Shame on you London. Half of you are idiots. In fact half of you didn't vote at all, so that probably makes three quarters of you who are idiots. I liked the fact that even Boris Johnson looked contrite after Ken, his voice cracking, gave his speech after losing. I recognise the look. It's the one I pull when I arrive on a TV set to see that dozens of people have been working for weeks to create some ridiculous set that I have created for a sketch or sit-com. The face says, "Shit, it was only a joke!"
Before the news officially broke
I did my,
second podcast of the week with Andrew Collings. They are either improving or getting more self-indulgent or both. We are certainly letting ourselves go and not worrying about self censorship and consequently I end up saying quite a lot of stupid things. Which is largely good. As long as they aren't taken out of context (perhaps when I am standing for London Mayor in a few years time). It is liberating and exciting to go in without a script or any real idea about what we're going to talk about even and then see where the conversation goes. When things are on a roll even I don't really know what is about to come out of my mouth. It makes it hard to answer the question that is invariably asked of me, "Where do you get your crazy ideas from?" because I don't really know. They just slip out of the cracks. Often when I read something back or listen to an old radio show or consider a stand up routine I find it hard to believe that I created it at all. Not because it's so brilliant (necessarily), but because I can't work out how I made the connections and came up with the stuff and sometimes am using words that I didn't even know that I knew. Maybe I don't make this stuff up. Maybe it's being beamed into my head by cock obsessed, scatological aliens.
We talked a bit about two stories that have caused moral outrage in those kind of people (often Christians) who like to ignore Jesus' excellent advice to "Judge not, lest ye be judged." One was
Johnny Vegas supposedly crossing the comedic line at a recent gig and the other being
American teen star Miley Cyrus posing topless, but covered up, so in fact no more topless than anyone who has had a picture of them taken wearing a top.
I wasn't at the Johnny Vegas gig and have no idea whether he went too far and there seems to be some argument between people who actually were there, so I don't feel qualified to really discuss the rights and wrongs of it. A lot of other people who weren't there don't think that that is an impediment to making a judgement. It's a complicated incident, whatever happened, but I am more offended by the pompous indignation of commentators who weren't even at the gig than by anything that I have ever witnessed in a comedy gig. I know that sometimes you take chances at a gig and sometimes you go too far or misjudge a situation, and that sometimes it's good to deliberately test the boundaries of public taste and it would be a shame if comedians were held back from doing this because of a worry of backlash. But then again if a comedian decided to actually murder a heckler then that might be a justified cause of opprobrium. But what if he suggests to the audience that they all
stab the heckler like in Murder on the Orient Express. Would people be saying, "Is inciting murder a subject for comedy?" It's an interesting area for debate.
More cut and dried for me is the ridiculous reaction to the not in fact at all sexy picture of a 15 year old girl, showing part of her back. Even if you think that is wrong, then the girl and her family realised with hindsight that they might have done something inappropriate (even though they had all thought it was OK at the time and perhaps realised too late that their might be a financial consequence) and apologised for it. For me that should be the end of it. They were in a photo studio all day, which I know is a weird and boring experience, where as the subject you do end up doing all the things the photographer suggests. Once in a shoot for something like the Daily Star involving Stew and me, somehow the photographer ended up suggesting I kneel on my shoes and pretend to be a dwarf and I did it. In hindsight I wished I hadn't done something so stupid and slightly offensive, but it was too late and I think it was that photo out of the hundreds that ended up in the paper. It was still the most tasteful photo to appear in that paper that day.
Funnily enough I was worried that I had gone too far in discussing these subjects (and mentioned this in the podcast), demonstrating perfectly how things can spiral out of control, but also the fact that the audience must trust that the comedic performer is joking rather than being serious at times. I also suggested to Andrew that we try to recreate the Miley Cyrus photos for our podcast pose. Which he agreed with, though was too shy to take off his top and he just hid laughing behind his sheet, whilst I did a pretty good job of recreating the pose, looking coquettish and yet not sexy. We thought this was hilarious at the time, but afterwards once the picture was out in the world, Andrew at least
expressed some regret, making it an even more succinct satire of the whole event.
Am I sexualising 40 year old men by having had this photo taken? I am awaiting the media shitstorm which must surely follow.
