’80s movie slow clap for Slate Salon author David Daley who OH, SO CORRECTLY calls bullshit on the media’s love of comparing anything slightly offbeat to IFC’s only show Portlandia. While the New York Times is the worst offender, Daley culls clips from a variety of sources including GQ, New Yorker, Gawker, the Oregonian, L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Times, USA Today… OMIGOD, THE LIST SIMPLY WILL NOT STOP! Here’s what Daley has to say about it:
…whether writing about arrests for public sex, coffee shops across America, or combination bike fair/film festivals — “Portlandia” has become a lazy shorthand for oddball, quirky cool. And no, don’t say that should be a “Portlandia” sketch.
And here are but a few of his examples:
Calyer, a restaurant in New York (New York Times)
One red (wine) is described as ”textured and bright with hints of volcano.” Those who like this sort of thing will find Calyer endearing. Those who don’t will be sure they’ve stumbled onto the set of ”Portlandia: East.” (Jan. 25, 2012)
Two from the Oregonian:
A bicycle-based talk show
Although it seems like something from a “Portlandia” sketch, “The Pedal Powered Talk Show” is the real deal.
Puppet shows
It sounds like a “Portlandia” sketch, but the “Quick ‘N’ Dirty” Puppet Slam is for real.
Los Angeles hipsters excited about Vanilla Ice, from Curbed LA:
“I personally liked it because we’ve been doing ukulele covers of Vanilla Ice on tour for years and years. It’s great, like, seeing the master,” says a local and possible “Portlandia” extra.
AND THERE’S LIKE 20 MORE. New rule, writers! You can only compare Portlandia to other failed shows on IFC, or perhaps maybe the particularly irksome feeling of your sock creeping down into your shoe.
It’s news to me, I always compare everything to “The Young Ones.”
The only show on IFC? How can you not be aware of David Cross’ “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret”
I am so happy right now! It’s… It’s like I’m not alone in the world anymore!
If portlandia is now the “only show on IFC”, I guess I can stop hoping for the return of “Z Rock” & “The Onion News Network”
Todd Margaret is the worst show on TV.
Lazy writing, yes. But it explains why the show got a second season: everyone who doesn’t know any better likes it enough to use the comparison. (Full disclosure, I kind of like it.)
That last one is just painful on many levels.
I think David Sedaris’s piece “Today’s Special” from Me Talk Pretty One Day is just like a Portlandia sketch! Except it was written 10+ years earlier. And it’s about hifalutin food culture in New York, another example of how this isn’t really about Portland per se. And it’s about a thousand times funnier. Other than that, it’s just like a Portlandia sketch.
Fred and Carrie could never have come up with anything like “a broth of malt liquor and mummified litchi nuts.” “A day late and a dollar short” would be putting it too mildly.
Oh, I guess now I can stop being ashamed of naming my band the robot parlour attack and about my obsession with water filled bottles which make different sounds and which I play at noon everyday friday at Wendy’s in the corner of 45th and 9nth hooked to a theremin with a 80`s sound induced moving Frank Sinatra Pez figure while living somewhere else than in Portland.
Good or bad, I don’t know. (I should probably just say fack off!)
@5 You are the worst show on TV! (Am I doing this Internet trolling thing correctly?)
@geyser, I definitely at one point after watching a sketch from it thought the exact thought, “this is like a David Sedaris essay except more absurdist and with far more tired source material.”
Great minds.
While Todd Margaret has its flaws, I find it to be infinitely superior to Portlandia.
@MARS: I GIVE THAT TROLL 3/10. YOU SHOULD HAVE SPELLED A WORD WRONG IN THEY’RE.
Salon writer, not Slate.
Z-Rock is fucking great.
Up here in Seattle we’re got really sick of seeing those incessant “Portlandia” birds everywhere. Here’s what we did about it: http://www.PutAPlaneOnIt.com and https://www.facebook.com/PutAPlaneOnIt
HEY SEATTLEITE, GO BACK TO SLOG AND RANT ABOUT LOSING THE SONICS OR HOW POST-PORTLANDIA YOU ARE OR HOW MUCH WATER THERE IS OR WHATEVER THE FUCK PEOPLE TALK ABOUT IN SEATTLE.
@ Zed
Fixed, thanky!
@ Oregometry
Fuck YEAH!
Your mom is like Portlandia in that they both get slammed by the douchy hipster commenters here because neither sucks.
@Todd….well it is the gold standard. Also, it was actually funny. Monty Python for me is the measuring stick@17….it’s kinda the same stuff you talk about here ,really.@19 Mc ouch!
What I can’t stand is every right wing nutjob OregonLive comment troll who thinks that they are being oh-so-witty whenever they make some comment about how > is “just like Portlandia,” or that, “I didn’t think Portlandia was a documentary” or the like.
This is usually accompanied by some homophobic anti-Sam Adams screed or a sneering reference to “keeping Portland weird.”
There are a lot of people out there that apparently really fucking hate living in Portland. Of course, they probably live in Clackamas or Hillsboro, but that doesn’t stop them from having their ham-fisted, idiotic little opinions.
While it may be lazy journalism to compare anything in the world to Portlandia, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t true in many cases.
Like a Ron Paul article on any other news website, nothing gets for comment activity here than a Portlandia blog.