Breaking the Line

Kristen Schaal & Rich Blomquist: The Sexiness of Sexy Sex

If you've left this house this summer, chances are you've seen, or at least heard, Kristen Schaal in something — she has roles in Toy Story 3, Dinner for Schmucks, Get Him to the Greek and the upcoming Going the Distance — and if you haven't, you've probably seen her on The Daily Show, or if you've been catching up on your DVDs, as Flight of the Conchords' obsessed fan, Mel. Perhaps even as a switchboard operator in the Mad Men pilot. You get the point: she's all over the goddamn place. Schall's boyfriend, Rich Blomquist, is less of a household name/face, but he's got an impressive comic pedigree as well, including 5 Emmys as a Daily Show staff writer.

As you might expect, then, my joint interview with the loving couple on the subject of their jointly authored tome The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex, was a boisterous affair, made more so by the noisy postgame celebration of New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand's office softball team, who invaded our formerly quiet midtown bar about halfway through. (Luckily, Schall and Blomquist's end of the conversation came through loud and clear; even more so, my end was basically obliterated.) Needless to say, the conversation focused on sex — or, as Schaal put it, "twats and etcetera" — encompassing bestiality, the malodorous nature of medieval sex and the legendary baby-dragging death of Jonathan Swift. (That last part might have been a joke.) We also got into what it was like for a stand-up comedian who's used to being the sole judge of her own material and a veteran of the collective atmosphere of TV writers' rooms to collaborate on the same project, the continually dispiriting state of American politics, and the story of how they met, which is quite a sweet one despite involving a talking snake and vomiting into a trash can. More, along with the usual mix of delightfully perspicacious and deliberately idiotic comments, at the A.V. Club.

Take This Cord and Shove It: A Guide to (Mostly) Free TV

Also in Salon (or "on" — I can never decide which preposition I prefer), a brief guide to getting TV without paying for cable. As I detail in my mildly indulgent intro, my family and I have been doing thusly since we moved last spring. I'd been boiling over Comcast's obscene rates for some time — upwards of $100 a month for basic cable with digital and high-def add-ons and a DVR "rental" — and the specter of inviting them to drill holes in our brand-new walls was more than I could bear. Combined with the (then-)upcoming digital transition, which promised over-the-air HD broadcast and the arrival of the (now-discontinued) DTVPal DVR, that was all we needed; as long as we could get Lost in widescreen and hear that 24 "whoosh" in surround sound, paying a la carte for the rest didn't seem so bad. (The latter, incidentally, is what sold my initially skeptical wife on our flatscreen in the first place. 42 inches of plasma TV seemed like an absurd luxury until the added thrill of high-def Jack Bauer kicked in.) It's not an easy process, as some commenters have been quick to point out, but it's not as complicated as you might think. I've been surprised at how little my otherwise much smarter-than-me friends know about alternatives to cable and satellite, taking advantage of which only gets easier as new TVs and DVD players come with built-in tuners and internet capabilities. There are some up-front costs, and a significant investment in time, to be paid up front, but once you've got it humming, there's a special thrill in watching CSI: Miami in all its glorious absurdity while silently telling your former cable provider to go fuck themselves with each indrawn breath. Or maybe that's just me.

The "Hurt Locker" Reality Show: Bad Idea or Blessing in Disguise?

It's taken me most of the week to catch up on my two weeks off, so I'm hilariously behind on posting. (There was a brief bat-removal interlude as well.) Let's start with the present and work backwards, beginning with this Salon opinion piece about the miniature controversy surrounding the G4 network's announcement that it plans to air a reality show titled Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan next spring. Given that G4's usual programming lineup includes stuff like Cheaters and American Ninja, the prospect of them venturing into a war zone has understandably been met with a combination of skepticism and alarm, but it's worth pointing out that many of the outlets who are harrumphing over the potential hybrid of news and entertainment tend to present much more of the latter. I'm not crazy about the potential for Bomb Patrol to turn out as Kabul Shore, but given the appalling lack of in-theater coverage devoted to a war that has tragically outlived most Americans' attention spans, I'm inclined to welcome any coverage at all, especially some that might reach G4's core audience of 18 to 34-year-old males, the kind who are a lot more likely to enlist in the armed forces than sit through an hour of Frontline.

Dear "24": Thoughts on the End of a Show

 
TV shows become part of our lives in a way like no other form of entertainment. No matter how much people may love Tom Hanks, they don't corner him at the mall and talk to him like he's Forrest Gump. Even if they don't change over the years, we do, and when they end a chapter of our lives, perhaps a small and insignificant one, closes. 24 is, or was, the rare show that I watched from the first episode to the last — in real time, as it were. Lord knows it wasn't always worth the commitment, but I'm glad I stuck it out, as my farewell to the show at Salon makes clear. For obvious reasons, it was written quickly, and late into the night, but I think I conveyed something of what it feels like to stay with a show for the long haul, through good and (very) bad. I loved the show, and I'm glad it's over.

David Milch: "The Jungle Will Find Out What You're Doing There"

In this week's A.V. Club Q&A, "Life-Changing Art," I write about the formative influence of Pauline Kael, as passed on by my high-school reading of her final collection, Movie Love. Kael wasn't the first critic to make an impression on me — I read Canby and Maslin in the New York Times every week growing up, as well as Roger Ebert, who was syndicated in my local paper — but she embodied the power of a persuasive and passionate writer to transform your understanding of a work of art. I didn't need to know who Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot was to know that comparing him to John Cusack's character in say anything... was a radical act. (Almost 20 years later, I got to discuss Kael's review with the film's writer-director, Cameron Crowe — one of the best parts about being a writer is how many of your obsessions eventually pay off.)

A similarly pivotal event transpired four years later, thanks to the man pictured above. I was raised in a house where we were allowed to watch television only on the weekends, not because my parents were intellectuals or Luddites, but because it seemed like the sort of thing responsible parents should do. The weren't totally opposed to the medium — my mother taped nearly every episode of Twin Peaks for me — but my exposure to anything beyond Murder She Wrote (Sundays, just after 60 Minutes) and an orgy of Saturday morning cartoons was severely circumscribed. It stayed that way until my last summer of college, which I spent living alone in the Philadelphia suburbs with only a 13-inch TV and a mumbling philosophy student for company. Lo and behold, there was good stuff on TV. Really good stuff, in fact — better than most of the movies I'd seen. At the very top of the list was NYPD Blue, then entering its second season. Put simply, the show blew my mind, to the point where I'd regale anyone who'd listen, or pretend to, about the quality of acting on the small screen and why serialized drama was the best (and really only appropriate) use of the medium.

I don't blame David Milch for my insufferable blathering (then or now). But I did finally get the chance, in an interview for the Philadelphia City Paper, to thank him for singlehandedly inspiring me to take television seriously, as well as having a hand in some of the finest hours it's even been my pleasure to watch. Between Blue, Deadwood, and his seasons of Hill Street Blues — I'll even cop to enjoying John From Cincinnati, although damned if I know what it was all about — the man has been behind a truckload of righteously excellent TV. And there's more to come: He's currently shooting Luck, an HBO pilot directed by Michael Mann and starring Dustin Hoffman as a compulsive gambler. The occasion for our talk was Milch's visit to the Kelly Writers House on the University of Pennsylvania campus this coming Monday and Tuesday for an evening lecture and brunch conversation. Both are free, but reservations are required. If you can't make it, both will be broadcast live and archived for later consumption. UPDATE: The evening talk is now full, but you can still watch online.

Interview: The Office's Brian Baumgartner

One of the joys of writing for the The A.V. Club is that it's a place where when an email goes out asking, "Anyone want to interview Kevin from The Office?" there are a dozen enthusiastic "Me!"s within minutes. It's even better, of course, when I win. For the purposes of comparison, scroll halfway through the clip below and contrast Baumgartner's Casper Gutman-like baritone (thanks, Claire) with Kevin's mushy lisp.