Category: [Videos]

You Get Fucked

This… whatever the fuck this thing is supposed to be has been causing rather a stir since it premiered at some sporting event… Superbowel? Is that the name? Something like that. Anyway, the real attraction of Superbowl is the musical interlude and the ads that debut at the event cos who gives a shit about the actual game, and this was… well, this certainly was. This is not the first time He Gets Us has played at Superbowl, but I think the grotesqueness of this year’s video has made it stand out; I actually watched the thing in an incognito window cos my Youtube recommendations are bad enough without this thing polluting them further.

So what’s the deal?

Green has elaborated on the message behind the commercials in the past, telling “The Lifestyle Podcast” in 2023 that he want to change the perception that Christians are “beginning to be known as haters”
“We are people that have the very, very best love story ever written, and we need to tell that love story,” Green explained.
“He Gets Us” ads are intended to appeal to viewers who don’t consider themselves religious or at least aren’t heavily interested in religion. The commercials intend to modernize Jesus and his message by connecting him to current world events such as racial injustice and immigration.
“We hope to remind everyone, including ourselves, that Jesus’ teachings are a warm embrace, not a cold shoulder,” the ad campaign’s website says.

This Green fellow is David Green, co-founder of Hobby Lobby, an arts & crafts company run by super-conservative Christians who run the business on “Biblical” lines, including refusing to let one of their own employees, a transgender woman, use the women’s bathroom at her place of work (leading to a legal battle that lasted over a decade which they eventually lost), denying their employees contraception, and more. If Green is concerned about Christians being perceived as haters, maybe he could, you know, not contribute to that perception.

Now, He Gets Us is a separate entity from Hobby Lobby, but not completely unconnected; it was operated by something called the Servant Foundation, which in turn is/was part of the far-right Christian legal org Alliance Defending Freedom, which is/was itself at least part-funded by something called the National Christian Foundation, which is/was in turn partly funded by something called the Illuminations Foundation that just so happened to have David Green’s son on its board. And, somewhat more directly, Green junior is also part of Come Near, the organisation that is now operating He Gets Us.

It is, accordingly, rather strange, n’est-ce pas, that such dreadful individuals should be putting so much money into this campaign that’s all about improving Jesus’ public image; and they need to have plenty of money too cos Superbowl ad slots don’t come cheap, something like seven million dollars for 30 seconds… which is why it’s odd that the video looks like it cost about seven cents to make, with these visual gibberish AI pictures strung together in a probably free video editor and synced up to a fairly bad cover of “Never Tear Us Apart” (hope INXS are satisfied with the paycheque). It’s… as dreadful as the people funding it, if aesthetically rather than politically. Mind you, the real objection to the whole thing is the fact that the campaign has a hundred million dollars behind it and this is what they’re spending it on… as opposed to, you know, actually doing good things for the poor, the have-nots, the homeless, etc. Things that could actually REALLY improve Christianity’s image.

Of course, there had to be someone attacking it from the opposite direction (via the Puzzle in a Thunderstorm FB group):

Now, though I haven’t read the entire Bible, I have read all of the New Testament more than once, and if there’s one thing I don’t recall it ever specifically mentioning, it’s abortion clinics. Consequently, I would not use the Bible as evidence for any position I might take regarding what Jesus would or would not do outside of one.

Oh, and for those interested in the actual game, Tay Tay’s team won. Which means the MAGAtrons going off about Swift being a Democrat psyop or something will be going into hyperdrive as a result.

He was indeed Damo Suzuki

The decreasing membership of Can has thinned out again with the passing of their singular vocalist Damo Suzuki… I’m reading online that he was diagnosed with cancer about ten years ago, at which time he was only given a ten percent chance of survival. I think it’s fair to say he beat those odds, at least up to now (indeed, his first go-round with cancer had been in the 80s, so he had some experience with fighting it).

Here they are on German TV not long after he got drafted into the band:

And The Fall, with Mark’s equally idiosyncratic tribute to him:

RIP Brother Wayne

The MC5: pioneers of wilful career suicide

Wayne Kramer from the MC5 has left the building, meaning drummer Dennis Thompson is the last man standing from that ensemble. I must confess my first thought on reading the news was an uncharitable one, in that I wondered if this meant A True Testimonial might finally get an actual release now he’s no longer there to stop it, though I do now find that court case he filed against the makers actually went against him, it just still hasn’t come out anyway… whatever. Let us watch the five in full flow back in 1970:

This was shot for a Detroit cable TV show, evidently not the full gig but damn they picked great excerpts for the program. It is probably miraculous that even these clips survive, and in very fair quality at that…

And this is them in France, late in the game (with new bassist Steve Moorhouse replacing Michael Davis’ smack habit), but still, fucking hell. The video and audio were evidently recorded on a potato, and the end result is frankly obnoxious, but at the same time it’s also a perfect artifact and presentation of this sort of rock’n’roll. It’s probably even more miraculous that this survives. I always thought the MC5’s studio records never quite matched up to the on-stage power evinced on Kick Out the Jams; they obviously needed a crowd in front of them to produce their full effect. At any rate, they outlived Hudson’s, and I’m sure that was satisfying…

Swift boating again

As I’ve said before, I’m not particularly a Taylor Swift fan, but I certainly am greatly enjoying the American right’s current meltdown over her:

This video’s particularly good, cos the commentator blasting the idiots losing their shit over Swift works for Fox, which has been obsessed with her in recent times. A sample:

As others have observed, Fox is so outraged by Tay Tay that they’ve been forced to admit CO2 emissions are a bad thing (and in any case she has apparently purchased carbon credits to offset hers). The real lunacy, though, has been the “speculation” about her being some sort of government asset; and I put that in quotes because I don’t think even the clowns at Fox seriously believe it themselves, but they’re desperate to make their idiot viewers do so:

Right-wing activists have indulged in baseless speculation that Swift’s romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — a kind of ur-American couple of football star and wholesome pop icon — is a contrivance engineered by Democrats, or perhaps the NFL, to trick unsuspecting Americans into boosting Super Bowl ratings or voting for Biden in November.
A version of that theory aired on Fox News in mid-January, when host Jesse Watters floated the idea that Swift was a government asset engaged in psychological warfare. He suggested that the runaway success of her Eras concert tour was aided by the Defense Department. “Have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?” Watters asked viewers. (He allowed that he had no solid evidence: “If we did, we’d share it.”)

So what aided her success before all this? Her Wiki entry notes she’d sold 37 million records in the US by 2019, which is kind of well before her recent blowup on the right. And Time included her on their 100 most influential people list for the first time in 2010. She is indeed making truly preposterous sums of money off the Eras tour, but it’s not like she’s come out of nowhere to do it. Still, if this “speculation” is unserious (and Watters basically admitted as much), I think their terror at Swift’s potential influence is genuine; the idea that she might actually encourage people to vote for Biden, or indeed to vote at all. And I’m sure her being of the female persuasion only makes things worse for them. I’ll finish off with this image I spotted on Tumblr today that I think sums it all up:

Yo! Daily Wire Raps!

I’ve said that I’m trying to be more positive on here, and in the interests of that I give you the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages:

This is FUCKING TRANSCENDENT. I saw something on Facebook the other day about Boon Shabibula teaming up with Canadian rapper and all-round conservative shithead Tom Macdonald for a “song”, and, well, the story is true (unfortunately the commentary video I originally posted rather than give them the view has gone offline, so there’s Anthony Fantano instead)…

…but that’s the Youtube video thumbnail image, which I think says it all: Ben looking REALLY COMFORTABLE AND NATURAL in a hoodie with “Facts don’t care about your feelings” on the front, and White Canadian Dude in another hoodie reading “I don’t care if I offend you”… and that’s a lie, of course, cos a few lines later after saying that at the start of the chorus, he then says “I hope I offend you”. So it does matter to him, and let’s face it, offending people seems to be all this tedious cunt has…

As for Ben, I think it’s kind of hilarious he’s in a rap video given that he doesn’t even think rap is music; I suppose when it’s someone like Cornrows & Face Tattoos Motherfucker doing it, though, that makes a difference, it’s not a black person expressing their perspective. And to be honest, hip hop is an art form I personally have no real use for; I think it’s been pretty bereft of interest for decades and there’s not really much to it beyond this sort of posturing bullshit (with a few exceptions like Zaid Tabani). But this is hardly a serious contribution to the art in any case, it’s just a shitty bit of trolling by both of these clowns, cos that sort of vacuity is all Ben has too…

Hilariously, in the course of looking for stuff on this subject, I found this video from a few years ago called “Ben Shapiro if he could rap”. Now that we’ve heard the real Ben actually rap, all I can say is the creator of this video VASTLY overrated Ben’s abilities…

RIP “Bobby”

News is coming through of the passing of Frank Farian, aged 82, who gave the world Boney M and, perhaps more memorably but for the wrong reasons, Milli Vanilli. Frank was, of course, the actual male voice on the records, in which capacity I will say he was quite good, but arguably the best move he made was casting Bobby Farrell as the male face of the band. Not only could Bobby move, but he actually had a pretty good voice for this sort of music when he was allowed to actually deploy it in live performance. I don’t know what was fuelling him in this particular performance, but he’s fucking great in it, and to be honest I think I prefer to celebrate him than Farian, who may have given Farrell his career but also screwed him out of the rewards therefrom…

Kick it like it’s 2006

Bill McClintock has a stack of mashups like this (he complicates things by also mashing up the videos for the songs he brings together), and this is one of his most inspired. I’ve followed Korn on and off for a while and I always thing “Coming Undone” was one of their better tunes, but I know practically nothing about Portugal. The Man other than I fucking hate that band name, and though they won a Grammy for it, I have never knowingly heard “Feel It Still”… or so I thought until I discovered I had in fact seen the music video for it, which my Youtube history tells me I did nearly a year ago. You can see what a deep impression it left on me.

Still, combine a hipster bullshit soul/funk revivalist beat with young Mr Davis’ angst and add a guest appearance by Tony Iommi as icing on the cake, and godDAMN if you don’t have a winner. I’ve never been big on mashups cos I don’t think they actually achieve much beyond incongruous humour; I’ve never heard one that actually adds to or improves upon the source material apart from the immortal “Stroke of Genie-us” by Freelance Hellraiser. Brother McClintock comes awfully close here, though. Stellar stuff.

The hypnotised never lie

This has just filled me with joy. I don’t usually watch reaction videos of this sort, but here’s Elizabeth dealing with one of my favourite songs by The Who in that terrific performance from The Kids Are Alright, so how could I not watch it? Cos this was definitely way out of Elizabeth’s experience, she clearly didn’t have much idea what she was in for, and her reactions to the song and the stage antics—Daltrey’s mic-swinging, Moon losing a cymbal, Townshend windmilling, Entwistle just standing there and letting his fingers do all the work—are delightful. Also, her description of Keith’s drumming as being like swordfighting struck me as extremely apt.

Mail call

First blu-ray order of the year. Eureka was doing a sale on some of their martial arts movies, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity… so what we have is mostly upgrades of stuff I’ve had on DVD since the oughts via the old Hong Kong Legends label, except for Dreadnought which I don’t think I’ve ever owned in any form and Dead and the Deadly and One-Armed Boxer, both of which I only ever had on VHS from taping them off SBS back in the 90s. So lots of good rewatching ahead, quite a bit of early Sammo Hung in there, and now I own the latter’s legendary calligraphy scene from The Prodigal Son in HD!