Supersaturated Street Views - Music Video Edition

If you search Google Street Views on this blog you'll see how long I've been fascinated (obsessed) with this aspect of Google's Total Domination of the Earth. They own my email, this blog, YouTube and the street I live on.

This video combines my one-guitar, one-voice rendition of the very dark American Blues classic "Dock of the Bay" with images of the San Francisco area as seen on Google Street Views, with the saturation pumped up a bunch to give it a dreamy quality. (Assuming you dream in color.) I found the mundane, the sublime, the silly and the sad just by dropping that little yellow man onto the map and moving him up and down the streets of this great American city, trying to frame each scene just so. I've only been to SF a few times, but I was captivated, just like most people who visit that very unique Golden State town. Now I feel like I've been there again.

If I get 1 million views of this video, I might just ride my bike from Orlando to San Francisco in support of some worthy cause, perhaps homeless veterans. I figure it'll take a little over a month. ('Course I'm gonna need a few sponsors, like a motel chain and a restaurant chain, probably a bike shop as well.) If not, I might attempt to sell this song or video on iTunes and try to get enough money to fix the roof, because it's leaking. If the estate of Otis Redding or the monolithic monster Google come after me, I'll jump from that bridge when I come to it. Short of that, just enjoy. And for best results, please crank it up.

If You Do Something, Do It Well

Don't know how I stumbled upon this on a Monday morning as I try to get the caffeine levels up to a point sufficient to attack a boring brochure about charitable gift annuities with some degree of enthusiasm, but it's inspiring. I have to find something I do well.

I Take it Back - Music Video Isn't Dead Yet

This one, from Keb Mo, took some prizes recently at a film festival.



Thanks to Every Sandwich for tweeting about Keb Mo and prompting me to look this up.

Goin' Down to South Park Gonna Have Myself a Time

Actually, that's not why I took the picture. I was more interested in the guy's name. Missed his calling. It's one thing to nickname yourself Johnny "Guitar" Watson; something else entirely to be born with the name. And then to throw it all away and become a commercial real estate agent. Sad.

Then again, with real estate like it is right now, he could easily become a blues singer.

I Bought a Truck for a Dollar

Coming to an Open Mic Night or a file sharing site near you someday. From the forthcoming album, Geometry.









True story. I bought a truck for a dollar. No really. Big ol’ truck from Jim Harriger up at Victory Mission. Big black Dodge. '72. Strong looking beast with good tires and a V8 at some garage you’ve never seen up on the north and west sides of town, I think on Atlantic Street. Rusted out and dirty as could be, but when you need wheels, you don’t care. Yeah, I bought a truck for a dollar.

Yeah, I bought a truck for a dollar. It stalled about fifteen times in the four-mile drive as I stopped traffic at 5-o’clock rush hour. True story. My buddy was following, pretending he didn’t know me as I pulled into Casey’s for a break. Catch my breath, get a Pepsi. I got it the last quarter mile with only three more stalls and admired it in my drive. Yeah – I bought a truck for a dollar.

I bought a truck for a dollar and my neighbor Gary who’s an ace mechanic said he’d have a look in trade for an old dead mower. Gary likes engines and rebuilds old cars and he’d know what to do. He had the hood off as he crawled up inside with his big ol’ country self, gapping points and cleaning stuff. Found a sticking float and some bad freeze plugs and a tranny about to go. I bought a truck for a dollar.

While Gary tinkered and did his best the better part of a day I cleaned out the bed, full of mulch from years ago. It was an old farm truck from Ohio and the bed was rusted through. I cleaned out the cab and found pencils and pens and pennies and nickels and a treasure in the glovebox. True story. Three 8-track tapes from long ago. Willie Nelson, Elvis, and Olivia Newton John. I bought a truck for a dollar.

It was no good going, Gary announced, as he apologized and packed up his tools and hauled off the old mower for trade. Like a cat playing with a half-dead squirrel he sat under a tree and had that thing going by sunset. He gave me the names of some salvage yard buddies who might give eighty bucks. An old V8, decent tires and a windshield still intact. I bought a truck for a dollar.

The salvage yard guy came out the next morning about 7 in a huge flatbed. Had his daughter in the cab, on their way to school. “You mean all you have is that letter from Victory Mission saying you can have this truck? No title? Well, that’s only worth twenty bucks to me.” “But I put a battery in it for twenty four bucks!” I protested, and he said, “Battery goes with it.”

So, I bought a truck for a dollar and after I sold it I lost money on the deal. True story. He hauled it away on his big flatbed as I stood in my mulch covered drive. My one-dollar-wheels, too good to be true. I guess I’m not a very good businessman. But what the salvage yard man didn’t know was I got one up on him. The 8-tracks tapes stayed with me. Willie, Elvis, and Olivia. Who wins now? Yeah. I bought a truck for a dollar.

© 2008 Radio Free Babylon™