growing up brian

A tormented Soul
A tormented Soul

I never figured out What’s Eating Gilbert Grape but I think I have an idea what is bothering this dude. Those who watch the internet phenomenon known as Night Attack have witnessed a week by week metamorphosis of Brian Brushwood and watched this tortured soul run the gamut of human emotions in recent weeks.

Brian lives on the other side of the computer monitor from us. He, and many of the other people we watch on our screens, have seen the clown without the makeup and looked behind the magic curtain. At TWiT that meant they all saw the real Laporte.

Can I have both?
Can I have both?

At times we all saw the real man too. Who can forget the blow up at Mike Arrington or the inhumane treatment of RichardYea. Now, it must be said that Laporte  is just a man and subject to emotion and making mistakes. For that reason many of us liked him more when we saw him lose his shit on Arrington, who by all accounts is a grade-A prick anyway. But the people who worked with and around Laporte saw him up close. They knew more of his imperfections and saw more of his blemishes and there were many. In the end, their jury found him worthy and accepted his shortcomings. It is that simple of a scale, they judged him favorably. In their opinion, he cut the mustard and so allowances were made.

So when Leo poached Chad from Brian, Brian accepted it. “It’s business” his idol and mentor could have said.  Many other unsaid happenings like the poaching  occurred, but he remained a good guy in their collective opinion. But now the scale has tipped the other way, now he is an asshole to them. All the sins of the many years which were brushed under the rug have piled high.

Brian sees Laporte with new eyes and he wants everyone else to see him that way too. His friend was fired for no reason other than pettiness. (Leo gives Jason howell a promotion to Chads job, huh?) Now Brian wants to tear down the curtain and show you the pile of sins. It is odd, because out of everyone in the podcasting community, it is Brian who is most like Leo, and in his future he will be susceptible to many of the same career temptations. Brian is a shrewd dude and with a shrewd mind comes a power he will need to keep a watchful eye on.

Pick up the mantle
Pick up the mantle

The principals Leo taught these young men and women, from Amber MacArthur in Canada to Patrick Beja in France and everywhere in between, were good and simply because the #soupguzzler didn’t live by them does not mean they were wrong. The philosophy Leo built was a foundation to many of these people and it is hard watching it crumble. Community, anti-establishment, respecting the audience doing it on your own, fish bowl lives, honesty….. was it all a lie? It was a philosophy he believed in, deeply. A religion Justin said, a father Brian said. These youngins will need a new leader now. At the dawn of the third day look to the East, look to Tom now, he is your new leader.

Marcus Aurelius made Commudus the protector of Rome precisely because he didn’t want the job.
God chose Moses because he was too humble to think himself a leader.

As The TWiT Churns #1

In today’s Inside Twit there was a minor dust up between owner, chief Poobah, and good friend of Kevin Spacey, Leo Laporte (briefly known as Ebola Pork on Twitter) and CEHO CEO Lisa Kentzell.

Seems M. Laporte knows nothing about how advertising works. Or who runs bartertown.

Herewith is a clip, unedited, save for trimming off the front and back and adding a sexy bumper.

There were many other choice bits, hopefully to go into a more creative video than this.

In late breaking news we are presenting the entire Inside TWiT. There may be bits of it that are interesting to some.

Only a little Nudge

This morning Leo graced all twitlive fans, or as he called them, his ‘circle’ with a personal appearance in IRC. Following are a few snippets. Hopefully more fun will ensue.

On why Chad was fired:chad5Translation:  I fired him. Maybe he’ll land on his feet

On how much we will see Chad in the future. Lots according to Leo.
chad1Translation: You’ll see Chad until he finds a real job and moves. 

On why didn’t you keep him until he was on his feet.
chad4Translation: He was a security risk. So we wanted him out of the studio.

On why are all the young talent being fired or put on hiatus or whatever reason is being given.
chad3Translation: Young people have friends and are leakers. We can’t trust them.

On TWiT’s pivot to an older audience.
chad2Translation: Old people we rescue from retirement homes are cheap, they have a second income. And they can’t get a job anywhere else.

Desperately seeking new employees
Desperately seeking new employees


Feel free to add your own dialogue.  What he said, what he meant.

Lisa Kentzell almost through the Petaluma phonebook

Desperately seeking new employees
Desperately seeking new employees

TWiT CEHo Lisa Kentzell is up to the letter “X” now in the Petaluma phonebook as she scours the region attempting to find people to con into working at the Shit Twithouse after the unexpected and sadly public firing of longtime employee Chad Johnson yesterday.

The notoriously cunty Kentzell has worked her way all the way from “A” through “X” so far in her quest to fill the empty anchor chairs, editing positions, technical director slots and other underpaid lackey spots. No word yet on what the heartless whore is going to try next to prop up the failing TWiT finances. Leo is expecting to spend Christmas in Bruges, so she better get that spreadsheet in order.

We Didn’t Start the Fire

Screenshot 2014-10-28 19.33.38

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on and on and on and on
And on and on and on and on…

It has been a big night, Night Attack and OMGCraft fighting for live viewership. Head to head. And that terrible show by some priest.

And because of that all I could see on OMGChad twitch.tv channel was his lips moving. No sound.  I may be brilliant but my lip reading skills are deficient.  So we await the revelations. [edit] turns out I had twitch muted, dumbo me.

Night Attack is in progress.  So far all we have is: Brian upset, and his vasectomy is coming up soon. And Brian feels something is his fault.

I’m confused, but that is normal.

Some quotes from the show. More paraphrases.

OMGChad called into Night Attack, and talked. Let it all out.

Chad was called into a meeting and fired, terminated. Told he was no longer an employee at TWiT.

He described it as “a friendly breakup” because he gets to host the GizzzzWIzzzzzz. And appear on BeforeYouBuy, maybe.

Anthony Carboni added some information about potential thefts from some theatre, unrelated to the Chad Story.

Brian Brushwood spoke from the heart, giving advice about quality vs podtrac download numbers. How Patreon was a means to get there.

Brian decide to not tell the truth.

Brian asked us to look into the face of compromise?

Screenshot 2014-10-28 20.48.13

Justin Robert Young kept playing a song, I think it was some sort of code.

But it’s time to “Let It Go!”

“They asked me to fire Tom Merritt”

What does that mean?

This is a cliff hanger. Tune in next week for As The TWiT Burns?  Got me, really.

Screenshot 2014-10-28 20.56.21

Not what he meant? A true mystery wrapped in an enigma. Stay tuned.

Screenshot 2014-10-28 21.00.26

Leo Laporte, master of spin

Leo gives Chad the big "fuck you."
Leo gives Chad the big “fuck you.”

In the post-show to “MacBreak Weekly,” Leo Laporte just responded to chatroom queries about the demise of Chad Johnson’s employment at TWiT as Chad’s opportunity to “take OMGCraft to the next level.” Leo then added that he “loves and supports Chad.” He then quickly went on to say that he hoped to make Chad an “off-site producer.” We here at #TotalDrama have no idea what that means; and we suspect that Leo doesn’t either.

One wonders if Leo would have told the suffering victims of Nagasaki after the Americans dropped the bomb on them, that this was their “opportunity to rebuild a great Japanese city.”

For Leo and Lisa, “positive” news turns out to be exactly not that.

Chad is OUT – Updated

What #soup calls an an ordinary day-to-day occurrence may be more than meets the eye. Long standing employee Jason Howell has, for years, had his schedule as set in stone as the lunch order of one extra large soup for Leo and one small salad with a small piece of salmon for the lovely and talented Sarah Lane. (Which she rarely even finishes.) That stone’s setting has apparently been shaken.

Vaaaatttttssss Uuuuuup
Vaaaatttttssss Uuuuuup

Judging by the purple on the screen (above) it appears that Jason is off of TNT duties and onto manning the controls of Macbreak Weekly and other big shows. But it is that something else, wich is amiss, that caught #drama’s attention. What was announced as a “shakeup of the  producers schedule” could actually be a firing. The employees all know to shut-up or suffer the consequences so you won’t hear this news anywhere else.

———————-UPDATED———————

What is not up for debate is this, Chad is out as a full timer at TWiT. He is down to one show, the GizWhiz, which translates to at-most 180 days worth of employment. Of course all fired employees are announced as members of BYB. Remember, Justin Young was also announced as continuing on BYB (although he has still not appeared there) and of course Shannon is on BYB. That show is like the way station for the one-way train out of town. The strategy of not announcing that people are being fired or quitting seems to be fooling most of the morons in #twitlive. Unfortunately, that don’t fly in #drama and our IRC is based in Iceland. Brrrrrrr it’s cold in here, we must get truth out of here.

No one is pointing fingers but...
No one is pointing fingers but…

Speculation had been swirling as to why the change. Has Chad moved on to something else? (Updated – No) Has being friends with Brian Brushwood become a capital offense?(Updated – Yes)  It was odd that Reddit Up had its lifespan cut short while Padre’s Corner is in full swing, neither show was awash in ads. Head-scratcher! I tell ya.

The ex-employee list grows longer with each day. But yea, everything is ok at TWiT, #TotalDrama makes stuff up.
Anyway, all of us are fellow castaways of TWiT, and the team at #TotalDrama wishes Chad well and expects him to do well wherever he ends up. He even has a Patreon set up if you want to help out.

Jarvis and Laporte laugh at Robert Scoble

So we’re trying to clear out some old videos here at #TotalDrama just so they don’t get too stale. So here’s one we plucked out of the “backroom” here at TDHQ:

In a shocking display of disrespect during a taping of “This Week in Google” recently, Jeff Jarvis and Leo Laporte team up to mock Robert Scoble’s enthusiasm for technology. Scoble was not on the show and thus could not defend himself against the duo’s derisiveness. Watch for yourself to see just how unfair these two old geezers were to Scoble.

movie recommendations

This is a first since the inception of this website. I kid you not. Check the annals (two n’s) of our site and you will find nothing of its kind. This movie recommendation is not without purpose, it is not only here to entertain you.
The movie I speak of ‘Quiz Show’  is available now to rent and stream.

To Tell the Truth.
To Tell the Truth.

This film started slow but sped up in the second act and the third act was riveting. The concepts examined in this movie are great. The descent into corruption for money. The lust for fame. The trading in of values. Advertising in TV. The death of morality in TV. Bastardizing intelligence. Selling out. Lying to the public.

It also has a lot of stuff for people who like literature and Shakespeare, so no one from TWiT will watch it. It is honestly in my top 15 all-time-movies.  Rob Redford directed and he is a great, great friend.