So, it’s been longer than I had planned, but here it is.  I want to talk about other things, but feel I can’t without getting through this first, so here we go and keep a look out for more soon!

We shall start with my favorite of the collection:

Weapon Of Choice by Fatboy Slim featuring the ever amazingly fabulous Christopher Walken

Spike Jonez is a great fan of the Beastie Boys and was all too happy to collaborate with them on their Sabotage single video from the album “Ill Communication”

According to the Wikipedia entry,  Sabotage was “played extensively on MTV. As an homage to (and parody of) 1970s crime drama television series like Hawaii Five-0, The Streets of San Francisco,S.W.A.T., Baretta, and Starsky and Hutch, the video is presented as the opening credits of a fictional 1970s-style police show called Sabotage, with the band members appearing as the show characters. Each band member is introduced as a fictional actor, and the names of the characters are also given.”

Bjork’s “It’s Oh So Quiet” – again according to the Wikipedia entry – “remains her biggest hit…Fueled by the Spike Jonze-directed music video clip, the single also shot Björk into the spotlight in the United States, peaking at #9 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot Singles Chart (#109 on the Hot 100). In the United Kingdom the single has been certified as Gold, having sold upwards of 400,000 copies. [1]“

And finally we have Weezer’s “Buddy Holly.”  I am feeling a bit lazy this evening, so I’m going to stick with Wikipedia since they have served me so well for the above videos.  ”The video portrayed Weezer performing at the original Arnold’s Drive-In diner from the popular ’70s television show Happy Days. The video combined contemporary footage of the band with clips from the show. Happy Days cast member Al Molinaro made a cameo appearance in the video.”

So, as I mentioned, Spike likes to bring the element of surprise and unknown to his media.  Lots of the Sabotage footage was filmed without a license (according to a New York Times article). “Weapon of Choice” is just surprise after surprise, and “…So Quiet” is filmed in the same vein of altered dancing/flying reality.  In “Buddy Holly” Jonze has taken us back to the time (though, of course, Happy Days is a throwback in itself) to the time of Buddy Holly’s popularity playing music that is inspired by, but is so beyond, that time and place.

I’m not going to go off about the film.  I really enjoyed it; I laughed and James Gandolfini, as a muppet, made me cry. I think it was genius, but I would like to see it again and see if it holds up.  Also I can’t speak for children, but I think that film is now trying to take them seriously, and rightly so.  See this article from A.O. Scott in the New York Times.

Since friday is the release date for Where the Wild Things Are, I thought it would be good to see what other projects Mr. Jonze has done in his career.

He started off in the skateboarding world revolutionizing the way videos were produced for amateur and professional skating.  From there he went into the commercial and video front.  Today we will look at the comercials and later in the week we will look at music videos and trailers for his previous films.

I’m not sure when these came out chronologically, so we will just go through them in alphabetical order by company, cause why not?

So here we go…

Adidas: The music is by KAren O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs who is also doing the music for WTWTA!

Gap: Who hasn’t wanted to do this?

Ikea: I remember seeing this one with Ms. Katie and thinking it was hilarious.

Levi’s 1: This one is simple in Jonze terms, but still has his flair for the ridiculous and awesome.

Levi’s 2: This one is more of a story/music video inspired which is a good one to leave off on for our transition to music videos later in the week.

Overall, Jonze’s common thread through out all of his videos, commercial or music videos, or movies, tend to deal with ideas of the “wouldn’t it be cool if…” (both Levi’s) scenarios or flipping the conventional way of doing something on it’s head (Ikea personification of lamp), or both combined (Gap’s take on new beginnings). These themes all flow into his other works, as well, as you will see soon! (Or you can always youtube them yourself if you are so inclined, impatient or just curious, as I would be.)

Only at first.  I think it has to do with the piano.

and

Let’s start here, this is the future of business and why/how youtube, Hulu, craigslist and really e-commerce in general succeed:

Now, part 1:

As you may have noticed, or heard me talk about quite a bit, I love these video blogging (or vlogging) brothers named John and Hank Green. John is a renowned teen fiction author and Hank runs a company that reviews green production around the world.  They started a vlog project to help keep in better contact with each other and along the way have created an empire of nerddom and we call ourselves Nerdfighters.  We span the globe and are a force to be reckoned with enacting artistic, social and generally awesome change in the world. (Our goal is to mobalize in order to help decrease world suck).

All of this is leading to one important phrase.  At some point in time – I really don’t remember when – John said a fantastic 5-word phrase: Don’t Forget to be Awesome.  This has been shortened to just DFTBA.

Keep that information in the back of your minds.  Now we will just have a brief information session about youtube.

Part 2:

Youtube can be used for many things from tv to music and from how-to videos to people doing things for no real reason at all.  I use it to watch tv form Britain, to listen to music (like this song), to watch film trailers and to listen to the interesting things that the vlogbrothers and others like them have to say.  You can also, as my good friend, Ben, does: watch people get hurt in (what he sees as) “comical” ways, news anchors messing up on live tv and videos of up and coming singers (he is breaking into casting musicals on broadway so this is his passion).  These things never occur to me to look for, but it’s all out there and more.

Part 3:

Bringing these two thoughts together with the concept of the long tail, you get what I really want to talk about, which is a record label started by Hank Green called DFTBA records.  This label has been created by Hank and a fellow youtuber, neither of whom know anything about the record industry, and are probably the better for it. And they have signed, exclusively, other youtubers who have been just making music and putting it up just cause they want to.  These passion projects are what make youtube great and would not be able to exist without he long tail. I think I can safely say that, though not all of it is, most of the music made on DFTBA records can be categorized as “nerd rock” and is most definitely a niche market and would not find its audience without the long tail.

Here is the intro to DFTBA records

And here is a song that has been floating around my head lately from DFTBA records Alex Day (sounds like the lucksmiths, ben lee and the beatles):

And this guy, Charlie McDonnell, who made the video above, makes his own music…

And all these guys in the last two videos are working on this really great social action project that the BBC is even on board with.

and yes that is Stephen Fry doing the outro…

So all in all, the long tail is changing the world and for the better, all through youtube and nerdfighters around the world.  So I think it’s funny when corps like Sony, EMI and Warner try to control their product and only use the traditional business model when the world is changing rather rapidly around them and leaving them behind, where corps like BBC and NBC/Fox/ABC with Hulu are embracing new media and using it to their advantage.

this is related to the post just before this.

this is a bit ridiculous. it is Q-Tip on Martha Stewart. one of the most sureal and awkward interviews i’ve ever seen. and i watch a lot of interviews. one of my favorite parts is at the end when everyone in the audience cheers for getting a copy of the new album Renaissance cause i don’t think they really know what they are getting:

Mark Ronson produced “Rehab.” this is from the new show Glee, which i am really really excited about:

and finally a penguin performing a bit of Grand Master Flash’s “The Message”:

and MJ bringing the life back into the party (i love Andy Serkis in this. he is the anti-Gollum):

this weekend i went to a Michael Jackson tribute concert  in honor of what would have been his 51st b-day in nyc. Q tip and Mark Ronson were djing and Floetry showed up and so did Grand Master Flash. there were so many moments that we thought “wait, where are we, what is happening, how amazing is this?!?!!?”  it was 4 hours of pure dancing and love. what could be better?

here are just some highlights of what these poeple have accomplished:

Q Tip:

Mark Ronson

cover of Radiohead (i recommend watching Radiohead’s video first. it makes more sense when you watch Mr. Ronson’s):

Grand Master Flash

Floetry and MJ

and MJ, the reason for all of this:

i can’t leave out this cover of the Jackson 5.

First we will cover movies i am psyched about:

In the order I found out about them:

1) Fantastic Mr. Fox. I don’t know the Roald Dahl story, but I know Wes Anderson and I know I’m going to love it.  Just Jason Schwartzman’s performance alone makes me smile! This is kids film done right.

2) St. Trinians. I don’t know much about this and the US trailers for UK films tend to not do the film jusitice, and if the logic holds, this film is going to be a riot. I love films about single gender schools like All I Wanna Do, and Dead Poets Society and i love all things British, so I’m looking forward to this one.

3. Gentlemen Broncos. I have no words for this.  It looks hilariously fantastic. I want to see this movie right now.

Films that freak me out:

1. Legion. This films looks so freaky-deaky that I don’t really know what to make of it, but it certainly does intrigue me. Yet I’m not sure that I want to see it and only can think of one person who would want to go with me. (disclaimer: this is not an ‘erica friendly’ preview.)

2. Law Abiding Citizen. I love when films take place in Philly, but not when they make me scared in my own city. This film looks crazy. But it would be nice if Gerard Butler really lived here. I’m sorry that I missed him. (disclaimer: this not an ‘erica friendly’ preview, though it’s a bit better than the last one)

And on that note, I leave you with the last film I’m excited for that my Great-Aunt Madge is going to be an extra in. She will sit next to Ellen Page on a bus.

well, i’m not this any more:

but this is happening:

and the last two are songs that i just like that have the word birthday in them.

And only just in the past day! Two of my favorite shows from the last ten years have appeared in my American world overnight.

first we have The Mighty Boosh appearing for the first time on American TV on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. A short interview, but still hilarious.

They show the clip of ‘Old Greg’ in the show, but not in this excerpt, so I pulled it from the you of tubes.

This is just a short version of the interaction between Howard Moon and Old Greg.  It goes on into Old greg’s underwater layer where they drink Baileys, sing about love games and there is a tale of “The Funk” that is so Boosh.

When I woke up today, I was looking for my daily does of The Daily Show on Hulu and found, to my absolute fantastic surprise, that they have just added the entire series of Spaced.   I love this show so dearly. This is where Jessica Hynes, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright got a good headstart. They all had done some stuff before, but  this is where you see their creative style manifest itself.

There aren’t any clips, only full episodes, so this is the first episode of the first season:

I love when the UK comes to visit me!

I am a self-proclaimed nerd. I take great pride in it. I also tend to surround myself with nerds. I think it is important to have thoughtful people as friends cause they tend to be made of awesome.

With this in mind, here are some examples of how nerds are taking over the internet. Though, to be fair, there would be no internet without nerds, so really here are some examples of how they inhabit their virtual space.

First we have the vlogbrothers. My favorite people on the internet.  They are brothers who have been trying to stay connected in each other’s lives via weblog.  On their way, they have acquired a large number of followers, or Nerdfighters. You don’t have to be a follower to be a Nerfighter, you are probably one already.  This is one of their latest posts, and it’s John Green discussing being nerds.

The second is an older vlogbrother post where Hank Green does a parody of a Brittany song.

And thirdly, RhettandLink are also two guys, not related, who make their living as internet entertainers. They write their own songs and skits and are hilarious. if you like this video, you might want to check out this one and this one.

To sum up, here is where my nerdom stems from: