Family Matters is an American sitcom about a middle-class African-American family living in Chicago, Illinois, which ran on national television for nine full seasons. The series was a spin-off of Perfect Strangers.
I really had no idea Family Matters was a Perfect Strangers spin off. Consider my mind blown.
Also, Family Matters is the second-longest running sitcom with a mostly black cast. Family Matters had 215 episodes, The Jerffersons had 253. The Cosby Show had only 197, yet somehow 201 are in syndication.
Around the time Louis C.K. started selling his latest comedy special direct to fans as a download from his website, I figured I'd write something about it. I've always loved new models for people selling stuff. The last couple years are full of examples of entertainers, writers, media peeps, musicians, etc, creating their own platforms and distribution channels. Usually this results in a closer connection with fans, more advocacy for their work, and a lack of getting fucked with by established platforms and channels like record labels. So obviously this experiment by Louis would get a note here. And then day after day there were new links/points I wanted to include and it became a bigger thing and then I got sick and well, whatever. Here's your Louis post. (Louis's website doesn't have permalinks on the news updates, so this is a bit tricky, but there are only 2 updates, so it's not that tricky.
So the experiment worked. In about 12 days, Louis C.K. - Live at the Beacon Theater, has sold 200,000 copies and Louis has a million dollars. One of the compelling things about this whole thing is the transparency with which Louis is going about it. He feels a responsibility to the 200K people who gave him $5 to explain where the money is going: $250K is going toward the cost of the special, $250K is going to his staff as a bonus, and $280K is going to various charities. He's keeping $220K for himself. As people keep buying and he makes another million, he'll give more of it away.
David Carr talks to Louis a couple days after the launch.
O.K., so NBC is this huge company and they have all these studios and these satellites to beam stuff out, but on the Web, both NBC.com and LouisCK.com have the same amount of bandwidth. We are equals and there are things you can do with that. This has been a fun little experiment.
Frank Chimero says Louis is funny because he talks about shame.
All the greats had their focus: Richard Pryor and Chris Rock had race, George Carlin had absurdity, and I think Louis has hit on some sort of subterranean undercurrent of emotion that I didn’t realize might be swelling until I listened more closely: shame.
Mad Men creator Matt Weiner recently talked to Grantland about a variety of things in an article titled "How Mad Men will end." He didn't say anything except, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Blah, blah, blah." In the paragraph Kottke pulled out, though was this: "It's 2011. Don Draper would be 84 right now." I posted it a couple years ago, but this is weird because a commenter on AMC used this interview with Don Draper to make a convincing case that Draper was born in 1924, not 1927. Being born in 1927 would explain Don's non-participation in World War II, but not sure how to explain away the 36 in 1960 thing.
Ha. Imagine if the previous paragraph was about Twilight instead of Mad Men.
The Boston Book Festival kicks off tomorrow with a discussion on The Art of The Wire. I've never been to one of these, but I'm always curious... Did The Wire just get lucky with amazingly insightful actors able to discuss race, class, institutional failure and the visual novel? These are heady topics, I wouldn't have thought actors would generally be the best to discuss them. I don't know who would be MORE qualified, though.
Kick off the Boston Book Festival with a thoughtful and timely exploration of The Wire with its cast and creators. Its creator, David Simon, referred to this powerful, gritty, and all-too-realistic exploration of urban poverty as a "visual novel." The Wire, perhaps the most critically-acclaimed series in television history, has been compared to Dickens, to Greek tragedy, even to Shakespearean drama. It is both high art and social commentary. Join several cast members and writer/producer George Pelecanos in a conversation about The Wire and issues of race, class, institutional failure, and the visual novel. The discussion will feature Donnie Andrews (the real "Omar"), Fran Boyd (the inspiration for David Simon's The Corner), Tray Chaney ("Poot"), Robert Chew ("Prop Joe"), and Jamie Hector ("Marlo Stanfield") and will be moderated by Reverend Eugene Rivers, co-founder of the Ten Point Coalition.
I knew following the New Yorker's Twitter account would eventually pay off. Today at New Yorker Fest, the latest news about the long rumored Arrested Development movie. Calling this project 'on again off again', is an insult to understatements. The news today? Not only is the movie on, AD creator want's to do a season of TV leading up to the movie. So... That's good.
Susan Olsen, who you may know as Cindy Brady, from The Brady Bunch, also makes Fluff art. Her work is currently showing at Bloc 11 Cafe in Union Square, Somerville. Union Square is the home of this weekend's Fluff Fest. I know all of this because that's me on the Cooking Contest Judge page right under the astronaut and State Representative. No offense, Mr. Astronaut and Ms. State Representative.
Kyle Chandler finally won an Emmy last night. To celebrate, here's an Emmy trailer video. I don't know if it's official, but it officially gave me chills. So there's that. Watch it if you want to run through a brick wall.
The state of New Jersey gave the producers of Jersey Shore a production tax credit of $420K. Understandably, several lawmakers are are upset about it. In NJ's defense, the credit was for the first season. That said, where else would it have been filmed?
Tom Haverford told us all about some of his investments tonight. They were, "the best investment ideas I've ever head in my life."
Make-A-Baby Tuxedo clothing line.
A department store with a guest list.
White fur ear muffs for men.
Contact lenses that display text messages.
Invent a phone that smells good.
Own a nightclub, call it Eclipse, that's only open for one hour two times a year. Cover charge? Five THOUSAND dollars.
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Update: Some people I'm married to think that the first idea is to "make a baby tuxedo clothing line" not make a clothing line called "Make-A-Baby". This is valid criticism, but they're both funny.
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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