Tag: NBC

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Akram Khan at the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, Which NBC Inexplicably Cut

Here is part of the Akram Khan piece from Friday evening’s opening night Olympic ceremony that NBC inexplicably cut from its American broadcast. Unfortunately, the quality of this video isn’t terrific – and the posters said they’d put up the latter parts of it later this week – but this is the only copy I could find right now on YouTube.

But why did NBC cut it from the US broadcast? Here’s a short BBC article on Khan’s disappointment and his explanation of the piece. The journalist interviewed NBC but the network still didn’t give a reason for its decision to air a Ryan Seacrest interview instead of Khan. Do they think Americans are too dense to appreciate high art? That we could only appreciate the names and faces we’d recognize from Hollywood? I wonder what else they denied us. I only knew to look for Khan’s piece from the UK-based dance bloggers in my Twitter feed, who tweeted about the performance as it happened, earlier in the day. Because of them, I was so excited to go home and watch it Friday night. Then I became so disappointed by NBC that now I really want to boycott the network. Thank god for the internet. It just makes you realize how biased and incomplete was the news we used to receive in this country.

Here is the Guardian’s Judith Mackrell on Khan’s work and what he added to the ceremony.

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Made My Acting Debut, on Gloria Allred’s WE THE PEOPLE!

 

This week I made my TV acting debut on NBC’s We the People With Gloria Allred. Several weeks ago, a casting agency I registered with sent me to audition for a part on the show.

I ended up getting cast as a plaintiff who was suing the owner of a small airline for emotional distress and the cost of her therapy sessions after her vibrator accidentally went off in her luggage. The baggage check guy alerted the airline owner who made my character take out the vibrator in front of everyone on the plane, to her great humiliation. It’s based on a real case.

Haha, my first Hollywood experience, my first role, and this is how I’m cast! It felt very Jonathan Ames! So I did it. And it was a lot of fun, and a really interesting learning experience. I figured, so L.A., right?! I don’t know how much acting I’ll do – what I really want to do is write, but I wanted to see what it was like on a TV set, how things were done, what auditions were like, etc.

Anyway, it aired this Thursday afternoon on NBC. I’m working a job with long hours right now, but fortunately a very nice co-worker who lives close to the office let me use her apartment on my lunch hour to watch the show. Of course all I could do was stress about how neurotic I came across with my shaky voice and how drab I looked, but that was the character, so it was all good. I thought we all – the airline owner, the baggage check guy, and I – came across as very real. So I’m actually pretty okay with the way it turned out despite my blah look.

It’s funny that I’m a former litigator and have courtroom experience. And Gloria Allred is such a huge personality here. So very cool that my first gig was in a courtroom, being on her show!

Anyway, if it ever goes up on YouTube or NBC’s website, I’ll embed or link to it. I don’t think it’s up yet, but if you see it please let me know! The episode is called “Batteries Included.”