Help Me, Help You - The Skinny on Obesity

It's nearly June and I've yet to be enthralled by much of anything at the movies, including the two films I reviewed this week, Hysteria and Men in Black 3. So far this year, television has made the biggest impression on me as I catch up on the shows I've missed -- Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey, Mad Men-- and even a few current programs -- Modern Family, 30 Rock, Community. Sometimes I wish I were a TV critic.

But what's kept me most interested this Spring is a series I've been working on for my "real job" at University of California Television, which now includes a YouTube original channel, UCTV Prime. The series is called "The Skinny on Obesity" and it features seven short episodes that make the case that sugar is a toxin that's fueling the obesity epidemic. This is a theory most publicly espoused by UCSF's Dr. Robert Lustig, whose 90-minute UCTV talk, "Sugar: The Bitter Truth," went viral, sparking national coverage that includes a recent "60 Minutes" segment with Sanjay Gupta. 

When YouTube awarded us with an original channel (the only university to be included in their historic effort to fund and develop original content on the platform), we knew we had to dig deeper into Dr. Lustig's message, which was obviously striking a chord in the public consciousness. Hence, "The Skinny on Obesity," which posted its final episode today.

Now, I 've had to watch these videos over and over again, in many different stages of completion. I've offered input and, more so, developed the complementary content for the programs on the UCTV website. I've also been swimming in YouTube annotations, playlists and comments. Who knew my job would one day be fiddling around on YouTube all day?

The point is, it's starting to sink in. I can sense a deep-rooted shift in how I think about food in my daily life now that I have a deeper understanding of how my body processes sugar and the biochemical impact it has on my brain and behavior. I'm making different food choices; just little ones for now, but ones that fall on the lifestyle changing spectrum, not a flash in the pan diet. Pretty cool job perk if you ask me.

Hope you'll watch the series too - -and spread the word! My day job may depend on it.

Lean on This

I closed out my day off from work/Veteran's Day/11/11/11 with Thursday night's Colbert Report, which ended on an unexpected note with Colbert, Brian Eno and Michael Stipe's a cappella performance of "Lean on Me." I'd seen a few posts about it scroll by but didn't pay much mind until I saw and heard it for myself. I was truly taken aback by how much joy and comfort that song offers, especially when these guys sing it so earnestly.

Lately it seems like even Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert can't cut through the ugliness we're living through these days, though I still appreciate their efforts at trying. Sometimes the funniest joke can't do what a simply perfect song can, especially when it's sung by such well-intentioned people for no reason other than the joy of doing it. The crowd joined in. There was no showboating, no horsing around. It was just pure sentiment and joy. And it made me feel better.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Brian Eno, Michael Stipe & Stephen Colbert - "Lean on Me"
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Time Traveling with Larry Sanders

I moved a few weeks ago and have been unpacking bit by bit, taking time to think through how my life's going to flow in this new space --  my workspace, media set-up, acquiring of grown-up furniture, pet management and setting up a kitchen that I promised myself I'd actually use this time.

While I putz around the apartment moving things here and there, I play something from Netflix Instant on my computer-- usually a TV show that's light, doesn't require focused attention and offers a big chunk of continuous episodes, since this seems to be taking forever. I settled on The Larry Sanders Show.

I was in college when Larry Sanders was on HBO and, while I heard plenty of praise for the series about a fictional late night talk show, I was too busy and too broke to watch cable TV. If you're familiar with the show, then you can imagine how much fun I'm having watching it for the first time -- in five-hour chunks no less. It's not only helped pass the time, it's helped lift me out of the post-break-up blues on more than one occasion.

But I think I'm getting more out of the Larry Sanders in 2011 than I would've in 1992. Namely, nostalgia. Though the show itself is timeless (until the dinosaur late night talk show format becomes extinct, anyway), the references aren't: jokes about a philandering Bill Clinton, celebrity guests like Richard Simmons, Mimi Rogers, John Forsythe, Dana Delaney, a pipsqueak David Spade, my hero Carol Burnett, a scrappy, dearly departed Peter Falk. Plus the "up-and-coming" show regulars like a goth Janeane Garfalo and a perennially douche-baggy Jeremy Piven (but in a good way). And let's not forget the fashion, which looks more 80s than what I choose to remember.

It's so authentic, I almost feel 20 again while I'm watching it. But maybe that's just because I still can't afford cable.

How I witnessed TV history for minimum wage

This week I reviewed the documentary "Exporting Raymond," which follows "Everybody Loves Raymond" creator and writer Phil Rosenthal to Russia for an ill-advised attempt to translate the All-American, Average Joe sitcom for Russian audiences. It's funny, utterly ridiculous and true (even if the whole impetus for the project was to make a documentary about how funny it would inevitably be). You can read my review here.

But what made me want to review the film in the first place was good old fashioned nostalgia and a slightly unnerving love of television history. (I was the only person I know who got an A+ in my college History of Television class --yes, even in the Ivy League people -- and my enthusiasm and performance in that 200+ person class landed me an internship at Martin Scorsese's production company. Fodder for another post I think).  Having grown up on television with a penchant for the oldies (Little Rascals of "Our Gang" fame, "The Twilight Zone" and "The Dick van Dyke Show" being just a few of my favorites), I knew I was going to work in "the entertainment business"--whatever that was.

Outside of internships with hypochondriacal directors who think typewriters are "too loud," my first paying job in the business (if I may use the term loosely here) was as a page at Paramount Studios, the oldest working studio lot in Hollywood.

You're probably thinking, "Oh, a page -- like Kenneth from '30 Rock!'" Not exactly, but we did have to wear terrible polyester suits, with the women getting the added humiliation of having to don a skirt with hose and a saggy bow tie thingy straight out of a late-1980s office wear catalogue (this was 1996).  Here's 23 year-old me proudly posing in front of the famous Bronson gate, sans horrible suit jacket.

Yes, I do look proud because, even though my paycheck was paltry to say the least, I got to spend my days roaming freely around a studio backlot, soaking up film and television history at every turn. I also got to share it with the hordes of tourists assigned to me as their guide for our walking tour through the backlot.

While they spent their time wildly looking around for any signs of a movie star  (never happened, unless you count Eddie, the dog from "Frasier," or that host from "Entertainment Tonight" who was often mistaken for Tom Cruise--something I usually didn't attempt to correct), I happily rattled on with great reverence about the empty tank (now in a parking lot) that was used to part the Red Sea for Cecil B. DeMille, or that building where Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz made monumental television together. Rare was the tourist who cared, so I made sure to point out the grassy corner where Bobby Brady got in a fight defending Cindy in that episode of "The Brady Bunch," which usually pleased them.

Besides giving underappreciated public and VIP tours (we got to drive carts!), pages also worked the audience at TV show tapings. Worst job ever. All those poor tourists, lured from Hollywood Boulevard by some obnoxious pamphleteer, who now find themselves standing in a long unmoving line, waiting to find out what TV show they'll get to see taped. Of course, they'd all been told they'd see "Frasier" or "Wings" or something of the sort, but more often than not they got funneled into the shows with less demand and more need for people willing to laugh for free at the same joke over and over again. By the time you drag the sunburned bunches into the sound stage of "Sister Sister," you better be prepared for a riot.

During my six-month tenure on the lot, I was tapped to be one of those poor souls. If you think it's tough to fill the seats for some obscure UPN show, then imagine how hard it is to find people to sit for hours in a freezing cold sound stage for a pilot show that nobody's ever heard of. That's when they call in the pages, baby. Minimum wage is about as close to free as you can get, so when the producers of a pilot get desperate, they pick up the phone and get some pages on loan.

And that's how I ended up in the studio audience for the pilot episode "Everybody Loves Raymond" -- or as we identified it when we first got there, "some sitcom starring a stand-up comedian we've never heard of." We were thanked profusely for being there and it soon became clear why -- a pilot episode needs to be tight, perfect. It's a sales tool to show the network the magic that you've assembled among the cast members, writers and crew. It also takes a REALLY long time to get it right.

Did I know the show was something special? At the very least, I had a feeling it was going to be different based on the fact that it was produced by David Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants. (Dave's blessing meant a lot to me when I was in my early 20s). And when they introduced Peter Boyle, the best part of one of my favorite comedies "The Dream Team," and his on-screen wife, TV legend Doris Roberts, I knew this was a show aiming to make history.

But I also knew that rush hour was approaching and I didn't want to be stuck in Universal City any longer than I had to. And I resented the fact that our page supervisor treated us like wooden pegs that he could shuffle around as needed, always threatening to "blackball" us if we disappointed him (yes I was naive enough then to believe him).

But isn't that what it's like to work in Hollywood? Excitement and celebrity mixed with resentment and traffic? No wonder I left such a glamorous life behind.

Stewart's Shades of Gray

When Jon Stewart takes a vacation, the news of the world gets a little harder to take. I'm not one of those people who rely on The Daily Show for "real" news, but Stewart's "fake" newscast takes the edge off the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of politicians, talking heads, everyday racists, and everything involving South Carolina.

When my boyfriend and I load up the latest show (one day delayed), we experience one half-hour of camaraderie with other people who actually see the world in shades of gray.

Instead of getting down in the dumps when Stewart takes a vacation, we've started watching archived episodes of The Daily Show. Our TV is connected to the web (we ditched cable, hallelujah) so we have all 11 years of the show at our fingertips. Neither of us watched the show regularly before about 2007 (night owls, we aren't), so we've had a blast going back and "discovering" correspondents like Steve Carell, Ed Helms and Steven Colbert.

But The Daily Show is so much more than comedy. Sure, some mistake it as a mouthpiece for the Left, but that characterization only holds water for lazy thinkers who see the world in black and white. That kind of thinking is for Fox News and MSNBC blowhards who want you to turn off your brains and tune in their channel for some adrenaline-pumping cheerleading.

Stewart, on the other hand, is the referee. He cuts through the bullshit, blows the whistle, and calls foul on anyone who step out of bounds. He uses humor to get your attention and, more importantly, illuminate the convenient narratives being shaped by politicians, media, and the corporations who own them all.

In effect, Stewart is America's mainstream media critic and, as far as I'm concerned, should be essential viewing for anyone who wants to see the world more honestly.

Since my review of "The Tillman Story" ran last Friday, I've received only two kinds of feedback: kudos for "telling it the way it is," and disdain for implying that the military or the Bush administration did anything wrong. Sides are clearly drawn - black and white, Left and Right.

But I'm curious to know what both camps will think if and when they actually see the film, which throws every assumption we're pressured to make -- about politics, war, honor, football players, family--into question. It's a film about shades of gray.

With "The Tillman Story" still on my mind, we decided to dig into The Daily Show archive and watch episodes from significant events in recent history. First we went to March 19, 2003, the day before the U.S. invaded Iraq. Then further back to February 6, 2003, the day after Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations about Iraq's hidden weapons of mass destruction. If you need any proof of Stewart's good-natured ability to cut through the crap, these video time capsules are it, especially his interview with Bush speechwriter David Frum, whose smugness and phony "awe" of the President are sickening.

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David Frum
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You also can't help but notice how much sunnier Stewart was back then in the early days of the Bush administration. Of course, he's older now, fuller-faced with more gray hair and better suits. But he's also angrier, more frustrated. I was a bit startled by the levity he displayed in talking about our run-up to Iraq. Still sharply funny, but without the "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" vibe he has now.

You know why? Because he knows that his gray-shaded take on the world is losing to the inanity of the Birthers, Tea Baggers and Glenn Becks of the world. And all these years he's been preaching to the choir. The very small, cable television choir.

We need more Jon Stewarts, more mainstream media critics, more angry, clear-thinking people insisting that Americans shove aside the black and white lazy-mindedness and start thinking (and acting) our way out of this mess of stupidity.

Start by going to see "The Tillman Story"-- and bring everyone you know.