Get Up Offa That Thing

251 is back.

I’ve been listening to James Brown lately, and that mostly means watching him do “Get Up Offa That Thing” on The Midnight Special over and over again.

The performance is terrific. He shimmies up to the mic. “I’m back,” he declares. He snaps and horns go BLAP. “I’m back,” he says and snaps again, BLAP. Then he turns his shoulder to the band, and they know what to do: BLAP BLAP.

James worked his bands mercilessly, but you can’t argue with this. These guys are tight, and what James wants, James gets.

You sing now!—the band starts singing.

Gimme those funky horns!—BAM.

Two times now—BAM. BAM.

And what I’m saying is, I’m jealous. I want a piece of that action, minus the merciless work. So here what I’m going to do, I’m just going to call out what I want and then I’m going to get it.

MICHAEL LITWAK, CARTOON ME—

BLAP.

MELISSA BALMAIN, POEM ME, TWO TIMES NOW—

BLAP. BLAP.

NOW, GIVE ME A LIST—

EWW.

This list was written by a number of 251 stalwarts working in collaboration, LIKE A BAND: Laura K. Duncan, Julien Perez, Jeff Kulik, Robert Criss, Anthony Scibelli, Lance Hansen, and, me.

Also from 251 stalwarts over the past two weeks:

• Robert gave us “Famous Last Words.”

• Laura named some “Discontinued Glade PlugIns.”

• Kristina Libby and Timothy Cahill were back with “Invoices That Can’t Be Ignored.”

And much, much more, including “Terrible Stripper Songs” and “The Weather Channel’s Greatest Hits,” and even more besides you can find at twofiftyone.net.

THE AMERICAN BYSTANDER’S THE NEW YORKER CAPTION CONTEST

Last week’s Caption Contest has a “winner,” i.e. a caption that I am going to put under the photo. But honestly it’s hard to pick! Lots of funny ideas.

Still there had to be one, so here we go:

“I told you your puppies were dead. Now can I fill the hole back in?”

Congrats to Chris Cordray! But really congrats to all of us, as our collective efforts generated so many ideas and no doubt contributed to the “winning” caption. I hate to do the participation trophy thing, but what can I say? Participation is wonderful, it deserves a trophy.

And now, for this week, here’s a photo I’ve been holding on to for a while, hoping that I could figure out what to do with it.

Well guess what, I’ve figured out what to do with it:

Put your captions in the comments, and let’s do this. HIT ME.