I had written and recorded this song a while back. I really liked how it came out, but felt it would be interesting to find a way to mix it with video. I played around with several concepts, but nothing felt right. I came across a website that hosted a ton of vintage film clips and discovered several films that featured radio broadcasting. I started to download and insert the clips. While browsing, I also came across some great clips of women doing burlesque. I thought it fit perfectly with the bridge in the song that featured hand clapping and scratching. I don’t think I’m every completely satisfied with any song I’ve recorded, but I was pretty happy with this.
Author Archives: bvanrysdam
Even More Fun With Photoshop
click on image to see it full size
Expensive Free Speech
There’s been a lot of attention focused lately on Super PAC’s and their influence in this year’s elections. Their impact has been debated from the hallowed halls of Congress to the late night comedy news programs ever since the Supreme Court opened the door to a new form of free speech.
Politicians and Super PAC’s are not allowed to work/collaborate with each other (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), but there is another surprising area which could cause a conflict of interest. Not between the candidates and the Super PAC’s, but with the broadcasters who air their advertisements and the revenue they generate.
Broadcasters are required by law to accept all advertising from any candidate running for a national office, but they don’t have to accept any Super PAC advertising. The dilemma is broadcasters can make a ton more money airing Super PAC ads vs. a candidate’s ads.
How so? Super PAC’s have to buy advertising at the going rate. Politicians, by law, can purchase broadcast time at a thing called the “Lowest Unit Rate”. Candidates are charged the lowest rate that any commercial advertiser paid for a spot of the same class. Broadcasters can’t bump up the rate on a candidates spot, but they can charge whatever they want to air the Super PAC’s ads. CBS President Les Moonves told a conference back in March that, “Super PAC’s may be bad for America, but they’re very good for CBS”.
That’s all well and good for CBS, except broadcasters are responsible to ensure ads they broadcast are truthful and not misleading (interestingly enough, this rule does not apply to candidates running for federal office, who can say whatever they want in their ads and broadcasters can’t do anything about it).
According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, from the Iowa caucus through the Wisconsin primaries, over half of the 41.1 million dollars were spent on 19 ads containing deceptive or misleading claims. What could happen to broadcasters who aired those ads? They could be fined, or even get the death penalty (lose its broadcast license), but that is not likely to happen.
So can the media be trusted to substantiate claims made in Super PAC advertisements at the risk of losing revenue? I’m afraid we all know the answer to that question.
Democracy Makes My Head Hurt
Egypt recently took another step towards democracy. The country just held elections to determine its next President. It’s an exciting time, listening to citizens take pride in the right to vote.
In the movie “American President”, Michael Douglas (who plays President Andrew Shepard) said “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship”. Johnny Cash once said; “I love the freedoms we got in this country, I appreciate your freedom to burn your flag if you want to, but I really appreciate my right to bear arms so I can shoot you if you try to burn mine”.
Let’s face it; democracy is not easy. Consider these hot-topic issues dominating the news…
- The right of the church to exercise their belief vs. the right of women to have access to birth control?
- The need to build the Keystone Pipeline vs. the right of property owners who say they don’t want it on their land?
“In Egypt we’d like to bring a new form of democracy where all can work together and in spite of our differences” said Abdul Mawgoud Rageh Dardery, who won a seat in the Egyptian parliament.
Work together? That does not sound like the democracy being practiced in America today. Both parties seem more interested in appealing to the base and would rather point out everywhere we disagree rather than focus on what we do agree on (we do still agree on something right?)
How do we put compromise back into the vocabulary? In the good old days, politicians would enter a “smoke-filled room”, haggle, twist arms until both sides felt a little pain and made a little gain, but those days, like VHS tapes and the Walkman, seem like a long time ago.
Dalia Ziada, the Executive Director of Ibn Khaldun Center for Democratic Studies in Egypt said “Time by time, democracy fixes itself”. I for one, hope she’s right.
Heads I Win…Tails You Lose
I am more than a little confused by the Republican Primary race for the U.S. Senate. The two leading candidates are David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz. To help make their case, both candidates have gone out of state and brought in former Governors Mike Huckabee and Sara Palin to tell us who we should vote for. Do they really think Texans are that dumb they can’t decide for themselves? Wait, don’t answer that yet.
Texans do have other choices. Also running is some guy holding up empty suits in the air impersonating George Zimmerman from the Men’s Warehouse and a sportscaster whose political career is quickly catching up to his pro football career. Sadly, they don’t seem to be drawing as much attention.
Here’s what I really need help with. Can we please come up with a clear and defined system of scoring to determine who exactly the most conservative candidate is? Is it the one brave enough to stand up to President Obama (oh wait, that’s all of them), the one with the guts to defy Presidents Bush’s order to delay executing an illegal immigrant for killing teenage girls, or the person who has the gumption to go tell the Washington Insiders to get the hell out of our state (except for you Mike Huckabee, you’re all right).
I am conservative
Ted Cruz brags that his dad was tortured while demonstrating in Cuba in one of his many ads, but it makes one wonder how he will translate that skill into action? Is he implying that he’s ready to be tortured when he enters the hallowed halls of the United States Senate? I heard it was a rough place, but had no idea it was that bad. (And yes Ted, I do care about Chinese tires, but I can’t thank you enough for picking that lady to deliver the line for you.)
Hey, me too!!
David Dewhurst meanwhile is touting the fact that he and not Governor Rick Perry has been the leading force behind leading the state in job growth, maintaining a balanced budget and, uh; sorry, but I can’t remember what the third one was. He also has just released an ad announcing to the world that he is a life-long business man all while being a politician since 1998. I have to say, coming out of the womb as a business man is pretty impressive.
All this hyperbole makes it really hard to make an intelligent decision, so I guess I’m going to have to rely on my back-up plan; flipping a coin…again.
Greatest Match Ever?
I have to admit that I have only recently started to enjoy the English Premier Soccer league (Barkley’s), but yesterday’s match was one of, if not the, best sporting event I have ever watched.
Manchester City needed to win to be crowned champions, and Queen’s Park Rangers (what a great name for a sports team) had to win to stay in the league and not be de-listed.
It started poorly for QPR giving up a weak goal, but they roared back to score twice and led 2-1 when play went into stoppage time. Besides the goals, there was also a classic knee to the butt that drew a red card and so many corners for Manchester City, that I lost count. After all that, the ref put 5 minutes up on the clock and Manchester City put the ball in the goal twice to win.
Watching the Manchester City fans faces go from joy to total despair to simply going bonkers at the end was like watching a roller coaster ride. I can’t imagine what they went through, especially when you consider how long they have been second to their arch rivals, Manchester United (They last won in 1968). It was also funny seeing the Man U. coach’s face when he learned that City had come back.
The game was so dramatic, the announcer screamed “They’ll make a movie of this match” when final whistle blew. Who says soccer, errrrr football is boring?
Where’s the Service?
I’m thinking President Obama isn’t sleeping well lately. It’s not the economy, or the war in Afghanistan, or even Mitt Romney that has him worried; it’s his Secret Service (or lack thereof) that has to be keeping him up at night.
First, there was the prostitution scandal. Agents were in Columbia preparing for the President’s trip when they decided to stiff (insert rim shot here) a working lady on her fee. Now there is Secret Service Agent David Chaney acting like a pre-pubescent teenager posting photos of him allegedly guarding Sara Palin with the comment “I was really checking her out, if you know what I mean?”
Who out there thinks it’s a good idea for a Secret Service Agent to have a Facebook page, and then post pictures from work? Seems like that’s a no-brainer, so how does someone like David Chaney rack up nearly two decades working for what has to be the most scrutinized government agency.
The Secret Service is responsible for protecting the President, but who’s responsible for adding simple common sense to the Secret Service?
Material Girl Flat-Lining on the Charts
Madonna’s newest album release, (why do we still call them albums?) MDNA debuted at Number One on the Billboard Charts. This immediately produced talk of her comeback being a smashing success and would signal a triumphant return, so why, according to Forbes, has MDNA sales have fallen a record 88 percent week-to-week, from 379,000 copies to a mere 46,000?
The answer is actually pretty simple. Madonna packaged the album with ticket sales to her upcoming tour on Ticketmaster. She was basically giving her album away to anyone who bought a ticket. These “sales” were then counted in Billboard’s tally. Once the tour dates sold out, the number of sales stopped.
Now to be fair, she is not the first person to offer this deal. Both Tom Petty and Bon Jovi did this to climb the charts in the past, but you would have thought the Material Girl would be above such trickeration. It’s hard on aging acts to stay relevant. The older audience wants to hear the hits from the past, and the younger generation? Well, they just don’t care.
Madonna will have no trouble selling-out large venues and, no doubt, put on a great show. She’s scheduled to perform 4 nights at Yankee Stadium in September (She plays two nights at Toyota Center in October).
But, will this tour be enough to breathe life into MDNA, or are the days of owning the charts behind her?
Before & After
Had a lot of fun with “Snoop-Dog” today. He had a make-over done and so we posted before and after photos for everyone to check out. We had over 66 like and 10 comments in the 1st hour of it being posted on the Houston SPCA Facebook Wall. You can see more of my posts for them by clicking here.
Bending Reality
Had a great visit to the Escher Museum in Den Haag. Will post more about the trip later, but wanted to get something up to share.
