Oh, hello there, internet! I almost didn't notice you there after spending too much staring at screens caused my eyes to atrophy and fall out. You know that thing they say about all your other senses strengthening in response to the loss of any individual one? Apparently that's not always true.
Anyway, half-hearted fabricated blog post openings aside, I'm sure you're all thinking the same thing: "Hey, what the hell man? You said you were going to start posting more often and now January's almost over and you've only got one post up. What's up with that?" But more importantly, you're also thinking, "WHY ISN'T HE GUSHING ABOUT VIDEO GAMES YET THIS YEAR?! THERE'S MORE NEWS OUT AND I WANT IT HERE AND ONLY HERE." Okay, I get it, my blog is the singularly greatest blog that has ever existed on the face of the internet. Calm down - breathe into this paper bag. I'm here. You should really consider getting some counseling - this half-baked blog hasn't even gotten a single decent redesign since it awkwardly gray conception over four years ago now. It's like the internet equivalent of a frozen dinner you left in the back of your freezer and only remember to poke at every now and then - it's not like you're ever going to eat it, or like it's even still edible.
Now what we've established in the introduction to the second post of 2011 that Spiral Reverie has severe freezer burn, it's time for you to hit the title link jump below the cut to the meat and potatoes of this post - a discussion of the new portable war to ensue on the market this year between Nintendo's 3DS and Sony's newly unveiled "PSP2," currently codenamed the NGP. (And for those not interested, more non-video-game content is coming very soon! Sit tight.)
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Years Like Avalanches
New Year's Day, 2011. The day that in a silent clamor, new words fell across the untrodden internet gravel of Spiral Reverie. For the first time in almost but not quite two months.
Excuses were offered, manly tears left unshed. Minds like fuses were blown, their boxes unplugged and shipped first-class to deep space. The nebulae were unappreciative, as they usually are. And then the aforementioned excuses were packed up into additional crates and fired off into the future - to be included in an incoming jumble of overdue blog posts delayed for various reasons over the time period not quite known and not quite named "The Missing Months."
So yeah, none of the usual holiday season or new year's fanfare here. "A curious silence," you guys undoubtedly thought - when I say "you guys," I mean the theoretical three or four of you who might accidentally stumble across this blog on Google at some indeterminate point in the past and/or future. This past holiday season was probably the first in which you could say I wasn't "feeling it." However much time I spent trying to get into the "holiday spirit," "cheer," and whatnot, I didn't feel like any of it. The whole season felt like a very sudden and rushed week - a busy and somewhat stressful time, pleasant though it otherwise was. A brief little typhoon, but for the most part, I felt like an outside observer, even inside my own body. And now, just like that, the year's over.
It doesn't really feel like a year's passed. I still feel like I just got over being ill in the late spring/early summer a mere few days ago, though it's January. A January starting with a 62-degree high, following lightning striking thrice in December, in snow falling here several times when it usually never does in December. And this year, it even fell on Xmas night, for the first time in over 60 years. Ups and downs. Pleasant, surreal, and at the moment, a warmer day than I'm fond of seeing in January lies ahead. Looking back, it's the aforementioned illness and its aftermath that defined 2010 for me - not exactly the sort of thing you want defining a year. It's as though a car of some kind just plowed through me when I fell ill back in May last year. I struggled with eating comfortably afterward, and I still feel like I'm not eating entirely normally or comfortably like before now either. I began to starve in the earlier half of summer for how I was feeling, and that's not a problem now, and I've grappled on and off with issues of discomfort with leaving the house and traveling in moving vehicles. At least some of this is probably due to ongoing problems with allergies that I'm to blame for anyway, with a lot of cleaning and dusting to do that's needed doing for months. Congestion can be a real killer. But still, I've felt "off" for over half a year now, and that uncomfortable feeling has yet to cease. It's definitely brought out the hypochondriac in me, and it's hardly a positive - the stress brought on from constantly thinking a million different things could be wrong with you.
These feelings acted as a continual source of distraction for me over the latter half of 2010. They distracted me from keeping focused on my writing - which amounted to attempting to juggle a dozen things at once, from writing contest entries to query letters to writing job applications to regular blogging to novel work; when you chase two hares, you will catch neither - and led me to often seek distraction in my hobbies or the internet. Anything to take my mind off my feeling stressed out, off-kilter, and as though there was something wrong with me in terms of health that I couldn't quite pinpoint, which it could very well just be a mere matter of months of crushing congestion taking a heavy toll. Unfortunately, my talent for adapting to discomfort has its limits.
I have other excuses for not posting here recently, but as alluded to in previous paragraphs, you'll see those excuses in the openings to upcoming posts as I work on catching up on my blogging backlog. I still owe you guys several months' monthly stories and half-cogent babbling on some other topics. (How do you feel about sustainable agriculture?) What better time for this blog to resume a somewhat more reliable update schedule than the new year?
Yes, it's horribly contrived - we begin every new year with the empty tradition of pretending we're going to resolve to accomplish something or some things that year. The older we get, the more mockingly we treat the idea as we realize how self-defeating it is - people rarely change, and even more rarely achieve their ambitions. We'd all be internet superstars if it happened for just anybody, and the very notion of drawing notice would lose all its appeal. We'd have to go counter-culture again, rebelling against the accepted and lauded norms before eventually coming full circle and having to find a new way to reject everything we'd achieved and stood for. Kind of like that recent controversial Patton Oswalt article about nerd culture needing to die in Wired that's prompted a collective temper tantrum from the internet's dominant nerd populace.
Still, as much as I dislike the tradition of "New Year's Resolutions," knowing as much as any other adult that they're wishful thinking that I'm no more likely to achieve than anyone else, I feel that same cringingly unoriginal urge to look forward to the new year ahead and think wishfully of the coming days. Let's organize these thoughts into bullet points - everyone loves bullet points!
- Publishing. Over the course of 2010, I only ended up sending out 8 queries total, falling far short of the number I wanted to send out. Out of those 8, only 2 got replies - both of which were rejection. In perspective, getting responses, even just for rejections, from a quarter of the agents queried isn't bad at all. But I'm still nowhere near the aspiring writer norm yet - I haven't hit the double or triple digits in queries sent, and I'll definitely hit the former this year, though it's hard to say in regard to the latter. You haven't really had the full aspiring writer experience until you've been literally buried if not flat out drowned in rejection letters. You have to be so accustomed to "No! GO AWAY!" that a positive response is nothing short of paralyzing.
I'm planning on finally getting another batch of letters out this month, and more in the spring - the real challenge is narrowing down just whom to query. Agent research continues, at any rate. I just need to find some more agents whose interests include the sort of strange literary fiction I produce.
- Finances. I'm only just over four and a half months from entering my late twenties, those last few years spent teetering on the terrifying brink of one's thirties. A time spent trying not to fall into an abyss constructed by a culture terrified of aging gracefully - or aging at all. You've gotta enjoy those shining years of your youth, 'seishun,' as they say in Japan. After all, once you get into your late twenties, early thirties, and beyond, that's when you get caught in the "real world" bear trap.
Get up, go to work, come home, relax briefly, go to sleep, repeat. Make money, spend money, pay rent and utilities, pay for things you don't have the time to enjoy anymore but are fun to think about. Find someone just as stressed out in their trapped, structured existence, bond, blow off some steam by sleeping together, do that a few more times, then make some mistakes like getting married and having kids. Grow older, realize you were never really in love with anything more than the concept, and that you were both afraid of being alone. Get a divorce, try to live vicariously through your kids, watch as the retirement age is raised every so often in the name of punishing the average person for the mistakes of the wealthy and corrupt. Eventually retire, stress out over reduced medical benefits and the inability to afford to enjoy retired life, get cancer, look back on a life spent working just to get by, die full of regrets.
This structure, when laid out and described in this manner, fits millions - if not billions - of lives across the globe. The magnificent insignificance and quietly tragic mundanity of our existence. So many lead this life or some slight variation of it - I'm ridiculous in that I want to avoid much of it. There's no satisfaction in a traditional life for me, just suffocation in an iron house lined with sleepers; some peaceful, some fretful.
I have yet to make a cent on my writing, though I'm staggering toward hopefully securing some freelance work I'd be suited to. Enough in time, ideally, to be able to make enough of a living to get by on my own. Nearly went with a job I was probably a bit overqualified for last autumn, but as the site's launch neared, I got the sense that it would be better to back out. So far, it's looking like I made the correct choice. I won't name said site, however - considering that this could be seen as a bit of a jab - out of both an interest in professionalism and personal respect for those involved with the site. I just need to keep looking for some kind of freelance writing work I'd be well-suited to while I continue to work on getting my first novel published. It would probably be ideal to find a steady paying writing gig for a longer period in the future too, if even possible, considering how hard it is to make a living on published novels - and writing in general - these days. Print and publishing have been dying for years now - it kind of only figures that my skill set is dependent on these fields. On people actually being willing to pay for my writing, and to pay to read it.
- Relocation. Moving didn't happen last year, but it's definitely on the table for this year. I need to get out on my own and 'begin' my life at last. San Francisco's still the primary destination I'm looking at, but things've only gotten more complicated. I need to work on arranging a trip out there for probably a week or so sometime this year - and to arrange it months in advance to minimize costs, as travel's hardly cheap - to get a feel for the place. One of my best friends and I were planning on splitting rent on an apartment when I moved there sometime later this year - he's kind of pushed that aside without warning now in lieu of now planning to get a place with a friend from his grad school instead, so I'm getting more into high-and-dry territory here, with costs of living now significantly increasing again. Lovely. This aspect of my plans for the year just got a lot more complicated, so it'll be interesting to see just what happens.
- Redesign. Still need to work on redesigning Spiral Reverie. Meant to last year, but never got much work done on that front. I still like the shades of gray-themed visual color scheme the blog's always had, but I know that it can be altered to work better overall. And frankly, the blog could stand to be more visually appealing - I'm sure its current look has driven off plenty of potential readers. I'm still just not sure where to begin - I'm disinclined to use the new Blogger template designer, since that's entirely geared toward using others' template designs, color schemes, photography, and other visual elements. Rather than looking like any other number of blogs out there, I want Spiral Reverie to be unique. The problem is, I lack the skill and visual design talent it would take to remake this blog into something more ideal. Still as much of a problem this year as it was last year.
- Novel Numero Dos. I didn't make nearly as much progress on Project Princess as I would have liked last year. I need to find the time to pick up the pace again this year and ideally get most of it finished within the year while balancing more regular blogging again.
- Those Crazy Electronic Thingamajigs. On a leisure note, Nintendo's launching their new 3DS portable in North America in March. A deluge of new information and game media will be coming out starting just a few days from now up through the Japanese launch next month and into the near-spring as the North American launch date nears. It has one of the most exciting game lineups - if not the most exciting - a new platform has ever had announced before launch. So as a video game nerd, it's a damn exciting year for the hobby, considering how the platform practically makes a good case for console obsolescence with all of its features and technical strengths. This is the first new platform launch since Spiral Reverie's birth on the internet four years ago today, so I'll undoubtedly be writing up some more nerdy commentary on it in the comings weeks and months. Look forward to that! (Or beware, depending on your interests as a reader of my blog.)
As of this coming June, it will have been four years since I moved home after finishing college. These years are passing far too quickly, and far too much of my youth seems to be quietly evaporating before my eyes, forming regret-condensation on my windows as the months wheel by and my precious cold months inevitably return to the heat that consumes more of each passing year. I have a lot that I need to get done this year. I've got to get better at juggling - I've got to stop feeling off-kilter and feel healthier again. I've got to get my life on track, my writing out there, before it stalls any further or worse yet derails. With each passing year, I carry only more pressure on my shoulders, only more stress, but there are things I need to do, that I need to accomplish like anyone else. Assuming it isn't a complete disaster, 2011 will be a big year. And I suspect that like the last, it too may tumble by like an avalanche.
Until everything ends, the future is always oncoming. It's hazy and often imperceptible, and never guaranteed to be bright and shiny - neither for individuals nor nations. All anyone can do is grit their teeth and continue marching forward. We have to try not to trip.
Excuses were offered, manly tears left unshed. Minds like fuses were blown, their boxes unplugged and shipped first-class to deep space. The nebulae were unappreciative, as they usually are. And then the aforementioned excuses were packed up into additional crates and fired off into the future - to be included in an incoming jumble of overdue blog posts delayed for various reasons over the time period not quite known and not quite named "The Missing Months."
So yeah, none of the usual holiday season or new year's fanfare here. "A curious silence," you guys undoubtedly thought - when I say "you guys," I mean the theoretical three or four of you who might accidentally stumble across this blog on Google at some indeterminate point in the past and/or future. This past holiday season was probably the first in which you could say I wasn't "feeling it." However much time I spent trying to get into the "holiday spirit," "cheer," and whatnot, I didn't feel like any of it. The whole season felt like a very sudden and rushed week - a busy and somewhat stressful time, pleasant though it otherwise was. A brief little typhoon, but for the most part, I felt like an outside observer, even inside my own body. And now, just like that, the year's over.
It doesn't really feel like a year's passed. I still feel like I just got over being ill in the late spring/early summer a mere few days ago, though it's January. A January starting with a 62-degree high, following lightning striking thrice in December, in snow falling here several times when it usually never does in December. And this year, it even fell on Xmas night, for the first time in over 60 years. Ups and downs. Pleasant, surreal, and at the moment, a warmer day than I'm fond of seeing in January lies ahead. Looking back, it's the aforementioned illness and its aftermath that defined 2010 for me - not exactly the sort of thing you want defining a year. It's as though a car of some kind just plowed through me when I fell ill back in May last year. I struggled with eating comfortably afterward, and I still feel like I'm not eating entirely normally or comfortably like before now either. I began to starve in the earlier half of summer for how I was feeling, and that's not a problem now, and I've grappled on and off with issues of discomfort with leaving the house and traveling in moving vehicles. At least some of this is probably due to ongoing problems with allergies that I'm to blame for anyway, with a lot of cleaning and dusting to do that's needed doing for months. Congestion can be a real killer. But still, I've felt "off" for over half a year now, and that uncomfortable feeling has yet to cease. It's definitely brought out the hypochondriac in me, and it's hardly a positive - the stress brought on from constantly thinking a million different things could be wrong with you.
These feelings acted as a continual source of distraction for me over the latter half of 2010. They distracted me from keeping focused on my writing - which amounted to attempting to juggle a dozen things at once, from writing contest entries to query letters to writing job applications to regular blogging to novel work; when you chase two hares, you will catch neither - and led me to often seek distraction in my hobbies or the internet. Anything to take my mind off my feeling stressed out, off-kilter, and as though there was something wrong with me in terms of health that I couldn't quite pinpoint, which it could very well just be a mere matter of months of crushing congestion taking a heavy toll. Unfortunately, my talent for adapting to discomfort has its limits.
I have other excuses for not posting here recently, but as alluded to in previous paragraphs, you'll see those excuses in the openings to upcoming posts as I work on catching up on my blogging backlog. I still owe you guys several months' monthly stories and half-cogent babbling on some other topics. (How do you feel about sustainable agriculture?) What better time for this blog to resume a somewhat more reliable update schedule than the new year?
Yes, it's horribly contrived - we begin every new year with the empty tradition of pretending we're going to resolve to accomplish something or some things that year. The older we get, the more mockingly we treat the idea as we realize how self-defeating it is - people rarely change, and even more rarely achieve their ambitions. We'd all be internet superstars if it happened for just anybody, and the very notion of drawing notice would lose all its appeal. We'd have to go counter-culture again, rebelling against the accepted and lauded norms before eventually coming full circle and having to find a new way to reject everything we'd achieved and stood for. Kind of like that recent controversial Patton Oswalt article about nerd culture needing to die in Wired that's prompted a collective temper tantrum from the internet's dominant nerd populace.
Still, as much as I dislike the tradition of "New Year's Resolutions," knowing as much as any other adult that they're wishful thinking that I'm no more likely to achieve than anyone else, I feel that same cringingly unoriginal urge to look forward to the new year ahead and think wishfully of the coming days. Let's organize these thoughts into bullet points - everyone loves bullet points!
- Publishing. Over the course of 2010, I only ended up sending out 8 queries total, falling far short of the number I wanted to send out. Out of those 8, only 2 got replies - both of which were rejection. In perspective, getting responses, even just for rejections, from a quarter of the agents queried isn't bad at all. But I'm still nowhere near the aspiring writer norm yet - I haven't hit the double or triple digits in queries sent, and I'll definitely hit the former this year, though it's hard to say in regard to the latter. You haven't really had the full aspiring writer experience until you've been literally buried if not flat out drowned in rejection letters. You have to be so accustomed to "No! GO AWAY!" that a positive response is nothing short of paralyzing.
I'm planning on finally getting another batch of letters out this month, and more in the spring - the real challenge is narrowing down just whom to query. Agent research continues, at any rate. I just need to find some more agents whose interests include the sort of strange literary fiction I produce.
- Finances. I'm only just over four and a half months from entering my late twenties, those last few years spent teetering on the terrifying brink of one's thirties. A time spent trying not to fall into an abyss constructed by a culture terrified of aging gracefully - or aging at all. You've gotta enjoy those shining years of your youth, 'seishun,' as they say in Japan. After all, once you get into your late twenties, early thirties, and beyond, that's when you get caught in the "real world" bear trap.
Get up, go to work, come home, relax briefly, go to sleep, repeat. Make money, spend money, pay rent and utilities, pay for things you don't have the time to enjoy anymore but are fun to think about. Find someone just as stressed out in their trapped, structured existence, bond, blow off some steam by sleeping together, do that a few more times, then make some mistakes like getting married and having kids. Grow older, realize you were never really in love with anything more than the concept, and that you were both afraid of being alone. Get a divorce, try to live vicariously through your kids, watch as the retirement age is raised every so often in the name of punishing the average person for the mistakes of the wealthy and corrupt. Eventually retire, stress out over reduced medical benefits and the inability to afford to enjoy retired life, get cancer, look back on a life spent working just to get by, die full of regrets.
This structure, when laid out and described in this manner, fits millions - if not billions - of lives across the globe. The magnificent insignificance and quietly tragic mundanity of our existence. So many lead this life or some slight variation of it - I'm ridiculous in that I want to avoid much of it. There's no satisfaction in a traditional life for me, just suffocation in an iron house lined with sleepers; some peaceful, some fretful.
I have yet to make a cent on my writing, though I'm staggering toward hopefully securing some freelance work I'd be suited to. Enough in time, ideally, to be able to make enough of a living to get by on my own. Nearly went with a job I was probably a bit overqualified for last autumn, but as the site's launch neared, I got the sense that it would be better to back out. So far, it's looking like I made the correct choice. I won't name said site, however - considering that this could be seen as a bit of a jab - out of both an interest in professionalism and personal respect for those involved with the site. I just need to keep looking for some kind of freelance writing work I'd be well-suited to while I continue to work on getting my first novel published. It would probably be ideal to find a steady paying writing gig for a longer period in the future too, if even possible, considering how hard it is to make a living on published novels - and writing in general - these days. Print and publishing have been dying for years now - it kind of only figures that my skill set is dependent on these fields. On people actually being willing to pay for my writing, and to pay to read it.
- Relocation. Moving didn't happen last year, but it's definitely on the table for this year. I need to get out on my own and 'begin' my life at last. San Francisco's still the primary destination I'm looking at, but things've only gotten more complicated. I need to work on arranging a trip out there for probably a week or so sometime this year - and to arrange it months in advance to minimize costs, as travel's hardly cheap - to get a feel for the place. One of my best friends and I were planning on splitting rent on an apartment when I moved there sometime later this year - he's kind of pushed that aside without warning now in lieu of now planning to get a place with a friend from his grad school instead, so I'm getting more into high-and-dry territory here, with costs of living now significantly increasing again. Lovely. This aspect of my plans for the year just got a lot more complicated, so it'll be interesting to see just what happens.
- Redesign. Still need to work on redesigning Spiral Reverie. Meant to last year, but never got much work done on that front. I still like the shades of gray-themed visual color scheme the blog's always had, but I know that it can be altered to work better overall. And frankly, the blog could stand to be more visually appealing - I'm sure its current look has driven off plenty of potential readers. I'm still just not sure where to begin - I'm disinclined to use the new Blogger template designer, since that's entirely geared toward using others' template designs, color schemes, photography, and other visual elements. Rather than looking like any other number of blogs out there, I want Spiral Reverie to be unique. The problem is, I lack the skill and visual design talent it would take to remake this blog into something more ideal. Still as much of a problem this year as it was last year.
- Novel Numero Dos. I didn't make nearly as much progress on Project Princess as I would have liked last year. I need to find the time to pick up the pace again this year and ideally get most of it finished within the year while balancing more regular blogging again.
- Those Crazy Electronic Thingamajigs. On a leisure note, Nintendo's launching their new 3DS portable in North America in March. A deluge of new information and game media will be coming out starting just a few days from now up through the Japanese launch next month and into the near-spring as the North American launch date nears. It has one of the most exciting game lineups - if not the most exciting - a new platform has ever had announced before launch. So as a video game nerd, it's a damn exciting year for the hobby, considering how the platform practically makes a good case for console obsolescence with all of its features and technical strengths. This is the first new platform launch since Spiral Reverie's birth on the internet four years ago today, so I'll undoubtedly be writing up some more nerdy commentary on it in the comings weeks and months. Look forward to that! (Or beware, depending on your interests as a reader of my blog.)
As of this coming June, it will have been four years since I moved home after finishing college. These years are passing far too quickly, and far too much of my youth seems to be quietly evaporating before my eyes, forming regret-condensation on my windows as the months wheel by and my precious cold months inevitably return to the heat that consumes more of each passing year. I have a lot that I need to get done this year. I've got to get better at juggling - I've got to stop feeling off-kilter and feel healthier again. I've got to get my life on track, my writing out there, before it stalls any further or worse yet derails. With each passing year, I carry only more pressure on my shoulders, only more stress, but there are things I need to do, that I need to accomplish like anyone else. Assuming it isn't a complete disaster, 2011 will be a big year. And I suspect that like the last, it too may tumble by like an avalanche.
Until everything ends, the future is always oncoming. It's hazy and often imperceptible, and never guaranteed to be bright and shiny - neither for individuals nor nations. All anyone can do is grit their teeth and continue marching forward. We have to try not to trip.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Conan First Show Liveblog - Team Coco on TBS!
Of course, they also pushed Conan and his staff to effectively tone down their trademark strangeness that made their Late Night years so amazing. The Jay Leno show poisoned the ratings of everything that followed it - the Tonight Show included - as Leno's audience flat-out refused to accept Conan and many of Conan's fans were undoubtedly less than happy with how much more vanilla the show was than Late Night. Of course, once the controversial second "Late Night War" of sorts began, the Tonight Show writing kicked into high gear without any concern for appeasing the disinterested oldsters and the ratings exploded again as the Team Coco phenomenon was born on the internet. Now Leno's ratings are worse than Conan's were - the base that stopped watching the Tonight Show after Conan took over only held brief interest in the show again after Leno's return before they stopped watching again. Just desserts.
Since the show ended, Conan gave an exasperated interview and went on his Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television tour with Andy Richter and Reggie Watts over the later spring and into the summer. On the tour, classic sketches and characters were rebranded and could potentially all appear on the new show. The Masturbating Bear returned as the Self-Pleasuring Panda and the Walker, Texas Ranger Lever became the Chuck Norris Rural Policeman Handle. And of course, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog showed up too - as he also did on Night of Too Many Stars last month - and since he looks to be owned by Robert Smigel, not NBC, he should be back in true form on Conan. I'd be surprised if he didn't make at least one appearance in this first month, if not possibly this first week.
Over the summer and fall, Team Coco provided some more comedy content for the internet on their site, eventually putting up video promos starring Conan and videos of Conan answering a question a week from fans. All this led up to the Live Coco Cam two and a half weeks ago, 24 hours of Team Coco comedy run by Aaron Bleyaert, interns, and other assorted staff, with appearances by Conan, Andy Richter, LaBamba, Pierre Bernard, and others from the show, along with some cameos including George Lopez and Dog the Bounty Hunter. A week ago tonight, they posted the special 5-minute Show Zero online as well - Conan doing an entire show from a conference room in five minutes, humor all in top form, still with the beard he's often been seen with this year, previously seen as his protest during the 2007-2008 WGA strike (Which I covered quite a bit on this blog back then), the eponymous strikebeard.
We lost Joel Godard in the move from New York to L.A. for The Tonight Show, and now we're losing Max Weinberg, who led both The Max Weinberg 7 during the Late Night years and The Tonight Show Band on the Tonight Show. The band - save for Max - went on tour with Conan as the Legally Prohibited Band, and now they are officially The Basic Cable Band! As expected, they're being led by Jimmy Vivino, who always led the band when Max went on tour with Bruce Springsteen, and James Wormworth - who always filled in for Max when he was on tour - has fully replaced him as the drummer after moving to L.A. and joining the Tonight Show band, only having been a guest member in New York with the Max Weinberg 7. The rest of the band - Jerry Vivino, Richie "LaBamba" Rosenberg, Mark Pender, Scott Healy, and Mike Merritt - are still around, so musically, we'll have more of the same fantastic sound from the house band so vital to both Conan's Late Night and Tonight Show years. And knowing Conan and the writers, after they didn't get much screen time on the Tonight Show, I'm betting we're going to see the band participating in a lot more comedy sketches again like they used to on Late Night.
Over these recent turbulent years for Conan and fans, we've watched Conan now go from living one dream to the next. He'd always aspired to host the Tonight Show, and the terrible leadership at NBC unfortunately cut his time living the dream short. But as mentioned before, there's an upside - he'd always dreamed of his own show, which he completely owns and controls. And now on TBS, he has just that - a spiritual return to what made the Late Night years so amazing. A potential game-changer for TBS and cable TV in general as the era of TiVO/DVRs and TV on the internet has begun to change the television landscape and reduce the power and influence the networks once held. Now, not quite 9 and a half months since the end of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, in roughly 18 hours from my writing this, Conan finally premieres on TBS!
From here on, I'll be liveblogging the big premiere tonight as it happens, starting at 11 PM EST. Til then, enjoy the breakout star of Live Coco Cam, the Dancing Taco!
11 PM - let's go!
(11:00) Last season, on Conan - opening Godfather spoof with NBC getting rid of him, and oh, hey, there's Jon Hamm, in character from Mad Men as Conan looks for a new job and works a variety.
(11:02) Conan working fast food; as a creepy clown; and now Larry King saving him, It's A Wonderful Life style. Two words: "Basic cable." TBS's terms? "Much less." More Tommy Gun death.
(11:03) New opening. Andy announcing! Seth Rogen, Lea Michele, and Jack White. Guest contest winner. And of course, Andy and Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band. The episode? Baaa Baaa Blackmail. Actual show names. Interesting.
(11:05) The crow goes wild, and - the string dance! Back at last! "I know what you're all thinking - 'Hey, it's the guy from Twitter!'" "Kanye West?"
(11:06) "I named the show 'Conan,' so I'd be harder to replace." "I have dreamed about being a talk show host on basic cable since I was 46." Number one in TBS's main demographic, "People who can't afford HBO." "It's not easy being a talk show host on a network without a lot of money on a channel viewers have a lot of trouble finding. So that's why I left NBC."
(11:08) Conan noting that he went through this big ordeal to avoid going on at midnight, then after Daylight Savings Time ended, now he's basically on at midnight.
(11:09) Conan summing up everything that went on while he was off the air in a single joke - that's a lot of references in one joke. And now there's no barrier between Conan and the audience anymore.
(11:10) The question of whether Conan can use his old characters from his NBC years. A clip of NBC using one of Conan's old characters - a Mega Millions drawing with, THE MASTURBATING BEAR! Though not mentioned by name. And Andy's still bantering with
(11:11) Guest announcements at the end of the monologue. Seth Rogen's promoting The Green Hornet, which hits theaters in January. Then Lea Michele from Glee. And lastly, musical guest Jack White. Plus, the winner of the rigged first guest contest! A strong opening show lineup.
(11:12) And now Conan biting the hand that feeds him, making fun of the internet for saving him. Fantastic, haha. Throwing to the band, and the first commercial break at 11:13!
(11:17) Back with Andy on the couch again, fully Conan's sidekick again as he was largely becoming later into the Tonight Show, and the first of their new bumpers. Tomorrow? Tom Hanks, Jack McBrayer from 30 Rock, and musical guest Soundgarden.
(11:18) Then a look around the new set, the first talk show with a view of the ocean. Conan using a remote control to play with the moving moon over the ocean in the background, including attacking Andy with ti. Amazing. Andy noticed its incredible "lunar wobble." "Just like the real thing!"
(11:19) Conan addressing his highest highs and lowest lows this year. His lowest? The Conan Halloween mask. As Andy put it, "It's kind of an Asian Val Kilmer." They couldn't legally call it a Conan mask, so what is it? An "Ex-Talk Show Host" mask. "What the hell? Why don't you just put a cigarette out in my eye?" "What are you?" "I'm an Ex-Talk Show Host." "Who are you supposed to be?" "Who cares?" As Andy put it - "It's very authentic inside - inside it smells like tears." Andy's jokes are definitely getting dirtier tonight already, too. Nice.
(11:21) A well-wishing video from Ricky Garvais, wishing Conan luck with his new TBS show, uncomfortably. And now additional messages, expressing lament over what happened at TBS - then on to the Food Network, Good Morning Dayton, and satellite radio, which no one has. "He'll be better on radio. He's got the looks."
(11:22) And that's all the opening bits for this first show. Commercial break time again, next up, Seth Rogen!
(11:25) I love how Microsoft goes after people desperately attached to their phones in their commercials, then tries to sell them their Windows phone. (Ow.)
(11:26) Back from commercial! Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band! And now the fake first guest contest results. The deliberately rigged results are in, and the first guest? Arlene Wagner, the Nutcracker Museum curator, who gave Conan a nutcracker and walked off. "Off into the mountains," as Andy put it.
(11:28) Second guest, time for Seth Rogen, promoting The Green Hornet! "Thank you for having me! I'm so glad everyone more famous is busy now."
(11:29) Noting that since Conan last saw him, Rogen's now engaged to be married, and now Rogen's musing on how much he doesn't care about the wedding preparations - how his girlfriend's always wanted to get married but he never thought about it at all until he asked her. And in no time, the first bleeped cursing of the show, breaking the rules already. Though of course, they can get away with more on TBS than NBC. Seth now comparing getting the engagement ring to someone giving him a truckload of heroin. Then as soon as he got it, he proposed to her in an awkward state of undress in the closet, not every little girl's image of how they want to be proposed to.
(11:32) Now discussing the failure of Prop 19 in California - which would have legalized pot. Seth pointed out that virtually anyone can get a medical marijuana card there, though, and how even he has one. His very specific ailment? "I ain't got no weed on me right now." The lady there? "We actually have just the thing for that!" Then worries that the weed doctor would actually find something wrong with him.
(11:33) The Green Hornet talk. It hits theaters January 14th, 2011. Talking about how Seth Rogen is not really someone you think of when you think of people out there kicking ass. "If Matthew McConaughey looked like this - he'd murder himself. He'd literally kill himself. But for me it's pretty awesome." And Michel Gondry directed! Weird and eccentric. "You kind of think he's a French genius and you think he's gonna take things like this and make art out of it, and instead he puts them on his crotch and pretends it's a penis." My time to note how awesome Michel Gondry is as an aside. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is amazing, and The Science of Sleep is a lot of fun too.
(11:35) Next commercial break. Next up, Lea Michele. Not a two-part interview like many of Conan's Tonight Show ones were.
(11:39) Back from commercial! Lea Michele from Glee now. A good choice to round out the first show lineup. Immediately into talk about the moving moon. She noted that his hair's reaching new heights.
(11:40) From there, into talk about Glee and the fact that Lea's parents didn't know she could sing for a really long time, though Conan had assumed she'd grown up a prodigy after seeing her performing on Glee. She hadn't seriously until her first Broadway audition.
(11:41) Now discussing a recent cast photoshoot in GQ that drew some controversy, the shoot deemed 'too sexy' by some. Conan's come up with a way to make the photos less sexy - inserting a photo of him from high school into each of them. Lea's shocked by how pale he is.
(11:43) The first awkward moment of the show with an odd background noise. "Basic cable." They had a lot of odd technical moments like that on NBC too. Then, another Lea Michele magazine cover story in the past - the October issue of Glamour she'd appeared on poured out all over the highway in L.A. when a truck carrying them got into a wreck and turned over, spilling out magazines everywhere. And this after she'd been drilled repeatedly not to show the cover to anybody.
(11:45) Commercial break. Up next, Jack White!
(11:49) Back from commercial again. The bumpers are all fun - different from the NBC days, more kinetic. Conan now introducing Jack White. He hung out with him in Nashville this past summer and they recorded an album this summer - they're performing a song from it together now. The Basic Cable Band's all in the background supporting them. Ah, it's great to see the gang all back together on TV again. Max Weinberg's loss is even less felt than Joel Godard's since he barely got to do anything in comedy bits on the Tonight Show. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with the rest of the band in sketches. The song itself? Catchy stuff. This is possibly the most elaborate musical performance Conan's ever done on air, too. Fantastic way to end the first show.
(11:52) Last commercial break!
(11:56) And back again! The band's back over at their stands, and now Conan's back at the desk with Jack White. Talking about when they first met, shooting a remote for Late Night at a bowling alley in Detroit in 1999, back before Jack White and The White Stripes were exactly all that well known. And of course, they've worked together a lot since. He produced this album with Conan and the band, and a spoken word album, with a depressed Conan image on its cover.
(11:58) The show's over now. Conan thanked everybody. Ricky Gervais'll be on in January and he has a new special airing December 18th. I wonder if it'll be an HBO one - I'd assume so. His standup's great stuff. End credits, new Conaco logo, Conan getting shot up by Tommy Guns a second time. On to Lopez Tonight, Conan over.
All-in-all, a strong first show. Looking forward to the rest of the week. It's damn nice to have Conan back on TV again. Also really glad to have DVR access now so I can record the Daily Show and Colbert Report and watch those afterward. Whew. Gotta support Team Coco. Great job, everybody!
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Midterm Madness: Pragmatic Progress versus Regressive Racket
Yet another blog post from me. Either I'm on fire or there's been a lot worth actually blogging about - even with shorter posts - within a limited time frame as of late. At any rate, it's Election Day today! Always a worthwhile subject, especially in light of the tense, polarized state of political discourse in this nation pretty much ever since Barack Obama was elected president. After being rejected by the voters for two major elections, the lesson the GOP took from it was not that they were too extreme in their politics - after they'd wreaked havoc on the nation for six years with the Bush administration, and the Democratic Congress for Bush's final two years still didn't check his administration's power and abuses nearly enough - but that they weren't extreme enough.
We made history by electing our first black president back in 2008 - his technically being racially mixed doesn't diminish the momentousness of this achievement, considering the incredible barrier broken: our first president who isn't just another white man. And of course, race has been the big topic ever since his election - not so much the achievement itself as the explosion to new levels of Republicans insisting that American white people are somehow being victimized. Ever since his rise as a presidential candidate in 2008, the discourse has flooded with all kinds of popular fiction about who he is and what he stands for - myths about his ethnic background, religion, and politics like no president has seen before. It's not all racism, but it's not just racism either - ignorance, xenophobia, and the usual overzealousness seen from those living in an alternate reality of their own construction whenever the Republicans aren't completely dominating every branch of government have pervaded and twisted the narrative at every turn for years now.
(Post continued when you hit the title to jump in)
We made history by electing our first black president back in 2008 - his technically being racially mixed doesn't diminish the momentousness of this achievement, considering the incredible barrier broken: our first president who isn't just another white man. And of course, race has been the big topic ever since his election - not so much the achievement itself as the explosion to new levels of Republicans insisting that American white people are somehow being victimized. Ever since his rise as a presidential candidate in 2008, the discourse has flooded with all kinds of popular fiction about who he is and what he stands for - myths about his ethnic background, religion, and politics like no president has seen before. It's not all racism, but it's not just racism either - ignorance, xenophobia, and the usual overzealousness seen from those living in an alternate reality of their own construction whenever the Republicans aren't completely dominating every branch of government have pervaded and twisted the narrative at every turn for years now.
(Post continued when you hit the title to jump in)
Sunday, October 31, 2010
What We Pretend to Be
Halloween afternoon. I was going to have two stories up for you today, but I keep trying to push myself to get more up here than I reasonably can in a single twenty-four hour period. I'm delaying the late-September story into early November, after the election - yes, yikes, but it has to be done.
Anyway, defying the norm, here's your October story, in October! Just in time for Halloween. The story's theme, no less! Could it possibly be more of a coincidence? (Yes.)
Hit that jump. It's short, but not quite as goofy as the previous three years' awkward Halloween stories.
Anyway, defying the norm, here's your October story, in October! Just in time for Halloween. The story's theme, no less! Could it possibly be more of a coincidence? (Yes.)
Hit that jump. It's short, but not quite as goofy as the previous three years' awkward Halloween stories.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear Liveblog
Eventually, this escalated to the announcement of dueling rallies - Jon's Rally to Restore Sanity and Stephen's March to Keep Fear Alive. They spent weeks hyping them up after setting the October 30th date, just in time for Halloween. Jon got a lot of public notice and media attention, including endorsements from Oprah, buses courtesy of Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post, and even mention by president Barack Obama, who appeared on the Daily Show this past Wednesday during their week of shows in Washington, DC.
He held his own as well, when Jon asked some tough questions, and touted his and the current Democratic congress's strong track record of actually getting things done, including vital healthcare reform, financial reform, and effectively stopping a second Great Depression from happening. All true, and all things the right seeks to constantly discredit Obama and the Democrats for accomplishing. (And when I say "the right," I'm generally just focusing on the GOP here - the Democrats are to the left of them, but they're still very much center-right and corporatist. Problematic unto themselves, but more of a problem to be dealt with if we can shift away from the brink as a nation, considering the insanity we regularly hear espoused by the GOP these days.) We've gotten not quite two years to clean up an eight-year mess that will take decades for this nation to likely ever recover from as fully as possible - and some things, like the numbers of lives lost due to reckless decisions by the previous administration, cannot be recovered - and that isn't nearly enough time to undo that kind of damage.
What we have done these past near-two-years, however, amounts to getting a strong, pragmatic start, taking America's recovery one step at a time. Obama's even committed to bipartisanship in ways both conceptually admirable and unwise in application. Still, the fact that he's been so adamant about that speaks volumes about his belief in the political system - in compromise; in actually working together to get things done instead of stonewalling like the Republicans have been since he took office - regardless of how broken its processes currently are. The Democrats - save for those who've lacked the guts to stand by their record these past twenty-ish months - deserve reelection. The Republicans have spent these months crossing their arms and sitting in congress shaking their heads to everything, even policy ideas they had proposed years ago in the first place! No one right of mind should even consider voting for them on Tuesday - not for what they've spent these years representing. I'll get into that more on Tuesday before I turn into a complete broken record, though - I've got an election post coming up then.
Anyway, after all the attention Jon Stewart got - even getting a rally permit for the National Mall, and tying the rally in to a charity to restore and care for the area - Stephen Colbert went mostly ignored, only really getting an endorsement from Rick Sanchez. (Who had a bad day, snapped, and said some terrible, hateful things - lashing out at Jon among others, not having taken being made fun of routinely for all these years so well - and actually had a point in his rant about how underrepresented minorities are in the newsmedia in the next week, losing his job in public disgrace. Unlike Juan Williams, who just lost his job at NPR the other week for his casual anti-Muslim bigotry, Sanchez had the wisdom not to jump to Fox News and went on to demonstrate that despite the things he said, he recognized how wrong they were and at least showed the world that he's not a completely terrible person at heart.) In the end, he came on the Daily Show and signed onto Jon's rally permit, combining the Rally to Restore Sanity and March to Keep Fear Alive into a single event - the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
All this? A last minute liveblog that I haphazardly decided to do, since the only other one I can think of that I'll be doing in the future will be the upcoming Conan premiere in a little over another week. Worthwhile content. I was going to be asleep before noon - that was the plan - but instead, once the rally started, I just had to stay up and watch it. So here it all is, my liveblog in its entirety - and now, nearing 4 PM, I'm going to take some time to finish up my severely overdue late-September short story before I crash. And tonight, I'm writing a Halloween-themed short story for you guys just in time for the holiday itself for the October monthly short story. This is how backed up I've been on my blog work here - and this is also my dedication to all of you, the silent millions secretly hanging on my every word and dying for the day I finally get an agent and get novels on shelves for you to buy and gleefully hug to your chests in literary anticipation. (PRETEND.)
For those of you following this - if any - as a point of reference, the rally's also streaming live on Comedy Central's website.
Let's get sane. (All times EST)
(12:00) The Roots! Not sure what song they're performing to open with. I'm going to try to get the names of all the songs performed. The National Mall looks pretty packed - a veritable sea of sanity. Wonder if we'll see a total turnout bigger than Beck's insulting Lincoln Memorial "Honor" rally months back. And hey, where there's signs, they're actually spelled correctly. Fancy that!
(12:10) John Legend joins them! Now performing a song with them. One of the songs performed was a cover of Monsters of Folk's "Dear God." Mellow, relaxing way to kick things off. Befitting of the theme.
(12:15) A second song by John Legend and The Roots, "Hard Times."
(12:19) A third song by Legend and The Roots. I believe that was "Little Ghetto Boy" by Donny Hathaway.
(12:25) A fourth song, written back in 1973 by Bill Withers. Legend recalling the circumstances of when it was written, in the midst of the Vietnam War. And now we're still at war. "I Can't Write Left-Handed" is the song. Legend was also the first to get away with an unedited "fuck" on-air, not quite half an hour in. Ah, live television. Gotta love it.
(12:32) Fantastic extended jam as the song moves toward its close.
(12:34) Another song. Really energetic rap this time - "The Seed (2.0)." Not a cover this time, but an original by The Roots.
(12:39) And now, the Mythbusters! Adam Save and Jamie Hyneman. Time for them to do some experiments, starting with The Wave. That crowd is ridiculously massive. Cheers for sanity.
(12:43) Adam suggested that the crowd is about 150,000 large. I can see that - this is an incredible turnout. You can't even see where the crowd ends on the horizon.
(12:48) Now they're doing some sound experiments after all the various Waves they had the crowd do.
(12:52) Now they're going to get the whole crowd to jump to create a groundswell. They brought some seismologists and a seismometer to measure the effects of the jump.
(12:54) The results? Not much seismic activity, but still 100 times more powerful than a minor car crash with their second jump.
(12:55) And now the Mythbusters are going. Fun segment.
(12:56) The official opening and Jon Stewart at last makes his appearance as the host of the part of the rally dedicated to sanity! Starting with the crowd standing for a singing of the national anthem performed by four troops. Those ladies and gents can sing.
(12:59) Jon returns! "ARE YOU READY TO RESTORE SANITY!?"
(1:00) Important things first. No littering - the National Mall is a treasure and presently in disrepair. "Let's leave this place cleaner than we found it!" Asking any landscapers in attendance to help out, get some topiaries up. The most important things for a rally? Jokingly, 'Color and size.' "Over ten million people" in attendance - lampooning Fox News's exaggeration of attendance at Glenn Beck's rally. A perfect demographic sample of the American people? Definitely. If you have too many white people at a rally, it must be racist. If you have too many colored people, they must be asking for basic equal rights - something we are not ready to give.
(1:02) With the help of Aasif Mandvi and Samantha Bee in the crowd, they're counting off the exact size of the crowd so no one can doubt the numbers in attendance.
(1:03) Samantha Bee and Aasif Mandvi interviewing crowd members, counting them off and having them identify themselves demographically. And the young ladies can't get enough of Jon Stewart. (STEW-BEEF!)
(1:04) "Jon! Help!" The voice of Stephen Colbert! Trapped in his fear bunker! Comm link on Jumbotron time. Stephen in a very dark place. His fear bunker was 2000 feet below the stage, encased in solid bedrock. Stephen was shirtless in a cave, mostly afraid that no one showed up to their rally. The crowd cheered to let him know they were there. "Are the men handsome? Are the women beautiful? And do they respond to obvious pandering?"
(1:06) He's coming up! An alarm rings and Stephen Colbert emerges to the Colbert Report theme in a Chilean miner pod emergence spoof - clad in an Eviel Knievel style outfit, the always-classy caped jumpsuit. "Chi! Chi! Le! Le!"
(1:08) "Hello America! Hello multitude on the Washington Mall! Oh! Oh, this feels right!" And, of course, "KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!" "They're reasonable for now, Jon. But soon they'll be a mindless panicked mob once I release the bees!" "RELEASE THE BEES!" Bees coated with peanut butter. Deliberately fabricating fears that don't exist. Raising awareness of potential dangers and then allowing an informed public decide whether to cower in terror or die bravely. Our media, all right.
(1:10) Whispers instead of cheers in favor of restoring sanity. That's a quiet cheer. And a massive chorus of ghostly "WOOOOO!"s to keep fear alive. Stephen declared himself the winner, the rally over, and thanked The Roots.
(1:12) For a more traditional start - not a book burning! - Father Guido Sarducci, here to deliver the rally's benediction. He was on the Colbert Report a few months back, as I recall. Still around, still funny. Cheers from the crowd for each religion. Observation about Judaism and Islam - "You know, they don't eat the same meat, and yet they don't get along. You'd think they could build on that."
(1:17) Shot of the crowd as Sarducci talked religion. Someone dressed up as Beaker from The Muppet Show with a pro-science sign. Fantastic.
(1:19) The benediction wrapped. When Sarducci thanked god for dogs especially, they cut to someone in the audience dressed as Clifford the Big Red Dog, too.
(1:20) And now Stephen Colbert's inaugurating things with "an poem," now dressed in a leather jacket and American flag pants. To read it? Law & Order's Sam Waterston, infamous Law & Order sound effect in tow. "Are You Sure?" by the Reverend Sir Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA.
(1:23) The poem concluded. Lots of memes from our half decade of Colbert Report fun. Jon felt that music could express some emotions difficult for us to express with words. Formerly Cat Stevens, Yusuf Islam, performing "Peace Train!"
(1:26) Stephen Colbert interrupted, much to audience protest. Jon had to step in and apologize. Stephen refuses to get on the Peace Train. He has a better train instead, he says, and the conductor has an important announcement to make. Ozzy Osbourne! "Crazy Train," I believe.
(1:29) Jon interrupted Ozzy, refusing to get on that train - it was going off the rails, after all. Back to Yusuf Islam continuing his song! Not even a full minute before Stephen interrupted and threw back to Ozzy. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups sponsor message banner across the screen - I also endorse this candy. Jon interrupted seconds later, and now both are trying to play their respective songs simultaneously.
(1:31) Now things are ruined! They've got no train! Except! Wait! The Love Train! Thus, a performance they could agree on by The OJs. Rally halfway point passed. Wonderful so far.
(1:36) Performance finished. Jon appeared and announced all these fantastic musical guests again. "Sanity does not mean never having unreasonable moments." And now a look at true stories of unreasonable moments people have had in the public eye in montage. Steven Slater, that flight attendant who had a famous meltdown, and Teresa Giudice of - I believe - that Real Housewives of New Jersey reality show.
(1:39) Now discussing the most important thing about a rally - how it's reported on. Either it was a tremendous success or a horrendous failure staged by a fringe movement. Wyatt Cenac and Jason Jones now covering the rally from both perspectives within the crowd. Wyatt's the optimist, and Jones is the pessimist. Talking to crowd members too. Much shakier camera for Jones. Overhead shots for Cenac to show the huge crowd, while Jones tried to present them as being few in number, nothing more than a disorganized fringe mob. Jones kept trying to rile up a guy in the crowd, and it didn't work.
(1:41) And now giving out medals to individuals who demonstrated rationality and sanity in the face of difficult circumstances. The Medals of Reasonableness all had owls on them.
(1:42) The first medal goes to Venezuelan baseball player Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers, who didn't flip out at an umpire who made a bad call. He accepted the medal and spoke well of the umpire via a taped statement.
(1:44) Stephen interrupts with his own medal: the Stephen Colbert Fear Award. His medals depicted a naked man running with scissors. He awarded it to all the news organizations that barred their reporters from attending Jon and Stephen's rally out of fear that they'd be accused of a liberal bias for covering it. Those organizations? ABC, CBS, the AP, The New York Times, and NPR! With no one in attendance to present the award to, he decided to present it to someone with more courage: a seven-year-old girl. Stephen asked if she was scared to be there, and she said it was fun. Stephen warned her about a cooties epidemic you won't hear about on NPR.
(1:46) The next two performers? Here from Chicago, which means they must have been cursed out by Rahm Emanuel. Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy, performing "You Are Not Alone."
(1:50) Performance complete. Second Medal for Reasonableness time! This one went to Velma Hart for respectfully asking Obama some very tough questions at a CNBC town hall meeting. She came out to accept her medal live. "He gave me his answer, and he's been giving us our answer every day since!" A sane, reasonable, respectful lady. Another good call.
(1:52) Time for the second Feary! (Fearie?) Given to Anderson Cooper's tight black t-shirt, for being with Cooper while he covered a number of scary things over the years.
(1:54) Nobody knows what's next on their program - then it's PK Winsome. An important message from a friend, played by none other than Tim Meadows, of course. Presenting PK Winsome's Commemorative Merchandise Mart, as opposed to his usual deadly pharmaceuticals in his Colbert Report segments. Complete with surplus souvenir mousepads for the movie Antz, as well as "Mice Mice Baby" Vanilla Ice mousepads. He's really desperate to get rid of those mousepads.
(1:57) And now Jon's in an American flag windbreaker. He thanked the crowd for attending and Stephen came out in the same pullover fleece zip-up, as Jon elaborated. Stephen announced that Jon was desecrating it since it matched Stephen's pants. Stephen demanded he take it off. Arguing over who could wear American flag sweaters.
(1:59) And now Stephen and Jon singing about why they love America, dueling over that love with their pullovers. Very awkward start for Stephen as he struggled to find the right pitch. Jon stumbled when he started too - not exactly as rehearsed as their duet on A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All! Of course, that also benefited from not being live. You can only get these awkward moments live. Jabs in there at Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez, too. Wonderful and well-deserved. The chorus is about the country being "the greatest, strongest, country in the world." And even a shoutout to straight men who like Glee. Technically in that demographic myself.
(2:03) Toward the end of their song, they're holding up mics to audience members and getting them to sing where they're from to alter the lyrics in "From ____, to _____" form, eventually crescendoing back to the chorus, deeming no one more American than we. Jeff Tweedy backed them with the acoustic guitar.
(2:05) Jon apologized for our having to hear him sing and said we wouldn't have to again - it worked in rehearsal. Then it was time for the third Medal of Reasonableness. Going to wrestler Mick Foley, who seems like a pretty decent guy too, despite what one might think of pro-wrestlers. For exemplifying reasonableness in everything but his day job, he was given the medal. Foley came out to accept the medal live. "Civility is cool" indeed.
(2:07) And the final fear award went to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, who naturally wasn't there to accept it, valuing his privacy more than he does yours. (They've sold a lot of private user data over the years.) Facebook has opened up new forms of fear, too, as Stephen pointed out, since now you could see if your ex found someone cuter - everybody's greatest fear, of course. Stephen accepted the award since Zuckerburg wasn't there and told him to friend him - he was going to post a photo of him wearing the medal on his own Facebook wall. All reminds me that I still need to see The Social Network since that looks legitimately very good. (Plus, these really well-constructed trailers - a rare case of TV spots actually getting my attention for a movie - introduced me to Sigur Ros's Jonsi's music. Wonderful stuff.)
(2:08) Jon gave out one last award, refusing to end their awards with fear. To the "Dude, you have no Koran!" guy from one of the planned controversial Koran burnings back in September- Jacob Isom. Stephen yanked it away and announced "Dude, you have no medal!" Then Isom got his medal and tossed it out into the crowd, walking away wordlessly. I praised that guy on Twitter back in September, and he's still the man. Respect.
(2:10) Another musical guest, performing with Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock. They performed a new song, "Care." T.I. taped a green screen thing for the, since he couldn't be there. He was one of the collaborators behind the song performed. Not the cheeriest song, seemingly about not being able to change the world - the opposite of the message we need to believe in now.
(2:16) And now another song. I'm going to assume this is another new one they're performing here - I can't find a name anywhere. I'm not a fan of either of them, so I'm kind of looking forward to this part being over - I actually like all of the previous musical guests, though I haven't made a habit of listening to any of them with regularity.
(2:21) Done. Whew. And now an important announcement from Stephen Colbert. Our keynote speaker for the afternoon: Jon Stewart.
(2:23) Stephen interrupted Jon's keynote, noting that every point must have a counterpoint. FORMIDABLE OPPONENT! Stephen needed to be empodiumed - though it's not a word - in now challenging Jon to a debate. First Formidable Opponent segment where Stephen's not just debating himself - they never do this segment enough on the Report. Jon's arguing for reason, while Stephen's arguing on the behalf of fear. Where Jon turned to history, Stephen turned to the bible. Jon invoked FDR's infamous quotation, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." As Stephen pointed out, Nixon said, "People respond to fear, not love." That's why Stephen proposed to his wife by hiding the ring inside a rabid badger.
(2:26) Jon called out media fearmongers, while Stephen wanted to know what the new, latest thing to be afraid of was - Jon turned to korbamite (Corbamite?) from the first season of the original Star Trek, all the way down to citing the specific episode referenced.
(2:28) And now Jon's calling out fearmongering against Muslims. Excellent! Truth. Oh, hey, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar! There to represent Muslims - "No matter our religious positions, we're all on the same team." Yes indeed.
(2:31) And in calling out Stephen's bigotry toward robots, an appearance by the one and only R2-D2, "one of the good ones." They even invoked the infamous R2-scream when Jon mentioned that there was a blender backstage with its eye on him.
(2:32) Jon's reasonableness is poisoning Stephen's fear, so he's summoning... FEARZILLA! A big papier-mache Stephen Colbert, throwing to a montage of mainstream media fearmongering. They like to ask "Could it be in your neighborhood?" a lot.
(2:34) Stephen declared himself the winner and high-fived his papier-mache self, but Jon insisted that most of the fears in the montage were overblown and would never come true. Then Stephen threw to media and political hyperbole with violent shots back and forth between the right and left - the right's worse and gets much, much, much more coverage and focus, being allowed to push the narrative as they do, but we've had some embarrassing moments on the left well worth calling out too. (Though compared to the rest of the globe, our "left-wing" and "liberals" here are pretty much sane centrists.) Another montage that demonstrated well - like the one prior - how horribly broken the media and our political discussion are.
(2:36) Stephen declared himself the winner again. Jon admitted the montages were pretty dispiriting. Jon brought out his hotel remote to point out that it's a weapon against the media - something we can use to turn off the TV or change the channel to escape the media. Stephen threw to an Early Show segment (And other morning news show clips) on the dirtiest things in hotel rooms where the horribly disgusting things found on hotel TV remotes were discussed. Stephen declared the Daily Show over and said Jon would be missed, declaring Jon killed.
(2:38) John Oliver is here! In forest green tights as Peter Pan, no less, calling Jon completely dead, telling him to stop talking. And since Jon died and needed the crowd's help, Peter-John appealed to them and told them to clap for Jon. Jon insisted that he appreciated but really didn't need their help since he wasn't dead. John tried to get people to do the Hambone, or the Arsenio - a little jig. Next up was chanting - chanting, "Will this help?!" And the chanting started killing Stephen Colbert, the American joining together to chant as one, burning and melting Stephen and his powerful fear - My preciousssss - sending him to the ground along with his puppet, officially dead. John dragged Stephen off-stage and stagehands took the puppet away.
(2:41) Now Jon was alone on stage. He addressed the incredible musical performances they'd had, and some technical comedy too. And now a moment - however brief - for sincerity, possibly violating that comedian-pundit line. He discussed how we could've looked at today's gathering, and discussed how they wanted to put on the best show possible - our time was valuable, so they didn't want to waste it, and were honored to perform for all of us in that beautiful space, on the National Mall.
(2:44) "What exactly was this?" He can't control what people think it was, he can only state his intentions. It wasn't a rally to ridicule people of faith, activism, the heartland, people of passionate argument, or to belittle the difficult times we live in. "But we live now in hard times, not end times! And we can have animus and not be enemies! But unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke." Addressing the broken 24-hour newsmedia, and that while they didn't cause our problems, its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold a magnifying glass up to our problems and illuminate otherwise unseen issues, or they can use it to light ants on fire - they do the latter. "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing." "There are terrorists, racists, Stalinists, and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned!" He went on about our tendency to thoughtlessly throw these labels about, doing a great disservice to the actual horrible people in the world - "just as our inability to distinguish between terrorists and Muslims makes us less safe, not more."
(2:47) "The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we get sicker! And perhaps eczema." "That being said, I feel good. Strangely, calmly good." Because the image of Americans reflected by our media and political processes is a false one - it's essentially a fun house mirror, distorting everything. Every day we hear about how we can't work together to get things done and how we're on the brink of collapse, but it's untrue - "we work together to get things done every damn day!" "The only place we don't is here or on cable TV! But Americans don't live here or on cable TV. Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most don't live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals, or conservatives. Americans live their lives as people just a little late for something they have to do - often something they don't want to do, but they do it. Impossible things every day that are only made possible by the little reasonable compromises we all make."
(2:51) Jon looked at images of cars in traffic on camera and described the kinds of people out there in them, all the little things that make us different and all the things that unite us. Every car is filled with "individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear," often in sharp conflict with one another, but they still have to funnel into little off-turns and navigate the roads together, each compromising constantly and taking their turns as we drive where we need to get to go. And occasionally we see selfish jerks who rush ahead and cut other people off, but those people are rare, scorned, and not hired as an analyst. "Because we know instinctively as a people, that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light, we always have to work together. And there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land - it's just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together."
(2:53) Jon said that our presence was what he wanted at the rally - that was all he'd wanted. "Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here and the kind of people you are today has restored mine." Uproarious applause and cheering.
(2:54) Tony Bennett is out to sing "America the Beautiful." Fantastic closing.
(2:56) Jon thanked everyone for coming today and thanked Stephen, who came out then too. They thanked everyone on their shows, and all the musicians who came out to share their time with us.
(2:57) And now all the musical artists are out for one final song, along with all the other guests and award winners, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, R2-D2, the seven-year-old girl, and all the correspondents. The musicians then joined together in their final song. Not sure what the song is. I'll try to get that next - "I'll Take You There," I believe. End credits rolled.
(3:00) Over. I'll finish polishing bits of extra info in this liveblog, then it's done and I need to finish a short story here before I sleep. Crazy.
Final thoughts: the right-wing laden media (Which they even called out in many mainstream outlets being afraid to cover the rally and risk being labeled "liberal," pathetic as that witch hunt has always been) will try to label this as a failure to fire up the left to vote on Tuesday and stop the teabaggers from wrecking the nation. And we'll undoubtedly see as much negative slant against Jon, Stephen, and everyone involved here as possible. It probably will fire up a lot of America's youth, especially, though - and I'd bet that most if not all of the people in the crowd and viewers on TV will vote, and the majority of them probably won't be voting Republican. It was all more mellow entertainment mixed with a call for reason and rationality than it was any leftist manifesto, and as great political cartoonist Tom Tomorrow observed on Twitter, a lot of it sounded like a college freshman stoner session. And he's not wrong - the themes were pretty typical to that sort of stereotypical thought. But in their simplicity and appeal, they're not wrong or any less beautiful.
I doubt we're going to be seeing any kind of a return to sanity in the end for all this - things are going to take a horrible turn if the right gets the massive gains they're expecting next week, and if we manage to stop them and keep the country focused in a better direction, the discourse is only going to get shriller and nastier - but for what it all is, and for the sentiment expressed, it was still a good way to spend three hours. Three hours in which we could all sit back, listen to some good music, laugh at some awkward comedy, and join together in just wanting to feel like the world hadn't lost its mind for a little while. And these days more than ever, as stressful and trying as the times are, we need to be able to feel that way. To separate ourselves from the consuming madness; to look about us; to look at each other, even; to clear our heads; and to say to ourselves, "I haven't lost to all this yet."
Now the remaining questions are, what happened to Stephen's "Ghost of Jon" song and the winners of the sanity sign and fear costume contests they were going to show?
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
TV Season 2010-2011: The Remote is My Only Friend
Autumn 2010. Vibrant colors explode through the leaves in profusion as the northern hemisphere begins its annual descent into the grave. But what's really important here is that there's new things to watch on that crazy static-laden moving picture box that humans can't get enough of.
Sure, some of us set foot in that strange place some call 'the great outdoors' - or, 'the wilderness' for short - every once in a while. Most of us don't stray from the asphalt. But even now, we have little pocket screens so we can watch our TVs everywhere we go. We're no longer alone anywhere, anytime.
TV is always there for us.
Always.
Anyway, it's time for my annual post where I ramble about what's in the new season and what's coming up in the midseason that I personally deem worth noting or watching. Valuable advice that you all undoubtedly take to heart. Because without TV, what heart have you? Lives are terrifying things.
Sure, some of us set foot in that strange place some call 'the great outdoors' - or, 'the wilderness' for short - every once in a while. Most of us don't stray from the asphalt. But even now, we have little pocket screens so we can watch our TVs everywhere we go. We're no longer alone anywhere, anytime.
TV is always there for us.
Always.
Anyway, it's time for my annual post where I ramble about what's in the new season and what's coming up in the midseason that I personally deem worth noting or watching. Valuable advice that you all undoubtedly take to heart. Because without TV, what heart have you? Lives are terrifying things.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)