Proudest monkey

As I’ve grown older I’ve realized a lot of things. I’ve realized that my dreams of becoming a professional basketball player are probably going to go unfilled. I’ve realized that following Jager with Tequila will leave you feeling a little worse for wear the following morning. And tonight I have realized the most sobering fact of all: all of the television shows that appeal to me are on CBS. Yes, the network that gave us Diagnosis: Murder is now appealing to my demographic. Please excuse me as I bang my head against my desk for the following ten minutes.

I’m going on this little rant because tonight we had the latest debut in the “Let’s see how much of EC’s novel we can place on television before he gets a chance to write it” canon with the pilot episode of “Love Monkey.” It’s yet another story of a guy in his early thirties unlucky in love in New York. (Great line to start off with, “I’ve played the field and the field won.”) That’s pretty normal. The interesting thing is that the guy is an A&R rep, which is basically one of my dream jobs. Hey, anything that would pay me to sit around in bars and listen to bands would be pretty much right up my alley.

So, since the show is about an A&R rep we have the requisite music references. Good mentions of Sting and Tori Amos and even though they had a Sex Pistols reference earlier you can’t really make a Hotel Chelsea comment without making the ultimate reference. (If you don’t follow, rent Sid and Nancy) They did the music tour of New York with a stop at CBGB’s (apparently before they were threatening to close the place down). It’s actually a pretty good rundown of my life with absolutely every aspect being related to music.

Of course we have to have the standard circle of friends who so appear to be out of central casting that I really wonder if I wrote the script. Seriously, no originality here at all. We have the female best friend who is obviously in love with the main character (and vice versa) but they don’t do anything. They have the guy friends offering advice and being at various points of their lives. Have to hit on one casting note as in this gaggle of friends is one Mr. Jason Priestly. Yes, he’s back on the air (and apparently back on his feet after a nearly fatal auto racing wreck a few years back). All I can say is that it is very odd seeing him on a show talking about marriage and pregnancy and not talking about high school.

(Oh, and another thing, the guy that the A&R rep discovers is this total John Mayer wannabe. I know that much of my readership will hate this next line but we already have a John Mayer, we sure as hell don’t need two. Especially one who writes lines like “Love is a Marathon”.)

I guess I need to come down with my final verdict here. I can’t say that this show has totally borrowed events from my real life, though it resembles my novel to a great degree. I definitely wouldn’t say it is a great show since so much of it seems to be formula. But I’ll be watching next week for one reason. One scene actually. Near the end our hero goes back to his apartment, fired from his job, dumped by his girlfriend, and no real next step. And what does he do? Sit on the edge of his couch, pick up his guitar and start playing. Now that is realism and it makes me think that maybe, just maybe, I should finally learn how to play guitar.