Wolfgang Van Halen

Well, the Van Halen tour of 2012 has kicked off and I gotta tell ya, from what I’ve seen so far, they are kicking ass and taking names. David Lee Roth should definitely stay away from the upper registers of his voice, but, it’s still great to see them out there having so much fun, or what appears to be fun. This fan couldn’t be happier…………unless they decided to tour Japan.

Let’s address the elephant in the room though, that kid over there on bass. If you haven’t been following the saga that is Van Halen over the years you probably didn’t even know that Michael Anthony was basically kicked out of the group. For what reasons we’ll never know. I have a feeling it’s because he spent his free time playing out with Sammy Hagar. Either way, there is an unfamiliar face over there on the left side of the stage, as we face it of course, and that face belongs to none other than Eddie’s son, Alex’s nephew, Wolfgang Van Halen. Yep, they recruited Eddie’s son to be the bass player of one of the biggest rock bands that has ever graced our presence. Actually, Wolfgang was playing with them on their last tour back in 2007, he was only 16 at the time. He was catching a lot of flack from fans, and rightly so. He was a pudgy teenager standing on stage with, as I said before, one of the greatest bands that has ever graced our presence.

On the 2007 tour I was in total agreement with everyone that was up in arms over that. If there is a Van Halen reunion then Michael Anthony needs to be there. Why is this fat 16 year-old up there with VAN HALEN?!?!?! Eddie must have lost his mind putting that kid up there like that. Just because he’s the son of the greatest rock guitarist to ever live doesn’t mean that he can play.

Well, this is 2012 and this is how I feel now. WOW!!! The kid is now 21 years old, he has grown up, he doesn’t look like a kid anymore, and he can play his ass off. In my heart I will always feel that the classic Van Halen lineup isn’t complete without Mickey, but I gotta tell ya, this kid is good, real good. In my opinion, his bass riffs are what make a lot of these new songs groove so well. Now, I have no idea if those riffs were his doing or his father’s, but, regardless, he can play them…..very well. I like seeing him on stage. The only problem I have now is that he’s 21 and his band mates are pushing 60. After a gig he’s probably ready to party down and have a good time while the other guys are sipping Geritol and getting ready for bed. I would LOVE to see him break off and start his own thing with people his own age…..and that’s not me saying he doesn’t deserve to be in Van Halen, not at all. He’s doing a helluva job up there.

Anyway, not really sure where this was going when I started it but it was just something that was on my mind. Someone rode my ass a little because I put Mike Anthony on a DVD menu and said “This is Mikey’s gig”. The moron that rode me only heard what he wanted to hear and interpreted the rest as he saw fit. My only reason for saying that is because without Mike it’s not the original lineup, just as it’s not the original lineup if Dave isn’t there.

Oh, on a side note, I think the backing vocals on this tour are piped in somehow. Just a suspicion. The backing vocals sound too perfect.

Well, that’s all for now….

Y’all come back, I’ll leave the light on for ya,

MULLY

The Honeymoon Is Over

Ok, if you go back one week on this blog, which is really only the second post back, you’ll see my thoughts on the new Van Halen CD. At the time I wrote that I was just a day or two into the new album and totally excited to have new Van Halen on CD. Not to mention that it’s new Van Halen with David Lee Roth at the helm. You see, I am a huge fan of the David Lee Roth era so just having him back in the fold had me grinning from ear to ear. When I made my first blog on this subject I have to admit that my judgement may have been clouded because of the excitement of just having new Van Halen with Dave.

Well, we’re a week away from that now and I’ve had plenty of time to listen to this CD, I’ve actually been running it in my car non-stop for the past week. The initial excitement has passed and I feel that I can now make a proper review of this new album. Unclouded and totally unbiased……..well, pretty much unbiased.

I could go track by track on this but that would take forever and I just don’t have that dedication to doing a review on a CD. So, here we go. If you are a die hard Van Halen fan then this CD needs to be uploaded into your mp3 player and into the hard disk in your car if you have one. It’s a solid effort from our boys from Pasadena. Now, I would like to say a few things that may come off as negative, but, they are just observations. First, if you’re looking for anything groundbreaking, anything that is going to knock your socks off, then you’re going to be disappointed. The CD consists of a LOT of rehashed licks and tricks from days gone by. Half of the songs on the album are songs that they took from their 1976 demo tape. Lyrics have changed here and there, licks and phrases have been mixed around a bit, but, if you own the demo, you’ve heard a lot of these songs before. Matter of fact, if you own any album from the Van Halen catalog then you will definitely be able to pick something out that you’ve heard before, whether it be the Dave or Sammy era. Eddie doesn’t really do anything new on here. But to be fair, he really hasn’t done anything new since that first album. There are licks in all the solos that you can say “Oh, yeah, he did that in such and such song”.  Again, there’s nothing here that is going to make you hit the rewind button, which is how a good friend at a guitar forum I follow described it. But, if you’re a Van Halen fan and can accept that Eddie used every technique he had on that first album and hasn’t really done anything since, then you’ll just be glad to hear them again. I will say this for Eddie though, for 57 years old that dude is smokin’ hot. His playing on this album is pedal to the metal. At 57 he hasn’t lost any speed, that’s for sure. Matter of fact, I think his playing is better on this than it was on the VHIII album. As for the rehashed demos, meh, doesn’t bother me at all. I have the demo tape on CD and have listened to it a billion times and I always had certain songs that I wished they had recorded properly and released on an album. A few of those are on this CD so I’m really happy about that. I’d also like to point out one more time that these guys are pushing 60 years old now and I don’t expect them to have the creativity they had in their 20′s.

David Lee Roth, the man is just flat out cool. There is no other way around it. My only complaint about Dave is that I wish he hadn’t attempted getting up into that upper register with his voice. He didn’t have much range back in the day and it shows even more now.  With that said, I don’t think even back in the day that anyone went out to buy a new Van Halen album with the intent of listening to Dave’s wonderful singing. But, what Dave lacks in vocal ability he makes up for in spades with his charisma, attitude, flair,and just overall f’ing coolness. The man is an entertainer, I rank him right up there with the best of them too. His swagger is still apparent after all these years. There are times on this CD where I’ve kind of cringed when he went into the upper register, but that cringing is totally wiped away by just how much attitude he brings to the table. To sum it all up, Dave is cool.

This album is a must have. The same friend I quoted above basically told me that after I get past the excitement that this CD would probably end up gathering dust on my shelf and that it would never rank up there with the first 6. I’m sorry to tell him that this album will sit on my shelf with the first 6 with pride. There may not be anything on here to write home about but at the same time the songs have a groove to them that is unmistakeably “Van Halen”. In my opinion this is the album that should have fallen somewhere between Women And Children First and Fair Warning.

Oh, I need to take a step back here for a second and give my personal thoughts on why I think they grabbed a lot of tunes off the demo. For one, I heard rumors that they weren’t working together in the studio at all. That of course means that they weren’t sitting down together to write music. They probably just decided to grab some things off the demo that almost made the cut back in the day and refresh them. I guess Eddie and Dave just can’t be in the same room together for too long. If you get the deluxe version of the CD that comes with the DVD watch the second clip on there where Dave goes into this long story about making assumptions. You can see it right on Eddie’s face that he just wants Dave to STFU and get going. Dave is oblivious and just keeps on yapping. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here, I think this will be their last effort together. Being together all the time on tour is just going to ruin them. Last tour with Dave was back in 2007. It took them 5 years to get a CD together after that. At that pace they’re going to be in their mid 60′s by the time the next one comes out. One last payout for the boys is all this is. But, as a fan, I’m glad to see that this made a full circle and that they will end this as they started….minus Mikey of course. Don’t even get me started on that. Wolfgang has come a long way and is playing really well, but that spot belongs to Mike. I’ll leave it at that.

Y’all come back. I’ll leave the light on for ya.

MULLY

Big Paul Arrives On YouTube

I was at home one night back in December when my phone rang. I looked at my phone and the name splayed across the screen was “Japanarchist“. “Whoa, a phone call from Sonny……I hope no one died.” You see, I first met Sonny at the big YouTube get together in Tokyo back in June.

Funny story behind that, when I made my plans to go to Tokyo for the party, I was really excited thinking about meeting all these people I had been watching on YouTube. I only had one person that was causing me some concern, that’s right, Japanarchist. I was on the phone with Ozzy78 one night and he told me about this guy on YouTube that goes by the name Japanarchist. Ozzy said that he was one of his favorites. Well, if Ozzy likes him then I’ll have to check him out, so I headed over, watched a few videos, liked what I saw, and subscribed. Sonny makes some hilarious videos. Only thing is that you don’t really get a sense of what type of person he is behind the “Japanarchist” persona. I had said to Mrs. MULLY quite a few times that meeting Sonny was going to be interesting. He was either going to be super cool or a super douche. So, I’m at the big party in Tokyo and I’m standing there talking to a few people when I turn around and standing right there next to me is the man himself. Ball cap on, hands in his pockets. I kind of did a double take and with a surprised voice I said “Japanarchist!!!” He gave me a smile and said “How’s it goin’?” We started talking and he couldn’t have been further from being a douche if he tried. Super nice guy. I even cornered him with the big question that any YouTuber doesn’t want to hear “Hey, why aren’t you subbed to my channel?!?” and his answer was “I am”. At that time I didn’t have many subscribers and I knew for a fact that the Japanarchist avatar wasn’t in my subs. I pointed that out and he proceeded to tell me that he was subbed to me with his other channel and that he doesn’t usually sub to people with the Japanarchist channel. I felt like a heel…….BTW, I did in fact check when I got back to a computer and sure enough, there he was.

Anyway, after that, Sonny and I had the chance to run into each other a few times over the next few months, but we never really had the time to just sit down and get to know each other. We had exchanged phone numbers and mail addresses in Tokyo, but let’s be real, he didn’t really know me, and I didn’t really know him, so it’s not like we were calling each other up each weekend and sitting on the phone for hours at a time while we painted our toenails together. So when my phone rang that night, and I saw it was Sonny, I had to wonder what was up.

Sonny was calling to tell me about a video project he had going and he wanted to use my face as the main character. Now, I had no idea what the details of this video were going to be, but I really didn’t care because I was going to be appearing in a Japanarchist video, wow!! So, he proceeded to tell me the type of shots he wanted and I told him I’d get on it.

Anyway, Victor, from the Gimmeabreakman channel……and host of a dozen others, was at my house that evening for a X-mas party. Victor always has a camera with him, and he takes really good shots, so I enlisted him as my photographer, then I stood in front of a white background and he fired off a bunch of head shots and we sent them off to Sonny. What came of these shots is, in my opinion, one fantastic video. The title of the video is “Sushi Bucket”.

Sonny tells me that Big Paul and the Sushi Bucket was something that he did back when he was doing podcasts. I’m assuming that the “Sushi Bucket” was a commercial he made up for one of his programs. He said he wanted to put it into video and that when he thought of Big Paul, he thought of me. Now, Sonny created that character way before he met me so there is no way I can take credit for it. But, I’ve been doing a similar character for as long as I can remember. I made an intro for one of Sonny’s videos a while back using that character of mine, and I like to think that when he saw my video that he thought of his Big Paul character and brought us together.

Now, when Sonny put out “Sushi Bucket” I had no idea what it was going to be like. He said he’d let me check it out before he put it on YouTube but I told him “No way!! Put it up and I’ll watch it like everyone else”. One thing I was sure about Sonny, he wouldn’t do anything to make me look the fool, God knows I do that well enough on my own. I totally trusted that he was going to make a really cool video, and he did. I loved that name, Big Paul, so much that I called him and asked if he wouldn’t mind me running with it. He gave me his full blessing. Big Paul’s first appearance by me was in a video chain game around Christmas that was started by Gimmeabreakman. The theme of the game was “What do you drink at Christmas?”. The way it worked was that someone would make a video telling what they drink at X-mas, then you would send a video response to that, then someone would see yours and send a response to yours, and so on. Mine was titled “JVlog Christmas Chain Game: BIG PAUL”.

So there ya have it, the entire back story about Big Paul and how he came about. I hope that the Big Paul’s J-Pan News will become a big part of my channel. I’m not stopping my regular vlogs though. If it does take off and become wildly popular I’ll consider getting Paul his own channel. For now though he’ll stay where he’s at, with family and friends.

For now I’d like to once again thank Sonny for giving his blessings on this project of mine. I’d also like to thank Victor for taking the head shots that got this going, KramInJapan for his blessings on using his video for a shout out, and I can’t thank Ozzy78 enough for his appearance as the weatherman in the first episode. I hope that he’ll join in again sometime. Working with Ozzy is always great. BTW, this is the second collaboration with Ozzy and myself. The first one is a video on his channel where he teaches how to pick up Japanese girls. I play his devil and Mrs. MULLY plays his angel.

If you are a regular on YouTube and you aren’t subbed to these guys then I highly suggest that you do because you’re missing a lot of great videos.

You can check them out from here:

Japanarchist   Victor    KramInJapan   Ozzy78

Y’all come back, I’ll leave the light on for ya.

MULLY

Life Is Good Today

The year was 1980. I was 12 years old and in Jr. high school. My mother owned and operated a dance studio teaching tap, ballet, and jazz. With those surroundings I was, of course, always around music. My grandmother on my mom’s side played guitar and would always break out the Silvertone, with the case with the built in speaker, and she’d play Elvis songs for me. I was always a huge Elvis fan……..which, I can not tell a lie, I am to this day. Because of the dance studio I was always exposed to different kinds of music……that you could dance to. I can remember the late 70′s disco era with the Bee Gees, Gloria Gaynor, Kool and the Gang, The Commodores, Michael Jackson etc… I was a fan of all of that music, and, like Elvis’ music, I still am. But at that time there was something inside of me that was trying to get out. A piece of the music puzzle was missing. In the fall of 1980 that piece of the missing puzzle was found.

School had started, I believe I was in the 7th grade, and my sister’s friend and I decided to skip school one day and go back to her house……because her parents weren’t home, of course. When we got there, as any curious 12 year-old that loves music would do, I began to rifle through her brother’s albums. There was one album in there that just stuck out to me. The cover was completely black with 4 letters outlined in white. Those letters were…

AC/DC

I don’t know what it was but that album cover really piqued my curiosity. I was used to seeing flashy album covers of the disco era and here was the bold, black cover just staring at me saying “Listen to me, I dare ya!!” I had to give it a try so I pulled out the album and put it on the record player. The first thing I heard was that church bell, it mesmerized me. Then the intro started, a slightly distorted guitar sound, clean and clear, yet menacing just the same. When the full band kicked in and I heard those pounding drums, that heavily distorted guitar, that rumbling bass, and then the screeching, screaming voice of Brian Johnson I knew there was no turning back. I must have sat through that album a dozen times that day. That was my introduction to hard rock/heavy metal music. Had it not been for AC/DC I’d probably be combing my hair forward trying to look like a 44 year-old Justin Bieber…..I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. God Bless AC/DC!!

Fast forward to 1982, since my intro to rock music I had jumped in head first and soaked up as much as I could. I even went into the back catalog and discovered hard rock bands that had been around waaay before I found that AC/DC album. Iron Maiden, Rainbow, Black Sabbath. Southern Rock like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Oak Arkansas. I could probably fill an entire page with all the bands that had been introduced to me over those 2 years. Then it happened, a band that I discovered on my own. A completely new band that was just starting out. A band of my own. Right there on the pages of Hit Parader was EXACTLY what I was wanting to see….Motley Crue. They had just released their album “Too Fast For Love” and were on their way to getting a big record deal. They looked menacing, evil, outlandish, standoffish…..they just looked cool. There’s no other way to put it, just cool.

Fast forward again to 1983, Quiet Riot releases Metal Health and when I hear Rudy Sarzo go into that little bass break in the middle I knew right then that I had to play bass. I hounded and hounded my dad and finally, one weekend, he came home with a bass guitar and a small amp, along with a guitar and a guitar amp for my younger brother. I guess he figured if I had the bass my brother would want a guitar too so he got one for him too….which he never learned to play. I remember my first bass lesson and the teacher showing me how to play Run To The Hills. hahaha!! Very cool.

One day I was in art class and there was this really cute girl in my class, her name was Heather Mulloy. I thought she was just the cutest thing ever. At the time I had been playing the image of the rock star with the long hair, ripped jeans, earrings etc… Well, Heather comes up to me and tells me that I looked like David Lee Roth. “Hmmm, David Lee Roth, I’ve heard of him. He’s the singer in Van Halen……but isn’t he gay?!?!” I never really listened to Van Halen because of David Lee Roth. I thought he was the biggest flaming homo that I had ever seen. Now, remember, you politically correct ass clowns, that view was coming from a 14 year old boy. Well, Heather told me I looked like him, and she liked him, so I had to check out Van Halen to see. My life was changed. That guitar had the sound, the tone that reached into my bones and rattled me sideways. After listening to an entire Van Halen album I immediately dropped the bass and picked up my brother’s guitar. The rest is history. David Lee Roth, I soon found out, was far from being a queen. If anything he was THE role model for getting all the women. I’m pretty sure that it was Heather’s influence at the time, but Diamond Dave became my favorite front man and, of course, Van Halen became my favorite band. Funny how those things work, ain’t it?!?!

So you’re probably asking yourself, “Where is this going, MULLY?” Well, let’s skip forward to 1985, when the music died. David Lee Roth and Van Halen parted ways. I was destroyed. How could something like this happen to the greatest rock band ever?!?! I never got the chance to see them live. Dave went his way and VH went theirs. Now, I don’t want to go into a long rant about how much I hated that Van Halen replaced Diamond Dave with the biggest Bette Midler look-a-like ever, so I’ll just leave it at that because I’m sure, if you have any taste whatsoever, that you understand that Van Halen with Sammy Hagar just isn’t what Van Halen is supposed to be. Now, let’s move over to Dave’s camp. Dave goes out and hires the biggest gun slingers he can find in Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan. Needless to say, Dave’s debut album with them just destroyed Van Halen’s with Bette. Oh, you can sit there and argue until you’re blue in the face that Van Halen finally went to number one with him and Dave never did, but that is totally meaningless in my opinion. VH with Sammy appealed to a much wider audience. Here’s a quote from Wikipedia on the 5150 album

“The album was notable for a number of love songs and ballads, which were not a feature of the straightforward rock stylings of the Roth-fronted era of the band.”

There ya go, that’s all that needs to be said. Of course those sappy ass love songs and ballads are going to reach a wider audience. For those of us that prefer the rock style that was Van Halen, that crap didn’t fly. As David Lee Roth once said on Howard Stern’s show, “Van Halen with Sammy Hagar makes you want have milk and cookies and go to therapy. David Lee Roth Van Halen comes with a shot of a tequila, a condom, and a driver’s side airbag.” Well put, Dave!!

Anyway, it’s been 27 years and the time has finally arrived. Van Halen and David Lee Roth are one again. Their first studio album with Dave was released here in Japan yesterday, Feb. 8, 2012. Over the past few weeks There have been bits and pieces going around the net. I have stayed away from testing the waters because I wanted to listen to the whole thing from beginning to end. Oh, I have to admit to hearing SOME of it though. The first single, Tattoo, was released and I was all over that one. At first I was a bit disappointed……we’ll get to that later.

The new CD is sitting right in front of me and I’ve listened through it 3 times already. Now, I like to think of myself as a fair, open minded listener when it comes to the bands that I like. I will try to be as honest to myself as I can be. When Van Halen III was released I didn’t wait a second to condemn it. That had nothing to do with Gary Cherone either. When it was announced that he was in the band I was pleasantly surprised because I am a huge fan of Extreme. I thought Gary would fit right in and get them back to what they should sound like, or close to it at least. I was so wrong, that album was horrible. God bless Gary Cherone. Poor bastard got roped into a situation that he didn’t deserve. When Metallica, another of my all time favorites, came out with St. Anger, I thought I was going to puke. So, you see, I’m not just drinking Kool-Aid and being a sheep for these bands. I will give as honest of an opinion as I can. So here it is…..The new Van Halen CD kicks so much ass that it’s not even funny. So many bands say that they have “gone back to our roots” but Van Halen has actually done it. They have taken a bunch of licks from days gone by, that were on their demo tape, rehashed them, restructured them, and made them new. If you want to hear some solid “classic” rock then this album is the one to buy. It literally sounds like you stepped back to 1982 and are getting the one album they never did back then. I hear so many people pissing and moaning about them rehashing those old tunes but, for myself, I see nothing wrong with it at all. How many times have you die hard Van Halen fans sat there listening to the demo and thought to yourself “Man, I’d sure like to hear this tune properly recorded”? Well, here you go. I have also heard a lot of complaining about how there’s nothing new, nothing groundbreaking, Eddie is still doing his same old riffs etc… Come on, the guy is pushing 60, and trust me, for a guy pushing 60 he is showing these kids that he’s still got it…….in spades. Eddie may be imitated but he’s never been duplicated. This album is Van Halen as they should be. Oh, I’m also hearing a LOT of complaining about Dave’s vocals. People saying crap like “his voice is shot” “he can’t hit the high notes anymore” or “he’ll never be able to pull that off in concert” etc… (PUKE). People, David Lee Roth was never a great “singer”. I’ll openly admit, as much as I dislike Sammy Hagar, Dave is not the “vocalist” that Sammy is”. Point taken. Now, you kids need to understand that, with David Lee Roth, you don’t buy the album to listen to him sing. Dave doesn’t bring “singing” to the table. No, what he brings is swagger and an attitude that no one, let me repeat that NO ONE, has ever been able to pull off, in any band. Again, often imitated but NEVER duplicated. Sammy Hagar wrote songs with Eddie Van Halen, he needed that structure of a song. Dave on the other hand takes what Eddie has and raps over it. He probably tweaks things here and there, but overall, Dave has the ability to take a song and make it ooze attitude. On the OU812 album Van Halen had one song that to this day I wish they had done with Dave. That song was a cover of Little Feat’s A Apolitical Blues. Oh my God, Dave would have owned that tune. Sammy just doesn’t have the swagger to pull that one off. It’s like this, when Dave fronted the band they were just a naturally fun band to listen to. When Sammy was there it sounded like the fun was forced into being there. No comparison.

Anyway, if you’re looking for some solid Van Halen music that will remind you of your teen years then this is the album to buy. I’d also like to say that I fear this will be the last Van Halen album we ever see. These guys aren’t spring chickens and at the pace they work they’ll be pushing mid 60′s before another album comes around. On top of that, I don’t think the brothers and Dave are going to last working together. It’s painfully obvious that they can’t stand him. Yep, one last album, one last tour and that’s it. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. But let me say this, if this is the final Van Halen album then it is the perfect album to bookend all they’ve done. I’m glad to be a Van Halen fan today and I want to bask in this for as long as I can. My boys are kicking ass and taking names. I hope they decide to come to Japan so I have the chance to finally see them together. I’ve seen Dave 4 times while he was solo, Van Halen once with Sammy (I wanted to see Eddie), and 4 times with Gary. I’d really like the chance to see my all time favorite band together on stage.

That is all, kids. Y’all come back, the light’ll be on as always…

MULLY

P.S. Although I have pure distaste for Sammy Hagar Van Halen, F.U.C.K. is one of my favorite Van Halen albums. Eddie’s work on that is just amazing. Oddly enough it was the only Sammy era album utilizing the production talents of the DLR era producer, Ted Templeman.

My Thoughts On YouTube

My Thoughts On The New Design

Morning, everyone. As almost all of you have seen YouTube has done a major overhaul of their site. Changes have been made in all areas and to be honest, not too many are very thrilled about this. My opinion on the new design? Well, I compare this to the first email client that you use. No matter which one it is, that is the one that you usually stick with. Familiarity being the key factor. My first time using email I used Outlook Express. I used it for years before realizing that there were actually other mail clients out there. I found Eudora and decided to jump right in and buy the pro version. It didn’t last long. Eudora may have had tons and tons of features that Outlook Express didn’t, but, in the end, it didn’t do things the way I was used to with OE, so back I went. Anyway, point being that we are all familiar with the old YouTube layout and are comfortable with it. No one likes change. There are major improvements all around the site, but, like Eudora, it doesn’t do things the way we’re used to them being done. There’s no choice to go back though. We’re stuck with it. Right now, personal channel pages can be kept in the old style but I think that’s going to be gone before long. Might as well switch over now and get used to it before the shit hits the fan. Right now you have the option of trying the new layouts or keeping it the way it was. This gives you a chance to try out the new layouts and still return to the safety of the mother’s womb if it’s not settling well with you. Ease yourself into it, wean yourself off the teat, this way, when the big change does come, it’s not total shell shock. I’m currently dealing with the new layout during the day then switching back to the old style in the evening. Even after only 2 days I’m finding good things about the new layout and realizing how simple the previous layout looked. Anyway, there is plenty to bitch about with these new designs and features and I’m sure we’ll be reading quite a bit about it over the next few weeks.

My personal gripes, though petty, are things like only having 200 letters to write a channel description. WTF is that? 200 letters for a channel description? Twitter is 140 characters. YouTube comments are 500. Does YouTube really think comments on videos deserve more space than a channel description? Then there is the way to feature a video from another channel. With the old style you could just copy and paste the URL into a box and be done with it. Now, you have to add the video to a playlist, go into your featured videos, select the playlist and then select the video. I tell you what, if you ever see a video from another channel featured on my channel then you can bet your sweet ass that I really enjoyed that video. I’m not going to take all that time going through all that horseshit just to feature a video. Come on, YouTube, make it a little simpler for God’s sake.

My Thoughts On YouTube Partnership

I said months ago that the partnership program as we know it now is going to go the way of the dinosaur. I’m only basing this on things I see going on around YouTube as far as advertising goes. Now, before I get into this I need to lay out a disclaimer. I am NOT critiquing anybody’s work. I am NOT saying that the content that person A makes is crap. This is entirely related to numbers and numbers only……and I suck at math so take all of this for what it’s worth…..not a whole helluva lot.

Ok, over the past few months we’re seeing channel after channel being authorized for revenue sharing, not full partnership, revenue sharing only. Let me step off to the side here for a second and say that I don’t fully understand this move. I am a full partner now, but I was given revenue sharing before the full partnership. I didn’t understand why they would give me revenue sharing on my channel but I had to be a full partner to add a banner at the top. Go figure. In my opinion, if your channel is authorized for revenue sharing, then you are a partner that isn’t allowed to put a banner up. Silly, isn’t it?

Ok, back to the point at hand. As I was saying above, so many channels are being authorized for revenue sharing that, in my opinion, don’t deserve it. Again, not because of the content, but because of the numbers. To give you an example, I know a person that has a channel that is completely private, it’s not out in the public realm of YouTube. There are only a handful of videos on that channel and the total views of each video barely break 6 or 7 views. That channel was recently offered revenue sharing. Really????? There is hardly any traffic on that channel. And here is the only reasoning I can come up with. With every view of a video that DOESN’T have ads on it YouTube is basically losing money. There are millions of videos uploaded every single day that have no ads on them. That is a complete and total loss of revenue. It only makes sense to put ads on everything that goes up. In my opinion, this is slowly going to move into ads on every single video, which, in my opinion again, totally removes the partnership program as we know it today.

With that said above, it does make sense to have a partner program of sorts so YouTube can control the content. The rules for partners are pretty strict as far as using copyrighted music, photos, video clips etc… goes. What they have right now is a system that saves them a lot of time and heartache. When I upload a video, if I want to monetize it, I have to go through certain steps answering questions about the content of the video. If there is anything that falls into a dangerous territory, meaning having content that doesn’t rightfully belong to me, then I have to write out a description of what that content is and explain how I’m using it *AND* I have to provide proof that I have permission from the owner to use it. What a helluva smart move on their part. I basically make a video, upload it, then save them the time of having to actually review it. My answers and comments/description takes care of all of that. Granted, there are people that buck the system and sneak things in, but I think for the most part people are honest and fill the form out truthfully. Let’s be real, screw around and get caught and you lose your account. I don’t think many people in the partner program risk that.

I would also like to take this moment and say that I don’t believe that I should be a partner. In my opinion, a partner should be generating a whole helluva lot of views. I’m not. Now, I’ve never been about the numbers with my YouTube channel. I swear to God, if you asked me right now how many subscribers I have, I couldn’t tell you. I honestly don’t know. I know how many hits my videos get but that’s because the number is written right there under the clip. If it wasn’t, I’d have no idea. I don’t know what my channel views are and I don’t know what my upload views are. These are things that mean nothing to me. When I look at one of my videos and it has a thousand views I wonder why. When I see one that only has 100 views I don’t really care. What I do care about is looking over and seeing the part that says “Comments: 4″ The comments are where I really enjoy myself on there. I’ve met so many people, virtually of course, that I consider friends and it’s all from the interaction in the comments, and then I can’t dismiss Twitter because that’s where we really get to interact a lot. I really should add my Twitter name to all of my videos so you guys know where to find me on there. But that’s another subject entirely.

My Thoughts On The Money

I see so many people that *AREN’T* partners or *DON’T* have revenue sharing making comments about the money being made by the partners. Talking about how we make all this cash etc… Best one yet……let me give you the back story on this because it’s really interesting. One of my favorite YouTubers is Ray William Johnson. I watch his videos religiously when they come out on Wednesday and Saturday (Japan time). This past Wednesday he reviewed a video from a “How To” channel that piqued my interest. The reason I thought it was so interesting is because that channel is very very very similar to a channel that was the brain child between myself and Mark from FindMeInKurume. It’s Mark’s second channel, 10secondsofnothing. The similarities between the two channels were enough that I wanted to see the power of Ray William Johnson at work. I immediately went to that channel and started taking notes. I got to that channel about 6 hours after RWJ’s video came out. At that point it had 7,600+ subscribers. Remember that it’s been 6 hours since RWJ’s video came out. Within that next hour the subscribers went up over 400. By the next morning it had gone up over 5,000. Today, 3 days later, that channel has over 17,000 subscribers and his video views have gone from around 150,000 views to over 1.5 million views, in just 3 days. Wow, the power of RWJ is impressive. Even though I’m not about the numbers on my channel, that would be pretty awesome to be picked up by him and have something like that happen. hahaha!! Now, this channel that he reviewed isn’t a partner channel, although I’m sure it will be soon. Someone left a channel comment that said “You should apply for partnership. Partners get 50 bucks per 1,000 views.” I almost choked on my tongue when I read that. That isn’t even remotely close to being true. Truth be told, *NO ONE*, read that again, *NO ONE* outside of Google/YouTube knows what partners are being paid. Oh, I’m sure after a year or so you could sit down and do the math and get a good idea, but, in reality, no one really knows. Now, because of an agreement I made when I became partner I can not tell you guys what I make, but I can tell you this, when I’m doing my monthly planning of paying the bills and setting aside spending money, the YouTube money isn’t even a factor. I don’t receive monthly payments, I’m not generating that much. I’ve had 1 payment this year and I’ll be lucky to have another one by April. So you see, I make these videos because I like doing it. My drive has absolutely nothing to do with making money off of this thing.

Anyway, if you sat through all this I apologize for my rambling.

Y’all come back, I’ll leave a light on for ya.

MULLY

You Call That “Customer Service”?

As most of you already know, I wear Bengals jerseys 7/365. It’s no big secret. Anyway, I have quite a few player’s jerseys but thought that this time around I would take the leap, spend the extra cash, and buy one fully customized. Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s going to have a 4 barrel carburetor, loud pipes, mag wheels, and fully chromed. No, what this means is that I ordered a jersey with the name and number that*I* want on it. I decided to go with number 68, the year I was born, and have MULLY stitched across the name plate. How cool would that be? Well, with today’s technology I was able to take a preview shot of it from the NFL shop so here ya go….

That's right, bitchez!!!

I shopped around the net quite a bit for this. Finding customized jerseys isn’t so difficult, it’s finding them big enough to go around my girth that poses a problem. Not to change the subject, but that has always bothered me about these football jerseys. Some of these NFL players are like walking mountains. If they are going to advertise these jerseys as being “authentic” and “just like your favorite player wears”, then they should have those bigger sizes. I met a couple of the Bengals linemen back in the late 80′s. I stood between Anthony Munoz and Brian Blados and they towered over me like I was a circus midget. Anyway, point being, Domato Peko isn’t going to squeeze into an XL jersey so, in my opinion, these jerseys aren’t “authentic”. Back on track here, I found the bigger sizes at the NFL shop and decided to jump on it.

I placed my order the night before last and I have to say that the guy I had on the phone was as nice as could be. He stepped left and right to help me out with my order and he even got my a 10% discount for being an international customer and he got me free shipping within the lower 48. Neither of them were probably that much trouble to do, but the point that he took the initiative to do that for me gives him thumbs up in my book. Oh, why shipping in the lower 48 when I live in Japan? Because shipping that jersey international was going to cost 92 bucks. That’s right, stick your eyeballs back in your head, I said ninety-two dollars…….with a 9 and a 2. I’ve done some crazy things in my life but paying 92 bucks to put a shirt in a cardboard box and have the UPS man pick it up isn’t going to be one of them. I guess you’re wondering what the shipping in the lower 48 was before he cut it, aren’t you? 7 bucks. That’s right, seven dollars…..with a 7. I could understand 92 bucks for international shipping if domestic shipping was like 80. But 7?? Send it to mom and let her send it to me.

I forgot to mention that I also ordered 2 other items. One of them being a pair of Bengals house pants and the other, well, I can’t say here because it’s a present for Tomoko and I know she’s going to be reading this. So we finish my order and say our goodbyes. I asked him if he was pulling an all nighter and he said that he finished at 9:00…..it was 8:58 by my calculations so I told him to enjoy the rest of the night and we hung up. I then dialed my mom’s number to let her know that a package would be coming. As soon as she answered the phone the first words out of my mouth were “Hi, mom, I want to confirm your address….” then I read off what I had written down. She quickly reminded me that they had moved not too long ago and the address I had was the old one. So I got off the phone and called the NFL shop back. Now realize, I had just gotten off the phone with that guy, literally, within the last 3 to 4 minutes. I knew he wouldn’t be the one taking my call though because I was sure as soon as that 9:00 bell rang he was probably out that door quicker than Dean Martin sucking down a martini.

So, I get a different guy on the phone and I tell him that I had made a mistake on the shipping address and asked if he could correct it. His reply “No problem” and I heard him ticking away on the computer. Cool! So we get through what we needed to do and got off the phone. About an hour later I got an order confirmation email. I opened it and what did I see? That’s right, the mistaken address. So I got on the phone again and called. The simple answer on their end was that it was the middle of the night and that it would be corrected at the warehouse come morning. Fair enough, makes sense to me. Off to bed I went. Yesterday afternoon I open my mail to find a shipping confirmation message. They had sent out my other 2 items……and guess what address was on there? That’s right. Another phone call.

So I get this chick on the phone and lay everything out for her. She doesn’t seem too impressed with anything and tells me “Once the order is sent out we can’t change the shipping address. They should have told you that.” “WHAT?!?!” “Look, I called here, literally, like 3 minutes after hanging up with you guys, and was told that it would be taken care of.” She then repeated what she had just said. So I asked her “What am I supposed to do? There are X-Mas presents in there” and she tells me “You’ll have to wait until it arrives at it’s destination and gets sent back to us.” WTF?!?!?!?! “So, what if the person there doesn’t return it?” and she tells me “Then we’ll file a loss of package and start over”. Needless to say, I was reaching my boiling point with this chick. I then laid into her and told her that I don’t want that jersey getting sent to the wrong address. It’s going to take a few days to get that jersey ready so they better get it right. She then pushed me over the edge with “I’ve put a note on the order about the address change. Hopefully they’ll catch it at the warehouse” HOPEFULLY????? HOPEFULLY????? Are we dealing jerseys out of the trunk of a ’74 Nova? This is the frickin’ NFL shop for God’s sake. You should get on the phone and call over there and let them know. She told me that they don’t do that. I did as best as I could to not get too ugly with her but I was raising my voice. I wasn’t cussing at her but she knew I was hot. I apologized to her and told her that I understand that it’s not her fault, she’s probably some college student pulling in some extra hours at some phone farm. But I was still pissed. Now all I can do is wait and see what transpires. Such fun.

This situation got me to thinking. Something like this would NEVER happen in Japan. I’m not saying that it “probably wouldn’t”, I’m telling you straight up that it wouldn’t. This kind of thing is unthinkable over here. If the same situation were to arise they would take every step necessary to get it corrected……and they’d probably give me a gift as an apology. That’s not a joke either. I’ve been in Japan for far too long. The thought of this happening just amazes me beyond words. Unbelievable.

There is no way that I will ever, EVER, buy something from the NFL shop again. They have lost a customer.

Y’all come back, I’ll leave a light on for ya.

MULLY

My friend, Mophie

Well, as you all know, from my incessant bragging on YouTube and Facebook, I picked up the iPhone 4S a few weeks back. Moving up from the 3GS is huge. I’m loving this phone more and more every time I use it. One thing though, and this goes back to the 3GS, I’m not really thrilled with having to put my phone on the charger 3 and 4 times a day. Granted, I hit the panic button around 50% and charge her up, but that’s not the point. The iPhone’s really do consume that battery power. It makes sense though if you’re watching a lot of YouTube videos, which I believe most people do. What reason is there to have a smart phone if you’re not going to take advantage of the internet capabilities of it. And if you’re on the 3G network instead of a WiFi connection then it just uses that much more battery power.

Anyway, a friend of mine here received a birthday present a few months ago from his brother and sister in-law….s….???? He’s really into the YouTube thing like me, actually, he’s the one that got me into making videos. Anyway, they gave him this case for his phone and it’s called “Mophie”. Mophie is a rechargeable battery case made for the iPhone line of smartphones.

Now, I don’t have the actual numbers in front of me, but what they claim is that you can get a SHITLOAD more usage out of your phone by using their case…..I don’t think they actually said “shitload” though, that was all me.

Last week I bought a Mophie case and after a weeks usage I figured it was OK to write a little review for it.

This case kicks ass!! When my battery gets down to 10% I hit the switch on the Mophie and it starts charging my phone back up. Of course I can still use my phone during this time too. What I’m finding now is that I am back to putting my phone on the charger at night before I go to bed, like I used to do with my regular cell phone. Mophie gets me through the day, and then some. I’m finding that I’m going all day and into the early evening before turning on Mophie, and then when I put the package onto the charger at night I’m still well over 50% left. The Mophie case does what it says it does. It keeps you feeling safe. I admit, I get scared when I see 10% up in the corner of my phone, and then I remember, oh, with Mophie on here, that’s 110%. WOOOHOOOO!!!

But, it’s not entirely a bed of roses. It does have it’s faults. For one, it’s big. It’s not huge, but it’s definitely got some size to it, and with size comes weight. Yes, the Mophie, with the phone loaded into it, is pretty heavy. You won’t forget that it’s in your pocket. Actually, let me run downstairs and grab the kitchen scale and get some numbers for you…..BRB……Ok, here we go, the weight of the iPhone 4S on it’s own is 143 grams. With the Mophie case on it comes in at a whopping 226 grams. Now, to put that into perspective, a Big Mac weighs 214 grams. So, you see, this thing is heavy…..and it doesn’t taste as good…..yet fewer calories…..FOCUS!!! FOCUS!!!

Myself, I’m very comfortable with the size and weight of the phone. I’m a big guy and I have big hands…..hear that ladies? I have big hands. You know what they say about guys with big hands……we wear big gloves. Hehe!! Anyway, with the Mophie case on here this thing feels like a tank. It feels solid. It feels like if I drop it, and it doesn’t land face down, that it will survive. Not really wanting to test that theory though, just telling you how it feels to me. Notice I said “face down”. One thing that does concern me about this is that the screen is pretty much flush with the case. I don’t feel that there is much protection for the screen. If you drop it, and it lands face down, it’s landing right on the screen. I’m sure all bets are off after that.

I wanted to point out one problem I’ve been having with this though. You can keep the phone in the case and charge them both at the same time. I think the phone fills up first and then the case takes what it needs. Whenever I hook it to my iMac, case and phone all in one, my phone goes nuts. If you’re an iPhone owner, you know how the phone beeps when you put the charger on and then the photo album comes up on screen? Well, the problem I’m having is that the phone seems to be connecting, then disconnecting, then connecting, then disconnecting, then connecting……you get the picture. It doesn’t stop. It really is nuts. If I shut the phone off it seems to be OK. What good is a phone if it’s turned off though?

Other than that charging issue, charging from the iMac, everything is fine for me. This is one product I highly recommend. You know, I said it’s bulky and heavy, but let’s be real, it’s an extra battery in the form of a case. An extra battery that lasts a long damn time too. You can’t have that without sacrificing some size and weight. Works for me.

Y’all come back, I’ll leave a light on for ya!

MULLY