Florida Republican Debate You WEREN'T Supposed To See

HEY! That's not Wolf Blitzer!

Actor/author/director/satirist/musician/radio host Harry Shearer's found footage of the CNN team prepping for the Florida Republican Debate using civilians as stand-ins for the candidates might be the best thing to happen to the GOP Debate since Michele Bachmann took the longest pee break ever.

Newt Gingrich is looking decidedly more feminine since the last time we saw him. When the petite redheaded woman introduces herself as "Newt Gingrich" and proclaims "I just ran a marathon before I got here," Fake Wolf Blitzer chuckles and her fellow faux candidates smile.

Could they possibly find her more charming than the real thing?

Hey GOP Candidates, relax a little! Slip into something more comfortable! Let your hair down!



That's more like it. Now how about we whistle the National Anthem?

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RED MEAT

7 days to go. If you watch and listen to all the blabber, you'd think we can't keep a thought in our head if it doesn't fit into the smallest possible soundbite to stir up the greatest possible doubt.

Here are some of the code words to move you to VOTE like a simpleton.

Terrorist
Tax
Spend
Republican
American
Democrat
War
Hope
Congress
Liberal
Abortion
Conservative
Bush
Experience
Change
"Joe"
Oil
Polls
Bailout
Rescue
Hero
Socialist
Battleground
Iraq
Drill

This red meat sampler only scratches the surface of the games played on all sides behind McCain and Obama to scare you into action.

Do something COMPLETELY AMERICAN - in 7 days (or sooner if you can early vote) - walk into a voting booth - put all the bullshit aside - and make the smartest possible choice to elect your next President.

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PROCRAST-ERRIFIC

Dobrow's Procrast-errific Web Video Destination

Media Reviews for Media People: My Damn Channel

By Larry Dobrow

Published: May 08, 2008

I spend 37 hours per day in front of the computer and have the attention span of a sugared-up first-grader, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I inhale a staggering amount of online video. Indeed, as I craft my masterworks of Western thought and struggle to locate that elusive mot juste ("luftmensch"? "jecoral"?), web video serves as the default procrastination apparatus. Mostly my wanderings lead to Springsteen clips, which I then forward to my similarly Jer-Z-fied pals. We've wasted 7,250 hours on low-res 1978 versions of "Prove It All Night" alone.



So no, I don't have a single regular supplier for my video fix, and I'm probably like the vast majority of web monkeys in that regard. For texty information and illumination and whatnot, there are 15 or so sites I'll check out every day. For video, I unthinkingly go wherever my idiot friends point me.


Happily, I've found a procrast-errific web-video destination in My Damn Channel, a better-realized version of the astronomically hyped, Ferrell-and-Apatow-backed Funny or Die. That's not a slap at Funny or Die, so much as an endorsement of the more comically consistent My Damn Channel. It's all well and good that the Ian Zierings and John Mayers of the world have chosen Funny or Die as their preferred venue for gentle image-tweaking, but such lazy bits pale next to the goodies tucked away in each of My Damn Channel's, uh, channels.


Where Funny or Die throws up a bunch of clips and calls it an afternoon, My Damn Channel showcases a range of distinct personalities. Funnyfolk like David Wain, Harry Shearer and Andy Milonakis get online mini-laboratories to call their own, and use them for everything from low-concept weirdness to wry political commentary. No one channel is like the next, though each shares a twitchy, absurdist comic sensibility that should resonate with fans of Andy Samberg's SNL Digital Shorts, "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" and anything involving alumni from MTV's "The State."


My Damn Channel has justly been lauded for the passive-aggressive (and educational!) comic gold that is "You Suck at Photoshop" series and Wain's vigorously quirky "Wainy Days" quest to find his fictional self a gal. The site's less-hyped content -- especially the soap opera spoof "Horrible People" and the self-explanatory "Cookin' With Coolio" -- similarly revels in its own silliness, especially the former's asides about how "a waxed ***hole is a window to the soul."


I also dig Grace, the gal who, for lack of a better way to put it, serves as My Damn Channel's hostess and hype woman. She has the Sarah Silverman I'm-adorable-so-I-can-get-away-with-saying-stuff-about-Hitler-and-weed thing down pat, but doesn't overplay the gimmick -- which makes it all the more rewarding when she sweetly intones "be nice to your mother, because you f*cked up her baby hole." Her presence keeps My Damn Channel from feeling like a guys-only clubhouse, a fate that Funny or Die hasn't been able to avoid.


My Damn Channel even pulls off the nifty trick of being entertaining in its advertising. Don Was' music channel boasts Lincoln as a primary sponsor, for example, but also tapes performances in the grungy "grand showroom of our sponsor, The Furniture Outlet, located in North Hollywood, California, at 13054 Sherman Way ... c'mon down for some great music and some great bargains on love seats and bedroom sets!" A bunch of brands that appeal to homebound drones like me -- iTunes, Wolfgang's Vault, National Geographic Channel -- have been in heavy ad rotation of late, as have web mainstays like Match.com and Peapod. They're all easy fits, just as cellphone tchotchkes and other portable media devices would be. Ads for new movies or records would probably get lost amid all the content, though.


The two potential worries here for marketers? One, that few of the clips are safe for work; and two, that almost none of the humor here is linear, meaning that devotees of Jay Leno and "Two and a Half Men" will furrow their brows in a futile attempt to grasp the punch lines.


In the end, you can easily lose yourself for 45 minutes at a time at My Damn Channel -- in fact, I kinda just now did, courtesy of the Lori McKenna and Jackshit clips on the Don Was channel. I've yet to feel a comparable pull to any other web-video destination not named YouTube, and YouTube's clip quality and smallish viewing window seem primitive nowadays when compared to MDC, Funny or Die, Hulu and the like. If you can visit My Damn Channel without meandering around for awhile, I applaud your self-discipline.

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WEB WEENIE !?!?!

KATIE WARNS WEB WEENIE Post staff writer

February 4, 2008 -- KATIE Couric is vowing revenge on the Internet joker who posted unflattering videos of her on YouTube. CBS News started a new YouTube chan nel over the weekend for its primary election coverage.But the CBS anchorwoman used the debut to get a little personal with those who make fun of her on the Internet video site."Hello YouTube viewers," she begins. "You know, it's nice to be on YouTube for a change when I know the cameras are rolling."Then, smiling and shaking her finger at the camera she adds: "Harry Shearer, I'm going to get you!"Shearer, a former "Saturday Night Live" cast member and voice on "The Simpsons," is one of the originators of "My Damn Channel," another Internet site that last year posted two videos of Couric talking when she thought the cameras were off. On one tape, she makes fun of her predecessor Dan Rather.

On the most recent one, posted last month, she is seen at the anchor desk on the night of the New Hampshire primary complaining about her clip-on microphone, cursing and joking with her crew about how Rudolph Giuliani's campaign was dead.
 http://www.mydamnchannel.com/channel.aspx?episode=367
 Both tapes were presumably intercepted from satellite transmissions between CBS and its affiliates and never intended to air on TV.

Couric's retort to Shearer appears to put him on notice that she is watching him - and may try a prank of her own in the future.

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An Historic Debate

We've been planning a series of internet debates as the countdown to Iowa continues.

We were not ready to confirm the participants until word leaked out in Florida where the YouTube mothership is getting ready to land on the Republican candidates tonight on CNN.

We can now confirm that next Tuesday night, Dec. 4, Tim Russert will moderate an historic debate between Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) and Sen. John Edwards (D) on My Damn Channel.

My Damn Channel will make next Tuesday's debate available simultaneously on YouTube.

Our debate format was developed by Harry Shearer ("Le Show," Huffington Post, "The Simpsons"). Voters and caucus goers will have a unique opportunity to access the candidates without any of the usual barriers that prevent them from taking a look at the real people who want to be President.

More debate details to follow.

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