High Maintenance - Very good web-series. Discuss.

on the contrary, i think he is supposed to be an ubermensch

fav scene of the first ep was the ghost dancing over the credits

xp ooh I like that better

Is chad supposed to be David Eggers?

on the contrary, i think he is supposed to be an ubermensch

― gr8080, Monday, September 19, 2016 6:19 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol explain please

the sex scene was a little ... gratuitous but lol i guess this is on hbo now

i liked how all over the place this ep. seemed

the new ones were just ok. i don't like how the Guy has a bigger role now

or, in other words, sometimes his appearances in the episode felt shoehorned in. like they were contractually obligated to have 10 minutes of the Guy in each episode

lol the only reason i latched on to the ubermench idea was because of the "UberMan" theme that ran through the Qasim episode (to sublime effect). beyond an absence of divinity and a focus on worldliness, i dont think there's much nietzsche in HM/The Guy at all (fwiw i only have a rudimentary understanding of nietzsche)

anyway, my half-baked theory:

HM works because its a show about weed that avoids stoner comedy and instead finds humor in the trials of nyc/urban/modern life etc that make people want to get fucking high. making the main character someone who's services need to be rendered in the privacy of ones home is a great device to get inside the personal lives of a diverse population and explore the ways that stress plays out. one of the main statements i see HM making is that the bullshit the world throws at us is often enough to make us act and treat each other (and ourselves) terribly. The Guy serves as an ideal yet fallible example of rising above and treating your fellow man (and yourself) with kindness, compassion, and honesty.

sometimes this manifests as The Guy being a sort of off-kilter guardian angel like getting a man in diabetic shock home safe, talking with a guy who hates his job about a career change, or setting up two lonely souls on a date. sometimes its doing the right thing when no one is looking, like offering encouragement to a vulnerable and intoxicated woman where other characters may have made a pass at her. in "rachel" he's just the right person to tell a man he looks great in drag. in "Esme" there's a moment during the confrontation with Orly where the aussie woman yells something like "nobody likes you!" and The Guy gives her a chiding "HEY", coming to the defense of even his enemy in the face of unnecessary cruelty. when questioned about his own dishonesty, he doesn't hedge at all and comes clean that he only wears a wedding band so that people will feel he's trustworthy. he's not a spineless pushover either - when he's wronged or cheated, he'll stand up for himself.

all of these examples are admittedly subtle- maybe just the easygoing nature of a carefree stoner instead of any sort of grand statement. but if you stand him up next to a self-obsessed jock devoted to a intergalactic alien angel, i think there are enough hints that The Guy is meant to be our UberMan.

nice

thank you grady, v good post

I'm not sure the ubermensch necessarily would spend most of his time affecting the self-realization and self-actualization of others but I like it

mb he's more like the o.g. emersonian oversoul which nietzsche was clearly into. top post

surely occupies space between living and dead if he's fighting bike ghosts.

I thought this was great and i'm super happy to see new eps.

The pun about personality in the title is obvious isn't it? Or is that a term that's gone out of use?
Is there another pun there than personality /drugs?

Just watched 1st 4 or 5, thought they were good. Got everything up to the pay to view as well as the 1st full length. Will look forward to the rest.

Haven't been able to see the new ones on HBO, but isn't he more of a bodhisattva figure than ubermensch?

Dealer has the ability to as well as job of maintaining the high of a bunch of people who at at least one point would be called high maintenance.
Wonder if the concept came to the writer on hearing somebody described by the term?
Like, how does a high maintenance maintain their high?

their website url is (used to be?) maintaining your high dot com

http://www.helpingyoumaintain.com

oh yeah duh

are the old episodes available on hbo? i don't see them there

they appear as a separate show called "high maintenance web series"

really like the bodhisattva parallel, and as i said i only tossed off the ubermensch comparison as a response to mh's "the guy is God" post & because of the Qasim episode where the UberMan idea is introduced (as a man so lost in devotion to his body & an absurd deity that he can't relate to his fellow man)

it's an idealized humanist character with no link to divinity, but other than that i only really mean uber man in the literal sense and not a Nietzschean sense

i like the bodhisattva angle a lot

hope chauncey appears again

yeah i have a hunch the 2 method actors will be appearing on chad's stage by the end of this season

the new ones were just ok. i don't like how the Guy has a bigger role now

― 龜, Tuesday, September 20, 2016 5:21 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or, in other words, sometimes his appearances in the episode felt shoehorned in. like they were contractually obligated to have 10 minutes of the Guy in each episode

― 龜, Tuesday, September 20, 2016 5:21 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea i think something that i missed from this episode was the little snippets of other characters you would get in older episodes when the guy would visit other customers or run into friends, e.g. the gay asian guy talking about filming a protest scene, the parents w/ the young toddler kid, the hardcore stoner dudes w/ the burned hand. the guy has importance when he's w/ other people and not necessarily in/of himself imo

I saw HBO Ep1, I liked it, the assholes still make me cringe and the show feels a) terrible for beginners who don't know the web series b) not really sure of what to do with itself for a full half-hour. If they're going to do what they're doing w/ Ep1, this is not going to be a good half-hour show.

Like would it be nuts to just have each half-hour episode just be a series of shorter little vignettes that are maybe or maybe not connected?

having actual time constraints is tricky when the prior stuff just ran as long as was comfortable and now it's a matter of shoehorning in the right amount of content to fit the format

this was actually two episodes, right?

yeah it was basically two episodes w/o a title card to separate them

Like would it be nuts to just have each half-hour episode just be a series of shorter little vignettes that are maybe or maybe not connected?

― laraaji p. henson (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, September 22, 2016 11:05 AM (five minutes ago) Bookmark

animaniacs did this pretty well

they appear as a separate show called "high maintenance web series"

― gr8080, Thursday, September 22, 2016 9:53 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ah ok but they don't appear to be free huh

free if you have hbo go / cable package

so no, not free.

excellent mutli-part The Room reference in the episode

in the new episode, i meant.

"you're my favorite customer", etc

free if you have hbo go / cable package

― thrusted pelvis-first back (ulysses), Thursday, September 22, 2016 12:40 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so no, not free.

― thrusted pelvis-first back (ulysses), Thursday, September 22, 2016 12:40 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh that's a bummer

Haven't been able to see the new ones on HBO, but isn't he more of a bodhisattva figure than ubermensch?

― Half-baked profundities. Self-referential smirkiness (Bob Six), Thursday, September 22, 2016 8:22 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark

more liek bodhisativa am i right

budhisativa

2nd ep worked better imo

a sign of great art imo

^^^

no one told me there were little interview intros!
at the point I wonder if I wish they were optional they end so they are great

really loved the subtle contrast of The Guy following the rules and the swingers breaking the rules

this episode was better than last week's imo

ehh

i didn't like how the second ep played a 'lol uptight immigrants' joke

idk I come from an immigrant family and I thought it was fine