“Blunt Talk,” the new Jonathan Ames news anchor comedy starring Patrick Stewart is quite a distance from Ames’s “Bored to Death.” But it still does channel its creators anxieties and sensibility.
One of the recurring motifs in Jonathan Ames’s writing is his journeys on and off the wagon. Well, right now it looks like he’s definitely off. Appearing at the Writers Guild Awards on February 18, Ames delivered a coherent but rambling Prosecco-fueled speech. “If you put Prosecco in front of certain people it’s like cocaine,” he declared, “because it’s more fun than Champagne, because it’s prosecco, though it’s basically the same thing.” Ames also declared himself to a “Spanish Inquisition Jew” and complimented Mandy Patinkin on his tallis.
‘Bored to Death,’ the new HBO comedy by Jonathan Ames, is one of the few shows to delve into the persona of Brooklyn, beyond the cliches to real life.
Jonathan Ames is a novelist, essayist, short story writer, and, most recently, the creator of “Bored to Death,” an HBO comedy starting its third season October 10. In the show, Jason Schwartzman stars as a fictional version of Ames who moonlights as a private detective on Craigslist to relieve a bad case of writer’s block. His friends, comic book artist Ray Hueston (Zach Galifianakis) and magazine editor-cum-restaurateur George Christopher (Ted Danson), join him in his adventures. Ames spoke to The Arty Semite at a café in his Brooklyn neighborhood of Boerum Hill about dealing with success, making the move from literature to television, and the source of his Jewish anxiety.