Category: This; And also that

As some of you already know, I’m taking a hiatus from the 9-5 life so I can spend more time walking my kids to school and working on my writing. Whenever this has come up in conversation, the question back has been: “Hunh. OK. So what are you going to write?” And it’s been a real point of shame for me that I haven’t had much of an answer. Until now. Now, I have very much of an answer. And the answer is that I intend to use this time to create an entirely new TV genre, one I’ve dubbed: the “situation tragedy” or “trag-e-sit.” I’m still working out the details, but here’s a rough sketch….
Trag-e-sits offer a half hour of episodic entertainment starring 4-6 whacky neighbors and/or family members and/or co-workers who move the plot forward through a series of short, tragic, situational interactions. The whole thing is punctuated by a “cry track” — the sound of a studio audience weeping, designed to induce a similar reaction in the home viewer. Some of the literally several trag-e-sit treatments I’m currently developing include:

• A family-oriented trag-e-sit in which two single parents, with six kids between them, move in together. They know that they must somehow form a family. But instead, bit by bit they break each others’ hearts.
• A workplace trag-e-sit where a new TV program director joins a second-tier station and proceeds to turn everyone on the staff against their feeble-minded but well-meaning anchorman.
• A Boulder-based trag-e-sit, in which an alien (I call him “Gork”) comes down from the planet “Bork” and ruins the life a young woman named “Cindy.” He completely misunderstands the way humans are supposed to behave and the consequences are, well, awful.

Wish me luck!
update: so-called “t. philter” writes: “I wish you’d been more specific about the awful consequences of Gork’s confusion.” Well, I don’t want to give away the store, but I will tell you that he puts his fingers in other people’s sodas. Also, he keeps trying to hump grandma.

We’ve all noticed that many top Hollywood-type stars have sidekicks.
And yet, it’s amazing to me that here in the 21st century, there are still literally dozens of A-listers who wander the streets alone, no shoulder to cry on, no raised hand to high-five. For example: Carrot Top.
I think I’d make a pretty darned good sidekick, and I’d like to take this opportunity to offer my sidekick services at a very reasonable to-be-determined-I’m-sure-we-can-work-something-out price.
Some of the reasons I think I’d make a good sidekick:
1. I have a firm yet unintimidating handshake.
2. I have complete faith in your talent, and I’m prepared to put that in writing.
3. My best side isn’t my right side or my left side, but rather a sort of isometric view — picture me respectfully angled toward you, while you face the cameras. Hunh? Hunh? Nice, hunh?….
Interested top Hollywood-type stars, please contact me at: vortex@mediajunkie.com. And of course, if you’re too busy and would like me to contact me for you, that would be fine too.

Coulton’s the creative cohort of John Hodgman (author of The Areas of My Expertise). He’s also borderline irresponsible. Best known for Flickr, a brilliant song/video written around images found on the image sharing site, Coulton’s been putting up a free song a week on his site for, well, a while.
Coulton’s music is a little bit folk-Randy Newman, a little bit TMBG. Sometimes it’s like Dan Fogelberg, only evil. As high quality, representative samples, may I recommend: Millionaire Girlfriend, Chiron Beta Prime, Soft-Rocked by Me, and Re: Your Brains. But really, there’s lots more than that. You can find a big mess of them here.
Probably worth noting that some of these tunes use potty words (specifically: “First of May”), and I haven’t yet played them all myself, so who the hell knows what’s out there…. But what I’ve played so far, I’m sort of stunned by. Four monkeys up!
-Cecil

There’s a Kenneth Cole poster outside of Nordstrom’s that shouts out:

“You are on a video camera over 20 times a day. Are you dressed for it?”

Cole is known for its hip, ironic, outrageous statements, all in the name of selling clothes. And hats off for another winner there.
But this one, I think, sort of tips over to the other side. Because we really are that casual about omni-surveillance. People don’t walk by the Cole poster and stop to stare. They just walk by. Or maybe they pause to see what pants they’re wearing.
And there it is, on the streets of San Francisco — one of those futures we were warned about as kids.

I have no idea what this means, but it turns out that if you take 1 part conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer, and blend it with 3 parts conservative pundit Ann Coulter, the result looks suspiciously like Fabio’s hard-living older brother.

conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer

conservative pundit Ann Coulter

conservative super-model/pundit Fabio Krautcoulter?

As a married guy, a lot of my female friends and acquaintances have been asking me for years to tell them how to snag a fella — to reveal the big secret of exactly what it is that men like. And until now, I’ve always said “I shant.”
But then recently, I saw the movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” and it got me thinking. Who knows how much longer we have on this shimmering blue-green marble orb? And if the world were in fact to end tomorrow, and I never revealed to women how to snag a fella, how lame would that be?
So, OK. With a tip of the hat to Al Gore, here goes:
There are basically two kinds of guy. The first kind wants to be treated like a baby. I call them “baby men.” Baby men like it when you let them sort of lurch around and put their hands on everything. They leave fingerprints on your walls. And they’ll eat whatever you put in front of them, so long as you puree it.
The second kind of guy — I call them “old grandpas” — wants to be treated like an old person. Old grandpas like it when you talk really loudly at them. They say things like “I have the right to drive in front of you,” and they’re very precise about their schedules.
Alright, you’re thinking, that sounds pretty straightforward. But what about when you can’t tell which kind of guy you’re dating? Sometimes it’s not so obvious, and the stakes can be very high. For example, if you talk loudly at a baby man, he might make doody.
Fortunately, there’s one thing every guy likes, whether he be a baby man from Mumbai or an old grandpa from Galveston. And that’s the big secret I’m now about to reveal.
Guys like it when you give them money. At the end of your second date, give your guy a dollar. Not change — men don’t like the metal clangy sound coins make. It makes them anxious.
Give your guy a paper dollar, and then sit back and watch him fall head over heels. A dollar is light, yet strong. Fibrous, yet flexible. To a guy, giving him a paper dollar is like saying “I respect you. And I value your time. And I’m going to show you how I feel by giving you this paper dollar.”
And there’s nothing a man likes more than that.

On the long list
of “things not to snort”
“pepper” is very close to
the top.

Over the holidays, my family converted to one of those new religions you’ve been reading so much about on MySpace and Google. We chose the “Cheese Promise Keepers,” a group that restores the authority over all family cheese decisions to the man of the house. While the “Cheese Promise Keepers” may not be for everyone, we’ve found a lot of joy in their teachings, and I wanted to take a minute to share the good news in case they might be a good fit for you too.
Here’s how it works: if my wife or one of our kids wants to have some cheese, they’ll turn to me and say “should I have this cheese?” and I’ll say “yes” or “no” depending on my sense of what would be best for the family.
Sometimes they won’t be in the mood for cheese, and I’ll say “try some cheese with that.” Or if they’re having Swiss cheese, I might say “how about some Gouda instead? It’s Dutch.”
While these probably sound like suggestions, they’re really more like commandments. As in: “thou shalt have some Gouda instead!”
My family appreciates the fact that the “Cheese Promise Keepers” have taken all the pressure out of their cheese-related decisions. And I like the fact that they’ve made me feel more like a true man.
Before the “Cheese Promise Keepers,” cheese used to play a disproprtionately large role in our family dynamics. There were arguments over cheese. Slap fights. But now we’re putting people first, instead of putting cheese first. And isn’t that the way things ought to be? After all, in the Bible it says that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and edam.

I had a dream last night that I was applying to be a referee in the the local “ring around the rosie” league. But they rejected my application because I was just too big. They were afraid I’d frighten the kids on “all fall down.”
I mean, that’s not fair, is it? That I should have such a dream?

I voted today on plain old paper. No computers for Alameda County this time around. And I dug it. It was great, voting on paper. Some things are just better the old-fashioned way. Am I right?
For example, ice cream. I for one liked it better when ice cream was made by cows instead of by robots.
When the cows made ice cream, their hooves would go “puck puck puck.” But when the robots make the ice cream, it’s always “clang clang clang.”
And I’m like: “shut up robots!”
On a somewhat related note, I voted for Angelides. Because I’m pretty sure Steve Westly is a friggin’ robot.