0-Die Bastard : 1-Crap : 2-Rubbish(watchable) : 3-OK : 3.5-Nice : 4-Good : 4.5-Very Good : 5-WOW
31.08.11 : Clovelly Comedy Showcase : Clovelly RSL & Air Force Club
Tonight it was either, see people I have seen before, but at a different venue, or go and see Tempest/Lear. I figured that the stand-up had a pretty good line-up - and I'm probably never going to this stand-up night again, because it's on a Project 52 Wednesday -, and that Tempest/Lear would probably sell out - I have been caught out before at the Cellar -. Ray Badran was the host, and his jokes were good, but he kind of over sold the comedians with very long intros - I think this comedy night is his baby, and he wanted to make sure that everyone knew they are getting the better comics around. The laughs started slow for Luke Heggie - he was first after all -, but the crowd soon came around. Matt Okine, Amanda Gray, Chris Wainhouse, Rob Brown were all good, but Tahir not so much. The place is kind of renovated/old, so some parts have character - if that's what you call it -, and I got ticket number 73, so there was quite a few people - which always makes it better -. Overall it was quite good. Crowd : 4. - Me : 4
30.08.11 : The Darren Sanders Show recording : Laugh Garage Sydney
It's hard to make recording really fun for an audience, because if your not expecting the pauses it can feel dull. It actually takes a few goes of watching Good News Week before you get used to it, and start enjoying it, and GNW are one of the few groups that are really organised and tight, because it only takes them 2½ hours to record 1 hour of material. So when tonight's show - probably due to budget restraints - recorded about 2 hours of material in only 2½ hours, there wasn't much dead time, and that made it good for the audience. But even that aside, nearly all the set stuff was very funny, with the out-takes more so. The recording had set parts, but all on the fly, like a 'one take, no script' stuff, so it did have it's foibles. Like Darren's interviewing the guests segment was a one take 10 minute spot for each guest, and because he didn't want to take up too much of their talk time, he didn't say that much. Also because there was no script, there was that 'get things started by making remarks about the backdrop' fill. There was also that, 'treading on guest's toes' trepidation, like when you're mucking around you don't know how far you can send-up the guest, because they are the person that is actually helping you out.
The first section was a straight, one-take, 10 minute interview with the 4 guests - I say 4, but Will Anderson was on twice, so it was 3 -.
What can you say about Wil, he's like a mains powered dildo, in that he won't stop tickling your fancy until someone kicks the plug out of the wall, and that was the 10 minute limit. Even though the 10 minute one-take limit didn't effect anyone, a commercial show would have probably recorded 20 minutes, and cut 10 minutes out of it, in case there was any non PC stuff that can't go to air. Wil covered mainly his American LA experiences, like working out at the gym with famous people, and airport security, which was all very funny - I tend to laugh more at his mucking around shows, like his 2.10.10 Wilopedia(ask Wil a question)@Wit Large, and his 7.01.10 rhyming poem muck-around stuff@Laugh Garage. The show was funny, but the out-takes were something special. The running gag was that the 4 episodes were filmed on different days, but in actual fact all the episodes were filmed on this night, so to portray the illusion that Wil came back 4 weeks latter, someone came up with the idea of a clothing change. Unfortunately because no one thought of it before hand, he didn't bring and spares, so to get around it they found a black tee-shirt, to replace his black Tee-shirt. But when that sounded stupid, a member of the audience donated a cardigan. Unfortunately when Wil was putting it on, there was so much laughing from the audience, that Wil started thinking that this cardigan may look ridiculous - which it kind of did -, so he put his jacket over the top to cover up the silliness - it actually didn't help that much because it still looked strange -. The other 2 in this bracket was Mike Goldman, who I didn't expect to be funny, but actually was quite funny, and Vince Sorrenti, who is always pretty good.
Next was Darren's Intros to the 4 episodes, which were very small parts of his routines, so they were naturally very funny. The running gag in this section was that Darren would compliment this audience as being better than last weeks, and everyone would laugh because they knew that they were the same people, and that it was just an illusion for TV. There were also some very funny out-takes, but this was the only part that had re-do's - I would have kept the out-takes and forced Darren to recover them on the fly in one take, because they were very funny -.
The last section was comedians doing a short comedy set, followed by a small chat. First up was Jason "Rash" Ryder, who was pretty good except for him ending on a part from a very old routine. Mick Meredith is always good. Rob Brown was not very PC, so he was naturally funny, even though there were some Ooo's. And last was Paul Warnes, who myself and the audience, kinda knew what to expect - because he did his routine as a warm-up when he was put on the spot to fill time -, but overall he was still good.
I like the people talking sh*t shows, because they are more the 'trying to make the other person laugh' than anything factual - things like the Dazz and Gazz Radio Show on TV -. And that's why I don't like shows like Letterman, or Adam Hills Gorden St stuff - that have serious stuff -, but prefer things like Craig Ferguson's muck around type show that is more aimed at humour, because if the guest isn't funny, he covers it by being ridiculous. It's also why I like the panel muck around shows like Glass house, and GNW, where people are given a subject, and they try to make it funny - there is just more people to make funny remarks -. Gruen not so much, because it's one professional comedian, and 4 non-comedians trying to be comedians.
That was the most I have laughed in a while, so it was good for me, also thanks to the audience who were hyper even in the slow bits, of which there weren't that many, because the actual material was funny.Crowd : 4.5 - Me : 4.5
30.08.11 Horrible Bosses - movie
Comedy : 3 guys with terrible bosses think of a way to get rid of them. It was fun, and it has laughs, so I thought it was good. 4
26.08.11 : Comedy on the Edge presents Whackamole Funny Chicks Gala : Shannon Hotel
I like Amelia Jane Hunter's stand-up - also her 24.02.10 : Storytelling at Performance Space's ClubHouse : CarriageWorks, that did get a little dark and sad -, because she is one of the few ladies that can dish out the dick - or should I say lady parts - jokes, equal to anyone. She wasn't as tight as usual - she was trying to mix it up tonight -, but she keep the excitement up, and was better than good. In fact I thought all the the comics in the first half - Liz Stephens(UK), Michelle Betts, Yvette Lia Murray, Daniel Townes(Token Male) - were good, it's just that the crowd was a bit dead. It could've been that the over 30's, mainly female, audience are a bit reserved and quiet, or that when they laugh, they don't make a sound - I could the girls in front of me laughing, because their heads were moving, but I didn't actually hear any laughter -, either way the comics deserved more noise than they got. The second half had Dolores(Bondi FM), Vanessa Ballard, Christina Eakins, and was a bit up and down in quality until Amanda Gray got up, because I thought she was the funniest on the night. Most of the comics were the newer female comics, but most were heaps better than the new male comics we had last time, so they were rather good anyway. Crowd : 4. - Me : 4
24.08.11 : Full Body Contact No Love Junior Tennis Improv! : Hermann's Bar
Tonight everyone steered away from the micro flash impro - the super short unrelated scenes, ie like puppy fight club -, and that made team's performances more flowing and continuous, so the scenes felt more engaging and substantial. Excuse me if the names are wrong, I'm going off the list.
Nick Fischer, Harry Milas, Eric Kelly, Hayley Logg, Jeremy Yao, Gen Fricker - Alien invasion : 2 friends of 15 years don't know each other, or each other's names, so they don't look at each other. One is terrified about the invading Mars aliens, so they kiss and go to the Den. There they meet an alien that is pretending to be a human, but they are not deceived, because no background deception music is playing. Meanwhile a mother and son from the deep south are out hunting aliens when she shoots her son in the heart, but because he is so inbred, he has 2 hearts, and it only takes some Robitussin to fix the problem. Back at the Den a female alien turns up and ridicules the boy alien's cloths for looking alien-ish. The mother and son soon arrive, but unfortunately her hair trigger shoots her son in his 3rd kidney, then the 3rd testicle, and then in the miscellaneous. The girl alien then explains she makes a very good pasta base, and they leave with the southern hicks. In the spaceship the 2 kissing friends are all alone when one hints that there is a sexual tension between them, but the other is offended, and well hung. 2 voyeur aliens then egg them on to copulate while they watch, but the girl alien returns with pasta base. The 2 start eating when they notice that the aliens are getting off on the oral manipulation, and they quickly realise the aliens are sexually frustrated. That's when one alien revels that all aliens are sexually frustrated, because they have no penises. An announcement is soon issued over the P.A., that it is sexy make-out time, so they go for it.
I can't translate the scene into words that well - because I'm inept -, but on the night it was very funny. There was that very funny muck-around impro between the 2 friends - where one player tries to make the other laugh with silliness -, and that makes it funnier for the audience, because we know it. Good
Matt McLaren, Chad O'Neill, Maddie Parker, Jim Fishwick, Drew Chong, Will Erimya - Teacher and student : At a teacher student meeting Miss Frank is ridiculing the lackadaisical Matt, when it is revealed that Frank is the student, and Matt is the teacher. Some pompous teachers are having a conversation that ends in much postulation and baying. A disabled teacher in a wheelchair proclaims that even though he is a cripple, his penis still functions. He then tells his pupil to solve the problem on the board, but John Belushi can't, and is stuck on it for 3 hours. The disabled teacher wonders why he toils at his equations when he can breed a super race, but his super amplified thoughts are heard by Miss Frank. John Belushi is then found to be able to cure people with wheels for feet, which he explains in Spanish for 3 hours, so the disabled teacher asks if he can fix him. Miss Frank is then found in the staffroom depositing a poem in the teachers letterbox, but it is explained to her that she shouldn't be there because doors are supposed to stop people walking through willy-nilly. But she says the doors aren't a problem, if you just turn the handle - half the school then passes through the staffroom -. She then recites the poem, that it is actually a love letter, and they go on a date. After 3 hours work John Belushi turns the disabled teacher into a superhero and he enters through a door, and that prompts the man from Doors Plus to appear and recite his advertisement.
There were little spots of flash impro, but on the whole there was a running story. Better than nice.
Sertan Saral, Cihan Saral, Michael Richardson, Jack Bunting, Phil Roser, Jane Watt - I used to love her, but now I have to kill her : A man is digging a hole, so he can kill his wife, when his son questions him about it. He clumsily covers by saying that he is building a Granny Flat, so he can have more room, but the son then questions that, by reminding him their house has lots of unoccupied rooms. He nearly lets it slip when he says that 'none of the rooms are occupied by a dead body', but quickly retracts that due to it sounding too much like a confession. He then comes up that he needs the room to practice his murder/band, but the son then senses that something is wrong when he keeps mentioning killing. He then gets even more suspicious when a delivery of flesh dissolving lime, and rope, is delivered, but the father poorly assures him that it's for his band. The son then realises the mother is missing, so the father joking replies she is dead, and could he make a pine box with a cross, and put his mothers name on it. Suddenly the wife appears and starts her nagging, asking 'what's all this about', and 'what is he doing', and this bout of extreme nagging has the son admitting he would kill her, if he was married to her. Across the road some tough cops, drinking a soy chai lattes, and are observing the husband, so they approach and ask what under the mound. He tells them it's his dead dog. But when pressed for the breed, he tries to cover by saying it's a moth-eaten giant. Not convinced, they tell him to show them the dog, but he says he can't, so they that's OK, lets see your wife instead. With quick thinking the husband shovels them to death and starts burying them, but he is sprung by his wife. Back at the station the other cops are distraught that their top cops are dead. They were their best cops and solved 2 murders, even though they were complicit in one. The husband feels so much remorse from his wife's nagging, that he enters the police station and confesses to killing his dog, and accidentally shovelling the cops to death. They 2 other cops are elated, because now they have solved 2 murders.
This was simple when you break it down, but things like Sertan's husband, that blatantly wanted to kill his wife, but poorly covered it up with slips of the tongue, made the story good.
Jon Williams, Lynsey Bonell, Alex Lee, and Rebecca De Unamuno - Moscow : A Russian street beggar is trying to swindle a woman by saying he needs $2 for the train to go see his sick mother in Leningrad, but she reminds him that he does this everyday, and that she is actually his sister, and that this is not a the street, but their kitchen. He complains that she doesn't give him any money, and that she hates their mother. But she explains that their mother was nothing but a devil, that thrust both of them out simultaneously, like ping-pong balls, from her huge vagina. The man is surprised, and proclaims that her vagina must be the size of Georgia, the capital, not the state. They only have one old tin of food left that the label has fallen off, but he still opens it and takes one swig of the brown liquid. Unfortunately when he realises it's discontinued condensed milk from the 60's, he promptly vomits. This puts the man is in such despair that he announces that he hates this life, and that they should go outside. She is worried and reminds him of the old rumour, 'that if you go outside, you can't get back in', but the man tells her he will take the key. The woman agrees to go outside, but hopes their sick mother will die before they come back. Her brother agrees that it would be very likely, with a vagina that big. In the fields a Russian girl is hoeing the land, when her mother approaches and chastises her bad hoeing that will make them starve. The girl explains that she wants to be a singer, and uses the hoe as a microphone, but the mother tells Priscilla she will never be successful. The daughter then tells her of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and that she became famous. So the mother agrees, and lets her venture out to find her dream. The twins are soon separated, and the sister runs into Priscilla Queen of the Desert, who is looking for the RSL(Russian Serviceman's League). The sister doesn't know if it is a man or a woman, so he explains that if was a woman, he would vomit on his own tits, and that he is actually a man, in women's clothing. He wants to know where the dance clubs are, and that makes her asks if he is a dancer. But he replies that he is not a dancer, but a muse, like the Greek that gave him a nasty infection downstairs. He wants some music, but can only find that sh*t Russia girl group TaTu, so Guy asks Natasha for directions. She doesn't know the way, because she has never left the house, but fortunately they bump into a girl that needs money, and knows the way. So they join together and skip down the yellow urine soaked road, with one looking for music, one looking for money, and the sister looking for inspiration. The 3 arrive at a Russian nightclub, where the owner is looking for an act, but the sister finds her brother dead off condensed milk poisoning, allowing Guy to enter - Jon played both characters -. The 3 ask the owner if he can help them on their quest, so he directs them to the Wiz. The Wiz tells them to work for him in the hotel down the road, where tourists come to stab them a little. Just then the twins mother appears, revelling that the afterbirth was actually another sister, and that she is Priscella.
The crowd loved this scene, and applauded very loudly. The veterans stole the show with their fast thinking - which I find quite amazing because it's an ability that declines before that age of 30 -, it's must be all that practice of constantly having to think quickly in impro that has keep their minds so sharp. Even now I see some of the younger people starting to lose that ability, due to lack of practice. Very good.
Ben Jenkins, Patrick Magee, Carlo Ritchie, Tom Walker, Susie Youssef, Steen Raskopoulos, Michael Hing - Farm : When a lentil farmer calls he son Charlie, he enters with interpretive dance, and without pants. This annoys the dad who tells him, 'if you want to dance, you can rack-off to the McGillicutty's dance farm' - a switch to the dance farm has Ben playing a English gay dandy dance instructor -. The Framer is disappointed because he only has one son to leave his farm too, after 'the incident', but when the sister enters, she tells them to stop calling her 'the incident'. The Farmer then tells the son that if they ignore her, she will stop thinking she's real. The son questions if there is something more to life than a lentil farm, and this notion has the son leaving the distraught father. At a laboratory a scientist is tending his ant experiment - there was a split stage with the ants on one side and the scientist on the other -. The scientist winks at the ant, so the ant thinks he is coming on to him, but he can't wink back, because he has no eyelids. Mr Queen of the ants arrives with his chamberlain, and the ants bow. He tells the terrible pun of, 'why take formic acid for an upset tummy, because it's a ant-acid'. Mean while on, "Farm Wants a Wife" a farm tries to attract a girl. At the laboratory the ant scientist destroys the pompous English scientist's experiment, of designing tiny planes for children, because he thought he was taking his grant. The English scientist is outraged, and threatens to put in a formal complaint to the Dean. At the ant farm the Queen asks the Chamberlain who he loves more, his headless mother - that the Queen had bitten the head off - or his Queen master. Miss Incident goes with her Greek Boyfriend to a farm, but when he insults a cucumber farmer, by calling him a cucumber, they ring their friends to meet at the beach. At the Dean's office the English scientist lodges his formal complaint, but the Dean is so startled, because no one has made a formal complaint for 57 years, that he knocks his thinking cube flying across the room, and onto a guitarist. He composes himself, but when he hears the problem is his lab partner, the cube goes flying again. - flash back 57 years. A woman protests because she thinks she is being discriminated against for being a woman, but the racist Dean says it's because she is Irish -. The scientist complains that his tiny child's plane, that can fly from France to Portugal in 1 hour, has been destroyed by Justin, and the cube goes flying again. The Italian stereotype Knockeo goes to see the lentil farmer, and pleads with him to let his son dance in the pageant, but the Framer won't agree because no one will tend the farm. Miss Incident then enters and says she will tend the farm, and do the faggots job, and that makes the framer very proud, because his daughter is a racist homophobes just like him. The English scientist is so outraged that he is about to smash the ant farm with a baseball bat, when he see the Queen's crown, he starts talking to him. The Queen promises him many things if he pilots them in his tiny plane to take over the world, but when he shrinks himself with a shrink ray and a mirror, things change. The gay Puerto Rican McGillicutty dance farm instructor tells the lentil farmer he will be so proud of his son's dancing - there is a short form narrated interpretive dance -, but the Farmer becomes more distraught, because of his son's interpretation of 'little c*cks coming out of the soil', that he starts walking away. The narrator then says they need a duet, and they finally coax the Farmer to join in. The Farmer enjoys it so much, that he leaves the farm to his son and goes off with his brother. Back at the ant farm the shrunk English scientist is made the Queen human Chamberlain, which outrages him, because he was promised a crown, and the head of the science dept. A girl then enters, and the Queen makes her the biscuit lady. The scientist then takes her out off antenna shot range of the Queen, and tells her, with his help he can grow her, so she can usurp the Queen. The Queen overhears the conversation with her feet, so they jump in the plane and fly away, allowing the biscuit lady to vomit on the Queen from above.
This was more a Ben and Pat show, Ben having the funniest characters, and Pat doing the most work. It's hard to make something so long entertaining all the time, but it was still good for me. The crowd on the other hand, were very loud, like in the very good area.
This night was on a higher level than usual. Crowd : 4.5 - Me : 4.25
23.08.11 : Cowboys and Aliens - movie
Western, Sci-Fi, Action : A man awakes in the wild west with a mysterious bracelet, and no memories before that point. I found it interesting at the start, because we had to figure it out while the cowboy is figuring it out. but then it became more a western in the middle, and then a silly alien horror type affair at the end. I didn't mind it at all, and found it interesting for the most part - because it's a bit different from the norm -, but I can see how the constant use of the horror alien - like the bad-ish Skyline, and to another extent, Super 8 - ineffectually, does make reviewers think this type of film is stupid. 3.5
22.08.11 : Monday Night Comedy : Fringe Bar
MC Paul "Fridgey" Hancock mainly did the improvising with the audience bit, but because he is pretty good at it, he ended up being good. I have seen all of Claire Hooper's material this year, but delivered in dribs and drabs type segments over different venues - on those occasions I found her pretty mild -. The advertisement said she was headlining, so I wondered if a longer set may make any difference, and boy did it. Tonight she did a full, long, uninterrupted set, that in it's entirety was quite good. - I liked her a lot, and it made the effort to turn up well worth it just for her alone -. Lastly was Daniel Townes, and he was even better, and that made the night even better. I was also trying to do the 'kill two birds with one stone' trick, by hoping that Daniel would do his new show, unfortunately that didn't pan out, because he did all the stuff I already knew, but that didn't seem to matter, because I found him the funniest of the night anyway. It turned out a really good night. Crowd : 4.25 - Me : 4.25
19.08.11 : The 2011 Arts Revue or How We Learnt to Love Again : Seymour Centre
This year's Arts revue seams to have taken the song and dance approach, rather than the comedy approach, because it only had a few chuckles. But even though the audience were pretty silent throughout, it didn't seam to trouble them at all, because overheard conversations at the break sounded up-beat. Being an outsider, I expect these shows to be up and down, because there are references that outsiders won't get like the inner faction rivalry, but overall I wasn't complaining. The biggest surprise was that there were no send-up's of popular culture, like Twilight and Harry Potter, and it's an area that I would have thought very easy to get laughs from, because you just have to pun-ify a known story, by alas there was only one little reference - it was used very effectively 2 years ago in the Murder on the Ori-Arts Express show -. Basically every blog here is laugh bias, but because there wasn't that many nothing really stands out to speak of, so the show for me was mainly OK. Crowd : 3.75 - Me : 3
18.08.11 : UNSW 2011 Comedy Gala : UNSW
My latest hobby is observing people's reaction to jokes that I know are coming - Like when Rhys Nicholson came to Hermann's Heroes, and the audience wasn't expecting material so wrong, yet so funny. The host for tonight was Matt Okine(Rove Live, Can of Worms), and he smoked it. Not only did his usual Red Rooster and Sushi stuff kill with this crowd - this audience understands the poorer sector of the eat-out market better than most -, but his new food related routine - that he has been testing lately, like at Hermann's last week -, also killed. Before the show I somehow I got Shane Mauss(USA, Late Night with Conan O'Brien) mixed up with an English comedian that I don't like - maybe Daniel Sloss -, but thankfully he wasn't the one I was thinking of. Shane did quite a short set - probably thinking that too much would spoil his solo show if these people came to see it on Saturday -, so we ended up with kind of a sampler that felt a bit sparse. There was some funny stuff, but overall it felt Arj Barker-ish - jokes require a lot of listening, before the unexpected funny punchline -, but not as bad. Ronny Chieng's clever advertising at the 2011 Comedy Festival got me to go and see his solo show, which I found was fine, but a bit mild, but tonight it was different. Tonight he connected with this crowd so well, and so instantly - it's that similar age group/similar interests, relatability -, that it made it so funny for me, that he ended up being really good this time. I wasn't a fan of Smart Casual's last Captain Entrée show - but then again it was a trial show -, so when they did that new stuff again tonight I thought it wouldn't work. But I was wrong, because they also connected with the audience, and ended up being good also. - Even I found them so funny that I actually laughed at the songs, and not the audience reaction -. Next was the windscreen wiper - because of the way he oscillates between the UNIs -, of Michael Hing. Even though he did his well known stuff, that I remember by now, his fan base here produced lots of cheers from the crowd. The funny bit was when he degraded himself with tales of incompetence with women, yet when he asked the crowd the question "Would you girls date me" - expecting the negative -, all the girls in the crowd cheered that they would - those glasses are kinda cool -. I though it was kind-of odd that he didn't uses his routine from Club Central Hurstville - he would have killed it with it's video game stuff -, because this crowd would probably relate to it very well. What can you say about Rhys Nicholson(Balls of Steel), the confronting nature of his routine always gets a reaction, and tonight was no exception - Good -. The main reason that I came tonight was that I was hoping to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. I wanted to see Wil Anderson's(The Gruen Transfer) new show - but not at that other inconvenient venue -, so I was hoping he would do it here. I reasoned that the old stuff is getting a bit worn, so he had to do the new stuff, but unfortunately 90% of the material was from previous shows, so it wasn't anything special for me, but the crowd on the other hand, liked it a lot. He explained that he did the old stuff so it wouldn't spoil the new show if they came to see it - which does sound feasible -, but I would think that it would be very unlikely that students could afford the price of around $40 for a ticket and travelling costs, so the thinking may have not been correct. Overall the crowds volume on the night was around 4.5, but I think they actually enjoyed it more - maybe 4.75 -. Better than good. Crowd : 4.5 - Me : 4.25
17.08.11 : Story Club: I Think There's Been Some Kind of Terrible Mistake : Hermann's Bar
Everyone must have gone to the Art's Revue's opening night, because the crowd was down a little, but after seeing the Arts Revue, I think the people that came tonight made the wiser choice. Mistakes is the name, mistaking is the game - my attempted levity -, I'm sure you can work out the theme.
Ben Jenkins : The old Benny Jenkiknowsall - sorry, more attempted levity - came up with a new story this week - lately he's only been hosting rather than coming up with a new story every month, which is understandable because it's a lot of effort, so hats off to him, and especially Zoe Norton Lodge, who actually does the big task of coming up with something new every show -. They say "When the cats away, the mice will play", but these mice's judgement was a bit questionable - Ben's story revolved around what his sharehouse occupants got up to when he was away - . One day there was a knock on the apartment door, and Ben replacement tenant answered it. The guy asked if he could climb across their balcony to the next apartment, and retrieve his possessions after he was kicked out. Most of us would have said WTF, but she said it was fine. Unfortunately when he was away, she remembered she had to be somewhere urgent, so she locked the door and left. As you can imagine, when the other flat mates returned 2 hours latter to find a stranger sitting in their apartment, with a bag of swag, they were a little shocked. Good
Mark Sutton : ***If you can find the mysterious podcast listen to it rather than read this, because this one was very good***. Mark's history of sport can be sum-mated in one line "What is a sport", but his story tonight was a history lesson recounting the many achievements in the 1904 St Louie Olympics - that had everyone laughing with amazement -. The Olympics that year were scheduled to be in Chicago, but the organisers of the World Fair in St Louie told the International Olympic Commission that if they didn't move it to St Louie, they would run a better sporting event at the same time, killing their Olympic event. They agreed. Unfortunately all the meticulous planning of the original event made way for the more ham fisted approach of 'anything goes', and the marathon was the biggest casualty. Hints of the poor organisation were prevalent before the marathon, like when a French guy won a medal, the organisers added it to the American total of 239 medals - Canada was 2nd on 6 -, because he didn't produce a passport. And others like, the organisers combined national championships with the Olympics, making it unclear for the competitors that they were actually in an Olympics. After the event the organisers made an questionable scientific report on the performance of a certain race of people, ie Blacks. After starving them, and locking them up, they concluding they were an inferior race. But that was all brushed aside for their Pièce de résistance, the ridiculous organisation of the marathon. The racing surface was unpaved in areas, breaking one competitors ankle, and if that wasn't enough, a vehicle crashed into a rock - because they didn't close the road to traffic during the event -. The dust and fumes kicked up by the vehicles also took it's toll, by clogging a few of the competitors lungs, forcing them to retire. The organisers organised refreshments, in the form of a 'bucket in well' at half distance. When only 14 out of 30 competitors finished, the organisers back-tracked to find most unconscious on the side of the road. And to make things even worst, one of that 14 - the winner - rode a vehicle nearly all the way. Upon discovery of this cheating, the next in line was still 10km back and fading fast. So to keep him going his handlers gave him rusty water, Brandy, raw eggs, and Strychnine poison, and despite this treatment, that would kill a horse, he remarkably won, but passed out soon after. Another competitor was chased miles off course by a dog. Another one hadn't eaten for days, when he lost all his money gambling, and had to have his suit de-sleeved and de-legged so he had something to wear when he ran. Unluckily during the race, he was so hungry he stopped to eat some rotten apples, which made him pass out. A couple of hours he regained consciousness, and continued running, remarkably finishing in 4th place. The IOC were so pissed at the debacle, that they held another Olympics 2 years latter in Athens. Very good.
Susie Youssef : Told a story of the second largest city in Ireland, the international city of Cork, and their many racists. Like some kind of Irish joke - now I'm being a racist - they let her through customs without any scrutiny, because she told a lame joke, but was latter warned if she didn't have a better one next time, she would be arrested. All this speed through customs was all for naught, because her baggage arrived 20 minutes after all the other passengers had left. After the airport they had a party in a pub for her arrival, with her friend's hotties. Unfortunately a cursory remark about her looking ill was used to remove her from the dating game, by forcing her to make her appearance respectable in the bathroom. Unfortunately the illness wasn't contrived, and she came down with tonsillitis. The next day she concealed her appearance behind a mask of make-up, and they caught a taxi cab. The diver's appearance then reminded her of a nasty boy at school, who punched her and called her a virgin - but because she was only 7 at the time and didn't know what a virgin was, she used the Virgin Mary logic and proclaimed she wasn't a virgin, but her 40 something year old single teacher was. Back at the Taxi the driver was a man of the earth, or rough around the edges, or more closer to a prolific swearer, or more closer to a maniac driver, or more closer to a racist, etc. Unfortunately the scale of Cork must be smaller than what we interpret as a city to be, because they got the same driver 4 times, so to try to slow him down, Susie tipped him
£10 - unfortunately he took this as a incentive to continue what he was doing -. On the last day they again got the same cab driver and he remembered the girls, so he asked "Where's the black one that gave me a tip", unfortunately she sitting right behind him. You can tell the writing style was different to the others, but it was still in the same area by being better than nice.
Dave Harmon : - The way mistakes have been liked to sharehouses tonight, you could conclude that sharehouses are a mistake -. What could make more sense than leaving home, where you are fed, clothed, washed, and given free board, but have to live with an annoying dad, just to move to out and have none of these, expect for the prospect of hanging out with people that have a Japanese Anime fetish, and a broken fridge. So in 2002 Dave did just that, and found the malfunctioning fridge, but didn't expect the 3 broken microwaves, and having to live in a 'partitioned with a folding screen' corner of a second lounge room. But if that wasn't enough, the biggest problem was a computer geek squatter, who wasn't paying rent. With the proviso that many hands make light work, this fellow wasn't helping anyone else's financial situation, so Dave tried to get him paid up, or evicted. Based on the current situation, it looked like the second option was the only viable one, so he was turfed out, after a 2 month struggle, to live in the attic of a church in some sort of Quasimodo type existence. After living in the sharehouse for a couple of months it seamed that the evictee was the least eccentric of the bunch, because one girl would only answer to a Anime characters name, one guy would get so angry playing video games that he punched holes in the wall, and one didn't believe in pants. Then 6 months latter, the evictee finally got his revenge. He sent his friends around to the apartment for a LAN party, or Leech, which he arranged with one of the other tenants that succumbed to a moment of weakness. Things seamed harmless enough, until 30 people crammed into the small apartment, and then continued their shenanigans to all hours in the mourning, not letting anyone get any sleep. But the biggest killer - unbeknown to Dave -, was that the evictee had organised it, and in the mealy had reclaimed his spot on the lounge. Better than nice.
Lachlan Williams : This story was a little dark, but that's expected from an ex poetry boyband member, but the points were linked - if randomly - to historical facts, so it was entertaining. Just as Vladimir's mistake had blown his face off when he mixed an explosive with his chewing gum for flavour, Lachlan's parents had just decided to move to Deniliquin when their property promptly ended up under water in Victoria's huge floods. - he explaining that his story jumps around a bit - Lachlan's recounted a story where a mental patient thought he was a Psychiatrist, basing his argument on him being in a mental institution as proof -. Lachlan's mum then thought she had made a mistake bringing a 4 month Lachlan into the world during a flood, because he wouldn't stop crying - another related diversion - a Greek Philosopher died of insomnia -. This linked to baby Lachlan only sleeping for 10 minutes every 4 hours, and constantly having to be amused or would scream - A Korean couple let their child starve when they got addicted to an video game about child rearing - Lachlan would endlessly spinning egg ring, replacing screaming with metal rattling. - a duke was drown in a barrel of wine -. This difficult child then grew to be a difficult adult, so he questioned his mum about it. She told him that our personalities are formed before the age of 16, and for the rest of our live we have to live around it's mistakes. So there is no use feeling bad, because we are just an accumulation of mistakes - William Huskisson got run over by the train on the line he was opening, and that line now no longer exists - . It could have been sad, but there was so many injected comedic historical facts, that it ended up being good.
Eddie Sharp : Like a Phrenologist reads the bumps on peoples heads in Gall's assumption of character, Eddie tried to personality profile people in a very logical, if unsubstantiated, theory of predicting a person's personality based on the order they were excreted from the womb. He stated that the 1st child is never wanted, and that's double if you are an only child, and if you are an only child with divorced parents, your a triple mistake. Next he concluded that the first unwanted child is always more reckless and adventurous, and that him, the second child is always planed, and is more cautious and responsible. This theorem further manifested itself in the tale about him and his friend. Eddie was a party worrying about everybody's hydration - he did a very funny water routine, that included a tragic but funny story about a woman had turned herself into a human vase, by over drinking water until she died -. That night he met Matt, a drinker, a heroine taker, and an orgy organiser. After a couple years of knowing Matt, Matt's recklessness produced his first unplanned child. Overnight the child had turned him into a much more serious person, and he became a serious sculpturer with too much integrity. Matt then knuckled down to make an theatre/art show performance piece, which he asked Eddie to join. After gaining huge amount of sponsorship money, and with 2 years of preparing the show, Matt wanted to add more emotion to the 'butchering a cow scene', by actually butchering a cow, bringing all the emotion to the stage - there's that too much integrity -. So they bought a $750 calf and drove it out a Picton farm, where like getting an new phone, they went over the instructions given. 1-hit the cow in the head as hard as you can with a mallet to stun it, 2-slit it's throat ear to ear to kill it, 3-cut off the hoofs and hang it up to gut it, 4-leave overnight, 5-skin it, and 6-cut it up. Before they did the deed, Matt gave them lunch, which consisted of poorly made salami, and that's when Eddie realised it was the pig that Matt had slaughtered for another art project. Feeling sorry for the animal they discarded the rule that they were told, 'don't let the cow out of the trailer' and let it out for a walk before it's untimely death. But the cow knew better, and when released headed for the hills at break neck speed. For 4 hours they chased this cow in full costumes through mud, when Eddie's second child caution came into effect, and he realised this was a mistake, so he snuck away never to be seen again. It could have been harrowing, but Eddie injected so much humour that it was shocking, and funny. Good.
Carlo Ritchie : When the most intelligent person in a group of guys that are travelling through Europe is the one that got so paralytic drunk, that he winded up unconscious in the floor, you can conclude that there's going to be mistakes in this one. And the mistake of making a fraudulent statement to the Hungarian Police, was just par for the course. The aforementioned Carlo was lying on the floor in a pool of vomit, when he was rudely awakened by violent shaking and screaming from Alex - the stupid member of the group - that they had just been robbed. Upon further inspection Carlo realised the knucklehead had left the door open when they went out drinking, and leaving an unconscious man in the room wouldn't stop people entering and taking all their possessions, unless they were sleeping on them, like Carlo did. And to add further insult to injury, when the group went out drinking, Alex was scammed/robbed when he was charged $1000 for a drink at a strip club, and then forced by 2 bouncers to withdraw it from the ATM. Alex then came up with a brilliant - in his mind - plan, that they could tack on the 2nd theft, to the room theft. - why he wanted them together was a mystery -. When the Police found out the 2nd crime was perpetuated by a gang, it fell into the category of a serious crime, and the Hungarian Serious Crime Unit was summoned. Why Alex included Carlo is such an elaborate ruse, because he wasn't there, and didn't even get robbed, was a mystery, but Carlo was dragged into a crime that had serious consequences if found to be fraudulent - a $20,000 fine, imprisonment, and rejection to travelling through the European Union -. They were taken to the Police station and individually interrogated - which is how they find holes, if statements don't coincide - relentlessly for 4 hours. The instigator of the whole ruse, Alex, copped out by saying he couldn't recall anything about the incident, because he was so drunk. And this left the others to put their foot in it, by giving made-up details. They gave enough muddled details, that would require substantiating, that the police had to release them while they investigated. So when they were released, they left the country quick smart, to thankfully never see Alex again. 3 years latter they got a letter from the Budapest Police, saying that after many hours of exhaustive work, they couldn't conclude the case, and apologize for the inconvenience. It had those random off-shoots that Carlo is famous for, and even though the crowds applause was less than the others, I liked it a lot. Good
Zoe Norton Lodge : Zoe parents were walking Zoe's little sister down the main street of Annandale, when she shrieked. Fearing the worst, and looking for hepatitis filled syringes, or some other violent weapon type of paraphernalia, it ended up the quite normal vision of a shellfish walking down the street in it's natural habitat, swaying with all the hipsters. Zoe's parents were not adverse to seeing wild animals in the city, because once they saw a tan pony walking down a streets. But that unfortunately turned out to be a bad prescription for glasses, because it was actually a fat lady in tan skinny jeans walking away. Mistakes seam to be very prevalent with her father, because he mistook Tinea cream for toothpaste, he thought soy milk came from a soy cow, and once fed a mailbox that he mistook for a terrier. But this shellfish wasn't a mistake, it was real, and on a mission from god, with Zoe's sister following it like a disciple. It negotiated the obstacles and turns easily, but the sight of a little girl taking her crustacean on a walk, soon attracted some attention. When a man approached and saw that she didn't have a leash, and therefore wasn't her pet, he offered to home the cranky crustacean. Unfortunately his idea of a home was the bottom of a pot of boiling water. Always deftly constructed, and always good.
It's hard to tell what the audience thought, because they were a bit quite, but I think it was higher than the score I'm giving them - which I'm basing on volume -. Crowd : 4 - Me : 4
17.08.11 : Senna - movie
Documentary : Mainly covers the F1 career of Ayrton Senna. I've always been a Senna fan and know the story - for me it was delivered over 10 years as opposed to this 2 hour summation -, so there wasn't as much detail as I already knew. And it's the time restraints, - ten years into 2 hours - that reduces the details and drama, making me think the general public - who don't know the full story - won't get the same effect as the fans. The movie did show the emotional side to Senna - something that we never saw - which can diminish the mystic that was Senna - it was his quite nature of getting things done brilliantly that made him more than just a man, but more a superhero type figure -. Mainly for the fans, rather than outsiders. 4
***Some of the details - skip this if the subject doesn't interest you -***
I remember reading about Senna in the motor-sports news publications - media wasn't that big for the lesser categories -, and he dominated in every class, and with different cars - something that never happens anymore -. Only when he got to F1, did we actually get to see him on TV - I watched every F1 race from 1980-1994, so I saw every race he did -. What I liked about Senna was that he was very quiet, extremely talented, and a young gun that was always humble about his ability - none of that holding up one finger to signify he was number one, like a Vettel or Schumacher -. Senna was the new breed of fit analytical/engineering type driver, and is what I regard, the last of the freaky superhero type drivers - these days if you can only win if you have the right car, but back then a driver could make a bad car win -. The biggest indication of this was when he drove in the wet - something that nearly every driver hates because it's so difficult -, like his famous drive in Monaco, in the wet, where he started 16th, lapped 3 seconds a lap faster than the best drivers in F1 in an inferior car, and eventually finished 2nd(only being beaten because the race was stopped just before he took the lead) - the leading French driver was whingeing so much about the rain, that they stopped the race seconds before he was overtaken -. Or the time in the wet where he lapped every car in the race, except one, and won the race by over 2 minutes to his nearest rival. Or the time he started dead last in an inferior non-turbo car when it started raining, and then passed all the more powerful turbo cars to win - you never see things like that anymore -. Not only was the battles on the track hard, but the political battles were even harder. The Frenchman running F1, Jean-Marie Balestre, and was totally bias toward everything French. He changed the rules to favour French cars - Renault wanted turbos to get an advantage, so he introduced the turbo rule -, and then tried to hobble Senna - the only person stopping a Frenchman(Prost) winning the championship -, by handing out massive penalties for minor infractions -. In the final race of 1985 the points were so tight, that the one who finished in front, would win the championship. During the race Senna was overtaking Prost, when Prost purposely crashed into him - something he actually admitted too -, ensuring if neither finished, he would win the championship. But when Senna rejoined the race and won, Prost whinged that Senna rejoined the race from a run-off road - a minor technical infraction, and something that is now allowed because of safety -. So Balestre stripped Senna of the win, thereby handing the championship to Prost, and then attempted to handicap Senna for next years series, by suspending him an additional 6 months for the incident - something that was latter rescinded when Senna hinted he was moving to American racing, which was something the money-makers in F1 didn't want because he was a such big financial draw-card -. Then at the start of 1994, the big accident happened - that was such a shock, that it was one of those, 'were where you when that happened' moments for me -. There hadn't been a death in F1 for 10 years - everyone thought the cars were so good now, that there wouldn't be anymore -, but when 2 drivers died in 1 race, and one was Senna - someone regarded as so skilful that he could never get killed in an accident -, there was a massive shock for the community. The shock was actually so great, that the governing body immediately introduced massive new safety regulations. Senna's unfortunately the legacy is that of safety, and this close scrutiny of safety has produced no fatalities since.
16.08.11 : Green Lantern - movie
Action : A man is chosen to safe guard a portion of the universe by the Green Lantern Corps. This is what what expect a super hero movie to be like, it has action, it has a lot of great CGI, and it even has an interesting story - I didn't know the Green Lantern story, and it was something quite different -. Looks good - I should have seen the 3D one- , with some small traces of stupidity. 4
12.08.11 : Friends with Benefits - movie
RomCom : Two modern people try to do the modern thing, of being just sex buddies. There is a little more to it than that, because they are the kind of damaged goods of a modern society, but not much more. The movie is kind of modern and now, and is fast and aggressive, like the city it's about, New York. The background sub text is that it's a somewhat superficial L.A. guy, being out of place in the fast paced, take what you want, aggressive, business like world of N.Y. There is a lot of talking without that much actual action, so it may feel like it hasn't got that much substance - you actually don't feel as much emotions as most RomComs -, but the fast style of delivery is something new, and was something that I liked a lot. I though it was good 4
11.08.11 : The Future Historians : UNSW
When I read the flyer, the Sci-Fi aspect caught my attention - but it didn't click in my brain -, but when I saw Hamish Sinclair, it jerked my memory to a previous production, Space Justice(5.06.10), which was also an Australian referenced Sci-Fi - actually most of the plays I see here are Sci-Fi based -. If I would categorize this show I would say it's a Political/Sci-Fi/Australian/Comedy, in that genre influenced order. Comparing the 2 plays, Space Justice had more laughs, and bigger ones, but had a dead spot in the middle, where as this one was less funny, but more consistently interesting.
I will keep this pre synopsis vague, in case you see it, but will put a spoiler at the end for those that don't.
Nas and Isaac have been sent back in time to Sydney 2011 to research some seemingly pointless subjects. Question then arise like, why has the Professor sent them back in time, what does Google have to do with it, why is Microsoft involved, who are the Auditors, what is their mission, and why are they chasing them down.
The story had enough interest to keep your attention, and the cast kept your attention with quite animated deliveries, so I would classify it more interesting, than comedy - this is actually my problem, because I keep forgetting that plays aren't stand-up gigs, and are very rarely LOL funny - . In most of the play the audience were pretty quite, but at the end when they added young peoples references - things I didn't get -, they laughed a lot. I did overhear one chap say it was brilliant, so I would guess they liked it a lot. Me personally, I found it more interesting than funny. Crowd : 4.5 - Me : 3.5
***SPOILER ALERT*** In the future the 2 biggest corporations in the Galaxy are at war, be it an advertising war. They send missions to Mars, under the ruse of looking for oil, but actually use this to place billboards there that can be seen from the earth. On future Earth, a Professor sends 2 of his pupils back to Sydney Australia in the year 2011, to study seemingly innocuous subjects. Naz and Isaac find an apartment in Sydney were Naz can observe fast food of the time, and Isaac 21 century fashion. The Professor has assured them that they can't change the timeline of the past, no matter what they do, but they are unsure and still try to minimise contact. Then one day Naz accidentally has a small interaction with 2 hipsters, and this prompts Isaac to leave the apartment, and interact with the population. He then meets the 2 hipsters, who drug him. Microsoft scenes that the timeline is being altered so they send 2 Auditors, that only speak in Shakespearian speak, to hunt them down. When they arrive on past Earth, they continue with extreme prejudice, and start questioning people to find the where-a-bouts of the students. They unfortunately assume things are worst than they actually are, and cover their tracks by killing the questioned people. The Auditors finally track them down, where one declares his love for the other, and that's when it is revealed that the Auditors actual job is to steal oil, and bring this rare resource back to Microsoft. ***END***
10.08.11 : Hermann's Heroes: Purveyors of Wonderful Comedy : Hermann's Bar
Lately professional comics have been turning up here, and it has made this show worth coming to. Ben Jenkins was our host, and he did a great job. He started by noting that the audience was smaller than usual, so he called them an intimate crowd - actually it was smaller than a usual Project52 crowd, but any room would die to get to get the 50 people that turned up tonight-. Ben's routine was in Story Club style, and was mainly about his brother playing practical jokes on him - it was delivered differently, but I did remember some small sections from his Story Club story -, and his first meeting of the hermit that plays loud music on George St at Town Hall. The best on the night was the pro Matt Okine, who did about 85% of all new stuff. His meeting a stranger in a park late one night was very clever because it folded back on it's self, so you had to think. Michael Chamberlain had an amazing routine that was very logical - actually it was logically linked silliness -, that was delivered so clearly that it all made perfect scene. Nick Kraegen was just plain funny. Paul Ayre's one wasn't that 'laugh out loud' funny, but because it was such a weird and preposterous subject - scientist discover that octopuses have no emotions -, and he so logically and methodically proved the idea was so stupid, that it ended up interesting funny. Cyrus Bezyan used a more sombre delivery, but was still funny. I think Patrick Magee was time filling during his routine, because he only did 2 short bits from it, so it wouldn't spoil his show if you turned up - they seamed interesting enough to go see -. Crowd : 4.5 - Me : 4
09.08.11 : Is Love Blind? A comedy debate fundraiser! : Hermann's Bar
It was a bit ramshackle, but still fine. Now I see the appeal of Word Fight as a debate, because it's not so much a debate, but more like people doing comedy routines about the subject. Where as tonight it was more a competition debate, or at least started out that way - it did turn to mainly comedy in the end -. The affirmative were a little under prepared, actually it looked like they didn't prepare at all, but they kept it short so no one got bored, and in the end they were good enough. For the affirmative, Dave Harmon thought this was a real debate that had to be won, and Gen Fricker covered her constant farting in her boyfriends mouth. But the stand out of this team was Carlo Ritchie, who just shovelled out complete nonsense, but did it so authoritatively and dramatically that he made his whole lot of nothing into a very compelling argument, that proved absolutely nothing - brilliant -. The weird thing was he seamed to be doing all off the top of his head - he showed us his notes, which was just a drawing of a cowboy -, and you could see that he was trying to remember the oppositions points from memory, because the flashed his drawing to give him time to remember what they said. The negative team on the other hand, were on fire. Damo Higgo killed it with his many euphemisms for sex and private parts. Rebecca De Unamuno killed it but rebutting the affirmative with a long list of lyrics from songs, that proved love has to be seen. And Jon Williams killed it with similar type of silliness to Carlo's, but his was a logical rational silliness.
The second half was Impro, with the previous Arts Revue members against the new Arts Revue members. The contest consisted of one team giving the other, only the name of a sketch they wrote for the Arts Revue, and then the other team would play out what they thought it was about. Then after the scene, the challenging team would tell them what it was actually about. As you would expect the veteran players were better, and even got one of their scenes correct. The young team were pretty inexperienced, but one scene was good. Crowd : 4 - Me : 3.75
09.08.11 : Red Dog - movie
Comedy | Drama : Based on the true story of the Red Dog that wandered the Pilbara in the late 70's. These days Australian movies are usually so bad that I'm happy if they get higher than the crap level. So it was good to see one that easily got to the nice level. It's a bit simplistic in places, but so is every Australian movie, so don't expect complicated joke construction. Overall it's a sweet little movie, probably directed more to Recycled Youth, rather than the actual young, so the oldies will like it. It's humours in places, and sad in others, and I found it quite nice 3.5
05.08.11 : Coogee Bay Comedy Fest : Coogee Bay Hotel
I bought tickets to another show when I heard out this one, so I thought I had to miss it, but when I checked the Net late that afternoon, I found out this was a 2 day event. So I quickly scrambled, and hoped there would be some tickets left. Luckily I got there early enough that there was heaps of tickets still available - I think it was that 'turn up fashionably late' type crowd, because by start time, the place was pretty full -. Another stroke of luck when I re-read the advertisement, was that the line-up looked like the best of the 2 nights anyway. Even though I have seen all of them before, most weren't locals that I see week in week out. And it's their random couple of viewings a year, that still makes them fresh for me. But even that aside, the 2 locals that were there, they mainly did new stuff anyway, and this made everyone on the night very good. To save time I'm not going to review each of them in detail, but will just put them in the order that I found them funniest. The funniest was Peter Helliar, followed by Steve Philp and Steady Eddie, who were equally as funny. The next group was Simon Kennedy and Heath Franklin, again equally as funny - to be fair Heath did a big 45 minute slot, that if compressed to the shorter length of the other comics would have had the laughs closer together, and therefore been funnier -. Lastly was Mikey Robbins, who wasn't that great, but because he was hosting, it did reduce the laugh level for him. As for the crowd, now I know where all the models hang out, because there was a lot of beautiful people, even the guys. Crowd : 4.5 - Me : 4.5
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04.08.11 : Wit Large: Hot Damn! Double Feature : Bondi Pavilion
04.08.11 : Word Fight - The Geek Will Inherit the Earth : Bondi Pavilion
Even though this is a pain of a venue to attend - it's not exactly transport friendly - I am up for anything comedy - it actually didn't say it was comedy, but I assumed it was based on the speakers -. So even with it's undesirable early start, I went to see what it was about. It's based on a debate, so it's like a debate with speakers coming up one at a time - even though there were sparse comments from others at times -, but this debate doesn't have sides, so there is no affirmative or negative teams. And because there is no set teams, the speaker acts individually, and can argue for either side of their choosing - they didn't actually state their position at the start, so you had to work it out -. They could actually switch tack, and change sides during their talk - and some did for a laugh -. Basically you can say anything that is related to the topic, with most doing it in a comedic style. The show was hosted by Wit Large's own Dave Bloustien, and featuring Dan Ilic (ABC's Hungry Beast, TEN's Can of Worms), Doug Bayne (ABC's Double the Fist), Jen Wong (Comedy Zone), Ben McKenzie (Museum Comedy, Dungeon Crawl).
Direct quote from the blurb : "Part debate, part TED talk, part competitive wrestling. Five of our favourite performers and personalities will take to the podium to thrash out an argument with no teams, no winner and no boundaries. Religion, politics, climate change and geek culture compete for stage time, and it's every geek for themselves". The only thing wrong with that, was that they did pick a winner, Ben McKenzie. - it wasn't the one I would have chosen. Doug Bayne and Dan Ilic were the funniest, so I would have picked both as a tie -. It finished on some Impro, based on what the speakers said during the non debate debate, but it was that ultra short micro scenes, like Puppy Fight Social Club, that I can't get into, because they are so short there is no substance. If Impro was a pun, this is it - and coincidently about the length of most of the scenes -. I would have preferred if the debate to ended at the debate, rather than have that jump on, one line, jump off, Impro. The show is not as bad as the score I gave it, because the debate was humorous enough, but the Impro was pretty half hearted for a veteran that has seen lots of Impro - people new to Impro don't seem to mind, because they haven't seen the good stuff, so they still think it's clever enough -. Crowd : 4 - Me : 3.5
04.08.11 : Dungeon Crawl - The Keep on the Bondilands : Bondi Pavilion
This 2nd Sydney show wasn't as good as the 1st at the Laugh Garage, but it was still good enough for most. The main players for this adventure were, Tharg(Dave Bloustien), an Ork, Tommy Tight Pants(Carlo Richie), the addicted hobo Prince, Emilio(Jon Williams), a plumber that eats mushrooms, and the very big surprise of Lady Hexington(Stephanie Bendixsen-HEX from Good Game), playing a rouge. HEX just turning up was worth the price of admission, but she added extra excitement by thinking ahead and using that gamer 'be prepared' collecting skill by arming herself to the teeth with weapons like a magical cloak, a mystical key, Hermione's wand, a remote with wrist strap, a dagger, a Konami Justifier, and passages from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight book.
The Dungeon master set the scene by sending them on a journey from Spiderman Keep to David Jones Inn. Along the way they encountered Dire Wombats, where the other adventures kept them occupied while Lady Hexington quietly sneaked behind them to steal their hearts. Back at Spiderman Keep they meet a young girl that tells them something so cryptic, that neither the cast, nor the audience, understood. So they use a translation spell to find out that someone has taken all the town's folk away. They then head out on the journey to find the town's people by travelling through a big open pipe that leads to a swamp. Lady Hexington scouts ahead alone, but is stopped by 2 half snakes half humans. She takes one hostage, but unfortunately falls for his trick and releases him, only to have him attack her. When the others arrive, they kill one, and question the other. They then follow a path to a beach, and come to a bolder that blocks a cave entrance. Lady Hexington erodes the stone with a passages from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight book, and they enter the cave. Upon entering, they are confronted by a cavern with a castle inside, that is full of the town's people. Unfortunately between them and the people is a Hideous Dragon. Lady Hexington throws her remote, with the now released wrist strap, at the Dragon, but this just smashes it's eye, and makes him angry. Tommy Tight Pants then approaches to negotiate, but he bores the Dragon so much with rambling-speak that the Dragon breaths fire on him, and wounds him. The flames then burn out all the illicit substances in Tommy Tight Pants system, and he become a legible rambling gentleman, but the fire then takes hold again and he burns to the ground. Lady Hexington then trades her cloak for the release of the people, and the Dragon agrees. The wanderers then ask the Mayor for their reward, but he is pissed because the Dragons Keep was luxurious compared to their crap Spiderman Keep, but he eventually relents, and gives them their reward.
The crowd was half the size this time - maybe they have a Bondi thing too -, and their extra laughs would have helped someone that sees comedy all the time - like me -. It had that that clunky stop start feel - which is probably the nature of the beast, because the scenes have to stop and start for rulings, etc -. It did smooth out later when they got faster at it -. Most of it was played like the game and not an Impro show, so it mainly stayed in the restrictive Medieval world for ideas - in an Impro show they would have mixed in things from other places -. Jon was the main person mixing in outside references - like his Super Mario clone - and that made it funnier. Most of the cast weren't experts at Dungeon and Dragons - one cast member had never even played it at all -, so they all kind of followed not really knowing how far they could push things, and this made it less entertaining. Last time we had an expert in the form of Dave Harmon - the instigator of drama, and the most fun in the last show -. Because he knew so much about Impro and D&D, he knew how far he could push things, and boy did he push it - he tried to kill Dave Bloustien many times by sending him into every dangerous situation -. It was kind of like when an improviser tries to out smart another improviser with task that has them doing some quick thinking get out off it -. Unfortunately Dave H was on the monsters side this time, and because he wasn't leading the adventure there were a lot less conflicts - basically everyone was too nice -. Also Carlo's new rambling drug addled character wasn't as endearing as his previous rambling Fisherman character - probably because it didn't go far enough - so it ended up like the Towelie character in South Park. - there should have been more eyeball injecting references -. Overall it was still nice enough for me, and my problems didn't seam to effect the rest of the crowd. Crowd : 4.25 - Me : 3.75
04.08.11 : Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes - movie
Drama | Action | Sci-Fi : An Ape is given a drug in a medical experiment to see if it cures Alzheimer's. This has the same feel as Captain America, in that there is no real surprises - actually there was 1 small one -, so you don't have to be a genius to figure out what conflicts you would have raising a wild animal in the city. It's also hard to connect with the unlovable ape, so you don't feel that much for him, and this makes it hard to feel for this film. It's basically a story movie, like Captain America, that feels familiar to people that have seen a lot of movies. It also has some technical aspects that are just plain stupid, like don't we already have anti-body suppressors for transplant patients. Mainly for the young, predictable for the older people. 3.5
03.08.11 : Full Body No Love Junior Tennis : Hermann's Bar
The whole night only had seasoned players, with the first half being 3 teams doing about 20 minutes each.
Bridie Connell, Phil Roser, Simon Greiner : Spaghetti : A waiter has just served a couple their spaghetti, when the woman notices it's not spaghetti, but linguine. The waiter apologizes and returns it to the kitchen, where the head chef is perplexed at how he could have made such a basic error. Unfortunately, he corrects the mistake by extruding the correct pasta from his man parts. Igor travels up a spiral staircase to deliver spaghetti to the Lord of the manor, but this time the mostly harsh master is not repulsed by Igor's usually disgusting cooking. Igor then apologizes for the shame his past cooking mistakes have made, and explains that he is not actually a cook, but heart specialist that this new country doesn't recognize. The Lord is not impressed, stating that we all have degrees. The Lord goes on to ask Igor to regale him with a tale of his childhood, so he starts his story. *Flashback* In a forest a couple of elves are dancing a jig, when the Mexican Lady of the Forest complains that they are reinforcing a bad stereotype. She is disgusted and starts to leave, but the elves plead for her to stay, stating that without her, they would have no heart. Unfortunately this doesn't stop her, and when she leaves one of the elves heart goes with her, turning him into stone. The other elf is so distraught that he goes to find a replacement heart, or parts for a Frankenstein pet. *End*. In an old repressive English manor, one of the Lords of the house chastises a boy about his bad chair etiquette and forces him to sit on the floor, while the other pompous Lord questions him about the reason for his flustered state. He starts by recounting his actions of the night before, but is quickly cut off mid sentence and chastised again, because all activities after sundown are lascivious. He insists and continues his story, stating that it's about de-foliation, not fornication.*Flashback* That night he was out on the heath, cutting heath for the fire, when every slash of his blade produces an OUCH!. And that's when he discovers that the heath is alive and can communicate, but only in disjointed words like muffinfrank, and kitkatfinger. He understand that the words mean that the heath needs a heart. *End*. Back at the manor, the self righteous Lords think the boy is mad, but still send him to the market to get tobacco, and a heart for the heath. On the way he meets a seller that gives him rat scrotum's, and then continues on to meet a high-pressure Cockney saleswoman, that is 100% sure that she has everything he needs. But when she doesn't have what he needs, she sends him to row 3 stall 4. Upon arriving he finds the Mexican Forest Woman, but she is in need of pride, so he heads into the forest, where the Forest Voice tells him to go into the light. In the light he finds a goblin that swaps the rat scrotums for hearts, and this ultimately returns the elf's heart making the elves dance a jig of happiness.
I went against the audiences response, because it wasn't their loudest of the night, but this simple, semi-logical, connected, and continuous story, that had a conclusion, appealed to me more than the others, so I ended up liking this one the best. Good.
Steen Raskopoulos, Susie Youssef, Carlo Ritchie : Jumanji : Some guys are playing Yahtzee when one draws a card that says 'You will be killed by your best friends mother'. He asks if he can change his best friend to Steve, to avoid getting killed, but they just say that they will get Steve's mum instead. The guy tries to find a loop-hole but it doesn't work, and Mrs Johnston kills him. A guy looses his bag, and has waterfalls in his eyes. The remaining player explains to the grieving mum that her son was transported to another dimension, and that's the rules. The mother then has waterfall in her eyes, as she has to explaining to strangers that a board game killed her son.
This was another of those short disjointed scenes that you can't really describe in a complete story. Even the players seamed disjointed, because it felt like none of the players wanted to stay long enough to get anything going, or go take control, or steer it in any sort of tangible direction - it was like, jump on stage, try to put a pun in, and then jump off straight away -. This one wasn't my favorite, but the audience on the other hand were the loudest for this one.
Michael Hing, Pat Magee, Tom Walker : Odd Couple Sit-Com about a Servant and an Emperor : Martin the Servant is complaining about his boss, the Emperor Imhotep, for not cleaning after himself, and leaving his crowns all over the place. Martin complains that he doesn't have a crown, but Imhotep correct him by saying that he has crowns on his teeth, and then cracks a dental/sundial joke, stating that the time is tooth hurty. There is a knock on the door and Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the wacky next door neighbour that is always going on crazy adventures, appears. - Tom then cracked some Egyptian jokes -. Franz Ferdinand(Michael - with a rather simplistic idea -) says that he has a girlfriend from Egypt, Cleopatra, to make the Franz Ferdinand character seam more exotic. - this is where Pat and Tom had a go at Michael's for his lack of imagination, citing that he just repeated Tom's Egyptian reference. Michael then came up with the excuse that the scene was insignificant, but Pat called his bluff and made him cut to it - *Flashback* At a restaurant Martin finds he is on the blind date with Cleopatra, so he pretends to be Imoteph so he can impress her. Imoteph then pretends to be the slave, to go along with the ruse. Cleopatra recounts the relationship with Franz Ferdinand, saying that he is 'sad all the time', and takes it out on her - wife beating gag - Tom then enters miming that he's on slave stilts - insert humorous wobbling sight gag -, and then gives them their dinner of violins. Cleopatra then goes on to recount her crazy adventures with Franz, like being thrown in a scorpion pit, and told it was a roller hockey rink. An argument then ensues and Cleopatra removes her wig oddly, to reveal that she is really Franz Ferdinand - Pat then forces Michael to explain this turn of events, thereby questioning his improvising skills -. Michael comes up with the reason that Franz isn't crazy at all, and doesn't actually have adventures, but was using Cleopatra to boost his Playboy status with her telling of fake stories about his propensity for being adventurous. - this is where Tom and Pat chastise Michael's mime of removing his fake wig, stating that no wig is removed starting from the chin, and then question his narrative skills with such a ludicrous reason -. Continuing the story, the real Martin then explains that he respects people that work for it, unlike Imhotep who doesn't get out of the shower to defecate, leaving him to clean it up. But Imhotep is not embarrassed, and just explains it as the king's disease. - Michael then has trouble continuing, because he is laughing so hard at the visual image of Imhotep poking his anus out of the shower and leaving a deposit ON the toilet, and not in it. *End* . Back at Imhotep place he is admiring the crown he is wearing on his shoulders, but Martin's retort is that he has a inbred pin head. The door bell is rings and Franz enters unable to pronounce his own name, so he becomes Cleopatra. The others were expecting Franz, and more of his crazy adventures, but she/he/it explains that Franz never took her on crazy adventures. This statement is further questioned when others recount stories of when he 'jumped a cow through another cow', but she/he/it reassures them that it never happened. And that's when they realise that the Archduke was never present for his own crazy adventures, and that he is just an Austro-Hungarian EMO.
Tom Walker was on fire, because he was enthusiastically getting into everything, and doing that quick thinking that he used to do - something that has been missing lately -. There was some good interplay with players stating the technical deficiencies of other players - that was extra funny when you realised that there was some truth to it -. This was my second favourite, but for the crowd, this tied as loudest cheer in the first half. Good.
Tribute for Jen O'Toole : All 9 players from the first half : Lightsabre or Darth Vader(they sound the same). - This one was also short individual scenes - linked only by words from the previous scene -, so it's hard to make this an interesting read. You really had to be there - : Samantha aged 11 is downsizing her toy collection, so she is telling her dolls one by one that they have to go, citing that neither her childhood, nor her toys, are coming back : A man can't decide on the colour of a new puppy because of all the heroin he had earlier : There is a murderous teddy bear, which links to a teddy bear's picnic : President Theodore Roosevelt makes a speech on radio, with his lines being audibly feed to him. : - Carlo finally brought back the funny nonsense speaking rambling old man, with lines like (spoken in a Texan, or somewhere in the mid west, accent - "Don't be packing up so soon, when you can be hitting balls by noon. I don't know how I'm going to do that, it's part of a routine, but the old lady, she said it would go just as well as a greased pan before cooking some cake" - and from that they made - Jeffrey the salesman is selling sporting supplies, because, "it gives him a sporting chance, the edge, the knife, the gun". Unfortunately his boss is less than impressed, because of phrases like "give me the gun", and his constant stabbing of customers. This is further reinforced when a customer tries to return a product, and Jeffrey(Carlo) obligingly answers with, "I can take that back as quick as I can take your life". : - the next one was a play on remembering where you were during a major world event, like where were you when man walked on the moon - People were going about their daily activities, when they are stopped dead by a news flash that tells them the President has been shot dead by a hunter during his radio speech. Unfortunately it catches some people in there most intimate activities, like gratifying themselves. : - This one had numerous scenes running, and when someone mentioned a place, they quickly cut to it - A bear has 2 people trapped in a cabin when one thinks it's a moose, - so they cut to Mooseville -. A man in Lapland confuses a moose for elves - so we go to Lapland -. In Lapland Santa is mistaken for elves because of his accent, like accents in Northumberland - so we go to Northumberland -. In Northumberland the village people are all talking at once, in different dialects : Goldilocks is lectured by the 3 bears on the proper etiquette of not home invading their home. The bears are very polite, but remind her they are ferocious bears. Goldilocks is not remorseful at all, and quite arrogant toward the bears. : The 3 musketeers, plus the one they can't remember the name of, go into sexual frenzy when one of their wives appear. There is a big argument among some men, and when the stop, we find out they are politicians from the Aussie House of Reps. But when one politician incorrectly identifies the speaker of Buckley, as the speaker of Berkley, a lot of swearing ensues : At a crab hunt a crab dies how he lived, deliciously, so the crabs attack the House of Reps and eat some politicians : A teenager has to assemble an Uzi machine-gun, but she just wants to do her homework : 3 people have a tournament to decide who will become the chosen one. : At the Lansdowne hotel a barman asks customers if they are, a drunk, a meth addict, or a pedo. But when 2 Swedish guys come in to watch the Ultimate Fighting Wrestling, they think the choices are drinks - for some reason I can't remember, Michael calls Tom a pedo and walks off, abandoning the other players. This will come back to bite him on the ass - The Swedish guys then continue doing rounds of UFW : The 3 bears go to Goldilocks house to talk to her father about her bad behaviour, so her father asks her to explain. But she is arrogant and tries to put the bears at fault, stating that they left the door open, and that they leave out poisoned food for intruders. Unfortunately the father bear accidentally just eats some and dies, but this doesn't stop Goldilocks slandering of the civilized bears, so baby bear politely asks his mother if he can maul her : Back with Jeffery the salesman, he home invades the bosses house to ask him why he was fired. : At a dance, Michael insults a girl when he says her buffalo-butt makes her look like a buffalo, and then goes on when he notices a butt faced girl, and further with an alligator boob-ed girl, and then a mouse vag girl : Jeffrey the salesman ends up in hell with his now dead boss, so he shivs him, but he is already dead, so he shivs him back. : Micheal says something insulting again, and runs away. So Tom turns things full circle from the time at the Roxbury where Michael physically pushed Tom on stage, when he hardly had any experience, because he physically picked him up from backstage, and put him front and centre on the stage and forced him to do coherent narrative - something that he has been avoiding lately. - the audience laughed when they realised that there is some truth to it -. : In heaven the group sing a Delta Goodrem song, which is really Nelly Furtado's I'm Like A Bird
Even though they were short separate scenes, there was laughs all the way through with no dead spots, unlike some long form, so it was better than good, and a fitting tribute. Crowd : 4.75 - Me : 4.25
02.08.11 : HaHa on the Harbour : Cargo Bar
On paper this should have been good. The room was nice - maybe too nice-, there was a decent crowd of 50, either Bev Killick or Bruno Lucia would be good just on their own, let alone together, so it had the makings of a good night, but there was just something that made me feel distant. The crowd on the other hand, enjoy it, but for me, or regular comedy goers, the problem was that the crowd was a bit reserved and didn't laugh that loud. And because there was no laugh track, it made it less funny - also wearing earplugs because it was too loud just compounded the problem -. I'm not a fan of Chris Franklin(MC) anymore - because I have seen him so many times I pretty much know what he is going to say word for word -, but even with that aside, he wasn't that funny in the first half -. The second half was a different story, because the audience and I did laugh quite a bit, so he ended up being rather good in the end. I have also seen Bev and Bruno before, but not at least for a year, so based on that long time frame I would have assumed that it was going to be good for me, but that reserved crowd and posh room kind of killed it for me - hence the 'too nice remark' -. This room feels like it's mainly for a fresh crowd, because the crowd on the night had a good time, but for people that know the jokes, this room can feel a little dead. I don't know if there was a mistake, but watch out for drink prices, they slugged me $8.80 for a coke. I just couldn't get into this. Crowd : 4. - Me : 3
29.07.11 : Hanna - movie
Action | Thriller | Mystery : An isolated young girl is brought up in the wilderness by her father for a mission. The movie is not as fast paced as the trailer had led us to believe. It does look a little different to most films - more like a European style of director - but even with the different look, it still does travel a bit too slow - it really didn't need to be 2 hours long -. The action was ok, but nothing too spectacular, and the thriller or mystery part wasn't anything outstanding either. I thought it was ok, but when I overheard a girl say it was crap, I think she was closer to what a younger audience will say. Ok time filler for me. 3
28.07.11 : Captain America - The First Avenger - movie
Adventure | Action | Sci-Fi : A physically weak man with a strong sense of right and wrong is given an experimental drug to make him stronger, and help win the war. I found this a bit dull, probably because it's such a well worn storyline, but even with that aside, the action was fairly basic - compared to what's around today, it was like bar fight -. This is another example of why secondary type superheroes are not as popular. It got to the stage that I was yawning in the second hour, so it gets a 3, but even the rest of it had trouble getting past a 3.25. 3
27.07.11 : Story Club: This Ends Now : Hermann's Bar
The title of this show is basically when a situation gets so bad, that someone has to make the decision to do something drastic to resolve it. Overall the stories started mildly and ramped up to the end. On the night the lack of sleep caught up with me, so I was a bit out of it at the time. Alex Lee hosted for the sick Ben - Ben did appear latter to tell a story, when he dragged himself from his death bed.
Harrison Milas : Harry recalled the big swimming final against the arrogant REDBOT HOUSE!(Go Bender, Go Bender). That pesky Mathew Flinders transferred the bloody thirsty attitude of the English, that they used to conquer the world with the blood of others, to the head team of the school. The Flinderers won everything, and let this power get to their heads by monstering the other pupils. The school need a hero, someone to stand up for all things decent and right, and maybe Harry would be that man, or maybe not. I wish I could tell you a tale of the underdog team with less skill showing grit and fortitude to vanquish their oppressive foes, aka The Mighty Ducks. Or even the underdog putting up the brave fight, but the enemy changing the rules, which ultimately sees them loosing graciously, and by a hairs breath. Like the very much at home, Russell Crowe playing a ice hockey star in Alaska(WTF) in Mystery, Alaska 1999. But alas it all came to a head when Harry used more of the English habit for blood, and nutted his rival in the face, and bloodied the waters of the local swimming pool. Nice
Kate Leaver : Kate is a delightful co-worker, and I'm sure she wouldn't lie to us, but she was bullied by the weasel faced Boss woman to the point of quitting. On the last day, there was the little matter of restitution, or at least restitution in Kate's mind, so she sized up the office accoutrements. Spying the 2 foot high Minnie Mouse action figure, that looked like it needed liberation, she came up with a carefully orchestrated caper to spring Minnie Mandela from her prison. The plan was set in motion with her boyfriend hovering the car park in his Mazda Helicopter. So Ninja Kate quietly and stealthily jimmied the back door, and sidled out to to the chopper with liberated hostage in hand. But by this time, her boyfriend was starting to lose his nerve, and started panicking. Luckily Lady Fluffington slapped him silly, and took the controls to pilot them to freedom. Nice
Patrick Lenton : Patrick thought all his Christmases had came at once, when his band got their first gig. But unfortunately they were not a band as per se, but actually a Poetry Boy Band, and this confused audiences, us, and even the members of the group. Things came to a head when they discovered the gig was at the Annual Thredbo Street Busking Competition, and not on a proper stage, but on the ski fields during a snow storm. The skiers initially like them, because they served as a useful salmon test, but alas their words were drowned out by the accompanying kowabunga's. The mood was sombre in their room that night, so they went on binge drinking bender, to ease their humiliation, but that also went amiss, when they only had $10 each to spend. Unfortunately the lessons they learned that day didn't make them say "This Ends Now", so they went on to no notoriety, when they cleared a room at a Food and Wine Festival. Better than nice.
Alice Fraser : Alice was introduced as a gentle woman, even though I remember she fought in the UFC, and her story logically linked other stories in a sequence, to prove a point. She started by over analysing the story of Faustus : Dr Faustus sold his soul to Mephistopheles for earthly goods, but after 24 years he would be damned for all eternity in Hell. As per usual, after the 24 years were up Faustus whines about the deal, and and tries to get eternity changed to a fixed amount of time. Alice then linked that eternity in Hell or Heaven, would still be Hell, because nothing ever changes. And this then got linked to the fact that most people will obey an Authority figure way past a person's own morality, until the point in time where they decide that, "This Ends Now". Alice used the tale of Prometheus : Zeus punished Prometheus for giving mortals fire by having him bound to a rock while a great eagle ate his liver every day, only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day. - Her follow up story was from the point of the eagle - . After many millennia Prometheus and the Eagle had a kind of mutual respectful symbiotic relationship - like the Bugs Bunny - Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog relationship - but the pain he was causing troubled the Eagle so much, that he said enough was enough, and decided to quit. Mixing history, and linking parts, made this a good one.
http://lucidandalight.tumblr.com/post/8128657547/this-ends-now-story-club-27-july-2011
For some unknown reason the music PC went missing, so Carlo and Pat sang Kirk Douglas's - A Whale of a Tale. Unfortunately even after incessant listening to the song over the years, they still didn't know the lyrics, so they mumbled them.
Eddie Sharp : Eddie's life rarely ever had a single point of conclusion - unlike his friends definite point of closure when his relationship ended with a stab wound to the stomach -, but would more or less let conflicts slowly peter out to conclusions. Eddie was working in the go-getter world of Dendy cinema usher in 2007, where he tried to invent new Choc-Top produces like the Choc-Top Hand. As you can imagine the job was easy, but lacking in any mental stimulus, so there was little to excite, until one day. The master criminal Anthony Riley was released from prison, and his forte was robbing cinemas. He did this by carefully and stealthily crawling across floors in dark cinemas robbing bags. And then leaving an exclamation mark, in the form of a turd, to mark his presence. The man was so good that he robbed Eddie's cinema 4 times, but he never saw him. And this went even further when he took a girl to see a movie, and she got robbed right under his nose without him noticing. Anthony's story did have a definite conclusion, unlike Eddie,s employment, because a security guard did finally catch the errant Anthony, at the Broadway cinemas, ending his story now. Good
Ben Jenkins : - repeated from 30.06.10 - Ben Jenkins story was a science based one that linked overly affectionate girls with a parasite in mice called Toxaoplasma Gondii. The parasite gets in the mouses brain and makes it fearless, so when a cat attacks, it doesn't run away and so gets eaten. Once in the cat, it then it gets transferred to girls. I saw a special on this parasite years ago where they showed an experiment of it's effect. They had a tank with some fish in it where and dipped a fake storks head into, and only some fish darted away to escape, and some just stayed put. The ones that didn't flee had the parasite, which was evident by of their swollen gut, so they lost their ability to feel fear. This one they linked mainly to the French, because of their odd eating habits, and may explain the disproportionate number of French thrill-seekers. Ben went on to assume his fried Kyle has this parasite when he told of a strange encounter with a dangerous looking man late one night. It was a good story with a lot of descriptive elements. - Even though I had heard this one before, it was just as good, if not more so, as last time -.
David Cunningham : David covered Ancient Egypt by starting with his 1859 paper 'The Origin of Rivers', where he traced the Nile from a weeing silver back gorilla, to Lake Victoria, to Dr Livingston, to Humphrey Bogart, to the African Queen, past the junction of the White Nile meeting the Ethiopian feed Blue Nile, to Winston Churchill, to Sir Herbert Kitchener, pass 6 cataracts, to the Aswan high dam, through the Aswan low dam, to the Nile delta. At the delta, the government of the time would tax the residents based on how under water their properties would get during the annual floods - a double whammy of hardship for all -, and it was these taxes that built the pyramids. We now pass Brendon Fraser, and Marlborough country, on to pyramid country. And it's here that we get the term "incompetent government spending", because Pharaoh Sneferu build 3 pyramids, that was as wisely spent on as a home insulation scheme, because they became a litany of duds. He started with a stepped pyramid that was too rough to drive a chariot on, so he had the steps filled, but that fell off. The second was a miss calculation as to the height of the gods, and was so steep that the engineers had to change it half way, making it a bent pyramid. There was a Royal Commission, and based on the findings, the third came out just right, if a little small. The journey then continued to Cleopatra, to Alexander the Great, to beauty tips for women, and then on to the 'Pharaoh and the Thief', with the journey finally finishing at the sea. Very good.
Zoe Norton Lodge : Zoe's story was along the lines of her last Jane Austen story, and entailed a lot of sisters, a brother, and a toaster. Elisa was the Lauren Jackson of the time, but unattractive, and took over the running of the house after her father died when he enlisted for the war at the age of 85. Elisa's other siblings were Marina, Gene, Theodora, and Grevillea the toaster. They joined a theatrical society, to paltry acclaim, where Theodora became rather sickly when she caught Tuberculosis. Elisa decide to kill Gene, because he being the only male heir would inherit everything leaving the sisters out in the cold, so she sent him out into the snow to pick cherries, from the bare trees, in the wolf infested orchard. Marina and Grevillea returned from their party, where they had met boys that offered them a dance, and marriage. This was great news for Elisa because she wouldn't have to marry, or kill Gene. But this enraged Theodora, because she was in line to marry before her younger sister, so she went out into the snow. The 3 remaining sisters then started rehearsing their next play, Hamlet. Stumbling, Theodora found Gene eating a dead wolf, so she took the bread knife, and returned to the house with murderous intent. Upon entering she raised the knife and plunged it into one of Grevillea bread socket, but unfortunately Grevillea electricity killed her. Zoe always makes her characters come alive with mannerism and accents, so it was good.
Crowd : 4. - Me : 4
26.07.11 : Kevin Bloody Wilson - Excess All Areas World Tour : Burwood RSL
Kevin must be before my time, because I don't know much about him at all, and actually all I remember was that, he has been around a long time, he was pretty famous back then, and his picture usually has him holding a guitar. When I researched the show I noticed that the price was right on my self imposed price limit - I have to watch those dollars -, so I had to weigh up the pros and cons to see if it's viable. Con : It's expensive for an Australian comic doing a RSL show - I think only 3 Australian comics charge that much, but only at expensive flash venues -. Pro : He must be good if he can demand that price. Con : He is old time, so might be out of date. Pro : I quite like old style gag comedy - people like Wally the Worker -. Con : He has a guitar, and I don't like many musical comedy acts - Thank God for AoA -. Pro : He can't only do songs. Pro : The guy is famous, so you would have to think that he's good. Pro : You won't be lying in the cold cold ground with worms crawling through your eye sockets wondering if you missed something special. Well, in the end, everyone of my Pro's was 100% wrong. 'He can't only do songs', Yes he can, and if fact it was nearly all songs, and songs that sounded pretty much the same. To me they all sounded sort of Country, or Western, or what ever they call it, but with slightly different lyrics, but not clever lyrics, but the very simplistic 'add a rude word' ones. Imagine a sort of mildly rude Slim Dusty type, that uses words in like sh*t, fu*k, c*nt, etc, throughout his songs. The small bits of banter between song was a fraction better, but most of the jokes were from old joke books from the 70's - I still buy joke books to kill time when I'm waiting, but they are so excruciatingly old, bad, and predictable, that they actually piss me off so much, that I can only read short segments at a time -. He did have one modern joke that I can remember, but he stole it from Ronnie Johns - the dead at 27 gag, but with Justin Bieber -. It was a big show with Kevin doing 2 hours, plus his daughter Jenny Talia doing an additional ½ an hour at the start - of the exact same type of stuff -, so you got your moneys worth, if you're into that. Kevin is 63 years old, from Kalgoorlie, and has been doing this for 43 years, and boy does it show, because everything was very dated, and not by a little, but by at least a third of a century. Really, this show is only for Kevin fans, over 50 year olds, racists, sexists, and what ever other ists there are out there - of which there was quite a few in the house -. The fans seemed to enjoy it, because they knew the words to the songs and were singing along, and they laughed quite a bit. It doesn't deserve a score as low as I gave it, because scores that low are usually for shows that piss me off, which this one didn't exactly do. But because this show was so dated, it was actually putting me to sleep even though I was hopped up on caffeine, I would be surprised if any modern person would like this at all, so I can't really recommend this to anyone. Too old and repetitive, and well past it's use by date. Crowd : 4. - Me : 0
26.07.11 : Bad Teacher - movie
Comedy : A teacher doesn't want to work for a living, but instead marry a meal ticket. Very mild comedy that's nothing special. It's not as bad as that crap Tom Cruise Knight and Day movie, so it's an ok time filler. 3
22.07.11 : Comedy on the EDGE-Claire Hooper, Chris Radburn+Special Guest! : Shannon Hotel
I was bored and wondering what to do, when I saw Claire Hooper advertised at a comedy night. Look, I'm not a big Claire fan, but I figured that because I've only seen her twice, she might do something I haven't heard before, and even if she didn't, her usual stuff will still be fairly fresh because I haven't heard it that often. I was actually so focused on seeing Claire - my only motivation for turning up -, that I didn't even bother reading who else was on the bill. There was also the slight added incentive of a new venue - a change of scenery adds a little more excitement for a rat in a cage -. The place was nice enough, and there was a lot of people, but when Claire came on and said she was only the host, I said to myself "Oh No, this is a big mistake" - even though the advertisement didn't actually say she was only hosting, I suddenly remembered that last month with Mikey Robins, the advertisement DID say he was the host -. Unfortunately I was right, because we only got Claire doing a total of 10 minutes of actual routine, which was broken up during the night so it felt like even less. She did do 5 minutes of improvising with the audience, but it was pretty mild. I just felt like it was a disappointment, considering she was the major advertised draw-card, and she didn't do that much. Even though the other headliners did make up for it, I couldn't get past the disappointment, so the night wasn't anything special for me. The other headliners - that I had blinkers on when I read it - were advertised as Chris Radburn + Special Guest, with the Special Guest being Kitty Flanagan. Now this was all well and good, but I had already seen them this month, so even though they were good, the repeats weren't that great for me. Basically, I would have thought twice about parting with the money if it was only them being advertised. There was also 4 new comics, that I didn't find funny at all, and even a bit tedious, but because the crowd was so exceptionally good, by laughing at everything, it made them acceptable. We also had Ella James, who the crowd loved - the crowd was so good that even I found her quite funny this time -. Overall Chris Radburn and Kitty Flanagan were good, but it was the excellent crowd that made the show better. Crowd : 4.25 - Me : 3.75
22.07.11 : Larry Crowne - movie
RomCom | Drama : A man looses his job because he is told he doesn't have a collage degree, so he goes back to school - it's more based on the economic down turn in America -. The trailer looked as dull as dishwater, and the movie isn't anything special, but for old people and romantics it isn't horrible, in fact I thought it was ok, just don't look for anything new. 3.5
20.07.11 : Make Way For Ducklings - Sure, "shank redemption!" : Hermann's Bar
This show returned to that higher level of thinking humour, like the Disillusionists - which is kind of where this whole comedy night started -, because it's more of the clever, and less of the crude - it's actually the type of comedy I expect from a Uni troupe -. Thinking comedy has the advantage of getting you on 2 fronts, 1 - the actual joke, and 2 - getting the audience involved by having to think. This has the benefit that if the joke isn't that funny, making people think and work it out is the second best option. It's like that old joke, "There are 3 type of people in the world, those that CAN count, and those that CAN'T" - that always get a pause on first hearing, as they work it out -. Two pronged jokes are better because if one doesn't work that well, the other will, and if both work, it's even better. I will group the sketches in my laugh groups - which doesn't reflect what the audience thought -, so they will be out of order.
Good : In a brilliant stroke of laziness, the Ducklings a locked a hundred feral cats in front of a hundred typewriters for a hundred years. Unfortunately that only produced sh*t, so they wrote the show themselves. Actually they started with a introduction story about how their offices were broken into by a cat burglar, well not actually broken into, but more Carlo left the door open, and not actually cat burgled, but more feral cat infested. This basic story was then turned into a cat pun sketch, with the visual sight gag of Michael having his shirt ripped by cats.
Next was the seemingly simple, but clever gag, about a guy being tested in a psychological trial. Where all his seemingly insignificant responses were being judged by Professor Jacobson, but in fact Prof Jacobson wasn't Prof Jacobson, but a person playing Prof Jacobson, which made the deception a trail as well. It ended in a type of 'trippy Fight Club bullsh*t' scene, with the dude not realising he was the dude(a Matt Okine gag). The build up was good, the punchline was even better, and it had a very funny sight gag of Carlo pretending to be Prof Jacobson, but Prof Jacobson played by 2 kids, with one standing on the others shoulders, that wobbled when he walked to try and simulate a child's weak legs when the weight of another child is on his shoulders.
The engineer having a press conference and making a statement about a error he made was clever, because it started without an introduction or any specifics, so you had to work it out from the cryptic clues during his speech. It's like the trick I play on my friends when I ring them up and don't identify myself, and then just start talking mid sentence - this produces silence until they work it out -. This one had me stumped at the start - which is what it was meant to do -, but it stumped me more than the crowd because everyone laughed, except me, when the character said "Thermal Exhaust Port". I was wondering why "Thermal Exhaust Port" was so funny, and then I remembered it has something to do with Star Wars - I very rarely watch a movies twice, and I hadn't seen Star Wars for a couple of decades -. So with some fast thinking, I remembered the character saying something about a "large structure with military might", and that's when the light came on and I realised he was the Death Star engineer that designed the obviously poorly designed weak spot of the Thermal Exhaust Port in the Death Star - the one that Luke Skywalker shot a missile down to destroy it -. Not only was the concept good, but it was extra good because you had to work out who, what, where, and when, from a story that started in the middle.
Tom did a send-up of a ancient Ming Dynasty Chinese comedian called WuShu Xuan, but delivered it in a modern observational pun comic style using material from the relevant ancient Chinese period. There was the usual racial pun section, and as you would expect from the period, they were all Mongolian jokes. Like, "I've got nothing against Mongolians, in fact my wife is half Mongolian. Yeah, the bad half", and wife puns like, "Speaking of Mongolian horses. My wife". There was a bit that modern comics use when they get a good response to a joke. Like when they tell a good joke about sex, they say something like, "So you like the sexy stuff", but because of the era, Tom told a joke about burning Mongolians, so his version was "So you like the fire arrow stuff". Actually the puns were so terrible that they were funny, but because they were referenced to an ancient period, you had to think how the time period changed the pun, and this made them even funnier, and very ridiculous. The funniest joke was when he referenced Sun Tzu, he said "I love Sun Tzu's book The Art of War - ancient Chinese military treatise - I've read it cover to cover, and that's also how I move my infantry". Afterwards, Tom's concept made me wonder what comedy was like back then.
Very Good : The funniest sketch of the night was when Make Way For Ducklings was transported back to 1890 Ye Olde England, because it sent-up the English lifestyle of that time period. It started by sending up the old English class structure of the time, with Ben playing the pompous upstairs Master of the house - seated in a chair with pipe in hand -, and everybody being subservient to him. The funniest line of the night was when Ben sent-up the pompous structure of old English speak, when he introduced the troupe as "Watch out, water fowl approach". There was a send-up of medicine of the time, when Ben advertised Henderson's Miracle Tonic, for both known aliments. Along with old English racism and sexism send-ups. Ben even did a bit of ad-lib when the sound desk accidentally played an errant piece of music, because he quickly explained it as a Skipping Gramophone. It's amazing how something so simple is so funny - and probably explains why those Improv 'Scenes in the style off' are so popular - because all it does is exaggerate known references in our head - insert Simpson's/Futurama argument here -.
I didn't initially understand why a guy was heckling a guy called M. C. Escher - unfortunate name because it conjures a modern day rapper - but when the picture of stairs that go nowhere was produced, I got that M. C. Escher must have been the guy that did the etching called Relativity - I knew the picture, but not the name of the artist -. The constant heckling of the pointlessness of the picture was very funny.
The last sketch of the night was where an explorer captured a boy that was raised by wild saxophones - as you would expect, we didn't know what that entailed - but when the boy was asked to speak, instead of words, all he could do was scream out an acapella sax solo from Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street - which had the room erupting with laughter -, and then to push that even further, the boy followed it with the solo from George Michael's Careless Whisper, as a replacement for words again. And that whole sax theme set-up was so they could finish on the gag song of Yakety Sax, to end the night in a Benny Hill chase send-up, complete with a Polar Bear on a BMX.
Better than nice : Owl Hour was funny because it was a ridiculous play on words - say Owl Hour ten times fast -, and it even included something very rare, owl puns.
The owner of a faithful robot fires him because he got scared of robots after he saw the movie Terminator. This makes the robot so angry, that he has to "kill all humans"(Bender gag).
There was the send-up of the good cop bad cop, but this bad cop was passive aggressive. This sketch turned into an intervention for Hing's actual passive aggressiveness.
There was a worker complaining to his boss that the new employee he has just hired isn't doing the work, because he is just a torso. The ludicrous visual imagery of a torso not be able to complete simple tasks was ridiculous.
The Captain of a police station is chastising a detective for being too reckless, but the detective is a BMX bike. Carlo made this one work.
There was a touching recreation of the scene where Sam carries Mr Frodo in LOTR. The great over the top acting made the scene funnier than just the punchline, of not being able to carry him because he was too heavy.
One sketch started with 'Imagine Kings were people' where a guy goes to see a doctor, but the doctor is a Tsar. So he has to ask for him by his full name(Nicholas II), complete with his long list of 30 titles. The way Patrick hesitated in some spots when he delivered the long winded title, had everyone thinking he was just making it up as he went, but when Carlo repeated the massive title again, we realised we were being played, and that's what made it funny.
There was an Antique Roadshow send-up where a simpleton brought in an innocuous box of chocolates, that were from the Coronation of Queen Victoria and worth $100,000. The acting made this one come a live as well.
A worker complains to the owner of a restaurant called Caligula's, that the head chef he just hired is actually a horse called Luxury Diner.
Nice : There was what I assume to be the Bundy bear collecting rent from an ex lover - it wasn't clear if he was just a polar bear, or the Bundy bear, or just a guy in a bear suit from a fancy dress party -. A boss mistaking 'account manager' for 'Nazi war criminal'. A radio station secret sound, that was scorpions attacking. The sketch that had a lot of prop imagery, but unfortunately someone forgot to bring the props. A job interview - that returned to the cat jokes -. Internet sabotaged by a paperphile. Not being prepared for Warlock Stranger Danger.
Well worth venturing out on such a horrid cold and wet night. Crowd : 4. - Me : 4
19.07.11 : Sleeping Beauty - movie
Erotic | Drama : A university student is trying to make ends meet, when one day she answers a mysterious advertisement for a job that entails her being put to sleep while naked. I hadn't heard of this movie until yesterday, and when I watched the trailer, it was so mysterious that it intrigued me. Unfortunately the movie isn't as intriguing as the trailer, but it's something different. I wouldn't say this is an erotic thriller, because it's not as tense, as it's weird, so it's more like an erotic drama. I don't think the moderate pace, or the strange unanswered question, will matter to guys, because of the fact that Emily Browning gets nude all through the movie. Doesn't have that tenseness, or real substance, that would make this a good movie, but it's not bad. I think it was partly filmed in the University of Sydney or UNSW. 3.75
15.07.11 : Greg Fleet in Thai Die : Comedy Store
This is more a harrowing tale, with comedy added, rather than a comedy, that's a bit harrowing. And because it is more story like than comedy show, the actual laugh value is going to be lower. It's along the lines of, being overseas and all alone, and then being taken advantage of by unscrupulous people. It's a bit like Lou Sanz - Don't use My Flannel For That, but a lot more elaborate. Back in 1988, a 28 year old Greg Fleet took a trip to Thailand looking for adventure, and boy did he find it, in one of the most ridiculously elaborate orchestrated scams - that was so obvious that Greg rang a bell every-time a moron could sense the bullshit, even though he never did -, that had him kidnapped, defrauded, threatened with death, deposited in the middle of a war in Burma, and again threatened with death. If you like that tense "edge of the seat" stuff, this has it, but for me, I don't really like tales that are more distressing than funny - as was Lou Sanz's story - but at least I wasn't as distressed as with Lou's one - probably because guys don't seam as helpless, even though in this story Greg's life was actually threatened. The show isn't bad, just not my cup of tea, so if you want a story type show, that has some levity, this one is fine, but don't expect the constructed charm of a Story Club story - but then again those aren't as comically serious as this one -, because this is constructed in a sort of talking to your mates fashion. It was interesting throughout, and had a few chuckles, so no one will be disappointed with this show. Crowd : 4. - Me : 3.5
14.07.11 : Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - movie
Adventure | Fantasy : So the hunt is on for Voldemort's pesky horcruxes - there's no need me telling you more, because everyone will see this anyway -. You kind of, have to see this movie, because it gives you the details that ties up all the other movies. Like David Cunningham said, " This is darker than the others". More of the same, as you would expect. 4
13.07.11 : Full Body Contact No Love Junior Tennis Academy : Hermann's Bar - impro
There was a lot of first timers tonight, in fact there were 2 new team members added to each of the usual 4 player teams in the first half. If I had to sum up the night, I would say Random. I can't really tell you much about the stories, because there were so few continuing ones, so the best I can do is just give you short descriptions of some of the many separate little scenes.
Team 1 : Mouse : Some mice are lost in a maze when the voice of the leader mouse tells them to go to the cheese. Unfortunately when they eat it, it's slow acting poison, and that gives them 24 hours to find the antidote. Some Swedish people meet on a street, but they have trouble with the traditional greeting of hello. A murder investigation goes wrong when the victim isn't dead, so they autopsy the living body. The mouse gets the antidote from the doctor, but it's fake antidote. He is then given 2 challenges he must pass, with the first being to learn the Swedish greeting. An English lady takes a fancy to a caveman. A man asks God if 5 can be the devils number. And a son talks to his dad about girls. Back at the maze the leader mouse sets them the second task of making electricity, but one is a Pikachu, so it's not a problem. I prefer a bit of a story, as opposed to separate scenes, but really no team told much of a story tonight. Either way it didn't effect the crowd, so it's not a problem.
Team 2 : Fridge : A man finds that the body parts of his dead wife have been taken from the fridge, so he sets out to recover them. The president is in a public toilet, and needs a new pair of pants urgently. So he trades Louisiana for pants, from a fake American Indian. The man is still looking for his wife, when they take his take-away. The President is swapping more states for cloths, so his Aid sends a agent to find out what the American Indian is doing. The President then goes to the Indian's casino, and looses his shirt. This one had a bit more story, but I felt it was still missing something. Again it didn't effect the crowd, who were a little louder with this one.
Team 3 : Marshmallows : At a Campfire a guy doesn't realise he sat on the fire, and he burns to death. A father sees his son dancing in a club, and sees the potential for a money making act - that has his son erotic dancing while eating marshmallows. A man enters with red hands, and it is quickly concluded that he has been bitten by a Muppet, and has Puppetitis, so he is beaten to death with a box. The son gets a job at a dance bar, but when he performs he is treated like a piece of meat and looses confidence. He goes to a doctor, who gets him addicted to chocolate because it dulls the senses when he performs. A man with a red shirt appears, and he is nearly bitten by the vampire Muppet. The father pushes his son on to be the best, and this gees him up for his final performance. But when he realises he doesn't need to dance, and can just run away, he disappears. The scene finished with James Colley getting the beating he so richly deserved. This one also had more of a story, and was about the same as the last one.
Team 4 : This month Eden Lacy hosted, and was quite insane - insane enough that he should be given a show on his own. Eden occasionally popped up telling us a weird story, that lead to him asking the audience for a prompt. : Stress, Exams : A man gets letter containing a swear word, just when some glasses break. In an exam room student are put under extra high stress, because the examiner films test. Even more pressure appears when a big wig from the education dept comes to observe. And if that isn't enough, they are informed that a nuclear holocaust red alert has been issued, and that their families have been kidnapped. But when one student's pen stops working, he cracks. : No Emotions : A half boy half robot asks his father why he doesn't feel anything, and what is happiness. He father recalls that the happiest time for him was when he plugged electricity into his son's anus. A young ghost has failed her scaring exam, for not being scary enough, so she teams up with the very scary Reginald, to learn how to scare people. A driving instructor tells his student not to chase ambulances unless he a paramedic license. The student then goes to paramedic school, where he is given a band-aid, and he becomes a paramedic. Unfortunately his lack of skill makes a guy bleed out. : Unicycle : The gun-ho leader of a team of BMX unicyclers tells his team to "Act like chickens in a hen coup that's got the keys to the door", and ride up a hill. Some parents give their child a bicycle, but only half is there, so by adding birdcage to the bicycle parts, he makes a birdcage unicycle. At a museum the curator see the boy ride by, so he kills him and takes his ride. Some hicks turn pages by licking their fingers. A man sells a fragrance called ME, that is a poison that makes people go blind. Reginald reappears in a SAW send-up, when he locks 3 guys in a toilet and tells them to urinate on each other. : Gambling : An Asian stereotype gambler challenges James Bond to an Asian accent contest. People are watching a James Bonds movie, when a masturbating Steven Hawkins enters. A man doesn't know who his father is, when another man is mistakenly thought to be pregnant, but is actually dying and looking for his son. The son thinks his father's name is Bee, and this pisses off his father Jeff so much, that he tells his son off.
Even though the scenes were just as random in this half, it was better, because it felt more controlled and calculated, and didn't have that rushed feeling of the teams in the first half - which is odd, because when you see 2 person long form it feels like, OMG how are we going to fill a whole 19 minutes, but with these young people it's like, OMG we only have 19 minutes, and that makes their scenes feels a bit cluttered and rushed. On the plus side, they are only young, and it's rarely ever dull.
Crowd : 4. - Me : 3.5
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12.07.11 : Jimeoin - Something Smells Funny : Burwood RSL
That didn't turn out like I envisaged. Firstly, I picked a seat on the first row of tables, and unfortunately these tables were behind the speakers, so by the time the sound bounced off the back wall, I missed quite a few jokes. Secondly, I was expecting a blistering show, like last time at the SOH, but even with the sound problem, I don't think this one was as good as last time. Jimeoin did that 'looking at normal things from a different angle', that he is so good at. He was explaining how some things don't convert to the metric system, like penis size. Somehow bragging that your penis is 'two hundred and twenty five millimetres' long, isn't as good as claiming it's 9 inches. And for girls, bragging your waist is 'zero point four five of a metre'. Jimeoin then covered domestic subjects. Like cheese, where he noted that when you cut it with a knife, the speed of the cut slows down, and that it should be a standard unit, like the speed of light, but called the speed of cheese. He gave the example of him getting out of bed at twice the speed of cheese. Next was his knife rack, and their alias names, like the murdering knife, the little cheese knife - as opposed to the normal cheese knife -, etc. He explained his daily ritual in the morning, and why you must put the kettle on before pee-ing, so you have something to look forward to. He did a good routine about going to bed late at night, but the bed not being made yet. And then struggling with the sheets, when you're tired, with something that is so easy for girls - because they have the special touch -, but hell for guys, because they always leave wrinkles, hand prints, and cat shaped bumps - when they don't notice that the cat has jumped on to the bed while they're making it -. And then forgetting all the troubles, due to the excitement of new sheets. He questioned why old men pull their tracksuits so high, and then tried it, and found it to be very comfortable. There was an animal section, that covered cats, dogs, kangaroos, and foxes. It also covered swans, and their elaborate poser landings, crows, that always look lazy when they fly, and chickens, that walk like they are carefully treading through a mine field. The next section was relationships, and watching your partner while they're sleeping, and wondering how you ended up with that. A very funny, dating girls by mumbling, and being romantic with your wife. Like seductively whispering in her ear, "I put bins out", and "I leave you alone tonight". Next was mind tricks that race through your head. Like constantly telling yourself, in your head, that you must listen to this important bit of information, and then forgetting to actually listen. Wondering what the plugged up button holes in cars would be, if we had more money, maybe open the Batcave. That lost look when you return with the ice cream, on a crowded beach, and can't find your family. The funniest part was about the noises you make when you smell something funny. Like when you enter a toilet, and you know it is going to smell bad, you say "Pee-U", but if you don't know you're going to hit a bad smell, you go "Poah", and too much perfume, is "Phoof". Those annoying health food nuts that incessantly keep repeating their "anti-oxidants are good for you" rants, that leaves you thinking that maybe anti-oxidants aren't helping their memory, if they don't remember telling that story thousands of times. He finished with his usual music section playing the guitar, but this time he sent-up songs - he did a song about talking before the song. He followed that with a real comedy song, about being married, called, "Being with you is like being alone, expect you're there. Because we don't talk anymore". He did his usual Jokes from the book, that are good, like chasing loose threads, and the horror as you unravel your cloths. He finished on his new iPad, loop/sampler song. There were only 2 spots that were as funny as last time, but it was still a huge 90 minutes of fun. My score is down 0.25, because of the venue's sound, but even with that aside, the crowd didn't sound like they got to 4.5. Crowd : 4.25 - Me : 3.75
12.07.11 : Wu Xia (Dragon) - movie
Drama | Mystery : A bumbling paper maker seems to accidentally kill 2 vicious murdering criminals. So when a dogged self righteous detective, that only sees black and white in regards to the law, is sent to investigate, he senses something is not quite right with the paper maker.
***SPOILER ALERT*** When the detective recreates the fight, he realises that only someone with exceptional skill could have killed such hardened criminals, and that there are only 3 people in China with skill, with all 3 of them being extremely dangerous serial killers. The detective has a hard time cracking the paper makers story, and goes to extreme measures to prove his hunch. His theory isn't add up, until an incomplete official report on paper maker's background returns, and he concludes that it can only be one person, a member of the 13 Demons, the most dangerous gang in China. The detective goes back to the city to get help from the authorities, so he can arrest the paper maker. But without proof, he has to either bribe an official for an arrest warrant, or as his friend suggests, go to the 13 Demons and let them deal with their errant member. The detective takes the less evil of the two, and gets the money. Unfortunately his friend goes to the 13 Demons, where we discover that the paper maker is the missing son of the Master of the 13 Demons. And that he wants his son, a renegade mass murderer, back. ***END***
The review in Sundays paper said it was a 4, so I assumed it was because of the usual action, that they do so well, in Asian marshal arts films, Unfortunately this was a drama first, with a mystery element, and then some action thrown in, instead of the other way around. So for me, it was more talking, than spectacular visuals, so it didn't grab me. It's not bad, and has an interesting story, but it's not what I want. 3
10.07.11 : HaHa FUNdraiser - Our Last HaHa Ever : Roxbury Hotel
This has never been a strong comedy night, at least for repeat viewings, so I wasn't that keen on going. But when I saw on Facebook that 80 people were going to turn up - many people make anything funnier -, I went. It was about the same as last time, and in fact the line up was nearly the same as well, and it was only Nick Capper, Ben Ellwood, and Eric Hutton that I found amusing. 3
06.07.11 : Story Club: The Sincerest Form of Flattery : Hermann's Bar
The theme for tonight was that the story tellers were going to write a story in the style of a famous author. And because I know nothing about literature, yet alone the authors, I had to work out the references on the fly. This review was actually going nowhere, until I started researching what when on, and that's when I finally came up with something to write about. Unfortunately this process has taken just as long, as the other long writes.
Ben Jenkins : Started by giving us a quick summary of the program for tonight, but delivered it in the style of American journalist Robert Krulwich's appearance on the radio program 'This American Life', hosted by Ira Glass, where he recounted an event in his life - I only know this after a ton of research -. He was also quite delightful with the humour between stories - it's refreshing to see the audience not being openly abused -.
Tonight we had a house band playing Kirk Douglas's - Whale Of A Tail, which also followed the theme of the night, by doing it in different styles. We started with the ridiculously funny send-up of Bob Dylan, that had all the usual eeeeeeeees added to every word on the end of a verse.
Simon Greiner - DR SEUSS(The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Horton Hears a Who!) : Even though I remember the illustrations in the Dr Seuss books, but not actually reading one, I was still somewhat familiar with Springfield's resident, Theodor Seuss Geisel's style of simple rhyming repeating poem stories - that is, until I researched it and found out that Geisel wrote most of his books in anapestic tetrameter, - wtf -, a poetic meter employed by many poets, of two weak beats, followed by one strong beat -. Dr Simonuss told us his take on Dr Seuss, by reading us his story entitled "Now You're Big", which is the story of what happens to your body as you grow. Unfortunately this children's book got a bit graphic, when it covered pubes, cum, sex, and child birth. Either way, it was my favourite of the night. I'm going to give you what I thought the crowd gave it, based on volume of applause, because I was lost on most of the stories. The crowd though it was very good.
Michael Richardson - NEIL GAIMAN(Sandman, American Gods) : I couldn't pick any discerning style from this author, because the only thing I knew about him, was that he wrote Coraline - and that was only after I researched it. There was a census at the start as to who knew Neil's stuff, and about 15% cheered, and it was only part of that group that got the subtle stylings - with one person rimshot-ing a purposely lame Neil style pun. The story went something like, some guys in a Brooklyn dinner, late one night, were talking about life, and how disappointing it is. They then part company and head toward their respective modes of transport, with two of them heading for the ferry. Along the way one cracks a joke about time, and then they split up. One then goes on and meets a mysterious woman. The crowd sounded like it was in the nice area.
Eddie Sharp - KURT VONNEGUT(Breakfast of Champions, Deadeye Dick, Slaughterhouse-Five) : What I gathered on the night was that Kurt writes a kind of Sci-Fi time travelling story. This story was about the 84 year old Kurt in his apartment playing with his only love, his dogs, when a Tralfamadorian appears. Tralfamadorians look like toilet plungers with a single green eye, and are from the fourth dimension - so they exist in all times (past, present, and future) simultaneously. He first met a Tralfamadorian during the war, and struck up a deal that they could take him when it was his time to die, and transfer him to their zoo to live out eternity mating with a woman of their choice. Back at the apartment, the Tralfamadorian came to honor the deal, and disassembled him away. Unfortunately when he got reassembled, they gave him his original feeble and frail 84 year old body. And the bad luck continued, when the only famous woman that they could mate him with, was the 2 month earlier deceased Amazonian, Anna Nichol Smith. Things weren't going well for Kurt, because the train wreck of Anna Nichol Smith was very unattractive at this point, and he found her quite repulsive. Unfortunately his lack of willingness didn't stop her - because she knew how to handle unresponsive penises - and practically raped him into submission when she forced an erection, by milking his prostate in a hand puppet type affair. Her plan worked, and Kurt fell in love with another type of dog. I couldn't fathom the reference of the additional spoken parts of nonsense songs, like Mah-Na Mah-Na, and Do wah Diddy diddy Dumm Diddy do, but it was funny. Crowd thought it was good.
The house band reappeared and did Etta James, and followed it with Peter Paul and Mary at the start of the 2nd third. Only the old people laughed at the send-ups, probably because all the young people didn't know anything about the original singers - see it's not that easy when you don't know the original -.
Dominic Knight - P.G. WODEHOUSE(Jeeves and Wooster) : I have only seen parts of the TV series - which I find looks interesting, but is too subtle to keep my attention -. The story was called "Jolly good Jeeves". Bertie Wooster, a chronic masturbater, fears that his man servant Jeeves, has homosexual tendencies. He also fears that Jeeves silent entries could have him watching him in the act, without him knowing. Suddenly Bertie urgently calls for Jeeves's help, and a voice comes from behind his back, that identifies Jeeves's close proximity. Bertie quickly explains that he has a dead constable on the rug, and doesn't know what to do. Jeeves then asks as to how something like that could happen, so Bertie explains. One day while he was attending the annual rowing race at Oxford, when he stole a policeman's helmet, for a lark. But the policeman took it personally, and wanted revenge. Unfortunately when he confronted Bertie, Bertie decided to steal his helmet again, and accidentally pulled his head off when the new and improved chin strap wouldn't release. Just then Bertie's aunt knocks on the door, so they quickly hide the body in the closet. Unfortunately when she discloses that she has come to collect her coat, that is in the closet, Jeeves subtly distracts her with cucumber sandwiches. Unfortunately for her, Jeeves has laced them with poison, and she dies. They then carry the bodies to the furnace, and destroy the evidence. Back in the study, Bertie explains to Jeeves that they will be in a right pickle if anyone finds out, but Jeeves corrects him, and states that it is only he that would be in trouble, because he has the prime motive of her inheritance pending. And that if Bertie didn't do as he said, he would go to the authorities. So Bertie bends over and spreads his cheeks to gleefully accept his punishment. The crowd also thought this was good.
Pip Smith - ALAN GINSBERG : The only thing I knew about Ginsberg was that he is categorized as a beat poet, and nothing about his actual work. But this didn't really matter, because Pip's rendition was so complete, that you could quickly gather what he was like. After some research I found out she sent-up Ginsberg's epic poem "Howl", in which he celebrates his fellow "angel-headed hipsters" and harshly denounces what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States. Pip's poem was basically along the same lines, of young people destroying there minds with frivolous pursuits like TV, drinking, and partying, but she used Sydney references, like the Ivy Bar, yuppies, etc, instead of American ones. Is it just me, or is Ginsberg's style just a bunch of one liners that start with "who" or "and", that make up a bare story. The crowd though this was brilliant.
Mark Sutton - SOPHOCLES(Oedipus Rex) : Even though I was born before Sophocles, I didn't know any of his stuff either, so I had to figure this one out also. Mark gave us a brief run down on the history of Greek drama, and mainly choruses - now I had to figure out what a chorus was, outside of music -. Luckily it was easy to understand when it was demonstrated in the actual story, because the chorus of Emily Irvine and David Cunningham, was like that church call and response thing, where the priest calls, and the congregation responds together in a chorus - it was very weird seeing it in a story -. Mark's story was a modern Greek tragedy, told in an ancient Greek style, that was about the major economic woes Europe is suffering because of the defaulting loans of Greece. Clever, with the crowd responding in the brilliant area.
The house band did a brilliant Joanna Newsom, followed by the Andrew Sisters - with one male sister.
Zoe Norton Lodge - JANE AUSTEN(Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion) : All I know about Jane Austin, was that there is a strong headed woman in her stories. I can't do the story justice, unless I repeat it word for word, but roughly it was a bunch of sisters insulting each other, while talking in the drawing room, and recalling their latest adventures. That mainly entailed Lidia's addled headed going ons at a recent party she attended, that had her swapping her pants for honey. Not only was Zoe's story good, but her performance with the accents was also great. The crowd was also in the brilliant/excellent area with this one.
David Cunningham - JK ROWLING(Harry Potter) : David gave us less of a story, but more of a performance, when he portrayed the actual JK Rowling - but dressed as Dumbledore, complete with wand, and spells(party poppers) -. He then gave us a less well known episode in the Harry Potter series, 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Monsters'. When the kids arrive at Warthogs, Dumbledore warns them to stay away from the chamber of monsters. This prompts Harry to go into the chamber of monsters, and is confronted by a Biffogrin. Harry then uses magic - POP - where he finds the never-ending conclusion to the Harry Potter series, in book form. So with magic - POP - he enters inside this Inception type story, where he ends up back at Warthogs. Starting a new term, his flying sheep delivers him a letter, that instructs him to go and see Dumbledore. He enters the room and is introduced to the minister, who sends him on a mission to foil the Malfoys. Harry then enters Voldermort's bank, using the Force, and takes his stuff and assumes his identity. He enters Voldermort's castle and confronts him, spelling him - POP, POP - to death. Plenty of puns in this one, with heaps of pun names, like Dumbledork, Dumbledee, Tumbledry, Thumbledee, Humblepie, Crumbledork, Grumblesnort, Mumblejaw, Fumbledraws, and Jumbledork. Another brilliant from the crowd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIl-pj4Mhk0&feature=player_embedded#at=40
Overall, Crowd : 4.75 - Me : 3.75(which was my fault, because I was lost)
05.07.11 : Tant Pis - a brand new comedy : Exchange Hotel Balmain
It always feels kind of weird when I go back to a venue I haven't been to in a decade - is the theatre room different, then again in the old days it was so pitch black inside you couldn't even see the wall colour -. I remember a satirical political send-up comedy about Paul Keating's J-curve, "the recession that we had to have". And in the same era, I remember Wil Anderson popped in unannounced to trial some new stuff for one of his shows. Not a big play person - actually more like a no play person - but it was quite alright. It's not a big comedy - but what play is - but more along the lines of humorous - actually it does have some very funny gags, unfortunately for the high end comedy nerds, there are only a hand full of them -. The basic story is that the play has started, but the author has only written 5 pages, and is no where to be seen. The construction is along the lines of one of those "plays in a play/fourth wall" types. And if you like twists and turns, surprises and coincidences, this one has them. Also if you know a bit about the Australian theatre industry, there are special jabs at it, just for you. I also don't know much about acting, but when I hear that dramatic angry shouting, it always grabs my attention, and The Director, and Harold were the ones doing that. I don't know enough plays to score this, but it was around the nice/good area for me - and I'm not into plays -, so play people will probably score it higher.
02.07.11 : Wit Large #10 - Performance Studies : Gleebooks
I was going to see Kitty Flanagan and check out a new venue next week, but then this turned up. So I figured it's relatively close, and I have some time to kill, and there is 2 acts I hadn't seen before, so I went, and it turned out pretty good. I thought I hadn't seen Toby Halligan before, but when he used the words "gay son of an Evangelist" it triggered a memory that maybe I have seen him before, and at this very venue. But even after researched it I still couldn't find any information, or remember if it was Toby, oh well déjà vu. Either way if it was him, I didn't remember anything else from his routine, so it was like a new comic anyway. Toby does political jokes, but not rhetoric political - like a Jamie Kilstein - but more like pun political, which is a lot nicer. He also did the bit about the gay son of an Evangelist that was too afraid to come out to his parents, because you know what those Evangelists are like. Next was a duo of Adam McKenzie and Tegan Higginbotham, calling themselves Watson. They opened up with a very funny routine about comparing books between Gen Y and Gen X - basically new electronic books, compared to old paper books. They also did some performance art send-ups that were nice. Just from their performance, you could tell that they had that ability to do fast thinking ad-lib, and that is always impressive. The second half was all Kitty Flanagan, and boy was she on fire with this crowd - which is ironic because she sent-up the arts, and you would think that the crowd from this area would be art-centric. She started by sending up cabaret, and then did an exaggerated over-the-top interpretation of what a cabaret song is like. Unfortunately her dance got great applause, and this fell right into her hands because she used the applause as a ironic joke - because Kitty was trying to put forward that we shouldn't give accolades to boring stuff, because it breeds more boring stuff. She had a go at the Sydney Opera House because they don't explain their shows that well in the blurb, and this resulted in her taking her nieces and nephews to a kids show that ended up being some French interpretive dance thing, that was so boring for kids that her nephew stood up and booed - you can see where the idea for the don't applaud gag came from -. By coincidence Bret Hollywood Sheargold had a gag that was something similar. When he hosted new comic nights, he said that we shouldn't applaud bad comics, because if a TV executive saw a bad comic being applauded, they might give them a TV show, like that Rove guy - really, the gag is on the same theme, and only by coincidence vaguely similar -. She also did a joke similar to one I thought up a long time ago, but never told anyone - funny how different people come up with the same gag. It was how girls always understate their age, and when they tell someone that they are younger than they actually are, you can see the person thinking that they look very haggard for their age. But if you overstate your age, and tell them your older, they perk up and say you look great for your age - I have been overstating my age for a decade -. Also Kitty had the last laugh, when some crazy religious nut miss interpreted her comments on The 7PM project and complained to the commissioner, and because of it she is deriding her at every comedy show she does now. This room is billed as smart comedy, and the comics usually accomplish this by taking out the crude and rude jokes, and this can sometimes make you think the show is milder than other shows - because there is less big laughs - but today wasn't a problem, because Kitty was excellent, and the whole afternoon was good. 3.75,4,4.5, so 4.25
01.07.11 : That was a bad day. First I couldn't get into the movies, and then I couldn't get into Souths Juniors. Souths Juniors - you are black-banned -.
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