Martini Shot

This is Rob Long and on today’s Martini Shot I suddenly remember I blocked someone’s number when I see on Facebook that they’ve died, and yes I know that makes me a bad person.

This is Rob Long and on today’s Martini Shot I am called courageous for doing something I had no choice but to do, and for doing something else I had no idea was risky in any way, so I’m not really courageous per se as much as cowardly and thoughtless. Tomato tomahto.

This is Rob Long, and on today’s Martini Shot I stretch the limits of apology by comparing driverless cars, navigation software, binge watching television, and the really great Amazon BBC show “Fleabag.” I’m not sure it totally works.

This is Rob Long and on today’s Martini Shot I talk with authority about Deep Fakes — those digitized and undetectable fakes of actors and well-known people doing and saying things they didn’t — and I look enthusiastically at the possibility of a Deep Fake Rob.

This is Rob Long and on today’s Martini Shot I have a super groovy singer friend who tells me that the reason I don’t like the sound of my own voice is because I don’t know how to breathe, which is weird because I’m breathing right now, but it turns out she’s right. I mean, I’m out of breath from just saying that.

This is Rob Long, and on today’s Martini Shot I pretend I’m the kind of person who has never and would never buy vitamin supplements from Instagram, but sadly that is not true. I also bought the Ronco Rotisserie from TV years ago, for the same reason — I see and ad fifty times, eventually I buy the thing.

This is Rob Long and on today’s Martini Shot I predict that the most popular and sought after audience demographic is going to be old people, because once they figure out how to subscribe to Netflix or Hulu or whatever, they’re not going to want to mess with it.

This is Rob Long and on today’s Martini Shot I try to talk some sense into the most stubborn jerk I know —me — and try to make him take the advice he’s always giving to other people, so if he’s smart — and that’s debatable — he’ll just shut up and write the script.

This is Rob Long. I got a “new email address” message that has the wrong email, and it’s emblematic of a bedrock truth about the entertainment industry: it was better when it was a Rolodex business.

This is Rob Long, and on today’s Martini Shot I take a long boat trip to interesting and exotic places, and end up heading back to the boat for pizza night, which is a metaphor I hope everyone can relate to.

This is Rob Long, and on today’s Martini Shot I try to teach a writing class and fail to properly refuse the call, mirror the resolution, or find the pinch point. And apparently that’s what writing is all about.

This is Rob Long and on today’s Martini Shot I talk about my old leaky, oil burning car and why it was a mistake to get it fixed. Turns out, the oil leak grime was holding the whole thing together, sort of like show business.

This is Rob Long, and on today’s Martini Shot I download the Face App and see what I look like when I’m wrinkled and decrepit, which will probably be what I look like next Thursday, but there is good news: old people are about to get very popular in Hollywood.

This is Rob Long, and on today’s Martini Shot my washing machine breaks down and I fix it, sort of, and it all makes me think about Disney Plus. They connect, I promise.

This is Rob Long and on today’s Martini Shot I tell you about the time I went to Costa Rica and drank ayahuasca for four days. There was probably a more artful way to put that, but, I went to Costa Rica and drank ayahuasca. I ran out of euphemisms.

This is Rob Long, and on today’s Martini Shot I tell you about a game show called Phone Swap that is funny and creepy and also on Snapchat, in case you were wondering what the young people were laughing at.

This is Rob Long and on today’s Martini Shot I get super technical and talk about flywheels, which are those things on wheely machine parts which make it go whoosh, whoosh. See? Told you it was technical.

This is Rob Long and on today’s Martini Shot I buy a t-shirt and get an email and somehow it reminds me that writers aren’t always the greatest bosses, especially of other writers.

This is Rob Long, and on today’s Martini Shot I commit acts of violence and mayhem on the Transitive Property of Mathematics, for which I apologize to my eighth grade math teacher.

This is Rob Long and on today’s Martini Shot I get an email from the third assistant of a powerful show business figure, who, you know, must be powerful because who else would need three assistants?