Pedantry, Pedantry, Whimsy, Self-Deprication

What a difference a shift makes.

I’m not really sure how I underwent such an about face in the space of four hours. Actually I am fairly sure, and I am about to provide you with a meandering and long-winded account of the occurrences that led up to my fall from contentment.

I was pleased this morning to receive two items of correspondence that were of worth, rather than the vapid, unwanted spam that usually peppers the entrance portal of my domain. They were both related to money, specifically the aspect of money pertaining to my ownership of some. This is good news, as there is a particularly spiffing hat I wish to make purchase of. According to Mr Bill Gates ‘spiffing’ is not an actual word, and I feel it is my duty to redirect you here in order to substantiate my rather antiquated choice of adjective.

Since now I am, as they say in The Hollywood, in the money, I hastily made purchase of an album I had had my sights on for awhile, No Torso’s Several Brains. I originally picked up a few of their tracks when they allowed them to be downloaded for free on MySpace, back when it wasn’t a grievous faux pas to have such an address in your browser. The tracks were Fight the Blue Horizon and Fatal Fraud, and appear on the album, though Fatal Fraud has undergone radical sonic surgery since I originally heard it. For me Fight the Blue Horizon is by far the best track on the album, though this choice is likely slightly biased, as it is the track I was the most familiar with from beforehand, even serving a brief stint as my ringtone. Not many of the other tracks instantly endear themselves, though they seem considered and nuanced enough to warrant proper and repeated listens, rather than a snap write-off, especially considering I only bought the album today.

On the way into work I listened to the Precious Little Podcast, a spanking new baby making its way into the podcasting world. It features comedian and all-round angry man Michael Legge and also James Hingley, who from what I can glean with my far-from-Holmesian abilities is a good-comedy enthusiast. A trend I’ve noticed in my preferred podcasts of late, notably including The Collings and Herrin Podcast and also The Trap Sodcasts, is the habit of the podcasteers to declare “No one will have made it this far”, suggesting that due to the perceived awfulness of the recording everyone will have stopped listening. This isn’t the case, as at the absolute least, I am still listening. So I would suggest that either this line is dropped or is amended with “except for Adam Gilder, who is such a tenacious listener he will most definitely be listening”. They’ve nothing to lose, as at the point that that is uttered, it’ll only be me listening. I am hoping that it will catch on in a “Who Is John Galt?” style, where people will utter “It’s like speaking to Adam Gilder”.

Actually, thinking about this, I have been found to be ‘Best Listener’ through a consensus of my peers, as proven here:


I am also voted the ‘Best Sense of Humor’, and I am equally pleased and displeased with this vote: pleased to have my good humour acknowledged, displeased to have it misspelled. I’m also uncertain with the ‘Best Sense of Humour’ as this isn’t the same as ‘Funniest’, it seems to suggest that I cannot write a joke, but I can bloody appreciate the fuck out of one. So perhaps the gentlemen of Precious Little will be heartened to know that their podcast was received with enjoyment from this comedy nerd. Like a rabid Gremlin fed after midnight, I eagerly await more. That analogy doesn’t really work as Gremlins aren’t famed for waiting patiently.

I do find it quite sinister that the other aspect that is considered most notable of me is that I am ‘useful’. I am unsure what use these people believe they have for me, and it is almost certain that I will not enjoy their nefarious plans.

Since there were no news stories that sparked my curiosity, I spent roughly three hours reading entries in the Chortle forums, which I wrongly believed would not suffer from the forum-based-idiocy of every other forum. I believe it was Elis James who first alerted me to the process called a ‘Brain-Wrong’, and this extensive reading of forum entries certainly fits this category. Apart from the very occasional sensible and engaging entries (usually from Steve Bennett, Bethany Black, Paul Sinha or Wil Hodgson) there is such a huge mountain of idiocy, all the colours of the cuntbow. Whichever your bigotry of choice, you are provided for. There is a strong counter-current of rational entries fighting the tide, but some people refuse to understand. It was this slew of what I will tentatively call ‘bad vibes’ that put me into such a sour mood, alongside a child of 11 asking me how to spell ‘changer’. Like change, but with an R on the end. How do you spell change? D-E-P-R-E-S-S-I-N-G.

The ignorant forum entries highlighted such a huge difference of world view between myself and the posters, I had to wonder whether it was actually the same world that we inhabit. This topic is dealt far more wonderfully by Daniel Kitson, whose podcasting techniques I cannot fathom but utterly adore. Mr Kitson must be possessed by some strange madness, as he has opted to release some of his old Edinburgh shows for free in podcast form. I’m unsure as to why he opts not to get in touch with gofasterstripe, as this tag team of comedy production and distribution would cap the decade off wonderfully, in my opinion. Regardless, I am overjoyed to partake of these shows for free, and I will be intellectually self-medicating with deconstruction, deconstruction, deconstruction, whimsy and callback in order to cure myself of the forum-induced brain haemorrhage I have suffered. Kitson is the antithesis of internet posters, which makes this blog entry so very bittersweet, as I aim to poorly pay homage to his work, using the medium of idiocy.

Bum.

I Drink Magners

It is interesting, to me, that the Chortle-located shitstorm about the apparent selling out of Mark Watson comes so soon after I awkwardly attempted to express my feeling that it is difficult to compare comedians to each other, since there is no strictly defined idea of what a ‘comedian’ is. My exact words were:

“The problem with these arguments is that there are no clearly defined grounds of what a ‘comedian’ is and does, therefore arguing that one comedian is ‘better’ than another is always going to be a completely subjective process”.

The recent article by David Jesudason offers a very different view of a comedian, claiming that:

“The role of the comedian is to highlight the ills of our society and not be scared to say things that other people are afraid of highlighting.”

The rebuttal I would give to this is already redundant, as it has already been made by Carl Donnelly, who says in his direct reply to David Jesudason:

“The role of a comedian is to make people laugh.”

I think anyone would be hard pressed to argue against that statement, but this simple fact is often overlooked in the light of your personal preference of comedy style. Regardless of what topics, themes or styles are ‘the best’ in comedy, the first port of call is to make it funny, and not, as David Jesudason suggests: ‘to highlight the ills of our society’.

It is quite an odd feeling to be advocating this, as I believe the comedians I favour tend to, in my opinion, ‘highlight the ills of our society’, or moreover to, in some way, examine the human condition. Despite saying this, it is only my own opinion which informs me that this is, in fact, what these particular comedians are doing, and different ears hearing the same material might disagree completely. Despite my enjoyment of what I have heard described as ‘comedy-as-art’, I am also fond of comedy for comedy’s sake, and why not? Laughing is still laughing even if there isn’t a hard-hitting point being made. In terms of actual laughter caused (referred to hereafter as ALC), the most successful radio comedy I have heard is Another Case of Milton Jones, which is a wonderfully crafted jaunt through a ridiculously skewed story, based on the waver thin conceit of a plotline, knitting together a string of garlic puns. No holding a mirror up to society here, just jokes. Which were what I wanted, of course, since I had wilfully tuned in with foreknowledge of Milton Jones’ style.

In a far more recent example, I went to see Chris Corcoran’s Committee Meeting in the Muni just yesterday. The show is a cheeky character double-act, with Corky taking the role of Chairman of a Labour Club, ably helped by veteran caretaker and all-around handyman Rex. This particular outing involved a surprise birthday party for Rex, which led to a “This is Your Life” pastiche charting Rex’s unexpectedly colourful history. The night featured claims that Rex once stood in for a poorly Brian May, wrote health and safety speeches for Martin Luther King (which were overlooked in favour of ad-libbing something about a dream) and also highlighting Rex’s time in the Soviet Union. A little unusual, and far more than a little funny, the life and times of such a traditional ‘no-bother’ aged Welsh caretaker were a joy to experience. Also featuring were the Raymond and Mr Timpkins Revue, who play unbelievably heavily on misheard song lyrics expressed through props, who seemed to do the joke to death, only to have the joke resussitated under the weight of the fact that they dared to stretch the joke that long.

Pointless, and hilarious. Glorious

Further apologies for the poorly written nature of this entry, I was rushing and stressed, I will revisit this eventually as there are interesting points I want to make more clearly.