My Mess of Motley Musings

Am exhausted. Am exhilarated. Am still curiously very nervous, like maybe this is all a dream and soon a hurricane of pregnant chads will come plummeting out of the sky. So here is my letter to our new President Elect:

Dear Obama,

For all the jaded cynicism our generation is famous for, I don't think any one of us can deny the amazing leaps in equality that that 106 year old woman has seen over her lifetime. And perhaps for the first time in my adult life I see the opportunity to make sure the next century brings even more hope and prosperity. I don't care if it's dumb to be optimistic. Obama isn't a singular savior and of course he's going to need help, but I think we need to start believing that together we can move towards positive, lasting change. If we have even a lingering shred of reverence for the ideals of real democracy, of the American dream, then I don't think we have any other choice. 

Oh god I can't believe it's 5 am. Guess this isn't a dream after all. 

xox,

H

Sooo... right in time for the day after Halloween comes a very strange musical braindripping which is way too bizarre for me to even recall how it came into being, letalone how I convinced my very talented brother to stoop to playing a tiny piano in trackpants and his bar mitzvah jacket. I do know it coincided with my desire to learn how to experiment cramming as many videofilters as possible into one Final Cut project... or perhaps it was just the moon.

xxx,

H 

This is entitled  

I must apologize for being MIA as of late. I got a bitchin case of tendinitis from typing all curled up in bed in what yoga enthusiasts might dub the 'constipated fetus' pose. I know that fetuses can't be constipated and now I also know that pirating crappy mac dictation software and trying to use it in public leads to your yelling obscenities repeatedly at someone who isn't there, thus blurring any differentiation between you and a crazy homeless person- 

"It was a rather aggressive... "Not 'a grass lives.' Delete. AGGRESSIVE. Not 'agar is' goddamn it. Aggressive. Delete. Delete! No don't type delete, just delete. DELETE!"

And then it deletes your entire document. And then you shout "control Z! control Z! whilst tensing your fists up like... a constipated fetus. And then a policeman asks you if there is a problem. Needless to say that little experiment didn't last very long and I decided to let my tendons rest for a bit.

I spent the week at the New York Television Festival at which a reality pilot about me was premiering. I suppose what I should have guessed about reality television is that, instead of being a compilation of your most fantastically intelligent viewpoints and clever quips and humorous moments, it's more like letting someone take hundreds of naked pictures of you and then publish a hideous compilation of all the most hairy scaly blotchy dimply pimply patches for all the world to see. Over and over again when and wherever they would like. In fact I think most people would come off better in their secret sex tape than in their own reality tv show because you can't really be a whiny jerk or a jerky ditz or a ditzy fucktard when all you're doing is having an orgasm. 

That being said, my pilot Flying Solo was a pleasant surprise, and although they cut all my thoughts on positive female role models, and reforming education, and music as a means of cultural communication, and the creative unconscious, and the writing process, and the mark of our generation, at least I didn't look like a megabitch.... It premieres on mylifetime.com in the next few days and I'd love to hear your thoughts. It's a hybrid reality show by P&G combining my footage with the crew's footage to detail my summer.

The festival was smashing and I met tons of creative filmmakers as well as comedy development folks and even the heads of Swedish television. Turns out Swedish television is totally cutting edge- they won an interactive Emmy for a recent project called The Truth about Marika which combined a TV drama with an online conspiracy in which fans were encouraged to uncover the truth about the 20,000 people who have gone missing in Sweden in the past few decades, and the part that blew me away was that in addition to the online hacking there were clues and meetings and surprises planted all over Sweden, blending game with reality, and completely immersing the viewer as a true participant in the mystery. They even had a game where viewers could drive to an actual set in the form of a war trench, suit up in battlegear, and wage computer warfare from within the game. And we think we're pushing the limit with text message American Idol voting...

I always loved those old maps in  history class from before all the continents had been mapped- the ones with big dragons and seamonsters dotting uncharted waters, daring explorers to journey into the unknown, and I was pretty bummed to discover at the age of 7 that the only things truly left to explore are the thick jungle, the deep sea, and outerspace seeing as I am an allergic claustrophobe with a fear of flying. 

But the NYTVF really inspired me to view the internet as a new frontier not only for entertainment and social networking, but for education, creative inspiration, and as a tool for empowering the oppressed. Never before have we had access to so much information from so many different cultures, and I can only hope that this, in the face of religious oppression and intellectual/social intolerance and economic fucking Armageddon, will pave the way for cooperation and innovation as it's done in previous incarnations of cultural renaissance. 

I was heartened to find a community of artists at the festival who were really just plain nice. They were hardworking passionate people who were excited to share their ideas and it made me hopeful about the future despite increasingly dire newspaper headlines. 

I also learned that everyone is desperate for good content, and that even for comedy geniuses only about 10% of ideas are great, and the collaboration leads to greatness, so in the spirit of the festival I'm posing the very first...

Combine at least three of the following elements into a kick-ass TV series pitch:

Speculum   Kleptomania Beer  Byron  Bear-Baiting  Toddlers  Adultery

Jellybeans   Dr. Seuss Podiatry  Treasure-Hunting  Celebrities  Foot-Fetish

Drugs Collectors Vampires/Ninjas (must use both)  Dating  Amish

Sing-Along   Canada Time-Travel   The-80s  Tits  Fashion  DaDaism

Thoreau  Terrorism Feminism  Dragons  Psoriasis  Lesbians  Marsupials

Defenestration   Mendel Flesh-eating-bacteria Glitter  Lincoln  Dwight

Makeovers Prison Monarchy  Amnesia  Intervention  Japan  Gynocology

Octopi  Johnny-Cash Baking  The-1800s The-Mob  Nietzsche  World-Domination

Sun Tsu Jesus Fungus  Nuts   Ballroom-dancing  Fetuses  Aquaphobia 

Monkey Nymphomania  French Maids Basketball  Puppets  Hipsters

Prizes will be awarded by category and for originality.

Best,

H