T.Tiger Feels the Bern!

Dear friends, I can't even tell you how much time I have wasted online during the past few days enjoying two things: the sea shanty mash-ups, and the Bernie Sanders memes. Do I feel guilty at all for wasting so much time on such silly pursuits? No, absolutely NOT!  :-)

Oh, you've seen the Bernie meme by now unless you've been living in outer space. There he sits, masked, cross-legged, and mittened, bundled up against the cold. People have been photoshopping him into all kinds of scenes, and I have laughed at just about every single one of them. (And especially hard at the one where they've 'shopped Bernie into the famous Born to Run album cover with Bruce - and renamed it Bern to Run.)

So T. Tiger and the crew decided to get into the act. Of course, we had to put the trademark teal mask on him, for authenticity. And we got out our mittens, or rather ONE mitten, because someone as small as T. Tiger only needs ONE.  :-) So here is our own little homage to Bernie and the memes that made us smile.

On a separate but parallel Internet path, I have also become obsessed with sea shanties, after hearing this dude named Nathan Evans on Twitter sing about the Wellerman. Other people did duets with him, and user after user joined in. The short videos started on Tiktok and made it onto Twitter and YouTube.

How many times have I played the Wellerman song, or variations of it? Thousands. No, I'm not joking. There is just something hypnotic and pleasing about the songs on a very basic level; it feels good to see people having fun together despite our current social distancing limitations. Anyway, on this day, I finally BOUGHT two versions of Nathan's Wellerman song online. Yay, me! (And, go, Nathan!)

So it would seem appropriate for the soundtrack song to be a very strange video of Bernie lip-synching to The Wellerman. Since I've been waiting for my chance to slip in some Wellerman and other sea shanty links, here are a few more:

* the original Nathan Evans Wellerman
*Nathan Evans Wellerman family tree
*Nathan Evans official audio release
*Nathan Evans official audio release, Billen Ted remix
*Drunken Sailor mash-up
*Leave Her, Johnny, by the Longest Johns (community choir project)

Everybody sing!

There once was a ship that put to sea
And the name of that ship was the Billy o' Tea
The winds blew hard, her bow dipped down
Blow, me bully boys, blow (huh)

Soon may the Wellerman come
To bring us sugar and tea and rum
One day, when the tonguing' is done
We'll take our leave and go