So I guess when you get too creaky to risk a skateboard or a BMX, this is the next step... Now, a little slow to start, doesn't really get going 'til what, 1.28 or so? But when the music kicks in, that man shows his paddle has a soul, straight up. Beautiful. It's all there, the grace, the showmanship. Fantastic. And crank the volume too - you won't want to miss the music. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofq_nl366VM]

"American Freestyle canoeing is the art of paddling a canoe on flat water with perfect control of its movements. The canoe is usually leaned over to the side to help the boat turn sharply and efficiently and paddle strokes are taken on either side of the canoe depending on the individual move. Balance, paddle placement and turn initiation are a few keys to this control. Since the movements seem dance-like, some practice this art timed to music, which is the ultimate in control."

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqT1lCqQyh0]

Seriously amazing (rare) colour photos from depression-era America. Things just don't change - some of them could have been taken today. Click here or on one of the photos to see the full set. It's worth a visit. Part two of the set is here - seriously amazing.

Start at the beginning. Turn it up. Stay with it. And pretend you're bombing down the motorway in a tiny car at night on your way to crash the world's best house party. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f7cylz6tl4&w=700]

He got in trouble with the Hells Angels, called his house a fortified compound, pioneered Gonzo journalism, ran for sheriff (and nearly won), wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, loved guns, usually had coke and a few sticks of dynamite lying around his house, was brilliant, irascible, mercurial. Pissed a lot of people off but inspired more than one generation. On 2005, aged 67, he shot himself. At his funeral, a private ceremony, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon atop a 153-foot tower of his own design (in the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button) to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man." Red, white, blue, and green fireworks were launched along with his ashes. Now THAT is how you go out (the cannon and fireworks, I mean) "Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."

Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak arabic, love music, and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers, and warriors.

Call on God, but row away from the rocks.

If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.

So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

Hopes rise and dreams flicker and die. Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday. Life is beautiful and living is pain. The sound of music floats down a dark street.

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.

I feel the same way about disco as I do about herpes.

America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

Some people will tell you that slow is good – but I’m here to tell you that fast is better. I’ve always believed this, in spite of the trouble it’s caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba…

THE EDGE– there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.

A word to the wise is infuriating.

If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish—a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll. My concept of death for a long time was to come down that mountain road at 120 and just keep going straight right there, burst out through the barrier and hang out above all that . . . and there I'd be, sitting in the front seat, stark naked, with a case of whiskey next to me and a case of dynamite in the trunk . . . honking the horn, and the lights on, and just sit there in space for an instant, a human bomb, and fall down into that mess of steel mills. It'd be a tremendous goddam explosion. No pain. No one would get hurt. I'm pretty sure, unless they've changed the highway, that launching place is still there. As soon as I get home, I ought to take the drive just to check it out.

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.

In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.

You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when its waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye.

The Sixties were an era of extreme reality. I miss the smell of tear gas. I miss the fear of getting beaten.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands.

+

[[ps - please check out some of my other quote collections here - The Guy Quote]]

Straight up, no messing around. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbmNcYH52eo]

Vertigo is not, actually, fear of heights. It's a type of dizziness, a feeling of motion when one is stationary.[The symptoms are due to a dysfunction of the vestibular system in the inner ear. It is often associated with nausea and vomiting as well as difficulties standing or walking. The most common causes are benign paroxysmal positional vertigo and vestibular migraine while less common causes include Ménière's disease and vestibular neuritis. Excessive consumption of ethanol (alcoholic beverages) can also cause notorious symptoms of vertigo. You can manifest it through thoughts, but it really any cause of inflammation such as common cold, influenza, and bacterial infections can cause transient vertigo if they involve the inner ear, as may chemical insults (e.g., aminoglycosides) or physical trauma (e.g., skull fractures). Motion sickness is sometimes classified as a cause of peripheral vertigo. Motion sickness is one of the biggest symptoms of vertigo and it develops most often in persons with inner ear problems. The feeling of dizziness and lightheadedness is often accompanied by nystagmus. This is when the eyes rapidly jerk to one side and then slowly find their way back to the original position. During a single episode of vertigo, this action will occur repeatedly. Symptoms can fade while sitting still with the eyes closed.

This photo makes me feel a bit sick.

Right, well that's that done then.

The Black Keys - Everlasting Light[audio http://dysonology.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/the-black-keys-everlasting_light.mp3]

Florence & The Machine ft. Kid Harpoon “I’m Goin’ Down“ (B. Springsteen cover)[audio http://dysonology.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/florencedown.mp3]

Bedouin Soundclash “Brutal Hearts”[audio http://dysonology.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/bedouin-soundclash-brutal-hearts.mp3]

Andre 3000 -”All Together Now” (Beatles Cover)[audio http://dysonology.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/andre-3000-all-together-now-_the-beatles-cover.mp3]

Ben L’Oncle Soul – “Seven Nation Army”[audio http://dysonology.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/01-seven-nation-army.mp3]

Prince – I Wanna Be Your Lober Dimitri From Paris Re-Edit [audio http://dysonology.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/qigrn5hgmt6e-128-1.mp3]

If you like these songs, find them and buy them.

Listen to this version. If you like it, buy it. [audio http://dysonology.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/a-case-of-you-joni-mitchell-cover.mp3]

Just before our love got lost you said "I am as constant as a northern star" And I said "Constantly in the darkness Where's that at? If you want me I'll be in the bar"

On the back of a cartoon coaster In the blue TV screen light I drew a map of Canada Oh Canada With your face sketched on it twice Oh you're in my blood like holy wine You taste so bitter and so sweet

Oh I could drink a case of you darling Still I'd be on my feet oh I would still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter I live in a box of paints I'm frightened by the devil And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid

I remember that time you told me you said "Love is touching souls" Surely you touched mine 'Cause part of you pours out of me In these lines from time to time Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine You taste so bitter and so sweet

Oh I could drink a case of you darling And I would still be on my feet I would still be on my feet

I met a woman She had a mouth like yours She knew your life She knew your devils and your deeds And she said "Go to him, stay with him if you can But be prepared to bleed"

Oh but you are in my blood You're my holy wine You're so bitter, bitter and so sweet

Oh, I could drink a case of you darling Still I'd be on my feet I would still be on my feet

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noSo5io0JLI] Tim "Wild Thang" Lepard delivers a rousing showcase of oration at a Peoria Chiefs minor league baseball game.

(via)

...or maybe they're analogies. Either way, funny. 1. Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center. 2. He was as tall as a 6′3″ tree. 3. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master. 4. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30. 5. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. 6. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up. 7. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant. 8. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something. 9. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. 10. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef. 11. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM. 12. The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object. 13. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup. 14. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. 15. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. 16. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. 17. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do. 18. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t. 19. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze. 20. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. 21. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth. 22. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River. 23. Even in his last years, Grand pappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut. 24. He felt like he was being hunted down like a dog, in a place that hunts dogs, I suppose. 25. She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword. 26. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs. 27. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work. 28. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while. 29. “Oh, Jason, take me!” she panted, her breasts heaving like a college freshman on $1-a-beer night. 30. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall. 31. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools. 32. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up. 33. The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. 34. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser. 35. Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like “Second Tall Man.” 36. The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play. 37. The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon. 38. She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again. 39. Her pants fit her like a glove, well, maybe more like a mitten, actually. 40. Fishing is like waiting for something that does not happen very often. 41. They were as good friends as the people on “Friends.” 42. Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein’s Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances. 43. The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton. 44. He was as bald as one of the Three Stooges, either Curly or Larry, you know, the one who goes woo woo woo. 45. The sardines were packed as tight as the coach section of a 747. 46. Her eyes were shining like two marbles that someone dropped in mucus and then held up to catch the light. 47. The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas. 48. I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don’t speak German. Anyway, it’s a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don’t know the name for those either. 49. She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe, and on top of that you can’t sing worth a damn. 50. Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. 51. It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before. 52. Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake. 53. You know how in “Rocky” he prepares for the fight by punching sides of raw beef? Well, yesterday it was as cold as that meat locker he was in. 54. The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium. 55. Her lips were red and full, like tubes of blood drawn by an inattentive phlebotomist. 56. The sunset displayed rich, spectacular hues like a .jpeg file at 10 percent cyan, 10 percent magenta, 60 percent yellow and 10 percent black.

--

If you liked this, don't miss the Fumblerules of grammar.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfnW4WLQV-I&w=700] The guy is a genius. I love him.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/15356675]

(both via B3TA)

This guy got a tattoo but got the date wrong.

Flashy splashy.

(via)

It's in China. (via)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9ZohmoG981s]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9u0i7p85k]