Title: America: A Loving Tribute (direct download)
Length: 4:22
File Size: 9.8mb
File Type: QuickTime .mov
Music: "America (From West Side Story)" by Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks

Short Synopsis: Short montage made to reflect some of America's less glamorous sides.

About: When you travel around in second and third world countries, you frequently encounter people who dream fondly about one day being able, somehow, to move to the United States of America. The land of the prosperity and the American Dream for all willing to work for it, and so on. You look around at where they live, and the deplorable living conditions that so many people in their country lives in, and the often rampant corruption at all levels of government, and you can easily see where their idealized American lust comes from.

I found it hard to put in words why I didn't feel like America deserved the pedestal it was being put on. Why couldn't they lust for one of the wonderfully functioning social-democracies in Europe? One night in my hotel room, I started a list of all the things I know about, and see in America every day that I wish people in situations could know, and factor into their perspectives. Things that aren't widely reflected in the media that we export. When I returned home I grabbed the camera and with Wompedy Club Member Chris Griffith headed out to film little snippets of the America that I knew all too well.

An America of excesses. An America of wastefulness. An America of hollow gestures, and superficiality. An America of hypocritical right-wing fanatics... you know, that kind of stuff. Then, with a little help from the brilliant song by Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks, and a tremendous amount of "borrowed" footage from a wide range of sources, America: A Loving Tribute was born.

Now if I'm ever faced with the question "What's there not to like about America!?" by someone living in shabby circumstances somewhere, all I need do is point them to this page.

Note: This piece was shot and edited between August 1st and September 8th, 2001. Just days after it was finished the Terrorist Attacks of September 11th occurred.

Footage was pulled from: A&E Biography, Adbusters, Andrew Dean, Atomic Cafe, The Awful Truth with Michael Moore, Bamboozled, C-Span, The Chris Rock Show, CIA World Fact Book, CNN, CNN Headline News, COPS, Court-TV, D.A.R.E., Dead Again, Divorce Court, FoxNews Channel, Images 91 & 92 by Steve Price, Jerry Springer, McLibel, MTV, Mr. Death by Errol Morris, O-17 by Alan Hatchet, Pastor Gas, The 700 Club, TIME Magazine, Trinity Broadcasting Network