While I occasionally consult with ChatGPT while reading, it has never occurred to me to just keep it open. I think I’d find that distracting. This would be particularly useful for my non-fiction reading
Category Archives: Media & Entertainment
Dancing and Singing at the Towne Grill
When I arrived at the Towne Grill at 1:30 p.m. they were cleaning up in preparation for closing at two o’clock. But the made me a grilled cheese sandwich (Best in Town) and since I was the only customer, they kept on closing up while somebody’s phone (?) was streaming music at volume.
Paul Simon’s You Can Call Me Al came up and I heard someone back by the grill singing along. Then the two servers who were sweeping up started singing along, putting a little boogie into the brooms. Next I heard the guy in the back washing dishes. And John (the owner) was right there with them.
It was like something from a Spike Lee musical (did he do musicals?). Everybody having a great time. I thought about grabbing some video but didn’t want to break the spell. You just had to be there. And I was.
Turns out there’s a pretty good story behind the official video.
The video became quite famous and features a comedic performance by Paul Simon and Chevy Chase. Here are some key details about the music video:
Initially, Paul Simon didn’t like the original music video for the song, which was simply a performance he gave during the monologue when he hosted Saturday Night Live[2]. A replacement video was then created, which became the widely known and popular version.
The replacement video was directed by Gary Weis and was partly conceived by Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels[. This video features:
– Chevy Chase lip-syncing to Paul Simon’s vocals
– Paul Simon lip-syncing to the backing vocals
– Simon miming various instruments as they appear in the songThe video plays on the significant height difference between the 6’4″ (193 cm) Chevy Chase and the 5’3″ (160 cm) Paul Simon, creating a comical visual juxtaposition[2].
The music video for “You Can Call Me Al” became one of Paul Simon’s most recognizable and popular videos. It helped boost the song’s popularity, contributing to its commercial success. The song, initially released in July 1986, experienced a resurgence in sales and airplay after the album Graceland won Album of the Year at the 29th Annual Grammy Awards in February 1987[2].
iOS 18: Pause while recording video
Who’s buying all this booze?
ChatGPT: Advanced Voice
There are now nine Voice options in the ChatGPT app. Each one has a different tone, style and… “personality.” (I went with Sol) It also has something called “speech-to-speech capabilities.” This means that it can pick up on tone changes, “allowing for a more natural, human-like conversation and faster interrupting.”
I’m not sure about “Advanced Voice.” If you want it to sound more like yourself then you can ask it to adopt a specific accent. It won’t be able to directly mimic your voice but it can sound like it’s from your neck of the woods. I don’t think so. If I want to hear the lilting sounds of Southeast Missouri, I’ll talk to Barb.
“It’s time to be a man and vote for a woman”
Sam Elliot has one of those instantly recognizable voices. Up there with Morgan Freeman, james Earl Jones, Charlton Heston, just to name a few. (Good list of 20)
“Are we really going down that same broken fucking road?”
I love that they let him say “fucking.” Everybody says fuck. It’s a perfectly good word and, sometimes, the only word that fits.
Apple Watch: First Impressions
THIS IS NOT A REVIEW OF THE APPLE WATCH. Just some stream-of-consciousness first impressions. Runs just over 8 minutes. One thought to get you started: the watch already knows much more about me than I know about it and that will always be the case.
Apple Watch: Protecting my hearing
Monster
Guilty Pleasure #237: Drunk Karens cuffed and arrested
After paying for the ad-free YouTube I found myself watching more videos…and more different types of videos. I quickly discovered a fondness (addiction?) for videos I came to think of as “guilty pleasures.”
Early on it was videos of third-world truck drivers crawling along mountain roads or muddy jungle trails. Next came high-speed chases captured on police dash cams. Which led me to videos of assholes being dragged off commercial flights (necessitating all passengers de-planing). From there it was a shot hop to body-cam video of “sovereign citizens” refusing to provide ID when stopped by police or troopers. The guiltiest pleasure of all is from police body-cams of officers dealing with spoiled, entitled, drunk white women. I’ve seen the term “Karen Cam” used to describe these.
Several take-aways from these videos: a) most police offers/deputies/troopers have a vast reservoir of patience. (Cursed, spat on, kicked and scratched) b) it is insanely difficult to handcuff someone who is resisting. Even for half a dozen big strong officers, it’s all they can do to get the woman’s hands cuffed behind her back… her legs hobbled… then put her in the police vehicle. Where she kicks and screams all the way to jail.
No idea why I find these videos so… addictive. Perhaps it’s as simple as seeing these spoiled, never-told-no princesses suffering a consequence. And it pleases me to know these humiliating videos are out there for the world to see.