Friday 31 October 2008

Louis CK and Denis Leary

I'm a fan of Denis Leary's comedy and recently I've become quite a big fan of his show Rescue Me. Here however is yet another accusation of him stealing material from other comedians. Louis CK (who in the past has spoken out about his material being nicked by Dane Cook) tells the story in quite an anecdotal style and you get the feeling he's not all that bothered by it.

Thursday 30 October 2008

Insane Reaction to Brand/Ross Gaffe


Every now and again, you get a glimpse of the real face of this country; the sad, mean, grotesque contortion of jealously, small mindedness and misdirected rage that lurks beneath the mask of spray-on decency and media prescribed civility.

This face was brazenly exposed in the series of events that have led to fans of an excellent entertainer being deprived of their radio show in an insane, media fueled escalation of an incident which as far as I can grasp involved a joke which suggested that a 23 year old Burlesque dancer may have had sex with someone.

Russell Brand has now quit the BBC and I would not be surprised if Johnathan Ross follows him out the door. I hope he doesn't, because he too in his context is an excellent entertainer and has been for years but really, why should he bother with us after this?

The BBC have behaved disgracefully during this entire idiot episode. Having paid Brand and Ross to be Brand and Ross, they have subsequently suspended them for being Brand and Ross, simply because a few morons whipped up into a fervor by professional bear baiters like the utterly vile Kelvin McKenzie have decided they are disgusted by something they have read about and not even heard.

Reacting to a situation they themselves have had a hand in developing, the BBC have looked like a lumbering, punch drunk fool, flailing aimlessly at anything that stays still long enough to look like a target. And the responsibility for the most important issue to emerge from this incident lies squarely with the BBC. In their reactive mishandling of this situation the BBC have allowed the talent at their disposal to be diminished and their output to be reduced in quality.

Worse, the BBC itself has been diminished by this, because it has backed down to bullying moralists and the gutter press without even the first hint of a fight. Their clear failure to get in front of what has happened means that the talent who remain in the BBC's employ know now that the BBC will fail to support them should they be unlucky enough to be the next "uppity celeb" targeted in some red-top engineered moral outrage publicity stunt.

The BBC's senior staff have allowed the corporation to be bullied and manipulated and a popular performer has been hounded from his job. Has anyone even mentioned where this leaves license payers who are fans of Russell Brand's show? Who is speaking for them in all this? The BBC would do well to remember that loudmouth moaners pay no more for their license than the next person - their obligation is to us all, not simply to those who, like spoiled children, shout the loudest.

In an atmosphere where hysterical reactions like this are allowed to pass unbalanced and, for the most part, unchallenged, the UK will end up with the utterly bland, worthless BBC the right-wing professional "decency" camp have dared only to fantasise about until now.

In short, we'll end up with the BBC we appear currently to totally deserve.

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Very interesting to see Georgina Baillie's dewy-eyed chops plastered all over the red tops today wasn't it? Also very interesting to note that Max Clifford is her publicist. What's the betting that once her round of "justice has been done" stories dies out a few weeks later we'll see her again but this time in her work clothes alongside headlines like "Pwarr! Look What All The Fuss Was About!". I'm all for folk making their way in life, but at the expense of another person's career? One wonders if this girl's FHM spread is already in the can.

Another ominous development I happened across today was some simpering lummox of an MP who sits on a broadcasting select committee speaking on BBC Radio Scotland speculating as to whether or not "...the BBC should really be involved in this kind of comedy" while apparently sticking with the erroneous assumption that every license fee payer in the UK wants Jonathan Ross to hang.

I find it unbelievable that, even in the mealy-mouthed cross examination this carpet-bagger received, no mention whatsoever has been made during this entire affair about the millions of license fee payers who tune in to hear Ross every week (on average 3 million per week). Of course in order for your opinion to be valid these days it has to be a moan or a gripe - simply being a member of one of the largest and most loyal radio audiences in the country is simply not good enough anymore.

And now this. How more utterly out of proportion will this get?

Sunday 26 October 2008

Brad and Fizz


IMG_2022.jpg
Originally uploaded by jules3000

Thursday 23 October 2008

Rare Elliott Smith Footage

Elliott Smith died 5 years ago on Tuesday. His friend Mary Lou Lord has posted a lot of previously unseen footage of him playing live in 1995. You can see it all here.

I Just Love Will Arnett

See more Will Arnett videos at Funny or Die

Monday 20 October 2008

No Explainations



Originally uploaded by jules3000

Friday 17 October 2008

That Sinking Feeling

On Sunday afternoon I went to see Righteous Kill. I had written a long post about how it’s an awful film, how director Jon Avnet should go get a job in a call-centre, how Pacino has fucking lost it (his ability to pick a decent script anyway) and how the filmmakers attempted to cheapen a great film like Heat by aping the climax. But I won’t post it. Instead I’ll focus on a much more positive cinematic experience on Sunday.

In the evening I went along to GFT’s Monorail Film Club screening of That Sinking Feeling. The 1980 film is the little seen forerunner to the much more popular Gregory’s Girl.

A comedy about unemployment and disillusionment in Glasgow it was much funnier than I remember it. There are a couple of scenes that displayed some misdirection worthy of The Simpsons at its best.

Sharp, witty and fun it shows Glasgow and its humour in a great light. It’s a film that they really don’t make anymore. Which is a great shame.

One of the film’s stars, Robert Buchanan, who was also in Gregory’s Girl, came along for a Q & A with Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch afterwards. There was a great moment, when asked if he still kept in touch with any of the rest of the cast, two of them shouted from the back of the cinema. Eight minutes of the discussion are below.

Saturday 11 October 2008

Wasted is Oot!


I was through at Forbidden Planet in Edinburgh last weekend for the launch of Wasted, a new comic where pal of 'pish Iain Laurie and I have found a home for our strip Blackcape.

We had a great day. It was nice to see people giving a toss about something we had been involved in and it was nice to see all the different folk who had contributed to the comic, including head honcho Alan Grant and big names like Frank Quitely and Jamie Grant, thrusting aside their gazillions of awards to hang out with us little guys. Many fun hours were spent in the pub but my favourite bit was sharing a fish tea with Jamie Grant, Frank Quitely, Alan Kerr and Iain in the City Cafe. It's the first time I've seen the house red ordered in a greasy spoon style chip shop.

The comic itself looks great and reads well for an anthology which tend usually to be editorially fuzzy and massively variable in terms of the quality of strips inside. Its not a loftily ambitious collection of course, its purely looking for laughs but I think it hits the mark more often than not.

It's available now for £3.25 and you should be able to get it from Forbidden Planet (certainly the Edinburgh store had loads and on checking, the Glasgow FP has copies as well) or direct from our distributor here. You can also get it here.

I notice that you can order it from Amazon as well now.

If you can't find it, gimme a shout and I'll get a copy to you. It may also be worth mentioning that if you subscribe (4 quarterly issues for £17.50 - print off the slip, fill it out and just sent it in - your money covers your comics and your P&P) you'll get an exclusive t-shirt by Simon Bisley, who's also been signed up for the cover for #3.

Here's a nice review we got from The List.

Monday 6 October 2008

David Simon at the GFT

I had intended to blog this a couple of weeks ago, but I waited until the GFT had it online. Fraser and I went to see David Simon, creator of The Wire at the GFT a few weeks ago.

The sold out evening began with a screening of episode two of the fifth and final season. This caused a few murmurs of complaints from people in the crowd who a) Didn't expect an episode they hadn't seen and b) Didn't like the fact it was episode two and not episode one. It was a great episode though and has a brilliantly dramatic ending.

The talk itself was alternatively amazing and annoying. The Sunday Herald sponsored the event and their journalist Alan Taylor was the man in the chair to interview Simon. He gave off the air of a guy who had speed-watched a couple of seasons on DVD. He wasn't quite sure what character was who and wasted Mr. Simon's time and ours with inane chatter like asking if Avon Barksdale was named after 'Avon calling.' He also made jokey references to Taggart. All of this going straight over David Simon's head as he had no frame of reference.

The questions were the usual mix of quite good and timewasting clowns mistaking a public Q & A for a chance meeting at a party. When the man was allowed to talk he was very entertaining. An interesting and intelligent guy who gave us a lot of the background as to how the show came about, the writing process and of the real life people the characters on the show are based on.

Seven minutes of the talk are down below.

Friday 3 October 2008

“There’s always something for him to fucking whine about.”

This is a great profile of Alec Baldwin in The New Yorker.