled off-center. Gives new meaning to ROTFLOL. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-06-20 18:24 |
| #2 I would have recommended some early Yoko Ono. |
| Posted by: Penguin 2005-06-20 17:58 |
| #1 The Gitmo interrogaters should use this video. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2005-06-20 17:17 |