Writers/Aspiring Writers/The Functionally Literate

Reply to: hahawhatokaysure@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-05-12, 4:10PM EDT

Do you consider yourself a Seinfeldian observer of minutiae? Are you passionate about meaningless things?  Can you at least fake it? Are you an aspiring writer or blogger?  Are you eager to see your name on the internet, anywhere, anyhow, by any means?  Are you sentient?  If so, we want to hear from you! Examiner.com is looking for specialists to cover the following topics.  (Seriously, people are clamoring for this stuff!)

Belly Button Lint Examiner

Shoelace Examiner

Dust Jacket Examiner

Discarded Fish Heads Examiner

Eye Gunk Examiner

Missing Socks at the Laundromat Examiner

Lichen Examiner

Dust Bunny Examiner

Plastic Comb Examiner

ZOMG!  Did That Come Out Of Me? Examiner

Driftwood Examiner

The Andrews Sisters Examiner

Mortuary Makeup  Artist Examiner

Ghidorah Examiner

Examiner.com Examiner

Examiner.com is establishing a national brand and we really, really need someone to cover these topics.  Come on, you pretty much sit in front of the computer all day anyway, right?  Just take a five minute break from fapping, blow the potato chip dust off the keys, and blurt out some halfway decent copy.  Compensation: Very competitive

Related:  Don’t Lose Your Soul to Examiner.com [Assme.org]

Boys and Girls…Action!

Comedy nerds, stay your rioting.  The State:  The Complete Series is indeed coming to DVD on July 14th.  Get ready to relive the days of sneaking into your parents’ house stoned and eating basically whatever was on hand –Triscuits mostly — and zoning out in front of this series all over again.

TV Eye: ‘Eastbound & Down’

Is it a truism  now that the times you ignore your email are when an email you should read arrives?  Let’s go with that premise because, when I did finally notice I had a new message, confirming my place on the list for a screening of the new HBO comedy series “Eastbound & Down,” I had twenty minutes to get to the appointed venue.  (Sorry to whoever the plus-one I would’ve invited might’ve been  if I’d had more notice!)

Worse than rushing somewhere to not be late is trumped by arriving to find  a stalled line in front of the 40/40 Club.  Two lines, actually, one for VIPs, and one for, uh, regulars, each stantioned off.  So I filed in line  on the green carpet (astroturf), and waited as a third  unorderly clump, “people who seemingly know people,” squeezed in the door.

Once inside, the club was decorated with promotional swag, Kenny Powers (the lead character) trading cards, foam fingers, seat cushions, all branded with the show’s logo. The Budweiser was free, and nestled in a logo’d beer cozy. Testosterone rock and stadium anthems blared while the crowd continued to stream into the main room.

At some point the smell of meat wafted through the crowd, and white snack boxes appeared, though through the throng it was hard to see from where.  Suddenly ravenous, I tried to make my way to the source, only to be shut down.  The patient waitress circulating assured me they’d be bringing more out.  The staff opened a back room and second bar to accommodate the crowd, and in there yet more people were clutching the white boxes, scarfing the burger sliders, fries, and hot dogs contained within. From this back room there was a direct channel to the kitchen where  a savage scrum formed, salivating over the food until we were shooed away by a server.  The only choice was to keep drinking the free beer, and wait.  The guy next to me, gripping his drink, seemed stoked.  “This is like the best game ever. Free beer and free food?  Who cares which team wins?”

It is maybe fitting that “Welcome to the Jungle” came on as I finally snatched a snack box from the Lego-like tower a downcast looking server appeared with, retreating to an empty corner with my meal like a feral beast with a fresh carcass.  It was probably overkill to take the box of popcorn that circulated just minutes before the screening started, but by that point a Liz Lemon-y urge for food had been awakened.

But to the show!  “Eastbound & Down” stars Danny McBride (Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder) as Kenny Powers,  a redneck baseball player with an achy breaky mullet and a stalled career due to steroid use (timely!), some impolitic statements about race and gender, and an unhealthy love of self.  Returning home to live with his brother’s family, he takes a job as a substitute gym teacher while waiting to make his comeback.  The character is an emotionally-stunted man-child in the Will Ferrell vein — Ferrell and his partner Adam McKay produced the project, and he is slated to make several appearances as “a local car dealer with marvelous hair” — who listens to his own self-help tapes to psych himself up, hits on his engaged ex-girlfriend, and though he feels bad for shouting at his brother’s kids won’t stop  yelling because it’d mean he lost the argument.  Even moments where Powers starts to have a  glimmer of self-awareness careen into cringe-worthy (and thereby funny) hubristic declarations. (Note his  potty-mouthed monologue of affirmation, which he broadcasts over the school’s PA system to the horror and delight of faculty and student body.)

One wonders why this slight half-hour comedy ended up on HBO rather than one of the networks, save for maybe the R-rated scenes of coke-snorting and F-bomb dropping and the occasional bare breast were deemed “integral” to the story.  Still, there is no doubt that there is an audience for the doltish, self-centered man on the verge of redemption.  Just look at the grosses for any Ferrell comedy.   Moving this type of humor from the silver screen to cable is a natural extension of the Ferrell/McKay comedy brand, and McBride seems rightly anointed to bring that style to television.

Eastbound & Down [official site]

Clips: The Dick Cheney Show

Of Note:  here is a clip of deposed ogre Richard “Dick” Cheney set to the “Benny Hill Show” theme.  True fact, Cheney  injured himself chasing nubile girls, but unlike Hill, he was trying to absorb their souls to replenish his dark powers.  Watch this important historical footage over and over again, for posterity.  Benny Hillifier [via Slog]

Headshot Hilarity

Impressions count, which is why you would probably not have a business card printed in Comic Sans font with an embossed unicorn, say (unless you are “30 Rock” character Cathy Geiss).  It is in this vein that it always amuses/horrifies me when actors have those terrible composite headshots, where they try to show their “range” with a series of wacky outfits and props, as if to say  I can be serious (glasses and briefcase), or funny (rubber chicken), or menacing (fake tats) or a doctor (scrubs and stethoscope).  I am totally sad that I did not come up with the idea to compile these terrible headshots into a book, like Patrick Borelli and photographer Douglas Gorenstein did with  “Holy Headshots: A Celebration of America’s Undiscovered Talent.”  You can hear an interview with them at the Sound of Young America, and as it’s an enhanced podcast, you can marvel at some of the photos –and the lengths some actors will go to get noticed –as the conversation unfolds.

Podcast [TSOYA]