Ken Tucker’s Pop Culture

From today’s Variety:
“As for the tone of NBC’s programming, Graboff said blue-sky fare makes sense right now.

“People need to escape. Ben’s programming strategy is to find some shows where people can tune in and then mentally tune out. That’s his directive, and I think you’ll see that reflected in the programs.”…”

So NBC entertainment prez Ben Silverman–at least as interpreted by his employee quoted above–wants you to “tune out mentally” when you watch NBC. This is doubtless why he’s green-lit that horrible remake of the dreadful show “Knight Rider” as a regular series. And, for that matter, why NBC airs “Deal or No Deal” whenever it possibly can.

This does not bode well for NBC shows that require mental tune-in, such as “30 Rock” and “Friday Night Lights,” but the same Variety report also said that “FNL” has a good shot at renewal.

Me, I think Silverman may be underrated thus far. Sure, he programs some crap, who doesn’t? But he’s also the man whose production company brought us the American version of “The Office.” Like every network exec, he’s in it for both the bucks and the glory, and it’s that mixture of both (never underestimate how much public praise, even from the journalists many of his breed profess to ignore or despise, means to these folks) that will likely prevent NBC from becoming the No-brain Broadcasting Company.  Silverman seems savvy. If by “tuning out” he also means “passing on pretentious ‘dark’ projects from writers who wish they could make edgy-cable-shows for network-salaries,” and as long as some of that “blue-sky fare” is as bright as, say, NBC’s own “Life,” I say, let’s see what Silverman has up his crisp white-shirt sleeve.

I appeared on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” this past Tuesday. Watch the ridiculous bald man try to keep pace with the clever thatch-haired host.

I was very sorry to read of the death of Dave Stevens, a wonderfully sly, witty artist best known for his comic book creation The Rocketeer. He died at age 52 of leukemia.

Stevens’ Rocketeer, a super-hero homage that featured lovely, meticulous color drawings of 1930s Los Angeles, was made into an earnest 1991 movie starring Billy (then “Bill”) Campbell. “Earnest” was not an adjective otherwise applicable to Stevens wily art. His Rocketeer comic books were small, perfect, and original creations. It told tales of Cliff Secord, a stunt pilot who happens upon a jet-pack; when strapped on his back, he zoomed into the air as the helmeted Rocketeer. Cliff’s love life was centered on Jenny, a wide-eyed innocent with curves that didn’t quit.

It was his drawing of women—lushly proportioned, provocatively posed, sometimes scantily-dressed—that gave Stevens cult status. Well, that and his notorious perfectionism, which never allowed him to churn out enough work to make him well-known to a mass audience. (Stevens, living in the belly of the beast, also did storyboard work for Hollywood movies, including “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”) But he was one of the most imaginative—and last—practitioners of what comic nerds call “good girl art,” non-porn pictures of stylized-sexy women.

One of Stevens’ chief inspirations was Bettie Page, whom Stevens admired long before the establishment Hollywood film industry and Gretchen Mol got to her. Page’s innocent sex-kitten poses were exactly the sort of sensuality Stevens raised a notch in his meticulously rendered drawings and paintings. He drew scores of variations on Bettie Page-like women. Certainly The Rocketeer’s Jenny was a Bettie homage. When it was announced that Disney had cast Jennifer Connolly as Bettie in the Rocketeer movie, it sounded like a great idea—the Connolly of that era was just the right physical “type” for Betty, but the movie, compromised as family fare, never hinted at the clever naughtiness Stevens maintained throughout his art career.

Is it disrespectful to say that Stevens was a first-rate artist whose chief motivation was not money, but horniness? I think not. By all accounts–and certainly from the very brief professional correspondence we had when I lived in L.A. in the 1980s—Stevens was a polite, modest man who seemed constantly surprised that other people admired his skill. That he managed to combine the artful with the disreputable in his work is one mark of an original pop-culture creator, and Dave Stevens persued his interests with the assiduousness and unceasing vitality of a first-rate artist by any definition.

Wow, what a terrific album She & Him’s Volume One (Merge) is. A collaboration between Zooey Deschanel (yes, the actress) and M.Ward (yes, singer-songwriter-guitarist Matt Ward, here primarily playing guitar and keyboards).
The surprise of She & Him is not that Deschanel has a good voice—lots of actors can sing (the vocal training helps, don’tcha know). But not many of them can write good songs (Kevin Bacon, Minnie Driver—solid as actors; um, “enthusiastic” as musicians). Deschanel writes good songs. On Volume One, she has composed an impeccable girl-group romp called “I Was Made For You” as well as lovely ballads (“Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?,” “Sentimental Heart”), even a convincing country sad song (“Got Me”). She shares songwriting credit on one of the album’s stand-outs, “Sweet Darlin,’” with another thespian, Jason Schwartzman. And, lordy, this woman knows how to execute cover songs. Deschanal and Ward place the Beatles’ “I Should Have Known Better” in a Hawaiian steel-guitar arrangement that never lapses into drippiness, and she powers through Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got A Hold On Me” with glowing intensity.
M. Ward has long played well with women (having guested/collaborated on recordings with Cat Power, Neko Case, Beth Orton, Norah Jones, and Jenny Lewis, among others), but he out-does himself here. Together, they don’t fit into the usual female-male musical paradigms—lovers, mates, siblings, business partners—but something else: equals; two minds working in artistic agreement.
The press notes that accompanied my copy of Volume One say that Deschanel had been hoarding dozens of demos over the years, and some of them form this album. I hope she’s encouraged by the results of Volume One and keeps churning out as much music as she feels like making.
Oh, yeah—she was really good in The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, too; go rent that.