What are you watching?

[Evelyn]

18 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

The new Assayas Irma Vep series is like the first thing ever to make me wish I had cable.

(OK, the first thing since early MTV.)

Useless trivia. Alan Hunter (one of the original MTV DJs) was my next door neighbor. And yes, I had a huge crush on him. 

[Sneakeater]

Now if your neighbor had been Downtown Julie Brown . . . .

[small h]

My old boyfriend auditioned for MTV's "the new Monkees" (a show that I don't think ever happened), and I got to meet Mark Goodman, who was interviewing hopefuls on the line. I about lost my mind with excitement.

[Sneakeater]

It totally happened.  

[Sneakeater]

One of them was named Jared. 

[Sneakeater]

I mean I never got to hear them of course.  

[Wilfrid]

2 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

Now if your neighbor had been Downtown Julie Brown . . . .

I have a history with Dowtown Julie Brown. A Brit, of course. 

[small h]

Does she ever say Wubba Wubba when she's off camera? Inquiring minds want to know.

[small h]

I put the January 6 hearings on in case anything got my attention. And pretty much everything is getting my attention. I don't think I've been this interested in a "show" like this since the Clarence Thomas hearings.

[AaronS]

admin post: the guidelines forbid mention of politics.

[small h]

Okay. I figured just calling it "attention-getting" was neutral enough, but if not, not.

[small h]

Catching up on comedy, or what I thought would be comedy. I started with Norm MacDonald’s final Netflix special, which I thought would be standup, but was actually MacDonald in what looked like a home studio, delivering his lines into the camera. It was awkward, and not very funny, especially when he went into a riff about “women with cocks.” Oho, this modern world, amirite? I bailed. And turned to Ricky Gervais, whose Netflix special was standup, on a stage, with an audience, so that was already a little better. I generally like his take on religion and the natural world. But wouldn’t you know it, Gervais, too, had a lengthy bit about “women with cocks.” Maybe this is a rule, now, if you want the word “edgy” to appear next to a description of you. I bailed again!

On to the George Carlin documentary, which I liked considerably more. My George Carlin knowledge starts with SNL, and a good portion of the first half of the doc was his early years as a “clean” comic. So that was interesting. His life makes for an unusually good subject for a biopic, because unlike most of our lives, Carlin’s actually has a narrative arc, with well-spaced plot points. You can trace the trajectory of his career in parallel with various social and political changes in the world, and the film had a consistent forward motion (at least so far – I’ve got about a half hour left in the second half). Patton Oswalt’s comments were a highlight.

And then I gave Conversations With Friends a try, since a lot of people I know insist that I will love it. The end of the first episode gave me some hope that it will get more compelling. The same could not be said for the rest of that episode. I have a bit more respect for Jemima Kirke now, though; it seems she may manage to get the stink of Girls off her.

[StephanieL]

Before I saw the Carlin documentary, I'd assumed that his Hippy Dippy Weatherman character (which my dad used to imitate) dated from his longhair days, not his earlier clean-cut period.  (Though apparently he'd been smoking pot since he was a teenager.)

[Wilfrid]

If I didn’t say already, the second season of Hacks is better than the first, and the first was very good.

[Sneakeater]

9 hours ago, StephanieL said:

Before I saw the Carlin documentary, I'd assumed that his Hippy Dippy Weatherman character (which my dad used to imitate) dated from his longhair days, not his earlier clean-cut period.  (Though apparently he'd been smoking pot since he was a teenager.)

If you were around then you’d understand how a longhair would never make generic fun of hippies.