Quick post about National Lampoon...

I'm packing. It's insane. Kate and I go to sleep every evening with delightful visions of bonfires dancing in our brains. Meanwhile, friend Jules Lipoff forwarded me this article on the long-dead-yet-somehow-still-living National Lampoon. For people who admire the old magazine, it's depressing as hell. On the other hand, for people who admire the concept of commerce as "selling crap to the suckers," it's inspiring. To save you the effort: it's the same article that gets written every time the name changes hands. The people in charge get a brief burst of notoriety, based on the old magazine's quality and reputation. They take this moment in the limelight to vomit out some nonsense about licensing and leveraging and maximizing brand identity, etc etc, which proves beyond any doubt that they have NO IDEA what made the Lampoon financially successful in the first place: collecting a group of really funny people, letting them do whatever the hell they wanted, and distributing whatever they produced. Comedic institutions are worthwhile to the extent that they facilitate collaboration and creativity (see Second City, ImprovOlympic). When they stop doing that, and the people at the top start thinking like marketers (see SNL, MAD Magazine) comedy fans should assemble with torches and pitchforks, and tear 'em down. I have spoken!