Every once in a while, a new poster asks, "Gee, Ace, I kinda like your site, but what the hell is the deal with the cowbell?"

I feel I have to respond, because, as we all know, cowbell is the "real issue" in this presidential campaign.

Long story short, cowbell is good. I put the cowbell up for good economic news.

You're gonna want that cowbell. All you babies are gonna be wearin' gold-plated diapers if we just have enough cowbell.

And yet, some are still perplexed. This is a wonderment to me. I can scarcely begin to imagine that anyone, anywhere does not yet know of the magic of the cowbell.

If you want an explanation, here are two.

This is the video of the famous SNL cowbell sketch.

If that goes down, due to our scary-enormous Ace-o-Lanch effect, then you can content yourselves with transcript/description/ovation to the most awesome sketch ever involving 1) Will Farrell 2) Christopher Walken and 3) a cowbell.

The video was found on The Cowbell Chronicles blog. RDBrewer gets a double hat-tip for first pointing this out.

The quality of the video is pretty darn good, and it's pretty quick if you've got broadband (10-15 seconds download time).

Even if you've got dial-up, trust me, fellas-- you're gonna want that cowbell.

If you don't want to download video, you could at least listen to the theme from Simon & Simon, and ponder what the theme -- nay, the show itself -- would be without all that kickin' cowbell.

And of course this cowbell-enhanced Christopher Walken rap was redubbed for me by Blaster's Blog.

Kinda Related Update: The other big in-joke here involves Mr. Paul Anka. Any time you see some strange reference to "When I move, I slice like a fucking hammer," or "Vinny Falcone," or "integrity" versus "loose shit," that's all from this howlingly funny audio of Mr. Paul Anka cursing the life out of his band for five minutes or so, occasionally breaking to ask Zen-like questions like "Do you like your jobs? Do you want to keep your fucking jobs? Well do you?"

It's not exactly work-safe, but it's almost worth risking getting fired over.

And if you think it's pretty funny to hear Mr. Paul Anka tell his band "don't make a fucking maniac out of me," then you might want to check the additional material listed in the Almost Complete Paul Anka Archives, also found in the sidebar.