Buddy Rich on how you suck

Watching this i couldn’t help but think to myself: “what do I want to be truly amazing at?”

I play the drums. I play them quite well. I could probably impress you.

I also play the guitar.

And the keyboards.

And the computer.

And the website.

And the business model.

And the marketing.

And the parenting.

And the husbanding.

That’s why I’m not truly amazing at the drums. Which thing on that list would I give up being good at all the others for?

You may not have to give up everything to be great at one thing, but one day you’re going to watch a video of someone who’s truly amazing and you may realize it could have been you if you wanted it to be a long time ago and then you worked and worked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmUbYiFXT_0

vid via hot doggin’ ladies

Frank Chimero on usernames

“We might forget too easily that these nodes, these usernames, are in fact people. People deserve more than the term username; they’ve earned a richer biography than a series of labels or a list of favorite movies. We must not allow interactions online to be perpetually stuck in the conversational depth of a first date. We can shun complex and shallow and embrace simple and deep.”

Frank Chimero

Louis C.K. on Leno and horseshit

“His [Leno’s] humor was so pedestrian and basic back then, but it was undeniably great, and I learned to respect that from him. It doesn’t matter what your subject is, you don’t have to be edgy in your subject matter. That’s just superficial horseshit, that you want to be talking about things nobody else does. If you have a strong point of view about something, choose that to talk about.”

Louis C.K.

Louis C.K. on compelling, inspiring and fun

AVC: Has performing stand-up gotten easier for you over the years?

LCK: Well, no, because I haven’t let it become easier, I try to keep it challenging. It’s easier if you cull from all your greatest hits and just do them. That’s easy, but it’s also probably suicide. [Laughs.] It’s harder now than it was earlier, but it’s way more compelling and inspiring and fun. It’s worth the traveling and everything now. I got really burnt out on travel, but not anymore. Because I don’t really care—unless I’m on some stupid train to Buffalo or somewhere, I’m not thinking of comfort. I’m poring over notes, listening to some old tapes, and being sure I make use of that show, because I start every year with a target date for that special, and it’s always a little too soon, so I’m always in the theater. So it’s harder, and I’m always trying to cull together material that I don’t really know well. If it works out, at the end of the year, I’ve got a completely honed, perfect sweet set. I know right where the sweet chunks are. I know right where the heavy artillery is, and I’ve got a reliably great hour. And I do it in front of a polished, perfect crowd and get it on tape. And that’s easy and fun and great, but it takes a year to get there. And when the special is done, I’m back to nothing, literally no material, not even a single joke I can tell onstage. So that keeps the cycle.

Louis C.K.

Go Read This: Megan Amram on passion & cool

“We are coming of age in a culture not of un-enjoyment, but of anti-enjoyment. Passion is not just superfluous – passion is weakness. If you like things, you might like the wrong things, and then you’re WRONG with a capital “DOUBLE-U” with a capital “D”, and then you’re BAD and ugly and FAT and SUPER FAT. The Internet can’t figure out whether it wants to beatify things or damn them, so it just gets all sorts of contentious. Contention on the Internet is silly in the worst sense of the word. […] If the Internet is a super highway, we all have road rage.”

Megan Amram

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