12b. The Larry Sanders Show

The Larry Sanders Show became a template of sorts for other handheld comedy-of-awkwardness shows (e.g., The Office). The characters are a pretty unlikeable bunch. They tend to be petty and narcissistic -- and riveting. Larry, the talk show host, is self-obsessed and neurotic. (That said, he's more 'normal' than either Leno or Letterman, both of whom are monumentally fucked up. Don't believe us? Read the Bill Carter books we mentioned yesterday.) Hank, the sidekick, is self-obsessed and clueless. (He's even chastised at one point for nodding off mid-episode.) Artie, the producer, is show-obsessed and intense. He also pours a kickass salty dog.

Frankly, we can't easily explain why we like the show so much. Sure, the characters are great. (The one character who comes to mind as being too cartoony is Darlene, Hank's personal assistant. According to imdb, the actress playing Darlene, Linda Doucett, 'lived with Garry Shandling from 1987-94. When they broke up, she filed charges against him for sexual discrimination and sexual harrassment.' Jesus. Why did we have to read that?) Yes, the writing and acting are exceptional. And the show has some unbelievable cameos (e.g., David Duchovny as David Duchovny -- it's one of his finest roles, and, no, we're not kidding). The Larry Sanders Show rewards repeat viewing and sometimes startles you with its humour, its sadness, or its honesty.

If you're wondering what happened to Garry Shandling in the years after The Larry Sanders Show, we'd recommend reading the GQ article The Comedian's Comedian's Comedian, which was published in August 2010.

12a. The Larry Sanders Show

A few weeks ago, we read the book The War for Late Night (2010) by Bill Carter. It does a good job of untangling the knots of the recent late night Coco v. Leno fiasco. It's also pretty entertaining. We'd previously read Carter's book The Late Shift (1994), which was about why NBC had chosen Leno over Letterman as Carson's Tonight Show successor. The War for Late Night mentions that Garry Shandling was NBC's top choice to succeed Letterman when he jumped to CBS. They even offered him a substantial fee to host the show -- $5 million/yr, if memory serves -- unlike the much smaller sum they later offered Conan. Shandling thought about the offer and eventually declined.

It's telling that Shandling would reject a massive amount of money to host an established late night show on NBC in order to helm The Larry Sanders Show, a TV series he co-created that was broadcast on cable network HBO (remember, this is HBO before Oz, The Sopranos, and The Wire) that portrayed the egotistical assholes who run late night shows.

We first happened upon The Larry Sanders Show in September 1997, when a six-hour marathon of the show aired during the launch of a new TV channel called VTV (Vancouver Television). We'd heard plenty of good things about the show and even taped the full six hours on a VHS tape. We watched those episodes repeatedly and tracked down as many other episodes as we could. (This was eight years before YouTube existed.)

Recently, we acquired the just-released complete series box set (17 discs!) from Shout! Factory. (A few years ago, we received the four disc set Not Just the Best of Larry Sanders as a great gift.) We've been rewarding ourselves by doling out episodes irregularly rather than devouring them all in a short span, which is our usual pattern. (We're currently in the middle of Season Three.) Garry Shandling is a fucking genius, right?

The Plan

Our latest plan is to focus on a single topic for an entire month. Actually, this was our original idea when we conceived of EOTM several years ago (2003? 2004?). Why don't we try it out for a while and see where it gets us?

Update

Yes, we haven't posted for a couple of months. But we did start another blog recently, Song of the Moment, which we have been posting to with surprising regularity.

Plus, we've got an idea for how to change the format of EOTM. Things would change somewhat, but not that much. Make sense? We didn't think so. Maybe we'll try to explain tomorrow.

11. WTF with Marc Maron

At the moment, we have 1747 unlistened-to podcast episodes waiting for us in iTunes. It would take over 50 days of listening (24 hrs/day, 7 days/wk) to hear them all. We need to prioritize, to put our ducks in a row. For the past several months, WTF with Marc Maron has been one of our favourite podcasts. It took us a while to warm to Marc's intense, personal monologues that open each episode. (Idea for a drinking game: Imbibe every time Maron says "What's wrong with me?!") We also didn't initially love his tendency to focus on himself during interviews. Now we can see that by talking about himself Maron (inadvertently or not) encourages his guests to talk about themselves -- and it works.

How we discovered WTF with Marc Maron:

We don't remember. Maybe it was through The Sound of Young America (still probably our very favourite podcast). Maybe it was an interview Maron did with the Onion's AV Club.

Why WTF is worth a listen:

If you like comedy -- particularly stand-up comedy -- you'll like WTF. (The lion's share of Maron's guests are comedians.) If you don't like comedy, you might still like the show. No promises, though.

Maron has been a stand-up comic for about 20 years, so the dynamic when he's interviewing another comedian is unique. It's essentially a conversation between peers. The fact that he's willing to talk about his insecurities and flaws often means that his guests do the same. It's particularly interesting when he has a guest on the show who he's known for a long time. His two-hour chat with Louis C.K. -- who was once Maron's roommate -- was fascinating. They had been good friends, then some shit came between them -- Maron was jealous of Louis' success, Louis felt that Maron had not been there for him when his marriage ended and his TV show Lucky Louie was cancelled, etc. -- and they talked quite openly about this shit on the air.

To our ears, WTF has one of the best hosts out there, features fantastic guests, and is updated with surprising regularity (hour-long episodes are generally uploaded twice a week).

Here's the first part of his interview with Louis CK:

Recommended viewing:

Obviously, we've been really into stand-up comedy lately. Here are two really good documentaries about stand-up we can recommend:

1. Comedian follows Jerry Seinfeld as he develops a new stand-up routine after being away from it for many years. We're not the hugest fan of Seinfeld (the comedian or the TV show), but the documentary is great and really illuminates the process of developing a set.
2. I Am Comic. The director talks to a bunch of different comedians (e.g., Andy Kindler, Jim Gaffigan, Dana Gould, Rosanne Barr, Phyllis Diller, etc.) about the business and the art of stand-up comedy. Great stuff.

Another delay

Clearly, we've been neglecting this blog. Heck, we've even changed its name from from Enthusiasm of the Week to Enthusiasm of the Moment to more accurately reflect how frequently [sic] we add new posts.

The original idea was to write a post a week for a year. 52 posts in 52 weeks. So far, we've added 10 posts in about 68 weeks. It's kinda like that poem "The Shadow People" by Auden: "This is the way the world ends, world ends, world ends / Not with a flood but a trickle." (If we're not mistaken, that poem might be where the band Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet found inspiration for its name. We particularly like the SMoaSP album Dogs Go On With Their Doggy Life.)

10. The Octopus Project

We're going to hypothesize. And this is our hypothesis: Many people have a 10-15 year window when they care intensely about music. At some point, they lose that initial vigour. They still like music, but they don't love it quite as much. At least, we've noticed this tendency in ourselves and many of our friends.

Which brings us to the Octopus Project, the most exciting band we've discovered in the past few years. At first, its music -- being mainly instrumental -- was the perfect sonic accompaniment for reading on long commutes around Metro Vancouver. (We were shuttling between Burnaby, Coquitlam, Surrey, Vancouver, and West Vancouver). Before long, we were playing Octopus Project on a daily basis.

How we discovered the Octopus Project:
Wiley Wiggins' blog may have been the first place that we heard about the band. He is friends with some members, and he was playing keyboards for the Diagonals, who opened for the OP on a brief tour. (By the way, the Diagonals have a few catchy tunes of their own. Our favourite song of theirs is "Clones," which has a creepy, grin-inducing video.)

Why the Octopus Project is worth listening to:
There are plenty of adjectives that we could use to describe the band's music (e.g., whimsical, poppy, electronic, circuit bending, ethereal). But we'll try to avoid using too many vague descriptors. The Octopus Project creates music for all ages and situations. You have guests coming over? Cue up some OP! Need an aural pick-me-up? Give OP a shot! The Octopus Project could be the musical guest on a children's show in the morning (they could even bring some fantastic, kid-friendly props!), set toes tapping at a retirement home in the afternoon, and rock your city's coolest club in the evening.

Where to start:
One Ten Hundred Thousand Million (2005)
Hello, Avalanche (2007)

The albums:

If you want a quick taste of the Octopus Project, we'd recommend downloading (for free and legally! with good sound quality, no less!) the group's four song Daytrotter session. If you don't like the Daytrotter songs, you won't like the Octopus Project. If you want to hear more of this Austin-based band, you should get One Ten Hundred Thousand Million next. Follow that up with Hello, Avalanche.

It's difficult for us to compare the Octopus Project's albums. They're of a piece, but they have different flavours. You'll hear some keyboards, guitars, bass, and drums. You'll also hear some thermin, samples, and glockenspiel. Some of the songs are rhythmic and some are atmospheric.

Rather than describe the music, I'm just going to include a batch of videos. Luckily, the Octopus Project tends to have stellar videos.

"Exit Counslor" (from One Ten Hundred Thousand Million):

"Music is Happiness" (from One Ten Hundred Thousand Million)

"I Saw the Bright Shinies" (from Hello, Avalanche) [Our favourite video of the past couple years!]

"An Evening with Rthrtha" (from Hello, Avalanche)

"Truck" (from Hello, Avalanche)

"Wet Gold" (from Golden Beds EP)

After listening to these two albums, you'll (likely) want to delve into the rest of the Octopus Project's catalogue. Enjoy. (The group has a song called "Music is Happiness" for a good reason.)

Other listening/viewing:

Earlier this year, the Octopus Project played two free shows in a tent set up in the parking lot of a Whole Foods in Austin. It looks like it was an unbelievable event.

Here is the commercial for the shows:

... and some live footage: