Rob Long

This is pretty funny stuff….

9/11 Conspiracy Theories ‘Ridiculous,’ Al Qaeda Says

I’ve been dealing with the federal government for a little bit, on a project that I can’t talk about. Honestly. Cool, huh?

So I sent a document to the person I’ve been dealing with — smart guy, very entrepreneurial (well, as much as anyone can be and still work for the Feds) and very down-to-earth.

I send him the document, and I get the following email (with slight adjustments to protect the super-secrecy of the project):

Rob, might be a good idea for you to think about submitting this to our
open QAP. Look for QAP 08-Z-21pv09 and submit
a quad to the XH900 requirement for PRC. That will get you in the
acquisition system and lessen a lot of bureaucracy on our end.

You know, I’ll bet submitting a quad to the XH900 will lessen the bureaucracy. I’ll have to get on that.

I begin my weekly radio commentary on KCRW this way:

A few years ago, a friend of mine tried to fire his agent. It didn’t go well. After a long, wearying phone call, in which the agent tried everything in his bag of tricks – you owe me! This is wrong! I screwed up, I know! Gimme one more chance! This is a bad career move! — all of them, my friend finally agreed to the thing he had been dreading – the thing that every single one of his writer friends told him, under no circumstances, to agree to.

He agreed to a meeting.

The rest of it is here. In text, audio, and podcast.

And I promise, as soon as my script is in, I’ll be blogging more.

Here’s how I start my KCRW commentary this week:

I have an actor friend who, early in his career, attended a very popular, respected acting class. On the first day, the teacher arrived, told the class to stand up and said: “Now, each of you wrap your arms around yourself and give yourself a big, hurting hug. And repeat: wonderful, wonderful me!”

Because, you know, that’s a problem we have out here in Hollywood: we just don’t love ourselves enough.

The rest, as always, is here.

And I just discovered that the podcast listing on iTunes includes customer reviews. I guess I always knew that, in the back of my mind, but I never bothered to check.

Most people seem to enjoy my tiny, tinny 4 minutes. But some do what psychologists call “withholding love.”

For instance, this fellow (no link available; I promise):

“Yesss…and? Cute, ‘zingy,’ but offers no insight into the showbiz world that hasn’t been explored better somewhere else. Seems to be motivated by self-promotion more than anything else. And Mr. Long’s delivery is really irritating!”

To which I say: Wonderful, wonderful me.

Or this guy:

“The writing is fairly decent and that’s about all I can say. Mr. Long’s delivery is affected and a bit too self-satisfied. I think I’d rather read these as sidebars in a magazine, if at all. The material sometimes seems willfully stripped of any real edge. And there is a strange sense of self-promotion even though his employers, co-workers, and colleagues are never mentioned by name. In fact, it is only the author’s bio that seems to categorize this as Arts and Entertainment and not some rather shapeless audio blog.”

To which I say: Wonderful, wonderful me. And also: you want to see shapeless blog? See me in my underwear someday.

Here’s how I start my radio commentary on KCRW this week:

Sometimes, certain things seem strange or stupid just because we haven’t seen them enough.

You know what I mean?  They’ll come out with a new car design, and it’ll look strange and stupid and then you see them all over the place and soon they look normal.  And a little while later you’re thinking, “hey, I like the look of that car.”

It just wears you down.

Like, for instance, Bluetooth headsets.  It’s a stupid piece of plastic.  It looks like you’ve got a stick of chewing gum coming out of your ear.  It’s a jerky thing to walk around with.  I’ll never wear one of those.

And then, you know, you start seeing them everywhere.  Everyone’s got one.  You try one out.  It’s okay, but you take it out right after the call.  And then, a few days or weeks later, maybe, you leave it in for a while.  Suddenly, you’re that guy.

Which brings us to the word, “webisode.”

More, as usual here.  And on iTunes, too, for those who want to make a real commitment.   I totally understand if you don’t.  I don’t much like hearing my voice either.

Some of you may already have seen this — maybe even at TED this year — and I know it’s off topic. Still. For a 15 minute presentation, this is really exceptional, and amazing. And weirdly moving. It’s worth watching.

Oh, what’s this in my hand? It’s nothing. No, seriously. Nothing at all.

Well, okay. If you insist.

It’s my nice mention in Vanity Fair. But I don’t want to make a big deal about it or anything.

I know, I know: everyone’s talked this issue to death.

But Jay Parkhill, who writes an excellent blog called Startup Toolbox, discusses what we can learn from the Emperor’s Club, here. And links to this Bloomberg article. Turns out, it was a pretty solidly-run business. Up until, you know, Monday.

I’ve been on the board of My Friend’s Place, an agency helping homeless youth in Hollywood, for almost 10 years. It’s a great place, doing hard work — helping get homeless young people off the streets and into safe, productive lives — and the people who work there are nothing less than heroes.

We’re a small, small agency. But incredibly effective. One of the things I really care about when thinking about charitable donations is: how effective are they with my dollar? It’s more important, actually, than the mission of the place. Missions are meaningless if the organization spends ineffectively.

My Friend’s Place is more than a transforming agency, with a brilliant staff, doing hard and important work. It’s an effective agency, doing a lot with very little.

But don’t take my word for it. If you’re in Los Angeles, and you’re free Thursday, March 27th, come by the agency, say hi to me and the staff and the board, take a tour, and get to know My Friend’s Place….

Please join us at

Thursday, March 27th
6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

at My Friend’s Place
5850 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028

Tour our facility, meet staff members, and learn how we support more than
1,600 homeless youth every year.

~light refreshments and hors d’oeuvres will be served~

Please R.S.V.P. by March 24 to
Robin Takashima - 323.908.0011 x116 or rtakashima@myfriendsplace.org

My old friend Ellen Ladowsky and I have spent hours — years, really — talking about stuff from a psychological perspective. She’s an expert — she’s got a Ph.D and a lot of experience — and I’m sort of a bluffing, seat-of-the-pants amateur. Her normal beat is psychopaths and sex criminals — there was a time when all of her patients were, to put it discreetly, “court ordered.”

Here, we’re on Bloggingheads.tv, talking Obama v. Clinton, and as usual, it gets pretty Freudian. And probably not all the different from her usual patient.

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