Category Archives: Media & Entertainment
Dog eating at table (Please pass the rancid squirrel)
A typical work day for Stephen Colbert
The interview below might just be the best interview I’ve heard. (Listen to the Real Stephen Colbert Explain How He Maintained his Flawless Character for Nine Years) Plotz asked really good questions and they were short (I hate long, windy questions).
It was like meeting Stephen Colbert for the first time. I hardly recognized the voice or the person speaking. He takes us through his working day and it was fascinating. And grueling. Difficult to imagine doing this 160 times a year (1400 total).
I’m gonna miss the character but it feels like the right time to stop. Maybe as it was for Seinfeld. I’ll record Late Night (as I did The Colbert Report) once Colbert gets behind the desk. I’m a little nervous about it. Like discovering your wife of twenty years is really a deep cover mole for a foreign government. Will I like the real Stephen Colbert as much as I liked the character I’ve come to know?
Alan Watts: Think of Nothing
Be Right Back (Black Mirror)
An online service that creates a virtual presence for a departed loved one, based on all the photos, videos, Facebook posts, Tweets, etc etc. I’m sure I’ve posted on that several times over the years, eagerly anticipating some digital immortality. Once again, Charlie Brooker has changed my mind with the Be Right Back episode of Black Mirror. If you’ve recently lost someone close, you might want to skip this one (or wait a bit)
Serial
I kept reading glowing reviews of this podcast and finally listened to the first episode. And the second. And… I was hooked. Now I’m rationing my listening. Once upon a time I would have described this as “good radio” but it no longer feels like radio to me. And it’s far superior to any podcast I’ve heard before. The people behind this podcast have close ties to This American Life.
Serial is a new podcast from the creators of This American Life, hosted by Sarah Koenig. Serial (follows) one story – a true story – over the course of a whole season. We follow the plot and characters wherever they take us and we won’t know what happens at the end of the story until we get there, not long before you get there with us.
The episodes I’ve listened to so far (five?) have been sponsored (MailChimp) but they also accept donations (I had no trouble kicking in $20) and they’ve received enough support to commit to a second season.
Each episode is anywhere from half an hour to forty-five minutes but are so well written and produced they seem much shorter.
Radio, podcasting, great story telling… whatever you call this, it’s compelling.
Chase Apple Pay ad with Bleachers
“The ad — in which Apple was heavily involved according to AdAge — follows members of an indie band as they prepare for a show by making purchases with their Chase Freedom card through Apple Pay. One gets a haircut, for instance, while another has his guitar tuned.”
My first thought on watching this ad was, “Pretty cool for a bank.” Upon closer look I saw that Apple was “heavily involved” so… Wonder if someone at Chase went to Apple and said help us make this cool, or if Apple reached out to Chase and said why don’t you let us make this cool for you.
Been using Apple Pay here at The Coffee Zone for a week now and it reminds me a bit of using my key fob to unlock the MINI. When I approach my car I just automatically click the unlock button. When I approach cash registers, will I reach for my phone without thinking?
Going to a movie in the afternoon
I don’t find seeing movies in a theater a very pleasant experience these days. But we still go once in a while. Being able to go in the middle of the afternoon is one of the benefits of not having a job. Barb and I watched Nightcrawler yesterday and found it entertaining.
An end of radio
“Just as newspapers fell off a cliff, radio is about to follow. It’s going to happen faster than anyone expects. And of course, it will be replaced by a new thing, a long tail of audio that’s similar (but completely different) from what we were looking for from radio all along. And that audience is just waiting for you to create something worth listening to.”
Citizenfour
We ain’t the good guys anymore. That was my take-away from Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’ documentary on Edward Snowden. This is far and away the best documentary I’ve ever seen and it was damning. As for who’s a good guy and who isn’t, well, maybe there aren’t any good guys anymore. I’ll tell you who is not a good guy… Barack Obama. Yep, the guy I voted for, twice. Even made some donations to the first campaign. I’d say I fucked up but come on… Sarah Palin?!
As it became clear President Obama was a very different cat than Candidate Obama, I told myself he’s better than George Bush and Dick Cheney. But you know, that doesn’t make you a good guy. It just makes you not those bad guys.
Same goes for the USA. Yeah, there are some countries with really shitty governments. But that’s a pretty low bar. Turns out our shit does stink and it’s time we took a good whip.
At some point in the film I found myself thinking, “Fuck it. I hope the Republicans take the Senate. And the House. A whole bunch of Democrats have been complicit in what the NSA and the rest of the intelligence “community” have been up to and they get no more support or votes for me.
I’ll calm down but I won’t be the same. It’s that strong a film. I’ve turned off comments here but would be happy to discuss privately, one-to-one. With anyone who has seen the film.