Californicati-On The Nose

Californication used to be one of my favorite comedies on cable. The show, now in it's seventh and final season, follows selfish sex-addict writer Hank Moody, played by David Duchovny, and his drunken antics around California on his odd jobs he gets after a few successful books. I love his agent on the show, Charlie Runkle, played by Evan Handler.

Moody has a daughter with his old flame Karen from when he lived in New York (before the series started). Hank usually meets girls at parties or bars, has sex with them, and then tries to get Karen to take him back. Karen has been married to a guy, and lived with another guy during the series. She usually spends some time with Hank, and right when you think they're going to get back together, Moody screws it up.

It used to be one of my favorite shows, because the writing was fun and fresh. It's been seven seasons of the same plot over and over again. The show jumped the shark the season that Moody (or was it Karen? Both? I don't remember anymore) moved back to New York at the end of the season. The shark-jump came when the next season started time-dashed two or three years later back in California, and nothing changed. There was no reason for the time-dash, and no reason for the show to return.

In its final season, Duchovny seems bored playing Moody; almost yawning the dialogue and his catch phrases ("muthafuckah!"). The over-done, burnt toast, seventh season has Moody learning that he has a 19-year-old-son who tracks him down. The character, Levon, had promise, but has turned into a whiny, annoying wanna-be Hank Moody.

Watching the latest episode, I realized what makes this season so bad (it's not as bad as the final season of Dexter, but I don't think anything ever can be). The writing lacks any subtext this season. Being a screenwriting major, I learned that good writing is full of subtext. If a character wants to have sex with another character, they might say something like "I haven't felt this way about someone since my ex, before they were my ex that is." Something like that. Then when they retire to the bedroom, it's implied that they're going to have sex.

This season actually had Levon pull his pants down to show his penis to a girl he likes. Her reply looking at it was "that's a big dick." Dialogue without subtext is called "on-the-nose." Everything this season has been on-the-nose. Luckily there are only 6 episodes left, and then I never have to see another one.
"Why don't you just quit watching now, Nerd Dad?" I'm glad you asked.

I've seen the whole series from the beginning. I've invested time in the show, and characters, and I want to see what the resolution will look like. I liked it so much that after the season where I thought it wasn't coming back, I started writing a spin-off called Runkle where his agent was the main character. It was just for fun, to work the writing muscle, but I remember how much I loved the show at that time. Now I cringe at the on-the-nose dialogue, and look forward to the credits, because it means one more episode down, and closer to the end.

Not Comic books. Comic's books.

Every so often I switch from reading novels to reading biographies for a while. I am in a biography rut right now reading books by various stand up comics.

It started with Sarah Silverman's The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee.

I think Sarah Silverman is hilarious. Her stand up is really funny, The Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central was very good. She is a good writer of jokes, and the TV series, but she's not a good book writer. 

The layout and grammar was fine. I don't mean it's poorly written. What I mean is that the stories she chose to tell art boring and not really funny. It's fun to hear about her coming up as a comic with Louis C.K. and how she was treated as a female through the time, but that a chapter's worth of stuff. I bet if she wrote a book now it would be interesting, but there's actually a chapter in here that are the emails back and forth to her manager about putting "and pee" in the title of the book. I wasted a few minutes of my life reading them before I skipped to the next chapter. 

1/4 stars

I remembered hearing Mike Birbiglia on a few podcasts when his book: Sleepwalk With Me and other painfully true stories came out. 

Birbiglia is another stand up who really makes me laugh with his stories and dry delivery. His book is very much in his voice, but it's mainly a memoir of his average, white-bread life. The one chapter I remember is about how his mom says "like fun you are...," instead of saying "like hell." I expected the interesting tale of when he sleep-walked out of his 2nd floor hotel room window, and the story is in there, but it's kind of thrown in at the end, and the actual event is wrapped up in a few sentences. It's a disapointing story from a great storyteller. 

2/4 stars

When you finish a book on a Kindle, it gives you similar titles and authors to check out with the option of downloading the first chapter for free. After finishing one of these my Kindle showed me a book by SNL's Darrell Hammond called God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked. 

I downloaded the first chapter and he's in rehab. I never knew that Hammond had any chemical dependency issues. Being a recovering alcoholic myself, I love these kinds stories (A Million Little Pieces, and Dry to name a few). The Kindle book is $9.99, but my library had the physical book so I went and picked it up. 

This is a good book. It rotates between Hammond's drinking and drugging (and cutting. He used to cut himself backstage at SNL before going out to do a sketch), and his career. There are interesting stories of him auditioning for SNL, and of various guest hosts and their behavior on and off set. Also good drinking and drugging stories. There is one chapter where he reveals why he's an addict who tortures himself that could bring you to tears. I read it at lunch one day and couldn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. Very sad. 

There are some stories that he just kind of stops telling before there is any resolution. That may be because there isn't resolution yet, or it may be his style, but it doesn't ruin anything. For instance he mentions the mother of his daughter, and how they were married twice, but then talks about being with other women at the same time, but never explains any of the logistics. It doesn't really matter, but it brought me out of the book briefly wondering if I had skipped a page sometimes. 

3/4 stars

Did you know Ryan from The Office has a book out? B.J. Novak's One More Thing is a collection of short stories. 

Full disclosure: I haven't finished this yet. It's the perfect book to read here and there. If I still read physical books, and not on a Kindle, One More Thing is great for the top of the toilet. It's easy to read a quick story or two on your break at work, or in a waiting room, and the stories are fun. Some are serious pieces that Novak might have written in college, some are humorous, like my favorite one so far; the diary of the guy who invented the calendar. Some things that happen in one story come back as a call back in later stories, but you never have to read the original story to get the call back. They're just little Easter eggs for people who read the book in linear fashion. 

3.5/4 stars

After all of these books I am ready to lose myself in a novel again. I'd like to find one as good as the best book I've ever read: Stephen King's 11/22/63. Any suggestions?