I’VE BEEN THINKING by James Napoli

It’s PBS pledge drive time again.  Which means more concerts by decrepit rock and roll stars stretched to fit a four-hour block of fund-raising and calculated to help baby boomers live even more firmly in denial that their toe-tapping to Doo-Wop and briefly-reunited bands from the British Invasion is pretty much exactly the same as their long-dead or nearly dead parents toe-tapping to Lawrence Welk and his bubble machine forty years ago.  You know, when Ken Burns made his epic documentary about World War II (also for PBS, but thankfully without any performances by Herman’s Hermits or whatever), apparently getting interviews with war survivors or their contemporaries proved difficult. This group of people, who have come to be known as “The Greatest Generation,” did not want to talk about their lives, preferring to keep their achievements to themselves. Would that this were true of their children, many of whom are all too happy to let us know that they were not only instrumental in every form of social protest that occurred from the Summer of Love on, but may have even psychically beamed Rosa Parks the idea to mess with the Montgomery bus boycott during one of their early forays into bongo drums and opium in the East Village.  And, of course, don’t get them started on how great the music was back then.  Hendrix, Morrison, Janis Joplin.  All of whom croaked before they turned 28, or they might be around today to help the old fogies who now watch PBS perpetuate their belief that they can still rock and roll even as they freak out about their teenage children getting a tattoo.  This past weekend, my local PBS affiliate actually got viewers with a concert by a Beatles tribute band.  I sure hope this doesn’t mean that when my time comes and I’m being asked to give money to public broadcasting, I won’t have to sit through three hours of HairSpike: A Tribute to Flock of Seagulls.  Or, worse still, Nobain: We’re Not Nirvana.

On a completely different note, sometimes a columnist needs to forget being topical and delve into something he or she just wants the rest of the world to know. Of course, this is an Internet-hit based society, so if said columnist can tie it into something “now,” so much the better.  So here goes: if you’ve seen Tropic Thunder or Hamlet 2, then you’ve seen Steve Coogan, the rather funny British comedian who has been off and on trying to win over America for a while now.  No matter what you thought of either of these projects, you are hereby ordered to buy, get from Netflix or download (if in fact it is downloadable) Coogan’s 1997 British television series I’m Alan Partridge. The series reprised in the UK in 2002, but only the ’97 season is currently available on Region One DVD.  Partridge began as a character on an (intentionally, I believe) short-lived parody of a cheesy Brit talk show called Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, in which the titular host did every imaginable thing wrong while being completely unaware of what a hung up, hopelessly awkward, deeply scarred dufus he really was.  I’m Alan Partridge uses a filmed sit-com format to follow his painful attempts to revive his career as, following a divorce, he lives in a transient hotel called the Linton Travel Tavern and has been relegated to the graveyard shift on Radio Norwich. His show openings and closings alone, in which he riffs on atrocious puns and makes supremely silly comments about the artists he plays, are, as the saying goes, comedy gold.  (I believe someone on YouTube has collected them all into a montage, God love them.)  More I do not wish to say.  It must be up to every citizen to experience Coogan as he embodies Partridge.  It is perhaps the most naked and committed comedic performance I have ever seen, inviting sympathy, rage and horror simultaneously.  The supporting cast is all pitch-perfect. This is sphincter-clenchingly awkward social interaction, at least two years before Curb Your Enthusiasm. (Which is great, too.  Please no angry letters.)  Word is there is a feature version of Partridge in development, and that its co-star will be Victoria Beckham.  Needless to say, check it out in its original form before this heinous act comes to fruition.  Get yourself in front of I’m Alan Partridge.  It’s not current.  But it’s freaking amazing.

James Napoli’s new book The North Pole Employee Handbook will be released by Cider Mill Press in the fall of 2008.  He is an author and humorist who has also written and directed the award winning dramatic shorts “The Priests” and “Nobody Gets Hurt.” 

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