December 2011 Archives

I'm not sure what I really meant to accomplish with that essay. Certainly a part of me actually wanted to convince skeptical parents the world over of how fabulous T&E are, but it was also yet another in a long series of bids for the attention of people I idolize. And, unlikely enough, I actually succeeded. Between Saturday morning and today, I gained a coveted retweet from Tim Heidecker, an email from Krink, and Davin Wood as a Facebook friend. All of which still make me nervous and excited when I think about them for too long.

But that excitement and disbelieving happiness is also tinged with a healthy serving of depression (as is almost everything these days, it seems). When people are abstract entities you see on a screen who live somewhere out in the mythical West, the fact that you aren't doing what they do, even if it's your dream job, is not all that hard to bear. But when they interact with you and you're confronted with the fact that yes, they are actually real people, it can become kind of overwhelming.

If you're reading this, you probably have a child who's expressed a firm affection for the comedic stylings of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. You've watched episodes of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, you've had "Father and Son" or "The Terrys" forced down your gullet, your child is moving threateningly toward you with a Tom Goes to the Mayor DVD, and frankly, you don't like it. You're an intelligent person. You have good taste in television. But this Tim and Eric nonsense is unbearable, loud, schizophrenic, soulless, ugly, and unfunny. You are beginning to think your son or daughter is autistic or possibly a serial killer.

Well, I am here to tell you that I understand. It's okay. You're safe here. And your child is statistically* not likely to be a serial killer. I'm going to do my best to explain to you in a reasoned, theoretically-grounded way why your child likes Tim and Eric, why it's not corrupting them psychologically or morally, and why you might even like it too.