For better or worse,many of us have got our favorite Dharma books and trinkets. Well, I've got a new one: the new, four-disc DVD-set, Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show.
If you're surprised that some DVDs could become so instantly near and dear as, say, an inscribed book from a teacher or the Manjushri statue that a dear friend gave me (and which is watching me from its perch next to my monitor), that makes two of us. But hear me out.
For those who don't know: The Larry Sanders Show was one of the funniest, smartest shows ever on TV, period. (You only have to Google to see how widely-shared that opinion is.) The brainchild of the genius comedian Garry Shandling, Larry was a send-up of late-night TV, tracking the life and death of a Tonight-style show and its host, the neurotic but loveable -- and very funny -- Larry Sanders. But Larry and his staff of competitive LA producers, handlers, and lackeys were, above all, human. All that neurosis and competition make for some cringe-worthy comedy, sure. But there's a lot of innocence to it all somehow. And once you've finished watching the final episode (the last of 23 included in the set) you just might be a little choked up. These fictional -- and, again, very funny -- people are somehow very real.
That's by design. Authenticity -- being true to the way people actually think, act, and treat each other -- plays a major role in the show. "It's like taking a Buddhist temple bell," Shandling says, "an authentic, two-thousand year old Buddhist temple bell, and ringing it and going, 'Can you tell me why that rings so purely?' [It's] because it's the real thing."
A scene from the "Mr. Sharon Stone" episode. "All these people in show business are human beings," Shandling says.
Shandling, it turns out, is all about The Real Thing. The comedian started the show to, in his words, "discover more, Who am I?" (Director Todd Holland backs this up, saying that "Garry's obsession is to truly expose the truth about himself.")
All of this is in line with what might be a surprising element of Shandling's psychological makeup. He's not just some whiny comedian. He's a searcher, on a journey to find The Real Thing, and the Real Garry Shandling, in what might seem one of the most unlikely places -- Hollywood. He's a Worst Horse.
It's in the DVD's extras that you'll find the most enlightening moments about the key player on both sides of the camera: in candid visits with his guest-star friends, Shandling reveals an appealingly meditative side. A longtime mindfulness practitioner in Thich Nhat Hanh's tradition, the comedian used these get-togethers not just to catch up with the people he loves, but to make that love plain.
He's humble when it comes to talking about his practice -- it's not "Hey, look at me." It's "Hey, can you help me look at myself?" On Disc One, in talking to former flame Sharon Stone, he offers that he's keeping up his practice, just before telling her how important she remains to him. On Disc Four, he shows his friend and neighbor Tom Petty his previously private Dharma-tattoo, an enso (or "Zen circle") inked onto the back of the comedian's neck to remind him of his work towards, as he says, "ego-emptiness." And while Shandling laments the camera's presence at least a couple of times, it's also clear that he's trying to be open, to be willing to say and hear things about himself -- no matter how intimate. By most accounts, including his own, this is new. His practice is becoming truly integrated with his life.
There are a couple more outward indicators of the Dharma's influence in Shandling's life strewn throughout the discs. For example, in a reunion in his real-life living room with the show's two comedic iron-men -- Rip Torn, who played Arthur, Larry's producer and protector; and Jeffrey Tambor, who, as Sanders's on-screen sidekick Hank Kingsley, brought the nonsensical catchphrase "Hey now!" into the pop-culture vernacular -- we catch a glimpse of Buddhist prayer flags. But it's in the reflective words of the cast and crew that we get a more concrete sense of how Garry's drive to get at The Real Thing informs not only his life, but those around them. Tambor, for example, captures this in describing how he was able to make his performance as Hank ring true, no matter how outrageous the scene. When he reveals that "the secret to everything [is,] don't think," it's not a big leap to infer that he's probably learned how to do this from his friend Garry.
The DVD's capping phrase comes in its final extra, a short visit with the monk Hann Nguyen, titled "The Journey Continues." "The true [only] enemy," as Nguyen tells Garry, "is ignorance." Then, the screen quickly fades to black. It's hardly the "last word" that you might expect from a retrospective of one of TV's most notoriously snarky comedies.
But then, as Garry Shandling clearly knows: if you've got a sense of humor, you can find Dharma just about anywhere.
-Rod Meade Sperry, editor of the Horse.
A NOTE: Many Sanders purists are decrying the release of Not Just the Best of The Larry Sanders Show, as it is, of course, incomplete: there are only three episodes each from Seasons 1 and 2, four episodes from Season 3, two from Season 4, four from Season 5, and seven from Season 6. This is reportedly due to reluctance to release complete sets of each of the seasons, based on a fear that they won't sell enough to justify their manufacture.
Hopefully that fear will prove unnecessary, but unless and until it does, NJtBotLSS is your best bet for seeing many of these shows. And the extras also include deleted scenes and a full-length "Making of" documentary that's too good to miss. Just another good reason not to be too much of a purist!
RESOURCES The Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show website
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