Author: Alex Russell

Conversations with my Future Son: Paul Wall

Scott Phillips

Every once in awhile, I see a “celebrity” of our era and try to think what it would be like to explain that person to my future son, King Phillips.

(Please note that King Phillips, my future NBA-playing son, has been a running joke among friends of mine for over a decade, except they’re totally unsure if I’m actually serious about using that name. It’s fucking fantastic; my girlfriend hates it.)

Kids ask a lot of questions — a lot of blunt, honest questions — and I know that I asked my Dad about plenty of obscure celebrities when I was growing up.

Who is Boy George? Who is Corey Feldman? Who is Ross Perot? Who is Milli Vanilli?

God, I feel bad for my old man. I probably peppered him with questions every week about useless people that he knew next to nothing about or didn’t feel like explaining in-detail to his prepubescent oldest son.

But these future conversations with my son, King, are the things I think about late at night.

So what would it be like if my son, King, asked me about mid-2000s rapper Paul Wall?

Here’s how it might transcribe:

King: Dad, who is Paul Wall?

Scott: Well, King, Paul Wall was a rapper who was a one-hit wonder from when I was in college.

King: What’s a one-hit wonder?

Scott: A one-hit wonder is a musician that has one good song.

King: Then how come when I looked through your CDs I found two of his CDs?

Scott: (embarrassed) Well one of the albums is a collaboration with Chamillionaire and the other one is Paul Wall’s debut album “The Peoples Champ,” which had the one “good” song on it. But the other album is mostly Chamillionaire carrying Paul Wall.

King: (staring back blankly without a response)

Scott: Paul Wall came around at a time in my life when I was confused about things and very big into hip-hop.

King: Is hip-hop the same thing as rap?

Scott: Yes, it is. You know Dad likes rap, right?

King: Yeah… So if Paul Wall had one good song why did you like him?

Scott: Because I thought “Sittin’ Sidewayz” was the jam and — at the time — he was the master of Grillz.

King: Like George Foreman?

Scott: No, buddy, not like George Foreman. These kind of grillz are diamond mouth pieces that you put over your teeth to make them look shiny and cool. You know how your mouth piece is for basketball?

King: Yeah…

Scott: Well, kind of like that, but custom-made like braces and covered with jewelry.

King: Why was that cool? Was that during the time you had earrings like a girl like that one picture Mom showed me of you?

Scott: Dad came from an all-white high school and I thought that in order to enjoy hip-hop that you had to dress like an idiot. So that’s why I had earrings and thought it was cool.

King: Did you like Paul Wall because he was white?

Scott: No, King, I don’t enjoy rappers or anyone else for anything else based on the color of their skin. Remember what I taught you?

King: Yes. Judge people by how they act and not how they look.

Scott: Very good, buddy.

King: Then if Paul Wall acted like a black guy and he was white did you want to be black, too?

Scott: Hey, King! Look! There’s a McDonald’s. You want a Happy Meal before I drop you off at your Mom’s house?

King: YEAH!

Scott: (under breath) Shit, I really dodged a bullet there.

King: You said, “Shit!”

Scott: Let’s get you some Chicken McNuggets, buddy!

Roundup

Alex Russell

Day three and we’re already gettin’ weird on you.

Today marks the debut of my good friend Scott, and he’s here to tell you about how he would explain things to his future son. We’re all about coming from different perspectives here, so that’s why today is about the story-based adventure/discovery game Gone Home and Paul Wall.

Not at the same time, but it’s about both. Listen, just stick around. Trust me, for once in your life.

Image source: americaslibrary.gov

The Friday Night Death Slot, Where TV Goes to Die

Alex Russell

Friday night is where television goes to die.The Wiki for “Friday night death slot” reads like a graveyard of shows that you either don’t remember or don’t want to remember. What was Canterbury’s Law? FreakyLinks? Fastlane?

The major networks have extra shows to burn off and they all do it at the same time: 8 p.m. on Friday. When you spend all your time rewatching that one episode of Louie where he drives her to the airport, you can lose focus on what most people are watching. You start to lack perspective.

This is one of the slowest times of the year for TV. This is as good a time as any to check in on Friday night.

I recorded a hour of all four of the major networks. I couldn’t justify the time to watch NBC’s Dracula or CBS’s Intelligence, so I can’t speak to those two. I did made it through four half-hour comedies that are all dying or dead. I am here in the future to tell you that there is a reason all of this garbage is on Friday at 8.

The worst part about it all? Since everyone has agreed that Friday is the wasteland night, no one is trying. No one has the need to get better because they know no one else is in any danger of lapping them.

So what’s on? I survived four shows:

Last Man Standing

Last Man Standing is shockingly bad television. Tim Allen plays the man of the house with three confusing stereotypes and Nancy Travis, his wife. From the commercials, you’d think it was just another show where clueless dad can’t catch a break. It is that, much like Home Improvement, but it lacks the charm of his time as the Tool Man.

Tim Allen works at a sporting goods store. He also is a professional “vlogger” who makes viral videos about his political views and sporting goods. Really let that sink in: Tim Allen makes videos about backpacks and the good old days and that’s his job.

“Vlog” is said about sixty times over the 22-minute episode. No one ever stops to consider making a joke about how no one says “vlog” in the real world, so it’s a little unclear if the writers even know that. No one addresses the fact that these are commercials for a fictional sporting goods store that are somehow popular among teenagers, for no reason. People have a bad habit of saying things are “random” but the unexplained nature of Tim Allen’s career as a viral content producer really must be considered the strangest of the strange.

The episode’s moral lesson is that Barry Goldwater was the greatest political mind in American history. Three different characters mention this. The youngest daughter says the phrase “You know, Dad, I was so hyped to hear your vlog on tyranny.” Last Man Standing is a really, seriously weird show. It comes off as an unconnected mash of elements and it absolutely fails as a comedy. Tim Allen hates Hillary Clinton. The police are a drain on society. Taxes aren’t fair to the rich. The libertarian message in this weird damn show is distracting and it would ruin the show if there was a show to ruin.

My favorite joke is that it was “filmed in front of a live studio audience” but it very clearly is sweetened with canned laughter. Apparently a joke about punching people for being liberals couldn’t carry the room on its own?

The Neighbors

Before you read any more of this – watch ABC’s trailer for the show.

Recently there’s been a weird rethinking of The Neighbors. People seem to have a “it’s not as bad as you’d think” attitude about it. They’re wrong. They are not correct.

The Neighbors is about some aliens that live next to every family from every show. The episode “Fear and Loving in New Jersey” centers around the aliens getting mugged and becoming afraid of the world around them. They don’t know what getting mugged is! They think the guy is trying to trade them a knife!

It has all of the premise of 3rd Rock from the Sun with none of the charm. The acting is all over the place. You really need to see it to understand it. There are lines that are read so poorly that you have to wonder if they filmed the whole thing in an afternoon and just kept the first takes.

Much like Last Man Standing, this show really shows that ABC hates the left. There’s a weird throwaway joke about global warming not being real… but it really gets going when it tries to be “edgy.” With the discovery that one of the characters is a ninja, someone seriously says “ninja please” I mean this it is said by one person to another person.

There’s lots more to say about this, but I must reiterate that this show on ABC made an n-word joke.

Enlisted

Enlisted is the only real new show on the list, and it’s a good one. It doesn’t really make sense to be on this list at all. Why is Fox setting it up for failure?

That’s the question worth asking here, because Enlisted is good television. As much as a bad show can be hidden in a commercial, the ads for Enlisted aren’t doing it any favors. I never would have watched it if not for this whole experiment. I’m glad I did, because there’s actual heart here.

“Heart” is usually a bad word in comedy. Modern Family’s weird voiceovers and the music cues from Scrubs are good examples of how “heart” doesn’t have a lot of room for error in comedy. Seinfeld’s core rule was “no hugs, no lessons.” It’s a good rule to live by.

Enlisted is a military comedy about three brothers. It’s funny, to be sure, but I can’t get over how much the stakes of the show are built up in 22 minutes. People discuss deaths at war. People share real emotions about family and separation. There’s a tank. It’s a lot to handle.

Some of my love for it is that I watched it right after ABC’s disaster hour, but I think it will have a good run of eight episodes before fading away forever because Fox doesn’t care about it.

Raising Hope

Raising Hope has been on the air for a few years and it is on life support. I’ve never seen a second of it before this episode (season 4, episode 11) and I am surprised at how much you need to know to make sense of it. I thought it was about a baby. It’s about… something else.

The show is pretty wacky. There are a lot of cutaways and zany physical comedy bits, far more than you’d expect given the tone of the show. The episode I watched had Cloris Leachman teaching a valuable lesson about loving your family and doing more to improve yourself. There’s a baby, but only kinda. There’s nothing to talk about with Raising Hope. It embodies the death slot idea: a show too weird to live, but too good to kill completely. So it will sit there and die, one Friday at a time.

Image source: ew.com

Tough Questions: What’s the Best New Movie You’ve Seen in Five Years?

This is the first repeat feature – every Monday we’re going to ask everyone who hangs out around here to answer a tough question. This week?

What’s the Best New Movie You’ve Seen in Five Years?

Rules are simple: it has to be a new movie and you have to have seen it in the last five years. I figured you could work that out on your own, but here we are.

Scott Phillips

I’m not really a “movie guy”. I like movies, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve been on a prolonged television binge the last two years trying to catch up on every great television show of the past decade and that has prevented me from spending a lot of time watching movies.

I’m also cheap as fuck.

Suffice it to say, I’m not the best person to be answering this question.

But I’ll go with The Town, Ben Affleck’s tremendous action/drama set in Baaaaston.

I won’t go into serious detail about The Town — in case you live under the rock that doesn’t show major motion pictures like I live under — but I remember going to see The Town with a couple of friends, getting baked in the parking garage of my local cinema and being completely blown away (pun intended?) by the opening scene.

From there, I was fixated on “The Town” and how it played out. I loved the characters, the actors — Renner is a fucking G — and the general setting and premise. Every time I pass an armored truck, I fully believe I can take it down if I had a reliable crew and a couple of 40s of Old English in me.

It’s not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s the one that I enjoy watching the most on repeat viewing from the past couple of years.

Also, how have the robbery outfits not been a more popular group Halloween costume?

Mike Hannemann

Hands down, The World’s End. I already love everything Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright do but this really stuck with me. Pegg’s portrayal of an bi-polar addict refusing to let go of his youth struck a deep chord in me, because it mirrored the same fears I have now. Which was shocking because, back when I saw Shaun of the Dead all those years ago, I related to the exact same struggles that character had. Best movie’s don’t have to be the ones with the best writing or acting, but the ones that stick with you on a personal level long after the end credits roll.

Alex Marino

Up in the Air (2009). One of the few movies I’ve ever seen where every line served a purpose and every scene advanced the movie towards its ending. Perfect acting all around with a script that was smart, funny, heartbreaking, and honest. Up in the Air was one of those movies that had my complete attention for its duration and I’m not sure I’ve been able to say that for any movie since.

Alex Russell

Alex’s answer is pretty solid. I loved that damn movie more than just about anything, but I have to go with Moon (2009). Moon is a haunting movie about solitude and identity. Sam Rockwell has to live in a base on the Moon while he mines the surface for energy to send back to Earth. Saying anything about it borders on spoilers, but Sam Rockwell and a robot voiced by Kevin Spacey are the only true characters in the entire movie. It makes the entire thing feel very, very tense. I don’t even like movies like this, but I can’t suggest Moon enough.

Our Sophomore Year

Alex Russell

We’re back! We made it two days, which means that we’re all grown up now. No father wants to see their baby leave the nest, but here we are.

Today we’re taking on our first Tough Question. Everyone who writes here will answer a tough one on Mondays. We’re also talking about what’s on TV on the worst night on the week. This is a big week. Let’s spend it together.

Or, you know, let’s just get a beer sometime.

Image source: home-school.com

Setting the Tone for Sticking the Landing: CBS’s Approach to How I Met Your Mother

Mike Hannemann

CBS is probably the smartest network on television. Let me immediately clarify that sentence. Their programming isn’t the smartest – not by a long shot. It’s the reigning network king for primetime dramas and comedies, having dethroned NBC years ago. Personally, I devote an hour of my life every week to CBS, two sitcoms are all that interest me. And that’s even on the heavy end of the 25-35 demographic. There are no Facebook updates on Hawaii Five-0 or Sherlock. I don’t go to work and hear people talking about Survivor anymore. In five years? Well, who knows. My peer group may be super into CSI: Dubuque.

I can’t, however, insult the intelligence the network heads have for their scheduling. It’s solid and air-tight. Their dramas compete with the right dramas to win and they smartly place their comedies on nights where other networks won’t be able to compete in the big leagues. As much as I love Parks and Recreation, it’s always going to lose to Two and a Half Men. With no real education in this, I can’t really say that I draw these claims from technical knowledge… just a deep-rooted obsession with TV for the past 20 years of my life. Which is why finding out CBS’ approach to ending their second-highest-rated sitcom was so fascinating.

First, a quick recap: How I Met Your Mother is currently in a ninth and final season. It started as a low-rated test to see if TV audiences would take to a show with a mildly distinct and unique narrative structure – yet also one that could easily be drawn out for, well, nine seasons. It landed and turned into the network’s biggest sitcom after The Big Bang Theory (a quick check of the numbers also puts Two and a Half Men in that category). Like all popular shows, the network wanted to hold onto it as long as possible. But since creative minds finally have at least some say in when and how a show would end, a deal was struck to conclude in 2014. (Sidebar: Can you imagine what that would have been like 10 years ago? When, if even for a moment, network execs would stop and listen to the writers that enough is enough?)

The interesting part is how they’re going to do it.

HIMYM is going to end on March 31^st, burning off its final two episodes. One of the highest-rated shows is going out in March, not May. Not with a big finale to compete with the other networks ending their seasons. Instead, on a date that is one of the slowest times of the year for television (the top three of course being November sweeps, February sweeps, and May). The crazier part is that this is in the midst of one of the biggest sporting events of the year: the NCAA tournament. A tournament that CBS airs. It makes no sense, on paper. But when you elaborate on it, it’s genius.

Not that the show needs the advertising, but being able to promote the finale during the tournament is huge. It was already going to be talked-about but now CBS is creating an island in the middle of the TV landscape for this to be the ONLY event. How many times do you think people are going to hear “How I Met Your Mother series finale event” during the course of March Madness? If it’s anything less than 12 per game, I’d be honestly shocked.

Let’s go back to the island metaphor. CBS is creating something unique for the show to land on. This is the only thing happening at the end of March. There’s nothing for anyone else to talk about… so why not talk about this? Viewers who didn’t care much for the show will at least have nothing else distracting them. It won’t be a big week because a list of shows are ending for the season – it’s a big week because one show, THIS show, is ending. And since it all ties back into advertising, CBS looks to increase that revenue as well because of it.

Finally, this basically leaves a spot on the bench to fill at the perfect time. CBS is known for having many comedy pilots that go to series and are canceled because… well, they’re awful (stay in your room, Rob!). But there are always shows with potential for greatness that never get the chance to get there. Creating a seat in the middle of CBS’s comedy lineup after coming off the wave of a series finale and into a wave of rising expectations for everything else ending for the season is the perfect spot to put something new in. Something (hopefully, a little experimental like HIMYM was) that deserves that little bit of an extra chance.

Network TV shows end in a lot of different ways. Some are critically acclaimed but end quietly, like 30 Rock did last year. Some shows are burned off during the summer with networks airing episodes just because they have nothing else to put on. And most end in May, competing with each other for every precious (if arguably obsolete thanks to streaming) ratings tick. CBS has shown intelligence in its programming tactics, and their willingness to take a chance to create a new standard on how you can use a show’s ending to help both creative and corporate parties is nothing short of brilliant.

But then I read about their potential spinoff How I Met Your Father that’s in pilot mode right now and I’m tempted to take everything I just said back.

Image source: fanpop.com

Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace: A Response to The Worst of Pitchfork’s Top 100 Songs of 2013

Alex Marino

Pitchfork put out their top 100 songs of 2013 a few weeks ago and naturally I hate a lot of them. I know it isn’t easy to make a list like that but after listening to the entire thing over the last few days there’s no way they didn’t pick out specific songs just to get people like me angry. WELL IT’S WORKING YOU DICKS.

Seriously fuck these songs:

Deafheaven – “Dream House”

I’ve never understood screaming for an entire song. I listen to The Mountain Goats more than the FDA recommends so you know I enjoy music about emotional pain and self-destruction, but I enjoy The Mountain Goats so much partly because I can understand what the hell they’re saying.

Want me to share in the emotion you’re bringing to this song? Stop acting like a fucking high school band that’s trying to cover up a lead singer’s shitty voice. The instrumental of this song is honestly great. And I can tolerate an amount of screaming in line with 30 Seconds to Mars and The Used but nine minutes of screaming is 8:50 too much.

Drake – “Worst Behavior”

I’ve always been hot and cold with Drake. Lyrically he’s always talking about how he made it, how he proved the haters wrong, and how he’s better than you. That’s okay if it’s only for a few songs but I feel like every Drake song I hear makes some mention about how successful he is and FUCK THA HATERZ. It’s getting old, man. And how lazy do you need to be to use part of Mase’s rap from “Mo Money Mo Problems”? There’s a tasteful way to pay respect to your elders but straight up copying their stuff isn’t it.

Migos – “Versace”

I love shitty rap. When I go home to Memphis I listen exclusively to our hip hop station (97.1) in the car. So when this song started up I was so excited. But seriously they say the word “Versace” well over 50 times in a row. Fuck that. Throw this song out and put in Juicy J’s “Bounce It,”

The Knife – “Full of Fire”

What the fuck kinds of drugs were they on when they recorded this song? This is the shitty song they’ll play in the shitty club scene of another shitty Scream movie where one of the secondary characters is about to get murdered. If you like this song I hope you fall in a ditch. Every song on this list is at least tolerable in some way except for this one.

There are some great songs on this list too and just because most of it is garbage doesn’t mean the entire list should be thrown into a digital wood chipper. Give these a listen if you haven’t already:

Image source: versace.com

Space Dandy: The New York Times is Reviewing Anime Now?

Alex Russell

In 1998 Shinichiro Watanabe created what turned out to be a very accessible anime series for American audiences when he developed Cowboy Bebop. Bebop was a big hit in the United States, even for people who weren’t devotes of the artform in general. It was an easy to watch, action-packed show with a soundtrack that was “cool” in the way “cool” is supposed to be used. It was flashy, but not bright like Dragonball Z or Pokemon. It was soaked in booze and smothered in cigarette smoke and it was a perfect introduction in style and content to a world that a lot of Americans had never given much thought.

The show ran on the very first night of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block of shows in 2001 and continued to rerun through the end of last year. It would be a mistake to say that Watanabe took America by storm and became a household name just as much as it would be a mistake to blindly assume everyone knows the first damn thing about Cowboy Bebop. It’s just more likely that you’ve heard of the show that was supposedly going to be adapted to a live-action version with Keanu Reeves than you have heard of, say, His and Her Circumstances.

You don’t need to know everything about the world of anime to understand Watanabe’s new show that runs on Adult Swim on Saturday nights, but it’ll certainly help. Space Dandy is the story of a man named Dandy who travels the outer reaches of space in search of new species of aliens. He needs to report them to a more-than-global database to make a living and to fuel his real purpose in life: visiting every location of a Hooters-parody restaurant called, well, “Boobies.”

Stay with me.

Bebop isn’t super-serious all the time. The series begins its 26-episode run with episodes about chasing a dog through busy street markets and cheating dealers in casinos. As the story develops the emotional core of the show grows darker and darker until it’s so gritty it gets almost maudlin. Around the sixth flash of a character dropping wrapped roses to the far-away tune of a music box, it brushes against the line between sad and sappy. It doesn’t cross it, though, and in that line lies the ability to make an animated show feel more real than a live-action one.

It’s assuredly unfair to compare Dandy and Bebop. For one thing, Bebop is done. It became much more than the sum of its episodes by the end. Dandy has only had one episode air so far (“Live With the Flow, Baby” which you can watch here) and has a long way to go to develop into whatever it’s going to be. Should you watch it develop? That all depends.

The New York Times praises the animation and calls the worst of the humor “cringe-inducing.” There’s two important things to mention here:

The New York Times is talking about what is essentially a style parody running at almost midnight on Adult Swim.
They (for the most part) are doing so correctly.

Dandy (the show and the character) is ridiculous. It’s designed as a parody of traditional anime, which the Times gets right and you can read their piece to read about influences. The first half of the first episode is some of the broadest television that’s ever been broadcast. Dandy’s sidekick (an android vacuum cleaner…kinda) shrieks and worries that they are “breaking the fourth wall” too early. The characters are all ridiculous and if you don’t constantly remind yourself that they’re ridiculous to mock an existing style then they might feel too slapstick to handle.

The parody is so direct that it reminded me of a terrible movie I saw as a kid. Mafia! was ahead of its time in a bad way. It’s also a genre parody that’s the same joke as the Scary Movie franchise. You know mob movies? Here’s every mob movie. That’s the joke! If you don’t know the source material it can feel like it’s just bad jokes.

You should stick around for the second half, though. Dandy captures what he thinks is a rare breed of cat alien, but it’s just a cat. The cat takes Dandy to where the real weird creatures are and the episode picks up from there. There’s no need to ruin the ending, but the variety of creatures and inventive art style are worth the price of admission that the weird opening charges you.

If it sounds like I’m wavering it’s because I am. The bad jokes in the first half are really bad at times and I’m hesitant to recommend this to people as it stands right now. I can do so only because the final animation sequence got an audible “wow” out of me, and it’s really not that often that animation does that anymore. If the show strikes a better balance between the goofs and the interesting universe itself, it will probably find an audience on Adult Swim. For now, though, it’s odd territory on American television that you should still see to believe.

Space Dandy airs Saturday nights on Adult Swim.

Image source: awn.com

Step Into Our Office

Alex Russell

Welcome to the first post.

If this is your first time here you’d do well to start with our about page where you can read our purpose statement. If you can’t be bothered or have some other aversion to about pages, it’s simple: Reading at Recess is an uncalled-for response to the way people talk about culture. Tons and tons of people do it right. Tons and tons more do it wrong.

We’re just hoping to split the difference. Nothing’s set in stone yet past the start. Today we’re gonna talk about the newspaper of record covering a weird Adult Swim show, the web’s premier music criticism site loving a song that has less lyric diversity than “Around the World,” and just why everyone might be watching “America’s Most Watched Network.”

We’ll be back on Monday. We’ve got an argument about how last year’s game of the year isn’t a game, some resolutions about change in the new year, and a look at why Friday is such a television black hole for the major networks.

Welcome to this.

Image source: belleandsebastian.com