Julian Goes International, More Questionably Legal Stuff, and A Cute Article About Playbills
Happy Monday, Sternalists!
Scroll down for part 2 of last issue's EXCLUSIVE, but let's start with a random rec!
This morning, I read a fascinating article in the LA Times all about Instagram has wildly boosted the profile of Playbill, the publication (pamphlet?) given out to theatergoers before shows.
It was refreshing and adorable. So many (necessary) narratives surrounding media these days are about how it is (a) dying, (b) no longer trusted when it should be, or (c) being trusted in ways that it shouldn't be and therefore ending the world.
Along comes Playbill to be like "We do not matter, we are cute, and we will outlive all of you little fucks." (not a direct quote, but really. They're 135 years old).
Fun takeaways: One interviewee called #playbillposts the union of vanity (oh, look! I'm at a show!) and laziness (but it's quite hard to produce a good selfie inside the theater); another makes sure to do her nails specifically for the Playbill photo; and one Broadway star scrolls insta before shows to see where the most excited audience members are sitting!
Speaking of shows, I have a few coming up, most notably:
Julian Stern conjures stand-up, songs, videos, and/or otherwise performable or presentable Julian-authored comedic units into a cohesive squall of laughter, the gusts of which are guaranteed to lift you off of your feet and carry you (blow you) all the way home (away).
What a glorious run-on! Hope you can make it! Tix here!
Other shows:
My Great Movies 3 8/23 8PM @ Stories Books/Cafe in Echo Park
This is a screening of shorts by comedians in a very, very cool bookstore/bar/cafe in Echo Park. If you attend, will get to see Charles Schmidt-Barbara Finishes LBJ as it was meant to be seen!
Cronx Comedy Club 9/4 Time TBD @ Limitless VR in Croydon, UK
This is a stand-up comedy show inside of a Virtual Reality Bar outside of (I learned after booking it) London, England, which is where I will be for the end of August/beginning of September. If you're in the area, look out for other shows (and obviously if you're reading this and I forgot you are in London reach out, I'd love to grab a drink or whatever). And if you know how I get to Croydon from London proper, please let me know.
STERNAL JOURNAL EXCLUSIVE:
Last issue, I shared with you the beginning of an unpublished transcript of a 2013 interview I did with Kevin Smith a while back while I was some magazine. Some award-winning, very legitimate journalists called it "great" and other people said "Is this real?" It is! Both!
If you missed last week (maybe someone who really loves the Sternal Journal forwarded you? Someone could do that, I don't know!), I recommend you check it out here and if you are not yet a subscriber, you can do so ! (if you insist on just plowing through to this one, know that the feature is kind of cheekily about death).
If you loved last week, here you go! This bit is probably my favorite portion of transcript I've gotten to be a tiny part of. Smith lays out his outlook on life and decision-making, and it had a for-better-or-for-worse fairly massive influence on my then future (now past!) decisions. Enjoy!
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JS: While alive, what did you spend the most money on?
KS: Probably DVDs and Blu-rays. I’ve got so many of them. Like, you know how Jay Leno collects cars and like, he owns an airport hangar. I got a lot of fuckin’ DVDs. Not enough to fill an airport hangar, but like, I got- I’ve bought DVDs that I’ve never even opened or watched, and now we’re like three generations removed from this dead technology, everyone’s livin’ in the cloud, and I still got a copy, unopened, of Juwanna Man.
Where do you keep ‘em all?
There’s in this massive shelf in my- I’ve got this library office and we have these big build in bookshelves, gorgeous, supposed to put some books on ‘em and shit, but it’s all for DVDs. So you look at this wall of dead technology, right now it’s like lookin’ at a wall of 8-track tapes essentially.
Where do you keep all your 8-track tapes?
Thankfully, my father had those. That was his fuckin’ bundle. I was the dude that was like, “DVD will never die!”
If you could be buried with one comic book, what would it be?
Uh, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, the entire trade paperback, which is kind of a cheat because it’s four separate issues, but I’m gonna go with it as one. Trade paperback and/or graphic novel, and say The Dark Knight Returns. That book really kinda shaped my life.
It’s so weird to say because most people are like, “It’s a comic book.” But this transcends comicbook. This is one of the greatest novels ever written. The way that people go on about Gatsby and what a fuckin’ hero he was and whatnot, and the inner conflict, and the green light, that’s all horseshit compared to The Dark Knight Returns.
The struggle for Bruce Wayne to overcome his demons and become Batman once again in a filthy fucking world and bring it to it’s knees with justice and shit, and then eventually face a God and even beat him, and then beat death. Like, that just makes a motherfucker wanna get up in the morning, man. That just makes you go, “What am I doing? Look at what Bruce Wayne could do at 50. What am I doing at this age?” And then periodically people remind you he’s a fictional character. But that’s what good art does. Good art, like, gets you off your feet.
At one point, I was thinking about just becoming a studio filmmaker, like making other people’s movies for a living instead of having my own voice, and then I remembered, that opening- there’s an opening line in The Dark Knight Returns where Bruce Wayne is driving a racecar and whatnot, and he’s trying to find ways to go out, to kill himself. He’s just fuckin’ bored. He hasn’t been Batman in like ten years. And so he’s in this racecar. It’s about to wreck and whatnot, and he’s like, “This would be a good death.” And then, in the next panel, he’s like, “But not good enough.”
And he jerks the wheel and saves his life. And so I remember thinkin’, as I was about to become studio filmmaker guy, which is like, some people, that’s the path you take. You do your own stuff, and then one day, you just do other people’s stuff, and I thought of- that line changed my whole life. That line shaped the rest of my life. Changed my destiny, because I was like, “This would be a good death. Makin’ other people’s movies. Ain’t nothin’ fuckin’ wrong with that,” I said. “But... not good enough.” And I jerked the wheel and started bein’ weird instead. You know, doin’ podcasts, and fuckin’ takin’ movies out by myself.
Just anything but the good death. And that all comes from Dark Knight Returns. I mean, I realize this is way too long an answer for this.
Totally fine. It’s fascinating. And I haven’t actually read Dark Knight Returns, so I-
Go fuck, eh! How old are you?!
I’m twenty four.
You gotta pick it up. You mighta missed it. I’m not even doin’ it justice. It is such a well-written piece of literature. In terms of- I sat with Grant Morrison on this podcast I do called Fatman on Batman. And he broke it down thusly: this escalating tale of The Dark Knight Returns is fascinating because it begins very small, about a man who’s like having a midlife crisis, who’s like, “Wow, my best years are behind me and I’ve left it all behind,” and then decides to re-embrace and find his youth again, and as the story goes on, he doesn’t get younger physically or chronologically, but he comes alive again, and it starts, and they take him through all the eras of his career. You see him kind of like as the guy with the big yellow symbol on his chest, and then you see him as the Dark Avenger, then he’s the guy that is the only rational, sound voice in the midst of a nuclear fallout, and then at the very end, the last chapter, he becomes a liability to the government, and the government sends Superman out to kill him and shit.
So it becomes about one guy against the- not just like, “I gotta take on crime”, but then he’s gotta take on the establishment and the whole thing escalates to this kinda [inaudible] where this starts with a man with a midlife crisis, and ends with him fighting a god on the very same streets where his parents were killed. It’s so fuckin’ operatic. Read it.
And then go watch- they just did an animated version of it. The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 and 2. That’s what I was talkin’ about before. They adapted it so fuckin’ well. It’s crazy. But read the book first. It’s way over the top and it’s very eighties. It was written in the eighties, very jingoistic, but some of the best writing that’s ever been committed to a page just happened to be in a comic book, man, and even if you’re not a Batman fan, it’s a pretty fascinating read, but I guarantee you, Dark Knight Returns will make anybody a Batman fan at least for the day.
I’m sold. I will read it.
Pick it up. Digitally, man, You don’t even have to commit to like buying paper and shit. Read it on your smartphone while you’re taking a shit. [Laughs] It’s the Catcher in the Rye of comic books.
It’s the one that means the most to a lot of people.
Next Sternal Journal, the thrilling conclusion!
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Wowza, guys! And I don't use that word (wowza) lightly. I mean, that truly still gives me goosebumps. I hope you enjoyed it a fraction as much as I do.
And now I'll leave with just one more recommendation.
Music: A friend pointed out that I didn't share any music I was listening to last time, SO I have really been enjoying discovering Hobo Johnson, erratic rapper-ish spoken word musician who went viral with this Tiny Desk Contest entry (like 1.4 years ago, so I am late to the party). He didn't win (Naia Izumi did), but eventually did get to do one. All of these are great. Watch them or listen to his album, The Rise of Hobo Johnson, available I'm sure on all listening-services.
Until then, remember to manicure before the theater and consider maybe the death that is better than not good enough.
Your friend,
Julian