Argyle Nation

A running plotline through the first half of Mad Men’s third season is the troublesome Patio account. The drink that would become Diet Pepsi had some very stubborn handlers who were quite taken with Ann-Margret and the opening sequence of the new Bye Bye Birdie. Convinced a parody was the best way to market their soda, Patio insisted on a spoof, but when the execs were finally shown the ad, they found it intolerable and passed on the campaign.

Afterward, Harry Crane is trying to figure out what went wrong. “It’s true. It’s not right. It doesn’t make any sense. It looks right, it sounds right, smells right. Something’s not right. What is it?” Roger Sterling simply responds, “It’s not Ann-Margret.”

This, in my mind, is why Google+ will never succeed or step out of Facebook’s shadow: Google+ will never be Ann-Margret.

And a good day to you, too. This week, HBO highlights our great state of Michigan (and the fellas approve of their portrayal),  I discover Dave and I inadvertently have the exact same go-to “Goofy Song to Make Any Day Amazing,” which then allows me to talk about how I was accidentally a skate poseur, and a patron’s inquiry has us talk about job openings around the bar. 

Also:  I reveal what Bob Dylan and ousted “Community” showrunner Dan Harmon have in common, Dave debuts his Facebook Roundup, and a new comedy podcast from an unlikely source is dissected.

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Here’s the full text of the “Competence” article by Seth Godin I read an excerpt of this week.

And for you lushes playing along at home, here’s the Drink O’ The Week: The “Girls” Cocktail!

The Brooklyn (a variation on “The Manhattan”)

• Vermouth
• Bitters
• Maraschino Cherry
• Pabst Blue Ribbon

Make sure you pay for the drink with your parents’ credit card.

I’ve got a very talented musician friend who’s facing some terrible writer’s block. Like, a decade’s worth. Besides a general “ANYTHING I COME UP WITH IS AWFUL” attitude, he frequently complains what he writes has already been done. Every note, rhythm and change, he argues, has existed before, and, thus, he’s nothing more than a plagiarist.

My attempts to point out his faulty logic have fallen on deaf ears. That’s like saying a novelist is stealing from other authors by using the English language. It’s not about what words are used—it’s about *how* they’re used. There’s a not-so-fine line between theft and stylistic homage, and, to paraphrase former Justice Potter Stewart, I may not be able to properly and succinctly define creative plagiarism in this context, but “I know it when I see it.”

Such futile attempts at what he sees as absolute uniqueness reminded me of an old episode of Nickelodeon’s Doug. Titled “Doug en Vogue,” our hero’s trademark green sweater vest, white t-shirt and khaki shorts look is suddenly adopted by Dylan Farnum, star of a “90210” spoof called “Teen Heart Street.” Frustrated that everybody thinks he’s copying the show (and that nobody apparently noticed he’s worn the same outfit since moving to town), Doug takes numerous stabs at coming up with something unique, until finally developing this hodgepodge outfit.

Later, Doug’s sister Judy comes looking for him, and they have this exchange:

———-

Judy: “Doug, why are you dressed like that?”
Doug: “I just wanted to wear something that nobody ever wore before so nobody could say I was copying anything.”
Judy: “Well, I hate to disappoint you, but…they call it the Schizo look.”
Doug: “NOOOOOOO….I give up.”
Judy: “Doug, pardon my insusience, but why do you care whether you’re copying someone or not?”
Doug: “Because I DIDN’T COPY.”
Judy: “What, do you think you’re the ONLY PERSON in the world who ever wore a green vest?”
Doug: “Uhhhh…”
Judy: “Why don’t you just stop worrying about it?  We’re all copying someone.  If nobody ever imitated anyone, we’d all be running around naked grunting at each other.”

———-

Uniqueness isn’t about one individual aspect of our personalities, but the collage of all our quirks and attributes. It’s the sum total of all our traits and how that makes us into who we are.

The same goes for songwriting and any sort of creative art. To say that because somebody has changed between the same two chords before—and, therefore, it’s off-limits unless you want to be a hack—is completely missing the point. Creativity is like making a stew with familiar ingredients; it’s how you mix it all together and prepare the stew that makes it your own wonderful concoction.

Tonight, “House” ends its eight-year run, and, I must say, it’s a little bittersweet for me. Yes, despite having lost some of the luster of its earlier days, I’m still a fan of Hugh Laurie’s cranky-but-brilliant diagnostician, and will be sad to see my Monday nights devoid of somebody berating clinic patients and insisting that whatever the mystery disease is, it’s certainly not Lupus.

However, the particular reaction I’m writing about isn’t based on my feelings toward the show itself, but what this show—and, any long-running show, for that matter—has come to represent in my life. I started watching “House” in college, back when I was the shell of the post-collegiate person I’m still becoming. So much has changed since I first became a fan—friendships, relationships, geography, completing a degree, beginning a career, starting and purchasing businesses, living independently (both financial and otherwise). That’s a lot that’s happened while House and the team have been busy solving medical puzzles.

But that’s the nature of long-running TV shows. They’re in the background, an undercurrent in our lives, and their endings force us to confront the passing of time in a way that their continuation allows us to ignore, if only for an hour every Monday night.

My dad likes seeing the Rolling Stones mount tour after tour, still playing their beloved songs to packed arenas, because they were doing that when he was young. Thus, he feels young knowing Keith Richards is still kicking off an encore with the opening strains of “Satisfaction.” It’s that same idea, that our relationship with art, in whatever form, says so much about our place in our own lives.

When I tune in tonight to watch Gregory House’s swansong, I’ll be saying good-bye both to characters I’ve followed for the better part of a decade and to a by-gone part of my life.

(Here I am at Halloween 2006 as House, and, in a coincidence I didn’t remember until after I’d already written this piece…I’m wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt)

Well, hello there. This week, we investigate some bizarre Amazon.com comments, Hollywood’s Ying/Yang approach to greenlighting projects, what “50 Shades of Grey” and Tom Clancy’s body of work have in common, and why will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas has his eyes set on Mars.

Also: Dave tries a new food concoction that doesn’t live up to his expectations! The Drink O’ The Week is slightly drink-able! A new Comment Card is read! “Battleship” doesn’t look very good!

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On this episode, we talked about the “Breaking Bad is now on ABC” recut:

And the Drink O’ The Week was a “50 Shades of Grey” Cocktail:

• Grey Goose Vodka
• Clam Juice (to give it that grey color)

On this special bonus episode, we got together after close at J.D.’s to recap the “Community” super-sized season finale (if you haven’t seen the final three episodes, stay away! Also, if you’ve never watched the show, this will not be interesting in the least!). We recap our favorite jokes, plot twists and payoffs, make our season four predictions, and Dave reveals a (sort-of) cast secret!

A regular J.D.’s episode up tomorrow!

Download the bonus podcast, or subscribe! RSS Feed and iTunes!

I recently heard a radio news story talking about kids and Facebook.  Specifically, kids who are shunning Facebook in favor of other sites that haven’t been invaded by those outside of their peer group.  The reporter was interviewing some woman, ostensibly an expert on social media (though they did not identify her or her credentials) who said, “There are sweet, earnest kids who say they’re trying to escape their moms.  ‘My mom’s on Facebook, so I’m going to Instagram!’”

This is hardly news.  The exodus of today’s youth from Facebook began the moment the site no longer required a college email address to create an account.  And if you think, in 2012, that this is a surprising and newsworthy observation, then you probably shouldn’t be called upon by reporters to give statements as some sort of “social media expert,” let alone as somebody who has a rudimentary understanding of kids.

Look, I have no problem with adults on Facebook.  As an ‘07 college graduate who still uses the site, I already fall into that camp, despite any sort of hipster-protestations of “But I used the site before they let in people who weren’t college students! AND its first album WAS better.”  But to think the Facebook bubble isn’t going to burst or that a “disturbing trend,” as I’ve heard one social media analyst—not a real job—say, isn’t already showing Facebook isn’t immune to the same sort of bell curve growth-and-decline that Myspace experienced is ludicrous.  It will not last, there will be something else, and nobody should be surprised.

I’ve talked about this on “J.D.’s,” but Facebook went from being a junior high dance at the beginning of the night, filled with only your peers, to a junior high dance at the end of the night, when your parents are all standing around the periphery of the gym waiting to pick you up…only now they decide, “Hey, that looks fun!” and start dancing with the rest of your classmates.  And this trend will only continue.

(Furthermore, I don’t think I even need to discuss how this supposed expert doesn’t quite understand what Instagram is or how it works, so we’ll just leave that one alone.)

Jazzulations, friends. This week we invite world traveler and German bread enthusiast Dan Nikolits to the corner booth to discuss “The Avengers” and the special new “Avengers” cocktail we’ve got available at the bar, the recent holiday trifecta, and, in honor of Mother’s Day, some amusing stories about all our moms.

Plus: We read a Cocktail Lounge Comment Card, Dave administers the “J.D.’s American History Exam,” and the guys develop an exciting new medical-investigation procedural.

Download the show or subscribe! RSS Feed or iTunes! And don’t forget to fill out a comment card by sending us an email at jdscocktaillounge@gmail.com

During the show, Dan makes reference to a 90’s SNL skit involving Bob Dole (Norm MacDonald) debating President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) from “Independence Day.” Here’s that clip:

And, for those of you playing along at home, here’s the recipe for the “Avengers Cocktail,” in all its…tasty glory:

• Half pint of Strongbow Cider (Hawkeye)
• Half pint of Mead (Thor)
• Creme de Menthe (Hulk)
• A splash of Hot Damn (Black Widow)
• A U.S. quarter (Iron Man)

Drop a shot of aged whiskey (Captain America) into that ungodly mixture, and down it wearing an eyepatch (Nick Fury)!

Lindsey Wahowiak, of the blog White Guys With Severe Hair, joins us at the corner booth to talk “Girls,” un-aired “West Wing” episodes, and being the Coach Taylor of her volleyball team. Also: everybody discusses the new terrible Voice/Bachelor mashup show, “The Choice,” and we fix it by coming up with a list of the people we’d really like to see as contestants.

Download the show or subscribe! RSS Feed and iTunes!

Here are a few things we talk about on this week’s episode:

The West Wing Reunion!

Also, the brilliance that is the West Wing Unaired Episode Twitter Account

And here’s what happens when you slide into base only wearing shorts. Dave says, “I got hit on the right ankle by the ball, which is why it is twice the size of my left ankle, and slid into 3rd base on my left leg. Don’t worry, I can still walk! (kinda)”

On last week’s podcast, Dave told the story about eating the World’s Hottest Hot Sauce and the after-effects he suffered. He also mentioned that somewhere on Vimeo lived a video of the aftermath his twin brother had taken. Here it is!

Also, we talked about the Mitten State’s organization of Real Life Super Heroes, the Michigan Protectors! Submit your sad, poorly written bio for your own alter-ego!