A KICK IN A MER-MAN'S BUTT
This is a SECRET SOCIETY
This week we learned that “move fast, break things” is a great philosophy if you want a lot of broken things quickly and zero else. And that’s about all that dumb saying is good for.
Well, I guess we got Facebook out of it. But that itself is just a thing-breaking engine, smashing things we used to like in this civilization like trust in institutions, a shared sense of reality, and a whole bunch of human brains.
Oh: Good evening, whenever you are. This is a SECRET SOCIETY
It’s definitely early evening where I am, and in case you wanted to know, a little later this evening I will join DJ Javerbaum LIVE on this platform to talk about things.
What things? That’s up to DJ. But I can guess we will talk a little about working on the Daily Show together. DJ was the head writer when I first joined the show, and then quickly became Executive Producer.
(He’s also an author and Broadway lyricist and the semi-literal voice of GOD).
DJ and I wrote a lot of my desk pieces together for the Daily Show, and I learned a lot about comedy writing from him, especially how to write FAST.
I will never forget the look of queasy shock on DJ’s face when he discovered I had been working on polishing a single joke for about four hours one afternoon.
My deadlines prior to the Daily Show were book deadlines, which is to say: glacial time.
You have to write faster, DJ explained. It’s pretty much a DAILY show.
And it turns out that when you are not running a country or an economy, moving fast works. Your brain has so much more inside of it than you think. If you stop to love a first or second idea too much, you’ll never get to that fourth idea or forty fourth idea that is ACTUALLY the good one.
DJ taught me to be faster and to not exactly break things, but to worry second about the lilt and beauty of the language, and instead GET IDEA OUT OF HEAD NOW. HULK STYLE. NO WORRY. JUST DO.
Doing anything WITHOUT worry was very alien to me at that time. And worrying all the time is no fun. So I’m extremely grateful to DJ for helping me figure out that life is actually better when you just say what’s on your mind plainly, aka SMASH.
He also taught me how to gracefully give up ideas you love when they’re not working, and how to get over your only-child-self sometimes and listen to the other person.
(I don’t know if DJ is an only child, but I sure am, and collaboration did NOT come naturally to me. I’m glad I learned how to do it, and I’m glad I learned from him.)
So if you want to see us collaborate on a human conversation, it’s happening at 8PM eastern time, and then archived over at DJ’s world on this platform HERE.
Meanwhile, I read MOBY-DICK to you up in the secret room. In today’s fairly brief passage aboard the Pequod, the second mate STUBB tells the third mate FLASK all about this dream he tried to kick a merman in the butt. TRUE STORY.
You can listen to it at the top of the stairs if you like.
