GUITAR ZEROS: THE MUSICAL PARODIES OF SANTERI OJALA

These videos crack me up. It's a simple premise: Finnish guitarist Santeri Ojala has taken live performance videos of famous guitarists (Clapton, Santana, Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Malmsteen) and overdubbed his own intentionally awful playing. The results are hilarious, and expertly synched up as well.

However, some of the targets of the parodies aren't laughing at these as hard as I am: three of the humorless guitarists have allegedly threatened to sue, and his account on YouTube was suspended due to "copyright infringement" (god I'm so fucking sick of lawyers). Vai and Malmsteen are thought to be the likely whiners.

Anyway, since Wired has decided to host the videos, I've decided to post two of my favorites. I couldn't choose just one, so let's start with Eric Clapton at MSG:

Shredded to a Pulp: Eric Clapton (opens in a new window)

Even the overdubbed drums and sax on that one are perfect. However this is the piece de resistance, as Ojala dubs pretty much every instrument (and voice) during an Yngwie Malmsteen performance with the Japan Philharmonic in 2003:



The "Close Encounters" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" interludes had me rolling.

Also check out the Rob E. Lee/Ozzy Osbourne (whose overdubbed clapping is priceless) and Carlos Santana clips from the Wired Video site.

SLEEPDRIVING

Web news headlines crack me up. They have to be 7 words or less to sum up the story they link to, and also tease it just enough to make you want to click on it (like Whale kills would-be rescuer in Japan). The ones on my cell phone browser are even funnier; since they have to fit on a tiny screen, they're usually only 3 words long. Today I saw these two winners: "Pumps Are Faulty" and "Man Blames Unicorns". Unless you've already heard these stories, you can't possibly know what either one is referring to from those ridiculously succinct links. Personally, I'd like to think they're related to the same story; unicorns are always messing with the pumps, and it's about time someone spoke up about it. The pump don't work 'cause the unicorn stole the handle!

Anyway, I saw this news story link just now: FDA says pills can cause 'sleep-driving' - BusinessWeek. Being in the pharmaceutical business, I naturally had to click on it. Immediately, the article lost me with the first sentence: "All prescription sleeping pills may sometimes cause sleep-driving, federal health officials warned Wednesday, almost a year after the bizarre side effect first made headlines when Rep. Patrick Kennedy crashed his car after taking Ambien."

Come on. Don't treat us like we're stupid. We're talking about a KENNEDY here, Patrick Kennedy, the son of Ted Kennedy! You expect me to believe he was "sleep driving" at 2:45 AM with his lights off because of a prescription drug? Police on the scene said he smelled of alcohol, he claimed to be "late for a vote" (6 hours earlier), and he even went to rehab immediately after this incident. What a complete and utter load of bullshit. If he was actually not driving drunk, if it was Phenergan and not Frangelico that made him crash into a barrier outside the Capitol, I will eat my shorts with a side of freedom fries.

The bigger story here hasn't been touched on here: the incredible laziness of the American people. If this story is to be believed, we don't even sleepwalk anymore, now we sleepdrive. At least if you sleepwalk, you might accidentally get some exercise. Regardless, this whole story can be summed up by "lawyers forcing companies to make even more warning labels".