Broadband Jungle Blog

The Royal Nonesuch

General consensus in our industry is that the most influential book published on convergent business models was last year's The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. A loyal fan and long tail evangelist myself, I recently re-evaluated my position and am hereby nominating a new contender for that precious title.

 

The Royal Nonesuch, written by Glasgow Phillips, is the memoir of a true multi-hyphen cross platform creative type of the sort only the Dotcom era could have produced. Seems like Phillips did it all, and years before it became hip and fashionable: Washed up novelist, indie director, rehab, Internet entrepreneur, TV writer for South Park and the list goes on.

Reading about the author's adventures on his way to adulthood (the sub-title is...Or what will I do when I grow up) comes from the same state of mind that made Dave Eggars A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius so compelling: It's an incredibly funny, well written, tell-all style memoir that doesn't shy away from stupidity and suffering...even more so it actually finds a way to make the painful moments resonate personally. And this book isn't only about real people you'd want to know, but in the case of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, people you've at least heard of.

What does any of this have to do with the Dotcom era: Glasgow Phillips apparently participated in initiatives that still impact our industry: His tales of running a branding agency dedicated to names and tag lines sound eerily familiar when considering today's intuitive witch doctors active in product branding and viral marketing. Hustling with Hollywood producers for breadcrumb budgets is more than just a familiar notion.

Phillips' countless failed and successful attempts at crossing the bridge between VC capital, television, Internet video and Hollywood may have been chaotic and sometimes ill-advised during the 1990's heyday. In a way, though, we've all been growing up trying to become mini-moguls at our own little studios, and have all re-invented ourselves repeatedly by the time we turned 30. I this regard, The Royal Nonesuch is a scary and tremendously uncomfortable read.

Phillips' efforts appear very much in tune with today's young mavericks carving out their share of an audience on YouTube and BlipTV. His guerilla approach to both business and content creation should be a blueprint for any young filmmaker getting out of school today and should probably be taught at the appropriate departments and become required reading material.

Here's a book trailer by  the man himself with highlights from a decade of defiance.

Art Buchwald—The Last Word

The New York Times’ excellent Video section posted a series of four beautiful, tremendously moving and—believe it or not—uplifting interviews with Art Buchwald after his Death on Thursday 1-18.

Located at the bottom of all New York Times channels (column on your left), click on Art Buchwald and he'll be opening with the words “Hi, I’m Art Buchwald and I just died”, the Pulitzer Prize winning satirist and columnist recounts the start of his career at the Herald Tribune in Paris and a life spent amongst the powerful, famous and extremely talented.

The interview never loses sight of Buchwald’s recent months spent inside a Washington hospice after he was diagnosed with kidney failure. In a very public move the writer had decided not to undergo dialysis but instead to simply die.

Given a maximum of two to three weeks to live by his doctors, the columnist wasted no time and embarked on saying his goodbyes to a never ending stream of friends, colleagues and political and showbiz figures who made the trek to his bedside.

“I became some sort of celebrity for death. […] When people came to the hospice, they didn’t realize, they came in, they were very nervous to see someone who was dying. And they couldn’t believe it because I was up, I was laughing, telling stories, jokes and they went away happy”.

To everyone’s surprise, his body kept his kidneys working and after several months of holding court at the hospice Buchwald was released to his summer home, which in his own words meant having to scrap "all the plans for my funeral" and "start worrying about Bush again." He continued to write his column, even finishing "Too Soon to Say Goodbye", a book on his experiences at the hospice that was published in November.

“The most important thing about a hospice, it is the most important thing about the whole thing—people are afraid of death and they are afraid of talking about death. And they don’t know what to do about it”.

geriatric1927 and Team Hoyt – YouTube with a heart

An unlikely star is born among the ranks of teenage YouTube vloggers – Peter, a mild-mannered British widower in his late seventies with a love for the blues, motorcycles and the tongue-in-cheek user name ‘geriatric1927.’ Confessing his ‘addiction’ to ‘all the fascinating videos’ on the broadcast-yourself-site he just went ahead and tried one himself.

He named his first post 'geriatric gripes and grumbles,' and after he managed to upload it successfully (2 attempts), 9 clips followed in the last 7 days, turning him into a particularly prolific commentator.

Introducing each entry comfortably seated in front of the same colorful wallpaper and picture frames with a reassuring ‘Good evening, YouTubers,’ Peter has since turned towards sharing his life’s experiences with a worldwide audience in the form of a ‘telling it all’ memoir that’s currently at ‘Part 4: Marriage and Early Struggles.’

If you don’t have a grandfather anymore – I recommend you make Peter your friend and subscribe to his soothing narrations. You’re not alone: His just became the most subscribed channel this month and the most viewed channel of all these 100 Million clips served today.

CAN is a breathtaking montage of impressions from the athletic triumphs in the life of Team Hoyt. Dick and Rick Hoyt are a father-and-son team from Massachusetts who together compete in marathons, triathlons, climb mountains and once trekked 3,735 miles across America.

It’s even more remarkable considering that Rick can't walk or talk but communicates with the help of a computer using the slight head-movements that he can manage.
An article by David Tereshchuk on the Team Hoyt website describes in detail how they operate together:

“For the past twenty five years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines. When Dick runs, Rick is in a wheelchair that Dick is pushing. When Dick cycles, Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of the bike. When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat being pulled by Dick.”