The Chronicles of Colbert and Conan: Who Made Huckabee?

For the first part of 2008, there has been a comedy feud between Conan O'Brien and Stephen Colbert, regarding the answer to life, the universe, and everything (without being 42): Who made Mike Huckabee?

I first blogged about the Huckabee causality conundrum on my currently politically-tinged blog DeRamos.org after Conan mentioned re-energizing Chuck Norris, who in turn re-energized Huckabee to win the first caucus of the election season in Iowa. Little did I know that my humble little blog entry caught the attention of Stephen Colbert and/or the bloggers at Comedy Central (not the writers, as they were supposed to be on strike at the time). The screenshot at the beginning of this entry shows a link from the Colbert Nation to DeRamos.org's article "Huckabee's Caucus Win, Conan's Causality."

Much has been said about the Colbert Bump - that is, being interviewed on The Colbert Report invariably bumps up the interviewee's popularity - and my other blog experienced something like that in terms of blog traffic for about a week. In gratitude for this third-tier quasi-Colbert Bump, and with my inner comedic muckraker never letting go of a funny story, I have followed the entire story at DeRamos.org: Check out part one | part 1.5 | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven for in-depth reference.

Otherwise, here are the videos (catch 'em while they are still hosted by Hulu and Comedy Central) telling the epic story in its entirety:

1. Conan made Huckabee (currently unavailable on Hulu so check out the later videos for context).


2. No, Colbert made Huckabee.


3. No, Conan made Colbert and therefore made Huckabee.


4. No, Jon Stewart made Conan and therefore made Huckabee.


5. No, Conan made both Stewart and Colbert and therefore made Huckabee. Evidently, he also shaved off his strike beard between the previous Late Night video and this one.


6. The final battle, part one, on The Daily Show.



7. The final battle, part two, on The Colbert Report.



8. The final battle, part three, on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.


9. The epilogue, multiple endings a la The Return of the King, on The Daily Show.




10. A summary of the events, courtesy of Comedy Central.


The screenshot is from ColbertNation.com.

Ryan's List-Worthy from Last Year List: Non-Podcast Rock Music

Other than spinning the fine music heard at Radio@MU, I haven't consumed much music in 2007. Early in the year, I cut demos to some of the Elan Vital soundtrack. In the middle of the year, my band The Society of Gloves recorded a couple of tracks. At the end of the year, and continuing to this day, I've been tracking music for the Elan Vital score. Instead of listening to new music, I've produced music and grooved to a bunch of classics released in previous years.

Anyhow, here's a sadly brief (but great-sounding!) list of three good songs released last year. They're not necessarily my top favorites from 2007, but each song comes from some of the new albums I spent a great deal of time to listen last year:

1. Radiohead "Reckoner" | Amazon.com MP3
BAD. ASS. You can't get anymore badass in 2007 than Radiohead's In Rainbows and the way it was initially for sale - and Mutiny Universe broke the news (at the same time as virtually everyone else), too! "Bodysnatchers" was initially my favorite track off the album, that is, until "Reckoner" got under my skin! Here's a video of a live performance of "Reckoner," and it is IMPERATIVE that you concur that the song is badass:

2. Eddie Vedder "Hard Sun" |
Into the Wild is a fantastic soundtrack/solo album by Ed. I haven't seen the film, but I've heard great things about it. I'm also partway through the book of the same name, and my brother (who read the book before me) says great things about it. Ed has written great songs, and continues to do so - but this selection is a cover song, which goes to show that Ed can consistently record great cover songs, with or without Pearl Jam: "Love, Reign O'er Me," "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," and "Last Kiss," to name a few. Here's a music video that promotes the film:



3. Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin "United States" | Amazon.com MP3
On paper, they're called the Smashing Pumpkins, but since they recorded the album Zeitgeist and their latest EP American Gothic with neither the two other original or the three new Pumpkins, they might as well stick to calling themselves BC/JC. Anyhow, Zeitgeist was a better-than-average comeback album that has been tainted by typical record company greed: Multiple versions and album colors, as well as Ford commercial airplay. Ironically, the previous Pumpkins album, Machina II, was a loud-and-clear F-YOU to the record industry, as the band gave the music away for free online. On any other list that involves new Pumpkins tracks, I would have written "Bring the Light" instead, but "United States" is a nearly-ten minute heavy rock epic, and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin recorded the drum track in ONE TAKE and NO CLICK TRACK. Supposedly, there's one flubbed note in there, but I'll take a Jimmy Chamberlin flubbed note any day to my flubbed notes! Here's a live performance of the song:



So that's my short list. It's definitely missing a lot of good stuff from 2007, so I guess I'll have to catch up in 2008.

New moxy phinx Video

One of Mutiny Universe's favorite artists, moxy phinx has released a video for the song "silence." Check it out:

moxy phinx- silence

Add to My Profile | More Videos

We'll be back with regularly scheduled MU TV soon. By the way, did you catch the mostly-bearded late night talk shows last night? Dave sports a beard, and so does Conan. Even Jimmy Kimmel Live's Guillermo augmented his moustache with a goatee.

In case you're wondering where the mystery meat hyperlinks go:
favorite = Elan Vital blog;
artists = Right-click to download The Society of Gloves feat. moxy phinx "Time Lose Your Hold";
moxy phinx = moxy's MySpace profile;
MU TV = Episodes we've posted from Hulu. Unfortunately, FX has taken down episodes from the first season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, not because of copyright infringement but because they want you to buy the DVDs, as Hulu has the support of the bulk of the big media oligarchy.

Haiku Current Events

Musharraf to blame?
Is this a democracy?
Let fascism reign?

Blog Readability Test

There's a humorous blog readability test at CriticsRant.com that quickly analyzes any given blog, giving it a minimum education rating. For instance, to fully comprehend this blog, a reader must have a minimum education of...

MU Blog

I don't know if one has to be a college graduate to fully appreciate the Mutiny Universe blog, but some knowledge of computers is required to download our podcasts, I guess. The concept of the haiku is a middle school or junior high thing, isn't it? While this certainly reflects the education level of the contributors of this blog, I don't think this blog's posts look like term papers...do they?

I contribute to a series of other blogs (shameless self-promotion alert!), and here's what the test says about them:

DeRamos.org

I've been blogging politically at DeRamos.org, so it's pretty flattering that my personal blog (as well as the collaborative MU blog) reflects my official level of education. Then again, I'm not blogging term papers at DeRamos.org, either.

The Society of Gloves

I'm actually glad the blog/website for my rock band doesn't have an extremely high educational rating. It's rock 'n roll for crying out loud...not rocket science! On the other hand, the self-producing process is pretty heavy. But if this is judging the end content of the band, then it's great not be an intellectual elitist...for once. I have to also point out that the blog readability test can give "results" lower than high school level.

And finally...

Chord du Jour

The irony is that Chord du Jour is supposed to teach beginning and intermediate guitarists some really basic stuff. If you have to be a genius to comprehend the concepts that I'm trying to teach, then I'm probably not teaching in an effective manner. Sigh. However, it is some consolation that I've been given genius status...even if it is from a humorous Internet analysis.

Now check your blog's readability level!