For Your Consideration

How did nobody think of narrating terrible old movies with music sooner? Plus, Gold Rush and Skyjack.

It's almost painful that no one thought of this sooner. Take an old, terrible movie, re-edit it into a nonsensical storyline and then sing narration over the top of it. This is the approach that gave us the GUY ON A BUFFALO YouTube video series. The four-part viral video series, accompanied by music from the Possum Posse, is all about a guy who rides around on a buffalo. He rescues babies, beats up cougars, befriends a widow and much, much more as the Possum Posse weaves a gut-bustingly hilarious musical story.

If you’ve watched more than 12 consecutive minutes of the Discovery Channel over the course of the past three months, you have likely seen a commercial for, or perhaps an episode of GOLD RUSH, a reality show about a bunch of bearded morons from Oregon who decide to become gold miners. One problem: They have no idea how to mine for gold. Slight oversight. Watch as the gang clanks together their plastic hardhats to pray for the repair of their latest equipment failure or major technical screw-up that’s keeping them from finding any gold. There’s no reason this train wreck should be entertaining, but it is.

Granted it happened more than 10 years before I was born, but like many other Northwesterners, I am captivated by the story of D.B. Cooper, the mystery man who hijacked a flight from Portland to Seattle back in 1971. New York reporter Geoffrey Gray examines one of the most shocking unsolved crimes in U.S. history in SKYJACK: THE HUNT FOR D.B. COOPER, which explores dozens of theories about the true identity of the hijacker. After reading this, it will be impossible not to at least sort of suspect your weird neighbor of jumping out of an airplane 40 years ago.

Beyond Hope: Kienholz and the Inland Northwest Exhibition @ Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU

Tuesdays-Saturdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Continues through June 29
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Mike Bookey

Mike Bookey was the Inlander's culture editor from 2012-2016. He previously held the same position at The Source Weekly in Bend, Oregon.