Another Saturday TV Funhouse classic, “The Poetry Of Jewel” is a brilliant mockery of Jewel’s actual poetry with lethally hilarious results.
This one looks really bad (again, I couldn’t find a better looking copy), so if you can make out what’s going on, you’ll have a blast.
Enjoy.
Tom Hanks was the very last interviewed guest on the very last Late Night With David Letterman on June 25, 1993. During the interview, Tom tells a hilarious story about being a bellboy in Oakland, CA and the celebrities he met. This clip’s a real gem. I should have posted it long ago.
Enjoy.
Another lost classic, this also failed to make the cut of the best-of DVD. Perhaps they considered it too dated by the time they compiled it. Either way, this is yet another brilliant piece by Robert Smigel and his team of geniuses. This is the best-looking version I could find, so I did the best I could to make it watchable.
Enjoy.
The front cover photograph of The Velvet Underground’s self-titled third album originally showed Lou Reed holding up the October 1968 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. By the time of the album’s release, the magazine cover had been airbrushed. The only version of this picture that remained untouched was a promo single featuring a radio spot plugging the album (though the original promo 45s are extremely rare, Sundazed included a repro along with the remainder of their singles in this set).
The above image is my attempt to recreate the cover as it was intended, just for fun. Click on the image for a larger view.
One of the last of Robert Smigel’s Saturday TV Funhouse series, “Diddy Kiddies” is a classic. Unfortunately, since it ran a season too late to make the essential Best Of DVD, it’s rarely been seen since it aired. A shame really, as it deserved a bigger audience than it got.
Anyway, click on the image to view it. Enjoy.
In an attempt to elicit sympathy for Irvin Khaytham’s “plight,” the Post shows its total lack of awareness. Here’s the summing up:
Irvin Khaytman, 17, was on the N train in Brooklyn about 2 a.m. when he was abruptly stopped by a police officer on the platform.
“He said he saw my feet on the edge of the seat next to me,” Khaytman said. “He said putting your feet on a seat is nasty, and since I was nasty, I deserved a ticket.” Seems the subways are so safe that police are still busy hunting down early-morning riders who put their feet up on seats or — heaven forbid!– cross their legs
To address both points:
1) Yeah, putting your feet up on the seat next to you IS nasty. How the hell do I know where you’ve been? You could’ve been visiting the local dog shit factory for all I know! [Incidentally, if you haven't yet visited the local dog shit factory, it's a real treat, and they could really use the business these days.]
2) Putting your filthy, disgusting feet on the seat of the person who will eventually sit there is NOT the same as crossing your legs.
I see where the Post is trying to go with this. They are trying to make it seem as if the police are bringing about the return of The Crusades with their petty excuse for offenses, but they completely miss the point. Potentially harming yourself by changing trains while they’re in motion doesn’t hurt others (alright, unless you fall on the tracks, in which case you are gumming up the works a bit) and therefore IS a petty offense. See the difference?
- Oh, sit! $50 for feet on a seat [New York Post]
Okay, it’s the late 1950’s and Alvin and The Chipmunks are just burning up the charts with their lovable, wholesome brand of unlistenable mischief for those make-you-want-to-drive-a-nail-into-your-frontal-lobes-kinda…BLEECCHHH!
Anyway, you’ve got a studio and you’re thinking “How can I get in on this Chipmunk cash-machine action? I mean, this goldmine will never ever cease, right?” Well, if you’re Modern Sound records, you put out the following 45. Courtesy of the good folks at WFMU, here is (as far as I know) the entire output of Alvin & The Squirrels. I kid you not. I don’t know if this is the greatest or the most horrid thing that I’ve ever heard. All I know is that I cannot get it out of my freakin’ head!
Downloads:
A Side – “A Fella In a White Coat”
B Side – “The Fliff”
Apparently, author John Green has taken an extended leave of absence from his Nerdfighting activities to have a baby. So rather than having Hank vlog himself, the two brothers decided to have YA author Maureen Johnson fill in for John until his return. They couldn’t have made a better choice. Maureen also graciously asked me to come up with some music for her “Actual John Green” song.
Download the “Actual John Green” song here.
Enjoy.
This is a clip featuring Sid Caesar from 1960 where he tries to explain the meaning of jazz. This seems to be a slightly more beatnik version of his old Professor character with maybe a touch of Ken Nordine thrown in for good measure (Yeah, I’m probably reaching a bit here).
Anyway, it’s one of my favorite clips ever, taken from an old, OLD videotape. I’ve tried to make it as watchable as possible.
Click on the image to watch the clip. Enjoy.
This is a YouTube video featuring my friend, Maureen Johnson. She is forced to take a trapeze lesson after losing a bet with the internet. It’s entertaining, thought-provoking and horrifying all at the same time.
Anyway, she asked me to write a song to accompany the video of her trapeze lesson. This song (which I cleverly titled “Trapeze”) took me 20 whole minutes to write and record, so you all had better love it. Maureen was kind enough to show the words on the screen, as I’m not always so hot when it comes to musical enunciation.
Hope you enjoy it.
Since I’m on such a Sesame Street (and Stevie Wonder) kick, I figured I might as well go ahead and post this chestnut. It’s Stevie performing the most smoking version of “Superstition” that I’ve ever heard.
Like the previous post, it’s performed on the Sesame Street set, and a few lucky kids got to witness it. Now we all get to witness it.
Click on the image to watch the video.
[WARNING; This file is over 40MB, so it might take awhile, but like yesterday's post, it's so worth it.]
Enjoy.
To honor the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street, I am posting a fairly rare clip of Stevie Wonder from 1973. Stevie opens the show, performing an alternate Sesame Street theme song that should have immediately toppled the already existing one, in my opinion. But, no! They kept that “Sunny Day” monstrosity instead. Whatever.
Let’s go back together to a time when performers apparently sang into microphones strongly resembling night-lights and owned genuine Orange amplifiers. A glorious time, indeed.
Click on the image to watch the video. The file is about 20MB, so be patient; it’s worth it.
ABC apparently upset many Peanuts fans this past week with a promo for It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
The promo, entitled “Pumpkin Rap,” features “Charlie B & The Peanuts Posse.” An ill-advised idea, to be sure. What was more surprising to me was how quickly ABC succumbed to criticism and yanked the promo from its airwaves and website.
This clip is Eric Charden singing a song titled “Pas Question?”. Chances are, you’ve never heard of him. I know I hadn’t when I watched this Media Funhouse episode featuring Charden on a French television variety show hosted by Tom Jones in 1966. The fuzz bass line is absolutely killer, and I guarantee you’ll be singing along to this one in due time. That it is sung in French matters not, my friend. Trust me.
Click on the image to watch the video. Enjoy.
Meanwhile, you can catch Media Funhouse on MNN’s Channel 57, Saturday nights at 1am (though technically, it’s Sunday morning).
In Los Angeles, at a health care protest organized by MoveOn.org, a man’s finger was bitten off. Witnesses said a confrontation erupted after the biter crossed from the MoveOn.org side of the street to the counterprotest, where Rice was standing. A loud scuffle ensued, punches were thrown, and the tip of William Rice’s finger was bitten off.
What the fascist, mainstream press will NOT tell you, is that the assailant is a longtime sufferer of rabies, the treatment of which is not covered, as it falls under “act of dog” by his current health care provider.
Rice claims that he and his attacker did not have a conversation about health care unless “you want to call him screaming in my face that I’m an idiot a conversation.” The truth is, several witnesses clearly heard Rice say repeatedly to the assailant “C’mon, I dare you to bite my finger off! What are ya, some kind of pussy?”
The biter fled, howling and frothing as he exited the scene, before authorities arrived. He could face several charges, including disturbing the peace, inciting a riot and the illegal use of a molar.
Rice himself was treated at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center. His treatment was covered by Medicare.
Ironic, that.
Another day, another new series. No longer content to electronically murder rock stars, I have now set my sites on the Motion Picture Industry.
In this case, I am yet again butchering the film, High Society. What is it that keeps drawing me to this somewhat mediocre film, you may ask? It all comes down to one song: “Now You Has Jazz,” performed by Bing Crosby. I don’t know what it is, but I keep coming back to it.
Unfortunately, the inevitable mishap occurs mid-song, but the audience absolutely loves it.
Click on the image to watch the video. Enjoy.
I want to voice my misgivings about the soon-to-be-released boxsets of The Beatles: one in mono, one in stereo.
The Beatles In Mono is “limited,” though EMI will not say definitely to what extent, and lists for $299. The Beatles In Stereo lists for $259.
Now, I don’t know what economy EMI are living in right now, but I would not even consider buying either one of those for anything near that price. I would consider, say, $75 for each.
For those of you asking “why mono?”, The Beatles’ monophonic mixes differ greatly from their stereo counterparts, and have been unavailable since late 1968.
Let me give you an idea of how outrageously priced these sets are. Recently, there was a boxed set of the 13th Floor Elevators titled Sign Of The 3 Eyed Men released on the tiny International Artists label. Here’s a video of all its contents:
Lovingly compiled by long-time fan and biographer Paul Drummond, the sound is as good as it’s ever gonna get for these guys. Previous CD releases have sounded comparatively horrible. It is absolutely limited to 4,000 copies. The cost? US$158 including shipping (it ships from the UK). Knowing a thing or two about manufacturing and shipping, I would assume that a corporation as monolithic as EMI would be able to finagle a more reasonable price than, say, International Artists. The cost to EMI for manufacturing and shipping each boxed set ain’t anywhere near three hundred bucks, limited or not.
Even if her name doesn’t ring a bell, you’ve almost certainly heard her music.
With her husband, lyricist Jeff Barry (as well as with producers Phil Spector and George “Shadow” Morton), Greenwich co-wrote an amazing number of hits. Here are but a few:
“Chapel Of Love” – The Dixie Cups
“Be My Baby” – The Ronettes
“Then He Kissed Me” – The Crystals
“Da Doo Ron Ron” – The Crystals
“River Deep – Mountain High” – Ike & Tina Turner
“Leader Of The Pack” – The Shangri-Las
“I Can Hear Music” – The Beach Boys
“Hanky Panky” – Tommy James and The Shondells
“Do Wah Diddy Diddy” – Manfred Mann
Ellie Greenwich died on August 27th of a heart attack at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in midtown Manhattan.
Although not very well known, this is my favorite version of “I Can Hear Music” by Larry Lurex, which is actually Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor recording under a pseudonym. The three, after recruiting bassist John Deacon, were soon to release their first album, Queen.
Click here to listen to the song.
Though we never got to know what sort of President Edward Kennedy would have been, we certainly got to know him as a senator. After 46 years as Senator of Massachusetts (a record broken only by Senators Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond) he worked tirelessly on political reform, especially healthcare reform. The fact that we may now be on the cusp of the most radical healthcare reform in several decades must be somewhat bittersweet to the Kennedy family, its reform being, in Ted’s words “the cause of my life.”
Diagnosed with brain cancer in May 2008, Ted nevertheless looked more healthy in the past 15 months than he had in years, at least on television. I was, perhaps foolishly, optimistic about his recovery based largely on his appearance. I guess I’m easily fooled when I want to be.
Kennedy’s political life was forever changed by two events: Chappaquiddick in 1969 and, ironically, Sen. Robert Byrd’s successful attempt to unseat Kennedy as Senate Majority Whip in January 1971. Though the defeat was embarrassing and painful at the time, Kennedy would later tell Byrd that the defeat was a blessing, as it allowed him to focus more on issues independently from the Democratic party framework. Kennedy became chair of the Senate subcommittee on healthcare and played a leading role with Jacob Javits in the creation and passage of the National Cancer Act of 1971.
Politically, Kennedy never fully recovered from Chappaquiddick. It pretty much ensured that no attempt at the presidency would be successful. In 1974, in its “Encyclopedia Of Humor,” National Lampoon ran the following copy (written by Anne Beatts) in its mock Volkswagen ad:
If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he’d be President today.It floats.
The way our body is built, we’d be surprised if it didn’t.
The sheet of flat steel that goes underneath every Volkswagen keeps out water, as well as dirt and salt and other nasty things that can eat away at the underside of a car. So it’s watertight at the bottom.
And everybody knows it’s easier to shut the door on a Volkswagen after you’ve rolled down the window a little. That proves it’s practically airtight on top.
If it was a boat, we could call it the Water Bug.
But it’s not a boat, it’s a car.
And, like Mary Jo Kopechne, it’s only 99 and 44/100 percent pure.
So it won’t stay afloat forever. Just long enough.
Poor Teddy. If he’d been smart enough to buy a Volkswagen, he never would have gotten into hot water.
As cruel (and, let’s face it, brilliantly funny) as the joke is, it illustrates how Ted has been perceived unfairly as a public joke, politically speaking. Perhaps history will treat him more kindly.
- Edward Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Dies [New York Times]
We noticed an uncanny resemblance between American Idol contestant Michael Gurr and a certain movie star from the 1940’s. So we made a video about it.
Click on the image of Michael Gurr to view the video.
