February 2012 Archives

Today's cuppa: Irish breakfast tea

As management consultant Clyde Oberholt in Showtime's Sunday-night dark comedy "House of Lies," writer, actor and comedian Ben Schwartz gets to gets to crack jokes, do some drama and chase lots of women.

"I play the arrogant guy who goes after all the ladies," he says. "At the same time, I'm the guy who can talk his way out of anything."

On the surface, he appears loyal to the leader of his team, Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle), but Schwartz has another perspective.

"Initially," he says, "Cheadle's character considers me a good friend, but I don't consider him a friend, and maybe I can use that against him. In essence, maybe I'll look out for him, but the second I can take over his job, I don't give a f**k about him. Excuse me for cursing.

"The whole idea is, we can do anything we can to get the job, and I think my character's not above screwing over anybody else in the pod in order to get the job."

While it's often said that a lot of comics are dark and tortured, Schwartz doesn't give off that vibe.

"Dark and tortured ... I don't know if that describes me," he says. "A lot of times, comedy can come from depression or a dark place. For me, it's probably the opposite. I'm comfortable with comedy, because I've been doing it for 10 years. I've been trying to be funny my whole life. I did it with Upright Citizens Brigade, writing jokes for different shows. writing movies and acting."

A native of the Bronx, Schwartz had doubts about a future in show business.

"Truly, this was all I wanted to do," he says. "I didn't really think it was an option. I was a psych/anthro major, and I didn't think I could make money acting or writing. It seems like one in a million people  get to do that, so I was nervous."

And it's not like he went to a college famed for turning out comedy writers, but he did know where to find a good time in northern New York State.

"I went to Union College in Schenectady," he says, "and we went to Chowderfest in Saratoga Springs every year for four years. We would buy the cheesy sweatshirts every year. I love Saratoga. Saratoga, for us, was like going out to fine dining."

He's also embraced social media, but in a way that honors his past as a joke writer for David Letterman, at his Twitter handle -- @rejectedjokes.

"I write one joke a day," he says. "It's just a sentence or a quote that I make up. It's hard to make it fit within that space, but on Letterman, I learned to write jokes. In my head, I always make it 120 or less, because with 'RT' and my long 'rejectedjokes,' it takes a lot of space.

"To me, it'd be more interesting if I see a joke every day. Who cares if I eat a tuna sandwich? 'I ate a tuna sandwich!' Nobody cares about me."

Tonight's cuppa: Hazelnut coffee

On the Sunday, Feb. 19, episode of History's freshman reality-competition series "Full Metal Jousting," horse trainer Jake Nodar exceeded the expectations of his opponent and even host and jousting expert Shane Adams when he unhorsed and ultimately defeated theatrical jouster Jack Mathis for a chance at the quarterfinals.

"I was pretty excited about it," says Nodar, speaking on the day after the episode aired. "I actually watched it with four of the guys from the show, who came out to show support. It was a great, great episode."

While he has excellent riding skills, Nodar found himself picked last when the jousting coaches assembled their teams at the beginning of the show.

"Right from the get-go," he says, "being picked last, that was a really terrible feeling. I'm not sure what the reasoning was behind it. I know the coaches watched us ride in bootcamp. As we found out in last night's episode, my lance control isn't always 100 percent. I don't know if that factored into that or not. And the old grade-school, dodge-ball, picked-last flashback, it was fantastic.

"But at the same time, it motivated me, and I was completely under the radar because of that. It was great, how it all turned out. The practice was horrific. I was a little nervous going into it, but one thing that I do very well, being involved in the different disciplines of riding that I've done, I'm very comfortable with competition. I can keep my head in the game."

And Nodar did get to assuage the concerns of his mother, who didn't care for some of the comments about her son early in the episode.

He recalls, "I said, 'Just stick with it, Mom, I'm going to show them a thing or two.'"

(Here's a video of the Nodar/Mathis joust. Post continues below it, with a photo slideshow at the bottom.)



Asked about the future of jousting as a major spectator sport, Nodar says, "I really hope that jousting takes off. I had almost more fun sitting on the sidelines, watching my teammates compete.

'It's such a great spectator sport. There are eight passes, take a couple of minutes between each pass. It's suspenseful and crazy and chaotic. I think it's something that people would actually see in person.

"It's a very cool sport."

Whatever the future of jousting -- or his own future in the competition -- Nodar came away from the experience with at least one new pal.

"Dave (Prewitt) is probably the one I bonded the most with," he says. "It's kind of funny, because when I went into the house, being openly gay, I had some reservations. He was probably the one that I was most worried about. He comes from a small town, hasn't really been exposed to anything quite like that.

"Over the process, we became really good friends. He actually just left my place a couple of hours ago. He came down for the week to hang out. It was great. I definitely made some really great friends through that experience."

As a bonus, here's a slideshow from my set visit -- click here for the syndicated feature story that resulted -- to "Full Metal Jousting" back in October. Enjoy!

Today's cuppa: Irish breakfast tea

The CW's Monday-night comedy-drama "Hart of Dixie" may be a sweet and charming show, not without an edge but largely devoid of violence, blatant sexuality and profanity, but when star Wilson Bethel set out to do a promotional rap video for it, he pulled no punches in terms of language.

And that was just fine with Rachel Bilson, who spoofed her character -- a Manhattan doctor who winds up practicing medicine in the small town of Bluebell, Ala. -- in "Call Me Doctor" (embedded below).

"I don't mind," she says, during a break in filming on the outdoor set for the Rammer Jammer bar on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, Calif. "I'll do anything for comedy. It's my favorite thing, so I don't have a problem with that. They had this idea to do all these promos, and I thought it was funny.

"It's taking off of '8 Mile,' where he calls himself out, and he wins the rap-off, so to speak. I was like, 'Oh, yeah, I'll do it.' It's funny, and you have to make fun of yourself. I don't take myself too seriously. It was a lot of fun. I grew up on hip-hop, so it was like going back to being a kid in junior high school and high school and stuff like that."

One reason Bethel decided to do the video is because of complaints from TV critics that the petite, young Bilson wasn't believable as a physician and aspiring surgeon. (HCTV: Begging to differ, having personally laid eyes on two surgical residents at L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center who were close to the age, size and general attractiveness of Bilson, one wearing heels about as high.) Therefore, he decided to toss in a reference to a certain late '80s-'90s sitcom starring Neil Patrick Harris as a teenage doctor.

"The first line I knew had to be in the rap," says Bethel during another break on the same shooting day, "was the 'Doogie Howser' bit. You can buy an 11-year-old surgeon, but you can't buy Rachel as one. So, knowing that it was going to be a punchline to a verse, I built it out from there."

Bilson also offers up a real-world example to refute the critics, saying, "My uncle and cousin are family-practice doctors in Tennessee, so I relate. And my cousin, she's beautiful. She doesn't look like a doctor. What does a doctor look like? They're people. Everyone's different. My cousin's a doctor, and she's really pretty. Put that out there. You do what you do, and you rap about it."

Bethel hopes "Call Me Doctor" is the start of something big.

"The whole project," he says, "was just super fun and a great way to stay creative, do stuff that I love, which is music, which is writing, and also do something positive for the show, for the cast. We had a great time shooting it. We got to do something fun together, producing what I think is a pretty high-quality product that a lot of people are responding to.

"I'm pretty ambitious that we'll be doing more, not necessarily music videos, but more cool alternative online content -- definitely looking for edgy stuff."

(Incidentally, "Hart of Dixie" star Scott Porter has another dream entirely for the show, and this one includes Denver Broncos star Tim Tebow. He told me all about it, so click here for that. Tebow, as it turns out, might have some political, rather an acting, ambitions. See what I saw when I watched his Golf Channel appearance on Saturday night -- repeats tonight -- click here for that.)

(WARNING: VERY strong language):