You got it all wrong, John

This is the exact video that made me cry. Wow, I can't believe I found this:


Fucking priceless. Also, I hadn't seen the Bernie's clip since childhood. Why was I sympathetic with that goddamn protobro as a child? Stockholm Syndrome indeed!

An Important Message to Schweetie Pie

Here are two things that made you cry as a child:

I was Mr. Rogers for Halloween once

With regards to Mr Frere-Jones:

More from the front

I'm going to go ahead and publish this--sorry, bjg, if it was capywritten.

I think these are the types of conversations that we should have publicly. More importantly, I think that an interaction with the major media outlets is KEY for having a paper that is smart, lively, timely, and fun. Putting our particular spin on things that are considered "news" (or at least talking points) will be the thing that will push this publication. By that I mean our "voice." It won't be the people's. There is no reason that this paper (I'm talking about the RT, in case you're fucking retarded) can't have a slightly more polished version of the content we generate here. Because we're smarter than that. Every single one of us motherfuckas better be generating portfolios this next semester if we expect to eat after May next year. There is quite a lot of anticipation about this school year and the paper from both faculty and studentry (I'm serious actually) so, for ourselves, and for the institution, it is of critical importance that we knock some socks off. We don't have much of an act to follow.

* * * *

Message from sender (BJG):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/opinion/08brooks.html?ex=1218859200&en=fbfae5aae1a74108&ei=5070&emc=eta1

The iPhone section and immediately following paragraph or two are the notable bits. It's getting to me that now we are all "recognizing" this form of operational reality, but still neglecting its primary aspect as responsive and secondary aspect as formative. By that i mean that, driving the aparatus there has to be some form of content. A producer cannot be an aggregator, and yea, somewhere it gets fuzzy...but kottke.com aggregates (and produces a product: opinion, filtration, etc) whereas those headphones from finlad (brooks) are really the primary content, whether in just being or some other malignant modern telos. Can't wait to see you in your underwear.

Response (RAS):

What we have here, boss, is what may be, finally, (to use a term that will make any member of Beloit College Class of 2009 surely gag) the "tipping point" in terms of hipster culture spilling over into Culture with a kapital K. These New York media outlets have historically had a collective ear reasonably low to the ground, but when David Brooks of all people is cognizant of things such as pitchforkmedia and the particular brand of hipster ennui which we are all too familiar with, this becomes a conversation you could have with your grandmother--truly! If anyone does, you know how long I have been lamenting (or maybe just spectating) this phenomenon as being (for better our worse) the cultural shift of our lifetime, the lamentation being that we were too young to really be players in its incipience and now it is too old news to claim any part of it. Another portent of the zeitgeist:

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

Your prejudice aside, you have to realize the the level of saturation this force ("hipsterdom") has reached when a fire-and-brimstone outfit like Adbusters has turned its 'hairs on it as the new doomsday (Global Warming? Pssht...). And when Brooks says Design has replaced Art, he is referencing precisely the same shift that this article is. And isn't it true? The new "Cool" (because let's face it: to whatever extent "hip" was code for "cool" underground, on the surface they use the term "cool." Does Brooks use the term "hip"? No, because that's at least one tiny facet of the culture that wouldn't translate entirely to the mainstream, or other generations for that matter.) is intrinsically superficial. Isn't this a little, ahem, wrong? And yet on the other hand, don't you feel it within you? That brutal, militant aestheticism that you've had in you since birth, that led you to become acquainted with this culture long before it breached our Daddies' world? Funny how Brooks namedrops Kierkegaard in a fake letter written by a fake aesthete. In a fake letter written by a fake aesthete, K (tongue firmly in cheek) exposes the ethical paucity and general irresponsibility of a life governed by aesthetics in Either/Or. And that was in 1843.

What is this sense of jealousy and possessiveness that I feel when my highschool sweethearts appear on Letterman and in the soundtracks to movies that go on to win Oscars? Is that not the jealousy of a spoiled brat generation? Is the stereotype true? The similarities are frightening.

Who's ready for a cigarette?

Charlie Rose & My Finest Bees

Charlie's guest tonight was the CEO of News Corporation. Guy that runs myspace, greenlighted Titanic, and is in charge of where the Simpsons go next.

I found particularly interesting some of his comments concerning the basic nature of media services and the media industry.

1. It is, basically, "expansive".

2. There is a zero value in a mediocre product.

Number one is by far the more important. It boils down to media being the kingdom of choice. However, media, being communication, is fundamentally about expanding that communication, whether that be in the "world of ideas," or social networking sites. It also references the ideas of the Long Tail. Our interviewee keenly explored-twice-his belief that you either make what appeals to everyone (the Big Hit) or something that appeals exactly/directly to someone. This is the realm of specialized content and form media (which is where they are going to move myspace asap, AND how they control advertising on it).

So you get part two. Making mediocre content generally invalidates your shot at niche markets, particularly in pioneering content fields, or it hurts you even worse when you go for the blockbuster. People are going to go see Step Brothers, and many wild find it funny. However, it will not continue the meteoric rise or save the steam (hello metaphor) of either Reilly or Ferrell. People lined the streets for thousands of miles in anticipation of Bale and Ledger. Hell, they even got the guy who did those other, stranger niche movies to make their blockbuster.

Anyhow, my point is that I've thought about the niche market, combined with very new media outlets (the newscorp guy was bully on the inevitability of creative young people developing what he was going to buy next) and doing it all well as something worth looking into. NewsCorpMan put a particular example on the table: Short-form multi-media content that can be distributed to mobile phones. Leland, I would put into this realm what we talked a bit about when I was in Chicago. Imagine, for instance, getting a contract to do these sort of shorts for NPR or PRI. 

So:

1. Choices are the golden ducat.

2. Choice cannot be controlled for, but can be maximized.

3. Maximization relies on quality.

4. Quality is pretty exciting?

I don't feel very ethical when I think this way, but it's kind of sensual sometimes.

New Favorite Ultimate Video (My Foghorn Leghorn Problem)

So, what.

Japan's Buzz Bullets (guess which) & Seattle's Sockeye- An Exhibition Match



Especially with those Games so soon.