I don’t know if y’all are watching the Olympics this year. I am. Sort of. Here’s some lesser know global competition that we could all participate, and I would probably watch more closely than curling…
George & Martha
Something reminded me of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, which in turn reminded me of this parody. Benny Hill’s Richard Burton is spot-on.
The Perfect Crime
From Defector:
The Justice Department announced today they’d arrested the two people behind the 2016 Bitfinex hack and recovered 94,636 of the 119,754 bitcoins stolen in the heist. That haul is currently valued at more than $3.6 billion, making it the largest financial seizure in United States history.
One of the actual crimes the pair of alleged masterminds are accused of committing is money laundering, which is somewhat redundant given, again, that we are dealing with cryptocurrency. In this case, the feds say Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan successfully laundered 21 percent of their bitcoin plunder through a number of labyrinthine pathways, including setting up fake accounts, swapping BTC for gold, and buying a bunch of PlayStation and WalMart gift cards. The feds found the unlaundered 79 percent just, uh, sitting in Lichtenstein’s cloud storage account, which they pretty easily recovered after getting a search warrant.
Morgan bills herself as a “Surrealist Artist, Rapper” and “Forbes writer” performing under the stage name Razzlekhan.
“Just like her fearless entrepreneurial spirit and hacker mindset, Razz shamelessly explores new frontiers of art, pushing the limit of what’s possible. Whether that leads to something wonderful or terrible is unclear; the only thing that’s certain is it won’t be boring or mediocre.”
Um… right. The interwebs are having a field day with her terrible rapping. You were warned.
Great Fight Scene (SPOILERISH)
Anybody seen Nobody? I feel like we’ve talked about this one.
Hutch is a nobody. As an overlooked and underestimated father and husband, he takes life’s indignities on the chin and never rocks the boat. But when his daughter loses her beloved kittycat bracelet in a robbery, Hutch hits a boiling point no one knew he had. What happens when a pushover finally pushes back? Hutch flips from regular dad to fearless fighter by taking his enemies on a wild ride of explosive revenge. The writer of John Wick showcases Emmy® winner Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) as fans have never seen him before: an average family man who becomes a lethal vigilante unlike any ordinary action hero.
Acoustic Descendents
Yes, it’s a YouTube commercial for Taylor guitars, but still …
Guy In Siberia Restores Soviet Motorcycle
This is as cool as it gets.
Speaking o’ Memphis
Here’s a radio show of some 60’s-70’s rarities. I love the ones by the Breakers and Flash and the Memphis Casuals. I bet they kicked ass live (I’m not old enough to have seen them, although I did see about half of the others on this list). Unlisted after the Tommy Hoehn song is a pretty terrible cover of “I Walk the Line” by a band called Hot Dogs, who had some good songs; why on earth was that chosen? I find Chris Bell’s acoustic version of “I Am The Cosmos” too slow, sludgy, and depressing–which I guess makes sense, as he was chronically depressed. It’s the sound of Quaalude abuse. The official single version moves along better, although there’s still about as much sludge as I can endure.
Hit Factory
I always forget they’re Californian, as it seems like they could have spewed forth from Appalachia, or anywhere.
Fogerty’s ’68-’70 run was nuts:
- I Put A Spell On You
- Proud Mary
- Bad Moon Rising
- Green River
- Down On The Corner
- Fortunate Son
- Travelin’ Band
- Who’ll Stop the Rain
- Lookin’ Out My Back Door
- Long As I Can See The Light
Been reading more about them, their implosion, all the record label nonsense.
I was alone when I made that [CCR] music. I was alone when I made the arrangements, I was alone when I added background vocals, guitars and some other stuff. I was alone when I produced and mixed the albums. The other guys showed up only for rehearsals and the days we made the actual recordings. For me Creedence was like sitting on a time bomb. We’d had decent successes with our cover of “Susie Q” and with the first album when we went into the studio to cut “Proud Mary.” It was the first time we were in a real Hollywood studio, RCA’s Los Angeles studio, and the problems started immediately. The other guys in the band insisted on writing songs for the new album, they had opinions on the arrangements, they wanted to sing. They went as far as adding background vocals to “Proud Mary,” and it sounded awful.
New Memphis Power Pop
Delayed by the pandemic, of course. Your Academy is a Memphis supergroup of sorts, made up of likeminded middle-agers. I think the video’s been up a year but the vinyl is new. What a set of pipes on that Brandon McGovern! (I’ve always loved his voice.)
Extensive band bio and purchasing options on Bandcamp.
Still One Of The Funniest Things I’ve Ever Seen
As usual, I rely on Wikipedia to fill in the gaps …
Korgoth of Barbaria is a pilot episode for what was originally planned as an American adult animated television series created by Aaron Springer, a storyboard artist, writer and director for Dexter’s Laboratory, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Samurai Jack, and SpongeBob SquarePants, who previously created another failed pilot at Cartoon Network Studios called Periwinkle Around the World. He would later go on to produce Billy Dilley’s Super-Duper Subterranean Summer for Disney XD. Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack, directed the animation for the pilot. This was not the only time he worked on a pilot created by Springer, as Tartakovsky also produced and directed Periwinkle Around the World.
It was first aired in the United States on June 3, 2006, at 12:30 AM (EST) on Adult Swim. On June 18, Adult Swim ran a bumper announcing that Korgoth of Barbaria was officially picked up as a series, because of its critical and commercial success with garnering high ratings. Later events, including a formal petition to revive the show and an Adult Swim bumper announcement mentioning its cancellation, indicate that it was dropped before production began due to high production costs.