There Goes A Manta-Ray

The Rock Lobster is a type of spiny lobster which lacks the large chelipeds, or large pincer claws, commonly associated with lobsters.

This song is available on:

Instead of chelipeds, Rock Lobster have very large, spiny antennae.

The B-52s carved a niche for their B-movie style and off-kilter sound over twenty years and with sales of over twenty million albums.

From Athens, Georgia, the original quintet named themselves after the southern slang for an exaggerated "bouffant” hairdo, the B-52.

The band garnered much of its initial success from the "New Wave" movement of the early eighties, but proved their staying power well into the nineties.

>> Read more! <<

In The Shade

One of the world's stranger creatures, octopi can range in size from the 1/2 inch long California Octopus to the thirty foot, or longer, Giant Pacific Octopus.

This song is available on:

Found worldwide in tropical and warm temperate waters, the octopus is easily recognizable by its eight long arms, or tentacles. Each of these tentacles bears two rows of suckers which enable the octopus to latch onto virtually anything.

The octopus uses its tentacles to capture and hold the crustaceans and mollusks on which it feeds. Once the prey is captured, the octopus uses its sharp beak to pierce the shell of its captive, injecting a poisonous venom at the same time. The venom also helps to soften the tissue of the prey to make it easier for the octopus to get it through its small mouth.

Octopi hunt primarily at night, spending the days in the security of a den.

As carnivores, there is little reason for an octopus to keep a garden, but if they did, they would likely have it in the shade as they prefer the security of the shadows.

>> Read more! <<

Grab Your Barefoot Baby By The Hand

From the movie "Girl Happy" (1965), Elvis invites you to Do The Clam.

This song is available on:


From the movie:


More related:

Although Elvis could hold his own as a guitar player, he rarely played for recordings. The "twangy" guitar intro in Do The Clam was played by Elvis on an acoustic guitar.

The tagline for the movie was, "Elvis jumps with the campus crowd to make the beach 'ball' bounce!!!" However, this is probably the movie in which Elvis "Jumped The Shark" as it pertained to his movie career.

>> Read more! <<

They That Dance Must Pay The Fiddler

In the Old Testament story of "Jonah And The Whale," Jonah refuses the Lord's request to spread the "Word" in the corrupt city of Nineveh.

This song is available on:


More related:

Instead, Jonah skips town, taking to the high seas. God, of course, gets angry, as he is wont to do, and conjures up a terrible storm that threatens to sink the ship.

Jonah's shipmates are somehow aware that the storm is God's wrath targeted at Jonah, and, rather than be taken down with him, attempt to appease the Lord by throwing Jonah overboard.

Once in the water, Jonah is gobbled up by a whale, or other large fish. Fortunately for Jonah, the whale was a filter feeder or kind enough not to chew on its recent meal, large enough for Jonah to fit inside and held an adequate supply of oxygen to support human life.

So there he was trapped for days. If the consumptive whale didn't feed for those days (because if the whale opened its mouth, water would have poured in and Jonah would have surely drowned), Jonah would have had nothing to eat and would have been Starving In The Belly Of A Whale.

Probably because he got so hungry, Jonah repents and the whale spits out its passenger. Jonah goes on to fulfill the Lord's mandate that he spread the "Word."

>> Read more! <<

You Go Out, So Far Out

The Cow Shark, the Comb-Toothed Shark, the Bulldog shark, the Grey Shark and The Mud Shark are all common names for the Hexanchus griseus (bigeye six-gill shark).

This song is available on:


More related:

The Mud Shark is a deep-water species which can reach a length of fifteen feet, or more, on a diet of large fish (like other sharks, billfish, dolphin, flounder, spurdogs, rays, and cod), crabs, shrimp, smaller fish, and squid.

They are gray-brown in color with a paler underside which provides camouflage from both above and below. They have a single, small dorsal fin, a blunt snout and small eyes in front of the mouth.

The Mud Shark is not considered dangerous, unless provoked.

Although its liver is toxic, the flesh is edible and it is fished by man for its oil and meat.

The Mud Shark is found worldwide from tropical seas to northern temperate seas.

The mustachioed Frank Zappa is known for his avant garde orchestral music and mean satire, or for his contemptuous pandering of audiences with doo-doo jokes.

Listening to his music, or by the names of his children (Moon Unit, Diva, Ahmet Rodan, and Dweezil), one might mistake Zappa for a drug user. Instead, Zappa, a dedicated musician, limited his experimentation to his craft.

Frank Zappa died of cancer on December 4, 1993.

The Edgewater Inn is a Seattle, Washington, landmark, and is easily located by the large red, neon "E" on the roof of the building. It is built on a pier in Elliot Bay, there really is a bait and tackle shop in the lobby where you can rent a fishing pole and buy some bait and you really can fish from your room. The vistas provided are stunning as the ferries drift by with the Olympic mountains as a backdrop.

>> Read more! <<