Some velvet mornin’ when I’m straight,
I’m gonna open up your gate.

Some kind soul at YouTube has posted an old music video for that strange, psychedelic masterpiece by Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra — Some Velvet Morning. I’ve always loved the song but had no idea this little jewel even existed.

Click here to watch the video.

The song’s been covered many times and is on several different movie soundtracks. My favorite use of it is by the gifted Scottish director Lynne Ramsay in her film MORVERN CALLAR. Samantha Morton listens to the song on headphones as she dreamily floats into work at a grocery store in Oban, Scotland. It really is a stunning sequence.

Check out the movie and its fine soundtrack, if you’re interested.

UPDATE: Another one bites the dust. According to YouTube: “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Sheffield Enterprises Inc.” Congrats, Jackass. I’m sure you’ll make a fortune on it!

A New Year’s portrait, before and after the click of the shutter. [Silent]

Click here to watch the video.

Shot at the book release party for my friend Alex’s Doc Pomus biography. The event was held at the Housing Works bookstore in Manhattan.

While NY1’s George Whipple interviews Dr. John, Alex signs his book for eager fans.

[Silent]

Click here to watch the video.

Here’s a strange one — a pop culture mash-up marrying Bob Dylan to Dr. Seuss via the disturbingly meticulous creation of a mythical “lost recording.”

I’m still not sure what/who is behind this, but it’s surprisingly well done. I’m particularly fond of “Oh, the Thinks You Can Think,” “Green Eggs and Ham,” and “Too Many Daves.” These guys really have far too much time on their hands.

You might have some trouble getting the songs to play unless you’re using Firefox and have the latest Adobe Flash Player installed.

I found this via the maddeningly addictive Ask MetaFilter, by the way.

Oh, the time you can waste….

UPDATE: Well, that’s great. As soon as I post this, they take the site down. Maybe they were getting too many hits, and they’re regrouping. Maybe the creators were threatened with a lawsuit. Or maybe the piece was always meant to be ephemeral. I’ll leave the link up just in case the site comes back online. Too bad you missed it. It was kind of fun. The picture above is an actual screen-capture of the website as it once existed.

UPDATE #2: Apparently, the Dr. Seuss people forced these guys to take the site down. If you click the link above, you’ll see the note explaining it. Draconian copyright laws strike again — either that or they just threatened to bankrupt these guys with lawsuits, whether they think they could win the case or not. So much for postmodernist pastiche art….

Apologies for the lame, bowdlerized Beastie Boys reference in the post title, but, hey… my first music video, who knew?

My friend Tony asked me to shoot some footage with his Super 8mm camera a while back. We were at a barbecue in Brooklyn, and he was gearing up to move to Los Angeles with his winsome POSSLQ, Carmen. I did as asked.

Years passed.

Eventually, Tony hand-processed the film out in L.A. (DIY, y’all!), in buckets in his friend Aaron’s bathtub.

He then matched the unedited footage to a song performed by his legendary, though now-defunct, band the Strip Minors — creating a kind of “found” music video.

That’s right; I said unedited, yo. Like John Ford, I’ve always preferred “cutting in the camera.” Anyway, the resulting clip plays a bit like someone strung together several of my actualities, projected them through gauze, and floated them over a Peter Gabriel soundtrack.

Click here to check it out.

And thank you, Tony. I am truly blessed.

p.s. Don’t blame me for the focus (or lack thereof)! It looked sharp in the viewfinder, guys, I swear! It might help your enjoyment of the piece to consider the blurriness an artistic choice.

A short walk on a long, crooked pier (of sorts).

Shot in the Japanese section of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.

[Silent]

Click here to watch the video.

My dashing friend Alex has finally succumbed to the siren song of “Shangri-Blog,” and, thus, THE CHEAP LUSH is born.

Look on its posts, ye haughty, and despair.

Perhaps best of all, he’s set up shop at a “something.blogspot.com” address — the people’s blog domain!

There’s a permanent link to Sasha’s site on my sidebar, below. So stop by sometime to grab a goblet full of his pithy wine judgments and witty pop culture asides.

Scott Baio, Ernst Lubitsch, Isaac Hayes, and Manimal have all made appearances there so far… so why not you?