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Ricky Gervais knows how to put a smile on your dial and much more! $$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
MY FAVOURITE THINGS |Wishing On A Star
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“You should bring something into the world that wasn’t in the world before. It doesn’t matter what that is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a table or a film or gardening. Everyone should create.” — RICKY GERVAIS
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I’ve been up in Newcastle all this week in advance of Confirmation, the end of year process that determines whether I have the chops to see this PhD over the line. There is something so humbling to being alone, having time to reflect on the daily rhythm of life and the souls that fill our waking hours. When we make time for ourselves, it becomes very difficult to pull the wool over our eyes, to not see the glaring issues staring back at us. This week of solitude helped me to reflect on how quickly we adapted to life in the age of Corona. While it is unfortunate to see so much fear in the eyes of certain strangers, it has allowed me to accept a comforting truth. Should we wish it, we are capable of effecting true change in our lives, re-wiring ourselves for the better. We are incredibly versatile creatures, and if we allow ourselves the opportunity to surrender to the winds of change, anything is possible.
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Last week I took a Sunday drive down to Wollongong to sell my prized camera package in order to prop up my savings account. On the drive home I rewarded myself with this incredible episode of Russell Brand’s Under The Skin with Ricky Gervais. The pair debate the meaning of life in such a beautiful way and reflect on the duality of man — those that see themselves above nature versus those that accept our part in this complex and beautiful place we call Earth. The conversation knocked me on my buns because it helped me to understand myself all the better. Much like the Reading native, I have slowly been accepting my humble place in an incredibly complex universe, putting love in front of all else. Hearing Gervais look back and reflect on his career to date was captivating, specifically the underlying message behind his debut BBC series The Office. As Gervais tells it, David Brent —the title character — is an embittered feller looking for acceptance from his community, his unhealthy desire for fame a vain attempt to fill a gaping emotional hole in his life. Twenty years on from the debut of this deeply dark comedy, the Western world has become an amalgam of reality shows replete with variations of Brent, tragically insecure characters looking for their own sense of worth. If you’ve never tuned into The Ricky Gervais Podcast, his vintage series conceived in the age of the iPod, it’s an absolute rollick.
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A creeping sensation came over me while watching the second episode of this incredible new FX series based on the plight of the Equal Rights Amendment act in the early nineteen-seventies. As Phyllis Schlafly, a well-to-do mother and homemaker, seeks to bring down the bill, sponsored by her feminist counterparts, I came to understand the larger message. The resurgence of nationalism across the world, unabashedly championed by the current occupant of the White House, is the final overture of a generation mourning its demise. I can well understand Schlafly’s monumental fears in the face of such progressive policy; her irrelevance in the home and lost respect in the eyes of her community and family. What Dahvi Waller’s show has achieved is a true reflection of the underlying complexities to the world we live in. Cate Blanchett heads up this incredible series and helps to extinguish any lasting traces of black and white. The ERA, brought to the floor of Congress by a collection of women fighting for the freedoms of their male counterparts, was groundbreaking in its argument. The fact that it never made it into law is reason enough to tune into this stellar five-part mini-series.
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I streamed this classic from my childhood over the weekend and got exactly what I expected — a dose of mindless action and excessive right-wing propaganda for the might of the American military. What made this 2001 film, directed by John Moore, stand above the fray was Owen Wilson in the driver’s seat. There is such a heartwarming quality to the Texan native, his eyes offering such vulnerability amidst the inanities of this shoot-em-up. While the far-fetched plot, inspired by the Clinton Administration’s dealings in Yugoslavia, left me smirking at the best of times I found myself enraptured with the action sequences. The overall look and feel, a knock off of Tony Scott’s Enemy of the State, left me feeling nostalgic for my adolescence in the best way. It’s always comforting when the childhood classics don’t break apart like a house of cards.
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If you’re looking for some relaxing sounds to fill your working week this Duke Ellington album, originally recorded in 1953, is some kind of special. I remember soaking up Ken Burns’ ten-part Jazz series as a youngster and growing enamoured with the life of Ellington and his constant evolution through the decades. The man always had such a sense of style and elegance in the way he carried himself. He intuitively understood the importance of a public image, his untarnished legacy helping to pave the way for so many bright talents to come. Piano Reflections, composed of a series of sophisticated melodies, promises to leave you feeling lighter and brighter.
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Based on the true life story of Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan), an idealistic young attorney and his fight to overturn Walter D. Macmillan’s (Jamie Foxx) death-row conviction, this film takes us into the heart of Southern politics. I’d been very excited to get my eyes on Destin Daniel Cretton’s latest film ever since we were lucky enough to have him on Popcorn Therapy as our very first guest. The Hawaiian native has a special gift for imbuing his stories with unpretentious humanity, helping to sweep away the superficial gloss to better understand his screen characters. In this case, Cretton masterfully removes the essence of race — no small feat in a racially-charged narrative — to help us understand the blatant miscarriage of justice. To say this movie is a tearjerker is not going far enough. While Jordan shines bright, I couldn’t take my eyes off Foxx, whose precarious redemptive journey was loaded with such overdue catharsis. A beautiful film I know I will return to in years to come.
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It’s an exciting thing to admit that I was turned onto this incredible book by way of Dave Chappelle. The D.C. native refers to Slim Icebergs’ debut publication during one his stand up shows, to better educate the white segment of the audience to the inherent complexities of the African American race. After diving into the opening chapters I’m beginning to understand what Chappelle is on about. There is so much painful honesty within the pages of Iceberg’s confessional memoir. Reading about his upbringing left me shaking my head, many events bordering on the criminal. It’s so heartbreaking to bear witness to Iceberg’s reflections on his years on the street, digressing on his treatment of women, his inability to show or share love through his many years as a pimp. It’s remarkable that Iceberg chose another path after a long stint in prison, opting for the modest life of a writer in the sunny climes of California. His experiences, shared so beautifully here, are invaluable in understanding the deleterious effects of trauma.
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I’ve found myself won over by this beautiful series, a twelve-part adaptation of Sally Rooney’s celebrated book of the same name. Set in Sligo, a small Irish town, it follows the blossoming romance between two high-schoolers and their ensuing relationship into their college years. There is such an organic push and pull to the two young leads, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, newcomers to the scene with bright futures ahead. And while it’s a little unnerving that the male love interest looks and sounds like more of a man than me, Mescal’s ability to shine a light on his insecurities left me duly impressed. Watching this series is a conscious reminder that TV’s renaissance continues to glow brighter by the day, the first six episodes helmed by celebrated Irish filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson (Frank, Room). There is a curious catharsis that has helped me to reconcile certain actions and choices from my earliest relationships. Seeing the ebb and flow of young love is difficult at the best of times but this tale confirms that the space in between is worth beholding.
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After (finally) finishing Nichalas Carr’s The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains, re-discovering it in a desk drawer, I’ve been chewing over its underlying message. It’s hard not to agree with Carr’s dire assessments of the world wide web. While it has flooded the world with access to information and communication once deemed impossible, it has come with an uncomfortable price-tag. Every time we step out our front door, we’re bombarded by friends and strangers alike engrossed by their pocket-sized computers. As Jerry Seinfeld laments in his new Netflix special, 23 Hours to Kill, we’ve become slaves to our smartphones. As meditation has become a daily practice, I’ve been able to witness just how much this new age has fragmented my inner peace, exacerbated my vulnerabilities and instilled a sense of insufficiency at so many moments. While I’ve gotten better at putting up boundaries around my social feeds and email, I’m still prone to slip back into this manic state at the best of times. To think that Carr’s clever treatise was published in the age of the BlackBerry is a warm reminder that our dependence on AI is thickening with every passing year.
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I was turned onto Brian Eno’s John Peel Lecture series thanks to a random email from Warp Records, my teenage crutch. Eno’s presentation and subsequent conversation from 2015 took me back in time and offers a beautiful look at our current moment. For my money, Eno is one of the most prodigious artists and thinkers, someone unafraid to tackle the biggest problems of today. It brought back memories to a riveting conversation at London’s Southbank in 2008 where the Suffolk native waxed lyrical on his illustrious career and his love for Donna Summer. While I’d counted myself a fanboy of his incredible ambient collection, an electronic genre indebted to his passions, I became a disciple of his cultural appreciations. I loved reconnecting with Scenius in this conversation, one of his most profound ideas on the power of ideas generated by a shared community of creative artists and practitioners. In many ways, Eno’s career trajectory has inspired my own, his ability to dip and weave through a wide variety of creative undertakings helping to re-define the idea of a life well lived.
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Gay Talese’s celebrated book on the kidnapping of Joe Bonnano in the early nineteen-sixties paints a curious picture of the Italian mafia and its zealous disciples. Bonnano was one of the reputed members of New York’s Five Families, and a bitter enemy after a botched assassination attempt on a fellow crime boss. What is so curious about the 1971 publication is its intimate look at the inner workings of a crime family and their respective lives. Much like David Chase would achieve through The Sopranos, Talese pulls the curtain back on the mysteries surrounding the Mafia. Reading about the daily life of Bill Bonanno, son and heir to the family, left me perplexed and exasperated. Bonnano’s inability to live the life he ultimately wanted helped me to reflect on my own life. It’s made me re-think the glamorous image of the Mafia, inspired from Martin Scorsese’s incredible catalogue of films, from the silk suits to the sumptuous late-night meals in shuttered Italian osterias.
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I was falling asleep on a Sunday night when we started streaming this 2017 documentary on the life of Jane Goodall. Goodall is the soft-spoken primatologist who became celebrated for ingratiating herself with a family of chimpanzees in Tanzania. There’s something so honest and pure about Goodall’s story, a twenty-five year old secretary sent to Africa to shed valuable insight into the life of early man. What is so remarkable about her life is her blind belief in her purpose. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be a young woman with such bold dreams in the face of the patriarchal system. This rich and luscious footage, rescued from the National Geographic vaults forty years on, paints such a beautiful portrait of Goodall and her love for the wild. Seeing her cultivate genuine relationships with these chimps evoked such a sense of joy within me and helped reaffirm my reverence for the natural world.
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I got turned onto the incredible Kooper Session, a small collection of studio recordings with Al Kooper and Shuggie Otis from the late sixties, after tucking into Kelly Geddes’ fun Quarantini playlist a couple months back. It was here that I spied Kooper’s Act Like Nothing’s Wrong amongst his discography of solo recordings. It was the album cover that caught my attention, Kooper’s bold and brazen pose in his birthday suit leaving me genuinely curious. There is such irreverence behind this 1977 release yet infused with a sense of heart and soul reminiscent of George Harrison’s earliest recordings. Kooper is the kind of character that makes the music business a hell of a place to behold. Here lies a young man that played organ on Bob Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, helped found Blood, Sweat & Tears before embarking in pursuit of a solo career, before producing Lynard Skynard’s first three albums. His varied career left me hungry for answers, ordering a copy of the Brooklyn native’s tell-all memoir Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards. I can’t wait to tuck in.
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