USC tops UCLA on dramatic shot
He has another strong contender for Derby after Life Is Good romps in San Felipe.
Tahj Eaddy’s threepointer with 1.4 seconds left caps Trojans’ comeback for 64-63 victory.
It was deja wow.
It was March Madness turned miraculous.
It was one shining mirror.
You’re not going to believe this, and, judging from both the joyous howling and stunned silence that shared the Pauley Pavilion court, you’re not alone.
For a second consecutive year, USC beat UCLA with a three-pointer on the final shot in the final seconds on the final Saturday of the regular season by a Trojans player wearing No. 2.
That last paragraph is not a misprint. Not one word of it.
“It is kind of ironic,” Trojans coach Andy Enfield said Saturday after his team’s 64-63 victory. Ironic? Try, insane. After Tahj Eaddy caught the inbounds pass from Ethan Anderson in the corner and flung up a shot while falling on his butt, the rest was reminiscent of last season at Galen Center when Jonah Mathews threw up a desperation heave from the top of the key. Swish. Swish. Game. Game.
“It’s funny for that to happen,” Eaddy said. “It’s funny how things come full circle like that.” Funny? Try, freaky. Eaddy should have been called for traveling moments earlier after sliding across the floor. UCLA was bitten when both Jules
[Plaschke,
Bernard and Jaime Jaquez Jr. missed front-end free throws in the final 44 seconds. Without injured leading scorer Johnny Juzang, the Bruins blew a 13-point lead with a third consecutive late-game collapse, scoring just once in the final five minutes.
And, oh yeah, Anderson threw the ball to Eaddy only when he couldn’t get it to giant Evan Mobley on a planned alley-oop.
“We’re fortunate to have a chance at the end,” Enfield said.
Fortunate? Try, magical. Suddenly a Trojans team that has lost three of its last six games can win its first outright Pac-12 Conference title in 60 years if Oregon loses at Oregon State on Sunday.
And, just as wondrously, the Trojans are looking like a team built for a deep March run.
“We hope so,” Enfield said. “It comes down to how you execute and how you defend.”
It also comes down to how you coach. In Enfield’s eighth season at USC, with this gifted, veteran and now seemingly destined group, his coaching should be under the strongest of microscopes.
He has a losing conference record and has led his Trojans teams to just two NCAA appearances, never advancing past the first weekend. If he can’t show progress now, then when? Judging by the history of at least one recent USC boss,
Enfield must take this mojo and ride it to at least the Sweet 16 or risk losing his job.
Remember Henry Bibby? He also coached eight full seasons. He made three tournament appearances and took a team to the Elite Eight. But four games into his ninth season, he was fired.
This team is not as loaded as Bibby’s elite team of 20 years ago — Sam Clancy, Brian Scalabrine, Desmon Farmer, Jeff Trepagnier — but it is composed of a winning tournament formula.
You need one star and a handful of veteran leaders
who have seemingly been in college forever. The Trojans have precisely that.
The one star, of course, is future top-five NBA draft pick Mobley, who on Saturday blocked three shots and had 11 rebounds.
The veteran leaders are Eaddy, Drew Peterson and Chevez Goodwin, all transfers who on Saturday made big contributions down the stretch.
Peterson made two three-pointers to pull the Trojans closer, the tough Goodwin was all over the floor and even made a late free throw, and then Eaddy won the game.
“You always want someone
on the court that can stabilize things, bring energy, bring confidence without even scoring the ball,” Eaddy said.
The Trojans have those kinds of players. They have that kind of potential. They beat Oregon by 14 points just two weeks ago. They won 13 of 14 games in one stretch this season. They entered Saturday’s game with a 16 NET rating, the highest in the Pac-12.
Believe it, this is a second-weekend team. The question remains, for this particular group, is Enfield a second-weekend coach?
“This team could win some games in the NCAA tournament, but at the same time, we’ve had games this year where we just didn’t make shots and we’ve struggled,” Enfield said. “Nothing is taken for granted. This is a team that plays at a very high level when it plays hard.”
Inspiring them to play hard, that’s his job. Can he do that on a consistent level from now until April? He seemed to succeed with last year’s team, but, after they leaped into the Pac-12 tournament on the back of Mathews, that season abruptly ended with the pandemic.
Will they take advantage of this surreal second buzzer-beater? Now that they have a chance to build upon this second stroke of magic, will they?
“If you would’ve asked us, would you take 21-6, 15-5 in our league, I would have said sign us up now,” Enfield said of his rebuilt team.
But the building is completed. The talent is there. The time is now. And here’s guessing athletic director Mike Bohn, who seems to care more about basketball than many of his predecessors, is watching. Bohn once helped make hoops relevant at football-mad Colorado, and he’s likely to expect the same progress here.
Enfield joked that Saturday’s desperation gamewinning play was called, “Hail Trojan, instead of Hail Mary.”
It was the unlikeliest of moments. Now Andy Enfield needs about three more weeks of them.
David Duke made a tiebreaking tipin with 2.8 seconds left on Saturday and Providence held on after blowing a 20-point lead to beat No. 10 Villanova 54-52.
Jeremiah Robinson-Earl had an open look at a threepointer after a long inbounds pass, but the shot hit the front of the rim, and the buzzer sounded before Jermaine Samuels tipped it in.
Already without point guard Collin Gillespie, who tore his medial collateral ligament on Wednesday, the Big East champion Wildcats lost backup Justin Moore to an ankle injury in the first half.
Duke and Nate Watson scored 20 points apiece, and Noah Horchler had 10 points and 13 rebounds for Providence (13-12, 9-10 Big East). The Friars have won five of their last seven games against ranked teams.
Samuels scored 16 of his 21 points in the second half, making back-to-back layups to start a 14-2 run and adding the last five points of the rally that gave the Wildcats (16-5, 11-4) a 50-49 lead with less than three minutes left.
Robinson-Earl had 11 points and 13 rebounds for the Wildcats.
No. 21 Virginia 68, at Louisville 58: Sam Hauser scored 24 points and Trey Murphy III added 17 as the Cavaliers clinched the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season
Assured of least a No. 2 seed entering the regularseason finale, Virginia (17-6, 13-4) received a huge opening for bigger things when first-place and No. 11 Florida State lost 83-73 earlier in the day at Notre Dame.
Virginia then methodically took care of the Cardinals (13-6, 8-5) to leapfrog the Seminoles despite a blowout loss at Florida State in the season’s lone meeting on Feb. 15.
Hauser finished nine for championship. 14 from the field, making his first four in the second half, and grabbed eight rebounds. Murphy shot seven of 12 and Jay Huff added 10 points.
David Johnson had 14 points and Jae’Lyn Withers 12 for Louisville, which shot 37% and was beaten 32-22 in the paint.
No. 17 Oklahoma State 85, at No. 6 West Virginia 80:
Sophomore Avery Anderson III scored a career-high 31 points to lead the Cowboys over the Mountaineers in their Big 12 regular-season finale.
Oklahoma State (18-7, 11-7) made up for the loss of two starters by finding holes in the defense for easy layups, shooting 58% from the floor and outhustling West Virginia for rebounds.
Oklahoma State was without star freshman Cade Cunningham, who injured his left ankle late in a loss to No. 3 Baylor on Thursday. Isaac Likekele also sat out for the sixth time in seven games with a hand injury.
Freshman Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe added 18 points for Oklahoma State. Kalib Boone added 12 points while his twin brother, Keylan, scored 11.
Taz Sherman led West Virginia (18-8, 11-6) with 20 points. Derek Culver added 14 points, Miles McBride scored 12 and Emmitt Matthews 11.
No. 4 Illinois 73, at No. 7 Ohio State 68: Ayo Dosunmu returned after missing three games because of a concussion and facial injuries to score 19 points as the Illini rallied to get their second straight road win over a top 10 team after routing No. 2 Michigan on Tuesday.
Andre Curbelo also had 19 points as Illinois (20-6, 16-4) won for the 11th time in 12 games and enters next week’s Big Ten tournament with a double-bye.
E.J. Liddell led Ohio State (18-8, 12-8) points, and Duane Washington Jr. and Justice Sueing each had 15.
Morehead State 86, Belmont 71: Johni Broome scored a career-high 27 points on 12-for-19 shooting and grabbed 12 rebounds and the Eagles cruised to a win over the top-seeded Bruins in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament championship game in Evansville, Ind.
Morehead State (23-7) clinched its first berth in the NCAA tournament since 2011 and won its fifth OVC tournament title.
It seems the biggest problem trainer Bob Baffert had during the running of the $300,000 San Felipe Stakes on Saturday was keeping his face covering over his nose.
Once again, the Hall of Fame trainer has a horse who is going to be talked about as one of the favorites to win the Kentucky Derby on May 1.
The race Saturday was more of a lesson on how easily a horse can win. Life Is Good broke sharply out of the gate, took a four-length lead on the backstretch and then cruised home in the 11⁄16-mile race to win by eight lengths. The win earned the 3-year-old colt 50 Kentucky Derby qualifying points, virtually assuring him a spot in the race.
“I felt good at the start, the way he got away well,” Baffert said. “And I was worried down the backstretch at that [fast] fraction (46.83 seconds). But I told [jockey] Mike [Smith] to let him run today. I wanted to clear those lungs out and give him a good race.”
Life Is Good is undefeated in three starts. In his last race, the Sham Stakes, he let a four-length lead evaporate as stablemate Medina Spirit closed the gap to just three-quarters of a length. Baffert’s goal Saturday was to get the horse to relax on the backstretch so he had plenty left at the end, which he certainly did.
Life Is Good was the prohibitive favorite in the sevenhorse race and paid $3.00, $2.20 and $2.10. Medina Spirit was second followed by Dream Shake, Roman Centurian, The Great One, None Above The Law and Governor’s Party.
The horse is owned by China Horse Club and WinStar Farm, two of the connections that guided Justify to a Triple Crown three years ago.
Life Is Good still has
things he needs to learn, according to his jockey, such as keeping his focus on the race.
“We are going to have to work on some quirks,” Smith said. “He starts looking at things because he is out there by himself. When the big screen [videoboard] is lit up, they can see it. In the mornings he goes by the screen like it’s nothing because it’s not on. He was locked in on it down the [stretch] today.”
As his attention was diverted, the colt drifted out to the middle of the track down the stretch.
“He was actually looking at [the board] walking to the
gate,” Smith said. “He kept seeing the horses and I was thinking this son of a gun is going to do it again.”
Even though the race was held without fans, owners and essential personnel were allowed in the facility after a temperature check and the standard COVID questions.
This weekend, they opened up the winner’s circle for the commemorative picture. Track personnel were vigilant in telling people to keep their mask at the proper level.
Baffert’s loose-fitting bandanna-like face covering kept slipping down at almost every stage of the post-race
happenings and he dutifully kept pulling it over his nose only to have it slip again.
“It was nice to see the people, but [Life Is Good] didn’t want to come in the paddock,” Baffert said. “Everyone was there and he stopped. We haven’t had anybody here [so it was different]. I’m going to have to get him some cutouts or something.”
Life Is Good, a $525,000 purchase, was sired by Into Mischief, the same sire as Authentic, last year’s Kentucky Derby winner.
Life Is Good has run the exact same races as Authentic did to this point last year.
It’s going to continue as Baffert plans to keep the horse at Santa Anita for its 11⁄8-mile Derby on April 3.
This is the time where races get progressively longer, ending in 11⁄4 miles at Churchill Downs.
“The 11⁄16 [mile distance] is a good tell-all,” Smith said. “So, once they get that they can get to 11⁄8 miles. I leave it up to Bob, he’s the man that can get the rest of it. He always does.”
As for the horse’s penchant for distraction, Baffert found the positive.
“I’m glad that big screen in Kentucky is on the backside.”
WH E N David Crosby recorded his first solo album, “If I Could Only Remember My Name,” in February 1971, he was, as the title suggests, lost and disoriented. Made while Crosby, then 29, was living on his 59-foot sailboat, the Mayan, north of San Francisco, the album captured the moment Crosby’s monster success and wild-man lifestyle as a member of folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young was upended by a personal tragedy that precipitated his descent into heroin addiction.
Largely panned by critics in its time, the record has taken on a cult status, hailed by younger critics and artists for its spooky, introverted folk-rock atmosphere, spacy improvisations and haunting harmonies by a cast of ’60s luminaries, including Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and members of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.
Crosby’s story — of addiction, prison and recovery, his years-long interpersonal warfare with former bandmates and his arrests for drugs and firearms — is the stuff of legend, but suffice to say the singer-songwriter, now 79, remains feisty and stubbornly countercultural (he smoked pot during this entire interview from his ranch in Santa Ynez). An avid bomb thrower on Twitter, Crosby recently sparked outrage when he called singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers “pathetic” for smashing her guitar during a performance on “Saturday Night Live.”
“A lot of us do weird s— to get attention,” he says. “I get it. Only it’s dumb. She’s dumb to do it.”
Crosby has undergone a creative renaissance in recent years, producing four new albums since 2014, with a fifth, “For Free,” on the way. A candid assessment of his thorny life and times, “David Crosby: Remember My Name,” directed by Cameron Crowe, appeared in 2019. The pandemic, however, has made it impossible for Crosby to support himself with live performance and last month he became the latest legacy artist to sell his recorded music and publishing rights, striking a deal with Irving Azoff ’s Iconic Artists Group for his solo work, as well as his work with the Byrds; Crosby, Stills & Nash; and CSNY.
Iconic will reissue “If I Could Only Remember My Name” later this year.
Describe what your life was like when you started recording this album in 1970.
I was living on my sailboat, in Sausalito, and the significant fact here is that my girlfriend, Christine [Hinton], had just got killed in a car wreck. I did not really have the equipment to deal with that. I had never lost anybody before, and it devastated me. And so I’m in the studio doing [CSNY’s] “Déjà Vu,” and this happens, and I barely make it through that record. And then I didn’t have any place that was safe
for me to be. The only place that I felt like I could handle it was in the studio. I was trying to stay alive. It was that desperate. And there were these people, my friends. Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Jerry Garcia. Good people. At that time, [Graham] Nash too. And they came, Garcia particularly, almost every night, and worked on those songs with me.
Garcia figures prominently on the album.
Jerry Garcia was probably the single largest influence on [“If I Could Only Remember My Name”]. I don’t remember us talking about Christine, or the fact that I was sad or overwhelmed. But I know that he knew. He was sensitive and very intelligent, and he knew what I was going through. He showed up every night because he knew that that was going to save my f— life.
Like a musical therapist.
Yeah, because it was saving me. You know, it’s really strange, I tweeted this just the other day, I’m stunned by how happy [the album] sounds. It’s actually a pretty happysounding record, and I wasn’t. But music and friendship can help you transcend even deep sadness and loss. That album was a lifesaver, and I love it. I love it that Rolling Stone said it was a piece of crap.
Lester Bangs called it “a perfect aural aid to digestion when you’re having guests over for dinner.”
The truth is they just didn’t understand it. They were looking for another record that was full of big, flashy lead guitar and blues licks and screaming lyrics. It was not where everything else was going, so they thought it was irrelevant.
The album has been called “a stoner classic.” What kind of drugs were involved in the making of this album? Do you remember?
Yeah, I remember very well. I was in transition. I was coming from being a pothead for many years. I was in severe emotional distress, and in enormous pain. I had started doing cocaine, and I was doing a fair amount of it. And then I started doing heroin. But that was pretty much after the record got done. Yeah, that record was — the chemistry was still pot.
On paper, the album seems like it could be a big mess, a bunch of stoners noodling, but it’s not that at all. The harmonies are disciplined and tight. Maybe it’s just because everybody involved were such pros …
No, it’s me, man. I’ll take credit for it. The harmony stacks are just me. There’s only a couple of songs where anybody else sings. All those stacks, they’re the Mormon Tabernacle Choir of me. The song at the end, “I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here.” That one is a triumph, man. I made that song in about 15 minutes. I was standing in Wally Heider’s [recording studio], using their beautiful echo chamber, a real live chamber, and I was just fooling with it. There’s six vocals there, and I did them one after another, two minutes each. And it’s probably the best piece of music I ever thought up. I certainly haven’t heard anybody else do anything even vaguely in that area, not one.
You used a similar vocal method on another track, “Tamalpais High (at Around 3).” What is a Tamalpais high?
When you’re going across the Golden Gate Bridge, Tamalpais is that big mountain right in front of you, in the middle of Marin County. And a Tamalpais high is going up on the mountain to look down at Stinson Beach and groove in the afternoon sunset. It’s also ... I shouldn’t tell you this.
Go ahead.
Well, it also refers to Tamalpais High School.
What does that mean? That you were scoping high school girls from the top of the mountain or something?
I don’t think I should tell you! [Laughs] Oh, God. Of all the revealing answers.
Were you hanging out in the high school parking lot?
No, I didn’t exactly sit in the parking lot, but I did rip off one of their young maidens there. A girl that I dated was going to that high school and had just graduated.
Funny, the song doesn’t sound like it’s about dating high school girls.
“Tamalpais High” is more about being high on Mt. Tamalpais than it is the high school. I used to go up there a lot and cry. The place has great significance for me.
In the documentary, you told Cameron Crowe, “There are boundaries I crossed that you haven’t even thought of.”
Well, it was a different time. This was before the advent of AIDS, and after the invention of birth control, so. … If you were adventuresome, there were adventures to be had. And I was adventuresome.
You had written a somewhat controversial song for the Byrds called “Triad,” about a threesome.
It’s not controversial, man. The French have been doing ménage à trois for centuries. It’s just unusual if you’re sexually very square. Lots of times, three people get together in a bed. I certainly wasn’t the only one doing it. It was fun to adventure back then. I continued being an adventurer for a long time but my focus was really on obliterating [myself] with hard drugs. Once I got married to Jan [Dance, in 1987], I never touched another woman, ever, at all.
Everybody assumes these ménages were you and two women. Were there ever men?
Yes.
Anybody we know?
I’m not going to pull off anybody’s covers for you.
This album creates a serene, almost mystical atmosphere but the lyrics to the song “Laughing” are about skepticism of mysticism. You sing, “I thought I met a man / Who said he knew a man / Who knew what was going on,” but then confess, “I was mistaken …”
It’s the George Harrison story. I went to England and in the course of us meeting the Beatles, I became friends with George. He was a very nice cat, very open, a very decent human being. Invited me over to his house for dinner, that kind of thing. Hung out with us. Later on, he tells me that he’s gone to India and met this teacher, this guru. George is smitten by him. I listened to what he was saying and I wanted to say to George, “That’s great, but take it with a grain of salt,” because usually when somebody comes on that strong that they’ve got the answer, it’s bulls—. I wanted to say, “Have some skepticism.” But I was too chicken to do it, because I had too much respect for George. So I wrote him that song. “I thought I met a man who knew a man who knew what was going on.” And I ended it by saying, listen, I don’t think he does know what’s going on. I don’t even know if George ever heard the song.
One of the delights of “Laughing” is hearing Joni Mitchell’s voice so distinctly in the group harmonies.
There’s a lot you guys don’t know about Joni. She’s always competing in a situation like that, and so she’ll find a way to stand out. She did, and it was stunning.
Was Joni somebody you could confide in during your sadness over Christine’s death?
Well, Joni still wanted to be my friend, but she had been my girlfriend. Then I fell for Christine, and Joni was very resentful of that. But same thing that I did to her, Joni did to everybody else. You have to remember, she was working her way through a long list of singer-songwriters. She had a thing: She wanted to score somebody, and she’d score them and then go around in public with them, and then ditch them. That happened over and over again. I don’t think she was happy then, I don’t think she’s happy now. But that’s neither here nor there.
In 1971, all the members of CSNY were making solo albums, including Neil Young’s “Harvest.” Was it competitive between you guys?
There was competition between us all the time, forever. Every minute of every day that we were together. We were always competing with each other, particularly Neil and Stephen, which made for fireworks.
Fifty years later, very few of the people on this album are on speaking terms.
The only one that I’m talking to is Stephen Stills. He and I are still friends. I haven’t spoken to Neil or Nash in a couple of years. Both of them have been most unkind to me, so I have no urge to.
What about Joni?
I had dinner with Joni at her place a couple months back, and it was wonderful and distressing. It was wonderful to reconnect and say hi, and I love her. I will always love her for her work. She’s the best singer-songwriter of her time. She’s as good a poet as Bob [Dylan], and she’s 10 times the musician Bob is. It was distressing to see her in the state that she is in now. She has trouble walking. And she’s having to relearn how to do stuff, physically. I don’t think that she will ever regain the manual dexterity to be able to play guitar or piano. She is trying to recover her skills as a painter, and she’s as good a painter as she is a guitar player.
Meanwhile, the reading public wants to know what your beef is with Phoebe Bridgers smashing her guitar on “Saturday Night Live.”
I don’t even know who Phoebe Bridgers is. She went to school with my granddaughter. I’ve never listened to her music. I wasn’t passing judgment on her at all. What I was objecting to is dramatics onstage. It bothered me when the Who did it. It bothered me when Hendrix lit his guitar on fire. It bothered me when Ozzy bit the head off of a bat. It’s showmanship at a very dumb level. Smashing your guitar has nothing to do with music. It’s childish. They said to me, “You’re saying that because she’s a girl.” Bulls—. I produced Joni Mitchell. Screw you. I treasured good girl songwriters.
The last time I inter viewed you, I praised “If I Could Only Remember My Name” and you replied, “My next album’s going to be better.”
I frankly think these records that I’m doing now, they’re as good as “If I Could Only Remember My Name.” They are at that level of songwriting and expertise. As I said, the four of us [in CSNY] were always competing. Well, we still are. And I think I’m winning.
Hagan is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair and the author of “Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine.”
FO R Nahnatchka Khan, the showrunner of “Young Rock,” few television programs of her youth evoke the visceral feeling that wrestling does. Sure, the times her dad stirred her awake to watch classic films like “Ben Hur,” “Guys and Dolls” and “Casablanca” set the foundation for how she thought about storytelling and character building. But more memorable were the moments she would gather with her extended family, many of whom didn’t speak English, to get lost in the rowdy world of professional wrestling — swept up in the theatrics of characters like Roddy Piper, Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan and the Iron Sheik.
“It’s not like we could sit around and watch like ‘Laverne & Shirley’ together, because they couldn’t understand what’s up,” Khan says. “But we could all watch wrestling together because there is a spectacle there that they understood. They understood the storytelling. It’s transcendent, in a way. That shared experience, to me, is what makes me so nostalgic when I look back on that time, in that era.”
She’s looked back at that era a lot with her latest project, “Young Rock.” Inspired by the life of professional wrestlerturned-mega Hollywood star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the NBC sitcom, which Khan created with Jeff Chiang, dramatizes Johnson’s journey over four formative periods in his life — from his boyhood years marveling at his dad, a WWF star, to an imagined future presidential run. (Khan isn’t the only family member whose childhood interest in pro wrestling has become part of her career: Her brother Nick, a former CAA agent, is now the president of WWE.)
Khan got her start in Hollywood writing for children’s television on ABC’s Saturday morning series, “Pepper Ann.” She steadily built her TV résumé from there, working on shows such as “Malcolm in the Middle,” “Good Morning, Miami” and “American Dad” before helming her own creations. Her first was ABC’s short-lived “Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23” followed by the groundbreaking family sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat,” which concluded last year with its sixth season.
Video-calling recently from her office in Hollywood, Khan talked about shooting in another country during a pandemic, her biggest regret from her days running “Don’t Trust the B—,” and what it’s like getting frequent voice memos from the Rock. The following conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
‘I’M LIKE, “OH, VOICE MEMO FROM DWAYNE’ ’
> With a sitcom featuring Johnson at various pivotal stages in his life, authenticity is key. And Johnson, who has no shortage of projects on his plate, has not been stingy with his time.
“His medium [for giving notes], which I have never encountered before, is audio notes. He’ll give voice memos with his thoughts, a pitch or just like talking about stuff or whatever. I’ve never had that. He’s the first person to do it. I love it from him. I always get excited. I’m like, ‘Oh, voice memo from Dwayne.’ He gave notes on scripts, gave notes on stories, on rewrites, he gives notes on cuts — he’s very much involved. And sometimes we’ll just talk through some stuff if we have a couple of questions. I like to just check in with him anyway, so we have general check-ins. He’s so incredibly busy, even in pandemic times. He’s obviously one of the most famous people on the planet, one of the most industrious, so it’s great to have him be so focused on this.”
THE PROBLEM WITH VIRTUAL WRITERS ROOMS
> The writers room for “Young Rock” opened a few weeks before restrictions in the U.S. shut down many film and TV productions. Then the staff transitioned to a virtual writers room.
“When you come on to a Zoom, it’s like, ‘OK, let’s talk.’ It feels so streamlined. But sometimes the creative process isn’t about that. It’s about getting coffee in the morning and chatting. And then walking to go get lunch or whatever — it’s those little moments in between that really sometimes unlocks things for you, even just casually. You get an idea. A virtual writers room, even if there’s eight people in there, there’s no side conversations, because you can only hear one part. The energy is different. So I miss that. Like, the whole room doesn’t need to hear this little conversation we’re having, but I want to be like, ‘Oh, my God, did you see the ‘Framing Britney [Spears]’ [documentary]?’ It’s doable, it’s possible to run a writers room that way, it’s just different. There’s an element that’s missing. And I really cherish that element. Some people were like, ‘Maybe it’s gonna be virtual rooms for forever.’ Maybe, but we’d really be missing out on a lot.”
MAKING PRODUCTION ADJUSTMENTS DOWN UNDER
> Because of U.S. restrictions, “Young Rock” headed to Australia
last fall to begin production. The sitcom’s set was at Screen Queensland Studios, but the comedy also shot on location in and around Brisbane and South East Queensland.
“The COVID-19 protocols were obviously something that none of us had ever gone through, so we were sort of finding our way through that. Things you don’t even think about — like going out scouting and the scout van, normally there’s one big bus or whatever and everybody goes, but now you’ve got to only have a limited amount of people. So it was sort of just understanding that and then once you embrace that, it becomes almost like second nature and then you can kind of refocus a little bit on the creative, which is what you want to do, right?
‘HOW MUCH VOMIT — IS IT HITTING THE GROUND?’
> “Don’t Trust the B— in Apt. 23,” the misfit comedy starring
Krysten Ritter as Chloe, a scammer roommate in New York, was the first series Khan created. Originally developed for Fox, it ultimately moved to ABC where it fizzled after two seasons in part because of a confusing release strategy. Beyond the controversy spurred by its title, staying true to the series’ eponymous b— often proved to be a challenge on network TV.
“I think it was probably an ongoing battle. Everybody was very supportive at ABC at the time of this show, but it is still a network show. So there was [the] broadcast standards thing that we were always coming up against. And we were the latest slot of the comedy block — we were a 9:30 show — but even with that, people were nervous. It’s ABC, which was not known at the time for pushing the boundaries.
In the pilot, I remember we had a big back-and-forth about Chloe getting a kid drunk in order to get some information out of him. I don’t even know how many rounds of edits and re-edits we did. Ultimately, we landed on, he can’t drink on camera, but there could be empty bottles around. And then I think, like, the blow was that he could throw up, but you couldn’t show that. We were going back and forth on what that sound effect was going to be and details of how much vomit — is it hitting the ground? It has to be just an audio joke. I’m sure if I went back through every episode, there’d be a story.
‘JUST LET THE SHOW BE WHAT IT IS’
> It’s not unusual for sitcoms to have episodes air out of order during their broadcast run — a network decision that is made for a variety of reasons even though it can be narratively confusing for viewers and creatively discouraging for the show’s writers. “Don’t Trust the B—” experienced such a rejiggering during its original run on ABC, which frustrated Khan. (The series can now be streamed on Netf lix in its intended order.)
“If I could have a do-over, that would be one of the things that I would fight harder for: to air the episodes in the order that they were intended to be seen. Because whenever that decision came, I lost that fight when they started to play with the air order. And after we had this sort of arc with James [Van Der Beek] on ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ There was a whole thing that we were trying to do. So when we talk about lessons that you take forward into the next job, I took that into ‘Fresh Off the Boat.’ I remember early on, I heard some rumblings of like starting to switch around episode order and right away I was like, “No, absolutely not.” The show’s either going to work or it’s not going to work but moving up and moving down — you’re just shuff ling the deck. Just let the show be what it is.”
‘IT’S NOT A FIEFDOM’
> After years of putting her narrative skills on the page, Khan made her directorial debut on Season 2 of “Don’t Trust the B—.” She’d go on to direct two episodes of “Fresh Off the Boat” before making her feature directorial debut with Netf lix’s “Always Be My Maybe.” With “Young Rock,” which navigates four timelines, it was important to Khan that she direct the pilot to set the tone she envisioned for the sprawling series.
“It wasn’t one of those secret things that I always wanted to do. But I think being a showrunner in television is very similar to being a director in features — a lot of those skill sets crossed over. Because really, it’s about world-building. Whether it’s six seasons or two seasons or an hour and a half, you’re trying to introduce people into this world, to these characters and have them invest in the story and care. So for me, and for all my collaborators, it’s always about that and allowing other people to contribute. It’s not a fiefdom. You hire talented people, let them bring their talent, let them contribute. And as the director, as the showrunner, your job is to not allow the boat to tip over, to know where you’re going, keep that tone steady. And allow other people to bring what they do best.”