I have become television.
- Warren Ellis, "What Spider Watches on TV"
The Story Before, Part IV
The Lenar Show, Series Finale
I don't have much to say about The Lenar Show that you probably couldn't figure out for yourself. I wrote one or two Entertainment Weekly-style "articles" about my life as if it were a TV show.
Yes, it was my hacky little response to The Truman Show. Yes, people thought it was pretty weird.
Honestly, I'd say the most important thing to take away from this is that I could be decent features writer, and I'd ask you to keep that in mind, should you find yourself in a position to give me freelance work.
I ended up kind of reviving this idea of my-life-as-a-TV-show in college, but that was a far more strinkingly deluded affair, and thankfully only known about by about five people, the vast majority of whom I no longer speak to. As real life Tv gags go, I always thought those lunch-time-conversations-as-though-I'm-a-late-night-talk-show-host bits were superior by far:
"So, I hear you have a new project you're working on."
"Uh, you mean my philosophy term paper?"
"Yes. Wow. So can you tell us anything about it? How'd you get the part?"
Anyhoozle...
The End is here.
I don't mean that in a b.s. millenium fear type of thing, because that's just ridiculous nonsense. I mean, come on, the millenium doesn't even end until December 31, 2000. As for Y2K, cut me a friggin' break! Just set the stupid date back and shut the hell up! I'm talking about the end of The Lenar Show. "Yep, this is the last season," says Lenar Clark, who created the show out of shear boredom and megalomania. "I can't say that I'm not slightly depressed."
For those of you who have a life, and don't remember what I'm talking about, The Lenar Show is the popular day-to-day sitcom featuring the life of a boy trying to grow up, but failing miserably in suburban Missouri. "I like to think of it as art imitating life imitating art imitating... something," Clark explains, articulating to the best of his ability. "It's improvisational performance art on a grander scale. That's why one of the themes of the show is the influence of media in life."
Clark doesn't mean that in a "whoa, there's way too much violence on TV and I'm a sissy pansy boy who think that the poor children are being desensitized" way. He explains that it's something far more subtle than that. "The Lenar character goes through life claiming that he won't be influenced by anyone or anything, and that his mind is too strong to fall for the brainwashing propaganda present throughout life. The unfortunate and ironic thing is that he's full of crap. Lenar can't read a book without finding himself adhering to whatever ideals he's been presented with." Early last season, he read Catcher in the Rye, and for about a month, he was convinced he was losing his mind like Holden Caulfield.
"Of course, you don't care about any of that, do you?" Clark says. "You just want to know about my up coming plans." He's right of course, but before he'd give with the information, Clark demanded that we discuss some of the artsy-fartsy non-sense that happened last season. The major storyline of the season, "Dead Reckoning," carried on from December into February, and it saw Lenar trying to confront his issues, and ultimately ruining his life. "Lenar was so out of things emotionally last year, it wasn't funny," Clark says. Of course, he's wrong. It was funny.
The characters of the show went through quite a few changes. Andy Sack has become a far more important character than the second season, when he had a minor role as Lenar's "psychologist". Last season, Andy got tired of listening to Lenar prattle on and on, so he quit. The interesting thing, however, is that Andy's given Lenar more advice after having quit then he ever did before. Karl Bloom's another character who's come around. While the Freshman Year Season saw Bloom as Lenar's enemy, last season, he became one of Lenar's most valued allies, only to gain an ambiguous role now. Clark says this lead directly to Amy Walburn's new status quo.
"I'd been struggling with what to do with the Walburn character for a while," Clark says. "While she was instrumental in the 'Chasing Amy' storyline from last season, there was really nothing else to do with her. Then, when we lost Bloom as the antagonist, I got the idea for the whole 'Beast' scenario." Of course, there's more to Walburn's transformation to "The Beast" than that, but that story won't be told just yet.
Walburn's not the only character who's suffered. Lenar definitely put the supporting cast through the ringer last season, but it produced some great comedic scenes. Examples of this included the Bloom-Nazi running gag, the bleak, yet hilarious future view he presented in his reunion story, his beratement of Katie Storms, and playing around with the idea of having the Justin character killed off. "That last one was pretty good," Clark says, "the problem, though, was that he took it way too far."
This was intentional, though. Clark feels it was the natural evolution of the Lenar character. "I really consider each season to be another chapter in a four part story. I'll use a knight analogy. If you think about it, Lenar put on a suit of armor Freshman Year. Sophomore year, that armor took a hell of a beaten. Last season, it started to crack, and this season, everything falls apart, and we're confronted with the naked quivering mass underneath."
And so, that leads us to the last season of The Lenar Show, which, appropriately enough, is entitled "The End".
"Basically, this season is broken up into three major story arcs," Clark laboriously explains. Borrowing the same titles Joe Kelly used in his last three issues of DEADPOOL, the first one, which just wrapped up with this season's Homecoming episode, is called 'The Beginning of the End'. Up next is 'The Middle of the End', followed by the series finale, 'The End of the End'.
"'The Beginning of the End' was a tough story line to write," Clark says. "The major theme of the show is the idea of patterns and repeating motifs, and the one pattern Lenar has always tried to break is that soul-shattering destruction he experiences at the begging of every school year. The idea was always that this occurred because Lenar ignored his social life in the summer. Well, this summer, Lenar did the best that he could not to do that, but his life has still fallen apart, and this season, it fell farther than it ever has before. He entered his senior year with a complete feeling of disillusionment about everything he believed in and who he thought he was. Then, believe it or not, things got worse."
Lenar's now trapped across the street from a place that, quite frankly, seems to be destroying him. He's lost the one person he thought he couldn't lose, and doesn't know if he can trust any of his friends anymore, and there's some kind of glitch in his writing abilities. Somehow, coming into this year, he knew things were going to get bad, but he didn't know they'd get this bad.
"'The Beginning of the End' is your ultimate descent story," Clark says. "It happens every year on this show, and with this being the last season and all, it had to be the furthest descent ever. The thing to remember, however, is that every time Lenar falls, he learns something more about himself, then gets back up. Well, the ultimate descent bears the ultimate lesson."
That's what happens in "The Middle of the End", which picks up a few days after the stunning visual of "Beginning's" closing scene, in which Lenar walks almost knocks at Suenram's door for an after-Homecoming party, stops, then goes back to his car and drives away. At the beginning of "Middle," Lenar's recovering from the physical injuries he received, and on the verge of healing some of the spiritual wounds he's suffered in the last few months.
"First, we start off with a major revelation about Lenar's writing abilities," Clark promises. "At first, he thought that they were just gone, but it turns out that that's not completely true. He still has them, but on some deeper level, he doesn't want them anymore." Clark says that this is explained in Never Mind: A Pointless Story About Writing Pointless Stories Told Without the Benefit of a Fourth Wall, which is a homework assignment Lenar will turn in for English class. "I love little ironies in life," Clark explains. "The irony of Never Mind is that it's a story about not being able to tell stories, but that kind of gives away everything about it."
Once Lenar comes to grips with his writing problems, he's faced with an old problem and a new paradox. "There's three things that have always troubled Lenar. One of those things is honesty, which he'll be dealing with shortly. Another is WPA, which is being handled in a different way this season. You'll see another aspect to that problem. The other thing is the fact that Lenar lives his life steeped in contradiction, and in explaining this point, I'd just like to say that the literature within The Lenar Show does a fantastic job of reflecting what's going on in the show. The book 1984 presents the idea of doublethink, which just about defines what I mean by this. Lenar's constantly straining under the tensions of being an intelligent person with no common sense, or a pessimist who never sees the bad things coming."
Lenar's latest dilemma will see two of the problems above slammed together to make living life for Lenar extremely trying. This is not the major point of this storyline though.
"'The Middle of the End' is where the entire series begins to finally pay off," Clark swears. "People have been saying for years that this has all been a very large hodge-podge of inconsistent madness that is going no where. Well, this is the storyline where things start to gel. Here, I stand up manfully and say, "Look! Look, you bastards! I had a plan all along! All this makes sense! Now worship me, doubting toe-rags, for I am Master Storyteller!" Clark's also very willing to tell you what the big secret is that we've been building up to for all these years: "The point is that there is no point."
This leads one to wonder at the recent rumors that the Lenar character is in some way crazy. "People have voiced concern that the Lenar character might lash out and hurt himself or others," Clark says. "I just want to take this opportunity to say that these are sorely off base. If Lenar's crazy in any way, I think that it's in the fact that given everything that's happened to him in the last three years, he hasn't lashed out yet. That's a psychosis I'll happily work with."
And what about the rumors swirling around about what happens in "The End of the End"?
"Let me just say that every thing you've heard is true, but you have to see it to believe it. I'm also fairly certain that it'll be a huge let down in many respects."
The end is here, and what an end it promises to be.
NEXT:
Saturday Night at the Movies...
- Warren Ellis, "What Spider Watches on TV"
The Story Before, Part IV
The Lenar Show, Series Finale
I don't have much to say about The Lenar Show that you probably couldn't figure out for yourself. I wrote one or two Entertainment Weekly-style "articles" about my life as if it were a TV show.
Yes, it was my hacky little response to The Truman Show. Yes, people thought it was pretty weird.
Honestly, I'd say the most important thing to take away from this is that I could be decent features writer, and I'd ask you to keep that in mind, should you find yourself in a position to give me freelance work.
I ended up kind of reviving this idea of my-life-as-a-TV-show in college, but that was a far more strinkingly deluded affair, and thankfully only known about by about five people, the vast majority of whom I no longer speak to. As real life Tv gags go, I always thought those lunch-time-conversations-as-though-I'm-a-late-night-talk-show-host bits were superior by far:
"So, I hear you have a new project you're working on."
"Uh, you mean my philosophy term paper?"
"Yes. Wow. So can you tell us anything about it? How'd you get the part?"
Anyhoozle...
The End is here.
I don't mean that in a b.s. millenium fear type of thing, because that's just ridiculous nonsense. I mean, come on, the millenium doesn't even end until December 31, 2000. As for Y2K, cut me a friggin' break! Just set the stupid date back and shut the hell up! I'm talking about the end of The Lenar Show. "Yep, this is the last season," says Lenar Clark, who created the show out of shear boredom and megalomania. "I can't say that I'm not slightly depressed."
For those of you who have a life, and don't remember what I'm talking about, The Lenar Show is the popular day-to-day sitcom featuring the life of a boy trying to grow up, but failing miserably in suburban Missouri. "I like to think of it as art imitating life imitating art imitating... something," Clark explains, articulating to the best of his ability. "It's improvisational performance art on a grander scale. That's why one of the themes of the show is the influence of media in life."
Clark doesn't mean that in a "whoa, there's way too much violence on TV and I'm a sissy pansy boy who think that the poor children are being desensitized" way. He explains that it's something far more subtle than that. "The Lenar character goes through life claiming that he won't be influenced by anyone or anything, and that his mind is too strong to fall for the brainwashing propaganda present throughout life. The unfortunate and ironic thing is that he's full of crap. Lenar can't read a book without finding himself adhering to whatever ideals he's been presented with." Early last season, he read Catcher in the Rye, and for about a month, he was convinced he was losing his mind like Holden Caulfield.
"Of course, you don't care about any of that, do you?" Clark says. "You just want to know about my up coming plans." He's right of course, but before he'd give with the information, Clark demanded that we discuss some of the artsy-fartsy non-sense that happened last season. The major storyline of the season, "Dead Reckoning," carried on from December into February, and it saw Lenar trying to confront his issues, and ultimately ruining his life. "Lenar was so out of things emotionally last year, it wasn't funny," Clark says. Of course, he's wrong. It was funny.
The characters of the show went through quite a few changes. Andy Sack has become a far more important character than the second season, when he had a minor role as Lenar's "psychologist". Last season, Andy got tired of listening to Lenar prattle on and on, so he quit. The interesting thing, however, is that Andy's given Lenar more advice after having quit then he ever did before. Karl Bloom's another character who's come around. While the Freshman Year Season saw Bloom as Lenar's enemy, last season, he became one of Lenar's most valued allies, only to gain an ambiguous role now. Clark says this lead directly to Amy Walburn's new status quo.
"I'd been struggling with what to do with the Walburn character for a while," Clark says. "While she was instrumental in the 'Chasing Amy' storyline from last season, there was really nothing else to do with her. Then, when we lost Bloom as the antagonist, I got the idea for the whole 'Beast' scenario." Of course, there's more to Walburn's transformation to "The Beast" than that, but that story won't be told just yet.
Walburn's not the only character who's suffered. Lenar definitely put the supporting cast through the ringer last season, but it produced some great comedic scenes. Examples of this included the Bloom-Nazi running gag, the bleak, yet hilarious future view he presented in his reunion story, his beratement of Katie Storms, and playing around with the idea of having the Justin character killed off. "That last one was pretty good," Clark says, "the problem, though, was that he took it way too far."
This was intentional, though. Clark feels it was the natural evolution of the Lenar character. "I really consider each season to be another chapter in a four part story. I'll use a knight analogy. If you think about it, Lenar put on a suit of armor Freshman Year. Sophomore year, that armor took a hell of a beaten. Last season, it started to crack, and this season, everything falls apart, and we're confronted with the naked quivering mass underneath."
And so, that leads us to the last season of The Lenar Show, which, appropriately enough, is entitled "The End".
"Basically, this season is broken up into three major story arcs," Clark laboriously explains. Borrowing the same titles Joe Kelly used in his last three issues of DEADPOOL, the first one, which just wrapped up with this season's Homecoming episode, is called 'The Beginning of the End'. Up next is 'The Middle of the End', followed by the series finale, 'The End of the End'.
"'The Beginning of the End' was a tough story line to write," Clark says. "The major theme of the show is the idea of patterns and repeating motifs, and the one pattern Lenar has always tried to break is that soul-shattering destruction he experiences at the begging of every school year. The idea was always that this occurred because Lenar ignored his social life in the summer. Well, this summer, Lenar did the best that he could not to do that, but his life has still fallen apart, and this season, it fell farther than it ever has before. He entered his senior year with a complete feeling of disillusionment about everything he believed in and who he thought he was. Then, believe it or not, things got worse."
Lenar's now trapped across the street from a place that, quite frankly, seems to be destroying him. He's lost the one person he thought he couldn't lose, and doesn't know if he can trust any of his friends anymore, and there's some kind of glitch in his writing abilities. Somehow, coming into this year, he knew things were going to get bad, but he didn't know they'd get this bad.
"'The Beginning of the End' is your ultimate descent story," Clark says. "It happens every year on this show, and with this being the last season and all, it had to be the furthest descent ever. The thing to remember, however, is that every time Lenar falls, he learns something more about himself, then gets back up. Well, the ultimate descent bears the ultimate lesson."
That's what happens in "The Middle of the End", which picks up a few days after the stunning visual of "Beginning's" closing scene, in which Lenar walks almost knocks at Suenram's door for an after-Homecoming party, stops, then goes back to his car and drives away. At the beginning of "Middle," Lenar's recovering from the physical injuries he received, and on the verge of healing some of the spiritual wounds he's suffered in the last few months.
"First, we start off with a major revelation about Lenar's writing abilities," Clark promises. "At first, he thought that they were just gone, but it turns out that that's not completely true. He still has them, but on some deeper level, he doesn't want them anymore." Clark says that this is explained in Never Mind: A Pointless Story About Writing Pointless Stories Told Without the Benefit of a Fourth Wall, which is a homework assignment Lenar will turn in for English class. "I love little ironies in life," Clark explains. "The irony of Never Mind is that it's a story about not being able to tell stories, but that kind of gives away everything about it."
Once Lenar comes to grips with his writing problems, he's faced with an old problem and a new paradox. "There's three things that have always troubled Lenar. One of those things is honesty, which he'll be dealing with shortly. Another is WPA, which is being handled in a different way this season. You'll see another aspect to that problem. The other thing is the fact that Lenar lives his life steeped in contradiction, and in explaining this point, I'd just like to say that the literature within The Lenar Show does a fantastic job of reflecting what's going on in the show. The book 1984 presents the idea of doublethink, which just about defines what I mean by this. Lenar's constantly straining under the tensions of being an intelligent person with no common sense, or a pessimist who never sees the bad things coming."
Lenar's latest dilemma will see two of the problems above slammed together to make living life for Lenar extremely trying. This is not the major point of this storyline though.
"'The Middle of the End' is where the entire series begins to finally pay off," Clark swears. "People have been saying for years that this has all been a very large hodge-podge of inconsistent madness that is going no where. Well, this is the storyline where things start to gel. Here, I stand up manfully and say, "Look! Look, you bastards! I had a plan all along! All this makes sense! Now worship me, doubting toe-rags, for I am Master Storyteller!" Clark's also very willing to tell you what the big secret is that we've been building up to for all these years: "The point is that there is no point."
This leads one to wonder at the recent rumors that the Lenar character is in some way crazy. "People have voiced concern that the Lenar character might lash out and hurt himself or others," Clark says. "I just want to take this opportunity to say that these are sorely off base. If Lenar's crazy in any way, I think that it's in the fact that given everything that's happened to him in the last three years, he hasn't lashed out yet. That's a psychosis I'll happily work with."
And what about the rumors swirling around about what happens in "The End of the End"?
"Let me just say that every thing you've heard is true, but you have to see it to believe it. I'm also fairly certain that it'll be a huge let down in many respects."
The end is here, and what an end it promises to be.
NEXT:
Saturday Night at the Movies...
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