Inspiration!

A quick break from youtube to share with you this video that has me completely awed and inspired at the moment. The other day I was at home on the couch with Archie asleep on my lap when I started surfing On-Demand to see if there were any rock videos worth watching nowadays. I grew up glued to MTV (I used to record hours upon hours of it on our family VCR) and have been disappointed that in recent years it has become harder and harder to find worthwhile videos on the "music" channels. Often times the only way to view videos is to watch them on youtube which inevitably means that you'll be watching them in crappy quality. Anyhow, I came upon this video by Blitzen Trapper and was completely floored. This is the kind of video that I would want if I were in a band . . . Enjoy!

You Tube Guest Curator #6: Ben Arnow

Ben is a friend of mine, we've been friends since kindergarten and for the majority of this time he has been a huge Police fan. It's not surprising to me then that he is into this smash hit by Sonseed.

You Tube Guest Curator #5: Geoffrey Hammond

Although I have only lived in Chicago since 2001, I am an avid Chicago Bears fan. Despite growing up in NY, my interest in the Bears was first piqued in 1985 with the release of The Super Bowl Shuffle. How could you not love a team that featured a 382 pound defensive lineman named "The Fridge" who found a guest spot as the world's fattest running back. Anyhow, I had a copy of the song on vinyl and used to camp out in front of MTV hoping to catch repeat glimpses of the video.

This morning Geoffrey sent me this video that was made by the Southern Food Brokerage . . . some of those guys have impressive flow!

You Tube Guest Curator #4: Chase Browder

Today's segment is from my friend Chase who is a great photographer and an even greater Texan. Chase writes: "This is a Segment from Texas Country Reporter, a TV show exploring Texas since the 70s. This clip is about a restaurant that serves chicken fried bacon. CFB is an appetizer at this restaurant where you order steaks by the pound not the ounce. My favorite part is when the owner talks about tasting CFB for the first time and says 'that's pretty good, just needs a little cream gravy,'"

*Viewer be warned, I think I had three coronaries in the course of watching this video.

You Tube Guest Curator #3: Michael Pajon

This gem was sent to me by my friend Michael Pajon and is both hilariously funny and incredibly awkward. My wife Robin is a music teacher and twice a year she arranges voice and piano recitals for her students. When I showed her this clip earlier today, she said, "What's wrong with that lady? She's going way too fast for him and she doesn't even try to help him out!" Poor John Daker.

You Tube Guest Curator #2: Christine Grykien

This gem is from my friend Christine in Northern California. She writes: "You may have seen this one before since it was one of those things that spreads round like wildfire due to its universal hilarity, but I believe it deserves a place in any good youtube review. And if you haven't seen it before, just remember: Living Rooms, Bedrooms, Dinettes.

You Tube Guest Curator #1: Brian Ulrich

Brian writes: "For the past year I've been working on a new project called 'Dark Stores, Ghostboxes and Dead Malls'. It's an extension of my earlier work examining consumer and retail culture since 2001. While researching I've come across many whom are nostalgic for certain brands and stores that have gone by the wayside. This training video removed from context of a 1980's Caldor store epitomizes a methodology for weakly attempting to indoctrinate new employees to store ideologies. The Corporate meets the Comedic with production right out of Beta-Cam videos that reveal a gut wrenching look into late 20th Century workplace."

Curated You Tube

I was talking to my friend Cable the other day about a brilliant curatorial program that he is starting up at Seattle's Kirkland Arts Center called "Bru Tube." He is inviting different people to curate a ten minute block of selected youtube videos and I thought this would be a fun feature to add onto my blog. Over the next few months, I will be inviting people from all kinds of backgrounds to select a video for me to feature (after all, I've been so bad about posting I figure this will be the kick in the pants I need). So I'll go first:



The Who were my first live concert experience, I saw them at Giant's Stadium in the summer of 1989 with my friend Anthony Cupaiuolo. We were obsessed with the Who all throughout middle school and used to watch "Tommy" every day after school in his parent's living room (I've probably seen it 6000 times). Recently I was talking to my friend Robert who runs the darkrooms at Columbia College and he told me that I had to check out this clip from 1967 on The Smothers Brothers Show (Robert is a huge Who fan as well). This is the performance where Pete Townshend destroyed his hearing as a result of the explosion in Keith Moon's drum set. I love how Pete plays it super cool at the beginning of the clip and how he loses his cool by the clips end (who can blame him, the dude just lost half of his hearing!) Enjoy, more to follow.

For The Birds

The other day while walking to the train station, I came upon a piece of toast in a tree,