Let me come out with it. I’m Jewish. And I was raised in one of those households who really appreciated the change from Christmas Break to the Holiday Break. Toledo, OH is not a pro-semetic place. Its not the type of place Woody Allen could have developed his phobias in, unless he liked practicing his monologs behind closed blinds in the middle of the night when the neighbors were asleep.
I like to call Jews who grow up in places like these, “Diaspora Jews”. We’re the ones who know how to keep the thing going when times get tough, cause to be honest, if there’s ever gonna be an issue again, it would most likely start in an intolerant, backwards, hell-hole like Toledo, OH. And folks on the Upper West Side, may like to complain about the Horra, but when have they last experienced it? They’re weak in their great numbers, for not knowing what its truly like.
I bring this up because like my father’s employers who used to chastize him for depriving his kids of a Christmas tree and for inferring that he killed Jesus as a holiday tradition, I’ve heard these Christmas songs so much, I like to roll them out again every single year. I was forced to learn them in Choir in order to get the easy A.. perform them at a 9 to 1 ratio before all the goyin in the Ray. E. Deardorf auditorium HOLIDAY CONCERT–and now I’m going to go through my favourite ones here. Yes. Many of which were written by Jews–we always say as they play at the Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day.
Now that you know how I felt about Christmas growing up (and I actually do celebrate it now, three years running with my best friend Mark Nugent–it really is a sugary good time) one day I may write a song inspired by this. Until then, enjoy these favourites and the feelings which inspired them.. Happy Holidays!
Feel like the New Jersey Turnpike:
Feel balanced (Bing died shortly after this)
Feel Passive Aggressive (Think Martha Stewart denial)
In our extensive, painstakingly long study of the creative process–we thought we’d solute one seemingly common aspect of the originating mojiss for many 1980s situation comedies. First we’ll do the history–so if you want to get to the >>CONFLICT<<–most likely if you’re under the age of lets say 35.. scroll down to >>CONFLICT<< below.
You remember the 80s? VH-1 won’t let you forget–but soon enough you will forget them. It was the high water mark for the Situation Comedy–one in which there was a living room with a door on the left leading ‘outside’ a couch in the middle that sat THREE, some pictures, a staircase and a kitchen on the right–or vice versa–that’s where IT happened.
In order to understand what went into that genius–I guess you could try to understand Michael Eisner. In the book about him–DisneyWars, which I read whilst I was working under der Fuhrer as the remaining Disney brothers were failing to over throw him over Walt’s dead body, he’s given credit for creating something called “High-Concept”. Its something where you pick a star or two–TENT POLES if you will to get them in the door, wrap them around a situation with an obvious conflict like a black cop in a rich town, use a studio you already have or shoot it all in LA, do everything else on the cheap including BRONSON PINCHOT and blim, blam thank you mam–Cha-Ching.. HIGH CONCEPT. It also helps if you’re HIGH when you watch these movies.
HIGH CONCEPT in the 80s vs. the 70s, was like Pop Chart Singles were to Albums, the K-Car was to the Muscle Car and most interestingly NEW COKE was to Original Formula(for the record, I actually DID actually like New Coke better). Beverly Hills Cop, Beverly Hills Cop II, Indiana Jones and the Lost Arc, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom–these were some of the original HIGH CONCEPTS–but my GEORGE–there were SOOO MANY and we loved them so.
How come in Hollywood, when some schmuck in Hollywood comes up with some glamorous term like HIGH CONCEPT(or his assistant does), he’s considered genius and ooo’d and aw’d and no one knows who the hell Dan Robbins is?–I’ll never know.
He did pretty much the same thing. Mike and Dan–both formulaticians–with a whiz bang idea that swept through the suburban splundor and kept people from smiling awkwardly in passing while running home to crack open another one.
How does this reflect creative cognition? What happened in the 80s was the industrialization of the media form.New distribution channels opened up. Multiplexes formed. TBS was invented–and there was money to be made like always, but this time is was A LOT MORE OF IT.
This shit needed to be cranked out like GOOSE through a SHIT factory. Those who came up with these FORMATTING tricks, became GODS, their heads as big as round bubbles.
This is very interesting for us Schmoos, generational in fact!–as we’ve experienced a COLON blow of distribution channels openning up in similar form to the upheaval of the early 80s–but MUCH MUCH bigger! Step right up and have your head be blown into a bubble too!
History lesson’s over, Hegel has been paid his due–and lets get to the good stuff.
Those sit-coms from the 80s? Why did they have such mass appeal? You look at these things and you realize the only reason why industry people long for these good old days is because the money was BIG and EASY–and it was EASY to make.
>>CONFLICT<<
>>CONFLICT<<
The basic formula: Middle class person, reinvents themselves into a not really fucked up situation and everything comes up roses–as sung through a HYPER POWER DEISEL VOICE that sends the dogs running in from other rooms.
Within the THEME SONG, IS the entire concept, and when it left so did the entire franchise. Just like each situation–each song has a TURN for the fucking awesome–these moments are highlighted and explained below in between the []–if we learn anything else from this creative imputus–”what’s old is new, and we should have theme songs in everything we do”… AND NOW, the FIVE RULES for 80s Sit-Com Sucess:
Rule 1:
You move somewhere. [and if anyone knows me well, now is when I insert how pitiful it is that their dreams are seemingly limitless for them in Chicago when you can't take the train anywhere unless you transfer downtown or even find a corner there that doesn't smell like poo]
RULE 2:
When you get there, it’s gonna be AWESOME(or at least the rich part of Connecticut)! [He lost a dream or two, .. at the end was Judith Light!--now we know why it took them like 6 seasons to not get it on--weak!]
Rule 3:
Two weirdos make a right and that’s some how intrinsic in your CABAM Happiness explosion [I might be father of the year!--or max out in 5 years on Mad about You]:
Rule 4:
This can happen too you middle class!Just move in with your financially sucessful photographer type sister who lives where she works and doesn’t have a straight staircase like the rest of the shows, but a TURNY one [How could something so good be so right.. so right!]. And no, that’s not your connection–that shocking shuffle move is an ‘effect’, so is the ‘blue sky above’.
Rule 5: Don’t stray too much from Rules 1-4. If you go too far, like making it just about Catholics(especially when none of the kids look alike and they don’t look like the parents either !)–despite getting most Reagan Democrats, your audience won’t be large enough like the generalist Growing Pains you grew out of and you go out of business in two seasons [stay on the ball {go to church} I might make the HALL OF FAME--what can he say?]. You know what, these rules work for just PLAIN mainstream American dreams in almost any regard–don’t they?
You know why I love these Themes so much–they took the time to actually explain to you what you were about to watch. Its all in there–Its like you’re in the PITCH MEETING and everything, no nuance about it. It wasn’t really until Seinfeld exploded this form, that they just put you INSIDE THE SHOW so you had to figure out for yourself what the hell you were watching?
What can be learned from this–if you transported yourself back to the 80s and figure out a way to make a middle class family type person feel like through an unrealistic reflection of the room in which they sit–staring back at them, and within their minds would be the promise of a brighter tomorrow and a better future–we probably still wanted that when we were humble enough to believe it was ok to have one or two TVs in the house.
In many respects, maybe we’ve grown richer as a country or a world. I know one aspect of DISNEY/ABC features now is instead of a laugh track they give you background music, implying “BOSE WAVE RADIO” for you. Or is it the Reality shows that invade our news programs.
FORGET THE DAMN THEME SONG–>SHIT, our houses don’t even look like the ones on TV anymore, nor do our situations. Who watches TV together anymore anyway–everyone’s seperated into their own worlds. We all get directly to the point now evertime–whatever we want, all the time.
We’ve gone from situation obsessed–to just right down to “strip out the other fucking filler and get me to the conflict obsessed”. All the time. YO Eisner–now adays its CONFLICT CONFLICT CONFLICT–we can’t appreciate you’re concept. What’s past that you wonder? Its already like eating frosted without the flakes. It won’t look like playing outside–I can tell you that much. Maybe its like a family guy episode, that just has punchline, no set up.
So, as we’re RETHINKING everything this year from MONEY, to WEATHERIZATION to HEALTH CARE to how to make a GM–let us consider–as SCHMOOS, how to program for the micro audiences of the future?
Is it enough to make something really good for our friends to watch? Can they handle a full 22 minute story, or even a 5 minute story–or do even they require moments? We cannot put these genies we dream about back into the bottles. Despite old being new again–its very unlikely in the specialized era of video, that people will ever tolerate a stair case behind a couch?
What I suspect, is the person who can access straight feelings in an accessible way. That’s where its at. Remember the way you’re grandparents smelled when you went to visit–PRINT IT.
Remember your gym teacher’s obsession with whistles–PRINT THAT TOO.
Finally–I don’t know how this really fits in here at this point. So this seems like a perfect place to ponder the question–how did Belverdere hitch hike accross the ocean with a cardboard sign–and why the hell would he pick Pittsburgh? We need to get back to having entertainment exist in a far away land where questions like these don’t matter AND THEY’RE SO UPFRONT ABOUT IT!–cause true love begins when you accept someone despite their obvious flaws–in fact, according to our new arrival– you love them for it.
To give you all a clear understanding that Schmoonews is about the Creative Process and holds nothing back–I’m about to peel away the curtin into some of the questions you all have been asking me about how we’ve gotten this thing together and what’s the deal with BECKMANN and his seemingly illustrious life of travel and mystery. More than anything this post documents our PRE HISTORY in creating SCHMOO.
Exactly one year ago today, Barack Obama was elected president–and that’s a critical moment in the history not just for the world, but for us. You see, I started my self-imposed exile from my place in San Francisco at the end of July 2008 to move to Chicago and join the New Media part of that campaign. When we won–and then a week later, Current TV laid off the division I had been working for, I decided in those cold dark days of November, to start something SCHMOO–although not even the name had surfaced yet.
All I knew was that so many of you who had done work for us and so many of the talented people I’d worked with were now all of sudden out in the cold–whilst I felt like I had won the lottery. Finding myself in the midst of a historic and winning presidential campaign.
Fast forwarding to now–we will get to the parts in between at another point–I never went back home. I continued to go about the country and put together the pieces that at first became our parent company, IB5k and then later our subset for the creative types, Schmooru.com.
How did I do this? As you can recall–after Obama got elected, the sky was literally falling. The economy was in shambles and people thought the banks were going to fail. Schmooru, I’m proud to say has received no investment in these early stages which means there are no strings attached while firmly developing our foundation. We control our own house and from there we can dream unbeholden.
It did cost money–and I’m happy to report, my savings are mostly intact. The first thing that’s been mysterious to me and I hope no one from the MGM Mirage corporation is reading this–but every time I’ve needed the money for something, I’ve gotten it in a casino. In a sense MGM and a few other names are investors in this company. Same way FEDEX started.
I don’t believe in gambling–but I’ve only lost one time this year. I’ve never gotten more than I needed to get me past the next post. Before Obama called in July of 2008, I had won a HUGE take in Detroit which made me feel comfortable taking the drastic pay cut to sign up–because it was so mysteriously large, I thought it meant something larger than me.
There are your curators who worked on a HOPE and a DREAM who basically did this stuff for future pay, but beyond that they deeply care in what we’re all trying to do there. Primarily, to have a lawyer, a webmaster, a business builder, a powerful DC power broker, an impeccably capable renaissance video man–but also, the girl I called one week after the election and said “I don’t know what it is, but we’re going to go out there and do something’–the most networked girl in video production–cause this thing always was conceived and lives within community–without these people–there would be no SCHMOO.
But that’s not all. It took a village. A global one–in order to build this thing. And primarily–its not having paid rent for an entire year that has really gotten this thing off the ground. By my count I’ve stayed in over 47 different spots this year, and never slept in the street unless it was on purpose(There was the one night in Chicago when I wanted to go home and my hosts were partying all night but that was good for me;). I would say a word to the wisest is you have to keep on moving every three days in order to not overstay a welcome–but below, I’ve chronicled every place I’ve stayed in the last year–and many of them were repeats.
These people all contributed to the possibility, that creative people like all of you could band together–do projects bigger than oneself–and in doing so, help to preserve a creative lifestyle and profession that’s necessary to ensure our happy futures.
CHI Caitlin Dorsey
Mike Debonis
The New Media Mansion people
STL
The Rev. Ben Schartman
NYC
Katie Beckmann
LA
Lauren Cerre & Tyler Manson-
SF
John Reed & Sarah McKinney
Omaha
Paul Tulipana & Megan Malone
Louisville
Tom Green
Birmingham
Mark Nugent & Jessica Kerley
Miami
Mark Steiner
St. Louis
Harrahs;)
Toledo
David & Esther Beckmann
Washington, DC Inauguration
Allison Archaubault
NYC
Holly Ecker and Christopher Smith
Washington DC/Manassas, VA
Mathew Taylor
David Bychkov & Nadia Madjid
SF
Richie Zevin
Bozeman, MT
Michael J. “mini” Noogent
Michael and Naomi Nugent
LA
Sarah Evershed & Julian Robinson
Dylan Ris
SF
Danny Debonis
Chicago,
Zac Witte & Goeff Domeracki
SF
Tori Taylor & Dave McMillan
LA
Saskia Wilson Brown
Wyoming
The Eversheds
NYC
John F. Brunner
Jory Cunningham
Sam Reiff-Pasarew
DC
Max Harper
Amsterdam
Dennis DeLange
Mike Glennon
NYC
Clare Sullivan & Thomas Hallaran
Great Barrington, MA
Nathanial Kerksick
CHI
Caitlin Dorsey
Mike Debonis
The New Media Mansion people
STL
The Rev. Ben Schartman
NYC
Katie Beckmann
LA
Lauren Cerre & Tyler Manson-
SF
John Reed & Sarah McKinney
Omaha
Paul Tulipana & Megan Malone
Louisville
Tom Green
Birmingham
Mark Nugent & Jessica Kerley
Miami
Mark Steiner
St. Louis
Harrahs;)
Toledo
David & Esther Beckmann
Washington, DC Inauguration
Allison Archaubault
NYC
Holly Ecker and Christopher Smith
Washington DC/Manassas, VA
Mathew Taylor
David Bychkov & Nadia Madjid
SF
Richie Zevin
Bozeman, MT
Michael J. “mini” Noogent
Michael and Naomi Nugent
LA
Sarah Evershed & Julian Robinson
Dylan Ris
SF
Danny Debonis
Chicago,
Zac Witte & Goeff Domeracki
SF
Tori Taylor & Dave McMillan
LA
Saskia Wilson Brown
Wyoming
The Eversheds
NYC
John F. Brunner
Jory Cunningham
Sam Reiff-Pasarew
As we experience the one year mark of Barack Obama’s election this week, I decided it was time to bring out, this yet unpublished work(eeeww ahh). It was conceived in the basement of my parent’s house in Toledo, OH during last year’s Presidential Transition period, after I’d had the pleasure of working on his New Media team that in many respects was historic in methods they used to get the man elected. We all waited in anticipation of the inaugural events of a president of historic nature. You may recall as well, people were predicting total economic collapse and nothing symbolized economic failure better my return to Joe the Plumber’s hometown during our winter of discontent, fear and HOPE. While many people have been coming up to ask me about what I think on this encroaching anniversary day, having drastically altered my life’s course to help get Obama elected–I respond by saying Barack is still my guy(in fact, during the hardest moments I had on the campaign and it wasn’t all that easy for me to work there–he was often all I had then too)–I also offer this period piece. ENJOY!-D.P.B, San Francisco 11.3.09.
///
There’s been something that I’ve been wanting to write about since finishing up on the Obama campaign last month. While working there you never wanted to write a tell-all such as this, as it may distract from the LIFE OR DEATH choice in the 2008 election—between competence and all out bullshit.
It was just yesterday I caught myself watching “Definitely Maybe”—without realizing the shocking parallels between that awful universe and my own—the trials and tribulations of dropping everything to work on a democratic campaign of CHANGE. The “not knowing what you were doing when you first got there—the drinking out with the campaign workers at night in the exposed brick bar with the white and red checkered table and the inevitable co-opting of your life for mass market movies akin to the sports memorabilia you find in local neighborhood Applebees(R).
This got me thinking about the cliches to come out of my campaign experience when some jergoff real soon attempts to make a mass-market romantic comedy about our NO drama Obama. Our campaign was hella different than Bill’s, I mean heck, for a while we ran against a CLINTON! These differences can be found on many levels, but today I’d like to pick out one glaring variation between these movements for CHANGE.
In 1992—the last time we had CHANGE, we were told to “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow”. Growing up in a Republican enclave of socialist labour-driven Toledo, OH, I was fed lines at the time by my friend’s conservative parents when Bill Clinton adopted this theme at the 1992 Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Gardens in New York—that “Fleetwood Mac actually didn’t approve of Bill’s politics” and using their song was “unauthorized”– They weren’t seen much out on the campaign trail–in fact, Fleetwood Mac, like many Baby boomers had long divorced–until they saw the opportunity in it all and later performed at the Inaugural ball. It was like coming together for the good of the kids, as well as their stock portfolios (and it sounds accordingly):
(Anyone else notice Rahm Emmanuel’s name?) With another inaugural ball coming up and people writing me ever so often to help get their act into it—even though I admittedly have nothing to do with the inauguration—I felt it worth noting the difference in rally cry for this campaign embodied by BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S “The Rising.” There was no song played more in this campaign beyond Stevie Wonders “signed sealed delivered I’m yours!”–to mail you way as you leave a rockus event.
There’s a lot of Sneeze to be achoo’d in these differing conceptions of CHANGE music.. So lets STOP thinking about tomorrow for a second here and see what we can inaugurate by looking at these LITE hits of YESTERDAY and TODAY.
Generational Economics Through Music
Let me first start out by saying there is a generational issue at stake here—one between the baby boomer’s “Don’t stop excesses” that got us into this mess and the Millennials soon to be perennial problem of their “dogmatic HOPE” brought to us by a combination of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign and the unrealistic capitalism brought about by “Don’t Stop”.
One party not at the table is Tom Brokaw’s GREATEST GENERATION—they were obviously so cold, weird, twisted and fucked up they were no longer a credible influence in teaching us how to save if that meant we had to take all the rest of their bullshit, we’d all rather burn it all to brimstone if you know what I mean.
Yes—whether its FOREST GUMP, BACK TO THE FUTURE or your 7th Grade American government text book—history is a time continuum and everything falls in order like dominos after one another–and in this case, so do economies.
The baby boomers don’t want to think about today because that’s when they put it on the credit card for tomorrow—they certainly don’t want you to think about yesterday because that’s when they put it on the credit card for today.
“Don’t Stop”…Maybe we should have?
This isn’t an anti-Clintonian treatise—this is just someone who used to be a balanced journalist reporting the facts on why FLEETWOOD embodies so many of the issues we had with the last CHANGE wagoon as we attempt to keep this one on the road. Its not Clinton’s fault we’re in the credit crisis– Fleetwood Mac, the baby boomers and the excesses of the entire LITE ROCK years, 70s, 80s, 90s, and most importantly TODAY got us to the shit we’re in. “Don’t Stop” was just a symptom of a larger problem.
“Ewww don’t ya look back… Ewww Don’t ya look back”—the rallying cry with the streamers falling all around—They’re just going through the MANTRA MOTIONS at the height of mass-market consumer culture.
But that’s not all…FLEETWOOD, a mainstream boomers staple—told you you could GO YOUR OWN WAY, GO YOUR OWN WAAAAY. If we would have thought more about where we could all carpool together over the years would we have needed all of those homes increasingly farther apart? Sometimes its ok to go similar ways…
REF: Carpenters.. she in many ways started this fire with her wedding song. Through the “We’ve only just begun…” programme she did more to expand the surburbs than FANNY or FREDDIE. If Karen started this sandwich, George W. Bush certainly finished it for her—if only she were around to ask the question so many are wondering., Why do birds suddenly appear where our retirements used to be?
The misinformation, scare tactics and tomfoolery continued as FLEETWOOD taunted poor Rhiannon in her DREAMS—a woman taken by the wind, they spoke of LANDSLIDES forcing you back into their clutches –and threatened you if you ever broke the chain. The biggest crime of all may just be their claim that THUNDER only happens when its RAINING? Not true. Don’t we all wish she kept these inaccurate visions to herself?
Heck they had a woman lead singer with two man first names—Stevie Nicks. This GYPSIE Band’s misdirected “call to actions” were a sign of the times—now they have to live with the results they contributed to. In all of these joints, did they ever come up with a “Solutions based” narrative? One in which we sat down and thought about how to tackle these serious issues of denial, imprisonment, lack of self discipline, inaccurate weather predictions and interpretation of dreams?
Again, this is not a personal indictment of FLEETWOOD MAC, BERNIE MAC, the BIG MAC, or Bill Clinton–it’s a reflection of the times in which all those fast food creatures lived and fed off each other—and now the paaty’s ova Riktor—someone’s gotta come in and clean up the damage—but who you gonna call?
Substance-based CHANGE.
A lot can be said about our generation—the WHY Generation. I’ve said a few things myself. WHY did it take so long for us to get organized? Why did we watch so much TV? WHY do we WHINE so much? Will we ever get up to the plate and start leading on something?
The answers to many of these questions stem from, indeed the parents who raised us—but largely, something I’ve noticed as being a part of this movement—is the WHY Generation grew up in a very protected environment. Many of us had activities scheduled up until the moment we graduated college—with promises of growth to be fulfilled if we merely took the tests, stood in line and waited.
This is indeed the crux of our problem—why we WHINE. Part of why its impossible to keep our attentions on one thing or another in the workplace. Its all the promises made by those who told us to Don’t Stop thinking about tomorrow which got us to this place.
So far, nothing has really come.
For my entire 20s this economy has felt fake—and we all know now that it was. We don’t buy houses when we’re just graduating from college—we look for jobs. And for my entire 20s, there really hasn’t been to many of those. I have never felt secure in my employment—this BUSH economy, the ultimate in “Don’t Stop” Greenspanian economic theory has always felt like we were driving around with the parking brake on.
We’ve been waiting for something to come—something credible. Something that defines our generation—calls us to action in one sense, but fulfills the promises we’ve been fed by an MTV culture that told us to have our own opinion and that was our opinion and our parents who gave us money to buy things while they both worked jobs outside of the home in order to give us more money to buy things.
At the end of our decade in our 20s, when we’re almost running out of time before the smarter kids take over—we are tying our HOPES to OBAMA that he may CHANGE something. But what’s different this time, is we’re doing it like we’ve always done it—we’ve done all of our homework—we’ve nerded the fucker out—and none of the boomers really know what the fuck we’re doing—they’re just cutting checks for it and hoping we’re not getting into too much trouble.
Our campaign’s song of CHANGE is the RISING:
Notice how he takes 4:51 to get to the actual song. The guy actually showed up—he shovels it on thick until he gets to the price of admission. In a sense we feel like this is the beginning of something substantive and real—but also emotional.
It was certainly a theme of the CLINTON administration that when things got bad, we were encouraged to start thinking about tomorrow. I think you’ll notice a difference has already started to take shape—over the next four years we’re going to start thinking about today.
What’s the problem with THE RISING?—well, yes there are some SECOND COMING connotations embedded within—but I think Bruce’s point in writing this in the wake of Sept. 11th, in a non-partisan window was to try to bring people together today to watch some sort of warming spectacle—that being his song. Come on out for the RISING today–not tomorrow.
We live in different times now and its ok to get a little RISE out of them every now and then. I’m happy I’m permitted to think about the potential they bring. We haven’t had anything like that in my adult life.
There’s been a lot of questions about what makes SCHMOOru so COOOL? I love these questions–and to be honest, we’d be dead if no one asked them. I really like to consider them to be–what’s ALIVE about SCHMOORU? What’s its humanity? What does IT live FOR? What air does it breathe, or quite frankly DOES it have any POTENTIAL?–etc.. Let me ASCHOO one of them here-IS SCHMOORU this User Generated Content???? Your SCHMOORU curators have been working at the forefront of what has been referred to as the ‘user generated content’ industry for about the last 4 years and we’ve got something to say about it–UGC will not replace the pros and attempting to make it do so creates a lot of losers all around–its just one of many tools–frankly, we’ve always had.
Paying Tribute to the FOUNDING FATHER–”AMERICA.. THIS IS YOU!”
WE didn’t invent “User Generated Content”, this man did (no one ever pays enough respect to BOB SAGET–the FATHER of USER GENERATED CONTENT but we won’t make the same mistake):
Recently a lot of hucksters, schemesters, cheapskates and corporate mongols have lost sight of the fact, that UGC, which began with BOB SAGET, in almost ALL respects have not lost him and His show is the best place for it even if he’s gone of to other things).
For those not paying respect to SAGET and there are many these days, lets explain some of the UGC GOO that’s out there and why its really not SCHMOO.
Field of Dreams approach: If you build the tools–they will come!
Not so fast. Tools are great. There are some really expensive ones floating in outer space right now though which have lost connection to MANKIND. These formerly REALLY EXPENSIVE and AWESOME TOOLS are now space junk! Further, these days, what’s the HALF LIFE ON TOOLS? Just about 5 seconds right? TOOLS are just like the old JAY LENO DORITTOS commercials at the only moment when I liked the guy–”CRUNCH ALL YOU WANT–we’ll make more!” At the end of the day, if you fall subject to these tool houses, whether you’re a client or self-respecting producer–you end up feeling like a TOOL. Cause either your hard fought for work is under appreciated, or you don’t get what you ask for and it degrades expectations for your entire industry. Most clients don’t like the race to the absolute bottom we’ve had since the dawn of Youtube.
Stock Market Systems
If you like the wall street commodities guys taking a cut in the pursuit of journalism excellence–why not put your video up on one of these sites? Again, where’s the risk? YOU put your work and your idea out there and they get to maybe pay you something for it. The stock marketeer always gets a cut. There may be 1 winner and 7 losers on an effort from their 5,000s of video makers—but in the long run, after coming SECOND so many times, creative people who need to raise kids and feed a family have no choice but to leave the market place.
WHERE’s THE BEEF?!: You built it but who really came?
THE biggest MYTH of all USER GENERATED CONTENT–is that its USER INSPIRED. We’ll go into this further, but almost ALL video is not serendipitous User Generation–which means its a promised not kept OR a Wendy’s single DAVE THOMAS wouldn’t recognize! Video is Hard. Good SOUND, even worse! Making a good Story out of that stuff–PRICELESS. Unless you’re next to the lightening strike or the FOOTBALL in the GROIN, everything else UGC isn’t PURE %100 American BEEF unless its really simple to do–like checking a box, or sending a text message–even then, don’t expect the next Larry David. Your audience is NOT sitting at home looking for ways to do work FOR YOU, they’ve done their work for that day, drove thru on their way home and they want you to do something for them. Making those looking to take the video business serious HIDE under the umbrella of UGC when you used to bring them in as interns, isn’t all that honest and unlike the Field of Dreams, you can’t kidnap James Earl Jones to save you this time–cause kidnapping’s illegal.
Fuck With Morley at Your Own Risk Which brings us to YOUR audience. Its slip, slip, slipping away. What to do? UGC is one option to make up for the loses, but so is examining the way you do business. You know that UGC does not provide reliable output. You also know that if it did–ABC would now be called “AFV” cause its so cheap to produce America’s Funniest Home videos–and while that show is cheap to produce, its never beaten 60 Minutes, let alone taken over the entire network–why should it take over your entire project?
It Doesn’t Have to End This Way–but it could and right now its on its way..
Everyone agrees right now we’re in a precarious spot–no audience, no work, no money, no future? Leveraged against each other in a quick race to an entry in the history book next to the corset factory. In the end–using the UGC for purposes beyond what the manufacturer intended it for *SPOILER ALERT!*–always turns out like the last scene of a Tarintino movie. Your network/project doesnt have audience, there’s no one left to make the sausage, you later find you don’t have a job–everyone’s dead. With the time we’ve got left to ‘build a better media’ we have a choice to make. Lets talk about all this..
What’s left…?
We need to carve out a space in this void for professionals to produce reliable, creative work–without having to compete with your cousin and without having to shoulder the entire risk for a multinational corporation. Do you ask contractors when you build a house to build 3 and then you only pay for the ONE that you like? Well then don’t ask us to build three videos or websites for you and only pay us for the one that you like. That’s the best way to make sure there’s no one left to build houses for you–unless you only want kids in college making your news, informational and entertainment everything.
There is a space between the way its been done for the last 30 years and those tied to legacy equipment and ideas AND Bob Saget. IN that space you find SCHMOORU.
For those of you in New York, y0u will notice its FASHION WEEK! YAY! For Barack Obama its also, the most important week of his presidency–we keep hearing. He’s either NERF or he’s NOTHIN’. It’s the whole sha-bang, the real enchilado—the fat taco. His presidency–becomes either “a fart in the wind”, or “Gone with the wind” in the history books–all on this week.
You see, whether or not he saved our country from crashing into the GREATER DEPRESSION earlier this year or saved my poor hometown of Toledo, OH to “die another day”–its not good enough. We need health care too damn it! That’s why we voted him there–not just for status quo–but for all of it.
Let me come out with it–I think OBAMA gets a STRIKE on his first attempt to roll out his health care thing. He and his team were arrogant–I keep hearing that word. They thought they could steam roll this through–and they can’t. They get one last chance to turn things around this Wednesday–or else its OBAMA’s WATERLOO. And let us all remember all those who thought Obama couldn’t win at this time last year because of BIG BAD PALIN. The WSJ said Obama couldn’t win against Palin. Also, don’t buy a house of this architect unless you want it to cave, like Rove’s Obama Can’t win proclamation here.
So in tribute to the idea that not only do I not think Obama’s over–he’s actually still got a good chance of ‘killin’ it’–I thought I would back him up on these two finer points.
ONE–Those who know Beckmann, know I have long talked about how NANCY REAGAN came to us in our classrooms and INDOCTRINATED US! She didn’t give us an open-minded question on how we could help the president–no… she just told us to “Just Say No!” And that was all.
“Just Say No” obviously failed to stop drug use, instead pushing experimentation “behind the scenes”–just ask Willis what he’s talkin’ about, or unfortunately, Dana Plato is not around to talk about anything–thanks Nancy. At least Nancy supports stem cell research–redemption in her older years for closing so many minds.
The best part about some schools following NANCY’s LEAD and JUST SAYING NO to the Obama video–it creates tremendous BUZZ around an otherwise BENIGN video for the YOU TUBE generation to watch it in their more attentive hours after school–SCORE!
If you’ve been following the news NEWS this week—you may have heard something about Charlie Gibson retiring and Diane Sawyer taking over for him on the news program, ABC’s World News. In some ways there’s been a refreshing lack of gestation over this job announcement and I don’t intend to cause any more blotation. However, I do think there’s a component missing here that needs to be addressed.
Lets see what we’ve got so far on the check list:
1) Woman – is she the first woman to host the news? No—check, moving on.
2) Scandal – is there some sort of scandal we can sniff out of this, obvious or made up? We’re trying—but so far nada. Ok.
End of story–right? Well.. not so fast. There is an incredible opportunity here. In most job announcements–in the real world, they don’t so much time on the political components of an appointment, they speak about the person and what they bring to the job.
To keep things brief. Diane Sawyer is special and she’s done some special things before. But to sum up in two words what she’s done all the way through–she TRIES. Sometimes she makes history for the books or for the blogs, other times you may never here about it at all–in every single case she tries and tries again and then after that, she tries some more.
What does this mean, especially when the OBITS for the evening news shows have long been written? Well, the ink is dry, but yet, these shows still keep being produced every single day. These networks, while leaking audience, still control the largest chucks of the largest group of audience left. They also still have the largest budget and amount of resource to bring to originating news–albiet less and less each quarter.
Schmooru sees opportunity in these ‘problems’ all across the ‘legacy medias’ since we don’t do things the way they’ve always done them and we generally lead happy, healthy, productive, but more than anything creative lives. And so we congratulate Diane Sawyer in this new job. One things for sure, trying never hurt anyone that’s any good at what they do–in fact, trying is the only way you can ever do anything with Potential… and Potential for anything is all we ever have.
I think it bears mentioning too much with the Kennedies already! But in watching the entire funeral for some reason this mourning–I thought of their contribution to generic metaphoric political creativity over the years.
There was not a Kennedy kid who spoke this week or behind any podium at any time(I mean did they practice this before they could open Christmas presents or something in Hyannis?)… who was not able to belt out in a monotonous, almost life strangling clammour some familiah yet generic speech about reaching for a brighter tomorrah–I mean who the hell doesn’t want one of those right?
I’m not a Democrat(although some may be suspicious to this effect)–but I do credit these Kennedies with providing space for imagination. They risked their lives for it, its why we love ‘em even with their extremely laaage nogins carrying on at times with their Boston cut-cho-off in traffic on the way to the private school effect… why on this day.. we all thank them for that.
In particulah to the Schmooru community and its creator fans abound I leave you with Uncle Teddy — June 1968, eulogizing and quoting his brother, Robert (but there were oh so many with these people, dare I ask not what I can do?):
‘Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.’”
Many in the “chattering circles” have been wondering, what’s the COMING SOON about? Why not just fling open the doors — What in THE HELL is going on in there?
Well hold your horses! There’s a heck of a lot going on inside schmooru right now. Building a solid creative community is like a nicely stacked woodshed(as more eloquently pointed out by Lee on her 2or3things) — you have to build it piece by piece. Sometimes you have to adjust a few things to the natural flow of the wood. This helps so your structure doesn’t fall over in a storm — and prevents water and varments from damaging too much of your wood!
We like to call this the Evershed Plan® — building a community that lasts the test of our creative times! Our person in charge of this initiative is also conveniently named Sarah Evershed and here’s a picture with her father Gary Evershed, one of the original Eversheders — in a long line of folks who’ve been building things right since man decided to put things together:
So to get more specific — we’re in the process of bringing in the right foundation of creative muscle and matching them up with the right group of creative consumers to make sure things match up right. We’re going through community building exercises so our Schmoos can Schmoo. We’re not in any hurries. We also don’t have to be known by every Tom, Dick, and Harriet out there. We just need to keep doing our thing well and stacking the wood just so — so that we’ll have this property to hand down to the next generation of Schmoos. That’s what we’re in this for.
If you have any questions or are interested in getting in on this early BONUS Round — please contact us. If anything, we’re friendly.
Something that’s been bothering me about this whole Laura Ling Thing, is she’s been my liberator several times since we first met-the most recent occasion was one year ago today when she paroled me from the idea there was no place better than working with her so I could run off and join the Obama’s new media team. When I met Laura I was a corporate loyalist — now three years later I even find myself liberated from paying rent for one full year now and in many respects its all her fault. Five months into this whole fucked up thing-one in which I think we all sort of felt in March would just end quickly and then REALLY didn’t-I’ve been unable to come close to returning the favor even once.
Prisons of the Mind
I’m not going to suggest that my “prisons” were anywhere near the severity of the ones that Laura Ling is dealing with right now — but Laura took them very seriously. In fact, I feel comfortable speaking on behalf of anyone that’s ever worked for her — she took our problems home with her and gave us the courtesy of never telling us she was doing it — we all probably can share some responsibility for that ulcer of hers. Reprieves would quietly just appear with no thank you necessary or a funny awkward giggle would arrive when you know she’d tried all that she could do. She was always so much more concerned about how we were feeling than about how any of it effected her and quite a few of us are worried that she’s probably doing that right now where ever the hell she still is.
I will say that the prisons in one’s mind are often one of the hardest ones to break out of. Its walls are sometimes hard to define if you even know you’re there-no sovereign nations (should;) exist in one’s mind. So in that all too familiar Vanguard fashion when dealing with a problem on the frontier of media, lets call a big meeting, sit down — all the brightest young minds and most beautiful people we know will be there and we’ll go through the big Laura Ling break outs, one by one.
JAIL BREAK ONE — Get the fuck out of Gotham.
I first met Laura for a face to face interview in San Francisco in June of 2006 — I found her to be well-organized with a clip board, rigid and frankly a little snooty when compared to the train of others I saw that day. I didn’t think working in her department was right for me. I was wrong.
I didn’t get that job, whatever it was and proceeded to keep open a discussion with her and to an almost daily extent, her Executive Producer Mitch Koss, as well. 2006 was a big year for me — after being brought over from Good Morning America as a Reporter/Producer, I ran the politics page page during the mid-term elections at ABCNews.com. This was the year when the Dems took over the House, and one of our stories about Mark Foley — got our team a Peabody for innovations in on-line reporting. ABCNews.com was breaking hit records every single month and it seemed like the place to be.
Unfortunately by the time 2007, with the election over I found myself making poll after poll after poll about whether this or that famous person had gone “too far”. They stopped vacuuming at ABCNews.com(or maybe never started?), there was a shelf of DUST that ran the length of the newsroom and I was allergic to the place, yet spending 12 hours a day there. Their ranch dressing coffee cups they gave us didn’t seem to have any caffeine in them and our office was located too far away from Starbucks to catch an easy break without getting yelled at for leaving your post.
I had been living in New York for 4 years — Long Island City, Queens to be exact — I was tired of all of it and felt like I was going nowhere every New York minute. I wanted to get the rock out of there three years in, but then had another year to suffer there. I wanted to out but there’s this thing about leaving “the network” — its not easy to do it.
Laura took a chance on “old media” me — and offered me a job to work on her citizen journalism project and their election year initiatives at Current TV in San Francisco. She gave me SEVEN WEEKS in between jobs to polish off my ties at ABC NEWS and move across the country — I hadn’t had a vacation like that since college. She also gave me 4 GRAND for the move — I did it in 2.
JAIL BREAK TWO — Becoming Human Again
After working in the MSM for about four years in New York, working about 20 hours a day at times and living in Queens, I had long forgotten what it meant to be a regular person — a human BEING — because I wasn’t.
For the first few months after I arrived at Current, I tended to apologize for just about everything I said before I said it. I wasn’t used to trusting people after working at a competitive network in a cut throat town-and most of the time when I had ideas about something, it was strategically best to build a coalition of the “not saying noing” before breathing it out loud. In Laura’s world, people were going home after work and not checking their blackberries — or were they? On the weekends, they made plans — or were they? When they went to lunch with each other, they seemed to enjoy each others’ company — or did they actually hate each other? Current was a growing company in those days and Laura’s unit was expanding like crazy — a rare thing in this business and it truly was.
It took me a few times to realize that when Laura kept telling that she wanted me there and to share my ideas, whatever they were — that she probably actually did. The best I could ever do at ABC was take a “no reply” or a “maybe” and turn it into a yes. There were still occasions when I worried about my brake lines being severed in the middle of the night for starting that “beat unit” at ABC after some threats I’d received — I mean you just really never knew.
I think it was a whole four months after starting when I realized — not only could I feel comfortable being myself around these people — I could actually say whatever the hell I wanted and they seemed to LIKE THAT more! SO, I began to do just that. I started telling Laura whatever I could come up with. If I thought something sucked I would tell her. She gave every single one of my crazy ideas consideration and never seemed to tire of them. Sometimes I got tired of me — Laura never seemed to. She was like a Jack in the Box — no matter what she would come back up for more. And every single time, if I was willing to do the work and prove something to her — she was pretty willing and ready to go along for the ride.
I wasn’t the only one. We had a community of hundreds of burgeoning journalist/filmakers and she liked to talk to them all. There wasn’t a single one who wanted to meet with her in LA that she didn’t make time for. At a certain point it was almost absurd — why was she doing all of this? She could have gone home much earlier if she didn’t take in all of our crap — but the truth is — she loves people, she loved helping them be the best they could be, she saw the VALUE in that — and more than anything — Laura Ling is the most open minded Californian that I’ve ever met, she’s always waiting for new people and what they might bring.
As a result of this freedom, the seeds for Schmooru were not only planted — but we were able to pilot several other things under Laura’s reign, some of which haven’t come out yet — others which have and when ever people actually get to know about them, they attract obsessive crowds. Just look at Current Vanguard in Italy. And stay tuned for Current Vanguard here. She lets people do what they do best as long as they can prove to her they can get the work done, by just doing it.
More than becoming human again, it may seem sappy, but Laura brought me out to California and created a whole new world for me — I hope sometime soon she can be returned to hers.
JAIL BREAK THREE — A half tank of gas @ 5$ a gallon, no cigarettes and 1500 miles to Chicago…
The time I spent at Current TV working under Laura Ling, Andrew Fitzgerald and the rest of the gang that somehow assembled there for that special wrinkle in creative history was the most expansive period for personal growth I’d experienced in adult life up to that point. It still continues to provide for me in all the amazing people that somehow gathered there and have now largely proliferated to all places where you find cool, beautiful and talented people.
I was getting paid to do work that I always wanted to do, was putting away money and in many respects the bonds that I felt like I was building within our journalistic community were just beginning to gel in anticipation of a big election documentary project which had a mainstream buy in if we got it finished. I could not only count on these people, most of whom I’d never met in person to tell the truth, talking to them all on the phone everyday where ever they were — I really enjoyed my life. I was working with friends I cared about — not colleagues — I was living in a town that I loved and I just got a ZOJIRUSHI water heater and filled up the fridge with a year long supply of KIMCHI from COSTCO. Life was good.
When the Obama campaign called and asked me to join their New Media Team about a year ago this week — and told me I had to be there in one week…I wasn’t going to take it. Why would I leave for something that would have me out in the cold streets of Chicago in the middle of November? I didn’t want to work in government. Further — would I give up my objectivity as a journalist — something that had been very important to me(and probably only me it seems right now)?
First my mom told me to do it. Then this guy Kaj Larsen happened to be in the office that day — he was a navy seal and he ordered me to do it for my country. I truly wasn’t convinced until I had a phone call with Laura Ling. I didn’t really know what to expect from her — it was August 1, 2008 — I was asking if I could leave her in one week — and she had hired me to work on the election.
Her first reaction was to ask if I was still happy working at Current and if she had done anything wrong. I was like — I think the reason I’m considering this is for the first time in my life I feel strongly about a candidate and, I’ve never worked on a presidential campaign before in the headquarters. Those two things are something that may never come happen again — I would have always wondered what would have been. But I was still comfortable in my spot in life and I didn’t want to let anyone down.
And what came next is classic Laura. She told me to go for it. That we all had to do what made us excited in our lives. She supported me in every way possible — and didn’t expect anything from me in a return. The last day I was at Current, she took us all out for lunch at a really expensive place and paid for it. I felt like I was leaving them on the train 3 months short of the station. I don’t burn bridges and I would not have left Current if Laura had said I was letting her down — she let me off the hook Scot free.
The Last Time I Heard From Laura
As was common with all things Current, we video journaled every damn thing. Laura implied that doing a video journal might be FUN!. Andrew tried to convince me of the therapeutic nature of talking to a camera every night. I didn’t have to do one, and I sort of didn’t. But I did start one — and here it is
When I got back to San Francisco from the war, my roommate said she liked the subletter better than me and so I unveiled my “video journal” as part of the invitation to my moving out party. Laura was on assignment in Northern China and here’s what she wrote:
beckmann! it’s 7am in northern china. i’m about to head out on a shoot. but i finally had a chance to watch your video. it’s great! what a cool memory to have. you’re a man after my own heart — kimchee and salami are 2 of my favorite things. if only i were single again. hope all is well.
I was in her office hanging out about 2 days later and we didn’t know what happened next. In almost every way, I still don’t and won’t until she returns.
Schmooru is a creative economy. There would be no schmooru without Laura Ling.
In the almost 5 months since Laura’s been gone — considering how actively she sought expansion, we don’t know as a community and as a profession what economies and worlds were not created. Those who don’t know Laura will probably think I’m just saying nice things about her because she’s in a bad spot right now and that’s what people do — but those who know Laura know thats not true. The idea that we can find things to create and channel it through this thing is predicated on the notion that people should do things that are exciting to them. Not that she holds exclusive rights to that idea, but I certainly wouldn’t have met most of you if Laura had not encouraged me to put this thing together and allowed me the space to do so. That’s not only what good managers do, enablers in positions of power are especially rare in this industry.
I think its important, especially since so many of your know her so well and what a tremendous force she is, that when it gets quiet, you make some noise every now and then about who she is and what she stood for — its not the same as having her back here — but it adds more character to who she is as a person for those who only know her by those strange pictures floating around.
There are three things Schmooru and anyone else reading this can do right now:
He did pretty much the same thing. Mike and Dan–both formulaticians–with a whiz bang idea that swept through the suburban splundor and kept people from smiling awkwardly in passing while running home to crack open another one.
How does this reflect creative cognition? What happened in the 80s was the industrialization of the media form.New distribution channels opened up. Multiplexes formed. TBS was invented–and there was money to be made like always, but this time is was A LOT MORE OF IT.
This shit needed to be cranked out like GOOSE through a SHIT factory. Those who came up with these FORMATTING tricks, became GODS, their heads as big as round bubbles.
This is very interesting for us Schmoos, generational in fact!–as we’ve experienced a COLON blow of distribution channels openning up in similar form to the upheaval of the early 80s–but MUCH MUCH bigger! Step right up and have your head be blown into a bubble too!
!)–despite getting most Reagan Democrats, your audience won’t be large enough like the generalist Growing Pains you grew out of and you go out of business in two seasons [stay on the ball {go to church} I might make the HALL OF FAME--what can he say?]. You know what, these rules work for just PLAIN mainstream American dreams in almost any regard–don’t they?
In many respects, maybe we’ve grown richer as a country or a world. I know one aspect of DISNEY/ABC features now is instead of a laugh track they give you background music, implying “BOSE WAVE RADIO” for you. Or is it the Reality shows that invade our news programs.
So, as we’re RETHINKING everything this year from MONEY, to WEATHERIZATION to HEALTH CARE to how to make a GM–let us consider–as SCHMOOS, how to program for the micro audiences of the future?
What I suspect, is the person who can access straight feelings in an accessible way. That’s where its at. Remember the way you’re grandparents smelled when you went to visit–PRINT IT.
As we experience the one year mark of Barack Obama’s election this week, I decided it was time to bring out, this yet unpublished work(eeeww ahh). It was conceived in the basement of my parent’s house in Toledo, OH during last year’s Presidential Transition period, after I’d had the pleasure of working on his New Media team that in many respects was historic in methods they used to get the man elected. We all waited in anticipation of the inaugural events of a president of historic nature. You may recall as well, people were predicting total economic collapse and nothing symbolized economic failure better my return to Joe the Plumber’s hometown during our winter of discontent, fear and HOPE. While many people have been coming up to ask me about what I think on this encroaching anniversary day, having drastically altered my life’s course to help get Obama elected–I respond by saying Barack is still my guy(in fact, during the hardest moments I had on the campaign and it wasn’t all that easy for me to work there–he was often all I had then too)–I also offer this period piece. ENJOY!-D.P.B, San Francisco 11.3.09. 
