Max Koch Uncorked

Wine-soaked adventures through a twisted life…

Happy Anniversary, YouTube!

Ten years today, YouTube, baby!

You n’ me?

Ten long, short, up, down, happy, sad, crazy, mad years.

Why it only seems like yesterday – July 21, 2006, to be exact – that a female friend of mine told me I should “sign up for YouTube” (“for what, like, online classes?”) and film myself doing my impressions. “Hey, hey, what’m I, some low-rent Rich Little wannabe? These ain’t impressions that I do here, lady. There are channelings.  I’m an ARTIST.  Me, I try to BECOME these guys.”

“Yeah, yeah, just get it done”, she’d say.

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My channel, Bowlerhat – or Bowler Hat Productions, named in honor of Alex’s derby in Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” – became my wonderland. My most favorite form of creative expression.  I took risks. And once the Tony Soprano stuff hit, I took even MORE risks. And hits.  It got to the point that if I wanted to make something totally different over there…say, a video of a puppet trying to talk Gary Busey into taking a shit because he was constipated, while Nick Nolte is banging on the bathroom door outside…well, then, damn it, I was gonna do it.

Over time, making all those videos almost plunged me into madness. I got so method actor-y about them. I’ll never forget walking over to 7-11 and buying 15 types of bubble gum Al Pacino could sample for “Tony Soprano Stages an INTERVENTION.”

YouTube gave me an instant audience. It always brought me a lotta haters, which I wasn’t at ALL ready for. And soon I was even making $$$ from YouTube once they came at me about being a partner. But I think I’m making much less with them these days as I’ve gone from hundreds of thousands of views on stuff…to maybe a few hundred even.

And there’s where you start do wonder:  Is it over? Do I suck? Or am I just TOO out there, too experimental? Does nobody even CARE anymore? Maybe it’s that I’m too old? Or is it because I don’t do Tony Soprano enough. But even when I do do Tony Soprano, the views just aren’t what they’ve been in the past. 

I DON’T KNOW THE FORMULA BECAUSE THE FORMULA IS ALWAYS CHANGING. 

Listen. Just know that YouTube’s been good to me. It has brought me TONS of work. And most of it legitimate. I got to work with Sopranos cast members on various projects.  I got to play Mickey Rourke on a late-night talk show.  I even got flown to Long Island once for a weekend of shooting videos and they put me up in this super-fancy corporate hotel that I never wanted to leave.  The gig? Channel Pacino, Nicholson, and De Niro in an office setting. How much fun was THAT? I still thank Pete Sussi, the guy who found me on YouTube and put all that together, to this day.  They even scored me a SAG contract, that’s how much it meant that we work together.

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I’m proud of my little YouTube legacy. It will all be good fodder and footage for the Max Koch documentary someone makes when I die. (Oh, I totally believe that my true fame will be posthumous!)

When I started this blog, I opened a second channel for videos more related to wine and travel. I get a lot of very kind comments over there. All in all…I have enjoyed this run very much. And I most definitely plan to keep going.

Oh! Almost forgot. I made a quick, little new video in honor of the anni. Just click this pic below of the YouTube logo and GO:

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WINE PAIRING: A.J. Soprano would be proud! I’m bustin’ out the Cristal!  Hey!!! Happy Anniversary!!! (Aw, crap, half the bottle fizzled out…this stuff’s expensive…)