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July 14, 2005

Al Gore's "Current TV" Fiasco-In-Waiting

Current TV's target audience?

Our target consumer is authentic, a person who really cares about what's going on in their world. They are 18-34-year-old young adults, both male and female who have graduated from MTV and are looking for more depth, reality and lifestyle appeal in their media.

More depth and reality than can be found on MTV? The duece you say!

This is going to be a disaster.

By the way... the target consumer is "authentic"? First of all, who doesn't consider themselves "authentic"?

But more importantly-- those who place the most emphasis on being "authentic" are the most inauthentic people in the world. It's a derangement of the young (and many baby boomers, who never grew out of the quixotic and sophormoric seventeen-year-old mindset), the need to adopt some new "deep" persona that isn't actually one's own but borrowed from a mentor or celebrity or a book or a political theory. Those who strive most for "authenticity" subvert their own authentic personalities, desires, and preferences in order to emulate the persona of someone they deem "authentic."

Al Gore: the very model of "authenticity."

Can't wait. Cannot wait.

Thanks to Charles.

Correction: The newsletter forwarded to me said the interviewee's name was "Karl Marx," but that was later corrected. It's just Carl Carter. Not sure how they messed that one up.

Loose shit on my part.

posted by Ace at 03:55 PM

Comments

Uh, is that link right? That doesn't seem to be about Al Gore's VP Marketing.

Posted by: on July 14, 2005 04:02 PM

So what? The VP of Faux News is Aldoph Hister. Seriously, look it up you stupid twat wingnut.

Posted by: on July 14, 2005 04:02 PM

I was the first person up there.

What is it with your trolls? There's been a downgrading in vocabulary, for one.

Posted by: meep on July 14, 2005 04:16 PM

By the way, here's the website of Current TV:
http://www.current.tv/

Posted by: meep on July 14, 2005 04:17 PM

"I'm authentic because I wear Abercrombie & Fitch shirts, Birkenstocks and Old Navy jeans!" - Current TV viewers say...

Posted by: Josh on July 14, 2005 04:18 PM

Hey Ace,

Juan Cole says it's ok to delete this post or update it as needed.

Posted by: TheDude on July 14, 2005 04:19 PM

really meep, what's the deal? they're very lame today.

it's like stepping in dog shit.

Posted by: Dave in Texas on July 14, 2005 04:21 PM

His name is Karl Carter and is VP of marketing "and vanguard ideas":
http://www.current.tv/docs/KarlCarter.pdf

Uh huh.

Anyway, someone was pulling your leg.

Posted by: meep on July 14, 2005 04:21 PM

"The VP of Faux News is Aldoph Hister. Seriously, "

Wasn't he mentioned in a Nostradamus quatrane?

Tob

Posted by: on July 14, 2005 04:22 PM

Authenticity. Another marketing scam preying on the fact we've conquered nature and now, our brains - constantly churning anxiety generators - scan the empty landscape of our 'easy street' lives, and seeing no real enemies left, settle for the mild self-hatred of aesceticism, striving to find greater meaning and purpose in the irrelevant minutae of our remaining struggles: the choice of salad dressings and toilet papers.

Screw you, 'authentics.'

Posted by: Guy Dupree on July 14, 2005 04:28 PM

Dog,

I'm "current" 'cuz I be keepin' it real. Not like you sheep who be watchin Lifetime or HBO.

Word.

(Since I be here, I like to toss this shout out to my posse. WORD MFA's!)

Posted by: rightnumberone on July 14, 2005 04:31 PM

Speaking of "authentic" people. This person I know graduates from hs, declares she is a lesbian, and jumps off the deepend into leftwing politics. She lectured us endlessly about capitalism, corporations, and greed. So she finished her business degree and moved to Frisco to work at the Gap corporate office.
When she comes home, she still lectures us about the same old crap. Cognitive dissonance anyone?

Posted by: TheDude on July 14, 2005 04:34 PM

Personally, I can't wait for the first edition of the 'digital brownshirt report' with Bill Moyers and Dan Rather. Should be great.

Posted by: Defense Guy on July 14, 2005 05:01 PM

So she finished her business degree and moved to Frisco to work at the Gap corporate office. When she comes home, she still lectures us about the same old crap.

Like I always say: never let an ideology of envy, resentment, socialistic enslavement and economic nonsense get in the way of distributing slightly overpriced bland semi-casual clothes for suburban yuppies.

I'm always sayin' that.

Posted by: Phinn on July 14, 2005 05:07 PM

Yay!!

I hope Teresa gets her own show. She can teach young, inexperienced libs the correct dosage of happy pills to use to 'take the edge off' when giving a speech in front of DNC.

Some suggested show titles;
Al's Hour of Vein Poppin' Rage
Spring Break Honies with Billy Zipper
Vermont: Melting Pot, hosted by Dr. Dean

Posted by: lauraw on July 14, 2005 05:10 PM

are looking for more depth, reality and lifestyle appeal in their media.

Holy shit, I haven't read this kind horsedump in awhile. "lifestyle appeal in their media."??? I wasn't aware that media had "lifestyle appeal" until these geniuses just informed me of it. Does that mean they want their media to appeal to their lifestyle? Do they actually think this is something unique? Or are these Liberal Code Words for: we support the radical feminist agenda, gays, abortion, degeneracy, drugs, alcoholism, anti-americanism, government sponsored racism against white people (men in particular) and all the rest of the Radical Liberal Agenda. Cheesh! I Thank God that most people can see through this horseshit for it it really is, and I know it will fail.

Posted by: wretched refuse on July 14, 2005 05:13 PM

"lifestyle appeal in their media."

Code words for "MORE HOMOS"

Posted by: Master of None on July 14, 2005 05:15 PM

Gore is going to go head to head with Queer TV?
The poor sap is doomed. How can the guy who doesn't know how an Alpha male is supposed to dress compete with the fag five?

Posted by: Iblis on July 14, 2005 05:27 PM

Well it looks like the reign of Chevy Chase and Magic Johnson as the worst tv hosts ever is about to come to an end

Posted by: WindyCity on July 14, 2005 05:57 PM

Please let Janeane Garofalo host her own show
Please let Janeane Garofalo host her own show
Please let Janeane Garofalo host her own show
Please let Janeane Garofalo host her own show
Please let Janeane Garofalo host her own show
Please let Janeane Garofalo host her own show

Aaaand.....
A show about economics in America called Soup Kitchen.

Pretty please with cherries and sugar and flaming brandy on top!

Posted by: lauraw on July 14, 2005 08:33 PM

Do I seem too enthusiastic?
Sorry.

Note to liberal trolls:
I am really, really upset about this whole liberal TV thing. The last thing we Rethuglikkkans want is a bigger megaphone for you to get your message of peace and tolerance out. Because the American people would totally eat it up. Really. That would totally suck. I really, really, really mean it. Really.

Oh dear. Its almost time to skin them rabbits. Talk later! 'Ta!

Posted by: lauraw on July 14, 2005 09:06 PM

I wonder whether air america can stand the competition. Will both listeners tune out in favour of the TV?

Posted by: Ring on July 14, 2005 09:22 PM

mmmmmmm.... flaming brandy...

Posted by: Claire on July 14, 2005 09:37 PM

*wiping blood from hands*

Took a break to offer another show title.

Honky Talk, with Rev. Al Sharpton

Posted by: lauraw on July 14, 2005 10:12 PM

Promo clip from Rev. Al Sharpton's late-night show:

"Caller, are you a honky?"
-(giggle) why, yes! (giggle)
"Thought so, Miss blue-eyed devil. What's on your mind?"

.....................................

Hilarity ensues. Oh, yes.

Posted by: lauraw on July 14, 2005 10:19 PM

How about an animated series based on the cartoons of Ted Rall?

Americans would love that.

Posted by: Slublog on July 14, 2005 10:43 PM

I'm an American, and I can testify that the very thought puts me in stitches.

Posted by: lauraw on July 14, 2005 11:10 PM

Here's their proposed Thursday night lineup

7:00 Queer eye for the even queerer guy
8:00 Everybody Loves Raymond's Ass
9:00 CSI: San Francisco --Special Hamster Removal Unit

Posted by: Master of None on July 14, 2005 11:18 PM

Suggested Primetime

8 p.m. - Law and Order: Thought Crimes Unit

9 p.m. - The Joy of Copying Other People's Art with Ward Churchill

9:30 p.m. - Rallimation

10 p.m. - Crazy White Guy Losing His Shit with host Howard Dean.

This channel has promise.

Posted by: Slublog on July 14, 2005 11:33 PM

Please let Janeane Garofalo host her own show

No such luck, Laura. Being a visual medium, a TV show would require she do something radical, like wash her hair on a semi-regular basis. I think even the demands of a weekly show would go against her current hygiene schedule.

Anyone want to hide from Janeane Garofalo? Duck under a bar of soap.

Later,
bbeck

Posted by: bbeck on July 15, 2005 12:35 AM

There are times when it's really fun to mock liberals and liberalism.

Then there are those times when you realize that many of them really are nothing more than vicious assholes, if you'll pardon the profanity.

I'm very happy these people don't have power, and intend to do what I can to help keep it that way until an honest liberal assumes a leadership position and slaps some sense back into the loony left, or just encourages democrats to abandon it altogether.

Posted by: Slublog on July 15, 2005 01:04 AM

Kind of reminds me of the Suncom commerical, "Truth in wireless." Bunch of bullshit.

Posted by: Jenny on July 15, 2005 08:57 AM

You guys, laughing so hard over here I got the tears. You're killing me.

Posted by: lauraw on July 15, 2005 09:27 AM

The The:

"I was trying so hard to be myself
I was turning into somebody else."

Posted by: Scotian on July 15, 2005 05:04 PM

That last comment was in reference to those fools who fancy themselves as being more "authentic" than others.

Posted by: Scotian on July 15, 2005 05:15 PM

The real me

'Authenticity'
is for born liars and fools
afraid of themselves

No one is that cool
no one is very stylish
we're all just critters

When you find out who
your real friends are, and love them;
home, yourself, at last.

Posted by: lauraw on July 15, 2005 10:10 PM

Amazon.com Widgets

Now Available!
The Deplorable Gourmet
A Horde-sourced Cookbook
[All profits go to charity]

Top Headlines

In more marketing for Project Hail Mary, scientists say they've found the biosigns indicating life growing on an alien planet. It's not proof, just signatures of chemicals that are produced by biological metabolism, and it could be nothing, but scientists think it's a strong sign that this planet is inhabited by something.

In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023.
Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it's only produced by living organisms.
"It is a shock to the system," Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. "We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal."

He means they tried to prove the signal was caused by things other than dimethyl sulfide but they could not.

Artemis moon shot a go, scheduled for 6:24 Eastern time tonight
Great marketing arranged by Amazon to promote Project Hail Mary. Okay not really but it does work out that way.

TJM talks John Boorman, director of Excalibur

Good rickroll

What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]

TJM acts like he knows anything about John Wick and screenwriting. It's embarrassing, really.

Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!

Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."

Batman fires The Batman
Batman is disgusted by the Joachim Phoenix version of Joker
Batman tries to fire Superman
Batman is still workshopping his Bat-Voice

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
And I was here to please
I'm even on knees
Makin' love to whoever I please
I gotta do it my way
Or no way at all

Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)

Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]

TJM gives you a brief tour of his movie collection.

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter
One day I'm gonna get that faculty together
Remember that everybody has to wait in line
Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine

US decimation of Iran's ICBM forces is due to Space Force's instant detection of launches -- and the launchers' hiding places -- and rapid counter-attack via missiles
AI is doing a lot of the work in analyzing images to find the exact hiding place of the launchers. Counter-strikes are now coming in four hours after a launch, whereas previously it might have taken days for humans to go over the imagery and data.

Robert Mueller, Former Special Counsel Who Probed Trump, Dies

“robert mueller just died,” trump wrote in a truth social post on march 21. “good, i’m glad he’s dead. he can no longer hurt innocent people! president donald j. trump.”

TJM has thoughts on Superheros and Iconography