A Win Win Situation

Win With My Damn Channel

We'd like to issue this public service announcement to encourage you to check out the Versailles Sweepstakes happening over on our Facebook page, and to emphasize the fact that people really do win with My Damn Channel.

Don't believe us?

Ask Sharon Cruz-Nichols (and hubby), winners of our Book of Mormon sweepstakes, who are flying to New York THIS VERY WEEK to watch Gigi star Josh Gad in Broadway's most talked-about new musical, The Book of Mormon. Here's a picture of the lucky couple...



Holy shirt! Speaking of, here's YouTuber ImpactAssault looking classically debonair in basic My Damn Channel black...



And if you wanna to take a video or snap a pic of yourself doing something cool in My Damn Channel gear, send it in. We'll post it on the blog and give you a shout out. Don't have a shirt? Well, you could just win one.

How?

Glad you asked! Starting THIS WEEK we'll be giving away a free My Damn Channel t-shirt to the person who gets the most friends to enter the Versailles Sweepstakes (see how I tied that all together?) We'll give away t-shirts each week for the next three weeks. Thanks for entering, and see you in L.A.!

And the Winner Is...

And the winner of the 2011 My Damn Channel "The Book of Mormon" Ticket Sweepstakes to see "The Book of Mormon" on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre including airfare and hotel to fabulous New York City AND will meet the star of the show, Josh Gad, is none other than...

...I'm sorry these envelopes are always so hard to open...thanks to everyone that entered, we'll have more giveaways soon...

...and by the way, have you seen new comedy that Josh Gad stars in right here on My Damn Channel? Gigi: Almost American?...

...Why is that guy giving me the light? Oh, right!

The winner is: Sharon Cruz-Nichols!!!

Congratulations to Sharon and thanks again to everyone that entered.

My Damn Channel Sees God and Others at "The Book of Mormon"

Jesse Cowell (My Damn Channel Director of Content),                      Rob Barnett, Josh Gad  
Josh Gad, Rob Barnett (My Damn Channel Founder/CEO)


We saw God last night (and others) at "The Book of Mormon" - the funniest, most original musical comedy on Broadway.

The show stars Josh Gad, our My Damn Channel brother & hero & the star of our newest comedy series, "Gigi: Almost American."

We're previewing Gigi now, created by Josh and The Lost Nomads. Our series launches 3/23. New episodes every Wednesday on My Damn Channel.

I decided not to read all the Mormon press or ask Josh all about the show before experiencing it fresh. This was such an orgasmic comedic masterpiece. Get tickets and see this for yourself. And we'll buy more and give them away like Santa, or the other guy.

"Mormon" was created by South Park's Matt Stone & Trey Parker with Avenue Q's Robert Lopez. We had insane comic heaven hangtime during and after the show with them all last night... along with The Pope: Jon Stewart; "Mormon" producer and show business Midas: Scott Rudin; the Head of Comedy Central and MTV Networks Entertainment Group: Doug Herzog; Iconic Legends Mike Nichols and Angelica Huston; our friends and heroes from IFC: Dan Pasternack & Debbie DeMontreux; and we even met Spock: Zachary Quinto. 

"The Pope" proves every time year after year that he's one of the most generous humans in the game. We were so stunned to see Mike Nichols, I couldn't imagine lame bla-bla and went to a spontaneous salute - which he returned!

We capped off the night and the cocktails with da man of the year, Josh Gad, eating 2am style pizza reminding us all of why we love the voodoo we do. God bless.

All For "Un" And "Un" For All

Mark Your Calendars: November 17th, 2010 is National UnFriend Day.

From now until National UnFriend Day on November 17th, we'll be posting a Public Service Announcement from Jimmy Kimmel and some celebrity friends.  You'll be able to see all of the videos at MyDamnChannel.com/JimmyKimmel

Facebook friends: we've all got 'em.  But do we need them?  Do we even KNOW them?!

There's your Aunt Karen, who plays FarmVille so much, you wonder how she ever gets any work done at her job at the DMV.

There's that guy who still writes his status updates in the third person and he writes them CONSTANTLY: "Mike Smith is trying to decide what to watch."  "Mike Smith is really looking forward to seeing everyone at the high school reunion!"  So not only is Mike Smith ridiculously boring, his third-person status updates are stuck in 2006.

There's that girl whose friend request you accepted because she looked hot in her profile picture, but whom you can't remember ever meeting in real life. 



Well, okay. She's pretty hot.   Maybe you won't UnFriend her. 

But everyone else that you don't know and/or don't really like: UNFRIEND THEM ON NOVEMBER 17TH.  Let's give fake friends the boot.

Look, even William Shatner's on board:



Make sure you follow Jimmy Kimmel and My Damn Channel on Twitter.  We're going to be keeping track of people who pledge to join the National UnFriend Day movement with the hashtag #NUD.

Take the pledge and join us, won't you? 

http://MyDamnChannel.com/JimmyKimmel

The King And I: The Irreplaceable Howard Stern

Like millions of us, my stepmom is a lifelong Howard Stern fan. She just sent this photo taken off of Howard TV, airing our in-studio interview from earlier this week. I had the honor of being Howard Stern's guest on his Tuesday, 420 show (scroll to 840a).

Response is coming into My Damn Channel via email, phones, video views, comments, new subscribers, tweets, wall postings, and even a live spotting this afternoon in a clothing store (to complete the surreality). The influx of intense energy all flows back to a man undeniably uniquely qualified to hold the heavyweight title: "King of All Media."

Howard endures as one of the most talented and honest souls alive. He embodies the freedom of speech with every breath. For all who've been fired, laid off, downsized, pink slipped, discharged, axed, or job eliminated...it's hard to imagine speaking truth to power on a live microphone the way Howard has done it for decades.

I first followed Howard Stern on a carrier current, college radio station, 64 WTBU at Boston University. (There's a great scene depicting TBU in "Private Parts.")

If you've ever chased a radio dream, then your college years are likely the last time and place you ever experienced the fear and thrill of exercising your freedom of speech over a live mic.

Primordial FM rock radio stations were created in the late 1960's. Early heroes like Harry Shearer and Steven Clean were blowing minds at places like KPPC in Pasadena, California (which eventually became the world famous KROQ).

The combined forces of original radio talents and pre-corporate rock music created stations throughout the 70s powerful enough to infect audiences with a sense of community, purpose, passion, sex and fun that began to hit the wall around 1980.

I was sitting on the front steps of my apartment on Beacon Street in Boston with Steven Clean and my best friend, Mike Isabella the night Ronald Reagan was elected President. I was 20. I was about to drop out of college and take a full-time job as a rock radio jock at WAAF out in Worcester, Mass. One year later, I had the only radio thrill that came closest to being on Howard's show this week. Lightning struck and we convinced the Rolling Stones to do a private show for our station's fans in 1981 to start up the "Tattoo You" tour.

But, back to Mr. Clean. I'd been Steven's intern for a time at WCOZ in Boston. At that point in his career, Clean had been fired by many of the best radio stations in the country. He was a real life inspiration for the Dr. Johnny Fever character in "WKRP in Cincinnati." Steven was incredibly talented, brilliant, a true music expert and fan...and he was rebellious enough to drive the most patient souls to the edge of their sanity.

Considering the nation's new President, Steven held a joint firmly in my face and said, "See this? This is OVER!"
By the time of Reagan's second term, most radio station managers had a "Just Say No" policy for disc jockeys expressing free thoughts on mic, or taking free reign over any music playlist.

A small number of former radio station program directors shaved their beards, cut their hair, bought expensive suits, and armed themselves with halliburton briefcases filled with blow and bullshit designed to convince every fearful radio exec that they had the only secrets to ratings success, fortune and fame.

Conformity soon became the norm. Tighter playlists made stations sound the same from city-to-city. The job of disc jockey was transforming free thinkers into people paid to read positioning slogans, timechecks and weather forecasts.

In the midst of all this unholy homogenization, Howard Stern began to build a radio show free from the constraints put on most of his competitors. His talent grew on the radio and expanded with every carefully planned new project he launched.

Superfans know that Howard pays homage to legends who came before him like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin. I can't think of another entertainer who has more succesfully won battles with corporate brass than Howard. One of the many surprises about the real man to outsiders is how he maintains his position with grace and wisdom.

No one knows what the next chapter will be for the Stern show in 2011. Assume Howard can see the possible moves on the chess board more clearly than most. As a fan, I'll be following as I have since the beginning. As a business owner, My Damn Channel stands ready to serve The King anytime he calls. 

PEARL JAM LIVE

Many reasons - none of them worthy - kept me from ever seeing this band live before last night.

Pearl Jam is sonic art without artiface. Live Rock without cliches.

They deliver experience true to rock's origins - honoring their influences - but incorporating an urgent command of the present tense.

The fans made as strong a first impression as the band. We stood on the floor for the entire show. Think they may have played 2:45!? But the entire crowd at Madison Square Garden stood - all night - every song - collaborating and contributing. The band played a song not yet released called "Unemployable," and at least a quarter of the room already knew the words.

If you were late teens or 20 when this band first arrived in 1990, then you're pushin' 40 now. Rock men made most of the crowd, but there were more hot girls than you'd guess if you haven't sipped this wine before.

Eddie oozes authenticity. Can't say enough about the respect he pays to the job of frontman. Sharing the mic, his wine, heart, ideas, and the power of the band.

Vedder spoke of vinyl, marijuana, George Carlin, The Who, The Ramones, New York, veterans, the election, and WAR.

He made a point early on that intense negotiation with the Garden lifted the normal curfew that ends shows at 11pm. They played at least 30 minutes past that. I realized 'negotation' meant the band made a decision to PAY to give more music. You RARELY if EVER see that.

He made a point later in the night that the band was not there with any record to promote - just there for the good time in the summer in New York. He told the crowd how much their commitment meant to him - at the lowest points in his life. Far more feeling than the standard 'thanks for comin' out tonight.'

Respect to Jeff Ament on bass, Stone Gossard on rhythm guitar, Mike McCready on lead guitar, Matt Cameron on drums. Boom Gaspar played hammond B3 and keyboards. 3 backup singers on key songs. C.J. Ramone (with the Ramones 89-96), guested on "I Believe in Miracles" during the 2d of 3 encores, giving Eddie Vedder a chance to right a rock wrong & put a Ramone onstage at Madison Square Garden.

Pearl Jam opened the first encore with The Who's "Love Reign O'er Me" from Quadrophenia - as a warmup for the upcoming VH1 Rock Honors show for The Who taping in LA on 7/12 & airing on VH1 on 7/17.

I've sipped the wine and found a trusted place to return to for inspiration. Mega thanks to this band for carrying the torch - and to CAROLYN - and to HOLLY - for the connect.

Pearl Jam  2008-06-24  Madison Square Garden

Set 1 - Hard to Imagine, Save You, Why Go, All Night, Corduroy, Faithful, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town, Down, Unemployable, Given to Fly, Who You Are, Whipping, 1/2 Full, Even Flow, Present Tense, Daughter, Do the Evolution

Encore 1 - Love Reign O'er Me, W.M.A., Leash, Spin the Black Circle, Wasted Reprise, Porch

Encore 2 - No More, Crazy Mary, Comatose, I Belive in Miracles, Alive

Encore 3 - All Along the Watchtower, Indifference

4 MORE WAINY DAYS TO WAIT

Just got a first look at the all-new WAINY DAYS.

The first episode stars David dating Christine Lakin (on the left from The Hottie & The Nottie, Step by Step), and Saffron Burrows (on the right from Boston Legal, The Bank Job)

A.D. Miles, Zandy Hartig & Matt Ballard are all back!

And you'll recognize the character actor (Mike Starr) as the cabbie from every movie ever made.

We're premiering Monday, 6/16 at 7a et - unless we can't wait & sneak it to you early here.

Here's today's featured video - Grace's #2 fave episode -"Walking Tour" - starring David's co-con from The State and Reno 911, the amazing Kerri Kenney-Silver.

PRESIDENT BUSH "LIES" ON MY DAMN CHANNEL

Press Release 

PRESIDENT BUSH “LIES” ON MY DAMN CHANNEL

Harry Shearer’s “935 Lies” World Premieres Today

New York, NY – May 13, 2008 – My Damn Channel World Premieres Harry Shearer’s music video, “935 Lies” today. The song is from Harry Shearer's forthcoming record "Songs of the Bushmen."  See it here.
 

Harry Shearer is an actor, author, director, satirist, musician, radio host, playwright, multi-media artist and record label owner. His work is inside the heads of millions worldwide from The Simpsons, This is Spinal Tap, Le Show, and Saturday Night Live. Shearer plunged into the online universe to become a cornerstone of My Damn Channel.  Each week, Shearer unveils a new political or pop culture satire on his own branded channel.

“935 Lies” is filmed in what looks like a corporate meeting held by the publishers of "Modern Liar" magazine. Shearer enumerates, with what looks like either pride or insensate rage, some of the almost one thousand falsehoods uttered by Bush Administration leaders that led us to war.  Oddly, as he does so, he sings about other notable things that come in bunches of a thousand.  And food is served.

According to The Center for Public Integrity, “President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.”

Harry Shearer said, “If it just helps us all to be better liars in our own lives, this damn war will have been worth it.”

Rob Barnett, founder & CEO of My Damn Channel said, "The most powerful force in the world is not a weapon or a nation but a truth...that we are spiritual beings and that freedom is the soul's right to breathe." Barnett was quoting President George W. Bush. 
 

“935 Lies” Credits:

Music & Lyrics HARRY SHEARER; Director HARRY SHEARER; Producer KAREN MURPHY; Music Producer/Engineer JOHN FISCHBACH; Director of Photography MATT MINDLIN; Editor MIKE HALE

About My Damn Channel:

My Damn Channel is an entertainment studio and new media platform created to empower comedians, musicians and filmmakers to co-produce, distribute and monetize original, episodic video. Artists create content for the My Damn Channel website and for syndication on the most heavily-trafficked online communities and social networks. My Damn Channel has racked up 22 million views, 7 accolades from the 2008 Webby Awards, worldwide media coverage, major national advertisers and blah, blah, blah…Are you still reading? Start exploring now: www.MyDamnChannel.com

Contact:
Maria Diokno

866.424.8864
Maria@MyDamnChannel.com

THE FILTER

Peter Gabriel's filter

The rock star hopes to shock Amazon with a new web-based recommendation service.

(Fortune) -- There's a reason Peter Gabriel is a household name. One of the founders of the super-group Genesis, the British rock star went on to have great success as a solo artist known for his outlandish costumes, his cutting edge music videos, and of course, his '80s hits like "Sledgehammer" and "Shock The Monkey," which were both artistic and commercial milestones.

What's less known is that the 58-year-old Gabriel has done rather well since then as a digital media entrepreneur. In 2000, he co-founded OD2, which quickly became the leading European digital music provider with clients like Nokia and MSN. OD2's owners reportedly later sold the company for an estimated $20 million.

Okay, so Sammy Hagar reportedly sold a majority stake in his tequila business for four times that amount last year. But now Gabriel has a new business that's potentially much bigger. On Tuesday, he and a new group of partners launch the private-beta version of a web-based service called The Filter that will sort through the vast inventory of content on the Internet and recommend songs, movies, television show and web videos to its users. In May, The Filter website will be open to the public.

Ultimately, Gabriel and his partners in his Bath, England-based company have a grander vision for the Filter than telling you that if you like Sammy Hager, you might also like Van Halen's earlier stuff with David Lee Roth. They hope you'll one day be able to log in and find the perfect place to dine on your upcoming trip to, say, Barcelona -- and a suggestion for the right clothes to wear on your night out. Now that sounds like something an art rocker like Peter Gabriel would go for --- as opposed to a night of tequila swilling at Hagar's nightclub in Mexico.

Gabriel put up $8.5 million along with England's Eden Ventures to start The Filter because he fears that people are being overwhelmed by the web. "Everyone got really excited about the concept of infinite choice through the Internet," he says. "The reality is a little like getting a sore thumb with your remote on your television. Too much choice is not always a good thing."

He describes the solution to this machine-age dilemma in the sort of terms you might expect from a thinking man's rock star. "My friend [recording studio guru to Talking Heads, U2 and Coldplay] Brian Eno has been going on for some time about the increasingly important role of the curator over the creator," Gabriel explains. "In many ways, the disc jockey has become as important as the musician, which is one of the best illustrations of that. I would like a life jockey as well as a disc jockey."

The Filter's founders say their service could play that role nicely, claiming its recommendation engine is more sophisticated than anything else on the market. Unlike competing services, the Filter doesn't rely on the ratings that people assign to songs or movies online. It determines its users tastes by observing what they actually do with these items on the Internet.

The engine is particularly interested if someone buys a song, streams it or clicks on a related link. "We like to get real evidence of people's tastes," says Martin Hopkins, co-founder of The Filter and creator of its recommendation technology.

Hopkins also notes that The Filter's engine doesn't push people choices based on what they bought years ago. It slowly forgets what it learned because peoples' tastes change. Don't you wish Amazon's (AMZN, Fortune 500) service did the same?

Gabriel and his partners hope to generate revenue at The Filter by selling advertising. They also hope to license their technology to other digital media companies. The company already provides recommendations to the users of its former OD2 customers like MSN (MSFT, Fortune 500) and Nokia (NOK). That's why the service launches with a database of over 50 million transactions from which to make suggestions.

It's a long leap from recommending music to choosing their restaurants in foreign cities. Still, the idea is intriguing. Gabriel isn't just taking about this either. He's putting up a lot of money to make it happen. "This is definitely something that's worth watching," says Gartner analyst Mike McGuire who, like Fortune, was briefed by The Filter before the private beta launch.

As you might expect, Gabriel is in the studio working on new music, too. He owes one more album to EMI. After that, he plans to release his music on his own a la Radiohead. The graying rocker is thrilled that the Internet is giving artists a new means of distributing their music -- especially the ones who couldn't get a record deal even in the industry's better days. "I like it that the inmates are running the asylum,' says Gabriel.

This, of course means more choices for those overwhelmed consumers that Gabriel is so concerned about. All the more reason for his new company, right? No wonder he's so pleased.

First Published: April 15, 2008: 4:21 AM EDT\