Analog Nation

Don’t go into the living room, Mom and Dad are fighting again.

Those of you outside the New York area probably missed the excitement, but ABC went off the air for several hours on Sunday, vanishing from LCD screens while the clock ticked down to the Oscars. The disappearance was a negotiating tactic in the dispute between ABC’s New York affiliate and Cablevision, who are having a gentleman’s disagreement on the topic of which one of them should bend over and bite his own ass. The argument goes more or less like this:

>10 PRINT “ABC: Bite your own ass.”
>20 PRINT “Cablevision: No, you bite your own ass.”
>30 GOTO 10

My neighborhood isn’t in Cablevision’s territory, so the whole situation was little more than a charming subplot in a day otherwise dominated by laundry and Mass Effect. Well, except for two things: A) The lingering specter that this would drag on until Tuesday, sparking an uprising of “Lost” fans which would cripple the city. B) The unshakable feeling that I had seen this before. Like, a lot.

The “Lost” uprising fizzled when ABC returned to Cablevision fifteen minutes into the Oscars telecast. And not a moment too soon — there were only five and a half hours to go until Best Picture.

He was their Neda. What, too soon?

However, I doubt I’m the only one who got that wave of déjà vu. This same exact feud keeps happening. Television networks and cable providers are having the same spat over and over. Earlier this year it was HGTV and The Food Network, which went off the air (okay, off the coaxial data stream) on Cablevision, and nearly did the same on Time Warner. In December, it was Fox and Time Warner. The CBS affiliate in Boston went at it with Time Warner in January 2009. Comcast and The NFL Network had their turn in May. Viacom nearly pulled their entire suite of cable networks from Time Warner and Bright House in 2008, which would have blacked out Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, and several others.

The playbook for these match-ups only has two pages. Each side hastily sets up a “Save Television!” website, and then runs advertisements that cast the other side as blood-frenzied murderers of fun. Viacom’s ads against Time Warner depicted SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer crying. Crying! Are you kidding me? SpongeBob I get, he cries at the drop of a hat, but Dora? In tears? Now you’re messing with my nephew. Now it’s personal.

“We just crossed a line, Diego! Can you point to where Diego and I left our dignity? ………. Great! I knew you could!”

Meanwhile, those of us who just want to watch TV in peace are stuck in the middle. We’re getting treated like something here, though I can’t decide what. There are too many directions to go with this one, so I’ll list a few just to cover my bases:

• There’s the aforementioned divorce parallel — Mom and Dad throw dishes at each other while we lie on the floor of our rooms in the dark with headphones on, listening to “Pretty Hate Machine.” Or, you know, whatever the not-twenty-years-ago equivalent of “Pretty Hate Machine” would be.

• You could go with the image that we’re pawns in a chess game, but chess takes careful thought and planning. These feuds have neither. If anything, it’s more like we’re the checkers in Connect Four — it’s a little mind-numbing, nobody really wins, then we get dumped onto the table, swept into a fraying box, and crammed back into the hallway closet behind the winter coats.

• The networks and cable companies are Robert DeNiro and Sharon Stone in “Casino.” We’re the safety deposit box full of jewelry and cash. Wait, they both might be Sharon Stone, staggering to their deaths in some filthy hotel hallway after their friends have bled them dry and used their cash for coke. Actually yeah, they’re both Sharon Stone.

• One is Don Draper and the other is Betty. Each had distinct visions of what this marriage was going to be like, each wants that vision imposed on the other, each has their own leverage. We end up as Sally in this one — stealing money from Grandpa, lying to get attention, and basically on a frantic collision course with the summer of 1968. What, like that’s not where they’re going with the Sally character?

• Both sides are Longshanks, King Edward I of Britain. “Arrows cost money. Use up the Irish, the dead cost nothing.” We’re the Irish. Sorry, I saw “Braveheart” on a cross-country flight a few weekends ago, it’s kind of been stuck in my head.

Those meatballs don’t look half bad. But why is the bottom of the pot so clean?

The knee-jerk reaction to these disputes is that it’s all about greed. Good ol’ American corporate soul-reaving, a sacrifice on the altar of the Almighty Dollar. To be honest, I’m not so sure that’s what’s really happening. The broadcasting industry has been around for decades, it’s not like they weren’t greedy before. This sounds more like desperation. Their way of doing business is melting. None of them know what to do, so they’re taking it out on each other, and on us.

Besides, you’d have to be awfully desperate to piss off “Lost” fanatics. I mean Jesus Christ, taking away “Lost” in its final season is like canceling Christmas, only if all the children in the world were meth addicts. And orphans. And the government executed Santa on live TV. Some of the meth orphans won’t see the execution, because their cable company will have blacked out the network in a contract dispute. They will be considered the lucky ones, because they didn’t have to watch Santa die.

Well, lucky for a meth orphan, anyway.

It’s me! Playing Hamlet! But with 97% less Shakespeare!

Exciting news for those who live in New York and have sworn a blood oath against me! I will be descending from my mountaintop fortress an unprecedented eight times over the next couple of weeks. In fact, I will be out in the open, without bodyguards, without even so much as a Kevlar vest. You may never have a better chance to strike. And the reason for my carelessness? Living, breathing art — the kind where you pretend to be another person entirely.

This Wednesday night, Point of You Productions presents the return of “A Midwinter’s Tale,” based on the 1995 screenplay by Kenneth Branagh. We were proud to present the world premiere of the stage adaptation in 2004, and have brought back the production as part of Point of You’s 10th anniversary celebration. “A Midwinter’s Tale” is the story of a desperate man (me) going to desperate measures (trying to direct “Hamlet”) during desperate times (specifically, the week before Christmas). Not to give anything away, but the thing that ensues is hilarity.

When: March 3-13, Wednesday through Saturday @ 8:00PM
Where: The American Theatre of Actors, 314 West 54th Street, 8th Floor
Why: Bear in mind what I said about hilarity ensuing.
Tickets: $18
Reservations: Tickets can be purchased in advance through TheaterMania.

Apatosaurus pusillus, shown here at 125% magnification

The smallest dinosaur fossils ever found belong to Apatosaurus pusillus, known to archaeologists as the “pygmy bronto.” Native to the western regions of what would later become the North American continent, pygmy brontos lived during the Lower and Middle Jurassic periods. Adult males stood around three quarters of an inch tall, measuring on average three inches in length from nose to tail. They roamed in great herds that often numbered in the hundreds. Vast though these herds were, they likely passed undetected through the plains, appearing to other animals as nothing more than a rustle in the grass. Indeed, evidence of pygmy brontos falling victim to predators is rare. They were herbivores, consuming what vegetation they could reach and standing atop one another — sometimes thirteen or fourteen at a time — to reach low-hanging leaves. Fossil records of Apatosaurus pusillus end abruptly 160 million years ago. Archaeologists believe that they were wiped out by the impact of a tiny asteroid.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I would be appearing in a horror movie. I suppose it might sound made up, considering this site has also claimed that squirrels live for 800 years, and that redheads are allergic to cardboard. But it’s true — I am playing a character named Doug in “The Killing of Jacob Marr,” written and directed by Brad Rego. Who is Doug, you ask? Well don’t, because I’m literally the Red Shirt in this movie. Regardless, I spent the weekend of January 8th at a cabin in South Kortright, New York, and learned a few things worth sharing.

First of all, it’s not called long underwear anymore, it’s called baselayer.
We knew in advance that the temperature was going to be somewhere between Iceland and Hoth. It’s been years since I needed long underwear, but I figured my life may well depend on it, so I did a little shopping. I wandered aimlessly around EMS for a good ten minutes before I realized I was looking for something that doesn’t exist anymore. “Long underwear” is something your mom made you wear to go play in the snow when you were nine. These days? Drop the term from your vocabulary. What you need is baselayer. Baselayer is … well, it’s long underwear, but it’s long underwear that sounds 500% more bad-ass. It’ll keep you warm in the tundra, it’ll keep you cool in the desert, and if you’re outside in extremely normal temperatures, I suppose it’ll keep you comfortable in that too. That’s the danger of walking around a place like EMS — they make everything sound so cool, you wonder how you ever got by without it.

We got to use flares! Without question, the highlight of the ditch incident.

Bing’s mapping software needs some sort of internal setting that knows what season it is.
Five vehicles made the trek to the cabin. I rode up with my friend/cousin (long story) Gerard, along with Amy the costume designer and Scott the sound guy. Gerard’s scenes don’t film until the spring, but he’s a jack-of-all-trades technician and kind of crazy so he volunteered to come stand in the cold with us and lend a hand. We hit the road at 7:00 PM Friday, with directions printed out from Bing Maps. In theory, Bing saved us twenty minutes by sending us on a nifty shortcut through some winding back-country roads. In reality, it was snowing in earnest and Bing sent us on a shortcut through some winding back-country roads. At one point, as we hooked a precarious left, I asked, “Wait, is this paved?” It wasn’t a joke, I actually wanted to know. Sliding into the ditch was probably inevitable, the only surprise was that no one was hurt and the car wasn’t damaged. However, it was definitely stuck. One of the front wheels had nothing underneath it, and was spinning freely in the air. There was no way to get out unassisted. We needed help.

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Help us make meth! I mean, art. Make art.

Exciting new for those who live in New York and wish to bring me cupcakes in person! I will be breaking security protocol to make an appearance outside my isolated mountain compound. The reason? To amuse the shit out of you, dear reader.

Point of You Productions, the theater company I helped found (and have been working from the inside to take down ever since), has reached its tenth anniversary. To kick off the celebration, we’re holding a night of stand-up comedy. All proceeds will go towards our 2010 season. I’ll be performing, as will several good friends of mine. Tickets are $20, and include a free drink ticket. Additional drinks and other concessions will be crazy cheap — because that’s just how we dot-orgs roll.

When: Friday, January 29th, 8:00 PM
Where: Gotham City Improv, 48 West 21st Street, 8th Floor
Why: To help support art and stuff
How: By making you laugh and getting you drunk, not necessarily in that order
Reservations: (212) 613-6138
No seriously, why: Okay fine, we need the money to build a meth lab, okay? We made some bad decisions and got ourselves into some trouble, and now we need to make a bunch of meth. It’s not like we’re happy about it. Is that what you think? You think we’re happy that we managed to get into this mess?

Last year, in lieu of making New Year’s resolutions, I made a series of resolutions on behalf of the world in general. As January 1st bears down upon us once again, I have taken the liberty of crafting some more. You get to relax and stop trying to think up a good resolution, I get to shape the world in my twisted image, everybody wins.

Ready? Here we go.

I resolve, on your behalf, to stop expressing amazement at daylight saving time.

It never fails. Every year, the day after the clocks have “fallen back,” someone looks outside and says, “My goodness, it gets dark so early now!” Which, on paper, I agree with — the lost hour combined with autumn’s fading daylight has bumped up sunset’s curtain time. No question. But we as a nation have done this for 91 years. Why the crumbling hell are you still surprised? There has never been a year of your life in which this change has not happened. Getting bummed that it’s dark, that I understand. Being shocked by that same fact? Sorry, you’re on your own. As far as I’m concerned, there are only two types of people allowed to express such feelings:

A) Those who fondly remember a time before we changed clocks (nonagenarians, centenarians, ageless beings of undeath, etc).
B) Those who recently moved from Hawaii or Arizona, the two states that do not observe daylight savings. And nobody leaves Hawaii, so that doesn’t even make sense.

I resolve, on your behalf, to stop making commercials that employ heavy use of eating/drinking noises.

I’m fighting decades of established advertising theory on this one, but hey, every revolution begins with a single shot. Advertisers assume that if we hear how unspeakably delicious their product is, we will form a visceral connection. They augment ads with sound effects to broadcast tastiness. When the guy eats the burger, we really hear him eat that burger, and when the girl drinks the beverage, we really hear her drink that beverage. Slight problem, though: Eating noises fill me with rage. My eye twitches with every bite, and I know I’m not alone. We are friendly fire casualties in the war between Coke and Pepsi. Crunching, slurping, chewing, swallowing. Horrible, horrible swallowing. (In the rough draft for this post, I actually left myself a note here: “Try to make that sound not pornographic.” Basically a fail, right?) Every time Madison Avenue brings in a Foley artist to make a food product “pop,” God tasers Linda McCartney.

What do you have against Linda McCartney, Madison Avenue?

I resolve, on your behalf, not to talk about Twitter with people who don’t use Twitter unless they ask first.

Look, this is not to say anything against Twitter. I’m on the Twitter. I like the Twitter. But Twitter is in a place right now that reminds me of where fantasy sports were ten years ago. Either you were directly involved, or had no earthly idea what it was or how it worked. There was no in-between. In 2000, I was in a play with a troglodyte of a man who happened to live in my neighborhood. Every night, I had to listen to him talk about his fantasy football team as the subway crawled from 28th Street to Astoria Boulevard. Even as a football fan, even as someone who likes stats, I could not possibly have cared less. Then a friend invited me to play, and within a year I had teams in multiple leagues. I didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, I poured it on my cereal and used it as hair product. The first time I caught myself talking about my fantasy team with an outsider, it hit me — Sweet Jesus, I have become the troglodyte.

I see the same thing happening today when a Twitter user brings up the subject. People’s eyes glaze over. They check their phones for messages, they glance at the appetizer table. They recognize someone across the room who may or may not be there. If they ask about it, that’s one thing, but if they don’t, save it for your followers.

With that in mind, this next resolution is only for Twitter users. The rest of you can skip ahead if you want.

I resolve, on your behalf, not to tweet questions about why things are trending.

It takes two seconds to click the hashtag. If you’re still not sure what it means, it has to do with one of the Jonas Brothers’ birthdays.

I resolve, on your behalf, to let go of the whole thing where technically a decade starts with 1 and ends with 0.

Certain people get bent out of shape about this, and I suppose I might seem like one of them, considering that “Science!” is the biggest tag in my cloud. However, this is one instance where “practical” kicks “technically” in the ass. The argument goes like this: There was no Year Zero, so the very first decade consisted of 1 AD through 10 AD. By extension, the 1980s technically started in 1981 and ended in 1990, despite the fact that “Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em” officially launched the horrors of early 90s fashion that February. The 90s technically ended in 2000, the 21st century started in 2001, and next year completes our current decade (which for some reason we still have not named). Everyone knows one smartass who brings this up, sometimes with a note of disbelief that the rest of us can’t grasp the concept. We understand math, smartass. Do the 1980s mind that we borrowed 1990 to complete the box set? As far as I can tell, the practice of labeling a decade’s identity began last century. Before that, things just didn’t move quickly enough for one decade to be significantly different from another. So why not make it official? Let’s claim the year 1900 as part of the 20th century. The 19th century had only 99 years. Any objections? No? Good. The 21st century therefore began on Y2K, and 2009 is, in fact, the last year of this decade.

This one pains me, but I have to do it. I resolve, on your behalf, to stop saying “awesome.”

We need to have a Viking funeral for the word. It has served with distinction, bringing honor to us all. But its time has come. Its own ubiquity has rendered it meaningless, even in the detached usage we have come to know and love. That plate of bacon over there? That’s a plate of awesome. Louis C.K.’s last HBO special? Sixty minutes of awesome. Zombies? Awesome. Chuck Norris? Completely awesome. We’ve taken it as far as it can go. It’s the “groovy” of the … decade we just finished (dammit, we really need a name for this thing). Hey, I’m as guilty as anyone. Do not mistake my call to action for a denouncement. Not to go all one-hand-clapping on you, but awesome is awesome. I’m not even sure we can extricate it from our vocabulary. It may not be possible.

In fact, hang on a second …

I resolve, on your behalf, to reduce incidence of the word “awesome” to 150 parts per million (PPM) by the year 2035.

Much better. The only way to go about this is to approach it like air pollutant reduction. We have to set a target level and work together to reach it. We can’t just lock ourselves in a room and sweat out the withdrawal pains. Oh sure, we’ll be clean for a while, but that never ends well. When we inevitably fall off the wagon, the crash will be even harder than before. “Awesome” will be the only adjective we say at all. Other languages will sadly shake their heads and turn their backs on us. They offered us help, and we took their money. We will have burned them for the last time.

So let’s start making a change today. We can build a cleaner tomorrow, one sentence at a time. And that, my friends, will be awes- … sorry, habit. That will be fantastic.

(Note: The above constitutes a legally binding document, and by reading it you agree to carry out all provisions therein, including the ones from last year.)