Even as my NYC friends link me up with the virile YouTube clip about what New Yorkers say...I have to admit to my own guilty pleasure as of late: "Portlandia".
If you have cable, and you get the IFC station, it is on on Friday nights at ten p.m. If you don't get IFC, some cable companies have select picks from IFC ON DEMAND. Luckily for me, "Portlandia" is one of them.
Begun as a kind of riffing on their platonic friendship, Saturday Night Live comedian Fred Armisen (of Obama fame) and Sleater-Kinney singer Carrie Brownstein started making quick "takes" for YouTube. Mostly focusing on life in their favorite city,Portland, Oregon, it does what New Yorkers say...i.e., common stuff taken to the extreme.
While critics mention the repetition, what comedy these days, high or low brow, doesn't use repetition? I find the based-in reality approach to sketch comedy like a cold drink on a hot afternoon: refreshing, even if not original. The fact that the show is based on Portland, and its aging hippie/punk-rock/ duffuses gives the show a patina that is exactly that.
Maybe you had to be there...(or be there, still,) but "Portlandia" captures what most of us dreamt of, sometime in our twenties --or are dreaming of, still. As a character seriously stated in the first season: "Portland is the place where young people go to retire". It is still okay to be "cool"--still cool to be cool.
And in Portland, EVERYBODY is.
Recent bits feature owners of a feminist bookstore welcoming a world class author and regaling her with their own computer-printer woes--finally getting the in-store printer to begin spitting out their first novel, in the middle of the author's reading. (I have had similar adventures on my own performance trails...) There's also a great take on "a cool wedding"--the anti-thesis of the mainstream (sort of) "Housewives of Beverly Hills" and "Say Yes To The Dress" series featuring upscale, over-the-top million dollar celebrations. (I'm not sure if it was the bride-to-be yelling at her aging friend "...don't touch me,you're a dirty hippy and you've never understood Punk!" as the friend tries to comfort her while the groom storms away or when the groom-to-be throws a tantrum under the rainbow parachute because it is "too festive"...but this nailed more than one "unification ceremony" I've attended in recent years.)
"Portlandia" isn't for everybody. If you want a bit more sophistication, stick with PBS, for sure. If you aren't a fan of street culture, choose ABC or CBS. But, if you count hipsters, Trekkers, Dead Heads, punk rockers, performance artists, feminists, Battlestar Galacticans, vegans, cyclists of all sorts, counter culture activists, animal rescuers, animal hoarders, wiccans, Weathermen, Petas, or orthodox anyones among your friends, you owe it to yourself to check out the second season of "Portlandia".
(Or, you can always hop a train and visit, for yourself.)
Peace.
If you have cable, and you get the IFC station, it is on on Friday nights at ten p.m. If you don't get IFC, some cable companies have select picks from IFC ON DEMAND. Luckily for me, "Portlandia" is one of them.
Begun as a kind of riffing on their platonic friendship, Saturday Night Live comedian Fred Armisen (of Obama fame) and Sleater-Kinney singer Carrie Brownstein started making quick "takes" for YouTube. Mostly focusing on life in their favorite city,Portland, Oregon, it does what New Yorkers say...i.e., common stuff taken to the extreme.
While critics mention the repetition, what comedy these days, high or low brow, doesn't use repetition? I find the based-in reality approach to sketch comedy like a cold drink on a hot afternoon: refreshing, even if not original. The fact that the show is based on Portland, and its aging hippie/punk-rock/ duffuses gives the show a patina that is exactly that.
Maybe you had to be there...(or be there, still,) but "Portlandia" captures what most of us dreamt of, sometime in our twenties --or are dreaming of, still. As a character seriously stated in the first season: "Portland is the place where young people go to retire". It is still okay to be "cool"--still cool to be cool.
And in Portland, EVERYBODY is.
Recent bits feature owners of a feminist bookstore welcoming a world class author and regaling her with their own computer-printer woes--finally getting the in-store printer to begin spitting out their first novel, in the middle of the author's reading. (I have had similar adventures on my own performance trails...) There's also a great take on "a cool wedding"--the anti-thesis of the mainstream (sort of) "Housewives of Beverly Hills" and "Say Yes To The Dress" series featuring upscale, over-the-top million dollar celebrations. (I'm not sure if it was the bride-to-be yelling at her aging friend "...don't touch me,you're a dirty hippy and you've never understood Punk!" as the friend tries to comfort her while the groom storms away or when the groom-to-be throws a tantrum under the rainbow parachute because it is "too festive"...but this nailed more than one "unification ceremony" I've attended in recent years.)
"Portlandia" isn't for everybody. If you want a bit more sophistication, stick with PBS, for sure. If you aren't a fan of street culture, choose ABC or CBS. But, if you count hipsters, Trekkers, Dead Heads, punk rockers, performance artists, feminists, Battlestar Galacticans, vegans, cyclists of all sorts, counter culture activists, animal rescuers, animal hoarders, wiccans, Weathermen, Petas, or orthodox anyones among your friends, you owe it to yourself to check out the second season of "Portlandia".
(Or, you can always hop a train and visit, for yourself.)
Peace.
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