Ty Watches "Reboot"

Monday night my wife and I started the show "Reboot" on Hulu. I was listening to "Comedy Bang! Bang!" and Rachel Bloom was the main guest. I did not know she was on the podcast, but I do enjoy her comedy and she mentioned that she was on this show. I had heard about it because I am a Keegan Michael Key fan, but I never really registered watching the show. But after seeing some of Key's press stuff, and then hearing Bloom on "CBB" only further pushed my interest in the show. It also helps that Steve Levitan, who created "Modern Family", created this show as well. So we decided it was time and we tuned in.

We watched the first two episodes and I was hooked. My wife told me yesterday that she was thinking about the show at work all day, so we went ahead and watched the next two episodes that were available. We got caught up on all four eps last night. This show is great. It is funny and insightful and smart and witty and well acted and just fantastic. I was telling my wife on Monday night how well casted this show is too. Keegan Michael Key is perfect for the male lead. He plays his character so well. He thinks he is a better actor than he actually is. I love the scene from the first episode when they show him auditioning for the role of a gangster. It is incredible. Key plays this type of character so well. Judy Greer is equally as wonderful as the female lead. Greer is in seemingly everything, but now she has a chance to shine in a starring role, and she is nailing it. I enjoy every minute she is on screen. Johnny Knoxville is almost too perfectly cast as the former drug addict turned comedian turned actor twice over. Knoxville is my favorite person on the show. He is so funny. He is out of his element in the real world. He is even better on the show. I adore Knoxville in this show. Calum Worthy plays the former kid actor turned adult. He is a total fish out of water. He still acts like a little kid. He still brings his mom, more on her in a minute, to set everyday. He is very fun. Rachel Bloom plays the creator of the show. She is so good. I totally buy everything about her in the show. She just brings it and she is crushing right now. Paul Reiser is the original creator of the show, and Bloom's dad. Reiser is amazing here. He is having something of a career resurgence. Reiser has always been a good actor but it feels like he is bringing it even harder as of late. The rest of the cast is solid as well. Everyone they got to play bit parts is totally nailing it. They are crushing it. The writing is top notch as well. While not on the level of "30 Rock", this show has a ton of jokes in each episode. They also get some drama in there as well. There are some notable heartfelt moments here. I also like the look and feel of the show. It is very reminiscent of early "Modern Family", when that show was at its best.

I definitely recommend this show. It is so good on so many levels. Check it out.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Ty Watches "Fyre" and "Fyre Fraud"

Pretty much this

In the past week I have seen both of the Fyre Festival documentaries, “Fyre” on Netflix and “Fyre Fraud” on Hulu, and boy do I have some thoughts. 

Right off the bat, screw everyone that was involved with this monstrosity save for the people that actually live in the Bahamas. The Bahamian's are the only people that I felt anything for. They got screwed over by spoiled rotten rich white kids that are thieves. They also got screwed over by Ja Rule too. Man is he a real piece of shit.

Ja Rule’s actions pale in comparison to the monster that is Billy McFarland. This dude is such a compulsive liar. This dude screwed so many of his employees out of money. He simply did not care about anyone but himself. All he wanted to do was go to an island and party. He figured everyone else around him would solve all of his problems. And when they didn't, he just continued to dig himself a deeper and deeper hole. He was way, way in over his head. And his way to "solve" these problems was to launder money, commit fraud and lie to all the people that worked for him. He is a true piece of human garbage. He deserves all the jail time he is currently serving. He deserves to have all of his possessions taken away from him. No one should ever work with him again. I'm pretty sure no one will. He is a horrible example of too much too soon. He is also a horrible example of growing up with a silver spoon. I feel exactly zero sympathy for him, his girlfriend, his parents and his so called friends. They helped create this monster, and the fact that they still are trying to clear his name is absolutely appalling to me. I genuinely hate this guy.

As I said at the top, everyone else is culpable. Everyone else is guilty. They could have hurt or killed someone, but all they cared about was their dumbass festival. The guys who run the company "Fuck Jerry" can go to hell. Those assholes are creeps and thieves and your prototypical frat boys that deserve a solid punch in the face. The guy that was going to perform a sex act to get water, he is as much to blame for Billy McFarland. I know he is supposed to be one of the "heroes" of the doc, one of the guys we should be rooting for. I do not root for him. Yes, the way he was treated was terrible, but he was willing to do stuff he didn't want to do so he could help out McFarland. That is rough stuff.

All the dip shits that worked at Fyre that thought all this nonsense was going to fixed are to blame. They may have tried to call him out, but none of them walked away. They stuck around even when they said they knew it was going to be a disaster. For example, we have the yoga guy. He comes off in the Netflix doc as someone that was hurt by this. He wasn't. He still went to the Bahamas and he still was willing to do what Billy told him to do. Grant, the guy that kind of ran everything is awful. He is a demanding little nerd that let the power go to his head. He thought he was a boss, and he thought he could get away with his bull shit. He can' t and won't. He will probably do some jail time, and he deserves it. For Ja Rule to come out and claim he had nothing to do with this after the fact is ridiculous. He was just as involved. He wanted this to happen. He was on board until it all blew up in his face. He is the epitome of a washed up former star.

And then we have the people that went to this festival. I'm sorry, but why should I feel anything for these spoiled rotten little brats that spent thousands and thousands of their parents money to go see Major Lazer and Blink 182? I don't feel a god damn thing for them except anger. They are little brats that didn't get exactly what they wanted, and they complained and complained. As Ron Funchess put it, "if you have thousands of dollars to spend to see Blink 182, and you end up in a Fyre situation, that is Darwinism at its best". Their attitude, and looting mentality once they got to the island was absurd. They are the worst of the worst. These kids and these "influencers" are awful people that only care about money and how many likes they get on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It is disgusting.

Both these movies painted a great picture of how poorly managed this whole thing was. They showed that, just because you have money, it doesn't get you out of real trouble. I'm upset that the Netflix one was produced by the "Fuck Jerry" guys because it made them look not so bad. They are bad guys. The Hulu one is better, and more damning of that shithead McFarland. They actually got him to do a one on one interview, and to see his punk ass squirm is just magical. Both docs are good, but Hulu's is much more eye opening.

I'm glad that the main culprits of all of this horribleness are getting what they deserve. This thing was going to be bad from the jump, and to see it all blow up in their face made me very happy. I know that may sound childish, or seem like the worst kind of schadenfreude, but I don't care. The Fyre people didn't care about anyone but themselves, and to see them get their comeuppance is grand. I recommend both docs, but I prefer the Hulu one. Either way, Billy McFarland sucks, Ja Rule is an ass and everyone else is to blame.

The people of the Bahamas did not deserve to have this happen to them.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He was thinking if people paid this kind of money to see Blink 182, what could Ty get if he put a festival together with Prodigy and Smashmouth. Are you in?

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Is piracy helpful? Kirk has some ideas.

Once upon a time, I pirated movies, television shows, music, and software without feeling the slightest measure of guilt. There are many ways that I used to justify this shameless disregard for the artists of the entertainment industry. In some ways I still think that piracy is warranted ethically if not legally. Although I have not given up piracy completely, the media world has changed dramatically and thus negated some of the excuses that I once used.

When I was in college, as I was introduced to piracy through a friend who had a then rare home broadband connection and a piece of software known as Napster, I was poor. I was the typical broke college student. I paid for music from the artists that I already knew about and whose music I knew I would enjoy. What I was downloading was merely for discovery purposes. These were artists that I would never have had a chance to listen to in that era. If anything, it broadened my taste. I probably bought more music as a result.

In the ten plus years since then we have music subscription services like Spotify, Google Play Music, and now Apple Music. I listen to most of the music I want through one of these services and do occasionally purchase an album I would like to own. The fact is, legal music adapted to what the consumer wanted. I could still be pirating music, but the paid alternative is more attractive. Which brings me to another justification that I once used and still, in some respects, do.

The industry has to compete. Prior to high speed internet, folks had to put up with any antiquated system that any of these media companies wanted to use for distribution. There was no alternative and would not have been any alternative without high speed internet. The technology to distribute content in a more user friendly way was there long before the big media companies decided to take advantage of them. I contend that without piracy, big media companies would never have been motivated to offer content on services like Netflix, Spotify, iTunes, Steam, or any of the other digital content service providers that exist in the wake of piracy.

Big media companies are champions of capitalism. In a capitalist system one has to compete with any other service providers. That does include black markets in this case. At first they resisted. They tried to sue their way back into the game. They were used to having control over the method of distribution and did not want to make changes for the kids of tomorrow. Eventually they have started seeing that they would have to offer a more alluring alternative to piracy. It wasn’t hard. Piracy can be clunky. Do you think I am going to pirate a movie or series that I can find on Netflix? Not a chance. It is so much easier to use Netflix and have a library of content at my fingertips. I even tend to choose something that is on Netflix over something else that I maybe wanted to watch which is not. This all because of the efficiency over piracy that Netflix provides. In that light, content providers are losing money by failing to provide it through such a service.

As much as I would like to say that I am a pillar of progress and that through only viewing content which is available through these types of services I am only supporting those content providers, I cannot. I have found that currently airing television series are still served superiorly to me through piracy. I think that network fragmentation is culprit there. Hulu has tried to offer a solution to that issue, but those particular content providers are still too greedy to go for it. I am pretty sure someone could improve on Hulu anyhow. Sorry, but serving ads along with subscription content will not fly.

So, dear reader, what do you think? Has your use or justification of piracy changed with the times? If you were a user of early services like Napster, do you still pirate to the same extent or at all today? Was it ever really justified or would we have progress just the same without it? Let me know your thoughts.

Kirk Aug

Kirk is still the new guy around here.  He is added some gravitas and intelligence to the group. Follow him on twitter @kirkaug