Are you watching this?<\/p>\n
"Everything happens for a reason."\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what Ruth says to her sister,
who’s convinced she killed her best friend.<\/p>\n
Well, she didn’t exactly kill her.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that she implored her to go
hiking.\u00c2\u00a0 Basically forced her.\u00c2\u00a0 And then, Fiona fell off a ridge in Topanga
Canyon, hundreds of feet to her death.<\/p>\n
"Entourage" is about stars.\u00c2\u00a0 Those larger than life people we put our faith
in who are ultimately two-dimensional frauds.\u00c2\u00a0 People like Tom Cruise.\u00c2\u00a0 I just
watch the show because Jeremy Piven is so good as Ari.<\/p>\n
That’s exactly the point.\u00c2\u00a0 Talent.\u00c2\u00a0 Not many people have it.\u00c2\u00a0 And Patricia
Clarkson, who is not trading on her beauty, is never featured in the tabloids,
she’s ripping it up as Ruth’s sister on "Six Feet Under" right now to such a
degree I had to stop the show and come in and write this.<\/p>\n
Oh, she’s being airy-fairy in the funeral home.\u00c2\u00a0 Telling Nate and Rico it was
Fiona’s time.\u00c2\u00a0 But then, when her Ruth comes home, Patricia starts to lose it.<\/p>\n
Oh, she’s lying on the couch, desperate.\u00c2\u00a0 Not sure whether to fade into the
woodwork or take action.\u00c2\u00a0 Ultimately deciding on the latter, like a hospital
patient delirious on painkillers she rolls over and says to get her little black
book, it’s time to "circle the wagons".<\/p>\n
Oh, what a great image.\u00c2\u00a0 Rounding up your friends.\u00c2\u00a0 Creating a cocoon of love
so you can cope.<\/p>\n
But it doesn’t really work.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re reeling.\u00c2\u00a0 Death is like that.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re
gone, they’re never coming back, you have to endure life without them, and it’s
worse if you killed them.<\/p>\n
Oh, Ruth is playing Patricia’s bullshit back to her.\u00c2\u00a0 But when things are
really bad, truth outs, Patricia’s not buying it.<\/p>\n
A reason?<\/p>\n
Then why did George Bush get reelected?<\/p>\n
Patricia starts spewing.\u00c2\u00a0 Why is there a war?\u00c2\u00a0 Why are all these horrible
things happening?<\/p>\n
Because people are bad.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like her.<\/p>\n
It’s a tour de force.\u00c2\u00a0 The kind of performance that garners awards.<\/p>\n
Oh, has "Six Feet Under" been lame this year.\u00c2\u00a0 All plot and no substance.\u00c2\u00a0
But suddenly, the cavalry has arrived.\u00c2\u00a0 With Patricia Clarkson and Kathy Bates.\u00c2\u00a0
They’re a tag team.\u00c2\u00a0 Playing off each other.\u00c2\u00a0 One taking over just when the
other reaches a histrionic peak.\u00c2\u00a0 Ruth wants to comfort Patricia, bring her
down, but Kathy says to let Patricia play it out, to let her self-exorcise, to
let her have her personal tsunami and then be calm.<\/p>\n
That’s another thing there’s no reason for.\u00c2\u00a0 The tsunami.\u00c2\u00a0 Patricia is
careening through the kitchen, as if possessed, by her badness, by truth.<\/p>\n
It’s kind of like the difference between Live 8 in London and Live 8 in
Philly.<\/p>\n
In Philly they were playacting.\u00c2\u00a0 They had guitars over their shoulders.\u00c2\u00a0 They
were singing, they were dancing.<\/p>\n
But not one itty-bit of a performance equaled that of the Who or Pink Floyd.\u00c2\u00a0
Hell, Pink Floyd barely moved.\u00c2\u00a0 They let their music speak for them.<\/p>\n
That’s what’s been wrong with the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 Talent has taken a back
seat.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about looks, marketability.\u00c2\u00a0 Forcing the product upon the public.\u00c2\u00a0
Whereas if you’re selling the real goods, talent, everybody stops in their
tracks, everybody wants a look-see, everybody gets invested.<\/p>\n
Used to be record labels weren’t starmakers.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, they were curators, who
found talent, recorded it and released the end result to the public.\u00c2\u00a0 There
was no head of marketing, no campaign, not even tour support.\u00c2\u00a0 The thought was
that something so good would find an audience.\u00c2\u00a0 And it did.<\/p>\n
And it always will.<\/p>\n
You can sell crap.<\/p>\n
But talent sells itself.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Are you watching this? "Everything happens for a reason."\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what Ruth says to her sister, who’s convinced she killed her best friend. Well, she didn’t exactly kill her.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that she implored her to go hiking.\u00c2\u00a0 Basically forced her.\u00c2\u00a0 And then, Fiona fell off a ridge in Topanga Canyon, hundreds of feet to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-1k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}