Bob Marley Interview

Posted in Bob Marley, Youtube Favs on September 17th, 2011 by Willie

Here is Bob Marley being interviewed in Aoteraoa, New Zealand talking about reggae music, his Rastafarian beliefs, his dreadlocks, and marijuana.  The interviewer announces that Bob Marley smokes a pound of grass a week.  I thought that was a high number, no pun intended, but I suppose its true.  I liked Bob’s belief that weed is a meditative drug, and that alcohol is not.  I also like his view that the majority of people tolerate marijuana, and therefore in his mind, its legal.  I find this video fascinating because I’ve never actually seen a Bob Marley interview, and it really fleshes out his awesome revolutionary persona.  He goes from talking about running his own newspaper, believing in his own God-given rights, and then his philosophy on life and death.  It’s a stunning portrait of a man who died too young.  I love the last words in the piece where Bob proclaims, “I see myself as a revolutionary…Rasta is the future, yes (laughs) Rasta is the future state.”

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George Gross, Beverly Hills Monster Mash!

Posted in George Gross on September 16th, 2011 by Willie

One of the most bizarre things to ever happen on Beverly Hills 90210 was when precocious and immature Scott Scanlon suddenly got really interested in guns and country music.  His last words were, “Check this out!”  What the entire nation ended up “checking out” was Scott’s accidental suicide caused by his poor gun twirling techniques.  It was at this heartbreaking moment in pop culture history where America learned for the first time that mixing guns and country music could cause accidental deaths in even our richest postal zones.  The sheer magnitude of this tragedy was of such a high volume, that America has been denial of its very existence for almost twenty years.  Fortunately, George Gross, the brilliant young filmmaker, never forgot and immortalized Scott’s death for us in an artfully twisted video montage set to Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me.)”  God bless Mr. Gross for refusing to look away from the grisly terror, and present us with reality at its most naked and cold.  With that, I ask you to brace yourselves, and enjoy George Gross’s “Beverly Hills Monster Mash.”

Beverly Hills Monster Mash from George Gross on Vimeo.

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The Beatles, Help!

Posted in The Beatles, Youtube Favs on September 15th, 2011 by Willie

Help!  John Lennon managed to cram an unusually clear psychological slogan into one of the best pop songs he’d ever write.  It’s hard for most people to just shout out help, especially when they need it.  It really must have been difficult for someone as stubborn, independent, and prideful as John Lennon.  When you have the weight of a global audience of screaming teenagers, and the world’s press crushing you in some surreal never ending circus come to life, it must have been easier for someone like John to beg for help.  What I love about the song is how John can take a propulsive driving rock song and somehow add the element of desperate folk ballad introspection in the verses.  “Now these days are gone, I’m not so self assured, and now I find, I’ve changed my mind, and opened up the doors.”  On the surface, the song works as an ironic satire of John’s life, as the exciting fast driving joyfulness present in the music still conveys the giddy excitement of Beatlemania.  But all you have to do is dig a bit deeper to feel the swirling doubt and disillusionment felt by a guy trying to hold on in a world quickly moving faster than his feet.  HELP!

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Dave Chappelle, New Standup!

Posted in Dave Chappelle, Youtube Favs on September 14th, 2011 by Willie

The worst thing about Dave Chappelle leaving his hit Comedy Central show all those years ago, was that so much stuff has happened in the world, and Chappelle’s voice was sorely missed.  I don’t know about you, but I needed to hear Chappelle during the 2008 election.  I needed to hear Chappelle during the fiscal crisis, and the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin, and every other major American moment because Chappelle is the best American comedian.  He is simply a gifted genius, and the fact that he has limited himself to unannounced random standup appearances, where he insists that no one film him, has left a gaping hole in the comedy world, and it makes videos like the ones I’m presenting below so vital, despite their less than stellar quality.  In these clips, Chappelle is performing at the “Comedy Jam,” in California, and only being a few months old, it represents his most current standup.  You’ll see a pumped up Chappelle take on Obama, living in Ohio, Osama Bin Ladin, racism, Kramer, and his real top secret reason for leaving the spotlight.  It’s all quite hilarious and brilliant, and his timing is still razor sharp.  It’s a real treat for all of Chappelle’s biggest fans.  Enjoy.


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Skip James, Devil Got My Woman

Posted in Skip James, Youtube Favs on September 13th, 2011 by Willie

Skip James was one of the original Delta Bluesmen.  Like many of these original pioneers, he disappeared into obscurity after his rather obscure debut in the 1930s.  The blues rock renaissance in the 1960s rescued him from oblivion, and allowed him one last chance to shine.  One of the songs that emerged from his exile was “Devil Got My Woman,” a haunted country blues ballad about love and Satan.  It’s a perfect Robert Johnson like tune with a ghostly vibe that just might send shivers down your spine.  Here are the lyrics, steeped in blue.

I’d rather be the devil, to be that woman man
I’d rather be the devil, to be that woman man
Aw, nothin’ but the devil, changed my baby’s mind
Was nothin’ but the devil, changed my baby’s mind
I laid down last night, laid down last night
I laid down last night, tried to take my rest
My mind got to ramblin’, like a wild geese
From the west, from the west
The woman I love, woman that I loved
Woman I loved, took her from my best friend
But he got lucky, stoled her back again
But he got lucky, stoled her back again

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Ted Kennedy's Eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy

Posted in Politics, Robert F. Kennedy, Youtube Favs on September 12th, 2011 by Willie

Revolution, liberty, discovery, and moral courage.  These were themes prevalent in Ted Kennedy’s eulogy for his brother Bobby, after his insane assassination in 1968.  Drawing directly from one of Bobby’s greatest speeches, Ted quoting Bobby, said that, “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.  And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” Well, I don’t know about you, but that’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard or read.  To me, it encapsulates the frontier thinking that marked the cultural and social revolutions going on in the 1960s.  Bobby originally gave that speech in apartheid afflicted South Africa in 1966, where racism and intolerance were raging.  Ted’s eulogy for his brother was also perhaps his finest moment and speech, summing up his brother’s life by stating that “his brother not need to be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life,” and that “he be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, and saw war and tried to stop it.”  It’s at this point, where Ted’s voice begins to quaver, and he delivers Bobby’s greatest thought ever, “some men see things as they are, and say why, I dream things that never were, and say why not.”

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Robert F. Kennedy, My Hero

Posted in Politics, Robert F. Kennedy, Youtube Favs on September 10th, 2011 by Willie

I watched President Obama’s speech on jobs last night.  It stirred something very emotional in me.  It wasn’t because the speech was so wonderful, though I thought it was one of Obama’s better oratories, but perhaps because I too am unemployed.  I was laid off last May from a job that I worked at for four years.  I performed the job with excellence, always achieving the highest raise in my yearly reviews, and winning the praise and respect of my coworkers and bosses.  It wasn’t a great job; it paid poorly, and there was little room for advancement, but it did cover my bills and provided me stability in a fierce economic climate of doom and gloom.  I also naively thought the job was recession proof because of my low pay and high competence, but like millions of others, I was laid off because they claimed that they couldn’t afford to keep paying my health insurance.  At least that’s what I was told.  Obama’s speech last night moved me, and I hope his leadership is strong enough to see it through, but the insane political circus of the day fills me with doubt.  Politically, I believe in great leaders.  I believe in leaders who can inspire and touch the masses with truth and courage.  I believe in leaders who demand excellence from themselves and excellence from their country, and the world.  I believe in leaders who feel heavily the weight of the awesome powers they seek, and who knowingly carry the terrible responsibility such powers demand once they possess them.  This is why Robert F. Kennedy is my hero.  He represented all of those things, and elevated political discourse into poetry of the highest magnitude.  He embraced all people, and never spoke down to any audience.  He also never pandered to audiences, as he was unafraid to tell them the truth even if it made him more unpopular.  The more I learn about Robert F. Kennedy, the more sad I become contemplating his senseless killing.  What’s amazing is that Robert Kennedy felt this same sadness when Martin Luther King Jr. was brutally assassinated.  Not only did he feel sadness, he felt a responsibility to face a justifiably irate crowd of black Indianans and offer what little solace he could.  He didn’t speak down to them, or tell them that rioting or thoughts of revenge were wrong, instead he persuaded them to examine the tragedy not through a prism of violence, but through a prism of peace.  Eluding to his brother John’s death for the first time in a public forum, he quoted the Greek poet Asechylus, “even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God.”  His entire speech was unprepared and eloquent beyond any other leader’s ability.  I think if he lived, and was elected president, he could have been another Lincoln.  Sadly, his greatest bond with Lincoln, was his untimely death brought about by the bullet of a madmen.  Enjoy this video of Robert F. Kennedy, and expect another update on the man tomorrow.

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John Lennon, Mother, Live

Posted in John Lennon, Youtube Favs on September 9th, 2011 by Willie

I’m not ready to leave John’s 1972 concert just yet.  Yesterday I posted about “Come Together,” and in the past I posted the live performance of “Cold Turkey.”   Despite the fact that Yoko only released the inferior afternoon version of the show, as opposed to the superior evening version, there are still incredible worthwhile performances to be had, and John’s performance of “Mother” is one of them.  “Mother” is the unofficial sequel to John’s Beatle song “Julia” from the White Album.  Julia Lennon was struck down by an  drunk driving off duty police officer when he was 17.  Her death was already the 3rd or 4th tragic moment in a young life that was quickly piling up memorable scenes of wretched heartbreak.  By that point, young John already had to deal with the sorted split up between his parents which included an aborted kidnapping, the death of his uncle George, the strict surrogate parenting of his aunt Mimi, the discovery that his mother had another family whom all lived down the road without his knowledge, and the complete abandonment of his father who provided no support and lived in New Zealand.  The death of his mother, who he had just begun a reconciliation with, pushed John over the edge personality wise and hardened his soul.  The song “Mother” is the result of a bunch of soul searching and therapy, and is subsequently a triumph of someone who refused to be swallowed up by sadness, bitterness, and rage.  It’s one of John’s best songs, and one of my favorites too.  BTW, today is the last day to vote me in as CBS’s Best Local NYC Blogger, so, cast me one last vote for all time’s sake!  Thanks.

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John Lennon, Come Together, Live!

Posted in John Lennon, The Beatles, Youtube Favs on September 8th, 2011 by Willie

They say elephants never forget, and they also say fuck Yoko Ono.  When John Lennon played Madison Square Garden Live in 1972, he played an afternoon show and an evening show.  “Elephant’s Memory,” the backup band for John, claimed that the evening show was far superior, but upon releasing this concert  in 1986, long after John’s death, Yoko decided to use the inferior afternoon show  as the basis for the album and the concert video.  Why?  Nobody knows what Yoko is thinking.  She probably thinks that her performances in the afternoon show were better than her performances in the evening show, which is insane, because nobody could possibly care.  The tapes and video of the evening show are locked away forever, or maybe even destroyed, and we might never get to see them thanks to the brilliant Yoko.  Yoko did the same thing for the Mind Games video where she took a raw 19 hours of footage, shot by college kids who followed John Lennon around for a day, and condensed it to a precious 4 minutes!  In that 19 hours you can supposedly see John Lennon making an appearance at Radio City Music Hall, where the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band On The Road” was playing.  He apparently got a 20 minute standing ovation that he described as one of the greatest moments of his life, and proceeded to sit down on organ and play with the house band.  Why this footage is not released is beyond me.  I actually rather wish I knew it never existed, then to think Yoko’s got it hidden away somewhere for no one to see.  Blah, that’s the end of my rant.  Enjoy John’s performance of “Come Together,” a song originally written as a way to get people to vote LSD guru Timothy Leary as governor of California.  It’s a little historical tidbit that’s a perfect segue for me to champion my status as finalist in the CBS Best Local NYC Blogger award one last time!  Tomorrow is the last day of voting, and you can STILL vote for me, even if you’ve already voted!  Once a day counts, so click that link and put me over the top! 

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The Top 20 George Carlin Moments

Posted in George Carlin, Louie CK, Youtube Favs on September 7th, 2011 by Willie

So I was surfing the internet today, and I came across a brilliant little monolog that Louie C.K. did as a tribute to George Carlin.  George Carlin died in 2008, and if you didn’t know, he’s probably the greatest and most influential standup comic next to Richard Pryor.  He had an absolutely relentless ability to speak the truth in a hilarious and brilliant way.  He was a genius who just took the art form of standup comedy its apex, which is basically standup philosophy.  The first video is Louie C.K.’s tribute video to George that’s gonna convince you that watching the next four videos below is well worth your time.  What are these videos?  They are four incredible videos which contain George’s greatest moments in standup comedy.  All I can say is that watching these clips is utterly thrilling and thought provoking, and will inspire you profoundly.  George tackles politics, religion, the English language, the poor, class warfare, sports, the homeless, brainwashed populaces and much more.  There is not much I can add to this, other than, watch.  If you are just some random internet visitor who has never watched George Carlin, or have never heard of him, please, watch, now.  It’s your duty as a human being.  Oh, and I have one more autocratic order, please vote for me as CBS’s best local NYC blogger.  The contest ends September 9th, so please click the link!  Thanks, folks.




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