June 2012
I don’t want to get too political on this blog, but here’s some helpful perspective from TPM on the healthcare thing:
Whatever you want to call it — tax, fee, penalty, incentive, Robert — even though it does raise some money, the key is that it will snag relatively few people.
How few? “It only applies to people who do not have health care insurance and refuse to get it after receiving subsidies that allow them to buy it.”
Also, here’s a good explanation from (the 2007 version of) Mitt Romney:
[W]e established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did … encourages ‘free riders’ to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others.”
Seems fair to me.
It has a bunch of cover songs. Enjoy!
The Awl’s Choire Sicha reports from the front line:
This week, the war on muffins has taken a frightening turn. In Brooklyn, they will cram absolutely any garbage in a muffin. It’s like, why not just make me a cat litter dirty diaper muffin and call it a day? … Emptying out your compost bin into a muffin tin is NOT BAKING.
Retired accountant Ted Wilson’s latest addition to his week-by-week review of everything in the world:
Regardless of her exact relationship to Pac-man, her life is just as empty and meaningless as is his. Shes trapped in a maze both literal and figurative, running for her life (one of five), terrorized by ghosts, and finding only brief moments of optimism. If she manages to escape one stage of life, its only by gorging herself. A successful level means shes forced to do it all again in the next stage, only under greater pressure. With all the eating and stress, its no wonder shes so round.
Credit: Alex MacLean
Tickets? Check.
Begin forwarded message:
> From: “Louis C.K.”
> Date: June 25, 2012 5:10:08 PM MDT
> To: “[redacted]”
> Subject: I’m going on the road
> Reply-To: louisck@louisck.com
>
> hello folks! I’m going on tour this year from October through
> Feb. I’ll be all over the goddamn place. This year, I’m trying
> something new, building on the fun, success and fan-benifit of
> selling my content online. We are selling tickets to this tour
> exclusively here on louisck.com. I only wanted to do this if
> there was a way, like with LIVE AT THE BEACON, that it could
> bring the price of tickets down and make them easier and less
> complicated to buy. We figured out a way.
>
> Making my shows affordable has always been my goal but two things
> have always worked against that. High ticket charges and ticket
> re-sellers marking up the prices. Some ticketing services charge
> more than 40% over the ticket price and, ironically, the lower
> I’ve made my ticket prices, the more scalpers have bought them
> up, so the more fans have paid for a lot of my tickets.
>
> By selling the tickets exclusively on my site, I’ve cut the
> ticket charges way down and absorbed them into the ticket price.
> To buy a ticket, you join NOTHING. Just use your credit card and
> buy the damn thing. opt in to the email list if you want, and
> you’ll only get emails from me.
>
> Also, you’ll see that if you try to sell the ticket anywhere for
> anything above the original price, we have the right to cancel
> your ticket (and refund your money). this is something I intend
> to enforce. There are some other rules you may find annoying but
> they are meant to prevent someone who has no intention of seeing
> the show from buying the ticket and just flipping it for twice
> the price from a thousand miles away.
>
> Some of these rules may be a pain in your ass, but please be
> patient. My goal here is that people coming to see my shows are
> able to pay a fair price and that they be paying just for a
> ticket. Not also paying an exhorbanant fee for the privalege of
> buying a ticket.
>
> Tickets across the board, everywhere, are 45 dollars. That’s
> what you’ll actually pay. In every case, that will be less than
> anyone has actually paid to see me (after ticket charges) in
> about two years and in most cases it’s about half of what you
> paid last year.
>
> The benifit for me is that I won’t get angry emails from anyone
> who paid a ton of money to see me due to circumstances out of my
> control. That makes me VERY happy. The 45 dollars also includes
> sales tax, which I’m paying for you. So I’m making more or less
> depending on the state.
>
> Another benifit to me is also one to you. I get your email
> address (if you opt in) when you opt in. You don’t have to join
> ANYTHING to buy these tickets and if you opt in, youll only hear
> from me once in an old man’s jizz-cycle.
>
> Obviously none of this means anything if the shows aren’t good.
> So that’s up to me. As I do every year, I’ll be performing a
> brand new hour (or more) on all of these shows.
>
> Lastly, it was a real challenge to find venues around the country
> that could work with our exclusive ticketing service under these
> perameters. It means I’m playing in very new places. I really
> appreciate all of these theaters that are letting us give this a
> try.
>
> Setting up this tour has been fascinating and difficult. this
> ticketing service is a brand new thing and I really fucking hope
> it works and that there aren’t any problems. If anything comes
> up, please be patient.
>
> Doing things this way means I”m making less than I would have
> made if I did a standard tour, using the usual very excellent but
> expensive ticketing service. In some cities I’ve had to play
> smaller venues and do more shows. But I like doing more shows
> and about a year ago I reached a place where I realized I am
> making enough money doing comedy so the next thing that
> interested me is bringing your price down. Either way, I still
> make a whole lot more than my grandfather who taught math and
> raised chickens in Michigan.
>
> alright, that’s it, folks. I’ll be sending this message out to
> folks on the opt-in list and sending a separate email that lays
> it out much more simply with the proper links. I am doing this
> because when I emailed you about LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL, (which is
> still on sale for 5 dollars!) about half of the people who got
> the email really enjoyed the long, verbose, unedited message.
> The other half HATED it and would have preffered a price, a link,
> and me shutting the fuck up.
>
> This way, you can read this if you like, or your can just see the
> massive shit-ball of text and throw it in the garbage, and focus
> on the simple email.
>
> I hope to see you all on the road.
>
> regards,
>
> Louis C.K.
A plant is not a weed by nature but by circumstance. That is, it’s a weed if it doesnt fit the plan of a particular garden. And that is why our arguments about words and usages are so fierce. What one person happily plants in a language garden can be viewed as a weed threatening the beauty of another person’s garden. It leads to quarrels when we believe that only our own gardens have the proper words in the proper arrangements. Tradition and logic and aesthetics are the arguments we use in favor of the language gardens we cultivate, but mostly to rationalize our choices. Others have equal access to tradition, logic, and aesthetics to justify their gardens.
Allan Metcalf, “Weeding the Gardens of Language”
