The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the XXII Sunday in O.T.

The Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Matt Maher, "Rise Up" from The Love In Between (Saint Mike Papa Whiskey)

Commentary: Ay my parish, Saint Matthew, we don't have large, one-size-fits-all O.C.I.A. classes. Instead, our Faith Formation Director works with individuals throughout the year; most candidates (baptized Catholics who were never confirmed or those baptized in other Christian traditions) & catechumens (those preparing to be baptized) are received into full communion with the Church at the Easter Vigil, but if someone is ready earlier, we don't arbitrarily make them wait until the next March or April for the Easter Vigil. This is the third Sunday on which we are hearing the Scrutiny readings, normally read for the benefit of candidates & catechumens during Lent, as we prepare to baptize &/or confirm four adults on the first Sunday in September.

Today's Gospel: the raising of Lazarus, which isn't normally heard in August.

Bonus! Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Mustard Plug, "Brain on Ska" from Skapocalypse Now! (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: This conclude SKAugust 2025, but never stop skankin'!

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: Go Blue!

Team 146, Game 1: Michigan v. New Mexico
Los Lobos, "La Bamba" from La Bamba: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Mike Papa Wolverine)

Commentary: Have I mentioned how much I hate night games? Because I really hate night games.

Go Blue!

Bonus! Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Less Than Jake, "Scott Farcas Takes It on the Chin" from Hello Rockview (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary:

"And when they drag you
Kicking and screaming from the scene, you know
That's it's time to go,
That it's time to go!"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

MU330, "San Fransisco" from MU330 (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary:

"Well I just got off the phone,
And I'm sittin' here all alone,
And I couldn't feel better!
It's my turn to get it and stick it,
And I'm gonna fly to San Francisco,
Gonna play with Johnny Socko,
And I'm gonna fly to San Francisco!

"I hope we go to Santa Cruz,
At the boardwalk we can't lose,
And I couldn't feel better!
It's my turn to get it and stick it,
And we're gonna go to the 50 cent rides,
I ride rides with Johnny Socko,
And I'm gonna fly to San Francisco!…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Johnny Socko, "They Know Us at the Spa" from Full Trucker Effect: Music from the Major Motion Picture (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary:

"Three in the A.M., Lincoln northbound,
Nobody knows me in this big windy town,
Gig is over but I'm not done yet,
Feel like shaking the rattle before I crawl into my bassinet.
Only one place, and that's drawing near,
Milk of human kindness, skunky Croatian beer,
Front desk Ray looks up and says, 'Welcome home,'
Ain't no more need to roam!

"They know us at the Spa, yeah yeah,
They know us at the Spa, yeah yeah,
They know us at the Spa, yeah yeah,
They know us at the Spa, yeah yeah,
They know us at the Spa!…"

The Explorers' Club, № MCVIII

Operation AXIOM: The Space Age—The 40th Anniversary of S.T.S.-51-I (№ 20), Part I
27-30 August 1985: The Space Shuttle Discovery OV-103 lifted off from Florida's K.S.C. with CDR Joe Engle, Pilot Dick Covey, M.S.1 "Ox" van Hofton, M.S.2/F.E. Mike Lounge, & M.S.3 Bill Fisher; the quintet deployed three telecom satellites, two of those on the same day & one a day early, due to accidental damage to equipment in the Payload Bay: Aussat-1, A.S.C.-1, & Syncom IV-4 (Leasat-4).

Commentary: S.T.S.-51-I was the sixth flight of the Discovery OV-103.

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: S.T.S.-51-I
Eric Bogle, "The Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda'" courtesy The Watergirl (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Commentary: The crew were awakened on 28 August by the song "Waltzing Matilda" (the actual "Waltzing Matilda," not "The Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda'"), presumaby in honor of the deployment of Aussat-1.

Semper exploro.

Operation ÖSTERREICH: Please Stand By

Please Stand By | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

Weekly Wednesday Weigh-in
Last weigh-in: 330.2 lbs. (12 June 2024)

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "The Rascal King" from Let's Face It (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: "The Rascal King" is definitely a song to which your humble narrator listened over & over again in the year 2000.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Edna's Goldfish, "Eventually Anyway" from Before You Knew Better… (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary:

"Why are you walking away?
Did I mean that little to you anyway?
Are you forgetting my name?
Well, I'll mean that little to you
Eventually, anyway…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Reel Big Fish, "Thank You for Not Moshing" from Why Do They Rock So Hard? (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: "Thank You for Not Moshing" is also known as "In the Pit."

The Explorers' Club, № MCVII

Operation AXIOM: The 1,700th Anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea
20 May-25 August 325: The first ecumenical council was summoned by the Emperor Constantine to settle a dispute over the divinity & nature of Jesus Christ; a priest named Arius taught that Jesus was not co-eternal with God the Father, but was a created being; the council wrote the Nicene Creed to clarify Christian belief in Christ's divinity & co-eternity; Arius's errors were declared anathema.

Commentary: The original Nicene Creed was only to reaffirm the Divinity of Christ; the Creed was revised by the second ecumenical council, the First Council of Constantinople (381), to reaffirm the Trinity. The Creed as currently recited by Christians is formally the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

'Twas at Nicaea that Saint Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra, eventually mythologized as Santa Claus, is reputed to have slapped, or punched, the archheretic Arius.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the Arian Heresy
"The Explorers' Club," № CCCLXVII: The Arian Heresy, Part I
"The Explorers' Club," № CCCLXVIII: The Arian Heresy, Part II
"The Explorers' Club," № CCCLXIX: The Arian Heresy, Part III

Semper exploro.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the XXI Sunday in O.T.

The Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
J.J. Heller, "Save Me" from Painted Red (Saint Mike Papa Whiskey)

Bonus! Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Save Ferris, "Nobody But Me" from It Means Everything (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: The modern version of Save Ferris are playing in Detroit in a couple weeks, but I don't think I'm going to go. I'm not cool with the way all the rights to the band & its catalog were awarded to Monique Powell, leaving all the other members of the band out in the cold. Just because a judge issued a ruling doesn't mean that ruling was just.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Reel Big Fish, "She's Famous Now" from Why Do They Rock So Hard? (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: "She's Famous Now" is the ballad of Aaron Barrett's lost love with Gwen Stefani.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

No Doubt, "Total Hate 95" from The Beacon Street Collection (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom (1995) was, alongside Green Day's Dookie (1994), the soundtrack of my high school years, before I really cared about music. (The Summer of Ska was the summer I graduated from high school; I've always been a late bloomer.) Only later would I learn that No Doubt had been a part of the Orange County ska scene before they .

The Explorers' Club Special

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 60th Anniversary of Gemini V
21 August 1965: Gemini V lifted off from Florida's Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, with Command Pilot Gordon Cooper & Pilot Pete Conrad aboard a Gemini spacecraft atop a Titan II G.L.V. rocket, the first capsule powered by fuel cells instead of batteries; the primary mission was to double Gemini IV's then-record four days spent on orbit, simulating the eight days needed to fly to & from the Moon.

29 August 1965: Problems with the new fuel cells threatened to cut short the mission on day one, but Cooper & Conrad pressed on, setting a new endurance record for manned spaceflight, simulating orbital rendezvous, & gathering a wealth of physiological data; Conrad quipped that he wished he'd brought a book; they splashed down in the Atlantic & were recovered by the U.S.S. Lake Champlain.

The Wayback Machine Tour of Gemini V
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCLXVI: The 55th Anniversary of Gemini V, Part I
Space Race Song o' the Day
Space Race Song o' the Day
Space Race Song o' the Day
Space Race Song o' the Day
Space Race Song o' the Day
Space Race Song o' the Day
Space Race Song o' the Day
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCLXVIII: The 55th Anniversary of Gemini V, Part II

Commentary: Gemini V demonstrated two important aspects of Project Apollo, that astronauts could live & work in space long enough to fly to & from the Moon (eight days) & that the new fuel-cell technology worked (though not without bugs), since batteries would not last long enough for Lunar voyages. Gemini V set a new space endurance record, one of the first times the United States had pulled ahead of the Soviet Union in the Space Race.

Gemini IV had established the tradition as astronuats wearing American flags on the space suits; Gemini V established the tradition of the mission patch, though N.A.S.A. management had the "8 Days or Bust" slogan covered up until the eight-day record had been achieved.

Semper exploro.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Where'd You Go?" from More Noise and Other Disturbances (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones are unique among third-wave ska-punk bands. I'm glad the Reel Big Fish & Less Than Jake are still out there releasing new music, but I wish their Twenty-first Century stuff sounded more like their late Twentieth Century stuff. I like the Bosstones' Twentieth Century stuff, like "Where'd You Go?," but I really love their later, Twenty-first Century stuff.

"Lit a cigarette, I couldn't smoke,
Wound the clock until it broke,
Went to bed then took a shower,
Stared at T.V. for an hour,
Did the dishes, made the bed,
Read a book I've never read,
Any minute you will show,
And I'm wondering where did you go?

"Where'd you go?
Where'd you go?
I wanna know!…"

The Explorers' Club, № MCVI

Operation AXIOM: The Space Age—The 50th Anniversary of the Viking Program, Part I
20 August 1975: The Viking 1 probe lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop a Titan IIIE (A.K.A. Titan III-Centaur) rocket, bound for Mars; Viking 1 consisted of an orbiter, to identify Martian landing sites & photograph the moon Phobos, & a lander, intended to land on 4 July 1976; the Viking 1 orbiter was based on the successful Mariner 9 probe, the first probe to orbit another planet.

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: Viking 1
The Skatalites, "Trip to Mars" from Greetings from Skamania (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.

Operation ÖSTERREICH: Please Stand By

Please Stand By | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

Weekly Wednesday Weigh-in
Last weigh-in: 330.2 lbs. (12 June 2024)

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

The Toasters, "Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down" from Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: Your humble narrator wouldn't come to listen to The Toasters until after 2000, but only due to ignorance. I would have loved 1997's Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down if I'd known about it.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Less Than Jake, "Danny Says" from Hello Rockview (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: Your humble narrator was nineteen when Hello Rockview was released in late 1998.

"He's only nineteen,
Burnt out on the scene,
He's just getting by on the memories…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

The Hippos, "Don't Worry" from Forget the World (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: I only became aware of ska because a few bands gained nationwide attention during the Summer of Ska (1997); I will never know what it was like in the SoCal ska scene before that nationwide attention. But the awful paradox in "Don't Worry" is that The Hippos themselves started to abandon ska on their sophomore album, 1999's Heads Are Gonna Roll.

"So you know that everybody's going to
The ska shows when it used to be just you,
You feel betrayed, alone, left out,
All your favorite bands have all sold out.

"Don't worry, I, I still love you.
Don't worry, I, I still love you.

"And now you see them on M.T.V.,
No way they're gonna remember little old me!
What's become of your ska scene?
All the bands want money, all the bands are mean.

"Don't worry, I, I still love you.
Don't worry, I, I still love you.

"So please come out to the show tonight,
I promise everything is gonna be all right,
The boys are gonna go and start a pit,
But all you wanna do is dance, you're sick of this punk bit.

"Don't worry, I, I still love you.
Don't worry, I, I still love you."

Saints + Scripture: XX Sunday in Ordinary Time

Simplex Edition | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

'Tis the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Tempus per annum, "time through the year"): Wikipedia-link.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the XX Sunday in O.T.

The Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Duvall, "Jesus Never Leaves Me" from Volume & Density (Saint Mike Papa Whiskey)

Commentary: The Lord is inevitably a source of division, because not everyone who hears the Good News will accept it; some will always prefer the Creation over the Creator. This is a source of grief to us, but even more so to Him. We ought never relent in praying & fasting for our kith & kin.

Bonus! Song o' the Day: SKAugust

The Chinkees, "Big World" from Peace through Music (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary:

"My love is not enough in this big world…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Dance Hall Crashers, "Go" from Lockjaw (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: My first Dance Hall Crashers album was either Purr (1999) or The Live Album: Witless Banter and 25 Mildly Antagonistic Songs of Love (2000), a great introduction to their catalogue. Only later would I go back & get Lockjaw (1995) & Honey, I'm Homely! (1997), & the The Old Record (1989-1992) compilation (1996). D.H.C. were instrumental in expending my conception of ska beyond the brassy ska-punk from Orange County (plus The Mighty Mighty Bosstones & Less Than Jake), because most of their post-1992 output has been without a horn section.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust!

The Aquabats!, "Ska Robot Army!" from The Return of the Aquabats! (Captain Thumbs Up!)

Skammentary: The Aquabats! achnowledge no sacred cows. They were perfectly willing to lampoon the conformity that often prevailed within the ska scene, somewhat harshly in "Ska Robot Army!" As someone who was a ska kid in the late 1990s, I perceived my fellow kids "skanking in their best suits" less as feeling pressure to conform & more as being excited to experience a sense of belonging to a community. The human heart is tortuous.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Slow Gherkin, "Shed Some Skin" from Shed Some Skin (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: We were just children way back when.

"Today's your twentieth birthday,
Alone you walk the banks of Maine,
As time runs out to write the second verse of
'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.'
While you're gone we'll be here still,
Just beyond those distant hills,
Could be that you got the upper hand
When you left this rustic never-never land?

"And my breathing constricts,
I feel the walls closing in,
Could it be that finally we're all
Shedding some skin?"

Saints + Scripture

Simplex Edition | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

The Popish Plot
"Heretical Nonsense… FINALLY!, Part 2"

Saints of the Day
'Tis the Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest & Martyr, O.F.M. Conv. (1894-1941, the "Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century" [the Twentieth] & "Apostle of Consecration to Mary;" A.K.A. Rajmund Kolbe), founder of the Militia Immaculatae (the "Knights of the Immaculata") & the Niepokalanów monastery (the "City of the Immaculate Mother of God"), martyred in the reign of the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Commentary: Wayback Machine.

'Tis the Thursday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Tempus per annum, "time through the year"): Wikipedia-link.

Saint Quote o' the Day

"Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did."
—Saint Maximilian Kolbe, O.F.M. Conv. (1894-1941, feast: 14 August)

The Explorers' Club, № MCV

Operation AXIOM: The Space Age—The 40th Anniversary of S.T.S.-51-L, Prelude
19 July 1985: Christa McAuliffe, a high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, was announced as the first Payload Specialist of the Teacher in Space Project, with Barbara Morgan, an elementary school teacher from Idaho, as her backup; McAuliffe & Morgan were chosen from 11,000 applicants; McAuliffe was to teach two short lessons from orbit & afterwards return to the classroom.

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: The Teacher in Space Project
MxPx, "Educated Guess" from The Ever Passing Moment (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.

Operation ÖSTERREICH: Please Stand By

Please Stand By | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

Weekly Wednesday Weigh-in
Last weigh-in: 330.2 lbs. (12 June 2024)

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Johnny Socko, "She's Righteous" from Full Trucker Effect: Music from the Major Motion Picture (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

The Scofflaws, "Rudy's Back" from the United Colors of Ska, Vol. 1 compilation (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: The Scofflaws are another band to which your humble narrator wasn't listening in the Year 2000, but I could have, had I been aware: The United Colors of Ska comp was released in 1993, four years before I discovered ska in the Summer of Ska.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Reel Big Fish, "Nothin'" from Turn the Radio Off (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: The August humidity & heat inspire more cynicism than I would otherwise feel.

"Every time I try so hard I get nothin', nothin'!
They say, 'Try and you won't fail;' I get nothin', nothin'!
I did all that I could; I got nothin', nothin'!
Tried so hard for nothin', nothin'!…"