George Carlin's Last Interview

Monday was a sad day, thankfully, some of the man has been preserved in what he, himself, called 'the most complete interview I’ve ever done." Congratulations to Jay Dixit! I just read that HBO/Showtime will be airing a retrospective of his live performances. Time to get out the Tivo/VCR whatever. Below are the great Questions Jay asked. For more go to the original Brainstorm Blog.

Jay Dixit

June 23, 2008 in Brainstorm

Jay Dixit is a Senior Editor at Psychology Today.

Ten days ago, on Friday, June 13th, 2008, I had the extraordinary privilege of talking to George Carlin. As far as I know it was the last in-depth interview he gave before he passed away yesterday at age 71. Originally it was slated to run as a 350-word Q&A on the back page of Psychology Today. But I was so excited to talk to him—and he was so generous with his time—that I just kept on going. By the end I had over 14,000 words.

On stage, George Carlin came across as a grouch, often vulgar and sometimes misanthropic. But with me he was patient and warm, happy to talk through the minutiae of his creative process and eager to share stories about his childhood, his evolution as a comic, and his influence. What struck me most was the joy in his voice as he talked about the wonderful feeling he got in his gut while writing. I was also moved by the gratitude he expressed for his mother, who he said “saved” him and his brother—leaving her bullying, alcoholic husband when George was just two months old, getting a job during the worst years of the Depression, and raising two boys on her own.

He spoke about the pride he took in his work. As a ninth-grade dropout, he said, it was gratifying to see his words quoted in textbooks, classrooms, and courtrooms. And he was proud to have inspired other comedy greats, who routinely called him to say, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be doing this." As he looked back on his astonishingly prolific 50-year career—which includes 130 Tonight Show appearances, 23 albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, and one Supreme Court case—the interview became a sort of retrospective of his life.

Finally, after two hours, he gently mentioned that his arm was getting tired from holding the phone. “I really appreciate all the thought you’ve put into all these questions. Really, it’s the most complete interview I’ve ever done,” he said. “Is it tomorrow yet? I think it is.”

“It feels like it is,” I said, struggling to keep up with his wit.

“All this is for a quote unquote back page?” he said.

“This is for the back page, but, I don’t know, I just love you and your work so much!” I gushed. “I just had so much I wanted to ask.”

At the time, I was embarrassed by what I’d said. But when I heard the sad news this morning, my feelings changed instantly. I’m honored that I got to speak to him, and I’m grateful that I got to tell him how much I admired him before he died.

It would be impossible to overstate George Carlin’s contribution to standup comedy. Along with Richard Pryor and a few others, he essentially created the genre as we know it today. But he was more than just a comedy pioneer. He was a freethinker who never backed down, and he truly changed the course of American culture. He will be missed. —Jay Dixit

Selected Questions from the interview:

How do you think about comedy and self-expression? Expressing what’s within vs. looking at the outside world and making observations?

Do you go around observing and trying to collect funny things? Or do you just live your life and then say how you feel about what you happen to have seen?

Do you think that the richness you described comes from just being able to access more experiences, having information on file? Or is it judgment?

You talked about how comedy's all about incongruities, contrasts, exaggeration. Do you think about those techniques or those principles of humor consciously?

Do you think there are any downsides to having gotten to the point where you are, where all of this is happening automatically? Or are there some advantages a 20-year-old would have?

You talked about how wonderful it is, this feeling of writing. So what is your process like?

And what's your filing system?
What's the process of going from something that's true about the world—observing it—to actually making people laugh?

How is it that you find things that are unexpected?
You made an analogy to playing the violin. I wanted to ask you about mastery. You’ve been doing this for, as you said, over 50 years, and it seems like you've only gotten better with time. So I'm wondering what you think has enabled you to do that. Is it like playing the violin? Is it just practice? Is it getting good feedback? Is it—you know, what is it that allows you to hone your craft?

What is your philosophy about physical performance? You walk around a lot, you make a lot of gestures.

Were you always making people laugh, sort of automatically, just because of your personality?

Can you remember the first joke you ever told?

I want to talk about the transformation that you did in the 60s when you went from what you once termed the “middle-American comic” to this different persona—it was much more subversive. How did that happen and why did that happen?

In what way did the mescaline and LSD give you the insight and the confidence to make this transformation? What role did the drugs play?

So after that transformation, to what extent is the persona that you have on stage—to what extent is it your real personality? I know you’re making jokes and some of that involves exaggeration, but do you feel that you’re acting angrier, more bitter, more caustic on stage? Or are you just being yourself as accurately as possible?

So it sounds like it is your true personality, but it’s heightened for the stage.

So let me latch onto that metaphor: you’re grabbing somebody and you’re saying, “Don’t you see it? Don’t you see it?” But if you really don’t care about America, then why are you doing it? Why are you on stage? Is it just because you want to express yourself? Do you want to help people?

So how would you say that you feel towards people? You say on the one hand you are sort of contemptuous but on the other hand you want their approval in some way? Is that not a contradiction?

Let’s switch gears a little bit and let me ask you about religion. I mean you were talking about it decades ago. Now, atheism and religion bashing have gone mainstream: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris. You were way ahead of the curve. What’s it like hearing them saying many of the things you said in the 1970s?

You were central in the Supreme Court case in which justices affirmed the government's right to regulate your “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” act on the public airwaves. How do you think about the role of vulgarity in your humor?

What’s the funniest bit you’ve ever heard?

How has your comedy changed over the years?

You asked me to remind you to tell me about Arthur Koestler.

So, sitting in front of a computer, “Wait till they hear this, this is great material.” What’s the difference between that and actually standing on stage hearing the audience roaring with laughter?

Let me ask you about your influence—how do you feel that you have influenced other comedians?

Do you mentor other comedians?

Has your sense of humor helped you in other areas of your life, besides your career as a professional comedian? Meeting people? Making friends? Dealing with loss?

I guess I'm pretty much done. We've been talking for a long time and I really appreciate your taking all this time. Was there a good question you thought people should ask that never got asked?

So the last question is: What are you working on now?
Is there anything else you want to add?

No! And I really appreciate all the thought you’ve put into all these questions. Really, it’s the most complete interview I’ve ever done. Is it tomorrow yet? I think it is.

Read the Full Interview

My Special Sauce and a lesson from the Kung Fu Panda!

In a recent article Alex Simpson wrote about a lesson taught/learned from the movie Kung Fu Panda! Well that made me hungry with all the talk of recipes and "secret ingredients."

Okay - down to the lesson! There’s a point in the movie where Jack Black, sorry, PO Panda, opens the mysterious Dragon Scroll only to find out it is completely blank! He’s then told “There is no secret ingredient in the secret ingredient soup” And i though - BINGO! that’s marketing summed up - there’s no secret ingredient! Its all about trying ingredients to make the recipe that works best for you, and more over, that of your client. There is no magic bean, no special sauce, no “brand X” to make marketing strategy work without fail!

But it also reminded me of:

My Special Sauce:
My family loves my special spaghetti sauce. It's really not that special and as Alex suggests above it’s the combination of many things. Here is the first time written never to be duplicated recipe:

Start Here:
5-7 Large onions, sliced, diced, cubed or all of those.
6 Sweet Peppers, I prefer 3 green, an orange/yellow and 2 reds. Again sliced, diced, etc. No seeds, of course.
2 Long Italian Frying peppers sliced into circles or half moons.
A Tablespoon or two of Olive Oil
Saute' all that over medium heat in wok or large pan (Teflon helps) until everything is no longer crisp. Use a strainer to drain the oil for re-use. Put aside in a bowl.

Mushrooms, regular fresh white mushrooms, or canned if necessary about 1 Lb. fresh and/or 3-4 cans.
Red wine vinegar about 1/4 cup
Garlic, Garlic and maybe more Garlic! 2-3 heads about 12-20 cloves each, peeled, sliced, juicy. Or the jarred kind already diced fine, about 4 Tablespoons.
Add the oil saved above back to pan/wok add the garlic simmer carefully until garlic is browned but not blackened.
Add the red wine vinegar stir for a minute or so at high heat, reduce add the mushrooms. Saute until fresh mushrooms are shrunken appropriately. or until canned mushrooms seem to be fully cooked, they are to begin with that's what makes them tricky. You get the idea!
Time to strain this again saving the oil/juice. just add to the bowl with onions etc.

Now for the true flavors,
2 Lbs of Ground Beef
1 Lb of Ground Pork
1 Lb of Ground Veal
Into the wok/pan add about half your saved oil/juice. Break the meats up as you stir, reducing them to just crumbles. Along the way add in Pepper, I use both black, coarse grind and fine white ground pepper. Add some salt too, a pinch is too little a cup too much. Here's where I spice it up a bit, Basil, Rosemary, Thyme, maybe a little celery salt, oregano, naturally, and whatever else catches my eye.
When nicely browned, strain again hold in wok and add in all the previous ingredients. You should now have about 7-8 lbs of materials.

Onto making the sauce.
I use a 20 Qt pot as this is a big lot.
I like the Classico brand they have many varieties, I mix and match about 8-12 jars plus a big #10 can of stewed plum tomatoes, heat for a bit adding 5-8 whole bay leaves, maybe a 1/4 to 1/2 bottle of red wine, something that got opened and stayed open too long, not a good bottle. Then in goes all the veggies and meat. This should have brought that 20 Qt. pot up to about an inch below the top. If it didn't then maybe it's time for a few more jars of Classico, or a quart of regular V8 or more tomatoes of some kind. After you've go this heated up to a very slow boil, just a bubble now and then.

It's time to taste, I like to get a Tablespoon and try to capture a mushroom, pepper and some meat, let cool and sample. This will not be the final taste but should give you an idea where you're going. Most likely if you were shy, Salt is first addition. Maybe more pepper, maybe some garlic or onion salt, maybe more red wine.

Tricky Part I
Here comes a very tricky part, I like to add sugar, but unless done very carefully or in the form of simple sugar(sugar in water until it's all liquid, ratio about 5:1 ) it will drop to the bottom of the pot and burn. There's nothing you can do, if you feel that something is stuck to the bottom of the pot, it is. Stir gently and just don't go all the way down when re-canning. By the way that's where we're headed. We're going to use the Classico jars to put our sauce into when we're done. Plus some other containers, 1Qt Baggies about half full are good for 2-3 person dinners.

Sounds fairly easy, but here's what makes it really work. Making sure the temperature is less than a boil, allow the mix to simmer/cook with a lid on but not sealing for 8-12 hours. Stirring as often as you can, usually I do this overnite so that means either the wife or I getting up several times each during the night, stirring and tasting. A trick I use with a gas stove is taking one of the burner rings not in use and putting it atop the one I'm cooking on. This raises the pot away from the direct heat, which reduces the chance of sticking. Tasting all night long is a bonus, and allows to get a feel for making adjustments.

Tricky Part II
I like to add Cheese to my sauce, usually 3-4 kinds, Romano, Parmesan, Fontina, and Gruyere, being the best. These have to be added slowly and near the end of the cooking as they will definitely stick, not only to the bottom but also to the sides of your pot. Total mix is about 2/3 cup but ratio is to taste/availability.

Usually this recipe makes us sauce for a month or 2 depending of course
how often we have pasta.

But in My Special Sauce there is a hidden secret ingredient:

TIME!

The Time it takes Chopping, Slicing, Stirring adds up to between 6-8 hours.

The Time Slow cooking until everything blends perfectly, 8-12 hours.

The Time we enjoy that sauce over almost 2 dozen meals over 2 months.

The Time I took to write that up and post it, and share it here.

The Time I get to hear from those who love it or hate it.


PRICELESS!! Of course!

Inconveniencing Your Audience Increase Your Persuasiveness

Just a Snippet: Go to Article

How can inconveniencing your audience
increase your persuasiveness?

Colleen Szot is one of the most successful writers in the paid programming industry. And for good reason: In addition to penning several well-known “infomercials” for the famed and fast-selling NordicTrac exercise machine, she recently authored a program that shattered a nearly twenty-year sales record for a home-shopping channel. Although her programs retain many of the elements common to most infomercials, including flashy catchphrases, an unrealistically enthusiastic audience, and celebrity endorsements, Szot changed three words to a standard infomercial line that caused a huge increase in the number of people who purchased her product. Even more remarkable, these three words made it clear to potential customers that the process of ordering the product might well prove somewhat of a hassle. What were those three words, and how did they cause sales to skyrocket?

Szot changed the all-too-familiar call-to-action line, “Operators are waiting, please call now,” to, “If operators are busy, please call again.” On the face of it, the change appears foolhardy. After all, the message seems to convey that potential customers might have to waste their time dialing and redialing he toll-free number until they finally reach a sales representative. Yet, that surface view underestimates the power of the principle of social proof: When people are uncertain about a course of action, they tend to look outside themselves and to other people around them to guide their decisions and actions. In the Colleen Szot example, consider the kind of mental image likely to be generated when you hear “operators are waiting”: scores of bored phone representatives filing their nails, clipping their coupons, or twiddling their thumbs while they wait by their silent telephones — an image indicative of low demand and poor sales.

Now consider how your perception of the popularity of the product would change when you heard the phrase “if operators are busy, please call again.” Instead of those bored, inactive representatives, you’re probably imagining operators going from phone call to phone call without a break. In the case of the modified “if operators are busy, please call again” line, home viewers followed their perceptions of others’ actions, even though those others were completely anonymous. After all, “if the phone lines are busy, then other people like me who are also watching this infomercial are calling, too.”

More...

culture that a struggles even to think beyond 140-character blips

Nick Carr: Is Google making us stupid? | The Open Road - The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay - CNET News.com

Speaking of Twitter, am I the only one who views it as further evidence of a soundbite culture that struggles even to think beyond 140-character blips?

It's not yet on the Web, but the July issue of The Atlantic has an exceptional and provocative article by Nick Carr, asking "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" It's a riff on Carr's book, The Big Switch (reviewed here), but covers new ground and has me worried. Carr writes:

The human brain is almost infinitely malleable...James Olds, a professor of neuroscience who directs the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University, says that even the adult mind "is very plastic...The brain...has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions."

As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our "intellectual technologies"--the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities--we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies.

"Excellent!" you say, "Now I'll be able to retrieve an infinite amount of information, like Google." Maybe. Or maybe our ability to retain and process information will continue to dwindle. Remember books? Those were the things we read before e-mail, Web browsing, and Twitter came on the scene.

Speaking of Twitter, am I the only one who views it as further evidence of a soundbite culture that struggles even to think beyond 140-character blips?

More...

Powered by ScribeFire.

Attn: Alana Taylor, You missed the Big Party! Via Reuters 6/6/08

Widow throws party to find place in heaven

PATNA, India (Reuters) - A rich 80-year-old Indian widow has spent
thousands of dollars on a feast for 100,000 people in the hope it would
please the gods and open the doors of heaven for her, local officials
said.

People from surrounding villages and towns were fed lunch over two consecutive days by Phuljharia Kunwar, who lives in the eastern state of Bihar and has no family or relatives.

Kunwar spent $37,500 on the feast. Local officials
More...

M.P.A.A - Laser-Printers Downloading Indiana Jones

By Brad Stone

A new study from the University of Washington suggests that media industry trade groups are using flawed tactics in their investigations of users who violate copyrights on peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

Those trade groups, including the Motion Picture Association of America (M.P.A.A.) Entertainment Software Association (E.S.A.) and Recording Industry Association of America (R.I.A.A.), send universities and other network operators an increasing number of takedown notices each year, alleging that their intellectual property rights have been violated under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Many universities pass those letters directly on to students without questioning the veracity of the allegations. The R.I.A.A. in particular follows up some of those notices by threatening legal action and forcing alleged file-sharers into a financial settlement.

But the study, released Thursday by Tadayoshi Kohno, an assistant professor, Michael Piatek a graduate student, and Arvind Krishnamurthy, a research assistant professor, all at the University of Washington, argues that perhaps those takedown notices should be viewed more skeptically.

More...

Aiptek Introduces PocketCinema V10 Mini-Projector

At Computex 2008, Aiptek is showing its PocketCinema V10 mini projector.

read more | digg story

Outlook Web Access Corrupts HTML Attachments

Worried about why you're not getting the full content from your Email? If you're in a corporate environment, this may be the reason. Microsoft is protecting you!

By Scott Dunn Windows Secrets

The "Safe HTML" filter in Microsoft's Outlook Web Access for Exchange Server deletes code from HTML attachments without warning.

Microsoft claims the filtering protects users by removing malicious elements, but the deletions can ruin a collaborative project and the "feature" isn't present in any other Microsoft mail products.

Microsoft Exchange stealth-edits your e-mail

If you use Microsoft's Outlook Web Access (OWA) to send someone an HTML file, don't expect them to see any of the file's comments or scripts. The file you receive may look completely normal, but Microsoft has edited the comments from the file along with other material the company considers dangerous.

It gets worse. According to Microsoft Knowledge Base article 899394, OWA may corrupt the structure of the message, remove some advanced functions, and eliminate other harmless content in the message itself or any attachments.

"Even if an e-mail message appears to be unmodified in Outlook 2003, that same e-mail message may be missing content when you view the message in Outlook Web Access," the article states bluntly.

You needn't even view the attachments to have them modified by the service. Merely right-clicking an attachment and saving it to your computer causes the file's code to be stripped. Microsoft calls this feature of OWA "Safe HTML" filtering.

OWA is a component of Microsoft Exchange Server that provides a browser-accessible version of Microsoft Outlook for anyone who needs to access mail, calendar, and contact info remotely.

The filtering is intended to eliminate malicious scripts and "all potentially unsafe content" from the e-mail messages OWA receives, according to the Knowledge Base. However, as the KB article concedes, some "non-malicious content" may be removed in the process.

The feature was introduced with Exchange Server 2003, but remarks on a forum at MSExchange.org indicate that the filtering is still part of Exchange Server 2007. In one post, a user complains that OWA 2007 is removing JavaScript embedded in his HTML attachments.

It's annoying enough to have the JavaScript edited out of your HTML files, but it's difficult to comprehend how HTML comments, which are not executable, could contain malicious content.

HTML comments start with "". They cannot contain the characters "--" or ">". The comments are not visible in a browser unless you view the page source. They can also be seen if you open the file in a word processor or other text or HTML editor.

Such comments allow Web developers to insert instructions, feedback, and other information that may be useful to clients or co-workers. For example, a page's visual designer could use comments to give coding instructions or feedback to the page's HTML coder.

If the intended recipient of a comment receives the file via OWA, the page will look normal in a browser, but its HTML code will have no JavaScript or comments at all. OWA provides no warning of the deletion, so the recipient has no idea that the file ever contained any comments.

At least you'd know something is wrong with the file if the e-mail program blocked or deleted the attachment, popped up a warning, or added its own warning comments to the attachment. Simply editing the attachment without warning can be completely misleading to anyone who isn't aware of this "feature."

Outlook and other e-mail clients automatically block attachments with certain extensions, such as .js for JavaScript. But in these cases, a warning appears in the mail explaining that the attachment has been blocked.

Safe HTML filtering is found only in OWA. Neither the desktop version of Outlook nor Microsoft's other mail products (Windows Live Hotmail online and the downloadable Windows Live Mail) edit the content of messages or their attachments. Consequently, users of OWA have no precedent to prepare them for or warn them about this behavior.

Stealth security does customers a disservice

Why would Microsoft create one version of Outlook that differs so significantly from the others? For that matter, why include this feature in only one of the company's many mail products?

The Microsoft Knowledge Base article states:

"The filtering in Outlook Web Access for Exchange Server 2003 is more rigorous than the filtering in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. The reason is that the Outlook Web Access browser interface has more security requirements than the Outlook 2003 interface."

Unfortunately, the article does not explain why the OWA security requirements need to be stricter than those for Outlook itself. If the browser-based version of Outlook is inherently riskier than the desktop version, why isn't Safe HTML filtering used in Microsoft's other Web mail products?

No easy way to preserve your HTML files in OWA

The only workaround offered by the KB article is to post files that you don't want corrupted to a shared network resource and then send the recipient a link to that location via e-mail.

An alternative is to compress your HTML files into a .zip file prior to sending them as e-mail attachments; OWA does not edit the contents of compressed files.

Of course, people expect the files they send via e-mail to be delivered in the same condition in which the files were sent. If a file can't be sent for any reason, customers have every right to expect a warning or explanation.

OWA does neither. The service silently edits perfectly safe comments while giving the impression that your e-mail and attachments have arrived in the same state they were sent in.

It's time for Microsoft to provide clear warnings of this behavior as well as an option for turning the "feature" off.

Teens await arrest after Comcast attack

Posted by Elinor Mills 35 comments

Updated at 12:15 p.m. PDT to clarify that Comcast wasn't technically hacked, but that its domain and Web site were hijacked.

Two teenagers who say they hijacked Comcast's Web portal on Thursday also say they expect to be arrested for their actions.

"I wish I was a minor right now because this is going to be really bad," 19-year-old "Defiant" told Wired's Kevin Poulsen, who managed to get a one-hour phone interview with Defiant and his 18-year-old cohort "EBK."

"I slept in my clothes, because the last time they came, I was in my underwear with my dong hanging out and shit," Defiant said of a past raid.

On Thursday, Comcast's portal was defaced, leaving some e-mail subscribers without service. On the site, the hackers referenced their group: "KRYOGENICS Defiant and EBK RoXed Comcast."

The teens say that after they initially managed to take control of Comcast's registrar account at Network Solutions, they called the company's technical contact to tell him, but he dismissed their claim and hung up on them.

That response angered EBK, who says he then decided to redirect traffic from Comcast's site to other servers. "I wasn't even really thinking," he said. "Plus, I'm just so mad at Comcast. I'm tired of their shitty service."

Meanwhile, the teens say they did not grab user names and passwords during the hack, even though they could have.