Ode to the Chug House

Here's a little Tuesday 2 Live Crew from the archives...

The Bees Bounce

Karl Rove isn’t the only one getting out of town; it looks like the Earth’s bee population is taking off as well. Up to 60 percent of bees have vanished from the West Coast and 70 percent from the East Coast and Texas. The mass exodus is attributed to a vague syndrome called Colony Collapse Disorder, but I’ll get to that in a minute…

What I think is amazing is that not very much is being made of this mysterious Bee vanishing. You might say to yourself, “what do I care if the bees disappear?” Honey is just bee puke and the thought of a bunch of bulimic bees collectively puking a jar full of thick amber throw up… well that’s just disgusting. Besides who likes getting stung? And an animal that hasn’t evolved past suicide as a defense measure is sort of suspect anyway, right? Plus they’ve been around for millions of years and their society hasn’t progressed one bit. Matriarchal totalitarianism, that’s hardly a meaningful contribution to civilization. And while all those statements are totally valid and understandable, it might surprise you to know that bees don’t just puke honey and sting people. They also pollinate a sizeable portion of the fruits and vegetables we humans eat.

According to Zac Browning the vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation, “Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food.” They pollinate at least $14 billion dollars worth of crops in the U.S. alone, including apples, nuts, pears, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash, tomatoes, sunflowers and cucumbers. Along with citrus fruit, peaches, kiwis, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries and melons. (From here.)

Einstein once said, “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then Man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more life.” So no bees equals no food. (And no food equals no us.) So unlike losing Karl Rove, losing the bees is something that we definitely need to be upset about.

What makes matters worse is that nobody is quite sure what’s causing Colony Collapse Disorder, only that the bee’s aren’t coming home to the hive and they haven’t left a forwarding address. Some theories blame pesticides, some blame mites or UFO’s, and others claim that cell phones are disrupting bees navigational systems causing them to spazz out and get lost in the wilderness. (Steve jobs I’m looking at you.) There’s even a theory that claims the missing bees evolved into Namura Jellyfish causing the vast Jelly plague in Japan.













Some scientists doubt that theory.

Whatever the cause, one thing’s for sure. We can add disappearing bees to the long list of possible cause for impending human annihilation. Put it right after global warming, but at least three stops up from the Rapture. (Sorry Bushies.)

Think of the bees the way we should be thinking about the polar ice caps. And I don’t mean as inconvenient barriers to Arctic oil reserves, but as the metaphorical canaries in the coal mine. Without the bees, we’re fucked. What does it say about a society that is so disconnected from its food supply that it barely understands or cares that no pollinating insects equals NO food supply?

But hey why trouble ourselves with it too much? Big Love’s on tonight and that show is awesome. Instead lets take a collective walk through the park, and maybe even stop to smell those beautiful, fragrant flowers… while we still have them.

And speaking of (birds and) bees...

Cheers! Tiki Bar TV & Pimm's Cup

My favorite drink is the Pimm's Cup. The Pimm's Cup is a delicious cocktail consisting of:

1-2 shots Pimm's No. 1 Liqueur
Ginger Ale
Lemonade (or Champagne)
Cucumbers
(with additional and variations on these ingredients)

So if you enjoy reading teamjaded with a refreshing cocktail, I can guarantee you’ll love watching Tiki Bar TV. After only a couple episodes, you’ll realize every problem can be solved with a great cocktail! The production, acting, and writing is superb. And to that, I say “Cheers!” Or if I were in another country I might say:

Belgium: Op Uw Gezonheid!
China: Wen Lie!
Denmark: Skal!
Ethiopia: Letenatchie!
Germany: Prosit!
Indonesia: Selamat!
Israel: L'Chayim!
Italy: Alla Salute!
Japan: Kanpai!
Morocco: Saha Wa Afiab
Poland: Na Zdrowie!
Russia: Jobnyem!
South Africa: Gesonoheid!
Spain & Mexico: Salud!
Sweden: Skal!
Ukraine: Bud'mo! (how has Budweiser not jumped on that one?)

Below find two fabulous videos. The first is Tiki Bar TV: episode 25, “Blue Hawaiian (guest staring Diggnation’s own Kevin Rose). The second is an intricate recipe on how to make your own Pimm's Cup. Teamjaded asks you to please watch responsibly.

"Who says gentrification isn't funny?"

Apparently I’m out of touch. I just found “The Burg.” I know what you’re probably thinking… and the Staged Play version of our conversation would go a little something like this:

ACT ONE
Scene 1

You: [confused / concerned] Uh, Abby… I thought you were really into the whole ‘Internet TV’ thing.
Me: [fiddling with hands, pretends not to be ashamed] Uh, yes. Yes I am.
You: But how could you have NOT known about “The Burg.”
Me: [searching for answers] Maybe it’s because I moved away from New York? You know I live in SF now. And, uh, you know it’s all about Williamsburg. Get it? The Burg?! Woo.
You: Well, um, everyone knows about it. It’s been on Internet for over a year. Plus, they’ve been featured everywhere- from the New York Times to Wired.
Me: [looks longingly towards the computer screen, world freezes, proceed with soliloquy] You’ve let me down, Internets. YOU’VE let me down!! How could this have happened!!! [drops to knees] NOOOOO!

END SCENE

Well, technically the Internet didn’t let me down. It was just over a year late updating me on said IPTV program. I’m not even going to write on how good (or bad) the actual show is. Mainly, I want to point out 5 things.

1. High quality TV on the Internet. Bang. It’s happening. Thank you.
2. “Who says Gentrification isn’t funny?” No one. And that’s why this works.
3. Ad Sponsors. Nice work, my friends.
4. It’s Williamsburg in all its beauty: “Trust fund kids pretend to be starving artists, starving artists pretend to be able to live completely off of credit cards, and everybody pretends not to notice."
5. Which perfectly leads into the last point. They should do an episode in the Mission in SF. It could be exactly the same show except fixed-gears could make an appearance. Although maybe The Burg has field-tripped to the Barmuda Triangle*, I haven’t watched them all. Actually, I’ve watched about approximately .08% of the episodes. Don’t tell.

So there you have it. Another IPTV show, doin' it. For you. Enjoy.



*attributed to Lector Mangrave.

Funny. And Sad.

Funny. And Sad.



Funny. And Sad. (Murphy's Law at it's finest)





Funny. And Sad.



David Segal from the Washington Post wrote quite possibly the best article on how 15 seconds of fame has a whole new meaning thanks to online video. He starts:

There was a time, not long ago, when a 10-year-old boy could head to a neighborhood fair, get his face painted like a Halloween zombie and blurt out something utterly inane to a local TV news correspondent and nobody would ever think about it again... more.

Bush is no expert

This is a funny Daily Show bit, linked to on RawStory.com all about Bush's self proclaimed lack of expertise:

He's no expert on forming coherent sentences either.

My neighbor and I have more in common than I thought.

I recently found out that I am like Mr. Rogers.



Although I don't usually sit around watching my neighbor's breakdance, according to Mental Floss, Mr. Rogers got into TV because he hated TV. Turns out, Mr. Rogers and I have that in common.

Mr. Rogers hated it because he saw people throwing pies at each other, and he felt the medium could be used for better purposes. And that’s what he did. He taught the world to be friends.

I use to think I hated TV because the actors sucked, or the plot was bad, or it was over dramatic. But now, I’m starting to think it was because I had no say in it; No control over what happened with it. Braden Dick says it best:

“There is no way for us as viewers to have a meaningful interaction with our televisions. We as viewers cannot openly and successfully challenge the rhetoric of television to any degree approaching success. We as viewers are presented with an increasingly complex set of ideologies to which we hold no real recourse of rebuttal in the form of our own independent ideas and beliefs.”

Nowadays we all can discuss what is good, and what is bad. A network executive can still pull the plug on a million dollar show because he thinks the ratings aren’t high enough. But now, it’s the videos that get a mass grassroots following that make a mark. It might not be as glossy as “So you think you can Dance”, but 49 million viewers watched “The Evolution of Dance”. It’s no epic Dawson’s Creek, but Lonely Girl captured a huge following. And this is only the beginning.

Nielson ratings be gone. We’ve got red stars, Diggs, and hit counts now.

Butts + Man Boobs ≠ Great Ads

I can’t remember the last time I went shopping, let alone the last time I walked into an American Eagle. However, when I saw this article, I realized how lame marketing could be (not saying that thought had never crossed my mind). It was basically my job for 3 years to make people like things. Forced to come up with catchy tag lines or phrases, I always knew someone, somewhere would be laughing at the complete nerdity of my “ingenious” colloquial slogan. Thankfully, I’m not as good as American Eagle, whose tag line is: American Eagle: Live Your Life. (picture below from Cracked)



These savvy ads surround us everyday. The number’s vary, but turns out we can see anywhere from 150 to 3,000 ads a day. And if you work in Times Square, not only are you in the higher end of that spectrum, you’re getting the rear end too. Apparently, Times Square Church is suing the Toto "Washlet" Company over their Happy Butt Campaign:



Too much rear! OMG, no more butts! No more man boobs either!

We gotta hand it to him.

See, anyone with two hands can make a video.

(stick with it... it gets pretty good)



If you love hands, you'll love this old ad: