In the wake of my having 'given away' the "Dance Monkey Dance" concept(.... to get our 'collabo-relationship' started ;).... I wanted to spend a couple posts getting into the value and the economy of ideas.
As a demonstration and a gesture... I offer up 3 distinct, unrelated ideas....
Ideas are everything.
They change the course of history...... the complexion of the planet.... the motherfuckin' movement of heavenly bodies throughout the universe..!
Ideas are all-powerful..... omnipotent, even.(... suddenly, I'm Snagglepuss for some reason.)
Ideas are worth.... absolutely nothing.
An idea.... and a subway token... will get you a ride on the subway.
....... IDEA 1;
Four or five years ago, I was at one of them Hollywood parties..(... you've seen 'em on tv... in movies.... everybody looks like they answered a casting call for a Michael Bay movie..... hot girls wrestling on the shoulders of random dudes in the pool.... other hot girls in 'cater-waiter' uniforms move through the crowd offering blow jobs and canape sandwiches. I can't lie to you.... it's exactly like you imagine it to be.)
I was talking to this guy who, based solely on the sculpting he'd with his facial hair, I assumed to be your average porn producer... or some such douchely individual. (and.... he's wearing one of those short-sleeve "party shirts" with the red, 'dripping flame' motif.... which I assume is easier/less cumbersome than sporting an actual sandwich-board that reads; "I am indeed an a-hole.")
It spills out in conversation, he actually works for DC comics(.... that's your Batman, your Superman... your Flashes and your various Green Lanterns ;).
Well... I started geeking out on this guy(... possibly, scaring him more than a little)... and, I mentioned my idea for.... an on-line comic book archive.
...... when I collected comics, I'd put the valuable ones in bags with little 'splint-like', pieces of bristol board to protect them...
.... the really old or rare ones, I wouldn't dare to read them for fear of damaging them....
I remember a twelve year-old me, at a comic book reading party (.. also, just as awesome as you'd imagine)... loudly yelling at a friend; "You're putting damaging oils from your fingers on the pages.... use the reading tongs like I showed you, for fuck's sake!"
... I thought.... if there was an archive of every comic book... from every publishing company.... all scanned and then hosted on a website.... you could pay a subscription fee and get access to the entire archive....
.... read at our own pace... pour over a single page... a single panel... it's the same comic book reading experience, without the newsprint.... without the dangerous, damaging "finger oils".... and, without the buying and reading the vintage copy of the first appearance of Superman, Batman, Spiderman... Wolverine-man...(... kidding, all you dungeon masters... put away your staffs and spell books. :)
..... point is.... even if you could afford to... which you can't..... you're not actually meant to sit back in your favorite reading chair and fold back your decades old copy of Fantastic Four, issue 1(.... if you ever wanted to see a comic book geek punch a stranger in the face... try this $50,000 experiment... totally worth it).
.... so then.... how about increasing the exposure of all these comics.... increasing interest.... and, heightening the desire to own them.... "I had no idea how cool that Alan Moore "Superman" story was.... I've gotta have that."
Five years hence.... there's a Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited service you can subscribe to...... but, no huge, iTunes-esque, one stop shop(... Netflix or iTunes would've fallen on their faces if they said... 'we're only showing movies from Paramount Studios'.)
Look.... I was never gonna be the guy to make that his life's mission..... to scan every old "Archie" comic, personally.(.... 'oh... I gotta re-do that page... you can barely make out Mr. Weatherbee's withering glare at Jughead.'... and, then I've gotta remember to kill myself.)
It's really no sweat off my balls, either way.... it's just an idea.
Though, it's a pretty good one, actually..... (quite possibly, a million dollar idea.)
But... like every idea in history..... worth nothing.... unless you're determined to do something with it.
...... IDEA 2;
...... I go to a health club/gym to stretch, skip, work out..... mostly, to watch Trophy wives use that 'bum building' machine.(... you notice you never see any 'trophy' with a fat ass..... does the 'Emmy' or the 'Oscar' not have a perfectly proportioned bum....? I'd definitely fuck the Emmy statue.)
.... so, I've noticed in my time in various gymnasiums and sweat emporiums.... that little to no effort goes into picking music for this environment.
You walk into a gym, and the equipment is all mostly the same.... bikes and treadmills for you to expend extraordinary amounts of time and energy to go nowhere.... an ample supply of mirrors(.... this is somehow better than flexing into your mirror at home?)... more or less, all the same shit.... every gym.
The energy and atmosphere of the place is in the music.... it's said, your job is just to get yourself to the gym... the gym is supposed to' take over from there'.
Also.... when you walk into one of these places.... the niceties at the front desk might be, for many, the only time when they're not lost in their special "Pump Up The Gams" playlist on their iPod....
Not having my own gymnasium(... though I do like the idea of fingerless weight gloves, a low slung, spaghetti-strap tank top, the "Zubaz" parachute pants with the zebra stripes in the Miami Dolphin colors and a moustache... all constituting my 'work clothes')..... I suggested to the gym owner... setting up a gym member-informed playlist, kind of an 'in-gym' radio station that ran through the gym's website.... and, allowed members to submit workout songs they dig, for consideration.
It all requires an ultimate taste filter(... an authority that serves as 'club DJ overlord') but, it's offering the 'added value' of walking into the gym and hearing THROW ME THE STATUE for the first time(... great video... but, listen to all the album versions and, you'll fall deeper in love).... or, We Were Promised Jetpacks(... great song.... but, that brogue... like "The Proclaimers", the thick accent with the awkward-teenager lyrics make it take flight)....
..... walk into a gym that offers that, and it'll pull you through your workout... plus, increase the sense of the 'gym as community'... and, maybe lessen the number of people lost in their own little worlds...
..... then... when the trophy wife on the balance ball has finally taken out her headphones..... I make my move.(.... "We've been doing this dance too long, you saucy Yoga flirt. I mean... the Lulu Lemon pants, those 'London Bridge' pelvic stretches.... they don't have any real fitness benefit.... let's stop kidding ourselves. You're obviously sending me signals with your thrusting cervix moves. You've seen my sweaty, contorted face... I've seen yours. The rest is just formality." ..... pause...... 'Rape Whistle'.)
I don't know if this one's a 'million dollar idea'(... maybe if you stretched it out over a chain of fitness clubs... all feeding into and feeding off of the same in-gym website music service).... I'm just saying.... walk into any public place to hear Wintersleep's Laser Beams, for the first time.... and try not doing push-ups immediately.
...... IDEA 3;
I worked for the Toronto Raptors(.... Toronto's NBA franchise) for the first two years of the team..... and here is what I know..... we, as sports fans, are all rooting and cheering for... a jersey.
It's become more and more true as our 'heroes' let us down but, trust me when I tell you.... the closer you get to the athletes, the more true you find that to be.
Don't get me wrong, there are exceptions(... they're called 'journeymen'... the grateful 12th guy on the roster)... but mostly, you need only remember what awesome and dynamic individuals the 'star jocks' were at your high school..... then fill a locker room with those dudes, and bask in the glow.(... turns out.... at those levels of 'asshole-iness', they become mildly radioactive.)
So.... it's 1995 and I'm working the anniversary of the NBA's First Game(.... if you didn't know, it was held in 1946 in Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens between the New York Knickerbockers and the home town "Toronto Huskies") and, the still-living members of both original teams(... an adorable group of white old men.... averaging a 'hunched over' six-feet, in height... and an average of around 95 years, in age)..... walked out with the members of the current New York and Toronto teams...
.... I stood with Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley as they saw the Raptors uniforms(.... y'know.... big, red dinosaur emblazoned across the chest)... for the first time, in person.
Well.... if you're a regular reader, you'll understand what a statement it is for me to say..... decency prohibits me from repeating what Charles Oakley shouted across at the opposing players(... picture the scene in the prison movie or tv show, when the new 'fish' walk past the scary dudes in their cells that first time).... this, of course, made all the more fantastic by the feeble little, 100 year-old white man holding hands with this giant, scary, black man yelling taunts about rape and buggery.... wrapped in colorful obscenities.(.... good times.... why did I quit that job again?)
I said to my co-worker....; "That's what the team should be called; "The Toronto Huskies".
He explained..... new franchises, trying to re-coup their hundreds of millions in franchise entrance costs, will pick a team name based on how many jerseys and bits of branded paraphernalia they can sell in the first few years.... mostly to excitable children. (The league usually splits up revenue on jersey sales and the like... to be fair to small market teams.... but, new franchises can keep all their profits the first few years from this merchandising shit.)
So... they named their franchise; 'The Toronto Raptors'.(... though I haven't seen the box office numbers, evidently Toronto loved "Jurassic Park".....; "Ok... we're all agreed.... there's no way this ever gets old or dated.")
Look..... fun's fun..... but, it's time to change it back.
If we're all cheering for our hometown jersey(... and, we are)... then that jersey.... that team name... should say something about the city it represents.
It should say..... 'this is our team, and no one else's'.
The Detroit Pistons..... Houston Rockets.... Boston Celtics. They say something about their community.... and, weave themselves into the fabric of the place.... so, players may come and go but, our Pittsburgh Steelers, that's forever. (Shit.... our own Toronto Maple Leafs... the colors, the nickname, the culture.... are knit into the tapestry of our town.)
It is certainly not without precedent that a team will change its name.... in wanting to distance themselves from the gun violence rampant in Washington DC's inner city.... the Washington Bullets... became the Washington Wizards.(... and, like magic.... no one ever shot anyone else again in Washington... and they say, that day, legendary Bullets center Wes Unseld's heart grew five sizes in his chest.... but, that could've been a pre-existing, Andre the Giant-like, pituitary condition.)
Point is..... we've changed an NBA team name for it's violent connotations..... how about for gayness?
The Toronto Raptors is possibly the gayest team name in professional sports.(.... at least, until Minneapolis' powerful Gay and Lesbian Alliance successfully change their NFL franchise; the Minnesota Vikings..... to the Minnesota 'Guy Taking A Shot In The Mouth' [.... what... too far?])
.... this free idea is really an appeal to current ownership.... and, specifically, current GM wunderkind Bryan Colangelo(... who surely would've stopped reading after that last joke )..... to re-brand their professional basketball team.
That.... Mr. Colangelo.... would be your ultimate, lasting legacy with this franchise.... that would far surpass any and every player you might sign or trade.
I've been beating this "Toronto Huskies" drum since 1995..... but, only because I know the difference it could make in reinforcing a bond with the city and the team.
(... at least until someone finally takes my write-in suggestion to capitalize on the relatively lax marijuana laws here in Canada.... wait for it..... "The Toronto Bong". And, on the jersey.... just a giant baby taking a hit off our iconic CN Tower. Pretty good, huh? Imagine player X walks into a press scrum after a bad loss....; "Yeah, the 'Bong' took a hit tonight. But, it's a long season and we're far from smoked out. Just putting it out there. :)
....... now..... what do these three disparate ideas have to do with our ongoing chronicle of making our "Let's Make Politics!" show?
Honestly.... not, a whole fuck of a lot.
But...... there's something to 'just putting it out there' (see the Submit and Release post)..... "if you love something... set it free", n' all.
'Freely' giving away the ideas and inspirations for the show we're making here(... against strong, strident advice from 'industry types').... that's what blogging about the process of making this show is about..... demonstrating that we are greater than our ideas.... we are the source of those ideas.
Ideas, in these instances, I was never gonna devote myself to... surely not to the extent necessary to actually see them come to fruition.
Ideas are worth absolutely nothing.... unless you do something with them.
As I get into the notion of idea ownership and intellectual property(... and, other contradictions in terms) in the next couple posts, I wanted to put these out there.
Take them.... ignore them..... make millions..... make hay.
Just... send me a souvenir jersey for that new Minnesota football franchise.(... if you keep the 'Viking guy'.... you could just splatter yogurt on the logo... then, make him awkwardly smile through one sticky, winking eye, as he tries to maintain his dignity...... [Ok, that was definitely too far] :)
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