Well, Friday was Michael Jackson’s 50th birthday, so I thought I’d talked about his “forgotten” music video, “Can You Feel It”. It’s one of the craziest f***ing things I’ve seen, but it’s awesome! Released in August of 1981, the single is actually a Jacksons song, but the video was conceived and written by Michael Jackson. Something that is made clear in the credits of the video. Yes, 2 years before the Thriller video had credits and opening titles. So I guess Michael Jackson would consider it a short film, along with most of his other videos. And the complete video clocks in at over 9 minutes. Looking back now, it could be hard to describe “Can You Feel It” as groundbreaking, but you have to remember that MTV started the same month as this video’s release, and hundreds of thousands of dollars weren’t spent on vids as they are today. The special effects are pretty cool and are ahead of their time for videos. But the whole premise is just crazy. Michael and his brothers are giants spreading their love(?), water floods the earth and if you look quickly enough in one scene you can see people trapped in air bubbles. The sound effects don’t help the video but after a few viewings it seems to fit, even if some of the sounds come from Star Wars. The long version includes the Jacksons descending from the heavens and a whole group of extras of different races and ages holding hands with an ending possibly inspired by a Spielberg alien movie.
So what’s up with this video? One commenter said it remineded him of Jehovah Witnessmaterial, and I would have to agree. Michael at the time was a JW, and the very ending with all the races happy is reminiscent of the JW’s belief that there will be a paradise on earth after the end of the world.
And second, why do you never see it on MTV, VH1 or anyplace else? One possibility is at least in America, the single barely made the Hot 100. Or it could be that it’s from the time when MTV showed music videos only from white artists. Or it’s become forgotten due to the whole phenomenon of the ”Thriller” album. Anyhow, you can now watch it for posterity on youtube.
The “Ruskies” entered Georgia and now they’re ripping off SNL. A new Cold War begins! All kidding aside, I thought this was pretty interesting. This is a plagiarization of the SNL skit “Japanese Game Show” which starred Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Janeane Garafalo, and Alec Baldwin from December 1994. I always liked it a lot and thought it was pretty unusual for SNL to have a clip in a mostly foreign language. The Russian skit is less energetic and the guy playing the far left contestant annoys me. They’re subtle differences though, like at the end, instead of attaching the cables to the Tourist’s testicles, they attach it to his nipples. Something the same, was the sound effect used to end the last round of play. It sounds like they could of ripped the sound directly from the SNL clip itself, because it doesn’t quite fit in with the scene. Anyway, I linked to the SNL clip first so you can compare the skits yourself.
79 videos, almost 800 subscribers. My most watched video was the Guinness World Records clip where the man took off his prosthetic face. It had over 3 million views, and I had 2 other Guinness videos with around 2 million views. And 2 of these videos were in the Top 50 for most views in their category. Ironically it was Guinness that made me lose my account. They claimed copyrights to the videos and after 3 strikes you’re out. Anyways, enough of this self absorbed, mushy talk. It’s back to watching other people’s copyright infringing videos.
Most people don’t realize you can hear radio stations from halfway around the world in the comfort of your Lazy Boy. You can do this by buying a shortwave radio. Most radios only have AM and FM stations, but you can buy a fairly cheap shortwave radio at Radio Shack or online. Shortwave stations lie just above mediumwave stations, or what most people know as AM. For 5 summers during the mid 90’s I listened to shortwave until my family got the internet. I heard dozens of countries. Countries such as Venezuela, Russia, Nigeria and Japan. And many of the countries broadcast not only in their native language, but English as well. One of the cool aspects of listening is sending a report to a station and then replying back with a “verification” or QSL card.
Front of a Swiss Radio International QSL. The first QSL I ever recieved.
From some stations I also recieved more than just a card but stickers, and other stuff.
Unfortunately, shortwave radio isn’t as big as it used to be. It’s last hurrah, so to speak, was during the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. Lots of people bought radios so they could hear news of the war. Today most people just use the internet for the latest news. Some stations have even shutdown and are now only on the internet, such as the station’s verification pictured above; Swiss Radio International. But there are still plenty of stations out there to hear if you know where to look.
This is pretty awesome but sad, considering how much we’ve spent on this technology, money we could of spent on technology for healthcare. The military has created a real life ray gun that forces anyone in it’s path out of the way. This clip was shown on “60 minutes” a few months ago, and then I saw it again a week ago Sunday. Like I said, a pretty cool clip but at the same time money that could definitely be used elsewhere.
If you don’t want to watch the whole clip, then here’s a shorter one with the reporter getting hit by the ray.
Some of you may have heard about this already, but a plane flying over the Amazon near the Peru/Brazil border, happened to find an uncontacted tribe. It just boggles my mind to see the photographs. It’s like something out of history class or a movie.
In the photos the tribesman are painted and are pointing their bows and arrow at the aircraft. I didn’t realize their were still uncontacted tribes in the world. According to the BBC video linked below, their are perhaps a hundred still uncontacted tribes in the world. And of course this and other tribes are being threatened. BBC News Video http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7428476.stm
Ok, so this is my first post here on “The Noising Machine”. It’s short and about a youtube channel. A pretty cool channel. The channel’s name is LiberalViewer. The guy on the channel is a stay at home dad and former lawyer, who volunteers for the ACLU in California. About once a month now, he disects Fox News and it’s bias and does a pretty good job at it. In the past he was shutdown by Viacom because he used clips from Comedy Central. However he was able to get his channel back on youtube, and continue to use Comedy Central and other clips because he argued with the “fair use copyright protection” law or something like that. He even has a video all about that situation too. Anyway check out his channel, it’s: http://www.youtube.com/LiberalViewer . Oh and by the way for those who don’t know me this is Tony Meier, aka Ryan’s brother.
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