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Harmontown

The guru will present himself when you are ready. Or maybe it's you discover a movie, that is mostly irrelevant. 

Dan Harmon was born in 1973 in Milwaukee Wisconsin. He went to Brown Deer High School. He went to Glendale Community College briefly, and then Marquette. He produced a comedy album with Rob Schrab. He did a pilot that wasn't picked up, and produced a Sarah Silverman special. He did 2 episodes of Yatch Rock. There are a few more obscure efforts, and in 2009 he did Community. Wikipedia is slow to update things.

Harmontown came out in 2014. It's almost 9 years later. That's OK, I often listen to an opera for the first time that came out centuries ago. I read books from ages ago. We can listen to all the old art from ages back--culture is accumulating and the choices you make are huge choices. I can't help but feel I'm getting more and more sophisticated, and yet the culture isn't really coming along with me. I watch a lot of shit. I don't read a lot of shit because I watch TV in the evening when I'm exhausted, but I read during the day. That's a lie, I hardly read, I mostly watch TV. But I'll watch stupid shit in the evening. And then when it's time to go to bed, I put on Community. I've watched it so many times, that I'm bored with it, and it reliably puts me to sleep. Sometimes I watch 10 minutes of it, and it's so fresh because I just listen to it to fall asleep. I wish I could listen to Moby Dick all the time, that really puts me to sleep. But sleeping to something I've never listened to before is difficult. I couldn't fall asleep to Sally Rooney's novels, she interested me too much. I woke up to this authorship question bullshit of a book, and it really annoys me. So it has to be something I don't feel bad missing out. Sometimes I switch to Cowboy Bebop, or Arrested Development. For some reason, I get some negative chatter when I go to bed. I'm filled with regret for past mistakes. So I need something to override my sneaky thoughts coming out. 

I know, I meditate a lot and you need primary experience, and when you lay down on the pillow it's a chance for yourself to talk to yourself, but mostly I replay cringe moments and regrets. That's not helpful. I battle them all day, but I'm weak when I'm going to sleep. So I mostly play Community. 

Somehow today it came on my radar about this movie Harmontown, which is what he did during the gas leak year. Season 4 of Community wasn't with Dan Harmon. He's the genius behind many shows, and he was fired. This movie is what he did with his year off. I love Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites, and I'm watching the new one Strange Planet

In the movie he plays Chevy Chase voicemails. You get to know a lot of the people around Dan. You can watch Heat Vision and Jack, a pilot Harmon collaborated on. I'm going to wait a little before I try to watch that. 

I don't really appreciate what I consider to be the glorification of drinking. Dan could learn to cope with his performance anxiety. It is standard America to glorify drinking though.

It's a great expose in self sabotage regarding working with Sarah Silverman. She fired him. His friend Schrab stayed.

He's not with the woman who's his girlfriend in this movie. Harmon has a mean edge, and doesn't like to be told what to do, and I identify with that. You can see why they don't fit together. Harmon knows the physical abuse of his childhood affects his relationships, and informs his rebellion. It's sweet the way he connects with fans, I could see how she feels left out. There's part of the feedback on a notes call about his script. This is really interesting. He doesn't like the way his wife gives him notes about his behavior. I feel that way too. He likes her tears, but I don't like that. He also doesn't want to be cruel. They seem to make up.

I'm much happier single, no notes. I mean my ex can still give me notes about parenting, but you know. That's just the joy of exes giving notes after the relationship ends and there's still a child you both care about. 

He makes an interesting point that often reality TV doesn't have the expectation of development and change, their being being a jerk is celebrated. Seems like Harmon wants to evolve. That's his notes on reality TV. He's done a lot of work in therapy it seems.

Harmon makes an interesting point that he doesn't feel like the hero of the show now, and the DM Crittendon is the hero now.

The story ends on a positive because Harmon gets to go back to Community and do season 5 and 6. 

I'm going to say something that is controversial. Season 4 isn't that bad. The show could take new leaders for a season and they didn't ruin it. Season 5 and 6 aren't great either, the series loses steam in the second half, sure, but I think it's still worthy of watching all the way through over and over again.


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