And yet, there is a familiarity to his Tweets. Consider this.

.@rupertmurdoch Great New Year’s party the other night. I think I left my LMFAO cd at your pad. Need that. Burn it & return it. #watsupdoch

— jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) January 3, 2012

Then oddly Dave tweets this

Great New Year’s party the other night.I think I left my LMFAO cd at your pad.Need that.Burn it & return it.

— Late Show (@Late_Show) January 3, 2012

I hope he keeps “jokingly” ripping off his fellow hosts.

]]> http://talkingwithtim.com/wordpress/2011/12/05/typo-of-the-day-nyts-media-decoder/feed/ 0 http://talkingwithtim.com/wordpress/2011/11/21/welcome-back-jim-romenesko/ http://talkingwithtim.com/wordpress/2011/11/21/welcome-back-jim-romenesko/#comments Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:40:48 +0000 admin http://talkingwithtim.com/wordpress/?p=4484 Given how much of a news junkie I am, it should come as no surprise that I’ve been a longtime reader of media observer Jim Romenesko. So I am glad to see that he now has his own website, where he details how his former website host/employer treated him quite badly in his waning weeks.

• Nick Cave on piano, playing his song Into My Arms
• The guy on the left at the beginning? John Cale
• The quality of Cave’s piano on this song

I have better things to do with my time than filter spam, of course.

So while I appreciate those of you that have commented over the years, the era of comments are over. Unless of course you want to comment on my Tumblr page, or if you are pals with me on Facebook.

Action Philosophers

Action Philosophers, the comic book series by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, has been adapted for the theater by award-winning playwright Crystal Skillman (who happens to also be Van Lente’s spouse). The play has been acclaimed for capturing the flavor of the comics series’ comedic exploration of several world philosophers. Action Philosophers is currently in a limited run through October 16 (Thursday & Friday at 8 pm, Saturday & Sunday at 7 pm) at the Brick Theater (in cooperation with Impetuous Theater Group). Dunlavey recently took the time to share his thoughts with me via email on the comic series’ successful transition to the theater.

When you and Fred first developed Action Philosophers, did you ever envision it being adapted for theater?

Never. I arrogantly believed that it was completely unadaptable to other mediums and it would exclusively live and die on the comic book page, but Crystal Skillman, director John Hurley and the actors have done a fantastic job of proving me wrong!

Interestingly enough (maybe only to me) Action Philosophers originally came about when I asked Crystal to collaborate on a comic with me, but then Fred got to me first!

What was it like the first time you saw characters you draw and scenes you created be performed in the theater?

Easily the most surreal experience of my life, but also really exciting! Plato was the most shocking being much more of a caricature of the real-life Plato than the other philosophers that are featured in the play. He’s become our trademark character for the series so seeing him come to life was really, really cool. It’s both a big honor and very humbling to see goofy things that I may have just doodled in a few minutes thoughtfully brought to three-dimensional life by talented people.

Is it awkward or does it make you proud to see the stories in theater form?

Both! I sat through the first performance with my arms folded but with a big grin on my face the whole time. And the audience liked it! As an artist I very rarely get direct feedback like that, and it was a thrill.

How much did Crystal Skillman consult you while she was adapting the story?

Crystal solicited my input from the very beginning but I told her I preferred to not be involved and wanted to let her and John and the actors do their own thing. After the first run-through I offered a few informal suggestions on the staging and backdrops (which John was already planning to do as it turns out), but that was it.

In terms of the characters, who do you think have flourished the most in a theater setting?

Ayn Rand had such a dramatic personal story and I think comes across better in performance than it did in the comic – She’s a real-live super villain that you actually feel sorry for. Bodhidharma and Plato have done great too, thanks in no small part to the hyper-charged performances of Neimah Djourabchi and C.L. Weatherstone, respectively. They both sell those characters better than anyone. My son LOVED Joe Mathers as Karl Marx – mostly because of the fighting, and Joe’s experience as a fight choreographer really made it work. The all-philosopher brawl at the end and the surprise guest philosopher (I won’t spoil it for you) was amazing – it wasn’t something we did in the comic and it was far and away my favorite part of the play.

Now that you have seen the play adaptation, are there narrative elements you want to borrow and utilize in your next comic?

Nope, they’re totally different mediums and have a very different set of storytelling challenges. As director John Hurley astutely pointed out, in comics events are contained in their panels but theatre is fluid – actors and scenery have to move in and out of the stage. I’ve been drawing comics for so long that I have a hard time picturing any of my ideas occurring outside of panel borders. Plus, I’m a terrible actor. Comics 4 Life!

In general, why do you think your and Fred Van Lente work together so effectively as a creative team?

We’re both insufferable wise-asses. We were friends long before we ever did a comic together – the comfort level we both had with each other and our own confidence in our own abilities definitely helped. We rarely second-guess ourselves or each other and it’s very difficult for either of us to bullshit the other.

What’s on the creative horizon for you?

I just wrapped up the art on the final issue of Comic Book Comics – the 100% true story of the American comic book industry. The last issue talks about the rise of graphic novels, Japanese comics (focusing on Tezuka), the ups-and-downs of the direct market and digital comics. In stores any day now and yes, there will be a collected edition not long after that. I’m neck-deep into the art production of The Dirt Candy Cookbook, another non-fiction comic project I’m doing with chef Amanda Cohen, owner/head chef of Dirt Candy, an award-winning gourmet vegetable restaurant in New York’s Lower East Side. It’s part memoir, part cook book, part food theory – Amanda’s been in the trenches since the start of the whole foodie fad and has some amazing behind-the-scene stories of the cutthroat NYC restaurant culture, and we’re telling it all with comics! It’s fun stuff. We also use comics in the recipes to explain and demonstrate cooking techniques. It’s 200 pages! That comes out next summer from Clarkson/Potter – I’m really excited about it! Lastly I’m writing and drawing a fiction comic for a new publisher that I’m very excited about – anyone who liked the MODOK one-shot I did for Marvel will dig this too. Sorry I can’t tell more, it’s being announced at New York Comic Con. And there’s sure to be more stuff from me and Fred very soon, count on it!

Wednesday night viewers of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon were witness to the brief return of Conan O’Brien to NBC. O’Brien, temporarily back in New York, is prepping for a week-long run of his TBS show at the Beacon Theater, starting on October 31.

While barely two minutes in length, the short visit made for a great TV moment, along the lines of Paul Newman’s “Where the hell are the singing cats?” bit (shown in this YouTube clip at the 6:55 mark) from David Letterman’s first CBS show back in 1993. Wednesday night’s Conan appearance clearly took the audience by surprise. But he and Fallon were savvy enough to interact for so brief a time, it did not become awkward for the audience.

The visit ended with Conan retrieving Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, from behind one of Jimmy’s sofa cushions. Judging by the comments section at the TeamCoco blog many Conan fans hope that this is a sign that Triumph might be returning to the show’s comedic team. (Oddly enough, TeamCoco fans seemed divided on the fact that Conan had grown a beard again while on vacation).

When Conan left NBC in early 2010, NBC forbid Conan from using certain characters (The Masturbating Bear, for example) in his post-NBC creative pursuits, as the network claimed intellectual ownership of characters and sketches developed as part of the show. In terms of intellectual property, however, there is some question if NBC actually owned Triumph, given that the character was developed by Robert Smigel.

Back when I saw Conan in the final Atlanta stop of his 2010 Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour, I was surprised to see a taped Triumph bit, as well as a Walker, Texas Ranger clip montage (though the Lever was renamed the Chuck Norris, Rural Policeman Handle). Of course, this was not on television. But I still hold out hope (along with many other Conan fans) that the physical retrieval of Triumph might be a precursor to his comedic return on Conan. Time will tell.

The booking was clearly an ac of kindness on Letterman’s part. She had no movie to promote and no project on the horizon. She made it clear, she was on the show to let Hollywood know: “I am available to work.” In the discussion, Young did not acknowledge that she had recently gone through treatment for alcohol addiction as part of VH1′s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (earlier this year).

I always appreciate when Letterman books guests like this, who have publicly struggled but are striving to get their career back on track. I have no proof, but I wonder if he decided to start booking guests like this after the 1987 Crispin Glover appearance, where the actor apparently was trying to pull some sort of Andy Kaufman-esque prank (Wikipedia has a nice summation of the appearance contextually), that ended with Letterman fearing for his safety, walking off the set and cutting to commercial. When the show returned Glover was gone. A few weeks or so later, Letterman again booked Glover, in hopes that Glover could explain his actions to mixed success.

Watch this interview with Young, as it is clear that Letterman is rooting for Young’s recovery (on a personal and professional level). She discussed the Catwoman incident (when Young tried to get cast for the 1980s Batman sequel by confronting the folks making the movie, in her own homemade Catwoman costume), and then much to my surprise–oh I will not spoil it. There seems to be some continuing denial on Young’s part about how she got where she is today. But she still tries to convey an attitude of “I’ve learned my lesson, I am ready to work.” Just watch the entire interview, and if you are like me, you will find yourself rooting for Young (and enjoying the comedy bit she does poking at herself ).

Here’s hoping that Sean Young gets some calls from interested Hollywood types soon.

(Side note to Talking with Tim consumers reading this piece via Facebook, sorry for the embed code that gets tossed into the FB version of the post. Click on the FB link and it will take you back here to the site where you can view the video and dodge all that embed code.)

One night they asked me to do the [“ASSSSCAT”] monologue, and I said, “What happens?” Because I’m a guy who likes to prepare. And they said, “Don’t prepare—just take a word from the audience, start talking, and see what happens.” So someone shouted out “Dog!” and I started telling this story about a night that I pissed my dad off because I refused to take the dog out, and how he blew up—how I could hear him running down the stairs to get me. I told it in this comedic way, and people were really laughing, but I realized that I had, like, a sense memory of this big conflict I’d had with my dad in 1979. It was actually therapeutic.