My favorite part about this video is that before Tracy said Sarah Palin was good masturbation material, he was very clearly going to say, "Both of them at the same time." Everything Tracy Jordan Said indeed.
In TNT's apology, they interestingly criticized Tracy, but not the hosts who set him up.
I've been doing a lot of food events around Boston the last year and a half or so, and I'm not sure how good of a job I do posting about them here. One of the things I've been working on is pop up restaurants. We were featured in a story in the Globe about our pop up in a coffee shop. For Valentine's Day Weekend, we're putting together a restaurant inside of a chocolate factory. Gotta say, that's a pretty good Valentine's idea, huh?
You see? This is what I'm talking about. 3 people, Kevin Smith, Adam Carolla, and Kevin Pollak, 3 relatively famous dudes who have created their own platforms, are now getting in to the late night game by recycling content they're already producing independently. I don't think this will last very long because I don't think people want to watch appointment TV on their computer, but I still think it's important in a way I can't really verbalize correctly. If the stars can use technology to make and distribute media themselves, the entire industry gets shaken up the way record labels did in the last 10 years. Artists don't need record labels to record or distribute their music anymore if they can create their own promotional platform. Smith, Carolla, and Pollak have done that, and they don't even really need AOL to make their own late night talk show.
All three men already have popular online programs or podcasts: Smith — who has had a busy week at Sundance — has his Smodcast Network, Pollak has Chat Show and there’s The Adam Carolla Show. Now AOL is teaming with those existing shows to create a daily video series.
Red State is a "religious horror" movie. He's distributing it himself and going out on tour to raise the money for each print ($2500). He's spent the last couple years building himself a media platform from his SModcast podcast, but even before that, he had an extremely active community on The View Askew message boards. I'm fascinated by stuff like this where people decide the value of what they're being offered by major labels, studios, publishers, etc isn't worth the cost. Red State is going on tour, stopping in several cities before it opens officially in October:
We believe the state of film marketing has become ridiculously expensive and exclusionary to the average filmmaker longing simply to tell their story. When the costs of marketing and releasing a movie are four times that film's budget, it's apparent the traditional distribution mechanism is woefully out of touch with not only the current global economy, but also the age of social media.
Here's more of the back story from Twitter. Below are a collection of about 30-50 Tweets he sent out in a mad burst today. I only wish he'd post this stuff to his blog because I have a hard time reading it in reverse chronological order mixed in with other Tweets. If you have that problem too, the full blast is below. Read the rest of this entry »
I made these Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies tonight. I'm pretty happy with how they came out. The Oreos get soft, which is nice. I think I made the cookie part a little bigger than they were supposed to be, because they took longer to cook, but... You know, still worth it. Food bloggers take much nicer pictures.
Buffalo Beast is out with this year's version of The 50 Most Loathsome Americans. Incidentally, the person in #1 is also #1 in the Most Powerful People in Food list I posted earlier. Most importantly, Buffalo Beast needs to be commended for including a list this long all on one page.
EDITOR’S NOTE: 2010 was the most loathsome year on record, and it was difficult choosing between the literally hundreds of deserving scoundrels who could’ve made this year’s list. Some people are perpetually awful and we’re tired of writing about how awful they are, so there are some intentionally glaring omissions. We surely missed someone you hate. We missed a lot of people I hate. Check out the Loathsome Americans from 2002, (the dog eated it in 2003) 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 (wow, we’re getting old) before your head explodes because your favorite asshole isn’t featured above.
The Daily Meal with a linkbait-tastic list of America's 50 Most Powerful People in Food. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but #1 is you. First chef doesn't show up until #6. Steve Jobs is #5. I do have to compliment TDM for not putting each person on the list on a separate slide show slide. It's something not often seen anymore, but much appreciated.
This 1985 Playboy interview with "Steven" Jobs is long, but fascinating. It's from 25 years ago! This was a time where the "mouse" had to be explained to the readers because most people wouldn't know what it was. ("a "mouse" (a small rolling box with a button on it)"). I pulled out a lot of excerpts I thought were interesting:
The Apple offices in 1985, the forerunner for dotcom offices later on:
"The Apple offices are clearly not like most places of employment. Video games abound, ping-pong tables are in use, speakers blare out music ranging from The Rolling Stones to Windham Hill jazz. Conference rooms are named after Da Vinci and Picasso, and snack-room refrigerators are stocked with fresh carrot, apple and orange juice. (The Mac team alone spends $100,000 on fresh juice per year.)
On Andy Warhol and Keith Haring using the first Macintosh that Jobs had brought to a birthday party for a 9 year old:
Two other party guests wandered into the room and looked over Jobs's shoulder. 'Hmmm,' said the first, Andy Warhol. 'What is this? Look at this, Keith. This is incredible!' The second guest, Keith Haring, the graffiti artist whose work now commands huge prices, went over. Warhol and Haring asked to take a turn at the Mac, and as I walked away, Warhol had just sat down to manipulate the mouse. 'My God!' he was saying, 'I drew a circle!'
On why Jobs was more interested in talking to the 9 year old than the celebrity artists (emphasis mine):
"But more revealing was the scene after the party. Well after the other guests had gone, Jobs stayed to tutor the boy on the fine points of using the Mac. Later, I asked him why he had seemed happier with the boy than with the two famous artists. His answer seemed unrehearsed to me: 'Older people sit down and ask, "What is it?" but the boy asks, "What can I do with it?"'"
On what technology the computer compares to:
The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network. We're just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people—as remarkable as the telephone.
On pricing:
PLAYBOY: Aside from some of the recurrent criticisms—that the mouse is inefficient, that the Macintosh screen is only black and white—the most serious charge is that Apple overprices its products. Do you care to answer any or all?
JOBS: We've done studies that prove that the mouse is faster than traditional ways of moving through data or applications. Someday we may be able to build a color screen for a reasonable price. As to overpricing, the start-up of a new product makes it more expensive than it will be later. The more we can produce, the lower the price will get——
PLAYBOY: That's what critics charge you with: hooking the enthusiasts with premium prices, then turning around and lowering your prices to catch the rest of the market.
JOBS: That's simply untrue. As soon as we can lower prices, we do. It's true that our computers are less expensive today than they were a few years ago, or even last year. But that's also true of the IBM PC. Our goal is to get computers out to tens of millions of people, and the cheaper we can make them, the easier it's going to be to do that. I'd love it if Macintosh cost $1000.
On the iPhone:
JOBS: The developments will be in making the products more and more portable, networking them, getting out laser printers, getting out shared data bases, getting out more communications ability, maybe the merging of the telephone and the personal computer.
The big villain in this article is IBM. It's sort of jarring that Microsoft isn't mentioned once:
All these things show that it really is coming down to just Apple and IBM. If, for some reason, we make some giant mistakes and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years. Once IBM gains control of a market sector, they almost always stop innovation. They prevent innovation from happening.
On AT&T:
PLAYBOY: Which brings us full circle to your latest milestones, the Mac and your protracted shoot-out with IBM. In this Interview, you've repeatedly sounded as if there really are only two of you left in the field. But although the two of you account for something like 60 percent of the market, can you just write off the other 40 percent—the Radio Shacks, DECs, Epsons, et al.—as insignificant? More important, are you ignoring your potentially biggest rival, A.T.&T.?
JOBS: A.T.&T.. is absolutely going to be in the business. There is a major transformation in the company that's taking place right now. A.T.&T. is changing from a subsidized and regulated service-oriented company to a free-market, competitive-marketing technology company. A.T.&T.'s products per se have never been of the highest quality. All you have to do is go look at their telephones. They're somewhat of an embarrassment. But they do possess great technology in their research labs. Their challenge is to learn how to commercialize that technology. Also, they have to learn about consumer marketing. I think that they will do both of those things, but it's going to take them years.
From that Longreads treasure trove of Playboy interviews, here's one with Steve Martin.
PLAYBOY: But you give out business cards instead of autographs.
MARTIN: It's a way to deal with it quickly and not to be rude. Most of the times that people ask for autographs, it's a way of proving that they saw you. I know this from when I asked for autographs. People always want to know, "What's he like? Did he say anything funny? Was he nice?" You have thirty seconds to be all those things. My card covers it all: It says that you found me nice, you found me funny and you found me charming and friendly.
In the Esquire article about Roger Ebert a few weeks back, Ebert mentioned his interview interview with Lee Marvin as one of his favorites, and now they've republished it online.
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