Knowing Jonathan Ames is what and who he is doesn't make me want to watch this show. It makes me want to read his writing. Ted Danson's being in the cast makes me want to watch the show.
The Case of the Neurotic TV Doppelganger
THERE’S a line between authentic autobiography and creative self-mythology, and Jonathan Ames routinely skirts it. No: he expertly and flagrantly dances around it. As an essayist, novelist and downtown personality, he chronicled his peculiar urban exploits — getting colonics and hanging with transsexuals — for The New York Press in the late 1990s; became a favorite performer at the Moth storytelling series, for his genital-warts-and-all oversharing; and devised a career as a foul-breathed amateur boxer, the Herring Wonder. Very little of his life — or body — has gone unmined.
But he would like people to know that, contrary to the title of his 2000 anthology, “What’s Not to Love: the Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer,” he is not actually a pervert.
Actually, I've already read some of Ames' writing. His novel, Wake Up, Sir! It's about about an alcoholic writer who hires P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves as his valet. Odd thing is, only the writer seems able to see Jeeves. Funny stuff. If you want to read some of his writing now you can visit his Bored to Death blog. If you'd like to see him at work on some creative self-mythologizing, you can tour his website and look at pictures of him boxing.
Bored to Death premieres this coming Sunday. Read the rest of Melena Ryzik's article in the New York Times.
Did I catch a glimpse of Oliver Platt? Another reason to watch the show then.
Odd thing is, only the writer seems able to see Jeeves.
He's got a six-foot-tall invisible valet?
Posted by: Mike Schilling | Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at 01:37 PM