The Guff of Vapidity

Today, I was almost killed by Richard Herring.

I was at the wheel of a moving automobile when through the mesh of my speakers came an unexpected reference to Quantum Leap. I can’t really explain why I found this quite as funny as I did, but the force and depth of the laugh this joke drew from me turned my arms to lead and blurred my vision. Luckily the route I take in to work is so familiar unto me that I am able to take it masterfully even in my comedy-weakened state.

AIOTM is a strange beast, and I am particularly drawn to the occasional awkward pause. A notable pause in the most recent release, number 7 I believe, came after a joke where AIOTM was described as “the longest suicide note ever”, lending the comment a, hopefully accidental, feel of hopelessness and desperation. Which amused me greatly.

I’m dragging this out as I have nothing in particular to discuss, as my creative attention is still very much taken up by the radio. A cycle of preparing-performing-editing has begun, and as of today I have finished editing last weekend’s shows, meaning it is already time to be looking toward next weekend. I figure this cycle of single-minded creativity probably isn’t wholly healthy, but there we are. I am still pleased with the state of affairs, satisfied with a consistent goal of my own choosing. And also there are much laugh to be had, which is always a good thing, no?

I am purposefully attempting to be needlessly flowery and purple in order to flesh out this entry, which is essentially vapid guff, which I feel I should probably apologise for, but at the same time I am simply gushing this out stream of consciousness in order to pass some time, and distract myself from everything banal and mundane that pesters and whinges for my attention. Ironically, an attempt to escape from banality has merely produced this piece of extended banal bumph. What I have discovered is that, in the wrong hands, irony is unamusing.

I have spent this week so far editing the radio show, branching out musically and listening to mellow Malian Salif Keita, as well as reading The Importance of Being Earnest. Pro-active creativity, world music and Oscar Wilde, I am incredibly cultured now and I would like a badge to prove it please.

The Observer music countdown where I first heard of Salif Keita, whose album Moffou was judged to be the 8th greatest album of the decade, has since let me down, as I have now discovered they believe the 7th greatest album to be The White Stripes’ Elephant. This, coincidentally, is the only White Stripes album I own, having bought it using gift vouchers I won for something or other, probably attendance (good), while still in school. It is one of my least favourite albums, one of the few that I own that I genuinely dislike. It has a place alongside Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers EP (a gift from a friend) and Good Charlotte’s The Young and The Hopeless (to my embarrassment, I must admit that I purchased that of my own free will, with quite a lot of excitement if I remember correctly) in my ‘Albums I am embarrassed to own’ category. I also have Madonna’s Beautiful Stranger and the New Radicals’ You Only Get What You Give, but they are singles and don’t count (and they are also good).

I know this as I recently trawled my album collection in order to harvest tracks to play on the radio. The only track that made it onto my playlists from an embarrassing album was an Avril Lavigne track titled Naked, which is only on there so that I can follow it with the weak one-liner “That was Avril Lavigne naked”.

I am such a genius, I despair of myself.