The basis for the HBO® Original Series starring Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore), Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover), and Ted Danson, Bored to Death is a Raymond Chandleresque tale of a struggling Brooklyn writer—curiously named Jonathan Ames—who, in a moment of odd whimsy and boredom, becomes a private detective after spontaneously posting an ad on craigslist. As a rank amateur who just thinks he can help, this Ames alter ego quickly becomes embroiled in the search for a missing NYU coed. He moves from one scrape to the next, all while trying to escape a life of periodic alcoholism, dead-end relationships, writer’s block, and hours of Internet backgammon. Bored to Death was originally published in McSweeney’s Issue 24 and is the centerpiece of Ames’s collection of essays and fiction, The Double Life Is Twice as Good. Bored to Death Artwork © 2009 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved. HBO® and related channels and service marks are the property of Home Box Office, Inc.
Author
Jonathan Ames is the author of the books The Double Life is Twice As Good, I Pass Like Night, The Extra Man, What's Not to Love?, My Less Than Secret Life, Wake Up, Sir!, I Love You More Than You Know, and The Alcoholic (a graphic novel illustrated by Dean Haspiel). He is the editor of Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs. He is the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a former columnist for New York Press. Wake Up, Sir! and The Extra Man are in development as films, with Mr. Ames having written the screenplays. He adapted What's Not to Love? as a TV special for the Showtime network and he played himself. At the time, he said, "It's the role I've been waiting for!" The special aired in December 2007 and January 2008. Mr. Ames has also written a TV pilot for the HBO network, Bored to Death, and this will be filmed in the fall of 2008. The pilot will star Jason Schwartzman as "Jonathan Ames". Bored to Death was originally a short story by Mr. Ames which was published in McSweeney's #24 (fall 2007). In addition to writing, Jonathan Ames performs frequently as a storyteller (often with The Moth) and has been a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman. He has had two amateur boxing matches, fighting as "The Herring Wonder," and he had a one-man show off-off-Broadway, entitled Oedipussy. Mr. Ames had the lead role in the IFC film The Girl Under the Waves and was a porn-extra in the porn film C-Men.
