For those interested in video-related postings – you can follow me on Twitter, or check out my video favorites on Frequency.

Saving that, I give you Meppers the last video – as I toss this blog off the proverbial cliff. Enjoy, be well, and keep mepping.

Perfect Girl Exposed! (No, It’s Not What You Think), Shrooms Exposed! (No, That’s Not What You Think Either), Russ Wins at 12th Dimensional Chess, Jackie Hates Perfect Girl, How Long Does It Take to Write the Perfect Text, Always Carry the One When Calculating the Rapture, When Atheists Attack, and Storey Exposed! (No, It’s…Well, Maybe It Is What You Think).

Download Mep Report #127

Give a Man a Quarter and He Can Play One Game, Teach Him to Write in Basic and He Can Feed a Village (Really), They Don’t Make Video Games the Way They Used To (and Get Off My Lawn!), Russ Can’t Help Falling In Love…Again…, Is This the Text That Launched a Thousand Ships?, How Rabbits From Certain Places Can Help You Recover Your Voice, How Many Meppers Does It Take to Get One Mepper a Date, Angry Pictures are Angry, and Chemistry = Not Fat.

Download Mep Report #126

Headlines Grate While Storey Updates, Bedbugs are Bed (Uh, Bad), Some People Call it a Unabomber…Russ Calls it a Beard (mmmhmm), Slide Whistles are Better Than Suicide, The Final Days of DAOC, The Second Coming (and Leaving) of Greg, Then Everyone Was a Jedi, and the Forecast is Partly Cloudy With a Chance of Apocalypse.

Download Mep Report #123

Of course, as part of the second generation BoingBoingTV team, I have some inside dope into this situation. Part of the split had to do with a dispute over revenue sharing with BBtv’s co-owner and production company DECA. DECA wanted to use the revenue from its flagship program, BBtv, to fund some of its other video ventures, and the BBtv crew wasn’t too keen on that happening.

Anyway, I still look back on my BBtv time with fondness, as I learned a tremendous amount about new media, production, and how to deal with a thousand things at once. But this new announcement does seem to close a chapter that I’ve looked back on for some time.

And while I’m thinking about such things, here’s the favorite episode I ever wrote/produced/ and starred in… An homage to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Last night I frequented a local theater production of Slaughterhouse Five featuring the surprisingly versatile Lily Vonnegut.

I’m don’t fancy myself as much of a theater reviewer, but the performance deeply affected me, as I relived some of the more poignant moments of such a formative work. Suffice to say that both A.J. Diamond and Don Sclossman effortlessly captured the perplexed, unstuck in time, Billy Pilgrim. Schlossman, who is a dead ringer for the love child of Darrell Hammond and Glenn Beck, is clearly destined to take the roll of Beck in a future Christopher Guest mockumentary.

This was not an easy piece to take to stage, given the non-linear plot line, forcing the players to quickly shift between a 60s barbershop quartet and German soldiers torturing a group of POWs. Every actor had two to three parts to play at minimum. It was especially pleasing to watch Gretchen Koerner prattle on about an engagement gift as Valencia, and subsequently return to the stage as a barking, German staff sergeant. Even the Tralfamadorians (Vonnegut’s plunger-shaped aliens) were given a surprising amount of depth.

It had been several years since I had read though the book, and in the reproduction, I was struck at how keen and incredibly relevant is Vonnegut’s critique of American hegemony.

“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves…. It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters.”

For all the now en vogue criticisms of banking cartels and financial terrorists, Vonnegut had our society’s fate absolutely pegged 40 years ago. He recognized that despite the shifts in party politics, and despite pop-culture and counter-culture movements, America has been on an unwavering march towards an Oligarchic State. The seeds were planted during the Industrial Revolution, and we have not veered from that path since.

I was especially pleased to see those critical philosophical excerpts featured in the theater piece. It seemed, at times, that the chic Los Angeles audience attending had absolutely no idea what to do with Vonnegut’s prescient progressive soliloquies. All the more reason that they were necessary to include. This culture needs a heaping dose of Vonnegut horse-sense, more than ever.

On a personal note, it meant a great deal to have met Lily, who found the Meppers via our Vonnegut video. I only wish that Storey could have been there, as well. The evening was a welcome reminder that your work can affect people that you least expect, if you’re willing to give of your inner self.