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I missed Creed tonight. I hate to miss Creed. Creed may well be the greatest cultural institution of the last score of years. I believe 
that, just as we once spoke of the Gilded Age or the Jacksonian Era, one day we will look back and call this the Age of Creed. The things Creed teaches us as nation each and every week that he is allowed on his television program “the Office” are both revolutionary and profound. I do not know why Creed needs four chairs or what he plans to do with them when the time comes, to be honest I doubt even someone of my amazing intelligence can fathom the multifaceted machinations Creed has in store for those four pieces of furniture, but I know I want to see that episode where he finally gets all four chairs. And you better bet your sweet bippy that when he does it will change everything! The only thing that might throw a kink into the works is the concurrent and coincidental existence of that horrible band of the same name.
Still I missed tonight’s Creed. I only did it as a favor to the internet community at large and the blogging community in particular to make a specially requested personal appearance at a gathering of bloggers. True, I was not personally requested to come by anyone in particular, but I had to appear personally and that e-vite was pretty freakin’ special. Had a puppy on it and everything.
I did not go expecting much. Most bloggers are convinced they are both unique and capable of making a difference in the world around them, which is of course patently idiotic because they are clearly not Creed. They are usually mildly tech savvy, semi-geeky individuals who are blogging as a “release” from the “stress” of their “lives”. Which is all nonsense. Real writers don’t write to relieve stress! Writing is the most stressful thing in the world to a real writer! We don’t do it because we like too! We do it for the money and because everyone else sucks at it. Do you realize how stressful that is?! Why else does every writer’s group meet with either a wet bar or an bunch of AA sponsors?!
Generally though I do respect bloggers for choosing a pastime that requires neither discipline nor pants to participate in. I believe this is the foundation to any successful pastime and the reason soccer will never take off in the hearts of Americans. Unfortunately, much to my dismay, this particular congress of blogospherians totally failed to be lacking either discipline or proper trousers. I showed up, as is my wont and as is normal for all aspiring writers, a good thirty to forty minutes late. (Avoiding landlords and creditors makes it nearly impossible to get anywhere on time, especially when you have to keep popping in to your favorite watering hole so you can, you know, keep your ear to the ground so to speak.) And rather than seeing shabbily dressed colleagues, their pockets full of loose tobacco, their hair a mess, their shoes scuffed beyond recognition, a warm mug of coffee and a little “sumin sumin” in their hands, ambling on in alongside me I saw clean and kept middle class types who had clearly finished the main business of the evening. All of their snazzy looking cards were handed out, they were all sitting around in quiet little coteries not saying a freakin’ word, and not a one of them had had to reach into their shoe to move the newspaper back over the hole in the sole! Needless to say I was at a loss.
I tried making friends but pretty quickly the subject of the stupidest show on television (aka “Lost”) came up. There was no one who was not so dogmatic in their support for the show that they would be willing to debate the true merits of my plan of just shooting the lead characters so that everyone else would not be killed by there stupidity. That was evident when everyone just turned back to their flavorless iced teas after I gave my proposal.
I figured I’d be asked to speak but for some reason the mic was never offered to me which was just as well. I’d missed Creed. No one could see that any drama that requires 5 seasons before it makes sense has to be bad. The business cards were no replacement for my shoe’s newspaper. A mic at that moment would have been less than pleasant for everyone else.
Anyways, I had a deadline to miss.
-Bob
To paraphrase General George S. Patton, Americans love a winner. And that completely explains Barack Obama’s approval ratings! ZING! Man, this poor guy has the touch of death. He has killed everything he has ever endorsed. Socialized Healthcare, The Chicago Olympic bid, Cap and Trade, Copenhagen, reducing obesity in America, the election of Democrat party candidates in Democrat Party strongholds, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien: all matters that Barack Obama has come out in support of and all doomed failures . And the stink of failure is starting to stick to him.
Giving off that “Chief Engineer of the ‘Titanic’” vibe is bad juju for anybody but it is particularly lethal when you work in a field that 
only attracts megalomaniacs, sycophants, popularity seekers, and those with a near psychotic drive to be liked and powerful. And the only way to control those people, all of whom will not eat you alive because it is obvious to them that you will cast them into outer darkness if they do not please you, is to show them you can bend the world to your will. If you hadn’t guessed already, watching everything you put yourself on the line for fail does not show the political hoi polloi that you are the inevitable winner/ dispenser of favor they had better back.
Failing to get what you want is also dangerous with regards to the public at large. Americans don’t like being reminded that they are governed. They like to grumble about the crooks in Washington and pay attention to anything else. But they hate it when those crooks in Washington look like they can’t get along or agree on where the nation should go. This is because America grew up in the Industrial Revlution and loves efficiency above almost anything else. They may be able to understand and even enjoy a little good old Tammany Hall style kickbackery and corruption. Most Americans could probably accept that stealing from the public is unavoidable, especially when the congressmen they elect run on the “bringing home the bacon” platform. But Americans will not stand having their corrupt government waste their time failing to do what it set out to do. Americans may hate what Congress passes but they will not be deprived by a failed leadership of the huge amounts of bills they expect Congressmen to vote on and then use as fodder for their next campaign.
Poor President. If only he had managed to crush the resistance of a conservatives, moderates, almost half of Congress, and the Supreme Court he might now still be hated but at least he wouldn’t look like that most pathetic sight in politics, the guy who can’t get his way.
One guy who did manage to look like a winner this week was the newly deceased JD Salinger. While I never liked “Catcher in the Rye” apparently enough people did to make his dying at the very respectable age of 91 a huge national story. Salinger became a winner by creating one of the most self-absorbed, self-righteous, and irrational characters ever, a teenager named Holden Caulfield, a character who instantly connected with the most self-absorbed, self-righteous, and irrational demographic ever, teenagers. Somehow Caulfield’s obsessive rants about phonies resonated with a group filled with perpetual phonies, fakers who fake everything because they don’t know who they are yet. Salinger wrote a book and created a character that embodied the spirit of the worst generation, the Baby Boomers. And for that he is a winner. True, a winner who won by connecting with people who felt like losers. But still a loser who could get more support than the President of the United States.
-Bob
Most nights when I sit down to hurriedly hammer out a blog before dawn, I have to spend most of my writing time trying to figure out what you the reader wants to read about. Luckily this is not one of those weeks. The news of the last week and a half has been so overwhelming in its magnitude and so earthshaking in its ramifications on the lives of millions across the globe that no one who has any contact with the outside world would not have heard of it. Hundreds of thousands of people are lost amid the carnage of this event and tens of thousands of people are praying, working, and using every resource at their disposal to set everything right again after what can only be called a cruel and bewildering calamity.
That’s right, I am speaking of the recent NBC late night talk show wars.
While many people, including the principles in the dispute Conan O’Brien and Jeff Zucker, agree that there are far more pressing issues to be dealt with there can be few issues Americans have more passionately embraced. Not even the vitriol surrounding the recent election of Scott “The Guy Who Stuck to Obama” Brown from Massachusetts to the US Senate has equaled the anger people in the two late night camps feel. And while Americans and people from around the world have given generously to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti we are all much more likely to see an “I’m with Coco” poster than a Haitian remembrance ribbon. Unless of course you are watching something from Hollywood, the only place left on Earth where wearing ribbons is still seen as actually doing something meaningful, then you’ll see tons of little, perfect, soon to be disposed of ribbons.
So anyways it is now officially time for us at Team Boodachitaville to weigh in on the greatest drama the world has seen since “Smokey and the Bandit 2″. And, even though I haven’t checked with Eric I am certain he agrees with me, we fully support and endorse Team Coco! Take that NBC!!!
Now many of you might think that this is a foolish position to take. You may be thinking “Why if this thing ever takes off and these guys want to get into the Saturday morning cartoon business their failure to support NBC might just kick them down to Fox.”
Well you would only be saying that because you have not yet realized that Saturday morning cartoons are dead and gone and so no major television network has anything to offer us.
What is more in your concern you would be missing the true point of our endorsement: Solidarity with other funny and groundbreaking entertainments that cannot justify their existence financially.
Sure under the new schedule Leno and Conan’s ratings sucked! But so do ours! That is no reason to stop making the show! If the fact that not enough people were paying attention was reason to stop doing something then Boodachitaville and nine tenths of the internet would be gone tonight!
Sure Conan hasn’t had the ratings. But neither have we! Boodachitaville is like the Professional Lacrosse of the Webcomic world’s ESPN! We’re like Carson Daily on a Monday night! And if someone tried to make us fundamentally change what we are so for their benefit you can bet I’d be a heck of a lot less gracious about the bouncing than Conan has been! Not Eric though. He is a pushover. Probably say he is sorry for being a disappointment or something. And I’d certainly let whoever was kicking me out have it with both barrels when the only reason I failed was because the support they were giving me was being yanked out from under me before I had a real chance to succeed!
You see what has doomed Conan’s “Tonight Show” and Leno’s “The Jay Leno Show” is the lack of exactly what Conan had when he took over “Late Night” from David Letterman in 1993, the generosity and farsightedness of a major sponsor for at least three years of support in the face of meager return so that new entertainment venture can find its feet and its audience. Conan had it back then and managed to become a huge hit. “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” had it and is moving from cult hit to a bit of a money maker. “Arrested Development” didn’t have it and has gone down as one of the best prematurely ended comedies in American TV history. “Cheers”, “Monty Python”, and even “Seinfeld” were all great shows that needed time and support to become hits. And for some reason that support Conan got early on when he really sucked was not given to him or Jay this time around when neither were as bad off.
Luckily we at Boodachitaville do not depend upon a network to tell us whether we can create or not. Unfortunately others, like Conan, do. So in support of those who are dependent on the generosity of others and in hope that said generosity will be shown to truly innovative and groundbreaking performers and artists like ourselves, we’re with Coco.
-Bob
In case you’ve been in the dark on what all has been going on with Conan V. Jay these days, I have found this wonderfully informative video which breaks down the different turns of events in a way we can all understand:
–Eric
