Australia. Bastard child of Mother England and Uncle Sam.
Ahhhhh I miss it.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
a well placed raspberry
I was reflecting on the previous blog, wondering whether to delete it or not. Analysing comedy isn't something I love to do. I've always got a bit peeved when I have heard people who've never performed stand up, or are new to it, rave on like comic experts! Cos the truth is, just when you think you've figured out what makes something funny (or not), some new thing will come along and blow your theory out of the water.
Good comedy is beyond analysis.
Like a well placed raspberry. (thhhhtttt!!!)
Analyse a raspberry if you will. (listen to the goons "ying tong" song on your right).
What makes a raspberry funny? Is it because it sounds vaguely like a fart? Is it because it involves sticking your tongue out (not considered polite), or because it is a wordless and abstract sound effect? Is a raspberry "clean humor" or "dirty humor?"
Read any Shakespearean monologue in all seriousness, and stick in a raspberry at the end. I guarantee it will get laffs!
I do believe a raspberry defies analysis- like all good comedy.
Go ahead, analyse this:
thhhhhhhhhhhtttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!
Good comedy is beyond analysis.
Like a well placed raspberry. (thhhhtttt!!!)
Analyse a raspberry if you will. (listen to the goons "ying tong" song on your right).
What makes a raspberry funny? Is it because it sounds vaguely like a fart? Is it because it involves sticking your tongue out (not considered polite), or because it is a wordless and abstract sound effect? Is a raspberry "clean humor" or "dirty humor?"
Read any Shakespearean monologue in all seriousness, and stick in a raspberry at the end. I guarantee it will get laffs!
I do believe a raspberry defies analysis- like all good comedy.
Go ahead, analyse this:
thhhhhhhhhhhtttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!
Friday, January 16, 2009
"clean" improv
Good comic mate and I were having a chat about a comment we'd heard that there was a local performer who only wanted to do "clean improv!"
He and I were both puzzled.
"Is there such a thing then as "dirty improv," we pondered. I had never heard of the filthy obscene mofo improv troupe. I didn't know there was such a planned improv operational ideology such as "make it up as you go along, but make it rude" in existence. But if the local performer was right, and there's such a thing as "clean improv" then surely there must be it's opposite at work somewhere? It seems reasonable to conclude that that's what she's implying.
What on earth could she mean by "clean" anyway? Do they spray the microphone with lysol, and make sure the players are in freshly laundered clothes? Or does she mean that you mustn't say particular words that she finds rude and naughty? (In which case it's a bit subjective isn't it?) Kind of funny coming from an American who's country prides itself on it's "freedom of speech". Perhaps she's a republican and still a bit miffed at how things turned out?
When famous English comic, George Formby, sang the song on the right "When I'm cleaning windows", it was considered "unclean" in it's day! So the argument about what comic performers are allowed say still continues. Ho hum!
I've met this type of personality before. It's a well intentioned notion perhaps to aim for "clean comedy"- but it does beg for the definition of "clean". One person's "clean" might be another's filth after all. People get insulted by the strangest things. You don't have to cuss or use"rude" words to be filthy, and you can be considered "filthy" without using four letter words. For example if I described someone as a "scrumple bottied pus sucker" or a "piece of useless bodily discharge flying aimlessly through someone's undy cracks"... that might be much more filthy and insulting than simplifying it with a simple word..like...let's see now...hmm..."craphead" perhaps?
I could recite a poem by Maya Angelou and could do so beautifully, but if I do it naked? Is that "clean" or "dirty"? If I performed it naked to a Baptist church congregation, most certainly I would be thrown out! If I was reading the exact same poem, naked at a nudist convention, I would be accepted.
Lee Young, a friend who had enjoyed most of his career success from the comedy hey days in London (Frankie Howard and Marty Feldman were his warm up acts- that should give you an idea of how big he was in his time). He had moved to Australia and worked the club circuit. He said he did a leper joke one night in an Aussie RSL club for the blue rinse set. And one woman walked out of the room in tears and furious.
Now what are the chances of having someone in your audience who had had a friend with leprosy?
This comic act was a singer/dancer who did a few jokes. He never cussed, swore or did "rude sex gags". Leper jokes were a bit sick perhaps, but they were in vogue at the time and all he did was one little leper joke and it upset someone. ("Did you hear about the leper who lost his hand at cards?")
The thing is, people are going to be offended, they are going to be insulted no matter what you do. That's the nature of comedy. They might not like your hair, your accent, how you look, it might be something you said, or something you didn't say. Comedy demands an emotional reaction: hopefully it will be laughter. It's a provocative art form, and you can't 100 percent guarantee what kind of emotional reaction you're going to provoke - no matter how "clean" you are.
When it comes to improv, it suggests to me that what this person wants is the power to censor the subconcious- not only of their own subconcious, but of others. Do that, and all you will succeed in doing is squishing the whole point of improv. Improv is about surrendering, and if there's any "power play" going on at all, then it's about power sharing, not about having power over. One such "thought nazi"- Hitler, (funny as he was in his own right), could never have led the Monty Python gang. (By the way, Hitler never swore as far as I know, so I guess- depending on what your definition of "clean" is, he had a "clean act". ) http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/censorship_in_nazi_germany.htm
Keith Johnstone, (if I remember correctly), talked of the four stages you work through as you begin in both comedy and improv: the first stage is working out all your repressed stuff, second stage is releasing the angry stuff, then there's the "preacher and moralising stage", and finally - when you've gone through all these phases, you hopefully get to 'tender and benevolent'. My comic mate and improv team mate Anthony Ackroyd and I used to call it working "T & B". (We didn't always achieve it mind you, but we aimed for it! )
http://www.keithjohnstone.com/
There's alot of really stupid stuff that's said about "clean comedy" too. (It's usually by agents or uptight room bookers). There's just comedy that works, and there's comedy that fails'; and really it's not got alot to do with whether it's "clean" or "dirty". ( Chaucer, with his ribald "Wife of Bath's tale", Shakespeare with his dick jokes - all "unclean" apparently! And obviously, ancient greek writers like Aristophanes, wouldn't share her idea of what constitutes good "clean" comedy either! Thank the Gods. Speaking of Gods- it was the comedy Goddess Baubo, who had eyes where her nipples should be, and spoke from her vagina to cheer up Demeter when she was traipsin' the planet looking for Persephone. Now there's a female comic archetype to avoid if you are trying to eliminate "filth" from your act. (Actually if you think about it, the word "dirty" from "dirt" comes from the word "earth"- and alot of people have trouble with liking the earth. Even the ancients knew what made people laugh, and it wasn't always "clean"! Earthy humor grounded people!)
http://www.goddess-gift.com/goddess_gift_book/06Jan.htm
It's all a matter of where you are, the time you live in, being true to who you are and knowing who you are playing to. It's mostly about context, not words. I've heard it said that there's nothing funny about rape. Ho hum. If you are truly a comic then as soon as you hear that, your brain will instantly be working on "hmmm how can I make rape funny?" (we like to bend the rules. If you aren't thinking that, you aren't a comic and you need to quit wasting time trying to be one.) I agree with George Carlin's take on the subject: again it's about context. Rape is funny- if it was a typo in a cowboy story. The narrator, struggling with the typos, reads where the cowboy was going to "rope/rape" a bull.... rape can be funny if it's about a mouse that raped an elephant. (funnier for me, if it's a female mouse and male elephant! -Funnier again if I know the elephant was just wavin his trunk around and "askin' for it"!!)
As for the very idea of anyone insisting on "clean improv", the naivety of that notion is going to make me laff for days. I hope that the truly talented improv folks round here (my favorites are "pale imitations"), make the comic most of of the idea by introducing the "clean improv" and "dirty improv" as segments in their set. Tee hee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdT8CwhmrOc
He and I were both puzzled.
"Is there such a thing then as "dirty improv," we pondered. I had never heard of the filthy obscene mofo improv troupe. I didn't know there was such a planned improv operational ideology such as "make it up as you go along, but make it rude" in existence. But if the local performer was right, and there's such a thing as "clean improv" then surely there must be it's opposite at work somewhere? It seems reasonable to conclude that that's what she's implying.
What on earth could she mean by "clean" anyway? Do they spray the microphone with lysol, and make sure the players are in freshly laundered clothes? Or does she mean that you mustn't say particular words that she finds rude and naughty? (In which case it's a bit subjective isn't it?) Kind of funny coming from an American who's country prides itself on it's "freedom of speech". Perhaps she's a republican and still a bit miffed at how things turned out?
When famous English comic, George Formby, sang the song on the right "When I'm cleaning windows", it was considered "unclean" in it's day! So the argument about what comic performers are allowed say still continues. Ho hum!
I've met this type of personality before. It's a well intentioned notion perhaps to aim for "clean comedy"- but it does beg for the definition of "clean". One person's "clean" might be another's filth after all. People get insulted by the strangest things. You don't have to cuss or use"rude" words to be filthy, and you can be considered "filthy" without using four letter words. For example if I described someone as a "scrumple bottied pus sucker" or a "piece of useless bodily discharge flying aimlessly through someone's undy cracks"... that might be much more filthy and insulting than simplifying it with a simple word..like...let's see now...hmm..."craphead" perhaps?
I could recite a poem by Maya Angelou and could do so beautifully, but if I do it naked? Is that "clean" or "dirty"? If I performed it naked to a Baptist church congregation, most certainly I would be thrown out! If I was reading the exact same poem, naked at a nudist convention, I would be accepted.
Lee Young, a friend who had enjoyed most of his career success from the comedy hey days in London (Frankie Howard and Marty Feldman were his warm up acts- that should give you an idea of how big he was in his time). He had moved to Australia and worked the club circuit. He said he did a leper joke one night in an Aussie RSL club for the blue rinse set. And one woman walked out of the room in tears and furious.
Now what are the chances of having someone in your audience who had had a friend with leprosy?
This comic act was a singer/dancer who did a few jokes. He never cussed, swore or did "rude sex gags". Leper jokes were a bit sick perhaps, but they were in vogue at the time and all he did was one little leper joke and it upset someone. ("Did you hear about the leper who lost his hand at cards?")
The thing is, people are going to be offended, they are going to be insulted no matter what you do. That's the nature of comedy. They might not like your hair, your accent, how you look, it might be something you said, or something you didn't say. Comedy demands an emotional reaction: hopefully it will be laughter. It's a provocative art form, and you can't 100 percent guarantee what kind of emotional reaction you're going to provoke - no matter how "clean" you are.
When it comes to improv, it suggests to me that what this person wants is the power to censor the subconcious- not only of their own subconcious, but of others. Do that, and all you will succeed in doing is squishing the whole point of improv. Improv is about surrendering, and if there's any "power play" going on at all, then it's about power sharing, not about having power over. One such "thought nazi"- Hitler, (funny as he was in his own right), could never have led the Monty Python gang. (By the way, Hitler never swore as far as I know, so I guess- depending on what your definition of "clean" is, he had a "clean act". ) http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/censorship_in_nazi_germany.htm
Keith Johnstone, (if I remember correctly), talked of the four stages you work through as you begin in both comedy and improv: the first stage is working out all your repressed stuff, second stage is releasing the angry stuff, then there's the "preacher and moralising stage", and finally - when you've gone through all these phases, you hopefully get to 'tender and benevolent'. My comic mate and improv team mate Anthony Ackroyd and I used to call it working "T & B". (We didn't always achieve it mind you, but we aimed for it! )
http://www.keithjohnstone.com/
There's alot of really stupid stuff that's said about "clean comedy" too. (It's usually by agents or uptight room bookers). There's just comedy that works, and there's comedy that fails'; and really it's not got alot to do with whether it's "clean" or "dirty". ( Chaucer, with his ribald "Wife of Bath's tale", Shakespeare with his dick jokes - all "unclean" apparently! And obviously, ancient greek writers like Aristophanes, wouldn't share her idea of what constitutes good "clean" comedy either! Thank the Gods. Speaking of Gods- it was the comedy Goddess Baubo, who had eyes where her nipples should be, and spoke from her vagina to cheer up Demeter when she was traipsin' the planet looking for Persephone. Now there's a female comic archetype to avoid if you are trying to eliminate "filth" from your act. (Actually if you think about it, the word "dirty" from "dirt" comes from the word "earth"- and alot of people have trouble with liking the earth. Even the ancients knew what made people laugh, and it wasn't always "clean"! Earthy humor grounded people!)
http://www.goddess-gift.com/goddess_gift_book/06Jan.htm
It's all a matter of where you are, the time you live in, being true to who you are and knowing who you are playing to. It's mostly about context, not words. I've heard it said that there's nothing funny about rape. Ho hum. If you are truly a comic then as soon as you hear that, your brain will instantly be working on "hmmm how can I make rape funny?" (we like to bend the rules. If you aren't thinking that, you aren't a comic and you need to quit wasting time trying to be one.) I agree with George Carlin's take on the subject: again it's about context. Rape is funny- if it was a typo in a cowboy story. The narrator, struggling with the typos, reads where the cowboy was going to "rope/rape" a bull.... rape can be funny if it's about a mouse that raped an elephant. (funnier for me, if it's a female mouse and male elephant! -Funnier again if I know the elephant was just wavin his trunk around and "askin' for it"!!)
As for the very idea of anyone insisting on "clean improv", the naivety of that notion is going to make me laff for days. I hope that the truly talented improv folks round here (my favorites are "pale imitations"), make the comic most of of the idea by introducing the "clean improv" and "dirty improv" as segments in their set. Tee hee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdT8CwhmrOc
A new year's bang!
2009 started with a bang. My darlin' hubby and I, both enjoying this island of middle age and the relative quiet sanity that comes with it, have put away our wild partying habits of our youth, We've exchanged flirting with strangers for the comfort of gazing at each other over scrabble boards while wearin' our long johns.
And so, we opted for a "quiet night in" for New Years Eve; just the two of us. A big crock pot of stew offered it's warm comfy aroma to the air, the woodstove was busily pumping out the heat, and downstairs we had the gameboards set up - readying for a night of simple amusement. (We turned the telly off! No way were we going to resort to watching the ball drop in New York and the fireworks goin' off on Sydney Harbor bridge etc...we're not at the point where we have to watch international others enjoyin' themselves for our entertainment! It always looks so glamorous and ritzy when you watch celebrations from afar, you tend to forget that the camera doesn't pick up the scent of vomit and urine that wafts from those same far away streets. Believe me, Singapore isn't so exotic when the streets are full of regurtitated saki and noodles..I should know I spent new years eve there in 1994, but that's whole other blog for another time.)
"Let's just have a few beers and stay home," I suggested to my mister. And he agreed, relieved that he didn't have to deal with navigating the streets full of party goers and breathalysin' cops.
So he popped round to the local certified to pick up some beers.
He was gone a long time.
"Must have popped in the local VFW for a drink," I thought to myself. "Certified might be closed after all".
An hour later my mister comes home all white and shakey. He looked like he'd just bumped into his ex wife.
"You ever looked down the barrel of a gun?" he asked, (he doesn't like to think so, but my mister has a dash of the dramatics about him, always starts a story with a theatrical attention grabbing opener!)
Apparently he was paying for the beer at the local certified when they were interrupted by a young thief - wearing a ski mask no less. (So very cliched. They are not very imaginative the thieves around here in Ohio.)
The language the thief used was also disappointingly hackneyed: "Give me all your cash motherf*cker, and do it now!" Sounds like a crips reject.
While the guy at the counter willingly obliged and began handing over all the money to the unoriginal ski mask wearin' twerp facing him, my mister examined the gun that was bein' waved in the air so threateningly.
Now then, my mister might not be able to rattle off Albert Einstein's theory of relativity at the drop of a hat (or should I say ski mask?). He might not be clear on why Romeo and Juliette topped themselves, (I did try to point out to him that it might not have been quite the same love story if they had lived, had four kids, with Romeo being unemployed and with both of them having to deal with nasty in laws); but he does know his guns!
He was raised on a farm by his grandparents, two strict military colonels. He goes hunting every year. He knows his guns.
He says he was intrigued by a red mark on the hammer of the gun this thief was waving around in the air like a cheerleaders's baton. When you are holding a heavy piece of equipment like that, you tend to want to keep it steady. Either the thief was a total knobhead at gun handling, or this little object he clutched was a plastic replica. My mister says the thief was leaning forward with all his weight on one foot, which was a bit stupid, because it would be easy for anyone to push him over. He says he thought about pushing the guy over for a minute, but then thought better of it incase the guy had an accomplice outside. (Who knows his friend might have been heavily armed with a water pistol!!!)
When ski mask cliche man was finished gathering up his illegal takings (couldn't have amounted more to a few hundred bucks), he turned and pointed the dubious looking piece of armery towards my husband and said "lie down bitch".
And this is where I am both proud of, and horrified by, my husband's reaction.
He said "no".
He said the thief paused for a moment, his brown eyes blinking disbelievingly through the eyeholes of his knitted face gear staring at my husband. And then he did what all thieves are famous for. He ran away.
That's a hell of a way to find out it was a toy gun!
When my husband finished telling me the story of his new year's eve adventure, I crumbled. I was thinking I would never again send him out at night for beer- milk- eggs anything! Then I got good and angry. "How dare some stupid punk intimidate a neighborhood into being too scared to go out for groceries!"
It's probably just as well I didn't go with my husband. I don't know what I would have done in that situation. If alone, I daresay I would have complied with the thief's demands, no matter how idiotic. But I am fiercely protective of my loved ones, and the thought of some young idiot trying to intimidate my husband makes my blood boil.
So, a hex on you young thief where ever you are. May your ski mask give you a nasty facial rash, may your gun, toy or not, jam permanently and may all the fear you've induced in others be returned to you threefold so that you pee yourself during your next pathetic "hold up". May the cops get the dna from your unvolunteered urine, and may your little bitch botty be harmed by others wearing sand paper condoms when you land yourself where you belong- in prison!
Ah, there, I feel a bit better now.
And so, we opted for a "quiet night in" for New Years Eve; just the two of us. A big crock pot of stew offered it's warm comfy aroma to the air, the woodstove was busily pumping out the heat, and downstairs we had the gameboards set up - readying for a night of simple amusement. (We turned the telly off! No way were we going to resort to watching the ball drop in New York and the fireworks goin' off on Sydney Harbor bridge etc...we're not at the point where we have to watch international others enjoyin' themselves for our entertainment! It always looks so glamorous and ritzy when you watch celebrations from afar, you tend to forget that the camera doesn't pick up the scent of vomit and urine that wafts from those same far away streets. Believe me, Singapore isn't so exotic when the streets are full of regurtitated saki and noodles..I should know I spent new years eve there in 1994, but that's whole other blog for another time.)
"Let's just have a few beers and stay home," I suggested to my mister. And he agreed, relieved that he didn't have to deal with navigating the streets full of party goers and breathalysin' cops.
So he popped round to the local certified to pick up some beers.
He was gone a long time.
"Must have popped in the local VFW for a drink," I thought to myself. "Certified might be closed after all".
An hour later my mister comes home all white and shakey. He looked like he'd just bumped into his ex wife.
"You ever looked down the barrel of a gun?" he asked, (he doesn't like to think so, but my mister has a dash of the dramatics about him, always starts a story with a theatrical attention grabbing opener!)
Apparently he was paying for the beer at the local certified when they were interrupted by a young thief - wearing a ski mask no less. (So very cliched. They are not very imaginative the thieves around here in Ohio.)
The language the thief used was also disappointingly hackneyed: "Give me all your cash motherf*cker, and do it now!" Sounds like a crips reject.
While the guy at the counter willingly obliged and began handing over all the money to the unoriginal ski mask wearin' twerp facing him, my mister examined the gun that was bein' waved in the air so threateningly.
Now then, my mister might not be able to rattle off Albert Einstein's theory of relativity at the drop of a hat (or should I say ski mask?). He might not be clear on why Romeo and Juliette topped themselves, (I did try to point out to him that it might not have been quite the same love story if they had lived, had four kids, with Romeo being unemployed and with both of them having to deal with nasty in laws); but he does know his guns!
He was raised on a farm by his grandparents, two strict military colonels. He goes hunting every year. He knows his guns.
He says he was intrigued by a red mark on the hammer of the gun this thief was waving around in the air like a cheerleaders's baton. When you are holding a heavy piece of equipment like that, you tend to want to keep it steady. Either the thief was a total knobhead at gun handling, or this little object he clutched was a plastic replica. My mister says the thief was leaning forward with all his weight on one foot, which was a bit stupid, because it would be easy for anyone to push him over. He says he thought about pushing the guy over for a minute, but then thought better of it incase the guy had an accomplice outside. (Who knows his friend might have been heavily armed with a water pistol!!!)
When ski mask cliche man was finished gathering up his illegal takings (couldn't have amounted more to a few hundred bucks), he turned and pointed the dubious looking piece of armery towards my husband and said "lie down bitch".
And this is where I am both proud of, and horrified by, my husband's reaction.
He said "no".
He said the thief paused for a moment, his brown eyes blinking disbelievingly through the eyeholes of his knitted face gear staring at my husband. And then he did what all thieves are famous for. He ran away.
That's a hell of a way to find out it was a toy gun!
When my husband finished telling me the story of his new year's eve adventure, I crumbled. I was thinking I would never again send him out at night for beer- milk- eggs anything! Then I got good and angry. "How dare some stupid punk intimidate a neighborhood into being too scared to go out for groceries!"
It's probably just as well I didn't go with my husband. I don't know what I would have done in that situation. If alone, I daresay I would have complied with the thief's demands, no matter how idiotic. But I am fiercely protective of my loved ones, and the thought of some young idiot trying to intimidate my husband makes my blood boil.
So, a hex on you young thief where ever you are. May your ski mask give you a nasty facial rash, may your gun, toy or not, jam permanently and may all the fear you've induced in others be returned to you threefold so that you pee yourself during your next pathetic "hold up". May the cops get the dna from your unvolunteered urine, and may your little bitch botty be harmed by others wearing sand paper condoms when you land yourself where you belong- in prison!
Ah, there, I feel a bit better now.
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