Both my parents were musical, and I was exposed to a LOT of different styles over the years. My dad took me to a Harry Belafonte-Miriam Makeba concert in Washington when I was about 12, and I never forgot how I loved it. In DC, all sorts of artists came through. Over time, I saw Andrés Segovia, Ravi Shankar, Leo Kottke, Jimi Hendrix, and the National Symphony Orchestra. My teenage rock band was selected to open for Canned Heat, Junior Wells and the Youngbloods. All left an impression.
The Freedom Toast was formed during the Cheney-Bush years. Our first video was primitive by today's standards
&t=61s
We were active until Obama was elected. We sort of went into hibernation during the Obama years, as there wasn't much to make fum of then. All I did then was the Talking TSA Blues video.
Then 2016 happened, and the stirrings began to recur. We did "Respect for Hillary,"
but didn't really get back into high gear until I saw Don Caron's Parody Project, and was really impressed by his work, as well as his following!! I sent him a few of my lyrics suggestions, and he finally decided he wanted to do one with me "Wasting Away Again in Mar-A-Lagoville."
&t=20s
I only did the lyrics to that one, but for some of my suggestions, he thought the sound track was beyond his scope, and my friend in Atlanta and I rounded up The Freedom Toast again (like the Blues Brothers--we got the band together again). Someone in Atlanta suggested we get in touch with Alison of Cinebot to do some video work for us, and as she seemed very much in tune with my own way of thinking, we brought her aboard to do some of the more sophisticated videos, such as Rubles. As I mentioned in a post above, Don did the video to The Supreme Court/Rock Around The Clock video, so our efforts are usually a mix of varying proportions of input. Only the ones I write will have the "Freedom Toast" designation. Don is quite prolific in his own right, and has done plenty of inspired videos on his own or with other collaborators.
We thought that when Trump was out of office, that we'd have nothing more to do. Hah! Were we wrong about THAT, or what?
The number of collaborations we have done with the Parody Project now number in the dozens. During the Trump years, we regularly got hundreds of thousands of views, a couple of Don's even got over a million. He said Youtube put in some kind of restrictions on politically themed videos, especially if they favored the left, and the numbers dropped off dramatically. If there's some kind of monetary reward for numbers of views, I'm unaware of it, and don't care. I'm in it for the fun. If we get a few hate comments (and we always do), I consider that a bonus, since it means that instead of ignoring us, the extremist right is watching and is concerned.
We have one commenter from the far right that always changes his name. He started out as "Mystery of the Ages," or some such ridiculous name, and always chooses something in that vein. I always bug him by saying, "our old friend, the Adulation of the Aardvark, is back" In one of his latest incarnations, "FromAcrossTheDesert," his comment on the Turning Back The Clock video was, "I wonder if people thought it was "turning back the clock" when they repealed prohibition?" My answer to that was, "They probably thought it was about time Washington stopped listening to a minority group of control freaks, and came to its collective senses--the same thing the country will say when Alito and his Opus Dei pals see their action undone." As usual, he had no further comment.
= new reply since forum marked as read
