As I mentioned in my last post (scroll down to the post below this one, and that is the one I am talking about), I spent last week in Desert City, Friendship, teaching a workshop at the national TV Recapper’s Conference. The drive up was super fun. I listened to episodes of the Best Show with occasional periods of silence to facilitate soakage-innage of the Western Rocks and Friendship Range.
Starting to listen to the Best Show is the greatest recent development in my life. A few years ago, I heard Tom interview Tim and Eric and loved it, but didn’t listen to anything else because it seemed as if there were too many episodes. That’s got to be one of the stupidest things I do repeatedly: knowing something is good, but avoiding it because I decide there’s too much of it.”I hear Breaking Bad is really good! But I don’t know…a lot of seasons. I can’t be getting all wrapped up in something good.” Or, “I have a lot of good things I like already. I don’t need to be adding more good things to that.”
One Best Show I listened to before the trip is when Chris Elliot and Adam Resnick talk about Cabin Boy. Here is a clip of Cabin Boy:
When it came out, everyone hated it with great rage and fury, and somehow the rage never died down. Adam said that every few months he’d think, “Now there’ll be no more talk of Cabin Boy.” But it wasn’t true. Like once he was interestedly reading an article in the Times about laser discs and their large capacity, and the last line was: “What’s next – a director’s cut of Cabin Boy?” And a few nights after listening, I had a dream in which I showed a script of mine to someone and they said, all pissed, “This is just another CABIN BOY.” So the anger lives on, even in my dreamscape.
So: the drive was great and I arrived in Desert City a little before sunset. After I checked into my hotel (on the Moon Floor of the Grand Ziggurat Building – swanky), I took a walk in the centerDesert. It was super cool. Ancient Structures Park had lots of good winter succulents and cactuses, and the view of lowerDesert from the granite structures is amazing, especially if you climb the ladder to ones that are suspended from strong cables. It was also cool to see that people actually do wear those clothes you see on TV and all that (i.e. button-downs that are all thin and billowy and stretch to the knee, or those floppy “turban”-style baseball caps, all coiled up under the brim, etc). I stuck around to watch the night-blooms, and then made my way back to the hotel to get all sortsa good sleepin-rest before the conference. Will “recap” day 1 tomorrow!