Charlie Sloth: Brooklyn Rap
This is exactly the kind of thing that would play well in Park Slope (or Williamsburg, or Boston — or anywhere else liberal white American culture grows).
Supertramp: The Logical Song
Hey, did you one better today: got some lyrics (and a retro MTV intro).
When I was young it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle; oh it was beautiful, magical…
And all the birds in the trees well they’d be singing so happily; oh joyfully, oh playfully, watching me…
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, oh responsible, practical…
And then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical.There are times when all the world’s asleep… the questions run too deep… for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned. I know it sounds absurd. Please tell me who I am…(I say) now watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical, a liberal, oh fanatical, criminal.
Oh won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re acceptable, respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable…
Whoa (tick, tick, ticka, yeah)But at night, when all the world’s asleep… the questions run so deep… for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned. I know it sounds absurd.
But please tell me who I am — who I am — who I am — who I am
Jim Croce: I got a name
Record companies keep an (unfortunate) stranglehold on music (see: yesterday’s post). Which is sad to me, because it reflects poorly on our society as a whole. (However: Zac Efron reflects poorly upon our society as a whole.)
This may help a bit:
Old Spice-y
Fantastic Old Spice commercial (just great writing):
My right foot.
Living with plantar fasciitis is like living with a two-legged dog: walks in the park are never the same. It started two years ago, in Bangkok, when I felt like walking everywhere, every day, until my feet ached with exhaustion. I thought it would go away but months before I had completed a training regimen where I gained 12 pounds of muscle — and that’s when my feet started planning their revenge.
Basically, it’s like this: it feels as if someone has driven a nail into the bottom of my foot. And it’s there all the time, every day. Over the last two years, the left foot has improved greatly, while the right foot has gotten progressively worse. And that kind of pain, it should be known, leads one to consider things only hippies and hipsters would dare consider, things like barefoot running:
And wear shoes old women and small children would consider ridiculous:
The Strings That Bind Us.
I spend most weekends listening to Chrissi rant about String Theory and the horrors of advanced particle physics. Sometimes, when I catch myself paying attention, I learn something. One thing he’s turned me onto recently is Columbia physicist (and fellow Stuyvesant alum) Brian Greene. Greene is one of individuals who are very obviously good at what they do.
String Theory is one of those things only a handful of minds in the world can grasp with depth and Greene, in the following clip, hints at just how massive his must be:
And, if there’s any remaining doubt about Greene’s awesomeness, let it be known that he did Letterman.
My Chemical Romance: I Don’t Love You
My Chemical Romance is a band most rare: consistent, gutsy, and well burnished. Their musical sensibility is, at times, breathtaking.
Wal-Mart makes a funny.
Run during the AFC championship game:
Owl City: Fireflies
I heard this over Christmas, in New York, driving on the LIE, thinking “Deathcab for Cutie finally made something I can listen to.”
Empire State of Mind
These are two people who, simply, understand the ethos of New York.
Babies
This looks fantastic. (Seriously.)
An American Christmas
This is what I’m missing.
If you didn’t already know, that’s Cliffs of Dover — one of the greatest solos, ever. Look:
The Darkness: I believe in a thing called love.
Fantastic, gutsy guitar riffs. You need that. Right now.
Lo, the sad face of America’s future.
Harvard Quidditch.
Danzig: Mother
Because you need it.
Dunham is no dummy.
Jeff Dunham is featured in today’s NY Times Magazine.
If you’re not familiar with (probably) the world’s best comedian, then Achmed the Dead Terrorist is a good study of Dunham’s impeccable timing and rhythm.
Sexy fMRI
Pek Van Andel, winner of the Ignobel Prize, gives us the best money shot ever:
Guillermo’s Vampires
Guillermo del Toro contemplates vampires in this op-ed piece for the Times. Prescient in a way, with Daybreakers and New Moon coming out:
F-ing Monkeys
Fucking with monkeys is just wrong. Indeed, Human Immunodeficiency Virus — the virus that causes AIDS — was derived from Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (a monkey disease).
But somehow, as this video suggests, when the Japanese fuck with monkeys, the resulting cruelty is a thing of unreasonable beauty.
It’s Bad. That’s The Way You Make Me Feel.
I have no tears for Michael Jackson — I was a fan, I celebrated his life. What kills me is that millions of people mourned his passing — and that’s bullshit. For the last 15 years, everyone (literally everyone) took horrible, horrible jabs at Jackson for being too white or too weird or too into children or too much of a has-been. This is hypocrisy at its worst.
What most people don’t know is that Michael Jackson was a clever star. In the waning days of his career, he befriended B-list celebrities — like Uri Geller and David Blaine — knowing they may one day make it to the top, perhaps carrying him with them.
But this alone didn’t make him king. There’s something about a guy — however gay — who can berate a girl who’s turned him down, only to later sing and dance his way into her heart. Jackson had serious game.
American Television is
Let’s face it, folks: there’s just nothing great to watch anymore. Proof? Compare the show you’re watching right now to this monkey video, and think about which is more interesting to you.
America. The beautiful.
Nothing induces patriotism so deeply as living abroad for a short while. Let me say then that it’s good to be back — it’s just that simple.
Looking over my last few posts, I think you and I both know I’ve been completely out of my mind for the last few weeks. (Clearly. A post about what weapons I like? Crazy…)
To celebrate my return to civilization, let me shine upon you the very best Hip Hop the United Kingdom has to offer, juxtaposed against our very own stylings (courtesy of “greatest in the universe,” Kanye West). Now I’m not saying the UK stuff is bad (I think it’s charming, actually). But, like all Americans, I need something raw and gutsy and deeply, deeply sophisticated. Enough said; now listen:
Now while that did have its merits, listen to the attitude on this track:
For the longest time, I was clubbing in London, listening to this one (following) tune, which I called “The Colonoscopy Song,” because it, simply, sounds like the guy is saying “colonoscopy” after every few bars. Shah Abba, the anxious-to-please girl that she is, quickly set me straight, however.
Really fucking catchy, actually. Especially so after a few tequila shots — truly. But listen to this track; it pulls no punches:
I won’t argue the merits of American music here — the Beatles and Ting Tings are English, after all — but I will say that when it comes down to it and you’re in the club and there’s a 10 on the dance floor tooling guys left and right, rest assured you can count on me to rock her world. All I ask is that you, respectfully, spin something with attitude — something American.
American Ju-Jitsu
Eddie Bravo is one of the few who are quietly pioneering a new American martial art. Known generally as MMA, I’m reluctant to dismiss Bravo as simply a great mixed martial artist. Instead, he is a brilliant artisan, creating a new, uniquely American Ju-Jitsu. But somehow he is more; he’s an artist as well, expressing something deep and profound through his craft: that the sum of their parts amounts to more than the whole.
You can see this here, in this video, as Bravo reveals variations on a theme, showing us how the rubber guard is more than just a trick, more than just a system; rather, it’s a new way of thinking.
This is frame control.
At the Sasquatch 2009 music festival, this guy brought the party (this is the essence of frame control):