A Letter From America

WARNING: LOOSE TALK COSTS LIVES

Night Stand, the cable talk show spoof, could never match the surreal nature of the genuine article. Actors being paid good money to portray crazed talk show guests and audience members are watery imitations of their masochistic real-life counterparts, most of whom seem to be teetering on the brink of complete, barking madness. Their only reward is a chance to get publicly browbeaten by Sally Jesse or Ricki of the horrendous Montel Williams. Sometimes, it’s even more grisly than that.

Jonathan Schmitz, a former guest on the Jenny Jones show, has just been convicted of the second degree murder of Scott Amedure, an acquaintance who admitted to a secret crush on him in a show recorded last March. Three days after the show was taped, Schmitz received a suggestive note, allegedly from Amedure, whereupon he went to Amedure’s mobile home and shot him twice at close range. He then called the police and confessed, stating that he had been publicly humiliated.

A lawyer for Jenny Jones has since claimed that everyone wants to blame the show “because it’s the sexy thing to do”. Well no, everyone wants to blame the show because the show was culpable – any research into Schmitz’ background would have revealed that, aside from obvious homophobia, he had a history of manic depression, suicide attempts and a thyroid condition that can produce emotional side effects. He was, in other words, not the ideal guest to bring onto a show called ‘Same-Sex Secret Crushes’, certainly not when he had been misled into thinking that he was about to meet his dream girl.

Since the tragedy, there’s been a concerted effort on the part of talk show producers to tone down what’s become known as ‘ambush television’. Genuine concern? Maybe. Something to do with the fact that Amedure’s family are suing the Jenny Jones show and its owners and distributors for $25 million? You betcha!

BRAGGADOCIO

LAST WEEK’s Billy Bragg/Robyn Hitchcock double-bill at the Beacon Theatre in New York was striking for a couple of reasons. The fact that the two got joint billing in the first place highlights how difficult it is to predict who will achieve success, or in Hitchcock’s case, sufficient cult status to pay the bills, Stateside. After all, look at Bush! Who’d have figured! Bush!

There’s also something incongruous about hearing good ol’ Billy wax lyrical about his ideal world – a socialist state in which unions are powerful, respect is given those who work from the home, and there is free healthcare and Kirsty MacColl backing vocals for all, yadda yadda yadda – while perched on the stage of a gorgeous theatre slap bang in the middle of Broadway.

Well-intentioned, intelligent, and fair-minded to the point of being Natalie Merchant in trousers, The Big Nosed Bard From Barking’s new incarnation as father and husband has provided the impetus for him to change many of his lyrics, so that the line “I’m just looking for another girl” in ‘A New England’ gets the sweet – if grovelly – addendum “ . . . but only in the sense that it’d be nice for Jack to have a baby sister”.

This newer, softer, more reliable Billy also informed us that he had a new vocal style for singing baby Jack to sleep – the shouty quotient is turned down just a notch, so that Jack won’t grow up with his features permanently set in a startled expression.

Finally, full marks to the wit up in the balcony who kept shouting out –“play your big hit!” to raucous laughter, thereby conclusively disproving the theory that non-Europeans have no use for sarcasm.

COLEMANBALLS

The hot young actress Allegra Coleman graces the cover of the latest issue of Esquire magazine, her exquisite features, raggy blond hair and exposed belly alongside the headline FORGET GWYNETH, FORGET MIRA . . . HERE’S HOLLYWOOD’S NEXT DREAM GIRL. Coleman, whose first high-profile role, according to the article, was the part of a deaf swimmer in Cliffhanger (a startling performance you might recall), is “the star Quentin Tarnatino dumped Mira Sorvino for . . . [the] to-die-for muse behind his upcoming Sphinxa and Bernardo Bertolucci’s remake of :’Aventura.” She’s “the drop-dead beauty around whom Woody Allen recast his yet unnamed fall 1997 release.”

Of course, you’ve probably never heard of Allegra Coleman, unless you’re terribly up on these things, always in the know. She probably hasn’t “hit” on your side of the pond yet. And there’s a good reason for that.

She doesn’t exist, you boneheads.

Fed up with the proliferation of magazine covers crowning so-and-so (most recently Matthew McConnaughy and Gwyneth Paltrow) as the next big thing, Esquire writer Martha Sherrill decided to parody the onslaught of tired, pseudo-intimate profiles of young stars on the rise. Beyond that the writer, who participated in a recent round-table discussion lead by television interview guru Charlie Rose, wondered whether people who saw the cover would actually pretend to know who Allegra Coleman was in their quest to appear “with it”. No doubt some idiot somewhere fell for it.

The interview/feature parody has its moments (“She never wears sunglasses, she says. Never, ever. She is always travelling across time zones, always UV-deficient.” “The Colemans, a legendary family of circus performers and poets were always broke and often drunk. Allegra learned early to fend for herself.”). But the “straight” notes on the piece on the contributor’s page outdo the article itself. “She’s the most compelling celebrity I’ve ever written about,” Sherrill is quoted as saying, “and probably the most profoundly interesting American alive today.”

Ouch, Martha. That hurts.