Last week I devoted the entire column to spitting venom at Jay Leno and NBC, and it was beautiful and cathartic. Unfortunately for us all, I can’t spend every week saying bad things about people on television that I don’t like (or else this week’s article would be about David Caruso). However, there is still news about mid-season premieres and shows returning from hiatus that I neglected to mention in previous weeks and some cancellations that may or may not come as a surprise to you.
Smallville’s return from hiatus was postponed until Friday January 29th because of the Hope for Haiti telethon. I have been informed that it would be in the poorest of taste for me to argue that Hope for Haiti should have been postponed so Smallville could return, so I will simply say that the telethon was viewed by 83 million people and raised $61 million, which is pretty damn impressive. Smallville airs Friday nights at 8pm on the CW.
24 premiered its 8th season on January 17th with four new episodes spread over two days. Watching these episodes, I realized two things: 1.) for all the “twists” the show boasts, 24 is surprisingly formulaic. For instance, here are the things I know will happen in an episode before I even watch it: Jack is going to yell/kick/shoot at someone, Jack is going to go “off grid,” Chloe is going to look dour, and the person that you think is the traitor turns out to be a red herring and the person you didn’t think was a traitor is, in fact, traitorous. 2.) Because 24 follows such a strict formula, a drinking game can be formed around it. Drink whenever anything from my list happens and you may not live to see the next episode, which might actually be a blessing. 24 airs Monday nights at 9pm on FOX.
Syfy aired the two hour season premiere of Battlestar Galactica prequel of sorts, Caprica, on January 22nd. Despite having been available for almost a year on DVD and streaming on Syfy’s website for a few weeks before the premiere, it managed to pull in 1.6m viewers. Caprica is perfect for you if you were getting sick of all the theology muddying the pure sci-fi waters of Battlestar Galactica toward the end of the series. Caprica is the story of how humans brought about their own destruction on earth (by creating cylons). For a program that is primarily science fiction, Caprica consists of themes that are largely human, such as the idea of morality and how our senses of grief, greed and obsession can overshadow our morality and how everything begins to unravel once we cross the moral threshold. Caprica airs Friday nights at 9pm on Space.
In cancelation news, this season will be Ugly Betty’s last. That disturbance you just felt was the one Ugly Betty fan suddenly crying out in terror and suddenly being silenced.
Finally, last week the “stars” of Jersey Shore demanded MTV begin paying them $10,000 an episode because The Hills “stars” were making $100,000 an episode and The Hills never rated as high as Jersey Shore does. Instead of telling The Situation and Snooky to go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, MTV caved and now the cast can all afford all the hair gel, bottle service, and eyebrow wax they could ever want. All is well with the universe.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Youth in Revolt
It is no secret that there are individuals out there who take their pop culture very, very seriously. A million times more so if it is thought to be the obscurest piece of pop culture in the history of ever. These individuals will clutch this obscure band/book/movie tightly to their breast, only loosening their grip to mention said obscure piece of culture at parties in a bid to reach third base with whoever has the best bangs. Inevitably, after being nurtured on the individual’s elitist milk (rich in irony), the obscure piece of pop culture will be found by Hollywood and will be exploited for everything it is worth. Such is the case with Youth in Revolt. It is a sad state of affairs when most people I talk to that enjoyed the film, have no idea there is a book. So, being a partially rehabilitated “individual” I feel it is my duty to make you painfully aware that there is a pure, radiant novel that precedes the unfortunately diluted film.
Youth in Revolt is, at its core, a novel about the unwavering spirit of the underdog when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles during their quest. The underdog in question is precocious fourteen-year-old, Nick Twisp. Nick is like most adolescent males in that he is obsessed with sex, will do whatever it takes to get laid, and has problems disguising the fact that he is, more often than not, sporting what he refers to as “Thunderous Erections” or TE’s for short. However, Nick is unlike most adolescent boys in his roguish charm, his reverence for Frank Sinatra, his advanced vocabulary and his devotion to journal-keeping. Nick’s journal spans six turbulent months and serves both as an inventive narrative structure and as a means to view the transformation he undergoes from the inside out.
For the most part, the novel adheres to a “quest” narrative. Nick’s quest, so to speak, is to win the heart of the girl he falls in love with while on vacation, Sheridan “Sheeni” Saunders. This quest sees Nick performing increasingly outrageous and depraved acts (such as faking his best friend’s death, blowing up half of Berkeley, dressing up as a woman named “Carlotta,” and fooling the authorities into thinking he has moved to India, to name a few) in order to be close to Sheeni. The quest is broken up into three volumes: Youth in Revolt, Youth in Bondage, and Youth in Exile. The three volume structure is a useful device in that it allows the reader to observe Nick’s evolution from love-sick teen with mildly criminal impulses to an insane teen with wildly criminal impulses with surprising clarity.
Though Youth in Revolt is primarily a twisted black comedy that trades on its increasingly outlandish comedic situations, it is not devoid of a deeper meaning. The largest theme running through the novel is that of love and what lengths we will go to in order to obtain it. Sure, Nick is just fourteen but he is a pure manifestation of the reckless abandon love (possibly) inspired in us as adolescents.
Youth in Revolt is, at its core, a novel about the unwavering spirit of the underdog when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles during their quest. The underdog in question is precocious fourteen-year-old, Nick Twisp. Nick is like most adolescent males in that he is obsessed with sex, will do whatever it takes to get laid, and has problems disguising the fact that he is, more often than not, sporting what he refers to as “Thunderous Erections” or TE’s for short. However, Nick is unlike most adolescent boys in his roguish charm, his reverence for Frank Sinatra, his advanced vocabulary and his devotion to journal-keeping. Nick’s journal spans six turbulent months and serves both as an inventive narrative structure and as a means to view the transformation he undergoes from the inside out.
For the most part, the novel adheres to a “quest” narrative. Nick’s quest, so to speak, is to win the heart of the girl he falls in love with while on vacation, Sheridan “Sheeni” Saunders. This quest sees Nick performing increasingly outrageous and depraved acts (such as faking his best friend’s death, blowing up half of Berkeley, dressing up as a woman named “Carlotta,” and fooling the authorities into thinking he has moved to India, to name a few) in order to be close to Sheeni. The quest is broken up into three volumes: Youth in Revolt, Youth in Bondage, and Youth in Exile. The three volume structure is a useful device in that it allows the reader to observe Nick’s evolution from love-sick teen with mildly criminal impulses to an insane teen with wildly criminal impulses with surprising clarity.
Though Youth in Revolt is primarily a twisted black comedy that trades on its increasingly outlandish comedic situations, it is not devoid of a deeper meaning. The largest theme running through the novel is that of love and what lengths we will go to in order to obtain it. Sure, Nick is just fourteen but he is a pure manifestation of the reckless abandon love (possibly) inspired in us as adolescents.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
There is no reason someone reads an author’s memoirs unless they are attempting to steal a small glance at that indefinable, unknowable quality that allows the author to create something out of nothing. This, hopefully, will afford them insight into the mind of the author, allowing them to add another layer of context to the author’s oeuvre. That’s why when I first heard that my favorite writer, Haruki Murakami, was taking a break from writing immensely powerful novels to write a memoir, I was intrigued; mainly because Murakami is a very private person and something of an enigma and I wanted to know something, anything, about the mind that wrote The Wind Up Bird Chronicles and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and where its magic came from. However, when I heard that this memoir would be about running, my intrigue metamorphosed to werewolf rage. Logic would dictate that since I don’t like running (or any physical activity, for that matter), I would not like a book about running. It would be akin to an atheist reading the bible. In spite of my reticence, I read it and what’s more, I enjoyed it. The memoir turned out to be less about running and more about what the physical act means to Murakami and how the otherworldly discipline that allows him to run translates into artistic expression.
Murakami’s fascination with running was the direct result of the sedentary lifestyle he was leading as a professional author—a lifestyle that consisted mostly of smoking and thinking. Up until that point, he had been the owner and manager of a reputable jazz club in Tokyo and this had kept him in peak physical condition. Running began simply as an exercise to keep him in shape, but along the course of twenty-seven years, it has evolved into something much more for him; a sentiment made clear when he writes in the foreword of the memoir, “...I noticed that writing honestly about running and writing honestly about myself are nearly the same thing.”
The memoir is composed of nine chapters that alternate between something of a running diary (what he’s doing in terms of running) and a regular diary (how the running is affecting him/has affected him) that jumps around the globe from Boston to New York to Hokkaido to Tokyo and spans from August 2005 until October 2006. It is during this time that Murakami is preparing to run in various events including the New York City Marathon and a famous triathlon in Murakami City, Japan (a real place!).
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running does deliver some insight into Murakami’s mind in the way that he draws a comparison between running and writing insomuch as it’s an exercise in pure discipline. Running is never easy for Murakami and it takes everything in him to complete a marathon much in the same way that writing is never easy for him either; he has to struggle for every single word. Despite the fact that his physique is diminishing and his finish times are steadily decreasing as he enters his sixties, his mind remains razor-edged; still capable of producing excellent works of fiction and non-fiction alike.
Murakami’s fascination with running was the direct result of the sedentary lifestyle he was leading as a professional author—a lifestyle that consisted mostly of smoking and thinking. Up until that point, he had been the owner and manager of a reputable jazz club in Tokyo and this had kept him in peak physical condition. Running began simply as an exercise to keep him in shape, but along the course of twenty-seven years, it has evolved into something much more for him; a sentiment made clear when he writes in the foreword of the memoir, “...I noticed that writing honestly about running and writing honestly about myself are nearly the same thing.”
The memoir is composed of nine chapters that alternate between something of a running diary (what he’s doing in terms of running) and a regular diary (how the running is affecting him/has affected him) that jumps around the globe from Boston to New York to Hokkaido to Tokyo and spans from August 2005 until October 2006. It is during this time that Murakami is preparing to run in various events including the New York City Marathon and a famous triathlon in Murakami City, Japan (a real place!).
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running does deliver some insight into Murakami’s mind in the way that he draws a comparison between running and writing insomuch as it’s an exercise in pure discipline. Running is never easy for Murakami and it takes everything in him to complete a marathon much in the same way that writing is never easy for him either; he has to struggle for every single word. Despite the fact that his physique is diminishing and his finish times are steadily decreasing as he enters his sixties, his mind remains razor-edged; still capable of producing excellent works of fiction and non-fiction alike.
Fuck You, Leno
There is no bigger TV news this week than the Late Night shitstorm over at NBC and it would be utter negligence on my part if I didn’t take this opportunity to excoriate Jay Leno while elucidating the situation for anyone that isn’t quite up to speed on the whole issue.
As I’m sure all of you are aware, this whole debacle began when NBC affiliates started to complain that The Jay Leno Show was providing extremely disappointing lead-in ratings for newscasts. This gave the geniuses at NBC the idea that maybe, just maybe, Jay Leno wasn’t suited for primetime and instead of being euthanized, he should be moved back to a late night slot; Conan O’Brien’s late night spot, to be precise. NBC drew up preliminary plans to facilitate Jay Leno that would see The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien pushed to 12:05am, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to 1:05am, and Who Gives a Shit with Carson Daly to, in all likelihood, never. Unsurprisingly, when they ran this idea past O’Brien he wasn’t pleased. He saw it as NBC reneging on their contract and polluting the history of The Tonight Show while NBC argued that the contract only stipulated that he host The Tonight Show and gave no guarantee of a particular time. O’Brien saw this as a step backward for his career and, ultimately, unfair.
I won’t go into specifics because there are far, far too many examples, but it is at this point that everyone in the world—except Jimmy Fallon—started attacking Leno and NBC, exacerbating the predicament to a point where a disagreement has turned into a blood feud between Leno, O’Brien, and NBC.
O’Brien is said to have settled his contractual dispute with NBC, taking a payout of 45 million dollars with 27% (12m) supposedly going to his staff of 200 and he will be prohibited from appearing on any other programs until September 1st, 2010. In order to reach an agreement, NBC made one final senseless demand: that O’Brien cannot take any of intellectual property over to another network. NBC now owns the rights such classics as The Masturbating Bear, Horny Manatee, If They Mated, and sadly, Pierre Bernard’s Recliner of Rage. This is purely a petty, vengeful move on NBC’s part because no self-respecting comedian in the world could or would touch any of O’Brien’s signature bits, which I guess still leaves Leno to perform them.
The entire situation has shown just how heavy-handed and unprofessional NBC is. Instead of ignoring O’Brien’s admittedly hilarious insults like a faceless media company should, multiple NBC executives have committed PR suicide by emerging from the dark pits of Mordor to call O’Brien a coward, et al. for not taking their shit. However, nothing could be further from the truth; this whole debacle has shown that O’Brien has a backbone that I think no one imagined he possessed. As for Jay Leno, well, besides being the herpes virus of broadcast television and an irrefutable sign of the apocalypse, he has, instead of displaying any remorse, attempted to portray himself as a child caught in the middle of a nasty divorce—albeit a divorce he instigated.
What’s so infuriating is that you can see how badly Leno wants it, but you get the feeling he doesn’t know why he wants it. He just wants it to have it and will do nothing interesting with it once he gets it. There is no doubt that his monologues will remain about as unpleasant and painful as getting finger-banged by Wolverine from the X-Men (I would imagine).
However, it isn’t all dark news for O’Brien as he is reportedly being courted by FOX, FX and, inexplicably, Dancing With the Stars.
The only hope for NBC now comes in the form of Chuck (airing Monday’s at 8pm), which you should watch before NBC finds out that it’s a great program and cancels it, replacing it with extra episodes of Heroes, in which Jay Leno is sure to become a series regular.
As I’m sure all of you are aware, this whole debacle began when NBC affiliates started to complain that The Jay Leno Show was providing extremely disappointing lead-in ratings for newscasts. This gave the geniuses at NBC the idea that maybe, just maybe, Jay Leno wasn’t suited for primetime and instead of being euthanized, he should be moved back to a late night slot; Conan O’Brien’s late night spot, to be precise. NBC drew up preliminary plans to facilitate Jay Leno that would see The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien pushed to 12:05am, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to 1:05am, and Who Gives a Shit with Carson Daly to, in all likelihood, never. Unsurprisingly, when they ran this idea past O’Brien he wasn’t pleased. He saw it as NBC reneging on their contract and polluting the history of The Tonight Show while NBC argued that the contract only stipulated that he host The Tonight Show and gave no guarantee of a particular time. O’Brien saw this as a step backward for his career and, ultimately, unfair.
I won’t go into specifics because there are far, far too many examples, but it is at this point that everyone in the world—except Jimmy Fallon—started attacking Leno and NBC, exacerbating the predicament to a point where a disagreement has turned into a blood feud between Leno, O’Brien, and NBC.
O’Brien is said to have settled his contractual dispute with NBC, taking a payout of 45 million dollars with 27% (12m) supposedly going to his staff of 200 and he will be prohibited from appearing on any other programs until September 1st, 2010. In order to reach an agreement, NBC made one final senseless demand: that O’Brien cannot take any of intellectual property over to another network. NBC now owns the rights such classics as The Masturbating Bear, Horny Manatee, If They Mated, and sadly, Pierre Bernard’s Recliner of Rage. This is purely a petty, vengeful move on NBC’s part because no self-respecting comedian in the world could or would touch any of O’Brien’s signature bits, which I guess still leaves Leno to perform them.
The entire situation has shown just how heavy-handed and unprofessional NBC is. Instead of ignoring O’Brien’s admittedly hilarious insults like a faceless media company should, multiple NBC executives have committed PR suicide by emerging from the dark pits of Mordor to call O’Brien a coward, et al. for not taking their shit. However, nothing could be further from the truth; this whole debacle has shown that O’Brien has a backbone that I think no one imagined he possessed. As for Jay Leno, well, besides being the herpes virus of broadcast television and an irrefutable sign of the apocalypse, he has, instead of displaying any remorse, attempted to portray himself as a child caught in the middle of a nasty divorce—albeit a divorce he instigated.
What’s so infuriating is that you can see how badly Leno wants it, but you get the feeling he doesn’t know why he wants it. He just wants it to have it and will do nothing interesting with it once he gets it. There is no doubt that his monologues will remain about as unpleasant and painful as getting finger-banged by Wolverine from the X-Men (I would imagine).
However, it isn’t all dark news for O’Brien as he is reportedly being courted by FOX, FX and, inexplicably, Dancing With the Stars.
The only hope for NBC now comes in the form of Chuck (airing Monday’s at 8pm), which you should watch before NBC finds out that it’s a great program and cancels it, replacing it with extra episodes of Heroes, in which Jay Leno is sure to become a series regular.
Under the Dome
Sometimes, though not often, I like to take a break from being an unbearably pretentious douche bag and revisit some of the things I really enjoyed before enjoyment was more based on the context of a thing rather than its content. During the winter break, I decided to treat myself to Stephen King’s gigantic latest novel, Under the Dome, remembering how much I adored his stories in high school. I was floored to find out that the delight of reading him as a teenager translated perfectly to the delight of reading him as a snobby adult.
The basic premise of the novel is that on a peaceful autumn day, a force field (or dome) drops over the town of Chester’s Mill, cutting the town off from the outside world. The Dome effectively turns Chester’s Mill into a sovereign state ruled by the ruthless, loathsome middling politician, Big Jim Rennie, backed up by his lunatic son and his gang of thugs. As the air within the Dome becomes polluted and the temperature rises, the town becomes increasingly desperate and the resultant shift is that mostly good-natured people start to do reprehensible things. Standing against Big Jim and a town thirsty for a scapegoat to blame the situation on are an ex-soldier-cum-cook, a newspaper editor, an English lit professor, a physician’s assistant and a technology savvy teenager.
The protagonists are well-developed when compared to King’s more contemporary work (i.e. Cell), but where King really shines (and has always shone) is in the exquisite construction of his antagonists. He is never better than when he is creating something sinister, and that word fits Big Jim and his son, Junior, to the letter. Never have I been so consumed with hatred for a fictional character. It’s almost as if, while reading about Big Jim hiding behind god to justify his senseless thirst to command a sinking ship, you’ve become a citizen of Chester’s Mill and you want to tear his fictional head off. Such is the immersive quality of King’s writing and the ease in which the reader can place themselves not only in the predicament of a citizen of Chester’s Mill but in the universe he has created in Under the Dome.
If you’ve ever read Stephen King, you know his strength has never been subtle social or political commentary and that doesn’t change in Under the Dome. Sometimes I think—and my English professors will have my head for this—it is okay for a writer’s message not to be hidden in obscure symbol or imagery. King comes right out and says what he wants to say in an obvious, immensely enjoyable way. This isn’t to say that King doesn’t say anything worth thinking about. For instance, the concept of shame is examined in detail; particularly the idea that shame is what distinguishes humanity from anything else and what it could mean if you don’t feel shame for the shameful things you have done. The far subtler (though still not terribly subtle) theme running through the book is that of decency and how long the people of Chester’s Mill can cling to their sense of it before being corrupted by the mentality of a mob fuelled by fear and directionless rage.
Although the book is 1,072 pages long, it feels more like 500. This is because King’s sense of plot and pace is so refined. There is never a point in the novel where the reader is waiting for something to happen and there is never a point in the novel where the reader doesn’t want to know what happens next.
The basic premise of the novel is that on a peaceful autumn day, a force field (or dome) drops over the town of Chester’s Mill, cutting the town off from the outside world. The Dome effectively turns Chester’s Mill into a sovereign state ruled by the ruthless, loathsome middling politician, Big Jim Rennie, backed up by his lunatic son and his gang of thugs. As the air within the Dome becomes polluted and the temperature rises, the town becomes increasingly desperate and the resultant shift is that mostly good-natured people start to do reprehensible things. Standing against Big Jim and a town thirsty for a scapegoat to blame the situation on are an ex-soldier-cum-cook, a newspaper editor, an English lit professor, a physician’s assistant and a technology savvy teenager.
The protagonists are well-developed when compared to King’s more contemporary work (i.e. Cell), but where King really shines (and has always shone) is in the exquisite construction of his antagonists. He is never better than when he is creating something sinister, and that word fits Big Jim and his son, Junior, to the letter. Never have I been so consumed with hatred for a fictional character. It’s almost as if, while reading about Big Jim hiding behind god to justify his senseless thirst to command a sinking ship, you’ve become a citizen of Chester’s Mill and you want to tear his fictional head off. Such is the immersive quality of King’s writing and the ease in which the reader can place themselves not only in the predicament of a citizen of Chester’s Mill but in the universe he has created in Under the Dome.
If you’ve ever read Stephen King, you know his strength has never been subtle social or political commentary and that doesn’t change in Under the Dome. Sometimes I think—and my English professors will have my head for this—it is okay for a writer’s message not to be hidden in obscure symbol or imagery. King comes right out and says what he wants to say in an obvious, immensely enjoyable way. This isn’t to say that King doesn’t say anything worth thinking about. For instance, the concept of shame is examined in detail; particularly the idea that shame is what distinguishes humanity from anything else and what it could mean if you don’t feel shame for the shameful things you have done. The far subtler (though still not terribly subtle) theme running through the book is that of decency and how long the people of Chester’s Mill can cling to their sense of it before being corrupted by the mentality of a mob fuelled by fear and directionless rage.
Although the book is 1,072 pages long, it feels more like 500. This is because King’s sense of plot and pace is so refined. There is never a point in the novel where the reader is waiting for something to happen and there is never a point in the novel where the reader doesn’t want to know what happens next.
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