Super Saturated Street Views - "Moving Pictures" Edition

Some time back, I was cruising around the world on Google Street Views and came across a Porsche just south of Bellagio in Italy, meandering along the shores of Lago di Como behind the Google Street View Car. I thought, "That'd make a nice Porsche ad." Then recently, I was watching a Rush documentary and wondering, "How come no Rush music has ever been featured in a commercial?" UPDATE: MTLB thinks Rush music was used for a Nissan Pathfinder commercial some years back. Regardless, this will make that look like trash.

So, I'm combining the two interests - Rush and Street Views. Here's an ad made entirely from Google, including the pull-away at the end using Google Maps. I even took the tune from YouTube, where every song you ever wanted to hear resides for free, except the music of Prince, who has a crack legal team that will sue your ass in two shakes of a backup dancer's tail if you so much as THINK of one of his songs without asking.

And every Rush fan, be they old school headbangers or fans of "The Mullet Years" will agree, YYZ is the tune that unites every generation of Rush fan, and I've selected the best :30 of that tune. So here goes: I'm ready to be a one man crowd-source with this thing and take a couple hundred grand, 'cause I need a new roof. (And a Porsche, s'long as I'm at it.)

Here's the reasoning:

• Rush and Porsche are a natural fit: Power + Precision
• Some older Rush fans are wealthy now, even in this recession, and Rush fans are out of the closet. This tune will stop them in their tracks, guaranteed.
• Porsche HAS to be hurting in this economy.
• It rocks.
• It was easy and cheap. Took me a few hours. Keep in mind, this is spec. We'll make it HD and pretty in a nice studio somewhere. (It's the IDEA that counts, bitches.)
• It's an opening for Google to license their Street Views for commercial usage, seeing as they're out to rule the online revenue world.

Well, I guess I've opened up an opportunity for at least three entities to order me to cease and desist, and to them I say, "Live a little and lighten up." (And feel free to hire me. And of course we can work on my lame tagline at the end. But it's easy, cheesy and obvious, in anticipation of the client's desires.)

Canada's #1 Export

Now that it's safe for Rush fans to come out of the closet, what with the appearance of the band on The Colbert Report, their featured role in the comedy I Love You, Man, and their recent documentary, Beyond The Lighted Stage taking an Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival, I'm going to go ahead and risk alienating some readers by letting you know that I, for many years, have kept somewhat hidden my love for Rush.

There. I'm out! I feel so free!

They are awesome, "The Synthesizer Years" notwithstanding. How awesome? Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of South Park, created the opening video to their last tour. Sure, all their stuff doesn't work for me, and I have accused them of being (as they note in the film) "pretentious," but for three guys to make this much incredible music is just stunning. I get that they're a musician's band, and they're not for everyone. Those who appreciate them tend to do so to a psychotic degree while those who hate them do so with equal fervency, but they've been with me for a long time. When I fell asleep and rolled my Toyota Celica on I-5 in San Diego one early morning as a teenager, it was Rush playing from the cassette deck when I awoke upside down. (Seatbelts Save Lives, Kids!)

I understand that the band (as pointed out in I Love You, Man, as well as in the recent documentary) are not exactly a favorite among the ladies, unless those ladies are 11-years-old and pure musical geniuses. I only today saw this, so if it's old to you, apologies. Here's an 11-year old girl playing the highly complex Rush composition YYZ - by herself - on keyboards.



For the uninitiated, YYZ has worldwide appeal, as evidenced by this inspirational footage of a crowd of 60,000 Brazilians actually SINGING to an INSTRUMENTAL.

(For the non-Canadian and non-Rush fan, YYZ is the airport code for Toronto.)

Why no one has ever licensed any Rush tunes for commercial use is a mystery to me. Perhaps the heady lyrics and "pretentiousness" have hindered advertisers. I'm working on a little spec spot that I hope might change that.

Unemployment Will Make a Man Do Weird Things - Part 2

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm a huge fan of Google Street Views. So I decided to tour the country and see every state capitol building. It was fun. Here is a record of my trip, with an original track by the insanely talented Fred Leo of Atlanta, on which I provided the whistle. I hope this little half-minute lark goes a long way toward healing the deep divisions that threaten to tear our country asunder, but I'm a realist, and some of these state capitols are hideous monstrosities of architectural incompetence, built by stupid people in stupid states where all the opinions are stupid. So there.



More Google Street Views nonsense.

It's Got a Great Beat and It Makes Me Buy Cars

Too often, advertisers for cars don't even try anymore. Find a song you like and put some images up. Done. For instance, Spoon for Jaguar. Or more currently, Phoenix's "1901" being used by Cadillac. Lincoln is triple dipping these days, putting Shiny Toy Guns cover of "Major Tom" to work for the MKZ, Cat Power's cover of "Space Oddity" for the MKS, and here's one for the MKT, trying to get into the heads of people who remember this song.



It is a good song, but this cover by Sia is a little on the anemic side.

Here's the real one, from The Church, 1989. I'm glad these long forgotten Aussie boys are making some coin from Lincoln, but I wish I'd never seen their video for the song now. They're doing that gross, 80s stare at the camera thing while telling a disjointed story about a girl walking around with a gold frame, a style perfected by their far more successful countryman Michael Hutchence.



Anyway, now that that trip through the glory days of Australian rock is over, I don't think this sells a single car.

Do You Know This Man?

Hint: He's enjoying new royalties and renewed (hopefully brief) fame.

Hint: Real name: Kennedy William Gordy - so it's not like he needed the money anyway.

Give up?

OK: Here he is.