The Best & (Very) Worst of Youtube

I spend an inordinate amount of time on YouTube, probably more time than I do on its porn equivalents; Spankwire, Tube8, Redtube, Youporn etc. I’m going to share my favourite (and least favourite) videos from the wonderful site that is, YouTube. An interesting fact, as of last year, YouTube’s profits reached the $1 Billion mark. Pretty impressive when they pay successful users using this pretty flawed formula; Earnings Potential = (Number of subscribers x $0.05) + (Total number of channel views x $0.01) I’m not good at maths, but if you had let’s say, for the sake of argument, 600,000 subscribers and 10,000,000 channel views a number roughly along the lines of (let me get my calculator from my apps menu, let’s here it for Mac!) $1.3 Million. I think… Anyway, it is a fuck load of these (Yup, I went to my local exchange bureau and paid 66p for a single Dollar bill. I’m the boss, it’s just how I roll. Spending large amounts on TLAST);

Without further adieu, we shall begin with the very best Sports related videos (I apologise for being biased, fucking shoot me I have favourite teams!);

– This video is further evidence why Hockey guys get all the girls. For one, they’re all incredibly handsome, rich, tough (as in will protect a woman’s honour is someone fucks with her) and secondly, incredibly generous when it comes to buying folks alcohol! Funny footnote, Tyler Sagan, Boston’s 19-year-old Centre was apparently so royally fucking drunk (the legal drinking age in America is 21) that there was quite the outrage in predominantly Catholic Boston. Also,  Right Winger Brad Marchand, who is 20 years of age, was sent home to Canada by team Captain Zdeno Chara for partying too hard. Hockey guys are fucking FANTASTIC.

– As a lover of most things Boston, I fucking despise all things New York. In particular, the New York Knicks and especially Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudmire. I watched this live on a terrible online feed last season and went fucking ape shit when Paul ‘The Truth’ Pierce hit the game winner.  Making the game winner even sweeter was the fact that this was the first Celtics-Knicks faceoff since the Knicks collossal trade to grab Anthony from Denver. New York was heavily favoured, but as we know, you never question the heart of a champion! Tiny Nate Robinson’s tumble over Pierce is priceless.

– Even casual sports fans have heard of this call; ‘Do you believe in miracles?! YES!’. Obviously this is an Olympic hockey game featuring the USA and USSR, funnily enough at the time of the Cold War. Contrary to popular belief, this was not, I repeat not the Gold medal game. America beat Finland in the Gold medal game. Interestingly, if the USA had lost to Finland in the gold medal game, the USSR would have gained the Gold medal without actually playing the game (obviously), due to a better tournament record than Finland. Entering the final period of the Gold medal game (USA-Finland) the USA trailed by a goal head coach Herb Brooks stormed into the locker room, looked at his emotionally exhausted/dejected players (the oldest player being 22) and screamed; “If you lose this game you’ll take it to your grave… your fucking grave!” Stormed out of the locker room, returned to the coaches area and watched his team smash 3 goals into the Finnish net, winning the game 4 goals to 2 and avoiding turning the most shocking moment in American sport history into an embarrassing footnote in Olympic history and wasted opportunity. Instead, this video gives even a Scotsman (me) the chills. I mean come on the Americans were huge underdogs!

Now, I bring you the best in music related videos;

– I have no fucking idea what they sing about but, they put on one hell of a show. (You can tell I’m getting a bit fed up of writing at this point.)

– What can I say, my favourite band’s last live performance (apparently ever). ‘Head Like a Hole’ one of my favourite live songs. What else do I need to say. Well I can say that I think it’s amazing that Trent Reznor has the same enthusiasm for his music that he did 21 years ago.

– Just look at her. LOOK AT HER GODDAMN IT! So beautiful. Also, I have the exact same sunglasses she wears in the car; Ray Ban Wayfarers.  Yup. Same sunglasses as Katy Perry.

Before I begin the very worst of YouTube, I’m going for a cigarette break (Yes, really) maybe you should too! One step closer to lung cancer, I bring you the (very) worst;

– Yeah a bit sobering, not so lighthearted as the good videos. Personally, I find this video really difficult to watch. It’s tragic. Two incredibly talented young musicians completely fucked out of their minds, one side of me romanticizes the ‘trauma’ of addiction and another side of me sheds a tear for Amy Winehouse’s family and most of all (and selfishly) her wasted talent. Also, Doherty; you’re a fucking fantastic musician, stop trying to kill yourself. I think we’re all party to blame for Winehouse’s self-destruction; I read recently that she never liked being famous and still went to her local bar in Camden where she grew up. It just seems she was easily led and couldn’t handle the constant ridicule that the British media insist on bombarding a person with for no reason, well I suppose it helps them sell newspapers and drive traffic. So well done media fat cats you’re rich and she’s dead. Really congratulations. We live in a very vicarious society and I suppose you executed your job perfectly, we watched a beautiful and talented young woman hit the downward spiral that is addiction and then die.

– This is Richard Pryor incredibly high on Cocaine. It’s hilarious and tragic. Hilarious as in he is one of the funniest men ever to live and the jokes (due to the Coke) just fucking fly out of his mouth but also tragic, when you can occasionally see the real Richard in his eyes at certain points; essentially a vulnerable young boy. A few months later, Pryor in a state of Cocaine psychosis doused himself in high-proof rum and set himself alight, in an attempt to kill himself. Needless to say, he wasn’t the same afterward.

– Summer 2011, my first Summer in London. Riots, paranoid and civil unrest. Then at about 1:30 am a few weeks ago, this happened half a mile down the road from my flat. Scared this shit out of me.

– I don’t want to say anything, except that this is horrific and wrong. I posted this video so that everyone could read the ridiculously racist opinions of certain people. Expand the link and read the comments, I hope you’re a decent person and they enrage you.

– I really like this old series of ol’ Russ’ but it’s strange to watch with the benefit of hindsight knowing that he was heavily into crack and heroin and struggling to survive. On a bright note, out of his face on drugs, he’s still brighter than most of us and put that Nazi asshole in his place time and time again. Congratulations to Russell Brand on staying sober for over eight years now. One day at a time!

Okay, I think 1,200 + words is enough on YouTube. I’m thinking that I could do this post weekly? Thoughts people?

‘If you tremble with indignation at every injustice them you are a comrade of mine’ – Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. Thought I’d leave on a quote.

Once more, I am and always have been Jack-Lee.

P.S. I hope our regular readers are enjoying the blog and appreciate that we’re in the early stages and will stick with us. Thanks for the support people!

The Shawshank Flaw (men’s height), Kris Humpries Punching Above His Weight & The Nostalgic Power of Music

I am not old, I feel it sometimes. That would probably be attributable to all the horrible things I’ve done to my body over the years and even as I type this I’m nursing a broken ankle. I took a bad fall playing basketball with a couple of kids. Not in a pedo way, just that I’m over competitive and challenged them. I won, even playing on a broken ankle, just because I’m a fucking warrior.

Music plays a colossal role in everyone’s lives, well not everyone but at least 98% of the people I know (we’ll get back to this later). So do films; but this isn’t about films. Just one observation, well someone pointed it out to me. In, one of the greatest films ever made, The Shawshank Redemption (1994) how can Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) fit into Warden Norton’s (played by Bob Gunton) suit at the end of the film; after his tunneling-through-shit jail break. Tim Robbins is apparently between 6’4” and 6’5”, Bob Gunton is apparently 6’1”. The point is I’m 6’1” and there’s no way in hell a suit tailored for a man 3 to 4” shorter than me would fit. Other than that, it’s a fucking great film.

Since we’re on the topic of height and I being a young man, which means everything is a competition, even height. Here is a list of people the same height as me, this probably only interests me but, I am the same height as; Rainn Wilson, Timothy Dalton, Russell Brand (I thought he was a lot taller), LL Cool J, Brendan Gleeson, Saddam Hussein (Yes, really), Jim Carrey, Enrique Iglesias, Johnny Cash, Jeremy Sisto (one of my favorite actors!), The Ultimate Warrior, Bill Murray (another one of my favorite actors!), Arnie, Jay Z (my homie, we own the New Jersey Nets together), Chris Martin, Daniel Day Lewis, Tony Parker (the French basketball player. Complete mad shagger, used to me married to Eva Longoria) and this one’s my favorite, Till Lindemann of Rammstein!

Speaking of the New Jersey Nets, their below average Power Forward Kris Humphries just married the hot Kardashian, I say hot she ins’t that hot but there is a sex video of her on line.  He’s a below average basketball player, she’s a talentless whore; they’re perfect for each other. Vegas has set the over/under at 3.5 months; I’ll take the under.

Music is really fucking powerful; the emotions some songs evoke are fucking ridiculous. Obviously I can only use myself as an example, this is just an example of a diverse range of songs which evoke a certain amount of emotion.

I’ll start with a manly sport one. It’s one of those songs that when I hear it I instantly have to go on youtube and watch this clip of Tim Thomas decking one of the Sedin twins from this past Stanley Cup Finals .
I’m not Irish, nor from Boston so I don’t know why this song turns me into a testosterone filled animal.

This one is a fair bit sentimental.
I remember when my Grandmother was in hospital, I was about maybe sixteen. She wasn’t feeling great, I recently began listening to the Rolling Stones, I told her, she asked me if I had this song, I did, she listened and belted it out like a fucking trooper and that’s with chronic COPD.  Two years later at her funeral, I got to chose the song when everyone was leaving; my Mum wanted Westlife, I said fuck that and blasted The Rolling Stones; Hey, hey, you, you, get off of my cloud! 

Eighteen years of age, living on my on in Dundee. Edith Bowman night at Dundee Student Union, still holds up as the best night out I’ve ever had. The hangover the next day also holds up as the worst I’ve ever had.

I lost my virginity to this song. T’was the 15^th of December 2004, it was a Friday. I couldn’t really get it up. The sex finished before the song did.

May or may not remind me of a certain young woman breaking my heart. YOU BITCH!

Before I moved to London last year, I watched Guy Ritchie’s films nearly every night. I was going to write something really spiteful about that situation, but fuck it, I’m not in the mood. Just a resounding FUCK YOU to a handful of people; you know who you are, I hope you die in a fucking fire.

I first heard this song by chance on the school bus on the way home in early 2005. I remember listening to it about four times during that journey, ignoring all my friends and my girlfriend at the time, the song just caught me and ever since it has been my favorite song, upon discovering that song Nine Inch Nails quickly became my favorite band and still are. I even have a ‘NIN’ tattoo on my right wrist, I do regret that a little bit now.

Anyway, I’m only posting this because I am too scared to voice my opinions on the London riots. In all honesty I am not from the correct socioeconomic background to really understand how these kids feel. Let this man explain, be warned he speaks the truth;