So, the Daily Show. If that's not the best goddamned thing on television, I wish someone would tell me what is. Oh, man. I'm laughin' just thinkin' about it.
Jon Stewart is my hero. That guy could crack you up reading the phone book. His delivery, his self-deprecating manner, his wacky facial expressions — I could go on, but I won't. I'm starting to feel funny.
And don't even get me started on the correspondents. Omigod. They're all brilliant, but Steve Carell is my current favorite. These people are unbelievable. I can't comprehend how they can keep a straight face while asking the questions like "Have you ever considered smuggling dwarves?" during the Scotland Dwarf Shortage story. [Real Media clip]
One of the few joys in my day is reading the Daily Show newsletter. Some guy named Reverend Dave Blog writes a clever salutation, throws in some Onion-style headlines, and tacks on several adoring emails from fans. The fan mail would be funny enough on its own, but I always find myself re-enjoying the bits as I read people's rave reviews of them. A couple of times a week someone will write about going to a taping and recount the stuff Stewart said off camera, which is great. Man, do I sound like a dorky fan-boy.
My greatest fear is losing Jon to a major network. Sadly, I think it's inevitable given the accolades TDS had heaped upon them for their Indecision 2000 election coverage. It's only a matter of time before some network executive gets his/her head out of a focus group composed of fat bastards from the beef belt long enough to realize that this guy is ratings gold. Or maybe Stewart's too smart to play in Peoria. I hope that's the case. ßßß
Rolling blackouts
. If you tried to peep the blog yesterday and couldn't, that's why. I didn't experience any blacking out (at least not that I can remember), but I guess it killed the servers of my free Web host (Thanks, Ronn!). Apparently, the demise of California is proceeding apace. Good luck, and Godspeed.So who died and made the Swedes the saviors of rock 'n' roll?!?
Case in point: Refused. Friends of mine had been telling me about this crazy Swedish hardcore band that mixed electronica and avant-garde jazz with their brutal metalcore. Doesn't sound so hot, right?
Wrong.
These guys manage to breathe new life into a genre that hasn't evolved in more than a dozen years. They had the audacity to call an album "The Shape of Punk to Come," and they actually deliver on that promise. Check out a coupla Refused trax here.
Then there's the whole Hellacopters/Backyard Babies/Gluecifer axis. Any one of these three rawk-'n'-fuckin'-roll bands could dismember any American "rock" band. If Izzy and Axl had kept it real — or if the Stones didn't puss out and go disco — they might have some day aspired to sounding like the Hellacopters. Check out free Hellacopters toonz here.
The Backyard Babies pick up where Hanoi Rocks and the Dolls left off. They play hair metal like it wasn't super-uncool to play hair metal. They do it for the kids, not the critics. And it's awesome.
I still haven't been able to figure out what Gluecifer are all about, but they can bring it. They're even more raw than Hellacopters, and apparently they're Norweigan. But I think my argument still holds. It's cold, it's Socialist, it's pretty much the same thing, right?
My friend Chris says it's the Socialism that does it. Sign up for the dole, buy big Marshall stacks, shoot speed and rock out. Besides, it's too freaking cold to do anything else. How many times have I used the word "rock" so far? Six, including that one. ßßß
Under the heading of "Auspicious Beginnings of Ambitious Web Community Initiatives That, Sadly, Will Probably Fail" goes the beta launch of Plastic. It's the first venture of Automatic Media, the new company that combines the "assets" of Feed, Suck, and altculture.
While I was never a fan of Suck (I could never figure out what they were doing or how to got there.), and I think it's a little early to be waxing nostalgic about the '90s as altculture does (It was only two years ago, people.), Plastic seems like the real thing.
With a skeleton crew of four editors, Plastic editors get the ball rolling and depend on you, the viewing public, to produce the content à la Slashdot. In fact, they even use Slashdot's Slashcode technology to run it. They entice you to post and moderate by granting you "karma" points (Subtract 12 punk points for yucchy mystical hippy reference.) by having stories published and posting comments that are moderated up.
Plastic also aggregates great content from sites we all know and love, like gamers.com, Modern Humorist, Net Slaves, Inside and Spin. It can't lose, right?
We'll see. They claim that, given their shoestring budget, they can get profitable within a year on ad revenue alone. Seems reasonable enough. So what are you waiting for? Click on over and get in on the ground floor — before all the sweet usernames are taken.
P.S.: Major props to Plastic for using a quote from the best punk rock song of all time as their tag line. Iggy rules! ßßß
So. Here we are. Day 1. Here goes nothin'.
VITAL STATISTICS: Male, age 32. Occupation: Web drone. Marital status: Married. No kids. No pets. No life. Would I be doing this if I had one?
Hobbies: All manner of music (And I do mean all manner.), watching way too much TV, enjoying the latest digital versatile disc technology, and being a fussy vegan. I have been accused of being a pop-culture extremist. I take that as a compliment of the highest order.
If you're a DVD freak and you don't have NetFlix, you should have your head examined. Twenty bucks a month, three movies at a time, no due dates, no late fees, no trips to Blockbuster. It just doesn't get any better than that.
So, everybody's biting Pud's style these days. The latest viral marketing threat in the Fucked Company style is I-resign. The best feature of this British entry seems to be the Quit Clock — just plug in some info about your job, and it'll tell predict how long you have until you just can't take it anymore. But you'll have to convert your salary to £s sterling. You can do that here.
Philip Kaplan, the Pudman himself from FC, will be in S.F. (AKA fucked capital of the world) next Tuesday, the 23rd, @ the 21st Amendment. I'm going, so if you see me there, buy me an alternative beverage. ßßß
