What's Mark Malkoff Up To?

Mark Malkoff, Camryn Manheim and Camryn Manheim's Emmy

Where's Mark Malkoff been?

Was he so exhausted from taking people on Free Cab Rides all over New York City that he's gone into hiding? Was his last vlog chronicling his adventures arm-wrestling children just too Over The Top?

Fear not. Mark is hard at work in Los Angeles putting together his next project for you: "Celebrity Sleepovers."

Make sure you visit the My Damn Channel Facebook Page where we will post photos of Mark and some of the celebs who have let him into their home.

Like Lisa Loeb:

And Ed Begley, Jr.:

... where we see the arm-wrestling thing is starting to become a recurring theme.

We'll let you know when the video is going to premiere. Until then, we hope more celebrities arm wrestle with Mark because Dan Harmon and I agree that these Over The Top jokes are never going to get old:

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Marc Maron and My Damn Channel: WTF

I started my career in radio and I started My Damn Channel as a response to getting tossed out of radio in 2006.

Podcasts are not new, but in the past few years, a number of brilliantly talented people with brains and balls decided to head to their garages and go punk - bringing new shows to the masses on the Internet - without any of the soul-killing, corporate execs able to stop these brave rebels from creating completely original "radio" that puts the "F" back in Freedom.

I created Free FM back in 2004 to give awesome talent like Adam Carolla a radio show that harkened back to the earliest days of freeform radio....a form never done better than the way it's still being done today by Howard Stern.

When I got "shit-canned" as Adam loves to say - and could no longer protect him from the devils - he got "shit-canned" too. Adam took to his garage to build a monster audience for his podcast and My Damn Channel continues to put our cash where our heart is as a paid sponsor.

Today, we pony up again to become a proud sponsor of WTF with Marc Maron. If you know this show, then you simply need to know that I could no longer sit back and cheer for Marc without jumping in to support him. If you're uninitiated, then his words will be better than mine and I encourage you to watch the video of Marc's recent keynote speech given at the premiere comedy festival, Just for Laughs in Montreal.

Like with Adam Carolla, you'll hear My Damn Channel artists and comedians on WTF with Marc Maron. From time to time, Marc will tell you about the good shit we're doing here to premiere original series with great talent and without any of the corporate red tape that used to get in our way.

And we've now got a whole new Marc Maron channel to check out regularly when you're on My Damn Channel, featuring his podcasts, videos, extras and excerpts with a link to subscribe and donate like we did to a rare talent taking the truth by the horns.

Rob Barnett
Founder/CEO, www.MyDamnChannel.com

www.MyDamnChannel.com/WTF

www.MyDamnChannel.com

www.MyDamnChannel.com/SizzleReel

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The Best Part of Halloween?

Think about it. Each Halloween we pulverize pumpkins to stick candles in their hollowed-out gores and put them on our front porch so that people know that we're friendly people with candy.

This ritual also marks the beginning of the most gastronomically wonderful time of year.
How so? Let us count the ways:

Pumpkin Bread


Pumpkin Scones


Pumpkin Soup (Trust us. So good.)


Pumpkin Pie

And of course, America's favorite weird obsession:


The Pumpkin Spice Latte.

We've seen people trample small children to get to this drink. Get it together, people.

If all of these things made you really hungry, but you're still unsure how to get this pumpkin-slaughtering ritual started, here's a little "How-To" from Slacktory:



Happy Halloween!

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YouTube and My Damn Channel: Breaking News

Today, Google made a major announcement setting the stage for new programming on YouTube. We're honored that My Damn Channel is working to create a new YouTube original channel as part of this initiative.

We launched www.MyDamnChannel.com back in 2007 - dedicated to giving the most talented people in entertainment a studio and distribution platform where they can co-create, produce and showcase the best original video programming. We've made thousands of videos and many of the most watched and awarded comedy series like “Wainy Days,” “You Suck at Photoshop,” “Horrible People,” “Daily Grace” and political satire from the great Harry Shearer. We've been supported by major advertisers who partner with us to reach engaged, loyal fans online with media campaigns and branded entertainment that break through the noise.

In addition to running our own site, we've always syndicated to other outlets and YouTube has been a powerful partner since we launched our first channel there in 2007.

In February, 2012, we’re expanding our YouTube relationship to give you MY DAMN CHANNEL LIVE: a hosted, 30-minute, weekly comedy show featuring world premieres of our original videos and series. We'll bring you stars you love and new talent too.

MY DAMN CHANNEL LIVE will also invade your screens daily with 10-minute, interactive blasts from our host. You'll see our new live show on a dedicated channel on My Damn Channel, on a new channel on YouTube, and in syndication.

We'll keep you plugged in on the birth of our new baby with fresh updates about all the artists we’re signing and the new series we’re producing from now 'til launch. I want to give HUGE thanks to everyone who's supported My Damn Channel. A few short years ago, Warren Chao and I were two crazy fools with a power point presentation and a dream. The fact that one of the most revolutionary companies in the world just tapped us for their new adventure blows us away and we're counting on all of you to be watching.

Rob Barnett
Founder/CEO, www.MyDamnChannel.com

Sizzle Reel: 2007-2011 HERE

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Meet "Dicki".

Everyone's so uptight about what they can put on the Internet. It's like, "Come ON, everybody!"

Meet Dicki.

She's 40. She lives with her parents. In the middle of nowhere. She makes a living doing...uh... something... we think. And in Episode One she's trying to get her Facebook profile picture juuuuuuuust right, which we totally understand since we've all held the camera at arm's length in a weirdly lit hallway, trying to make it look like it's a candid shot of us out at some ridiculous party having extraordinary fun, instead of just standing in our parents' hallway hoping they don't ask us what we're doing.

If we were Dicki, we'd probably just take a photo that made us look as much like Mary Lynn Rajskub as possible, since most people who know her work as "Chloe O'Brian" or "Gail the Snail" are pretty enamored of her.

Oh, well, to each their own, we guess. And in Dicki's case, we don't think that will be a problem.

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David Wain is SEXY.

David Wain is a sex machine.
He dates the hottest women that you've ever seen.
It seems unlikely but it's totally true
If you don't understand it we'll explain it to you...

Way back in August of '11 we went to Just For Laughs in Montreal and did "Wainy Days LIVE" with David Wain, Rob Corddry, Reggie Watts and a bunch of their super-talented friends.

Two of those friends were Garfunkel and Oates aka Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, two of the sweetest, funniest, most talented, adorable people you could ever hope to meet in your entire life. In Montreal, they wrote a song about how sexy David Wain must be since in every episode of Wainy Days gorgeous women are falling over themselves to be with him. When we all returned home, everyone thought it would be a shame to keep the brilliance of that song limited to a few hundred people in French-Speaking Quebec, so we filmed it and are sharing it with the world.

Watch it and share it with your friends. It's like a little bit of joy right on your computer screen.

And Kate and Riki have both been on television and in film so they would know what sexy is, right? They're like comedic rock stars, right? The LA Times wrote a feature about them! They would know what would make a pretty girl want to lick an average 42 year old body!

Could it be they find David Wain that sexy because he told them that Season 5 of his groundbreaking web series Wainy Days is returning to My Damn Channel this Fall?! Yes. That's it. That's very much what it must be. For sure.

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Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

And that's really what it is, isn't it?

We're all sitting here, staring at our iPhones in disbelief. Finding comfort in one of the tens of thousands of songs on our iPod. Searching the internet to share in the mourning en masse on our MacBooks.

After we're done here, we'll edit some videos using Final Cut Pro. While we listen to a playlist we made on iTunes. When we get hungry later, we'll use an app on our iPhone to figure out a good place nearby to eat. When we get home, we'll iChat with our parents across the country and tell them what we've been up to. Hell, even one of our most popular videos took place in an Apple Store.

For so many of us who never even met the man, we can't imagine what our lives would have been like without him.

The real brilliance of Steve Jobs's vision is that he believed we all deserved to live the lives of our dreams, and he gave us as many tangible tools as possible to try and do just that. How many of us began vlogging because we were experimenting with our iSights? How many of us became interested in telling stories because of iMovie? How many of us now see the world refracted through Steve Jobs's lens?

We're not the first to post this video, but its message bears repeating, even on days when it isn't almost painfully poignant:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Thanks for believing in all of us, Steve. You have to have known that you made a difference.

(Image via Jonathan Mak)

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How To Be A Vlogger: Lesson Two

(Image via)

So. You've made your first vlog and told everyone that you didn't know what you were doing.

Sweet. What's next?

Well, one tactic that especially adventurous vloggers like to do is to treat the videoblogging experience like Twitter.

Like BAD Twitter.

Like the Twitter that you're afraid of finding in your timeline so you never even log on. Like the Twitter that you used to write when you didn't know what Twitter was and you thought that Facebook was just a fad and why can't we all just go back to MySpace already?!

Like this:

And-- just like last week-- this seems to work best when you don't have anything interesting or informative to share with the audience! People love being bored to death! It's crazy how that works! Those YouTube subscriptions should just start rolling in!

If you try out any of our vlogging tips, let us know how it goes-- especially if any of them work out for you, because, frankly, that's something we can only imagine. Seriously.

Come back next week when we'll discuss how to deal with the haters...

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How To Get a Free Cab Ride with Mark Malkoff

So you want to be in a video with an Internet Celebrity, huh?

Here's your chance:

1. Watch the video above.
2. Be in New York City (mostly around Manhattan) on Tuesday, September 13th.
3. Need a place to go.
4. Tell Mark Malkoff by Tweeting him at @mmalkoff where you are and where you would like to go.
5. Maybe you a get a Free Cab Ride!
6. Maybe you don't.
7. Try again. Keep tweeting @mmalkoff and try to get that free ride!
8. Follow Mark on foursquare to see if he's nearby! (Here's a hint: Your chances of getting picked up are better if he's already in your area!)
9. Follow My Damn Channel on foursquare since we will be checking in with Mark at some point during the day and handing out some My Damn Chanel swag to people who also check in at this location!
10. Wait patiently for the video to premiere here on September 28th and see if your ride made the cut!

If you don't get a free cab ride, hopefully you know how to buy a Metrocard...or may we suggest you invest in a Big Wheel?

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5 Ways To Make Yourself More Popular

WAKE UP and be more popular! Don't be like James Franco.

So you're back in school and you're bored already? Here are 5 Ways To Make Yourself More Popular.

1. Find someone to haze. It's still early in the school year, right? Your professor is probably still learning names. If you're in a class where your instructor calls attendance, just start hazing people. "Steve Guttenberg?" "More like, Steve Not-So-Gutten-To-Be-Back-In-School! YOU'VE BEEN HAZED."

2. Talk about how much you love Justin Bieber. His voice still hasn't broken so girls still see him as an asexual non-threatening type of fantasy crush, right? Also he's just, like, sooooooo CUUUUUUUTE.

3. Tell them how much you love animals. Cats, especially. Who doesn't love a pussy...CAT. Pussycat. Jeez.

4. Show your new roomies that you know how to cook. You should probably start with the Faghetti'wich: fries and spaghetti on a sandwich...so, you know, all your basic college food groups. Later, when the local sandwich shop starts selling it you can get them to name it after you.

5. Make a video for your new classmates telling them how much you love them. And how pretty you think they all are. And how you would totally have babies with them if they would let you. Because that's not creepy at all.

Good luck! Let us know if any of these things actually work to increase your popularity because then we will need to transfer to your school immediately.

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