Joenomics.

Hugh Kretschmer

2009-11-10T21:14:00.000-05:00

2009-10-14T22:17:00.000-04:00

Stephen Colbert

2009-09-30T16:35:00.000-04:00

"The healthcare bill is so complicated I got a headache just thinking about it. And my insurance company said that is a pre-existing condition."

The Colbert Report, Sept. 29, 2009

Where The Wild Things Are write up in NY Times

2009-09-16T11:22:00.005-04:00

New York Times Magazine published a detailed and lengthy article that follows the creation of the film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are (out Oct. 16), directed by Spike Jonze. My favorite bit, in regards to Jonze's rapport with children and his tendency to wear skater shoes:

Catherine Keener, who was nominated for an Oscar for her work in Being John Malkovich and who plays a divorced mother in Where the Wild Things Are, told me that her 10-year-old son, Clyde, once asked her why Jonze didn’t live with his parents; apparently Clyde didn’t realize that Jonze was an adult.

I'd also refer you to the music video Jonze produced earlier this year for the UNKLE track "Heaven".

NYT Columnist Thomas Friedman on Van Jones' Resignation

2009-09-09T16:47:00.003-04:00

"When everyone has a cell phone, everyone’s a photographer. When everyone has access to YouTube, everyone’s a filmmaker. And when everyone’s a blogger, everyone’s in newspaper. When everyone’s a photographer, a newspaper and a filmmaker, everyone else is a public figure.

"Tell your kids, 'OK, be careful.' Every move they make is now a digital footprint. You are on Candid Camera. And unfortunately, the real message to young people, from all of these incidents (and I’m not here defending anything anyone said) but from all of these incidents, is really keep yourself tight, don’t say anything controversial, don’t think anything, don’t put anything in print. You know, whatever you do, just kind of smooth out all the edges, and maybe you too—you know, when you get nominated to be ambassador to Burkina Faso—you’ll be able to get through the hearing."

Meet The Press, September 6, 2009

2009-08-28T13:03:00.001-04:00

Dana Gould wonders: 'Is Obama literally Hitler?'

2009-08-17T22:54:00.000-04:00

Dana Gould was on Real Time with Bill Maher last Friday and showed this clip in which he visits some town hall protesters and a Remote Area Medical station in Inglewood, CA. Compare and contrast:

In case that clip gets pulled you can watch it here as well.

There was so much 'Hitler'...And this one guy I was talking to, I said like 'Why Hitler?' and he goes 'Well Hitler also wanted to restrict medical care for people." But was that what he was the most known for though?

Oh and in case you didn't already know, Obama Is Literally Hitler.

Why everything sucks.

2009-08-04T23:23:00.001-04:00

2009-08-02T19:34:00.002-04:00

1600 x 1135

2009-07-18T03:16:00.002-04:00

Auto-tUuUne (shortee!)

2009-07-15T02:30:00.001-04:00

I know Auto-Tune in the News has been around the net now for a few months but this one is one of the best. Featuring the climate change bill, Sarah Palin's resignation and Michael Jackson "waking up dead."

Here's Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining how Auto-Tune works, and I'd also highly recommend the excellent music documentary Before The Music Dies featuring a segment on the use of Auto-Tune in pop stardom.

James Dobson, fortune teller extraordinaire!

2009-07-10T13:01:00.001-04:00

Check out James Dobson's (of Focus on the Family) "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America" (PDF) which includes premonitions that Obama will somehow fill the Supreme Court with liberals, fund international terrorism, quash conservative radio, let Iran nuke Israel, Russia expand like Nazi Germany, and make it such that "our freedoms have been systematically taken away." Worst of all, dear alarmists, he will help... the gays!

Suddenly, homosexual "marriage" was the law of the land in all 50 states, and no state legislature, no state Supreme Court, no state Constitutional amendment, not even Congress, had any power to change it. ... The Boy Scouts no longer exist as an organization. They chose to disband rather than be forced to obey the Supreme Court decision that they would have to hire homosexual scoutmasters and allow them to sleep in tents with young boys.

That's right, the Supreme Court will soon be forcing gay men into tents with young boys, oh the horror!

Fun With Editing, Part 3

2009-07-09T01:05:00.001-04:00

2009-07-07T19:32:00.000-04:00

(via ManBabies)

The Great Dictator

2009-06-28T20:00:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible—Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me I say, "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers: Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, "the kingdom of God is within man"—not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers: In the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Jon Stewart on "socialized medicine"

2009-06-19T13:00:00.000-04:00

"God forbid someone replace the health care plan I had before I was 32 and actually qualified for real health care, I believe it was called Excedrin PM and Colt 45."

"Never Here" by Elastica

2009-06-18T18:25:00.000-04:00

How to make a beat!

2009-06-12T20:10:00.000-04:00

2009-06-05T01:53:00.000-04:00

To burn the most calories you have to exercise as much as possible, period.

2009-05-29T13:15:00.000-04:00

In a report recently published in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews exercise scientists conclude that a moderate amount of exercise does not speed up your metabolism in the proceeding 24 hours as previously thought. Even weight training to replace fat with muscle won't do the trick:

While it’s true that a pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat — about seven to 10 calories a day versus two calories — most people don’t put on enough muscle to make much of a difference. "Building muscle is very difficult for most individuals because it requires heavy weight workouts and a higher intake of calories," he says. "Average fitness enthusiasts [who are working out to gain muscle] will only add four to five pounds of lean mass," he says, and burn an additional 28 to 50 calories a day.

Well that's disconcerting. In effect the only real and sustained way to burn excess calories and lose weight is during exercise itself. So if you want to lose weight the best thing to do is to work a little bit of physical exertion into your everyday life. Maybe not the 90 minutes the FDA recommends but if you can get your heart beating faster for at least 30 minutes a day you're far better off than being sedentary.

Bill Maher on Californian ballot initiatives

2009-05-27T00:01:00.002-04:00

"We votes yes on gain and no on pain. This is why America's founders established a representative democracy, because they knew if the average Joe had the chance he'd vote for a fantasy world with no taxes, free beer and vagina trees."

Real Time With Bill Maher, May 22, 2009

Judge Sonia Sotomayor~r~r~r

2009-05-26T09:27:00.000-04:00

NYT: "President Obama will nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his first appointment to the court, officials said Tuesday, and has scheduled an announcement for 10:15 a.m. at the White House."

She'd be the third woman on the bench and the first Latina. As of late she was involved in the Connecticut case over reverse discrimination when no blacks made it past New Haven's firefighter promotion test and the department scrapped the test. Check out her Wikipedia page. As of right now there are nine citations about her possible nomination to the Court.

2009-05-25T22:03:00.002-04:00

A priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar...

2009-05-20T00:30:00.001-04:00

...featuring Adam Carolla, Larry Miller, and Lenny Clarke.

Sarasota Film Festival 2009 Shorts 1 Reviews

2009-05-17T00:04:00.000-04:00

Second Guessing Grandma (dir. Bob Giraldi)
This was about a young Jewish guy coming out to his family and focuses primarily on the reaction of his grandmother. The dialog is witty and comedic and story has some heart to it, but the scene cuts are fast and the camera is a bit too close up on the subjects with a lot of hand-held camera bobbing. ■■■□

Trece Años (dir. Topaz Adizes)
A very short story of a young man who returns to Cuba to visit his family after spending most of his life in New York and the familial conflict that surfaces. The presentation of both sides―struggle, tears and a mother's broken heart―is sincere and well done and the shots of Cuba are impressive, though the subject itself is depressing. ■■□□

Countertransference (dir. Madeleine Olnek)
A brilliantly-acted comic character study of Carla Carthrop, a fidgety and reserved woman trying to change her circumstances. We watch her personal battles against her domineering boss and totally insane therapist. I guess you would call this surreal absurdism. The dialog was weak in a few places leaving me to wonder how much was scripted versus improvised, but overall the short is hilarious and highly recommended. ■■■■

Nowhere Kids (dir. Eric Juhola)
Nowhere Kids follows a homeless teenage girl and her dog as she tracks down her mother. Along the way she falls in with a small group teens in the same situation and the audience gets a view of their grim existence with little hope and no real home or connection to the world, emotionally broken. With costuming a little too stylish and makeup a bit too gritty the realism gets hindered, but overall the storytelling is good and the acting and subject matter commendable and evocative. ■■■□

The New Yorkist (dir. Dana O'Keefe)
I'm not sure what to make of this short. It's what looks like an abstract first person delusion of grandeur. The story is told silent film-style as Alexander studies history, fights ants and eventually becomes Alexander the Great as he "conquers" Kyrgyzstan (represented with a disused airport terminal) by simply showing up. Strange stuff. ■□□□

I Am So Proud Of You (dir. Don Hertzfeld)
This new Don Hertzfeldt short was the main draw of the short film collection and didn't disappoint. For those who don't know, Hertzfeldt is known for his stick figure drawing style and his 2000 comic short Rejected. Over his past three short films he's been shifting from comedy to drama, or a kind of "dramedy". The second chapter in what Hertzfeldt has said will be a three part series follows Bill one year after his recovery from an undisclosed illness in Everything Will Be OK (trailer). The story starts with memories of Bill's childhood and a pastoral look at his (comically) mentally ill family's past. The funny and creative presentation works towards profound ruminations on time and death. Meanwhile Bill learns that at the same time he is improving, everything is not ok. The core of the story is the one certainty in life, "You will only get older."

Hertzfeldt has a real focus on sound and music in his short films, for example see the shot of sound files used in the 2005 short The Meaning of Life above. In Proud Of You you can hear this focus in the family history portion, and in the impact of Richard Wagner's "Vorspiel" near the end. As for animation he really surpassed himself. Hertzfeldt has always strictly limited his films to hand-drawn effects and animation with no computer assistance. In Everything Will Be OK he experimented with some animated photography and does even more here to great effect. There's a lot of humor and philosophy packed into this 22 minute short, most of it subtle but all of it pleasing and worth a look. ■■■■

The Road Trailer

2009-05-14T22:38:00.000-04:00

The Road is the epic post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father (Viggo Mortensen) and his young son (newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee) across a barren landscape that was blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed civilization and most life on earth.

In theaters October 16. Can't wait.

2009-05-14T02:07:00.001-04:00

James Carville

2009-05-11T14:47:00.000-04:00

"Republicans just don't understand comedy...it's like me talking about nuclear physics, I mean I just don't have the background to talk about it; they just don't understand comedy. If they did they wouldn't put Dick Cheney out all the time."

on Real Time With Bill Maher, May 8, 2009

Dave Chappelle

2009-05-09T14:00:00.001-04:00

"Every comic wants to be a musician. Every musician thinks they're funny. It's a very strange relationship that we have. Some musicians are funny. Some comedians can play. I'll give you an example: Mos Def, funny guy; Jamie Foxx, good singer and piano player. So you never know, you never know what kind of talent a person has. I'm mediocre at both, but I've managed to talk my way into a fortune!"

from Dave Chappelle's Block Party, 2005

Zach Galifianakis Between Two Ferns with Natalie Portman

2009-05-08T18:00:00.001-04:00

I have never seen a celebrity this uncomfortable in my life...

"Let The Beat Build" by Nyle

2009-05-08T00:30:00.001-04:00

By the way YouTube now has re-enabled embeddable HD (for some videos, anyway) with the simple code &hd=1. Check the embed options on a video's page to see if the code is available. Possibly related, the new beta of iPhone's 3.0 software will now stream the high resolution version of a YouTube video over 3G, where previously that quality was reserved for wifi.

"Hey! I'm tired of Gibbs screwing this thing up."

2009-05-04T22:15:00.000-04:00

President Obama making an impromptu appearance at the daily White House press briefing last Friday to detail the announcement of Justice David Souter's retirement. This is how you make an entrance:

Obama could nominate Souter's replacement as early as the end of this week according to Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, member of the Judiciary Committee. Signs point to the selection of a woman justice since Ruth Bader Ginsburg was left the lone female on the Supreme Court when Sandra Day O'Connor retired in 2006. You might recall two weeks ago during a case about the strip search of a 13-year old girl. Ginsburg let loose on Justice Breyer for suggesting that girls, like boys, shouldn't have an issue being naked in front of an adult of the same sex because of the similarity to a locker room:

According to NPR's Nina Totenberg, who was in the room, Ginsburg's eyes "flashed with anger" at Justice Breyer's question. "She seemed to all but shout, "Boys may like to preen in the locker room, but girls, particularly teen-aged girls, do not."

Souter will retire in June and his replacement should assume office when the court reconvenes in October.

2009-05-04T00:52:00.001-04:00

"Dr. Rutherford Quiglesby has invited you to join a right merry affair of Facebook."

2009-05-01T10:20:00.000-04:00

The New York Times Bits blog reports that ProQuest archivist Bryan Benilous found a article from 1902 titled "Face Book The New Fad". The "face book" the article mentions is a sort of party game of drawing silly faces... in a book. Moreover:

The Face Book article is not the first quirky relic that Mr. Benilous and his colleagues have excavated from old news articles. In addition to discovering what appears to be an emoticon in a transcript of a speech by Abraham Lincoln, they’ve uncovered a 1942 Washington Post article titled "Think Before You Twitter" about gossiping and a 1903 article referring to the first "pocket telephone."

"Low-flying planes cause scare in NYC"

2009-04-29T00:02:00.000-04:00

I'm hearing this in an Austrian accent...

2009-04-27T22:12:00.001-04:00

IRONMAN: Alcoholic destroys company, seduces coworker, commits war crimes.

2009-04-27T11:58:00.000-04:00

The site PostmodernBarney has a huge list of Uncomfortable Plot Summaries. Some examples:

BATMAN: Wealthy man assaults the mentally ill.
CLERKS: Aimless loser remains in dead-end job, abusive “friendship.”
GROUNDHOG DAY: Misanthropic creep exploits space/time anomaly to stalk coworker.
JURASSIC PARK: Theme park’s grand opening pushed back.
SIGNS: Jesus trumps science.
THE EXORCIST: Jesus trumps science.
THE SHINING: Wife and son keep author from finishing his novel.

The last one is a whopper. Be sure to scan through the 200 or so comments for some gems including another potshot at Bill Murray:

LOST IN TRANSLATION: Unfocused holiday trip leaves two people in yearning depression.

Even more on MetaFilter. Have any to add?

Wondering what Miho Hatori and Cornelius have been up to?

2009-04-26T18:18:00.000-04:00

They're both featured on the new Towa Tei album Big Fun released in February. Here's the music video for the track "Mind Wall" featuring Miho Hatori:

Try it before you buy it.

(via Zeon's Music Blog)

2009-04-23T12:17:00.000-04:00

Scientists are beginning to understand the neurological patterns behind mental repression, suppression, and dissociation. Multiple personality disorder, now known as dissociative identity disorder (DID), can actually cause complete changes to the structure of the brain dependent on which personality a patient is expressing. A person suffering from DID was diagnosed as blind for 15 years:

There was nothing wrong with the patient’s eyes per se, but she claimed she couldn’t see, and testing at the ophthalmologist bore this out. During the experiment reported here, one personality state had essentially normal eyesight, whereas a younger, male personality—which could be summoned momentarily by calling out his name—was blind. When in her sighted personality, the EEG showed normal brain waves in response to a checkerboard pattern that alternated its squares 10 times each second—from white to black and back again. But visually evoked activity was much reduced in her blind personality state. There is no known mechanism that allows someone to consciously block vision with open eyes. This remarkable finding implies that the brain can rapidly intervene at a very early stage of the visual system, preventing visual information from reaching the patient’s cortex. How it does so remains a mystery.

Adm. Dennis C. Blair, Director of National Intelligence

2009-04-22T13:05:00.001-04:00

On the CIA "enhanced interrogation techniques" scandal:
"The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

(via First Read)

The Credit Crisis: It's All About Risk

2009-04-19T22:47:00.000-04:00

If moving pictures work better for you than text this infographic-style video will clarify the economic collapse. It all came down to reselling risky repackaged mortgages.

Record Store Day: TODAY!

2009-04-18T08:50:00.000-04:00

Today is Record Store Day. Your local shop should be selling dozens of limited edition singles, LPs and the like as well as running sales and various in-store events. Personally I'm hoping to pick up that Beck/Sonic Youth split and the funk/soul label compilation This LP Crashes Hard Drives (aka This Album Crashes Hard Drives). Vinyl Fever, one of my local shops, seems to be making the most out of today.

Lucy McLauchlan

2009-04-15T20:45:00.000-04:00

This woman has an awesome way with black paint.

(via Wooster Collective)

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T16:14:00.002-04:00

1920 x 1200 · via Brendan Zabarauskas

"We Made You" by Eminem

2009-04-08T23:30:00.000-04:00

I don't listen to Eminem much if at all, but there's a lot going on in this music video, especially Bobby Lee dressed as an Inuit hiding in Sarah Palin's bed and vomiting...

"Heaven" by UNKLE (dir. Spike Jonze)

2009-04-05T19:00:00.001-04:00

Obama Inauguration & New York Photos

2009-04-01T20:10:00.000-04:00

Back in January I took a trip to New York and the Obama Inauguration in DC. Unfortunately I can't take credit for the photo above but here's my DC photo set on Flickr. Below is a panorama of downtown New York from Jersey City and here's the rest of the New York set.

2009-03-29T23:28:00.000-04:00

Where the Wild Things Are Trailer

2009-03-27T17:00:00.001-04:00

Jaw: dropped. Here's a direct link to the 1080p .mov on Apple's trailer site weighing in at 150mb.

Sarasota Film Festival 2009 Preview

2009-03-26T20:40:00.006-04:00

The 2009 Sarasota Film Festival starts tomorrow, March 27 and runs through Sunday, April 5. Here are the films and shorts I’m going to watch in the order I plan to see them:

	Shorts 1 (for “I Am So Proud of You”) : A lonely stick-figure, Bill, experiences life at its most bittersweet, humiliating, glorious, and sad. Directed by Don Hertzfeld, creator of “Everything is Going to Be OK”, “The Meaning of Life”, and “Rejected”. (reviews)
	Tokyo Sonata : The story of a family on the ropes; when Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) discovers his job has been outsourced to China, he begins an elaborate charade to keep up familial appearances. But he's not the only one with a secret; his young son Kenji (Kai Inowaki) wants to become a classical pianist. How can the family find peace and still keep all of their dreams alive? Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
	We Live in Public : Internet pioneer Josh Harris, founder of Pseudo.com, one of the first online media companies, never saw himself as a dot-com tycoon. Instead, Harris used his growing fortune to explore the artistic implications of emerging technology, creating two prescient projects that would come to shape the future of the Internet forever. Directed by Ondi Timoner.
	Shorts 5 (for “Treevenge”) : Fans of B horror films rejoice: the trees are angry, and they want revenge! Directed by Jason Eisener.
	Examined Life : How can philosophy answer the ethical concerns that dominate our times? Interviewing some of the most profound thinkers of our times, director Astra Taylor explores a wide range of issues, from the ethics of consumption and ecology to the questioning of the limitations of the physical body in determining our identities. Interviewees: Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Žižek, and Judith Butler.
	Treeless Mountain : Jin, a carefree elementary school student in Seoul, South Korea, is the older sister of Bin, a precocious toddler who follows her sister’s every cue and direction. When they and their mother are evicted from the family apartment, the girls are left with their reluctant aunt, a small town hustler whose resentment of the girls is matched only by her negligence. Directed by So Yong Kim.
	Trust Us, This is All Made Up : Hailing from Chicago and the famous Second City comedy theater, TJ Jagodowski and Dave Pasquesi create absolutely hilarious hour-long improvisational pieces that are almost too polished to believe. The film features one of their wild and hysterical New York performances from beginning to end, and they promise, it’s improv, so it’s all made up. Directed by Alex Karpovsky. (review) (site)

And here are other films playing I’m interested in but can’t attend for one reason or another:

Kimjongilia : North Korean émigrés uncover the harrowing secrets of a closed country in their own words, and discuss the painful and traumatic division between North and South after the Korean War. Using images from North Korean films and propaganda, this explosive documentary examines the workings of the powerful machine that is the North Korean dictatorship. (trailer) (review)

The Missing Person : In a pitch-perfect interpretation of the classic private detective, Academy-Award nominated actor Michael Shannon plays John Rosow, a struggling alcoholic who is hired to tail a man on a train from Chicago to Los Angeles. Before long, Rosow realizes that he’s been deceived about the job and the identity of the man who he is following, and the new evidence chillingly evokes some of Rosow’s own demons. (trailer)

Old Partner : Documentary about the final days of a long, happy friendship between a South Korean rice farmer named Mr. Lee and his faithful ox. Under the watchful eye of his ever-present wife, Mr. Lee embarks on a daily journey to his small patch of land in his ox cart. Soon, as age catches up with the animal, Mr. and Mrs. Lee must confront the issue of mortality head-on; how could they continue on without the partner who has served them so well? (trailer)

Sorry, Thanks : Kira (Kenya Miles) is in between jobs and in between boyfriends when she has a one-night stand with Max (Wiley Wiggins). Max, who has a steady job and a steady relationship, recognizes his moral digression but can’t help viewing Kira as a much-needed spark. Kira and Max realize that they are still figuring it all out when it comes to love, and to their dreams. (trailer)

Stingray Sam : Sci-fi western rock-and-roll musical, a journey into a world of space travel, male cloning and comedy that borrows equally from John Ford’s The Searchers and the classic Flash Gordon serials of the 1940’s and 50’s. Watch as Sam and his partner The Quasar Kid span the galaxy in search of a kidnapped child! Thrill as Sam and Quasar battle the evil forces of Fredward! (trailer)

Winnebago Man : In the world of viral video, “Winnebago Man” Jack Rebney is the height of celebrity. Rebney’s disintegration into a torrent of expletives during a Winnebago corporate marketing shoot became famous when this footage was released and duplicated onto VHS. Rebney became an underground celebrity whose fame only took off further with the advent of the internet. Filmmaker Ben Steinbauer set out to find the real Jack Rebney and discovers that this living internet star was surprisingly difficult to uncover. (review)

Hey, 1999. What the fuck?

2009-03-25T16:05:00.000-04:00

Back in the late 1990s Citicorp and Travelers Insurance merged to form Citigroup, currently known as Citi. Citycorp was the successor of the long line of banks started by City Bank of New York in 1812, and Travelers a consortium of insurers and creditors. The merger was unprecedented in its time because those two financial animals—bankers and creditors—were prohibited from sharing assets by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. That act separated bankers and brokers in order to prevent the wild speculation that inflated the stock markets leading to the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.

The act was repealed in 1999 by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, in large part to allow for mergers such as Citigroup to stand. Well guess what:

The repeal enabled commercial lenders such as Citigroup, which was in 1999 then the largest U.S. bank by assets, to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and establish so-called structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, that bought those securities. It is believed that the repeal of this act contributed to the Global financial crisis of 2008–2009.

You can actually go back and read the coverage from the New York Times, including former Treasury Secretary and current White House National Economic Council director Larry Summers's pronouncement that "this historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy." But the most significant part of the report is this small prognostication:

"I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010," said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. "I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness."

Now here we are.

2009-03-24T19:10:00.001-04:00

Authority.

"My boner's got weird old candybars!"

2009-03-23T22:03:00.000-04:00

Premise: What if Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was a horror film?

(via /Film)

Real Time with Sarah Silverman

2009-03-21T16:00:00.003-04:00

This is the first frank interview with Sarah Silverman I've seen. She talks about her finances and the economy, The Great Schlep, her show, divas, the Playboy Mansion, and the art of being a comedian.

My douche sense is tingling...

2009-03-19T18:48:00.000-04:00

Holy shit! Ex-President George W. Bush is down my street visiting former Ambassador Mel Sembler's place. There are cops and Secret Service everywhere and passers-by gawking at the commotion.

Sembler spoke at my middle school way back when. He was ambassador to Australia, Naru and most recently Italy. Guess this is what happens when you live in a neighborhood with a big Republican National Committee operative. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go look suspicious by standing in my back yard while taking pictures... and eating frozen yogurt.

Where The Wild Things Are

2009-03-19T01:54:00.000-04:00

2009-03-16T23:45:00.000-04:00

"Happy Up Here" by Röyksopp

2009-03-13T15:00:00.000-04:00

2009-03-12T19:00:00.001-04:00

An interview with one of the victims of Bernie Madoff. Ronnie Sue Ambrosino had all of her retirement funds invested with Madoff. Now, all she and her husband have to their names is a mortgaged motorhome.

Madoff has plead guilty and faces up to 150 years in prison.

Frank Schaeffer on the Religious Right and the state of the GOP

2009-03-11T23:15:00.000-04:00

"This is the drunk on the subway making all the trouble at the end of the car for all the people in the subway. There's a hundred decent citizens on there, there's one ass at the front end who's molesting women. That's the Republican Party now."

Olympus's little 'carrot camera' official, and other PMA news

2009-03-10T12:15:00.001-04:00

Late last year Olympus revealed this impressive little concept camera that uses a system developed with Panasonic called Micro Four Thirds. The MFT system blurs the lines between small point-and-shoot consumer cameras and big honking professional/prosumer DSLR cameras by combining a large image sensor and interchangeable lenses with pocketability and video recording. It's a magical concoction that promises the world, though the only MFT camera on the market is still bulky, expensive and doesn't record video. While the Olympus concept lacks a lot of specifics it may still prove to be a blowout in form and function.

Last week at the Photo Marketing Association trade show Olympus made the concept official and said it would be out some time this summer. No further details were announced, though a Russian photography site posted a rumor (translated) that this model will be named the M-100 and come with a 14-70mm kit lens (28-140mm 35mm-eqiv.). The kooky Russians also rumored there will be a larger version dubbed the M-1 that will have HD video recording capabilities. An interview with an Olympus official confirms that the M-100 will have image stabilization as well as a high speed electronic view finder (read a Japanese person's interpretation of the interview here). He notes the design is not final–the unit on display is the same mockup from last year–but the final package will stay true to the dimensions of the concept camera. If you look closely at this picture you can even see the mockup is getting a little dusty.

Anyway, keep your eye on it. Other notable announcements from PMA:

Samsung will release a Micro Four Thirds camera series dubbed NX. It looks almost as appealing as the M-100 and seriously small compared to a regular DSLR. Few details and no price or release date were announced but Photography Bay put together as many facts as they could here.
Epson announced the R-D1xG, a rangefinder camera that improves on their first model released five years ago. A rangefinder attached to a point and shoot camera allows for adjustable and clear focus on one's subject. This is great for photojournalists because the Epson and Leica digital rangefinder cameras are small enough for one-handed operation but still provide incredible quality. Unfortunately they're damned expensive.
Panasonic showed off this little 'tough camera' that stands up to beatings and diving and keeps working while looking fine.

Adam Carolla on Communication

2009-03-07T11:00:00.000-05:00

Q: "How did you get your psychological understanding of people?"

A: "This entire planet is filled with human beings. More people spend time figuring out how to communicate with their dogs than with people. We spend no time trying to figuring out people and how they work and what motivates them, but they will decide whether you have a happy satisfied life or a shit life. And at some point on some level I realized I should start studying people. Because if I figure out how people work then I can figure out how to get money from them, how I can get sex from them, how... and I'm not talking about manipulating them or getting them to do shit they don't want to do, I just mean understand people.

Q: "When did you realize that though?"

A: "I don't think I ever really consciously did it but it was always in the back of my mind. I studied people, I wanted to know why they did stuff and what motivated them to do the things they did do or didn't do and then how could I prevent it from happening again to me or somebody else. And so it always became a sort of quiet hobby of mine that I was going to study people and try to understand how best to deal with those people.

I'm a person, I don't want to get beat up, I don't want to get fired, I don't want to get divorced, I don't want to get 'fill in the blank'. You don't want your kids to hate you: figure out how to be a decent dad. You want your boss to give you a raise. When someone is throwing a party you want to get invited. How does it all work?"

(via Thursday's podcast)

2009-03-05T19:42:00.000-05:00

Wrong twice.

2009-03-04T22:40:00.000-05:00

The Adam Carolla Podcast

2009-03-02T11:30:00.000-05:00

Adam Carolla, longtime Loveline co-host, actor/comedian and recently-dethroned successor to Howard Stern's radio show is now producing a free daily podcast. You can grab the RSS feed here and the iTunes subscription link here. He launched the podcast just last week and it has already reached well over one million downloads.

Each show averages an hour long and covers any topic on the host's or guest's mind. I've listened to four shows so far and it's consistently funny and enjoyable. This week comedian extraordinaire David Alan Grier (aka DAG) and Leo Laporte (host of the This Week in Tech podcast) are scheduled to appear. So why not tune in, it's fucking FREE!

2009-03-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

Five Word Review: Let The Right One In (■■■■)

2009-02-25T10:20:00.000-05:00

trailer · rottentomatoes · metacritic · imdb

Beautifully grim adolescent vampiric love.

"Please Oskar... Be me, for a little while."

2009-02-23T20:40:00.000-05:00

"Tesla, they say, is dead."

2009-02-22T18:00:00.006-05:00

Last year the radio program Studio 360 twice ran a show devoted to famed inventor Nikola Tesla and the spirit of invention. Tesla created many things in his life, the most important and well known being alternating current, over which he battled his nemesis inventor Thomas Edison.

An introduction to Tesla with Samantha Hunt:

Three pieces about Tesla's life, written and performed by Mike Daisey:

The (very good) film The Prestige featured Tesla as a character played by David Bowie, and even had a scene featuring Tesla's rumored attempts at the wireless transmission of power. The man was as much a potent myth-maker as an inventor. At the end of the program (you can hear it at the 9 minute mark in this segment) there is a small eulogy for Tesla written by Louis Adamič and read over the radio in 1943 by the mayor of New York City, Fiorello La Guardia:

Now, this extraordinary man is dead. Or so they say. The papers on Friday published obituaries and editorials summarizing his life and work, and they told of his personal habits and eccentricities. Tesla, they say, is dead. But Tesla is not really dead! The real, the important part of Tesla lives in his achievement, which is great, almost beyond calculation, an integral part of our civilization, of our daily lives, of our current war effort. Why mourn Tesla? His life is a triumph! A triumph of all the people of the world!

Conan O'Brien ♥ Martha Stewart

2009-02-21T20:00:00.001-05:00

From Time.com's top ten Conan O'Brien moments. They include Triumph at the Star Wars opening, Conan in Houston at 3 AM, picking apples with Mr. T, the Walker, Texas Ranger lever, trying to meet Forss Fagerstrom and a lovely bit with Andy Richter. But they left out the Stewart vs. Colbert vs. Conan fight, for shame!

Last night was Conan O'Brien's last time on Late Night as he prepares to take over Jay Leno's Tonight Show in LA.

2009-02-21T16:30:00.000-05:00

Hold on. I'm comin'. Hold on. I'm comin'. bada bum bum bada bum

Five Word Review: Synecdoche, New York (■■■■)

2009-02-18T22:50:00.001-05:00

trailer · rottentomatoes · metacritic · imdb

"There are millions of people in the world. And none of those people is an extra. They're all leads in their own stories. They have to be given their due."

John Hodgman on cat vomit and owl consumption

2009-02-18T11:39:00.000-05:00

Last month "famous minor celebrity" John Hodgman, resident of Brooklyn, answered questions in a three part series for readers of the New York Times blog City Room. All questions had to be about life in New York but covered as varied topics as cat vomit, hobo spices, minor celebrity spottings, mole-men, Liza Minnelli, Cylons, how to cook an owl and the length of a rod:

A fourth of a chain, or roughly 11 cubits. 10 units in New York, for obvious reasons.

Also...

Q: What is the New York equivalent of the Southern expression "Bless your heart"?

A: (EXPLETIVE) you, you (EXPLETIVE-ING) (EXPLETIVE)

Here is part one, part two, and the inordinately long part three.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

2009-02-17T00:20:00.002-05:00

How to make peanut butter and jelly the EXTREME way.

Bush and the press

2009-02-15T00:10:00.000-05:00

Last month, just before the inauguration WNYC's On The Media aired a farewell piece about George W. Bush's special relationship with the press:

BOB GARFIELD: The Bush Administration ridiculed the press, ignored the press, stonewalled the press, bullied the press, maneuvered around the press, co-opted the press, censored the press, jailed the press, fabricated for the press, lied to the press and, for example, when caught illegally wiretapping Americans without a warrant, blamed the press.

BUSH: It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in time of war.

In short, the Bush Administration perniciously used the press as the screw in their vice made to flatten Americans' heads. The piece is a nice bit of catharsis, listen to it here.

2009-02-14T23:32:00.000-05:00

Cupid! by Kerry P. Talbott

A few notes on the stimulus

2009-02-13T12:45:00.000-05:00

So the 2009 stimulus bill (or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or the ARARARARARA) looks like it'll bounce its way out from between the House and Senate soon and actually pass. The Washington Post published this cool infographic showing the distribution of the bulk of those 819 billion little dollars.

The Republicans kept pressing for a 60/40 split in favor of tax cuts, but as you've heard in their fury and can see in that chart the Democrats plopped down big balls of financial distribution split almost 80/20 in favor of spending. Most of those gargantuan fiscal sacks relate to housing, energy, health care, education, food assistance and infrastructure (like highway and bridge repair). In other words, the majority is geared towards investment in programs neglected by the Bush Administration for eight years as it tried to fulfill Grover Norquist's dream of shrinking government "down to the size where [he could] drown it in the bathtub".

Even though most of the bill is stimulative some (relative) pork weaseled its way in as reported today by the Post. Some highlights include funding for clean coal, fish hatcheries and tax breaks for golf carts and electric motorcycles. Still:

Stimulus advocates say the GOP complaints are overheated and generally focus on projects that Republicans dislike for ideological reasons. Chad Stone, chief economist at the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, defended the bill. "The overwhelming bulk of what is in the package is effective and well-designed stimulus," he said.

Looking back at that infographic the gray ball all the way on the right ($82.1 billion for "Tax credit payments") constitutes the part of the stimulus people would most likely compare to the rebate checks distributed last year. Instead of a lump sum check that money gets spread out so that starting in June you'll see between $5 and $20 knocked off of your payroll taxes for about two years. So now instead of running out and buying that celebrity-narrated GPS even though you can't afford to put gas in your damn car maybe you'll be able to go out to dinner once every couple of weeks instead. I hear sushi's pretty good.

"I like to f*ck my wife on top of the sports page!"

2009-02-11T15:55:00.002-05:00

Comedy gold, people. Comedy gold.

Boston's police get reckless, treat Shepard Fairey and arts community as pawns

2009-02-10T13:40:00.002-05:00

Shepard Fairey (designer of the iconic Andre the Giant, OBEY and Obama Hope campaigns) was arrested in Boston last Friday night just outside of and moments before the opening of his career-spanning show "Supply and Demand" at the Institute for Contemporary Art. The cops nabbed him on two revived warrants for various bits of graffiti, but what's notable is the timing and method of arrest. As they pulled up to ICA:

The driver slowed down to attempt to make the turn but still missed the entrance by just a fraction of a second and we passed it by a short distance. The driver tried to back up or turn around but the unmarked SUV directly behind us was blocking our path. Police officers quickly surrounded the cab, and one of them pounded loudly on the driver's window. "Boston Police, stop the car! Turn off the car!" The officer exchanged words with the cab driver, and one of the officers flashed a badge and asked us each to identify ourselves. When Shepard calmly said, "I'm Shepard," one officer commanded, "Everybody out of the car, now!" We quickly decided to OBEY.

In this account given to Wooster Collective by friends traveling in the cab with Fairey and his wife, it appears as if the Boston Police planned to 'ambush' Fairey at the door of the show in order to stir up the crowd or even provoke a riot but scrapped the plan when the cab missed the turn. They make the case by noting the Boston P.D. had two weeks to arrest Fairey but waited until the show in order to cause a media shit storm for the Mayor, who had been promoting Fairey's visit and feuding with the P.D. on wages and residency requirements. Hell, the warrants were issued the day after the Mayor and the P.D. finished negotiations!

Never forget, and if you're in the arts you may want to avoid Boston like... forever.

2009-02-09T21:47:00.000-05:00

2009-02-06T18:00:00.001-05:00

A Tale of Two Douches

2009-02-05T10:56:00.000-05:00

First this report came out yesterday:

A U.N. spokesman says Hamas police in Gaza have seized thousands of blankets and food parcels meant for needy residents. Spokesman Christopher Gunness says Hamas police raided a U.N. warehouse in Gaza City on Tuesday evening. He says police snatched 3,500 blankets and more than 400 food parcels.

Then this report comes out today:

The Israeli Navy intercepted a cargo ship headed for Gaza on Thursday, diverting it to an Israeli port where the people aboard were to be questioned, the military announced. The boat, called The Brotherhood Ship, was carrying what its organizers said was humanitarian aid: food, medicine, and toys. ... Among the nine people aboard was the former Greek Orthodox archbishop of Jerusalem, Monsignor Hilarion Capucci.

That's right, both sides fighting in the recent Hamas-Israel conflict are blocking aid meant for Palestinian civilians. What a bunch of douches!

In the case of the raided U.N. warehouse Hamas might either be stealing those supplies for themselves or planning to redistribute it to garner support from civilians. That's the reason they were running the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, to bring in weapons and supplies (which Israel invaded to bomb the shit out of). As for the intercepted supply ship, depending on how Israel proceeds those supplies could still get to needy Palestinians as Israel allows a maximum of 200 trucks of aid though their Gaza blockade a day.

Still, Israel diverted, boarded and pointed guns at a ship with only nine crew members including a former archbishop! Meanwhile...

...the Israeli military acknowledged that its soldiers fired two tank shells on Jan. 16 at the house of Izzeldin Abuelaish, a well-known Gaza doctor, killing three of his daughters and a niece. The military said that it was "saddened by the harm caused" to the doctor's family, but that under the circumstances, it considered the decision to fire toward the building "reasonable."

No, it wasn't. And shut up.

Random street interview

2009-02-04T11:00:00.000-05:00

Clay Pigeon: "Are you happy enough?"

Russian woman: "Who can be happy, you know? Always there's something to bother you. You cannot be happy. Happy is a moment, you cannot be happy all the time. Only a fool can be happy all the time." [laughs]

2009-02-04T00:10:00.002-05:00

Antique maps of New York City

2009-02-02T14:00:00.000-05:00

Here's a map of New York City from 1847. Notice that there are, of course, no bridges and all river crossings were done by ferry. The Greenpoint area of Brooklyn was known as Williamsburg (thus the Williamsburg Bridge). Straight roads dominate except for a few bended streets in the oldest section of lower Manhattan. Half of Broadway was called Bloomingdale Road, and the Harlem Railroad ran all the way downtown.

Here's a map from 1879 that offers way more detail. The Brooklyn Bridge opened four years after this map was drawn and it's marked as "Suspension Bridge" (it was officially named Brooklyn Bridge in 1915).

Finally here's a Google Maps view of New York City today. Notice the dominance of highways and tunnels, the reclaimed areas on the west side of Manhattan's tip in the Financial District, the reclaimed docks on Brooklyn's industrial shore, and the various holes in the Lower East Side where roads were closed off for housing developments. The Peter Cooper Village—Stuyvesant Town on the East Side at 14th St. and 1st Ave. is the largest. It was built in the mid-40s over the former Gastown District (where coal gas was processed) as a postwar housing project.

Also notice how the area around the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge landings in Brooklyn reformed the streets. I was researching this old photo of the Daily Eagle Building a while back and had trouble figuring out if it still stood because the street in the photo no longer exists.

2009-02-01T22:20:00.000-05:00

"Manwomanboogie" by Q-Tip feat. Amanda Diva

2009-01-31T01:00:00.003-05:00

The song and video are mostly message, but still danceable.

Colbert reacts to Obama Inauguration

2009-01-29T00:17:00.001-05:00

Powerful, just powerful.

Ok, I'm Back...

2009-01-27T23:24:00.000-05:00

Damn was it cold in DC and NY. I nearly died. No, really.

2009-01-21T09:43:00.001-05:00

2700 x 2100

2009-01-19T23:59:00.001-05:00

Bye!

2009-01-19T00:43:00.004-05:00

And he's out. I'm in NYC this week to head to the inauguration Monday night, posting will be light.

"One of These Things First" by Nick Drake

2009-01-14T19:00:00.001-05:00

Tampa named "most caffeinated U.S. city"

2009-01-14T10:00:00.002-05:00

New Poll: "Tampa, Fla., most caffeinated U.S. city"

Ever ride on our highways? "Give me more COFFEE! HONK! MOVE OUT OF MY WAY ASSHOLE! HONK! STAY IN YOUR LANE! HONK PUNCH HONK! MOTHERFUCKER, MOVE! [highbeams] HONK HONK! MORE CAFFEINE! FUCK! HONK! GET OFF THE HIGHWAY GRANDMA! HONK HONK! FUCK I SPILLED COFFEE ON MY CROTCH! [braking] FUUUUUUUU..." [swerve] [crash]

Welcome to Tampa.

See what Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip is like for the Palestinians

2009-01-12T20:00:00.003-05:00

There is so much to say on either side of the issue but this poor family and the actions and thoughts of the Israeli soldiers in this rare video are so very poignant. What good could ever come from all this?

2009-01-12T19:25:00.000-05:00

2009-01-10T13:58:00.002-05:00

Mosquitoes are musicians

2009-01-09T10:04:00.001-05:00

NPR's Morning Edition had a cool piece today about the sound of a mosquito's wings. When mating the Aedes aegypti adjusts its buzz along with its mate to form what's known as a perfect fifth, two notes that are five semitones apart:

The male mosquito's buzz, or flight tone, is normally about 600 cycles per second, or 600-Hz. The female's tone is about 400-Hz. In music, he's roughly a D, and she's about a G. So the male brings his tone into phase with the female's to create a near-perfect duet. Together, the two tones create what musicians call an overtone — a third, fainter tone at 1200-Hz. Only then will the mosquitoes mate.

The story includes a little audio surprise at the end, as well as a video of the mosquitoes in action.

Original trailer

2009-01-08T21:11:00.000-05:00

WARNING: Lots of "Fuck!"

Original directed by Antonio Tublén and Alexander Brøndsted of Denmark.

(via Twitch)

Speaking of hell, we've opened up a new branch there

2009-01-06T16:01:00.001-05:00

I wonder if they sell snowballs.

In Iraq, the US has opened its massive new embassy in Baghdad. The $700 million building is the most expensive and largest embassy in the world. The 104-acre compound includes twenty-one buildings, a commissary, cinema, retail and shopping areas, restaurants, schools, a fire station, power and water treatment plants, as well as telecommunications and wastewater treatment facilities. The compound is six times larger than the United Nations in New York.

(via DN!)