Reel Pop

You can learn a lot about a woman by the t-shirt she wears. On her first day as an ABC news correspondent, Amanda Congdon, former hostess of popular videoblog Rocketboom, wore a t-shirt that read Steely Dan.

You remember Steely Dan, right: That '70s jazz and funk band named after the steam-powered dildo in William Gibson's S. Burroughs' seminal piece of Beat literature, Naked Lunch. Or, if you're less inclined to salacious factoids, you may remember that Steely Dan was founded by two young men who met in New York, traveled across the country to Los Angeles, and found work as staff songwriters for a little company called ABC Records.

Sound familiar? You'll find that career's echo in Amanda Congdon, who also left New York, town-hopped her way across the 48 contiguous states with her producer boyfriend Mario Librandi, and landed her current deal in Los Angeles at ABC News.

And what a deal it is. No longer consigned to indie status, Congdon is now a bona fide newscaster sans newscaster bona fides: No schoolmarmish pant suit, no practiced gravitas. Just the Barbie Doll looks and that karate chop delivery. Pretty moments done quickly. It's almost as if she's flirting with the news.

In Congdon's first segment, which aired today, she chats -- and yes, she chats the news, she doesn't recite it -- about the Nintendo Wii, javascript (a nod to her nerdcore roots), virtual snowflakes, spam and the new blood substitute oxycyte. She does it all while sitting at the requisite newscaster desk, which looks positively anachronistic below Congdon's hotter-than-thou bust. If videoblogging is so new, why are we still confined to the same old news format and props?

So if the delivery seems a bit forced, it may be the hottie's hipness chafing against the staid ABC container.

Congdon will be videoblogging several times a week (I believe, there's no notice on the site), and she's already asking for audience participation. So go ahead. Join the fun. Just remember the wise words of ol' Steely Dan:

I stepped up on the platform
The man gave me the news
He said, You must be joking son
Where did you get those shoes?

- Pretzel Logic