Not a front for a secret organization.
Written by Rob Schultz (human).
My pal Becky thought up a Christmas song, then recorded it with the help of her friend Jason's friend Sam. Next, she shot a music video with a bunch of people I don't know by name. And finally, I asked if I could help too. The whole process only took a week!
If you were working on a neat creative project, I could probably help you out too!
Just under the wire (pictured), my subscribers have been sent their November issues of Not Art. Non subscribers will have to rely on finding one of the copies I've put aside for dropping off in Los Angeles comedy theaters or selling as back issues.
New subscribers have the opportunity to join at the following levels of interest:
There's a real struggle between adding dozens of mildly amusing subscriber tiers and making the whole page too complicated for anyone to care about. I suspect that on the battleground of this internal conflict, I am losing.
(Also, there is no cover sketch video this month because I used a different method to create this month's cover.)
I'm a big podcast listener. I'm subscribed to a roiling, overfull cauldron of shows. I've got my daily listens, my weekly listens, my binge listens, shows I save for specific activities or trips to certain places, and it's too much media to really keep up with. Sometimes when I get into a new show–I always want to start listening from the beginning–and I blast through a bunch of episodes, the charm fades. I notice that I'm listening to it faster and faster, and then at ultra-high speeds and I'm still skipping through chunks, and at some point, there's that freeing moment when I remember I can just... unsubscribe! It's great. Maybe not as great as unfollowing someone on twitter, but I've been almost-free of twitter for like a year or two now. Twitter's a terrible place. Even worse if you happen to know comedians. But I digress.
Gimlet Media is a podcast company that started with StartUp - a podcast about making a company that makes podcasts, including and at one time limited to: StartUp. Since then, I've tried everything else they've put out. Most of them don't stick, but they're well made and I'm always in the market for a new show. One that actually has lasted in my subscriptions is, in fact, StartUp. Please enjoy this episode, "How to Invent a New Sport," aka the complete history of SLAMBALL.
What is SLAMBALL? Why aren't you just listening to the podcast? Slamball is the sport of the future! It's basketball–you know, basketball?–but instead of being played on a court, playground, or driveway, it's played in a specially-built arena with trampolines instead of floor. It's got all the danger of playing irresponsibly on trampolines, mixed with... all of the danger of over-confident dudes on trampolines. In front of TV cameras. Sometimes at Set List (Thursdays, 10:30pm, Pack Theater), instead of doing an interstitial bit in the show, I like to just put on a reel of Slamball highlights. Enjoy!
Set List at the Pack is a completely improvised stand-up show that happens every Thursday night at 10:30, at the Pack Theater in Los Angeles, CA.
“The only literary work about punctuation I’m aware of is an odd early story by Anton Chekhov called “The Exclamation Mark.” After getting into an argument with a colleague about punctuation, a school inspector named Yefim Perekladin asks his wife what an exclamation point is for. She tells him it signifies delight, indignation, joy and rage. He realizes that in 40 years of writing official reports, he has never had the need to express any of those emotions.”
I thought the opening of this column was great. It reminded me of this article about the exclamation point from last year. I think the overall tone and intent is to turn you away from an excess of exclamations, but there's something about each article (This quote, or the LIBRARY!) that leaves me convinced that we're doing the right thing over here at Gangbusters!.
I'm kind of caught up on movies right now, but it's Monday, so here's a thing. We were talking about Norm the other day, and I got to watching Norm after that, and his whole set here is pretty good, as are a lot of his talk show appearances, but check out Norm telling a David Letterman joke in his final set on that program. Man!
