It is plain to see that there
are not a lot of people rooting
for network television’s return
to glory. The discourse around
network television has become
as stale as they claim the shows
to be: We all know it’s become
safe and is no longer breaking
new ground. It’s currently cool
to hate network TV. I am not
denying that there are things to
hate, as evidenced by anything
that Chuck Lorre releases and
the perpetual green-lighting
of more “The Goldbergs” rip-
offs, rather, I am arguing that
in the competition to see who
can hate network TV the most,
we
overlook
gems.
“Single
Parents” is one of those gems.
“Single Parents” is pretty
self-explanatory. Four single
parents struggle to balance
adulthood
and
parenthood
while clashing with their kids’
new
classroom
coordinator,
Will (Taran Killam, “Saturday
Night Live”), a mushy helicopter
dad. Will is as overbearing
as he is positive, announcing
to the class on the first day
all of the new
(and
pointless)
initiatives he has
imagined.
The
singles
vow
to
get him out of
his shell with the
sole
motivation
of
shirking
off
any
extra
responsibilities
that may come their way. From
there, hilarity ensues, and the
show takes off.
The diverse cast of “Single
Parents” is one of the primary
reasons
it
works
so
well.
Without feeling forced, it does
great work to show that there is
no one “type” of single parent
and also highlights the bond
their situation has created
for them. It makes for great
comedy to see the interactions
between these people who,
if not for their kids, would
probably never have contact.
In what other universe would
ultra-feminist
mom
Poppy
(Kimrie
Lewis,
“Scandal)
and chauvinistic
father
Douglas
(Brad
Garrett,
“Christopher
Robin”) ever have
contact, let alone
be
comfortable
enough
with
each other that
Poppy can barge
in on Douglas’s
steak dinner of “pasty, old
white guys” (Poppy’s words,
not mine)? While the writing
feels authentic and the jokes
land with consistency, a great
debt is owed to the fantastic
cast rounded out by Leighton
Meester (“Gossip Girl”) and
Jake Choi (“Lethal Weapon”)
for elevating what could have
been a forgettable one-episode
wonder into something worth
watching on a weekly basis.
The show is doing what
other network shows should
have been doing for years.
Rather than giving us neutered
versions of what we expect to
see on premium cable, it takes
the familiar tropes that we
have come to associate with
network television and gives
them a fresh twist.
“Single Parents” does an
exemplary
job
of
blending
together
two
of
the
most
familiar formulas in network
television history (the young
singles show and the family
show) and coming out with
something timely and realistic
for
viewing
audiences
in
2018. “Single Parents” treats
viewers to the best of both
worlds: all of the wacky, fun
dating plotlines of a “Happy
Endings” or a “Don’t Trust
the B in Apartment 23” while
still being able to provide the
warmth of a family-centric
show like “Modern Family” or
“Black-ish.”
Thus,
watching
feels like meeting someone
new, yet having that strange
sensation you’ve known them
forever. So, please, even in the
contemporary climate of hating
anything
and
everything
network, direct those energies
towards
something
more
deserving and give “Single
Parents” a chance.
By Craig Stowe
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/03/18
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
10/03/18
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, October 3, 2018
ACROSS
1 Party with a
piñata
7 Tin alloys
14 Online icon
15 Expo entry
16 Begrudge
17 31-day month
18 Jabber
19 Surge protector?
20 __-Cat: winter
vehicle
21 “That wasn’t nice
of you”
22 Italian tenor
Andrea
24 Cricket club
25 Went down
26 Dander reaction,
perhaps
30 1979 Hockey
Hall of Fame
inductee
31 Shakespearean
bad guy
32 __ the line
33 Word with dating
or skating
35 Airport NW of
LAX
37 Egged on
38 Strainers
40 2018 Stanley
Cup champs,
familiarly
42 Yard tool
43 Swear (to)
44 Tennis immortal
Arthur
45 “Fareed Zakaria
GPS” network
46 Took the helm
48 Revolutionary
icon
49 Butter square
52 Marmalade
morsels
53 Feathery
accessory
54 Marine animals
named for
flowers
56 Nabokov novel
59 Athletic shoe
60 Island group that
includes São
Miguel
61 Italian Riviera
resort
62 Triple Crown
winners
DOWN
1 Many miles
2 “Now __ seen
it all!”
3 *Life of affluence
4 It might be rare
5 Fail big-time
6 “The creation of
beauty is __”:
Emerson
7 Complaint
8 Show a real
talent for
9 *Specialty
10 “Humble and
Kind” singer
McGraw
11 Falls back
12 Nothing, in
Quebec
13 Texas
ballplayer, to
fans
17 *Magician’s
riffled prop
19 Yearns (for)
21 La Brea
attraction
22 Barnyard bleat
23 Bakery
employee
24 __ nova
25 *Swimming
option
27 Perches for
tots, and what
the answers to
starred clues
literally contain
28 Common soccer
score
29 Nash who wrote
“Parsley / Is
gharsley”
34 Big nights
36 Desert refuges
39 “Revolution
From Within”
writer Gloria
41 Prof.’s degree
47 Month after
17-Across, south
of the border
48 __ scheme
49 Bridge call
50 LPGA
golfer
Nordqvist
51 Video game
rating
53 Nincompoop
55 Spoil
56 “Well,
__-di-dah!”
57 Ball holder
58 Pack
animal
Stand-up is to the comedy
industry as PornHub is to the
pornography industry: You need
to sift through a lot of shit to get
to the good stuff and it’s mostly
watched
and
performed
by
straight, white men. Like porn, if
you want to get into the industry,
you have to learn from the best.
And in my foolish and curious
eyes, I got the Playboy of comedy
internships. I would be working
at the best comedy club in New
York City (which, for the sake of
this article, I will just call “The
Club”). My internship at The
Club was unpaid, of course, but
the opportunity of a lifetime. The
red-carpeted halls were filled
with signed portraits of some
of the biggest names in comedy,
from Ellen DeGeneres to Dave
Chappelle to Jimmy Fallon. I was
in comedy heaven. My first day on
the job, I arrived at The Club in my
Gilda Radner T-Shirt ready to take
on the world and start my plot for
comedic domination. I was now
working at The Club. I could hang
out with famous comedians every
night. I could live marvelously
like Midge Maisel. I could get free
drinks and have running bits with
the bartender Kenny.
I snapped out of my daydream
with a call from my boss, Randy.
I told him I was waiting at the
club eagerly. He kind of chuckled
when he said, “I’m not there, I’m
in Washington Heights, that’s
where I work. Come here to
Washington Heights, a full hour
subway away from The Club.” So,
I trekked to Washington Heights
to what I presumed would be a
cheap office building filled to the
brim with comedians throwing
jokes at each other and playing
mini basketball with crumpled
paper balls.
Alas, when Randy opened the
door I discovered that his “office”
was a closet-like room in his tiny
apartment. His office looked more
like a serial killer’s hideout than a
comedy club director’s. The walls
were covered in post-its scribbled
with odd things like “money
ideas” and “funny one-liners.”
A small IKEA desk was shoved
in the corner by the radiator,
topped with an outdated Dell
computer that hummed like my
grandmother’s washing machine.
The floor was covered with
cardboard
boxes
overflowing
with papers and stacks of books
on everything from comedy to
bitcoin. In a swivel chair lined
with an orthotics insert sat Randy,
an overweight, washed-up, failed
comedian in black sweatpants, a
striped polo and Costco slippers.
He resembled what Jerry Seinfeld
might look like if he let himself go
or a Jewish Louis C.K. He didn’t
look me in the eye, only motioned
me to join him in the un-air-
conditioned “office.”
The only place to sit was a
small foot stool next to his desk.
I sat below him, like a shoe-
shine at a train station. In a long-
winded speech that included
two poor Christopher Walken
impressions, four D-list celebrity
name drops, three uncomfortable
Harvey Weinstein jokes and six
digressions involving soup, Randy
instructed me on my extensive
intern responsibilities. I would
craft,
respond
and
forward
emails all goddamn day. Randy
firmly believed that the more
emails he sent, the more likely
people would attend shows and
stand-up classes. Through the
emails I sent while Randy was
loudly meditating in his bedroom
just three feet away, I discovered
there were more people like me,
more interns. There was actually
a group of five boys gathered at a
Marriott downtown doing work
for Randy. They were working
in the hotel lobby because Randy
didn’t allow boys in his house
for the sake of his eight-year-
old daughter. Therefore, he only
allowed the six female interns
to work in his office, where we
performed all the secretarial
duties
expected
of
comedy
interns. Meanwhile, the boys at
the Marriott were writing and
pitching jokes to Randy to be used
in comedy roasts and classes. And
they said misogyny was dead, or
was it chivalry?
You’d think, Dear Reader, at
this point I’d haul my ass far away
from this sexist abuser of free
labor. Alas, for weeks I continued
to stick it out thinking that this is
what comedy was. This was my
ticket to success. This was how I
would finally get to hug Tina Fey.
We would get into The Club
on Thursday nights for free if we
brought enough people. Randy
was always asking us to bring
people to shows, sending us email
after email to bring our lovers,
friends and family with the
promise of one day performing
ourselves in front a crowd at The
Club. I brought every friend I
had in New York, of which there
were few, in hopes of getting a
spot on The Club stage. Every
Thursday, I sat in the same spot
with the other interns and Randy,
drinking mediocre beer watching
mediocre comics tell mediocre
jokes. The same scrawny white
guys, usually named Paul or John
or Joe, got up every week making
the same jokes about their penises
and the women who didn’t want
to have sex with them. They
all mocked “kids these days”
and how political correctness
has made this generation weak,
reminding the audience that
maybe it wasn’t all that bad to
beat your kids in the first place.
They were racist and homophobic
and Islamophobic and sexist and,
naturally, not funny. I went back,
every week, hoping maybe one
female comedian would get up
and remind me why I wanted to
do this in the first place.
That female comedian was
Gina Yashere (“The Stand Ups”).
It was the first time I genuinely
laughed all summer. Her routine
was
honest
and
hilarious.
She
shared
everything
from
her mother’s anxieties to her
struggles as a gay woman of color
in comedy. After Gina, there was
Taylor Tomlinson (“The Comedy
Lineup”) whose self-deprecating
humor and hilarious anecdotes
about being a young female
comedian resonated deeply with
me and my struggles in comedy.
Gina and Taylor and the dream
of performing in front of a paying
audience at a place as prestigious
as The Club kept me going,
reminding me why I wanted this
internship in the first place. Still,
as the summer droned on, Randy’s
empty promises proved fruitless.
And the Pauls and Johns and Joes
kept coming back, leaving the
Ginas and Taylors quite literally
in the dark. It was then I decided
to jump ship, leave Randy’s dingy-
ass apartment and never look
back. While the internship was
not exactly what I expected or
hoped it would be, it taught me
the importance of getting out of
something that doesn’t feel right.
Whether it’s an icky feeling in the
pit of your stomach or just a hunch
that something isn’t right, that
feeling is valid and important.
I certainly learned some things
about comedy while working at
The Club. Firstly, straight, white
men will always think they are
funny, even if a silent crowd and 10
years of failure prove otherwise.
Secondly, stand-up comedy is a
science. After seeing the same
comedians experiment with the
same material night after night, I
noticed the ways they tailored and
altered their performances based
on responses from the crowd.
Stand-up is also an art, and like
any art, it takes time and practice
and loads of repetition. Thirdly,
the representation of women and
people of color in the world of
stand-up comedy, both on stage
and in the crowd, is abysmal. We
have to do better.
Still, Dear Reader, after all
that, I’m committed to trying to
make it in the wild, wild west of
the comedy industry, no matter
how many Pauls, Johns, Joes or
Randys try to stand in my way.
Stand up & sit down
DAILY COMEDY COLUMN
BECKY
PORTMAN
DOMINIC POLSINELLI / DAILY
‘Single Parents’ is the hope
network television needs
Alt-J
has
commissioned
remixes of their music frequently,
usually by EDM producers. The
recently released Reduxer is a full-
length reimagining of their 2017
Relaxer by 11 teams of producers
and rappers. The list includes
Danny Brown, Pusha T and Rejjie
Snow, along with several artists
from outside the English-speaking
world like Lomepal, Kontra K and
PJ Sin Suela. If this sounds like
a strange, improbable project,
it’s because it is — the album
showcases many talented artists
trying their best with lackluster,
ill-fitting material. The result is a
contradictory mess that produces
several decent tracks almost in
spite of itself.
The British trio’s music has
always been balanced between a
quaint sensibility and an electronic
sheen. The band’s first two albums
pair frenetic percussion, buzzing
synths and vocal distortion with
cinematic strings and simple,
folkish melodies. Their lyrics are
elliptical
and
reference-heavy,
revolving around sex, death and
the
English
countryside.
It’s
difficult to say if this assemblage
adds up to a coherent statement —
I wouldn’t be the first to suggest
that Alt-J embodies a certain
kind of mannerism that values
novelty over coherence, but the
staging of the uneasy stylistic
tensions is, at its best, compelling.
Relaxer is a bit more of a muddled
statement than the first two
albums — not only does the chasm
widen between the band’s “loud”
and “quiet” personas, but the
acoustic and analog sound of the
first two albums is replaced by
drum machines and seething
synthesizers. Even the bassoon
solo in “Last Year” and the huge
orchestral swells in “Pleader”
come across as digital beings,
surreally
summoned
in
a
barren landscape.
Though “Deadcrush” and
“3WW” begin to resemble hip hop,
Reduxer is a decidedly new, and
improbable, direction for the band.
Hip hop is not the ideal format
for an Alt-J remix. Alt-J makes
complicated,
slowly-developing
instrumentals, whereas hip hop is
a performer-centric genre where
instrumentals are constructed out
of a small handful of contrasting
phrases.
Hip-hop
producers
sample music wildly alien to their
milieu all the time, but the issue
with the “official” remix as a form
is that remixes need to do justice
to the original song. They retain
the original title, and there’s a
certain pressure on it to follow the
original’s content. The content of
Relaxer resists incorporation into
rap music, even as the artists are
pressured to do a version of the
original songs.
Reduxer is weighed down by its
own format. The commissioned
artists seem at a loss as to what
to do with what they have been
given. There are moments of all-
out incoherence, such as in the
remix of “Hit Me Like That Snare”
by Jimi Charles Moody. The blues-
rock vocalist/producer makes a
heroic attempt to rescue the song
from itself (“Leather slings fall
like oxygen masks / We’re going
down, fuck my life in half”). The
juxtaposition between Moody’s
soulful R&B vocals and the
ludicrous original is jarring.
More often, though, the weaker
remixes are just boring rehashes
of the original, with little added
besides a verse or two from the
rapper. The Lomepal version of
“3WW” takes the second half of the
song and barely alters it. His voice
and flow are pleasant, but it doesn’t
really feel like he really put a stamp
on it. The Kontra K version of “In
Cold Blood” does much the same
thing. GoldLink and Terrance
Martin’s remix of “Last Year” only
barely escapes this mode through
a deft re-contextualization of
Marika Hackman’s vocals, but
it flatlines with Joe Newman’s
aimless verse, in which he counts
to 10 in Japanese and monotones
about leaving porridge on the boil.
However, there are moments of
successful translation. Hex, Paigey
Cakey and ADP turn “Adeline”
into glazed-over codeine trap. The
version of “Deadcrush” by Danny
Brown and The Alchemist takes
the original into a nightmarish
clown world. Twin Shadow and
Pusha T’s version of “In Cold
Blood” strips the song for parts
and quantizes them to a gliding
trap beat. The most successful of
the collection is PJ Sin Suela and
Trooko’s version of “Pleader.” I
didn’t think the lines “To behold
such warmth / Call to arms these
harmonies” could sound sinister,
but they absolutely do here. It’s a
remix that recalls the older term
“flip” — this is a complete, and
brilliant reversal, of the original.
A remix is not an homage, and
the album loses a lot of potential
by treating the form so narrowly.
There are moments of brilliance,
but they mostly arise from the
artists going entirely counter to
the material. Overall, the album
feels like a pointless exercise in
Procrustean accommodation —
one is left with the impression
that their talents are best applied
elsewhere.
EMILY YANG
For the Daily
Reduxer
Alt-J
Infectious Music
ALLY OWENS
For the Daily
TV REVIEW
“Single
Parents”
Pilot
ABC
Wed. @ 9:30 p.m.
Alt-J remixes their sound
and the results are mixed
6A — Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ALBUM REVIEW