The Wounded Mosquito Productions Internship!

This week, across the country, hundreds of millions of bright-eyed youngsters are starting a brand-new semester of college, in many cases, for the first time.  But in these days of intense competition and uncertain economic climate changes, a degree will only take you so far, and many employers are looking for something extra in prospective employees.  That is why, in the proud tradition of Dunder Mifflin and Kramerica Industries, Wounded Mosquito Productions has decided to offer its first-ever official internship* for the Fall 2010 semester.

Description

The Wounded Mosquito Internship will give one successful candidate a variety of genuine, real-world professional experiences, including (but not limited to) the vast world of modern media, the behind-the-curtain world of modern academia, and the ever-changing tasty world of local culinary establishments.  The intern will function side-by-side with the company President and CEO to execute and maintain the high quality standards of Wounded Mosquito Productions.  (Specific high quality standards of Wounded Mosquito Productions subject to change).

Specific responsibilities include:

• Waking President/CEO up in morning
• Preparing breakfast for President/CEO (or lunch, depending on circumstance)
• Texting friends/associates of President/CEO to make social plans for weekend
• Surfing Internet to look for ideas/clients for President/CEO
• Grading English papers for the President/CEO while he does other stuff
• Running the iPod while driving to shoots with President/CEO
• Attending functions with President/CEO, such as Jazz games and afternoon matinees
• Driving company vehicle if President/CEO is way pooped after a long day
• Assisting the President/CEO with important scientific experiments, like testing new salsa or smoothie recipes
• Remembering stuff that President/CEO often forgets, like turning off the stove before leaving the house

Minimum Qualifications

The selected candidate must:

• Speak/write/recognize English
• Be high school graduate, or thereabouts
• Be able to cook pretty well
• Be able to write stuff fast in case President/CEO starts getting lots of ideas really quick
• Be able to drive a manual transmission
• Have a clean driving record, or at least a cleaner one than President/CEO
• Be able to understand satire

Preferred Qualifications

The ideal candidate will be:

• Female
• Single
• Into cool stuff, like music and food
• Smart with a cool personality...and hot, too
• A former athletic trainer (President/CEO needs to lose about 15-20 pounds)
• Not way taller than President/CEO
• Willing to put up with President/CEO's eccentric-genius habits

Additional Details 

This is an unpaid internship, and Wounded Mosquito Productions does not offer college credit, at least any that would be accepted by an accredited institution.  (At the same time, candidate does not need to be enrolled at an accredited institution to qualify for internship.  Candidate can be in massage therapy school, for example).  Company will provide successful candidate with her own parking space. At the conclusion of the internship, candidate will receive autographed certificate of completion and photo with President/CEO.  They may go out to dinner or something, too.

Instructions

If you are interested in applying for this position, please send a resume and head shot to intern_thing@woundedmosquito.com.  A representative of Wounded Mosquito Productions will contact you if the President/CEO wants to bring you in for an interview, or just meet you downtown to grab a burger or something.  President/CEO may decide to bring on multiple candidates depending on professional and social needs.

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*Satire.

Never Underestimate the Power of the Beard

Just a little something to start your weekend off right...

Routine Maintenance

Last week I dropped my car off at the Wal-Mart auto center for an oil change while my dad and I walked over to Chili's for an early lunch. An hour later, I returned to find a cute blonde with a nose piercing behind the counter.

"We are obligated to tell you," she said, "that your tires are legally bald."

"That's OK," I told her, "so am I."

There are few things I find more horrifying than dropping my car off for a routine service check. I'm always paranoid that at some point in the experience, some concerned-looking individual in coveralls will emerge from the work bay wiping grease off his hands with some nasty rag and give me a look that suggests he's about to tell me tragic news.

"Sir, while I was installing your new oil filter I couldn't help but notice that your CV-Joint Intake Manifold O2 sensor bolt was corroded on the right side. Were you aware of this?"

I attempt to look thoughtful, then shake my head.

"If you don't get that fixed, your engine will explode roughly fifty yards from our location. It's very lucky we found the problem when we did."

"Well," I say, trying to sound like a hard sell, "I guess you better go ahead and fix it. How much is it going to cost me?"

"Well, the screw itself is a pretty small item. The trouble is, the way your car is designed, we're going to have to remove the engine block, the driver's side door, and most of your car stereo to get to it. Plus Honda decided to make the bolt out of a special alloy that is only found on the planet Vulcan, so you're looking at about $750, give or take."

What drives me nuts about face-offs with auto guys is that I have no ammunition. They could tell me pretty much anything and I'd have to go along with it. If they told me that a pack of miniature Howler Monkeys had taken up residence in one of my pistons, I couldn't really tell them otherwise, because outside of re-wiring my car stereo, I know next to nothing about the operation of my car. No one these days does.

It's not like I could stare down the mechanic and declare, "what kind of crap are you trying to pull here? I know for a fact that Howler Monkeys are only partial to GM pistons, and never take up residence in Japanese engines because of the different lubrication methods. Do I look that stupid?" (sound of me slapping mechanic with set of white polo gloves)

So the blonde made me sign a form acknowledging that she'd told me about my tire situation. Now I can't sue Wal-Mart if I kill a pack of innocent bystanders on a Segway Tour of downtown Salt Lake City this weekend. I should probably go buy some new tires, though. Just to be on the safe side.

Hopefully the tire people won't find anything else wrong.

The Apartment Has Landed

This weekend marked the launch of a new project I'm involved in called "Apartment 204". We're a humor group that will be writing sketch comedy and posting clips and music videos online, hopefully every month or so.

We've officially posted our first clip, a music video called "Livin' in the 801." Be sure to leave comments, and let us know what you think.

The Official 2008 Wounded Mosquito NBA Preview!

It occurred to me recently that writing up an NBA preview before the season actually starts is dumb. You can do a way better job of forecasting how teams are going to play if you wait until after they've started playing for a little while. So here are the results:

Atlanta Hawks
Last season Atlanta almost shocked the world by taking the eventual champs to seven games in their first round season. Then they celebrated by letting one of their best players sign with some Greek team.
Prediction: The draw of the Gyro spreads, and in spite of Atlanta's hot start, two-thirds of the team relocates to Athens by February.

Boston Celtics
Years of frustration finally came to an end when Kevin Garnett and co. brought a seventeenth championship banner to the Boston rafters. Now go back and re-read that last sentence very slowly. I officially hate the Boston Celtics.
Prediction: A slow roast in the depths of Hell

Charlotte Hornets...er, Bobcats
Michael Jordan is affiliated with this team somehow. That's pretty much all I know.
Prediction: They will play 82 games.

Chicago Bulls
Years ago this was an unbeatable franchise, steeped in myth and honor as Air Jordan and the Jordanaires won title after title under wisened sage Phillip Jackson. Now they have Ben Wallace's afro to...wait, nope. He got traded. Did they...oh. Yeah, this season doesn't look too good.
Prediction: When you factor in the wind chill, it looks like this winter might be a bit cold in Chi-Town.

Cleveland Cavaliers
In the offseason Cleveland signed point guard Mo Williams to help get LeBron James and the Cavs over the playoff hump. Williams is a former Jazzman, who played in Utah during a year when our three point guards were named Carlos, Mo and Raul. In a way, I miss those days. In a much more realistic way, I don't.
Prediction: Another season of reaching but not quite getting there, enhanced by the persistent rumors that LeBron James is going to blow town for one of the coasts as soon as he becomes an unrestricted free agent in 2010.

Dallas Mavericks
Last season Mark Cuban mortgaged the team's future by trading for perrenial all-star point guard Jason Kidd approximately .05 seconds before Kidd put his right foot in the grave. Luckily, like a fine wine, point guards get better with age. Oh wait, they don't.
Prediction: Cuban loses interest in the Mav's by December and returns to reality television.

Denver Nuggets
The mythic tattooed tandem of Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony is no more. In comes traditional point guard Chauncey Billups, who doesn't need his points like AI, and will be more willing to defer to Anthony. Whether he will defer to DUI's and sucker punches remains to be seen.
Prediction: The Nuggets seem to have learned that you can't win by just putting a bunch of good players on the same roster, but this still ain't gonna cut it.

Detroit Pistons
The season was barely out of the gates when GM Joe Dumars traded for Denver shooting guard and aspiring rap star Allen Iverson. Many suspect the move was largely made to clear space for LeBron James when he becomes eligible for free agency in 2010. So AI can pretty much get away with whatever he wants until his contract is up.
Prediction: Hmmm...matching up a nothing-to-lose Iverson with a team who's no-name image is second only to the Jazz? Yeeeeeaaaahhhh....

Houston Rockets
Every year the experts say this team is going to be awesome, and every year they get bumped out of the playoffs in the first round, usually by the Jazz. Well, on behalf of Jazz fans, I'm sick of having to see these guys in the first round every year. If I've got to pay extra for my playoff tickets, I want to see a different team once in a while. This rivalry is totally boring.
Prediction: First round loss to Jazz

Indiana Pacers
Life has not been kind to the Pacers since Ron-Ron went ape-ape and ran up into the stands-stands to duke it out with those Detroit fans a few years ago. In fact, I really have no idea what's happened to the team since then.
Prediction: Like the Bobcats, I feel strongly that this team will play in 82 games.

Los Angeles Clippers
Eighteen months after leading the Golden State Warriors through a Cinderella post-season which featured a celebrated upset of the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks, Baron Davis and his generous beard decided it was time to move on to a team with a higher playoff ceiling...and signed a lucrative free agent contract with the Clippers. Because it's all about winning, baby.
Prediction: Davis is gone by the trading deadline, and Chris Kaman continues to evolve into the token lanky white guy who always shows up to my church ball games.

Los Angeles Lakers
The NBA's entry to the Professional Sports Axis of Evil has high hopes going into this season, as the return of center Andrew Bynum promises ample publicity and the addition of at least seven new A-list Hollywood fans. Sadly, now that Kobe has won the MVP award, he may not retain the proper "me-against-the-world" motivation to get Phil's Kids past the second round.
Prediction: At least twice this season, the Lakers will visit Salt Lake, and hundreds of local LA fans will magically appear at Energy Solutions Arena to cheer wildly for their team, conditional on their above-.500 record.

Miami Heat
Last season the Heat acquired forward Shawn Marion, which gives me the opportunity to re-print this quote from former Marion teammate and author Paul Shirley, commenting on class structure within NBA franchises:

“…while paying me the absolute lowest possible salary allowed by the NBA would be frivolous, paying Shawn Marion enough that he can sit around on the team’s chartered 737 wearing earrings that cost $25,000 each is a sound financial decision.”

Prediction: Shimmering water, hot nights, and another losing season.

Memphis Grizzlies
Last year Memphis turned a lot of heads and burned a lot of bridges when they traded all-star center Pau Gasol to the Lakers for seven cases of Heinekin and Paula Abdul's phone number. They are hoping that this year the sacrifice blossoms into postseason success. It will...for the Lakers.
Prediction: People flock to Memphis for music...not basketball.

Milwaukee Bucks
I know they got rid of Mo Williams, and I think they still have the Australian guy who used to play for the U and got drafted ahead of Deron Williams and Chris Paul.
Prediction: This may be a good time to throw your hopes behind the Packers.

Minnesota Timberwolves
They stunk with Kevin Garnett, now they stink without him.
Prediction: Whatever

New Jersey Nets
Rap mogul and partial Nets owner Jay-Z has been busy clearing plenty of cap space to become a major player in the LeBron James Sweepstakes of 2010. Unfortunately, it has not occurred to Jay-Z to assemble any major players on the Nets team to make James feel inclined to go there.
Prediction: Vince Carter is now the go-to guy on the Nets, which means he should be dogging it and mugging for a trade to a contender within three weeks.

New Orleans Saints
Ever since their inspiring run to the NFC Championship two years ago in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Big Easy hasn't produced too much on the old gridiron. You also have to wonder how Saints fans feel to watch both of Archie Manning's kids win Super Bowls after he led the Saints to so many losing seasons himself. Of course, maybe Manning was kind of like Dick Butkus...super awesome player on a crap team.
Prediction: Mardi Gras is going to totally rock.

New York Knicks
New York fans were elated to finally see the end of the Isiah Thomas era. Then Isiah almost overdosed a few weeks ago and everyone had one of those moments when you realize that the guy you're booing at the arena and ripping on in Internet posts and comments is an actual human being, and that you're getting caught up in a game where people run around in shorts bouncing a leather ball, and for about five minutes you manage to put life in perspective.
Prediction: Well, they beat the Jazz in Madison Square Garden again, so they've got that going for them.

Oklahoma City Whatevers
I don't know what the new team is called, and I'm too lazy to Google it right now. I know these guys just moved down from Seattle, and they've got Kevin Durant on their team. Other than that, all I know is that there aren't any mountains in Oklahoma City.
Prediction: 20-62, welcome to the NBA.

Philadelphia 76ers
Sixer fans were thrilled that management was finally able to find a one-two punch compliment to all-star Charles Barkley in the offseason in power forward Elton Brand. Now someone needs to remind them that Barkley was traded to Phoenix seventeen years ago.
Prediction: They play in the east, so they'll make the playoffs probably.

Phoenix Suns
Like the Mavericks, the Suns pulled the trigger on a major trade last season in order to cash in on the last fleeting inches of their championship window. Didn't happen. Luckily, like a fine wine, NBA centers...oh, never mind.
Prediction: On at least twelve different instances over the course of the season, I will vocalize my regret that we let Raja Bell get away.

Portland Trailblazers
It didn't seem so long ago that the Trailblazers were setting records for Technical Fouls and getting busted for trying to smuggle doobage through airport security checkouts (wrapped in tinfoil, no less). Now they're this up and coming team with a second-year rookie center who's already injured again. Kind of sixes, if you ask me.
Prediction: At least 326,017 tourists will be surprised this year the first time they stop to get gas in Oregon and discover that the attendant legally cannot let them pump their own gas.

Sacramento Kings
The Ron Artest experiment is officially over in Sacramento, now fans are clamboring for season tickets so they can be a part of the follow-up: The Beno Udrih experiment.
Prediction: Ouch.

San Antonio Spurs
People keep waiting for this team to get old and die. They aren't as good as they used to be, but they've still got that guy who's married to Eva Longoria, and that's good enough for most of us.
Prediction: Second round exit

Sayid Jarrah
Many feel that Sayid's decision to play hit man for Ben was indicitive of a "good guy gone bad" scenario common in a variety of classic dramatic narratives. I feel, however, that Sayid's history of vacilation is more attributable to his deep passion and personal insecurity, which was torn asunder by the death of his childhood friend and long lost love, and that when confronted with any kind of permanent decision as to what side to take, he will align his allegiance to the good guys. As usual.
Prediction: Sayid avoids further romantic encounters with German blonds.

Toronto Raptors
They picked up Jermaine O'Neal, who is becoming the poster child for the "talented superstar endorsed by Nike who gets tons of hype and is always mentioned in trade rumors though you get the feeling that due to a dearth of surrounding talent and perhaps a lack of killer instinct will most likely kick around for a couple more years and maybe make the playoffs but that's about it."
Prediction: 2008-09 NBA Champions

Utah Jazz
It was made painfully obvious in the Western Conference Second Round matchup with the Lakers that the Jazz are in need of a consistent inside defensive presence. So in the offseason, they drafted another tall foreign white dude. Problem solved.
Prediction: Jerry Sloan impales three members of the media with a bamboo pole he painstakingly sharpened on the side of Energy Solutions Arena under the light of a December moon.

Washington Bullets
A couple of years ago Gilbert Arenas was the toast of the town and was setting the league on fire with his Hibachi personality. Now I think he's injured or something. They traded a bunch of his teammates, too. Still, he's a pretty funny guy, and I think a lot of people would rather watch him run around a court with a crutch by himself than take in a whole game with most teams.
Prediction: Four years of unmitigated partisan hatred.

The Liberation of Losing

As Barack Obama and the other winners from Campaign 08 look ahead to their new responsibilities, the world looks away from the defeated hopefuls they left in their wake. But as the nation gets ready to head back to work, it's the ones who lost who might have the greatest opportunity.

There is little in life I hate more than losing. Tuna fish and country music, maybe. But I really hate losing, and sometimes life serves up a lot of it. Still, if I spend all my time moping about the jobs I didn't get, the games I didn't win, or the girls who took door #2, my life is going to stink. Right now a lot of people who ran for office on Tuesday are trying to pick up the pieces. If they're lucky, they'll realize that a clean slate can be a blessing. Losing can be liberating, and rejection can be rewarding.

Here are my suggestions for a few of Tuesday's losers:

Super Dell: Utah may have said no-no to Super Dell, but Utah still needs Super Dell. You can never have enough totally awesome gun-toting para-gliders hovering over our highways. But maybe it's time to soften the image a bit…volunteer at a soup kitchen, start a scholarship fund, or maybe just follow in the tradition of former third-party candidate Bo Gritz and move to Idaho and start a survivalist colony.

Sarah Palin: I have only two words for the Governor of Alaska: Product Endorsement. If there was one personality to emerge from the campaign better suited for some good old fashioned American merchandising, I don't know who it is. It's time to cash in on the Sarah Palin Barbie Doll, deep fryer and fully-automatic assault rifle. Then when your window passes, you return to the great white north on a freighter full of cash where the best salmon in the world is waiting for you. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. Not a bad deal at all.

Al Franken: Minnesota may have turned you down, but the TV show that launched you is seeing more success than it has in fifteen years. But as funny as these political bits have been, the election's over, and they still need you. My friend, the Beatles were right: it's time to get back to where you once belonged, Al.

John McCain: Sometimes after a big loss, your best move is to take off on a voyage of personal discovery. I say wander the Far East for six months in a caravan of camels and Tibetan Monks. Grow a killer beard, achieve nirvana, and get a sweet book deal when you get back.

President Bush: Now that Michelle Obama is measuring the drapes, your window of opportunity may be bigger than them all. If you really want to help me out, bring a Giordano's Pizzeria to Utah. But if you truly want to break new ground, you can become the first US President to start a reggae band in office.

Life is always going to grant it's fair share of losing. But that doesn't mean it has to define you. Just ask Michael Jordan:

"I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occassions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot . . . and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why . . . I succeed."

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(To see this piece performed live on the KJZZ Cafe, click here.)

Yellowstone for the Lazy Outdoorsman

(Below is a compressed version of the short film I debuted last week at the Epic Summer Film Festival. For a larger-and much more enjoyable-version of the film, click here.)



Few places on earth can claim the stunning beauty and inspiring geographic variety of Yellowstone National Park. Its natural wonder gives the serious outdoorsman a lengthy checklist of challenging high-adventure activities.

But thanks to the federal government, Yellowstone also has a lot to offer the Lazy Outdoorsman. With a few well-placed boardwalks and an expansive highway infrastructure, Yellowstone National Park can bring you a thrilling encounter with Mother Nature, with only a minimum of effort.

Food and Lodging

Hard core outdoorsmen buy expensive tents and equipment for boring ice caves in the sheer walls of thousand-foot glaciers. But hard-core outdoorsmen also get frostbite and die. The greater Yellowstone area offers an abundance of motels and lodges for your convenience. Better yet, why not enjoy the toasty comforts of a cozy cabin? There's no reason to pack complicated water filters when you can slam an icy cold Mountain Dew and play a stimulating game of Yahtzee after a hot shower.

Don’t bother trying to strain vitamins from those nasty vacuum-packed ration bags; instead, buy plenty of groceries and cook seven-course meals! No one can truly enjoy the outdoors on an empty stomach.

Transportation

There’s no reason to kill yourself on a bicycle or on foot when you’re in a national park that’s been paved with 15,000 miles of smooth asphalt! Better to see nature the All-American way, behind the wheel of a world-class Pimpmobile. Or see the park the way 50,000 accountants do on weekends—on shiny new motorcycles in their official Harley-Davidson riding leathers!

Sightseeing

Yellowstone National Park is the remnant of a huge dormant volcano that hasn't been active since way back in the 60's. All that hot crap under the surface creates tons of geologic activity. Without it, the park would just be another dumb forest, but with it, Yellowstone is a Mecca of Natural Wonders, and the greatest of these wonders are only a quick stroll from a convenient parking lot. Most of the time, boardwalks will bring you right up to the edge of excitement! Here are a few of the easily accessible attractions you will encounter.

Hot Pools

Every year lots of people die because they think these pools are hot tubs and jump in for a little late-night nookie. Then they find out that the water in these pools is like a billion degrees, and when they try to climb out their flesh slips off their bones while they suffer miserable deaths.

Hot Pots

Hot Pots are like the hot pools, except they're made of mud. They also stink to high heaven, so they're a great destination if you've got gas and don't want to embarrass yourself in front of your friends.

Geysers

Yellowstone is probably best known for geysers. Geysers are what happens when pressure builds up under the earth's crust, then shoots stuff in the air when it can’t stand it anymore, kind of like people in South Chicago.

The most famous geyser is Old Faithful, so named because it won’t cheat on its wife like the other geysers. Up to six billion people visit Old Faithful every year, so developers have constructed an elaborate network of eateries and souvenir shops around the geyser. If you’re lucky, you can even stay at the Old Faithful Inn, which was built with lots and lots of wood.

Wildlife

One of the greatest things about visiting the outdoors is seeing all kinds of wildlife in their natural habitat. Usually one has to travel far into backcountry trails and remote mountain valleys to see nature’s exotic creatures. But in Yellowstone, the animals come to you! They are friendly, tame, and always ready for a good photo op.

Low-Impact Activities

If you do want to get off the beaten path for a little while, Yellowstone also features a number of short day hikes which offer high reward at minimal cost. Spectacular waterfalls like Mystic and Fairy Falls offer stunning photos after only marginal hikes along low-impact trails. You don’t even need to bring a water bottle; just bring a nice walking stick and maybe some granola to hand-feed the Grizzly Bears.

Remember, though: just because it's easy to get to the waterfalls doesn't mean you can't hurt yourself by climbing around them. I'm just saying...

Shopping

After a brisk thirty-minute hike, there's no better way to unwind than to whip out the old credit card. Luckily, Yellowstone offers a vast variety of top-quality souvenir shops stocked with locally-made goods and mementos. You can also sample local culture at the community theater, pound a burger at a local eatery, or try some candy from the local mart. And while you’re walking from store to store, you always get a taste of that crisp, clean mountain air.

Beyond Yellowstone

Yellowstone is a beautiful place to visit, but it's getting really expensive. It costs twenty-five bucks just to get in and drive around, and you have to pay extra for miniature golf. Why waste your money padding some park budget when you can see practically the same stuff for free? Yellowstone is surrounded by miles of gorgeous forestland, untouched by human hand, and it's all super cheap and totally safe!

CONCLUSION

After spending a week touring the park, you’ll want to move up there and enjoy nature’s bounty all year long. But if you try to make your sanctuary your home, you just bring up all your everyday problems with you, and then all you’ve got is a pretty backdrop for depression. So just go home; you can always come back next summer. In the meantime, take a picture or two; it lasts longer, and you can always use PhotoShop to make yourself look more daring. Enjoy!

Particle Man!

We are all going to die…maybe as soon as next week!

Next Thursday, a group of scientists in Europe are set to fire up a machine called the Large Hadron Collider. The “LHC” is a massive particle accelerator in Switzerland that bounces sub-atomic particles off each other at super-ridiculous speeds. Kind of like an intergalactic washing machine. The scientists built this thing to create something called a Higgs Boson Particle, which may or may not exist. But the LHC also has the potential to create black holes.

Those of you who watched the Disney movie from 1978 will remember that Black Holes are huge vacuums in outer space that are so powerful they suck in all nearby matter, even visible light, and then they spit it out on the other end of the universe where ET lives.

That’s what these guys want to create in Switzerland, only they don't have any floating R2-D2's to save the world if things go bad.

The LHC people are trying to assure us that everything’s cool; they even put together a really bad rap video to explain how it works. But we know better. If movies have taught us anything, it is that whenever you experiment with science, bad things happen.

Whether or not you’re a religious person, it isn’t hard to believe that the end of the world will come because we screwed something up here on Earth. We’ve proven to be fully capable of bringing about our own destruction, whether through nuclear holocaust, biological weapons or the mind-numbing degrade of reality television. It’s possible that in my extensive study of the scriptures, I missed some obscure passage in the Old Testament that says, “and it came to pass that the two guys in lab coats fired up the super collider machine, and the whole Earth was sucked into a spot one-millionth the size of the head of a pin. Amen.”

So, when you consider that the end of the world could come at any time, it makes you start to wonder how people function from day-to-day without wigging out all the time. I think the answer has to do with learning to separate your worries between the things you can influence and the things that are out of your hands.

If those guys are going to destroy the planet with their portable black hole, there’s really not a whole lot I can do about it. Unless my life was a Hollywood movie like “War Games”. Then I’d pack up my brand-new girlfriend and my zany best friend and fly to the Swiss border, where we would infiltrate several layers of military security with a leatherman tool and save the planet by making an impassioned speech to a scientist who conveniently speaks English. But that’s not the case.

No, I think it’s best to just push forward with life and follow the wisdom of legendary football coach John Madden, who used to say, “Don’t worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.” Life’s too short to spend it worrying about how it’s going to end; we may as well make the most of it.

But I might keep a leatherman on me, just in case.

The Celebrity Politico

The news hit like a slab of warm butter on a windshield...the feds just blew the cover on 24,000 of their old spies, and you probably know a few of them.

Remember Julia Child? That french chef? She was a spy. Oh yeah, she was packing bugs in those pastries, slipping throwing knives in her knicker straps, and tucking a little pouch of cyanide pills in her rolling pin. Hard to believe, but it looks like the Pampered Chef was living the kind of life Sean Connery was only pretending to live onscreen.

How about Ernest Hemingway? His kid was a spy. So was some catcher with the Red Sox. And remember the crazy general from "Dr. Strangelove"? The one that orders the nuclear attack because he's convinced the commies wanted to sap and impure his precious bodily fluids with flouride? Turns out the guy that played him knew more about it than we thought.

Whenever the worlds of politics and celebrity collide, good times always follow. We don't have to look any further than the night the King of Rock and Roll staggered over to the White House in a black velvet overcoat and demanded that President Nixon make him an official drug enforcement agent. The photo op that came out of that gem was one for the ages.

But some people don't like it when the Beltway meets Tinseltown. John McCain even made an ad about it. He thinks Barack Obama is on a par with Britney and Paris, and he's probably right. But I've got bad news for you, senator. It's nothing new, and it won't keep Obama from getting elected. We crossed that line back when John F. Kennedy showed the world he was prettier candidate than Richard Nixon. So Nixon went on Laugh-In. Clinton went on Arsenio. President Bush is on the late-night talk shows all the time, and he's not even trying.

When I was a kid, growing up in the tough suburban ghettos of Bountiful, Utah, I didn't know a thing about Ronald Reagan's policies. I knew he was the president, and I also knew he was the guy in the Superman outfit in that Genesis video. To me, politics and comedy were the same thing. Twenty years later, my generation is more likely to get their news from Jon Stewart and Conan O'Brien than Katie Couric.

So my advice to senator McCain is this: Johnny Boy, it's too late to fight it, so you may as well join it. Jump in head first, get yourself a posse, cut a rap album, and make a cameo in the next "Batman" movie. For Pete's sake, man, you lost the bobblehead giveaway to Obama in every state. You've gotta do something. If the other guy can go on the Ellen DeGeneres show and get down with his bad self--TWICE--and still hold a lead in the polls, then maybe he's onto something.

Maybe it's that we're just shallow, and we deserve what we get. Or maybe you really are a celebrity, whether you like it or not. So you may as well act like it.

Gas Pains

Last weekend my dad and I got together to go test drive some BMW's at Harrison Imports in Bountiful. One of them was a sweet 5-series that could run like there was no tomorrow. The mileage was a little high, but the price was reasonable, and for a while I wondered if it was time for Josh to make a little auto upgrade.

Then I realized something. The 5-series had a V-8, probably got around 20 miles per gallon and took premium unleaded gas. So I backed off, and I was ashamed of it. Even as the summer’s gas surge starts to cool off, I began to wonder if it was still enough to kill the American love affair with the open road. I wondered if Salt Lake City was doomed to become a clustered network of train tracks and rickshaw paths, shuttling the downtown population back and forth in a lifeless post-automotive nightmare. I'm all for alternate fuel innovation, but I can't drive 55...especially if it's in a Prius.

The short answer is no. The American love affair with the SUV might be over, but like Wheaties and Eddie Van Halen, our relationship with the open road is here to stay; America is not about to cut ties with Henry Ford's baby.

But I do hope that one thing comes out of this mess. I hope people wake up enough to finish what has started in the last few months. As much as I want a break at the pump, I worry that if prices drop too much too fast we'll go right back to our old ways. And next time, we really might wind up paying ten bucks a gallon. We keep running these stories about some guy in Indiana who's getting 200 miles per gallon out of his '85 Mustang. Well, let's get these cars off the airways and onto the roads, cause I'm tired of letting a rich oil guy from Dubai build mile-high skyscrapers with my gas money while his next-door neighbor plots to blow me up. America’s dependence on foreign oil is like dating a Paris Hilton; it never really makes you happy, but you’re too afraid of being single again to cut the cord.

Yet even Paris knows that the best solution is to go for a balanced strategy of domestic oil production and alternative fuel development. If Nancy Pelosi won't let me drill in my own backyard, we should go drill up in Canada. That place is huge, and there's hardly anyone even up there to notice. And if they do, we can just make them the 51st state they've always wanted to be. If that's what it takes to get me in my BMW, then so be it.

Cause I don't ever want to have to stand on a used car lot again and tell some salesman that ‘it's not the years, honey; it's the gas mileage.’”

Techno-Zombies and Live Debuts

Last week I finally managed to make my on-air debut on the Cafe. It took an important topic like zombies to coax me out of my comfort zone in the control room and in front of a battery of live video cameras. So I celebrated by flubbing a camera transition and screwing up at least one major line, but at least the hour I spent shining the top of my head with car wax really paid off.

A couple of initial observations from the experience:

1. It is extremely quiet on a live TV set.
2. My head is really, really shiny on TV.
3. It is EXTREMELY quiet on a live TV set.

I'm planning on making this an every Friday gig, but I need to come up with a name for the thing (like News Omelette or Catch of the Day). So far the best idea I've had is "Morning Yogurt: A little fruit, a bunch of nuts, and a whole lotta culture", but I can't use that for obvious reasons.

Here's the clip:



Original text:

Good morning, today I'd like to take a moment to talk to you about zombies. Now, I won’t be talking about the cool flesh-eating kind of zombies that were immortalized in George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead", at least not today.

No, the kind of zombies I'm referring to are the elements of our popular culture that are, according to Cracked.com, "dead but don't know it". Things we know and love that are becoming obsolete as they are replaced by new and innovative technologies. Among them, Cracked lists the phone book…newspapers...mp3 players…even cold, hard cash.

Now, I don't entirely disagree with the cracked editorial staff as they sound the death knell for our aging technologies, but I do think it's sad. And it may not be wise. Phone books may be little more than landfill fodder these days, and maybe my online news comes faster than the daily fish wrap, but I’m not ready to turn over all my reference needs to a temperamental Internet connection. Downloading all of Neil Diamond's music onto my cell phone in convenient mp3 format may be cool and edgy, but it doesn't replace the thrill of opening up the high-quality packaging of my comprehensive three-disc boxed set and weeping playing "Love on the Rocks" plays quietly by a crackling fire. Technology may give us convenience, but it often robs us of the experience. Getting cash in a birthday card will always be more fun than a direct deposit.

I guess my point is that while it is important for us to continue to develop our new technologies, we shouldn't be too quick to dismiss the old reliables they're replacing. Modern society may want to turn us into a network of bandwidth-swallowing free-floating brains connected by our ethernet cables, but just because we have the technology doesn't mean we should always use it. Just because we can clone Richard Simmons doesn't mean we should.

In a busy world, there's certainly nothing wrong with holding onto a few zombies every once in a while. In fact, it might be the best thing for us.

Making TV is Easy!

I've been producing the KJZZ Cafe for about six months now, so I think it's safe to say I pretty much know all there is to know about TV news. With that in mind, I thought it would be very considerate of me to pass on some of my newly-acquired wisdom, in case any of you ever want to steal my job.

What follows is a simple guide for producing a morning TV show, organized into ten easy steps:

1. Arrive early

The thing that sucks about morning news shows is that they take place in the morning. Therefore, in order to get the show ready to air on time, you have to get to the station really early. Really insanely early. Really "isn't this technically the day before?" early. It would be really nice to just write the Wednesday morning show on Tuesday afternoon, especially when the daily headlines are so predictable ("gas prices suck", "Barack Obama is way awesome", "some guy is walking across _____ to raise awareness for _____"), but that whole "timeliness" thing always gets in the way. Meaning, you never know when the Jazz might make a late afternoon trade for a journeyman point guard.

2. Select quality stories

Your main job as producer is to put together a rundown of the stories you'll cover during the broadcast. For a regular news show, this isn't super hard, because you just repeat a basic cycle, such as:

A. Building fire
B. Shooting
C. Weather
D. Building fire
E. Shooting
F. Weather
G. Fat guy at elementary school

But if you produce a current events show, you have to come up with more thoughtful material. You can still repeat a few of the early stories at the end of the show, since only the criminally insane will watch your entire 2 1/2 hour broadcast, but the quality of the stories has to be at a different level. It helps when you have other people to contribute story ideas; then you just have to judge worthiness instead of waste a lot of time clicking links on the Drudge Report.

For example:

Man wrecks semi on freeway = Lame story

Man wrecks semi while dodging group of vegetarian eco-terrorist Ralph Nader supporters holding seance on freeway = News worth talking about

3. Fill down time

If you've planned ahead, you should have a window of time after you've finished the rundown, but before any of the anchors arrive for your editorial meeting. If you haven't planned ahead, you probably dragged yourself into the station two hours late because you figured if you hung around the previous night's party long enough you would get a good chance at getting the blonde's phone number, and you didn't, and you overslept, and now you have to come up with a creative way of explaining to your news director why your rundown looks suspiciously like yesterday's lineup on E! News.

But if you did manage to preserve a window, you have some time to fill. Here are some constructive options:

A. Get a jump on writing your stories
B. Meditate
C. Update your Facebook profile
D. Make prank phone calls
E. Visit the Master Control people on their smoke breaks
F. Jog naked through the cavernous, empty hallways of the KJZZ studios

4. Hold editorial meeting

Once the news director and anchors arrive, it's time to gather everyone together and help them try to wake up. If the majority of your team are non-coffee drinking Mormons, the best way to do this is to provide energy drinks and the latest ACLU itinerary. In the editorial meeting, you present your rundown and make assignments for different stories. Sometimes one of the anchors will suggest doing a different story that they feel passionate about. As producer, it is your responsibility to listen with an open mind to all suggestions, nod thoughtfully, then go ahead with what you planned to do in the first place. If your news director suggests a change, your responsibility is to make a nasty face and obey begrudgingly, thus preserving both your job and your image as a stubborn journalist.

5. Write stuff

Once you've broken down the show and made all the assignments, it's time to get down to business. Here the newsroom becomes a hive of activity as anchors, interns, associate producers and groupies shuffle back and forth around a cluster of low-rise cubicles, printing scripts, running video orders, and deciding what ties look best with blue shirts.

If you've done a good job of making writing assignments, this part of the day should be a lot of fun for you; as producer, you have first call of what you want to write, and thus it's your own stupid fault if you don't give everyone else the crap stories. Your job should consist of writing clever teases, crazy kicker stories, and looking up funny videos on YouTube. Let the anchors write the boring economic stories; that's the trade-off for getting a clothing allowance. At the same time, don't be afraid to challenge yourself. If you can get an anchor to read a gushing praise of Barry Manilow one day, see if you can get them to read a quote from P-Funk pioneer George Clinton the next day.

Since you are not on the air in most situations, this is your opportunity to put your own signature on the show. This can be done in a variety of ways:

A. Insert clever inside catch phrases that will be recognized by family and friends.
B. Reference personal obsessions like William Shatner and "Baywatch".
C. Use running gags, like tagging stories with clips of radioactive spiders and the Bat Child.
D. Have the anchors reference your personal blog on a regular basis.
E. Hang your tasteful oil paintings on the wall behind the anchor desk.

6. Visit editing guys

Another dynamic of your job is to keep track of the video assignments and make sure the requested clips are ordered and produced. Video tends to be an important part of a news broadcast, as most people feel that watching the same talking head for ninety minutes straight tends to fall on the boring side, no matter how pretty or surgically-enhanced that face might be. Therefore, it is usually a good idea to wander back to the editing room every half hour or so to check progress. Always be considerate and offer to help the editors with whatever they need. Of course, since you have no idea how to edit, you should also pray that nothing serious happens. And when they do tell you about problems, nod thoughtfully again, then go tell the news director.

7. Get Focused

Producing live television is a serious business. You can't just walk in off the street and expect to be any good at it. It's not like networks just grab random English teachers and tell them to produce the morning news. If you want to be ready for the big time, you need to prepare yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually. A good producer knows how to bring his/her total self into balance and harmony, for even though he/she is not in front of the camera, he/she must perform just the same. The best way to do this is to duck out of the newsroom about a half hour before air time and take a nap on a couch somewhere.

8. Stay awake during broadcast

A typical morning newscast will last anywhere between two hours and three hours, and after staying up all night getting the show ready, there is a high risk of dozing off, even on live television. While everyone on the set is sweating and nervous under lighting systems that cost tens of thousands of dollars, you are cooling your heels in the back room, staring at a wall-full of TV monitors. When these monitors are telling you about a housing crisis at 6:30am, sleep is usually a preferable option. To keep sharp, bring a pocket Yahtzee game for entertainment, or text some close friends about your current relationship struggles. Or you could just keep track of how many times the director swears at the cameramen in sixty seconds.

Once the show goes on the air, the Producer becomes more of a manager, and even more of a timekeeper. It is your responsibility to make sure that the segments finish on time so you can get all the commercials in. You have a big ugly headset that is plugged into little earphones that the anchors wear, so you can tell them to hurry up or to fill time or to stop saying things that are going to get you sued. You can also talk to them while they are trying to read the TelePrompter, then laugh quietly at the funny faces they make.

9. Expect the waste matter to impact the motorized wind circulator

When you're putting together your rundown, you will make a deliberate effort to organize the stories and the timing to produce a broadcast that will be tight and sharp. Special care will be taken to design a show that can run with flawless precision, with stories that flow logically from topic to topic and allow for effective execution behind the scenes. This, of course, will never actually happen.

Plan on encountering at least one obscene catastrophe to occur during each broadcast, along with 4-5 minor catastrophes. One of the toughest, yet most important, responsibilities as producer is to learn to make quick decisions on your feet, because in live TV, you can't just yell "cut" and go for a second take. Well, technically I guess you could, but it would look funny, and you probably couldn't convince your news director that it was a deliberate reflexive postmodern commentary on the self-aware nature of contemporary media. No, it is not a question of whether something will go wrong, it is only a question of when.

Here are some of the crazy things you can expect over the course of a broadcast:

Guest arrives late

On the one hand, having guests on set means you have less to fill in the rundown. On the other hand, having guests on set means you risk some unexpected act of God--like an earthquake or road construction--delaying your up-and-coming psychic romance novelist for a half hour, then an additional fifteen minutes because she couldn't remember whether she was going to be on KJZZ or FOX (whose studio is conveniently located across the street), while in the meantime you juggle half your script and frantically try to rearrange story-specific block teases until she safely arrives for a three-minute interview which your audience never hears because the battery in the guest microphone died thirty seconds in.

Guest wanders into set background and stares vacantly at camera ten minutes before his segment is to air

Not that this has ever happened...

Major tape comes up missing

Sometimes, in spite of the best of efforts, vital video clips and even full story packages will go missing. Orders don't get turned in, orders get misplaced, orders get stolen by magical bearded gnome mercenaries hired by rival networks. Often you will catch these omissions early and give the editing guys plenty of time to re-cut or get a new tape. More often, you will hear the director say something like, "no tape" approximately 3.2 seconds before you are to air said tape.

Here are a few more gems to keep an eye out for:

Tape runs, but includes tasty bit of profanity editors forgot to censor
Peripheral cast member disappears microseconds before cue
Anchor explodes
SWAT team enters building

10. Hold post-mortem meeting/Plan next day

Congratulations! You've made it through the broadcast. Now it's time to gather in all your co-workers and listen to lots and lots of complaining in the post-show wrap meeting. Here you offer constructive criticism, occasional praise, and bribes for anyone willing to sabotage the set so you can have a week off. If you have time, you can also plan for the next day's show, assuming you still have jobs the next day.