DJ Questlove

Professor Questlove on his approach to DJ'ing parties

"I’m less concerned about providing a good soundtrack for the night than I am for manipulating you emotionally through your memories."

LCD Soundsystem + Miles Davis

Helms a Lee readers know I like playing two youtube windows at the same time.  Real time editing style.  Pretend DJing.  This is a fun one.



via zack

"I'm really proud of you"

guh

Rise of the Guardians

Come see what I did.  Keeping it high brow.

The Croods - Trailer

My trailer for The Croods is live!  Check it

So busy.  More posts soon, promise.

Slick Willie

Bill Clinton's speech was great last night too.

Love at First Lady

"When you've worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you.  No, you reach back and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed."

Work hard and be nice to people

sounds about right

Vin Scully

Vin Scully night.  Kicking myself for not going.

Kershaw

He must be throwing a whiffle ball

via zack

We've started roving today

Curiosity touched down in the crater now called "Bradbury Landing" on August 5, and started driving today.  The news brief at JPL opened with this clip of Ray Bradbury reading his poem "If Only We Had Taller Been" in 1971.  He had been invited to participate in a symposium at Caltech on the eve of Mariner 9 going into orbit around Mars.

IF ONLY WE HAD TALLER BEEN

The fence we walked between the years
Did balance us serene;
It was a place half in the sky where
In the green of leaf and promising of peach
We’d reach our hand to touch and almost touch the sky,
That blue that was not really blue.
If we could reach and touch, we said,
‘Twould teach us, somehow, never to be dead.

We ached, we almost touched that stuff;
Our reach was never quite enough.
So, Thomas, we are doomed to die.
O, Tom, as I have often said,
How sad we’re both so short in bed.
If only we had taller been,
And touched God’s cuff, His hem,
We would not have to slip away and go with them
Who’ve gone before,
A billion give or take a million boys or more
Who, short as we, stood tall as they could stand
And hoped by stretching thus to keep their land,
Their home, their hearth, their flesh and soul.
But they, like us, were standing in a hole.

O, Thomas, will a Race one day stand really tall
Across the Void, across the Universe and all?
And, measured out with rocket fire,
At last put Adam’s finger forth
As on the Sistine Ceiling,
And God’s great hand come down the other way
To measure Man and find him Good,
And Gift him with Forever’s Day?
I work for that.

Short man, Large dream. I send my rockets forth between my ears,
Hoping an inch of Will is worth a pound of years.
Aching to hear a voice cry back along the universal Mall:
We’ve reached Alpha Centauri!
We’re tall, O God, we’re tall!

Mos Def and Muhammad Ali for Louis Vuitton

Yasiin Bey recites Muhammad Ali's words.  Graffiti artist Niels Shoe Meulman mops the canvas with black paint.

Oreo

An image tweeted by Oreo hours after the Mars Rover touched down on the red planet.  They have this site dedicated to recognizing daily cultural happenings.  Pretty darn cool if you ask me.

Happy Friday

Palm Springs, here we come

Vin Scully translating a tirade

Vin is my fave and here's another reason why.  Skip to the minute mark.

there can be only one

The xx "Chained"

I was as big a fan of The xx as you were until I saw them in concert couple years ago.  This might have just won me back over.

Power Hour 2008

Another one from the archives.  Friends celebrating Christmas 2008 with the Power Hour - one shot of beer every minute for 60 big ones.

Seth's birthday hike

Digging through my hardrives for the family project, I stumbled across this oldie but goodie I put together a couple years ago.

Seth was turning 31. Plus, after some historic rainfall, Saturday was going to be the first dry day in a week. With our charming grey-brown "marine layer" temporarily washed away, what better day to go for a hike?

+ In n Out
+ winding canyons
+ car sickness
+ Sandstone Peak, the highest point in Santa Monica
+ lots of pictures of heels and butts
+ and middle fingers
+ novelty size bottles of Glenlivet
+ Neptune's Net

This is how Michael Caine speaks

I saw Dark Knight Rises yesterday.

This is not a spoiler, so long as you've heard Michael Caine speak before.  VERY LOUD INDEED

US Olympic Swimming Team

Doing "Call Me Maybe."  This really reminds me of my college volleyball days.  In a good way.  If you can imagine that.  This post might get deleted shortly.

Derek Redmond

Another Barcelona '92 Olympics memory.

English track star Derek Redmond pulled up lame with a torn hamstring halfway through the 400 semis.  His dad ran out onto the track, and together, IN TEARS, they limped to the finish line.  I might have cried a little bit when I watched it and told my mom there was something stuck in my eye.

Here's a Visa commercial commemorating the moment.  I think they took the voiceover from Shawshank Redemption.  

And here's a user-created montage tribute to the race.  That's right - set to Coldplay.  If you think this is lame, you have no soul.

While the Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius - "Faster, Higher, Stronger" - the Olympic creed reads "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

guh. I love the Olympics.

Greatest Olympic Cauldron Lighting Ever

Antonio Rebollo, a Paralympic archer who was stricken with polio when he was eight months old shoots a burning arrow 181 feet and seven stories high perfectly into the cauldron to start the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.  via

Beirut "The Rip Tide"

so nice

The greatest risk is not taking one

Chris' sent me this TV spot in a response to the ISS montage below.

Sure, it's AIG, which would make the tagline comical - if it weren't tragic.  But it's a great spot.  The copy is taken from TS Elliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock".

Frame grab from Kevin Flynn's seminal interview with Connor and Madeleine Flynn about their favorite thing about grandpa.

View from ISS

This doesn't suck.  Photography taken from the ISS, set to a cue from John Murphy's epic Sunshine soundtrack.  Best played loud and full screen.

Dirty Projectors "Dance for You"

gosh, this album is good

Dirty Projectors "Impregnable Question"

Twin Shadow "Golden Light"

dance dance dance

Megan Draper, you have nothing on my mom

who is expecting in this pic, btw.  Nantucket, 1965

my mom

my mom looking gross

my dad

Working on the family project this weekend.  Here's my dad, being a slacker.

happy friday

via

In the Brussels airport, you're welcome to charge your electronics for free, but you've got to make the electricity yourself.  If I ever have kids, the TV is getting hooked up to this shit.

Puss In Boots "Leche"

Just uploaded an event spot I did for DreamWorks' Puss In Boots.  I know you were interested.

I think the slurping sound effect might be Art.

Obama with Teams USA

Obama with the men's and women's Olympic basketball teams.  This is darn good campaigning if you ask me, Team Obama.

mush

word

Kiss Cam

I've managed to get myself on Staple Center's and Dodger Stadium's jumbotrons a few times as a rabid, often dancing fan.  But the Kiss Cam is my Holy Grail.

One day.  One. Day.

hey kobe,

 

Rose

I just spent five minutes watching this five second loop of Rose.  mesmerizinggggggg

All the Presidents' Menus

A great compilation of various US Presidents' tastes.


George H.W. Bush: Pork rinds, popcorn, beef jerky, hot dogs, Butterfingers, and ice cream.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Roast stuffed breast of veal, beef stew, oxtail soup, chicken noodle soup, rare steak, quail hash, trout, corn pudding, string beans, succotash, fluffy turnips, and prune whip.

last clock

whoa

Last Clock from New Mediology on Vimeo.

Doug Pitt

pretty good. The other Pitt for Virgin Mobile

totally unrelated to monkey below.  also, a word that sounds like "mitt" means "yum" in Lugandan.

Monkeys ran freely everywhere in Uganda.  Here's one I got video of.

what did I doooooooooooooo?!?!

the currie potter

just skipping to LAX

to this.  some shoulder shimmying is also involved.  and jump splits like the NY subway guy below.

Dancers Among Us

more

How Prometheus Got its Atmosphere

So cool.  (the answer is JPL)

Reminds me of this Neil deGrasse Tyson / Titanic story.

little flynns

Maddie trying to be the star of the show. Connor looking bored in the back. 

23 1/2 Hours

An oldie but a goodie

yes plz

my biopic

They made a biopic of my future last year too.

"I need the money for an extra vehicle so I can help the CHILDREN!"
"calm down"
"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!"
(bazooka, explosion)

amazing.

Prepare for my blog to be lots of pictures of me helping kids in Africa for nothing but selfless reasons.  And reflections on how I wish I could just do that all the time.  I can hear the ladies swooning already.

Uganda

They made a movie about my trip!

KEVIN WENT LOOKING
FOR OUR BEGINNINGS
WHAT HE FOUND
COULD BE OUR END

Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury's genius makes this 22 minute talking head interview with an 88 year old fly by.  Here he is on doing what you love and loving what you do, on the importance of libraries and books, the origin of the title Fahrenheit 451, the process of writing, the most influential books in his life...

Twenty-two minutes is a long time, but it's worth it!

Wreck-It Ralph trailer

aaaAAAAAAAaaaaWWWWwwwwwwwwwwwwww ilikeit

there's a little black spot on the sun today

UPDATE: closer, bolder from Art:

You should see him.  And by 'him', I mean my surfboard.

beardfore and after

after nine bearded months, I feel like a whole new person. weird

SpaceX + ISS

Yesterday, SpaceX's Dragon shuttle successfully visited the International Space Station. wild.  

Obama, Elon Musk, and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in the background

shamone

It's Friday, the weather's perfect, surf's good, and I'm hanging out with the lil ones tomorrow morning at Descanso Gardens.

right now, I'm all I'm all

Now! "Award Winning Helms-a-Lee"

My seminal work, the television spot "Die Again" for the latest installment of hallowed franchise Final Destination, has been recognized by the preeminent arbiters of import as The Best Voice Over in a TV Spot.  Forget that no one is sure if this is an award for the copy writing, the voice actor, the editor, or the creative director.  The world will truly never be the same now that this :30 spot is in our ethos.

Also, pictured: creative director and editor on the piece

There's a whole lot of good stuffed into this four minutes

Golden Trailer Awards

Tonight is the Golden Trailer Awards and yours truly has been nominated for two categories.  Come look at how important I am, everybody.

Nominated for Best Family/Adventure Trailer:



Nominated for Best Voice Over in a TV Spot:



It's up to Jon Favreau, Patton Oswalt, and a handful of even more important people who wins.  Cross your fingers!

Literary greats in bathing suits

10 of em at flavorwire.

Here's Truman Capote in short shorts.  summerrrrrrr

Gladwell book title generator

this is fun

Indie Game: The Movie

Looks like a compelling story.  Great music cue by Jim Guthrie.

Edison v Tesla

Fun read.

The original Oatmeal comic  basically poses that if you swap electricity with the Macintosh computer, then

Edison : Tesla :: Jobs : Wozniak