It’s been a little over 24 hours since Jon Stewart gave his final send-off as host of The Daily Show, the comedy/news institution that he served as the host of for 16 years, and it’s hard to say if he’s already a distant nuicance in the rear-view mirror of the fast-paced 24-hour news networks he’d been skewering, or if the man truly left an impact on these lie-mongerers.  I also can’t say I’ve quite been feeling a distinct welling of emptiness in lieu of Thursday night’s farewell episode, but maybe that’s how I should feel.  After all, Jon Stewart isn’t dead.  Hell, The Daily Show itself isn’t even dead, as Trevor Noah will be taking the reigns in late September.  Also, Stewart stated in one of the segments from Thursday night that what he hoped to start with The Daily Show was an ongoing conversation about news and politics and the America we live in, and that conversation isn’t dead either.  Still, for me, and I imagine a lot of likeminded people my age, Stewart and The Daily Show have always been a vital and hilarious respite from this grim world, and I imagine his absence is one that will be felt as a slow burn, as the months go by and we have that feeling of disappointment every time some insane, unjust thing is happening in the world, and we realize we won’t have Stewart to help us simultaneously laugh at and make sense of it. Continue reading →

I’ve been a fan of Mad Men for nearly as long as I’ve been writing for this blog, and yet I’ve basically never written about the show in any sort of in-depth manner.  And there’s good reason for that I suppose.  Mad Men for me belongs in a class of it’s own in terms of thematic richness and it’s subtle ability to leave little metaphorical crumbs for it’s viewers to chew on with each episode.  And where lots of the great TV shows of the last decade have tried to rise to the cinematic quality of the movies, Mad Men went for something smaller, like some sort of great American novel, except that each chapter aired after a rerun of a Die Hard movie (thanks AMC).  What I’m trying to say is that writing about Mad Men is hard unless you’re willing to get deep, but here are a few words anyways about this most prestigious of prestige dramas, which just ended about a day or so ago and has already left a big, booze-drenched hole in my heart. Continue reading →

Justified was always kind of an outlier in the collection of TV shows I’ve kept up with in the past few years.  I guess because it was never really a show that I felt a huge communal sense over (in real life or collectively on the internet), since my friend and colleague Sean Lemme was pretty much the only person I’ve known that watches it regularly and has been able to talk to me about the show.  I do have to wonder if part of this has to do with the fact that due to its Kentucky setting and the fact that its abundance of dumb rednecks caused the kinds of uptight liberals who usually care about “serious television” to turn a blind eye towards Justified, and instead decide that getting into Downton Abbey was a good idea.  And I think this idea of Justified‘s inability to ever quite unite people under it’s quiet reign of badassery is also the reason that I haven’t had too tough of a time reeling from it’s ultimate conclusion last night, though that probably also has to do with the finale’s decision to somewhat quietly (and I think appropriately) retire these characters. Continue reading →

Well, if there’s one thing I can say that that Parks And Recreation finale failed to deliver on, it’s that it didn’t culminate in me balling my eyes out about this most beloved of sitcoms.  Nope, my eyes were left firmly dry in the wake of our final moments in Pawnee, but perhaps I was expecting too much, especially if I was expecting this show to provoke such an extreme emotional reaction in this cold-hearted cynic to what was in the end just a low-rated show on a dying network.  But I only expected this because this is the kind of hope Parks And Recreation delivered to me each week for the past seven seasons — the hope that a traditional workplace sitcom built around a lovable cast of characters could still work in this day age.  But unprovoked tears aside, I’m really glad this show was able to go out the way it did, and even more so since the conclusion of this “little show that could” weirdly feels like a genuine end of an era, if not multiple eras. Continue reading →

I once found myself sitting on the lawn of the Gorge Amphitheater in the summer of 2010 at The Sasquatch Music Festival, discussing an oft-asked question among me and my cohorts.  The question being, “what musical artists do you absolutely need to see before you die?”  I’m sure Springsteen was thrown into the mix as usual (why don’t you ever come to Seattle, Bruce!?) as were a few other artists who I can’t recall specifically.

Then I remember at some point I threw out The Replacements as a band who I’d have to see if it was ever possible, but then scoffed at the idea, saying “they’ll probably never get back together”.  Then I’m sure a few moments passed before I caught sight of a headband-wearing dumbass chugging an 18-dollar can of PBR, and thought, “man, music festivals are stupid”.  So perhaps it was only fitting that what finally brought me back to my first festival since 2010 was seeing The Replacements play this year’s Bumbershoot in lieu of a reunion that was a long time coming. Continue reading →

I know there’s already been a huge outpouring of love and mourning for Robin Williams on the internet and Twitter tonight, and there’ll probably be plenty more in the coming days, but I felt like sharing a few thoughts nonetheless.  Mainly, because despite never really acknowledging Robin Williams as someone that I have a ton of appreciation or admiration for, this loss has been hitting me in a deeper place than I would’ve expected.  I think this has to do with the fact that because I grew up in the era when Robin Williams was doing kids movies (as well as more serious adult fare), he has been an omnipresent force in mine and people my age’s lives since from about as early as I can remember.  I mean, sure, as a comedy fan there’ve been times when I’ve taken issue with the fact that people who don’t know anything about comedy seem to think that Robin Williams is the pinnacle of comedic genius.  But the thing is, Robin Williams was probably the first person to ever give me the impression of what a so-called “comedian” is, and the fact that Williams was ultimately bigger than comedy itself speaks magnitudes towards the man’s talent.

Also, despite Robin Williams’ persona as a motor-mouthed, joke-a-minute schtickmeister as a stand-up, it is kind of remarkable how subtle the dude could be in so many of his film roles.  And it’s not just that he could be near-comatose in one role and relentlessly comedic in another, but that he could find so many multi-faceted ways of going between 1 and 10 on the Robin-O-Meter.  Hell, it’s almost a cliche at this point — the idea of a comic actor who wants to be taken seriously, so he starts taking roles in overly serious dramas.  But I think the main reason this cliche exists is because Robin Williams was able to find so many different areas between the light and the dark, and do it so effortlessly.

Now, it’s no secret that the darkness is often what drives a lot of comedians to gain acceptance from the world through their comedy, and perhaps that darkness just became a bit too overwhelming, since at this point Williams’ death has been ruled a suicide.  But all I can say for certain is that there are few entertainers that were able to radiate joy the way Robin Williams did, and hopefully we here at Mildly Pleased will be able to put together some sort of podcast-oriented tribute in the next week or so.