Superstition is alive and well. People believe in UFOs and Bigfoot, Santa Claus and Satan, heaven and hell, and global conspiracies of Jewish bankers. They swear they saw Christ on a pizza, or the skunk ape on a camping trip. Skeptic Magazine founder Michael Shermer takes us through some strange things people believe - from alien encounters to hidden messages revealed while playing "Stairway to Heaven" backwards. He explains the evolutionary and cognitive basis for these lapses in reason. Shermer is the author of "Why People Believe Weird Things."
Led Zeppelin: Satanic messengers from Hell or classic rock band?
According to John Hodgman, in The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes, authors and books are funny "because they are sad. They are as sad as zeppelins are -- they wish to soar, but they are using a technology that is old, largely forgotten, highly flammable." Hodgman triggers a synaptic linkage, bringing a huge, old, largely forgotten, highly flammable rock band to mind. Unlike cartoonist Ellen Forney, who wrote and illustrated the comic "I [heart] Led Zeppelin," my feelings are complicated. I don't [heart] them uncritically. It's more of a love/hate relationship. They are overwrought, lumbering, reactionary, and personify all the rockist wretched excess of stadium groups punk came along to destroy. Zep stocks the "classic rock" stations like rack-jobbers, providing tired old warhorses for button-down nostalgics, and false memories for kids who weren't even there in the first place. Honestly, I could do without hearing "Stairway to Heaven" ever again.
On the other hand, once in a while, the behemoth lifts off. Those moments rattle me with cognitive dissonance; I know I shouldn't like it, but I do. The earth moves, and Led Zep, that improbable wasp trapped in fossilized amber, somehow takes wing. Watch this clip of "Kashmir." You wonder, will this thing ever fly? It does.
Yes, the mighty Led Zeppelin is touring again, and here at the Nine Pound Hammer we're paying tribute to the Hammer of the Gods. We salute the band that launched a thousand other bands, all worse than the original. The first two albums were classics, no question. And there were other great songs in the later lumbering years of wretched excess. Besides, nobody could throw a TV out of a hotel window quite like Led Zeppelin. With that in mind, here are the early Beatles performing a Zeppelin classic, "Stairway to Heaven." Just kidding. This is actually a band out of Australia doing an hilarious spoof of the Fab Four covering Led Zep. This is heavy, dude.
And remember. If there's a bustle in your hedgerow don't be alarmed now. Whatever that means.
Led Zeppelin: Satanic messengers from Hell or classic rock band?
