I admit – readily – that today, the seventh day of my thirty day blogging experiment is the most challenging – at least so far.
After a long weekend at the home of my dear friends on the East End of Long Island I came back with no idea of what I wanted to write today. Last night, I turned on my computer and instead of setting the egg timer and opening up a new page to see what might come out of me, I circled it. I read through emails, caught up on newsletters that had gone unread and did a lot of laundry. I even dusted and vacuumed thinking a clean desk would help. I opened up my Scrivener file where I am storing all the ideas I’ve been jotting down and stared. Not one screamed “Pick Me!”
So I went back to those unread newsletters. One of them directed me to Jerry Seinfeld’s web series. Apparently Jerry (after being a faithful follower of Seinfeld I feel close enough to refer to him by his first name) has a web series called Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. What you get is what the title tells you. Jerry chooses a car from his vast collection, calls up a comedian, picks them up and they go for coffee.
I am a full season late to this party. Season 2 is already underway. Past episodes are archived on the Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee website and at Crackle. Jerry Seinfeld chatting with people from Carl Reiner to David Letterman to Alec Baldwin. Sarah Silverman was noticeably, the lone female in the group to which I ask, What is that about?
But that aside, I started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh. Until it hit me. I was sitting in front of my computer watching something funny and original that could not be found on traditional television. I hadn’t discovered it from an advertisement. I found out through today’s version of word of mouth. Mitch Joel’s newsletter gave it a mention and there I was and now I was writing about it – sharing content worth sharing.
I did a little research into how this came to be. Jerry Seinfeld had an idea that he convinced Sony Pictures to experiment with. He wanted to break into a new medium and liked “the flexibility of the Internet.” Sony wants to develop original programming for the Internet. His relationship with Sony and with Steve Mosko, President of Sony Pictures gave him the green light for the first season.
There was no elaborate set or contrived story – just simple conversation that made me smile and forget about the fact that I had nothing to write about. Because suddenly, as I was watching a webisode that really is about nothing, I did have something to write about.
The success of the first season resulted in an order for 24 new episodes. This time they are looking to monetize it and have signed Acura as a presenting sponsor. Not to worry about annoying, intrusive ads. From what I saw so far the ads are living up to what Acura has promised, “short, contextually relevant.”
Next episode is July 11 with Seth Meyers. I’ll be watching. This time on my iPad on my couch.
My only suggestion – I think Jerry could find more than one woman comedian out of the fifteen episodes archived so far willing to have coffee with him!
note: This is Day #7 of a 30 Day Experiment. Here are the details on how it all started.
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