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Playlist for a Pandemic, a look at music series on YouTube

Posted on by ginnandtopics

The worst symptom of the Coronavirus might be boredom. So it’s time to go down some of these wormholes on YouTube to get me through the social distancing.

Also, to start writing my blog again.

So I’m going to do different topics, I think mostly music related. This one will be kicked off with some various music series on YouTube that are fun to follow. To be honest, I haven’t checked in with some of these for a while.

AV Undercover

This is a fun series where top up-and-coming acts come through and cover a song from a selected list. Some of these can be really inspired.

Other times, you’re wondering what the hell you just watched.

But that’s the pure fun of this series. I haven’t been following this lately. But above is a fun cover of “Brandy, You’re a Fine Girl” from Looking Glass. Or maybe you’ll know it better from Guardians of the Galaxy II,

Below is one of my favorites from the series, which is Ted Leo and the Pharmacist covering “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” It’s just a fun rock-punk vibe to an 80s staple.

And this one might be my favorite, Nada Surf covering “Bizarre Love Triangle” from New Order. This song seems to be a favorite of a lot of people as I’ve seen numerous covers of this song. Nada Surf added some horns and a beatbox (kind of) to this song which makes it fun.

PS22 Chorus

I stumbled across this when I was looking up music from Walk The Moon, and “Anna Sun” was one of those earworms I couldn’t shake off. That’s when I discovered this performance with this chorus in New York. It’s a really good series that’s truly inspiring.

Here’s another fun video with Portugal the Man performing “Feel It Still” with the chorus.

Live from Daryl’s House

This is an amazing series that features Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates, and he brings in various acts for some amazing jam sessions. This started when I was obsessed with Fitz and the Tantrums and I was blown away when they were on.

I think this one is a real gem with Nick Lowe, covering his hit “Cruel to be Kind.”

And finally, here is Neon Tree with Daryl covering their hit “Animal.”

Let me know what your favorite music series are on YouTube and I’ll feature my favorites in a future blog. I need the inspiration during this pandemic.

Manny Pacquiao and Sean Payton help Krissy Kobata in search for bone marrow

Posted on by ginnandtopics

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By Leighton Ginn

The campaign to find a bone-marrow match for Los Angeles woman Krissy Kobata continues to attract famous supporters.

On Aug. 17, boxing great Manny Pacquiao and New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton tweeted their support of Kobata.

Pacquiao, the Boxer of the Decade and a senator in the Philippines, Tweeted out a link to the Asian American Sports Journalists story on Kobata, and followed up by Tweeting a link to Be The Match’s website. Be The Match is a national bone-marrow registry that also sends out kits for people to test themselves and register.

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Also joining the action was Payton, who coached the Saints to the Super Bowl title in 2010, when they beat the Indianapolis Colts 31-17.

Payton is represented by agent Don Yee, who is a family friend of Kobata.

“Don Yee, my agent, with the help of Sports Task Force is spreading the word about Krissy Kobata,” Payton posted, along with the same link to the Facebook story.

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The Sports Task Force, part of the Asian American Journalist Association, began spreading the word of Kobata’s search.

http://sportstaskforce.com/japanese-american-krissy-kobata-desperately-needs-bone-marrow-donor/

Half Japanese, half Caucasian, Kobata has been searching for a donor for a decade, but her ethnicity makes it difficult to find a match.

Yee, who established the Jimmie & Suey Fong Yee Scholarship in honor of his parents, asked the Sports Task Force to help share the story of Kobata’s situation.

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The group’s unofficial page, Asian American Sports Journalists, published a story on July 29 about Kobata. Through social media, the post had reached  51,805 on Facebook the morning of Aug. 14.

Later that day, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, also one of Yee’s clients, posted on his Facebook page about Kobata.

About an hour later, actress Chloe Bennet of ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. sent out five Tweets in a row about Kobata.

How Tom Brady’s Facebook post is spreading awareness for Krissy Kobata, who needs a bone marrow to live

Within 24 hours, Kobata’s Facebook post had reached over 1 million more people. Currently, the post has reached 1,170,526 on Aug. 17. There was also a story posted in USA Today’s For The Win.

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/08/tom-brady-patriots-facebook-nfl-agent-bone-marrow-donor-awareness-krissy-kobata

To learn more about Krissy, go to teamkrissy.com

If you want to register as a bone marrow donor, go to https://join.bethematch.org/teamkrissy

 

 

 

An interesting look back at Dinner for Five, pre-“The Force Awakens” episode

Posted on by ginnandtopics

 

Before he directed Iron Man, Jon Favreau started a show on IFC called “Dinner for Five,” which featured four other stars or directors discussing business over dinner.

It was a fascinating look into the industry, because the stars let their guards down and gave insight into entertainment that you don’t get anywhere else.

With The Force Awakens coming next week, I was looking up stuff on YouTube, and ran across this episode that was really amazing. This was 10 years ago, and Kevin Smith was the guest host for Favreau. It has J.J. Abrams, the director of “The Force Awakens” and Mark Hamill, who played “Luke Skywalker” in the original “Star Wars” trilogy as well as the upcoming one.

This was at a time when Abrams was known more as a successful television producer with hits “Alias” and “Lost.” He was only just beginning to do big hit movies with “Mission Impossible 3” with Tom Cruise.

It was also after the second “Star Wars” trilogy, which Hamill was not involved in. But he had an interesting take on working with director George Lucas and where he thought Luke Skywalker was headed in “Return of the Jedi.”

Joining them is Stan Lee, the creator of Marvel and godfather of your favorite superheroes. And there’s Jason Lee, who I loved on “My Name is Earl” and was in “The Incredibles” as the voice of Syndrome.

Enjoy.