1. |
The Powdered Wife
05:22
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1. The Powdered Wife (1609)
There was a beggar by the name of John
Opened his ear to a promoter
For the Virginia Company
“Come to the New World
See for yourself
The fortunes that await”
The beggar boarded the ship
That set sail
On a venture
Full of hope and fear
After docking in Jamestown
John kissed the ground
Chased prosperity
And a sweet wife
Rather than toil for a golden vegetable
The people prospected metal
They packed a ship
Sent it back home
Only to learn it was fool’s gold.
A supply ship left Plymouth
But it was swallowed by the sea
Its people’s bones turned to coral
Their eyes to pearls
By the winter of 1609
It was a starving time
Of naked misery
One man pilfered two pints of oats
The company made him rue the day
They punctured his tongue
Chained him to a post
Left him to starve to death
Hunger seized everyone
The horses, cats, and dogs none were safe
They cut up the leather of their shoes
And had nothing to drink
But brackish water
The hunger pushed beggar John to think
Of his sweet wife
She was so sweet and savory
In her sleep, he took her life
Chopped her into pieces
Powdered each one up
One night he roasted her steak
The next boiled some cheek
Finally, he found her best carbonado’d
The rest of the company
Grew suspicious
Of his lusty looks
Most pernicious
The company put him on trial
Then argued over his fate
Of the monster they said
They did not create
Bash in his skull
Stab him in the belly
Instead they tied him to a stake
Stoked a raging fire
As he was burning
His gut was turning
All of the Virginia Company
Heard his cry:
“So much pain and misery
For trying to live happily
No today
No tomorrow
Where can we drown our sorrow
So much woe and misery
Chasing prosperity
What is here today
Is gone tomorrow
Hunger only brings sorrow”
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2. |
Led To The Slaughter
02:31
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2. Led To The Slaughter (1885 or thereabouts)
Feeling so lonesome
Living in this sod house
Burning buffalo chips
In the middle of the night
I hear my flock screaming
Run outside
Find my sheep
Clubbed to death
On the prairie
Two cowboys standing tall
Tell me what a bad idea it was
To cut their barbed wire fence
At gunpoint
They made me
Get on all fours
Make the sounds of a lamb
When they had their fun
They beat me within an inch of my life
After weeks on my back
Trying to revive
Watching that train go by
Passengers shooting Buffalo
Leaving them to die
Put on my boots
Caked in sheep shit
Take my rifle
Hunt those cowboys down
Shoot one in the head
His brains on the dirt
Shot a hole in the other
Hits him in the gut
Walk up to him
Blow his brains out
After these serious offenses
And no pot to piss in
I hop that train
Take me away
From this God forsaken barbed wire grave
Out to mountain country
Where I can use sticks
instead of buffalo chips
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3. |
The Velvet Swing
02:15
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3. The Velvet Swing (1906)
Stanford White had no formal training
He learned on the job
Eventually he became an architect
The Vanderbilts were a customer
He married into a rich family
But still he didn’t have it all
On 24th street, he had a place
With a secret entrance
He wooed young damsels
Took them into his secret chamber
Where he would tell them
To swing on his velvet swing
Swing back and forth
Swing up and down
One girl by the name of Evelyn Nesbit
Had the most delicious skill
On and off stage
She swing, swang, and swung for White
Years later she married another millionaire
Henry Thaw who was bothered
By the stories she told him
For years, Thaw couldn’t get
The swing out of his head
White had swung with her first
One evening at
The Madison Square Garden Theater
The finale of a musical performance
Played “I could love a million girls”
Thaw approached White
Shoved a pistol in his face
Told him he ruined his wife
White looked down the barrel
White looked at Thaw’s face
Thought he looked petty and stupid
Before White could convey this sentiment
Thaw fired three rounds
Blowing White’s face clean off
The crowd cheered
At what they thought was a gag
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4. |
Westinghoused
01:21
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4. Westinghoused (1890)
Once there was a battle between AC and DC
The former was cheaper and had more efficiency
Thomas Edison saw the writing on the wall
His beloved DC was to take a fall
So he began a smear campaign in the public's fog
He fried everything from cat to dog
In public demonstrations
With his rival's AC joltilations
When an electrocution using AC was announced
By his rival George Westinghouse
In 1890, a wife murderer
Sat in the first electric chair
The first shock knocked him out and burnt his hair
The people stood and watched in shock
As the chair had to recharge for another shock
The second current burnt a hole in his spine
The room smelled of burnt swine
As Edison would say about the roasted spouse
He was Westinghoused
Despite the gruesome display
AC ruled the day
Still years later after Edison had already lost the battle
He staged and filmed one last zap of an animal
The murderous circus elephant Topsy
Was burned to a crisp
When the smoke settled
AC still ruled the day
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5. |
Phineas Gage
03:16
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5. Phineas Gage (1848)
September 13th 1848
Phineas Gage charged a hole to blast rock for the Rutland and Burlington Railroad in Vermont. The powder and fuse were in the hole. While Gage was tamping it with an iron rod, he was distracted by his men in the pit behind him. He dropped the iron upon the charge and it struck fire upon the rock. The explosion projected the iron
passing completely through his head. His gang took him back to the hotel where Doctor Harlow treated him. His brain protruded from the opening and hanged in shreds upon the hair. The globe of the left eye left its orbit. The pulsations of the brain were distinctly seen and felt. To ascertain if there were foreign bodies in the brain, The doctor probed it with his index finger. The doctor removed small pieces of bone and removed an ounce or more of the protruding brain. He replaced the larger pieces of bone as best as he could. Gage’s face, hands,
and arms were deeply burned. On the 14th Phineas asked who replaced him at work. On the following day he lost control of his mind. Became delirious with occasional lucid intervals. On the 16th particles of brain discharged from Gage’s mouth. By the 23rd he lost vision in his left eye. On the 27th the doctor had to cut off fungi sprouting from the brain and with a scalpel released eight ounces of pus and blood. In October, Gage’s mental faculties oscillated. One day he was clear. Another childish. On November 25th Gage returned home. For the next 12 years, Phineas Gage found work. He ended up in Chile driving a 6 horse coach. Eventually made his way to San Francisco where he suffered epileptic fits until his death on May 21 1861.
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6. |
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6. Panaceas For All Complications (1890's)
The following medicinal cures are sold
by all druggists.
An official of the US Senate who was afflicted
by a scrofulous affection which affected
his face was restored to health
by six bottles of Swaim’s Panacea.
Hamlin’s Wizard Oil is the greatest family remedy
for rheumatism, neuralgia, toothache,
diptheria, lame back, sprains, bruises,
corns, cramps and all pain and inflammation.
Have you anemia, female trouble, kidney trouble,
liver trouble, or any other common
ailment? Drink Radioactive Water.
Try Genuine Kickapoo Indian Sagwa – a compound
of roots, herbs, barks, gums, and
leaves. Its elements are blood-making,
blood-cleansing, and life-sustaining.
A boy was absolutely helpless.
His lower limbs were paralyzed.
In four months he
was able to go to school.
It was nothing else in the world
that saved the boy than
Dr. William’s Pink Pills for Pale People.
For the relief and cure of asthma,
chronic bronchitis, and asthma smoke ozone paper.
These lyrics were written by
the advertisers of these products
in the late 19th century.
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7. |
Pullman Company Town
01:36
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7. Pullman Company Town (1893)
In the state of Illinois in 1893
Thousands of people lived in a town
Owned by the Pullman Palace Car Company
In exchange for their labor,
Their rent was deducted for housing with plumbing and gas
In exchange for their life outside the company,
They had access to the company library, church, and market
In exchange for their allegiance
They gave up newspapers and the right to public speeches
In exchange for their livelihood,
They submitted to home inspections and 10 day eviction notices
In 1893
A Pullman laborer said it best
“We are born in a Pullman house,
fed from Pullman shops,
Taught in the Pullman schools,
Catechized in the Pullman church,
And when we die we shall go to the Pullman hell.”
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8. |
The Death Machine
02:55
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8. The Death Machine (1864)
In the Civil War
The Confederates made a death machine
The H.L. Hunley was a submarine
The cannister took a crew of eight
Seven to push and pull the hand crank
One to navigate
On the first test
The skipper accidentally stepped on a lever
Only the skipper and two others survived
But the Hunley was recovered
On the second test
The entire crew drowned
Still the Hunley was recovered
In February 1864
The skipper, Lt. Dixon brought his lucky gold coin
That took a bullet for him at the battle of Shiloh
The crew heaved and hoed on the crank
Lt. Dixon aimed the spar torpedo mounted on the nose
Of the submarine straight for a Union steamship
Hunley rammed the ship
Punctured the hull
Detatched the torpedo
And tried to gain distance before
Detonating
The steamship went down
But so did the Hunley
Which turned from a submarine into a coffin
Taking the crew
And the skipper with his lucky coin
To the bottom of the sea
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9. |
Colter's Run
01:55
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9. Colter's Run (1810)
Colter and Potts trapped beaver
Secretly in Blackfoot Country
One morning they paddled up Jefferson’s Fork
Instead of finding their traps
They fell into one
Hundreds of Blackfoot awaited the thieves
Colter disembarked
But Potts panicked
And shot a Blackfoot
Colter saw his partner die,
So riddled with arrows
He looked like a pine cone
The Blackfoot stripped Colter naked
The chief made sport of the poacher
And ordered him to run for his life
Colter ran for miles
Over prickly pears
Needles skewered his feet
The strain gave him a bloody nose
But Colter kept running
Only one Blackfoot gained on him
The Blackfoot fell
And Colter pinned him to the ground
With his own spear
Colter heard the war cry
As he reached the river, dove in,
And swam like a beaver
Searching for wood
He found a timber raft
Hid under it
The Blackfoot stood on the raft above him
But the Blackfoot quit
Their sport and lost their game
Naked and starving
With no weapons to fight or hunt with
Colter walked for seven days
Until he reached a fort
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10. |
The Silk Weaver
01:38
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10. The Silk Weaver (1900)
In silk City New Jersey
Gaetano Bresci was working
At his loom
When he got the news from Italy
That his sister died
In a protest of hungry workers for bread
When King Umberto’s general
Fired cannons into the crowd
Killing over 90
Gaetano Bresci learned
That the King even decorated
The general for restoring order
So Bresci took back his loan
From an anarchist newspaper
Told none of his friends about his plans
Left his wife and child
And returned to Italy where he
Bided his time at a relative’s hotel
Bresci purchased a 32 calibre, double-acting,
Rubber handled revolver
The silk weaver fired rounds every day
Until it became second nature
On July 29, 1900
In pomp, bedecked with medals
King Umberto awarded athletes at a ceremony
While people starved in the streets
After the display
The king stepped down from the podium
And sat in his open coach
When Gaetano Bresci broke out from the crowd
He shot King Umberto three times in the chest
Bresci shouted to the crowd
“I have not shot Umberto. I have killed the king.
I have killed a principle.”
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11. |
Shanghai Chicken
02:16
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11. Shanghai Chicken (1873)
I’m the ghost of the Shanghai Chicken
You might know me by my Christian name
John Devine
I raised hell in San Francisco
Every brothel and boarding house knew me
I was a runner for a crimp
Luring sailors to saloons
Where bartenders of ill repute
Would lace the drinks
Pull the lever
Sending a sailor
Down the trapdoor
To his doom
Years of hard labor
For captains who purchased his debt
I shanghaid countless men
Robbed, injured, and murdered
Dunces, fools, and idiots
They arrested me 79 times
But a sentence never stuck
I took no heed of any warning
Once I lost my hand in a knife fight
But that didn’t stop me
From pursuing my dirty lines of work
But luck runs out for any man
On May 14, 1873
I found myself standing on my own trapdoor
With a noose for a necklace
I only murdered another gullible sailor
Finally the law returned the favor
Shanghaid me
Straight down to hell
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12. |
A Psalm of Life
01:58
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12. A Psalm of Life (1838)
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait
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Peter Ellis Los Angeles, California
When not suffering from moral turpitude, morbid fixations, and delusions of grandeur, I am taking my coffee very seriously.
My favorite albums of 2014:
Ariel Pink's Pom Pom,
Luluc's Passerby, Real Estate's Atlas,
Stephen Malkmus' Wig Out at Jagbags, Pallbearer's Foundation of Burden,
Ty Segall's Manipulator,
and
J Mascis' Tied to a Star
... more
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