whoa
 
There is something oddly compelling about the idea of Zak and me running stuff in San Francisco.  Or anywhere for that matter.  I like this picture, we have taken many versions of this shot in our past under a variety of circumstances.  Funny.
 
So the picture is from Ravi and Manisha’s amazing wedding earlier this year.  I think that wedding in San Francisco’s City Hall was the last time I was super happy about our political infrastructure until very recently.
 
It’s been a week since I stayed up until two in the morning watching the elections.  As some of you might remember, I was a completely rapid political junkie for the presidential elections and have kind of laid low during this one, only making a few comments here and there.  I was reading a lot and doing my best to pay attention, I just didn’t feel like going into it to much here.  
 
I am very stoked with the results of the election and I am very...well, I mean, Barbara Boxer talking about the environment?  Minimum wage discussions?  There are so many things that need to be fixed and addressed and it’s just so weird to be hopeful that they might actually get fixed and addressed!  This repudiation of the neo-cons, the religious right...it’s amazing. People finally just said, “You know what?  I don’t actually believe all the crap you are telling me I believe.  Furthermore, get your politics out of my private life and stop telling me what I can and cannot do.  Plus, you are corrupt bastards and should be thrown in jail but since I can’t throw you in jail myself, I am going to get out and vote and make sure you know we’re watching you.”
 
I am a little tired to go off on all this right now, but I must say, I am very happy that the Dems seems to be acting very forthright and moving things forward very quickly and deliberately (which is a nice change).  I think I will comment more on this later, but it was really nice to be surprised and happy about an election.
 
What else.  Dude, I am tired.  Work is really kind of amazing right now, with so many different things going on that I was really stunned when I fell asleep on Sunday night and realized I had not thought about work at all (I had a nice weekend, more on that eventually).  It’s been pretty absorbing.
 
But so has the acting.  Big time.  I had a voiceover this morning (meaning I had to do a conference call in my car beforehand), and then I get this call saying I had a commercial audition today and not only was it four hours from when I got it, but I had to be in business attire with golf clothes underneath said attire.  AND, when I got the message, I had 46 minutes before I had another (important) meeting at work!  Somehow, I was able to get all the way home, run in the house, grab the clothes, run back to the car and race back to work and was only 5 minutes late for the meeting.
 
Madness.  I am now going to start keeping many changes of different clothes in the car.  I keep saying I will but I loathe keeping stuff in my trunk (a big change from the way I used to be)--I like to have the car as empty as possible for some reason.  (By the way, the car rocks like crazy still...and the audition went fine.)
 
I am performing on Saturday night at Second City; we have been asked to come back and do out winning “Wiggles” sketch again for a “Best of the best” evening.  It should be fun.  They had filmed it so we were able to reproduce it tonight.  So strange...it was, like, May or something when we did it. June.  Seems like a really long time ago.
 
Having a few of those “Am i doing things right?” moments these days.  I think I am actually doing things right, I am just more than a little ready for some results.  It’s just a bit more obvious when you are working at something that has such clear benchmarks for success.  Did you get the part, yes or no?  Nothing more clear than that, really.  But otherwise, things are working.  I work out at least 4-5, sometimes 6 times a week (I haven’t had a “real” lunch hour in a year and when if I work out a night, I miss a lot of traffic, so it works out nicely), so I can honestly say that I am in better shape now than I have ever been in my life.  That’s a real accomplishment, I must admit--I never played sports and spent a good deal of my youth in front of a computer....crap, I mean, I spend a good deal of my life in front of a computer.  Ugh.  So, that’s good.  I’ve been married a year and it’s awesome.  My family and friends all seem to be doing amazingly well...so it’s good.  Life is good and constantly challenging.  I guess that’s all you can hope for.
 
I have been thinking a bit about the cast of The Office.  Most of the performers are writer/actors, which I think is really great.  It obviously works for the show--when the actors are used to creating the stories, I think it provides a different kind of insight into the characters, it very delicately changes the tenor of the show.  It would be so interesting to work that way.  I mean, it’s one thing to design and help build the set that you are going to be performing on, but to actually have a hand in writing (and, in the case of The Office, oftentimes producing) the work...it does seem like a validation of all the self-generated content that is drenching the web.  Self-generation as self preservation?  Film something, throw it on the web, be immortal (or, perhaps more fitting--continue to inform your brand)...for a little while, until we get bored and feel like watching kittens crawl into sweaters?  
 
Perhaps people will find that this is easier, more entertaining, than actually doing something to make their mark.  Getting a high rating in eBay is something people truly value, I bet getting a 5 star video after millions have checked you out on YouTube has to be way more thrilling, more fulfilling to many people than figuring out a way to help the guy down the block who is obviously living in his car.  (I cannot believe the car campaign, by the way, joking that the car is so great that you could just live in it--a lot of people do that, especially in LA.  I can’t believe how tasteless that campaign is (I know, I’m a sensitive Liberal from SF...well, it our time, dammit!)  Perhaps I am being overly short sighted and cynical in this.  Not everyone lives to make the next YouTube hit and plenty of people are interested in helping others.  But still.
 
 
Other questions come to mind...when else in history has just anyone been able to be their own Martin Luther and post their posits for everyone to see?  (And get very real responses to it, legitimately real responses.)  When “everyone” actually had a global sheen to it?  What does this do?  Creates communities, that’s for sure.  What else?
 
I used to say that the one reason I really thought phones on cameras were important was that it meant that people would not be able to be oppressed.  I mean, if people are armed with cameras and a worldwide networked audience, then governments could be held accountable to the planet for their actions.  Well, this actually happened.  So interesting!  And then, of course, once can flip it around, and realize that with these phones, you not only never know who is watching you, but you never know if someone is recording you--my phone even has a zoom lens and these things just got here.  How about 5 years from now? So that’s kind of scary, too.  Big Brother is Us?  Sounds like a nice dystopian world in which to set a story in, actually.  
 
But cell phone cameras can generate good, even important content.  Amazing.  Amazing!
 
It is interesting to think about the various phases of the Web over the past decade or so.  First, it was like, “wow, this is cool, this is big, this is odd, this is different” and we were all figuring it out together.  Then we started seeing URLs in movie ads and sporting events, which was really trippy...then WHAM! people started freaking out because everyone was getting rich so everyone had to try SOMETHING to get rich, then everyone got fired.  Then we got all worried about corporate control of the Web (and still are, of course) at how the corporations and governments would start managing this glorious anarchy...and then, like weeds growing through pavement, people leveraged the always growing broadband penetration and just did their own thing (thereby drastically changing viewers’ expectations from entertainment, the way it is distributed, even the form of the content (3 minute clips on a 3” screen is a legitimate venue now) and now corporations are trying to buy THAT, too.  Myspace, anyone?  Youtube?
 
Corporations trying to make a buck off of some people just trying to tell their joke, sing their song, show off their moves. It’s insane.  I am wondering when we will see corporate branded butcher paper so when a kid brings home a drawing of their house we will know that the art was sponsored by Coca-Cola.  
 
So, people are always figuring out ways to get their voice across, to tell their story, and the only difference is that back in the day it was religion and government trying to shut them up and now we’ve government and corporations (oh, sure, religion too, but most religions are so busy killing their own or working actively to show how irrelevant and out of touch they are that it seems cruel to pick on them at the moment) doing the oppression (unless, at least for corporations, they can make a buck from it).
 
Well, I am sure I am not telling you anything new, but there you go.  We’ll see what continues to infuriate later.
 
 Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006