Built to Spill -- 'Car'

I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

BB King's tribute to Yngwie

 This is pretty amazing. Nice work, internet.

Chick Corea (RIP)

Park No-Yong's observations of USA (circa 1950)

A few choice quotes: "(White people) are beyond redemption...they eat with knives and prongs.  It makes a civilized person quite nervous."

"I hope that it will be read by...my American friends to help them get a better understanding of their own rich enviable heritage."

Americans have "boundless enthusiasm for work." Shaves, eats, runs to work to arrive just in time.  "Grabs a sandwich and throws the whole business into his big mouth and he would've choked to death long ago without coffee."

"He is born to work, he lives for his work."

"Heaven is a sort of workshop.  Hell is a place of rest, where there is nothing for a man to do."

"The average Americans is....exhilarated by the remote chance of success which may never come."

"It is doubtful if America could get the wholehearted support of the East for freedom, without getting rid of this cancerous disease: race prejudice."

"All the loose talk that there is no more freedom in America than in the totalitarian areas is outright Communist propaganda or the foolish utterances of the ignorant and irresponsible Americans who have enjoyed freedom and democracy for so long and so much in this blessed country that they have forgotten the meaning of tyranny and despotism."

"Even the rich people are sued, defeated, fined or jailed by the common man, who is supposed to be a common slave to his master."

"....To call the president whatever one wishes without fear, makes the US the freest country in the whole world."

"Certainly few decent men on earth could think of admiring a people that lie and cheat as the American campaigners (politicians) do....but the way they accept the result of the election arouses the highest respect...."

"Americans waste little time on history...they study history only to find the faults of their ancestors....The old fashioned Chinese revered their ancestors...and resolved to never do anything that they didn't do." 

"The only class of underfed, undernourished and starving people I've seen in 25 years of traveling in America is the class of women, who voluntarily submit themselves to starvation maintain slender figures....(in China it is a compliment) to say you look fatter...(in America) corpulence is no sign of honor...if you call a lady a fat cow, oh boy, you are sure to get in trouble" (*)

"All their work...has been motivated by love....I'm sorry you people have nothing better to fight for."

"What they have built has served both as a target of attack and an object of worship." 

I wish Americans could learn to love the country half as much as this guy loves it. We're so good at everything that we don't realize how god damn wasteful we are, how we could be doing so much more! Oh well. Even half-assing, we still get a lot done in a day. 

(*) Park writes that in China only the rich people have enough to grow fat, therefore corpulence is a sign of high esteem. I would add that was pretty much true everywhere on the globe all throughout history until USA in the 20th century. Our obsession with thin-ness is entirely unique in civilization, for there has never been such abundance that forces one to avoid eating. Gotta admit: his 'bag of bones' comment made milk shoot out of my nose.

Scene from 'Shadow of a Doubt'

 "....Are they?...."

SNL -- 'So You're Willing to Date a Magician'

 

Ha!