For today I thought I'd keep it simple and uncontroversial, but above all entertaining. I also wanted it tinged with nostalgia and ridiculousness. The research did not take long, but it was conclusive and the results are high-quality and thorough. Let's take a trip to the unrecoverable past, and weep.
This is what happened before Twitter. Now this kind of awesome transmission of hilarity is less constrained but even more inaccessible. It has grown from the constrained television/early-internet arena into a lawless continent. You might term it the twitterverse, or twitter galaxy. Late night TV isn't the most accessible thing, but goddamn if it didn't serve up some great times.
I remember the happy times on this very blog, when it seemed all I could do was watch late night TV and then post on this blog about it. I should've kept on with that business. I could've had an audience, but I choked. There aren't enough commentators and content-generators on the internet already, right? Any smart person could see how late-night TV commentary is an untapped market and how I could –
But I wasn't that smart person. The Jesse Navarro episode was a sign that Conan's show has the same kind of potential to be awesome. There is interest and potential discussion, refreshed each night, totally different each week, yet comfortingly similar and routine. There was so much to write about: Jimmy Fallon's meteoric but dubious rise (and amazing musical guests and the Roots!!!), Craig Ferguson's amazing cold opens, Conan's uninhibited but too-clever hilarity, and of course the underrated genius of Jimmy Kimmel.
If I could go back, this would've been a niche blog with a design document. Look around at the lack of progress, at the wreck of a blog.
(The book in question)
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
6/2/12
I haven't read CJR for a while and then return to read this: a timely and concise collection of regrettable headlines. I do get a bit of a kick out of jokes sometimes, I have to say – and these are some fine, amusing headlines. For instance:
"173 animals seized; 2 face cruelty charges"
That sounds like a really nice group of animals, why would they ever get arrested? Did the innocent ones get set free? Were there at the minimum fair trails? What kind of cruelty charges? In reality it's probably some sort of crazy neglect story which makes it, somehow, even more disturbingly funny than ever.
And it's not even the best one; the best one, predictably enough, is about a shark.
5/6/12
RIP MCA
First of all, Hello Nasty was the shit. I don't care who you are or what you're doing, fuck that, it was the shit. I don't think there was anything else that year that I heard that was in any way close. That album on repeat was golden for me, and "Intergalactic" was the fucking song to get hyped to. If they'd have released the same album this year I'd probably be just as happy with it. That's more than a decade late and I would've still bought two copies.
I only heard, outside of my own music playing, three Beastie Boys songs on Friday. Lots of people, of course, didn't have a clue who MCA was. Squares, hipsters, you name it - the critically uncool didn't know about anything and weren't the least discouraged. One car, at least, drove past me blaring "Fight For Your Right"* which I can't disagree with at all. I wasn't going to party on Friday, but anyone who was should have at least heard that song. If not: for shame. (*"No Sleep Till Brooklyn" is arguably a better anthem but I'm not going to argue about things I love anyway. That would be childish of me.
There's not much to say. Literally any other place on the internet will give a detailed biography send-up, information about Adam Yauch, tell personal stories and all that. Even Wikipedia put up the news. So there's nothing to do but cast this tiny, shitty, sloppy blog post into the void, with a few words of praise.
Fucking righteous, awesome music that never wore out its welcome by anyone with an open mind and a working set of ears. Sick rhymes and flowing, all around illest contender.
It seems like the true end of an era. To say there are or were no bands like the Beastie Boys is ignorant, but they were still unique. Nobody else ever wrote a song called "Egg Man", for example. If there was, it was either in another context entirely or it was ripped off of the original – or it simply wasn't as good.
That's all, then. There's at least one Beastie Boys album I haven't listened to, and I guess it's time to take that final plunge, except I have to wait at least six months to buy it at a mainstream record store, and at least a year at independent record shops. Otherwise I just know the looks I'll get.
That's a shit Friday, right there.
I only heard, outside of my own music playing, three Beastie Boys songs on Friday. Lots of people, of course, didn't have a clue who MCA was. Squares, hipsters, you name it - the critically uncool didn't know about anything and weren't the least discouraged. One car, at least, drove past me blaring "Fight For Your Right"* which I can't disagree with at all. I wasn't going to party on Friday, but anyone who was should have at least heard that song. If not: for shame. (*"No Sleep Till Brooklyn" is arguably a better anthem but I'm not going to argue about things I love anyway. That would be childish of me.
There's not much to say. Literally any other place on the internet will give a detailed biography send-up, information about Adam Yauch, tell personal stories and all that. Even Wikipedia put up the news. So there's nothing to do but cast this tiny, shitty, sloppy blog post into the void, with a few words of praise.
Fucking righteous, awesome music that never wore out its welcome by anyone with an open mind and a working set of ears. Sick rhymes and flowing, all around illest contender.
It seems like the true end of an era. To say there are or were no bands like the Beastie Boys is ignorant, but they were still unique. Nobody else ever wrote a song called "Egg Man", for example. If there was, it was either in another context entirely or it was ripped off of the original – or it simply wasn't as good.
That's all, then. There's at least one Beastie Boys album I haven't listened to, and I guess it's time to take that final plunge, except I have to wait at least six months to buy it at a mainstream record store, and at least a year at independent record shops. Otherwise I just know the looks I'll get.
That's a shit Friday, right there.
4/24/11
A Word or a Few Hundred of Thanks
I have no idea what it's like to be the number one comedic internet writer in America. I'm sure it involves a lot of tedious days being angry at the hacks who are better known than you, and then feeling justified anyway, because better known hacks are not internet celebrities of the same caliber as you.
Seanbaby recently wrote his 101st article at Cracked.com and it is a greatest-hits collection that must be read to be believed. 80% of those articles are among the funniest available on the searchable internet. Anybody who thinks that he is played out and dull needs to read my blog more, or simply purchase a sense of humor. Now this article isn't some lazy clip show where Seanbaby talks about what he's done and smiles gently at the memories. It's a rather biting, funny clip show where he talks about reactions to the things he's done and how he managed to conjure them out of weeks of apathy and modern loving.
This article reminded me of a few classic laughs and of why I consider myself an admirer of Seanbaby's technique. He trumps the Maddoxes and Tucker Maxes of yesteryear because his bitterness is simply played down in favor of things that are funny. He plays bitterness properly, and not always transparently. This is why he is a humorist and not a 'personality' - although he seems to have personality to spare. Plus he is not so egotistic, less of an exhibitionist and finally as a truly creative writer/humorist he does not ring the same old jokes in a different order. Well he rings the same old jokes, but they ring true. That's the best part.
In something like 10 years Seanbaby has recycled more useful novel jokes than most people invent in a lifetime. And his one-liners are as sharp as ever. And he's even truthful about a lot of things, which is alright, because I am damn sick of empty, exhibitionist narcissism on the internet. If you're going to write on the internet, you should try a little content that doesn't revolve around self-worship. See Seanbaby for solid examples. The ego is often as ugly as the stupidity it worships.
Anyways I just wanted to add my congratulations without resorting to a fawning post over at Cracked.com's comment sections. As an impartial observer of the internet I can only applaud his efforts to make the world a little less miserable and stupid. As an aspiring humourist/writer I get a sense of hope that the art isn't dying. It's always dying, of course, but at least it goes on living all the same.
Sometimes it's humbling to see somebody in the prime of their career, but when they deserve it, you gotta just hand it to them. Even Seanbaby's dumb retrospective article is considerably more amusing than anything I've read on the internet all week. In fact it isn't even dumb. It's smart, comprehensive, well-written, and will make lots of people laugh. In this shit era, that warrants congratulations.
Oh and is it just me or does Eukanuba Nosferatu sound like a done deal? Dog shows and vampiric mass murder are woefully under-examined in film.
Seanbaby recently wrote his 101st article at Cracked.com and it is a greatest-hits collection that must be read to be believed. 80% of those articles are among the funniest available on the searchable internet. Anybody who thinks that he is played out and dull needs to read my blog more, or simply purchase a sense of humor. Now this article isn't some lazy clip show where Seanbaby talks about what he's done and smiles gently at the memories. It's a rather biting, funny clip show where he talks about reactions to the things he's done and how he managed to conjure them out of weeks of apathy and modern loving.
This article reminded me of a few classic laughs and of why I consider myself an admirer of Seanbaby's technique. He trumps the Maddoxes and Tucker Maxes of yesteryear because his bitterness is simply played down in favor of things that are funny. He plays bitterness properly, and not always transparently. This is why he is a humorist and not a 'personality' - although he seems to have personality to spare. Plus he is not so egotistic, less of an exhibitionist and finally as a truly creative writer/humorist he does not ring the same old jokes in a different order. Well he rings the same old jokes, but they ring true. That's the best part.
In something like 10 years Seanbaby has recycled more useful novel jokes than most people invent in a lifetime. And his one-liners are as sharp as ever. And he's even truthful about a lot of things, which is alright, because I am damn sick of empty, exhibitionist narcissism on the internet. If you're going to write on the internet, you should try a little content that doesn't revolve around self-worship. See Seanbaby for solid examples. The ego is often as ugly as the stupidity it worships.
Anyways I just wanted to add my congratulations without resorting to a fawning post over at Cracked.com's comment sections. As an impartial observer of the internet I can only applaud his efforts to make the world a little less miserable and stupid. As an aspiring humourist/writer I get a sense of hope that the art isn't dying. It's always dying, of course, but at least it goes on living all the same.
Sometimes it's humbling to see somebody in the prime of their career, but when they deserve it, you gotta just hand it to them. Even Seanbaby's dumb retrospective article is considerably more amusing than anything I've read on the internet all week. In fact it isn't even dumb. It's smart, comprehensive, well-written, and will make lots of people laugh. In this shit era, that warrants congratulations.
Oh and is it just me or does Eukanuba Nosferatu sound like a done deal? Dog shows and vampiric mass murder are woefully under-examined in film.
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