I’ve been promising photos from the LOOK premiere party where I broadcast my show live and hosted the live stream and I think tonight is the night because LOOK is premiering on Showtime at midnight.
Here’s a photo of the corner of Cinespace where I did my show. Please admire the lovely loveliness.
And then here’s me in my corner. (more…)
Not genuine passion, but passion as buzzword. It was the topic of my latest McSweeney’s column. You should probably read it!
And then last night while looking at Twitter I discovered that at the Westin, each employee’s nametag includes their passion (it’s a policy that goes back to 2008 apparently). I retweeted the aforementioned tweet and received a direct message from the person who tweeted it, thanking me for the retweet. I felt sort of bad since my retweeting was coming from a place of “look at this bullshit, it’s everything wrong with the world and specifically what I lampooned in my column” as opposed “I think this tweet is awesome and want to share it with my followers.” I didn’t feel TOO bad though as I’m pretty sure the direct message was automatic. (I realize this paragraph makes no sense and sounds like the death cries of an epileptic toucan if you aren’t on twitter.)
Anyway, what exactly is my problem with passion anyway? It’s the disingenuity of the way it’s being used. It’s the flattening of personality. It’s the commodification of enthusiasm. It’s entirely sales driven. The people who won’t shut up about passion don’t give a fuck about your passion, they just want you to have one because it helps the bottom line.
Don’t believe me? Read this about the Westin’s passion tags.
Dismounting my high horse now.
Now I know too much!
I strongly suspect they did not use Le Click cameras.
Need to jot down some notes. Can’t decide if I should use the blue-spiral-notebook-from-the-80s I found in my parents’ house, with the blue-lined paper (wide rule) or the yellow-spiral-notebook-from-the-80s I found in my parents’ house, with the pink-lined paper (wide rule). They both have a toucan wearing sunglasses, so presence of stylish tropical bird can’t be a deciding factor.
Also, posts about LOOK and the LOOK premiere with photos and clips forthcoming. Cancel all future plans.
On today’s live from New York show which is happening promptly at 7pm-ish ET (4pm-ish PT), all sorts of wild and crazy stuff is going to go down. What kind of stuff? Well first of all, Barry Schuler, former CEO of AOL and education advocate (he’s in town to speak at this) and winery aficionado and short-pulse laser beam specialist and producer of the new Showtime series LOOK and guy who said I’m the future of TV, rightly so, is going to be on my show IN MY APARTMENT. We’re going to talk about LOOK which was a movie and is now a series and is completely told with footage from surveillance cameras. Creepy, right? But not in a horror way. It’s a kick-off to next week’s LOOK premiere party in LA which I’m going to be streaming from live. (I’m giving away five invites!)
Then we’re going to talk to adult film star Courtney Cummz who is sort of the Richard Simmons to my David Letterman. What I mean by that is I’m both amused and a little frightened by her. Perhaps she has some thoughts about privacy rights which is one of the things LOOK makes you think about.
Here’s a question: Is concern over privacy rights more a male preoccupation than a female one? And to what degree does it correlate with knowledge of computers and tech? Because my friends who work in tech and perhaps spent some time as hackers are uniformly concerned. Or maybe it’s this predisposition which led them to work in tech? Juxtapose this with me who walks around thinking about my hair and ducklings and figuring all that information is out there and if someone wants to find it they will and look, a puppy! Which is not to say that after watching LOOK, the movie, I wasn’t acutely aware of all the surveillance cameras everywhere because I was. And then when I worked at one of the magazines I worked at I was always aware of the cameras and when there was a rash of petty theft I wondered why they couldn’t just look at the film and see who was stealing my tape recorder (it turned out of be my then boyfriend who needed to borrow it. “Throw the book at him!” I yelled, throwing a book at him. It was just a book of post-it notes because he’d stolen everything else.)
Also we’ll be receiving a visit from Alfred Schulz who has some Things You Never Hear People Say, and Koryn will be dropping in!
Plus all the other stuff you love!
So watch here at 7pm ET tonight and log in to the chat room, won’t you?
And “like” the Facebook page!
So as you know, I have five invites to the LOOK premiere party (where I’ll be streaming my show live) to give away and I’ve been going back and forth, up and down, inside and out, to and fro, zig and zag, ass to elbow, soup to nuts, a to z, a to zed (for UK readers), turnips to hedgehogs (just made that one up) trying to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how to… WHOA. I got stuck.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to determine who should get the invites. Here’s what I’ve come up with.
First off: You have to be in the LA area or be able to be in the LA area on the night of Sept 30.
If this is you and you’d like to enter the contest email me your name and pertinent info (email to alisonrosenisyournewbestfriend AT gmail DOT com and put LOOK CONTEST in the subject) and tell me in a couple sentences why YOU should get to go. Then I’ll put the entries in some kind of receptacle and randomly draw five. Or maybe I’ll judge it on the merit of what you write. I haven’t decided yet. I realize that’s shitty for you but that’s just me… an asshole.
SEE YOU IN LA!
Actually, I’ll be seeing you in Brooklyn first because I’m doing my show this Sunday and I believe Barry Schuler will be my guest and we’ll be talking about LOOK and the party and other stuff. How excited are you? Very.
I will be broadcasting Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend live from the premiere party for Showtime’s new series LOOK on Sept 30! I’ll also be giving away five invites to the premiere on this Sunday’s show. Stay tuned for more details about everything including how to win. (But start thinking about why YOU should get to go, since that will likely be the basis of how I choose unless I come up with something better or someone suggests something better!)
On the Sept 5, 2010 episode of Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend, Alison interviews a cantankerous fan. Music by Tom Rapp. http://alisonrosen.com http://alisonrosenshow.com http://twitter.com/alisonrosen (Distributed by TubeMogul)
On the Sept 12, 2010 episode of Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend, I attempted to cram viewer names into the show’s songs. (Music by Tom Rapp). http://alisonrosenshow.com http://alisonrosen.com http://twitter.com/alisonrosen (Distributed by Tubemogul.)