video

Wicked cool.

This SaysMeTV site is potentially a hugely game-changing service. Letting normal people advertise (and having community funding around it) could have a radically democratizing effect on the media space, because you can drive a top-notch 21st century marketing campaign from your basement now.

There’s a new group — backed by unions and fronted by Elizabeth Edwards — to put big pressure on Congress to actually for real do something about healthcare. I agreed to be spammed.

They’ve been talking about a big grassroots campaign push as well. That’ll be somewhat important during the election, and very important should the election go well. I’ll be keeping tabs in addition to getting spammed. Maybe you should too?

Joe Felice is blowin’ up bigtime. This was on the frontpage of youtube.com, and is smart and clever to boot. Go Joe!

Funny!

This election is going to be kind of kick-ass.

The partisan jab; way ahead of it’s time.

And holy shit, looking for a good url to link my mom’s name to, I found this old gem:

Whether it’s a pitcher of beer, smoking a bowl or compulsively shopping, many people have felt the effects of unbreakable habits. One New York University theater group travels the country provoking discussions about addictive behaviors.

Quick Fix, a reality-based theater group, will hold performances at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday in the EMU Ballroom. Free tickets for students are available at the EMU Ticket Office.

During the 1999-00 school year, Quick Fix began as a project at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, said Josh Koenig, an actor with the group. He said the year-long project started when a theater class at the New York University conducted more than 100 interviews with students, faculty, lawyers, advertising executives, tobacco executives and people on the street. Then, they put those interviews into a performance piece.

Man, you gotta click through to see our old B&W publicity photo though. That was some excellent stuff. I paid my rent from acting with that!

I got a little email which told me the name of my favorite art piece from last year’s Burning Man, which got some press, which led me find it on YouTube, which let me share it with you.

The spinning is powered by a number of bike stations around the structure, and the strobing is keyed to the drums, so it’s a group effort to make it happen. Sweet.

And some pyroporn:

Anyway, I’m in the Bay for a couple weeks. Insanely busy as always.

Speaking of such events, the Baby Blue Cherub remebers Chineese dinner.

My man Joe is close to internet fame. Vote for him again even if you did before (1 vote per day is allowed apparently):

http://broadcasting.projectbreakout.com/media_page/entry_id/197

It’s internet democracy, Chicago style.

Kellymundo succeeded in getting me to watch a few consecutive episodes of The West Wing on DVD the other day, and as someone who’s been steeped in politics over the past five years, it leaves an interesting impression. If 24 is the Dark Side of the contemporary political debate, The West Wing represents something of the sunny side.

The stuff I’ve seen is from Season two, which is something of a historical time-capsule, having been made prior to both the onset of the Bush Administration, and of course 9/11. It’s totally enjoyable, but also strikes me as anachronistically sanguine, a grown-up Schoolhouse Rock but with the benefit of excellent production values. The cast is strong, and the writing is excellent from a literary standpoint. On substance, though, I think the text reflects all too well the hazy miasma that surrounds our allegedly elite political discourse.

Two quick examples from the three or four episodes I’ve seen:

• In an episode concerning a jungle hostage situation in Columbia, the presidents strangely Rumsfeldian chief of staff delivers a strong appeal not to attempt any kind of invasion: “Mr. President, I fought a jungle war… and if I could have been there when our ships were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin I would have said, ‘Don’t do it.’” It’s a soft play on the consensus opinion that Vietnam Was Bad, but it ignored the widely-held belief (more or less proven in 2005) that the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” was as fake as the Maine.
• In an episode concerning the dangers (or lack thereof) of marijuana, the specific phrase, “doesn’t display the addictive properties of cocaine or LSD” was used more than once. LSD is among the most un-addictive drugs yet uncovered from both a physical and psychological standpoint. Ironically, the crux of the show revolved around the statements of the Surgeon general and “the duty of a doctor to tell the truth.”

Now, I’m not entirely sure whether these are nudge-nudge/wink-wink inside jokes for those in the know, or simply the natural result of having Peggy Noonan on as a consultant. The overall awe-shucks tone of the show suggests the latter.

This makes it a bit harder to suspend my disbelief and really inhabit the world of the show, but in a sort of Brechtian sense it heightens my appreciation for just how confused and unconsciously hypocritical our political discourse remains. The Verfremdungseffekt is strong. Also, as it is something of a time-capsule, it’s interesting to see how mainstream pop-culture re-defines and re-digests the political process.