I first interviewed the guys almost a year ago for another online publication and we decided to sit down again, have a chat and see what had happened with and to them as Current's go to guys. The boys are blowing up. Last year they won and Emmy, this year they landed a spot in the pages of Interview Magazine and an advertorial spread in L'Uomo Vogue. That's right people, Current TV does high fashion.

I got poked at for choosing the interview location, at Urth Cafe, called a scenester. Which I think is pretty funny, especially since I wasn't the one who could identify and name (obviously from having met them) big wigs at the new 4 bottle minimum on a Saturday night exclusive watering hole a block down the street on Melrose.

So what has happened since the last time we sat together like this?

Jason Silva: Well, it's lovely to see you again Courtney.

Max Lugavere: Courtney Walker.
I feel loved.

JS: You were lovely enough to sit down with us back then and talk to us about Current and sort of our role as founding hosts and ambassadors for this network that we love so much. It's so interesting now almost a year later as we really see how the channel has broken through into some sort of mainstream pop recognizability. You were like one of our first interviews, if not the first actual interview of us.

JS: I think that one of the things that is cool is that you as a citizen journalist sort of fit like a glove when we did our first interview on us for Broowaha which is kind of like a citizen journalism newspaper, the article was about a citizen journalism channel and now you're with the LAist, which is a blog - and the whole idea of blogging is power to the people and not apart of these mainstream conglomerates. We love the LAist and we love having the chance to talk to you again.
More love. It feels good.

Yeah, I mean, I was back home around the holidays and visiting my father in rural Arkansas and even there I could see, Current TV.

JS: Yeah, we're breaking through.
ML: The growth of the network has been unprecedented since the last time we sat down together. I don't think it had the official title of the 'Fastest Growing Channel in History' yet, but since then the distribution has definitely grown nationally and also internationally. We're now in the UK.

ML: It's kind of interesting, I mean, you have to remember that when Current first launched, Youtube wasn't even a phenomenon yet and Myspace had forty million members. We live in a different world now where Generation Y is just hungry for tools to express themselves, be it on the internet, TV, whatever. But today, I still feel like television, and this is often said by our Chairman, Al Gore, still remains our most powerful medium as far as telling stories because you become a spectator to some degree, it's something that you generally need credibility to get on.

Not everybody can get on TV. I feel like Current is the HBO of the Youtube sort of format. You're not going to see your cat jumping through a hoop on our network. And now with the launch of Current.com, which is our new sort of web destination, it really has become a peer to peer news and information network, transcending TV and internet. It's just become a way for people to disseminate ideas in a way that, when sat and chatted a year ago, was just unfathomable.

JS: It's totally become a new type of animal. It's sort of been said that the generation that watched Current does so with a laptop open.
I wonder which is more appropriate, Generation Multitask or Generation ADD?

And so we decided that they could either be surfing the web and paying attention to us, so why don't we get a way to engage them in both mediums simultaneously? That means that you can see a pod and then replay it on the website or you can leave a comment on the site on the pod's personal page - you can actually leave feedback that might make its way on to TV right after you send it.

ML: It turns the interactive experience on and up a notch to a degree where there is this instantaneous rapport between you and the network.

Is there embedding capability with most of the pods as well?
ML: Now, for the first time, you can see every pod we've ever done and you can embed it and put it on your Myspace site or another site.

So you can share it pretty much wherever you want?

ML: Yeah as well as everything is that's uploaded to Current, pods that have aired from viewer contributors. We find ourselves in a position now where it's feels like it's really reaching a critical mass of interest in terms of how to become a viewer creator and use these tools that are available to you for the good of the world.

JS: We recently did an interview with Chris Crocker (aka the Leave Britney Alone Guy), he's an interesting character, his Youtube video was Time Magazine's Webclip of the Year , and we had an interview with him on Current before that happened.

Tell me about that.

JS: A friend of a friend of Max's knew him, a couple degrees of separation. We tracked him down. He's in the Hollywood scene now.

From where? Tennessee?

JS: Yeah, he's got his own show.
ML: He's got a very good head on his shoulders, very intelligent, articulate. He's a performer, he's like an sort of performer, be it on stage or film, musically, that gets on stage, does their performance and then when they leave, they don't want to be bothered. His Youtube clips are completely over the top histrionic but in person, he's not like that at all, he's a totally sweet and quiet guy. And we were the first media outlet to get with him and gel.

JS. We didn't sensationalize him, we talked to him for real and had a genuine discussion. Asked him about he felt about the state of the media, that would allow someone like him to even reach that level of notoriety.
ML: Which says a lot about Current and what we do. To us he was never only Britney Boy, to every other outlet he's interviewed with, he's the 'Leave Britney Alone Guy'. We wanted to see what else he was. He posted our video to his myspace.

JS: He put us on his top 8 and he's got like 500,000 friends.

So what else have you guys been up to?

ML: We also spoke recently at the Paley Center in New York, in front of students from NYU and Columbia about how to become citizen journalists and it was a trip for us. We did a little film on hedonism and spirituality and now we're telling students from an Ivy League school that it's not hard, you can do it too. It was definitely an eye opening experience.

JS: The idea behind the Paley Center talk was that the whole medium is changing and that the people that are creating media are growing in number which means that you get a larger diversity in voices which means that you get more interesting truths because they come from different places. So for them to acknowledge us, as an arm of the Museum of Radio and Television was an honor.

'Oh Max and Jason you guys are the real deal, you are the ambassadors of Current', it just feels nice because again, Current is not about us, but us a facilitators because it's really about the content and about the people's voices and for us it's just an honor to be helping you navigate those waters, we're there for you, we're there at the service of the audience. So lately, it's just nice to get that sort of recognition.

ML: The embodiment is, socially responsible, conscientious storyteller that also doesn't deny the finer pleasures in life. We never aim to be the sort of ascetics that the stereotype of the typical journalist might be.

You know, an exception, Brian Williams does like to drive Nascar (or would that be he likes to drive Nascars...hmm)

ML: Exactly, we want to have our cake and eat it too. We always have and to that end, we've recently gotten involved with the American Dempcracy Institute which is a non-partisan organization that aims to empower young people to vote and take a part in affecting social change. We've hosted a few parties for them so far to raise money.

JS: We're like their young Hollywood ambassadors, they figure, rather than go with the run of the mill young actor that pretends to care about political and social change, they're like yeah, these guys from Current TV actually work for Al Gore, maybe they actually do care.

So, we've come on board with them, we did their Christmas party and we're hosting another one on Feb. 7, it's a Casino Night and all the money is going to go to ADI's Empower Change programs across the country.

So what new press have you guys been getting?

ML: This is exciting. The coolest thing ever, we're in this month's (Andy Warhol's) Interview Magazine, it's know as the crystal ball of pop. Obviously, it's amazing to be in Interview which is like a sick publication, all the tastemakers and trendsetters love it. Every one of my friends, I found out, since we've been in it, has a subscription to it.

It's cool that Current is getting a nod from the mainstream, from a pop mainstream publication as something worth talking about.

Jason takes a moment to say hi to one of those nightclub muckety mucks I mentioned earlier. Who's the scenester now, hmm?

And and we are also in the February issue L'Uomo Vogue.

JS: Which is fantastic. It's the Italian Men's Vogue. That was also an honor for us, because it's a European fashion magazine out of Italy for men. I mean come on, Giorgio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Roberto Cavalli.

There's something about the way that Jason says Robert Cavalli that takes me away to a South American beach rolling around on damp sand with a beautiful young man named Rodrigo. And then I bring myself back to reality, which ain't half bad, I'll tell you.

This is the coolest thing ever, they're doing their Hollywood issue which is like an advertorial where they talk about the cool and hip people in Hollywood and what they're doing and most of the people, I think originally about 8 or 9 guys, were all actors except for Max and Jason, who are Al Gore's boys and not only that, but we got the spread. So it's the two of us in the spread, wearing some kind of cool sunglasses with a whole paragraph about what Current is doing.

Their enthusiasm about this is endearing and a little amusing because it's cute, you don't really see this type of enthusiasm from people in Hollywood. Hell, even I was excited for them when I heard. I always wanted to write a lifestyle column for the magazine.

Which also coincides the fact that Current is launching on Sky Italia this year, which is huge. Now were going to have a broader European base, with the UK and Italy.
ML: We're in the UK and now we're going to be in Italy. Obviously, we're not going to be the hosts of the Italian version because we don't speak Italian, nor are we the host of the British network because we don't have British accents.

But, we're in Italian Vogue and we're honored that they have chosen us as sort of ambassadors for this new movement and also, Abercrombie and Fitch was looking to relaunch their A & F Quarterly in the UK.

Another publication I adored. I would rip out pages and save them, I discovered Rick Moody in the pages of A & F Quarterly (oh Rick, where for art thou), and Bruce Weber's male focused spreads of half naked and most times water soaked men that I would never get a chance to see in Louisiana. I love you Bruce!

I was heartbroken when they stopped publication.

ML: I guess it was a little spicy for the US. But they came to us to do an article on us.

Makes sense to me because besides the obvious, the quality of their work and their enthusiasm for it, they're both male model tall, have pretty good senses of style and very nice to look at. Now if A & F could just get them shirtless and watered down...

JS: One of the Andy Warhol-esque philosophies of our original film, which is still one of the seeds that grow into the tree of Max and Jason -
ML: Yeah, forever 'Textures of Self-hood'.
JS: Was that we embrace the juxtaposition of things that people might not immediately associate together. You can be sort of an academic, intellectual hedonist, you can be a 'party philosopher of South Beach' as Angeleno Magazine called us.

Party philosophers means that you philosophize over glasses of wine while sitting at Urth Cafe, if they served wine here. It's an embodiment of all these different things from the aesthetic to the high brow cerebral. That's Max and Jason. And I love the fact that Interview Magazine, the crystal ball of pop put us in there.

That to me, is the same juxtaposition of art and commerce, art for the particular end goal of capitalism and commerce, that was what Andy Warhol put together successfully before any one else really.

JS: Exactly. February is a big month for us.

I'm so proud of you guys.

JS: It's like coming full circle, because you were our first interview.
ML: I know, I know.
Is it safe to say I deflowered them...?

Current is slowly becoming a household name and we feel partly responsible for that. Current has an entire marketing department which is fantastic but in a way, we've gotten press that is targeted to the channel's demographic.
JS: We're trying to reach the tastemakers as we see them. Current has always given us the green light and encouraged us to take on the roles of ambassadors.

We have been there from the beginning and we we're hired because we embodied the mission. Because we are passionate, we embrace juxtaposition because you can be intellectual and an academic and be young, and cool and hip and that's what Current is.

So tell me about the Emmy.
JS: Well that was really cool, first of all, it was in a category, interactive television that used to not be apart of the telecast, it was like an obscure category. It was not one that was apart of the televised show. Late'07 was the first time that category was made apart of the televised show because of the rise of interactive TV offerings.

ML: I believe that Disney Channel, Bravo, then Current and somebody else that was nominated. You don't get more interactive than Current.
JS: Right, that's why we won.
ML: Current is definitely the network for the people and by the people. I mean, with Current.com, the bar has definitely been lowered with regard to what it takes to get on the site or the network. Now you don't even have to shoot a pod, you can leave webcam comments or text comments and Jason and I will read them on air.

JS: As long as you're sharing a legitimate point of view, we encourage that voice to be heard.

What interesting things do you two have in the pipeline?

JS: Well, we have a piece on how social networking sites are affecting interpersonal relationships between the sexes. If you compare it to the book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus', are men from Facebook and women from Myspace? How are our relationships being affected as the way we communicate changes.

ML: Interpersonal communication has evolved, to say the least, in the past 2 years and we want to see if the needs of men and women and communication styles are leaving one gender out versus another, it's definitely going to an interesting piece.
JS: Also, we were very excited when we hosted the NYE Best of Current hour, Current doesn't normally have hour long blocks of programming, everything is more along the idea that you eat the little nuggets of info so the blocks are small and sort of random.

ML: As navigators, ambassadors and anchors, Current had the faith to give us that hour. We think it might be a sign of things to come. We think it might happen sooner than later, getting our own our and having that continuity of interacting with the viewers, we just don't know when.