My name is Binki Shapiro, and I play in the band Little Joy. In an effort to raise money for the relief efforts in earthquake-devastated Haiti, I’ve rallied a bunch of artists to contribute custom-made artwork — t-shirts, tote bags and other personalized items — for the Crafts For A Cause auction. All proceeds will go to Artists for Peace and Justice, an amazing charitable organization founded by my dear friend Paul Haggis.
One item up for auction is the infamous “Shapes” painting from Parks and Recreation’s “The Camel” signed by Aziz Ansari, Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, Aubrey Plaza, Paul Schneider, Nick Offerman and Chris Pratt.
Aziz Ansari announced via Twitter that he, Amy Poehler, Aubrey Plaza and Nick Offerman will be at Largo this weekend in Los Angeles for a special show with Tig (The Sarah Silverman Program)!
Here’s the basics: What: Tig with the Cast of Parks and Recreation When: Saturday, March 13 @ 9 p.m. Where: Largo at the Coronet Address: 366 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048 Phone: (310) 855-0350 Cost: $25 | Get Tickets
Megan Mullally: Neither of us are paragons of physical perfection. That’s why I pitched that nude-photo idea: It’s as if we were Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but of course we’re not. Nick Offerman: I’m very hairy, and men in film and TV are no longer allowed to be hairy. If you’re going to be topless you have to wax everything. My uncles, who are farmers in Minooka, Illinois—I grew up with them and their pickup trucks and mustaches, and to me that was masculinity: big hairy sweaty guys who could pick up a bus.
Tammy and Ron had one of the best hate-sex scenes in modern history. That throwdown in the restaurant—was that hard to pull off? N.O.: It was really good therapy, because in any relationship you have love times and you have who-didn’t-do-the-dishes times. We’ve worked together before in different ways, but we’ve never had the opportunity to be a team, and in that episode we were like a two-fisted weapon, battering comedy in the audience’s face. M.M.: We basically destroyed the diner. We ran the gamut of wild, crazy, exhibitionist sex acts and screaming at the other patrons, throwing things, berating the manager and … N.O.: We actually tore the table off the wall. M.M.: That was kind of an accident. [Laughs.] When we screech into the motel parking lot, that was the first shot on the first day, six o’clock on Monday morning. We’re in that car and I was like, “I’m going to throw my bra out the window and take my top off as we run in.” I didn’t care. I didn’t know anybody. It’s not my set.
You both got your big TV breaks in your late thirties, though ten years apart. How did you negotiate the disparity between your careers before Nick landed Parks and Recreation? M.M.: We’re very supportive of each other. I don’t know when I’ve been happier than when he got Parks. That was one of the most exciting things that ever happened. N.O.: One great benefit of our relationship is that Megan has gone through everything a couple of chapters ahead of me, so there’s an easy student-master quality to it. When your wife is a legend of comedy, you have to be a huge jackass not to assume the student role.
In a Q&A with Fancast, Nick Offerman discusses his character, Ron, and working with his wife, Megan Mullally, on the show. Also, he reveals some details about tonight’s episode!
What do you like most about Ron?
Oh gosh…. It’s hard to separate what I like most about Ron from what I like most about playing him. But I guess the answer to both of those questions would be his stillness. His stoicism. I love finding humor in silence.
Would you be friends with Ron?
Oh god, no. I mean, I have been friends with and mentored by guys that had his “devil-may-care” attitude concerning their administration, and that part I love and admire about Ron. But I think our worlds would be just too disparate.
What’s your school of thought on your wife resurfacing as Ron’s ex? Does once a season sound like a good balance?
I wouldn’t mind eight times a season. [Laughs] That was the funnest episode of anything I’ve ever gotten to do in my life. To be married to a comedy legend is one thing; to get to do something like that with her was a high point of my whole career. So I hope we see plenty more of Tammy.
Tell me about this week’s episode and the Parks Department’s tour of the Sweetums factory.
I love this episode. It’s a nod to giant food corporations and cornstarch, with a wink to obese bovine America.
Does Sweetums have a Willy Wonka-type figurehead?
There is a great sort of managerial type, somewhere between Willy Wonka and the Wizard of Oz, a man behind the curtain. He’s sort of the snake oil salesman, because Sweetums also has this “apple pie and America”-type family campaign…. It’s a lot of fun.
Ron Swanson is our favorite TV Libertarian. As head of the Pawnee, Indiana, Parks and Recreation Department, he once ironically stated, “My dream is to have the parks system privatized and run entirely for profit by corporations.” He has a knack for spewing the most ridiculous statements with complete conviction — the mark of any good politician. He is so antigovernment that he undermines every effort made by his staff to be productive, and his loathing of the public library system is downright sublime, but completely understandable since it’s run by his evil ex-wife, Tammy. Sure, Leslie (played by “SNL” alum Amy Poehler) is the anchor of “Parks and Recreation,” but Nick Offerman’s Swanson is the wind in its sails. From a raise of an eyebrow or a blank stare at a portrait of a dark-haired woman holding breakfast food (his two favorite things: dark-haired women and breakfast foods), Ron is pure genius. But the best part about him is his alter ego: the smooth jazz-loving, sax-playing lady’s man Duke Silver, who moonlights in order to “make sonic love” to his cougar audience. Guess every politician has a dirty little secret.
OK, hypothetically if you’re going on a mission to, say, catch a guilty whale. And while you were catching the whale, you saw something else that may also be another whale, and you were like, “What?” But then you thought, “Maybe it’s not a whale. Maybe it’s a big fish, maybe it’s a submarine with a face painted on it.” The point is if I kill the first whale, am I technically a murderer?
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