I haven’t had time today to write but here are the 2 best posts I’ve read thus far (both on the same site): http://thisgeneration.net/cultured.html.
I did post a video, tho: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSuhhy4Qf_g
Enjoy!
Add comment May 24th, 2010
Well, this is it. I’ve been meaning to weigh in on the TV phenomenon that is LOST for quite a while now… and what better time than right before the finale? And even though I’m writing this beforehand, I hope that the observations herein will stand the test of time, whether we’re in 2010 or 1974 or the year 0 whatever hell year it might be on the last episode of the show.
This particular rant – or rave, I guess, since I love the show – is for anyone who’s caught up on LOST but it’s also for anyone who will never watch it, because if you’re behind, this will definitely contain some spoilers. Btw, I may not have all my facts completely straight… I know the fans are truly fanatics… so don’t rake me over the coals if I say Season 3 and it was really Season 2. Whatever.
Man, am I anxious for the finale. I’ve described the experience of watching this show as much like watching your favorite sports team in the finals. You’re happy, sure, but you’re mostly nervous until the time runs out. And you hope, hope, hope that the result is what you wanted. There’s just so much investment in this program.
And we’ve had to trust the writers to take us on this journey. Indeed, there were times, especially in parts of Season 3, when I wondered if there WERE even writers for this show. I thought maybe they just created the program the way we all did in improv class when everyone gets in a line and you tell a story one word or phrase at a time.
“And… then… Jack… found… a… nuclear bomb… and… got… chased… by… a… smoke… monster… and… a… polar bear.”
Great, guys – there’s Season 5. Let’s go home.
I do have it on direct authority that the finale is supposed to be boss, tho. I have a friend who has seen it. Isn’t that something? It’s not like an urban legend where it’s a “friend of a friend” or “my neighbor’s girlfriend’s former roommate knew a guy who…” No, my friend makes those LOST trailers that you see advertising the next episode. And he said the ending is legit.
I remember one time I went to ABC and had lunch with him. We actually saw Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof sitting and having lunch. How cool to think that THEY knew what was coming… I actually thought of a sketch idea I never shot but they should’ve done it on Jimmy Kimmel or something… I just have to know what’s going to happen and can’t take the suspense any more and so I kidnap Cuse and Lindelof and take them to an old house and torture them so they tell me what’s going to happen. They hold out and hold out… until Kathy Bates comes in, wielding a sledgehammer. And then they give it up.
I could totally see Dwight from The Office doing that, but too bad that show is on NBC… they’d have to do a Who Framed Roger Rabbit?-like thing where Disney and Warner Brothers collaborate… but we digress.
This show has been unique for a number of reasons. What I find most compelling is that it’s the first one that’s been able to define an end. They came out in around Season 2 or so and said they’re doing 6 seasons. Show runners couldn’t have done that back in the day. It’d have been audacious to think you could predict ratings would stay high enough for you to do so. But now, even if ratings would’ve dipped to the point of cancellation – which, let’s face it, was a concern because the show must be watched in its entirety to be understood – they could’ve aired it on ABC Family or ABC.com or have gone straight to DVD.
But also because of the internet, the writers have to stay one step ahead of everyone. So many people share theories that somebody has to be right – or close. It’s not like the NCAA brackets, where no one guesses it exactly correctly, simply because there are just so many combinations. Permutations. Whatever. I’m not Faraday.
In the past, you could share your theories with a few friends but now the whole world can hypothesize on what’s going on… can the creators really be that much smarter than ALL of us? Well, if they’re creators, then maybe.
LOST is the first drama I’ve ever watched on TV, besides The West Wing. The thing with dramas vs. comedies, in any form (whether that be TV, film, web videos, etc.) is that the curve of them is supposed to go up. You watch dramas FOR the endings. Comedies tend to tail. There are really only a few comedic movies that contain some of their funniest scenes towards the end. Most of the time, the jig is up 3/4 of the way in. So, with dramas, there is just that much more pressure for it to be good. Again, I go back to the game analogy. If your team loses in a heartbreaker, you don’t go, “Well, it was amazing except for the last 3 seconds, so let’s just focus on that.”
I actually caught up with it in Season 3, meaning that my brother finally wore me down and got me into it. Previously (on LOST), I had seen it all on DVD. This is one show I truly feel is meant to be watched continuously on DVD. When I’m watching Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Hurley, I don’t want to be jolted back into the real world and think about buying car insurance. I love going out but this was the one show that could get me to stay in. So many of my friends were lost to TV seasons on DVD, none more than this one. Come out to the club? Nah, I gotta see what this hatch is all about.
Now, I don’t really have a theory on what’s going to happen, mainly because that’s not how I watch things. I stay in the moment and just kind of enjoy it as it unfolds. As such, I don’t tend to miss a lot, but I’m also not very predictive, either. Having said that, I know I’ve missed a lot with this show. Yes, I’ve watched every episode, of course, but I didn’t nerd out to the point that I was all up on Lostpedia.com or watching all the interviews with the creators or looking for hidden eggs in the program or anything like that. Watching the show itself has always felt enough like work. And when each episode is over, I clock out for the week.
So, I am by no means some kind of LOST genius, but I do give myself credit for noticing several things my friends didn’t seem to:
- The Number 108. The cat’s kind of out of the bag now, but I noticed 4 ways this number manifested itself rather early on. They spent 108 days on the island initially; the button Desmond hit to prevent the destruction of the island always reset to 108; Dogen carried a baseball around and that has 108 stitches; and finally, the mysterious number sequence 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 all add up to 108. What’s the significance? Well, you can Google it but the number is big in Eastern religions. “Dozer was very big in Sumer” or whatever Peter Venkman said in Ghostbusters. I know that the mala my Mom uses to chant has 108 beads on it. It means something in Hinduism. Then again, it’s also just 9 x 12. That would be funny if that’s all it is. Just like the 42 in Douglas Adams’ trilogy being the answer to the Universe. What’s the question, then? It’s 6 x 7. (And 42 is one of the 6 numbers. Weird.)
- The show seems to be run, in some way, by Jack’s Dad. Is he really the central character? After all, like Jesus, he’s a Christian Shephard. Altho I think Jesus spelled it with an E. Did Jesus write? He had scribes, right? Anyway…
- I noticed Jacob wears black off the island. Why is that? Is he evil off the island? Like many, I’ve wondered whether he’s evil.
So, who’s my favorite character? Jack? Kate? Jack and Kate Plus 108? It’s been Hurley from the beginning. Not surprising – he (and now Miles) have provided most of the comic relief. In any case, he’s the one to whom I feel most endeared. I root for him the most. I feel like I know Jack the most. I can sometimes tell what his next line of dialogue will be. But that’s what they say about TV: Movies may be event-driven but TV is character-driven. Or as they said in Seinfeld, “And people really have to care about the characters.” “Care? Forget about ‘care.’ Love. They have to love the characters.”
My friends Arthur and Travis have a theory that Jack will replace Jacob and Kate will become the smoke monster. (They told me this before this last episode, when the former prediction appeared to come true.) Though Sawyer is also a “bad guy,” I’ve long felt Kate is the most devoid of empathy. Sure, she took care of Aaron and all and went back for Claire, but still, she seems to be the most selfish of them all. Still love her, tho. And I was sad to see John Locke go… or become the Locke Ness Monster, as I call him. That monster just has so much… Locke-ness to him.
So, what’ll it be? In the 2nd-to-last episode before the finale (the one with Jacob and the Man in Black), the “Mother” said, “Every question will just lead to another question.” In some ways, I saw that as the creators’ way of saying, “Look, some things are set givens. We can’t tell you how the Universe was created. So let’s introduce a little bit of scope or context here.” It’s like that old tale in which the wise man tells the guy, “The earth rests on a big turtle. And the turtle sits on top of a big elephant. And you can stop asking because it’s elephants all the way down.” I don’t even know if that’s the way the yarn is told but it’s something like that. The point is that this show isn’t going to solve the mysteries of God.
There were a couple of interesting things in that episode… one being that the Mother didn’t seem to have the ability to lie, either, just like Jacob. I mean, he asks her why she loves his brother more and she doesn’t deny it. That’s insane. Every parent lies about that. That’s the equivalent of your wife asking you if she looks fat in this dress. Also, the fact that the Mother loved the Man in Black more was weird. He’s the second child and he was darker. That never happens. Maybe they’re just being PC. Or maybe I need to read up on the Bible… Jacob/Esau/Isaac/Rebecca… there’s a lot there. But in just about every fairy tale, the lighter boy is loved more. And especially the first-born. Hey, I’m a first-born – we are the most loved, right? = ) As I told my two younger brothers once, “Yeah? I made Mom and Dad into parents. You just showed up.” It’d be really funny if Walt is the new Man in Black just because he’s black. That’d be hilarious. So much for PC.
My brother pointed out that he doesn’t think either one – Jacob or the Man in Black – is completely good. They both seemed to be involved in a game that involves people’s lives… whose lives are RUINED, btw. How screwed have they been from the get-go? Their lives SUCK. They’re just chased and beaten and kept in cages and drowned, over and over. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
But then that’s my explanation for the Powers That Be. (Which are black, btw. If they were white, it’d be the Powers That Are.) It’s not a man with a cigar, like in The X-Files. It’s not one organization, whether it’s the Illuminate or the Free Masons or anyone else. It’s warring factions. It’s a few groups fighting each other and the rest of us are the pawns. And it’s elephants all the way down.
Well, LOST, I’ve stayed with you and I’m riding you out to the end. Like my roommate said, this show is one where people just stay together because they have so much invested. It’s like a relationship. “Well, she and I have been together for 6 years…”
So, maybe what we should all do is just focus on being entertained. That’s the point of TV, after all. I mean, so many works always end with the obvious… it’s the phrasing that makes them memorable. “You had the power go to back all along.” “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” I fear that’s how Heaven will be… you’ll get there and God will be like, “Well, it is what it is.” Thanks, God.
Well, there are a lot of loose ends so, Cuse/Lindelof, you have your work cut out for you. As Alice-in-Chains once asked, “Have I run too far to get home?” I hope not. I trust you can write a better ending than… I have for this piece. Ha.
Here’s an idea… instead of the graphic “LOST” at the end, make it…
F O U N D
3 comments May 19th, 2010
Perhaps because I worked in Marketing for a spell, I tend to scrutinize ads, billboards, and anything that is supposed to communicate messages to the masses.
Historically, I’ve watched a lot of CNN. And I normally have the volume turned up pretty loud just so I can hear David Gergen’s voice. The man speaks so softly you have to lean in to hear what he’s saying.
A little-known fact: Advertisers can actually pay networks to have their commercials’ volume turned up 15%. That’s why some ads are so freakin’ loud. Not sure if the law firm that puts out those mesothelioma announcements actually checked the box for that option but they always strike me as a cacophony.
The funny thing to me is that they admit that the disease is rare… a type of cancer you can contract by working in shipyards. Why then are they using TV, the most mass medium possible, to reach their target audience? I get that it’s a blanket approach but what’s the probability? Did you work in a shipyard 14 years ago? It’s just too specific. “Did you stub your big toe on a blue couch in the last 4 minutes? You may be entitled to cash. Call 1-800…”
Contrary to that, the clearest form of communication is road signage. It has to be. People’s lives are at stake. You’re driving 55 (or 80) mph and you need to know whether the middle lane is keeping you on the 405 or taking you to the 101. Quick, to the point. But in cities across the country, you see this one:
I particularly love this one because it itself looks like it’s obstructed by a tree. It’s too clandestine to do its own job. Wonderful work, guys.
But we have a Dangerous Intersection sign at the corner of Wilshire and Sepulveda in LA. It’s known as one of the most perilous crossroads in town. The first few times I saw it, as I was sitting up and gripping the wheel more tightly and slowing down a bit, I thought, “How nice. They told us.” But then it occurred to me. Our city planners are DICKS. They KNOW it’s a precarious situation but instead of actually fixing the problem, they’ll just stick a $100 sign in the cement and call it a day. “What’s that? 10-car pileup at rush hour? Well, we told ‘em. I’m goin’ back to bed.”
Maybe it’s because this is a town that, in some ways, has just given up. Check out the city’s ad campaign.
Really, Los Angeles? “That’s So LA”? You sound like a preteen Valley girl. Have we just thrown in the towel completely on being taken seriously as a legitimate metropolis? “That’s So LA”? I’m so sure. You may as well put up a picture with a caption that reads, “OMG! Justin Bieber Lives Here.”
By far my favorite has to be the latest AIDS campaign.
The attention-getter, or as we call it in the marketing world, the “accepted consumer belief,” is “Hate to Wait?”
Well, that’s a little broad for the solution to be a free HIV test. Does that really apply to any scenario? I hate to wait, but there are other solutions. U-Scan checkout aisles, automated postage machines at the post office, Roadrunner for high-speed internet, filing my taxes online for a quicker refund… eating a Snicker’s bar. “Not Going Anywhere for a While?”
My point is that I hate to wait, too, but that doesn’t mean I’m having unprotected sex. Unless I hate to wait so much I just can’t spend those 30 seconds to put on a condom.
And HIV is close to HOV. We have HOV lanes here. Maybe the Transportation Dept. and the Tourism Dept. need to work more closely together on their advertising. That would be a dangerous intersection.
Hey, this is LA. Hell, sometimes Jay-Z lives here.
1 comment May 6th, 2010
So many comedic bits about Facebook have been written and performed that it’s hard to come up with anything fresh. Having said that, I’m going to provide my take on this social phenomenon. I’m piecing this together based on various thoughts I’ve had over the last few years. Here goes…
We live during the most amazing time in history. I think any philosopher, thinker, leader, discover, or inventor would love to live right now. Well, maybe not the last two. They had a distinct advantage, coming before everyone else. The wheel. Like I couldn’t have come up with that.
Or Ockham’s Razor. That’s the principle that, out of multiple competing hypotheses, the simplest is usually correct. It was named after William of Ockham. Yeah, ol’ Bill. What a scheme this guy had going. It’s not even a scientific principle. It’s just some dude’s opinion. Again, I could’ve come up with that. Named it The Satyal Rule or something arbitrary. Rajiv of Fairfield. Doesn’t seem to have the same ring. Speaking of which, there really is a Satyal Rule. I came up with it. Ready? Whenever there’s a dropped call, whoever calls must call back. Good one, huh?
How about the whole “world is round” thing? I’d have gotten that one, too. What happened the day (well after Copernicus) when just about everyone agreed the world is the shape it is? (Of course, you still have some people who don’t believe it’s a ball – there really is a Flat Earth Society.) But I do wonder what occurred. Did wars escalate?
After all, every war has been fought over one thing. It’s not religion. It’s “resources.” To me, “resources” in general consists of 3 things: time, money, and energy. You can’t really own time, even if we as comics say, “That’s my time, folks.” But you can own money. And energy, most often in the form of oil, so one could even say it’s about land.
So, once it was decided that Earth is round, did everyone realize that resources truly are scarce? My guess is this would become the basis for the modern economy… supply and demand, after all, are curves associated with scarcity and choice, respectively.
I’d have been in a mad dash to capture all the land I can. That’s all I’m saying.
That brings me to the Internet. You see, it’s the only time we’ve discovered, to quote Disney, A Whole New World. There is virtual real estate. Buy up as many domain names as you can and that’s real money. Control the flow of information and you have power.
To me, the Internet is easily the most significant invention in human history. I remember reading a survey that asked people if they thought it was the plane, car, TV, or computer. No question it’s the Internet, which is even a subset of the last entry. Sure, the plane and car shrunk the world. But not as much as the television, which allowed people to “travel” even farther than any means of transportation. (And no form of transportation (besides walking) is possible without the wheel. So long, wheel – you’ve lost a lot of significance, even if my people did invent it. (Indians, not Ohioans, tho we do own the plane.)) But the Internet is two-communication – now, everyone can connect w/ everyone else… we all have a platform.
Interestingly, only three companies survived the original Internet boom, circa 1994. Know ‘em? Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo! Out of the thousands that launched. Amazing, right? Well, in Web 2.0, according to the Alexa Ratings, the top three rated sites are Google, Facebook, and YouTube.
Previously, I covered how trivial our Google searches are, when it appeared the query for “Why” yielded some rather random results.
As far as YouTube… you’d have thought this new mixing of cultures would’ve enabled a renaissance of sharing and learning. Yeah. You ever read any comments on YouTube videos? They all rapidly decline into “Screw the blacks!” or “Screw the Jews!” or “Screw the Muslims!” or “Screw the Hindus!” or “Screw the fags!” or really anybody. So much for that opportunity.
The Internet consists of 80% porn. That’s unbelievable yet totally believable to me. I mean, I remember reading a stat that Americans spend more money on porn than they do on country and rock music combined. But 80%? That means we’re wasting 20% of the Internet with actual knowledge. Ha.
That brings me to Facebook.
I think we’ve finally gotten to the point where our generation keeps more of its memories online than anywhere else. Facebook has become a shared public diary. It’s just an organized repository of ourselves. We have no heirlooms any more. Our parents did. They’d have actual physical things that had sentimental meaning. “My Gramma’s Gramma brought this chest-of-drawers over from the Old Country and then traveled by mule for 3,000 miles to preserve it and now I pass it along to you.” None of that any more. I could replace all of my furniture from Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel. So could all my friends. We’ve gotten to the point where if my house were burning down, the only thing I’d want to know is, “My Facebook profile! Is THAT alright?” Maybe the upside is we’re no longer as materialistic. I don’t know.
Take pictures. I don’t mean “get out your camera and snap them.” I mean, “Consider photographs.” Our grandparents had 3 photos that summed up their entire lives – one of them as a child, one on their wedding day, and one from old age. Three changes – birth, marriage, death. You know whom I really feel sorry for? OUR kids. Can you imagine slideshows in OUR old age? “Grampa, what’s this event? You have 542 pictures of it.” “Tuesday Happy Hour.”
Speaking of family, my Mom is on Facebook now. That’s right – my Mom. She added me the other day. And what am I supposed to do – Ignore? I can’t do that – she gave me BIRTH. So, I accepted her. Because those are the two options. There is no “Deny.” Which always struck me as strange. This is the offline equivalent of my asking you out on a date. And it being perfectly acceptable for you to just stare right back at me.
The first thing my Mom said to me after viewing my profile was, “Rajiv, all you do is go out and drink.” I said, “No… that’s just when I take pictures.” I mean, I don’t snap photos of myself working like, “Here’s me sharpening a pencil.” No one would care.
I do tend to get a lot of requests – something like 3 a day. I think I now have more outstanding friend requests than a lot of people do friends. That sounds like bragging – and it is. But that’s one of the ways we judge each other, isn’t it? I know I always look to see how many friends someone has. If it’s fewer than I, I go, “Ha – I’m more popular.” If it’s more, I mutter, “Yeah, right – like he actually KNOWS all of those people. So shallow.”
But that’s the new currency – how many friends you have. What always cracks me up is when someone has a bunch of friends but then has a profile pic where it’s obvious he took the picture himself. I mean, you can even see the extended arm approaching the camera lens. You mean, you have 4,000 friends but no one to take your picture?
Btw, why aren’t we all facing to the side in our profile pictures? Just a thought.
I’m so glad the MySpace era is over. I hated being on there. As my friend Derek said, it was just a bunch of “sporn.” That was his word for spam + porn. I’d get all these requests from women who clearly were trying out a career in… well, you know. And oftentimes, their profiles were set to Private. This is like a stripper coming over to your house wearing an overcoat. The height of modesty, all of a sudden.
Some of my friends are still on MySpace, which I find baffling. I remember somebody saying to me recently, “Well, I have more MySpace friends than you.” Really? Do you also have more rubles and space bucks (from Spaceballs) than I do? Because that’s just about as relevant.
Besides, MySpace had “bots” that would go find people and add them for you. I have to admit that I used one for a while, but it was always a rather fake way of making friends, like joining a fraternity or getting your boobs done.
Everyone had a MySpace page. God had one; Jesus had one. I’d love to meet whoever had the audacity to create one for God. Jesus. Everything had a page – even restaurants and bars. One time, I got a message from a fire hydrant on my street. It was a parking ticket. J/K.
To me, MySpace was Walmart and Facebook is Target. Better lighting, cleaner layout, wider aisles… not to mention the clientele.
And everyone’s on it now. You have to be. If your friends are on something, you pretty much have to be on it, whether that’s Facebook or G-Chat or Twitter or BBM or weed.
Another positive of all this is we’ve become more of a writing culture. Everything is documented. We’d all rather write. I probably send 100 texts a day; 10 phone calls. I mean, now when people call without texting, I’m like, “That’s so rude.” It’s the new equivalent of stopping by someone’s house without calling.
But we all write. Sure, some of us are on Skype or, scarier than anything, Chat Roulette. But I remember when VOIP was the next big thing. And it’s here. You can talk to anyone in the world for free! But today’s generation is like, “But we have to TALK?” That’s so ’90s.
Facebook has slowly become too cluttered, tho. It’s kind of like summer camp when it was always “better last year.” These applications have gotten out of hand. I’m scared to answer some of these surveys. They’re really long and every now and then they contain something serious like, “Would you donate a kidney to me?” I don’t want that to be used against me 20 years from now. “Now, Mr. Satyal, in a Facebook survey from 2009, right after you accepted his Vampire request, you tell Mr. Diamond that you would donate a kidney.” “Where?”!” “Right here, right after you answered you prefer Snookie over JWOWW and Justin Bieber over Justin Timberlake.” Blimey!
I also don’t like the Suggestions, like “Get back in-touch with…” Hey, Facebook, you have no idea what Fran and I have been going thru in the offline world. I don’t know Fran that well. It’d be really awkward if I poked her. Leave it.
Some improvements they SHOULD make…
There’s a site called Farecast. You input the itinerary you want to fly and it tells you when the prices drop. They need Matecast. It’d tell you when your hot girlfriends get out of relationships.
Or Sexster – something that lays out everyone someone has hooked up with.
Or how about “Who dis?” I know that when I get requests from a girl, I always want to know who the hotter girl next to her is in the pic.
Facebook has turned us all into voyeurs and exhibitionists (who prolly get along as well as sadists and masochists do). I know that whenever I haven’t heard from a girl, I check her profile. It used to be that you wondered if she was dead. Now, you can be like, “Oh, OK, so she wrote on HIS wall. She’s alive. She just hates my guts.” My favorite is when someone comes to visit me in LA and says she has like one night open. Then I open up the “LA 2010 Visit” album and see 542 pictures. “Oh, so that’s all the fun you had without me. At Tuesday Happy Hour.”
Perhaps the biggest risk is that Facebook is just another thing I have to keep up with. I know I’m still responding to wall posts from August. I think now people just assume I’m a dick because I don’t write back. But I’m trying. I really am. It’s just that there are too many ways to get in-touch. People now ask me, “Did you get my message?” I’m not sure if they mean a Facebook wall post or a blog comment or a tweet or a text or a vmail or an email. We need to somehow simplify it. This would be like someone changing up the refrigerator as the main form of communication inside the house. That’s the spot – you have a Post-It – that’s where it goes… even still. You can’t be like, “Get my message?” “On the fridge?” “No, I left it underneath the third stepping stone in the tomato garden.”
Hey, in that scenario, at least my house hasn’t burnt down. Whew.
2 comments April 22nd, 2010
I just learned the very sad news that my old high school principal, Dr. Erick Cook, passed away.
I’ve known both of his children for a long time now – his son, Chris, graduated in my class, and we’d reconnected over Facebook recently.
I’ll always remember Dr. Cook for his great sense of humor, big laugh, and ever-present smile.
My favorite memory of Dr. Cook…
The class before mine pulled a senior prank for the ages… 5 people, led by the Class President (way cooler and ballsier than I was), kidnapped Big Boy from Frisch’s Restaurant and cemented him in the courtyard of our high school. They were never busted – and it taught me the lesson of simply never admitting anything (a lesson I’ve been taught but have never learned). It made the local news and the Frisch’s people thought it was so amusing they didn’t press charges.
It was pretty much the funniest thing I’ve seen, before or since. You can imagine the setting… it’s 7 am and school is about to start (and I’ve never understood the need for us to commence that early… they always told us they were preparing us for the real world but I’ve never worked a job at which I had to be at the crack of dawn). I’m groggy and it’s just another LONG day in the life. I walk down an outside hallway we had and turn my head to see this smiling at me:
(This is the closest pic I could find.)
Dr. Cook was walking towards me and I pointed it out to him… he hadn’t seen it yet. He just rocked back on his heels and laughed and laughed and laughed.
When I heard him on the announcements later, walking the company line and admonishing the students who had done it, I knew deep down that his first reaction was what he truly felt – the joy of kids pulling a harmless prank. It was this empathy and boyish enthusiasm that made him such a favorite amongst students everywhere.
RIP, Dr. Cook. You will be missed. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of your family and friends – and there are thousands and thousands of us.
I am truly sorry for never writing you the letter I meant to for so many years. Chris had told me you could use a laugh, and like so many things, this sat on my To Do list forever and I never did it.
So, I leave my readers with this… to all of you who have been waiting to write or call someone to express how grateful you are that s/he’s in your life, please just drop whatever you’re doing and pen that note or pick up the phone right now. You may not get another chance.
Darnit, I’m about ready to cry now. But I won’t… I’m a Big Boy. = )
6 comments April 20th, 2010
I woke up a few hours ago from a “nap.” I fell asleep watching YouTube videos (Chris Rock on Inside The Actors Studio) at 6 pm last night and awoke at 8 am this morning… 14 hours.
I could’ve stayed in bed longer but I didn’t think I had it in me to break my world record of 18 hours. I understand it’s really “my personal record.” I just loved it as kids when we used to say that… “I’m going to break MY WORLD record!” What did that even mean?
The time I did 18 hours was right after a set of finals at the University of Cincinnati. I actually thought I was going to take a rather brief nap at my parents’ house at 2:30 pm on a Friday afternoon. I had plans to go out that night. So much for those. Rolled over once… never went to the bathroom… and looked at the clock and saw it read “8:30.” Or so. “Oh, wow – 6 hours. Good. Rested. Let’s go out.” I wondered why it was still light out. Realized it was 8:30 am on Saturday morning. 6 missed calls – “Where are you?” “Where ARE you?” “WHERE ARE YOU?” Thanks, Mom & Dad, for checking to see if I was alive, btw.
What’s your “world” record? And it doesn’t count if you’re medicated. 18 hours healthy, my friend. Apparently, my friend slept an entire WEEKEND… she said something like 52 hours, but she was depressed after a breakup. My brother, Vikas, said he has stayed up for 60 hours.
As I’ve told you before, I’ve never stayed up for 24 hours straight. Life just isn’t that important. I’ll always find some time to sleep. Same thing w/ eating. I don’t understand how people in the office used to say around 4 pm, “I haven’t eaten anything all day.” Really? All day? You couldn’t find 10 minutes to jet to the cafeteria and back? Or at least pay someone to bring you something? Maybe I just didn’t work that hard. Ha. But that’s not it. I consistently put in 10 hours a day and always found time to consume.
Anyway, I usually get these marathon slumbers in every few years, generally at the end of a long run of something, like finals in school or a big show or trip or something. A date looms on your calendar for weeks and it’s like it’s the end of time. Nothing exists after 4/17, in this case. You wake up on 4/18 and it’s like you have nothing to do. Life has reset itself.
I’ve had these mini-resets all year… the last one was 4/9, when I ran my diversity presentation up in the Bay. I had been working nonstop on that for a fortnight, writing a 30-page white paper on it, then creating an 83-slide presentation (later cut to 50), and even running it at the Hollywood Improv. So when 4/9 was done, it was time to focus on the next project.
4/17 wasn’t really a project as much as it was my NACA showcase. NACA is the largest marketplace for schools to come and find acts for their schools… comedians, musicians, speakers, et al. You get 15 minutes in front of 100s of schools and then they come to your booth and book you, depending upon how you do. I was fortunate to have a very good set so I was happy w/ the turnout. I didn’t have to really do much to prepare… my act was written. I just had to do it.
And this schedule wasn’t anything atypical. I’ve had much worse, most notably 7 shows in 7 cities in 7 days… and the locations were nowhere near each other… it was like LA to North Carolina to San Francisco to Chicago to DC to San Francisco to NY back to LA or something insane.
Leading up to 4/17 was nuts, tho. I had been running crazy on the ground in LA with meetings and auditions and acts, all before boarding a redeye Wed night to Chicago. I had to work on this presentation I was giving Thu am so I did that for 1.5 hours.
Slept for 2 hours.
Landed at O’Hare. Cab to Marriott. Used my liaison John Gleason’s room (Thanks, John!) to freshen up. Saw Jim Stengel, former Global Marketing Officer at P&G, speak – and got a plug – nice of him. = ) Ran the presentation (Funny ‘Cause It’s True, consulting idea in which we use comedians to generate marketing insights) – it went very well. Lunch.
Slept for 5 hours.
Guest set at Zanies w/ Sebastian Maniscalco – went very well. Invited by General Manager to do his rooms. Chopped it up with Tom Wilson (Biff from Back to The Future) in the Green Room. Went out w/ a couple of guys and watched one of them routinely get shot down by chicks as he simply tried to rack up his number of approaches. (Gotta love The Game.) Back to the hotel.
Slept for 7 hours.
Lunch w/ Gleason for further networking and pitching. Drinks w/ Jill Stalowicz, my portrait artist friend. Told her she was the most amazing woman I’d ever met, which while true, wasn’t so much true as much as I needed a place to crash that night. Picked up my my friend Nadia… dinner at Japonais. Met up w/ former P&G colleagues and current friends Jean & Michele. Jill’s to crash.
Slept for 3.5 hours.
Caught the blue line to O’Hare.
Slept for 1 hour.
Landed in Minneapolis. Checked in. Met w/ agent. Sound check – man, this room is huge. Ran into comic, K.T. Tatara. Dinner w/ agent and comic Cristela Alonzo. Show started at 745 pm. Did 15-min set – went very well. Marketplace after. Hung w/ agents Mo Ali and Fred Farris – booth next door. Back to hotel to change. Hung at bar w/ agents and comics for all of 5 minutes before realizing I needed food more than alcohol. Walked to Mickey’s Diner. Ran into students from Cornell. Housed eggs, toast, bacon, hash browns, and a chocolate shake. Back to bar. Missed drinks due to last call. Just as well. Walked back to hotel.
Slept for 2.5 hours.
Flew to Milwaukee.
Slept for 1 hour.
Ran to next flight – back to LAX.
Slept for 4 hours.
LAX. In-N-Out Burger. Back to apartment – hung w/ roommate and his g/f. Finished Conan O’Brien on Inside The Actor’s Studio. Chris Rock… man, this is good… zzzzzzz…
Slept for 14 hours.
Woke up. Made To Do list – write & shoot sketch, send April newsletter, reply to emails, follow up on gig requests, follow up on Funny ‘Cause It’s True presentation, and pack. On ground in LA till Wed night… redeye to NYC… let’s do this again.
2 comments April 19th, 2010
This is who I thought that new Black Eyed Peas song is about… I mean, she is back in the news.
Add comment April 15th, 2010
A shout-out to Nancy Taylor and Darin Strachan for THEIR shout-out to me on the Dylanesque URL of a blog.
Well, just Dylan. Can you use a name to describe itself? Is Dylan “Dylanesque”?
I don’t know. Does a word rhyme with itself? I guess so.
Who could be more Dylanesque than Dylan himself?
Alright, so here’s the entry.
I already miss NOrth BEach – what a dope San Francisco neighborhood.
Well, I guess the Tenderloin is more “dope,” but you know what I mean.
1 comment April 13th, 2010
In the spirit of what goes around comes around, I'm offering $100 to anyone who offers up a contact that leads to a paid gig. I don’t think this kind of "social booking" has been done before, but do you expect less from a marketer? Email me.