One of the hard things about finding a new channel on YouTube is knowing what the best videos this particular person has.  For example, if I had just discovered Middlebrook today, I would subscribe in a heartbeat, but I would be a little put-off by his 170+ videos.

I might watch his most recent video and maybe the one before that ... and then I'd probably go back to his very first video.  But then I would probably move on to my other subscriptions and wait for him to put something new out.

Is that similar to what you do?

What I really want to see is a prominently displayed playlist where Middlebrook (or whomever the subject YouTuber might be) has selected some of his very best videos--the videos he believes I simply MUST see.

In an effort to start this trend, I present my own personal, must-see playlist.  These are twenty-two of my some of my very best videos that show off the extraordinary range of my channel.  So grab something to drink, maybe a little something much on, get comfortable, and enjoy my "START HERE!!!" playlist.  Of love.

As I sit here trimming footage for a new Talking Heads episode, randomly posting nuggets of praise and other random observations for the players on twitter, it occurs to me that it may very well be high-time to reveal the secret of Talking Heads.

When I tape my footage, especially the meaty lines, I just read it right off the computer screen.  That's right.  I have the webcam set up on top of my laptop screen and then I have the script in Notepad, placed as close to the top of the screen (the webcam) as possible.  As most lines are ridiculously short and simple, it's easy to deliver them straight into the camera.  For the chunkier lines, I simply read them off the screen.

Memorization is good, but far too time consuming.  Maybe if I ever pay you guys for these performances, THEN you can take the time to memorize lines ;)

I was going to just post this as a comment in response to Heather and Walker in my last post about twitter, but I thought I'd just post it here.  Oh: and WOW, it's really impressive how quickly people turn to angry criticism about such mundane activities.  Also: how awesome is that picture?  Yep, that's a Kindle and those are the immortal words penned by DNA.

@Heather: I'm fully aware that we all exist outside the internet.  But I'm hardly going to pack my shit up and come visit you for a weekend.  You don't email like you used to and rarely do you update your blog.  There's nothing wrong with any of these things, but I bring them up to raise the following points:

In addition to "quitting youtube", you've removed yourself from the online contributing/interacting community.  Obviously, you're welcome to criticize however and whenever you'd like, but speaking as someone who is constantly contributing and trying to interact with the online community that surrounds me, I view twitter as an extra tool to get that done.  Because I don't always post a video with the thought I want to share or write a blog here that has an update on a project.  I view twitter as the spackle that can fill in the cracks.

@Walker: stop trying to make twitter something more than what it is OR assuming I'm leaning on it for something more than it is.  It's a microblogging site and it's not the first one of used (about a year ago I messed around with Tumblr, twitter's main competitor).

I'm impressed on a daily basis with the people who have found this website and continue to visit it.  But, I know that they come from youtube and for a long time to come, this site will always be secondary to my youtube channel.  In much the same way, twitter is secondary to the youtube channel because all the people there have found me through youtube.

Both of you are responding to my desire to utilize twitter interact and grow friendships with the people I have met online.  My caveat: these people are though youtube, are worldwide in their locations, and still, as always, EVERYTHING revolves around creative inspiration.

I would hope you both can understand and appreciate that, but it's okay if you don't.

Will it be useful?  Productive?  Probably none of these things ... but for now, it'll be worth the look-see:

http://twitter.com/krumbine

Sweet, glorious victory!  Tell everyone you know to subscribe to krumbine -- I'm that much closer to 2,000!

Three sentences.

Four, if you want to be generous.

I stared at blinking cursor on my screen--I already filled in the requisite name and address and salutation that goes with a business letter--and the empty white space between the greeting and my boss's signature glared at me, mocking my inability to fabricate even the weakest line of bullshit.

It's one of the reasons that I like my job.  It's also one of the reasons why I hate it.  Sometimes there can be a massive divide between creative writing--the proverbial bread and butter of my very existence--and professional copy writing/letter drafting.  On a good day, however, there is no difference at all.

You see, when I draft a letter for my boss, it's full of such eloquent bullshit that it rivals even my most creative of scripts.  A letter, to a public official or to a constituent, painstakingly crafted to evoke a sense of urgency and importance; manufacturing a moral high-ground, relevant or not, that injects a previously unbeknownst level of importance to the letter ... these are the things that I relish about my job.

The bare minimum, however, is a different story.  When I have no material to work off of--no key phrases to highlight or an important reference sentence to establish a thesis--I must then cobble together a few sentences that convey some kind of meaning.  And it doesn't take much to make an effective, "bare minimum" letter.  Three sentences.

Four, if you want to be generous.

But again, when you have no material to work off of, whatsoever ... those three sentences are an impassable mountain.

I've already managed to put off this letter for a few days ... and then I got a weekend reprieve.  But now I need to get it done.

Three sentences.

Four, maybe.

At this rate, I'll probably write a goddamn novel before I pull these three sentences out of my ass.