Sorry, I don't follow...

(... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process.... also, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at The Future Is Awesome! Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

Followers.

I turned off the "Followers" counter on the side of the blog some time ago.

Fact is, I don't want followers.... I want collaborators.

I want a community of like-minded people.

I want to put up the bat signal and have a legion of people just like me turn up.

How awesome would that be.

Would that typing "TFIA!" keywords like 'Dicks In Your Ear' into a search engine, yielded more than just a horrifying window into a subculture of sexual fetishists looking to plant their flag in an unexplored orphus.(.. but then who doesn't yearn to be a 'penile pion-ear'?)

And, would that it were as simple as finding the artfully profane, comedy and innovation discussion group. (Perhaps I'd quickly recognize my future wife in an ornery forum exchange; "What's my educational background? Well I have a bachelors in ball sucking and snide repartee from Fuck U, and yourself?" I know we've only just exchanged these few missives but, will you marry me, SnideSkank024?)

Would that sourcing and collaborating with these people.... 'my people'.... was as easy as opening yourself up to an attentive A.A. meeting. ("Hi, I'm Tynan, and I'm making a funny, hopeful, collaborative show about the near future of ideas and innovation... those of you at the back with the dilated pupils and the faces goateed in airplane glue, strike me as exactly the kind of go-getters and dedicated craftsmen willing to put your head's down and breathe in the possiblities inherent in this thing.. in this awesome future. So, who's with me?!")

Yeah, of course I want to lead people somewhere.

Tell them what might inspire them, interest them, make them smile or... 'fingers crossed'... laugh out loud.

That's what this "TFIA!" thing's all about..... the blog, the site, the show.

But, really.... mostly.... I want to find a group of people, like me.

I want to find.... my tribe.

The point of this little jag, by the by, is.... go download Seth Godin's book [in audio form];Tribes.

It's free, insightful, and it'll remind you why you want to make things... why you want to put pieces of yourself out there.

Dollars to donuts... it's to get pieces of yourself reflected back.

Like-minded people. A group of them... a community... nay, a tribe.

I'll just bet(.. though you may love them very much) your family isn't necessarily the group you feel the most yourself around.

That group.... your 'tribe'.... is more likely to be made up of strangers.... faceless strangers.

Maybe your 'tribe' is a group of people you've never met but, like you, they're frighteningly hideous and anti-social homunculi, roaming a computer-generated country side... fighting with swords and battle axes, drinking 'virtual ale' in virtual pubs, virtually never having sex and getting into fantastic adventures... possibly, involving a chalice.

And, if that's where you feel most yourself.. kill yourself.... er... I mean, good for you.

I actually want that.

(... not the gay virtual medieval world with the quests, the axes and the chalice.... again, no offense shut-ins. I've seen into your worlds through incredible documentaries like Second Skin... and, enrapt though I may have been, I find that 'life' baffling and scary as shit. But, I implore you all to see for yourselves. )

I want my guild... my clan... my group of ogres and orcs, if you like.

It's only in large numbers that you can draw on greater resources to complete an ambitious project.

Why did I take off the "Followers" counter on the side of the screen...?

'Cause I don't give a shit about the number of people... nearly so much, as the quality of those people.

I want my people.

And those people, like myself, are interested in making something.

Those people are collaborators.

You follow...?

Are You Afraid Of The Snark?

(... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, and 'official' site, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at The Future Is Awesome!... Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

I've been in some very dark places over the past couple months.

I've been in comedy clubs.

Comedy clubs are dark, dark places.

You only ever walk into one well after the sun's gone down and the majority of the working world's gone to bed.

Down into a basement or a back room where no cheeky little beam of bounced light could seep in and spoil this cultivated atmosphere of counter culture, impotent rage and desperation screamed into the darkness.

I've been spending the better part of a month skulking around these clubs... getting bits up on their feet... bouncing ideas off a live audience... and mostly sitting idly with surly people.

Comedy writers.... comedians.... 'funny men'(and women); I assure you, though we may think of them as mirth makers and laughter craftsmen, this back room is not a back door to Wonka's colorfully vibrant and wondrously technicolor Candy Factory.

Spend a day on a comedy writer's retreat.. in a comedy show writer's room.. in a back corner booth at the local "Ha Ha Hut" sandwiched betwixt fidgeting comedians.... you are likely to meet some of the most miserable and morose individuals you ever did encounter.

It's a grind, to be sure, doing comedy for a living and the majority of these folks will remind you of this.

It's the angry chicken and the rage-filled unhatched egg. Are you a frustrated, angry comic because you haven't been 'discovered' and rescued from this purgatory... or, are you exactly where you are meant to be, honing and hawing until you run out of breath, because that's the life you chose... that's the life you gravitated to because that's who you always were, lighting rig and microphone notwithstanding?

Marc Maron has his theories about integrity and why he wasn't 'one of the popcorn kernels who popped'... but, his voice and his act are now so inextricably tied into this identity, he couldn't go shiny and happy if he tried.

Paul F. Tompkins talks about frustrations like not having the right 'tv teeth'. Still, a perfect set of chompers and my bet is his comedy is less incisive and biting.

The 'good ones' channel it into the work... better writing, more cutting comedy and an identity that says they are exactly where they're supposed to be, as they rail against the cruelty of the business... their shouts fogging the glass, as they press their snot bubbling noses to the window.

Comedians are not happy folk.

They're closer to snark merchants(... or maybe, tragedy tradesmen?). They manufacture sneers and jeers and use their wits, and every tool in their bag, to chip away at everything they couldn't knock down in one swing.

Most often, they become so good at this that they can't help but pollute their own heads.

So... I'm left to ask myself this question; is hope and optimism at odds with humor? Can good people with good intentions, be funny?

In case you hadn't noticed, most good people aren't funny.

Genuinely good people... caring, considerate, compassionate, empathetic people... are not funny.

Nick Hornby (of "High Fidelity" and "About A Boy" fame) wrote a book called How to Be Goodand openly asked this same question therein.

Sure they can be funny in that self-deprecating, 'lamp-shade-on-their-head' sense of the world but, a truly good person isn't ever going to be a sharp, caustic wit... they can't and won't risk saying something that might be hurtful.

Can a good person be funny? Not really, no.

The voice inside their head curbs their wicked impulses. Their little angel wields a bullhorn to shout down the little devil whispering in their ear.

The comedians who've lived their lives on the road.... lived their lives in obscurity... have no qualms about releasing all their evils, their neurosis on an expectant crowd. That's where you get Pryor 'Live On The Sunset Strip' and its meaty mouthfuls of material. That's where a genius transitions to a transcendent comedy god.

You give me a room full of guys toiling away for ten or twenty years... a room full of Lewis Black's... I'll deliver you a "Daily Show".

I've been trying to reconcile this balancing act in my show, "The Future Is Awesome!"... and, in my own life.

I said I'd been in some dark places... and, I'm not sure that darkness isn't worming it's way into my heart(... if it wasn't always there).

How to balance the much needed notion of a hopeful, inspiring, future for a younger generation so wracked with anxiety and angst, against the irreverence and the humour that make this a fun and relevant show to those same young people.

The better angel on my shoulder might be our live in-studio host.... and, the devil his cartoon monkey counterpart.

Or, maybe the more realistic and nuanced view has each of those two hosts with a little man or monkey devil and angel of their own.

Light is the enemy of comedy, as it is in a comedy club.

I was never really afraid of the dark as a kid... I knew it was just all the same stuf in a well lit room made more mysterious for the fact that it was obscured in shadow. As far as this show goes..... I am afraid of the snark.

No more than I am frightened of the unfunny society of hugs and snuggles that the good people seem to occupy; that 'I'd like to buy the world a coke' attitude, I'm so distrustful of, so bored and unengaged by.

I mean for shit's sake, we (... and, by 'we', I mean Nobel laureate scientists having nothing to do with me) just discovered and isolated the Protein Behind Immortality.

Fuckin' immortality!

You listening, all you twee little Twilight, vampire fanatics?

(By the way, can you think of a group of human beings you'd less like to see walking the earth for all eternity, than Anne Rice fans and assorted vampire paraphernalia drones in their frilly-sleeved chemises and blank, bored stares..? Bring on the afterlife... it's gotta be better than spending the afternoon in the mega-mall food court with Azrael picking over a sbarro pizza slice and bemoaning the pointlessness of pepperoni.)

Mind you, it should be noted... this 'immortality gene' also happens to make to make great gobs of cancer as a side effect.

That's right, immortal little monkeys, we've figured out how to give you cancer... forever.

Score one for our side.

As with every inspiring and exciting idea and innovation I want to highlight... I don't think I can bathe in the glowing light and still find the funny.

The light side might be a beacon of hope... but, it always needs to be turned over 'cause the laughter is on the dark, unexposed underbelly.

Question is.... do you want to commit yourself to living there for the long haul?

Show me an immortal comedian.... I'll show you a guy who has all the time in the world to complain.

So, You Are A Star...

... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, and 'official' site, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at The Future Is Awesome!... Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

Star Making Performances.

They're more common then you think.

There's a million of 'em you haven't seen.(.. and, I'm not just talking about Mexico. It's like a cute summer camp for non-english speaking actors, down there. A hot, sticky, smelly summer camp. They've got little cameras, put on little skits... all in their little nonsense language. Trust me, it's adorable.)

Watching 'dailies' in a trailer of a previous day's filming.... on the sofa in a palatial hollywood hills home, fast-forwarding through rough cuts.... in an editing suite, combing through the raw elements of a television pilot.... I can't tell you how often a director, producer or editor will lean across to the person in their immediate vicinity and declare in a whisper; "They are going to be a star. This is a star making performance."

Don Simpson (half of the 80's and 90's Simpson & Bruckheimer blockbuster production team that launched Eddie Murphy in "Beverly Hills Cop" and Tom Cruise in "Top Gun" amongst others... and, the poster boy for hollywood's 'culture of excess'; read High Concept for all the salacious tales)... once claimed that, even for a notoriously indulgent Caligula-like figure, nothing superseded the thrill of sitting in private, looking at tapes and 'discovering a star'.

[... this from a guy who had a $60,000 a month drug habit at his zenith, and a well documented penchant for demeaning and sadistic sex parties with high class escorts. My personal favorite was a story involving two beautiful young call girls sequestered away in his bedroom... forced to eat several greasy BLT sandwiches, while Simpson looked on and rubbed himself.

On a personal note... if ever I had the money and means, I would totally try this; "Okay Kimber.... you're just as young and lovely as your blurred on-line portfolio suggested. At these rates, it says you're willing to do... well, pretty much anything. I'd like you to get into your bra and panties... climb up on the bed on all fours... and finish all three of these deep-dish pizza pies."

"Yeah..", sitting in my oversized chair, hand down my pants; "Oh, god yeah.... slowly.... slowly.... take your time.... twirl the cheese around your finger... yeah, you are filthy..... you are a filthy, dirty little girl....... No really, you've got tomato sauce all over your face. Use a napkin for christ sakes. You're filthy."]

There is an undeniable thrill to discovery.

Even those of us with less sophisticated palettes(.. those of us who haven't pored over tapes or, been blown by an aspiring starlet... at least, for 'star making' purposes) can identify a 'star making' turn, when we see it.

For instance... I have seen the next Conan O'Brien.

His name is Michael Swaim.(.. his stuff can be found at Cracked.com... and, his more personal, 'channel' Those Aren't Muskets!)

He hosts a recurring segment of viewer and forum member submitted/suggested video clips with commentary. Like the best of web content, what it lacks in polish and production value, it more than makes up for in being funny as fuck, see...;

The 7 Most Mind-Blowing Foreign TV Moments.... the 6 Worst 'Professional' Music Videos.... 8 Local News Segments Gone Horribly Wrong... 8 Least Necessary YouTube Tributes... To "Home Improvement"... and, the horrifying freak show episode, 8 Videos of People Who Look Like Special Effects Creations.

Y'know what, Don Simpson might have been right(... road of excess, palace of wisdom n' all that).... discovery might actually be better than wanking while watching whores eat bacon sandwiches.(.. I'm probably gonna have to look into that some more.)

Conan O'Brien(.. for those of you who don't recall) had never worked on camera, before hosting NBC's "Late NIght With Conan O'Brien".(... though he was probably a shoe-in, if they'd already settled on that title.)

Conan went through his awkward first steps on late night network television. Live studio and huge tv audiences all collectively howling and giggling and, in between, asking each other; "Who the fuck is this guy?"

NBC made him a star, then Conan O'Brien went out on air and made himself one.

Nowadays.... you get quiet, unnoticed bits of spun gold that bedroom and basement performers have spun themselves, Rapunzel-style, from straw.

Felicia Day made her own star vehicle with her on-line series about role-playing video game communities The Guild(... the whole series is pretty great)... then found her way into Joss Whedon's viral web musical Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog(... the whole series is better than great. It's pretty fuck-tacular.)

Josh Faure-Brac created a series of animated satirical shorts that became, SuperNews! (Note the exclamation point, telling you it's both super fun and yet pressing and important..! I should try to work that in, somehow.)

("SuperNews!" is designed for that future where 'broad'-casting is quickly dying... so, they partnered up with Al Gore's "Current TV" and now everywhere the shorts go, virally n' otherwise, they carry the "Current TV" logo in the bottom corner of frame.... "The Daily Show" and "South Park" do the same for Comedy Central.)

Of course, none of this would matter at all, if the "SuperNews!" creative team wasn't churning out cultural and social satire like Your Dad Asking Computer Questions, Trouble With Twittering, Celebrity Twitter Overkill.... and their chronicle of the Death of MTV.

Aussie comic Jim Jefferies has an HBO Comedy Special "I Swear To God" under his belt. He's been on the exceptionally popular and remarkably good Adam Carolla Podcast.(.. as of my writing this, the linked episode was his second time and that'd qualify as a 'star making performance' in it's own right.)

Still, the clip that made Jim Jefferies known... the bit of video that garnered him notice and netted him these bigger platforms, is this clip; Jim Jeffries Punched.(... it's exactly what it sounds like.)

A friend of mine works at Google in San Francisco, and discovered the Kasper Hauser comedy troupe as part of their 'Authors @ Google' series. The guys came in to do some combination of corporate seminar and public 'crazy' demonstration.(... then did so again, two years later...Kasper Hauser @ Google '09).

I told him that I'd long since been a subscriber to Kasper Hauser's comedy podcast... read their hilarious book, SkyMaul... and long been a fan through their exposure as part of The Sound of Young America (Kasper Hauser hour) family of comedy shows.

I went on to point out that his 'cutting edge' juggernaut of a company was laughably out of touch. We then argued on the obligation of a huge company to stay culturally relevant and then, came to the resolution that while I may be an embittered relative failure.... he, almost certainly, could never compensate for his micro-penis condition regardless of how high his stock options seemed to get and, that every woman he's ever been with, including his current wife, had only been pretending to have any interest him.

So, yeah... we both made discoveries in our own ways, on our own schedules. For instance, wediscovered, we never genuinely liked each other and didn't need to speak to each other any longer.

Point is...... who cares how or under what circumstances, you're discovered. Our future in an infinite content universe allows for infinite opportunities for discovering 'star making performances'.... and, that's infinitely thrilling.

"The Future Is Awesome!" is going to offer a platform for this thrill of discovery through it's recurring segment Dance, Monkey, Dance.(.. see the linked post, and the broader concept post;Dance, Monkey...)

Ask uber-producer and uber-lecherous and sadistic hump, Don Simpson... discovery is more thrilling than watching taut, beautiful, young girls seductively dripping mayonnaise on your 1000 thread-count, Egyptian cotton sheets.(.. turned on? Thought so.)

But then(.. if you read his posthumous bio and articles on his legacy), Don Simpson's dead naked body was discovered sitting slumped on his toilet, a copy of Oliver Stone's biography smeared with his poop and resting between his rank, distended thighs.... so, that had to be a thrilling discovery for someone too.

To illustrate my point... on the 'Golden Age'

(... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.).I am blogging about the process... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, and 'official' site, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at The Future Is Awesome!... Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

I was trying to illustrate a point with my last post; A Comprehensive Recipe For Becoming An Anti-Social Shut-In.

Something about our living through the best, most ambitious and most creative period in the history of television; 'the Golden Age'... plus, my list and links make for a nice little tv time capsule.

That's right, I said;

We Are Living Through Television's Golden Age.

... don't take my word for it. JJ Abrams(... one of tv's current golden boys; "Alias", "Lost", "Fringe") said exactly that on this super-entertaining episode of "This American Life"; What I Learned From Television.

Though it might warrant noting; if everybody's telling you, you're 'King Shit Of Fuck Mountain'... you'll probably spend some of your time talking up how awesome Fuck Mountain actually is. A way of giving yourself a sneakily self-aggrandizing, reach around.

Truth is.... myself, J.J. Abrams, and a whole host of others, are absolutely right.

(Right about the 'reach around' for starters. They are fantastic. Especially, when they're sneaky and surprising. 'The Stranger', anyone..?)

As television becomes less and less important... it's becoming more and more interesting.

They're forecasting the coming decade as 'the one where we stay home'.... from there, we stay in our own little hamster balls, like the Virtusphere... then, in our heads. As we progressively climb further up inside our own assholes. "Race you to the bowels!"

So, I made a list(.. a long list), highlighting what makes this the 'golden age'.

Shows... a list of some of the brilliant, innovative, ground-breaking and awesome shows of our era.

Everything that was missing from that list of what I most love and appreciate about my oldest and most reliable friend, television(... a profoundly sad realization but, probably true)... everything I left out, I did by design.

See, I wanted to sketch something out further... to illustrate a point.

The Best, Smartest and Most Amibitious Television Of Recent Years Has Been Animated.

Does it make you mad, when somebody says; "cartoons are for kids."... or, like me, does it just make you sad for them?

Sad, that grampity old 'Gramps' cannot... will not.. ever open himself up to the crazy, colorfully veiled genius of The Venture Bros.

Sad, that the brilliant Harvey Birdman would have completely passed them by.

So sad, that those same sad sacks rightfully raged and ragged on the new Star Wars prequel trilogy... when all the while, under their noses, a far superior [dare I say, almost satisfying] pre-prequel, animated series called Clone Wars, lay waiting to be discovered. (forget the movie version with the cloying, whiney, dark lord jedi-vagina... in this series, Anakin Skywalker is terse, tough and kind of a B.A. That's short for 'bad ass', like Mr. T from "The A- Team".)

Sad... that they'd sneer at HBO's fantastic anti-hero Spawn, or... Ben Edlund's under-appreciatedThe Tick, or... 90's cop and private eye homage Stroker and Hoop, or... perversely, delightfully insane Frisky Dingo, or... the horrifyingly believable Metalocalypse, or... the perticularly delightful, when you're stoned Aqua Teen Hunger Force (seriously ;), or... the simple, sweet and snide Home Movies.

I'd be sad as shit.... if I'd deprived myself of Futurama, King of the Hill, Robot Chicken, Justice League Unlimited or Dr. Katz Professional Therapist.

These cartoons are definitely not for kids.... they have, in fact, ushered many of us into our own unique, if somewhat stunted, brand of manhood.

I'd be a sad, miserable person, if I hadn't come of age in those Conan O'Brien and George Meyer halcyon years of The Simpsons.

The primacy of writing in television(... the reason for it's 'golden age') can't be more perfectly demonstrated than in those groundbreaking shows.

The care and thought taken in crafting brilliant cartoon satire puts most other tv in its place. Animated television put most other television on its ass.

But..... it's only truly culturally transcendent because it evolved.

This family... to this one... to this......

And, canonical and fantastic though "The Simpsons" was...

The Best Television Show Of Our Generation is... "South Park".

I would likely be less the person I am today(.. not half as hyperbolic as you may think)... if I hadn't grown up with South Park.

I have grown with "South Park", and neither of us are the same as in our youth.

"South Park" has uniquely aged it's characters... made subtle voice changes, moved up through elementary school grades... expanded its universe... and, pushed at it's boundaries...

"South Park" has practically, tackled and hog-tied every sacred cow... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...... ...... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... you get the idea.

Like "The Simpsons", "South Park" has aged, evolved and improved in ways only animated television truly can... and we, of a certain generation, bore witness.

One of the first 'viral videos' was this animated christmas card made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, called The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Santa.

Now, in our endless on-line media landscape no other show is as available, if not ubiquitous, as "South Park"; every episode free, fast, easy to find and consume on the net.

And, though they're surely too modest to say... the awesome peaks and valleys (and plateaus) that plague all long running television have not been an issue for "South Park".

From humble cut, paste and profanity-laced beginnings.... "South Park" has gotten sharper, smarter, more dynamic, more ambitious, every passing year.

"The Simpsons" aren't making episodic television like The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers, Le Petit Tourette or World of Warcraft. They're just not anymore.

Particularly for my generation and those who've come after, everything is re-adjusted for post "South Park" television.

Comedy, as it was in a post "Python" era... is re-jigged for a post "South Park" one.

Saying goes... 'if someone's pushed the envelope, then you just have to pick up from where they've pushed it to'..... I think...?(.. never had a great handle on that 'pushing the envelope' expression... that might not be an actual saying.)

"South Park" geniuses Trey and Matt figured out they could push, prod and outright provoke.... they could do and say almost any damn thing behind a rough, unrealistic animation style and the naughtily naive and wonderfully unaware guise of four school children and their home town of South Park, Colorado, U.S.A.

They were absolutely right.

"South Park" gets away with murder ... at least once an episode.

"South Park" is the best, most consistent, most creative, most ambitious and nuanced series for television that I have seen.(.. and, I've been looking.)

I made one of our 'hosts' for "The Future Is Awesome!" into a cartoon avatar ( see; "Dance, Monkey, Dance".... the break down) because of the lessons I've learned from the "South Park" model.(.. behind a mask, I can say and do more.)

"South Park" demonstrates how you can to be 'of your time'(.. lack of polish, episodes written and created in a three-day turnaround lets commentary be relevant and timely).... and still be absolutely 'timeless'(... these guys have written and voiced every episode to assure quality never wanes).

[.. want to know why Matt Stone and Trey Parker are my tv heroes..? Listen to them wax poetical on South Park's evolution and South Park's fight for freedom of speech... and, do yourself the favor of watching all 5 and 3 parts, respectively, of the interviews.]

Mostly..... to not use animation for a new show speaking to a young demographic, and to not wring out all its unique strengths and freedoms is to deny that these guys have already set the table for the next incarnations of tv.

Many years from now, as I become the grampitiest 'Gramps' that ever did gramp (no idea what that means).... as I move into my own golden years and aggressively bore my niece or grand-niece with stories of my 'golden age of television'........ I will force feed that child South Park.

Damp it down her little throat with a chimney brush.(.. she'll thank me, eventually.)

In the interim, I will aspire to build my show on the shoulders of these giants... these foul mouthed, four year-old, construction paper cut-out kings of cartoon comedy.

If "South Park" is any indication of the future of comedy, the future can't help but be awesome.

Until then.... I can only aspire to a future that tries like hell to get there.

Still don't think we're living through the 'Golden Age Of Television'...?

Try not to look directly into the gleaming brilliance of these animated shows... I'm pretty sure they illustrate my point.

A Comprehensive Recipe For Becoming An Anti-Social Shut-In

(... we are making a show, called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process..... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, and eventual 'official' site, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at The Future Is Awesome!... as well as here. Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

As part of my responsibility as blogger, 'taste filter' and all round abitrar of quality... I thought I'd give everybody a primer for my post about TV's 'Golden Age'.

I give you.... links.

Links to the mind-blowingly brilliant tv programs we've been given in this 'Golden Age' of television.

(The fucking, maddening part of doing this for the internet but, from Canada is... some shows can't be linked or accessed, legally, from our great nation. I know what you're saying out there; "But, it's the mother-fucking, World Wide Web...!! It's right there in the name... it should be accessible, if not free, from everywhere. What the f-!!" Hey.... I'm right there with you, angry, agoraphobic hermit screaming at your computer screen. Right there with ya.)

The following list of tv links is my attempt to both highlight a particular show and, illustrate what I so love about them. What you do from there(.. likely, close this window and go look for Brazilian fart porn) is ultimately up to you....;

• Arrested Development
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• Firefly
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• The Wire
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• Veronica Mars
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• The Thick of It
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• Sports Night
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• Freaks and Geeks
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• Planet Earth
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• Battlestar Galactica
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• Outnumbered
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• Lucky Louie
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• I'm Alan Partridge
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• Friday Night Lights
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• Andy Richter Controls The Universe
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• Deadwood
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• The Daily Show
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• Mr. Show
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• Newsradio
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• The Middleman
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• Breaking Bad
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• The Office (UK)
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• This American Life
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• Black Books
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• Undeclared
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• Skins
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• Summer Heights High
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• Trailer Park Boys
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• The West Wing
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• Californication
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• The Human Giant
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• Pulling
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• Pushing Daisies
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• Party Down
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• 30 Rock
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• Band of Brothers
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• Generation Kill
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• The Unit
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• Gavin and Stacey
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• Slings and Arrows
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• Flight Of The Conchords
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• Upright Citizens Brigade
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• Farscape
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• Six Feet Under
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• Peep Show
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• Alias
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• Spaced
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• The Shield
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• The Sopranos
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• Damages
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• Rome
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• Oz (by way of SNL)
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• Twitch City
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• The IT Crowd
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• Extras
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• Curb Your Enthusiasm
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• Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
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• Kenny Vs Spenny
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• Real Time with Bill Maher
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• The Colbert Report
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• The Sarah Silverman Program
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• Wallander
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• Buffy The Vampire Slayer

(Once again.... you are welcome, world-at-large. You need never associate or interact with the 'outside'... ever.)

Every time you say "tv".... a pirate gets his peg leg.

(... we are making a show, called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process..... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, and eventual 'official' site, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at The Future Is Awesome!... as well as here. Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

Oh, it's scary.... there's no doubt about it.

Swedish and Canadian pirates are going to raid your villages, rape your mothers and force feed you soft cheeses melted over undercooked french fried potatoes.... but politely, of course.

As I write this, the New CEO for Pirate Bay(... the Swedish-based, uber-notorious, file-sharing website) has written a manifesto.... threatening language about taking file-sharing mainstream..

"Fighting back against big brother's harassment and spying of today's youth and internet users, we're going to show them... 'how to pay' for content."

Wait.... what?!

But, you're pirates. Pirates don't pay for things. If they did, they'd cease to be pirates and(... though I'm fuzzy on my old-world nautical terminology), I think, just be referred to as plain old seamen.

But, it is a sticky slope to navigate.... pirates.... seamen.

In the giant fondue pot that is the internet.... they all just melt into an indistinct mass of pale, bursting, bubbling goo.

Industry folk and tv types have been suing the bejesus out of their estranged on-line customer base with a frightening and disorientingly random irregularity.... those Special Forces fuckers may be bursting through your window, any minute.(.. but then, do try to think it through.... if you're downloading a Black Eyed Peas re-mix for your nightclub pre-game routine.... you maydeserve to be shot with a military strength tazer and put behind bars.

Every young person who's turned their back on traditional broadcasters and content delivery mechanisms and jumped aboard the good ship "Bit Torrent".... is getting forty-thousand lashings with an angry lawsuit.

It's roughly the same logic you'd find in an abusive relationship....; "I'm gonna beat on you, 'til you love me again." (... worked for Ike and Tina. They're still together, right?)

So now.... the tv industry has threateningly taken off its belt and is explaining, with the sinister calm and certitude of an inveterate wife-beater, that we've got a good thing going here; "Don't you break up this good thing, we got. Don't make me hurt you, to help us."

The tv industry desperately need your business, and your help.... to own you once again.

That's the distinction to be made.... the pirates may want your booty... but, the industry(... much like the fancy boy british sailors, steering their resplendent schooners for queen and country)... the industry want to own the high seas and everything in, and on it.

On a personal note.... I've found, if these industry folk and assorted money makers believe you know how to speak to... how to 'score them'... that youth demographic(.. and, I actually do).... they will huddle around you, like bums around a garbage can fire.

I was at an actual tv 'think tank'.

I don't know if you've ever been to a 'think tank', but picture a room full of execs and academics... name tags and ID badges, to point out; 'Hey man, we're all just people, here dude.'... just talking... sharing ideas and strategies for turning the media world on its ear.... 'cause, nothin' says the future of tv, like artfully drawn boxes with rabbit ears on a dry-erase board and a ten-foot turkey sub you can help yourself to.

In a 'think tank', they need not remind you that they bought that giant sandwich you're eating a wedge of.... they rented the room, and the audio-visual equipment found therein.... and they, by rights, own your idea.

In this instance; "How do we save and strengthen Canadian television?"... was the over-arching theme of this 'tank'.

Well, I made up a power-point presentation... ironed my shit... wore my tie... got up in front of this room of tv execu-types, and said...;

"How about, you just stop saying 'tv show'...... just, stop using the word. Just, say show."

This is like getting called in to help find somebody's missing child and, telling the grief stricken friends and family to...; "Forget about your little girl. In fact, maybe think about converting her old room into a home gym."

"I can plainly see little Ashley meant a lot to everyone. But I'm saying, if you moved out that princess bed and toy chest, you could get a 'Bowflex' and an eliptical machine in there.... and probably still have room for a stretching area."

Truthfully.... I kinda relish these instances.

I take an unnatural amount of joy, for some perverse reason, in telling shitty truths.

And, that is the truth....

I watch tv shows.... I love tv shows.(.. as much now, if not more then I did as a tv-raised tyke of yester-year.)

Only now, I don't turn on my tv.

I almost never turn on my tv.

I do.... watch shows.

'Own' that notion, Lord Fontelroy of the S.S. Indignation.

TV people desperately want that time machine that puts them back in a time and place where they owned and monopolized your attention.

A beautiful 'golden age' for tv execs..... when they held that power, clutched it to their chests... squeezed it tight in their arms and ultimately, smothered and suffocated it.... with love.

(I'm gonna do a future post about the actual 'golden age' of tv we're living in... seen through the lens of ground-breaking cartoons and animation. Turns out, it's easier to break new ground... if you're traveling under the radar. And, that big generational chasm that puts lovers of South Park, Futurama or, the brilliant, but underexposed Venture Bros. on one side of the smart, adult, cartoon comedy fence. For now, take my word for it. We are indeed living through the golden age of television.)

The question for tv folk becomes; if all of this brilliant content is out there.... how do we own and control it?

Well.....

CBC radio did a typically incisive and fantastic piece on Who Owns Ideas?... pointing out the stupifyingly pointless game of whack-a-mole these companies and lawyers are trying to play in this border-less no-man's land. (Pirates will always live outside your laws... 'cause they function outside your borders. They sail the open ocean and surf the world wide web.)

Many of these same fundamental questions are raised in the brave copyright documentary; RiP: A Remix Manifesto(... also, brilliantly and distinctively Canuck in it's perspective).

Larry Lessig(... not a Canadian but, what're you gonna do) may have illustrated it best in his talk... "we're trying to extend ownership of our plot of land... all the way below and, to an indefinite extent skywards."

Ask the old, wizened indian, Chief 'Acomplishment Is Sadness'...; "No one can own the sky or sea."

(Oh right, you can't... since you introduced him to fire water and ran his rambling, naked ass off his land... Too bad, you didn't listen to what he was shouting over his shoulder on his way out.)

'Pirate Bay' started outside the reach of lawmakers and litigators in Sweden.... and, U.S. media corporations and conglomerates are now giving Canada the stink eye... for much the same reason.

Canada's like the wild west frontier country... and, it now finds itself in the midst of an old-fashioned, cut throat, land grab.... but, with "intellectual property" and ideas taking the place of plots of land.

If you recall your western movies.... it was always the twat with the twistiest moustache who ended up the local 'land baron' but, he was never long for this world anyway.... by the end of the film, the man with no name and his heavy-hearted indian tracker had killed his ass deader than a dingo.

And, never did they stick around to claim that town... that land.. for themselves. They just moseyed on into the setting sun. They wanted to 'set things right'... then, move back out into their border-less 'riding buddies' existence... just two guys hangin' out and sharing their feelings by firelight.. like real, hearty men tend to do.

All this gobbling up of content and creation of newer, stricter laws to regulate 'their land' is happening quietly under our collective noses.

It's dangerous to turn a blind eye, 'cause you may not realize that somebody has quietly created a new set of rules that make you a criminal... that make you a pirate.

I mean, after all... we "arrr" all in this together.(... sorry... but, if you'd been looking through your old timey, salty sea dog telescope, you'd have seen that one coming.)

Moving Day

(... we are making a show, now called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website.... podcast etc). I am blogging about the process.)

Why is this thing 'a movement'.... as I keep insisting?

'Cause, we're doing it together.

You can't make a movement, by yourself. (.... maybe, a bowel movement... a corn-flecked turd. Sure as shit, you can make one of those yourself.)

This aspires to be a true 'movement' because, it's collaborative.

I named the whole show, "Let's Make Politics!".... to say exactly that.

We're gonna make and shape change... together.

We're gonna be the one's living in this awesome future... seems like you'd want a part in shaping it.

(The little pic of an unbuilt, undressed studio under the title is in reference to the collaborative set design approach, we're pioneering with this show.... we only build it, once you've had input. No shit.)

So far, the most consistent voice I've heard(.. tv people and 'normal' people alike ;)...... seems to be saying;

"Love the idea. The exciting, hopeful, funny aspects of the future we'll all, very soon, be living in. Love it! But, why...; "Let's Make Politics!"?

First post in.... the much beloved, Dicks In Your Ear.... I was already explaining the title.... defending the title.

Defending the word; politics.

Then defining the word..... to 'redefine' the word.

"Politics has become a dirty word."; I started.

(Now, don't get me wrong.... I wrote the shit out of that post. Never before.... has anyone so poetically opined the dangling and brushing of "flaccid wangs against unsuspecting ears" for satire's sake. Go fuck yourself, George Orwell! World leaders as talking pigs..? You can play around with your old-world, barnyard metaphors... but, c'mon... let's call a cock... a cock.)

So..... as I'm meeting with a guy about 're-skinning' this blog(... changing, redressing, enhancing... tying into the 'official' website.... the aesthetic for the site, the show)... my old friend, that corn-flecked turd of a question, slipped out...;

"The logo's gotta have the show's title in it..... and, I really want to watch the show you're describing.... but, why "Let's Make Politics!"? It doesn't say hopeful, engaging or funny. You've dug a hole for yourself."

Yes.

Yes, I did.

So............ "The Future Is Awesome!" is our new title. (And, our new blogging home.)

It says everything we want it to. (Everything we've already said.... and will continue to.)

It's exactly the same show..... we're just 're-skinning' it.

(... this "Let's Make Politics!" step in the process, won't go away.... every post, every link, clip, article, insight.... every dick joke... will be right here when you need it. Don't believe me.....? I built a 'He-Man/Transformers/Indie Rock' blog; By The Power Of Greyskull Transform, N' Rock Out!... just to pay off a joke. That... is my commitment to comedy and transparency both.)

This.... is our first big step in our 'collabo-relationship'. (I'll call it 'second base' to protect your rep.... but, we'll know it was closer to 'third' on your living room couch. Wait... third base is penetration, right?)

Our show..... the show we are making.... is now called "The Future Is Awesome!".

'Cause it is.

Click through.... adjust your bookmarks, accordingly.... adjust yourselves, if need be.... tell your friends and family.... tell your neighbors..... tell the angry weirdo with the tinfoil sword and shield, who insists you "answer me, these questions three" before you can gain access to the subway(... that's our key target demo).....

.... The Future Is Awesome!

And, in our awesome future.... there's more than one way to re-skin a cat.

.... actually, we'll probably just start makin' cats without the skin.

(None of the dander allergies..... much more of the vomiting at the sight of a skinless cat. Did anybody have a conversation about whether we need skinless animals? "Hey, We're Science. We're All About 'Coulda'.. Not 'Shoulda' ".... but, shouldn't someone at least be asking these questions?)