Peter Parker Death Grips, Nirvana/Rick Astley, Adult Swim, Books, Happy Holidays! - Friday, December 20, 2019 9:17 AM
3 things from the universe that made me go "wow, who would've thunk":
Peter Parker has been listening to too much Death Grips - Since two-thirds of you told me you haven't seen the video, I'm reposting it (NSFW, use headphones): https://youtu.be/SThRvg6cdQI ; based off this song on their first album (NSFW, use headphones): https://youtu.be/jTLaowNxVpA
Nirvana >< Rick Astley - YouTube user "Thriftshop XL" posted this song mashup music video in July 2009 - https://youtu.be/NN75im_us4k - yes, that's "Teen Spirit" mashed with "Never Gonna Give You Up". The original MP3 was ripped off a blog of a German music producer named "DJ Morgoth" (http://djmorgoth.blogspot.com/) after Thriftshop XL heard it at a club where DJ Morgoth played (according to the video description). Sounds cool right? It gets cooler. In a September 2017 London concert of Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl introduces Rick Astley. Holy. Sh*t: https://youtu.be/IdkCEioCp24
Adult Swim's programming step into live-action sketch comedy in the early to mid 2010s. Explained. (Warning: It's all weird... wear headphones) It all started in the early 2000s when Bob Odenkirk (who just got off making the 90s HBO sketch show Mr. Show) discovered Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim through their website where they housed their comedy sketches. Bob helped produce Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job in 2007. After the success with Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job (here's a full playlist), Adult Swim realized that Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim could help produce for budding comedy creators and give them a platform on Adult Swim. This led to them discovering creators (like Bob did) and producing programs like Loiter Squad (a full playlist) and The Eric Andre Show (uhh... full playlist); outside of Adult Swim, Tim and Eric also produced Nathan For You (yup, full playlist) on Comedy Central.
Books with accompanying sources... so you can read them over the holiday:
Influence by Robert Cialidini - 9/10 - F*cking great book on marketing and guide to the land of compliance. Everyone is trying to sell something to you, may it be a new glove or love. Highly recommend to everyone.
Originals by Adam Grant (epub file attached) - 10/10 - I reread some of it this week. Really great on how originals think and how to be more creative.
Stumbling on Happiness - N/A - Didn't finish the audiobook because my library said I had to return it. F*ck. Very theoretical so be ready for frameworks of ideas. Dan Gilbert is a very funny writer and explains the concepts in the book with casual talk rather than with science-speak. Not a self-help book. Nothing against them, it's just that this is not that. Wikipedia's Summary of what the book is about:
Gilbert's central thesis is that, through perception and cognitive biases, people imagine the future poorly, in particular, what will make them happy. He argues that imagination fails in three ways:
1. Imagination tends to add and remove details, but people do not realize that key details may be fabricated or missing from the imagined scenario.
2. Imagined futures (and pasts) are more like the present than they actually will be (or were).
3.Imagination fails to realize that things will feel different once they actually happen—most notably, the psychological immune system will make bad things feel not so bad as they are imagined to feel.
The advice Gilbert offers is to use other people's experiences to predict the future, instead of imagining it. It is surprising how similar people are in much of their experiences, he says. He does not expect too many people to heed this advice, as our culture, accompanied by various thinking tendencies, is against this method of decision making.
Also, Gilbert covers the topic of 'filling in' or the frequent use of patterns, by the mind, to connect events which we do actually recall with other events we expect or anticipate fit into the expected experience. This 'filling in' is also used by our eyes and optic nerves to remove our blind spot or scotoma, and instead substitute what our mind expects to be present in the blind spot.
The book is written for the layperson, generally avoiding abstruse terminology and explaining common quirks of reasoning through simple experiments that exploited them.
- The Actor's Life: A Survival Guide by Jenna Fischer - so far so great - It's a book by the actress that plays Pam on The Office. She details the complete roadmap to becoming an actor. Full disclaimer... I don't want to become an actor. Nope. No interest, that's that. But I saw it in a Barnes and Noble with Tucker this past Saturday, went home, pirated it, and started reading it like nothing. Very interesting read about the grind of what talented actors go through. 70 percent through it. Recommend.
👉My current life happenings: Hey, would you look at that, I lost all 3 receptionist opportunities that were presented to me: Netflix, Quibi, and Legendary. Nice 😎. I was at Universal Music Group this week doing boring mailroom work (think the early 2000s "The Office" UK version times 5 with Hispanic people rather than Brits)! Spoke to the guy that I was covering - told me he only ever had 3 jobs in his life... Burger King for 2 weeks, Universal Park Security Guard for 4 years, and then Mailroom Attendant for 20 years. Cool. I learned this week that the laundry machines on my apartment suck. Still writing. I met up with a bunch of you lovely people this week for lunch and coffee. For some of you, I'll be in Texas to say hey; hopefully, we can catch up. Guess what? Christmas is on a Wednesday. New Years is on a Wednesday. Well, I'm here to tell ya, ya see, that I'm not going to be sending one out on those holidays. No siree bob, I will be doing boring things instead like hanging out with family and talking to my grandmama.
Funny story about my grandma. As most of you know, I live in Hollywood on the corner of Santa Monica and Vine, next to Paramount. I also do valet work at a hotel on the weekends. I learned this year that in the early 1950s, my grandma and grandpa lived in Los Angeles for 4 years. My grandparents and their kids were a nomadic, traveling family that crawled across the Northwest United States, hitting states like Oregon, Minnesota, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Colorado. They would live in the mountains and hunt for deer and sh*t like that. They finally reached Los Angeles because my grandpa wanted to become a famous actor. According to grandma, "He had no talent." I asked my grandma where they lived and what they did for a living. She said that they lived in Hollywood... I go "hmm, interesting... where?" "Oh, somewhere south of Sunset, near Paramount..." I was flipping out. I told her that's the same area I live in. I asked what my grandpa did for cash? "He parked cars, you know, a valet." Holy. Freaking. Crap. The craziness doesn't end there. My grandma one day was picking up my grandpa from his acting class. Apparently there was a manager in the room speaking to one of the actors. The guy turns to see my grandma and goes, "Hey, you're pretty! You act? I'd like to represent you." She goes "okay" and got professional headshots done and soon after got an agent. Soon she was booking modeling gigs and some minor acting roles. You know, stuff that a traditional Hollywood guy smoking a cigar saying "we're gonna make you stah'!" would do. Anyway, one day she was told to hold hands with a big name actor at a Hollywood party and to be with him around town for the night. She goes "I can't do that, I'm a married woman." It turned into a big stink and she then quit modeling/acting. "I had no intention of becoming an actor. I didn't want to do it." And she became a trucker because of yearning to travel across America. The End!
HAVE A HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!