Riches Before Freelancing (Probably Not After)

So apparently the trick to becoming a gainful freelance writer is to win $2 million on Jeopardy! first.

Oh, well, if it's that easy...

Seriously though, Ken Jennings seems like a really cool guy. From computer programmer to Jeopardy! champion* to freelance writer...however you get there, just glad you arrived. Also happy to see he's using the money to enrich his life, as opposed to, you know, mansions and hookers and drugs.

Not that those things aren't similarly enriching.

* For those unfamiliar with Ken, he won 74 straight games of Jeopardy! in 2004 and holds the record for the most money won on American game shows. (He's appeared in others since his extended love affair with Alex Trebek.)

These days, a self-pleasuring bear isn't enough

Wrong Conan, but just as amusing.

I watched the new Conan show on TBS last night. It was fairly engaging, but I can't shake the latent concern that Conan's weirdness, while an endearing quality, is also what drives viewers away. It's obvious that the target audience is my generation: The show was preceded by a Family Guy marathon, the guests were under-30'ers Seth Rogen (who told a bunch of weed jokes) and Lea Michele, as well as prodigal musician Jack White, and the cameos included pseudo-household names Larry King, Jon Hamm, Ricky Gervais and the teenage-boy-gag masturbating bear, among others.

But while it's amusing to revel in Conan's self-proclaimed awkwardness for awhile, the ruse can't last an hour every night of the week. My 20-something attention span, which has been ravaged for years by things with glowing screens, is over it after a few revolutions.

I hope Conan succeeds. I want him to, because he's sincere and cleverly droll, and I appreciate his brand of vaguely band geek humor. But at the end of the day, awkward is just awkward, and if the first show was supposed to wow me, I don't think they're quite there yet.

The Novel

This is the kind of stuff that makes Family Guy hurt so good. Writers everywhere cringe with every uptick in Stewie's voice. Way close to home.

Things I Learned This Week

1) Caffeine is drug. A very, very effectual one.
2) Thunderstorms are awesome, but you should remember to wear shoes that actually attach to your feet, not just slip-ons. Rain boots are an unnecessary (but still cool) accessory.
3) Ali totally made the right choice when she picked Roberto. I hope those two stay together forever.
4) The official American folk dance of Illinois is the square dance. No joke.
5) Before you buy a used car, take it to a mechanic. Even if they promise you a good warranty.
5b) In fact, as a general rule, used care salesmen are not to be trusted. There's a reason it's a cliche.
6) Cookies are a band-aid, not a solution.
7) It's much easier to be a cynic, and much more difficult to be genuine. Especially if you're particularly sarcastic by nature.
8) I love him, but a goatee is not Jon Stewart's best look.
9) Advice isn't an effective way of learning. You pretty much have to make your own mistakes to really understand anything. It blows, but it's the reason older people look at younger people and just shake their heads and smile when we insist we know what we're doing.
10) I have a feeling my friends and I are going to be really cool octogenarians someday.

Confessions of a Sorkin Addict

My name is Brittany (hi Brittany), and I'm addicted to Aaron Sorkin.

Phew, that felt good. Okay, so if you don't know who I'm talking about, you're about to get a crash course. (Just go with it.) Sorkin is a writer whose most famous work is a little show called The West Wing. The show ran for seven seasons and won more awards -- including 27 Emmys -- than you can fit on even the most impressive mantle. I mean, hot damn. It was basically one of the best shows ever on the air. (omg West Wing clips) His other TV series -- Sports Night* (1998-2000) and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007) -- featured a similarly witty, intense, character- and dialog-driven television experience, though neither lasted more than a couple seasons. He's also written screenplays: The American President, A Few Good Men (which was actually a play a few years before Jack Nicholson yelled, "You can't HANDLE the truth!!" at Tom Cruise), Charlie Wilson's War, and this fall's feature on the founding of Facebook, The Social Network, among others. His characters are consistently brilliant, articulate, and self-aware. Sorkin somehow makes even the dullest discussion of political theory engaging, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I learned more about the American political system from the West Wing than in my freshman year American Politics class.

Basically, he's a BAMF.

So you can imagine how psyched I was when my friend Jason asked if I wanted to attend a production of Sorkin's newest play, The Farnsworth Invention, which is about the invention of television. The play ran on Broadway for fewer than six months (starring Hank Azaria as media mogul David Sarnoff; check out the trailer) back in '06-'07, and has since only been shown in small theaters in a few cities around the country. The TimeLine Theater Company in Lakeview is currently staging the Chicago premiere.

Okay, so I may be fundamentally biased because of my undying love for everything Sorkin, but this was quite possibly the best play I've ever seen. The scenes and transitions were crisp, the characters were lovable and flawed, and the acting and staging were phenomenal. Most of the engineering stuff went over my head, but that didn't matter in the slightest. The confrontation between Sarnoff and Philo Farnsworth -- a small-town kid from Idaho that invented television without so much as a college degree -- is played out to perfection. The two narrate each others' stories, bickering in the middle of scenes in the way that brings to mind a regular Monday meeting between Toby Ziegler and Josh Lyman. And as with everything Sorkin, you walk out of the theater knowing something new. (Of course, you have to take into account that the play is ficitonalized, but there are enough nuggets of truth to create a fairly complete tapestry, and the program notes belabor the actual facts if you're interested.) TimeLine took a really good script and put on a top-tier production.

Point is, if you're in Chicago, you gotta go. Soon, because it closes this month.

[Side note: In the process of writing this post, I've watched at least 20 minutes worth of WW and SN clips. It's a disease, I'm telling you. And it feels so good.]

* You can watch the entirety of Sports Night on YouTube. Begin your conversion here.