10th Anniversary Blog Post

It was 10 years ago that the first post on this blog was made. It was about how Late Night with Jimmy Fallon was going to have a Yacht Rock Party. And hence, the blog's theme.

This is where I'm supposed to say how quickly 10 years flew by and it feels like yesterday but it definitely doesn't - it feels like a really long time ago. This might also be where I explain why I first created this blog and how things have changed. But I didn't create this blog, it blog was created by my friend Chuck and then given to me. I think the reason he created it was to cut down on the emails I was sending. And that was pretty much a sign because he doesn't really talk to me anymore.

But the email thing makes sense, looking at the early posts. This blog was about anything and everything that would've warranted an email. The main thing was always late night talk show stuff but there was also Philly sports news, Thom Yorke has a new band, Mr. Perfect playing Ping Pong, the best tv show no one is watching, the Imdb 250, and on, and on. Looking now, I found a forgotten post of note: when the mayor of Newark banned Conan from the city. That mayor is now running for President of the United States - Cory Booker. The second ever post was entitled "Who Cares Wins", it contains no context and only  embeds a now broken video from hulu. Very enigmatic. I think I know what that was, I think that was Jimmy Fallon doing a 80s training VHS sketch. The title is a reference to this video.

The blog would eventually focus almost exclusively on late night videos but the theme of broken links makes most of it irrelevant. Oh for access to the old clips. VHS is greater than Hulu, apparently. My blog might have been more useful as a document of the death of late night talk shows but, bucking the internet trend, I always tried to keep things relatively positive. So the only evidence of the break down is ever-larger gaps between late night-related posts.

Another thing that I didn't do on this blog is talk very much about myself. I didn't document the last decade of my life - the highs, the lows, the struggle, the everyday events. Going back and looking at the early posts, it seems like a missed opportunity but I'm not going to change now. On second thought, I remember a time I posted a personal observation and it had real life consequences so remaining mostly impersonal was probably a good thing.

This blog gets about 10 views per day and even though it was started as a way to talk to friends, I only know 1 person who bothers anymore. I assume the rest are from google searches gone awry. But if you're an actual human reader of this blog, I thank you and hope that you're actually benefiting in some way from this nonsense.

Celebrities + Gum = Art

Every afternoon Late Show writer Steve Young takes low quality pictures of celebrities as the arrive to the show. The window ledge from which the photos are taken has a wad of old gum on it which he is sure to capture in the photo. This interesting juxtaposition has given birth to a new blog: http://www.celebrigum.com/.

Here's a Q&A with the author:

Q. Tell us about Celebrigum. How did you conceive of the idea of juxtaposing celebrities with hardened chewing gum?

A. The juxtaposition was already happening; I just had to notice it. I think it was last fall or winter that I noticed the gum on the ledge, and eventually I came up with a boring conceptual art piece: I would photograph the gum each day for a year. I'd taken a few dull photos when one day I realized, hey, there's Celebrity X getting out of their limo in the background. After that I was off and running.

Q. There are rumors circulating on the internet that the gum is not actually there, that it's CGI gum. Care to respond?

A. As you know, most internet rumors are completely true. However, the CGI gum rumor is false. I've personally touched the gum and determined that it's real. Of course, if the gum were ever to be stolen by a crazed fan, CGI would be among my strategies for continuing. I could also put another lump of gum there, which might be simpler.

Q. Any calls from agents and publicists trying to get their clients on Celebrigum?

A. That's confidential; I'm not going to violate the CelebriGum-Client Privilege. But since nobody's talked to me, I guess it's safe to say no. My hope is that eventually celebrities will be aware of CelebriGum and will look up and wave at me as they arrive; it would be nice to actually get someone's face in a photo. And maybe someday CelebriGum will be such a sensation that A-list celebrities will swing by 53rd Street even when they're not booked on the show. "Say hi to Dave for us, Mr. Hanks!" "Oh, I'm not here for the Late Show, I'm just trying to get on CelebriGum."

Q. Any endorsement deals in the works with a gum company?

A. This is art! I absolutely will not sully its purity with crass commercialism!

Q. Long term plans. Any chance we'll be seeing a Celebrigum art museum?

A. I wouldn't rule it out. In the meantime, while nothing's official yet, I'm in negotiations for a CelebriGum book, movie, cologne, and line of childrens' pajamas.