Current TV Injures Shoulder Patting Itself on Back After Announcing Launch of Hip Music Content Video Blog

Current TV has been around for about 2 1/2 years struggling to be the hip center of the new media movement. Al Gore founded the network to give voice to the growing phenomenon of User Generated Content in early 2005.

A lot has happened in the realm of UGC in the past 30 months, however, and very little of it to do with Current TV. Now, I was one of the early fans of the network but the channel was borderline unwatchable. Not so much because of the content submitted by viewers, but by the offensively sterile personalities recruited by the network to represent hip, smart and engaged youth.

Can you imagine anything worse than getting hip and savvy news from this?

Gotham Chopra, contributor Current TV. Also, co-creator of K Lounge, the Kama Sutra themed bar in Manhattan that was kind of bumping that one time I went at like 5:30 on a Wednesday.

Or this?

Conor Knighton, Current TV Contributor

Or this?

Max and Jason, Contributors to Current TV. Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

The corn-ball personalities they chose as their faces and the minimal success of Current TV begs the question - is San Francisco too gay to be cool?

Apparently, yes:



But in case you're still on the fence, now's the time to find out. News came out today that Current TV is launching a Music-Video blog to air frequently on the network. The segment will apparently fill the void left by channels like MTV, VH1 and BET abandoning their ostensible objectives of music programming. By focusing on "up-and-coming" acts like Dizzy Rascal (who I'm pretty sure has been kind of huge both in the UK and the US for almost 5 years now), Current TV will ipso facto become the go-to destination for mainstream music news.

There's only one problem. The address for Current TV:

118 King Street
San Francisco, CA 94107p
(415) 995-8200
f (415) 995-8201

Yup, that's the Bay Area and nothing cool having to do with white people has come out of San Francisco since Judd scored Pam the Asian on the Real World.

Even worse, Current TV prides itself on its lame locale and unashamedly provides visitors to its site a link to a Google Map showing you from exactly where that stench of smug mediocrity you find in Trader Joes grocery stores and poetry slams originates.

Current TV can encourage you to FTP them cell phone videos of My Morning Jacket live at Lollapalooza until its XML is blue in the face. That won't change what has always been the case. San Francisco's just too lame to be cool.

Super Bad Super Man

Crave Online: Funny Videos, Sexy Videos, Music Videos, Movie Trailers, and More!

The Darjeeling Limited

From: Anonymous [mailto:ANONYMOUS@gmail.com]

Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 11:57 AM

To: TV on the INTERNETS

Subject: Re: FW: Sundance Doc winner "Manda Bala" opening @ Angelika next weekend! GO SEE THIS FANTASTIC FILM!

Body: have you seen this?

An exerpt from my emotional response:

You know, I hadn't yet, but I'm really glad I have...[EDIT]

So, you know, I've been simultaneously stoked and worried about this for some time now. On one hand, it sounds awesome. On the other, it's white people in India. And not just India, NORTH EAST INDIA, an area that holds pride in never falling to the Mughals, being the last to succumb to British Imperialism and now, apparently, the last to withstand the onslaught of white dudes with video cameras.

But if anyone had to do it I can't imagine anyone I'd be more comfortable with than Schwartzman and Anderson. I even saw a few other paliating names and faces in the trailer. Irfan Khan from the Namesake and Roman Coppola with a writing credit.

Also, you have to appreciate Anderson's style. The color schemes, the production design, the reproduction of reality so heavily steeped in theater and theatricality. Even the title is hilarious. The transcontinental trian in India is actually called The Darjeeling Express. I don't even know if a Darjeeling Limited even exists. That alone makes me believe that this movie will be awesome but will be ruined by legions of hardcore Anderson loyalists who will either blindly adore the movie or irrationally hate it. This seems like one of those flicks I'd like to see alone in the dark. With a comforter and someone nearby to carry me into bed. That part may sound weird but fuck you for being such a phillistine.

Sweet trailer. Thanks.

Sincerely,
TV on the INTERNETS

Van Milder: The Edgeless Edge of Kal Penn

It's been a busy week for Kal Penn. When not losing life on 24 he was taking it on Tuesday's Law and Order: SVU. Playing the Indian kid with daddy issues, Penn successfully executed the difficult task of overacting understated. Still, for too few legitimate reasons, touted as a film star, Penn underwhelmed TWICE this week on network prime time, doing little to strengthen the occasionally whispered argument that Van Wilder II failed because of residual imperialist attitudes of the West and not because, you know, the incredulity of Kal Penn as a hetero player.

3 quick notes to the producers of Law and Order: SVU:

1) Change your name to Order: SVU. There's no law in your story lines. There's a sex crime, an unfortunate similarity between a victim and a real person, the chase of a wrong lead, the introduction of the actual culprit as a character peripherally related to the initial suspect, the scene where "remand" is denied and bail is set at $1 million, the capture of the reprobate who actually turned out to be a flight risk, the killer rapist's confession of the crime brought about by Freudian interrogation, and, finally, an uncomfortable ending during which Elliot, Mariska or Ice T realize justice served can never undo the scars of a crime already committed.

2) On a related note, Order: SVU, plot twists and guest stars don't really go hand in hand. If you paid for Kal Penn's SAG fee then he's probably going to be the killer.

3) Order: SVU, be more like this:

Model Minority Report

One of the primary purposes of this site, in addition to complaining about excessive recaps of Veronica Mars and Eureka episodes on other TV blogs, is to extol the successes of South Asians in the fields of media and entertainment. Yeah, I know. Mad cliche, you're thinking. This Indian dude sweats other Indians who've actually made it in the biz with the hopes that one of them will solicit a spec script or at least introduce him to Sarita Chowdhury's breasts. Yeah, that's about right on the money.

Indians are like kinda almost something of anything in the 'Wood.

To honor my intentions of South Asian solidarity, I pause before commenting on the Writer's Guild Award nominations to draw individual attention to a couple South Asians who scored big in '06.

EPISODIC COMEDY — any length — one airing time

Jump for Joy (My Name is Earl), Written by Vali Chandrasekaran; NBC

COMEDY SERIES

The Office, Written by Steve Carell, Jennifer Celotta, Greg Daniels, Lee Eisenberg, Brent Forrester, Ricky Gervais, Mindy Kaling, Paul Lieberstein, Stephen Merchant, B.J. Novak, Michael Schur, Justin Spitzer, Gene Stupnitsky; NBC

Yeah, we all know about Mindy Kaling. That chick from Curb and 40YOV who sold all those scripts to like Search Light or something, but she's no Tina Fey so I'm not really going to worry about it. Check out Vali's blog, however, maybe find your way to his McSweeney's posts, his Crimson columns, and make up your mind for yourself whether he's the real deal or just some financial consultant who got bored with his job in San Fran and decided to try his hand at this whole being funny thing.

Heroes and Krings

I probably more so than anybody else sweat the shit out of the premier of "Heroes" on NBC this fall. I mean an Indian dude previously only seen in the background of surgical theater scenes in Grey's season 2 as an ensemble cast member with speaking roles? I mean, I'm there.

But then the show aired. There was a lame Sci-Fi send up of an opening sequence and a horrendous slo-mo musical montage involving fire and a cheerleader. I figured I couldn't be the only one who found this lame, cheesy and above all offensive. Genetic mutations? Hollow aphorisms of promise and destiny? No, this shit will NE'ER last.

Wow. Wrong. Nine episodes into the season Heroes is the breakthrough phenomenon of the year. The Fall Out Boy of Fall 2006. If they were a band they'd be featured on the soundtrack of the new Tony Hawk video game. You get the picture.

With the success of the show has come increasing criticism from friends, coworkers and my three readers. "How can you hate this show?" they ask, write and instant message, "It's, like, awesome!" Well, it ain't. And here's why.

First, it's written by Tim Kring, a gentleman (who knows, he might be an asshole) whose past television and writing credits offer nothing to intimate an organic familiarity with comic books or the aesthetic of comic lore. Chicago Hope and Crossing Jordan are more sap than sci-fi and not necessarily the pedigree you'd expect from someone heralded for redefining the prime-time sci-fi narrative.

Secondly, it's just not geeky enough. The effects are lackluster. The dialogue is painfully contrived. The plot is, well, plodding and the premise is offensively under-executed. It is a soap opera with lazy dramatic writing techniques to mask the holes in its supposed mystery. Tim Kring could have learned a thing or two from a master of network sci-fi, Chris Carter.

Third, and most importantly, where's the show's overarching metaphor? As we've learned from the comic book obsession of the past few years, with Superman Returning, Smallville finding syndication, Spiderman racking up the bucks, Aquaman breaking records, Frank L. Miller resurrecting not only his career but also that of the Dark Knight and Michael Chabon making up for "Mysteries of Pittsburgh" with "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," these fairy tales of heroes and heroines are more than just stories told with moving pictures; they are archetypal lore steeped in metaphors for the salvation of humanity from the perennial evils of death, evil, hatred and sin.

Heroes is nothing without its Christ figure. Nothing without its Holocaust themes. Nothing without the political subtext necessary to make a comic book the innocent representation of the ugly truths adults rationalize with the principles of capitalism, realism, safety and pragmatism. Heroes is a cheap mimicry by a guy named Tim with an Indian dude who delivered better lines during his scenes of silence in that OTHER breakthrough show.