Category: Television

  • As Long As We’re At It…

    This was my high school theatre teacher’s favorite Monty Python Sketch. It just so happens that this bit leads into the very famous “Lumberjack Song.” Not that it matters; Jones plays a pretty great straight man to Palin’s demented barber.

  • Monty Python’s “The Philosophers’ Football Match”

    Since I have been introducing the kid to Monty Python, I thought now was a good time as any to play my favorite Python sketch. The quality of video isn’t the best, but I think you get the point.

  • There’s No Money in the Media

    VICE filed for bankruptcy. I’m not surprised. VICE was the only media company I knew that no one read or watched. Hold on, except for Desus and Mero. But outside of that, I never met another person who was like, “I just read this piece on VICE,” or “Did you see that story on VICE news?”

    Nope.

    Not a once.

    Oh, I did see Shane Smith everywhere, talking about how great and important VICE was. As far as I can tell, Shane made Williamsburg worse, by putting VICE’s headquarters there, and Shane also paid himself a huge, unreasonable salary while paying his writers barely above nothing with a side of free exposure.

    And don’t forget that one of the co-founders of VICE went on to found the Proud Boys. So… that says something…

    Yet, when I read that they never turned a profit, and were forced to file for bankruptcy, thus the sense was made; It was all hype, with no substance.

    I don’t mean to dance on VICE’s grave, and I do feel bad for the writer who will get laid off, but Shane Smith drove that ship onto the ground, and he’s still going to walk off a millionaire. And I though Canadians were all nice and shit.

    But the truth of this situation, which is the same truth that has been around forever, is that there is no money to be made in media, unless you own a lot of media. My first day as a journalism major, the professor told us there is no money to be made being a journalist. (Incidentally, on the first day of film and theatre school, those respective professors said the exact same thing.) I find it very strange that there is no way to make a living wage in media, but somehow the richest people in the world are in media.

    Has no one else noticed this?

    Well, outside of people in the WGA, that is…

  • ODDS and ENDS: Robot Overlords, Who Are These People, and Working on My 100

    (I just want what’s coming to me, I just want my fair share…)

    I had a thought this morning; how long until all online customer service chats with retailors are run by AI? I know to a degree the start of most chats are a prompt system – you answer some basic questions, and then you start talking to a human. But if I understand how things are going, then it’s just a matter of time before AI will take over this aspect. And if that did happen, would retailors tell us it’s AI that is assisting us, or would they try to hide it by telling us we are talking to “Kevin”? If they try to hide the AI, then I had another thought; could one do a type of Turning Test on customer service AI? Now thinking of it, is it more like Blade Runner, because the Turning Test requires two people and a machine. Either way, it sounds like a challenge. You know, make the AI question its existence, you get free shipping.

    I know of no one who is excited about the Coronation of King Charles. That might be due to the fact that I’m an American, and we don’t like kings, which is kind of our thing, you know. (I also live in a city that famously tore down a statue of a king at the start of The Revolution.) But from what I keep seeing on tv, the Coronation is a big deal that people want to see. I have to believe that the major networks must have some demographic research backing up this decision. That they know this coverage will bring in viewers and they can sell ads. It’s the only reason they do anything. So, who are these people that want to see this? Who?

    I sent out a big batch of submissions this week. I’m still working my way to 100 no’s. I’m closing in on the number, which is a very strange way is putting me in a good mood. It’s not great progress, but it is progress; Getting out there, trying stuff out, getting my stuff in front of people’s eyes. I don’t like hearing no, but I understand it’s part of the process.  

  • The South Bank Show – Discussing Art

    I am not as disciplined as I would like to be. I say this because last night I was going to be a good boy – watch a little tv, and then finish reading Rachel Cusk’s new short story in The New Yorker.

    But then my brain says to me; It says, “You remember the theme song to The South Bank Show?”

    “I do,” I says. “I think it was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, of all people.”

    “You should look that up.”

    “I will, and, switching subjects here, a good night’s sleep is for losers.”

    “Tell me about it.”

    So, YouTube has a shit ton of South Bank Show videos. And I hope you know what I am talking about. See, back in the early 90’s when BRAVO was the greatest cable channel for the arts and people who couldn’t sleep, they would show the documentary series The Show Bank Show which was originally broadcast on ITV in Great Britain. The show covered all subjects that had to do with art and pop culture. You could get an episode on Gore Vidal, and then one about The Talking Heads. For a very impressionable junior high kid, these shows were mind altering because they exposed me to different viewpoints, and arts, and lifestyles, things that I would never run into living in the suburbs outside of Dallas.

    I found the intro music of The South Bank Show (It was in fact written by Andrew Lloyd Webber for his brother, a cellist, Julian Lloyd Webber. Here’s a full version of the song) and here is a compilation of all the intro versions. (The 1989-1990 is my favorite.) Just hearing the music again, and seeing the animation, I was reminded how I would get a genuine deep curiosity thrill of what was about to be shown on that program. For that thirteen-year-old me, I was being shown a world of creativity that I knew must exist, but was just beyond my fingertips. It was a world that I wanted to be in, and that show made me feel like it was completely accessible.

    I decided that I couldn’t just stop at the theme song, and I should watch an episode. I went with the one on Steve Martin, which I remember seeing way back when. It’s when Martin was transitioning out of his “Wild and Crazy Guy” persona, and was beginning to make smarter comedies, such as Roxanne and LA Story. The documentary gave him a good platform to explain how his “crazy” persona was more like a comedy experiment where he was trying to write jokes that were just funny, and didn’t have traditional punchlines or set ups. I read his memoir, Born Standing Up, which covered his start in comedy, to when he quit doing standup, and he goes into more detail on his reasoning and thought process of what makes a joke work. What I took away then, as I did now, was how smart Steve Martin is, and how he knows the balance of thinking about, but not over thinking, comedy.

    See. Stuff like that is what makes The South Bank Show still interesting to watch. How the art and the artist are entangled, and what they go through, and how they view the world around them.

    I got about five hours of sleep last night.