Isis - Backlit (Live - Sweden, 2005)

Here's an excellent live version of Backlit, one of my favorite songs from the band Isis. Isis was one of the pioneers of the post-rock/post-metal/avant-garde metal/experimental genre whose sound, along with bands like Neurosis and Godflesh, was greatly influential for many other artists that followed (Pelican, Russian Circles and Cult of Luna to name a few).

Unfortunately Isis decided to break up after their tour this past summer. I highly recommend checking out their catalog: from the heavy 'Oceanic' to last year's incredible 'Wavering Radiant', the musicians of Isis truly constructed massive yet controlled sounds with each release focusing on a central theme where there is a continuity to both the music and lyrics.

"Always object, never subject."

Lionel Messi - Simply the Best

In lieu of tomorrow's all-world clash (more commonly known as 'el clasico') between Spanish superpowers Barcelona and Real Madrid, here's a really nice highlight clip of Lionel Messi...the best soccer player on the planet - war Barca!

Zlatan Ibrahimovic's Amazing Goal - AC Milan vs. Fiorentina (11-21-10)

An excellent half-bicycle goal by Swedish international/AC Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic:

Bill Hicks on who's really in control...

"I have this feeling, man, cos you know there's a handful of people actually run everything. That's true. It's provable, it's not a fucking-I'm not a conspiracy nut. It's provable. A handful, a very small elite, run and own these corporations, which include the mainstream media. I have this feeling who's ever elected President, like Clinton was, no matter what your promises you promise on the campaign trail, 'blah, blah, blah', when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialist capitalist scum-fucks who got you in there, and you're in this smoky room and this little film screen comes down, rrrrrrrrrr, and a big guy and a cigar (po po) 'Roll the Film'. (po po po) And it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before...that looks suspiciously of the grassy knoll. And then the film, the screen goes up, and the lights come up, and they go to the new President, 'Any questions?'

'Ah, just what my agenda is?'
'First we bomb Baghdad.'
'You got it.'

-Excerpt from Bill's performance at the Laff Stop in Austin, Texas (1993); included in the 'Rant in E Minor' CD (1997).

Films - Random Lists & Reminders

• Revisit Alfred Hitchcock's catalog
• See Akira Kurasawa's classics
• Go through Clint Eastwood-directed films
• View any and all Paul Newman films
• View any and all Robert Shaw films
• View any and all Robert Mitchum films
• Check out Stanley Kubrick's early films
• View any and all Gene Hackman films
• Documentaries...
• Revisit films by: Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone, Paul Greengrass, Christopher Nolan, Werner Herzog, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Wes Anderson, Joel & Ethan Coen, David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Danny Boyle, Ken Burns, Darren Aronofsky, Sam Mendes, Ridley Scott, Michel Gondry, Roman Polanski, George Roy Hill
  
• Check out more films directed by: Andrey Tarkovskiy, Chan-wook Park, Takashi Miike, Oliver Hirschbiegel, David Lean, John Sturges, Terry George, John Boorman, Ingmar Bergman
  

Footage of the last Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger)...and possible 2009 sighting?

The thylacine was a large carnivorous marsupial that was once native to Australia, but later survived on the island of Tasmania. It is now considered to be an extinct species due to intensive hunting and the last known thylacine died in 1936 at The Hobart Zoo in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. A truly amazing creature and a shame it was hunted to extinction.

Here is footage from 1933 of the last-known survivor of the species:



This is a short clip from a man who claims this is footage of a living thylacine that he recorded in 2009:

Short Clip on Percy Fawcett and The Lost City of Z

This is a clip that discusses Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett, who was a former British military officer turned Archaeologist and South American explorer who disappeared (still under unknown circumstances) during an expedition to find the ancient lost city "Z".

Fawcett had been on numerous expeditions to map several jungle areas in Brazil and Bolivia on behalf of the Royal Geographic Society. He had studied many historical records and mapped out different regions of South America and became convinced that a lost city existed in Brazil's Mato Grosso region. In 1925 Col. Fawcett, his son Jack and Jack's friend Raleigh Rimell set off in search of the city...they were never heard from again.

There are, of course, many theories regarding the fate of Fawcett's final trek into this uncharted territory: many have speculated that one of the local tribes had killed them (more than a few of the native tribes near where Fawcett and his team vanished were known to be hostile). Falling prey to one of the many deadly animals in the Amazon, disease and even natural causes could all be possibilities as well. Following his disappearance, it is estimated that almost 100 people have either died or disappeared themselves searching for Fawcett over the years. The debate continues to this day over what really became of the eccentric explorer, so determined (almost to a maddening degree) to find the lost city that many have argued that he never had any intentions of returning to Britain and that he was to start and live in some sort of mystical commune in the jungle.

Percy Fawcett is truly a pioneer, a fearless and legendary British explorer and certainly the last of his kind. I strongly recommend reading about Col. Fawcett and his various expeditions, especially if you have an interest in exploration, adventure or mysterious disappearances. David Grann's excellent and captivating book The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, is a great place to start.