Est. Read Time: 7 minutes. Read Time brought to you once again by the Ashburton Energy + Hair Logistics Group, in association with the Bradley Hills Bureau of Corrections + Housing.
New to the SternJourn? Check out the best of 2022, 2021, or 2020.
Shows:
September 20th: Picture Day at The Crow (Santa Monica! (Gas Lite adjacent))
September 29th: Sam Salem headlines the Yoo-Hoo Room and I am there too!
Every night other than the above, I am available to be booked on more shows or to do your podcast or sit on some industry panel. Any industry will do.
Hello Sternal Journalists!
At the end of last week’s Sternal Journal, I shared this image—
—a parody of the comic book Tintin but if it was about Bill Clinton, and said that the really crazy thing about this is who drew it. And that who, as you may have guessed by now, is esteemed news anchor Jake Tapper. There are 5 more, here’s another one:
They’re from the early 2000s and were created as part of the short-lived webzine Modern Humorist. Couple things here:
“Webzine” is such a 90s/early 2000s word that, even though I fully experienced them, I have no idea how to explain what it is. Is it a blog? A blog with pictures? Does webzine predate blog? Did you know that “blog” is a truncation of “weblog?” Did “blog” take off and “webzine” die because “bzine” is too hard to pronounce? Is the Sternal Journal more of a bzine than a blog?
Modern Humorist was basically just a post-Harvard Lampoon passion project for two guys, John Aboud and Michael Coulton. In addition to the bzine, they published three books, all aimed at college aged or 20-something snarky comedy nerds, and I owned all three by the time I was like 12.
I did not understand almost any of the cultural references or adult themes in these books, and oftentimes took their satirical remixing of facts (for instance in “My First Presidentiary,” a book written in the style of an elementary school scrapbook as if from the perspective of George W. Bush) as absolute fact and my parents had to explain to that it was all made up for a laugh.
The Modern Humorist guys had many other contributors including Michael Schur, Andy Borowitz, Baratunde Thurston, and of course, that Jake Tapper. As it turns out, “cartoonist” is actually on Jake Tapper’s Wikipedia page so it’s less of a secret than I thought but I’m still not sure if anyone knows that these are still on the internet. I also learned from his Wikipedia page that Tapper was a spokesperson for Hooters. HUH?
So um, bit of just an info dump SternJourn, but if I had to wrap thing up in any sort of lesson or takeaway, I am heartened by the fact that even back in the early aughts, someone could do some zany drawings with like B+ jokes and still rebrand into a Serious News Person.
And I also really like that this short-lived unpopular bzine was touched by so many writers and comedy people who went on to do great things, even though they pretty clearly were just grabbing Harvard Lampoon folks and the like. But it looks like it was a poorly planned, ambitious, and very voice-driven project. And I can only hope that The Sternal Journal at least becomes an impressively connected unknown relic like that one day.
Also, would you buy one of these:
Do we like the tie-dye? What price point do you think if it was a realllly nice shirt?
Anyway!
Recommendations!
GUTS. Album. This Olivia Rodrigo so egregiously steals from the mid-aughts pop that I grew up on, it’s insane. It’s Demi Lovato. It’s Ashlee Simpson. It makes me want to la la. I am into it.
Trauma Bond. Song. This song by friend of the Journ, Lippy, slams you in the face right out the gate and doesn’t let up. He’s playing in Atlanta TOMORROW (Tuesday at Vinyl) and in Nashville on Wednesday, in case you’re in any of those places.
The Crossword Show. Show. On Tuesday December 19th, Zach Sherwin returns to Dynasty Typewriter in LA with his newest Crossword Show. Zach has told me over email and over phone that this is his favorite show yet, and that’s crazy because they’re all so good. If you’ve never been, it’s a live crossword show solved by a guest panel and also incorporates puzzles, jokes, mental stunts, and a lil bit of rap. It’s incredible. See it. (LA)
Inside the Wagner Group’s Armed Uprising. Article. I’m not normally into “war stuff,” but this fascinating and tragic New Yorker article sets out to unravel and contextualize the internal wars within the war in Ukraine. Loss of life and destruction of entire cities is never a thing to ogle at, but I found that this piece helped to really lay out the tragic and maddening reality of who is making the decisions versus who is shouldering the consequences.
That’s all for this week! If you have time or flexibility in the coming days, maybe try to be a little like Jake Tapper and do something for you that is fun and expressive and scratches an itch even if it doesn’t line up with what your master plan is or who it is people think you are! Be the surprising you!
Much love!
Julian
P.S. I spend anywhere between two and twelve hours a week on the Sternal Journal. If you enjoy receiving it (and are RICH) consider becoming a paying subscriber. For just a few bucks a month, you can provide me with a bit more time to come up with fun topics, poems, and interviews; and you with probably fewer typos.