Portlandia/Vedder Details

The Seattle Times has a brief synopsis of the January 13th episode of Portlandia in which Eddie Vedder will be guest starring.  Highlight to read.

As Laurelhurst's regular denizens amble by, "Portlandia" star Carrie Brownstein sits on a blanket, having a picnic with guest star Scott Green. In the sketch, the two are dating, but Green has a tattoo that Brownstein just can't abide: a cartoonish image of Vedder, Pearl Jam's frontman.


"Portlandia" co-creator Fred Armisen, standing near a playback monitor as the scene unfolds, recalls, "We had a brainstorming session and Carrie came up with this idea. Sometimes tattoos are poorly done or the subject matter calls into question a lot of stuff. You like the person, but all of a sudden, their tattoo makes you say, 'Wait, what's that about?' "


After the picnic scene but before moving on to a bike-riding sequence, Brownstein explains her inspiration for the sketch.


"It's a conversation people have all the time about arbitrary deal-breakers that are actually quite significant in determining if you could actually like someone or imagine a life with someone," she says. "There's something so permanent about a tattoo, and I think specifically with music, Fred and I are such music snobs, we are constantly shocked by the lack of depth of people's knowledge. We're both Pearl Jam fans, but the idea somebody would have a bad tattoo of a cool band is just kind of amazing and shocking."