Aside from quoting Morrissey and the occasional Oscar Wilde, Yours Famously has a fairly hearty appetite for whatever the media and popular culture has to offer. Like Mother Robin I will nourish you with only the purest bits, regurgitated into your chirping bills only after I have processed it. And so, having planned to tackle another television series, between thought and action things did change.
Part I: Girl Least Likely To
Even though networks have busted through the seasonal blockade and begun year round programming, the fact remains that it’s a cruel summer. With the blockbuster movie season running from Day to Day*, vacations, and the beach there’s little incentive to try and get folks to shape their schedule around a serial. Rather than watch the Kiwi version of Tenacious D they call Flight Of The Conchords or rather the unkarmically balanced exploits of the douchebags of Entourage, I’ve resigned to catching up on what’s been more high profile during the year.
Having moved quickly though the 13 episode of The Riches first season, I took a gamble and headed over to the Showtime side of things. Showtime has always been second fiddle to HBO’s programming with their stunningly unimaginative track record of original series. With a combination of rehashed features (Barbershop: The Series, Soul Food, Stargate SG-1), momentarily interesting gay reinterpretations of Sex In The City (Queer As Folk, The L Word), and just plain poorly executed and boring ideas (Fat Actress), the “other” movie network couldn’t cut it. Famous Mom has been aping Meadowlands (mostly due to a lack of Midsummer Murders and Robin Hood on the BBC), and the peeps are selling Dexter as a slowly engrossing show, but my first stab at their shows began with Weeds.
Now finished with the first season’s short 10 episode run, and mid-way through the second, I am interested enough to see where it goes, but I can’t say that I was super impressed by what I’d seen. Mary Lousie Parker plays a naïve yet good natured MILF who somehow becomes a pot dealer in her clichéd idyllic-on-the-surface-yet-really-unhappy-and-problematic neighborhood after her husband suddenly drops dead. Yep, that thin stretch is the premise. Naturally, a stay at home mother of two adolescent boys would turn to slangin’ wids…I mean, why get a real job or show any reasonable good parenting and decision making skills – just deal drugs!
Parker’s sad sack mother dealer finds herself in one rough situation after another, be it her younger son’s bizarre disruptive behavior, her deadbeat brother-in-law moving in, her getting fucked with her stash, or any other troublesome moment that gives her pause to make a pouty, distressed look. Yet still there are moments of humor amidst the obvious drug dealing faux pas and unbelievable scenarios that somehow easily work themselves out. Kevin Nealon shines as a stoney accountant who has not grown up, which is almost enough to counter the unlikeable Elizabeth Perkins as Parker’s good friend and neighbor. Prone to blurting out caustic things, when she finally and randomly tells her husband she has cancer, you actually hope it’s terminal.
As I navigated the episodes I found myself lacking sympathy towards any of the character’s problems and troubles, due mostly to them being not very likable and stupidly making bad choice after bad choice. Shows like Deadwood proved that bastards and murders could be appealing, but the upper middle class don’t make for compelling characters…unless they’re travelers pretending to be a dead couple, but that’s a different show. The characters perform the tasks their existence dictates, which while efficient, only leaves you with stock characters that are as uninteresting as they are interchangeable. Driven mother, philandering uncle, rebellious teen, cuckolded husband and wife…the list goes on and on.
Though the show leaves me slightly engaged, it’s that and episodes of Burn Notice until the fall, so I’ll have to make due with it. Season 3 premieres tonight.
Part II: Certain People I Know
Now, at this point, my discourse on practical suburban drug dealing for television ends and Weeds gets interesting…for me.
Watching the 8th episode, the credits popped up, and the most unexpected thing appeared:
Written by: Rolin Jones
Indulge me some nostalgia and I will tell you a brief story.
When I was a young Famous, I was in the theater program during high school. The way it worked was that Drama was an elective, but if you did two semesters of it you were eligible to audition for the Play Production class, which was the performance arm of the school drama program. Having done a little of the stage game in junior high, I figured I’d do the same in high school…that, and my mother was worried my perfect Jewish nose would get busted if I did any sports.
So first day of school, first class, freshman year**, I’m in D103, the auditorium where I’d spend the better part of my adolescent years. Over the course of the year, we would do our own scenes and script edits,
but also observe the older students in Play Production do their festival competition pieces and a pair of productions. After enough time, some of them actually start observing you, watching the young crop of upstarts to see who will join their ranks the following year.
Just for the record, I had a crush on Lisa Kushell the minute I met her.
She was a senior who was extremely talented, sharp, and damn attractive. With both neophytes and veterans sharing the same theater space, our paths inevitably crossed. Lisa was looking at going the pro route, and unlike the masses who dreamed big and failed bigger, she made good. A few years out of school I found out that she was on Mad TV, and from there she did some feature work, eventually landing the co-hosting duties on Dinner And A Movie and keeping regular television projects. Of course, I still remember her fondly…her yearbook message alone virtually accelerated my puberty to completion.
By the end of the year, I had made the cut for Play Production and begun to associate with the soon-to-be-seniors. They had inducted many of us into the Thespian society (whose initiation I still am bound to keep secret) and taken we eager freshmen under their wing. Of the many people who were going to be shaping our class with their creativity and hysterical brilliance, Rolin Jones stood out from the others.
He, along with Brad Jameson, Jason Ray, and Pat Cella were like superheroes to us. They were the source of most jokes and humor both in and out of the class, and would create short films they’d debut at their parties. Rolin, who directed and did considerable writing, was enamored of Hitchcock and the independent side of cinema – a considerable feat 15 years ago when there was no interweb, and obscure / cult film worship was limited to revival houses and funky video rental stores.
Sophomore year, I had the good fortune have Rolin direct one of the scenes we took to competition for the annual drama festival. He was an incredibly wise mentor and made all of us newbies feel welcomed into the class and clique, which we were certainly nervous about. In both the play productions, my lack of talent and standing in the class relegated me to roles as human scenery, but it afforded me the opportunity to see Rolin perform and work with the others, which again provided me valuable insight and knowledge. Most of all, he was a friend and a huge influence on me.
Getting to know him and the other seniors, and being their young sidekick was some of the most fun of high school. A couple of us got suspended for a day because we pulled a prank at Homecoming. We were in the parade, and we each had a letter from THESPIANS on our back, which we would turn and show to the crowd. Well…by the time we got to the other side of the track where our rival school was, we had rearranged the letter and removed some…and spelled PENIS. I was the N. By year’s end, I was part of their Senior Lip Sync act, The Clamitas, which ended up
winning the show with it’s wild medley of songs (from "Wild Boys" to "Coming To America"), matching gym outfits, and strangely choreographed 9-man routine.***
Over the summer, the graduating seniors were sill around, and some of them even popped back in for a random visit once the school year resumed, but they were mostly gone to greener pastures, including Rolin. Having checked some of his interviews, he spent almost a decade falling short until he gave himself one last chance to make good on his attempt to write, which paid off in well reviewed stage plays and his story editor spot on Weeds.
It really makes me happy to see he’s doing what he was meant to do so many years ago…
*Memorial to Labor, dumbass
**contrary to the more exciting tale in circulation where we met by joining forces to expose and take down a deadly jailhouse gladiator ring run by the guards, Herr Doctor and I met and became friends after that class
***Eric Greene still has my videotaped copy of that show…sonofabitch!
Part I: Girl Least Likely To
Even though networks have busted through the seasonal blockade and begun year round programming, the fact remains that it’s a cruel summer. With the blockbuster movie season running from Day to Day*, vacations, and the beach there’s little incentive to try and get folks to shape their schedule around a serial. Rather than watch the Kiwi version of Tenacious D they call Flight Of The Conchords or rather the unkarmically balanced exploits of the douchebags of Entourage, I’ve resigned to catching up on what’s been more high profile during the year.
Having moved quickly though the 13 episode of The Riches first season, I took a gamble and headed over to the Showtime side of things. Showtime has always been second fiddle to HBO’s programming with their stunningly unimaginative track record of original series. With a combination of rehashed features (Barbershop: The Series, Soul Food, Stargate SG-1), momentarily interesting gay reinterpretations of Sex In The City (Queer As Folk, The L Word), and just plain poorly executed and boring ideas (Fat Actress), the “other” movie network couldn’t cut it. Famous Mom has been aping Meadowlands (mostly due to a lack of Midsummer Murders and Robin Hood on the BBC), and the peeps are selling Dexter as a slowly engrossing show, but my first stab at their shows began with Weeds.
Now finished with the first season’s short 10 episode run, and mid-way through the second, I am interested enough to see where it goes, but I can’t say that I was super impressed by what I’d seen. Mary Lousie Parker plays a naïve yet good natured MILF who somehow becomes a pot dealer in her clichéd idyllic-on-the-surface-yet-really-unhappy-and-problematic neighborhood after her husband suddenly drops dead. Yep, that thin stretch is the premise. Naturally, a stay at home mother of two adolescent boys would turn to slangin’ wids…I mean, why get a real job or show any reasonable good parenting and decision making skills – just deal drugs!
Parker’s sad sack mother dealer finds herself in one rough situation after another, be it her younger son’s bizarre disruptive behavior, her deadbeat brother-in-law moving in, her getting fucked with her stash, or any other troublesome moment that gives her pause to make a pouty, distressed look. Yet still there are moments of humor amidst the obvious drug dealing faux pas and unbelievable scenarios that somehow easily work themselves out. Kevin Nealon shines as a stoney accountant who has not grown up, which is almost enough to counter the unlikeable Elizabeth Perkins as Parker’s good friend and neighbor. Prone to blurting out caustic things, when she finally and randomly tells her husband she has cancer, you actually hope it’s terminal.
As I navigated the episodes I found myself lacking sympathy towards any of the character’s problems and troubles, due mostly to them being not very likable and stupidly making bad choice after bad choice. Shows like Deadwood proved that bastards and murders could be appealing, but the upper middle class don’t make for compelling characters…unless they’re travelers pretending to be a dead couple, but that’s a different show. The characters perform the tasks their existence dictates, which while efficient, only leaves you with stock characters that are as uninteresting as they are interchangeable. Driven mother, philandering uncle, rebellious teen, cuckolded husband and wife…the list goes on and on.
Though the show leaves me slightly engaged, it’s that and episodes of Burn Notice until the fall, so I’ll have to make due with it. Season 3 premieres tonight.
Part II: Certain People I Know
Now, at this point, my discourse on practical suburban drug dealing for television ends and Weeds gets interesting…for me.
Watching the 8th episode, the credits popped up, and the most unexpected thing appeared:
Written by: Rolin Jones
Indulge me some nostalgia and I will tell you a brief story.
When I was a young Famous, I was in the theater program during high school. The way it worked was that Drama was an elective, but if you did two semesters of it you were eligible to audition for the Play Production class, which was the performance arm of the school drama program. Having done a little of the stage game in junior high, I figured I’d do the same in high school…that, and my mother was worried my perfect Jewish nose would get busted if I did any sports.
So first day of school, first class, freshman year**, I’m in D103, the auditorium where I’d spend the better part of my adolescent years. Over the course of the year, we would do our own scenes and script edits,
but also observe the older students in Play Production do their festival competition pieces and a pair of productions. After enough time, some of them actually start observing you, watching the young crop of upstarts to see who will join their ranks the following year. Just for the record, I had a crush on Lisa Kushell the minute I met her.
She was a senior who was extremely talented, sharp, and damn attractive. With both neophytes and veterans sharing the same theater space, our paths inevitably crossed. Lisa was looking at going the pro route, and unlike the masses who dreamed big and failed bigger, she made good. A few years out of school I found out that she was on Mad TV, and from there she did some feature work, eventually landing the co-hosting duties on Dinner And A Movie and keeping regular television projects. Of course, I still remember her fondly…her yearbook message alone virtually accelerated my puberty to completion.
By the end of the year, I had made the cut for Play Production and begun to associate with the soon-to-be-seniors. They had inducted many of us into the Thespian society (whose initiation I still am bound to keep secret) and taken we eager freshmen under their wing. Of the many people who were going to be shaping our class with their creativity and hysterical brilliance, Rolin Jones stood out from the others.
He, along with Brad Jameson, Jason Ray, and Pat Cella were like superheroes to us. They were the source of most jokes and humor both in and out of the class, and would create short films they’d debut at their parties. Rolin, who directed and did considerable writing, was enamored of Hitchcock and the independent side of cinema – a considerable feat 15 years ago when there was no interweb, and obscure / cult film worship was limited to revival houses and funky video rental stores.
Sophomore year, I had the good fortune have Rolin direct one of the scenes we took to competition for the annual drama festival. He was an incredibly wise mentor and made all of us newbies feel welcomed into the class and clique, which we were certainly nervous about. In both the play productions, my lack of talent and standing in the class relegated me to roles as human scenery, but it afforded me the opportunity to see Rolin perform and work with the others, which again provided me valuable insight and knowledge. Most of all, he was a friend and a huge influence on me.
Getting to know him and the other seniors, and being their young sidekick was some of the most fun of high school. A couple of us got suspended for a day because we pulled a prank at Homecoming. We were in the parade, and we each had a letter from THESPIANS on our back, which we would turn and show to the crowd. Well…by the time we got to the other side of the track where our rival school was, we had rearranged the letter and removed some…and spelled PENIS. I was the N. By year’s end, I was part of their Senior Lip Sync act, The Clamitas, which ended up
winning the show with it’s wild medley of songs (from "Wild Boys" to "Coming To America"), matching gym outfits, and strangely choreographed 9-man routine.***Over the summer, the graduating seniors were sill around, and some of them even popped back in for a random visit once the school year resumed, but they were mostly gone to greener pastures, including Rolin. Having checked some of his interviews, he spent almost a decade falling short until he gave himself one last chance to make good on his attempt to write, which paid off in well reviewed stage plays and his story editor spot on Weeds.
It really makes me happy to see he’s doing what he was meant to do so many years ago…
*Memorial to Labor, dumbass
**contrary to the more exciting tale in circulation where we met by joining forces to expose and take down a deadly jailhouse gladiator ring run by the guards, Herr Doctor and I met and became friends after that class
***Eric Greene still has my videotaped copy of that show…sonofabitch!
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