Q: Where is Osama bin Laden not hiding?

A: Once again proving that any footage is terrifying if you play the Requiem for a Dream score under it:



Civilization is crumbling, or something. In other news, go Tribe!!!

Q: Are you there, Margaret? It's me, Blog

A: Sorry for my recent absence, and for any wailing or gnashing of teeth that might have resulted.

So yeah, I live in San Francisco now, where I took a job working for the Internets. My goal here is to change the very nature of how human beings perceive and interact with information architecture, hopefully by around January.

Going forward, T.A.M.S.Y. will probably be a little more about tech/Bay Area living than before and also probably a little more sporadic, but I promise always to make room for Dick Cheney jokes.

On to business, the business of surprise: Baltimore's Dan Deacon is some sort of performance artist/musician/balding hipster. His performance of the song "Ohio" on WSAV's local morning show in Savannah, Georgia is a delight for at least two of the senses.



Check out Scott C.'s LJ for the complete interview, which is also fairly entertaining.

Deacon will be playing San Francisco and L.A. next week, but it's sold out [sked]. Tix still available for his forthcoming shows in NYC, Ohio and various other places. Recommended, maybe!

Q: Is our children vlogging?

A: Hey kids, look! A series of unrelated videos, presented in no particular order for your immediate viewing pleasure free of charge! What a wonderful world!

• 1999 A.D. A clip from a prescient 1967 film foretelling a glorious future in which mail is sent electronically, shopping can be done from home, and parenting has been replaced by espionage. They got pretty much everything right, except in reality, the only people secretly filming your children are NSA agents.


• The Iron Man trailer. Dan Hopper at BWE thinks it looks like a retread, but I'm totally excited anyway. And not because I give a shit about Iron Man (no one does, as far as I know), but rather for one simple reason, and I'll give you a clue, it rhymes with Shmobert Shmowney Shmr.


• Cop Gone Wild, which finally addresses the Q: Who's crazier? A crazy cop, or a crazy guy who drives around with a camera installed in his car's ceiling hoping to be brutalized by a crazy cop? A: Crazy cop. After a few minutes it gets boring, but the screaming part is fun. Oh policemen, you so crazy!


• BONUS, IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Oh Quebecois policemen, you so crazy!


• Steve Mahanahan's Child Clown Outlet. I hear good things about Adult Swim's Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, but this is the first bit of it I've seen. If you're here because you Googled "stuff that's better when you're high," and you meant "high on meth," this will do splendidly.


• Osama bin Chomsky. Everyone acts like it's all weird that bin Laden is talking like a liberal blogger now. But bin Laden has always channeled liberal bloggers, including in the interview he gave immediately following Sept. 11th. Of course, no one really read that interview, except for the 9/11 Truth crackpot brigade, because the mainstream media was too incompetent to tell you about it. Luckily, T.A.M.S.Y. will be happy to fill you in! Later.

Q: Why did no one mention Zach Galifinakis and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy made a video for Kanye West?

A: I should keep a better eye on my reading list. Whenever I take a few days off, I end up missing something like this:

[via Erin]

Better resolution version here. Commenters on Kanye West's official site seem to think this is an amateur video made by the Amish, but no, the protagonists are comedian Zach Galifinakis (one of America's famousest Greeks) and indie troubadour (and occasional actor) Will Oldham.

Here are a couple Will Oldham songs, because why not.

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Love Comes to Me
The Letting Go [buy], 2006

Palace
New Partner
Viva Last Blues [buy], 1995

Oldham's also in R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet, Chapter 22, but I've not had the pleasure of seeing that one yet.

Q: Is our children properly hydrating?

A: Earlier this year, BET Animation and performer Bomani "D'Mite" Armah teamed up to produce this very entertaining mock PSA.



It's way popular (875,000+ views), but I hadn't seen it until Brian Romero posted it to his cartooning blog over the weekend.

The controversy surrounding its racial overtones made it all the way to CNN, according to a YouTube commenter. It's not racist, so much as it is just an effective satire of la vie de crunk — but I'd imagine CNN saw it differently.

Q: Does the YouTube artistic wonderment never stop?

A: I was a little slow to take to the YouTube revolution, given that it seemed to be a whole lot of grainy video of culturally meaningless camp. But I'm totally coming around to that shit!

(If you read Perez Hilton, you'll have already seen this, apparently. But then, if you read Perez Hilton, you have bigger problems to deal with than stale videos.)

[via Wesleying]

Hurray for vacuous post-pomo confection!

RELATED: It goes without saying but hurray also for the continued existence of Andre 3000. Last October, Dre did a highly enlighten-taining interview with Terry Gross. Break out the headphones and check it out.

Q: Do I know art, or do I just know what you like? Pt. 3 (of 3)

A: Part three is the finest artistic achievement yet.

[hat tip: Lindsay]

Who needs fancy stop-motion animation when you've got Neil Patrick Harris?

Q: Do I know art, or do I just know what you like? Pt. 2 (of 3)

A: The second part of today's trilogy of mind-expandistic YouTubography takes us to Wesleyan University [UPDATE: or possibly elsewhere], for a short film named for and based loosely on a McSweeneys book, Dear New Girl or Whatever Your Name Is.

[hat tip: On the Record...]

It is not yet a hit, until just now when it was featured here.

UPDATE, PT. 2: Check out that backing song, MGMT's "Kids", over here. -- 8/21, 12:10AM

Q: Do I know art, or do I just know what you like? Pt. 1 (of 3)

A: Both. Thanks for checking.

We begin this Monday triptych of artastic filmosity with Process Enacted, a recent hit on YouTube.

[Hat tip: Drawn!]

I don't know what it means, so it must be very deep.

Q: Has everybody got something to hide, except for me and my monkey?

A: No, especially me and my monkey.

And speaking of people with monkeys on their heads, heeeeeeeere's Johnny.

Q: Aren't you dating some kind of bunny bender?

A: David Wain's The Ten hits theaters this weekend, and if you haven't heard, it's one of the funniest things ever, as reported by some of the nation's finest film critics. Well, most of them.

In the meanwhiletime, here's some bonus Wain to tide you over.



It's Episode 1 with more to come. Yay. Also, if you enjoyed that video of a young David touring Shaker Heights, there's more in his Super 8 Archive.

I'm on the way to California. Oh by the way, The Answer May Surprise You is moving to California, have I mentioned this?

EARLIER: 10 things you should know about The Ten

P.S., RELATED: Paul Rudd hawking Super Nintendo

Q: Are iPhone-hype jokes played out?

A: Eh, whatever.



Via the Fake Steve Jobs blog.

By the way, for those of you who live outside the Internet and hadn't heard: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs is really fricking hilarious and simultaneously really fricking insightful (if you care about tech things even a little). I'd been avoiding it, because I thought it was strictly for Mac nerds, but it's actually entirely accessible and also brilliant. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, CNET has some background and an interview.

Q: Do you hate the Streets?

A: Then you may very well have trouble enjoying this goofy British video, by Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, in which the duo establishes the genre of grime-novelty (hereafter grovelty). The song: "Thou Shalt Always Kill".



I particularly agree with them vis-à-vis music and poetry, tragedies that occur in non-English-speaking countries, and Radiohead. [via Kevin]

Q: WTF ask why?

A: Bud Dry... humor.



[via crazy Sean McWASP]

Q: It's 5AM — do you know where my Senator is?

A: No, seriously, has anyone heard from Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown? I'm worried about the effects staying up all night might have on him. The man already sounds like Tom Waits. If his voice gets any more gravelly, he might start literally coughing up shards of slate.

In case you missed the news, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is proving that the Democrats mean business on the Iraq war by forcing everyone in the Senate to hang out and listen to boring speeches all night.

Actually, they weren't all boring. For instance, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa employed some very compelling visual aids:

"Guys, c'mon, I spent like 45 minutes at Kinko's."

I recorded some of the night's other thrilling moments off of C-Span. Here are the highlights:



If Reid is not successful in the effort to end debate over Iraq, aides say he will indeed follow through on his threat to party Karamu fiesta forever.

Q: The iPhone has already ended the Iraq war, cured cancer, and rescued thousands of kittens from burning homes — but will it blend?

A: Another entry from the In-Case-You-Missed-It Dept.:

[via WFMU and Sullivan and a kajillion other places]

Cheap thrills. (Oh, unless you're Haitian, in which case it's five years' salary worth of thrills. But then, Michael Bay's Transformers is approx. 1.5 million years' salary worth of thrills, so I suppose it's all relative.)

Q: Didn't you used to be world-famous blog The Answer May Surprise You? Or did you change your name to Jack Daniels?

A: Scientists estimate that 71% of the world's blog posts are apologies for not having blogged lately. I refuse to become another statistic.

I REGRET NOTHING.

Yes, I've neglected my duties as my generation's surprisingerst answerer. No, I have not taken to the bottle.

My blogging time will probably still be limited over the next few weeks, while I complete my perpetually imminent move to California. So in lieu of whatever I usually do here, I'm just going to be posting circa three noteworthy links a day, every day. Except for on days where I post fewer than three links, or none, which will be most days.

---

"Didn't you used to be Eddie Valiant? Or did you change your name to Jack Daniels?" is one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies. A couple weeks ago, I came across a draft of the screenplay. It's way different than the final film in a ton of ways, and it includes the deleted "pig-headed" scene that appears on the DVD, excerpted here:



Also, the original "Didn't you used to be..." line doesn't include the part about Jack Daniels. This sort of thing is very exciting, if you're as deeply into Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as I am. Which I'm guessing you're not, so let's move on.

Scientists estimate that 71% of the all-time greatest American films involve corruption and delusion in Los Angeles. (In their plots, I mean. If you include the real-life corruption and delusion, the number jumps to around infinity%.)

Q: Is "Battle at Kruger" the "Children of Men" of African wildlife videos?

A: I finally saw Children of Men last week, and I found it to be pretty much the best film in the history of ever. Alfonso Cuarón has officially graduated to genius status.

If you haven't seen it, see it. All you need to know about it is nothing. Just SEE IT.

Anyway, immediately following the film, my friend Oo. recommended "Battle of Kruger" on YouTube, and it too BLEW MY MIND. Maybe everyone's already been there done that with this vid (six million+ hits in the past couple months), but if you haven't, SEE IT. Like now:



All you need to know is that it's "A battle between a pride of lions, a herd of buffalo, and two crocodiles at a watering hole in South Africa's Kruger National Park while on safari."

It is imperative that you watch the whole thing. Trust me.

RELATED: The Greatest Long Tracking Shots in Cinema [via Radosh]

Oh, by the by, I'm back. Hi.

Q: Who's yr Commander Guy?

A: He's yr Commander Guy:



Yes sir! He's also still yr decider.

Cleveland Steamers
"The Decider"
Treasure Chest, 2006 buy it!]

Also, as it happens, yr flip-flopper. [via Sully]

Q: Why in God's name am I posting a Linkin Park video?

A: Because Daily Kos says Linkin Park's new video for "What I've Done" is "socially conscious" and "making waves." And I just want to be hip with the kids, and the progressive bloggers.

The socially conscious moral of the video appears to be that people suck. Good point!



It's like the Koyaanisqatsi of shitty alternative rock!

But I think Linkin Park is just trying to apologize for having given their band such a dumb name.