Rajiv Satyal is a stand-up comedian of Indian-American decent, hence his website – www.funnyindian.com. One of his dreams is to host the Academy Awards show. As a stepping stone to that goal, he’d like to have his own talk show. His uploads regular YouTube videos and weekly audio podcasts. His most recent episode features an interview with me. He's always been impressed that I have seen every film that has one the Oscar for best picture so we spent a lot of time talking about movies, but we also talked about music, art, and a few other things. Most of his other podcasts are with comedians and are usually funnier than the conversation Rajiv and I had.
Blitzen Trapper and Dawes spent the months of October and November co-headlining a tour across the continental US. On Tuesday, November 15, the bands played San Francisco’s venerable Fillmore Auditorium to a nearly full – but not completely sold out – crowd as the penultimate show of the two-month tour.
With Occupy Wall Street still going strong in many cities despite the violence in Oakland, I am reminded of Charlie Chaplin's speech at the end of The Great Dictator. Chaplin’s Jewish barber has been mistaken for a tyrannical Dictator of Tomania, Adenoid Hynkel, obviously based on Adolf Hitler. The Jewish barber gives an impassioned speech calling for unity to fight for what is right, for happiness over hatred, for liberty and reason over slavery and greed. The film’s climatic 10 minute speech is beautiful and eloquent. It moved a country on the eve of entering World War II. Even today, over 70 years later, the words are still moving and inspiring and deserve revisiting. What follows is a complete text of the speech.
Last week R.E.M. broke up. There was a lot written about it – including some of my favorite blogs (Funny Indian and the trivium of Stabbone & McGraw, Kid Shay, and West Lawn Park) – but it’s made me wonder if hugely popular bands ever really break up.
The tenth annual Austin City Limits music festival took place over the weekend. Approximately 70,000 people listened to 125 bands on 7 stages for 3 days. The diverse lineup featured headliners Arcade Fire, Coldplay, My Morning Jacket, Kanye West, and Stevie Wonder.
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