A pre-Rapture checklist
Pre-end of the world advice from some grey bloke.
“It was nice knowing you. Well, it was nice knowing some of you.”
Thank you Douglas Hovey!
Pre-end of the world advice from some grey bloke.
“It was nice knowing you. Well, it was nice knowing some of you.”
Thank you Douglas Hovey!
Nothing groovier than go-go dancing. And Linda Rogers is sublime in this 1970 video from Atlanta-based TV show The Now Explosion.
The Now Explosion broke new ground for broadcasting music on television, programming music in a free-flowing style and experimenting with video in a format that pre-dated MTV by 10 years. Check out their website. It’s a gas.
The special effects used in The Now Explosion were crude but state of the art for the early 1970 era. Video was shot with heavy, non portable studio cameras on large rolling tripods. The music videos were recorded on two inch magnetic tape. The video editing required the use of 3 massive and costly “quad” tape recorders allowing only simple transitions such as cuts and dissolves.
Most performers were young amateurs recruited from the Atlanta audience. Many appeared with home-grown costumes - often after midnight when station facilities became available - and were recorded dancing extemporaneously as rock rhythms were piped into an almost bare and darkened studio. The lighting often placed performers “in limbo” so that only the illuminated dancers were seen against darkened studio walls. Extensive special effects were added in post production as images were combined and distorted to form what production people often called “eye candy.”
Linda Rogers (Albritton) went on to have a career as a dancer and dance teacher. She continues to teach dance to this day.
In this segment from The Now Explosion, Rogers is simply dreamy as she does a sultry go-go to Bread’s 1970 hit “Make It With You.”
Linda and Grand Funk get the trippy treatment:
R. Metzger, always ahead of the curve. Previously on DM: The Now Explosion: The Original MTV.
No-hoper GOP vanity presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista had glitter dumped on them by a protester Tuesday as the couple signed books at a “pro family” (ahem) event.
The activist, thought to be Nick Espinosa, AKA “Robert Erickson,” AKA my favorite person of the day, told the Gingriches to “Feel the rainbow, Newt! Stop the hate! Stop anti-gay politics!”
According to AP, the increasingly hapless-looking Republican smiled weakly as he brushed himself off and said, “Nice to live in a free country.”
I’m sure that’s exactly how Newt felt, aren’t you?
Espinosa said the glitter dump was a protest against a proposal to amend Minnesota’s Constitution to ban gay marriage. Next time he gets near that slimy amphibian, maybe he should consider throwing some salt on him?
Bonus: The Harlequin Romance of Newt & Callista Gingrich
Rather macabre, don’t you think?
Associating your product with death may be a good idea if you’re selling caskets, but chewing gum?
The point of advertising is to get your attention and this commercial for Stride does do that.
Via Copyranter
Redditor suziecreamcheese says she made this abstract Beatles quilt for her friend’s baby shower. Where’s the “Butcher Block” cover?
Taken from the upcoming New Order/Joy Division greatest hits album “Total,” this rocky track has been played on Irish radio and since found its way onto the web. This brings up two questions in my mind - how can this be described as a “leak” if it has been played (presumably officially) on the radio? And why the hell do these two different bands need a combined “best of”?
Hellbent - New Order by oldwaver
Thanks to Jeb Edwards.
Here in the UK one of the most popular energy drinks (after Red Bull, of course) is the relatively new Relentless. The drink is a trademark of, and is aggressively promoted by, Coca Cola. So much so that in November of last year Coke threatened the Relentless Steak and Lobster House in Portsea with legal action over the typography of their sign. The matter has since been settled.
The tables have turned however, as the established British record label Relentless (which in the past has released music by Joss Stone, Seth Lakeman and KT Tunstall) is now taking Coca Cola to court over the use of the name in relation to music. This could force the drink company to drop the brand altogether. They have already been declined a trademark on their slogan “No Half Measures” because of a Glasgow-based management company of the same name. From The Independent:
The label sought mediation with Coca-Cola but has now issued a writ, calling for the drinks company to stop using the Relentless name in connection with music and to pay damages for trademark infringement.
Shabs Jobanputra, Relentless Records’ co-founder, said: “It is causing real confusion because Relentless drinks has a tented stage at the Reading Festival and sponsors venues like the Garage in London. Artists and managers are asking if we’ve been bought up by Coke. Some artists don’t like that kind of corporate association.”
Relentless, now an independent label after ending a partnership with EMI, is spending valuable resources on the court case. Jobanputra said: “We’ve been trying to resolve this for four years but their attitude is, ‘Let’s see how much money you’ve got’. They are a huge company. But it’s clear that we established the Relentless brand in music, years before the drink launched.”
Coca-Cola declined to comment on the record company’s case, but said it has reached a deal with the Portsmouth restaurant. A spokesman said: “We requested that they redesign the font of their logo. We believed it bore a strong resemblance to our energy-drink design and that this had led to consumers thinking the two were connected.
I await the outcome of this with interest!
I read this at my new favorite blog, No More Mister Nice Blog. If you like liberal rants as much as I like liberal rants, then you’ll find much to love about Steve M’s sharp, witty writing.
The context here is Steve’s contention that FOX News seems oddly intent on making it very, very difficult for a nationally electable Republican to get the party’s nomination because the network seems more interested in profitably pandering to their freedom loving patriots scooter-riding senior citizen wingnut viewership than continuing to be a reliable partner of the Republican party.
We call it “the right-wing noise machine” because we see it as an efficient, mechanized generator of propaganda that predictably steers the country rightward and regularly puts government in the hands of Republicans. But the Murdoch part of the machine is operating in such a way that the GOP is much less likely to win in 2012. Why?
Either the folks in Murdoch Land are supremely confident that they can move the country not just to the right but that far right—as far as Cain and Palin and even the birthers—or they don’t really care anymore about being the Republican Party’s propaganda wing, because catering to the needs of drooling ultra-extremists, even at the GOP’s expense, is such good business (and fits the personal predilections of rage junkies such as Roger Ailes).
Which means that Murdoch’s media properties may be harming the GOP right now—and may be helping to guarantee Obama’s reelection.
FOX News has really been floundering lately. Did you watch the clip of Jon Stewart on The O’Reilly Factor last night? He was being nice and he still wiped the floor with Bill O’Reilly on his own show. The Osama bin Laden hit left FOX’s talking heads discombobulated. It scrambled their predictable anti-Obama talking points. What do they have without them?
The notion that FOX News itself might be helping to reelect the president is one pregnant with irony, I think you’ll agree!
On the other hand, a just as valid argument can be made that it is now FOX News that runs the Republican party and not the other way around.
