473 Sally Hemmings.

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( Edit Feb 22, 2021: This page has bugged me for years & I finally changed it after all this time. I vividly remember when I wrote this the first time & couldn’t figure out how to get from where I was to where I wanted to go. I had been thinking about the news concerning Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemmings that had come out at the time & my brain latched on to it. It was such a weirdly out of place joke, & out of character for both of these two, but I was on a deadline so I went with what I had. Strangely this edit came so easily I was surprised I never thought of it before. Of course at the time of the original I was getting angry people messaging me, so I dug my heels in instead of looking at things dispassionately. In any case, since this isn’t in the only book I don’t feel like I’m cheating anyone by editing it. I’m just doing what I like with my own work. Thank you, George Lucas, for setting the precedent. )

By some strange coincidence I mentioned Michael Jackson in my blog post the day before he died.  I wanted to mention it because I had a link that explained the probability of doing that.  Of course now that I need it I don’t have the link since it wasn’t part of what I saved when I reformatted my hard drive.  If I find it I’ll add it to this post, or maybe link it on twitter. 

Now, on to what I really wanted to talk about.

I don’t know why this page brings this to mind, but do you guys know The Song Of The Volga Boatmen?  You probably do even if you don’t know it by name.  It’s the song people use whenever they want to hammer home the point of something being Russian.  Every country has one.  A defining song.  A lot of the time it’s the national anthem.  Canada and the U.S. are usually musically defined by theirs.  Rule Britannia, or God Save The King/Queen is typically what you hear for England.  I err on the side of Rule Britannia because America stole the tune for one of our songs…  Much like we did with our national anthem.  In our defense we were just upholding a long tradition of stealing shit from other people that started long before we decided to get all national about things.  But I digress…

What I want to know is the names of the songs for every place else.  Most of the Asian countries just get that little Nuh nu nu nu Nuh Nuh nu nu Nuuuuuh.  Is that from a song?  Does it have a title? 

When a television show wants to show you that you’ve been transported to a given country what music will they use is what I am asking? 

I have a short list here, please feel free to help me fill in other places:

U.S. – Star Spangled Banner

Canada – Oh, Canada

England – Rule Britannia

France – La Marseillaise

Australia – Waltzing Matilda

Mexico – Mexican Hat Dance

Russia – Song Of The Volga Boatmen

 

31 Comments

I’m supposed to explain that Waltzing Matilda isn’t the Australian national anthem now. ;-)

It’s about an unemployed itinerant agricultural worker who, sleeping rough by an oxbow lake, steals and slaughters a sheep for food. When discovered by the landowner and accompanying police, rather than submit to arrest, he commits suicide, leading to the pollution of an inland waterway. No, really.

http://www.nla.gov.au/epubs/waltzingmatilda/3-Meanings.html

Those New Zealand bastards probably get a Crowded House song. ;-)

Be nice, Andrew. XP

I’d say NZ would be an Exponents song.

…Probably Why Does Love Do This to Me.

That little asian diddy is in the song Turning Japanese by the Vapors. It’s horrible racist and not from Japan at all, but in nearly every Japanese montage I’ve seen, thats what’s playing.

It also has NOTHING specifically to do with “Japan” at all. It’s about the way your eyes squint when you climax! I’m not kidding.

Is Thomas just giving John “The Business” here? I get the contempt in ‘that slow girl’-dude seems like the type to get frustrated with people who are not as quick on the uptake as he is-but the rest is, perhaps, too hip for me to be sure of.

J.T. – I hate to have to explain it point by point, but Thomas is essentially teasing John for being motivated by his sex drive.

i am very disappointed in him. :( ‘You’re into black chicks?’ what the hell does that matter?! What’s next ‘Oh, you’re into Asians? And Hispanics too?? Wooow… You like em with actual COLOR?! ” I am half Asian myself and dammit, I repeat: I am VERY disappointed. What the hell does skin color matter in the least bit? It’s sad that he makes that distinction

J.T. – I’m dissapointed that you would react this way to a sentance that is equivalent to “I didn’t know you liked Chinese food.”

This “joke” is very poorly executed, when I read I just see it was him saying “I would be racist if it didn’t affect my chances of having sex”

J.T. – I’m sorry you feel that way. That certainly wasn’t my intent.

I dunno “Its stupid to be racist if you like sex, it lessens your chances” or whatever the line was was wayawsomer I thought.

Incidentally, I love all races of guys. I find them ALL sexy. And although I am not sexually attracted to girls, I am visually taken with girls of all races as well :D

Also, in reply to the idea that this is somehow “racist”, I really dont think it is at all.
A LOT of people have preferances for what kind of people they are sexually attracted to, Just because a guy would rather have sex with a white girl then a black girl does NOT mean he thinks that black girls are inferior or hate them or anything like that.
Its the same as guys who have a thing for blond hair. Or brown hair.
Or heck, body types or boob sizes. There are SO MANY things on the human body that can be different on each person, that having some perferances is not a crime.

I feel a bit responsible for the death of Don Knotts myself. The day before he died, I posted a bulletin on Myspace talking about his superior awesomeness. When I read the news the next day, I posted an apology bulletin.

J.T. – Justin and I did something similar with a few famous people in a row. For a while we though we might have the power to strike down people from affar.

I think their should be room enough in the world to have discussions about race without it having to be racist. Whether by accident or design people of different races are different. There is nothing wrong with having a preference to one or another.

That’s awsome funny JT, but in my opinion it’s not about being racist, is a person racist for not likeing Mexican food? Or perhaps racist for prefering to eat at KFC instead of Churches? I say nay.

Besides all that, I didn’t find the first window racist at all. He likes all women, his friend didn’t know that, what’s racist about it?

Love your stuff, always will. When you coming to Garden next? I’m leaving for Aussie in Dec so we should say bye before then o.O

J.T. – I’m not sure when next I’ll be out that way, but I’m sure it will be before December. We’ll have to catch each other before that.

i applaud you for stepping out and making this comic. this is definately a delicate one, that needed to be worded carefully, and i think you did that very well. I also agree with your defense of it, this ISNT a racist comic. from what ive seen, people do tend to date within their own race, the fact that he is going outside of that can come as a little surprising for those around him. and more importantly: this is a comic, and these are just characters and personalities that the wonderful artist has created. this doesnt mean he agrees with them, it can be fun to make characters that piss you off or you disagree with. so, well done, and keep up the good work!

I think one of the wisest things I’ve ever heard about this sort of thing came from game reviewer Ben Croshaw who said (and I’m paraphrasing):

“It’s gets very depressing when you can’t make honest cultural commentary about something without being labelled prejudiced against different levels of melanin…A society where anyone can make jokes about anyone is a truly free society. Political Correctness censorship only serves to engender hatred and resentment.”

Personally the line didn’t faze me, and I don’t think it should faze anyone too much anyway. It’s just characterisation.

Wait do you mean to ask for the National Anthems of the world? Well this site here has most of them I think but I’m sure there is some missing here and there. Also you probably could have angled that Equal Opportunist joke a little better.

J.T. – No, what I really want to know is what song people most closely associate with a given country. And the source of the little Asian jingle from the begining of Turning Japanese while I’m at it.

J.T: Since you answered, I figure I should answer back. I was just curious for characterization purposes, honestly-I figured that was what was going on, but it took me a second read to really get the joke. Blame John for being so emotionally reserved, maybe. Either way, I think we learned more about Thomas with the first sentence in this comic than anything else.

And I don’t mean that in a “Thomas is a horrible person!” way-the girl’s earlier appearance implied that she at least acted a little thick headed. We just learn more about how Thomas thinks by seeing how he remembers people.

Well, first off, I didn’t see this particular comic as racist. C’mon, the little head doesn’t care what color the package is, it just cares that it can get into the package. For me, it’s more about body style and hair color. I really dislike bottle blondes, redheads drive me crazy, and as long as she’s not as flat as a 10-year old and decently proportioned, I’m interested.

Second off, on TV, I associate the song Sukiyaki with China. When I think of Germany, I think of Oktoberfest, and the Beer Barrel Polka. I’m not sure what music is played when shows to represent Scotland, but whatever it is, it’s played on bagpipes. Man… I guess I didn’t really help that topic at all, crud.

Wales — Men of Harlech.
Jamaica — Dayo? Or something more recently popular?
Ireland — Soldier’s Joy? The Sailors’ Hornpipe? Rocky Road to Dublin?
Thailand — Disney’s “I am siamese if you please”? Something from Rogers and Hammerstein’s _The King and I_?
Egypt — snake charmer music played on an oboe etc
Israel — Hava nagilah

Good news! I was not offended by any part of this comic (although I was a little grossed out; naughty John!). I can’t recall ever knowing anyone who would or would not date someone b/c of their race, and I myself like hotties no matter their ethnicity or skin color. ;) My hubby dealt w/ that b4 me, but it’s just as well, since I got him now. ;) But seriously…I have no idea what “Nuh nu nu nu Nuh Nuh nu nu Nuuuuuh” stands for. I lol’d my head off, though. :) Usually it seems like they play this “dingdingdingding ding-ding, ding-ding ding!” music, at least in comedies or parodies. It’s cheesy as all get-out, but it gets the point across.

two things to say here, 1 this comic isnt meant to be racist, but can be viewed as being so, 2 the equal op joke was funny as hell, and ppl need to lighten up a bit

I think the main thing about this comic that worried me was the characterisation of the girl. If he’d just said “That girl who (say) always wears pink)” and then “I didn’t know you were into black chicks” then it would’ve been fine, people say this all the time. Whilst i’m not black myself, It’s the extra descriptive context and set up that made it a cringeworthy line.

Slow Girl (Percieved as dim)
+Always wears sweats (Percieved as badly or slovenly dressed)
=Black chick.

Whether or not you meant this as the percieved tone, it comes across as if this was set up like a recognition joke. That’s most likely what makes people uncomfortable.

Wow… some people really took offense to something that they were reading way too much into. I didn’t see it as racist at all. In fact I saw it as a typical highschool/college girl. Around where I used to live a lot of the “valley girls” used to dress in sweats or pajamas all the time because it was comfortable and they could get away with it and still look cute. Unfortunately they were really dim-witted. I actually brought up Morgana to someone and had to explain, “You know Morgana, Merlin, King Arthur?” To which the response was, “Oh! Well I don’t do Disney.” I hit my head some many times, so very hard.

On the Michael Jackson/Don Knotts topic:

The chance that a given person talks about a famous person they don’t normally talk about the day before that famous person dies: quite low.

The chance that at least one person who isn’t vocal about a particular celebrity will publicly mention that celebrity the day before that celebrity dies: Something over 1000%. That’s three zeros there, meaning that it’s virtually guaranteed to not be just one person who does it, but more than 10.

But it still feels really odd when it’s you. And while I could feel a bit annoyed with Fred Rogers, I assert that he did not make a liar out of me, because I think he was still pretty awesome six days after he died, so I was still right. (Not that my public comment was posted on a name that anybody would associate with me.)

I know that it is not the, “nuh nu nu nuh nuh” song, but- a wikipedia article says that the Japanese song, “Sakura, Sakura”, is played a lot in International settings, as a song or tune to represent Japan.

“Sakura, Sakura”, lit. means- cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms. It is a Japanese folk song, that maybe originated in the 1600s-1800s. (The song is about Japan’s cherry blooms season, which is usually the Spring season).

Here’s more info about the song-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakura_Sakura

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