“I won’t do it.”

Hey, this YouTube clip is a little crazy, but here’s evidence of journalists having enough of it all. And by “it all,” I’m talking about the pressure to report on things that don’t matter even a little bit. Ms. Brzezinski refused to read a story on Paris Hilton on her MSNBC broadcast. She looks a little crazy here, but only because the guys around her don’t have the cojones to agree with her on the air. I don’t care if it’s a relaxed, morning show type of environment. Paris Hilton doesn’t matter — even over a cup of coffee, even before breakfast. Let Paris exist on entertainment shows, in late-night talk show jokes, in her strange little world. But Ms. B is right — they should have led with the Iraq story.

Check it out:

Don’t let people around you blame “the media” for what you see on TV. It’s too vague. It’s ignorant. Learn about the process and do something about it. Write in to news programs and complain about coverage. Write in to sponsors and complain about coverage. Tell them what you want to see and tell them what you don’t want to see. The journalists of the world want to cover news, not crap, and they need you to tell their bosses that’s what you want, too.

Love,
dave

P.S. The Secret Sideshow was so awesome last night. More on that soon.

This week I shot a video with my friends in Better Than The Machine. Christina and I wrote the thing, then got all weird in my home with Reid operating the camera. Check it out:

And Uncoolkids.com (very cool kids incognito) has a nice little listing of the ol’ Secret Sideshow. So that’s like one more vote of confidence, right? Come see it.

NEW YORK–The highly-anticipated iPhone — a combination cellular telephone, music player and wireless Internet device — shouldn’t have been left alone with your girlfriend. You saw the way it was looking at her, playing all the Al Green it could get its digital little mitts on and showing off touchscreen like it’s Lindsay at an awards show. You should have known better, man.

It’s not her fault. You practically drove her to it, you know. Were you able to tell her where the best Vegan place uptown was while rocking her gently to the new Xavier Rudd? No, you were sitting on your duff talking about love and love. And love. Douche.

So the iPhone did what it had to do, baby. It treated a lady like a lady ought to be treated, and that’s with $5 billion worth of projected retail business, an unlimited data plan — when she said yours was a good size, well, you know — and icons that bounce. up. and. down. Yeah, they did it. They did it in your home, bro. When it was all over, iPhone told her nothing could ever come of it and, to her credit, your lady only cried for the first fifteen minutes.

Maybe you never stood a chance. Maybe you can win her back. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you one thing. I wouldn’t trust that new iBrator, either.

Technorati tags: [ iPhone | apple | love ]

Hey folks. The second round of voting has opened up on the Sketchies. We’ve entered a sketch called “Groundhog Day” in which I stand outside with ukulele sensation Ballard C. Boyd and we are both cold and frequently surprised. Please go vote for us! And also be sure to catch my favorites in this round, I Caught You (You’re Racist)!, Mad-Lib Answering Machine, and Google Earth.

Also, here’s an NYC haiku from Morningside, 1 a.m., a few days ago:

Open the door, please
Welcome to the world, fucker
Thanks man — anytime

And just to make this post even more full of stuff, I’m hereby starting a feature wherein I sometimes say something about music because I feel like it. It will be neither educated nor timely. We all sat around my apartment last night and agreed that the Polyphonic Spree’s cover of “Lithium” is great.

Dave out.

eBay has never been less practical or more awesome (and I mean that sincerely). McSweeney’s just had some stuff go down and they’re out about $130,000. So they’re doing this big auction and the three best items are hand-written notes by Miranda July:

Miranda July invites someone to your house.
Miranda July apologizes for you.
Miranda July congratulates you or a friend.

All totally amazing, especially if you have a screw-up worth several hundred dollars’ (and climbing) worth of apology.

Hey folks. I just wanted to share a video by my friends over at Zebro that I think is great. So here we go!

Chad Johnson beat the horse. If you didn’t know, wide receiver Chad Johnson of the Cincinnati Bengals was in a footrace with a horse the other day. You know, for charity.

Johnson had a 100-meter head start and won handily, which proves yet again that men are smarter than horses. I mean, if the horse had just been smart enough to start where the human did, he would have had a shot, but because he’s just a dumb horse, he didn’t know any better. (Go humans.)

Johnson won by several lengths, says USA today. That’s horsetalk for something. Horsespeak. Horselanguage.

The estimated crowd of 8,000 at River Downs roared its approval for Johnson, the Bengals wide receiver who said his runaway win would jump start his side career in doing sporting stunts for charity.

“Floyd Mayweather, you’re next,” Johnson said. “I want to fight you. I’d like to take Kobe and LeBron one-on-one. Jeff Gordon, we can take a couple laps.”

No. No no. Chad, you have to fight a horse. And race a car against a horse. And play one-on-one basketball against two horses. By the way, are you maybe a little confused about the term one-on-one? OK, cool. Also by the way, I think you should just play H-O-R-S-E against two horses.

Then it’s lose-lose for the horses. If they lose, public shame. If they win, they’re not HORSE. There are very few games that can take away one’s sense of horsity. Actually, it’s pretty much just H-O-R-S-E.

Johnson, who mounted a horse after the win and rode it around the winner’s circle, suggested he might be back at River Downs later this summer to race another horse, presumably one that’s faster than Restore the Roar.

“Street Sense, Curlin,” Johnson said. “Whichever one’s supposed to be the best horse.”

I do think it was a little uncivilized that his reward for winning was mounting a horse.

By popular demand, the return of haiku:

East Village. 6/8/07. Late.

etiquette
this is boston, right?
no, this ain’t boston, dumbass
get out of the road

self-defense
fuckin e train, man
look, that guy wants your wallet
i’d be like — uh-uh!

foreign relations
he’s from israel
you girls go to nyu?
meet an israeli

biology
girls don’t poop, silly
clop clop clop clop clop clop clop
but i have to poop

Cool — it was Space Sketch. Here it is on the front page (one day only), and here it is:

And, don’t forget to keep voting for Global Awesome on YouTube. You know. If you’re feelin’ it. There’s a pretty good mix of videos on there. The others that I’d recommend (and really enjoyed) include Neighbors, Ketchup, News Team, Brainstormers and Hamburgers. And some others, too, but who has time to make all the links?

Hi.

Three things:

1. There is a contest on YouTube right now called the Sketchies. We have a video in it called “Global Awesome.” Please go vote for us. It’s soooo important. I hereby release you from guilt if, instead of reading about the news or other world happenings, you just spend time voting for our video.

2. Tomorrow, one of my videos will be featured on the front page of SuperDeluxe, a super cool site. I’m not fully sure which one. It’s either Space Sketch or Foreign Poetry. But I’ll also put that up here tomorrow. I’m putting a bunch more videos on that site. If you’ve seen ‘em on YouTube, you’ve seen ‘em, but the SuperDeluxe player is cooler, so watch again!

3. I’m going to be producing a show called Secret Sideshow at Jimmy’s No. 43. It’ll be a few jokes, a few essays read by really cool people and some music. You will really, really like this show and this place. It will not be a normal comedy show. I will try to give away some stuff if I can. Please come on Wednesday, June 27 at 10 p.m. and Tuesday, July 10 at 8 p.m. It’s free.