Bored to Death (2009-2011) - a retrospective

“I’m good at platonic, it’s my default sexual setting. After nervous.”

I’m reluctant to call this post a “review”, as I’m not necessarily coming at it from a critical perspective. I love Bored to Death, so you need not read any further if you’re searching for a pass/fail summary. Instead, I just wanted to mull over a show that means a lot to me. Perhaps I’m sat here trying to figure out why, although I do not believe that will be difficult. Basically, prepare yourselves for something of a ramble.

Bored to Death was recommended to me by a friend who had a major crush on Jason Schwartzman. I mean, who doesn’t, right?! It’s a show about a writer who stumbles into private detective work. Basically, it’s a sort of “Uptown The Big Lebowski”. East coast instead of west. The world of publishing instead of bowling. Designer loafers instead of flip-flops. My friend and I watched the first two seasons back-to-back, but then had to wait. Thanks to the dismal UK distribution industry, it took a few years for the third and final season to be released over here. That seemingly-endless wait raised my expectations so high that, once we finally sat down to watch it, I was bitterly let down.

The same thing actually happened with me and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. In that instance, thanks to a timing error this time, the film’s suspenseful finale, where James Stewart is confronted by the wife-murdering villain, was left off my VHS recording from television. I will never have another viewing experience quite like the one where I finally bought a copy of the full movie and was able to see what became of L. B. Jefferies.

Needless to say, I found his whole flashbulb solution to the crisis a bit silly, but I have since warmed to it.

Now that for the first time I’ve finished watching Season 3 of Bored to Death in its entirety, I will admit that my initial reservations about it were incredibly petty. Those reservations were as follows:

• I was disappointed that the writers decided not to follow through with the promise of foreign adventures, as hinted at during the final episode of Season 2
• It bothered me that Schwartzman and Zach Galifianakis had different hairstyles to the ones they had in the first two seasons, feeling that they were out of character
• In the first episode of Season 3, it seemed like Schwartzman was being sidelined by his more interesting co-stars
• I was creeped out by the whole baby-whisky-nipple scene in the first episode of Season 3

Eight years after giving up only two episodes in, I found myself randomly trying to decide which sitcom boxset to put on, having a few in regular rotation to help combat low mood attacks. “Hey, why don’t you dig out Bored to Death and give that third season another go?”, I thought to myself, eventually finding said hated-third season disrespectfully buried in the wrong disc carry case, far from its 1 and 2 brethren.

Cut to this.

As I began watching all three seasons from the start, I realised I’d forgotten how farcical the show was. I’m not a fan of farce, usually feeling that it belongs under the same dismal umbrella as practical jokes and humiliation humour. That umbrella being bullying. But, after a few episodes, I got back into the swing of the show, enjoying its vice-infused humour, featuring copious amounts of drink, drugs, strong language, and sex. The show actually has a very sweet tone to it overall, with the central theme of sensitive modern men being dominated by the women in their lives and finding platonic love through male companionship, very charming. This “nice” atmosphere is contradicted somewhat by sudden violence and explicit nudity, which turns out to be more jarring than exciting. But that’s a minor complaint.

George Christopher is surely the role that Ted Danson was born to play. While I grew up knowing Danson is a mascot for hyper-masculinity, with his role as Sam Malone in Cheers, Christopher, by contrast, is reserved, stylish, camp, erudite, and creative. While Schwartzman is the star, this really is Danson’s show, which I think bothered me eight years ago. Galifianakis’ character, over the course of the three seasons, goes from quirky and singleminded to bland and predictable, with fatherhood forcing him to shoot for average. The writers of The Big Bang Theory treated their character of Howard Wolowitz the same way, to similar effect. They both were flawed but interesting characters, then, by the end, they’re just sort of beige nobodies.

Meh.

Schwartzman’s main character, however, never seems to grow or learn anything at all. In fact, the whole idea of him being an illegal private investigator eventually gets brushed aside, which is something of a plot hole. It doesn’t matter though, as the show ends up becoming about these beaten-down men, trying to find meaning for themselves in a world where they can’t just do what is instinctive to them. Men are, by nature, destroyers, but in the 21st century they are expected to nourish and create. Even a patient, passive, long-fused dimwit such as myself must wear the neutered mask of modernity to a certain extent. It is our burden, but the world is becoming better for it.

Booze helps.

And cannabis, apparently, although I have yet to try it. I do have a long-running theory that it may very well be the solution to all my mental hangups, but I’ll probably never find out for sure. Knowing my luck, it’ll probably just worsen my mental state and push me over the edge for good. Oh well.

Anyway, while I may sound like I’m being very critical of Bored to Death, the above flaws I’ve point out are minor, as the show’s friendly vibe and great wit stands out by far above anything negative. Moments such as Danson throwing a stuffed toy unicorn at some dangerous pressures to slow them down, his drug-induced freakout while having to deal with a serious phone call, Galifianakis falling into the lustful arms of Kristen Wiig’s boozy femme fatale, and Schwartzman having a BDSM session with the fabulous Kristen Johnston, are simply delightful. Even the look of the show is colourful and cosy. It’s somehow shot without any sharp edges, and I’m not even sure what that means

I’m glad Olympia Dukakis makes a return in Season 3, but I’m sad that Olivia Thirlby, who’s been one of my favourite people since Dredd (2012), does not. The show sort of forgets about her. Oliver Platt makes a wonderful moustache twirling villain throughout, even though he’s clean shaven. I can’t get enough of that man. Oh and it was an absolute joy to find Mary Steenburgen, Danson’s wife in real life, showing up for the final few episodes. I went giddy at that revelation, I must say! Their natural chemistry is palpable and very cute indeed.

So, yes, I’m glad I finally decided to watch Season 3 all the way through, as it is not the let down I initially felt it was eight yeas ago. I’m frustrated at myself for being so judgemental and giving up so soon, but I suppose there are worse things to accuse oneself of.

If you’ve never seen this delightful show, then please do. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and, hopefully, you’ll enjoy the rather twisted relationship Schwartzman’s character finds himself in by the very end. I won’t spoil it for you. There could be a revival series, I guess, but no show is ever very good after the third season, so I’m relieved we didn’t have to witness it fade into mediocrity.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Don’t Go Making Plans EP

Years ago, I noticed that it was customary in professional music journalism to spend the first half of an album review mulling over the artist’s career thus far. Due to my being a contrarian prick, I’ve since tried to avoid such cheap padding techniques. This self-defeating attitude has, as you may have noticed, led me to not review many albums. Well, this release is different, so I shall swallow my contrarian pride and begin things as a professional, which I most certainly am not, would.

Emerging during the post-punk revival movement of the mid-2000s, along with such juggernauts as Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys, Hard-fi had the novel mission statement of wanting to make rock music that “girls could dance to”. I myself have an aversion to dance, as one might have an aversion to a double-decker bus heading straight for them. However, I would be tempted to try out an indie disco, as I have been known to throw shapes quite heartily at rock concerts. At a Hives gig in 2005, it has been rumoured that I did some serious pogoing and even had my shirt unbuttoned.

All the way.

A couple of years later, I found myself at a Hard-Fi show on Charing Cross Road, which, due to my worsening alcoholism, I don’t remember a great deal. I did have a jolly good time, though, and even had my arse grabbed. That I am sure of. The gig was in support of the band’s second and arguably best album, Once Upon a Time in the West. Those first two releases, stripped-down indie beats with a heavy coating of 2 tone ska, was perfect for a budding musician such as myself. Hard-Fi made you believe that you could do it too. I didn’t in the end, but the dream is still mildly-alive.

After OUaTitW came Killer Sounds, where the band put down their low-fi humility and layered over their sound a thick, glossy, sumptuous production. Like the same year’s Euphoric Heartbreak by Glasvegas, Killer Sounds could be described as a “cocaine album”. That’s not to imply that drugs were present in the studio, but just that the band had bitten off more that they could sonically chew, forgetting what was so great about their raw energy in the first place. Even the singer’s vocals felt thin and raspy. The album sounds like one nightmarishly out of control party, fuelled by a desire to impress and have more and more and more fun, at any cost.

Listening back to that album now, it has either aged really well or I have just become more tolerant towards a wall of sound pop aesthetic, which I certainly believe I have. But whether or not I liked the album at the time had nothing to do with the guitarist finding himself unable to continue. Then, in a show of admirable solidarity, the rest of the band refused to go on without him. The years following their apparent breakup were actually pretty sad ones, even though my own circumstances and mental state had vastly improved. I don’t want to say my drinking had improved, but I was no longer in the position where it would cause a problem.

13 years later…

All that daily checking for updates regarding the band finally paid off! I even got an anonymous mention in their Wikipedia entry, being the person who quizzed them on Twitter about the status of their hiatus. Oh golly, I’m rhyming again. My account and proof of my identity is long gone, but I’m secretly, or not so secretly, chuffed that I’m in there. I feel like a princess! Anyway, suddenly, a new single popped up on Spotify’s weekly release playlist, to which I reacted by squeezing like a very excited mouse indeed. Was this a one off?! A charity thing? A belated send-off, as per The Stone Roses? Nope, it seemed an EP was imminent, with, I assume, an LP to follow.

I have no proof that they’re going to release an album, but it sounded like they had one “in the can” before their hiatus kept being extended. Who knows if those recordings, like Supergrass’ Release the Drones and Goodbooks’ sophomore effort, will ever see the light of day.

So, here we are, 2024 and four original songs and three remixes has dropped. The band members look greyer and balder in their official photographs, as do I, but their sound is timeless. Unlike their aforementioned Arctic Monkeys peers, Hard-Fi chose not to stop writing about what drove them originally: uncompromising attacks on the mundanity of being a white, middle-class suburbanite. While not the most romantic of subject matters, at least it’s one they probably haven’t grown out of. Did they go back to office temping during their hiatus? I can’t imagine they left with that much money in the bank. But, whatever they have going on in their personal lives, the lyrics on their comeback EP are Hard-Fi through and through.

The first line of the first track, the titular “Don’t Go Making Plans”, echoes “Cash Machine” from their first album, Stars of CCTV, with the line: “All my money keeps walking out the door”. Apparently, signing a record deal is a one-way ticket to instant debt. You don’t work for the label, the label works for you. And they want paying at some point. I don’t know if that’s what they’re singing about, but I thought I’d sound like a smart-arse by making this observation. Perhaps their label was the major contributing factor in their hiatus, which does happen in the industry. The song has a reassuringly back-to-basics production, with only the faintest hint of filling out the stereo pan with more than just the four main band members. There are keyboards and trumpets and sound effects, but they don’t intrude as they would have on Killer Sounds. This is about the song and not the lavish recording budget.

“I Know What You Want” comes across as a ballad for the band’s guitarist and whatever issues led him to want to originally quit. The lyrical themes revolve around the drudgery of obligation and how success doesn’t always turn out how you hoped. If I am correct about the subject matter, then it’s rather apt, as the lead guitar part is truly a standout on this track. I would call it my “dream tone”, which appears to be played on a semi-hollow with minimal distortion. Just a beautifully deep, woody tone, as if the notes were hewn from the very tree the guitar was carved out of.

Oh yes.

While “Don’t Need You” is a petulant teenage breakup song, reminiscent of Star of CCTV’s “Better Do Better”, it’s buoyed by an upbeat bass lick that forms the EPs second stroke of instrumental genius. Again, the bells and whistles from Killer Sounds have been safely locked away in the rainy day cupboard at Cherry Lips Studio, and moments like this create a sense of triumph, rather than exhaustion.

And so we end with a hopeful fade-out. “Always and Forever”, with lyrics such as “If you have no plans, we can do whatever” promising that there is more to come from the band. The lyrics are accompanied by their signature two-chord guitar rhythm, which was perfectly solidified on their breakout single “Hard to Beat”. While one could accuse “Always and Forever” of being a rather dull whimper to end on, I would argue that it creates suspense for a bombastic restatement of intent on whatever track might follow on whatever album may come.

I came to rock music late, when my parents had an unpleasant breakup in 2001 and I unwittingly started to rebel. Hard-Fi was one of my first discerning loves, at least after the awkward infant years of my burgeoning interest. Their home-brew ethos still inspires me and their down-to-Earth liveability never fails to captivate me. The suburban knights are indeed back to finish what they started, and I am very grateful for that.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles! 

Peanuts - Part 1/2

I don’t know why, but I just find depressed kids in fiction funny. Perhaps it’s that juxtaposition of their age and their anxiety over things far above their pay grade. Hey Arnold? Moonrise Kingdom? The Mysterious Cities of Gold? Laputa? ET? Perfect. Some kids are just more prone to cloudy days than others, even amidst the idillic lie of a western childhood. Apparently, my nickname when I was little was “Jolly Jamie”, which must have been said behind my back, as I have no recollection of it. Puberty soon did away with “Jolly Jamie” though, and mental illness took over. Mother repeatedly mocked my emerging low mood attacks as merely being my “dark teenage phase”, but no, it was here to stay.

While certainly not me at the same age, Charlie Brown and Linus are good examples of what was to come. These short films from the 1960s are much more beloved in the US than the UK, but us UK kids were certainly exposed to them at various points in the 80s. I believe there are new CGI versions, which I’m gonna go ahead and assume aren’t as humorously-downbeat as these counterculture-infused originals. I’ve also never seen the original comic strip, which I’m guessing is what came first. I’m rather fuzzy over the timeline of the Peanuts universe.

Anyway, since tis the season, I thought I’d stick on the DVD collection of those early short films and get cosy. I don’t know whether this set is comprehensive, but, if not, it’s fine. I’m certainly no Peanuts completist.

A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS

The tragic irony here is how the DVD menu makes an eye-rolling point of telling us that Charlie Brown is now corporate property, e.g. A Charlie Brown™ Christmas. The irony being, of course, that the plot of this film is the titular sad-sack’s moping over the modern commercialisation of Christmas. Sorry, Charlie, but you’re a money-making machine for businessmen and women with second homes now. Still, Linus’ rousing recollection of the nativity story is very sweet, even if you aren’t religiously inclined. I love the Psychiatric Help stall that Charlie’s acquaintance (I daren’t say “friend”) has, which is something I could have done with. I forgot how incidental Snoopy is in these things, as he’s just kind of there as comic relief. It’s a bit sad that he become the icon for the show. I just find him annoying and a little sinister. Who knows why. I’ve still not listened to any seasonal music yet this year, but the classic carols featured in A Charlie Brown™ Christmas are just enough for now.

CHARLIE BROWN’S ALL STARS 

“I think you get sort of a neurotic pleasure from losing all the time”. Pretty sure that’s been said to me by multiple people throughout my life. Oh well, if it ain’t broke! Sports episodes of TV shows are usually just the worst, with the odd exception. The Simpson’ “Dancin’ Homer” is one. The Real Ghostbusters’ “Night Game” is another. But that’s about it. Okay, maybe that Thanksgiving episode of Friends where they play American football. But that’s it. It’s just that popular sport spectatorship and punditry is, and forever will be, a thorn in my side. Sadly, All Stars has the same eye-glazing effect as all those other lazy sports episodes, although it was cute that Linus stands up for Charlie and even makes him a baseball uniform out of his own beloved security blanket. Charlie fretting over managing an official league team also reminded me of me trying to start a “children’s army” when I was little, which must have been inspired by having military parents. The scene where Charlie’s man-obsessed sister tries to get a boy to notice her bikini probably wouldn’t fly today, but those are the conservative times we’re living in. I’m sure it’s all for the best.

IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN

I’ve never been big on Halloween, which even I can’t understand. I mean, it looks fun. But, alas, parties and dressing up and going door-to-door begging was never my thing. I was most likely preoccupied with more pressing matters, such as declaring war on adults (who smell) with my junior army. The Great Pumpkin is a fun little commentary on the nature of belief, although it never takes itself too seriously. Charlie gets pummelled with negativity from the outside in this one, so his demeanour is less depression and more a natural reaction to bitchy girls. There’s a laugh-out-loud moment when Charlie’s sister breaks the fourth wall and looks at the camera in frustration at Linus, which is great. I’ve seen this one, in particular the kids going around in their Halloween costumes, referenced as much s the Christmas instalment, so it’s clearly very dear to filmmakers in America. I wonder whether the universe would break if someone went trick or treating as Charlie Brown. Stranger things have happened, I suppose. Oh I also had an uncontrollable laughing fit during the bobbing for apples scene, when someone says: “Yeah, Lucy, you should be good at this. You have the perfect mouth for it!”. There’s a chance I may have taken it the wrong way. I guess you can’t mention bobbing for apples without somebody smirking. Snoopy’s air-kennel sequence felt a bit endless and apropos of nothing, much like this commentary, but that’s probably me. I just find him rather full of himself. And fictional.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll try and get the next and final three films watched tomorrow, or I could leave it as a Christmas treat for y’all next week. I’ll have a think. I’m trying to lay off the booze until New Year’s Eve, which I do actually enjoy, but I’m sure I’ll crack soon enough.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles™!