On Jokes
I was originally nervous about coming out of the closet as a comedian.
Everyone was super supportive. But then I realized I wasn't actually a comedian, I didn't like portraying myself.
I was something different. I was a writer.
I told my family and they were like, “Noooo, you're going to be poor and not famous!” and I was like, “I used to work at Netflix, trust me, they pay their writers.”
And then the writers went on strike.
So I was like, okay, murphicariously, I should be a comedian.
And then the actors went on strike.
So then I really didn't know what to do.
And at that point, I couldn't like, just go ask for my job back at Netflix without crossing maybe close to three strike lines and I'm not trying to become an amatuer bowler.
I doubled down and became a clown.
I was already researching clowns in my comedy studies. And I needed a hook to combine my screenwriting class with my songwriting class to forge a Sillonious Degree.
That hook became The War on Clowns, both an album and a companion sequence of visuals, not a musical, but a vibe, like an 80s film, or Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.
In this timestream, the project was cancelled.
Budget contstraints meant we only had enough funding to discover the computer to create, distribute, and redistribute The War on Clowns— a hypertext computer.
Even still, as an indie production, every Friday was dress rehearsal, a show must go on. Two lines would be uttered after lunch at the Internet Archive, never the same two. Just some foreign articulation of The War on Clowns to a room of people from a timestream where The War on Clowns wasn't a reality to them.
This began to braid the timestreams and while the War on Clowns was a fictional narrative in the earth prime timestream, real bonds were forming. I began juggling again. I began kicking juggling balls with my feet again. I began becoming something bigger than myself again.
People began to believe in me, the plight of the clowns, and the computer I'm building to help them connect and support one another.
While The War on Clowns didn't get funded, it seems likely that any or all of the spin-off collaborations will launch, including The War on Love is The War on Clowns, The War on Kids is The War on Clowns, and The War on Time is The War on Clowns.
To get there, twelve indie productions will be made in the same “The War on” format. It might seem like I'm biting off more than I can chew, but I assure you, I can juggle technology, creativity, and execution— computers, writing, production— art, music, coding— Ty, Ty, Ty.
My name is Ty, and I'm a technologist, author, and showrunner. Notorious Sillonious thanks you for your attention.
Fun fact: the same neural pathways to maintain codebases are the same neural pathways to maintain narrative fiction as they are both grounded in the same mere semblance of reality.