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There used to be a restaurant in my neighborhood that I would go to a lot. One of my fondest New York memories is of taking a cab from the airport late at night and going straight to the restaurant with my suitcase and eating a late night dinner at the bar with a group of friends. They also had these disgusting brunches that just made you feel so sick, but were reasonably priced and a ton of food, so we ate brunch there most weekends. Tuesday nights we’d all meet up for a drink there and the bartender would make us booze milkshakes if we wanted. Once there was a rumor that the restaurant was being scouted for a scene in the Sex and the City movie. And once I was there on a date and a surprise burlesque show started for some reason. But then the restaurant changed their menu and redecorated to try and improve their business. It didn’t work. And then the restaurant closed altogether for awhile. They opened it a couple of summers ago as a pop-up barbecue place, but who wants to eat barbecue from a pop-up barbecue place inside of a failed restaurant? (Answer: no one. It closed again.) Then it was remodeled once more, and renamed, and had a new chef and a new menu and a new vibe. I ate there once and hated it. Then it closed again for the final time. They’re currently remodeling the building and I heard that it is going to be a paper store, like for fancy stationery or something. The friends I had that memorable dinner with that one night years ago have all moved. And, of course, all the burlesque performers in the city have been rounded up and placed in Federal Burlesque Performer Internment Camps hundreds of miles from the city.
The point that I’m trying to make is that the world changes. Sometimes when you stop and look at it you barely even recognize it, because it’s a new world. The world in which that restaurant existed and was a central location in my life has disappeared. And gone is the world we used to inhabit together, in which a woman in a motorized wheelchair could videotape herself “dancing” to Madonna while encouraging people to awaken their bodies if she wanted to, but she didn’t have a forum for posting that video and making it public.
Eventually this world, too, will be disappear. It’s just what worlds do. (Thanks for the tip, Funtastik.)
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This is well and truly one of the most moving things I have ever read.
what about the video?
Her video is like a David Foster Wallace essay–if you can’t wake your body up, you’re fucked.
Not to mention she could be the female version of Mario Incandenza.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to hell for my initial reaction to this video.
heh, Mario
I has a sad for some reason.
Haha nevermind…. COMBO BREAKER!
I’M ABOUT to vomit.
Mostly because I AM ABOUT 99% sure OF HOW the youtube comments ON THIS ARE going to END up.
BUT ugh, every ONCE IN AWHILE Gabe you write ONE OF THOSE posts that MAKES ME feel like I NEED to go break OUT NO Exit and THE Stranger, go SIT IN A FIELD AND wait for Godot, and TRY TO figure out WHAT THE fuck is even going on. Straight GUT PUNCH.
might as well the good times while they last no
enjoy the good times I mean
This .gif always tricks me into thinking it’s from the “Make ‘Em Laugh” musical number from Singin’In The rain, until i take a closer look.
I thought it was a deleted scene from “Inception”.
Aren’t all .gifs really deleted Inception scenes?
Actually, it’s a good thing I watched this, because it made me realize I’d been sitting on my foot for too long, and now it’s asleep.
Awaken, foot!
Draw a Clash of the Titans owl on your sock and shake that thang
This is kind of a hard thing to comment on.
Oh wait, nevermind.
I simply love it when you surrender to your more serious, maudlin side, Gabe, and write something as simple and touching as this.
#seriousgum
All my old friends, they don’t know me know… all my old friends stare right through me now.
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who was you?
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Arcade Fire! Gooood lyrics!
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http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_l8enbqFnBT1qdbf9no1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1284843835&Signature=ZK/evsKyFMWjwJdw9B0E3mjGzJ0%3D
I have to upvote you. But they won’t let me.
Your name is more like huckaBEST.
I was thinking more along the lines of LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends” – that’s my go-to “the world is changing and I am sad about it” song.
But Arcade Fire works just as well.
Uh… how is The World’s Biggest Zit a related video!?
I just upvoted everything on here, because you press the little thumb button and the number goes up just like it’s supposed to and right now I just need something that makes sense.
You top appears to have stopped, let me get it spinning again for you:
I’m sure someone pointed this out before in some Inception-themed post, bud i love it how these replies basically have an Inception-like structure, branching deeper and deeper, but if you try to go too deep in your replies, you won’t be able to, lest you fall through your screen into LimboGum.
I’m awakening!
The last 5 seconds of this video made it for me.
I don’t understand what’s happening here or why, but I love it. Kind of like Lost.
St. Elmo’s Fire; It’s not just a movie.
“If that doesn’t work, you’re fucked.”
That last line moved her from tragic internet bait to awesome human being.
EGOT seekers: if you need your lowest rated comment, now is your chance!
SOMEHOW I still haven’t GOTTEN the lowest RATED COMMENT! I’ve actually ONLY BEEN in the ball ONCE.
SO HERE I go:
“YOU KNO—”
Fuck it. AN EGOT is not WORTH the eternity of SELF-LOATHING and hell.
And for that, you have become my own personal highest rated monster.
He’s really awesome that way. He got me the day he first did his capitalization and it just got better from there.
You’re an awesome dude, AmPat, and so are you, facetaco.
I believe I’ve had that one on lock all week.
Still? I know Backwaxer came pretty close.
I’m happy to report that someone has giff’d her.
Not sure what instance, if any, these would be an appropriate response for.
I think the appropriate time would be when you are feeling the joy of being a living person…
When you understand and acknowledge that there is pain and sorrow in the world, but when you have moved past isolating yourself with irony and cynicism and instead have reached a place where you can feel real and alive and wake your body up…
When you are able to be a real person who incorporates all of the sadness and euphoria that come with that…
That is when the gifs are appropriate.
Oh Mans, this is wonderful.
Also, it’s beautiful weather down here in the Piedmont. Chapel Hill and Carrboro are saying, “Welcome home, Mans!”
WEAVER STREET! Get my Strata ready!
Dear god, I miss North Carolina.
After reading the reactions to this video, I have determined that this video blog is the Best video blog.
Good Job, Monsters. Friday just got even more Friday.
This is a message for all my fellow monsters
Worlds: That’s how they do.
“Awaken it!” is the new “You go, girl!”
It’s Friday! Time for chat and reconsidering your career choices!
http://tinychat.com/videogum
Uh… haven’t chatted in a while. How do I sign in and retain my clever anonymity? Do I have to establish a whole Twitter account just to chat?
If you sign via Facebook it’ll give you a “guest” anoymous identity.
Or you can make a quick, “fake” Twitter account.
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see
This post is Gabe’s Kodak Carousel pitch. Except with a YouTube video instead of a lesson on Greek etymology.
stu, you are right on the money there. I just hope we won’t have any reason to start up a “You guys, I’m worried about Gabe Delahaye” meme. Seriously, Gabe deserves to come back home today from work and find his family/Birdie waiting for him, and not off on some holiday trip.
I seem to remember some very old 1970s anime with a character who had this white head that would crack open and out would pop this tiny little screaming witch lady. I don’t know if I’m making this up, if I be trippin’, holmes or what, but I think if the lip-synching youtube boy Keenan were to have his head start to split open this wheelchair girl would pop out as his little tiny screaming witch lady that lives inside his crazy head
Are you talking about the early 90′s MTV classic, the Head?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Head
No I’m talking about something that’s more along the lines of Battle of the Planets. I did what you people would call a “google search” but didn’t know what exactly it was that I was looking for so I gave up.
What a post. Wow. So like life. These things we think are our home and then it turns out they were just moments and they’re gone.
And the video — she just killed it.
My day is now fuller than it was.
“If that doesn’t work…you’re fucked.”
This chick rules.
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why do you want to be in the monsters ball?
Usually I read videogum to escape those things in life that are…real. Real with a capital R. The things that make you wonder if you’re living your life correctly. Or incorrectly. Today I had a terrible day. I wasn’t ready to let go of it and laugh. But, addicted as I am, I read videogum anyway. I am so fucking happy that I did. This post turned my day around and I am now promoting videogum from Best Website to Homepage. Suck it, Google.
I’m glad your feeling happy again, but if you are ever feeling down then watch this video. It’s guaranteed to cheer you up instantly:
http://pbskids.org/rogers/video_thanksYouNote.html
It might actually just make my life if I got a thank you card from Mister Rogers.
I just watched this video and my entire childhood flashed before my eyes. Emotions are running high on this here thread!!!
Gabe, sometimes your reflections on the world are written so beautifully that they make me stop and think about my life, and the bounty of opportunities the past afforded me. In my own retrospective flurries, I recall the playgrounds of my youth where I first learned the true meaning of life, death, cruelty, and kindness as I witnessed a baby bird knocked out of its nest by a little boy I once knew — the bird’s frail, feather-speckled body growing lifeless with every second that passed, as well as the realization that there was nothing I could do about it. And shopping malls that have since replaced those parks and the virtuous lessons they impressed upon me now leave me wondering about children today — how I hope that the ever-changing landscape of our world will continue to cradle them in such a way that inspires empathy, because without empathy we are nothing.
Sometimes, Gabe, I think about all of this.
And then I come back to realitygum and make an earnest joke that’s not really a joke when I say, “I WISH she was my girlfriend.”
Please downvote me, because your comment made me think of that (TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE FOR THIS OCCASION) Pussycat Dolls song, and reminded me how bad a person I can be sometimes.
(But seriously, I’m seriously ashamed that that was the first connection my mind made regarding your post)
really? not one “tiny dancer” remark? weird…
You win.