MISDIRECTION!
While you were watching that video for Cee-Lo Green’s wickedly perfect cover of Band of Horses’ “No One’s Gonna Love You,” I* was quickly throwing together these accompanying few sentences. To you they’re a hollow reminder of what once was here at Lifting Fog (dumb posts about blockbuster movies and skiing). To me? A tentative first step back into a blogging world that grows more terrifying with each newly graduated English major. Hold me, please.
POP QUIZ! There are so many apologies backlogged on Lifting Fog that:
a) An internal search for “sorry” now brings up as many hits as “movie review” or “Michael Cera + shoot me” (our bread and butter)
b) We’re actually forced to spend as much time writing these new apologies as we would any normal post, given the cliches we’ve accumulated in 37 previous attempts
c) Our grandmothers have told us we “ruined blugs for them. That’s what they’re called, right?”
d) WordPress has politely asked that we take the old site out back and quietly (but decisively) put an end to its misery
We’ll have to apologize for not including an e) All of the above, because they are ALL PRETTY MUCH CORRECT.
Life, right? You’ve got some creative momentum and think you’re operating at a good click — really flexing those writing muscles on important issues, like the Oscars — then BOOM! It’s a month later and you wake up in a daze wondering what hit you so hard in the face. No, that wasn’t an abusive girlfriend. It was life.
But we’re a regular Chumbawumba song here at Lifting Fog, and know that for every “get knocked down” there has to be a “get up again” rounding out the refrain. Ain’t nothin’ gonna keep us down.
…We’re maybe MORE, though, an Insane Clown Posse song called “Miracles” (which you probably saw parodied — if there’s any way to parody something already totally nuts — on SNL) that sums up in curse words and clown makeup everything our little corner of the Internet is about:
Yup, that should do it. “Magic everywhere in this bitch.” Good to be back!*
Take it as one of the reasons we don’t post everyday or just a testament to our own false sense of superiority (either works!), but it’s become something of a Lifting Fog mission to not allow this site to become a compendium of Internet paraphernalia. You know the stuff: Downfall Hitler mash-ups*, bizarre music videos** — the endless and endlessly inane stream of clips and images and links that keep us from writing our novel (it’s about a society disconnected) or even getting to that article we bookmarked on avoiding procrastination. “Dude, this is the SICKEST video I’ve ever seen. Starts kind of slow, but you have to watch the whole thing!” will probably be the last thing we hear before collapsing onto our keyboards and embracing warm, sweet death. Lifting Fog doesn’t want to be a party to that! We refuse to drink the Kool-aid***!
…But sometimes the videos really are the sickest you’ve ever seen. And what can you do?
This “History of Western Art”-inspired Hold Your Horses! video is pretty French and yet PRETTY SICK.
Two more SICK videos after the jump, because of the rule of three.
And we didn’t think you’d make it past 33 with all the…well, you know. So happy you’re still bombing around! To those reading this in the Burbank area, be advised that Steve will probably pull out his guitar at some point tonight and ask you to join him in a Jimmy Eat World-ish version of “With a Little Help from My Friends.” Indulge him, this is his special day. Kisses!
PS – Although this post is filed under the “Junk Drawer” category, it’s worth mentioning that Steve is not, in fact, junk. At least junk gets picked up.
Fifty years ago families would sit in front of the radio, once a day, for their news and entertainment. Correspondence with friends and relatives might take days or weeks, a properly crafted letter the primary form of communication. TV dinners didn’t exist, because TVs weren’t yet in mass production and the microwave had not even been conceived. It was a slower, simpler time.
Today we can order Chipotle from our cell phones, which makes the unimaginably exhausting work put into the video below all the more incredible:
Whaaaaaattt??!?!? According to his YouTube page, this Lego tribute to 8-bit games* (and Legos) took creator Thomas Redigh around 1500 hours to construct and shoot. That’s two full months of work, guys! Save for crying about stuff like this, I have never been so dedicated to anything in my life. Leave it to the Swedes to show the rest of us (even fellow Scandinavians) how lazy we all are.
In spending my Saturday night gorging on a LOST/Star Wars diet geeky enough to make the Comic Book guy cringe, an important question was raised in my mind. Recently I began seriously considering getting a tattoo on the inside of my left arm. Only after experiencing a dream in which I was told NOT to get one by a tattoo artist, did my desire subside a bit. But the thought process recalled an old discussion topic amongst my friends: how awesome would it be to have a replica tattoo of the Dark Mark from the Harry Potter world? Don’t get me wrong, when the chips fall I’m right next to the Weasleys fighting Fenrir Greyback off of 2nd year potions students in the battle for Hogwarts, but the ability to replicate something so authentic from the stories is pretty cool. But what a betrayal of all things good and decent in this world it would be! In my nerdness, the logical subsequent step in my thinking was this: what could be worse than a tattoo of the Dark Mark from Harry Potter? I concluded that the Galactic Empire symbol from Star Wars is capable of giving it a pretty good run for its money. Here’s how I see it breaking down…
You know us, right? You know that we’ll never tell you what we had for lunch, or how excited we are for prom, or what our favorite Andrew Bird lyric is. However MESSY and DRAMATIC and REAL our lives may be (and they are!!), we’ve vowed not to bring any of that noise onto your RSS feed. What’s personal is pointless – that’s the Lifting Fog creed. This ain’t open mic night, fam!
But sometimes… that wall between public and private needs to be torn down; emotions laid bare, naked flesh exposed. Inspired by Kanye West coming out as a gay fish last week (good for you!), I realize I need to offer something more of myself this Monday, the 13th of April. I need… to wish my brother a Happy Birthday.
Taken Yesterday In Buckingham Palace
You’ve seen the Google tricks. You’ve noticed LF’s redecorating. Now behold the Queen mother of all pranks. In case you missed it, Prez Obama headed to the UK yesterday to rub elbows with the rest of the world’s greatest leaders to try to figure out the whole everyone-in-the-world-lost-their-job-and-savings-because-of-the-US thing. (Side note: Didn’t there used to be only 8 countries that mattered in the world… since when are there 20?! I mean I know Cuba’s been having a great year, but I don’t even know 20 people that I could trust with money, let alone 20 COUNTRIES!) But we didn’t elect no April’s Fool; the man came prepared. Obama ceremoniously presented the Queen with a SUPER special edition iPod: one with the yet to be released 2Pac comeback album and the entire Trick Daddy music video library video footage from her 2007 trip across the pond to America. Stacks on DECK, Barack… well played. But then the exchange turned volatile. CNN reports that the Queen then presented our commander in chief with “…a signed photograph of her and her husband, Prince Phillip, in a silver frame, her standard gift to foreign dignitaries.” Hey Obama: YOU JUST GOT PUNKED SON!
Notice anything… different?
Here at Lifting Fog, we pride ourselves on reinvention and the idea that life is an ever-changing tapestry, always sending us in directions wide and exciting. Young, liberal, and filled with unbridled hope for the future enthusiasm, DJ Steve and I embrace change on an almost daily basis. New clothes. New ideas (have you read Nietzsche? Like, really read him?). If you didn’t know better, you’d think we’re schizophrenic! We’re not!
But this change that we’ve sprinkled so lovingly on all facets of our lives has so far not extended into Lifting Fog. Afraid of revealing about ourselves those things new and potentially alienating, we’ve hidden our FORM under blankets of gray and light blue (depression much?)… restricted our CONTENT in straitjackets of snark and “humor.” That is, until now. Meet the new, real us!
UPDATE: April Fool’s! Remember the good times we had today here and here. Memories…
Let us know what you think in the comments below and remember – you are beautiful creatures, all of you. Spread your love!
Eons ago, when the very sky was but a thought and the astral plane black, enveloping, God gave shape to the first cheeseburger – a succulent beef patty housed in a toasted bun and garnished with one of a variety of cheeses. “Chaisse-Bergord,” He called it, after his favorite Supernova. Like thunderbolts he thrust on this form lettuce, tomato, onions, and ketchup, rendering His creation a portable slice of heaven. (He had recently invented portability, too.) Fries and a coke? Yea, a backup choir of angels.
Not content to merely bestow upon man, another of His creations, the cheeseburger to which He had so awesomely given life, God deigned His most favorite culinary delight in the shape of recipes and oral traditions diffused over endless earth. No burger shaped by man, ignorant of the cosmic dance above, would match His for vitality and joy; for splendor and juiciness. Should one by chance replicate that which was birthed in the Heavens, well… that was not going to happen. No, man could not conjure such a burger.
The search for that most perfect of burgers begins anon…
@BADLOGLINES is Lifting Fog's far less emo (and more consistent) movie-lampooning cousin; the uranium to every future cinematic bomb. Follow us!
Henning
DJ Steve