The Nines & The Killing of John Lennon

Over the last few days I've been to the cinema to see The Nines twice and The Killing of John Lennon.

The Nines is the directorial debut of Go and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory screenwriter John August. It tells three inter-connecting stories about showbiz types in LA. Ryan Reynolds, Hope Davis and Mellisa McCarthy play the three central characters in each strand.

It's undeniably a little bit confusing, but it's a good watch if you're prepared to put the puzzle together. Which several folk in the first screening I went to weren't, considering the number of walkouts.

I went back to see it a second time in order to watch it while listening to the commentary that John August made for download on his website. Listening to an audio commentary on headphones in the cinema was quite a nice experience. For one thing it shuts out anyone around you who might be talking.

The Killing of John Lennon is about as straightforward a movie title as you can get. It tells the story of three months in the life of Mark Chapman. Why it bothered, I dunno.

It's a well made film, no question about that. There's some great cinematography and some nice camerawork, but for my money the film manages to glamourise Chapman. It probably doesn't set out to do this, but there's an attempt to make a glamorous, good looking film, with a handsome charismatic star.

The story, such as there is, is taken from Chapman's interviews, depositions and court transcripts, so the words in the narration are all Chapman's own. The locations are almost all the actual locations. The gun shop seen in the film is the actual one in which Chapman bought the gun he used to kill Lennon.

The director Andrew Piddington said in an interview, "I knew the series of events that led up to the murder but I didn't know the mind behind the killer. I set out to try and explore the reasons why he did it and hopefully to come up with something that gave me some kind of closure on the tragic loss of somebody so amazingly talented who still had so much to offer." Well, he doesn't really explore the reasons why Chapman did it. His mental problems that appeared much earlier in his life were unexplored. The film offers nothing much other than his obsession with Catcher in the Rye and the suggestion that he killed Lennon because he was 'a phoney'.

Jonas Ball gives a good performance, but I'm not sure it's representative of Mark Chapman. He also looks more like Jim Morrison than the chubby baby-faced Chapman.

There's a mixed critical reaction. It's either getting great reviews or terrible ones.

Here's a mixed review of the film by Robert Rosen, who wrote the book 'Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon'.

There is a second film on the same subject, called Chapter 27, due out next year. This film has attracted a boycott website.

This is an interview with John August and Ryan Reynolds about The Nines.

GOSH!WOW COMICS

Coming soon from the team who brought you Black Cape...and all that. This is Iain and I having a look at the kind of stuff we read by the ton while growing up.

We'll be posting it here and Iain has already stuck up some cracking teaser artwork.



The first Mr Hubris story is with me to complete at the moment so shouldn't be too long.

Black Cape #34

Merry Xmas folks...

The Lion Ate Bambi

This was the main story in the early edition of the Evening Times today. It made me laugh.

Basically the big advertising screen on George Square showed a trailer for I Am Legend. In it a deer gets eaten by a lion. There appears to be no evidence that any children were traumatised by this, though the Evening Times suggests otherwise.

I love that the 'passerby' insisted he remain anonymous.

One passerby, who asked not to be named, said he was shocked by the images. He added: "I just happened to look up and got the fright of my life.

"Will Smith was watching this deer graze and then suddenly out of nowhere comes this lion. You think you're watching an almost pastoral scene with this cuddly little deer, then this thing zooms across the screen and suddenly the deer gets devoured in one gulp.

Films

Due to having copious amounts of time on my hands I've been to see more films than I care to write about here, but of the last week or so here are the best two I've seen.

In the Shadow of the Moon is the story of the NASA space programme and the men who went to the moon. It's a fascinating documentary featuring archive footage of moon, the space programme and interviews with the surviving men who went to the moon. All except Neil Armstrong.

One of the things that fascinates me about travelling to the moon is that even although (or perhaps because) it was last done 35 years ago it still seems futuristic and difficult to comprehend. There's also the fact that these guys are all in their 70s and 80s now and although travelling to the moon is one of mankind's greatest achievements, in 20 years or so there will be no one left alive to talk about the experience first hand.

The trailer is below.



The Darjeeling Limited is the latest from director Wes Anderson. The film has received mixed reviews, with some people finding it inconsequential. Me, I loved it. Really I think if you're a fan of Anderson's other films such as Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums then you should lap this up.

The story of three brothers attempting to reconnect after their father's death by travelling in a train across India provides a lot of funny moments. It's undeniably great to look at and offers a great soundtrack. It probably won't win anyone who wasn't a Wes Anderson fan already over, but if like me you are then it's well worth seeing.

Here's the trailer.

Black Cape #33

"They're Obviously Daft"

Chris Morris writes in today's Observer about Martin Amis and his thoughts on Islam.

"I claim no great knowledge on this subject - level-three SATs perhaps - but Amis couldn't pass the test for morning playgroup. If my Shetland pony looks like a high-horse it's only because Amis is trotting round the paddock on a chihuahua."

Early Bill Watterson

Here's a website that shows off some rare Bill Watterson artwork. They are taken from his days as a student at Ohio's Kenyon College.

Black Cape # 32

30 Rock & SNL Live

Here's a review complete with pictures of the 30 Rock live performance at the UCB Theatre last week.

"Even though the cast read from scripts, using only chairs for props, the show was enormous, intimate and undeniable. But it’s easy to define a small, crowded space as ‘intimate’ when you’re crammed in there like I was, cross-legged on the edge of the stage floor like a wide-eyed, open-mouthed kindergartner, stuffed scalp-to nostril between the show’s script coordinator and the Teamster in charge of transportation."

Here's another review, this time from the Huffington Post.

McBrayer and Lutz provided the "commercial" breaks in the form of improvised commercials based on shouted-out suggestions from the audience. The first one was "beer" (McBrayer, as child fishing: "Fishing makes me think of mortality." Lutz urging him to have a beer: "It makes me forget about your mom." McBrayer: "I guess this beer is pretty wonderful." Lutz: "It's beer!" Fin.)

Here's their review of the Saturday Night Live show at the UCB too.

"So, if you want to understand why virtually the entire cast and crew of SNL would put on a full-length live show in this modest little spot, working their asses off as much as they ever would in Studio 8H, that's why — which is precisely what they did last night. The show, which ran almost 2 hours — with no commercial breaks, obviously — was a benefit for the SNL crew members who were laid off because of the writer's strike (the SRO crowd paid $20 apiece to get in). As Poehler said at the show's open: "No one likes laying people off, no one likes getting laid off, but everyone likes getting laid." Poehler, who used the word "family" to describe her colleagues at SNL, also made a point of including NBC in that family, thanking the network "for allowing us to do this" (the show was made up of a mixture of old and new material, with unaired sketches and jokes that Poehler assured the crowd "were never going to make it on the air" — but still presumably belonged to NBC as work-for-hire material)."

Speechless

From tomorrow a number of high profile actors will be taking part in an internet campaign to highlight the Writers' Guild Strike.

Run by Deadline Hollywood and entitled 'Speechless' the campaign features Sean Penn, Holly Hunter, Laura Linney, Alan Cumming, Jay Leno, Harvey Keitel, Tina Fey, Tim Robbins, David Schwimmer, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Andre 3000, Chazz Palminteri, Jason Bateman, Justine Bateman, Rosanna Arquette, Diane Ladd and Matthew Perry among many others.

"During the first day of the strike, director/writer George Hickenlooper (Factory Girl) and writer Alan Sereboff (The Red House) were struck by the talent surrounding them on the picket line. Hickenlooper suggested to Sereboff that they focus their energies on a creative campaign. That night, they met at WGA Headquarters with writers Ian Deitchman (Life As We Know It), Justin Zakham (The Bucket List) and director Josh Marston (Maria Full of Grace). After conferring, the team came to an agreement: What better way to bring attention to the issues regarding the Internet then to use the Internet itself?"

In this video below one of the writing staff of The Daily Show brings you Not The Daily Show.



In that clip there's talk of Viacom suing YouTube's parent company Google for a Billion Dollars. Here on the real Daily Show Jon Stewart and Demetri Martin explain how that might work.

Black Cape # 31

I'll Let You Go

Last night I went to see Milton Jones at The Stand. If you don't know his comedy he's very much a wordsmith. Although some of his jokes have pretty laboured premises his laugh rate was very good. His joke writing at its best is superb and he has a great sense of comic timing, as well as a range of facial expressions and acting ability.

Here he is on BBC's Music Hall Meltdown. Nearly every joke here he did last night.

Overheard

I was in a shop this afternoon buying some stationary and a guy in a Post Office uniform was in talking to a member of staff. They obviously knew one another. She was asking him if he went out to watch the football on Saturday.

"Aye. I wisnae really drinking cos I had the wean with me, so I only had about 5 pints."

New Pornographers Live

I went to see The New Pornographers at Oran Mor last night. As much as I love them I can't help thinking that they're a better band on record than they are live. However I don't think I've ever seen them in a venue where the sound does them justice.

I think I would like to see them in North America playing with the same line up as on the recent album. All that said they were still good value. The highlights for me were Spirit of Giving and Unguided from the new album and the two-song encore Letter From an Occupant and The Slow Descent into Alcoholism.

There are more photographs from last night, not taken by me, here.

Here's the video for Challengers.

Wha's Like Us?

Further to Tom's account of taking in the match today - I didn't even bother leaving the house. The idea of wading through a sea of Jimmy-hatted wanks who had taken the game as license to act as if civilisation were a fledgling concept filled me with dizzying inertia.

Not that I didn't care - it is simply that I can't face people when Scotland lose and I couldn't see how I'd be in any kind of nick to handle quite so abundant a crop of utter tubes even if we'd miraculously won.

Having lost the match and gone out, I feel physically ill. When Lord? Fucking when are we going to grasp opportunity instead of congratulating ourselves in failure? When are we going to loup the dike of success, instead of accepting the role of also-rans? How many times have we done this now as a footballing nation - come close to achievement only to fall at the last?

Because the harsh fact of the matter is that this campaign has seen us snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with our results in the last two games. Ultimately, for all the team's efforts, they have achieved next to nothing.

Tangibly, we'll get a slightly easier draw for the World Cup qualifiers maybe. That's all. Wait until next summer. Then it will all sink in.

For me the fact that we played well, beat France twice and still went out makes this harder to take, not easier. Where people are drawing the comfort from here escapes me.

I honestly don't know why we bother with the polavar of a professional football set-up if the national attitude to the sport is "win, lose draw, whatever, lets aw get pished." It's this wholesale acceptance of mediocrity that allowed debacles like the Berti Vogts era to happen.

I'm fucking pissed off we're out. Bet the players are too. And I bet the police van fulls of idiot jimmy hat wearing buffoons up on GBH charges come Monday morning will try and pass their secret rage off on "just having a drink and a laugh".

End of the day, the table doesn't lie - we had and still have capable players, now we need the correct attitude and, just for me, a lot less of these embarrassing happy-go-lucky fans.

30 Rock Live on Stage

This is a great idea in light of the US writers' strike. The casts of 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live are performing their shows live on stage, with Michael Cera hosting.

Proceeds from the sale of tickets to "30 Rock" - priced at a modest $20 - will go to the Writers Guild strike fund, the Web site says.

Typical Scotland

The phrase 'Typical Scotland' seems to sum up this evening's performance. I dunno how many times I've watched a big Scotland game thinking we would overcome all the odds. In today's Daily Record they interviewed every manager in Scotland and asked them for their prediction. Nearly every one said '1-0 Scotland' or 'Scotland to win'. Just shows you, eh? Optimism doesn't come easy to us, but when we have cause we leap right in.

Still, you can't ask much more from the players under the circumstances. It was a group that looked impossible to qualify from and taking it to the last game is as much as anyone can ask of the team.

Watching the game was far from fun and that wasn't just due to what was taking place on the pitch. Although at the pub we went to we got a seat in front of the big screen, we constantly had to keep one eye on the assembled throng around us to see where the next bit of bother was coming from.

Half the room didn't seem to be interested in the match at all. Many, mainly young guys decked out in scarves and/or tartan hats, seemed more interested in being blootered with the drink, jumping around and noising people up. I currently smell of stale beer, as the sport of the evening seemed to be throwing it around. The atmosphere from about 90 minutes before kick-off felt menacing. And as Tommy pointed out everyone in the room was supporting the same team.

I have to confess to getting into a wee scuffle myself shortly after full-time. As we walked out onto Sauchiehall Street past a sea of empty beer cans and half-naked guys unconscious on the street I can only predict a night of frenzied activity for the local constabulary. Typical Scotland.

Late Show Writers on Strike

The writers for The Late Show in the US have set up their own blog about their striking experiences. Like this little Q & A.

Q: How long will the strike last?

Until the writers achieve a fair contract and/or Lou Ferrigno is elected president.

Q: Why did negotiations with the AMPTP break down?

Negotiations broke down when the AMPTP was unwilling to put “real” proposals on the table that compensate writers for work in new media. Also, AMPTP lead negotiator Nick Counter insisted on bargaining in his underpants.

Q: Will the networks attempt to use the writers' strike, particularly if it is an extended strike, to cancel “Airwolf”?

“Airwolf” was cancelled in 1987.

Vaginarino

Back to the beard contest, there is now a tribute site in full swing. Vaginarino really isn't as bad as it sounds. The girls of Vaginarino aim to pay tribute to their favourite photographs of bearded men on Whiskerino by mimicking the pics.

Not a Word

Back on the American writers' strike John August has a good post making it clear that writers and showrunners are doing -no screenwriting whatsoever- until the strike is resolved.

"The blockbusters of 2009 are sitting unwritten. That’s an economic factor I’ve never seen reported in all of this. The next installments of Spider-Man, Harry Potter, and every other movie franchise are unwritten and unproducible until the strike is over."

Photos of Charlatans

There's a good photo gallery from the recent Charlatans gig I went to at their website.

Together Again

You surely can't not see a film with both Jason Bateman and Michael Cera? This is the trailer for Juno.

Showrunners Out on Strike

Here's a video of the showrunners of TV shows such as The Shield, Scrubs, Family Guy and ER out on strike. There's more of this kind of stuff at United Hollywood.

Whiskerino

As some of you may know I am part of Whiskerino 2007, a beard growing contest. It's run by Michael of Yewknee and the Scottish contigent is spearheaded by Ronnie at This Place is Dead.

Simply we have to grow a beard from 1 November to 29 February. Some girls joined in, but unfortunatley they have now been thrown out of the site. You can keep in touch with our progress by visiting the Whiskerino site.

Tom

Ronnie

Mong Minger

Extras at Christmas

Here's the trailer for the Christmas special of Extras. It looks pretty funny. My favourite bits are the exchanges between George Michael and Gerard Kelly.

Pencils at Dawn

I found this cartoon site by way of Graham Linehan's blog. Some of the stuff on Pencils at Dawn is really funny. See this one too. The two guys who do it have their own sites here and here.

The Writers Guild Strike

As you'll probably know screnwriters in America are out on strike. Some of the best places to get information on what's going on is at Mark Evanier's blog News From Me and Ken Levine's blog.

It's through the former that I found this article below.

Writer for comics and screen Brian K. Vaughan has this post on his thoughts on the strike and what it could mean for comics.

***Does this mean there’s going to be a flood of Hollywood writers coming into comics?

Maybe? I know a few creators--and a lot of readers--are sometimes annoyed by carpet-bagging movie/television writers swooping into comics to steal “their” jobs, but film/TV writers have been enormously generous about letting me into their world, and I think we should return the favor. Art is not a competition, and there’s always room for talented creators.

Your Typical Bonfire

It's not the best picture, but I didn't fancy getting too close. I took this as I walked from my Mum's to the train station yesterday evening. Basically this is on a bit of wasteground next to houses and a bingo hall, a bunch of lads stuck what appeared to be an entire garden fence on the bonfire just after I took the pic. As I turned to walk towards the station two fire engines roared down the main road. Bonfire Night, don't you just love it?

Pish Search

Some people arrive at this blog through some odd searches. It would appear that there are a few sexy terms that bring folk here. I'm glad however that someone somewhere likes the YOMG girls so much.

"Do You Know Who I Am?"

Man, Larry King sure pisses off Jerry Seinfeld here.

Concerts

Being on the buroo most days it feels like the weekend, but this weekend, the real one I went to a couple of concerts, both at the ABC.First of all on Friday I saw The National. They were fantastic. Right from the opening song they were awesome. A really tight band, nearly every song they played had a big powerful sound.

On Saturday I went to to see The Charlatans. It was the first time I've seen them and they were really good. The singles were the best stuff Just Lookin', Can't Get Out of Bed, How High, but the handful of new songs they played too were quite good.

Below is the video for 'Abel' by The National.

More Cavett

Here I go again saying how great The Dick Cavett Show was. But it really was. I've been watching the Ray Charles and John and Yoko discs. The Lennon discs are great and provide some fascinating and entertaining interviews.

On the second show Stan Freberg is also a guest and he proves to be very funny.

Below is a clip of Cavett interviewing John and Yoko. You may recognise it as being the interview Forrest Gump was inserted into in the movie of that name.

Less Serious But No Less Farcical

How do you cock up a Semi-final draw?

Get Scottish politicians involved of course! Don't worry folks, it was a muddle, not a fiddle...

A Catastrophic Series of Failures

No doubt anyone who is interested will have read up on the news that the Metropolitan Police have been found guilty of endangering the public during the fatal shooting of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes.

Aside from the actual incident itself, what I find most upsetting about this whole affair is the attempt made by the Met’s legal team to slur the character of the slain man and the attitude of those with a vested interest in defending the Police.

The idea implicit in remarks I’ve read made by everyone from Commissioner Blair to Ken Livingston that supporting the Police in the extremely difficult commission of their duty to protect us from would-be killers somehow removes the necessity to account for appalling failures like this one bears little sensible scrutiny and is frankly nonsensical and offensive.

We cannot descent into the kind of society that allows Police and Security Services leeway to cock up their jobs simply because these jobs are difficult.

Punk and Metal

As part of my nightclass on Popular Music I've been writing an essay on subcultures in music. This has led me to watch some interesting documentaries such as The Punk Years, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey and The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years.

From that last film comes this piece of video below. WASP's Chris Holmes floats in his pool, drunk out of his head, as his mother watches. It's horrifying yet compelling to watch.

Comedy on Telly

You'll all be reading this too late for it to matter but here are some TV recommendations for tonight.

Firstly The Armstrong & Miller Show, on BBC One at 9.30pm.

Here they are in the Telegraph and in The Times.

Secondly Doug Stanhope, Go Home on Channel 4 at 11.35pm.

This is a pilot that includes a live gig he performed in Edinburgh in March. On a radio interview I heard with him recently he said he hopes it doesn't get picked up for a series as he doesn't want to keep coming over here to film it.

Here's Doug from his mailing list.

Attn UK! "Doug Stanhope Go Home" Airs Friday Oct 26th on Ch 4!

The pilot I did for Channel 4 in the UK "Doug Stanhope Go Home" airs Friday, Oct 26th at 11:35 pm.

Please send out the town crier to go door-to-door and let people know. Or just repost this round the clock until then.

I'm sure one of you good folk will tape it and Youtube it for the poor pricks here in the states.

Thanks for your support. And before you ask, I'm sure I'll be coming back over sometime in the first half of '08. Stay tuned. ~ Stanhope

This is Brian Donaldson's review of it from The List.

As the latest batch of Comedy Labs reaches us, the pick of the bunch is Doug Stanhope, Go Home (Channel 4, Fri 26 Oct, 11.35pm ••••). While the pottymouth slurring of the man who threatened to run for the White House is not, as some of his disciples will claim, to be comedy’s Second Coming, he undoubtedly shines in this half-hour tirade against race hatred. Interspersed with his trademark firebrand stand-up routine recorded in Edinburgh’s Caves, he confronts a BNP activist outside Ibrox, meets Polish workers finding flaws with potatoes in a farm near Perth and tackles stereotypical bigots on Scottie McClue’s radio show. Naturally, he has his own vile sentiments to get over on occasion, but on this showing at least, the core of Stanhope contains a warm spirit with a previously hidden humanity oozing from every noxious pore.

And if you want to go laugh at something right now, Jacqueline McCafferty’s Big Brother Audition Tape made me cry with laughter when I saw it at Limmy's Show during the Edinburgh Festival.

Here's a video of Armstrong & Miller trying out some new material for the show.



Here's a clip form Stanhope's new DVD 'No Refunds'.

They All Sit in the Town Centre

There was a hilarious call on George Galloway’s TalkSport show this morning. Galloway had kicked off the discussion by suggesting that Britain could do with more immigration. The population of Glasgow, he said, was one million in the 1960s but now sits at around 400,000.

A listener from Blackburn called in. He was outraged at the large number of Asians in his area. “Once they’ve finished their shifts on the taxis at 3am, they go into the town centre. Now, there’s no way I would take my five-year old in there.”

George said the same as I was saying, “At 3 in the morning? I would think not.” The caller then said he ‘wasn’t talking about 3 in the morning.’ When George prodded him to make an actual point he had another go.

“When they’re not working they all sit in the town centre talking in their own language...” George first of all pointed out that the guy just said the Asian population in his area regularly work until 3am, then asked him why, if they were all sat together and talking to each other, did he care if he couldn’t understand what they were saying. “Do you normally go around listening in to other people’s conversations?” George asked him.

“Why? Don’t you George?”

So this caller’s point seemed to be that the Asian population in his area worked long hours, made it impossible for him to take his 5-year old out at 3am and prevented him from listening in on their private conversations by speaking a language he didn’t know.

And then there was the other caller who said, “There’s too much health and safety in this country.”

You wonder why some folk bother to pick up a phone.

Black Cape # 30

Seinfeld Interview

Here's a revealing interview with Jerry Seinfeld as he promotes his forthcoming Bee Movie.

"I don't mind it at all when people come up to me. I figure I owe them that much. It's my job to talk to them. The truth is few things make me angrier than celebrities whining about how hard it is to be famous. Stop whining! It's not hard. It's easy. It's what you wanted."

Are You Kiddin' Me?

More goals, this time the Goal of the Week contest from Major League Soccer in the USA. There are a couple of belters.

What's it Gonna Be?

I couldn't help laughing at this. It features Mike O'Connell and Dr Ken Jeong.

It's definitely Not Safe For Work.

An Interview with Stewart Lee

Here's an interview with Stewart Lee from Chortle.

Before asking what he makes of the state of stand-up right now, I mention that he’s sometimes been critical of other comedians in the past.

‘Have I? When?’

Well, there was a fairly sizeable attack on Joe Pasquale in his show 90s Comedian.

‘Well, that’s hardly… I mean, all his stuff’s stolen. It’s not a controversial opinion. All comedians know that. I don’t think he even really counts as a comedian, does he? It’s not even really a little dig about Joe Pasquale – it’s a 15-minute explanation.’

And here it is.

Goal!

Here's 5 minutes worth of goals. Mainly scored in Italy. There are a lot of great goals in here, but have a look in particular for the one at the 1 min 10 sec mark. It's by Francesco Graziani of Torino in 1976.

99p Challenge

The 99p Challenge was a radio series that ran on Radio 4 from 1998 to 2004. It regularly featured such funny people as Simon Pegg, Armando Iannucci, Richard Herring and Peter Serafinowicz.

You can download all the shows here.

Brendon Burns

Last night I went to see Brendon Burns at a packed Maggie Mays. The triumphant winner of The if.Comedy Award at this year's Edinburgh Festival played for around two hours.

He started off telling us how winning that award had made his cmedy life different, then went on to discuss his ill-fated stint presenting the I'm a Celebrity show on ITV2.

Properly edgy, a lot of his material centred on race, religion, regional stereotypes and the sexes. So much so that a large chunk of the evening was devoted to him feilding heckles from several inebriated women in the audience.

Here he is on an Irish TV show a couple of years ago.

Soup Man

Did you know that you can buy soup from The Soup Nazi online? No? Well you can . The Original SoupMan has set up around 200 stores across the US. He even has the same rules as the Seinfeld character.

Black Cape # 29

Black Cape # 28

We're All Stuck Out In The Desert

When me and the This Place is Dead boys went to see Jenny Lewis last year, she was supported by her boyfriend Johnathan Rice. I think we all agreed that the best song he did was one he introduced as a new song, "We're All Stuck Out In The Desert". It's now on his new album Further North. Here it is being performed when he supported REM at Hyde Park a couple of years ago.

You can see the video for it by clicking on the link to his website.

David Simon in the New Yorker

Here's a long piece in the New Yorker on David Simon and The Wire.

Much of the new season, which will begin airing in January, will take place at a downsizing newspaper called the Baltimore Sun. Johnson, back at the monitor, began teasing Simon for giving so many of his old Sun colleagues small parts on the show. Among the dozens of people who have recurrent parts or cameos are Simon’s former editor, Rebecca Corbett, now an editor at the Times; the former Sun political reporter Bill Zorzi, now a writer for “The Wire”; Steve Luxenberg, the editor who first hired Simon as a reporter at the Sun; and Simon’s wife, Laura Lippman, a crime novelist who used to be a Sun reporter.

Have You Been to Brixton Yet?

Here's Dave Chappelle on one of his recent surprise appearances in London.

Black Cape # 27

Armstrong and Miller are Back

An interview with Armstrong and Miller.

Having decided to reunite, Armstrong and Miller recruited a team of writers, including The League Of Gentlemen’s Jeremy Dyson as script editor.

Armstrong explains: 'We have always been big fans of Jeremy. He has a fantastic outlook and a wonderful scientific and emotional handle on comedy. He's really good at putting his finger on what is funny and we leapt at the chance when he was suggested.'

The pair tried out some of their sketches in front of a live audience, and Miller said: 'It was one of the best things that we did. It got us used to performing in front of an audience again, and helped us try out lots of material before we went into the studio.’

Some YOMG Show Photos

Here are some photographs from last night's show at The Stand.

Black Cape # 26

More YOMG Rehearsal Photos

Here are some more YOMG rehearsal photographs.

Mind it's this coming Tuesday the 16th of October at The Stand in Edinburgh. Six quid/four quid.

C'Mon

For no reason, this is Guster riding on Segways and being bullies in the video for C'mon.

Panini Stickers

Of no interest to anyone who wasn't into football in the mid 1980s but here is the complete Scottish Premier in Panini sticker form for the 1985/86 season.

30 Rock on Five

Season one of 30 Rock starts tonight on Five. It's well worth watching. Set behind the scenes of a Saturday Night Live style sketch show it stars former SNL Head Writer Tina Fey, SNL star Tracy Morgan and the ever-hilarious Alec Baldwin.

In my opinion it's like an updated Mary Tyler Moore Show, if that means anything to anyone reading. It has a really strong supporting cast and everyone in it gets there fair share of laughs.

Here's an interview with Tina Fey from the New York Times. Another interview from Kansascity.com.

Control

Here's a good piece by Matt Greenhalgh who wrote the Ian Curtis biopic Control.

I can tell you that as good as this film is it is not improved by having two 50-year-old jakeys drinking cherry brandy sat next to you.

The film looks amazing, as you might expect from a top-class photographer like Anton Corbijn. One scene in particular, after Curtis's baby is born, is framed like a classic photograph and lingers in the same way as you would take in a still image.

It's certainly pretty bleak but handles Curtis's battle with epilepsy well. The performances are all pretty strong. Sam Riley as Curtis though is the obvious stand-out.

"In the research phase, I had a hitlist of people who knew Ian to go to see to get it right. As a biographer, you've got to be right. Some can try to bully you into presenting their version of Ian - we'd have a showdown and I was just waiting to get "well, you didn't even know Ian" thrown into my face. But Tony Wilson just said: "Fuck 'em, go write the myth". I felt free after getting his permission."

Glue Rehearsal Photies

Here are some photographs from the most recent Glue rehearsal. It's going in the usual haphazard fashion.

Comedian Interviews

Here are some comedian interviews in Harp magazine.

David Cross

“I still stand by Freak Show,” states Cross. “My poor attitude is partly to blame; I may not have been the easiest person to work with at that time. But Comedy Central can be blamed for the rest.”

Patton Oswalt

Asked to pinpoint where it all went wrong—or right, depending on your p.o.v.—Oswalt points to a scene from his childhood. It’s Sunday at St. Catherine of Siena, the church Mrs. Oswalt tried to get her son to swallow. Oswalt, not yet the ostensibly raging atheist with a shit-tipped blow dart for every pious prick, showed up in what you might call his Sunday Okay; he was lookin’ sharp, but not sharp enough for some. “There was an elder in the church that complained about me not dressing nice enough,” Oswalt recalls, “and it turned out to be Robert Hanssen, that spy that was selling secrets to the Russians. He was flagging me for not dressing nice enough, and he was trying to take out our country.”

Eugene Mirman

Mirman created his own “comedy” curriculum at Hampshire College, with his thesis a one-hour standup he wrote, performed, produced and promoted. “I never understood why anyone thought what I did was so impractical,” he observes. “We were all going to temp for several years until some of us gave up on our dreams.”

Flight of the Conchords

Clement and McKenzie were roommates in Wellington, New Zealand, when they began writing together around 1998. Clement had been doing comedy with the Humourbeasts and McKenzie was playing music, but at a time “when we didn’t have much work on,” Clement says they picked up guitars to learn David Bowie and Leonard Cohen songs. “We’d never remember them,” Clement says, “so we started making up our own songs.” Although these had funny parts, they weren’t necessarily comedy songs. They played them at an open-mic comedy night anyway.

And from the same issue - Rilo Kiley.

Black Cape # 25

In The Thick Of It

This is a good interview with Armando Iannucci, as he discusses The Thick of It and promotes the forthcoming book of scripts.

"When you say mainstream," he says, "what I don't mean is very safe and very twee." He points to American comedies such as The Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle - each original, intelligent and uncompromising in its own way. They're only "mainstream" in the sense that everyone watches them.

"I'm trying to persuade the sort of people who write Father Ted or Peep Show to start thinking about writing stuff for BBC1 or BBC2, in front of an audience, but not in any way compromising the material." Comedy writers in this country, as he sees it, are in danger of resigning themselves to chasing cult followings on specialist channels. "Comedy is a strange thing," he says. "I think it's the only genre in television where the people who are best at it don't automatically write for the biggest audience."

The Peter Serafinowicz Show

Here's a good interview with Peter Serafinowicz discussing tonight's Peter Serafinowicz Show.

"There’s not mystique about being on TV anymore. You see these people go on Jeremy Kyle and carry on their miserable lives as if the cameras weren’t there, there’s no prestige about it. That’s why we came up with Michael-6, a robot talk-show host. The people in our sketch just ignore him."

And here's another one.

When we were writing this series, me and Jay, and this guy called Dan Mayer and the Dawson brothers; we were trying to come up with spoofs and tried to fi gure out how to spoof Big Brother because its ridiculous enough as it is, especially celebrity big brother, and also every other comedy show has done it already.

Dick Cavett: Rock Icons

I make no apologies for this being a bumper post raving about an American TV Show from over 30 years ago.

Some time ago I raved about the DVD set The Dick Cavett Show Comedians. Through my subscription to Love Film I rented Dick Cavett: Rock Icons. This three-disc set comprises several full-length episodes of the DCS featuring some of the major music stars of the time.

The first disc features a musical special with Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and Joni Mitchell. Cavett, a good decade older than the hippies in his studio, looks like a dad hanging out at his kid’s birthday party.

There’s then a fascinating episode featuring Sly and the Family Stone. After performing Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) Sly joins Cavett and Debbie Reynolds for a chat.


Although the former Sylvester Stewart isn’t completely all there (in an interview on the disc Cavett suggests his brain had been beaten by an egg whisk) he still manages to be an entertaining guest, frequently telling Cavett how much he likes him.

The third episode is an all-David Bowie one. Interesting as it was in the period where Bowie, although having moved on from Ziggy Stardust and now performing as himself, still wished to maintain an aura of mystique. The interview is a little slow but throughout it Cavett manages to coax more and more personality out of the Thin White Duke.

Disc Two is all-Janis Joplin. I couldn’t claim to be a big Janis fan and even after watching these shows I’m still not converted to her music. However I could listen to her talking all night. In the each of the three shows featured she’s a warm and engaging interviewee who oozes enthusiasm for what she does and helps to create some lively debate.



In the first episode she’s joined by writer Michael Thomas and improvisational sketch group The Committee. The second sees her chat with Raquel Welch, Douglas Fairbanks Jr and newsman Chet Huntley. At the time he was about to retire from his role as co-anchor on The Huntley Brinkley Report. (A news show that Alasdair Milne claims was the blueprint for Reporting Scotland).


In the third show, filmed just two months before her death, her fellow guests are film legend Gloria Swanson, a young and kooky Margot Kidder and American footballer Dave Meggyesy, who had just written an expose on the sport.

The third disc kicks off with Stevie Wonder, though he’s the least entertaining thing on the show. Elsa Lanchester, Bride of Frankenstein and wife of Charles Lawton provides numerous amusing anecdotes from her acting days as well as some catty but funny tales concerning Isadora Duncan.

Then Alain Delon doing his first chat-show in English, joins in as Cavett playfully banters with him over the language gap. We then get Tex Ritter performing the theme song from High Noon.

The second show is a George Harrison special and it’s an interview you’ll never see on a chat show of today. He jokingly mocks John and Yoko, laughs off the suggestion that there were no internal problems in The Beatles before Yoko and suggests he was relieved the band split up. He then talks of delays in publishing The Concert for Bangaldesh LP, before inviting his distributors’ head to sue him as he intends to release it through another label.



Cavett asks him if he feels responsible for The Beatles’ drug use possibly encouraging their fans to try drugs. Some of the audience boo. Harrison chastises them, saying Cavett can ask that question if he wants. He then goes on to discuss LSD and numerous other drugs prevalent in the music scene.


The final show sees a change of format. The first half is all Paul Simon, who plays some songs and chats to Cavett about songwriting. He then plays two verses of a song he was then writing, asks Cavett for lyric suggestions and explains the chord progression choices he felt he had available in order to complete it. The song was Still Crazy After All These Years.

The show was recorded in September 1974 and Cavett had just completed his book ‘Cavett’. So, in the second half of the show he turned the tables on himself and had a selection of authors interview him about his writing process in an attempt to illicit some of the personal side of him he was often accused of concealing from the viewers.

Anthony Burgess, Barbara Hower and Jerzy Konsinski are the authors in question. Burgess particularly is fascinating. Erudite and authoritative he proves a compelling conversationalist as he praises and quizzes Cavett while also throwing in some literary stories and myth busting.


Due to the discs containing complete episodes this isn’t just a package for fans of 70s music. There’s something to entertain anyone interested in films, music, books, sport, news and intelligent conversation.

Cavett really is a first class interviewer. Even although some of his guests seem slightly reluctant to talk Cavett never seems frustrated and with his excellent ad-libbing skills he’s never short of something to say himself. These kinds of conversations just don’t appear on television anymore. Actual debate breaks out, discussion, arguments, differing opinions, guests listening to and being entertained by other guests. There are several Dick Cavett DVDs out there. I just wish there were a lot more.

Here’s an excellent article by Danny Miller on the Huffington Post discussing the Janis Joplin disc.

In the bonus interview on the disc where Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Bob Weide takes him through some of his memories of the show he briefly mentions the time one of his guests died on the show. Cavett writes about it here in the New York Times.

And here’s the rest of his blogs for the NY Times.

Jerry...um...

Here's a trailer for the first episode of the second season of the terrific 30 Rock. The episode features a guest spot from Jerry Seinfeld. The best bit of this is where Kenneth the Page mimics the Seinfeld theme tune to Jerry.

This is a feature on the show.

Night Class Two

The second night class that I've started is a 6-month creative writing class. It's a bit of a contrast to the music class I began on Tuesday. For a start there's only 15 registered and only 11 turned up for the first night. While in the music class I was one of the oldest, here I'm one of the youngest.

I think I know what to expect from this class. Write short stories and stuff most weeks, get feedback from them from lecturer and fellow student. There's also some analysis of short stories and novels.

So far it looks like it'll be worthwhile and good fun.