It's been about two months since the last video, so I thought I'd share my newest one here aswell.
Showing posts with label comedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comedy. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
6 Nations 2011: Wales Match 1
I'm not really into rugby, but I suggested we make videos about it because a lot of people are, and at this point I am all for cynically jumping on bandwagons to score some dirty views. This is what happens when we make videos outside our understanding.
Wales Shark 003
In it I discuss the phrase 'There's No 'I' in Team'.
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
My Sketchy Bank Holiyesterday
Since yesterday was a day where the banks were on holiday (hence; Bank Holiday = ETYMOLOGYTASTIC!?) both myself and my ACREmpatriots spent the day playing with creative equipment, attempting to bash out some more sketches to showcase on our youtube channel.
Sometimes our slapdash, last-minute approach to sketch writing makes me slightly nervous as to whether or not certain ideas will be funny or not. These nerves are further compounded by the knowledge that if we got a sketch filmed, we would definitely put it out regardless. I think I should've learned to have faith in our funny bones by now.
I was ill in the run up to the filming day, so I wasn't bringing any ideas to the meeting, but luckily my dearth of new ideas didn't spread to my ACREolleagues, who both brought funny nuggets that we spent the day nurturing.
The first idea we worked on, Sampson's, was a parody of old instructional videos. Sampson turned up in combat slacks, so the idea was to have a video helping a soldier reintegrate into society. This sketch will probably seem the most polished by the time we're done with it, because so much of it is done in the editing, specifically a patronising voice over and sound effects (cheesy ones). We observed that the extent to which the video was defined by props that came to hand was ridiculous, but delightful. The various 'steps' of how to reintegrate were almost completely informed by various items we found around the house we were filming in. Hopefully this won't come across as slapdash in the finished sketch, it is, however, meant to seem random. We were quite pleased with the flexibility of the way we film, and how we can adapt the sketch to implement these silly props, but in the end it all depends on how funny it looks. We edited the majority of it together, and we were still giggling by the end, so I suppose that augers well. The voiceover is still to do, and we're planning to release it tomorrow, the same time as the podcast. Fingers crossed.
The second idea was to do another mock-news report using my Benjamin Bold character, which I was quite pleased with. I am glad that we are happy and confident in suggesting that we integrate other members' characters into new ideas. The actual topic of the mock-report, however, would require filming in a variety of locations, and as daylight would likely abandon us mid-filming, we decided to put the sketch on the backburner, until we can plan it properly and dedicate an entire day to the filming. I doubt I'll wear the toothbrush moustache for Bold this time around, perhaps I will research other fascistic facial hair and have it on a rota-system for him.
So in the end we decided to film the third idea instead, which was a much simpler, straight sketch proposed by Dafydd. Writing and practising the sketch, which was just a conversation between the three of us, was reminiscent of the first time Sampson and I decided on the topics of our first material. Hard to believe that was over a year ago now, but it was heartening to realise that we are still committed and on the same path, knowing that the decision to get creative wasn't a flash-in-the-pan fad.
The three of us had a meal in The Billygoat's Gruff (pub anonymised) and workshopped turns of phrase for the sketch ad nauseam, until we had a huge list which we cherry-picked from. The assumption there is that we actually came up with some cherries, which, of course, you'll have to be the judge of. I had one single pint of cider with my meal, and devolved into something of a mess, which, as a young male, is something of an embarrasment. It would be very cheap for me if I become an alcoholic. We commandeered the function room upstairs, since Dafydd is an Ogreman at the Billygoat's Gruff (this changing the pub name lark is probably confusing) and so we had the run of the empty room. I had expected the room to be akin to the dingy pits which pass for function rooms in these parts, and so I was very pleasantly surprised. It was genuinely classy up there, which will hopefully add to the sketch, although when I took a preliminary glance at the footage it looked quite dark, so it may end up seeming quite moody and gritty, which will contrast (hopefully comedically) with the actual sketch.
The last sketch was the hardest to film, because it was quite late by this point, and we were all flagging slightly. Not wanting to name any names but Luke Samspon specifically proved a handful, with me and Dafydd having to coax him into action like children poking a spiderweb with a stick in order to rouse the spider. Luckily we all kicked into action eventually, though that episode may prove to be the point where the historians look back and nod sagely and declare that it was all a tragic inevitability.
If our comedy endeavors ever bear fruit commercially, I can envision a time when we will have to struggle with the rampant diva side of Sampson's personality. It'll get us some publicity I suppose.
I don't think I've played it up enough to be really ridiculous here, so the accusation that Sampson is a diva may sound like a real criticism. It isn't meant to be.
The funniest moments of the recording process, for us, often come when we mess up, which is why we put a blooper after every sketch. Quite innocuous things can seem substantially funnier because of the strained and contrived situation that filming/acting is. Because we are so aware of what is meant to happen and what is meant to be said, any deviation from this can be stupidly funny.
It takes us ages to film stuff, far longer than it probably should, because of how dedicated we are to trying to make each other laugh, rather than sacrificing the laugh in the moment to make sure the sketch gets filmed and is funny. It's a similar thing in the radio, when I would sneak hidden abusive messages to Dafydd in the playlist information to throw him off his game when introducing songs. When we were filming the conversational sketch in the function room, Sampson brought us out of our slump and injected energy into the proceedings using two novel methods which I will now outline.
In the first instance, he picked up a number of bar mats before flinging them individually, Gambit-style, across the room at his camera, each time repeating "Muh-fucka". Apparently, this was an impression of Ike Turner.
The second method was to give us a quick run-through of his 'Hitler's Mother Sketch', in which Hitler's mother is characterised as a loud, shrill, stereotypical New Yorker Jewish woman, which is both reductive, xenophobic and mesmerising in equal measure. It is impossible to not get swept up in the passion of the performance, in which Hitler's Mother offers him advice as though shouting up the stairs to her reclusive son, advice such as; "You've got to get ayngree Aydolf, they won't listen to ya if you're not ayngree".
I'm not sure yet which of those will appear at the end of the sketch, 'Hitler's Mother' is hilarious, but possibly offensive. I am uncertain how easily misconstrued that performance would be. We'll see how it looks in the recording.
In other 'me-being-involved-in-comedy-on-youtube' news, the video roundup on the Welsh Unsinged Standup Act (WUSA) Competition from my heat is up now, with me alphabetically placed at the beginning of the video, which is handy for people who want to see me in it (which is everyone, I am the king). My set was edited so that the very beginning and the very end appear on the video, which is interesting because it's a mix of my oldest jokes and brand new stuff I'd only tried that night, and the rude bits from the middle are gone, which means I can show it to my mother. Which is nice.
That video can be found here.
We should be releasing a new podcast and the sketch tomorrow, in which case I will be plugging away to my gut's distress, so keep your bananas peeled for that.
I hope you have a pleasant evening.
@adamgilder
acrecomedy@googlemail.com
www.theacre.net
Sometimes our slapdash, last-minute approach to sketch writing makes me slightly nervous as to whether or not certain ideas will be funny or not. These nerves are further compounded by the knowledge that if we got a sketch filmed, we would definitely put it out regardless. I think I should've learned to have faith in our funny bones by now.
I was ill in the run up to the filming day, so I wasn't bringing any ideas to the meeting, but luckily my dearth of new ideas didn't spread to my ACREolleagues, who both brought funny nuggets that we spent the day nurturing.
The first idea we worked on, Sampson's, was a parody of old instructional videos. Sampson turned up in combat slacks, so the idea was to have a video helping a soldier reintegrate into society. This sketch will probably seem the most polished by the time we're done with it, because so much of it is done in the editing, specifically a patronising voice over and sound effects (cheesy ones). We observed that the extent to which the video was defined by props that came to hand was ridiculous, but delightful. The various 'steps' of how to reintegrate were almost completely informed by various items we found around the house we were filming in. Hopefully this won't come across as slapdash in the finished sketch, it is, however, meant to seem random. We were quite pleased with the flexibility of the way we film, and how we can adapt the sketch to implement these silly props, but in the end it all depends on how funny it looks. We edited the majority of it together, and we were still giggling by the end, so I suppose that augers well. The voiceover is still to do, and we're planning to release it tomorrow, the same time as the podcast. Fingers crossed.
The second idea was to do another mock-news report using my Benjamin Bold character, which I was quite pleased with. I am glad that we are happy and confident in suggesting that we integrate other members' characters into new ideas. The actual topic of the mock-report, however, would require filming in a variety of locations, and as daylight would likely abandon us mid-filming, we decided to put the sketch on the backburner, until we can plan it properly and dedicate an entire day to the filming. I doubt I'll wear the toothbrush moustache for Bold this time around, perhaps I will research other fascistic facial hair and have it on a rota-system for him.
So in the end we decided to film the third idea instead, which was a much simpler, straight sketch proposed by Dafydd. Writing and practising the sketch, which was just a conversation between the three of us, was reminiscent of the first time Sampson and I decided on the topics of our first material. Hard to believe that was over a year ago now, but it was heartening to realise that we are still committed and on the same path, knowing that the decision to get creative wasn't a flash-in-the-pan fad.
The three of us had a meal in The Billygoat's Gruff (pub anonymised) and workshopped turns of phrase for the sketch ad nauseam, until we had a huge list which we cherry-picked from. The assumption there is that we actually came up with some cherries, which, of course, you'll have to be the judge of. I had one single pint of cider with my meal, and devolved into something of a mess, which, as a young male, is something of an embarrasment. It would be very cheap for me if I become an alcoholic. We commandeered the function room upstairs, since Dafydd is an Ogreman at the Billygoat's Gruff (this changing the pub name lark is probably confusing) and so we had the run of the empty room. I had expected the room to be akin to the dingy pits which pass for function rooms in these parts, and so I was very pleasantly surprised. It was genuinely classy up there, which will hopefully add to the sketch, although when I took a preliminary glance at the footage it looked quite dark, so it may end up seeming quite moody and gritty, which will contrast (hopefully comedically) with the actual sketch.
The last sketch was the hardest to film, because it was quite late by this point, and we were all flagging slightly. Not wanting to name any names but Luke Samspon specifically proved a handful, with me and Dafydd having to coax him into action like children poking a spiderweb with a stick in order to rouse the spider. Luckily we all kicked into action eventually, though that episode may prove to be the point where the historians look back and nod sagely and declare that it was all a tragic inevitability.
If our comedy endeavors ever bear fruit commercially, I can envision a time when we will have to struggle with the rampant diva side of Sampson's personality. It'll get us some publicity I suppose.
I don't think I've played it up enough to be really ridiculous here, so the accusation that Sampson is a diva may sound like a real criticism. It isn't meant to be.
The funniest moments of the recording process, for us, often come when we mess up, which is why we put a blooper after every sketch. Quite innocuous things can seem substantially funnier because of the strained and contrived situation that filming/acting is. Because we are so aware of what is meant to happen and what is meant to be said, any deviation from this can be stupidly funny.
It takes us ages to film stuff, far longer than it probably should, because of how dedicated we are to trying to make each other laugh, rather than sacrificing the laugh in the moment to make sure the sketch gets filmed and is funny. It's a similar thing in the radio, when I would sneak hidden abusive messages to Dafydd in the playlist information to throw him off his game when introducing songs. When we were filming the conversational sketch in the function room, Sampson brought us out of our slump and injected energy into the proceedings using two novel methods which I will now outline.
In the first instance, he picked up a number of bar mats before flinging them individually, Gambit-style, across the room at his camera, each time repeating "Muh-fucka". Apparently, this was an impression of Ike Turner.
The second method was to give us a quick run-through of his 'Hitler's Mother Sketch', in which Hitler's mother is characterised as a loud, shrill, stereotypical New Yorker Jewish woman, which is both reductive, xenophobic and mesmerising in equal measure. It is impossible to not get swept up in the passion of the performance, in which Hitler's Mother offers him advice as though shouting up the stairs to her reclusive son, advice such as; "You've got to get ayngree Aydolf, they won't listen to ya if you're not ayngree".
I'm not sure yet which of those will appear at the end of the sketch, 'Hitler's Mother' is hilarious, but possibly offensive. I am uncertain how easily misconstrued that performance would be. We'll see how it looks in the recording.
In other 'me-being-involved-in-comedy-on-youtube' news, the video roundup on the Welsh Unsinged Standup Act (WUSA) Competition from my heat is up now, with me alphabetically placed at the beginning of the video, which is handy for people who want to see me in it (which is everyone, I am the king). My set was edited so that the very beginning and the very end appear on the video, which is interesting because it's a mix of my oldest jokes and brand new stuff I'd only tried that night, and the rude bits from the middle are gone, which means I can show it to my mother. Which is nice.
That video can be found here.
We should be releasing a new podcast and the sketch tomorrow, in which case I will be plugging away to my gut's distress, so keep your bananas peeled for that.
I hope you have a pleasant evening.
@adamgilder
acrecomedy@googlemail.com
www.theacre.net
Thursday, 29 April 2010
Yep, It's Still Shining
I probably shouldn't have left it so that my post last week didn't have a conclusion, that was slightly inconsiderate of me. It's the sort of thing that would annoy me as a reader. So my apologies.
The gig went quite well, I did eventually get gonged off because instead of telling jokes I floundered and repeatedly called god a cunt, but in doing so I raised £4 for charity, so maybe there is a god after all. But he is definitely a cunt.
I was able to try out my new story, which was an excellent opportunity as I was then confident enough in it to use on Monday, where I took part in the second heat of the Welsh Unsigned Standup Act competition, which I did really well in, I am through to the semis. I will need to pull my socks up a bit if I want to have any sort of chance in the next round, which is in July.
I think all the fussing and second-guessing that happened last week was definitely worth it, as stressful as it was at the time. It is a process I think I'll have to go through for all new material, just to be certain that I have enough of a grasp on it, although I am hoping that as time goes on the chances of completely blanking like I did in Neath will fall away, eventually becoming 0. I suppose the more material you have the more there is to call upon should things go belly-up. Similarly, the more confident you get as time goes on, the more you'd be able to confidently cover and fill without feeling as though things will crash if you veer from material. Throughout this paragraph I have slowly replaced the term 'I' with the term 'you', I don't know whether this illustrates that my comments are just baseless hypothetical conjecture or whether it's just a trick to distance myself from my own comments.
I automatically use 'you' where I mean 'I' a lot, and it annoys me. It's linguistic trickery, where I remove my agency from the comments, so that it sounds hypothetical and passive, rather than sounding as though it directly involves or represents my opinions.
A little bit of meta-linguistic introspection for you all there, I can only imagine that you are all fascinated and delighted with it.
In only slightly less solipsistic news, we've been slogging away on the sketches, with Hard Reset now joining Just Another Minute on our youtube channel. The feedback we've received has been positive which is great, but I am bracing myself for the eventual, inevitable swathe of 'epic emo gay faggot'-style bile which I figure washes everywhere in the turgid typhoon which is the internet.
When it comes I will say to them (herein referred to as 'The Haters):
Do you know who I am!? I am a Semi-Finalist.
Yes indeed, that'll give them pause for thought.
The gig went quite well, I did eventually get gonged off because instead of telling jokes I floundered and repeatedly called god a cunt, but in doing so I raised £4 for charity, so maybe there is a god after all. But he is definitely a cunt.
I was able to try out my new story, which was an excellent opportunity as I was then confident enough in it to use on Monday, where I took part in the second heat of the Welsh Unsigned Standup Act competition, which I did really well in, I am through to the semis. I will need to pull my socks up a bit if I want to have any sort of chance in the next round, which is in July.
I think all the fussing and second-guessing that happened last week was definitely worth it, as stressful as it was at the time. It is a process I think I'll have to go through for all new material, just to be certain that I have enough of a grasp on it, although I am hoping that as time goes on the chances of completely blanking like I did in Neath will fall away, eventually becoming 0. I suppose the more material you have the more there is to call upon should things go belly-up. Similarly, the more confident you get as time goes on, the more you'd be able to confidently cover and fill without feeling as though things will crash if you veer from material. Throughout this paragraph I have slowly replaced the term 'I' with the term 'you', I don't know whether this illustrates that my comments are just baseless hypothetical conjecture or whether it's just a trick to distance myself from my own comments.
I automatically use 'you' where I mean 'I' a lot, and it annoys me. It's linguistic trickery, where I remove my agency from the comments, so that it sounds hypothetical and passive, rather than sounding as though it directly involves or represents my opinions.
A little bit of meta-linguistic introspection for you all there, I can only imagine that you are all fascinated and delighted with it.
In only slightly less solipsistic news, we've been slogging away on the sketches, with Hard Reset now joining Just Another Minute on our youtube channel. The feedback we've received has been positive which is great, but I am bracing myself for the eventual, inevitable swathe of 'epic emo gay faggot'-style bile which I figure washes everywhere in the turgid typhoon which is the internet.
When it comes I will say to them (herein referred to as 'The Haters):
Do you know who I am!? I am a Semi-Finalist.
Yes indeed, that'll give them pause for thought.
Friday, 9 April 2010
First Sketch
As you may or may not know, I am a part of a sketch troupe called The ACRE.
We are on community radio every weekend, and we edit the best bits into The ACRE Podcasts, because we are awful modern. Apart from these endeavours, we also write blogs and do live stuff when we can. We are basically creative busybodies, and hopefully we're reaching the point where our idle speculation regarding things we should do has been overtaken by actually doing those things.
Which brings me on to the point of this entry.
We spent a very sunny yesterday in the bustling township of Pontypridd, where we hauled ourselves to a pub with cameras and ideas to come up with a sketch and film it in a couple of hours. We figured the only way we'd get past the planning/potential stages of the thing would be to just go and do it, even if that means a haphazard sketch. It would be a learning curve and an experience which hopefully we could build on.
And that's what happened.
We journeyed into Ponty Park, and took to filming a sketch, the brief of which was Dafydd saying "I want to be up a tree protesting". I am surprised we managed to fill 4 minutes of nothing really.
The end product is a lot punchier and crisper than we expected it could be when we were filming, but the magnificence of editing is that some semblance of narrative can be tricked into place even if there was none at the time of filming.
So here it is, it is full of needless swearing, because we are mature, and it is incredibly silly. We hope it makes you laugh.
www.theacre.net
@adamgilder
acrecomedy@gmail.com
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Radio Killed the Video Star
I’d start this blog with an apology, if that wouldn’t be a hubristic approach to take. It assumes that there are people who have bemoaned the lack of updates here, which there aren’t. This entry is going to be chocked full of self-interest and hubris so I will attempt to keep it to a minimum.
My blogular inactivity stems from the radio shows which, to paraphrase Shang Tsung, have begun. The preparatory work for these shows varied greatly, but strangely, being excited about the shows seemed to be an activity in and of itself, and despite having made outlines and plans for various features, the actual scripting of the scripted sections happened at 2am Saturday morning, as I blearily attempted to force whimsy through my weary brain.
The two shows ended up fairly different in the end, and we have come to embrace that, where we view Saturday as the heavily scripted pseudo-AIOTM style show, and Sunday as a more freeform pseudo-Collings and Herrin number. I warned you there was hubris. Obviously any comparisons to these works are about format rather than quality of output, although if they ask then you must vehemently insist that the work of three Welsh buffoons is as funny as the output of a 20+ year veteran.
We were surprised to find that none of the scripted sections we had planned for the Saturday failed, and so we will be sticking with regular sections the Journal of Cannonby, which takes the form of a play, Footballer or Religious Figure, in which I offer up a name of a real person and two potential histories, and of course, Dafydd’s longwinded joke. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems everyone’s favourite section was the interview with actual ghost Kadoogan Aboogan, whose name was originally spelt Cadwgan Y Bwgan, which we decided to change after an e-mail came in with the frankly amazing spelling. We will be bringing in a new guest every week, and though it may prove difficult to top Kadoogan, we are going to bust a gut with this weeks' guest.
Sunday’s show was a far less structured show, to the point where we were expecting to have to blag extensively in order to fill the 3 hours, but we received an unexpectedly abundant amount of correspondence, exclusively filled with positive feedback and funny ideas which provided an interesting platform to launch some silly chat. We expected it to be a 2 man outfit on the Sunday, but apparently our modifying of the playlist, specifically to play ELO’s Twilight and The Beatles’ Octopus’ Garden was interpreted as a secret signal by Mr Luke Sampson, whose wonderful blog can be found here, for him to come and join us. He was always intended to be a part of the Sunday show, but had originally opted out due to illness, however our subliminal music summons helped him overcome his maladies, and a good thing too, as some of the biggest laughs of the show came due to him.
We began to put more of our own music in the playlist due to the feedback we received on the Saturday, which was almost exclusively positive (I've said that twice now haven't I? Well it's the truth dawg), the only criticisms were of the music, which we were led to believe we had little control over. However as a few requests came in straight away on the Sunday we let loose a bit more, opening the show with the huge Kansas hit Carry on My Wayward Son, which really geed us up for the show. We substituted a few tracks, getting a specific excited response for Lostprophets’ Last Summer, buoyed by this, we started making more changes, and hence playlist mistakes were made. No ones seems to have noticed, but it amuses me and so I will go into it. Our radio station, Rhondda Radio thanks for asking, runs a ‘gem’ system, where in every hour a song considered a ‘hidden gem’ will play, though more often than not the track would have been better off staying hidden, IN MY OPINION. I am tempted to begin the next sentence with ‘our’ but since I am really to blame for the first one I will take responsibility. My first blunder was to accidentally replace a ‘gem’ with The Jam’s Town Called Malice, which is less hidden than the track which was actually scheduled to play, which was so hidden I’d never heard of it. Perhaps more of a blunder was towards the end of the hour where my capable co-presenter Dafydd Evans, who’s wonderful blog can be found here, replaced a ‘gem’ with Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha, the juxtaposition of which made me laugh, although my mother claims that this is a verifiable ‘hidden gem’. Expect more playlist modification this weekend, but be sure to e-mail in praising the songs, as that way we will be able to justify our choices.
The way I’ve written about the shows here has been a little bit dry, but it is perhaps necessary as I’ve had to be quite systematic in order to get in everything I wanted to say about the shows, which really excited and enthused me. There’s a link to being a fan of the show on the right hand side of the page, we will attempt to be judicious with our updates there, we know it can be really annoying when events/groups/fan pages on facebook send a million updates a day. Join up even if you can’t listen on the weekend, we are going to record the shows from now on, with an eye to editing them into a podcast, although we’ll have to work it out with whoever runs the station’s website about whether they’ll host it or not. If not, we’ll find another way to do it, but it might take time. We always planned on releasing it as a podcast, as all three of us, though the show goes under Adam & Dafydd, Luke is a key player as well, are huge podcast fans, to the point where we listen to far more podcasts than we watch television shows. With the amount of messages we’ve had from people asking for podcasts or mp3s it would definitely be worth doing, though this could be hubris again.
With the amount of people who were interested, but unable to listen when it was live, I came to realise that the last time I actually listened or watched something when it was originally broadcast was Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, and that was a lot earlier in the year, back when I was still a student. Everything else has been podcasts, iPlayer, 4oD, YouTube, definitely not illegal downloads though, and DVDs. It really is an On Demand Era, and podcasts are an integral part of a radio station, at least if it wants to keep the tech-savvy but incredibly busy ‘youth’ listening. BBC, XFM, Absolute; all the big hitters of the radio station world put out podcasts, and if Rhondda Radio wants to thrive as a station, I think it’s key that it follows in their footsteps.
As well as being what I think, it's also the stirring diatribe I am planning to give if the station aren’t keen on the idea of podcasts, though I am hoping that won’t be necessary. The station have been incredibly supportive of our show, which surprised us a bit as we were expecting to be slightly odd and inaccessible, but everyone seems to be getting on board, which is good news for us, though we definitely lose “hipster cool dude” points. Though we never really intended, or had hopes of scoring very highly in the hipster cool dude sweepstakes.
I am going to turn this blog into something which Peter Serafinowicz would likely describe as “biznure”. Having dealt with the business side of the show, I will now describe my pleasure. There was a lot of it.
The show, especially Sunday’s, was essentially a focused and condensed version of the sort of silly conversations we usually have. Focused inasmuch as we were actively trying to be funny in this situation, whereas obviously when we are talking in real it is more casual. But the rush of being in a room with 2 of my best mates and knowing that I’m likely to burst out laughing any second because they are actively searching for the funny thing to say is incredible. Getting messages from people who were listening was often surprising, as we had to remember that people actually were listening. I was pleased, more than anything though, of what we put out, I knew that we were guaranteed to amuse ourselves, but I am genuinely happy with how funny it was, thinking that even though the first 2 shows weren’t recorded, I would gladly record and put the subsequent shows online if they are as funny, knowing that what we put out won't be an embarrassment.
This one is a busy week for me, but I promise to prepare sufficiently for the shows and give them my all. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who listened and/or e-mailed in last week, and encourage everyone to do so again. We will be stockpiling messages throughout the week as well as during the actual shows, so even if you won’t be able to listen on the day, do get involved. If there's anything you want us to discuss, from hard-hitting topics to why your cat pees in the washing machine, to just telling us to grow up, feel free to message in.
Direct these midweek messages to acrecomedy@googlemail.com.
If we are currently on when you're reading this though, send them in to mail@rhonddaradio.com, if you send stuff there during the week, it'll get through to the presenters currently there rather than us, though I'm sure they'd thank you for messages aswell.
My internet doings have been very radio show centric for a number of days now, for which I apologise, but at the same time they have been the focus of my energies and so I am stubbornly going to force them onto people.
Hopefully something interesting and non-radio centric will occur to me this week for me to blog about. But even if it does, I’ll probably talk about it on the radio aswell.
The shows can be streamed from www.rhonddaradio.com, we are on at midday until 3pm on Saturday and Sunday. Listen to it! Love it! Or don’t. S'up to you really.
If you like it, spread it around you juggerknuckles! I do.
Thank you very much for indulging me. Bye for now.
My blogular inactivity stems from the radio shows which, to paraphrase Shang Tsung, have begun. The preparatory work for these shows varied greatly, but strangely, being excited about the shows seemed to be an activity in and of itself, and despite having made outlines and plans for various features, the actual scripting of the scripted sections happened at 2am Saturday morning, as I blearily attempted to force whimsy through my weary brain.
The two shows ended up fairly different in the end, and we have come to embrace that, where we view Saturday as the heavily scripted pseudo-AIOTM style show, and Sunday as a more freeform pseudo-Collings and Herrin number. I warned you there was hubris. Obviously any comparisons to these works are about format rather than quality of output, although if they ask then you must vehemently insist that the work of three Welsh buffoons is as funny as the output of a 20+ year veteran.
We were surprised to find that none of the scripted sections we had planned for the Saturday failed, and so we will be sticking with regular sections the Journal of Cannonby, which takes the form of a play, Footballer or Religious Figure, in which I offer up a name of a real person and two potential histories, and of course, Dafydd’s longwinded joke. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems everyone’s favourite section was the interview with actual ghost Kadoogan Aboogan, whose name was originally spelt Cadwgan Y Bwgan, which we decided to change after an e-mail came in with the frankly amazing spelling. We will be bringing in a new guest every week, and though it may prove difficult to top Kadoogan, we are going to bust a gut with this weeks' guest.
Sunday’s show was a far less structured show, to the point where we were expecting to have to blag extensively in order to fill the 3 hours, but we received an unexpectedly abundant amount of correspondence, exclusively filled with positive feedback and funny ideas which provided an interesting platform to launch some silly chat. We expected it to be a 2 man outfit on the Sunday, but apparently our modifying of the playlist, specifically to play ELO’s Twilight and The Beatles’ Octopus’ Garden was interpreted as a secret signal by Mr Luke Sampson, whose wonderful blog can be found here, for him to come and join us. He was always intended to be a part of the Sunday show, but had originally opted out due to illness, however our subliminal music summons helped him overcome his maladies, and a good thing too, as some of the biggest laughs of the show came due to him.
We began to put more of our own music in the playlist due to the feedback we received on the Saturday, which was almost exclusively positive (I've said that twice now haven't I? Well it's the truth dawg), the only criticisms were of the music, which we were led to believe we had little control over. However as a few requests came in straight away on the Sunday we let loose a bit more, opening the show with the huge Kansas hit Carry on My Wayward Son, which really geed us up for the show. We substituted a few tracks, getting a specific excited response for Lostprophets’ Last Summer, buoyed by this, we started making more changes, and hence playlist mistakes were made. No ones seems to have noticed, but it amuses me and so I will go into it. Our radio station, Rhondda Radio thanks for asking, runs a ‘gem’ system, where in every hour a song considered a ‘hidden gem’ will play, though more often than not the track would have been better off staying hidden, IN MY OPINION. I am tempted to begin the next sentence with ‘our’ but since I am really to blame for the first one I will take responsibility. My first blunder was to accidentally replace a ‘gem’ with The Jam’s Town Called Malice, which is less hidden than the track which was actually scheduled to play, which was so hidden I’d never heard of it. Perhaps more of a blunder was towards the end of the hour where my capable co-presenter Dafydd Evans, who’s wonderful blog can be found here, replaced a ‘gem’ with Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha, the juxtaposition of which made me laugh, although my mother claims that this is a verifiable ‘hidden gem’. Expect more playlist modification this weekend, but be sure to e-mail in praising the songs, as that way we will be able to justify our choices.
The way I’ve written about the shows here has been a little bit dry, but it is perhaps necessary as I’ve had to be quite systematic in order to get in everything I wanted to say about the shows, which really excited and enthused me. There’s a link to being a fan of the show on the right hand side of the page, we will attempt to be judicious with our updates there, we know it can be really annoying when events/groups/fan pages on facebook send a million updates a day. Join up even if you can’t listen on the weekend, we are going to record the shows from now on, with an eye to editing them into a podcast, although we’ll have to work it out with whoever runs the station’s website about whether they’ll host it or not. If not, we’ll find another way to do it, but it might take time. We always planned on releasing it as a podcast, as all three of us, though the show goes under Adam & Dafydd, Luke is a key player as well, are huge podcast fans, to the point where we listen to far more podcasts than we watch television shows. With the amount of messages we’ve had from people asking for podcasts or mp3s it would definitely be worth doing, though this could be hubris again.
With the amount of people who were interested, but unable to listen when it was live, I came to realise that the last time I actually listened or watched something when it was originally broadcast was Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, and that was a lot earlier in the year, back when I was still a student. Everything else has been podcasts, iPlayer, 4oD, YouTube, definitely not illegal downloads though, and DVDs. It really is an On Demand Era, and podcasts are an integral part of a radio station, at least if it wants to keep the tech-savvy but incredibly busy ‘youth’ listening. BBC, XFM, Absolute; all the big hitters of the radio station world put out podcasts, and if Rhondda Radio wants to thrive as a station, I think it’s key that it follows in their footsteps.
As well as being what I think, it's also the stirring diatribe I am planning to give if the station aren’t keen on the idea of podcasts, though I am hoping that won’t be necessary. The station have been incredibly supportive of our show, which surprised us a bit as we were expecting to be slightly odd and inaccessible, but everyone seems to be getting on board, which is good news for us, though we definitely lose “hipster cool dude” points. Though we never really intended, or had hopes of scoring very highly in the hipster cool dude sweepstakes.
I am going to turn this blog into something which Peter Serafinowicz would likely describe as “biznure”. Having dealt with the business side of the show, I will now describe my pleasure. There was a lot of it.
The show, especially Sunday’s, was essentially a focused and condensed version of the sort of silly conversations we usually have. Focused inasmuch as we were actively trying to be funny in this situation, whereas obviously when we are talking in real it is more casual. But the rush of being in a room with 2 of my best mates and knowing that I’m likely to burst out laughing any second because they are actively searching for the funny thing to say is incredible. Getting messages from people who were listening was often surprising, as we had to remember that people actually were listening. I was pleased, more than anything though, of what we put out, I knew that we were guaranteed to amuse ourselves, but I am genuinely happy with how funny it was, thinking that even though the first 2 shows weren’t recorded, I would gladly record and put the subsequent shows online if they are as funny, knowing that what we put out won't be an embarrassment.
This one is a busy week for me, but I promise to prepare sufficiently for the shows and give them my all. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who listened and/or e-mailed in last week, and encourage everyone to do so again. We will be stockpiling messages throughout the week as well as during the actual shows, so even if you won’t be able to listen on the day, do get involved. If there's anything you want us to discuss, from hard-hitting topics to why your cat pees in the washing machine, to just telling us to grow up, feel free to message in.
Direct these midweek messages to acrecomedy@googlemail.com.
If we are currently on when you're reading this though, send them in to mail@rhonddaradio.com, if you send stuff there during the week, it'll get through to the presenters currently there rather than us, though I'm sure they'd thank you for messages aswell.
My internet doings have been very radio show centric for a number of days now, for which I apologise, but at the same time they have been the focus of my energies and so I am stubbornly going to force them onto people.
Hopefully something interesting and non-radio centric will occur to me this week for me to blog about. But even if it does, I’ll probably talk about it on the radio aswell.
The shows can be streamed from www.rhonddaradio.com, we are on at midday until 3pm on Saturday and Sunday. Listen to it! Love it! Or don’t. S'up to you really.
If you like it, spread it around you juggerknuckles! I do.
Thank you very much for indulging me. Bye for now.
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Here Is What I Have Been Doing In Far Too Much Detail
Busy, busy, busy. Ish.
Due to my few-hours afternoon job, I am usually free to lollop around and sleep through the morning every day, but it seems as though the fates have conspired to ensure that this week my mornings have been booked, forcing me out of my lazy stupor. Properly booked in as well, I have a diary and everything. And I wrote the stuff in there to be sure I remembered. I was proud of how grown up I am become but then I remembered that I turn 22 next week so perhaps my pride is more than slightly hubristic. I have far more of a tee-hee-hee mentality than my age can honestly justify. Although I have to counter that by saying I also have a streak of bleak cynicism also. This is now turning into a sell-yourself love ad, which is depressing for many reasons which I have no vested interest in pursuing.
My Monday morning enforced wake-up was due to more training I (and my broadcompadre) was undertaking in order to be fighting fit when the station goes live. I have chosen this phraseology as I enjoy the image of a radio station coming to life and rearing up like the Megazord, from off’ve the Power Rangers (Mighty Morphin’). I have a similar lexical imaginings when it comes to the line “The hills are alive” which conjures up visions of a golem terrorising Austrians, though this is ruined by the arrival of the line “with the sound of music”.
What I have learnt from my two radio training sessions is that people who are in the business of training are cruel people indeed. There is a definite method to the training process, which is to shock and frighten the trainees initially, and then eventually tell them they are great and their show will be brilliant. I resent this emotionally trying method, where the anally retentive radio schedule must be adhered to SIEG HEIL! but then also make sure to be yourself in the show, whilst not forgetting to cater for the community, and for god’s sake don’t forget to press the button when its time for the news and for god’s sake don’t say for god’s sake on the air because people complain more about blasphemy than swearing. Whether that last fact is true across the entire country I’m not sure, but it certainly is the case that in South Wales at least, the people with Ofcom on speed dial are the aged religious watchdogs, quick to do some stomping on any anti-religious broadcast. Jordi Cruijff! It is likely our show may not become a fast favourite among the religious contingent, as every pre-record so far contains off-hand bashing of christian rock (whose initial c was automatically capitalised, but I have gone back to make it lower case, because I am subversive as a U-boat).
My Tuesday was spent taking the puppy to the vet for routine jabs and flea spraying, where he was incredibly well behaved, and if I was a less staunchly serious individual I would describe his conduct as ‘brave’. I was later messed around by the clinic, who arranged an appointment for me to fill out some forms for criminal compensation, sat me in the waiting room, only to tell me 10 minutes later that the doctor wouldn’t be in today. Which I was pleased with, obviously. The meeting was rearranged for Wednesday, and the doctor was stand-offish and unnecessarily curt, harrumph. I am easily displeased.
Today I was awake in order to attend a corporate welcome, where I was reassured I was important, before I was able to grab as many free pens and key-rings as I clandestinely could, before slipping away without anyone noticing. Because I am important.
I was actually in something of a grump as I sat myself at an empty table, only to have the table sporadically and systematically fill up with each new arrival picking the seat furthest away from me. It was then that I fully realised that I can be quite inapproachable, decorated as I am with an intimidating beard and an automatic vacant grimace. The man stood behind the pensions stall seemed to appreciate my social awkwardness, just as I appreciated that he looked like a stretched Gordon Brown (stretched upwards) though I’m sure he realised my tenuous and superficial questioning about pensions was actually a wafer-thin premise to help myself to free pens. It takes a significant amount of social awkwardness to keep me away from free pens.
By my own introspective reckoning I am a social dualist, where, depending on my mood, I can be either Jekyll or Hyde. Although more accurately, I can be either extremely socially confident, or a complete hide-away. Last Friday I managed both within the space of a few hours.
I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to talk about it for fear of looking like a self-aggrandising hubristic tool, but I did an open spot in Cardiff, and it went really well. However it was a prime example of the awkwardness I am capable of.
The Chapter Arts Centre has been recently refurbished, but some sections of it are still being renovated, which is why there was a section just off the room where the comedy was being held that was pitched in complete darkness. After saying a stilted awkward hello to the organiser and noting to myself the good omen that was the opening strains of Desmond Dekker’s 007 (Shanty Town) drifting from the room, I retired to the dark place to wait, which must have looked like a creepy weirdo attempting to be tortured and artistic. It wasn’t. I felt as though since I hadn’t offered to help set up the room during the initial meeting, doing so now would look like a limp gesture, so I hid away. And instead of talking to other human beings, I decided to wait in the dark wrestling with my imagined faux pas. Or my faux-faux pas if you please.
Later I decided to loiter awkwardly just inside the door, where I failed to talk to Iszi Lawrence because the opening gambit that came to mind was “I follow you on twitter” and I decided it would be better just to look suspicious in the corner. Suspicious in the corner is a look, I discovered, I was born to wear, as my thought process of: “she’s tall, I wonder if she’s wearing heels, no she’s wearing two-tone shoes, two-tone shoes are cool, let’s look a the two-tone shoes for a bit” actually left me with a bowed head looking as though I was unashamedly ogling. I would like to take this opportunity to exclaim that I was not. I strive to do my level best never to ogle, and in situations where there are instances of ogling, there is always an abundance of shame.
When stood at the front of the room being funny, a situation where ogling is encouraged (hypocrisy), I was equally enthralled, although the compliment that you are at least as amusing/interesting as your shoes is probably not the sort of praise anyone wants. Some consolation can be taken in the fact that she is being compared to very engrossing shoes, and also in the fact that this entire mess of a paragraph exists only because I can’t find an interesting way to say: “Iszi Lawrence did some jokes, she was really funny”.
She mentioned her podcast at the end of her set (the self-publicising random insult!), which I was glad of because now I have 60+ episodes with which to block out the inane warblings of 11-year-olds choking each other. I think that was the exact reason those podcasts were recorded, and if at the end of my life I have created something that can be used in order to drown out children, then I will be able to donate my usable organs and have the rest of me cremated a happy corpse.
First prize for funny goes to Ben Partridge who doused himself violently with water in order to rouse a reticent crowd, stipulating that if they were unable to laugh at a sodden man, they wouldn’t laugh at anything. They laughed.
Also, my set went really well, did I mention that?
Due to my few-hours afternoon job, I am usually free to lollop around and sleep through the morning every day, but it seems as though the fates have conspired to ensure that this week my mornings have been booked, forcing me out of my lazy stupor. Properly booked in as well, I have a diary and everything. And I wrote the stuff in there to be sure I remembered. I was proud of how grown up I am become but then I remembered that I turn 22 next week so perhaps my pride is more than slightly hubristic. I have far more of a tee-hee-hee mentality than my age can honestly justify. Although I have to counter that by saying I also have a streak of bleak cynicism also. This is now turning into a sell-yourself love ad, which is depressing for many reasons which I have no vested interest in pursuing.
My Monday morning enforced wake-up was due to more training I (and my broadcompadre) was undertaking in order to be fighting fit when the station goes live. I have chosen this phraseology as I enjoy the image of a radio station coming to life and rearing up like the Megazord, from off’ve the Power Rangers (Mighty Morphin’). I have a similar lexical imaginings when it comes to the line “The hills are alive” which conjures up visions of a golem terrorising Austrians, though this is ruined by the arrival of the line “with the sound of music”.
What I have learnt from my two radio training sessions is that people who are in the business of training are cruel people indeed. There is a definite method to the training process, which is to shock and frighten the trainees initially, and then eventually tell them they are great and their show will be brilliant. I resent this emotionally trying method, where the anally retentive radio schedule must be adhered to SIEG HEIL! but then also make sure to be yourself in the show, whilst not forgetting to cater for the community, and for god’s sake don’t forget to press the button when its time for the news and for god’s sake don’t say for god’s sake on the air because people complain more about blasphemy than swearing. Whether that last fact is true across the entire country I’m not sure, but it certainly is the case that in South Wales at least, the people with Ofcom on speed dial are the aged religious watchdogs, quick to do some stomping on any anti-religious broadcast. Jordi Cruijff! It is likely our show may not become a fast favourite among the religious contingent, as every pre-record so far contains off-hand bashing of christian rock (whose initial c was automatically capitalised, but I have gone back to make it lower case, because I am subversive as a U-boat).
My Tuesday was spent taking the puppy to the vet for routine jabs and flea spraying, where he was incredibly well behaved, and if I was a less staunchly serious individual I would describe his conduct as ‘brave’. I was later messed around by the clinic, who arranged an appointment for me to fill out some forms for criminal compensation, sat me in the waiting room, only to tell me 10 minutes later that the doctor wouldn’t be in today. Which I was pleased with, obviously. The meeting was rearranged for Wednesday, and the doctor was stand-offish and unnecessarily curt, harrumph. I am easily displeased.
Today I was awake in order to attend a corporate welcome, where I was reassured I was important, before I was able to grab as many free pens and key-rings as I clandestinely could, before slipping away without anyone noticing. Because I am important.
I was actually in something of a grump as I sat myself at an empty table, only to have the table sporadically and systematically fill up with each new arrival picking the seat furthest away from me. It was then that I fully realised that I can be quite inapproachable, decorated as I am with an intimidating beard and an automatic vacant grimace. The man stood behind the pensions stall seemed to appreciate my social awkwardness, just as I appreciated that he looked like a stretched Gordon Brown (stretched upwards) though I’m sure he realised my tenuous and superficial questioning about pensions was actually a wafer-thin premise to help myself to free pens. It takes a significant amount of social awkwardness to keep me away from free pens.
By my own introspective reckoning I am a social dualist, where, depending on my mood, I can be either Jekyll or Hyde. Although more accurately, I can be either extremely socially confident, or a complete hide-away. Last Friday I managed both within the space of a few hours.
I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to talk about it for fear of looking like a self-aggrandising hubristic tool, but I did an open spot in Cardiff, and it went really well. However it was a prime example of the awkwardness I am capable of.
The Chapter Arts Centre has been recently refurbished, but some sections of it are still being renovated, which is why there was a section just off the room where the comedy was being held that was pitched in complete darkness. After saying a stilted awkward hello to the organiser and noting to myself the good omen that was the opening strains of Desmond Dekker’s 007 (Shanty Town) drifting from the room, I retired to the dark place to wait, which must have looked like a creepy weirdo attempting to be tortured and artistic. It wasn’t. I felt as though since I hadn’t offered to help set up the room during the initial meeting, doing so now would look like a limp gesture, so I hid away. And instead of talking to other human beings, I decided to wait in the dark wrestling with my imagined faux pas. Or my faux-faux pas if you please.
Later I decided to loiter awkwardly just inside the door, where I failed to talk to Iszi Lawrence because the opening gambit that came to mind was “I follow you on twitter” and I decided it would be better just to look suspicious in the corner. Suspicious in the corner is a look, I discovered, I was born to wear, as my thought process of: “she’s tall, I wonder if she’s wearing heels, no she’s wearing two-tone shoes, two-tone shoes are cool, let’s look a the two-tone shoes for a bit” actually left me with a bowed head looking as though I was unashamedly ogling. I would like to take this opportunity to exclaim that I was not. I strive to do my level best never to ogle, and in situations where there are instances of ogling, there is always an abundance of shame.
When stood at the front of the room being funny, a situation where ogling is encouraged (hypocrisy), I was equally enthralled, although the compliment that you are at least as amusing/interesting as your shoes is probably not the sort of praise anyone wants. Some consolation can be taken in the fact that she is being compared to very engrossing shoes, and also in the fact that this entire mess of a paragraph exists only because I can’t find an interesting way to say: “Iszi Lawrence did some jokes, she was really funny”.
She mentioned her podcast at the end of her set (the self-publicising random insult!), which I was glad of because now I have 60+ episodes with which to block out the inane warblings of 11-year-olds choking each other. I think that was the exact reason those podcasts were recorded, and if at the end of my life I have created something that can be used in order to drown out children, then I will be able to donate my usable organs and have the rest of me cremated a happy corpse.
First prize for funny goes to Ben Partridge who doused himself violently with water in order to rouse a reticent crowd, stipulating that if they were unable to laugh at a sodden man, they wouldn’t laugh at anything. They laughed.
Also, my set went really well, did I mention that?
Thursday, 1 October 2009
What am I Driving At?
I am spending a lot of time driving at the moment; driving to work, driving to the radio and driving a golf ball straight onto the green. Hilarious joke I think you will agree. Incidentally, I have absolutely no interest in golf.
I amuse myself with a friend on the trips to and from the radio, and with podcasts on the way to work, but I find myself bored on the way home. “Well Gilder, simply put another podcast on your iPod!” I hear you bellow. I would, of course, do this if it did not mean I would likely be out of new podcasts by midweek. So instead I make time for a little bit of silence, for thinking about silly ideas and for hate.
One of the ideas I enjoyed toying with was of mounting a wide-angle lens camera (either still or video) onto the bumper of the car that could record the journey, where the happenings around the car can be kept seen in a far more expansive scope than can be seen from behind the windscreen. My reasons for wanting to do this are far from artistic, having their roots in petty pedantry and the constant quest for what is correct. Like a scientist, except interested exclusively with the occasions where I feel I have been wronged, or individuals have acted in a particularly foolish way.
I have chronicled before my experiences with Captain Poon and his hilarious rugby jersey, but road-based idiocy isn’t usually as amusing. I am repeatedly exasperated by jaywalkers who insist on timing their reckless road-crossing to ensure they pass as close as is humanly possible to the back of my car without actually having their foot chewed up by my tyre. In this bracket also reside the people who feel it is necessary to stand on the absolute edge of the pavement as a zebra crossing, as though they have so little time to spare that they are willing to risk having their wrists broken by a passing wing-mirror.
Of course it isn’t just pedestrians that annoy me, it seems as though this week the road-faring characters have been well and truly out in style and no mistake sonny Jim! People are bombing into/out of junctions, failing to indicate at roundabouts and, my very favouritest thing of all, manically swinging an all-in-one-go U-turn in the middle of the road. I’m half expecting to see a Dukes of Hazzard style jump interrupt my commute, sending a car barrel-rolling over my bonnet, playing out the horn-blast just as the windscreens come parallel and a toothless, silver-haired geezer flashes me a thumbs up and a cheeky grin. Before landing the vehicle on its roof where it bursts into flame, the trickle of fire slowly winding itself to the petrol tank as the driver struggles furiously to escape from the seatbelt that is holding him upside down in what has become a motorized oven, and before he has time to utter an antiquated expletive the flame reaches the petrol tank sending the car into a molten inferno which I see slowly shrinking in my rear-view mirror and scream to myself “That’ll serve you, you COCK~!”
As I’m sure you will have gathered by now, I have borne witness to some damn stupid feats of driving. I attempt to only get angry in retrospect, as I feel exploding behind the wheel is likely to cause a troublesome occasion. What I certainly never do is stare directly into the rear-view mirror of the car in front, gesticulating wildly and screaming muffled obscenities. The reason behind this is that, should something go awry on the road, what I want is for everything to be in order again as fast as is humanly possible, and I don’t feel that antagonising the driver in front will achieve this aim. I have to turn right on a four-way intersection in order to make my way into work every day. The traffic is passing both ways parallel to each other, and so it is only possible for me to turn right once the traffic passing in the opposite direction has cleared, but the vast quantity of furious tools that don’t understand why I don’t simply drive headlong into oncoming traffic so as to be less of a bother to them is truly astounding. I am 100% sure, however, they are incredibly busy and on their way to do something of incredible value. Such as taking their seatbelt off and driving as fast as possible into a wall.
So I have become worried about some of the things I write here, and how they would be taken in a new context, such as if I was involved in a road accident. What impact would this blog have? It is mostly intended to be frivolous, and even this somewhat more exasperated piece is really meant to be amusing, though I’m not really certain I am achieving that at this point. This query originally occurred to me as I was driving through a 40 zone that is a notoriously dangerous strip where several people have been run over and killed. This time of year it is dark by the time I pass through this stretch on the way home, so I always pay particular attention going through there, though having never seen people walking, the main impetus for vigilance is idiotic over-takers. There is a gag about over-takers soon seeing undertakers there, but I’ll be huffed if I am going to wrestle that one out properly now.
On the side of this particular bit of road, there is a wooden fence lining the road, and standing flush to the fence are steel girders. In order to explain the slightness of gap between the fence and the girders I would say that if you tried really hard, you could fit a single emaciated idiot in there, multiple if they stood side by side. So there were between 3 and 5 emaciated idiots jammed betwixt fence and girder, and I worried as I went past that they would slide something under the car, such as a rock, a Police-style stinger strip or the sliding trapper from Ghostbusters. Thankfully they did no such thing, but I was left wondering what sort of trouble I would get into if one of them foolishly darted out into the road and I ran him/her over, whether it wouldn’t be seen as accidental because I’d written a flippant blog about running someone over. Similarly should any sort of RTA occur to me, would this blog be dug out as some sort of character evidence, even if it is 2030 and I am in my forties and I look back on the person who I was when I wrote this blog and think I/he am/is an idiot? Would I be condemned because of my feeble attempts at comedy?
I later realised it definitely wouldn’t. After all, we will all have hovercars by 2030 and so there are no tyres there for people to get chewed up by. Although they might get mutated by the radioactive waves upon which my Ford Glider zips over their heads. Although hopefully I will, by then, be the President of a huge global umbrella company named Gilder Inc. and so I will be able to manufacture my own hovercars and so I could be driving the Gilder Glider. Or I could be a super-villain and be called the Giddler.
I have to drive into Cardiff tomorrow; I am going to the Chapter Arts Centre in order to attend a comedy open spot. It will be my first time in an actual comedy bill, as all my other live forays have been in competitions or fully open mic nights, so it will be interesting to see whether my stuff is able to stand alongside the material of professional comedians in any way, or whether I truly am a self-impressed pretender. The reality is likely somewhere in the middle, but true populist drama needs the extremes, so for the sake of goading a reaction out of readers I am either a genius or utterly shit.
I am not looking forward to driving in, as I have never driven directly there before, having been a passenger and led astray by the sat-nav last time, and then trekking quite a way to reach the actual building. Hopefully it will all go well, and I will be spared death, both in reality and in metaphority.
I think when somebody dies they go to a wonderous place, and that place is called Metaphority.
That is quite enough rubbish for one day, have a nice *insert appropriate time of day here*.
I amuse myself with a friend on the trips to and from the radio, and with podcasts on the way to work, but I find myself bored on the way home. “Well Gilder, simply put another podcast on your iPod!” I hear you bellow. I would, of course, do this if it did not mean I would likely be out of new podcasts by midweek. So instead I make time for a little bit of silence, for thinking about silly ideas and for hate.
One of the ideas I enjoyed toying with was of mounting a wide-angle lens camera (either still or video) onto the bumper of the car that could record the journey, where the happenings around the car can be kept seen in a far more expansive scope than can be seen from behind the windscreen. My reasons for wanting to do this are far from artistic, having their roots in petty pedantry and the constant quest for what is correct. Like a scientist, except interested exclusively with the occasions where I feel I have been wronged, or individuals have acted in a particularly foolish way.
I have chronicled before my experiences with Captain Poon and his hilarious rugby jersey, but road-based idiocy isn’t usually as amusing. I am repeatedly exasperated by jaywalkers who insist on timing their reckless road-crossing to ensure they pass as close as is humanly possible to the back of my car without actually having their foot chewed up by my tyre. In this bracket also reside the people who feel it is necessary to stand on the absolute edge of the pavement as a zebra crossing, as though they have so little time to spare that they are willing to risk having their wrists broken by a passing wing-mirror.
Of course it isn’t just pedestrians that annoy me, it seems as though this week the road-faring characters have been well and truly out in style and no mistake sonny Jim! People are bombing into/out of junctions, failing to indicate at roundabouts and, my very favouritest thing of all, manically swinging an all-in-one-go U-turn in the middle of the road. I’m half expecting to see a Dukes of Hazzard style jump interrupt my commute, sending a car barrel-rolling over my bonnet, playing out the horn-blast just as the windscreens come parallel and a toothless, silver-haired geezer flashes me a thumbs up and a cheeky grin. Before landing the vehicle on its roof where it bursts into flame, the trickle of fire slowly winding itself to the petrol tank as the driver struggles furiously to escape from the seatbelt that is holding him upside down in what has become a motorized oven, and before he has time to utter an antiquated expletive the flame reaches the petrol tank sending the car into a molten inferno which I see slowly shrinking in my rear-view mirror and scream to myself “That’ll serve you, you COCK~!”
As I’m sure you will have gathered by now, I have borne witness to some damn stupid feats of driving. I attempt to only get angry in retrospect, as I feel exploding behind the wheel is likely to cause a troublesome occasion. What I certainly never do is stare directly into the rear-view mirror of the car in front, gesticulating wildly and screaming muffled obscenities. The reason behind this is that, should something go awry on the road, what I want is for everything to be in order again as fast as is humanly possible, and I don’t feel that antagonising the driver in front will achieve this aim. I have to turn right on a four-way intersection in order to make my way into work every day. The traffic is passing both ways parallel to each other, and so it is only possible for me to turn right once the traffic passing in the opposite direction has cleared, but the vast quantity of furious tools that don’t understand why I don’t simply drive headlong into oncoming traffic so as to be less of a bother to them is truly astounding. I am 100% sure, however, they are incredibly busy and on their way to do something of incredible value. Such as taking their seatbelt off and driving as fast as possible into a wall.
So I have become worried about some of the things I write here, and how they would be taken in a new context, such as if I was involved in a road accident. What impact would this blog have? It is mostly intended to be frivolous, and even this somewhat more exasperated piece is really meant to be amusing, though I’m not really certain I am achieving that at this point. This query originally occurred to me as I was driving through a 40 zone that is a notoriously dangerous strip where several people have been run over and killed. This time of year it is dark by the time I pass through this stretch on the way home, so I always pay particular attention going through there, though having never seen people walking, the main impetus for vigilance is idiotic over-takers. There is a gag about over-takers soon seeing undertakers there, but I’ll be huffed if I am going to wrestle that one out properly now.
On the side of this particular bit of road, there is a wooden fence lining the road, and standing flush to the fence are steel girders. In order to explain the slightness of gap between the fence and the girders I would say that if you tried really hard, you could fit a single emaciated idiot in there, multiple if they stood side by side. So there were between 3 and 5 emaciated idiots jammed betwixt fence and girder, and I worried as I went past that they would slide something under the car, such as a rock, a Police-style stinger strip or the sliding trapper from Ghostbusters. Thankfully they did no such thing, but I was left wondering what sort of trouble I would get into if one of them foolishly darted out into the road and I ran him/her over, whether it wouldn’t be seen as accidental because I’d written a flippant blog about running someone over. Similarly should any sort of RTA occur to me, would this blog be dug out as some sort of character evidence, even if it is 2030 and I am in my forties and I look back on the person who I was when I wrote this blog and think I/he am/is an idiot? Would I be condemned because of my feeble attempts at comedy?
I later realised it definitely wouldn’t. After all, we will all have hovercars by 2030 and so there are no tyres there for people to get chewed up by. Although they might get mutated by the radioactive waves upon which my Ford Glider zips over their heads. Although hopefully I will, by then, be the President of a huge global umbrella company named Gilder Inc. and so I will be able to manufacture my own hovercars and so I could be driving the Gilder Glider. Or I could be a super-villain and be called the Giddler.
I have to drive into Cardiff tomorrow; I am going to the Chapter Arts Centre in order to attend a comedy open spot. It will be my first time in an actual comedy bill, as all my other live forays have been in competitions or fully open mic nights, so it will be interesting to see whether my stuff is able to stand alongside the material of professional comedians in any way, or whether I truly am a self-impressed pretender. The reality is likely somewhere in the middle, but true populist drama needs the extremes, so for the sake of goading a reaction out of readers I am either a genius or utterly shit.
I am not looking forward to driving in, as I have never driven directly there before, having been a passenger and led astray by the sat-nav last time, and then trekking quite a way to reach the actual building. Hopefully it will all go well, and I will be spared death, both in reality and in metaphority.
I think when somebody dies they go to a wonderous place, and that place is called Metaphority.
That is quite enough rubbish for one day, have a nice *insert appropriate time of day here*.
Friday, 18 September 2009
Fiction of a Political and Scientific Nature
The title of ‘most annoying news article of the day’ is shared between articles from the BBC and the Guardian today, though it seems self-defeating to award this prize, as they are the only news sources I habitually check.
The BBC article that has caused some annoyance to me is one that states:
“The Electoral Commission has said it will not be able to police the expected explosion in spoof internet videos at the next general election.”
What throws me slightly about this claim is that it is based on the presumption that spoof videos should be ‘policed’, as surely that would be quite a shocking example of censorship. The article doesn’t really go into details with regards to what constitutes a ‘spoof video’. This interests me quite a lot as I have written a sketch that is essentially a mock party political broadcast, and it intrigues me that if they could, the Electoral Commission would attempt to pull it. I could of course be misunderstanding exactly what sort of policing they had in mind, and it doesn’t really affect me directly as the sketch doesn’t exist as yet, but I reserve the right to follow in the proud British tradition of grossly overreacting to nothing in particular.
“complaints about potentially defamatory material, under electoral laws, remain a matter for the police and that cases will be investigated”.
The article fails to define the term ‘defamatory’, whose synonyms range from ‘insulting’ to ‘libellous’. While I agree that genuinely libellous claims are damaging, surely merely insulting videos are hardly a ‘matter for the police’? Or maybe I am just a desensitised cynic. We’ll take my sketch as a case in point.
Regardless of whether you believe the sketch would be funny, I am interested in whether it could be considered ‘defamatory’. It was meant to be a short sketch, opening on a shot of a chubby man sitting behind a desk, looking pristine in a suit. Without saying anything the man would then begin to growl softly, slowly building up to a crescendo where he starts barking, jumps onto the desk and eventually attacks the camera. The sketch would then end with a voice over disclaiming “this was a party political broadcast for the”. I was wondering whether this sketch, which is clearly meant to be comedic in nature (whether you would be amused by it or not) would be considered ‘defamatory’ and removed. I hope not, otherwise I’d have to become righteously indignant along lines of free speech, harrumph.
The other article which rubbed me up the wrong way is one in which the Booker Prize, and more specifically its perceived bias toward historical or ‘worthy’ novels, was discussed. The article retold the opinions of one Kim Stanley Robinson, who I am told (by the article) is a well famous sci-fi author all up. He believes that the genre of sci-fi is tragically overlooked by people who are predisposed to judge sci-fi as being of no artistic merit. He believes that “the best British literature of our time” is based in sci-fi, and believes that there are “very brilliant writers doing excellent work who are never in the running at all, for no reason except their genre”.
I am not a huge fan of sci-fi, having grown up reading more fantasy-based swords and sorcery novels, and taken quite a sharp turn into straight fiction as an ‘adult’, but the sci-fi novels that I have read have all been utterly wonderful, however they have all been classics. So while I think that ‘I am Legend’ and ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ are magnificent and thought provoking works, I’m not really in a position to comment on more contemporary sci-fi works, which is why I shall be reacquainting myself with the genre in the near-future. Whether or not Kim Stanley Robinson has a point, though I would argue he does, what aggravates me the most is the reply from Booker judge and all-around-numpty John Mullan.
Now what is particularly worth bearing in mind when you read the quotation I am about to provide, is that John Mullan is a Professor of English at University College London, and, therefore, should know better. In regards to why sci-fi isn’t better represented he says:
"When I was 18 it was a genre as accepted as other genres," he said, but now "it is in a special room in book shops, bought by a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to and meet each other."
Now the words I would pick out of that sentence as being of note are ‘special’ and in particular ‘weird’. People who read sci-fi are, apparently, “a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to”. I’d say that statement is hardly more intelligent than the childish labeling of people as ‘nerds’ and ‘freaks’ whilst in school. He is essentially saying “Oh of course there’s no sci-fi in the Booker, sci-fi is for weirdos”. What a knob.
If it was less depressing it would be amusing that someone holding a position at a University, who I would hope to be slightly less close-minded, would view a section of the public in that way. The way in which he describes readers of sci-fi sounds as though they have some kind of dubious sexual fetish. Of course I have fallen into my own trap there, by marginalizing individuals with a colourful sexual preference, which I have only done so that I am able to highlight this mistake in this sentence you are reading here. Huzzah, I am the King of self-referential meta-bloggery.
John Mullan seals his fate by denouncing the complaints as “absolute bullshit” at the end. I have no problem with University Professors swearing, but it hardly lends credence to your opinions, and makes you look like a reactionary dunce, cloaking the fact that you have no real evidence to back up your claims with aggressive language.
Schaa~ I am tempted to end this on a hilariously ironic fit of swearing to send up my own conclusion, but I like my last sentence so much, I shan’t.
You twonk.
The BBC article that has caused some annoyance to me is one that states:
“The Electoral Commission has said it will not be able to police the expected explosion in spoof internet videos at the next general election.”
What throws me slightly about this claim is that it is based on the presumption that spoof videos should be ‘policed’, as surely that would be quite a shocking example of censorship. The article doesn’t really go into details with regards to what constitutes a ‘spoof video’. This interests me quite a lot as I have written a sketch that is essentially a mock party political broadcast, and it intrigues me that if they could, the Electoral Commission would attempt to pull it. I could of course be misunderstanding exactly what sort of policing they had in mind, and it doesn’t really affect me directly as the sketch doesn’t exist as yet, but I reserve the right to follow in the proud British tradition of grossly overreacting to nothing in particular.
“complaints about potentially defamatory material, under electoral laws, remain a matter for the police and that cases will be investigated”.
The article fails to define the term ‘defamatory’, whose synonyms range from ‘insulting’ to ‘libellous’. While I agree that genuinely libellous claims are damaging, surely merely insulting videos are hardly a ‘matter for the police’? Or maybe I am just a desensitised cynic. We’ll take my sketch as a case in point.
Regardless of whether you believe the sketch would be funny, I am interested in whether it could be considered ‘defamatory’. It was meant to be a short sketch, opening on a shot of a chubby man sitting behind a desk, looking pristine in a suit. Without saying anything the man would then begin to growl softly, slowly building up to a crescendo where he starts barking, jumps onto the desk and eventually attacks the camera. The sketch would then end with a voice over disclaiming “this was a party political broadcast for the
The other article which rubbed me up the wrong way is one in which the Booker Prize, and more specifically its perceived bias toward historical or ‘worthy’ novels, was discussed. The article retold the opinions of one Kim Stanley Robinson, who I am told (by the article) is a well famous sci-fi author all up. He believes that the genre of sci-fi is tragically overlooked by people who are predisposed to judge sci-fi as being of no artistic merit. He believes that “the best British literature of our time” is based in sci-fi, and believes that there are “very brilliant writers doing excellent work who are never in the running at all, for no reason except their genre”.
I am not a huge fan of sci-fi, having grown up reading more fantasy-based swords and sorcery novels, and taken quite a sharp turn into straight fiction as an ‘adult’, but the sci-fi novels that I have read have all been utterly wonderful, however they have all been classics. So while I think that ‘I am Legend’ and ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ are magnificent and thought provoking works, I’m not really in a position to comment on more contemporary sci-fi works, which is why I shall be reacquainting myself with the genre in the near-future. Whether or not Kim Stanley Robinson has a point, though I would argue he does, what aggravates me the most is the reply from Booker judge and all-around-numpty John Mullan.
Now what is particularly worth bearing in mind when you read the quotation I am about to provide, is that John Mullan is a Professor of English at University College London, and, therefore, should know better. In regards to why sci-fi isn’t better represented he says:
"When I was 18 it was a genre as accepted as other genres," he said, but now "it is in a special room in book shops, bought by a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to and meet each other."
Now the words I would pick out of that sentence as being of note are ‘special’ and in particular ‘weird’. People who read sci-fi are, apparently, “a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to”. I’d say that statement is hardly more intelligent than the childish labeling of people as ‘nerds’ and ‘freaks’ whilst in school. He is essentially saying “Oh of course there’s no sci-fi in the Booker, sci-fi is for weirdos”. What a knob.
If it was less depressing it would be amusing that someone holding a position at a University, who I would hope to be slightly less close-minded, would view a section of the public in that way. The way in which he describes readers of sci-fi sounds as though they have some kind of dubious sexual fetish. Of course I have fallen into my own trap there, by marginalizing individuals with a colourful sexual preference, which I have only done so that I am able to highlight this mistake in this sentence you are reading here. Huzzah, I am the King of self-referential meta-bloggery.
John Mullan seals his fate by denouncing the complaints as “absolute bullshit” at the end. I have no problem with University Professors swearing, but it hardly lends credence to your opinions, and makes you look like a reactionary dunce, cloaking the fact that you have no real evidence to back up your claims with aggressive language.
Schaa~ I am tempted to end this on a hilariously ironic fit of swearing to send up my own conclusion, but I like my last sentence so much, I shan’t.
You twonk.
Thursday, 17 September 2009
A Document Regarding Frivolous Patois
"Don't people in Roath have the same right to a decent night's sleep as everybody else?"
This is the only line from a news article that I have discovered today that I found noteworthy. I reproduce it here, out of context, in the hope that the vagaries surrounding the quotation will add to its oddness.
I am unsure what to write about today, so I will allow myself what I originally believed this blog would not become, and write an entry specifically about myself. Oh dear me indeed.
I have been surrounded by children recently, due to the nature of my job, and I have discovered that the youth of today has adopted a number of odd colloquialisms that I find jarring. This is hardly surprising, and indeed is one of the things to be expected from generation to generation, but as I am only 21, I am slightly flummoxed to note the difference in language use already present in people 7-8 years my junior. I appreciate that I may not be a legitimate bastion of current slang, as evidenced by my use of terms such as “flummoxed”, “legitimate” and “bastion”. However, some of the language used without even the thinnest veneer of irony or self-awareness is flabbergasting.
I am no stranger to the concept of “ownage”, though it is feasible to assume that I would not use it straight-faced even in its original definition. What is most surprising to me is the new usage that has cropped up where kids, referring to their armour on an online game, inquire hubristically: “Do I look ownage?” Despite being employed as a glorified child-behaviour paladin, my degree in, and passion about, the English language lead me to view this use of language with an air of haughty distaste.
Another example of ludicrous patois is the decision of the children to actually declare, out loud, with their voices, out of their own mouths, into the air, where you are HEAR it: “OMG!”. Actually spelling out the letters instead of saying the words these letters have come to represent. I have come to the point where I allot myself 15 lashes if I ever use the actual phrase “oh my god”, and to hear little human whelps using the bowdlerised phrase with no sense of how idiotic they sound leaves me chilled. I think it all comes down to the fact that I hate children, and in this sense I am both not suited and perfectly suited to being in charge of them. They also say “noob”. I am agèd beyond my days.
In a jarring change of topic, I will now stop talking about something that frustrates me and begin discussing things I enjoy. I was let loose into a radio studio recently, along with my future co-presenter, to “get a feel of the room”. What we achieved in the hour or so we were allowed in there was, though it is swell-headed of me to say so, beautiful. We quickly came to grips with the technology and the software by ourselves, since we are such tech-savvy clever Richards, we then proceeded to ‘practice’ and prepare an off the cuff non-recorded pilot of what we think our show should be. It essentially comprised of songs we don’t like being seamlessly faded in and out of each other to an accompaniment of us cachinnating cacophonously. In the heightened oddness of the studio, which I am going to refer to as The Atelier, even the most spurious joke or funny story became hilarious, sending us into rapturous bellowing laughter. We gleaned far too much enjoyment from being ‘naughty’ and pronouncing Foo Fighters as though it was a naughty word (which of course we cannot do on air due to the Don’t Say The Naughty Words! Act 1914), and also from a frighteningly accurate impression of Sarah Millican, which no Rhondda-born man has any right to be able to do, and also a very poor John Lennon. We toyed with the idea of pretending to be from other community radio stations located around the country, welcoming imaginary listeners in a heavy faux-cockney accent to Pearly Kings FM, and topping this off with a gravitas laden “Have a banana”. It was all scuppered however as the manager of the station walked in on us raging through an angry dialogue pretending to be from a Liverpudlian station. I think we scared her quite a lot, and perhaps made her question her own judgement in terms of letting us in. Regardless, we had a swell time (I am very much on board in the attempt to re-popularise this term).
As well as our being-silly centric live shows which we will be broadcasting on the weekend when the radio gets started (if all goes well), we are also planning on doing a number of pre-records using a format I dreamt up last year, and that we have been meddling with in order to amuse ourselves. I am very excited to be planning and preparing for the Cultural Exchange Program, the premise of which is very simple indeed. We will be picking a genre (of Jean Reno as we will be attempt to rebrand them) each, amassing a selection of songs from the genre, playing them to each other and discussing them, in the hopes that The Exchange will make us better, more rounded individuals, and failing that, that some laughter will have been created. Despite having prepared fastidiously for the first show, I won’t put details here as it is still far enough away that I feel I must keep as much information to myself in order for it to remain fresh on the day.
Suffice to say, preparations for the show have been engrossing and enjoyable, even when certain songs cannot be chosen due to the often colourful language my preferred genres contain. I take these instances to be a challenge, and tracks that are unsuitable for broadcast have already forced me to seek out other tracks, which have often proved better. Hopefully we will be able to incorporate a “Tracks We Couldn’t Play” section, in order to explain the reasons they couldn’t be used, which I have already discovered often have quite amusing reasons.
To close up, here is a track that I most certainly couldn’t play, and is a chirpy, although somewhat abrasive, piece. See if you can spot why it’s inappropriate.
Answers on a postcard please.
This is the only line from a news article that I have discovered today that I found noteworthy. I reproduce it here, out of context, in the hope that the vagaries surrounding the quotation will add to its oddness.
I am unsure what to write about today, so I will allow myself what I originally believed this blog would not become, and write an entry specifically about myself. Oh dear me indeed.
I have been surrounded by children recently, due to the nature of my job, and I have discovered that the youth of today has adopted a number of odd colloquialisms that I find jarring. This is hardly surprising, and indeed is one of the things to be expected from generation to generation, but as I am only 21, I am slightly flummoxed to note the difference in language use already present in people 7-8 years my junior. I appreciate that I may not be a legitimate bastion of current slang, as evidenced by my use of terms such as “flummoxed”, “legitimate” and “bastion”. However, some of the language used without even the thinnest veneer of irony or self-awareness is flabbergasting.
I am no stranger to the concept of “ownage”, though it is feasible to assume that I would not use it straight-faced even in its original definition. What is most surprising to me is the new usage that has cropped up where kids, referring to their armour on an online game, inquire hubristically: “Do I look ownage?” Despite being employed as a glorified child-behaviour paladin, my degree in, and passion about, the English language lead me to view this use of language with an air of haughty distaste.
Another example of ludicrous patois is the decision of the children to actually declare, out loud, with their voices, out of their own mouths, into the air, where you are HEAR it: “OMG!”. Actually spelling out the letters instead of saying the words these letters have come to represent. I have come to the point where I allot myself 15 lashes if I ever use the actual phrase “oh my god”, and to hear little human whelps using the bowdlerised phrase with no sense of how idiotic they sound leaves me chilled. I think it all comes down to the fact that I hate children, and in this sense I am both not suited and perfectly suited to being in charge of them. They also say “noob”. I am agèd beyond my days.
In a jarring change of topic, I will now stop talking about something that frustrates me and begin discussing things I enjoy. I was let loose into a radio studio recently, along with my future co-presenter, to “get a feel of the room”. What we achieved in the hour or so we were allowed in there was, though it is swell-headed of me to say so, beautiful. We quickly came to grips with the technology and the software by ourselves, since we are such tech-savvy clever Richards, we then proceeded to ‘practice’ and prepare an off the cuff non-recorded pilot of what we think our show should be. It essentially comprised of songs we don’t like being seamlessly faded in and out of each other to an accompaniment of us cachinnating cacophonously. In the heightened oddness of the studio, which I am going to refer to as The Atelier, even the most spurious joke or funny story became hilarious, sending us into rapturous bellowing laughter. We gleaned far too much enjoyment from being ‘naughty’ and pronouncing Foo Fighters as though it was a naughty word (which of course we cannot do on air due to the Don’t Say The Naughty Words! Act 1914), and also from a frighteningly accurate impression of Sarah Millican, which no Rhondda-born man has any right to be able to do, and also a very poor John Lennon. We toyed with the idea of pretending to be from other community radio stations located around the country, welcoming imaginary listeners in a heavy faux-cockney accent to Pearly Kings FM, and topping this off with a gravitas laden “Have a banana”. It was all scuppered however as the manager of the station walked in on us raging through an angry dialogue pretending to be from a Liverpudlian station. I think we scared her quite a lot, and perhaps made her question her own judgement in terms of letting us in. Regardless, we had a swell time (I am very much on board in the attempt to re-popularise this term).
As well as our being-silly centric live shows which we will be broadcasting on the weekend when the radio gets started (if all goes well), we are also planning on doing a number of pre-records using a format I dreamt up last year, and that we have been meddling with in order to amuse ourselves. I am very excited to be planning and preparing for the Cultural Exchange Program, the premise of which is very simple indeed. We will be picking a genre (of Jean Reno as we will be attempt to rebrand them) each, amassing a selection of songs from the genre, playing them to each other and discussing them, in the hopes that The Exchange will make us better, more rounded individuals, and failing that, that some laughter will have been created. Despite having prepared fastidiously for the first show, I won’t put details here as it is still far enough away that I feel I must keep as much information to myself in order for it to remain fresh on the day.
Suffice to say, preparations for the show have been engrossing and enjoyable, even when certain songs cannot be chosen due to the often colourful language my preferred genres contain. I take these instances to be a challenge, and tracks that are unsuitable for broadcast have already forced me to seek out other tracks, which have often proved better. Hopefully we will be able to incorporate a “Tracks We Couldn’t Play” section, in order to explain the reasons they couldn’t be used, which I have already discovered often have quite amusing reasons.
To close up, here is a track that I most certainly couldn’t play, and is a chirpy, although somewhat abrasive, piece. See if you can spot why it’s inappropriate.
Answers on a postcard please.
Friday, 11 September 2009
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.
“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.
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Pedestal to the Metal
Administrative bumph often means that genuine change takes a huge length of time to occur, and so a genuine overhaul is interesting news. One such overhaul occurred recently in Samoa, where they decided to change which side of the road they drive on. This has resulted in significant hilarity because some buses are no longer allowed to run because their doors are now on the wrong side of the bus, meaning that potential passengers would have to walk out into the middle of the road in order to board a bus. I say hilarity.
According the BBC article I’ve got this story from, the reason for this change was to enable Samoans to import cheaper automobiles from anywhere but America, because the left-hand drives they were having to buy beforehand were too expensive. Overlooking the poor arrangement of the previous sentence, I would like to express my interest that the change was made for business reasons. I think I should come clean and admit that I did believe I could make some humorous comment about this story, and have been proven wrong, rather than edit this piece out, however, I think it should be left in, as I am all for honesty and transparency in my blogging endeavour.
Another breaking story today, which I actually have something interesting to say about, was an article about the Beatles, who are a brand new band you probably haven’t heard of. The main thrust of the piece was that, in light of their entire back-catalogue being re-released in glorious mono, the journalist Stephen Robb asks why you aren’t allowed to dislike the Beatles.
“The Beatles seem to occupy a uniquely unassailable position in popular culture - everybody loves them. Don't they?” he asks.
He then discovers that there are indeed some people who hate the Beatles, or at the very least think they are overrated, which is of course such an easy thing to think due to them being so very highly rated. I was not alive when the Beatles ruled the world, nor did I listen to them seriously until fairly recently, and so I am of the opinion that they are ok. There are some songs I do not rate at all, but mostly they are enjoyable.
My interesting (we’ll see) point about the Beatles revolves around the first stand-up set I began performing with my friend (co-hopeful-comedian?) back around February, where a line about Pink not being the ‘rockstar’ she claims she is leads us to question what John Lennon would have made of Pink. Connoisseurs of the double act format will be aware that an extreme contrast between the two parties usually exists, and our act is no exception. Therefore the inquiry about John Lennon leads to my colleague brazenly declaring “John Lennon was an idiot”. Before we embarked on our comedy-attempts we thought there might be controversial lines in our sets, but to this day the only line that has been greeted with a sharp intake of breath and an “ooooh” has been the material on John Lennon. Bearing in mind this is roughly 30 years after he was killed, and the insult was merely “he’s an idiot” (followed by the declaration that “He thought he was a walrus”) is perhaps testimony to the pedestal he is held upon. Whether this is justified, which is the query of the original article, is of no interest to me, as long as I am able to enjoy Norwegian Wood (or not) at my own discretion. The Haruki Murakami novel which takes its name from that song, was the catalyst that made me investigate the Beatles seriously. If you are dying for some Norwegian Wood, I would suggest the novel before the song, unless you are strapped for time. My double act partner has a genuine dislike of the Beatles, the song ‘Octopus’ Garden’ especially, so if Stephen Robb is strapped for Beatles haters to interview, send him my way and I will patch him through.
Rather than disliking the metaphorical John Lennon Hero-Worship Plinth which hangs in the stratosphere in particular, I have a general dislike for putting anyone on a pedestal. When people are elevated to such a position where criticism of them is no longer tolerated, that is where ignorance begins.
I was recently watching clips of Robin Ince on YouTube, where I stumbled upon the commentary from a Ricky Gervais DVD (‘Politics’ I think) that had been uploaded. In the clips, Ricky chats with Robin, in what is either an amazingly fastidious act or evidence of the stunted mental growth somewhere within Ricky Gervais. It is the comment section which interested me most, as with most YouTube videos, as regardless of how good the content of the clip is, it is unavoidable that in the comment section, vacuous idiocy prevails.
I was surprised, then, to discover that actual thought was taking place in the comments below. One poster expressed that Ricky’s constant belittling of Robin was ridiculous, as Robin is a far better comedian. Further posts decried a number of comedians ‘better’ than Ricky Gervais, with particular focus on Stewart Lee. 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, which is why its important to explain what criteria you are judging them on. Of course a YouTube comment section possibly isn’t the place for that, whereas of course, I would argue a blog is (lucky you). An interesting poster simply inquired: “Stewart Lee better than Ricky Gervais, which planet are you on?”
I was intrigued that a comment on the famous video site would take the form of a riddle, thinking that slightly more information would have been welcome before it was necessary for me to answer accurately. With the small amount of knowledge available to me I tentatively answered: Earth.
I received Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle through the post today, which perhaps suggests that my opinion is going to be skewed, though I also own the stand-up DVDs of Ricky Gervais, meaning that I could make an informed decision, should I choose to do so. In terms of my personal preference, I believe that Stewart Lee and Robin Ince are better comedians that Ricky Gervais, regardless of how successful they are in purely monetary terms. I think the works of Stewart Lee and Robin Ince are more crafted and thoughtful than Gervais’, who often has dalliances with ‘dodgy’ topics, the actual aims of which I am uncertain of. When it comes to subjects which are likely to cause offence or leave people feeling awkward, it is important to understand the reason why the jokes are being made, the actual target of the jokes, and the message, and I sometimes feel that Gervais’ point is uncertain. This is of course my own personal reading of them, from one viewing, so it is completely possible that there is a justifiable point to the jokes.
The tone of the commenter, however, suggested that the quality of anything touched by Gervais was not to be questioned, purely on the quality of what has gone before. Which is, of course, rubbish. Each new offering has to be viewed on its own merits, and a mediocre, or rubbish, offering should not receive acclaim because The Office is good. When The Office first came out, I was slightly boggled by it, but I was likely too young to fully understand it, and so I am not really in any position to offer a credible view of it.
While I prefer a vast amount of comedians to Ricky Gervais, I am in no way saying he isn’t funny, and I do enjoy his work. I haven’t seen Extras, or any of the films he has worked on, nor have I heard the podcasts which has him crowned King of Podcasts, and to understand the phenomenon of his being held in such huge esteem, I would have to undertake a comprehensive study of its causes.
According the BBC article I’ve got this story from, the reason for this change was to enable Samoans to import cheaper automobiles from anywhere but America, because the left-hand drives they were having to buy beforehand were too expensive. Overlooking the poor arrangement of the previous sentence, I would like to express my interest that the change was made for business reasons. I think I should come clean and admit that I did believe I could make some humorous comment about this story, and have been proven wrong, rather than edit this piece out, however, I think it should be left in, as I am all for honesty and transparency in my blogging endeavour.
Another breaking story today, which I actually have something interesting to say about, was an article about the Beatles, who are a brand new band you probably haven’t heard of. The main thrust of the piece was that, in light of their entire back-catalogue being re-released in glorious mono, the journalist Stephen Robb asks why you aren’t allowed to dislike the Beatles.
“The Beatles seem to occupy a uniquely unassailable position in popular culture - everybody loves them. Don't they?” he asks.
He then discovers that there are indeed some people who hate the Beatles, or at the very least think they are overrated, which is of course such an easy thing to think due to them being so very highly rated. I was not alive when the Beatles ruled the world, nor did I listen to them seriously until fairly recently, and so I am of the opinion that they are ok. There are some songs I do not rate at all, but mostly they are enjoyable.
My interesting (we’ll see) point about the Beatles revolves around the first stand-up set I began performing with my friend (co-hopeful-comedian?) back around February, where a line about Pink not being the ‘rockstar’ she claims she is leads us to question what John Lennon would have made of Pink. Connoisseurs of the double act format will be aware that an extreme contrast between the two parties usually exists, and our act is no exception. Therefore the inquiry about John Lennon leads to my colleague brazenly declaring “John Lennon was an idiot”. Before we embarked on our comedy-attempts we thought there might be controversial lines in our sets, but to this day the only line that has been greeted with a sharp intake of breath and an “ooooh” has been the material on John Lennon. Bearing in mind this is roughly 30 years after he was killed, and the insult was merely “he’s an idiot” (followed by the declaration that “He thought he was a walrus”) is perhaps testimony to the pedestal he is held upon. Whether this is justified, which is the query of the original article, is of no interest to me, as long as I am able to enjoy Norwegian Wood (or not) at my own discretion. The Haruki Murakami novel which takes its name from that song, was the catalyst that made me investigate the Beatles seriously. If you are dying for some Norwegian Wood, I would suggest the novel before the song, unless you are strapped for time. My double act partner has a genuine dislike of the Beatles, the song ‘Octopus’ Garden’ especially, so if Stephen Robb is strapped for Beatles haters to interview, send him my way and I will patch him through.
Rather than disliking the metaphorical John Lennon Hero-Worship Plinth which hangs in the stratosphere in particular, I have a general dislike for putting anyone on a pedestal. When people are elevated to such a position where criticism of them is no longer tolerated, that is where ignorance begins.
I was recently watching clips of Robin Ince on YouTube, where I stumbled upon the commentary from a Ricky Gervais DVD (‘Politics’ I think) that had been uploaded. In the clips, Ricky chats with Robin, in what is either an amazingly fastidious act or evidence of the stunted mental growth somewhere within Ricky Gervais. It is the comment section which interested me most, as with most YouTube videos, as regardless of how good the content of the clip is, it is unavoidable that in the comment section, vacuous idiocy prevails.
I was surprised, then, to discover that actual thought was taking place in the comments below. One poster expressed that Ricky’s constant belittling of Robin was ridiculous, as Robin is a far better comedian. Further posts decried a number of comedians ‘better’ than Ricky Gervais, with particular focus on Stewart Lee. 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, which is why its important to explain what criteria you are judging them on. Of course a YouTube comment section possibly isn’t the place for that, whereas of course, I would argue a blog is (lucky you). An interesting poster simply inquired: “Stewart Lee better than Ricky Gervais, which planet are you on?”
I was intrigued that a comment on the famous video site would take the form of a riddle, thinking that slightly more information would have been welcome before it was necessary for me to answer accurately. With the small amount of knowledge available to me I tentatively answered: Earth.
I received Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle through the post today, which perhaps suggests that my opinion is going to be skewed, though I also own the stand-up DVDs of Ricky Gervais, meaning that I could make an informed decision, should I choose to do so. In terms of my personal preference, I believe that Stewart Lee and Robin Ince are better comedians that Ricky Gervais, regardless of how successful they are in purely monetary terms. I think the works of Stewart Lee and Robin Ince are more crafted and thoughtful than Gervais’, who often has dalliances with ‘dodgy’ topics, the actual aims of which I am uncertain of. When it comes to subjects which are likely to cause offence or leave people feeling awkward, it is important to understand the reason why the jokes are being made, the actual target of the jokes, and the message, and I sometimes feel that Gervais’ point is uncertain. This is of course my own personal reading of them, from one viewing, so it is completely possible that there is a justifiable point to the jokes.
The tone of the commenter, however, suggested that the quality of anything touched by Gervais was not to be questioned, purely on the quality of what has gone before. Which is, of course, rubbish. Each new offering has to be viewed on its own merits, and a mediocre, or rubbish, offering should not receive acclaim because The Office is good. When The Office first came out, I was slightly boggled by it, but I was likely too young to fully understand it, and so I am not really in any position to offer a credible view of it.
While I prefer a vast amount of comedians to Ricky Gervais, I am in no way saying he isn’t funny, and I do enjoy his work. I haven’t seen Extras, or any of the films he has worked on, nor have I heard the podcasts which has him crowned King of Podcasts, and to understand the phenomenon of his being held in such huge esteem, I would have to undertake a comprehensive study of its causes.
Monday, 7 September 2009
Voluntarily Volunteering Volunteering Observations
Volunteering is a strange process. Throughout the vast majority of my life I have not been a volunteering sort of person. In school I was often involved in a number of interesting extra curriculars, but this was always as the behest of teachers or friends. Since leaving Uni, however, I am attempting to buck this trend.
In order to have enough to write about, I am using the word ‘volunteer’ in a very broad sense. My first foray into the world of volunteering came when I was involved in giving University hopefuls a tour of the campus. Which I did once. In all truth this was not meant to be a volunteering program, I would have been paid for my efforts, but I did such an awful job of it I felt it would be wrong to chase up payment. There is an applicable saying referring to money and sense that I could apply to that anecdote, but I won’t. Though I have.
I am also broadening ‘volunteering’ to include comedy open spots, which I started seeking out earlier this year. These shouldn’t really be considered volunteering, as I very much wanted to do them, and arguably I was earning more in non-monetary terms than I was investing. I wonder whether open spots / open mic nights are officially considered voluntary work, although I am not inquisitive enough to do anything apart from include the query here.
In a more direct sense I will, in the near future, be volunteering for a local community radio station, but even this doesn’t quite fit the bill for me. Volunteering is usually portrayed in such a way as to seem like a burden and a hassle, but my experience of volunteering for the radio so far has been a joy, and genuinely exciting. For me, being involved in the workings of the station is less an unpaid use of my time, and more a fantastical romp through the airwaves, wondering quite how I have been allowed free reign to fill time between songs. Still, it hasn’t happened yet, fates may conspire against my radio aspirations. My comedy efforts have thrived thus far however, and I am fully confident that I will be equally competent in the radiographical sphere. Because I am a self-impressed hubristic eloquent yob.
It is interesting that I have the opportunity to discuss my understanding of volunteering to such a degree, as I am writing this whilst in work. Having run out of interesting (to me) BBC, Guardian and Chortle articles to peruse, I am forced to write my own words in order to pass the time. The responsibilities of my employed role require me to ensure the safety of computers, and the harmony of a cyber café. The dash of the ‘e’ in cyber café was placed there automatically by Word, I note this as it would be simply ghastly if the reader were to find within me a quantum of pretention.
My job of babysitting internet-browsing youths is particularly stress free at this point, as 4 kids playing Runescape are hardly ‘rowdy’ in any way shape of form. There are a group of my co-workers assembled in the corner of the room schmoozing, but instead of joining them and enjoying some rational human company I am compiling this facile correspondence to be flung haphazardly into the vacuum of the blogosphere. How deliciously futile.
A mixture of monitor-based-pain of the eye-area and a lack of sleep conspire to shroud the room in a foggy haze. Either that or a monitor has overheated in a Runescape based tragedy. I hope the second is the case and I am freed from the 20 minute minimalistic survival game until the end of my shift. On second thought I think I will wait it out.
I am now down to three children left under my scrutiny. Down to the final three. Who will win? You decide. The winner is Youssef Richards-Harrowby, whose name I have altered for security reasons.#
What this post proves is that my creativity is hampered by the potential for people to glance over my shoulder. Also sleep deprivation and lack of respect for the blog reading public.
I would end this post with a 'meh', but I hate that phrase with a passion akin to fury. 'Meh' is evidence of a lack of thought, and a lack of thought is the only truly evil action a human being can undertake. So why don't you 'ave a fink about dat den cleverpants?
Friday, 21 August 2009
The Cheek: Contribution #2
Here is a piece I wrote for The Cheek (Issue #7) about Ricky Gervais. Colourful version can be found at The Cheek.
***
Ricky Gervais is surely the most industrious lazy-man working in the business today.
“I don’t like getting up at 7:30 every morning, it’s ridiculous. Why do we have to start that early, what are we, farmers? It’s the light, put a lamp up.”
But this seemingly slothful musing is highly misleading, as becomes apparent even in a casual perusal of his impressive back-catalogue. It is difficult not to be impressed by his multi-disciplinarity, with forays in radio, television, stand-up, podcasts, children’s books and now film all gaining a widespread following and acclaim.
“I didn't even intend to do what I'm doing now. I think doing something creative is the most important thing to me, and I think it's probably just good for the soul for anyone, whatever it is. You don't have to be a film director—you can do gardening or something—but I think everyone needs to create something.”
Despite his many accomplishments in these various fields, Ricky is perhaps still best known for his original creation, The Office, written with long-time creative partner Stephen Merchant. The trendsetting mockumentary received a huge amount of critical acclaim, as well as attracting a dedicated following and spawning a highly successful and long-running re-imagining for the US, starring Steve Carell. Now an experienced TV writer, with hit show Extras enjoying two successful series (plus specials), Ricky outlines one aspect of particular importance.
“Rewriting is a vitally important part of the process. Most things I see on TV would be twice as good if they had just given it another rewrite. Maybe it's arrogance, ego, lack of judgement or lack of involvement. There are probably great writers out there who you'll never get to hear about because they handed their script over to a bad director or producer. As a writer, you've got to be involved throughout. Woody Allen was so right when he said the best an idea gets is when it's in your head. From then on, it's just a matter of how much you ruin it. But if you're constantly around, it gets ruined less.”
Having taken to comedy comparatively late in the day, and arguably in an unusual order, Ricky then turned to stand-up which, despite some initial trepidation, has also proved incredibly successful.
“I suppose I felt guilty about walking into a great job like the Office, you know? Most comedians slog around for 20 years before they get a part in a sitcom or a chance to write something. I like the romance of doing stand-up. It’s the last bastion of self-censorship outside the novel, and that excites me. I can go onstage and say anything I want. Well, I pretty much do that on the telly as well. I guess I can get away with it because I put forward a good argument.”
His most recent show, the HBO special Out of England received Emmy nominations for Best Variety, Music or Comedy Special, for Best Writing in that same category, and for its picture editing.
“This is particularly special for me, as it is my first Emmy nomination for my stand-up work”.
Ricky begins a national tour of his fourth stand-up show, Science, in the autumn, though where he found enough time to write this alongside other projects is impossible to deduce.
Currently occupying his time is his most recent Stephen Merchant collaboration, the film Cemetery Junction. Set in 1970s Reading, the setting of Gervais’ own childhood, the film details the story of two young men working as clerks at a building society. The premise might not instantly seem a rich seam of comedy, but this is a trend you can see running through all of Ricky’s work, as the office of a paper-production company based in Slough must not have appeared to be the comedy goldmine that it is now considered to be.
Ricky is known for what can only be described as antics and shenanigans on set, often trying to raise a laugh from the crew or cause a cast member to corpse. Perhaps the most notable example of this is the bullying of Robin Ince, which is sometimes included as an unlikely extra in his stand-up DVDs. This fine tradition continues into the current recording, where a moustachioed Karl Pilkington makes an equally unlikely cameo.
“[I] had a dream that I was given millions of pounds to make a Hollywood movie. But I just dressed up my gimp mate like a complete div and laughed till I burst.”
Clearly this is not all he has been doing, with an acting résumé that boasts roles alongside Ralph Fiennes, Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller he has become something of a force in the film world. Though some would say that Ricky suffers of a swollen ego at times, he aims to hold true to his sense integrity.
“I don't care if it fails, honestly. I'd rather have something that's completely mine fail than something succeed that I'm not proud of.”
The Cheek: Contribution #1
Here is a copy of an article I wrote for The Cheek (Issue #7). A shiny version can be found at The Cheek.
****
Thanks to the rising availability of computer generated music it is possible for any talentless banshee to create a grating, repetitive dance track, and more often than not, they do. In the vast mire of commercially available dance headaches it is necessary for a track to have a unique selling point in order to stand out.
Acts used to incorporate a direct plea to have their music played, using attention grabbing titles such as Hey DJ and the less ambiguous Hey DJ (Play That Song). And who could forget the forgettable hit from DJ RCT Ow DJ (You Gonna Play This Song or What Like?).
It is interesting, then, to see Cascada rise to the top of the charts with the track Evacuate the Dancefloor, which does not employ these gimmicky methods. In fact it seems Cascada have utilised schoolyard reverse psychology in order to manufacture heavy rotation of their track, emploring everyone within cacophonous yelping distance to remove themselves from the area reserved for rhythmic motions, or Evacuate the Dancefloor, if you'd prefer.
Odd that a song would describe it's own noise as "like an overdose", the symptoms of which include dizziness, disorientation, nausea, vomiting, and oscillopsia. Having listened to the track I can confirm some side effects, and to be honest I am touched by the band's honest and frank admission. In listening to the track I certainly experienced a degree of nausea.
The singer also claims to have been "infected by the sound". Wikipedia describes an infection as "the detrimental colonization of a host organism by a foreign species". So essentially this track is like music aliens invading your brain, in a bad way. This is supported by the following line "stop this beat is killing me". One wonders how such a dangerous track was ever allowed to be made commercially available.
Worryingly the final line in a number of the choruses is "Hey little DJ let the music take me underground". Even overlooking the extremely patronising "little" in that line, it certainly seems that the lyricist of Cascada is harboring self-destructive tendencies. Far be it for me to speak out against the euthanasia of vacuous dance outfits, some sacrifices are hardly sacrifices at all. It is, however, a harmful message to be sending out for the little dance droids. An alternative version of this line advocates burning the dancefloor, which is despicable. There is nothing funny about arson (not unless you remove the last two letters).
So somehow the mystic music charts have ensured that the number one spot is inhabited by the teeth-grinding noise of Cascada. Cue three and a half minutes of footage of a posing tool. Strangely the woman from Cascada looks remarkably like an R.E. teacher I once had, the main difference being a noticable lack of strutting and wailing to a backing track of ear-rupturing dance noise like a public service announcement from the seventh circle of synth hell. Instead, she taught R.E. I preferred this. Unquestionably, the woman from Cascada is attractive, and that is, of course, enough to get to Number One, even pipping the recently deceased Michael Jackson to the post.
What we can learn from this is that you can't cheat your way to the top by using cheap gimmick titles for your songs, or by dying suddenly just before a huge farewell tour. It is also possible that Jacko isn't number one because a consensus wasn't reached about which song to back. There is nothing worse than a disorganised fan-base. Apart from death. Jackson just can't win. I suppose it is some consolation for him that "woo"-filled funk-fest Billie Jean reached number two. It's what he would have wanted, though he probably would have preferred a number one. And not to have died.
Congratulations are in order to Cascada however, they now enjoy their place in an elite group of artists that have achieved Number Ones over the years, their contemporaries include Bob the Builder and Crazy Frog. Truly the highest echelon of musical recognition.
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