Life lost a customer forever yesterday when it failed to provide oxygen to Alex Darren upon request. Darren, known for his uber-popular Yelp reviews of over 107 local pubs, gastropubs, food trucks, and “dives,” was 27. Y.O.L.O.
He had over 260K followers on the popular review site, with over 7 million confirmed stars rating his reviews. Yelp users found him extremely helpful. One of his most popular reviews of Izakaya Ba-Ka in Menlo Park, titled What kind of a Japanese place doesn’t have Teriyaki?, is excerpted below: Fuck this place. The service was TERRIBLE. And they overcharge for all these little plates of food. I wanted to get a regular teriyaki burger with organic greens, they seemed to not know what I was talking about. Then I asked if they had gluten-free items on their menu, but it was like they’d never heard of the word, “gluten.” The sake came to my table COLD. The owner doesn’t even speak English. Plus, it was dirty. I’d rather tear my own eyeballs out than ever go to that joint again. See ya, I’ll take my business to a reliable Japanese dive, like Sushi Boat.
A song about the "poly" (polygamous dating) concept, written to the tune of "Polly" by Nirvana.
POLY Polly is a poly I think you have to be cute first To have a lot of partners Everyone's a dark horse It's not for me Monogamy Let's hook up Have a fling Let me take a ride With someone else Want a friend? Friend yourself No one's old No one's cold Promise you This isn't true Let you take a ride Amuse yourself I am hot I help myself Polly wants it casual She doesn't wanna be tied down Unless she wants to be tied down Wednesdays are so booooooring Poly says her phone's dead She's just as bored as me But she has a lot more options It amazes me, the gall of hotties Is it me? Try and see Let's hook up It's not a thing Not too attached Don't hurt yourself Don't want a male Don't want a wife I'm very open Unless you're fat Or really rude Or an Asian dude Got an open mind And I am sexy So I wrote a sext To myself.
Next in this series will be a spoof of "Molly" by Sponge.
So, honestly, this is what I'm hoping you will do. It will take between 2 and 35 minutes depending on whether you actually watch the vids or not.
Any clever viral/interactive/audience-engagement marketing I might scheme up is a coded attempt to get you to do Exactly This.
For the indie artist/videomaker/content creator, this is the platonic ideal for how a viewer interacts with their videos on youtube. If you are curious about how you can support artist/creators that you like, for free, in no time at all, take this as a case study, a walkthrough.
1. Start here. Find and click the SUBSCRIBE button that is in the upper left corner of every Youtube video (or sort of near the title on the channel pages). If you don't have a youtube account yet you will be prompted to create one, it is totally free and non-intrusive and will take 30 seconds.***
2. Click the LIKE button. Copy the link, any link. Share it, embed it, tweet about it. Seriously, you don't even gotta watch it. I mean, we worked hard on it, the episode is there to be enjoyed, but don't let some convoluted sense of "I must watch the entire video before validating it with viral shares and mentions" hold you up from just pimping that link everywhere. Write it on the wall of your office building's bathroom. Email it to HuffPost. Text it to your cat. Paranormalstatus.com.
The episode is arranged with a certain narrative delicacy (if I do say so m'self), but if you just wanna know what happens, I can happily spoil it for you. The high points of this episode are Dave getting drunk and singing a variant of "God Save the Queen" and a colorful dream sequence with a terrifying/satirical cliffhanger.
Go to episode 2 to catch up on some plot points. There is an amusing Sadako gag and a tender death scene that will come up again later in the arc of the series.
3. Like-button everything. Comment on something. If you don't like something about this whole endeavor, comment on that. Create traffic. (The goal of every web-based thing is to create traffic and go viral, that is, the exact opposites of your goals in real life, haha.)**
Click on Episode 1, it's the pilot, so it has the most expositional lag, yes, some questionable cinematography, yes, yet you will still find moments to enjoy the buffoonish heroism of Dave and the sardonic radiance of Zoe and Elle. And again, plot points that will come up again later. And if you comment identifying the characters and context of the Dark Knight Returns reference in this episode, you win a 2012 ComicCon bag full of goodies. It's a rolling easter-egg contest that as yet no one has been nerdy enough to win. :)
4. And by gum, you can even click on an ad, because in theory that turns into $$$, of which some trickles down to the artist (me & the POO crew). You are obligated to buy nothing, yet your friend/video-creator/artist gets rewarded. Kind of an awesome deal, right?
Like this playlist, where I will maintain a curated "best of" all Paranormal Status videos, maximized for entertainment like a circus routine. This is after all, at base, not about money or fancy filmmaking (or consistent camerawork, to be sure). It's about trying to make you laugh.
And then there's our facebook page, and supposedly it is good when people like that.**
5. If somehow you have read this far, you may as well also follow @dommah @thorhulkcritic and @phearchannel on twitter, and enjoy my 140-character bursts of smile-causing sarcastic musings.
And really, that's it. Thank you!
***This is really important because YouTube success or failure (I mean, nothing really fails on YouTube, but some things are more successful than others) is judged in hard numbers of subscriptions and viewcounts. So if you just wanna click on the thing continuously while it's in the background of your monitor while you're doing other important things...that would be awesome. **It's cool if you like the things on Facebook, but keep in mind this key difference: FB just tracks and uses your input as part of their Freaking Massive Marketing Data Collecting Machine, whereas, YouTube looks at that data and actually passes on some of its profits to its content creators. Not in a way that it's like they're giving away money, exactly, but on principle, Youtube rewards the people who, you know, make the shit that is on Youtube. No artist ever gets paid off people liking them on Facebook. (SUM-UP POINT: do the FB thing anyway, but the best thing to do on FB is share, share, share.)
In honor of ComicCon 2012, here is an abridged screenplay for the Justice League movie, modeled entirely after The Avengers movie, because that seemed to work very well.
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
a superhero team screenplay
by dommah
EXT. DC UNIVERSE Near Martian rocks, some MARTIANS plot.
MARTIAN LEADER
We're going to attack Earth.
MARTIAN SOLDIER
Why?
MARTIAN LEADER
Ah, the H'ell of it. Give them something to do.
INT. BATCAVE AMANDA WALLER recruits BATMAN.
AMANDA WALLER
Come join the team.
BATMAN
I'm sulky and complicated...my father....
AMANDA WALLER
Bitch, can you just get in the jet? I've got like six of these today.
My version of the Spiderman musical, as directed by Julie Taymor, with music by U2:
SPIDER-MAN: RATTLE & THWIP
SCENE 1
Spider-Man hangs upside-down over a city skyline comprised of gargoyle shadow puppets and people in Noh masks.
SPIDER-MAN: I'm WIIIIIDE AWAAAKE. I'm WIIIIIIDE AWAAAAAKE. I'm not SLEEPING.
Bono enters, wearing a yellow and green jumpsuit. He portrays the Fly, one of Spider-Man's all-time lamest foes.
THE FLY: A man will rise! / A man will fall! / From the sheer face of evil villainry! / Like a fly on the wall!
Spidey and the Fly fight using capoeira. Spidey dispatches the Fly quickly. Harry Osborn / The Hobgoblin enters. Spidey spins a web, ensnaring him. Mary Jane Watson enters in traditional Chinese Opera costume. Both Spidey and Harry moon over her.
HARRY OSBORN: My hands are webbed / My body bruised, she's got me with / Nothing to win, and nothing left to lose....
Gwen Stacy enters, wearing traditional African head-dress.
SPIDER-MAN: I have run / I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls with my amazing ability to cling to vertical surfaces
Theeeeese vertical surfaces / Only to be with you....
Arachne, a mythological reference that has been cutely added to this production, enters:
ARACHNE: What you don't have you don't need it now
What you don't know you can sense it somehow with your weird tingly spider-sense power....
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I know everything! EVERYTHING! It's a beautiful day!
HARRY / HOBGOBLIN: You've got to get yourself together... Nnrgggh....now you got stuck in a giant web created by a mutated human gland and you can't get out of it!
Doc Ock enters.
DOCTOR OCTOPUS: On your knees, boy!
Spider-Man unmasks so as to protect his loved ones. Peter Parker has a reflective moment:
PETER PARKER: So J. Jonah Jameson comes up to me
His face red like a rose on a thorn bush
Like all the colours of a royal flush
And he's peeling off those dollar bills
Slapping them down
One hundred, two hundred!
And I can see those fighter planes....
Aunt May enters and offers him a bowl of tapioca.
PETER PARKER: A spider-boy tries hard to be a spider-man / His aunt takes him by his hand
If he stops to think he starts to cry / Oh why?
AUNT MAY: If you web-swing away, web-swing away, web-swing away, web-swing away.....I will follow!
Peter puts the mask back on so as to escape his pestering loved ones.
SPIDER-MAN: You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Fight evil clones of yourself without raising your voice
You know I took the radiation
From the bite of a radioactive spider
Then I wall-crawled....out of here....
HARRY OSBORN / HOBGOBLIN: THE EDGE!
MARY JANE: I say....I want.... / diamonds on a ring of gold / your origin story to remain untold / a pimped-out black Lexus / and not to be killed by some crazy lizard-looking freak....
SPIDER-MAN: ....when all I want is YOU-HOOOOOO! All I want is YOU-OOOOOH!
The Venom / Black Alien Suit Symbiote Thing enters.
VENOM / SYMBIOTE: One life / But we're not the same / We get to carry each other, carry each other!
Spider-Man fights Venom, and Hobgoblin, and Doctor Octopus, and African poverty. Gwen Stacy paints herself blue and dances around.
VILLAINS: Spider-Man throws me just like a rubber ball / Oh oh oh, the Spider-Man!
He won't catch me or break my fall / Oh oh oh, the Spider-Man!
SPIDER-MAN: One man bombarded by cosmic rays
One man is Iron Fist
One man changed by a Gamma Bomb
One man betrayed with a kiss
BONO: For Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and the Thing....sing!
ALL: In the naaaaame! Of Love! What more! In the name of Love!!!!!
SPIDER-MAN: Definitely could use a mouth-hole for the singing. Note to self: Mouth-hole.
BAMBI: Why? What do you mean? Are you some kind of stalker? Don't you have anything to say? DON'T TRY TO HAVE SEX WITH ME! WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?!?
GODZILLA: I'm lonely. And I'm an Asian monster.
BAMBI: Both those things are unattractive, demographically speaking.
Pause.
BAMBI (unsolicited): I feel really comfortable around you. For example, I've never told my boyfriend about the six months I spend in a Turkish prison. There were no daisies there, only rats. Have you ever eaten rats?
GODZILLA: Grrrraaargh.
BAMBI: Before you growl further, let me set down the ground rules: I want to subvert the oppressive gender roles that over the years have raised my defenses to this nigh-impenetrable level of apparent insanity.
GODZILLA: What if--
BAMBI: DON'T TALK!! It's NOT SEXY. God, why can't I find any good guys?
GODZILLA: I'm a very good guy. Why do you treat me like a monster when I'm always defending you and your city from the real monster threats? And then after the Ghidrah or Hedorah the Smog Monster situation is taken care of BY ME, it's back to, "Oh no, it's Godzilla, he'll destroy everything!"
Two dudes sit around getting sloshed, in a remarkable portrait of middle-aged sensitivity and angst. Nearby, a filmmaker eats from a cheese plate.
MILES: Glug, glug. Not drinking any fucking Merlot.
JACK: Balls! Buddy, you're like my penis. I don't know how to say it exactly, but you evoke my dick.
MILES: Why won't she call? I'm so money, baby. I'm going to pour grape juice all over myself.
Miles does this. Jack whips it out. A film critic laps grape juice off of Miles' toes.
FILM CRITIC: Amazing! Hilarious! How do you feel about accusations of elitist yuppieism leveled against your film?
JACK: If you want to see a movie about people with no fucking phone, go rent "Raising Fucking Victor Vargas."
MILES: I know grapes. Actually, I know about grapes which serve as a metaphor for me. I learned how to make metaphors for my suffering in Dramatic Writing 101. That's what separates this film from standard Hollywood fare like "Cold Mountain" or "Swingers."
JACK: Plus the fact that I'm not just an actor, but a washed-up actor.
FILM CRITIC: Genius!
Two female fantasy figures approach, also sloshed.
STEPHANIE: I need to be spanked!
FILM CRITIC: That's the best line of dialogue ever written!
MAYA: Miles. Miles Miles Miles Miles Miles. Miles Miles Miles, Miles Miles. Release me, Miles.
MILES: I Hate It When People Pay Attention To Me. STILL not drinking any fucking Merlot.
JACK: Hey look. Some interesting fat people.
STEPHANIE: But YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME!
FILM CRITIC: That's the truest sentiment a filmmaker has ever captured in an original vision such as this one! I was sort of afraid to say anything about the abortion movie and the one that dealt with teenage sexuality, but this is a yarn that I can unabashedly hail as ....****....exhilarating....a delight! Much more penetrating than "Cats."
JACK: I once penetrated a cat.
MILES: I sure hope someone notices that I'm the best actor ever.
MAYA: Don't give up, Miles. Keep at it. Stay the course. Someday you'll have a track record, and then no one will care what you do next. Least of all me.
MILES: You're so non-judgemental, aligned with my interests, available and photogenic! Your physical beauty must be a sign that I can be redeemed. Going to run away now.
Miles runs away. Stephanie clobbers Jack with a bowling ball.
The X-Men sit around waiting for Dark Phoenix to arrive.
WOLVERINE: I'm the best there is at what I do, but I....I....I've forgotten my lines.
The director keeps filming regardless, hoping for a bit of Chris Tucker-esque divinely inspired improvised screeching.
CYCLOPS: We have lines? I was acting with my eyes.
The director finds an angle on Cyclops that makes him look most like Tom Cruise.
FRASIERBEAST: It was my understanding that the only important thing was to get $10 out of the sucker fan base.
The director, distracted by the sight of a passing Asian woman, lets this alarmingly candid insight stay in the film.
ROGUE: Don't y'all forgit DVD sales! I garun-damn-tee ya there'll be lines on the DVD extras!
The director indicates his faithfulness to the fans by having Rogue speak with a ridiculous accent.
CYCLOPS: Man, Jean's just so, y'know, dead. Life is a bummer. Let's go fight Magneto.
The X-Men travel somewhere. The director indicates this by having a shot of a plane moving left to right across the screen.
EXT. MAGNETO'S ISLAND LAIR - NIGHT
Professor X and Magneto debate future of Mutantkind.
PROFESSOR X: Say what you want, all the mutant movies have made money.
MAGNETO: They are obviously mediocre.
PROFESSOR X: MIddle America wants to see mutants. They want mutant cheerleaders, mutant funny dwarves, mutant retarded whores with hearts of gold....
MAGNETO: Have you tinkered with their minds, Charles? Made them believe that they want films made by talent agents and focus groups?
PROFESSOR X: MADE MONEY! MADE MONEY! HELL-OOOO....
Magneto staples the Professor's mouth closed.
EXT. THE SURFACE OF THE SUN - (NIGHT?)
Onslaught and Dark Phoenix sit atop Asteroid M, getting stoned.
DARK PHOENIX: Heeeyyy...I can move this rock....with my mind....!
ONSLAUGHT: Dood, this has been a TERRIBLE year for the U.S. box office.
DARK PHOENIX: I read that. Like, 60,000 times. With my mind.
ONSLAUGHT: Do you think that just because Hollywood has the best PR and publicists in the world, it's right that they should make headlines about how their crappy movies aren't making enough money as if it is some sort of national tragedy?
DARK PHOENIX (weeping uncontrollably): It's so sad....first the genocide in Darfur, then "Kingdom of Heaven" underperforms...WHAT NEXT?!
ONSLAUGHT: I think I'll destroy the world.
DARK PHOENIX: With my MIND.
Onslaught and Dark Phoenix attack, killing all the X-Men. Comic book fans know, however, that this is a good thing.
An alien spacecraft arrives and annihilates all of Tom Cruise's homies.
CUT TO:
Tom Cruise indulging Dakota Fanning's request to pee.
DAKOTA FANNING: Daddy! The aliens are coming to kill us! Should I stand here and scream?
TOM CRUISE: The important thing in the middle of this genocide is that you and I discover what it means to be a family.
An alien spacecraft arrives and vaporizes some more of Tom Cruise's non-relatives.
DAKOTA FANNING: Daddy! The spacecraft is coming for me! Should I stand here and scream?
TOM CRUISE: All that matters is blood. The rest are just strangers.
An alien spacecraft arrives, impales some random person who is not a legal dependant of the Cruise household, and starts sucking his blood.
ALIENS: All that matters is blood! Blood!
TOM CRUISE'S LIVER: Sake! Sake!
TOM CRUISE: Shut up! I need to protect my helpless children so that they can grow up to replace my useless ass.
DAKOTA FANNING: Daddy! The aliens are killing people in exactly the same way people were killed in the Holocaust, 9/11, and the Rwandan massacres! It's almost as if they watch The History Channel for ideas on how to create blockbuster visual entertainment based on tragedy! Should I stand here and scream?
TOM CRUISE: You are the finest actress of your generation.
Fast dolly in toward Dakota Fanning's eyes gawking. Her eyes reveal the innocence of a whole generation of children who stare helplessly at the thing that's going to kill them. This shot repeats 8000 times over the rest of the film. Sometimes mirrors are involved.
TOM CRUISE: I killed an ambulance driver so that my daughter would not feel icky! And my son and wife are alive too! I win the War of the Worlds! I win! I win!
Fast dolly in towards Dakota Fanning's eyes. The camera hits her in the nose.
ANDY GARCIA: I want my money back, so I can have more money for you to steal in the third movie.
CASEY AFFLECK: So we each have to pay you back 17 million dollars? Dude, I only have like 5 million dollars.
ELIOT GOULD: I have millions of millions of dollars. How many millions do you need to finance the job?
BRAD PITT: We only need 3 million dollars worth of clothes, hotel suites, computers, and massive underground construction arrays to steal the thing that's worth 2.5 million dollars.
MATT DAMON: Man, these are totally problems I could deeply relate to back when I had like, no millions of dollars.
GEORGE CLOONEY: I remember when I had no millions of dollars. But I was still dead sexy!
BERNIE MAC: What, exactly is my role in the stealing of these white-ass objects of Eurocentric antiquity from all these white-ass institutions so as to save everybody's white asses?
DON CHEADLE: In Europe, culture supercedes race. So instead of the Black guy with no plot function, I can be the British guy with no plot function.
THE CHINESE GUY: Wo men "people of color" zou ba.
The Chinese Guy stuffs his head into his own crotch. All the male leads help correct his technique. Bernie Mac chills in jail.
STEVEN SODERBERGH: I took a shot of a plane flying sideways! Yippee!
BRUCE WILLIS: (to dommah) If you bloggers are so smart, how come we already got your $10.50? How come the dead people movie did $600 million worldwide? I guess we're a little bit smarter than you non-millionaires after all, aren't we?
JULIA ROBERTS: Hey! I have a demand for how to end the movie. Let's play some poker!
CATHERINE ZETA-JONES: Yeah! I hear it's all the rage with the kids. I mean, the idiots.
Three pieces of sushi sit beneath the falling cherry blossoms.
KAPPAMAKI: The old ways are dying.
FUTOMAKI: The old rolls are dying.
TOM CRUISE ROLL (AN ORPHANED TIGER SHRIMP DESPERATELY TRYING TO SURPASS THE LEGACY OF HIS LEGENDARY FATHER SHRIMP, AVOCADO, AND CREAM CHEESE): Westerners are so stupid.
KAPPAMAKI: I have dreamed of a modern Japan. With a powerful sex industry, and DVD players that are better than anyone else's DVD players. Now we have Dragon Rolls, Chicago Rolls, Bacon-Wrapped Low-Carb Alfalfa Rolls. But we must never forget....who we are.
FUTOMAKI: Who are we? (impales self in stomach)
TOM CRUISE ROLL: You are a beautiful people. SAKE! SAKE! SAKE!
TAMAGO (BEAUTIFUL EGG NIGIRI IN FEMININE SEAWEED WRAP, WITH CREAM CHEESE): Dozo, Tom Cruise-san.
TOM CRUISE ROLL: I am...sorry for colonizing your beautiful country.
TAMAGO: Bite me.
TOM CRUISE ROLL: I'm not that sorry.
FUTOMAKI: The tempura! It is...perfect. (starts to croak)
KAPPAMAKI: Let us die! (impales self on sword, dies)
TAMAGO: For a dream that was Japan! (impales self on sword, dies)
TOM CRUISE ROLL: Me too! (impales self on swollen male member)
FUTOMAKI: And a child shall lead us. (dies)
TOM CRUISE ROLL: Haha I was just kidding. I'm still alive.
