April 7: Surfin USA
Surfin USA may be the most retarded song ever. Its lyrics are stupid and total nonsense, not to mention completely dishonest.
Consider this:
If everybody had an ocean
Across the U.S.A.
Then everybody'd be surfin'
Like californ-I-A
That just blows my mind.
Can you imagine what the planet would look like if everyone in the United States had their own ocean? In 1963, when the Beach Boys recorded that song, the United States population was 189,241,798. The smallest ocean, at the time, was the Arctic Ocean, which covered 14,056,000 sq km. For the sake of brevity, let's assume that everyone in the United States has their own Arctic Ocean. (Yeah I know, the Beach Boys were singing about the Pacific, which is about 10 times the size of the Arctic and no one would ever go surfing in the Arctic anyway, just work with me on this.)
Okay, let's multiply 189,241,798 by 14,056,000. Holy smokes, that gives me a grand total of 2,659,982,712,688,000 (coincidentally, that's also the number of times you'd have to beat me with a cat o'nine tails before I consented to watch one episode of Queer as Folk.)
Great, so we would need 2,659,982,712,688,000 square kilometres just so that everyone in 1963 America could have their own ocean. You'd need 5,215 Earths just to accommodate it. Heck, even the surface area of the sun couldn't take in all those Arctic Oceans. I don't know what Brian Wilson was smoking but it obviously made him (a) write really stupid songs about surfing and (b) wear plaid.
You know, there really is no elbow room on this. The Beach Boys aren't saying that the United States would become a surfing utopia if everyone had ACCESS to an ocean, they're saying it would only happen if everyone had THEIR OWN ocean.
But this statement is ignorant in and of itself. Lots of people live next to the Pacific Ocean and they don't surf. Of course, those people don't actually own the Pacific Ocean, they just have access to it. The Beach Boys want us to believe that if you owned an ocean (to wit: you had the right to kick tugboats and viking ships and manta rays out of your ocean for any reason at all) you would, through pride of ownership, insist on surfing it.
This is wrong. Ray Charles wouldn't. Yeah yeah, I know he's dead but Brother Ray was alive and kicking in 1963. In fact, that year he hit number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 with his cover of Busted, which is probably better than anything the Beach Boys ever did (except maybe Kokomo.)
Man wouldn't it suck to be blind and you have your own ocean? Think of it - all those crashing waves, all that marine life, all that foam - and you don't get to see it. What would you do? Invite your neighbour over? Why would he come? He has his own ocean to enjoy and he would, by necessity, be about 14 million kilometres away. You'd have to invite a Canadian. Canadians are far too modest to own oceans. Some Canadians on the east coast believe they own the right to club baby seals crawling out of the Atlantic Ocean, but that's another story altogether.
It's just stupid to think that if everyone had an ocean, they'd be surfing. I don't think that if everyone had a hockey rink, they'd be playing hockey. My friend, Pierre in Montreal, doesn't think that if everyone would eat poutine if everyone had their own curd factory. This is because we are smart people and we refuse to generalize.
Blind people, generally speaking, don't surf. Neither do people with Lou Gehrig's disease or epilepsy. Old people also don't surf. Neither do newborn babies. AND WHAT WOULD A NEWBORN BABY DO WITH ITS OWN OCEAN ANYWAY? Yeah, under the Beach Boys regime, everyone gets a brand new ocean as soon as they're born.
Especially the ones with bushy bushy blonde hairdos.
Consider this:
If everybody had an ocean
Across the U.S.A.
Then everybody'd be surfin'
Like californ-I-A
That just blows my mind.
Can you imagine what the planet would look like if everyone in the United States had their own ocean? In 1963, when the Beach Boys recorded that song, the United States population was 189,241,798. The smallest ocean, at the time, was the Arctic Ocean, which covered 14,056,000 sq km. For the sake of brevity, let's assume that everyone in the United States has their own Arctic Ocean. (Yeah I know, the Beach Boys were singing about the Pacific, which is about 10 times the size of the Arctic and no one would ever go surfing in the Arctic anyway, just work with me on this.)
Okay, let's multiply 189,241,798 by 14,056,000. Holy smokes, that gives me a grand total of 2,659,982,712,688,000 (coincidentally, that's also the number of times you'd have to beat me with a cat o'nine tails before I consented to watch one episode of Queer as Folk.)
Great, so we would need 2,659,982,712,688,000 square kilometres just so that everyone in 1963 America could have their own ocean. You'd need 5,215 Earths just to accommodate it. Heck, even the surface area of the sun couldn't take in all those Arctic Oceans. I don't know what Brian Wilson was smoking but it obviously made him (a) write really stupid songs about surfing and (b) wear plaid.
You know, there really is no elbow room on this. The Beach Boys aren't saying that the United States would become a surfing utopia if everyone had ACCESS to an ocean, they're saying it would only happen if everyone had THEIR OWN ocean.
But this statement is ignorant in and of itself. Lots of people live next to the Pacific Ocean and they don't surf. Of course, those people don't actually own the Pacific Ocean, they just have access to it. The Beach Boys want us to believe that if you owned an ocean (to wit: you had the right to kick tugboats and viking ships and manta rays out of your ocean for any reason at all) you would, through pride of ownership, insist on surfing it.
This is wrong. Ray Charles wouldn't. Yeah yeah, I know he's dead but Brother Ray was alive and kicking in 1963. In fact, that year he hit number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 with his cover of Busted, which is probably better than anything the Beach Boys ever did (except maybe Kokomo.)
Apparently, I'm giving the peace sign
Man wouldn't it suck to be blind and you have your own ocean? Think of it - all those crashing waves, all that marine life, all that foam - and you don't get to see it. What would you do? Invite your neighbour over? Why would he come? He has his own ocean to enjoy and he would, by necessity, be about 14 million kilometres away. You'd have to invite a Canadian. Canadians are far too modest to own oceans. Some Canadians on the east coast believe they own the right to club baby seals crawling out of the Atlantic Ocean, but that's another story altogether.
It's too bad it isn't just white people hunting us. Then the liberals could really get up in arms
It's just stupid to think that if everyone had an ocean, they'd be surfing. I don't think that if everyone had a hockey rink, they'd be playing hockey. My friend, Pierre in Montreal, doesn't think that if everyone would eat poutine if everyone had their own curd factory. This is because we are smart people and we refuse to generalize.
Blind people, generally speaking, don't surf. Neither do people with Lou Gehrig's disease or epilepsy. Old people also don't surf. Neither do newborn babies. AND WHAT WOULD A NEWBORN BABY DO WITH ITS OWN OCEAN ANYWAY? Yeah, under the Beach Boys regime, everyone gets a brand new ocean as soon as they're born.
Especially the ones with bushy bushy blonde hairdos.
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