People who get People TV
Residing within Atlanta's city limits definitely has its privileges. For example, while most Americans have to endure lame, boring, clear water, we Atlantans get to marvel at a different color of the brown rainbow every time we turn on our taps.
Though less sediment-laden, People TV is another privilege of city livin'. Tune in to Intown's public access television channel, and you're almost guaranteed to find something incredibly entertaining, intentional or not. On Saturday, I was invited to participate in the taping of the intentionally funny talk show "L.A.F.F.S."
According to host Jeff Elkins and his musical sidekick, co-host Brian Bannon, L.A.F.F.S stands for "Lame-Ass Sketch Show, with two silent F's." It follows the traditional TV talk-show format, albeit with a production budget of about $8. As Bannon plays the L.A.F.F.S theme on a vintage keyboard with one of his fists, Elkins takes the stage and delivers a short comedic monologue. Though he delivers jokes in a tone so sedate he makes Steven Wright seem like an aerobics instructor, Elkins is still able to pull off the Carson/Letterman trick of getting the loudest monologue laughs from his reaction to his own jokes falling flat. The five people in the studio audience were definitely won over.
Proceeding with the standard TV talk-show template, L.A.F.F.S moved on to a sketch by musical sidekick Bannon, during which he updated the audience and viewers about his treatment for Social Anxiety Disorder, all the while wearing a cheap plastic party hat. The show's first guest was a comic named Leonard Sharing. Rather than being interviewed, he simply performed. He didn't tell jokes, but instead told a disturbing and absurd love story, entirely in French, using stick figure drawings to illustrate. I don't speak French, but I have to say it was brilliant.
The remainder of the show was an interview with me. It's sort of unethical to review my own performance, so I won't. But I will tell you that I used foul language, made hip-hop-like hand gestures, and did my awful impression of Marlon Brando in The Godfather, from the scene where he takes Sonny's body to the undertaker. The show airs Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 9 p.m. on People TV (Channel 24 on my TV), opposite "Frasier."
What's next, The Batemans? Not only did the The Earl host a rock band on Saturday night fronted by a woman who, as a child, was on the sitcom "Mr. Belvedere," but they were really good. The band is called Rilo Kiley and the singer/"Belvedere" -vet is Jenny Lewis, a tiny red-haired woman whose raggedy, ironic wardrobe -- which included a necklace with a dollar-sign medallion -- successfully obscured her Hollywood roots. I've never really been sure exactly what the label means, but Rilo Kiley is supposedly an "emo" band that transcends the genre. They play mellow, intricate, melodic songs with lots of nice chiming and bleeping noises. Unlike a recent Ryan Adams show in Nashville where someone yelled out a request for the Bryan Adams hit "Summer of '69," nobody in attendance made any obnoxious references to "Mr. Belvedere."
Opening for Rilo Kiley was a great, moody, Pink Floyd-y and frankly very unkempt band called Koester. Touring sweaty clubs in a crowded van is hardly conducive to good hygiene, but Koester is in a class of its own. They looked so in need of a thorough scrubbing that, before performing, Rilo Kiley's guitarist cleaned all of the microphones on stage with rubbing alcohol. I'm not kidding.
E-mail of the week: Last week, I was invited to a party at Level 3 called Club Paradise. The invitation described the party with the tagline, "A Night Where Inhibitions Run Wild." A night where inhibitions run wild? A room full of uptight people in baggy clothes standing with their arms crossed as far away as they possibly can from the dancefloor--dude, I'm so there.
Club Soda Will Get It Out: ArtSpot gallery in the Old Fourth Ward is currently hosting a terrific show called Triplepoint. The invitation defines triple point as the temperature and pressure at which the solid, liquid and gaseous phases of a substance exist in equilibrium. Despite that implicit promise of gas and liquid art, everything on display was solid. If you venture over ArtSpot's way, I suggest that you head straight up to the catwalk and check out Grady Haugerud's abstract painting/drawing (not sure what it was really) on wood. I'm not sure how to describe it other than "gorgeous" and "amazing." I'm apparently not the only one with that problem. Saturday night, I witnessed one guy walk up to Haugerud, declare his love and then describe/compliment his work as, "sort of faux-minimalism -- but not really."
Spice Spice, Baby: On Sunday night, some of Atlanta's most stylish and influential moochers descended on Spice in Midtown to welcome the return to Atlanta of Paul Albrecht as the restaurant's executive chef. Albrecht is to Atlanta fine-dining what Thomas Jefferson is to the U.S.A.: a founding father (minus the slave-owning, of course). Guests were treated to lobster (claws and bisque), duck ("not fatty like duck usually is," said one guest), and some superb desserts. Because hors d'oeuvres were served all over the restaurant, guests also had a chance to look at Spice's unnervingly large collection of nude art.
Stone Free: A quick update on my kidney stone auction: eBay removed the auction from its website because it violates its rules about selling body parts. They had no problem with me selling my soul in 1999, or a night of passion in 2000. But apparently a jagged chunk of calcium crosses the line.
