The Sound of Silence

A lot is being made of Disturbed cover version of the Simon and Garfunkel classic The Sound of Silence.  I do appreciate those that, when covering a song, put their own spin on it, and Disturbed clearly does that:


However, I have two big issues with the Disturbed version of the song:

1) The auto-tune.  Can anyone sing without it anymore?  Holy crap, I'm so tired of hearing it.
2) What made the original great - not only great, but majestic - were the harmonies.  That is what truly makes the song.

So, if one is looking for a cover, I suggest one looks up Tim and Phil Hanseroff's cover.  The twin brothers are part of Brandi Carlile's band, and every once and a while, they'll do it in concert.  Here's an example:



No huge orchestration.  No major accompaniment.  No freaking auto-tune.  Just a couple of brothers, a whole lot of harmony, and even more talent.

Enjoy.

Saturday Song Share: Bob Dylan - Thunder on the Mountain

I was thinkin' 'bout Alicia Keys
Couldn't keep from crying
She was born in Hell's Kitchen 
I was living down the line
I'm wonderin' where in the world Alicia Keys could be
I've been lookin' for her even clear through Tennessee

In Praise of Captain America

In many instances, I'm still a ten-year-old kid.  The things I believe in, well, many of them haven't changed all that much.  I'm wiser, indeed, but my core is pretty much the same.

Back then, I was a massive fan of Captain America.  I loved the fact that he was unabashedly for our country.  He was proud to wear our colors.  His hallmark - a shield - was designed for defense, but could be lethal in offensive mode as well.  He held a soldier's level of bravery, ferocity, and love of country.  And I loved every damn thing about him.

When Marvel started to bring my childhood super heroes to the big screen, I feared that they'd be watered down, or morphed to fit some cause du jour.  

I could not have been more wrong.

Here is perhaps the finest example from a scene in the first Avengers movie.  After Thor comes and takes Loki away, Cap feels the need to do something about it:



That's why I so damned excited for the next Marvel installment.  It's a heavy dose of Captain America - my Captain America:



51 years old, and still in love with a comic book hero...

Waiting in the Bushes of Love

The guys from Bad Lip Reading have penned a little song for an original Star Wars lip reading.  Prepare to have this thing stuck in your head for the rest of the week:

Rapala Cats Billboard

As part of my job, I'm responsible for all of our marketing touch points - TV, radio, digital, newspapers - you name it.  One component, albeit a small one for us, is billboard advertising (or, as we say in the industry, out-of-home advertising).

We had an agency visiting us last week and were doing some brainstorming around leveraging billboards as a hedge from getting our mass media messages bumped during the election cycle (by law, political ads can "bump" previously purchased, traditional ads.  Big surprise there, right?).

During our conversations, I sung the praises of Rapala's billboard advertising.  Rapala is a hard bait for fishing, and a damned fine one at that.  As such, one wouldn't think that billboard would be the best vehicle for them, but they use it almost exclusively.  

But more than that, they're usually hilarious.  

Usually they just show their product, a huge Rapala logo, and some creative tag line.  Among those I've seen are:

More hits than Google
Take a fish boating
Go catching
Bass lip piercing kit
Hits Happen
Captain Phillip DeFishcooler
Bass Friends Forever


However, my favorite all-time billboard was one from 2006.  The board was on I-394 out of Minneapolis, and just featured their product and a logo.  No catchy tagline was included.  I was really curious and a little put off, because their billboards are usually so clever.

A couple of days later, a cat appeared sitting atop their billboard.  A few days later, another cat joined in.  Here's how it progressed:

This campaign is 10 years old, and still sticks with me.  It helps that I'm a huge Rapala fanboy (I'll be doing my share of trolling with them here in a couple of weeks), but still, one has to admit that this is one clever campaign.

President Called Nigger at White House Correspondents' Dinner

And, in a continued state of a lack of any kind of decorum whatsoever, President Obama pounds his chest and is OK with it:



How is this OK?  If your kid was watching this, how would you explain it?

This is perhaps the greatest example of many that this guy wants to be a celebrity way, way more than he wants to be a President.

Laughing at Alzheimers

Last week Variety reported that Will Ferrell had signed onto a comedy project to play Ronald Reagan with Alzheimer's disease.

Hilarious.

He was immediately met with two open letters from Reagan's children on why this was a bad idea.  In a rare moment of good judgement, Ferrell walked away from the project.

There are 3 million cases of Alzheimer's disease in the US every year.  Three million families ripped apart.  Three million lives stolen.  There's not a damned thing funny about it.  It is sorrow, expense, sadness, and pain.  Even after the loved one dies, the disease eats away at those left behind.

Comedy gold.

It is shocking to me that one can hate one's political opponents so much that one would entertain something like this.  

And to think that conservatives are called the practitioners of hate... 

Why Twitter Sucks

I ache for what our society is becoming...