You’ve been downloading Eastbound & Down, right? So you know that it’s one of the funniest fucking shows going outside of Delocated and Tim and Eric on [adult swim]. Moreover, it might be the only show ever to mainline the borderline psychopathic, egomaniac rage that occurs when a white male is stripped of his questionable accomplishments and reduced to moving back home to the South, specifically back to North Carolina. Eastbound’s checklist of suffocating minutiae is worthy of Harry Crews’s A Feast of Snakes by way of the decade’s Wal-Mart homogeny:
There’s the sinewy, happily married elder sibling always sippin’ a brew and offering condescending, bullshit advice like “Sometimes you just have to see what happens.” There’s the chick from middle school who now shoplifts her stripper-attire from Fashion Bug and fucks dirtbags for a living; the sometime-bartender who was a “roadie for Widespread,” has the coke connect, and wears a drug rug when it’s chilly. Terminal cancer kid dances. Deviled eggs strapped down to a plate like distended alien bellies under Saran Wrap. Bizarre encounters with alphamales who reach for your limp dick in mid-conversation. Ginormous BMW dealerships that are basically evangelical neon churches for upward mobility complete with an ape strumming a sale sign shaped like a banana. Remote lake escapes on a purple, cheetah-printed Jetski that Google’s minions fail to record. Welcome back to the Bible Belt, “ass-blood.”
It’s telling that so many New York-based critics are at a loss for this amazing series, carefully warbling their words just outside of “redneck.” Entertainment Weekly used “lower-middle class” as a vague euphemism, a review in The New Yorker curiously bypassed the setting and cultural themes altogether. Perhaps Jim Goad should add an addendum to his Redneck Manifesto. Then again, 30 Rock allots enough edible squirrel jokes per episode to its token God-fearing, submissive Southern character, Kenneth the Page, to make that motherfucker the new blackface. Kenneth’s M.O. is the equivalent to Tracy Jordan getting a permanent tattoo of a teardrop on his cheek that’s constantly mistaken for a watermelon seed. Or your ex’s role model, Liz Lemon, doing bumps and fucking in a Brooklyn bar’s restroom, blogging the lessons learned and scoring a movie deal with the Weinsteins. Just saying.
So yeah, it’s cool that of all the talented and funny people with roots in the South—Jack McBrayer, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, to name but a few—it was the guys behind the fucknomenal indie The Foot Fist Way that went back there, set up shop, and turned the seething, sunny cultural inanity they know—like so many transplants—inside out, and “waved it around like a cervix.” In conclusion: Peace to Kenny Powers, the funniest, angriest equal-opportunity, All-American champion of hate since Daniel Plainview, Clipse and Alphonse Hercules Bundy.
Love,
Hunter
Hunter,
I don’t know dude. I kind of get freaked out by what a dick he is. Aren’t you supposed to at least sort of sympathize with the protagonist? I could give a shit if this guy lives or dies and that doesn’t make for appointment TV.
PS: Do you work for this show?
Love,
SBTVC
Dear Street Carnage,
I categorically do not have a relationship with the show or with anyone involved and would never attempt to plug anything on your site due to longstanding respect/ethics: For shame. I think the guys involved (re: not to be confused with Apatow’s clique) and their brand of comedy are highly relevant, misunderstood and often brilliant. If you need a reference, Mykel Board owes me one for touching my thigh in the middle of the night.
Love,
Hunter
Hunter,
We contacted Mykel Board but, before we could get a reference, he tried to fuck us.
Love,
SBTVC
Leave a Reply
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
STREET BONER 1127
Being straight edge as a kid is a great way to rebel against: puking, getting pregnant, and wrapping your parent’s car around a tree.
Bad Behavior has blocked 4351 access attempts in the last 7 days.
You’re Fucking Out,
I’m Fucking In!
04.07.09 at 12:50 pm
‘Listen here you beautiful bitch. I’m about to fuck you up with some truth.’
Kenny Powers’ one liners are about the only thing truly funny about this show.
04.07.09 at 1:07 pm
this show blows
04.07.09 at 1:13 pm
i’ve been blessed with many things… a cannon for an arm, a cock like a burmese python, and a mind like a fucking scientist.
04.07.09 at 1:14 pm
Mykel Board is a weasel squeezer.
04.07.09 at 1:20 pm
“jesse” blows goats.
04.07.09 at 1:24 pm
it’s a funny show, but SBTVC is kind of right, from an academic point of view that you’re supposed to care about the protagonist. i enjoyed the show, but i was like, how would someone who *isn’t* depraved like this show? could a wimmin ever enjoy it?
my criticism is really none of the above – if you get a laugh, you get a laugh. my REAL criticism is, why did he have to lose at the end? i feel like movies and television bombard viewers w/ protagonists they’re supposed to identify with (in one way or another), and then never let the sucker have an even break. pay close attention the next time you watch anything: apart from the first season of entourage, nothing good ever happens to anyone on tv or in movies, EVER.
04.07.09 at 1:30 pm
“I love you, but you have clothes like a dickhead.”
04.07.09 at 1:30 pm
p.s. my non-depraved, down-to-earth wife agrees with me that it is (was (might be over for good)) the best show on TV.
You pussy faggots just can’t handle Kenny Powers. You’re fuckin’ out!
04.07.09 at 1:32 pm
you guys are really on the leading edge here today.
04.07.09 at 1:46 pm
Fuck that noise!
04.07.09 at 2:17 pm
“Aren’t you supposed to at least sort of sympathize with the protagonist?” – Every dickhead at NYU on the script for “Asshole”
04.07.09 at 3:07 pm
this is my favorite show in a LONG time.
But I fear ,just like with flight of the Concords, it will become too popular, the second season won’t be as potent, and most fans will pull the whole..
“Meh, I only really liked the first album”
I hope I eat my words like dick sandwich
04.07.09 at 3:08 pm
this show is a poor man’s trailer park boys
04.07.09 at 3:21 pm
how am i supposed to masturbate to this?
04.07.09 at 4:00 pm
haha, Mykel Board. he uses words like ‘zaftig.’
04.07.09 at 4:12 pm
Danny McBride is Larry the Cable Guy. But funny.
You really do not understand the genius of Kenny Powers. He fucking epitomizes North Carolina arrogance to the core. In fact it’s arrogance you find in the Marine Corps. I laughed my ass off in Foot Fist Way because I have no shit met people that fucking idiotic in the fucking military.
You guys just don’t understand. He has it down so well it’s kinda scary.
Unfortunately people like that are not funny at all in real life and rubs off on you in a really, really bad way.
You first wanna shoot them in the face first, next thing you know you’re talking like them. I swear to God, Danny McBride epitomizes half the Sergeants I’ve known in the Marines.
04.07.09 at 5:01 pm
Danny mcBride is actually from Virginia, and yes this is best show on television in a long time.
04.07.09 at 5:56 pm
awesome show
04.07.09 at 8:34 pm
i cant be sure, but im beginning to think Taieilal might have some connection to the military…
cant quite figure it out but i’l get back to you when i do
(that clip from afganistan u posted the other day was awesome. the fucking SOUND was amazing)
04.07.09 at 11:25 pm
Kenny Powers is the bomb!!! Sure he’s kind of a dick, but he is a cool guy to party with. “Kiss my ass and suck my dick… everyone.”
04.07.09 at 11:45 pm
it’s two for one night at Cap-tain Or-landers.
04.08.09 at 3:22 am
it got renewed for a 2nd season, so….yeah, awesome.
04.09.09 at 2:07 am
Hailing from North Carolina, I have to say my sentiments exactly. Eastbound isn’t a stereotype of the South, it is the South. Great read SC!!
04.09.09 at 9:56 pm
[...] male attempting to escape or fight the limits set by a hometown, a 9-to-5 job, a dead-end wife, the South, a promiscuous girlfriend, an unhappy semi-available ex, boring young married friends with babies, [...]
04.10.09 at 4:07 pm
Did someone COMPLAIN about thigh touching? Hmmmm, maybe I didn’t touch high enough.
–Mykel
02.03.10 at 7:23 am