Salon.com > Californication

“Californication’s” atrocious masculine fantasy

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:30:00 +0000

I'll dispense with "Californication" quickly because writing about it at length would make me sick. When I wrote about this show's premiere back in 2007, I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Duchovny, an original and occasionally brilliant comic actor, had been mostly AWOL from TV following the cancellation of "The X-Files." Between his innate likability, his fondness for grubby '70s films, and persistent off-screen rumors that he was real-life sex addict (he denied it to Playgirl in 1997 , but checked into rehab in 2008) I thought there was at least a chance that he and series creator Tom Kapinos would produce a comedy worth watching -- maybe one worth thinking about.

Students find Sarah Palin’s contract in trash

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:05:00 +0000

The flare-up over Sarah Palin's scheduled speech on a California State University campus has taken a twist after students discovered a portion of her confidential contract.

The document found in a campus Dumpster does not include her compensation for the June 25 speech to the CSU Stanislaus Foundation.

It does specify other requirements to be provided by the foundation, including round-trip, first-class airfare for two, a suite and two rooms at a deluxe hotel and transportation via SUVs or black town cars.

It also requires that Palin's lectern be stocked with water bottles and bendable straws.

The students say they acted on a tip that documents were being shredded inside the main administration building last Friday, a day that campus staff was supposed to be on furlough.

Vengeance equals payola

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 07:20:00 +0000

Never before has it been more professionally expedient to seek vengeance. From Mackenzie Phillips to Levi Johnston to "Eat, Pray, Love" author Elizabeth Gilbert's ex-husband, who's writing his own book, presumably titled, "Seethe, Avenge, Cash Massive Check," the airwaves and bookshelves are packed by stories from the scorned, the abused, the rejected, all looking to wash their hatred and torment away in the cleansing brilliance of the limelight.

But let's not judge these sound-bite-spewing tattletales too harshly. Because we all hold grudges, don’t we? Sure, we pretend not to, with our therapy-speak about "That's all in the past," and "I wish him the best" and "I would send the motherfucker a congratulatory wedding present if I knew where the shameless gutter rat had crawled off to."

Let's face it: It's tough to let go of the past completely, or we wouldn't collect a colorful assortment of Facebook frenemies or Google the ex-girlfriends of long-lost ex-boyfriends to see how their boob jobs have weathered the storm of the childbearing years.

I Like to Watch

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:45:00 +0000

TV today is very dark. We long ago replaced lovable stepmoms like Abby from "Eight Is Enough" with self-involved, irresponsible, adulterous moms and swapped out tirelessly righteous crime-fighters like Kojak with corrupt cops struggling to keep their atrocities hidden. Almost 40 years after Mary Tyler Moore brought her lovably haphazard but principled schtick to the workplace, our TV offices are populated by elitist corporate bosses, lazy, self-serving underlings, vaguely pathetic managerial chumps and endless variations on the vainglorious jackass.

While our TV shows paint us all as easily distracted, neurotic, spoiled, grumpy human beings, we chuckle along as if we're above it. "Ah yes, a dark comedy -- a warped, overly cynical take on life!" we say, then blow off even more work to troll the Internet for something shallow or despicable or depraved to distract us from our lazy, irritable, vainglorious selves.

Drugs, not hugs

"Quiet and mean, those are my people. I don't do chatty." -- Nurse Jackie

TV rehab

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:00:00 +0000

ABC's "Lost"
"Lost" once built suspense through twists, turns and big questions that lingered unanswered. But as the twists, turns and big, unanswered questions piled up over the course of three seasons, they started to feel increasingly pointless and empty. Instead of explaining, say, the Dharma Initiative, or that black smoke cloud, or the polar bears, or the island's electromagnetic qualities, the writers milked each mystery for all it was worth, and then sent us off on another wild goose chase. "Look over here! The Others are actually scientists -- scientists with dungeons!" "Look, a boat, filled with bad vigilantes with big guns!" "Look, 'Jacob' is rocking back and forth in his chair, saying spooky things!" "Look, Ben is good! He's evil! He's good! He's evil!" "Hey everybody, look! The entire island has disappeared into thin air!"

It's time for the writers of "Lost" to explain some of its major mysteries. It wouldn't hurt if we found out, once and for all, the purpose of the Dharma Initiative and exactly what went wrong there. We could find out what Penelope's dad and the Hanso Foundation have to do with anything, we could understand what Ben's mission is in the wake of their rescue from the island. Really, pick any three or four threads and resolve them. What harm does it do? Instead of killing the golden goose, explaining a few things might give the rest of the story more life, and provide a platform for newer, richer story lines.

I Like to Watch

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:00:00 +0000

Home prices are down, says the New York Times, and so is confidence. Consumers on the street have been spotted slouching, stuttering and staring at their shoes, and experts believe that those indicators will only increase as home prices continue to decline precipitously while adjustable-rate mortgages skyrocket.

In addition to the 15 percent delinquency rate on subprime loans this month, a fifth of people surveyed believe that they are "worthless" and "old" and "fat" and they'll "never amount to anything." And slightly more Americans expect to miss a car payment, gain four to five pounds, get demoted at work or ejaculate prematurely over the next few months.

"I always thought I'd quit this job some day and write a novel," one consumer told this reporter. "But now it's clear that day will never come." When asked about his outlook for the next two years, he responded, "I'm going to be the same loser I've always been, only I'll have bigger love handles, darker circles under my eyes and even more credit card debt."

I Like to Watch

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 12:00:00 +0000

My mom is visiting me this week, and she seems appalled and confused by the little details of my life in a way she has never been before. "Those look like they'd break very easily," she said when shown porcelain candleholders, a gift from a friend. Something in her tone suggested it would be better to just break them right now and get it over with.

When a package arrived from Fox containing a DVD of a new talk show plus a bag of marshmallows, some graham crackers and a bar of chocolate (there was a theme: S'more talk, less music? I can't remember), my mom was utterly flummoxed. S'mores? In the mail? Why? I didn't have a simple explanation. "They send TV critics all kinds of weird stuff."

"It could be poisoned," my mom said, and she wasn't joking. Forty years of motherhood have taught her to sniff out danger in the most seemingly benign places.

"'Please watch this show, then die?' They wouldn't get much publicity that way."

"I'm just saying I wouldn't eat something that came in the mail from a total stranger."

I found myself eyeing the marshmallows suspiciously. Publicists have always struck me as a nefarious bunch, so flawlessly dressed and coifed, clutching their BlackBerries, smiling manically and insisting that I give them my honest opinion of a very bad show they're promoting that month.

I Like to Watch

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 12:00:00 +0000

Everyone tells you to slow down and enjoy life, but they don't explain who's going to pay the bills and shake the crumbs out of the toaster while you're moving at half speed. Personally, I know that if I stop and smell the roses, I usually end up lying around in some rose bed all day while my boss tries desperately to reach me on my cellphone.

And most of the time, I don't even smell roses. I smell financial liabilities and unfinished to-do lists, a smell not unlike burnt toast. For me, free time means rehashing old conversations or worrying about how much I should be saving for retirement.

Seizing the day is a slippery slope for old people like me. Once you're old enough to fully grasp just how short life is, you're constantly tempted to hop the next plane to Italy and max out your credit cards on really good pasta and Chianti. But you're also old enough to know that if you don't sublimate those urges, the dog won't get fed and the toaster will fill up with crumbs and then burst into flames and burn the house down at the exact moment when the fire insurance expires because the bill went unpaid for too long.

Sharps & flats

Mon, 14 Jun 1999 16:00:00 +0000

It's hard to believe, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers have now been together as long as the Rolling Stones had been when they released "Tattoo You." I say that because when I was a 9-year-old listening to "Start Me Up" on the radio, I wished those old English farts would hang it up already so I could listen to music that really mattered, like Hall and Oates and Dexy's Midnight Runners.

I can't imagine what today's 9-year-olds think about the Chili Peppers. But while the band might not be the transgressive frat-rock icons that they once were, their latest album, "Californication," proves that they're still one of the best, and most versatile, white-boy party bands of the last two decades.

"Californication" reunites guitarist John Frusciante with bassist Flea, singer Anthony Kiedis and drummer Chad Smith. It was Frusciante who, as a teenage wonder boy, was on board for the Red Hots' breakout "Blood Sugar Sex Magic," and his sprawling, slithering, crunching work here shows that his star turn on "BSSM" was no fluke. Unlike Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction, who occupied the Chili Peppers' revolving-door guitar seat for the last five years or so, Frusciante is the perfect foil for the ever-frenetic Flea. The guitarist picks out acid-drenched notes that hover over Flea's bombs on the slowed-down, "Under the Bridge"-type ballad "Scar Tissue." And on the "all jangled up with nowhere to funk" "Parallel Universe," Flea and Frusciante prove that they could have been art-rockers if they wanted.