Pish Posh to the King of Pop, Billy Mays No Longer "Here."

I heard about the death of Michael Jackson from a group of twittering African American baristas in a very urban Starbucks. It was quite the surreal experience. The young man ringing me up told the woman yelling it, "that ain't true." Then the 75 year old grandpa waiting behind me (for a soy-related beverage I'm sure) said in a kind of Jewish-Eddie Murphy-Coming to America barber shop voice, "I don't believe a word of it. Those twiddlers are always making things up." I didn't think much of it.

I called my friend Herb to confirm but he hadn't heard anything and was not motivated enough to check for me on the computer that was probably sitting right in front of him so I sat down and Starbucks and finished reading Denis Johnson's excellent & brisk new novel Nobody Move, a humorous Elmore Leonard-like novel about barbershop quartet singer with gambling debts who through a series of crazy incidents is forced into hiding from his bookie's collector.

When I finished, my mind wandered back to Michael Jackson and how I never really got the obsession. My favorite memory of Michael Jackson was the hubbub surrounding the debut of "Scream", his $7 million dollar video duet with Janet Jackson where they seem to be stuck together in black and white on a moonwalking ship where they like to play a really expensive version of Pong. "Scream" was not a great song. It was a song of frustration but a video filled enjoyment and a positive venting of frustration, at least after the opening dual scream part. "Scream" was the video that Jackson truly embraced his alien side.

Look at him in that space tombstone at the beginning, followed by the destruction of innumerable Flying V guitars. I never got why he was destroy the guitars and why they didn't float in the ship instead of being destroyed. Only Michael Jackson could spend $7 million dollars on a video.

But the demise of Billy Mays, the world's greatest TV pitchman, really hit me. I felt like me and Billy were friends. He always said hi in his commercials. He was so integral to finding, introducing & promoting so many great inventions & helpful household tools like Kaboom!, Big City Slider Station, Mighty Putty, Oxi Clean, Samurai Shark and so much more. But wait... here's a tribute ot the man himself, a man truly derserving of a tribute and overshadowed by the deaths of Jackson & Farrah Fawcett even though they had little or no effect on our daily lives:

Possibly the best commercial dub ever & the funniest thing I've ever seen. Really!:

He inspired Billy Mays gangsta remixes:

He inspired kids to get into comedy:

But he wasn't always perfect. Here are some outtakes. You'll see that he worked hard for the money:

As you can see, Billy Mays was an inspiration to so many. If they say "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," then I'm sure Mays was beside himself. He just seemed like a nice guy, reminded me a lot of Richard Karn AKA Al on Home Improvement/ one-time host the world's greatest game show "Family Feud" with slicker hair.

Sitting around watching these videos, I felt like memorializing Billy by patronizing the companies that put him to work but I don't feel like waiting 4-6 weeks or just paying for S&H. As a final testament to Billy's skills, here's the full infomercial for Mighty Putty:

Each commercial required a few hooks. There is the mandatory, "Billy Mays HERE!." A catchy, memorable name to introduce and repeat throughout. Tons of examples what to do with a product that you don't really need along with the mandatory checklist. Lots of moving arrows in animations. Point out the easiness, NO HASSLE! And of course, there is always a secret behind it all.

In honor of Billy’s passing, I watched the As Seen on TV documentary hosted by Darren Rovell(writer of , the history of Gatorade) on CNBC Sunday night (You cna watch the whole thing on HULU. It's fascinating. This man could sell anything. I wonder if there are like 5 more items he’s already done and they will creepily pop up. He’ll say “Billy Mays here” like always except here will no longer be on this planet. (tear)



I might even have to watch the show about him on the Discovery Channel called Pitchmen. There will be an all day marathon on July 1 for those interested. The show's future at this time is undecided.

No one will ever say "ring around the toilet" or "I love beautiful wood don't you" the way he did. He was always so worried about your household issues. I don't know how 3 AM TV will survive without him. Any job big or small Billy Mays saved them all. He'll even double it. Call right now and he'll triple it! Billy was a man who always had a smile and a thumbs up.


No joke Billy, I will never forget you!

Related Links:
Billy Mays dies at 50; boisterous TV pitchman - Los Angeles Times
Billy Mays on Wikipedia
Informericals Now Lack Starpower (Reuters)
Michael Jackson on Wikipedia

I Read Something... : The Summer Has Begun & Random Reading Quotes

I haven't been doing much writing because I'm doing a lot of reading, probably at a detriment to my unskillful compositions. There was also a laptop-less bachelor party weekend in New Orleans thrown in for good measure.

I was trying to compile a list of magazines that I read offline outside the 20+ daily blog scans.

There is the weekly/bi-weekly:
1 New Yorker
2 New York Magazine
3 Newsweek (like the look of the redesign but hate the content since the change)
4 Entertainment Weekly
5 Business Week (discontinued but then I found a free subscription online)
6 Time Out
7 Forbes (Phasing it out)

The Monthlys:
1 The Believer
2 Wired
3 Fast Company
4 Writer's Digest
5 Website Magazine
6 Poets & Writers
7 Portfolio (discontinued)
8 PC World
9 GQ
10 Esquire
11 Strategy & Business

Don't forget McSweeney's Quarterly, a couple of membership magazines (like Tennis, Sierra Club & Bnai Brith) and a couple more IT & internet publications that I read sometimes. Not to mention about 2 books a week so i guess I always have read something the other day. You'd think I'd do nothing else but I do (or at least I try). I just love the feel of a great magazine and the suprise of turning the page ( I never look at the page of contents).

So here's some funny, amusing, or interesting quotes from what I've read lately.

From Albert Camus' "The Plague" (not a book full of humor):

"...(the) Plague had killed all colors, vetoed pleasure."

I have a bunch more but while reading them over these quotes are not really as quotable as I thought. "The Plague" wasn't the best summer read and for a 300 page book it was very trying and not very rewarding, "an existentialist classic" that I was I could have stopped reading but for some reason I always persevere."

Here's an excerpt from a GQ Interview with the latest Fox News acolyte Glenn Beck in regards to his upcoming comedy tour (who the fuck thought that was a good idea?):

" So conservatives lack an irony gene?
Is there an irony shortage? Sure. But is there a sarcasm shortage? Sure. A pun shortage? That too.

Why?
I don’t know. It may be because there is a system set against conservatives doing comedy. But I’m not totally comfortable with that explanation, because I have never attended conservative parties where the doors close and somebody breaks out the funny. It may just be that conservatives, for one reason or another, haven’t developed a good funny. It could be just because…[long pause] I was going to say it could be because they are beaten all the time. But Jews are funny, you know?"

I can't find where I put the rest but I'll start putting them up as I mark them.

I'll also be reading David Foster Wallace's epic tome "Infinite Jest" (which I believe i previously mentioned) as part of the online Infinite Summer Campaign, the ultimate on online nerd reading meant to motivate people to read & enjoy lengthy Wallace's work in one beautiful, memorable & committed summer. Join up!

Fot instant links & updates, check out my more oft updated tumblr, Empirical Dynamite.

I Read Something... on June 8 - Random Bits

What is that??? Google's way of celebrating the 25th anniversary of the greatest time eater created in the last part of the 20th century, Tetris. Those damn Ruskie blocks are still the ultimate communist ploy to make American's useless time-wasters. Too bad it didn't work.

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I'm all for all the modern technological advances but I'll never "get" twitter. I think Jon Stewart said it perfectly tonight, "Why do I have to follow CNN on Twitter? If I want to follow them, I can follow them on CNN."

I recommend watching the first segment on tonight's Daily Show once it goes up on Dailyshow.com. And if you love twitter, Time Magazine feels the need to give you "The World of Twitter," which is described in the RSS feed as "An excerpt of tweets from some of the most popular twitterers." What has the world come to when people need to read a magazine to get an excerpt from 140 character or less messages. Enough twitter hate for today.

Also looks like Thom Yorke has a solo follow-up to the Eraser en route. I Read Something... must always report any small bit of Radiohead news.

Quick Film Review
I saw Away We Go at a preview screening like 6 months ago but since it's finally being released I guess it's time to let you know that if you are the type of the person that wonders why there aren't any good, intelligent comedies released anymore, you should probablt support a great film like Away We Go. It's a interesting modern (and hipsterish) take on the road trip film.

Award winning director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) diverges from his standard harsh, gut wrenching dramatic affair to bring to life a road film in which a open-minded, new age couple about to have a child (John Krasinski AKA Jim from the Office & Maya Rudolph from SNL) decide to take a trek to various locales to see if they can find a good place to raise the child. I don't want to go too much further into it but I want to credit one of my favorite authors Dave Eggers and his wife for crafting an interesting, meaningful story about that 20 somethings/early 30 somethings in the US can relate to. Those who can choose the path of the future of this country and while many will point to the recent election as a reflection of their involvement, individually, many of us of that ilk are lost and meandering through life. It's sad especially with all the amazing tools at are disposable.

Away We Go is a tender, comedic piece of intelligent small-time filmmaking, the proverbial "labor of love", a great ensemble cast complete with excellent supporting performances from everyone from Allison Janney, Jim Gaffigan, Magie Gyllenhaal, and many more. The film is rolling out little by little but should be available in most areas so if you want to see more small yet excellent films and not more terrible $200 million+ reboots of the Terminator franchise, check this film out. Here's a trailer:

And if you like Away We Go, you'll probably want to check out 500 Days of Summer when it comes out in the near future (I'm just jealous I didn't write it):

Reading Eulogy: The Death of Portfolio Magazine

As a small time personal investor with limited amassed personal wealth, I have always had a keen interest in business, even in my youth. It could have to do with the Jewish upbringing, and that my father still subscribes to 60% of the magazines and newspapers available to himself (this includes random women’s magazines that he has no business getting but he subscribes to any magazine that sends out a solicitation.)

For more than a decade, I read Businessweek pretty much every Friday sitting at our weekly family dinner/reading session at a kosher-style deli (where as a vegetarian I stuck to a diet of health salad, pickles, & a knish). But since the recent housing bubble, I found Businessweek repetitive, non-useful, and unreadable so I let my subscription lapse. I am planning to do the same thing with the bi-weekly conservative talking point fest Forbes. Forbes’ cover story this issue is “Survivior’s Guide for the Affluent.” I also occasionally read Money, but that seems geared to older people/late term retirement investment planning.”

The one pleasure I still had in business magazines was Portfolio from the mega publisher Conde Nast. I recommended it to anyone with a mild interest that I knew with a mild interest in business topics. It opened with excellent op-ed columns following quality medium sized pieces but the best part of the magazines was the long, well written all-encompassing features like Michael Lewis’ The End or the recent article about the hedge fund optimist Bill Ackman, a feature on Iceland’s Prime Minister and wife (no longer online), or even the return of Howard Schultz to Starbucks.

Portfoilo was a young magazine with high aspirations for high class clientele, coming into a tough market which avoiding finding a hot female CEO to put a bikini for the cover. Portfolio was too classy for that; it stuck to being an adept overview of the business world at large and that’s probably why it failed. As many media commentators have espoused, we live in a USA Today cum
blog driven world that has shrunken attention spans even further with the explosion of the twitter epidemic. People don’t read long, in depth articles. At least, the young demographics that seem to be the only thing advertisers are willing to pay for. They read timely blurbs of immediacy. We don’t think and ponder thoughts anymore before we divulge them, we just react instantaneously with anonymous blog comments, user reviews, and Facebook status updates. It’s a true shame.

Younger people’s minds are being underserved by their own choosing. They are being underserved in high end, well thought out prose style features. Blog posts can but long but often poorly edited, if edited at all, (see my previous posts) and are prone to meandering rather than focus. Time is no longer on the side of the writer. I’ve thought of a little blogger’s credo, “If you wait, you’re too late.”

Maybe one day the net generation will realize the value of publications like Portfolio, Vanity Fair, & The New Yorker (both Conde Nast as well). There is some similar excellent publications that can take up some of the Portfolio’s slack like Wired(more techie then biz) and the underappreciated Fast Company (focuses on high tech business) but soon it will all be only online anyway. And the good old days, the excitement of a magazine arriving freshly printed in your mailbox will be over. This has been beaten to death by all types of media pundits for sure, but every time a quality publication disappears usually the void is filled. I’m not sure what will fill the Portfolio void but I hope I won’t have to print to out to be able to touch it.

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