You ever wonder what the very best video on the whole entire internet is? No? How about now? Are you wondering now? Well wonder no more. 'Cause here it is! But it's divided into four parts so that I don't have to pay the YouTube Long Video Surcharge thingamaroo. So it's a playlist. Enjoy. At least until the part that offends you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq466K4nIbQ&list=PLtY6xWGmYKvdP0h0rx2CsIguUNqcNFDvb
The old-growth ecology of Algonquin Park was never protected. Our thirst for lumber changed everything. But we have saved the new ecology instead, and we love it. We find it beautiful in our eyes. The whole story though, from the glaciers which shaped the land to the portage routes shaped by human feet, is one of tension and violence as well as beauty. Thus a bold soundtrack choice for this latest video assemblage for poetry club.
Here's my pranks compilation from the Jackass movies. It's definitely not for everybody!
Do you like TV and film bloopers? I do. So I put together a collection of the highest quality I could manage. Just gems. No chaff. It's um... kinda long... but no one says you got to watch it all in one sitting.
I hereby give you...
My humiliation.
For your enjoyment.
You should probably be ready with earplugs so that you don't bleed out.
That seems like a big number. Twelve hundred and thirteen blog posts since... 2006 I think. And what have I accomplished in all this time?
A lot of research. A lot of semi-intellectual recreation. A lot of movies and documentaries. And a lot of trifling work on so many unfinished projects. Like more than two hundred for sure. I get too many ideas too quickly. But these aren't accomplishments. I've actually completed more than 75 videos, mostly for distribution within my own small circles; rarely using my own footage. And some of them are quite good but they're private in essence, serving my own small associations. Some people are still shy about the internet. So it's my goofy fun-time stuff that goes on YouTube, such as The Flatus Trilogy, or in that narrow zone where YouTube machinations will enact music copyright blocks but Vimeo won't, then on Vimeo.
Well, I feel like this is getting boring already. Whatever I had intended to say, we'll try again tomorrow, eh?
Cheers.
So this is my proudest moment.
I have used my amazing all-star creative and influencer powers to bring together some of the most brilliant minds in music today to produce the next We Are The World basically. I'll include brief bios below but they're redundant. These are household names of the highest echelon okay.
The project is called A Symmetry of Thumb and if that title doesn't quite seem grammatically sound to you, that is only because WE ARE ALL SO MUCH SMARTER THAN YOU! Anyway, enjoy.
The Symmetry of Thumb Collective:
Jens Lekkman
sssnacksss
Reprise
Julie Andrews
Rick Astley
New Day Rising
So I discovered I needed to put together a motorcycle compilation and decided to focus on esthetics and aerodynamics, with a hint of death. So I give you: the opera Lakmé adapted to the speedway.
I don't know if it will play here because it's 18+ restricted and the reason is - well, here's the rant I provided in the YouTube "About" panel:
Rather than suffer the exhausting boredom of dealing with YouTube's ever-growing army of censorship monkeys and their deluded efforts to protect their dullest most-superstitious viewers from themselves, I just went ahead and designated this an adult-only video so that only adults and super-smart kids who know how to pretend to be adults will be able to enjoy this uplifting opera: It is Lakmé by Léo Delibes, conducted by Alain Lombard and adapted to the speedway by Alfonse Floofter Gnu Jr.
Any ads will have been placed on behalf of a lovely but unpronounceable Parisian theatre organization. We never choose to monetize here at Half Ass Films.
Please note that some of this film's participants are dead, disfigured and/or mentally debilitated due to their actions captured herein. If this offends you it is because your strings are being pulled by an aggressive ego who enjoys being offended. Suppressing this footage will not bring these people or their brains back to life, but indeed, promoting it may help dissuade others from making the same dire mistakes. This video is best enjoyed with two or three ounces of Irish whiskey or, in a pinch, Kentucky bourbon.
This video is dedicated to my pal Ivosaar over at The Automan Empire.
Here's a song I wrote about twelve years ago after finding the courage to give up a lucrative I.T. career and moving back to Scooterville in order to begin a life of mindfulness, creativity, charity and guidance... so I thought. Immediately there was resistance. The song was in reflection of that, an observation; in no way a rant. At least that's how it is in my memory.
I was knocked off course, though, and never really got back on the same track. I've become better at some things and worse at others, and never regained so much focus again.
The theme for poetry club this month is transformation. So I dusted this off and compiled a proper video. Looking at the result, song and video arranged over a decade apart, I can see a difference in attitude. I look back at that time with more love and forgiveness. If I was trying to blame others before, that was unwise, and I'm not anymore.
I believe I was 14 when I saw Blade Runner at the cinema and was blown away. For the first time in my life I started thinking critically. What does it really mean to be human?
I've since realized the treachery of consciousness; how we are coerced toward seeing our self through the eye of the imaginary other, instead of directly and unvarnished. But sometimes we are the other and we learn about ourselves by seeing what we are not; the foreigner; the alien. I feel that this is a function of the best science fiction.
I've heard that Kubrick's monolith in 2001 has the same dimension ratio as a movie screen. I can't be sure that's correct, or at least correct in every scene, but the idea deeply resonates. To me, the monolith represents self-awareness. It has also been stated fairly convincingly that it is some kind of alien probe. Similar physical dimensions occur conspicuously in other great sci-fi films.
What does it mean to be human; to be sentient? Just what the hell is consciousness anyway?
Here's my sci-fi compilation tribute.
More video perturbance I have inflicted on the YouTubes for shits and giggles:
The theme at Poetry Corner this month is dreams and plans. This is a song I wrote eleven or twelve years ago; a time when I was reconciling the plans I'd been pursuing, and acknowledging my outer limitations, and wondering where I was going, inwardly, if anywhere. Today I still occasionally wonder.
I edited a new video for the song, and ditched the old version from youtube.
December 20, 2021: Nothing in my kitchen but Kraft Dinner and soup. I place a $226 order with Metro Ontario Inc supermarket for delivery December 21, 6-8PM. This leaves $2 in my bank account.
December 21, 2021: I sit at the front door in my walker waiting from 6PM until 10:30PM. No delivery ever arrives. I go to bed with very little food and no money
December 22, 2021, 6AM: I submit a problem ticket through the Metro Inc. web site help centre.
December 22, 2021, 9:06AM: Metro acknowledges receipt of problem ticket "Delivery Late Order" and promises "our Customer Care team will review your request and happily assist you within 24 hours."
Not 24 hours later but 49 hours later:
December 24, 2021: email from Metro reads "Unfortunately the store has asked for a rescheduling on this order so, we would ask you to contact us toll free at 1-866-595-5554 to confirm a timeslot.
We will send you a promotional code for 25$ by email to be use on a next online grocery order. You should receive your promotional code within a week. Don't forget to check in your junk mail folder."
I reply as follows:
December 25, 2021: Metro delivery service is now closed for the holidays. Merry Christmas
December 26, 2021, 10:50AM: Metro informs that my order has been cancelled and my account "will be refunded." Furthermore: "We’d love to hear from you! Share your thoughts about your online grocery shopping experience and you could be eligible to win $1,000 in free groceries! "
Well, that's fucking super. While you are totally victimizing a marginalized person, you're planning something real super nice for some random dude. Well, that just warms my heart y'all mutherfuckers!
December 27, 2021, 5:35AM: I post to the Metro Ontario Food & Beverage Company facebook page:
I am disabled and trying to live on $700/month. I spent my last $226 on groceries, with my shelves bare, on Dec 20 for delivery Dec 21. No groceries have been delivered nor any explanation why not. I begged for either my food or my money and got no reply. Yesterday you cancelled my order and still I have no refund. I have spent my holidays going hungry. How can you do this to someone? I AM HUNGRY !!!!!!!!!!! "
(I'm not actually hungry because I have friends and family who have taken care of me but that is not to Metro's credit. They do not deserve to know that.)
I added this comment: "ORDER 94516646. I am not available by phone at this time, due, essentially, to financial challenges."
December 27, 2021, 7:21AM: email received from Metro: "We are sorry that you were not completely satisfied with your online shopping experience. This email is to confirm your refund on order 94516646RO. The total amount of the returned items and/or service fees will be credited to your account."
I keep hearing about this "refund" concept but I don't know what they mean by that word since to date it has not manifested in me getting my money back. To their credit they have surrendered a reply to my facebook post:
Well, the product refund request is completely inappropriate, as is the offering of a phone number after what I just said. But at least I know they are pursuing "the restoration of the situation" which means absolutely nothing but thanks for hurling a couple words at the wall to see if they stick. They didn't.
December 28, 2021: One full week later and still no food and no money. But I am seeing the beautiful subtext of their facebook reply. Here is their reply in other words:
Dear human: We are a corporation and so we make all the rules which govern our interaction. You are just a measly human product. In order to make this perfectly clear we give you a response to your adorable mewling; a response so utterly inappropriate in every line as to make you certain that no actual human employee wasted any of our time actually comprehending anything you have to say. Your resistance is futile. Maybe you'll actually get that "refund" some day. Maybe you will even get that $25 voucher that we conveniently packaged in a junk-mail trigger format so that it will hopefully go missing.
Well fuck you, Empire! As the great Princess Leia said: "Take your broken heart, turn it into art." I give you:
Hey there. Well I need to post three more times in order not to have the second-worst calendar year in the entire - gasp - sixteen years I've been blogging, however occasionally of late. Meaning the second fewest posts.
I probably should have had the most ever in 2021. I've been lounging in bed at home every day, just me and my useless legs. I've decided to start physiotherapy just as soon as my disability benefits start kicking in. In January?
My writing buddies are encouraging me to finally get writing again, and getting my shit together blog-wise might be just the starting point.
Meanwhile I mostly make videos now. This one is getting rave reviews at Poetry Club and at a church Christmas celebration where it was played to a live crowd just this evening. Yes a church! I wasn't there but I was told the audience howled. To be honest I don't entirely get its appeal. I was just screwing around! Meanwhile the stuff I do that I think is hilarious often goes unnoticed. Oh well. What do I know?
I actually wrote this years ago and posted it here but the so-called animation is brand new. I'm pretty sure I'm qualified to work at Disney now:
The Smosh folks are a full time comedy operation who pump out heaps of videos across three YouTube channels; my fave being Smosh Pit. There's also a smosh.com which I have never visited. Their humour is pretty juvenile most of the time but I have room for it.
They don't copyright anything. They like fan fiction and fan compilations which they often interact with for more video material. So I gathered my fave smosh segments and it looked to be about 2 hours of material so I divided into six episodes, loosely theme-related, and polished and published Part One a week ago. It sat dead for five days and then quickly jumped over 400 views in a couple days. I'm not surprised.
It drew fifteen likes and one dislike. Ninety per cent of the traffic is through browsing, which bodes well for the future episodes as that's how they would be most likely discovered.
This first episode is super high on the potty humour so... be warned.
Here's a video I put together which was removed by YouTube and actually earned a strike against my channel because it violates child safety policy. Any video showing young people (not even children, necessarily, but young adults) engaged in dangerous behavior is considered a violation under the theory that it entices children to emulate the behavior.
What is interesting is that FailArmy and other big-money sites seem to get away with this all the time but I guess they are profitable to YouTube so.... too bad, kids. I guess you'll have to rely on your parents being remotely competent human beings in order to keep you safe. But someone like me who gets almost no views for the most part, does not target a child audience, actually includes warnings to kids not to engage in this behavior and actually SHOWS clips of some subjects being clearly injured, is somehow the bad guy. Welcome to the ass-backwards world of corporate-owned North America. Enjoy the fucking Kool Ade y'all.
The joke is that all of my clips which they deem unsuitable for YouTube, were downloaded from YouTube to begin with. And when I cast an appeal, stating this fact, I just get the canned response stating that my material was verified to be in violation and I am banned from activity for 30 days or whatever. Further more, three strikes and my channel gets shut down - or something like that.
Oh well. Whatever!
Let's see if it gets by the Blogger firewall. I suspect it will not and not because of child safety hoopla but because there is probably no license agreement which will allow me to use popular music, which YouTube does thankfully feature. I'm fine with using popular songs and letting the rights-holders monetise my vid for their profit. I would never try to profit from a vid which borrows other peoples' work.
Here goes:
Nope. Maximum file size exceeded. It's a five minute vid and not even HD. Oh well. I already know it won't get by the DailyMotion copyright blocker. I'll give Vimeo a shot.
HA!! Thanks Vimeo:
I've been putting a lot of videos together; carefully edited compilations for the most part. The goal here was to be as cute as possible!
Exosculate: This is a dictionary-sanctioned word. But rather than explain it I shall point you toward the following obnoxious video. There are no rewards for watching the whole thing to the end (other than, it improves as it goes along), but if you're watching this during the Time Of The Great Plague... you possibly have nothing better to do.
Question E: What is your most EXCELLENT memory?
This is really tough. All my best memories are too intimate for - well, not for the internet, but for such spaces as this which serve ordinary decent people who respect ordinary decent superstitions around love and physical affection.
As for printable great memories: there are a few heroic sports moments; some vacation adventures; many family celebrations on the farm; a hundred good times with my best friend; cuddling on a park bench with I. S. watching the moon, snuggling with my dobie, Blue on my bed on weekend mornings, my first Rush concert, finishing my first novel... I can't pick one.
The vid was a hatchet job. It'll be messy:
Drummerboying: This is where you give a gift that is probably useless but its the only thing you have to offer. For a while now I've been working on a gift for a special friend who is really under the gun currently and could use a doctor, a maid, an errand boy, a PSW, some cash and some new body parts. Instead she's getting a video.
Pa rum pum pum-pum.
Question D: Your favourite breed of DOG?
Doberman. Because Blue was a doberman. But I have been very enamored with greyhounds lately, So much so that I would say they're a very close second. I think Dobermans are primarily an off-shoot of greyhounds anyway.
Here's a sneak peak of the video's opening sequence:
