And when can I see you again?

The title/lyric is from Babyface's overplayed song from back in the day When Can I See You Again. I just needed that phrase-I don't really like Babyface, although he's from Indiana and living now in Texas I appreciate my fellow Hoosiers all the more.

Clicking the title will take you to NBC's website for their new show Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (everything in the title after 60 is the only thing I don't currently like about the show). You should go there right now. Starting Tuesday they're gonna allow you to watch the entire first episode, because you foolishly chose to watch the Jacksonville Jaguars/Pittsburgh Steelers snoozefest that garnered a whole 9 points of scoring or Heaven forbid Supernanny on ABC between Grey's Anatomy promos.

Here are the top five reasons why I already love this show:

1 The best writer in television is writing this show. Aaron Sorkin (quick resume-writer of A Few Good Men, The American President, writer/creator of Sports Night and The West Wing and uncredited script doctor of such chestnuts as Schindler's List, The Rock, and Bulworth) is also the writer/creator of this show. He doesn't waste too many words and writes beautifully intelligent, challenging, coherent dialogue! If you've never seen any of the above mentioned movies and TV, what kind of crap do watch usually? Best writer in television-reason number one.


2 If there is a better ensemble of actors on television I'd be surprised to hear about them. From top to bottom this is a stellar cast. Matthew Perry, the Friend who seemed least like a characature, whose been building a real acting resume and recieved now three Emmy nominations plays the creative genius eccentric half of the central duo. Bradley Whitford (who played my favorite West Wing character), an Emmy award winner and icon from his Billy Madison villiany plays the more controlled, albeit recovering addict, director of the pair. Then bring in some seasoned vets; Judd Hirsch and Timothy Busfield, three Emmys and a Golden Globe between them. Throw in some serious comedic talent; Original King of Comedy D.L. Hughley and Nate (youngest brother in clan) Corddry. Star-studded sex appeal; the stunning and super in control Amanda Peet, the adorable and multi-talented Sarah Paulson, and for the ladies Steven Weber as a cool as ice executive. Hell, have legends like Ed Asner (7 Emmys, 5 Golden Globes) show up and serious actors like Evan Handler (remember Harry Goldenblatt Sex and City girl's?) play smaller roles. I mean it, what has a better cast of actors? Challange!

3 Substance! Thank God there is some substance on TV still. In fact a large part of the first episode is calling out the lack of substance on most of TV. Here the opening monologue...The Executive Producer loses it and rushes on stage to say this:

This show used to be cutting edge political and social satire, but it's gotten lobotomized by a candy-ass broadcast network hell-bent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience. We were about to do a sketch you've already seen 500 times. Yes, no one's gonna confuse George Bush with George Plimpton, we get it. We're all being lobotomized by the country's most influential industry which has thrown in the towel on any endeavor that does not include the courting of 12-year-old boys. And not even the smart 12-year-olds, the stupid ones, the idiots, of which there are plenty thanks in no small part to this network. So change the channel, turn off the TV. Do it right now.

...there's always been a struggle between art and commerce, but now I'm telling you art is getting its ass kicked, and it's making us mean, and it's making us bitchy, and it's making us cheap punks and that's not who we are. We're eating worms for money, watching "Who Wants to Screw My Sister", guys are getting killed in a war that's got theme music and a logo. That remote in your hand is a crack pipe...

And the two things that make them scared gutless are the FCC and every psycho-religious cult that gets positively horny at the very mention of a boycott. These are the people they're afraid of, this prissy, feckless, off-the-charts greed-filled whorehouse of a network you're watching. This thoroughly unpatriotic-- CREDITS ROLL

Now you may not like that, but it's substance of a different order than dead bodies, C-list celebrities, watered down polarizing news, and cheaply gained fame.

4 Consider this:

A man who makes no enemies is never a positive force.- Simon Cameron

I suppose in some ways I think ruffling people's feathers is a part of life, and on some occassions a neccessary part of speaking truth. Read this excerpt from the Pilot Episode, Matt and Harriet are dicussing why they broke up:

HARRIET
When you were promoting the movie I was holding your hand every step of the way. When I had a CD to promote in 52 markets in 15 days, you disappeared.

MATT
I didn't disappear.

HARRIET
You got cold and you got mean.

HARRIET
Right after you went on The 700 Club is that timing lost on you?

HARRIET
It was an album of spiritual music, those are the people who buy spiritual music!

MATT
I don't care if it was an album of the three wise men covering the Doobie Brothers, you put on a dress and sang for a bigot.

HARRIET
I sang for his audience, not every one of whom is necessarily the grotesque stereotype you'd like them to be. Most of these people have nothing except their faith, and that moves me.

MATT
Throw in the Halloween costumes and you got yourself a Klan rally.

WHACK!--

HARRIET smacks MATT across the face...

HARRIET
I'm sorry.

MATT
Fortunately I'm on about 8000 milligrams of painkillers right now.

HARRIET
And I'm sorry if my going on Pat Robertson offended you and if I had to do it again I wouldn't. But the sketch that got cut? I stood by that sketch all week, and I've stood by it all night and I'll stand by it in front of the press, and you know what that sketch was called? "Crazy Christians".

MATT
The 700 Club isn't a comedy show.

Again, agree with this or not, but we're thinking! I have my own beefs with the Christian Right and Pat Robertson especially. He is one of those mouthpieces standing in the way of Christianity communicating love and peace instead of judgement and ignorance. Here is a TV show saying something of its own about that.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.- Martin Luther

5 It's Funny! When it comes time to take on leading the show for the two central players after a discussion of whether there was any truth to the original Executive Producer's rant, this conversation takes place:

JACK
There's gonna be a press conference at noon on Monday announcing that you two are running Studio 60. I know I can count on you to answer questions in a way that doesn't embarrass the National Broadcasting System. Will that be hard for you?

MATT
I wouldn't think it would be hard for anybody. 'Cause if you pointed a camera at two people masturbating it'd be among the least embarrassing things on the National Broadcasting System. I'll tell Blair to start working on the deal.

The scary thing about that scene is that without more shows like Studio 60 on TV and more people investing in them, we could very soon have a show like the one he sarcastically describes.

Check out Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on Mondays at 10 Eastern (that's 9 in Southern Indiana and Texas) and see what you think. I'll be watching!

And we can act like we come from out of this world, leave the real one far behind, and we can dance!

The lyric comes from an 80's classic Safety Dance by Men Without Hats. The link (click the title) takes you to the goofy but charming classic video that Peter Jackson clearly saw a few times in the day. Sorry this post is video heavy, especially to people like my mom with crappy computers. Time to invest in the present...

So this week at my youth group we talked about beginnings and here is a video library of snippets of a phenomenon called Numa Numa. Gary Brolsma shot a webcam video and the world caught fire over this obscure Japanese song. This is the original...



From there came many copies, parodies, tributes, remixes, and edits of the original. Here is a version made up of many versions...



Then came parodies of the copies. Here's my favorite...



Soon Gary Brolsma was everywhere-newspapers, magazines, TV news, entertainment shows. So a version of Numa came out commemorating its success...



Soon Gary Brolsma's Numa was a cultural phenomenon, so it was parodied alongside other cultural phenomenons...



According to Wikipedia Gary Brolsma's original video on the originl site he published it has been seen 13 million times. On YouTube, where these clips were found, the keywords Numa Numa recieve 298,837 hits.

A story in The Believer (June/July 2006) explores the song's spread and global homogenization, while arguing that Brolsma's video "singlehandedly justifies the existence of webcams . . . It’s a movie of someone who is having the time of his life, wants to share his joy with everyone, and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks."

Sharing joy with everyone...strangely I can think of no better way to begin to change the world.

The sermon we heard Sunday was about shining our light on this world. Here is this guy in his bedroom dancing and millions have smiled at the sight of it.

While Gary went through a time of being embarassed by his fame, he has now embraced it and just came back with a New Numa video...



May you share your joy with everyone this week.

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?

This lyric is of course from the title song to Sesame Street. The link (clicking the title) is to the You Tube page of this clip in case you want to share it or imbed it yourself.

I found this yesterday when looking fo my Count clip and thought it the perfect weekend clip since they tend to stay up here a while longer than my day to day stuff.

This is one hilarious bit of stand-up. There a few naughty words, so be warned before hitting play. The sometimes genius always funny Dave Chappelle has a great take on my beloved Muppets.



Have a joyous weekend on whatever street you find yourself.

Once I started counting, it's very hard to stop.

The title/lyric is from Count Von Count's The Song of The Count from Sesame Street. The link will take you to a classic Sesame Street clip.

These days Cookie Monster can only eat cookies "sometimes", while apparently our government can only count right sometimes as well. This is a follow-up to a post from a few days ago. The gist-there was no decline in deaths in Iraq in August.

Iraq deaths multiply in new August count

By RAWYA RAGEH, Associated Press Writer
Thu Sep 7, 1:20 PM ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Updated figures from Iraq's Health Ministry show there was no significant decline in violent deaths in Baghdad last month, but the U.S. military insisted Thursday the murder rate in the capital had fallen by 52 percent.

Baghdad recorded more than 1,500 violent deaths in August, according to final figures released this week by the Health Ministry. The final count was roughly the same as the figure the ministry released for July, before the U.S.-led security crackdown began in the Baghdad area.

The final figure also was nearly three times the preliminary count released by the same ministry last week.

If accurate, the final figures cast doubt on U.S. and Iraqi claims of a significant reduction in the level of violence here since the crackdown was launched Aug. 7.

Asked about the latest Iraqi figures Thursday, U.S. spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson refused to provide an explanation, merely referring The Associated Press to a statement on a U.S. military Web site that said the murder rate in Baghdad dropped 52 percent from the daily rate for July.

"The violence Baghdad endured in July receded during the month of August," the statement added. "Attacks in Baghdad were well below the monthly average for July."

Deputy Health Minister Hakem al-Zamly this week put the August violent death count for Baghdad at 1,536, based on figures from the city morgue.

However, preliminary Health Ministry figures released last week showed violent deaths in August in Baghdad at just 550, according to Dr. Riad Abdul Amir of the ministry's statistics bureau.

Iraqi officials could provide no explanation for the difference between the preliminary and final August figures, but it could have resulted in part from a late August surge in deaths. More than 250 people were killed in Baghdad in the final week of the month.

Efforts by the AP to contact Amir on Thursday for an explanation were unsuccessful.

Accurate figures on the number of people who have died since the Iraq conflict began in March 2003 have long been difficult to obtain. The Health Ministry relies on reports from government hospitals and morgues.

Poor phone lines and shortages of trained staff and computers can delay entering death reports into databases, which means the preliminary count may have lagged sharply.

But accurate figures are important because Iraqi and U.S. officials — anxious to demonstrate progress as support for the war declines in the U.S. — have used them to claim success in curbing violence in Baghdad.

Last month, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said the murder rate in Baghdad fell by 46 percent from July to August.

Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie insisted last week that execution-style killings and sectarian violence had dropped by 45 percent in the last six weeks.

One, two, three. Three! Three years of "liberation in Iraq."
Ah-ha-ha.
One, two. Two! Two more years till the Presidential Election.
Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Let's talk about sex baby...

This title/lyric is too obvious, but too fitting-it's a Salt N Peppa song from my own misspent youth. Take the link to another great NPR story about this subject.

1 in 5 kids age 12-14 has had sexual intercourse!

Some may wonder if I am ready to deal with these oversexed youth...
You know the kind of kids who go to this school...

The Return of
THE WEEKLY INAPPROPRIATE CHURCH SIGN


All I have to say is there is no man more interested in the subject of sex and no one less interested in talking to kids about it.

Luckily the church I am now serving has a whole sex curriculum they teach and an entire weeklong sex camp they send 8th graders to, so I'll get lots of practice.

My own sexual education was recieved on the school bus from a sweaty overweight Junior in high school (in retrospect with probably inappropriate intentions) when I was a 5th grader who used to tell me things that made me want to throw up until he was dropped off and I would go home and bury my new knowledge in matchbox cars, only later (at 13 or so) to be dealt with fully. I guess a sweaty overweight youth minister who means well is a bit better.

This should be an interesting dimension to my work here.

When authorities warn you of the sinfulness of sex, there is an important lesson to be learned. Do not have sex with the authorities.

- Matt Groening, From "Basic Sex Facts For Today's Youngfolk"