Stick a Fork in the Silver Spoon

I wrote my previous blog just before the South Carolina primary, where former Florida Governor (and early front-runner) Jeb Bush finally suspended his campaign. In a free-for-all primary season where big egos and bluster have eclipsed insight and experience, the son and brother of former presidents might have been the greatest punchline of all. In a party gradually being taken over by reactionaries, Bush run as a moderate. In a race of populists and first-time candidates, Bush was a seasoned pro. Where the aforementioned neophytes lead the polls, Bush proved a hapless and undesirable candidate. Asking for his brother's help was a desperate last resort. I would take pity on him, but as a pro-gun, pro-life oligarch that waffled on marriage equality, it's kind of hard to see what Bush's appeal was, even as an underdog. In a sad sort of way, he was like the mirror image of Democratic also-ran Martin O'Malley; he had some good ideas, but his campaign was doomed almost from the beginning.

For those of you reading this that are moderate conservatives and hate Donald Trump just as much as I do, this is your best hope.

Other notes:

+ Speaking of the GOP, can someone please explain to me why Dr. Ben Carson is still running?

+ For those of you in the Chicago area, I have a number of shows up coming up in March. My improv duo Flower Shop Bangers are playing the deMaat Theater at Second City (1608 N. Wells) at 10pm on March 5th and 12th. Additionally, I'm hosting a couples-themed improv show on Monday, March 21st at MCL Chicago in Lakeview. This is on top of my every-other-week gig with Kelly Machiavelli at One Group Mind; they play March 4th and 18th at 8pm. See you there!

+ If anyone was wondering, my Oscar picks are: The Revenent, Alejandro G. Inarritu, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brie Larson, Tom Hardy, Alicia Vikander, "Inside Out."

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Down The Stretch They Come

They finally started dropping like flies. At one point late last summer, there were 23 official candidates (six Democrats and 17 Republicans) vying for their party's nomination; by mid-February, the dogfight had been whittled down to two Democrats and six Republicans. With the possible exception of the ever-optimistic Gov. John Kasich, nearly all the candidates that didn't make an splash in the early going never gained momentum. Bottom-feeders and underfunded candidates like Lindsay Graham and Jim Gilmore couldn't find any substantial momentum; however, where Graham was out of the race by Christmas, Gilmore somehow lingered around until after the New Hampshire primary.

So who's left? The race for the Democratic party was going to be Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders all along. Even if Clinton (and most analysts) thought she was a sure shot last summer, there is a faction of her own party that doesn't think she's liberal enough to represent a party that is shifting further to the left. Secretary Clinton might be more qualified than the grass roots, rough at the seems Senator Sanders, but her flip-flopping and checkered history might be her undoing. Sanders is too much of an idealist (sound familiar?) but he's a worthy alternative.

Meanwhile, the Republicans and its remaining challengers represent a Grand Old Party on the cusp of a schism. Where the seemingly unstoppable Trump circus leads the pack, a fair number of Republicans would rather have a mainline conservative (Jeb Bush), an eager moderate (Kasich), a young, feisty Tea Party candidate (Marco Rubio), a literal interpretor of the Constitution (Ted Cruz), or an Christian-conservative outsider (Ben Carson) lead the way. In all likelihood, the upcoming South Carolina primary will determine who will land the nomination in August, as well as the soul of the GOP. Even if 30% of Republicans would rather have the brash billionaire, that means 70% of the party --and if I have my math right, 85% of the general populace-- would rather vote for anyone but Trump come November.

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Radio Dazed

From 1999 to 2010, I worked at a radio station in some capacity. This ultimately fruitless pursuit of a life's dream could be broken down into four chapters. Chapter one would be my 3 1/2 years with WDGC-FM, my high school station. Chapter two (and to some extent, the epilogue) took place at 90.9 FM WDCB, my first paying job and as well as my first taste of professional radio. The final chapter was my two tumultuous years at Salem Communications' Chicago branch. The third chapter, however was relatively short but carried the longest-term consequences.

I was persuaded into going to community college after graduating high school. I was dead set upon attending North Central College in nearby Naperville, but the cost of tuition for a four-year private school forced my hand. As I was wrapping up my associates degree, I did some research on other schools, partially out of curiosity. I discovered that not only did Illinois State University's radio station (and school of communications) offer a higher quality program, but it was more cost-effective. After a short discussion with my parents, I set my sights on transferring to ISU in January 2006.

After settling into my dorm room at Watterson Towers and purchasing my textbooks, my first order of business was to get acquainted with the student radio station. I had first visited Z106 when I was on campus the previous October; I was impressed by the quality of the station's aesthetic and the various IBA accolades it had received over the years. I attended an open meeting where each department director (music, promotions, news and sports, etc.) introduced themselves and explained what they were seeking in a staff member. I ended up applying for four departments: rock music staff, rock DJ, traffic/billing, and sales. I eventually worked in three of these departments, but was only hired for the rock music staff.

For my first semester at Z106, I largely kept a low profile. I was happy to be there, but I didn't want to make waves. I tried out as a rock DJ again in May 2006, with a new programming director proctoring the auditions. Because of a miscommunication, I didn't know I made the cut until two weeks before Fall Semester started. After that, my presence around the office grew incrementally. By my third semester, I had been assigned to a special project reorganizing the station's manager handbook (the station bible, so to speak) and held two on-air shifts. After spending the Summer of 2007 interning at the station, I was on rock music staff, a rock DJ, an undergraduate teaching assistant, and working in the station's traffic/accounts receivable department. I had made a plethora of friends and contacts, and graduated in December 2007 thinking the impact I had made at Z106 would transition into a long career in the radio industry.

I soon discovered, however that staying in touch was easier said than done. Of the three people that made the greatest impact for me during my time at Z106, there's one person I've only run into twice since graduating (both in the same weekend in 2011), one I last saw the month after I graduated, and one right before I graduated. Social media helps, but the opportunity to have lunch or even grab a beer is scant to physically impossible. I blame part of that on geography, but also on a mountain of miscommunication.

Sometime in late 2009, I noticed that I was unfriended on Facebook by a fourth Z106 cohort. This particular girl was short in stature but big in personality; she was an aspiring comedian of sorts, and had created a persona of being bubbly and vapid. (Her signature bit of sorts was asking "what's a Porter Moser?" after our men's basketball coach was sacked.) At the same time, the station could be a hornet's nest of drama, and her cliquish and entitled mindset sometimes drove that undercurrent of tension. At the same time, I was on good terms with her (so I thought) and never had a personal issue with her.

After realizing I was unfriended, I waited a few days to message this girl and talk things out, but I never got a straight answer. I sent a friend request, which over six years later is still pending. When the station held its 30th anniversary reunion at Homecoming 2011, I approached a group of people that I was cordial with, with the girl in question somewhere in the middle of the cluster. Since I really hadn't discussed the situation with anyone, and didn't want to look squirrelly, I approached everyone in the group with a handshake and a hug. When it was this girl's turn, I embraced her gingerly and moved on to the next person; as I did so, she clenched a teeth for a split-second and muttered "well fuck, he's a hugger."

I don't think we spoke for the remainder of the evening.

Though this girl is not the only former co-worker to unfriend me on Facebook, she might have been the most astonishing. A couple of my old peers simply weren't that close, and as near as I can tell there's no tension between us. Another co-worker, the assistant traffic director during my one semester in that department, unfriended virtually everyone in our office and has totally fallen off the grid. One girl that I nominated for Staffer of the Semester (and ended up sharing the honor) proved to be humorless and easily offended. Granted, she wasn't that easygoing to begin with, but she was reliable and I admired her work ethic. In a way, her unfriending me in late 2012 felt like looking the gift horse in the mouth.

Admittedly, I am driving down to Normal in early April with some trepidation. The visit will be succinct; I'm attending a wedding in Texas the same weekend, so my time back at Z106 (now just WZND) will be somewhat abbreviated. There are a few people that I know will be happy to see me and vice versa, but it will be tricky to navigate around some of the drama and unresolved tension that lingers on after all this time. My career in radio didn't work out, and for most of the Z106 staff in the mid-to-late 2000s, they also saw their broadcasting pursuits sputter out a few years after graduation. We were a group of disparate college kids with a common goal. And we're gonna celebrate.

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MadFunnyWomen

My career in the radio industry ended in April 2010. During my time in radio, I noticed an unspoken yet obvious pattern of gender bias; with the exception of my college radio station at Illinois State, the overwhelming majority of my former co-workers were white males, and the on-air talent was 80 to 90% male. Less then a year after I was replaced I wrote “Pushing Air,” a comedy pilot based loosely on my experiences in the industry. One of the protagonists in my pilot was Rachel, the marketing director of a cluster of stations owned by a media conglomerate in a major Midwestern city. Rachel was the voice of reason, but stifled by an overbearing programming director; she was overworked, underpaid, under-appreciated, and because of a weak economy, stuck in a job that was beneath her tremendous skillset. That is not to say that Rachel was alone or isolated. The men in the office were frat boys with type-A personalities. The handful of women that were in the office were all just as miserable as she was. A culture of sexual harassment was implied but not directly addressed.

I didn’t write these characters to be one-dimensional ciphers, but a circumstantiated representation of how radio treats women. Programming that is marketed toward women are two parts awkward and condescending, and the majority of female on-air talent work in formats that cater to men with expendable incomes. For example, a female personality on a typical classic rock station has to look, sound and dress like an extra from “Coyote Ugly,” whether she really lives the lifestyle or not. (There’s also a culture of ageism toward women, but that’s another rant for another time.) At least one Chicago radio station has used breast augmentation as a contest prize, and another has an annual “rock girl” contest in which the winner and finalists model for a cheesecake wall calendar. The majority of radio executives would read this and argue that finding a role for women in their medium is “tricky,” and somehow defer the blame to the realities of industry consolidation.  In reality, however they’re not making an effort. I would have relished the opportunity to do anything that would have changed the “good ol’ boy” aesthetic that permeates to this day.

I thought about “Pushing Air” and my decade-plus in radio when a controversy erupted last week regarding comments made by iO co-founder Charna Halpern. In case you missed it: a few months ago, she had mentioned on Facebook that several female performers had been harassed by a manager at iO West in Los Angeles. They were afraid to say anything to Halpern for fear of being denied opportunities, or worse yet kicked out of the improv venue. She had hired a counselor at iO West, stated her lack of tolerance for sexual harassment, and name-checked iO alum Amy Poehler. Evidently, whatever she put into place was insufficient, as she posted on social media again to address the situation. In this case, the perpetrator was mentioned by name, and she gave him the shadow of a doubt. To Halpern, this accuser was a woman who “(likes) to either cause trouble or get revenge or just want attention so they make up stories… she claims I just put her off and offered her free classes.” Halpern said she would never handle such a situation in such a shallow way, adding “it’s people like this who make it difficult when a woman really has a problem-- we need to take this issue seriously and not spread lies because you didn’t make a team or for whatever reason you are angry.”

Halpern’s comments were perceived as aloof and self-serving, as if her primary objective was to protect her theaters, her employees, and her company, Yes And Productions. The response to these comments was fast-building and outraged, and rightfully so. Julia Weiss, a Chicago-based comedian/playwright and a performer at iO, delivered one of the first rebuttals: “It is unbelievably rare for women to make up stories like this to get ‘attention’ or ‘revenge.’ Perpetuating that narrative is what makes people dismiss women when they voice their experiences with harassment and abuse… while I respect that you’re taking this seriously and putting policies in place to protect women, posting something like this doesn’t foster a sense of comfort in people dealing with these issues.”

The majority of the nearly 200 comments that followed shared Weiss’ sentiments, and eventually Halpern deleted her post. The businesswoman was more concerned with the integrity of her employees, and the overwhelming rebuke was justified. There has always been an undercurrent of sexual harassment and misogyny in the improv community, especially in Chicago. Even if you weren’t directly affected, to say that the abuse has been overplayed or even non-existent is foolish and reprehensible. Halpern’s post begat a dialogue that mushroomed in size and volume on social media throughout the week. Some called for the men of the community to support and defend their female colleagues. Others shared stories of being harassed at Second City, iO, and even out of town improv festivals. One common thread in the conversation was that instructors let male students touch female students inappropriately without ramifications. Until recent years, the steps that Second City and other venues have taken to stop this have been mostly saber-rattling.

At the very least, I hope this worthy and insightful dialogue continues growing. A change in culture is badly needed, and the sooner the better. If I see any inappropriate behavior, I will gladly call it out. If you’re in a bad spot and you want to talk, I will listen. I have no justification for my own inaction, whether it was at a radio station six years ago or at an improv venue now. The number of women that make up stories of harassment and assault are a tiny minority. This is a real problem.

I’ve been a member of the Chicago improv community for going on seven years now. When the radio chapter of my life ended and I struggled to move on to something else, improv became my reason to wake up in the morning. I have always treated my classmates and teammates as equals. There are a number of bad apples within the community, not to mention a long history of misogyny, and my gut instinct was to not exacerbate the problem, but to treat my peers with dignity and respect. It’s one thing to be daring and politically incorrect, but another to disrespect your colleagues and collaborators. Improv used to be a boys’ club, and now the boys need to take accountability for their own actions. We have the power to stop this.

A Death in the Family

This past Monday evening, my father died after three-year, on-and-off battle with lymphoma. When he entered hospice on January 8th, my immediate family assumed that he would stick around until February. When I visited him the day before his passing, he was weak and breathing heavily but it didn't seem like his demise was imminent. Early the next morning, the hospice service called to let us know he was on an oxygen machine, and our mental prognosis shrank from weeks to days. I went to work, and about an hour or so after lunch I received a text from my sister. I called her back, and she told me it was now a matter of hours. I ended up leaving work early --it was a temp job, and the likely need for bereavement leave ended the assignment a few days early-- so I could be by my father's side. We all said our last words, and since I was the latecomer I opted to go last. I remained at the nursing home hospice from 3:15pm to about 8 o'clock, and somewhere around 5 a family friend picked up dinner for me. I went home that evening to get some tasks done; when my family got the inevitable phone call around 11:20 that night, we ran back to his room to watch my father's corpse be carried and wheeled away to the mortician.

In the end, the father's mind remained relatively sharp; it was his body that ultimately failed him. This was a man who was prone to making assumptions, partially because he had a slippery-slope mindset and partially because my sister and I hated having to explain things to him. I visited my father the day before he entered hospice, and he seemed to think he was going home. I was keenly aware that he wasn't going back to our house; he was more or less confined to a wheelchair, and we weren't going to retrofit his home with ramps. My mother was doing most of the heavy lifting figuratively and literally, even after having bypass surgery last February; she was exhausted, and was ready and willing to let someone else handle my increasingly feeble father. When he was moved from the third floor of the facility to the second, he was livid; either he was annoyed that his family had completely deferred his care to the nursing home, or he had transitioned from denial to anger in Kubler-Ross' five stages of death. Yes, it was more cost-effective, but there was only so much we could do at that point.

Even though I've talked extensively about my family health issues on this blog, I really hadn't said much on social media; just a handful of allusions and that's it. A select handful of friends knew the whole story about my parents' respective medical woes, and I only explained what was going on when it became too unwieldy to circumvent the truth. On the day my father died, I folded my hand; I summarized everything that had transpired since March 2013, and explained to friends and acquaintances why I had been so elusive and under the radar in the last couple of years. What I didn't expect, however was the unconditional love and support I received from my peers; people I had seen in almost a decade offered heartfelt condolences, and I was overwhelmed with texts, emails, and messages. I was, and still am, at a complete loss for words, and I can't begin to describe how grateful I was for everyone's kindness.

Even though my father passed away four days before I wrote this blog post, the wake and burial have not been held yet. My Aunt Kay, my father's last remaining immediate family member, was in Oklahoma over the holidays to visit her long-distance boyfriend near Tulsa. My mother, sister, and I are still confused as to why she didn't get back to Illinois in time to say goodbye to her older brother; her excuse for now was that her boyfriend has health issues and doesn't have any family, an alibi that we only partially believe. Hopefully the drama will subside when my father is memorialized this weekend.

Miss you, Dad.

KEN DEWITT ALLARD - 10/22/37-1/18/16

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The Year in TV, 2015

As TV Club put it so eloquently a few weeks ago, we have achieved "peak TV." Not only is it impossible to watch every TV show you hear about, it's now possible that your list of favorite current TV shows will bear no resemblance to your friends'. It also occured to me that the number of network shows I watch has dropped axiomatically; most of the shows I watched five or six years ago have either depreciated in quality or have faded into the sunset. (Not SNL, which is starting to find a groove after that awkward cast transition two seasons ago.) Juggling that with the surplus of options on basic cable, premium cable, and streaming serves only to cut further into the entertainment pie that ABC, CBS, and NBC domineered just three short decades ago. If you only have a converter box or subscribe to Hulu or Netflix without owning a TV, then your list is going to look vastly different from mine.

Here's my top five for 2015:

1. The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix. Tonal issues aside, this might have been the most revelatory new comedy of the year. A 29-year-old woman (played with positive gusto by Ellie Kemper) escapes an Ariel Castro-meets-Warren Jeffs scenario and creates a new life in New York City.  It doesn't work as a "hangout" or "workplace" or even "family" sitcom nor wants to do so; it's a witty comedy about a woman reinventing herself and the makeshift group of people that support her along the way. Memorable Episodes: "Kimmy Goes Outside!" (pilot), "Kimmy Goes to School!," "Kimmy Goes to Court!"

2. Mad Men, AMC. The admen of Sterling Cooper & Associates --er, uh, McCann Erickson-- entered the 1970s in one piece but not worse for wear. The cultural changes and personal strife they battled in the previous decade (and 6 1/2 seasons) completely altered the lives of everyone in the agency, from the aging rascal Roger Sterling to hapless short-timers like Mathis. At its core, however this was the story of how Don Draper found peace within himself. Memorable Episodes: the final half-season only had seven episodes, all of which were exquisite, but "Lost Horizon" was probably the true masterpiece of the bunch.

3. Broad City, Comedy Central. The dynamic duo of Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson were not deterred by hype or lofty expections, and even if the show went down a peg or two from last year's list, season two goes toe-to-toe with the highest peaks of season one. Casting Susie Essman as Ilana's mother was a brilliant move. Memorable Episodes: "In Heat," "Knockoffs," "Coat Check"

4. Bob's Burgers, Fox. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. That old saying rings true for the continuing low-scale misadventures of the Belcher clan, who are now halfway through Season 6 and just keep doing whatever they've been doing since the beginning. That's not to say there wasn't growth or progress: Tina finally got over Jimmy Jr., and Bob isn't as much of a sad-sack as he used to be. Memorable Episodes: "Hawk and Chick," "Sliding Bobs," "Nice-Capades"

5. The Last Man on Earth, Fox. Speaking of ambitious, arguably the most off-kilter show on network television right now is a showcase for the unique comedy talents of SNL alum Will Forte. Equally bleak and uproarious, LMOE is the story of an immature also-ran (played by Forte) who somehow becomes of the last survivors of a virus, piecing together a new life in the unforgiving Arizona desert. Memorable Episodes: "Alive in Tucson," "Screw The Moon," "Silent Night"

Honorable Mentions: Childrens Hospital, Cartoon Network; Adventure Time, Cartoon Network; Review, Comedy Central.

Also, my five favorite TV moments:

1. Alcides Escobar's inside-the-park home run, Game 1, 2015 World Series. Were you expecting me to pick non-Royals related for my top pick? I could've chosen the Astros falling apart in Game 4 of the ALDS or the Mets' various bullpen failures, but the first Fall Classic inside-the-park tater since 1929, on the first pitch the Royals saw in the series, takes the cake. The Mets were behind the 8-ball literally the entire series.

2. Stephen Colbert interviews Joe Biden, The Late Show. The defining interview of Colbert's career arrived a mere three days after he took the reins of CBS' flagship late night talk show. As much as people wanted Vice President Biden to run for president, it was obvious from this deeply personal sitdown that his heart was somewhere else.

3. The "12 Angry Men" parody, Inside Amy Schumer. Paul Giamatti earned an Emmy nomination in this homage to the play and movie, a riotous rebuke of anyone who has criticized Schumer as being too portly or unattractive to carry a sketch comedy show. Schumer barely appears in this episode, but the roster of guest stars (Vincent Kartheiser, Dennis Quaid, and John Hawkes, among others) more then makes up for her off-camera seething.

4. David Letterman bids farewell, The Late Show. A talk show icon for not quite 35 years (a few months in daytime, then over 33 years in late night), Dave combined surrealism with realism and shattered the perception of the always cheerful host. After 5 1/2 weeks of greeting old friends and favorite guests, a decidedly unsentimental Dave gave the audience an earnest "thank you and good night" as a clip montage set to Foo Fighters' "Everlong" played him out.

5. "Meet Your Second Wife," Saturday Night Live. The best sketch of the calendar year somehow waited until the Christmas show. Hosted by Helen Walsh (co-host Amy Poehler) and "Tina Fey" (co-host Tina Fey), three unsuspecting contestants meet their trophy wives many years before their marriage. (A close second place goes to the alien abduction sketch from Gosling/Bridges.)

I'm still behind on my DVR, but I look forward to what 2016 offers on the small screen.

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