MTV

I just finished a marathon read of I Want My MTV, a history of the network from its start in 1981 till 1992. It's by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum, and comes from interviews they did with nearly 400 people.

I was obsessed with MTV when I was a kid and a young teenager. I used to fill VHS tapes with recordings of videos I liked, stay up late waiting to see my favorite bands' new releases--I once threw a viewing party for the Video Music Awards.  So, as you can imagine, the book was the perfect topic to grab me.

There were tons of hilarious and horrifying anecdotes.  I found out David Fincher and Michael Bay both started as music video directors. I found out Kurt Loder used to rip on MTV as a Rolling Stone writer before they hired him.  Most of the guys in metal bands come off as sexist in a naive way, like they have no idea why the things they did and the way they portrayed women would be offensive. (Except Sebastian Bach. He comes off like a cool guy.)

The only other book I've read in this style is Please Kill Me: An Uncensored Oral History of Punk, by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. Please Kill Me is one of my favorite books. When I first read it at 17, I wanted to move immediately to New York City and start a band.  I Want My MTV was not quite as inspiring, not quite as shocking, not quite as amazing. Maybe because a lot of the characters involved were just filthy rich. Not the artists, at first, anyway, but the executives and directors and producers. It made it harder to care about their fates. (Even if they got fired from the network, they still remained filthy rich.)

Even with that caveat, the book was still a great read.  Lots of fun.  I wondered if the year chosen to end it would seem arbitrary, but it didn't. Things did change in 1992 for MTV. "The Real World" debuted. Grunge dominated hair metal and pop. I still watched it for years, though. I think the last time I watched it in any significant amount was, after a long gap, in 2003, in a hotel room in Amsterdam. (I wanted the TV on while I got ready to go out--I was not just sitting around in a hotel for lack of anything better to do in Amsterdam.) They aired episode after episode of "Jackass" and "The Osbournes."  No videos. It's too bad. I think if they showed videos, I might still want to watch it sometimes.

Like Video Games, But Less Fun

Have you heard of Amazon MTurk?  It's this thing set up by Amazon (obviously) where people post tasks they want done that can be completed on a computer (data looked at, links clicked, surveys taken, etc.), and then other people find them and do them.  For money.  Very little money.

I read an article on the Wall Street Journal website that some guy made $10,000 doing this to supplement his income, and how he thought it was a fun way to goof off.  A couple hours ago, I signed up.  I don't need the extra money, but it sounded intriguing.

[Keep in mind, by the way, that if you include my commute I worked a thirteen-hour day today.  Before signing up with MTurk.]

So there were all these little jobs posted, all for just ten cents or fifty cents or whatever, but they were quick and trivial.  I took surveys about environmentalism, I searched Google's Australian site for a dress shop, I wrote a few sentences about my last trip to the grocery store... Nearly two hours passed by without notice (except for pain in my right hand.  I need a more ergonomic computer setup).  I racked up points for doing almost 20 jobs, points that, once approved, will turn into money.

How much money?  Drum roll... $3.49.  Enough to buy the latest episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia on iTunes and still have change leftover for a gumball.

For comparison, when I first finished grad school, I tutored high schoolers in physics for $30 an hour.  An hourly rate SEVENTEEN times greater.

How did someone make $10,000 at this?  Is he just a rotten liar?  If so, I'm sure there are some fascinating psychological surveys he should take.

Anyway, I have no idea why this felt enjoyable and semi-addictive, and now my hand hurts...  But I kind of want to see if there are any new jobs posted.  Maybe I could earn another buck.

Party Down

A few days ago I finished watching the last episode of Party Down, a show that was on Starz in 2009 and 2010.  It's about a bunch of caterers in L.A., most of them wannabe actors or writers.  It is HILARIOUS.

It stars Adam Scott, who's currently on Parks and Recreation playing Ben, Leslie's love interest.  Henry Pollard, Adam Scott's Party Down character, is a failed actor whose one big moment was on a beer commercial yelling "Are we having fun yet?"  He's deliberately given up his attempt at an acting career, and so has taken a job working for Ron Donald, an old friend.

Ron, played by Ken Marino (who I know from The State and Wet Hot American Summer, both hilarious), has a dream of managing a Soup R Crackers, a fictional soup and salad restaurant.  He's intense and strange and he tries way too hard.  It's great.

Henry's on-and-off love interest is Casey, an aspiring comedian played by Lizzy Caplan.  She's funny and sarcastic, and sometimes hurts Henry so thoughtlessly it's hard to watch.

The other members of the catering team include, in the first season, Jane Lynch, who left the show when Glee got big.  Megan Mullally joined cast in Season 2.  Both women are so funny.  There's also Martin Starr as sci-fi nerd writer Roman, who is really a pretty awful person.  In my opinion that's so much funnier than if the weird nerdy guy turned out to be sweet.  Roman's nemesis is Kyle, played by Ryan Hansen, an aspiring actor/model/musician.

Each episode takes place at a single event that the Party Down team is catering.  This includes a funeral, a sixteen-year-old rich girl's empty birthday party, an orgy, and Steve Guttenberg's 50th birthday (he plays himself).

It is really, really funny.  And the final episode was just perfect.  You should watch it (if you aren't offended by bad language).  It's currently on Netflix Instant Watch, although I guess their contract with Starz is ending so I don't know for how long that will be true.

Also, in news of today, Ozzie Guillen has left the White Sox.  I'm very, very sad.

Twin Peaks

My boyfriend and I watched all of Twin Peaks this summer.  It was great.  A lot of people say it declines in the second season, but we still loved it.  Even the ridiculous plotlines like Noreen's super strength or Ben Horne thinking he was in the Civil War were entertaining.  Any given episode could make me laugh and yet leave me afraid to go to sleep when it was over.  Really, I enjoyed just about everything except James's little film noir subplot.  And Bob is about the scariest villain I've ever seen.

If you don't know about Twin Peaks, here's a quick summary: Laura Palmer, a seemingly-sunny teenage girl, was murdered.  Agent Dale Cooper, played (fantastically) by Kyle McLachlan, comes to the small Northwest town of Twin Peaks to investigate.  Twin Peaks is full of weirdos, some neutral or good, like the log lady (a woman who carries a log with her everywhere, and tells people the messages it gives her), and some a whole lot more sinister.

So I loved the series.  Then we watched the movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.  It was a prequel, made after the series ended but taking place in the days before Laura's murder.  I was not so impressed.  I thought it would wrap up loose threads.  It did no such thing.  AND a different actress played Donna, one of the main characters.  I wanted to say "Laura, what are you doing, that isn't Donna!" as if a malevolent trick was being played on her.  I'm glad I watched it, because I wanted to be completist about this, but I don't want to re-watch it.

More Wodehouse

I finished the last episode of "Jeeves and Wooster" last night.  Season Four overall wasn't my favorite (mostly because some of the recurring characters were played by different actors), but it was still quality, still hilarious.  It went out on the perfect note, too - I don't necessarily like a sitcom ending where everything changes (Monica and Chandler get their adopted kid, the cast of Seinfeld is in jail, etc.).  Far preferable is an ending that ties everything pretty much together but still leaves it open-ended enough that I can imagine my favorite characters continuing to have adventures.  "Jeeves and Wooster" did this exactly.

I picked up another book of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves stories at the library today, despite not being finished with The Autograph Man.  The problem I'm having with both The Autograph Man and The Savage Detectives is that I'm not all that crazy about spending time with the characters.  I don't need characters to be great people or even good people - just people that I'm curious about.  And both of those books have characters that are rather borderline for me.  I'm saving Right Ho, Jeeves as a treat for myself once I finish one of them.

Other Books

I finished another book before reading Middlesex, I just didn't write about it because I read it in about a day and was onto the next so quickly I hadn't had the chance to reflect on it.  Grace, Eventually is Anne Lamott's third book of short essays and stories about faith and spirituality and life.  I read Traveling Mercies, her first, while in a Women and Spirituality class in college, and loved it.  I still remember laughing out loud reading that, upon seeing a small child's pet dog, she told the kid "That is the ugliest cat I've ever seen" to make him laugh.

Grace, Eventually is not quite as substantial as Traveling Mercies.  It's an enjoyable read, and I can tell Anne Lamott's words are heartfelt, but it just felt a bit dashed off and flimsy.  I don't mean that as meanly as it sounds - it's still a good book.  But the everyday tales she tells that remind her of deeper truths seem somehow arbitrary to me, as if she could choose any event in her life and pair with any given truth, and work a story out of it.

I feel like I would like Anne Lamott very much if I knew her.  She's funny, deep, and genuine.  Grace, Eventually just didn't do it for me as much as I'd hoped.  I took it out of the library, and I know I won't bother to buy a copy of it.  If I already owned a copy, though, I'm sure I'd occasionally page through it.  Should you read it?  Yes, but if you're going to buy an Anne Lamott book, buy Traveling Mercies.

Now, on a completely different note, I'm reading The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse.  I've recently been watching Jeeves and Wooster, the 1990s British TV show about an idle-rich, dim sort of young man and his clever valet, and I've liked the show enough to seek out the books it was based on.  The stories contained in The Inimitable Jeeves are perfect to read while eating or preparing for bed: light, witty, self-contained tales of the foolishness caused by Bernie Wooster and solved by Jeeves.  It was written in 1923, and has all sorts of cool Twenties slang.  I'm loving it.

Incidentally, Hugh Laurie played Bertie Wooster on the TV show, and if there's ever been a character less like Dr. House, I don't know who it could be.