Newsman John Facenda was the famous voice behind NFL Films for almost 20 years. It was he who could make a mundane game appear to be a battle for the ages. I just learned that it all began by chance in 1964, when John was watching football at bar and he
…started to rhapsodize about how beautiful it was. Ed Sabol, the man who founded NFL Films, happened to be at the bar. He came up to me and asked, ‘If I give you a script, could you repeat what you just did?’ I said I would try.
NFL Films won’t allow us to embed but you can hear that stentorian voice here.
Perhaps it’s the rainy weather that drew me toward Janet this weekend. Her 1990 album Rhythm Nation 1814 just sounds like sunshine and rollerskates.
This is the only album to ever notch 7 top 5 Billboard hits. It surely spawned millions of slumber party dance routines and lead to Janet signing the largest recording contract at the time, $32 million with Virgin.
Jay-Z’s video for On To The Next One is brilliant. It feels controlled yet crazy. It times image to sound perfectly. And, it has Community‘s Joel McHale playing The Joker. When describing the video from script to screen, director Sam Brown said:
I’m aware that as I’m shooting the images are getting darker and odder. Jay and his people came and went so they haven’t seen anything else. I wonder what the hell they’re going to think of it all. Whenever I’ve been given a big opportunity I’ve tried to be a bit reckless with it, to take chances. It’s very rare that this doesn’t pay off in some way. Playing things safe never gets you anywhere.
Comedian (and former ad man) Maz Jobrani tipped us to the fact that on the upcoming Census, Iranian-Americans are asked to mark “other” on question 9 and write in Iranian or Iranian-American. He notes that the FBI does not get these forms, but asks that you let him know if you end up getting deported so that he does not fill out his like so.
