Scott Vrooman

I’m now making appearances on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes as my right-wing character. Here’s some highlights. Here’s me talking about the scourge of windmills, and here’s some pipeline protestor-baiting in Victoria. Here’s an explanation of the US electoral college and this is my take on a proposed carbon tax. More to come, I’ll continue to post in my “Videos” section.

I recently wrote a series of articles and videos for the Toronto Star. This one on environmentalist David Suzuki got the most attention. It even got retweeted by Julian Lennon, who has a strange affection for Canadian newspapers. You can read/watch all of them here.

Here’s a video I made as my alter-ego at the NDP leadership convention.

Hello Scott,

A question about the article you wrote. When you say “First, if you find yourself struggling to lead effectively, remember this acronym, P.A.W: Penetrate, Abbreviate, Wow.” what is that mean? Penetrate, Abbreviate, and Wow? Would you please explain all three of the words with some example?

Thanks,

- Mudassir Azeemi

My reply:

Hi Madassir,

Thanks for your interest in my teachings. Here’s a quick summary of what I’m talking about:

Penetrate:
This is in reference to markets. Not the markets where people meet to buy and sell things, the hard granite-like market of ideas, which can only be penetrated with the hammer, sickle and camaraderie of capitalism. (e.g. “Let’s penetrate that idea with this better idea and also this sickle”)

Abbreviate:
No need many wrds. (e.g. i.e.)

Wow:
Wow is my favourite word, because it’s flexible. You can use it backwards, forwards, or down. (e.g. Wow Ben, I really underestimated how many steak sandwiches you could… Wow!!!)

Hope that clears things up. Please feel free to give this presentation yourself, I really want to get this message out to the world. I only ask that you send me a video of it.

Keep it excellent!

Scott

His reply:

Thanks Scott for explaining it to me.

What I understand is “Innovating” is the real key if you know how to “Penetrate” the market by explaining in a very few words and make people wow about it?

For instance… iPhone and iPod, before iPod there was “Creative MP3″ Player, however the penetrated , abbreviated and put wow factor in to it, same goes with iPhone?

Sounds like what I am trying here too with my web app: http://www.NaanMap.com (I did penetrated against Zabihah.com, abbreviated and now in the process of creating wow factor), most superb thing is they copied our style too!

Once again, thank you for explanation and absolutely I will do my best to capture our “Behind the Scene of NaanMap.com”

- Mudassir Azeemi

My reply:

(speechless)

Our cultural evolution continues to progress at an exponential rate, and nowhere is this felt more strongly than the field of comedy. It’s nearly impossible for comedians to stay ahead of the audience anymore. Unless they’re extraordinarily astute, which I happen to be.

Irony is dead, obviously. Some say it died on 9/11. Some say 9/11 was hilarious. Am I being ironic? Maybe. Was that ironic? It depends. On what? Good question. (That period was italicized. Get it?)

In any case, on 9/12 we entered the era of post-irony (a.k.a. The War On Irony), and instead of mocking individual ideologies we mocked the fact that there were ideologies. Osama Bin Laden as a judge on American Idol was no longer funny, but Osama Bin Laden’s beard cooking an American flag in a microwave was. We all remember how funny that New Yorker cartoon was, but now you know why it was funny.

But that wasn’t enough, because soon post-irony died. It happened at a funeral. Everyone spontaneously burst out in laughter. Nothing was taboo anymore, not even freshly baked death. But before George Lopez’s Celebrity Snuff even got out of development, the face of the nation returned to its default scowl. It wanted something more.

Post-post-post-irony’s work was cut out for it. It’s catchy mission statement: outdo taboo. Enter Norwegian longshoreman Sigstein Oors. How did a blue-collar Scandinavian pioneer the next generation of comedy? Only Sigstein knew the answer to that, but he died, which was so post-post-irony. Way to go out like a hack, Sigstein.

Thus was born post-post-post-post-irony, comedy that used tedium as its weapon of choice. It reached its zenith with a brilliant YouTube video of a haggard mother ironing 12 consecutive dress shirts, but reached its nadir weeks later with a video of that same mother ironing 25 consecutive dress shirts. The latter video was just terrible. Not funny at all.

And thus comedy entered its current era: post-post-post-post-post irony. This phase of comedy is so new that so far it consists of a single image: a cat mid-sneeze. But soon feline sternutation will be mined down to its dregs and this too shall pass.

So in order to stay not only relevant but ahead of the audience, I am hereby planting my comedic moon flag on post-post-post-post-post-post irony. I called it. It’s mine.

What will it involve? It’s quite simple, really. I will install a small camera inside my lower intestines that will capture flatulence at the moment it begins to form. You thought flatulence was funny? You thought ironic flatulence was funny? Well hang onto your fart buckle, because pre-flatulence is going to make you laugh so hard it will put a strain on the aforementioned buckle. Granted, this idea doesn’t sound even remotely funny now. That’s the whole point; it will be.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we’ve come full circle and simple irony will make a comeback. Am I being ironic? That depends on if you think it was funny. Or does it? Was that funny? What about this?

You’re probably here because you’re looking to stay at the Vrooman Mansion, a lovely bed and breakfast in Bloomington, Illinois. The website can be found here. Enjoy your stay!