"What shall I watch tonight, YouTube?"

That's right-- I'm breaking my blog silence to talk about some recent YouTube discoveries of mine

Recently, I saw Patton Oswalt live and he did a bit about how every night, YouTube makes him feel like a deranged Roman Emperor who has a minion named YouTube who will bring him whatever he wants to see. "YouTube, bring me a farting panda! Chop, chop!"

Oh how right you are, Patton. And I like to add that it should be you playing John Adams on HBO and Paul Giamatti. I love Giamatti, but, I'm sorry, John Adams is not Homer Simpson incarnate.

Any-hoo... here are some recent YouTube discoveries:

The first is a great BBC documentary on Richard Pryor. Because it doesn't rely on fawning testimonials, this one beats other Pryor documentaries that were made in the past five years. (Warning: profanity and adult themes:)

Pryor Night-Part One

The second is the 1969 short-film adaptation of Shirley Jackson's famous short-story, "The Lottery". When I first read this story during my freshman year of High School, Mr. Wallace my english teacher talked about the existence of this short-film, but he didn't deliver the goods. So, for years this was mythical to me.

Recently, I watched the most recent episode of South Park and in it were obvious references to "The Lottery" (and some references to the short-film adaptation). Because of this, I decided to see if the short-film "The Lottery" is on YouTube. The rest, as they say, is...

The Lottery Pt. I

The Lottery Pt. II

There's a prosaic, amateurish creepiness to this short (which was made for Encyclopaedia Britannica), and the semi-documentary quality of the proceedings make it even more disturbing. The morale? In America, people like to tear other people down. (Jackson was a happy woman, right?)

The third is a video that my friend Patrick told me about, and so far this is the best spoof of There Will Be Blood that I've seen. The premise sounds idiotic (Daniel Plainview as a pot dealer!), but trust me: the people who made this put a lot of time and effort into this, and it shows:

There Will Be Bud

(My favorite touch? The flat-screen TV with Nintendo Wii bowling on it. Pure genius.)

Fourth, a great scene from the Orson Welles essay film F is For Fake:

Orson Welles and Chartes Cathedral

ALSO!

There has been a turn of events in my life that might mean more episodes of For Lack of a Better Word. That's right-- I'm close to being employed. (Hopefully I didn't just jinx it by mentioning this.) So, once I have a day-job up and running, then I'll probably return to producing podcasts. And when I do, there will be a re-directed focus to my endeavor. 'Til then...