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,

The Coolest Thing EVER!!!!!!!!

Stop animation graffiti?!@#$%^???!!???@#?
Write 1000 times on the blackboard children, "I will never complain about making labor intensive artwork again, I will never complain about making labor intensive artwork again. . . "
To see more work by BLU, visit their website HERE

Old School

My friend Nils emailed the other day to see if I had a photograph that he could potentially use for the cover of his friend John Foti's soon to be released album. He was especially interested in some old pictures that I made the year before moving to Chicago for grad school. These photographs are from 2000 and were made at the local community college in White Plains, NY (I rented darkroom space to try and learn color printing before starting my MFA). I hadn't looked at these pictures in years, a fun walk down memory lane (click to enlarge):

Check Please

Here in Chicago, we have a show on PBS called "Check Please" which is a favorite here in the Gitelson household. Each week, three people share their favorite restaurant in Chicago and a round table discussion ensues. This is footage of Barack Obama on the program in 2001. To see a longer clip, click here. One more reason to love our next President.

It's the Art Market, Stupid!

Despite the slumbering economy and post-holiday decompression, I will have a bunch of my work at Photo LA next weekend (January 9-11). If you find yourself at the fair, swing by booth #B3 (DNJ Gallery) and check out my work. Here is the info:

FAIR LOCATION
Barker Hangar
3021 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405

The De-Evolution of the Guitar

I started playing the guitar when I was twelve years old and took lessons until I was 18. Despite this six years of education, I never learned how to read sheet music. Instead, I learned how to read tablature which is the lazy man's version of notation. Each week I would meet with my teacher Steve and he would write out a new Zeppelin song for me to practice (some weeks it was ACDC, some weeks it was YES). Steve wanted me to learn how to read but I was lazy and stubborn and he eventually gave up (after all, Hendrix didn't know how to read music, right?)


On New Year's Eve, Robin and Archie and I headed out to our friends Mike and Lindsey's apartment for a Guitar Hero party. On the drive over, I got to thinking about the realationship between sheet music, tab and guitar hero dots. There has to be a graduate thesis in there somewhere, don't you think?

Sound Advice from Thelonious Monk

Click image to enlarge

Surfing With The Alien

Maybe it was the snow outside that had me feeling nostalgic, but this morning I downloaded the 1987 Joe Satriani album, "Surfing With The Alien." When I was in seventh grade, I spent a lot of time with my friend Sean Gallagher discovering the joy of smoking cigarettes and listening to Van Halen, Steve Vai and of course, Joe Satriani. This is some serious guitar nerd music and it holds up as being as ridiculous today as it was twenty-one years ago when it first came out (god I'm getting old!). Enjoy this taste:

"Film Director" at the Milwaukee Art Museum

I just learned that my piece "Film Director" is currently on display at The Milwaukee Art Museum in an exhibition of highlights from the museum's photography collection. Swing by if you have a chance, the museum is one of the coolest architectural structures you'll ever see!

Archie (King of the Caribou)

Tracey Baran (1975–2008)

I learned tonight that photographer Tracey Baran died earlier this month at the age of 33. I first met Tracey at The Museum of Contemporary Photography in 2002 while I was in graduate school. She had an exhibition at the museum and I remember her lunchtime lecture and being really impressed by her work. We struck up a conversation later in the day and came to the realization that she lived next door to my friend Ben's farm in upstate New York. We emailed occasionally after that first meeting and met again in 2006 at the reviews in Santa Fe where we both received the Juror’s Choice Grant. We caught up in the lounge of the hotel and it was really great to see her. I can't say that I knew her very well but none the less, I was really saddened and shocked tonight to learn of her passing. My thoughts go out to her friends and family, she was a great photographer and a really nice person.

Best Band Ever!