Author: DOuG pRATt

Chipmunks Revealed

His name was Ross Bagdasarian, but he called himself David Seville. When I was a kid I wished my voice could sound like his.

But at the time I didn’t realize that the other voices I heard on his records and his TV show — with the singing chipmunks Alvin, Simon and Theodore — were also his.

On the audio player is a fun and familiar Christmas song. Let it play through, then listen to it again when it starts playing automatically a second time. A simple, cheap and appealing effect.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/NOV06/Alvin.mp3,http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/NOV06/Chipmunks.mp3]

Happy Holidays, Charlie Brown!

Charlie Brown and Linus

Tonight is the annual showing of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on network TV. The show was quite a breakthrough when it first aired in 1965, which is something I couldn’t fully appreciate until I became an adult.

Schulz makes an unabashed plug for his Christian faith and The New Testament, and I would be disingenuous if I claimed it never had an influence on me. He also offers another message, which is IT’S OK TO BE DEPRESSED DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON.

Click here here to go to the gallery to see an adaptation of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” published by Family Circle magazine in 1977. Be sure to click “full” to enlarge the images.

Vince Guaraldi’s music for “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is the subject of a feature on NPR that can be heard by clicking here.

Just what is “graphic blandishment,” anyway?

Jump Rope

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Movies/Wordpress/Anime/Jumprope.flv 400 300]

Here’s a nice 3-minute vignette from Azumanga Daioh. The show has such a wide variety of original music, and much of it can stand on its own, like the track I put on the audio player.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/Japan/AzumangaDaioh.mp3]

Holiday

I’m taking a break from my bloggin’ holiday to play DJ again — hey, it’s how I used to make my living, such as it was. Here’s Green Day’s “Holiday” (not to be confused with the Kinks’ song) from their superb “American Idiot.”

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/NOV06/Holiday.mp3]

That CD should have been enough to defeat George Bush in the ’04 election. I give Stephen Colbert credit for finishing what Green Day started, winning back Congress from the GOP, and setting this ship we call the USA on a different course. The old one-two punch of anger and humor!

Talk to the Hand

One of my bosses holds out his arm and says “Talk to the hand!” when he’s concentrating on a technical problem and can’t be interrupted. I’ll use the same expression here to say that I won’t be posting anything for few days.

I’ve managed to trigger a very annoying bug in WordPress that makes it much more difficult to edit posts before publishing them. I’m going to update WordPress and do some studying about its inner workings.

Beastly

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Movies/Wordpress/NOV06/Beast.flv 400 300]

I listened to the audio commentary on the “Gojira: Godzilla” DVD, and besides King Kong, the then-recent movie “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” is cited as having been a major inspiration for Godzilla. So let’s watch a few beastly minutes from that. Look at those great old cars!