Let's be specific.

(... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process...)

I loved Steel Panther's "Community Property".

Not any song on that record so much as that one specifically.

I was riveted by this /Film podcast with Jason Reitman.

(They're doing good experimental podcasts like their SlashfilmCast and their c-list character actor spins excellent yarns splinter cast, The Tobolowsky Files.)

There is though, something singular... specific, even.. about that Reitman experimental podcast; specifically, how I'm inclined to shake this dude's hand and smartly punch him in the stomach with my free hand.

This "Pinstripes and Poltergeists" Finale Episode Of Venture Bros. This episode, specifically, made season four of that show seem a worthwhile trek.

I had a specific hankering to watch this scene from Bulworth recently (oh, and secret/ghost writer Aaron Sorkin, your secret's safe with me ;). It's like that yearning for a particular slice of pizza, a singular sandwich, a specific salty snack. Nothing else will sate that desire. Nothing else will do. It's that specific.

In fact, it's all specifics.

These kinds of recommendations will always be about 'being particular'.

I don't tell my friends about Edward Sharpe's band but, I pass along Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros' "Home".

Noah And The Whale's "Blue Skies", Freelance Whales' "Generator 1st Floor", The Deep Dark Woods' "All the money I had Is Gone", Brother Ali's "The Preacher", and David Bazan's "Hard to Be"(.. really that whole record).... I speak in specifics about things I love. I love specific things.

This Aziz Ansari review of MAC AND ME is particularly awesome.

(Ansari's stand-up satire spin-off 'Randy' from 'Funny People' has two specifically excellent episodes, entitled Raaaaaaaandy!!!! and RAAAAAAAANDY! 2.)

We get so giddy at the notion that we can share and access everything but..... that also means we can share and access anything.

So, if that specific 'thing' that you crave more than any-'thing' is amongst that every-'thing'(.. and, it probably is, 'cause that does cover a lot of things)... then you're almost assured you can find that specific 'thing'.

All you've gotta know is what that 'thing' is, specifically, and be able to describe it, in detail.

For instance, I won't tell you to watch ABC's 'Better Off Ted' (...an inconsistent, soon to disappear sitcom); but, I implore you to watch the fourth episode of their first season, 'Racial Sensitivity'.(... can't find a link... legal or otherwise.)

I beseech you to listen to this Tracy Morgan Interview On NPR. All of Terry Gross' 'Fresh Air' interviews are interesting but, this is a singular piece of content. I specifically remember the day I heard this and how it made that day a little better.

In a nutshell, that's what anyone wants from recommendations... something particularly targeted. A smart bomb to be deployed and detonate awesomeness in their brains.

Don't recommend a band.... recommend that one song that makes you move.

Don't recommend a podcast... recommend that excellent episode where they got Norm MacDonald to come out of hiding.

You get the idea.

We're not recommending things we like.... there's allot of 'like' to go around, 'cause it spreads thin, like margarine.

We're talking about things we love..... things we love..... and, I can't honestly say I 'love' every song, even from a band I have a deep, long-standing affection for.

I have allot of love in my heart but, it goes on thick, like a clumpy, peanut butter on the slice of texas toast that is my life.

So.... when we talk about what we love, please, let's be specific.

A return to 'what's next'.

(... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, and 'official' site, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at Let's Make Politics!... Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

Away a short while.

Did you miss me, echoing cyber-abyss?

Like a middle-aged woman with a cavernous, blown-out vagina might miss her husband's golf-pencil sized penis; just content at the thought that someone is inside her at that moment... an earnest attempt to do something, even if it goes unnoticed.

I was told recently to try and tone down any vulgar or explicit imagery or language but, fuck those people. Fuck them right in their eye, y'know.

My argument was always that something is indeed buried underneath the profanity. Ideas, amongst other things, swallowed down while people are tasting the candy coating of my profanity pill; my secret is my use of unrefined 'shit-fuck-sugar'.

But, pushing at the boundaries of good taste and decency but, Louis C.K.'s Last Chance is available on YouTube. On mother-truckin' YouTube! That's a generation's tv network of note. That's like NBC devoting ten minutes of air time to Gilbert Gottfried telling his filthiest version of The Aristocrats.

People aren't often sending me viral videos of P.G. Wodehouse. It's more likely this What what in the butt cover. With the line, the boundaries, where they are; Wodehouse, Shaw, Noel Coward, Abbott and Costello are all tiny, blurry shapes at this distance.

I don't need to push... the line, the boundary, the envelope. I'm just need to try and stay up on my board as I surf in the wake.

It's not a cop-out, just a recognition that the onus lies in the ideas.

What value am I adding to someone's day?

Does this excite me? Could it potentially do the same for another?

You want to use this page as a base to click through and bounce around the net, that's as it should be. Personally, I find embedded videos and borrowed content offensive.

My place is to be a taste filter like anyone else. My obligation is to offer up content and culture I find interesting, fascinating, joy inducing... in whatever cock-tacularly vulgar, motherfuckin' tone and style I please.

I want to pare these posts down. I want to share insights and stories about the process of making this TFIA thing, only where I'm absolutely compelled to do so.

As I see it, it's my job(... and conveniently the nature of the show) to tell people about things I love and feel buoyed by.

Most entertainment news shows... most magazine shows... most 'daily shows'... are there to tell you about the day before. (Everything that you may have missed of any import, all seemed to start with Frost's That Was The Week That Was on BBC.... then evolved into "current" culture commentary with Tony Wilson's iconic ITV show, 'So It Goes'... check out Iggy Pop or Peter Cook on the program.)

I don't want to talk about what just happened... when I could talk about 'what's happening'. (Double meaning, as I meant it to be.)

The Future Is Awesome! is about 'what's next'.

I mean, I'm devoting my time to this shit anyway. Intense conversations about the raw emotion needed to create the first Bon Iver record, or Beck's post-break-up stand-out Sea Change, and whether you can apply forcible, intentional suffering to illicit artistic merit from an artist. (It's what the Jain Buddhists believe, I'm just sayin'. Read Palahniuk's Wicker Man-like take on artistic inspiration, Diary.... he's written better but, again there's ideas buried in there that make it worthwhile.)

I'd be doing this anyway... I'm a content consumer. I was reading Chuck Klosterman's newest collection of essays, Eating the Dinosaur... which I do recommend. In it, he speaks to 'net culture'; he goes on... "Reading about Animal Collective on-line has replaced being alive."

Chuck Klosterman seems the perfect embodiment of the misspent intellectual capital phenomenon; check out this very trenchant '/Film' Klosterman on Eating the Dinosaur and the State of Entertainment.

We're all doing this. Maybe with varying vocabularies but, it is what we'd be doing anyway. Why not put it to some use... or, we are squandering intellectual resources.

So, fuck it. I'm gonna decide what I think is happening.

What's of worth.

What might make people believe their future will indeed be awesome; if only for the 4 and one half minutes running time of the clip or song I've only helped to broaden the exposure of.

What the fuckin' fuckity fuck could be at issue with my doing that?

Oh, right... language... style... long-form arguments constructed on a scaffolding of cool content and liberal use of the word 'cunt'.

Or, it could just be that well-worn words like awesome and excellent aren't punching their weight anymore. They're 'fucked out'.

If my job is to point out the new Hooray For Earth hazy, happy, dream rock.... then how best to describe a song like Surrounded By Your Friends.

Does it even matter?

I'm providing a public service.... exposing things to people and, by 'things', I do mean my penis. (Don't pretend you're not gonna look.)

Escape Artists.

(... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at Let's Make Politics!... Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

I find a million little things every day that absolutely shake my world... if not break my heart.

Mostly, the outlet of this blog... or, of getting up and spilling yourself all over a stage... are often the one-way avenue this reality to written word relationship seems to work.

But, not always...

Last post, I went off on a little tangent on the types that used virtual worlds to avoid having to occupy and interact in this one, and then a funny thing happened... I met a girl.

Not a particularly unusual occurrence but, for this seemingly lovely girl, it was just that.

She was in her late twenties, as I said, quite presentable... easy on the eyes, even... but, as we bonded over comic and cartoon culture from our respective childhoods, she dropped a bomb on me.

She proceeded to tell me that this was day four of her time 'outside'.

The fourth day she'd spent outside the walls of a hospice. The fourth day she'd spent functioning in the outside world.

Her outlet for interaction to this point had been the on-line worlds... y'know, of warcraft and the like.

See... I should point out. When I was a kid, I was an 'escape artist'.

Running away from this world, to lose myself in a fantasy one.

I would draw, I would design, I would carefully craft a world of my own making... and, wile away the hours therein.

It wasn't so much a Dungeon's and Dragons alterna-verse... nor some similar Tolkien-esque middle earth where I had to learn the elfish alphabet.... but, the comic books, the superheroes, the sci-fi and spaceships I lost myself in... aren't exactly the high ground.... so, I'm not looking down on the ant-like behaviors of anti-social outcasts from atop my perch on Mt. Olympus.

See... I was kind of a spotty kid.

As a teenager, you're world is small, and you might not look much beyond the six inches in front of your face and, if you're the pizza-face kid, then that might be just enough to glance down at the white-topped peak of a particularly majestic peninsula of acne.

(As it happens, I wasn't the pizza-face kid..... though, if you are the pizza-face kid, do they call you pizza-face to your pizza-face?)

Hyperbole aside.... I do remember my mom constantly telling me, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought; "It's all in your head." She'd say; "The spots... the acne. It's not nearly as obvious to anyone else. It's all in your head."

"No, I think you mean on my head. The spots are on my head. Specifically, the front part of my head. Which is arguably the most important part of my head. The front part."

Most escapists today, still fall in this category...

Running away from this world into a more fantastic and deterministic one. One where they can easily replace a complexion of pustules for pixels that they can manufacture and manipulate.

We living through what is, inarguably the greatest time in which to be alive in human history... and, adults and kids are retreating in droves into computer generated fantasy worlds.

It's been my high-wire to walk with this show... with my day-to-day... to navigate that difficult and delicate balance in creating a comical show for a younger generation.

Like I pointed out in Are You Afraid Of The Snark? (jesus, it's like the snake chasing its tail with the self-reference! I'm like Ron Jeremy felating myself..), we're all so used to equating funny with scathing and snide. We're accustomed to thinking it's the only place to find funny.

All we're bombarded with are negative news and unnerving images. The waging of countless wars on a million fronts both real and manufactured.

But, a laugh is a release from all of that. That release, that catharsis, made potent(if not possible) by that contrast.

That said.. I mostly never forward a friend a video, a story or a song that isn't fun, upbeat or optimistic. I just assume they've heard the shrieking of the doomsday whistle.

I don't bother trying to contribute to the cacophony of catastrophe. I assume they can't escape it.... and, as such, I can't really blame anyone for trying to escape.

I believe... with every fiber of my being and all the good vibes that keep those fibers from fraying or flying apart.... that the future is, indeed, awesome!

That... regardless of its ultimate success... the true measure of this "TFIA!" endeavor is going to be the perspective I try to spread like refracted sunlight. (If nothing else, it should cancel out the energies I expend in conjuring purile humor and dick jokes, like a negative and positive charge meeting and dissipating.)

If you, or I, don't believe that, then there's a very good chance the world you're presently living in is one "Of Warcraft".... and, maybe that's not as easily categorizable a class of creepy folks as I've made them out.(... maybe.)

Once upon a time... in an adolescence far, far away... I'm quite sure that myself and a gaggle of like-minded geeks would have been Jedi neighbors living in the all-encompassing universe of The Old Republic.(... as convincing an argument for retreating into an all engrossing, expansive "Star Wars" universe as I've ever come across.) But, I've since had a lady tenderly and deliberately touch my penis... so, now that's out.

Now, I can't conceive, nor understand anyone wanting to live anywhere but, here and now.

I'm not trying to be dismissive or reductive but, I've gotta believe the majority of these people need to be made aware of just how fantastic the world is outside their window.

And.... the trick is to do it in a way that doesn't seem like you're selling a society of hugs or trying to buy the world a coke.

I don't want to undercut the awesomeness of the world we're living in.... and, the extraordinary optimism and hopefulness of the world of ten minutes from now.

Every virtual world offers some hyper-real twist... be it battle axes, digital D-cup damsels and pet dragons... jedis, sith lords and laser swords... or, just that one minor, Matrix-esque capacity to lift off the ground and take flight, in the otherwise quite 'grounded' virtual world of Second Life.

But every movie that necessitates your leaving this world for one of pirates and sea monsters... hobbits and tree monsters... or giant, walking, talking robots.... tells you that this world (and its future) is one that needs to be avoided; one that requires as frequent and numbing an escape as can be conjured.

My challenge with "TFIA!" is to create a culture that wants to exist in and collaborate toward experiencing and improving this world.

It's ambitious and it's exciting.... but, it is not escapist.

Every time that I retreated from my teen acne and paralyzing shyness.... I was retreating into an alternate path forward. A better future where I'd be a better writer a more well-rounded being and, maybe, attract a lady(... with all her fantastic and alluring lady parts) with my wit and wisdom.

In the future, I'll be better.. I thought.

I might be escaping into my head... but, I can't escape my actual head... nor, the adolescent acne spots that once adorned it.

And, the girl who I talked to... the one on her first week tour of the actual world... quickly took to this actual interaction in the world.

And, I couldn't help but notice that she didn't shrink from touch... or engaging those senses that were dormant for so long. In fact, the next time she touches.. perhaps even.. kisses a boy, she promised to think of me.

So, before she could react or turn away... before she could 'escape'... I kissed her quickly on the lips.

What..?

I was a shy and spotty youth once. I well know the mentality.... you've gotta just rip the band-aid off in one quick motion and kiss the scab... and, besides, she smiled and kissed me back.

Ask anyone who knows, in 'World Of Warcraft' that virtually never happens.

Sorry, I don't follow...

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Are You Afraid Of The Snark?

(... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, and 'official' site, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at Let's Make Politics!... Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

I've been in some very dark places over the past couple months.

I've been in comedy clubs.

Comedy clubs are dark, dark places.

You only ever walk into one well after the sun's gone down and the majority of the working world's gone to bed.

Down into a basement or a back room where no cheeky little beam of bounced light could seep in and spoil this cultivated atmosphere of counter culture, impotent rage and desperation screamed into the darkness.

I've been spending the better part of a month skulking around these clubs... getting bits up on their feet... bouncing ideas off a live audience... and mostly sitting idly with surly people.

Comedy writers.... comedians.... 'funny men'(and women); I assure you, though we may think of them as mirth makers and laughter craftsmen, this back room is not a back door to Wonka's colorfully vibrant and wondrously technicolor Candy Factory.

Spend a day on a comedy writer's retreat.. in a comedy show writer's room.. in a back corner booth at the local "Ha Ha Hut" sandwiched betwixt fidgeting comedians.... you are likely to meet some of the most miserable and morose individuals you ever did encounter.

It's a grind, to be sure, doing comedy for a living and the majority of these folks will remind you of this.

It's the angry chicken and the rage-filled unhatched egg. Are you a frustrated, angry comic because you haven't been 'discovered' and rescued from this purgatory... or, are you exactly where you are meant to be, honing and hawing until you run out of breath, because that's the life you chose... that's the life you gravitated to because that's who you always were, lighting rig and microphone notwithstanding?

Marc Maron has his theories about integrity and why he wasn't 'one of the popcorn kernels who popped'... but, his voice and his act are now so inextricably tied into this identity, he couldn't go shiny and happy if he tried.

Paul F. Tompkins talks about frustrations like not having the right 'tv teeth'. Still, a perfect set of chompers and my bet is his comedy is less incisive and biting.

The 'good ones' channel it into the work... better writing, more cutting comedy and an identity that says they are exactly where they're supposed to be, as they rail against the cruelty of the business... their shouts fogging the glass, as they press their snot bubbling noses to the window.

Comedians are not happy folk.

They're closer to snark merchants(... or maybe, tragedy tradesmen?). They manufacture sneers and jeers and use their wits, and every tool in their bag, to chip away at everything they couldn't knock down in one swing.

Most often, they become so good at this that they can't help but pollute their own heads.

So... I'm left to ask myself this question; is hope and optimism at odds with humor? Can good people with good intentions, be funny?

In case you hadn't noticed, most good people aren't funny.

Genuinely good people... caring, considerate, compassionate, empathetic people... are not funny.

Nick Hornby (of "High Fidelity" and "About A Boy" fame) wrote a book called How to Be Good and openly asked this same question therein.

Sure they can be funny in that self-deprecating, 'lamp-shade-on-their-head' sense of the world but, a truly good person isn't ever going to be a sharp, caustic wit... they can't and won't risk saying something that might be hurtful.

Can a good person be funny? Not really, no.

The voice inside their head curbs their wicked impulses. Their little angel wields a bullhorn to shout down the little devil whispering in their ear.

The comedians who've lived their lives on the road.... lived their lives in obscurity... have no qualms about releasing all their evils, their neurosis on an expectant crowd. That's where you get Pryor 'Live On The Sunset Strip' and its meaty mouthfuls of material. That's where a genius transitions to a transcendent comedy god.

You give me a room full of guys toiling away for ten or twenty years... a room full of Lewis Black's... I'll deliver you a "Daily Show".

I've been trying to reconcile this balancing act in my show, "The Future Is Awesome!"... and, in my own life.

I said I'd been in some dark places... and, I'm not sure that darkness isn't worming it's way into my heart(... if it wasn't always there).

How to balance the much needed notion of a hopeful, inspiring, future for a younger generation so wracked with anxiety and angst, against the irreverence and the humour that make this a fun and relevant show to those same young people.

The better angel on my shoulder might be our live in-studio host.... and, the devil his cartoon monkey counterpart.

Or, maybe the more realistic and nuanced view has each of those two hosts with a little man or monkey devil and angel of their own.

Light is the enemy of comedy, as it is in a comedy club.

I was never really afraid of the dark as a kid... I knew it was just all the same stuf in a well lit room made more mysterious for the fact that it was obscured in shadow. As far as this show goes..... I am afraid of the snark.

No more than I am frightened of the unfunny society of hugs and snuggles that the good people seem to occupy; that 'I'd like to buy the world a coke' attitude, I'm so distrustful of, so bored and unengaged by.

I mean for shit's sake, we (... and, by 'we', I mean Nobel laureate scientists having nothing to do with me) just discovered and isolated the Protein Behind Immortality.

Fuckin' immortality!

You listening, all you twee little Twilight, vampire fanatics?

(By the way, can you think of a group of human beings you'd less like to see walking the earth for all eternity, than Anne Rice fans and assorted vampire paraphernalia drones in their frilly-sleeved chemises and blank, bored stares..? Bring on the afterlife... it's gotta be better than spending the afternoon in the mega-mall food court with Azrael picking over a sbarro pizza slice and bemoaning the pointlessness of pepperoni.)

Mind you, it should be noted... this 'immortality gene' also happens to make to make great gobs of cancer as a side effect.

That's right, immortal little monkeys, we've figured out how to give you cancer... forever.

Score one for our side.

As with every inspiring and exciting idea and innovation I want to highlight... I don't think I can bathe in the glowing light and still find the funny.

The light side might be a beacon of hope... but, it always needs to be turned over 'cause the laughter is on the dark, unexposed underbelly.

Question is.... do you want to commit yourself to living there for the long haul?

Show me an immortal comedian.... I'll show you a guy who has all the time in the world to complain.

So, You Are A Star...

(... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, and 'official' site, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at Let's Make Politics!... Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

Star Making Performances.

They're more common then you think.

There's a million of 'em you haven't seen.(.. and, I'm not just talking about Mexico. It's like a cute summer camp for non-english speaking actors, down there. A hot, sticky, smelly summer camp. They've got little cameras, put on little skits... all in their little nonsense language. Trust me, it's adorable.)

Watching 'dailies' in a trailer of a previous day's filming.... on the sofa in a palatial hollywood hills home, fast-forwarding through rough cuts.... in an editing suite, combing through the raw elements of a television pilot.... I can't tell you how often a director, producer or editor will lean across to the person in their immediate vicinity and declare in a whisper; "They are going to be a star. This is a star making performance."

Don Simpson (half of the 80's and 90's Simpson & Bruckheimer blockbuster production team that launched Eddie Murphy in "Beverly Hills Cop" and Tom Cruise in "Top Gun" amongst others... and, the poster boy for hollywood's 'culture of excess'; read High Concept for all the salacious tales)... once claimed that, even for a notoriously indulgent Caligula-like figure, nothing superseded the thrill of sitting in private, looking at tapes and 'discovering a star'.

[... this from a guy who had a $60,000 a month drug habit at his zenith, and a well documented penchant for demeaning and sadistic sex parties with high class escorts. My personal favorite was a story involving two beautiful young call girls sequestered away in his bedroom... forced to eat several greasy BLT sandwiches, while Simpson looked on and rubbed himself.

On a personal note... if ever I had the money and means, I would totally try this; "Okay Kimber.... you're just as young and lovely as your blurred on-line portfolio suggested. At these rates, it says you're willing to do... well, pretty much anything. I'd like you to get into your bra and panties... climb up on the bed on all fours... and finish all three of these deep-dish pizza pies."

"Yeah..", sitting in my oversized chair, hand down my pants; "Oh, god yeah.... slowly.... slowly.... take your time.... twirl the cheese around your finger... yeah, you are filthy..... you are a filthy, dirty little girl....... No really, you've got tomato sauce all over your face. Use a napkin for christ sakes. You're filthy."]

There is an undeniable thrill to discovery.

Even those of us with less sophisticated palettes(.. those of us who haven't pored over tapes or, been blown by an aspiring starlet... at least, for 'star making' purposes) can identify a 'star making' turn, when we see it.

For instance... I have seen the next Conan O'Brien.

His name is Michael Swaim.(.. his stuff can be found at Cracked.com... and, his more personal, 'channel' Those Aren't Muskets!)

He hosts a recurring segment of viewer and forum member submitted/suggested video clips with commentary. Like the best of web content, what it lacks in polish and production value, it more than makes up for in being funny as fuck, see...;

The 7 Most Mind-Blowing Foreign TV Moments.... the 6 Worst 'Professional' Music Videos.... 8 Local News Segments Gone Horribly Wrong... 8 Least Necessary YouTube Tributes... To "Home Improvement"... and, the horrifying freak show episode, 8 Videos of People Who Look Like Special Effects Creations.

Y'know what, Don Simpson might have been right(... road of excess, palace of wisdom n' all that).... discovery might actually be better than wanking while watching whores eat bacon sandwiches.(.. I'm probably gonna have to look into that some more.)

Conan O'Brien(.. for those of you who don't recall) had never worked on camera, before hosting NBC's "Late NIght With Conan O'Brien".(... though he was probably a shoe-in, if they'd already settled on that title.)

Conan went through his awkward first steps on late night network television. Live studio and huge tv audiences all collectively howling and giggling and, in between, asking each other; "Who the fuck is this guy?"

NBC made him a star, then Conan O'Brien went out on air and made himself one.

Nowadays.... you get quiet, unnoticed bits of spun gold that bedroom and basement performers have spun themselves, Rapunzel-style, from straw.

Felicia Day made her own star vehicle with her on-line series about role-playing video game communities The Guild(... the whole series is pretty great)... then found her way into Joss Whedon's viral web musical Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog(... the whole series is better than great. It's pretty fuck-tacular.)

Josh Faure-Brac created a series of animated satirical shorts that became, SuperNews! (Note the exclamation point, telling you it's both super fun and yet pressing and important..! I should try to work that in, somehow.)

("SuperNews!" is designed for that future where 'broad'-casting is quickly dying... so, they partnered up with Al Gore's "Current TV" and now everywhere the shorts go, virally n' otherwise, they carry the "Current TV" logo in the bottom corner of frame.... "The Daily Show" and "South Park" do the same for Comedy Central.)

Of course, none of this would matter at all, if the "SuperNews!" creative team wasn't churning out cultural and social satire like Your Dad Asking Computer Questions, Trouble With Twittering, Celebrity Twitter Overkill.... and their chronicle of the Death of MTV.

Aussie comic Jim Jefferies has an HBO Comedy Special "I Swear To God" under his belt. He's been on the exceptionally popular and remarkably good Adam Carolla Podcast.(.. as of my writing this, the linked episode was his second time and that'd qualify as a 'star making performance' in it's own right.)

Still, the clip that made Jim Jefferies known... the bit of video that garnered him notice and netted him these bigger platforms, is this clip; Jim Jeffries Punched.(... it's exactly what it sounds like.)

A friend of mine works at Google in San Francisco, and discovered the Kasper Hauser comedy troupe as part of their 'Authors @ Google' series. The guys came in to do some combination of corporate seminar and public 'crazy' demonstration.(... then did so again, two years later... Kasper Hauser @ Google '09).

I told him that I'd long since been a subscriber to Kasper Hauser's comedy podcast... read their hilarious book, SkyMaul... and long been a fan through their exposure as part of The Sound of Young America (Kasper Hauser hour) family of comedy shows.

I went on to point out that his 'cutting edge' juggernaut of a company was laughably out of touch. We then argued on the obligation of a huge company to stay culturally relevant and then, came to the resolution that while I may be an embittered relative failure.... he, almost certainly, could never compensate for his micro-penis condition regardless of how high his stock options seemed to get and, that every woman he's ever been with, including his current wife, had only been pretending to have any interest him.

So, yeah... we both made discoveries in our own ways, on our own schedules. For instance, we discovered, we never genuinely liked each other and didn't need to speak to each other any longer.

Point is...... who cares how or under what circumstances, you're discovered. Our future in an infinite content universe allows for infinite opportunities for discovering 'star making performances'.... and, that's infinitely thrilling.

"The Future Is Awesome!" is going to offer a platform for this thrill of discovery through it's recurring segment Dance, Monkey, Dance.(.. see the linked post, and the broader concept post; Dance, Monkey...)

Ask uber-producer and uber-lecherous and sadistic hump, Don Simpson... discovery is more thrilling than watching taut, beautiful, young girls seductively dripping mayonnaise on your 1000 thread-count, Egyptian cotton sheets.(.. turned on? Thought so.)

But then(.. if you read his posthumous bio and articles on his legacy), Don Simpson's dead naked body was discovered sitting slumped on his toilet, a copy of Oliver Stone's biography smeared with his poop and resting between his rank, distended thighs.... so, that had to be a thrilling discovery for someone too.

To illustrate my point... on the 'Golden Age'

(... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, and 'official' site, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at Let's Make Politics!... Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

I was trying to illustrate a point with my last post; A Comprehensive Recipe For Becoming An Anti-Social Shut-In.

Something about our living through the best, most ambitious and most creative period in the history of television; 'the Golden Age'... plus, my list and links make for a nice little tv time capsule.

That's right, I said;

We Are Living Through Television's Golden Age.

... don't take my word for it. JJ Abrams(... one of tv's current golden boys; "Alias", "Lost", "Fringe") said exactly that on this super-entertaining episode of "This American Life"; What I Learned From Television.

Though it might warrant noting; if everybody's telling you, you're 'King Shit Of Fuck Mountain'... you'll probably spend some of your time talking up how awesome Fuck Mountain actually is. A way of giving yourself a sneakily self-aggrandizing, reach around.

Truth is.... myself, J.J. Abrams, and a whole host of others, are absolutely right.

(Right about the 'reach around' for starters. They are fantastic. Especially, when they're sneaky and surprising. 'The Stranger', anyone..?)

As television becomes less and less important... it's becoming more and more interesting.

They're forecasting the coming decade as 'the one where we stay home'.... from there, we stay in our own little hamster balls, like the Virtusphere... then, in our heads. As we progressively climb further up inside our own assholes. "Race you to the bowels!"

So, I made a list(.. a long list), highlighting what makes this the 'golden age'.

Shows... a list of some of the brilliant, innovative, ground-breaking and awesome shows of our era.

Everything that was missing from that list of what I most love and appreciate about my oldest and most reliable friend, television(... a profoundly sad realization but, probably true)... everything I left out, I did by design.

See, I wanted to sketch something out further... to illustrate a point.

The Best, Smartest and Most Amibitious Television Of Recent Years Has Been Animated.

Does it make you mad, when somebody says; "cartoons are for kids."... or, like me, does it just make you sad for them?

Sad, that grampity old 'Gramps' cannot... will not.. ever open himself up to the crazy, colorfully veiled genius of The Venture Bros.

Sad, that the brilliant Harvey Birdman would have completely passed them by.

So sad, that those same sad sacks rightfully raged and ragged on the new Star Wars prequel trilogy... when all the while, under their noses, a far superior [dare I say, almost satisfying] pre-prequel, animated series called Clone Wars, lay waiting to be discovered. (forget the movie version with the cloying, whiney, dark lord jedi-vagina... in this series, Anakin Skywalker is terse, tough and kind of a B.A. That's short for 'bad ass', like Mr. T from "The A- Team".)

Sad... that they'd sneer at HBO's fantastic anti-hero Spawn, or... Ben Edlund's under-appreciated The Tick, or... 90's cop and private eye homage Stroker and Hoop, or... perversely, delightfully insane Frisky Dingo, or... the horrifyingly believable Metalocalypse, or... the particularly delightful, when you're stoned Aqua Teen Hunger Force (seriously ;), or... the simple, sweet and snide Home Movies.

I'd be sad as shit.... if I'd deprived myself of Futurama, King of the Hill, Robot Chicken, Justice League Unlimited or Dr. Katz Professional Therapist.

These cartoons are definitely not for kids.... they have, in fact, ushered many of us into our own unique, if somewhat stunted, brand of manhood.

I'd be a sad, miserable person, if I hadn't come of age in those Conan O'Brien and George Meyer halcyon years of The Simpsons.

The primacy of writing in television(... the reason for it's 'golden age') can't be more perfectly demonstrated than in those groundbreaking shows.

The care and thought taken in crafting brilliant cartoon satire puts most other tv in its place. Animated television put most other television on its ass.

But..... it's only truly culturally transcendent because it evolved.

This family... to this one... to this......

And, canonical and fantastic though "The Simpsons" was...

The Best Television Show Of Our Generation is... "South Park".

I would likely be less the person I am today(.. not half as hyperbolic as you may think)... if I hadn't grown up with South Park.

I have grown with "South Park", and neither of us are the same as in our youth.

"South Park" has uniquely aged it's characters... made subtle voice changes, moved up through elementary school grades... expanded its universe... and, pushed at it's boundaries...

"South Park" has practically, tackled and hog-tied every sacred cow... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...... ...... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... you get the idea.

Like "The Simpsons", "South Park" has aged, evolved and improved in ways only animated television truly can... and we, of a certain generation, bore witness.

One of the first 'viral videos' was this animated christmas card made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, called The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Santa.

Now, in our endless on-line media landscape no other show is as available, if not ubiquitous, as "South Park"; every episode free, fast, easy to find and consume on the net.

And, though they're surely too modest to say... the awesome peaks and valleys (and plateaus) that plague all long running television have not been an issue for "South Park".

From humble cut, paste and profanity-laced beginnings.... "South Park" has gotten sharper, smarter, more dynamic, more ambitious, every passing year.

"The Simpsons" aren't making episodic television like The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers, Le Petit Tourette or World of Warcraft. They're just not anymore.

Particularly for my generation and those who've come after, everything is re-adjusted for post "South Park" television.

Comedy, as it was in a post "Python" era... is re-jigged for a post "South Park" one.

Saying goes... 'if someone's pushed the envelope, then you just have to pick up from where they've pushed it to'..... I think...?(.. never had a great handle on that 'pushing the envelope' expression... that might not be an actual saying.)

"South Park" geniuses Trey and Matt figured out they could push, prod and outright provoke.... they could do and say almost any damn thing behind a rough, unrealistic animation style and the naughtily naive and wonderfully unaware guise of four school children and their home town of South Park, Colorado, U.S.A.

They were absolutely right.

"South Park" gets away with murder ... at least once an episode.

"South Park" is the best, most consistent, most creative, most ambitious and nuanced series for television that I have seen.(.. and, I've been looking.)

I made one of our 'hosts' for "The Future Is Awesome!" into a cartoon avatar ( see; "Dance, Monkey, Dance".... the break down) because of the lessons I've learned from the "South Park" model.(.. behind a mask, I can say and do more.)

"South Park" demonstrates how you can to be 'of your time'(.. lack of polish, episodes written and created in a three-day turnaround lets commentary be relevant and timely).... and still be absolutely 'timeless'(... these guys have written and voiced every episode to assure quality never wanes).

[.. want to know why Matt Stone and Trey Parker are my tv heroes..? Listen to them wax poetical on South Park's evolution and South Park's fight for freedom of speech... and, do yourself the favor of watching all 5 and 3 parts, respectively, of the interviews.]

Mostly..... to not use animation for a new show speaking to a young demographic, and to not wring out all its unique strengths and freedoms is to deny that these guys have already set the table for the next incarnations of tv.

Many years from now, as I become the grampitiest 'Gramps' that ever did gramp (no idea what that means).... as I move into my own golden years and aggressively bore my niece or grand-niece with stories of my 'golden age of television'........ I will force feed that child South Park.

Damp it down her little throat with a chimney brush.(.. she'll thank me, eventually.)

In the interim, I will aspire to build my show on the shoulders of these giants... these foul mouthed, four year-old, construction paper cut-out kings of cartoon comedy.

If "South Park" is any indication of the future of comedy, the future can't help but be awesome.

Until then.... I can only aspire to a future that tries like hell to get there.

Still don't think we're living through the 'Golden Age Of Television'...?

Try not to look directly into the gleaming brilliance of these animated shows... I'm pretty sure they illustrate my point.