Third times the charm (or something). I am determined to do my part to support and encourage the inevitable world domination of Darwin Deez. As I warned he would, kid is blowing up, Michael Bey style (aka in slow mo). Honest to gumdrops y’all, one of these days Grey’s Anatomy or some shit is gonna throw one of his tunes in the back of some tricley, syrupy moment of revelation and it’ll be over. His shit’ll be everywhere and y’all’ll be like, “Yo, I know I heard his name somewhere.” And then it’ll hit you. How I’m a fucking zeitgeist whisperer and I told you all along.
You can buy his album here for the LOW LOW price of Eight Dollars. There will be another opportunity to purchase at the end of the program if you’re not yet sold, but you should know, everyone for whom I’ve played his shit has gone on a crack-like binge of epic proportions. We’re talking days of repeat play. Are you sad? It’ll make you happy. Stressed out? Shit’ll bring the calm. Need to dance? Won’t be able to help yourself.
Not convinced? Fine. Get yourself to a show. You don’t like it, you can email me your address and I will send you a refund for the price of your ticket.*
Nov 06 Vancouver, B.C. @ The Media Club
Nov 07 Seattle @ Chop Suey
Nov 08 Portland @ Doug Fir Lounge
Nov 09 San Francisco @ The Rickshaw Stop
Nov 10 Los Angeles @ El Rey Theatre
Nov 11 Phoenix @ Modified Arts
Nov 13 Austin @ Mohawk
Nov 14 Ft. Worth @ Lola’s
Nov 15 Little Rock @ Sticky Fingerz Chicken Shack
Nov 17 Newport @ Southgate House
Nov 18 Philadelphia @ Johnny Brenda’s
Nov 19 Washington, D.C. @ Black Cat
Nov 20 Brooklyn @ Union Hall
Nov 21 Brooklyn @ Bell House
*offer limited to the first 10. Not that anyone’ll ask for their shit back. He’s too good.
I’ll leave you with my one of my fave tunes, Bad Day. (I have no idea what the random picture of people kissing is about.)
Anyone remember the first season of The Real World? Seven strangers living in a loft downtown who all had lives and jobs separate from the show. It felt fresh and exciting and new. The strings being pulled by the producers were invisible. These people didn’t know what they were getting into and viewers didn’t know what we were supposed to be looking for. Some hoped it would boost their musical career, others saw it as an opportunity to get out of whatever small town they were from (you’ll always be my favorite, Julie) but none of the roommates viewed it as an opportunity to snag 15 minutes by drunkenly fucking their way onto gossip blogs. But try to get on the Real World these days and that’s the kind of fun one will assume you’re looking to have. And when people tune in, if they are denied such shenanigans, well then, what’s the point? There’s a playbook now. Roles to fill. Expectations to be met. These kids know what they’re up for. Are you the gay one? The homophobe? The virgin? The party girl? The frat boy? The kid with the troubled past? You best pick an archetype and play that up otherwise you don’t have a shot of getting on the show.
In many ways, this is what So You Think You Can Dance has come to. Everyone knows the score. There are plenty of kids in this Top 20 who have been trying to get on the show for yeeears. And all of them have been watching it for at least as long.
To wit: The last eps from “Vegas Week.” Bubbly Blond Bird Brain (who’s name I will not bother to look up either online or deep in the recesses of my memories) and her BFF cry and carry on like lunatics before heading in front of the judges to hear their fate because they’ve seen this show and they know how it goes and they’re just sure they’re going to get split up in a moment of drama. BBBB and her Bestie were too narcissistic/dumb to realize there was a married couple sitting right behind them. Mr. And Mrs. Latin Ballroom were, of course, the two the producers planned to fuck with. Fortunately those plans were foiled by a girl who’d just been offered a part in some movie and had to bail from the show. I’m sure with careful rewatching I could come up with dozens more examples of contestants having memorized the script but you need no better example of their awareness and eagerness to play along than the seriousness with which Mary’s Hot Tamale Train tickets are now taken. Fucking absurd.
I suspect to some it seems an arbitrary distinction to draw but I find there to be a real difference between a season cast with group of dancers who consider a SYTYCD audition to be one in a line of many they attend in the hopes of kick starting their career and one cast with a group of dancers whose primary goal is to Get. On. This. Show. We’ve reached critical mass for the latter and it is because of this I must declare The Revolution as we’ve come to know and love it, dead and gone. That’s not to say I won’t keep watching and I certainly expect a few moments of awesome through out the season but it’s not the same. And it will never be the same. The Revolution is over.
I started to feel this way last season but the beginning of 6 has confirmed it: the show has lost its soul. I called it the Revolution only a teensy bit jokingly as I believed, as Debbie once said, that the show was evangelizing dance. That a reality TV show on Fox treated artistic growth, specifically growth as a dancer, as something compelling to watch, was rather revolutionary in my mind. I was blessed to have folks who supported my artistic goals. Not all kids are so lucky. It seemed the show had the potential to spark or encourage interest in the art form where it might have other wise lay dormant. This is good news. And in many ways, it still is. But it’s not the same. The show has become a self perpetuating machine, promoting the same sorts of dancers, with the same sorts of personalities doing the same sorts of pieces over and over and over and it all feels rather rote. I’m sure there are plenty of fans not bothered by this shift and that’s fine, but I can’t imagine anyone denying it’s occurred.
The loss of Mia is a fitting metaphor for the thing. Though, to be clear, I find her departure a symptom of the problem, not the cause. I saw a quote from her that I’m too lazy to search for in which she talked about shaving her head. She’d done it, she said, because she felt herself becoming too image driven. She didn’t go into further detail but you get the vibe that she left the show for similar reasons.
So, barring some stunning work of artistry or a compelling, wonky occurrence, I’m done blogging about the show. I’m glad we had the time we did with The Revolution. They have always been my most popular posts and I’m sure my traffic will suffer accordingly. But I can’t fake it. Long live So You Think You Can Dance, but The Revolution is no more.
* * * *
I do have a post script. After all the screeching and squealing and proselytizing of tap dance I’ve done on this blog I absolutely can’t let this moment pass with out comment. Derrick Grant is a fantastic human, dancer and choreographer. I’ve had the pleasure of his company more than once and the last thing I want to do is impugn him or his work. That being said, the performance he choreographed for the three tappers was a serious problem. The sound was unbearably bad. So bad that I’m almost convinced it was either over dubbed or they were tapping to a track. But the travesty wasn’t just limited to that first performance. All their solos have been disastrous. That Nigel had the gall to sit there and puff up his chest with pride for bringing tap to mainstream USA after that trio, and that he had the nerve to wax heartbroken after he kicked two of them off in the same night, well, it gets my hackles up. Nigel, sir, if you truly gave a fuck about tap you’d…
A. Learn what the hell you’re talking about. All that on and on about how you’re worried tap dance won’t excite viewers because the dancers’ upper bodies are so smooth while their feet are going like egg beaters was absurd. It belies an incredibly narrow understanding of tap. I’m sorry, is this not exciting enough for you?
Is his upper body too smooth? He sold out so many shows here at the Broad in Santa Monica that they added two more. I know cause I was on the waiting list.
Listen, Nigel’s not wrong that tap has the potential to be inaccessible to mainstream, uneducated audiences. Much of it is like jazz, you have to want to get it. Certain pieces will just never be appreciated by certain folks. Nothing to be done. But beyond that, the issue of inaccessibility comes in when dealing with less than skilled performers. With mediocre tap dancers (which is unfortunately what we’re dealing with in these three), unlike a mediocre contemporary dancer say, you have to contend with the aural cacophony of missed notes as well as the visual awkwardness of missed steps. Mistakes are much harder to forgive as an audience member. Tap can also become inaccessible when it sounds like shit. Which brings me to…
B. Treat the art form with some god damned respect. Making these kids tap on marley is not only un-ac-fucking-ceptable, it’s totally unnecessary. You know how hard it is to solve the problem? NOT HARD AT ALL. See that video up above? You know, the one with the greatest living tapper dancing on a 4×4 plywood platform, mic’d underneath? Sounded incredible didn’t it? You’re telling me, Nigel fucking Lythgoe (who I am using as a stand in for all producers of the show), that you can’t afford three fucking plywood 4×5 platforms? You should be ashamed. Do not, sir, pretend you give a fuck about bringing tap to mainstream USA. Your actions have proven otherwise.
And with that, “If A TV Falls In The Woods” throws the last shovel of earth onto the grave of the Revolution. Thanks for the good times, y’all. I’ll leave you with a bunch of you tube tap dance awesome to make up for the let down that is So You Think You Can Dance’s attempt to highlight the form.
(I know it’s shakey. If you can’t take it, skip to 1:20 for Savion’s RIDICULOUS solo.)
(Oh LOOK at that. Another simple plywood platform over Marley. Looks expensive and cumbersome.)
The incomparable Dormeshia Sumbry Edwards…
Some kids, for comparison, technically speaking…
And of course, the old stand by, Mash and Nick, messin’ round.
It was Women’s History Month 1994ish. I was a sophomore at Harvard Westlake. We had a special assembly to hear Callie Khouri, Oscar winning screenwriter of “Thelma and Louise,” give a talk on feminism. I don’t remember the details of her speech, just remember thinking she was fucking awesome and that we really needed to be friends. Fast forward a handful of years and there she was, sitting in my kitchen, dating my dad. She’s now one of my dearest friends, kind of like my mom actually, except not really. I like to think my wishing made it so.
A few months back I was newly unemployed (ergo laying in bed at some embarrassing hour) when my phone rang. It was Callie. She’d just had a meeting with a couple of producers she’d worked with previously and they’d been batting around ideas, hoping to work together again. There was this one. For a TV show… Lots of quirky, fun, smart characters to create and the world had all this room to deal with a theme she and I had long discussed: Are you beholden to the family you’re born with, or can you create your own? I mean, after all, I did kinda pick her. She wondered what I thought of it? I thought it was awesome. She wondered if I wanted to develop it with her? What a dumb question.
On our way to the pitch meeting, I reminded Callie of the story of how we “met” at Harvard Westlake all those years ago. I’d told it as my toast at her birthday a while back and it was a hit. Since it was germane, thematically, I thought it would be good to throw it in the pitch at some point. She agreed. So we’re in an office, with the producer dudes and an agent dude, waiting for the network folk. Callie turns to me and under her breath says, “Don’t forget the thing.” Knowing exactly what the thing was I said, “I won’t.” “What’s the thing?” asks Producer Dude. So I tell the story. Says Agent Dude, “That’s good. You should lead with that. Network Chick went to Harvard Westlake. That’s perfect.”
So I did and Network Chick happened to remember the assembly and the speech. Callie took over from there. I played my part as back up singer. All my oooooos and aaaaaaaaahs and shoobops were in the right place. Took them a few hours to make up their mind but they bought it.
So what I’m saying is, fifteen years ago, I was watching Callie speak at my high school, thinking she was the most bad ass chick I’d ever seen and today, we’re writing a pilot together. Seriously. I did not just make that up.
Now, there is many a hurdle from here until this thing gets on the air so don’t go getting excited or nothin’. They have to love the script and want to shoot it. Then once it’s shot, they have to want to put it on the air. If you were a betting lass, your money would be safer on “This’ll Never Be Shot, Let Alone Seen.” But stranger things have happened and I’ve certainly got mojo for days, lately. I’d probably be fine telling you a bit about the show but being that I’m still adjusting to this non-anonymous choice I made, I’m going to keep things close to the vest for the time being. We’ll have to turn the script in early December-ish and we should know by early in the new year whether or not they’ll shoot it. I will, of course, let you know one way or the other.
But no matter what, this has already been an insanely great experience. It allowed me the opportunity to pitch to network and studios with very little pressure (everyone knows who Callie is, no one cares who the hell I am… yet), which in turn allowed me to really study what I’m good at and what I need to work on. Pitching is a completely different skill from writing and one I need to develop if I’m going to be as insanely successful in this business as is the plan. It’s one part story telling (got that down), two parts salesmanship (working on it).
This process has also offered me a new scenario in which I can practice the greatest advice I’ve been given. Uncle Glen (a writer on The Shield whom I’m incredibly fond of) once told me to keep my eyes down the road to even out the highs and lows. He warned me that focusing obsessively on the opportunity right in front of me would turn my career into a nauseating roller coaster ride, but if I was able to view it as a long journey on which some potential opportunities just wouldn’t work out, the highs and lows would even out. This is a trade off as when something awesome happens, like this sale for instance, you miss out on a bit of that euphoria. I mean, I’m happy but it’s a sort of satisfied contentment and not an “Oh my fucking lord I can’t believe this is happening to me!” The bonus is, if this deal were to fall apart tomorrow, I’d be bummed but it would hardly ruin my day. This works because I have faith my career is going to be long and this is just the beginning. Talk to me in twenty years and it’s possible I’ll be jaded and bitter, clinging to every scrap of potential like it’s some radish yanked from the earth of Tara. But for now, I’m calm and confident. And it’s a really great feeling.
This, of course, means I will have to continue to neglect the blog a bit. I do have a So You Think You Can Dance missive on the way, as well as a couple half written posts I plan to finish this week. After that, I’m not sure how often you’ll be hearing from me, at least until we bust out a draft of this thing and are sitting around, waiting for notes. But I think that’s a good excuse, right?
I know, I know. I’m the worst. The Revolution is in full swing and I haven’t said shit about it. I know there are, like, three of you who depend on me for thoughtful analysis and thus far I have let you down. Trust me, I have the most awesome excuse. And I’ll tell you what that excuse is. Just, you know, not now… Later.
There’s also a whole bunch of TV worth talking about. And again, it’s coming. Just not now. But later. Honest. Promise.
Clearly they’ve given up trying to attract new fans as anyone who tunes in based on this will be expecting Panhandle’s Labyrinth (I actually don’t think Dillon’s in the panhandle but Outside of Austin Labyrinth didn’t have the same ring to it.)
Regardless of my confusion over the tone and style of this here promo, I couldn’t be more fuckin’ excited about the new season…
Hey Y’all. I’m back from the land of terror and tubes (aka the ICU). My friend is doing incredibly well. Back in his own home, recuperating with his family. There’s a long road ahead of them but so far so good.
I may or may not do a big ol’ post on the near perfection that was last night’s “The Office” but until I get around to something more substantial for these parts, I figured I’d post my first foray into learning how to use iMovie, circa 2007.
When I was a wee thing… I don’t know, five or something, I was hanging out in the studio with my dad. His friend Peter took me to an empty booth where there was a piano and we wrote a song together. The chorus was “Life. Yeah!” What little of it I can remember has been running through my head these last few days.
There’s a much more thoughtful post in me about all of this but I’m exhausted and the words won’t come right now. Someday soon, I’ll do justice to it all as there are many amazing stories to share but for the moment, I’ll sum up…
Last week, I went to NYC for my birthday. Two of my nearest and dearest threw me the party of my dreams less than 12 hours after I got word that my best friend’s husband had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Now I’m in a Best Western a few blocks away from his hospital in Sacramento. They’re both doing great. She’s the toughest mother fucker I’ve ever met and he’s drawing strength from her. Everything is as good as it could be, considering they’re gonna crack open his skull tomorrow. There’s been just as much laughter as tears. He’s going to make it through this.
But I don’t want this shit to get heavy. In fact, I’ve been going out of my way to inject as much levity into these proceedings as possible. I don’t know if I could have stayed this positive while watching two of my favorite people stare into the abyss had I not just been given the most beautiful gift I’ve ever received. Honest, this was the best birthday ever and I don’t know how it can be topped. It wasn’t that it was Beyonce themed, though that certainly didn’t hurt. It was that, with a week’s notice (and in some folks’ cases only a few hours) people I dearly love put an incredible amount of thought and care into creating something they knew would make me happy. My dearest Mash, the ring leader, even dragooned total strangers and managed to impress upon them just how much this would mean to me. It filled my heart with love and joy. Love and joy that I’ve carried across the country and am passing on to folks who need it even more than I.
Life. Yeah…
So, with out the commentary it deserves, I give you my B’Day…
done
done
done
done
Thank you Mash. I love you more than Dr. Pepper. Thank you Matt. You are my soldier.
I posted twice yesterday so I’m not going to beat myself up over a quickly dashed off post about dinner. Next weekend is my birthday which I’ll be celebrating in NYC. So for my west coast besties, I’m doing a fancy dinner party in my fancy house. We’ll start the evening with mojitos on the veranda, using fresh mint and lime from the garden and simple syrup which I will make for the first time from scratch. Then for dinner, I’m making Coho Salmon en papillote from a recipe by my cheftastic best friend who sadly is far away in Napa. I am also baking a chocolate cake from scratch. I am a horrible baker so… We shall see. I’m about to head to the farmer’s market for the stuff that I don’t have in the garden, then Santa Monica Seafood, then Whole Foods. Then I have to bake, cook, make a centerpiece, make place cards, shower and pick out a dress that goes with my apron (I’m working the full “Bets Draper” angle tonight). Point is, it’s gonna be a busy day and this is the best I can do.
Just finished watching Community and am glad to say, the ‘09 Fall TV season is off to a promising start. Granted, thanks to the magic of BoyfriendTivo, I could have started with The Beautiful Life: TBL. I suspect I made the right call. Oh, while we’re on the subject, what genius came up with that title and where have they been all these years? Just think what we missed out on:
NYPD Blue: New York Police Department B
My Two Dad’s: MTD
Homicide: Life on the Streets :: H:LOTS
Law and Order: SVU :: LO: Special Victims Unit
At any rate, I went into Community with no expectations and came out delighted. Joel McHale’s charming, the supporting cast is strong and it’s got fucking Chevy Chase. Worth the 22 mins of your life for him alone (though he took a bit of a back seat in the pilot, he’s perfectly cast as a character with tons of potential). The writing’s tight and clever. I’m pretty sure I’m square in the middle of the age range of folks who’ll appreciate the pop cultural references so that’s nice, but there’s also a fair amount of moving moments squeezed in between Breakfast Club jokes. Humor and pathos. What more could a girl ask for from a Thursday night comedy on NBC?
Simply put, Community’s got well drawn characters and a well told story…
