Category: Videos

Saturday Matinee – Vince Taylor, Shakin’ All Over, The Specials & Rufus Thomas

Guess Who? It’s not Who you think it is. Vince Taylor & The Playboys.

Science declares 4 seconds of shaking removes 70% of the water off a wet dog, and 20% lands on you. Do aquatic mammals, like whales, orcas, dolphins & porpoises, shake off air? NEW STUDY! [Your tax dollars at work. Found here.]

The Specials revived ska in the 70s, and did the dog.

Rufus Thomas knew how to walk the dog decades ago, until his demise in 2001.

Due to some unfortunate happenings in the private sector, we’re going to cut this episode short. Have a great weekend, folks. Be back here tomorrow for more slices of the stupid pie. =)

Saturday Matinee – Vietnamese Coffee, One Small Plate For Man, Virtual Choir 3.0 & Buster Keaton

“How To Make Vietnamese Coffee.” (Hint: Step 1. Go to Vietnam.)

Neil Armstrong’s “That’s one small step for man…” could be translated “Un petit pas pour l’homme,” and the title of the film is “Un petit plat pour l’homme” can be  translated as “One Small Dish For Man”

3rd year animation project (assigned subject “Kitchen”) from Charron/Onectin via email. Very cool.

Eric Whitacre‘s Virtual Choir 3 is awesome and kinda creepy at the same time.

His call for the Virtual Choir 3.0, which included a purpose-built website to make video collection easier and more uniform, set a new record. It included 3476 videos from 76 different nations, including one from Vanuatu. That is the video you see above.

[Found here.]

Buster Keaton’s 1926 comedy The General is based on a real event. In April 1862 a group of Union volunteers hijacked a Confederate train in Georgia and led the rebels on an 88-mile, six-hour chase through the state, tearing up tracks and cutting telegraph lines as they went and releasing cars behind them to slow their pursuers. The conspirators ran out of fuel just short of Chattanooga, their goal, but the Union awarded a Medal of Honor to most of them for the exploit.
…
“I was more proud of that picture than any I ever made,” Keaton said in 1963. “Because I took an actual happening out of the … history books, and I told the story in detail, too.”

[Found here.]

That’s probably enough stuff to keep you out of trouble for a while. Have a great weekend, folks, and hope tomorrow is cooler.

Saturday Matinee – Playing For Change, Rolling Stones, Steppenwolf & Meatloaf

The Stones‘ “Gimme Shelter” by multinational conglomeration Playing For Change, created by American producer Mark Johnson, is very cool. (Watch for Taj Mahal.)

I find it odd that they would choose that particular song, as it’s forever linked to a free rock festival in 1969 that ended up in tragedy at Altamont Speedway, California, much of it due to the actions of the hired “police” – Sonny Barger & The Hell’s Angels.

The event is best known for having been marred by considerable violence, including one homicide and three accidental deaths: two caused by a hit-and-run car accident and one by drowning in an irrigation canal. Four births were reported during the event. Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen and then abandoned, and there was extensive property damage.

From the same year, Steppenwolf had a hit with the greatest biker song ever – “Born To Be Wild.” Okay, where do we go from here? Oh wait. I know.

That’s for José from Spain who tutored me on cryptanalysis, and recently discovered the wonderworld of Meat Loaf.

Have a great weekend folks, and be back here tomorrow for Day 3 of our 6th Glorious Year of pure awesomenecessity.

On Milton Friedman’s 100th Birthday

Milton Friedman was honored by President George W. Bush on his 90th birthday in 2002 in Washington D.C.

One of Milton Friedman‘s best known examples of Free Market Economics came from Leonard E. Read who wrote a famous article published in 1958 entitled, “I, Pencil.” (Download the .pdf here.)

The basic concept is so full of common sense that it amazes me that it’s not required reading for every student, every civilian and every government politico of every country on the face of the earth. Get government out of the way of the free market, and the free market will take care of everything else.

It’s that simple.

Friedman’s timeless presentation of “I, Pencil” is well worth the 10 minutes it takes to view. Proven throughout history, practical common sense transcends politics, and it always has and always will, except when bureaucratic forces prevent it from doing so.

[Don’ t miss Dr. Thomas Sowell’s tribute here. “I was still a Marxist after taking Professor Friedman’s class. Working as an economist in the government converted me.”]

Update: We’ve posted about Milton Friedman previously. Here’s a link to the archive.

Saturday Matinee – Computing Cams, 3D Sketch & Jacquelyn Adams

Simple mechanics: Cams!

Cool. More images  here.


While looking for a decent live version of “Welcome to The Machine” I found this. Jacquelyn Adams‘ tribute to Pink Floyd [“Dr. Jacquelyn, Mr. Hyde,”  Horn Day, 10 February 2012, York University, Toronto, Ontario] and it begins with that song.

Given the atrocities of yesterday, we might as well leave the number of vids posted at three, and the selections are in no way a commentary. Hug your kids and loved ones, pray for the victims, and we’ll be back here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – 100 Rock Guitar Riffs, Ricky Skaggs, 16mm Clogging in the UK & Dan Hicks

So what if it’s a clandestine advert, it’s cool. I recobanized 95% until he got into No. 66 or so, but I got more than I expected after that. Now let’s talk about some serious pickin’.

That’s Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, playing in a cave in Cumberland Kentucky in 2010. “Salty Dog Blues” is a traditional song with traditional innuendo that dates to the early 1900s.

Imported from the UK ( and elsewhere):

Clogging is the official state dance of Kentucky and North Carolina and was the social dance in the Appalachian Mountains as early as the 18th century. [Wiki]

The Banjo Boy scene from Deliverance shows a local clogging at about 02:50 [link]. Although the movie was entertaining, it promoted the false and insulting stereotype of southerners as a bunch of inbred ignorant hicks.

Speaking of hicks, here’s one of the better ones.

Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks with “Milk Shakin’ Mama” from the Flip Wilson Show 1972.

And with that, we’re out of here until tomorrow. Have a great weekend, folks.

Saturday Matinee – Giant Snail, Giant Slug, Doug & The Slugs, Sharks Took The Rest, & Tokyo Ska Paradise

Glad those things don’t leap, but these slugs did:

We’ve featured Doug & The Slugs before. That vid dates to 1980, and 20 years later (the late) Doug Bennett was still singing the same song.

There just aren’t enough snail and slug songs IMO, but here’s “Snails” by Sharks Took The Rest. Not exactly my cup of gastropodia, but at least they contributed to the movement.
MOR SNALE SONGS PLZ

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra is just the thing to wind up this Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend, folks, see you back here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Cat Fail Sail, Mechanical Principles, & Tom Waits

[Tip ‘o the tarboosh to Mrmacs who found it here and insisted that we post it.]

“Mechanical Principles” – Simple gear actions from 1930 by Ralph Steiner, set to classical music. From the UToobage comments:

Some of the mechanisms featured:
0:16 Positive displacement pump
0:26 Four-stroke engine piston;
0:50 Simple steam engines or pumps;
2:00 Steam engine reversing gear as on ships;
3:10 Differential gear;
4:05 Worm gear;
4:10 Archimedes screw;
5:22 Geneva gear;
5:32 Pawl and ratchet;
5:55 Grasshopper escapement;
7:15 Scotch yokes;
8:07 Positive displacement pump (same as 0:16);
9:29 Wheel and disc integrator used in analog computers;
9:54 Possibly a turbine.

The only other soundtrack I can think of that might go along with that vid would be something by this guy:

Tom Waits’ Private Listening Party. I’m there if you need to get in touch with me. Have a great weekend, be back here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – The Channels, Little Isidore, The Hooters, Aswad & SRV

Earl Lewis & The Channels in 1997. “The Closer You Are” was a regional hit in New York in 1956. (It was covered by Frank Zappa in 1984 who made it sound kinda creepy.)

Little Isadore & The Inquistors’ early R&B style is spot on. Can’t find much about LI, and maybe that’s a good thing. A googoyle search provides little, except that it lead me to Rob Hyman and a band I’d forgotten about.

Hyman was a founding member of The Hooters. I have one of their CDs, but I don’t remember what caught my ear aside from the eclectic sound. “Karla With a K” would have fit my playlist in the late 80’s.

Lessee, what else was I listening to back then? A wide variety, including these guys:

Aswad live at Sunsplash 1984. No, I was never a stoner, but I liked de riddims.

Before anyone thinks I was some kind of pre-hipster indie weenoid back then, this was what I cranked after the sun went down.

Have a great weekend folks (and remember that real dads hate Fathers Day).

Saturday Matinee – MMA Mismatch 1998, LogoRama, Brother Phelps, The Kentucky Headhunters & Roy Buchanan

600 lbs vs 169 lbs. in a match from 1998 – 431 lbs. was apparently the greatest weight differential in MMA history. Place your bets, then hit play. [h/t garycooper]

Great animation and concept, despite the not-so-subtle message. PG13 for language & violence. [h/t Internet Septic Tank Engineer]

UPDATE – Here’s the background from Wiki:

Logorama is a 16-minute French animated film written and directed by H5/ François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain, and produced by Autour de Minuit. The film depicts events in a stylized Los Angeles, and is told entirely through the use of more than 2,500 contemporary and historical logos and mascots.

Brother Phelps from 1995, with “Any Way The Wind Blows.” Naming the band after their Minister father, brothers Rickie Lee and Doug Phelps previously recorded with The Kentucky Headhunters.

“Honky Tonk Walkin’.” First I heard The Kentucky Headhunters was their electric version of Sons of the Pioneers‘ “Davey Crockett” and it cracked me up.

Bill Doggett‘s “Honky Tonk” was a classic instrumental hit in 1956 . Here’s the late Roy Buchanan‘s version.

Okay, that’s enough for today. Have a great weekend, be back here for more tomorrow.