Wet Hot American Decade

 

Yes, long before Wainy Days was even a twinkle in the director's eye, Wet Hot showcased Wain's unique brand of unpredictable, absurdist humor, and featured a cast that now seems like a murderers’ row of the most important comedic performers of the early 21st century.

(Leslie Knope [L], and Johnny Limitless [R])

Some, like Paul Rudd and Elizabeth Banks, have turned up on Wainy Days; while others, like A.D. Miles, have gone on to create their very own (excellent) series like Horrible People.

To celebrate the film’s 10th anniversary, David Wain & Co. have mounted a nation-wide tour, featuring screenings, Q&A's, and live shows.  To wit, here's David Wain and Wet Hot co-star Jo Lo Truglio revisiting some alternate titles for the film.  And if you're jonesing for even more of Wain live, don't forget to check out the Wainy Days live show at this year's Just For Laughs.  And remember: if you wanna smear mud on your ass, smear mud on your ass, just be honest about it.

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Ricky Gervais and his Golden Globes - Complete Bits

The globes on this guy! How convenient that there's an awards show called the Golden Globes that he can host every year. That's right, every year.

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The King And I: The Irreplaceable Howard Stern

Like millions of us, my stepmom is a lifelong Howard Stern fan. She just sent this photo taken off of Howard TV, airing our in-studio interview from earlier this week. I had the honor of being Howard Stern's guest on his Tuesday, 420 show (scroll to 840a).

Response is coming into My Damn Channel via email, phones, video views, comments, new subscribers, tweets, wall postings, and even a live spotting this afternoon in a clothing store (to complete the surreality). The influx of intense energy all flows back to a man undeniably uniquely qualified to hold the heavyweight title: "King of All Media."

Howard endures as one of the most talented and honest souls alive. He embodies the freedom of speech with every breath. For all who've been fired, laid off, downsized, pink slipped, discharged, axed, or job eliminated...it's hard to imagine speaking truth to power on a live microphone the way Howard has done it for decades.

I first followed Howard Stern on a carrier current, college radio station, 64 WTBU at Boston University. (There's a great scene depicting TBU in "Private Parts.")

If you've ever chased a radio dream, then your college years are likely the last time and place you ever experienced the fear and thrill of exercising your freedom of speech over a live mic.

Primordial FM rock radio stations were created in the late 1960's. Early heroes like Harry Shearer and Steven Clean were blowing minds at places like KPPC in Pasadena, California (which eventually became the world famous KROQ).

The combined forces of original radio talents and pre-corporate rock music created stations throughout the 70s powerful enough to infect audiences with a sense of community, purpose, passion, sex and fun that began to hit the wall around 1980.

I was sitting on the front steps of my apartment on Beacon Street in Boston with Steven Clean and my best friend, Mike Isabella the night Ronald Reagan was elected President. I was 20. I was about to drop out of college and take a full-time job as a rock radio jock at WAAF out in Worcester, Mass. One year later, I had the only radio thrill that came closest to being on Howard's show this week. Lightning struck and we convinced the Rolling Stones to do a private show for our station's fans in 1981 to start up the "Tattoo You" tour.

But, back to Mr. Clean. I'd been Steven's intern for a time at WCOZ in Boston. At that point in his career, Clean had been fired by many of the best radio stations in the country. He was a real life inspiration for the Dr. Johnny Fever character in "WKRP in Cincinnati." Steven was incredibly talented, brilliant, a true music expert and fan...and he was rebellious enough to drive the most patient souls to the edge of their sanity.

Considering the nation's new President, Steven held a joint firmly in my face and said, "See this? This is OVER!"
By the time of Reagan's second term, most radio station managers had a "Just Say No" policy for disc jockeys expressing free thoughts on mic, or taking free reign over any music playlist.

A small number of former radio station program directors shaved their beards, cut their hair, bought expensive suits, and armed themselves with halliburton briefcases filled with blow and bullshit designed to convince every fearful radio exec that they had the only secrets to ratings success, fortune and fame.

Conformity soon became the norm. Tighter playlists made stations sound the same from city-to-city. The job of disc jockey was transforming free thinkers into people paid to read positioning slogans, timechecks and weather forecasts.

In the midst of all this unholy homogenization, Howard Stern began to build a radio show free from the constraints put on most of his competitors. His talent grew on the radio and expanded with every carefully planned new project he launched.

Superfans know that Howard pays homage to legends who came before him like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin. I can't think of another entertainer who has more succesfully won battles with corporate brass than Howard. One of the many surprises about the real man to outsiders is how he maintains his position with grace and wisdom.

No one knows what the next chapter will be for the Stern show in 2011. Assume Howard can see the possible moves on the chess board more clearly than most. As a fan, I'll be following as I have since the beginning. As a business owner, My Damn Channel stands ready to serve The King anytime he calls. 

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I DON'T WANT TO GROW UP

Tom Waits. Lesser world without him.

Click on his head and enjoy a music video you'd never see on the MTV. In the last century, we were shooting the pilot for ROTTEN TV. One of the early ideas was to get Johnny Rotten to 'review' music videos for his new teleee-vision show. We debated war strategies late one night and stumbled onto the idea that everyone would expect John to HATE every video. Too simple. John decided it was a good idea to actually LIKE at least ONE music video. Tom Waits was the winner.

http://www.lyricstime.com/tom-waits-i-don-t-wanna-grow-up-lyrics.html

http://tomwaits.com/

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GO GONZO

If you experience a lack of inspiration, writer's block, anxiety about the boss, wars, lies, lost freedom, corruption, rejection, repression, fear and loathing...then write yourself a prescription and take it to the closest movie theatre showing "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," the new film directed by Oscar winner Alex Gibney. Here's the trailer.



Gibney puts accuracy above glory in his retelling of the life of the man once able to conjure up enough powerful wordplay to push millions to reconsider a sense of ourselves, our government, and our freedom. 



Here's Thompson documenting the last great wave of freedom - from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream:

"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era — the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights — or very early mornings — when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

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TRUSTING TALENT pt. 3

We built My Damn Channel with a few of patron saints in mind. Johnny Rotten is usually painted by critics with such a simple brush. Most miss the point. John may often be brutal - but he's alway honest.



During the "Rotten TV" run, we walked the red carpet, as a goof on the way into that year's VH1 Fashion Awards. Out of the corner of his eye, John spotted four important looking humans standing a few feet away from all the action, surveying the scene.

"Who are they!?" - he challenged.... I looked over my shoulder to see Sumner Redstone, flanked by Tom Freston, Judy McGrath & John Sykes. "Don't - just don't," was my hapless request, knowing full well I was screwed. Rotten headed straight for Sumner. He grabbed his hand first. Then he shook the rest & asked the group one simple question: "How much money are you lot all making on this tonight?"

As we turned to walk on, Freston grabbed my arm and offered, "I love that show." It was one of the moments that was supposed to go horribly wrong, and somehow went surprisingly well. Probably just luck.

As we head to Vegas to try to haplessly explain why My Damn Channel trusts our talent - here are a few of our gold-plated rules - we'll think of a few more before tomorrow's event - Wed 4/16 - 2pm - here:

Never lie
Don't hold back bad news
Don't use 'creative input' as an excuse for 'J J" (Job Justification)
Make decisive decisions
Never bait & switch
Communicate constantly
Avoid the 'handlers' - go direct
Be specific
Move fast - no waiting
Work the press
Pay on time - every time
Pick up the check - almost every time

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TRUSTING TALENT part two

A ROTTEN photo symphony

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NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN

Sex Pistols coming back for more this summer. Enjoy!

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Heroes + Hyphenates (11.14.07 - 2:49 am)

The new Dylan is here. This one hasn't learned to play guitar, harmonica, bust a rhyme, or carry a tune yet. ("I know what you're thinking.") This one just woke us up - screaming his lungs out.....for baby formula. He + his sister Jessie are about 26 days old this morning. It's getting really hard to count that high on no sleep. But Dylan's primal screams made me think of an old Rotten line: "anger is an energy."
 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq7utK6iyV4]
 
Johnny Rotten was the single most influential co-con of the past ten years. At VH1, we coaxed him out of his ramshackle castle to create + host "Rotten TV." Most of my heroes have an innate sense of how to use anger against all things hypocritical. My heroes all tend to be intense hyphenate-aholics. They can wake + bake up a day that includes aspects of most of the following pursuits all at once:
- a new album
- published writings
- a film (on all formats)
- television
- concert or stage performance
- radio

The truly possessed are now waking up to newfound freedoms in NewMediaLand and adding their own, original webworks to the weekly mix of mass communication.

Most of us mortals would consider just one successful hit song or major motion picture to be a happy ending to a lifelong show business dream.

But the stars I've been chasing for years all seem to be able to cook up a near perfect storm with four or five dishes in the oven at the same time.

What have these hyphenate heroes got - dat we ain't got? How much passion + will power does it take to keep pushing pebbles up a mountain? The mountains are often as slippery as slime. Snake oil rolls down from the peak and covers you in stench and goo. But you keep climbing. You're punk in spirit. You're too smart to be stopped by false hearts. This is a sleepless salute to heroes and hyphenates who refuse to stop entertaining n' communicating:
Johnny Rotten
Harry Shearer
Don Was
David Wain
Andy Milonakis
Jimmy Kimmel
Little Steven
Penn Jillette
Adam Carolla
Howard Stern
Shawn Fanning
Bruce Springsteen
U2
George Harrison
Martin Scorsese
David Byrne
Keith Richards
Mick Jagger
Bob Dylan

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