Best New COMEDY on Television. Nerd Out America, Party's Up North!

The principal cast of Silicon Valley (2014- present) all doing their best Steve Jobs pose.

This show is like a warm hug from an old friend. Since I moved to LA I've pined for a little piece of home and would use any excuse to get behind the wheel of whatever shitty car I was driving at the time that allowed me to still pay student loans on time and drive up north 5 hours just so I can bask in the glory that is Palo Alto, a place popularized by The Social Network (2010), it's embarrassingly most famous film star alum; James Franco (who actually made a film called Palo Alto (2010) which blew hard), but also recently is stealing the big glaring spotlight from the botoxed stars of Hollywood to the real magic workers that wear Ivy League hoodies and 'fuck-you flip-flops' and write code all day...for about just as much money as movie stars make. 

Big Head (Josh Brener) and Richard (Thomas Middleditch) discuss coding technique

Culture in Silicon Valley could not be more different than culture in SoCal. There's no such thing as bro-code, wearing sports jerseys, or cheering for ANY sports teams. No one goes to Coachella, no one drives a car that's over 60K unless it's a Tesla (seriously a Mercedes is a mythical creature up here), sweater vests run rampant and the drug of choice isn't sizzurp, it's adderall. It's heaven. Remember all those kids who we thought of as 'geeky' in middle/high school? That's right they run the fucking world. They work for Zuckerberg, Bryn, and Wozniak who combined make more than every film that has ever been produced ever. One line of code could bring in more money than all the returns on Avatar (2009)...easily. They ride bikes, drink tons of Peet's coffee, and don't know what to do with a stripper if she was grinding buck naked on their junk (which actually happens in one of the episodes).

Palo Alto isn't exactly cheap in fact it ranks as one of the 3 most expensive places to live in the US, so all these 20-something geniuses decided to sublet million dollar Palo Alto homes to friends at their company and split the rent costs. Don't worry none of them ever use the pool.

From the brilliant mind of director Mike Judge, this show has a fantastic cast, who actually look like every guy I ever met in Silicon Valley ever. Every time I'm up north visiting mommers I run into one of these guys at University Cafe (if you're a local you know exactly where that is and why it's popular). I know they only shoot the exteriors in Palo Alto, because I actually recognize the streets without seeing the street names but the rest is shot in sunny yet shitty LA, but you know, it IS television. On top of everything else, I'll give a shout out right now to an old friend of mine with whom I did drama club every year at I. Weiner Jewish Secondary School (funniest name ever I know) when we both lived in Houston TX; Josh Brener. He plays 'Big Head' a coder on the show who get usurped for a salary of 600K (not shitting you) to write code for a competing company. This show is basically geek heaven, but without all the D&D nonsense. It's written brilliantly, and has the same tenacity, wit, and snark that Mike Judge brought to Office Space (1999)...It's white collar torture but ya love it.

Trailer below, get 'wired in'...like today.

I Have a Recommendation...8 Years Too Late

A Bradley Cooper that's a professional chef? Where do I sign up?

I've been starved for a good show to watch, I've basically seen everything. And I'm glad Orange Is the New Black (2013 - ) has come out, but I've only watched one episode thus far so I can't blog about it yet, but that's probably the next one I'll do. Hulu just released a show that was cancelled criminally after only one season based on Anthony Bourdain's incendiary bestselling memoir 'Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly' (published in 2000) where the unapologetic bad-ass celebrity chef talks about his times working in upscale restaurants in New York and misbehaving in the most ridiculous fashion. He was basically the Keith Richards of the kitchen, snorting blow and drinking liters of vodka whilst cooking some of the best haute cuisine that city has ever seen. 

Cover of the book the show is based on.

Anthony Bourdain, doing what he does best.

Fox in all of it's wisdom (meant to be read with sarcasm) decided to make a PG version of the book with Bradley Cooper as the titular character, much like what Fellini used to do with Marcello Mastroianni playing a character aptly named Jack Bourdain who is now over a year sober and has been hired on a 'suicide mission' to revamp a Bowery hotspot named Nolita with no staff and 24 hours before opening night. 

He assembles his old mates from the good old days promising all kinds of shit that never comes to fruition, but it's his dream team, and he's the best in the business so in the words of Tim Gunn, it's time to 'make it work'. 

Butch, Sundance, and the pastry chef that wears a bandana.

Cooper is brilliant and hilarious as the enlightened and sober Bourdain (who in real life as we all know didn't remain sober, well for the most part) trying his best to serve the best and most creative dishes to his picky customers whilst dealing with a crabby waitstaff, and incompetent hostess, and every example of Murphy's Law falling on his head every morning. 

He's still the lady's man, almost to the point of being a nympho and can you blame him? He's extraordinarily hot, and the man can grill a salmon like nobody's business. That's a winning combination right there. 

The cast.

The show is called (of course) Kitchen Confidential, and ran from 2005 to 2006 before being cancelled but I was overjoyed when Hulu bought the rights to it because it definitely deserves to be seen. It features a stellar cast; Nicholas Brendon from Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, John Francis Daly from Freaks and Geeks fame, John Cho from Star Trek (the new franchise) fame, and Bonnie Summerville from her tiny stint as Ross' girlfriend Mona from Friends (1994-2004). Also, Jamie King is there for masturbation fodder so it's a winning combination. 

It's a good ol' dirty shitshow, with the laughs to back it up and the most unseemly behavior, everyone is constantly horny and/or doing it with each other. And Jack (Cooper) is the most gung-ho about it all, just as long as his patrons and his boss (Frank Langella) are happy with his impeccable talents as a chef. 

Shit just got weird.

One of my favorite characters is Owain Yeoman as Steven Daedalus the Sous. An immigrant from jolly old England, he's a high-functioning sociopath that frequently drinks on the job, hits on anything with legs, and has some of the best one-liners I've heard in TV pretty much ever. He and Bradley Cooper make a great Butch and Sundance (which they refer to themselves as) and perk up the show just a few notches to where it's actually a pleasure to watch. 

The rest is pretty predictable for a half hour sitcom; hijinks ensues, trouble brews, tension between the floor and the kitchen reach boiling points constantly and everybody gets laid. I'd work there in a heart beat. So I'm giving this one a solid recommendation. The whole series is available online. Go for it, then go eat some seared sesame crusted tuna...you'll get the joke once you've watched the show. Is that enough of an incentive?

Netflix Review: Freaks and Geeks

The freaks. L to R - Daniel Desario (James Franco) Kim Kelly (Busy Phillips), Ken Miller (Seth Rogen), Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini), and Nick Andopolis (Jason Segel)

Only airing 14 episodes, but a true cultural landmark that launched the careers of Jason Segel, James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Judd Apatow, Freaks and Geeks (1999 - 2000) is a pleasure to be savored. Paul Feig wrote the whole series while driving cross-country trying to sell his new film at that point...you know the one called...something or other. Oh how funny life can be because his scribblings soon became a television landmark with a loyal underground following.
It is the first show to utilize high school aged actors playing high schoolers, and also perhaps the first show to reflect the ideology of hat later became the slacker generation, starting way back in 1980. In 1980, disco sucked, 8-track tapes were in every house, and Mark Zuckerberg was 4 years from being born. It was a very different time, and seems further away from our generation than say the 50's. Perhaps that's why the show had such an unimaginably short run, because it was so authentic to its time and atmosphere that it was completely irrelevant to us, the idiots.

The Geeks on Halloween. L - R: Neal Schweiber (Samm Levine), Harris  Stephen Lea Sheppard (Harris Trinsky), Sam Weir (John Francis Daley) and Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) as the bionic woman.

But let's talk about the almost all-male cast...and Linda Cardellini who hasn't been relevant since (poor girl). It's hard to feel sorry for someone who was the the real life Sarah Marshall; Jason Segel really got ahead on that whole public opinion front, but she was a feisty, sarcastic, plain-ish girl next door. But I never really found her any kind of interesting so, moving on.
John Francis Daley, the pre-pubescent androgynous actor who now has now carved out a nice little niche for himself writing successfully crude comedies like Horrible Bosses (2011) is the most adorable thing in the world and has grown up to be the hottest man this side of too-hot-to-be-straight-shire. He plays Linda Cardellini's brother, Sam Weir (she plays Lindsay Weir btdubs).
The Freaks of the show are composed of James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Jason Segel, but don't worry they're not freaks in the sense that we see them; as Oxycontin-addicted pseudo-gothic motherfuckers who drive 20-year-old Dodge Darts, and speak in iambic pentameter. They're just some Sabbath-obsessed burnouts who have never gotten an A on anything. They are Lindsay's friends slash love-interests...for the most part. And quite honestly it's hard to cast a 21 year old James Franco in anything where he's not a love interest...I don't care if it's opposite a sofa, that's the part he's going to play.

awkward...

The Geeks are Sam's friends. All freshmen, they painfully make their way through this waking nightmare we call high school in the 80's, or high school in general, as it really hasn't changed much. Neal Schweiber (Samm Levine) and Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) are the ridiculously geeky individuals that are in everyone's high school. There's the Jewish, too-hairy-for-his-age, over-achieving, chubber who doesn't really understand social norms in an almost autistic way, and then there's the point-of-no-return geek who's always been too tall even as a baby, wears thick rimmed glasses that take up his whole face, and doesn't speak except to express his disdain with any given situation.

Mr. Rosso the guidance counselor, who even though looked exactly like Edgar Winter, you still kind of crushed on.

 It's basically a perfect show, with something or someone everyone can relate to, and what's most devastating about it is it's honestly which is at times both hilarious and cruel. And it's totally original. It's my favorite show of that whole era. Watch the whole first season without stopping, it's kind of hard not to. Also, Both the Freaks and the Geeks remind me of guys that I dated while I was in high school. Every single one of them...Even Stephen Lea Sheppard...yup I went there. And Dave 'Gruber' Allen as Mr. Rosso...yep went there too....no I didn't.

Below, the intro.

Below, the infamous dodgeball scene.

Below, a hilarious scene from the non-alcoholic party episode. It's my favorite.