I cannot wait for this show. Though, it will seriously mess up my late night schedule. I’m thinking I’ll watch Conan live at 11 pm, then The Daily Show and Colbert Report online the next day.
Notice that I made no mention of any network late night shows. We’ve come a long way since Johnny Carson. I hope NBC enjoys the monster they’ve created. I’ll officially never have reason to watch their network late night, ever again (unless in the event of a sporting event they obnoxiously broadcast).
The world is completely mad and careening and hurting itself more than it is helping itself, and so I feel privileged to be afforded the opportunity to try to entertain people, to be a clown, and to simply make something. Or, rather, make something up.
Jonathan Ames, concluding his short Salon column on how he makes his TV show, Bored to Death.
As a lost writer in lost New York, I found this show spoke to me in ways no other program — comedy, drama or otherwise — has done. Add to that Jason Schwartzman, he of Max Fischer in Rushmore fame, and it’s by far my favorite show on television.
And Ames’ quote here, which I think provides a hint of the show’s unwritten mission, really explains why; both why I love the show, and why I write. Maybe it’s irresponsible to doodle as the world tears itself apart, but every time civilization crumbles, it looks to words and entertainment to make sense of it. Or at least distract from the falling rubble.
Been busy (new job starting next week!), but with life calming down a bit, I’ll be back to blogging, or at least writing bits about my stupid life and the things I think about, which may or may not be of interest to you, depending on whether you like movies, social media and manga (yes). But this image perfectly encapsulates the hypocrisy of the GOP, and I just had to share.
It’s funny, the way our personalized digital media so often begins to resemble how we act, and interact, in real life. Developers and strategists delight — that’s their goal: to create an open, widespread platform to bring people together in a massive, human-like community.
Still, it has its downsides, such as feeling socially awkward on your own blog, and uncomfortably writing an “I’m back” piece; especially when, in the end, the readership is so limited. If a mea culpa falls in the woods, and no one is there to read it, is it really blogged? Or something like that.
In any case, it’s been an eventful few months, to say the least, and so my absence from this space was not so much brought on by boredom with this spot of the internet as it was my presence in so many others (oh, and *real* life stuff, too).
To start, I moved out of Brooklyn, crashed for a few months in Jersey, and then, this past weekend, moved to Manhattan. The short sentence belies the chain of event’s complexity, both socially and logistically. Turmoil, evaluation of true friendship, real estate hunt and, finally, a lengthy wait for internet installation kept me from the self-indulgence of blogging.
Of course, my activity elsewhere on the web continued, unabated by the upsurge in events. I continue to write, edit, run social media and manage the community at 4TNZ/Bauer — we’ve established a vibrant, loyal community of diehards that act as brand ambassadors and keep bringing in users, which is our most prevalent goal.
That’s been a trip — the teens are this self-propelled community that has really bonded, a kind of best case scenario for marketers that want to build loyalty (and a whole lot of return users and time on site). Moderating and engaging them has been hilarious, and not only because I don’t exactly personally fit into their niche.
I’ve also been freelance writing, for projects personal and professional. A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post for a computer programmer that was leaving his job to go to medical school; the next day, I ghostwrote a coffee table book.
Now that I’m settled in, and with internet in my apartment (thanks to the Time Warner guy who waited a full 45 minutes for me to return from work, I owe you my life), I’ll continue the freelancing, for both social media and writing.
Also, I’ll probably start posting stuff that has to do with Pokemon again, along with my new obsession with Charles Bukowski. And the World Cup. I love the World Cup.
Birthday Song of the Day: Eddie Vedder presents Conan with a “musical birthday card” in the form of a lyrically-revised rendition of John Lennon’s “Oh Yoko!,” rechristened “Oh Coco!”