Can the unwinding be rewound?

It's been unseasonably cloudy and rainy here in the middle west these past few weeks. And while it's been great for the crops in our (vastly smaller) version of a back forty, the weather does dampen the usual carefree summer exuberance a bit.

And, in part, because I'm not crazy from the heat this year, it gives me the inclination to reflect on the state of the nation in these waning days of June before the 4th is upon us.

In the big picture, there are things to celebrate: the Supreme Court finally knocking down DOMA, this past week is a big one. (For a great piece on the heart of the 'debate' over the rights of gays to marry, read Mr. Sulu/George Takei's Op-Ed this week in the Washington Post. He succinctly identifies the stance of people opposed to the notion of two men or two women marrying, rightly, as 'the ick' factor. And while that reaction might be fine for the demographic that watches Sesame Street--i.e. little kids who don't know any better--thank GOD the Court finally (albeit narrowly, sigh) came to its senses that a bullshit, childish, uneducated, narrowminded reaction shouldn't be the basis for laws that discriminate against millions of this country's citizens. Also: I give little kids more credit than that--they, by nature, are not homophobes. Unfortunately, that shit is taught and reinforced by a chilish not a childlike mentality.) [1]

Then there was Obama (possibly just for show and definitely late) making his big speech on climate change. Good for him, because I predict that despite abundant evidence to support the notion that the weather is seriously messed up—see recent examples like the Moore, OK EF5 tornado, raging wildfires in Colorado and well, the recent rainy conditions here in the Midwest—it's going to, grievously and unfortunately, take another Hurricane Sandy-level event to finally knock some sense into the climate change deniers.

Not until Megyn Kelly is all but drowning in Fox's Times Square studio will the Koch Brothers and their moneyed cronies of the same ideological bent—many of whom have anonymously funded the messaging campaign against climate change—stop with their jihad of nonsense and get on-board with reality all-fucking-ready.

(By the by if you're like me, you enjoy daydreaming about Megyn Kelly disappearing under the waves, never to be seen or heard from again. According to this study by Climate Central, that day could be just a blessed 7 years off. Perchance to dream. I just mourn the fact that most of New York would go down with her.)

Again, maybe it's been the moody skies or maybe it's because I'm pushing onward to 40 during this year's trip around the sun...but I've been thinking a lot about the tone of this country and how we came to be where we are: saddled with a completely dysfunctional Congress, years behind the rest of the world on social and environmental issues and still arguing about whether we can 'afford' to pay for elements in the social contract that, duh, led to the rise of the middle class, which, in turn, fueled the great wealth engine that's driven the whole damned thing since the end of WWII.

New York Times staffer George Packer calls all this and his new book, "The Unwinding." It is still summer, so if you're not down with being down over the (sorta sorry-ass) state of these United States, then just read this article in the Guardian by Packer that neatly sums up his book's thesis. He identifies 1978 as the year the American character changed from one that at least acted like it cared about the welfare of its citizens to the more unabashedly mean-spirited, gleefully greedy, recklessly short-sighted one that reigns today.

I was 5 in 1978 and far too caught up in Bert & Ernie and the rest of the Sesame Street gang to know about or understand what was going on in this country. (I'm sure I even thought B&E were straight then...)

But I do vividly remember August 1981—that's when Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, breaking their strike. And was the moment when my Dad, a union electrician who had, in fact, voted for Reagan in 1980 (which he remembered as 'the biggest mistake of my life') turned to the 7-year old me and said:

"This country is screwed."

He probably got, in a way that I couldn't possibly have at the time, that the tone, the character of this country was changing and not for the better. That with a sweep of Ronnie's hand, the pendulum swung away from workers and the middle class, firmly into the corner of business and its strictly bottom line-driven interests. And the swing in that direction has only become more profound and more debilitating for this country in the thirty plus years since.

Needless to say, the book is next on my list.

And it's a good reminder, as we head into another Fourth with cookouts and fireworks and some justifiable national pride—made sweeter this year with DOMA gone and Obama hopefully, finally taking up the issues his base voted him in for in the first place—that the reality of The Unwinding means there is still a profound amount of work to be done in this country to put us back on...well, not even 'the right' track, but any track that doesn't lead us further into despair, decay and dysfunction.

Can The Unwinding be rewound?

This is 'merica and I do have hope—but my guess is it'll take double the time (probably more) to build back up all that has been undone in those 30 years. And if we're talking at least 60 years to make things better, then there's a good chance I won't be around to see the change.

Which is maybe why, for me anyway, things like DOMA coming down are sweet and to be savored.

Because progress is slow...and summer is short. And we have to enjoy our victories in the moment, for as long as we can.

Happy July 4th, everyone.


[1] Personally, I think the Court should next take up the issue of whether or not girls have 'cooties.' If they did, you can bet all the usual suspects of the lunatic fringe Right would be screaming that God, Ronald Reagan and the Founding Fathers all agree both should be banished from this fine nation of ours. Think of how much fun it would be to watch Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin insist on Fox that 'girls have cooties and cooties are against God's law and what makes this country great!'

If that day ever comes, I'd happily vote those two morons off the island of girldom/womanhood in a heartbeat. If only because they drag the fucking bell curve down, big time.

Happy Father's Day

As I sit here on our deck in da 'burbs, beer in hand with the sun slowly fading in the west just below the treeline, I'm thinking about my father today. 

Dennis Akers

It's not just Father's Day that I reflect on my dad and his life: since his (completely untimely and universally unfair) death in 2005 at 65, there's scarcely a day that goes by where I don't think about him and all the stuff he tried to teach me.

My dad was a working class guy--dropped out of high school at 17, got his GED in the Marine Corps and was an IBEW union electrician for nearly 40 years.

Sure, he worked hard for what he earned. One of my memories of him as a little kid—on the rare occasions I'd be up early enough—was him packing his lunch bucket and methodically putting on his workboots at 5:30AM. In the summer heat, in the dead of winter, the calendar didn't matter, he worked.

But beyond the solid, working class man story (all too rare now and he knew he was one of the last generations to enjoy a very good pay for a good day's work) was the other, essential side to my dad:  he was an extremely engaged father and his speciality was what I like to think of as 'long-game parenting.'

He had a knack for saying stuff that sticks with me to this day.

To wit—on dealing with life's frustrations, recriminations and just general bullshit he'd say:  "The sun comes up in the east and sets in the west." Meaning, time passes, wounds heal. And if you hang in there long enough, you see that time marches on...with or without you.

On money: "It only costs a nickel more to go first class." Even though he came from a working class background, it was my dad who taught me to enjoy good food, good hotels and that money, essentially, is a tool. It passes through your hands for a little while and if you're smart, you'll see it as a mechanism to get where you want to go, while not letting the pursuit of it rule your entire existence.

But the thing that he said to me that sticks with me the most was, "You're a writer. You are." 

This came out of a conversation with him, during my waning college days (days that he paid for, all of it, out-of-pocket) where I lamented to him that I had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do professionally. 

At the time, I argued with him, "But I haven't written anything that's been published...and you can't be a writer if you aren't recognized as such by other people."

I remember him being so insistent, "No. You write, that's what you do." 

On the writing part and getting published:  I'm still working on it. 

But for me, now in hindsight, that conversation was more about my father saying that he knew he was financing my dreams and the only thing he asked for in exchange...was that I go do the thing I wanted to do. And to try to find some happiness in the pursuit.

And so. That's my charge—and believe you me, just being happy in the moment has been a big enough job these past few months.

But I have the benefit, now, of being able to conjure his voice, his words, his wisdom...his keen sense of the world and the daughter he raised.

It's a vast understatement to say that I was lucky to have him as a father.

So Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there...and remember that the time you spend with your kids is so very important. And if you do it right, your efforts will far outlast you. 

And your words will continue to serve your children throughout their lives.

And here I thought Bokeh was just for old people...

*bah-dah-bump*

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

ANYway, it's been a few weeks since I've posted. But I've been busy playing with various camera goodies I've acquired.

The big one is the Canon 5D Mark III. I mostly bought it for video, as there's so much amazing DSLR-shot documentary work out there now...

But of course/duh:  this thing takes freaking amazing stills, too.

I've never been a huge shutterbug, but I think I may be turning into one with this camera—even though I'm still learning (feeling blindly?) through the menus and the whole world of adjusting ISO vs. aperture vs. f-stops.

(I have to say, though, I'm going to check out Scott Kelby's books—he's a pro photog who has a series of very down-to-earth books that present real world scenarios with tips on improving your shooting...)

Along with the body, I went ahead and got a really nice lens, the 50mm f/1.2L, and I've been blown away (again, even with marginal skills) at the image quality.

My other favorite new toy is the GoPro Hero 3 Black. These little cameras (and they are tiny) are cool for landscape shots, driving shots (with a suction cup mount) and for timelapse. The Black edition also has a WiFi remote and with the free app on my iPad, I can control the camera remotely and get a preview of the shot—helpful, since monitors for the GoPros are an add-on.

I shot a timelapse as I planted our small vegetable plot yesterday. Everything went swimmingly until the damned suction cup gave out... But in a bit of nice serendipity, it falling gave me a second angle, at near ground level.

Next up:  doggie cam....brace yourselves.

I'm not a businessman/I'm a business...man!

The immortal words of Jay-Z have never been truer.

Particularly in the days when celebrities are finding new and different ways of flexing their creative muscles across genres—like Johnny Depp and Chelsea Handler getting into publishing, Whoopi Goldberg getting into documentaries, and the most erstwhile of the Kardashians, Robert, developing a premium sock line.

(I'm kidding on that last one...the first two have actual economic/creative potential, while R-Dash's sox sux, as Variety would have, no doubt, put it back in the day.)

Good on these guys for leveraging their brands...the typical shelf lives of careers for actors and comedians can be short—best to get while the getting is good.

And yet...

Note allllll the rage lately around the Zach Braff Kickstarter campaign.

Now, the point of this post isn't to argue for or against Braff's right to be on Kickstarter—personally, I don't love it and wish he wouldn't (as much because I don't see the need for a second installment of what was a solid, but unremarkable movie), but I can see the merits of the counter-argument.

I guess my bigger concern here is this: with media companies and traditional sources of funding already so tight...it seems like there's an inherent bias toward giving book deals and documentary greenlights and product lines to folks who already have made a name for themselves.

Basically, like Jay-Z says...it's all about extending your brand.

And that's great...when you actually have something to bring to that new arena you're pursuing.

But really:  is there a need for 'Garden State II:  This Time, the Moping and Overriding Angst Get Personal?' Does there need to be more than one book by Chelsea Handler about how much she loves to drink and screw?

Probably not.

But these items will continue to vie for your money and your time...why?

Well, I believe it's because most media gatekeeper types—and I'm casting a wide net:  cable network execs, publishers, advertisers, movie studio heads—all are in positions where, if they want to keep their jobs, they need to make money on surefire hits/shows and movies that draw maximum eyeballs.

And thus, your best bet for making money? Is by going with tried-and-true brands, things that have already proven their worth in the marketplace.

Thus, this is why you see 70 iterations of hillbilly family reality shows on cable (this is a running joke in the industry and um...pretty much everywhere else), this is why sequels exist...

It takes time, money and guts (and yet more money) to really look for and develop unknown talent and allow it to grow.

Gawker recently featured a long piece by Tom Socca touching on some of this same space. The article focused on Frank Rich's spawn and the author mused (angrily and not necessarily wrongly) about how he's got book deals out the wazoo, tons of press in the pages of the NY Times (where dad used to work), which is interesting since the kid is all of about 28.

The phenomena of the spawn of famous people having a much easier entry point into the pages of the Times or onto major TV shows can easily be viewed as straight up nepotism, as Tom Socca seems to indicate in his Gawker piece.

But for me, there's something much more insidious going on here—for me, it's more about an overall trend amongst the decision makers about what they're willing to take a chance on...

...and what they're not. My big takeaway:  nobody's really interested in taking chances these days.

And that's a shame. Books, movies, TV shows are littered with admirable attempts at trying something new, but that are, incontrovertibly...failures. 

Not to get all overly romantic/maudlin here, but:  the good stuff comes from the failures, dammit. And then there's the related point:  without failures, it's hard to find really, really good, NEW stuff.  From new voices.

And I think that's where a lot of the anger over the Zach Braffs of the world pleading that they need money from the internet to maintain their 'creative freedom' comes from.

Zach's had his shot and unless he's going to give me something absolutely unheard of that is going to blow my mind...then he best go back to the business of figuring out how to leverage his shit and be 'a business, man.'

Again, I can't hate on Zach too hard...cuz after, all, Ice-T said it best:  don't hate the playa, hate the game.

Documentaries: NOT coming to a theater near you...

So, if you ask most folks who make documentaries what their hope is for their lil' baby they've grown up, nurtured and fed, often for years on end and sometimes with their own money and always with a lot of blood/sweat/tears, they'll tell you: Sundance, baby...or the Oscars! and they'll invariably also talk about the wide theatrical release that goes with festivals and big time awards.

But here's the thing: getting your film into theaters, while not totally impossible is an uphill, expensive battle that may not really yield you much in the way of financial return or even guarantee lots of eyeballs seeing the thing. (I say this notwithstanding the recent (and thoroughly stomach-churning) success of longtime, rightwing hack Dinesh D'Souza's 2016: Obama's America)

Enter the web. If you're like me, (and Allah help you, if you are) you see most of your docs on Netflix, for which you pay a monthly premium or maybe you visit new sites like Snagfilms.com, Splitsider.com, or Chill.com—the pay-per-play model is in full effect on those last two. (Chill.com, in particular, puts more money back into the hands of the content creators, which in and of itself is a reason to rejoice over/support their efforts.)

Meanwhile, I've been waiting for a well-known doc maker to embrace the brave 'new' (but not really) world of online content.

And more importantly, I've been waiting for someone to announce, officially, that the old model of producing documentaries as a single thing and then begging/bowing/scraping to distributors in an expensive/fraught effort to get the thing into theaters...is mostly dead.

That and docmakers have to think more like content creators and well, marketers/entrepreneurs who work across various media and fully embrace social engagement/community outreach programs.

Ask and you shall receive: Ondi Timoner, the filmmaker behind DiG! and We Live in Public has a new venture (for which she's launched the obligatory Kickstarter campaign to raise funds/awareness)—A Total Disruption.

The project itself is indirectly related to documentary film, but is primarily a talk show about new technologies/inventors across a variety of disciplines. And well, we'll see about that: her Kickstarter pitch seems more than a little overheated with phrases like, 'these people are disrupting everything that's old and inefficient, solving some of our biggest problems,' and 'it's a web channel and a portal and an archive!'

(That last bit reminds me of similarly vigorous pitches from 1970s TV for pretty much anything ever sold by Ronco.)

You can read more about Timoner's recent talk/manifesto at the 2013 Hot Docs Festival in Toronto, on RealScreen's site here.

Of note, from that talk:

“We need to think differently about making films before we start shooting and we should be distributing as we go,” the two-time Sundance-winner told a packed house on Monday morning (April 29). “You can reach one billion people but we need to find our audiences where they live, which is on their devices.”

Amen to that, sister.

Deadwood and existential filth

So, I'm making my third (and hopefully final) attempt at watching all 3 seasons of Deadwood and something struck me during the second episode:  I can take the frequent offers of 'half-price pussy' from Swearengen, the off-handed pig-on-human crime, the flurry of 'goddamned cocksuckers' that comes out of everyone's mouth non-freaking-stop.

But I cannot. take. all. the filth!

Man, Deadwood wasn't just a lawless town, it was dirty, smelly, gross town. As in: the streets are filled with dirt, the faces of the characters are filthy. I guess it should say something that the first shot of the opening credits (which are lovely and I wonder if they were done by Digital Kitchen, the shop that also did the credits for Dexter and the truly, truly brilliant open for True Blood) focuses on a puddle of muck in what-passes-for-a-street.

(I think there's also something about peripheral characters being more dirty than central characters...that's just a working theory at this point. Bullock, for instance, in the first few eps, looks like he just stepped off the soundstage of a John Ford movie:

But look at Calamity Jane—she's a mess!)

I'm no neat freak (as my nearest and dearest will tell you), but watching just a few minutes is enough to send me running for my Clorox wipes.

And not to reach for low-hanging fruit, here, but:  okay, I get it. The ever-present filth is not only historically accurate, but works well for the psychological/sociological landscape of the series.

Still and all.

Thank goodness it's Sunday night and Mad Men's on. At least the dirtiness in that show is only implied. 

I never promised you a Parade

I also never promised that I wouldn't deface (improve?) this week's Parade cover:

I got nothing...

...other than to concur totally with Jezebel.

Rain, insane and Michael Caine

God/Allah/Higher Power of your choice seems bent on wiping the DG off the map today with lots and lots of rain. This is the view down our driveway with a church parking lot across the street:

The insane part came earlier this morning in trying to force our two Boston Terriers outside in this end-of-days rain to go potty. Simply put: they weren't having it. The scene was far too chaotic to document, but here's a pic of Smitty, still reeling from the experience. Note the incensed, 'Well, I never!' look on her face:

And finally, here's a (hilarious) Michael Caine-off twixt Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon from 'The Trip':

Call your friends at Faith & Freedom today!

1-855-600-6059

That number has come up on our landline (so old school!) every day, sometimes multiple times a day, for the last month. Now that I'm home and have time to pay attention to these things, the non-stop calling is starting to drive me (more) bonkers.

Last week, I finally plugged the number into Google, only to find it belongs to my old pal, Ralph Reed and his Faith & Freedom
outfit!

Oh, Ralph, you scamp! And here I thought you crawled back into the dank hole from whence you came after the culture wars of the 90s—after you decimated the Christian Coalition and cozied up to Jack Abramoff in a scheme to rip of Indian casinos.

But no, here you are, calling me every damned day, telling me that Obama is destroying this country with his health care act and that big government is the devil and blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's not me, Ralph, it's you.

And that's why I've emailed the Illinois and Georgia States Attorneys' offices to report your sorry ass, first for violating the National Do Not Call list (which nobody seems to care about anyway), but second—and more importantly—just for being a gigantic, dumber-than-hell douche bag.

Because if that isn't illegal by now, then it should be.

So, Ralph, here's the deal: if you keep calling me, I'll keep calling you.

Everyday, same time, same station...until you either implode under the weight of your own crazy or I rip the phone out of the wall.

Whichever comes first.

Thank you, Louie...

...for what I know will be an absolutely cathartic standup special on HBO tonight.

And for skillfully deconstructing the typical promotions that go with having a standup special on HBO.

I get it that the gold microphone thing is bullshit...but maybe try gold shoes.

It worked for Pryor.

Rachel Maddow came to Downers Grove today

Really! Which gives me hope for this godforsaken suburban hell that is DuPage County.

(Okay, okay: it's a decent place to settle and a nice place to raise kids (I assume)—but the politics out here are seriously messed up and moreover, I'm hardwired to hate all suburbia everywhere. Call it a longstanding habit.)

Anyway, thanks to my buddy Genene, I got to peek in on Rachel and the folks from Anderson's Bookshop prior to her talk at the Tivoli. At a small store next to the theater, they had formed an assembly line setup for Maddow to sign copies of her book on our ever-growing/out-of-control military industrial complex, Drift.

Two things:

1.  The folks at Anderson's were deadly serious about getting those books signed—I haven't seen such stoic, determined efficiency since my short-lived stint in my high school's color guard.
(Those bitches with the flags were so not fooling around.)

2.  Madds (that's what I call her in my head) was her usual cheery self, even pausing to look up from her signing and smile at us.

I wanted to throw myself at her feet and shout, "Please either move your show to Chicago so I can work for you or take me with you back to civilization!"

But I figured I wouldn't be the first to do that, so I restrained myself.

Looking forward to reading her book...

Do the western Chicago suburbs really suck this bad?

Because, seriously. From the DG Patch, yesterday:

I wonder if, with this 4th presumed suicide-by-train on the BNSF line in a little over one month, Metra is rethinking its 'this is not a pattern' stance.

This is what happens...

...when you order a cell phone cover that doesn't quite fit your cell phone. I'm not proud of my (literal) hack job, but I also wasn't going to pay another 13 bucks to get another one. (or argue with Cruzerlite that, despite their claims, online via Amazon, that this fits the HTC One, it's really designed for (per the packaging that showed up) the Samsung Galaxy S3.)

Full disclosure:  this phone is actually an HTC One X, so had I really been paying attention, I shouldn't have gone ordering a cover for the HTC One. And given that I've been an Apple consumer for years, I should be used to this constant flow of new versions of hardware and software, with fundamentally (and irritatingly) incremental/non-essential changes in the end product.

Basically: I'm about three steps from having a full-on old person rant about how there's just too much stuff in the world today, dammit.

And, also this.

Newsflash: chicks dig beer, too!

Thanks, Daily Herald...I woulda never known.

Lunch and free association theater

...instant udon from Costco. (I have like four paletts of the stuff downstairs in the basement, you know, just in case...)

And file this under, 'who knew?' but Nongshim, the company that makes these bowls, is working with Mr. Gangnam Style Guy in a current contest/social media promotion thingy.

On a semi-related note: I need to make an effort to seek out what appears to be the new-ish-ly emerging ramen scene in Chicago.

Also, David Chang needs to open a restaurant here, dammit.

Mad Men!

With the beginning of this week comes season 6 of Mad Men and the online universe has been entertaining itself in the last few days by endlessly speculating (like here, here and here) about what's going to happen with Don and the gang in the waning days of the series.

For a movie/TV dork like myself, Mad Men is a rewarding experience—as the Onion's AV Club points out, it's a work that holds up to...and really demands...multiple viewings to catch all the character evolution, the symbolism, the drawing out of themes in all their tangled glory.

You comp lit/film studies types out there (and God help you, if you are) will recognize this process as "unpacking[1]."

So, if you're like me (ibid last parenthetical reference) you groove on the notion that the best creative stuff inspires a larger conversation about...um, well...other stuff.

All of this is a long way of saying:  there's a new book of scholarly essays out on Mad Men, courtesy of three academics at the University of Illinois.

I picked up my copy of Mad Men, Mad World at a conversation with the three editors at a recent Chicago Humanities Festival event.

And while I am just now digging into it, I can tell you that the first essay I started, "The Writer as Producer; or, The Hip Figure After HBO," by Michael Szalay, peaked my interest.

Szalay builds on the argument that shows like Mad Men and The Sopranos mirror the workplace/labor relations involved with being a showrunner like David Chase or Matthew Weiner.

"Miller argues (Szalay citing another author here) that HBO 'represents the disorganized, decentralized, flexible post-Fordism of contemporary cultural capitalism. It relies on a variety of workers, many of whom do not have tenure and benefits, who are employed by small companies even when they sell their labor to the giant corporation of Time Warner.' 

HBO showrunners are the nexus of this reliance: they supervise their contingent labor force on behalf of Time Warner, even as they themselves work as temporary employees, albeit exceptionally well-compensated ones. 

It's worth asking whether they prove themselves worthy of this position, and of the financing that comes with it, by proposing series that advertise their willingness to participate in a predatory management structure."

Wow! First of all, I'm proud of the pop culture academics for taking the time to understand how work gets created from a nuts/bolts/money perspective--because it does, IMHO, have an impact (sometimes subtle, sometimes not) on the final product.

Second, on that last highlighted part:  this bears more consideration. The Sopranos is definitely about command and control in the workplace (and at home, in the bedroom, in your shrink's office) and Mad Men definitely covers some of that same territory.

But do I really believe that network execs greenlight based on someone like David Chase demonstrating the ways in which he could be HBO's bitch through The Sopranos?

I dunno--that's fairly diabolical, even for a network exec. I also think it gives them too much credit...or maybe I'm giving Chase too much credit.

At the same time, having worked in a much, much smaller, lower-stakes, less glamorous end of the TV biz, I can certainly agree with this:  "[Terrence Winter (Sopranos writer and creator of Boardwalk Empire) and Matthew Weiner]...represent the downward mobility of the workforce that the successful showrunner must manage even as they underwrite the aspirational hip of the market that the series aims to reach.
....
...writers for commercial television sell their labor to production companies that resell that labor (ed. note:  and at a significant markup) as creative work to networks, which sell airtime (again, at a significant markup) to corporations lured by the prospect of reaching those viewers who consume the creative work in question."

In other words:  nearly everybody is getting pimped. Shocking, that.

And if everybody at SCDP and in TV is engaged in what Pete Campbell refers to as, "business at a very high level"where does Peggy fit into all of this? She quit Don at the end of season 5, of course, so it'll be interesting to see how she's doing...and if she winds up handing Don his ass in pursuing an account, as I fully suspect she will. (Perhaps a Pyrrhic victory as Szalay points out that the whole exchange-of-creative-labor-for-pay is rigged and not in labor's favor...but one takes their victories where they can get 'em.)

Either way, 9pm tonight can't come soon enough!

My only regret is that we can't watch the whole SCDP crew in the present day dealing with things like cord-cutting, cord-nevers and what Nielsen is now referring to as "Zero TV homes."

Making the shit between the commercials is hard enough...but selling companies on the idea of commercials when nobody's watching is a higher order of black magic that even Don Draper would blanch at methinks.

[1] And if there's anything the internet was designed for, it's exactly this process, which essentially involves analyzing, cataloguing and discussing, often in mind-bendingly minute detail, the features and virtues of a creative work. Before the internet, that would have simply been referred to as, 'being a gigantic dork.' The difference now is that the hivemind has actually given this process/state of mind some street cred...

Bravo, you kill everything I love...

...and now I hate you.

Nope, I don't get Google+

And I have the sneaking suspicion that nobody is really using it...(and by 'nobody' I mean way fewer people than actively/daily use Facebook or Twitter, etc.)

Or maybe, per the Atlantic Wire, that's not the point: 

"Google has a different kind of thing that it wants to build. Facebook is the social network. Google+ is more like a "a social layer stretched atop Google," as The Next Web's Harison Weber put it. Maybe it doesn't matter that people don't visit the actual Google+ site, it isn't solely reliant on that kind of advertising, like Facebook. It can use those +1s and the social connections of the other 73 percent to better its search engine for example."

Um, okay.

But I still don't get it.

RIP, Roger Ebert

In tribute, here's the episode of At the Movies that simultaneously made me love Ebert and want to make documentaries:

Stepping, but most definitely not fetching

So, file this under 'totally mundane details of my terribly fascinating life':  I am trying to decide whether or not to buy pet steps for our two Boston Terriers, Smitty and Booker.

For those not familiar, this is Smitty (in blue) and Booker (in orange):

And these are the dog steps.

Call me crazy, but I just can't imagine our two hellions (or 'terriorists' as we've come to call them) happily and calmly descending down these steps (or ramp, this model is convertible) like the doggie in the picture. These are also ridiculously expensive, so there's that.

At the same time, I fear that over time, our little ones are ruining their little tendons and joints and stuff by repeated jumps into and out of our (their) bed.

Has anyone out there purchased a set of doggie steps they've been happy with/would recommend?

That was weird...

...for some reason many of the images I had posted (which were tiffs), magically turned themselves backward. I just reloaded them (this time as .jpgs) so hopefully that will take care of the issue.

Either there's something to the format of the images not agreeing with Blogger or my blog is haunted.

Or controlled by zombies. I hear they're all the rage these days...

Summertime = beer drankin' time

Which means, dear readers (all two of you) I can again get excited about beer. For some reason, I am a seasonal beer drinker--it's not that I don't drink beer in the winter, it's just that I tend to prefer wine during the colder months and beer during the warmer months. 

Anyway, I say this because:

1.  I got excited this morning about a beer-related email from Binny's, particularly the following entry. Do any of the beer geeks out there (and you know who you is) know anything about Ballast? This whole 'best IPA in the world' business is, if true, interesting...

Ballast Point 

Fortunately the rumblings & rumors turned out to be true, as the official release date for Ballast Point at Chicago-land Binny's locations is Wednesday, May 8. Currently Ballast Point beers are only available at our two downstate locations in Bloomington and Champaign. Get ready to experience one of the best IPA's in the world, Sculpin, at a Binny's near you. See the events section below for information on our Ballast Point release party at our South Loop tasting room.

and 

2. There's a new brewpub opening up soon just around the corner from the

Gozdecki ranch, in Westmont—Urban Legend.

The significant other has been watching their progress closely and even met the brewmaster and tasted some in-progress batches a few weeks back.

I am super-stoked for them to open and per their blog, they just got their 'Basic Brewers Permit' from the TTB or the Alcohol and Tabacco Tax and Trade Bureau. That whole process sounds exhausting and Stalin-esque, but at least it sounds like now they're good to go.

And if they're anything as awesome as Solemn Oath's Naperville outpost is ("Naperville" and "awesome" are two words that should rarely, if ever, go together)...I'll be a very happy quaffer these next few months!

YES!!!

...and yes, yes, yes, and hell-to-the-yes-yes.

(photo credit:  Getty)

...and another thing...

...I have been saying this for years!

From the Wall Street Journal's Smart Money blog, 05/09/12:

Oh, Supreme Court justices...really?

According to CNN's legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, the justices are 'deeply divided'/have their panties all in a twist over gay marriage.

This strikes me as one of two things:

1.  Either the Court is as dumb and outdated as they look (these are the same folks who voted in favor of Citizens United, after all)

or

2.  CNN is 'juking the stats' in service of creating more 'drah-ma' in their reportage at Jeff Zucker's behest

On that last point, just per their most recent blog entires...seems like they're giving more time to the anti-crazies than the logical folks.

Facebook ads are silly...

...and also probably misleading.

You're shitting me with this snow business, right?

Seriously.

Watch it—Please Subscribe: A Documentary about YouTubers

Lest you think my newly launched blog is just a place for me to spew endless fountains of negativity and bile, I offer this:  Please Subscribe, a new documentary about YouTubers from filmmaker Dan Dobi (@dandobi if you do the Twitter thing).

I watched it yesterday and it filled me with love.

The doc, which is available for purchase through Chill, profiles the lives of 8 twenty/early-thirty-somethings who have hundreds of thousands of followers (some have millions) for their weekly one-man/one-woman YouTube shows.

I found out about the film a few months ago while following my all-time favorite internet personality, Mitchell Davis. He's 22, from Ohio and has never had another job...you read that right. Posting videos on YouTube and making money from allllll those online viewers is the only job this kid has had. For the last five years.

What initially got me interested in Mitchell was the fact that here was a guy who actually bothered to have an aesthetic--other than firing up the computer, looking into a crappy camera mounted above a monitor and babbling like a moron in single, God-awful takes, that is. He was clearly using a professional grade camera (currently something in the Canon DSLR line), knew how to put up and use a light and just generally had a handle on good graphic design.

Oh yeah:  and the kid could edit.

If you're reading this thing, you know me and you know what have done for money in the past. (Let's not talk about that now.) That said, I have spent more time than I care to remember in edit bays or development pitch sessions with deeply unfunny people, trying like hell to think up ways to be funny...or at minimum:  finding ways to not be so egregiously (criminally?) unfunny. The whole exercise was a shame-filled, ego-dashing shamespiral and the only cure for it, I often found, was a Silkwood shower followed by some wood grain alcohol of dubious origin to help further wash away the pain.

It's hard to be funny while also attempting to have/create a personal style, is what I'm saying.

And yet, through the magic of the quick cut, Mitchell pulls it off. And it's not like his material is high concept...if anything, he's mastered the art of KISS—that's, "keep it simple, stupid"—and capitalizes on the low-fi fun of YouTube vlogs...or shows. Or show vlogs. Whatever. (Even the folks in the movie struggle to come up with the words to adequately describe just what they are and what they do...)

This kid routinely makes me laugh. Really.

Whether or not you agree with me is on you, dog.  Personally, I give it up to Mitchell and the other YouTubers—creating your own work week in and week out ain't easy, but these guys are doing it and generating some good stuff in the process.

Big hugs, guys!  LOL, OMG, etc. etc. etc.

*Ahem*

In sum, if you like keeping up with what the kids are doing on the YouTubes and you like documentaries, then check out Please Subscribe—a digital download will cost you around $10, but you can take pride in knowing that the money goes directly to the filmmaker. (Who, unlike the 'Veronica Mars' Rob Thomas guy, is actually an indie maker of content and not a big studio masquerading behind the pose of an 'indie' project. Whole 'nother post, ya'll.)

"Seems legit," as my niece would say. (And no, her real name is not "Biscuit Bottenhagen." But I give her points for originality.)

Oh, so now you're blogging, eh? How...original.

Jesus Christ. Like anybody cares about another freaking blog. The internet, once so full of promise [1], is now home to an ever-growing collection of yahoos spewing mind-numbing bullshit (like this, this and this) 24/7/365...all in the hopes of racking up the pageviews/clickthroughs which, in turn (if you're lucky), translate to $$$. And that's just the productive side of the web. Some sites seem to exist solely for someone's not-so-buried, yet-deeply-troubled/ing subconscious to scream pointlessly into the void.

Horrifying.

And yet. I figure, if you can't beat 'em...join 'em.

Welcome to my blog, you sorry, sorry bastards.

So, here's to mediocre personal journaling masquerading as witty cultural critique, here's to wasting your precious time, here's to ad infinitum relinking...here's to my not-so-buried, yet-deeply-troubled/ing subconscious screaming into the void.

Yeah.  And:  here's a picture of Jesus. Because the nice older lady who knocked on our door the other day gave it to me. I didn't have to heart to tell her that my soul is already spoken for...by Satan.

[1] As if. If you truly believe the internet was ever destined to be a virtual Valhalla filled with wisdom and good feelings on every page, then I invite you to check out this short history of the Internet.  For an old fuck like me, it's interesting to remember that Drudge started peddling his rightwing bile in 1998 and to see that the financial possibilities of the web started way back in 1995 when both eBay and Amazon got their start.