The Fun Follies of Flyering....a photostory of romance between a group of men and A5 glossy pieces of paper...

See above for our flyer design by Tom and artwork by his bro Bob Moran. Thought they were really cool and when flyering people did want to pick them up and read them rather than throw them away or wipe their arses with them or something (they are not very absorbent). My favorite comment on the flyers was when Tom and I were on the Royal Mile flyering and these two girls with wee feathers in their eyelashes started talking to us. One of them starts to examine the flyer and says...'these are cool, you know what's really great you've done them on recyled paper!...' and me and Tom were looking at each other, perhaps with the unspoken mental question...'do you not understand it's just a scanned in version of line notepaper done on photoshop and then printed on premium non-recycled glossy paper 10,000 times over'.

They didn't come to the show, just as well, we might had to talk them down about how our voices came out of those wee black boxes when we talked into the black metal flower with the rope coming of it. Being on the Royal Mile was a good experience though got to meet some of the Diet of Worms and guys and Andy who I know from Axis of Evil (and does similarly perverse stand up to myself and who gave me a nice compliment whilst I was flyer some girls who mentioned Jim Jefferies by coming over and saying I was way filthier) who had a really well received show with the Shitty Deal Puppet Theatre. Although I'm still ot convinced losing their Jesus puppet was genuine. Could it have been a publicity stunt? What with the whole Wallace and Gromit precedent.

Other highlights include the body stockinged Little Shop of Horrors Crew (I think I probably picked up about 18 or their flyers) and Siobhan, who was lovely, from Exeter's Theatre with Teeth's Golden which didn't see because a)it cost money to see it and b) it was at 11am in the morning a time zone that doesn't exist from comics in Edinburgh...or anywhere. It seemed like a cool show though

Check it out! the consignment of flyers displayed in all their glory in Whetherpsoons...before they got covered in beer, sick and horseradish sauce...I least I think that was horseradish sauce...

This was day one, look at the happy wee Jimmny how pleased he is to get the flyers, I didn't get a comparison shot of how I felt about seeing this A5 nuggets by day 25...

Would you except a flyer from this man? 100s didn't....

The official Royal Mile handing out bits of A5 paper festival!


Tony Montana: In this country, you gotta make the flyers first. Then when you get the flyers, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.

Impoverished performers occasionally resort to flyer eating the last step before cannibalism...lovely. (jk's fave ad)

By week two after trying to hand out stuff that people don't want for a show they won't like...in the rain....methods of flyer dispersal inlude the ole 'house of flyer cards trick'
until you sometimes think...

Beck: Sexx Laws

another edinburgh musical interlude, everyone who tries to make a sketch show for bbc3 should watch this, cause like they may make something funnier than scallywagga

Celeb spotting in Edinburgh...Dustin Hoffman!!!

We were performing in the Standing Order on George Street which was very near the Assembly Rooms so there was quite a few stars about but here are some my favorite Heat-magazine style celeb spotting encounters, these were the people I just saw and not met probably, more on them later. I have also included a funny youtube link for almost all of the celebs I saw...(no prizes for the notable exception)

*Dustin Hoffman!! I shit you not. Dustin and his kids were wandering about and walked into our venue..a Whetherspoons! and walked into the comedy venue bit, it was during Bob Slayer's show.

*Ben Elton. I saw him wandering around the Pleasnace Courtyard, I resisted the urge to tell him I really liked his standup when I was like 12 and drew a cartoon depiction of his appearance on The Late Late Show. Around this time I also drew a cartoon of a funny priest who came to out town to do a Novena (which was a compliment to him because going to the Novena meant I missed the rest of The Search for The Brass Monkey). I resisted the urge to call to call him a cunt, Ben Elton I mean not the priest.

*Joan Rivers walking from her gig at the Assembly Rooms she looks just as real as she does on TV!

*Ronnie Corbett and his wife on the corner of Cowgate and Holywood!.

*Brendon Burns getting interviewed outside the Assemby Rooms.

*Jim Bowen walking past the Assembly Rooms it looking sad, shoulders hunched in beige jacket.

*Jimmy Carr, on the Royal Mile, Tom seemed more excited than me but it was still quite funny, Tom gave him a flyer with the phrase 'there's a man who looks like he'd enjoy some comedy' Carr said thanks and good look with the show, which was nice he could have called us a bad word, I've seen him do that on the telly....

*Lorcan McGrane!! I know, I could hardly believe it either... in a mirror looking sad!

Quantum of Solace - Proposed Theme Song

Time to break up all this Edinburgh wank with Joe Cornish's great Quantum of Solace theme song

Adam Buxton's

and dr. bucles one

Fringe Favorites: The Wonderful World of Mr. Methane, I finally get to meet a real-life superhero.

For the first week at the Standing Order we were preceeded by Jake Yapp's Bum Notes, a great musical comedy show and with serendipitious humour the last too weeks was An Audience With Mr. Methane: Adventures in Showbusiness. I was aware of Mr. Methane before, here's the wiki-skinny on Mr. Methane for those not in the know. He's the world's only performing flatulatist and all round nice guy.

Martin Kelner and Mr. Methane

The show was him and journalist Martin Kelner (of Guardian Talk Sport and Piss Poor Podcast fame, see his article on the show here. ) in conversation disussing how he found his powers (an origin story if you will) and loads of puns like 'ring-side seat'. Coming in at the end of each show to get ready for our's was hilarious there was normally rows people with cameras and mobiles trying to catch this cliamtic moment as Mr. Kearns attempted:

Mr. Methane inserts a straw into a certain area and then uses it to fire a high-tech dart retro-engineered from a Japanese design into a huge balloon placed on an audience member's head (with requistite safety visor and helmet) which a huge bang it goes off the crowd goes mental, music plays and they are invited to slip some pounds into 'the buttocks of destiny' (we found it on the last day and I posed with it, you'll have to be on the auld facebook to see it).

I think there is an American pretender to the flatulist crown but I just can't imagine an American version of the act, I can imagine him going up to people's faces going 'howwdda like that huh?!' what makes Mr. Methane so good is the contrast between the physical at and his hilarious soft-spokennes with phrases that became (in my mind as I spent time on the Royal Mile flyering) hilarious catchphrases 'that's right Martin', 'I'll just get my talcum powder'.

In Deadhead Comics I found some old copies of Viz (four for a pound!) and there was an ad in one of them that had Mr. Methane supporting The Macc Lads along with a guy called Eddie Shit. I had to show Mr. Methane and he goes 'ohh that's right, you know there was one time in the 1980s that every boy had an Eddie Shit tape in his bedroom'... It's something to tell the grandkids that one has performed with a through one-of-a-kind act, or as Mr. Kelner would say 'turn', which I feel like saying to people who do anything, like when someone posts a letter or something 'top turn lads'.

Martin was a stand up gentleman, very nice to us all and very entertaining and knowledgable about comedy and media in general, he even had to go one or two days alone without Mr. Methane, and having played that room it's quite a job to fill it for 45-55 minutes! . When I had gut troubles I could still do my show and then hurl afterwards--that's a whole other story, that involves Tom's shoes--but obviously with the physical strain of Mr. Methane's turn, it's not so simple. Considering the cost of the props and everything this was really the spirit of the fringe (obviously they can put it on their flyers for next year as can we all) and you really get the sense that Martin and Mr. Methane were there for the craic and meeting the audience rather than any ulterior motive.

Johnny Kearns modeling Fest's "Fart Attack" article on Mr. Methene

Mr Methane takes on Broadway

The Tommy Tippee Situation....or they call me Jimmny Four Pants

I came a bit ill-prepared for ole Scotland, packing as I usually do at like 5am. It was so lovely in Norwich I didn't think of the grim wet Victorian misery of the Edinburgh weather and had to invest 1.99 in one of these horrible ponchos (basically a blue rubbish sack with 'Scotland' written on it, see above right, photo courtesy of Johnny Kearns). Leaving The Loft, a trendy Gilded Balloon bar, one night I put on this monstrosity in readiness for going home in the unrelenting rain and could feel the sensation of the security guards closing in (a bit like when all the SWAT fellas come after Batman in Year One). I bet Roy Walker doesn't have one of these.

My other bout of ill-preparedness was finding out all too late that I somehow packed like 20 pairs of socks yet only four pants, four pants! that's insane, and Edinburgh doesn't have a Primark and I wasn't going to buy 3 pants for 7.99 in H&M (which I kept mistakenly calling HMV and people were going what do you expect, pants are always going to be expensive in HMV they probably have Stewie from Family Guy on them or something) so I had to do loads of washes.

On my first wash I saw a strange red cup in the machine and thought it was some integral washing powder distribution device, they all get more complicated each year like the current tiny blue pillows, I remember the days when the tiny wee net things were a novelty. Anyway it made a teribble clanking noise, until on taking out the wash it was discovered to be a child's drinking beaker, who puts them in washing machines? kids probably. Mr. Kearns thought it was very funny and took a pic (see above left) of the offending infant-liquid dispenser with this caption:

Absolutely THE most stupid thing I have ever heard a man, let alone a 32 year old man, say/do. Holding a Tommy Tippee (clues in the name, clues in the name) McGrane puts in his Bold Capsule and throws it in with his shitty pants. 'Whats that clanging?' The clanging? That'd be the childrens beaker you just put in Lorcan. What did you think the handles were for? In case the Persil was heavy?

Incidentally this is Johnny Kearns at the Arthur Art exhibition, just so you can keep and eye out for him, he doesn't always have the sign with him, he is very funny:

My Edinburgh...

Mmm...I wonder what guff I will say to a room full of strangers tonight?...

Karl over at Dumb Riffs and The Dublin Bike Blog had a good idea: "Just an idea - why don't you write a piece for the Guardian on your experiences in Edinburgh?They have a piece in G2 every day, and most of them are dull as fuck" see below for my effort, not used obviously, but they have Simon Callow and stuff so it's hardly a surprise:

My Edinburgh
Lorcan McGrane
Stand Up Comedian, PBH’s free fringe.

I have been doing comedy for about a year and this is my first time in Edinburgh for the festival. I started a PhD on superhero movies, and my comedy is esoteric and geeky. One of my jokes, about how people who normally dress up as superheroes know very little about them, involves listing everyone who ever played Catwoman, including the voice artists on the animated series—In chronological order. Performing in a Wetherspoons is good experience in making some of my material more accessible.

I love going to Deadhead Comics and bought an old copy of Viz that had an advert for Mr. Methane who happens to be performing in the venue just before us. Moments like that really bring home the unique experience of doing The Free Fringe. Free admission is great for the impoverished performer, too: last week’s ‘Josie Long and Friends’ featured David O’Doherty and Meave Higgins, and Robin Ince’s show ‘Bleeding Heart Liberal’ last night was amazing. Of the comedians I’ve seen so far, the Norwegian Daniel Simonsen is my favourite, his delivery and dedication to the routines even if its only an open spot for a minute is inspirational.

Tom Moran, Jon Brittain and John Kearns and I are staying in a flat just behind Arthur’s Seat, which for me looks like the big mountain Faye Dunaway drops on the street in Supergirl (1984). People think sharing a house with comedians will be hilarious but it has mostly been evenings of analysing comedy and rehearsing our sets with occasional bouts of insanity and wrapping things in tinfoil.
The walk home after a less-than-good gig is always pretty bleak in the Edinburgh rain. I also teach and do bar-work part-time, but when you have a bad day at work you don’t have to walk past a mile of huge posters of all the better and more successful teachers or bar-workers than you with reviews like ‘The way he served that pint and handed over those crisps was nothing short of a joy ****’

A Couple of Couples of Comics/PBH’s Free Fringe
21.00-22.00, every day until August 24th
Standing Order 62-66 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2LR

Well...that 's Edinburgh done...

Me about half way up Arthur's Seat...

And jumping out of a wee cave like a loon (or one of the lads from The Desent according to Daire)

Howdy all, just came back from Edinburgh late last night. The 10am bus didn't leave until closer to 11 finally got into London at 9.15pm and had to run to get the 9.30 bus to Norwich and got in at like 12.30, feck that wasn't fun. (We climbed Arthur's Seat the day before so it was very Knackering) Read most of Final Stage, which include's Harlan Ellison's mental Catman and made the journey through the industrial areas seem a bit like J.G. Ballard's Crash. Have loads of posts to put up with my highlights, flyering experiences, the other show's I did, including Sowerby and Luff's podcast (see vid below the guy who filmed their studio bits also filmed my set so it should be up here soon), Up the Arts Comedy Lock In and the Comedy Manifesto panel show thing and Pear Shaped with Brian Damage and Krystal.

Overall it was a great exerience I did almost 40 gigs which you wouldn't normally have the chance to do and it was a good way to learn and adapt/practice material every day. It was bizarre to be in a Whetherspoons everyday though more posts to follow.

Horray for the Stills, this will be my Edinburgh Haven!

Whilst flyering for the show today I find a really cool haunt. Flyering is a weird experience, we all swap flyers and pretend to go to each others shows, and with the free fringe most of us will, and with other comedians that are actually flyering their own shows we'll defiently go. Most of the time, however, one is confronted with a bevvy of bottle-blonde bosum ladies that comedy companies like bound and gagged employ when they are trying to sell you a £9 pound show and they feign interest in yours it's a bit difficult, plus how do you explain, 'I was talking to a bound and gagged lady earlier' without sounding strange. Sorry in bad stand up mode there. Have realised (And it's only about three days in) that if you are a stand up you try and make fun out of things that you see, but the problem with Edinburgh is that if you are just seeing comedy all the time then all you have to make fun of is other comedy, forwith, the current most hackneyed line:....

Comedian (with glasses): "Hello, I know what you're thinking,... Harry Potter's let himself go...'

Comedian (fat with beard): "Hello, I know what you're thinking....Frodo has let himself go..'

Comedian (pretty normal but with blonde hair): "Hello,I know what you're thinking, TinTin has let himself go"...(p.s.he didn't look Tintin)

my version that I have to do sometime:

ME: "Hello, I know what you're thinking...some genereic popular culture character that I think I look vaguely like...has let himself go...

or

Me: "Hello, I know what you're thinking....Richard Kiel who played Jaws in the Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) has let himself go...."

etc...

but this post is not about stand up but about the most amazing place I have found so far in Edinburgh: The Stills

Picture the scene, you've been doing comedy and/or seeing/flyering for comedy for about 2-3 days the realisation that you have to do it for 20 (hey the time's no problem it's just the money) more just hits you after you have been flyering alone and hungry and poor all day and then you wander into an amazing free library and gallery and your brain explodes.

A gallery that has a lovely free reading room of all my favorite subjects...philosophy, feminism, movies, media studies, science fiction, it was like someone had put my brain in a room, but made it nice and inviting..unlike my brain, but like my brain very interesting (also like my brain it's free)

God bless Martha Rosler and the lovely people of the Stills thats all I can say, the staff were very friendly to me but then again they probably didn't realise that I would be henceforth darkening their door almost every day to read Philip K Dick and Frederick Pohl and Poststructual feminism ..yep it's that kinda library..my kind of library...

The American artist Martha Rosler out of the amazing goodness of her heart has put her book collection in the lap of the public for free moire info here:

Stills has undergone a radical transformation. An open reference library with an eclectic array of over 7,700 books from the personal collection of the prolific artist, writer and political agitator, Martha Rosler, now fills the space. Curious readers can delve into volumes on photography, war, economics and political science, flick though comic books or browse maps and newspaper clippings.
Throughout her career, Martha Rosler has sought to establish new spaces for thinking and questioning. Often working with photography, she generates ideas by creating links between what appear to be entirely different worlds. Following an invite from Anton Vidokle to open her library to the public, users can reflect this approach by creating new pathways into the material, forging new connections and associations according to their own particular interests.
A series of informal public conversations, lectures and discussions accompanies the Martha Rosler Library project. Please see www.stills.org for more details. Martha Rosler Library is presented at Stills in association with eflux.

A Couple of Couples of Comics, The Standing Order, 62-66 George Street, Edinburgh 2nd-23rd August

Four young* stand-ups join forces to take on jokes too big for any one comic. Chortle Funniest Student finalist Jon Brittain, John Kearns, Lorcan McGrane and Tom Moran present a fast-paced hour showcasing their eclectic, usually ridiculous and often outrageous thoughts on life. 2-23 Aug

Show every night 21.00-22.00, free/voluntary contribution at the end.

The Standing Order (Wetherspoons)

62-66 George StreetEdinburghEH2 2LR, UK

PH: 0131 225 4460

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, it's great to be here, etc.! Sorry I haven't been blogging buch recently been slaving away at various kitchen and bar jobs to have some funds for the Edinburgh trip, see above, a draft of our flyer created by Tom's very talented (and bizarre) illustrator brother Bob, his site's here.
More details:


Google Map of the Standing Order
Listing of the show on the Fringe Website
Free Fringe Listing
Chortle UK Listing

I hope to be uploading the odd picture here and there whenever I can get online during the month but in the meantime I can heartily recommend my online-homies Clamnuts, Trollop 23, Karl, Joe, Coungo and Khmer.

Well, almost ready to get the bus 7.50-11.20 to London and then 12.00-21.00! to Edinburgh, must book flight way in advance for next time, if there is a next time. Have stashed all three volumes of Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions for the trip, although may ease into it with some Viz

So if you happen to be in Edinburgh check out some live Jimmny Homunculus action you won't be disappointed!**

*plus one grumpy old one!
**I don't exactly what your expectations are so you might be disappointed, I'm not dressing up like She-Hulk or anything...not after the last time.

"A couple of songs by a couple of prongs": The Genius of Adam and Joe's Song Wars....

..."sometimes they're 'brill-skills' sometimes they're turds."

If you are sad that BBC 3 seem fit to throw money as the likes of sucide-inducing Scallywagga, for that is its full title, whilst not comissioning MeeBox, at least Adam and Joe's Song Wars is on I-tunes! (and there's a Myspace page here)

Adam and Joe have a great knack of both reminding you of nostalgic madness you forget (e.g. I went to Paris on school trip one and did visit a European Supermarket which was as disorienting as the sonng 'European Supermarket' suggests, the face that a supermarket stocked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures was amazing to me, but not as amazing as a ferry bookshop that stocke Shaun Hutson's *'Spawn' ..bulbous heads all round ) and perfectly capturing modern-day annoyances, e.g. "I just downloaded a wicked song onto my mobile and now I'm going to play it loudly on the bus" from 'mobile speakers'

As a film geek the 'end credits of movies' war is one of my favorites, viddy

Adam's The Hours

versus

Joe's The Shining!

*As if you didn't know where Garth Marenghi's Darkplace came from

Watchman trailer, hard to know what to think?...

Horray for BBC's iPlayer....

For once a catch up on TV service (the new 2.0 streaming one rather than the 40D style download one) that doesn't crash your computer or demand you install large unreliable player software, so you know, you can actually watch the programs again and not just have program on the computer that uses all the memory without actually doing what it is supposed to. The highlight this week for me, with shifts all over the place temporally and geographically, is I can follow the fate that has befallen poor Pingu in Criminal Justice and the Imagine show on Werner Herzog

I suppose even since V, I just like the idea of a consecutive-night miniseries which you don't often get and in a way caters for the quick gratification box set crowd (which I would be if I could afford extortionate box set prices) well I do watch box sets but mostly in their static form in HMV.

Hullo! I gotta a trick for ya Guv'nor! ....

....This line never happens in the film but I wish it did...all that happens is Michael Caine goes 'I suppoose yew have such a trick?!' And I wish Bale would 'I got a trick fer yew'..etc....

One of my obsessions recently has been The Prestige, which obviously because I am a comic geek I was aware of first as the movie by Chris Nolan but then went and read the book by the greatChristopher Priest . And as a nice companion piece I've started Robert Lomas' The Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century: Nikola Tesla, Forgetton Genius of Electricity.

There's seldom been a time when the book and movie differ and are similar in such a delightful way as the various versions of The Prestige. I think doing the auld stand up has encouraged my love of the story the idea of having a 'trick' a certain turn of phrase in a joke that makes people laugh... you fluff a verb or a noun and it gets less of a laugh than when you do that one bit of mouth air right. But whatever, you know if a stand up routine hasn't gone right beacause people don't laugh, and I imagine if i had the skill to be a magician that a slip up of the hand would a similar effect. the guys in the Prestige have that madness, if you are unaware of this great movie and the novel and the great writer...viddy:the trailer



and Christopher Priest

Jimmny's lucky seven (well, it'll probably be unlucky) it's mostly 1990s nostalgia

I haven't been online for a while and was well pleased to get invited into a meme-like situation by the folks over at Khmer Rouge Strippergram they of the great comics article and here is their post on a seven songs meme from Counago & Spaves

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

Oh dear, where to start, well at the minute it's my usual combination of Frank Black, Easy Listening and bizarre madness, forwith,the most recent Frank Black EP opus, Svn Fingers. For me the thing about Frank Black is that since I was 17 there's been some sort of Pixies/Frank Black/Breeders release every single year (i'm 32 now) that's every year without fail.

Basically, there's alwas been something in my head i can shout via headphones, apparently yon Frank has been inspired by Cuhulainn




Basically for me right now, this is the best song ever, when I was at college I was made into indie music, you know, Pixies, Breeders Oasssis etc, but secretly I was so into Larry Page and Burt Bacharach that when this baby came out I nearlt exploded, it's still on of my favourite songs of all time....this version



and when we're talking about lounge madness, how about an acid jazz remix of Jimi Hendrix not like anyone asked for it, but it happened anyway....it's The Beautiful People's If 60s were 90s:


And perhaps if we can go on a little with the 1990s nostalgia a wee bit, Goldbug's remix of Whole Lotta Love remixed with the pearl and dean cinema ad all I could find was this bit of the chart show but Goldbug's in the middle



What with it's Batman style decor and overall trendy beat, or whatever, this has to be the tune I've been listening to the most in the last few months, Hot Chip's 'Ready for the Floor':



In a way connected to the whole Oasis/Mike Flowers divide is the fact that I love the Rutles much more than the Beatles, because, you know, they're funnier so my next choice



and because I can't help it...cheese and onions...



and how to end? for me it's gotta be chairman mao and roxy music



and of course, the only tune in my head recently:



I tag, or whatever, I'm not used to doing this shit, but I would like these guys to talk about moosic: Karl, Joe, John, Trollop23, Graham, Bob, Adam,


oh and one I forgot! file under wtf from Michael Nesmith!

[Fridays] Larry David as a plastic surgeon

good morning mister doody!

The Mike Flowers Pops - Light my fire

dig it

Late Late Show

dig it! can't help it dudes feel nostalgic for those forced rte 1 friday nights

The Dominos Fall

I love this...jaysus...bloodly hell etc. and the best...'So do you know what's going to happen...no' it's like the Naked Lunch seeing what's on the end of every fork... but it doesn't matter things are going to play themselves out the same way

Once again Dr. Lucas, there is no positive childhood nostalgia that we can have that you cannot take away....

...you overpriced bearded, check-shirted wearing fucking mook...

P.S. If you Haven't seen Indiana Jones and the thing with skull yoke and yer man from Transformers and Even Stevens....stop now, spoilers ahead....


where to fucking start *sigh* I wasn't expecting much and knew it wouldn't be mind blowing, and we've all been prey to Lucas's bullshit before:' I meant Hayden to be a cardboard actor because that was a homage 1920s serials' etc. But I couldn't believe the new Indy. To do a full proper rant would exhaust you and me so I will restrict myself to bullet points:

Opening Sequence: Do you know what I hate, those boring films where there is no proper opening sequence like when its night and a camera shot from a helicopter flys over a bay onto skyscrapers while the title come up in silver letters, isn't that the most boring opening of a film ever? and if you substitute jeeps and desert for that you get the opening sequence to Skull-Fuck (as I will hereby refer to Indy 4 as).

P.S. The Paramount mountain/prairie dog hill doesn't jump-cut it (pardon the editing joke) Lucas and Spielbergo may have almost invented studio logo/narrative tomfoolery but with all the stuff that's gone on since, surely there was something funnier, maybe the mountain could cut to Dr. Jone's cock as he wanked off to a picture of shortround...go on Lucas get the grindhouse market, you seem to have no sense about current tastes anyway.

No CGI: so Fucko Lucas and El Speilbergo go on about how it will be real stunts with no cgi, apart from all the unnecessary cgi prairie dogs, ants and testicle attacking cacti and some cgi backdrops that make it look like outtakes from Casablanca or something that Rodriguez would wipe his arse on, hey Lucas maybe you could cgi some dwarfs in there for the laugh?

Indy's Study... fuck me, the first thing I saw of Skull-Fuck was that they had meticulously created his study to reflect the various periods of Indy's life. Photos within movies are one my bugbears. So we have obvious on set photos and press shots of Sean Connery and Denholm Elliot and these are meant to be pics of Indys Da? when they aren't at all in the style of photos from the 1940s? I know I'm alone on this but these films cost hundreds of millions should there be no logic? the grain, the pose the clarity these are obviously photos from the 1980s-1990s.



Mutt Williams...what sort of fucking name is that.

Aliens?...whatever...Skull-Fuck seems to fall into this worrying trend in movies (cf Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, X-Men III: The Last Stand, Superman Returns) of a complete lack of wonder and inquistiveness in the world and universe around oneself as a self aware human being. Aliens? whatever? interdimensional beings? feck that I'll just look the other way and sit on a stone and pull a bemused Harrison Ford face, because I'm buying a toy and rattling my bones against yer one out of Ally McBeal and basically I don't care about anything this sense that in the tent scene with Cate Blancett that you are about a foot away from an actual alien and you basically don't give a flying fuck makes my gut sink, this is horrible, no one cares about anything...except of course crystal skulls and money.


The 19 fucking 50s....right, I understand the whole B-Movie stuff and bringing Indy into the 1950s and him getting older. But that's just it I get it, you don't need to keep hitting me over the head with the fact...that...it's....the....fucking....1950s...I get it I don't need a cafe called 'The Atomic Cafe', KGB agents, an atomic bomb, a test suburban town (I thought this was Ang Lee's Hulk for a minute) the janitor from Scrubs and Jim from Neighbours, (has Alan Dale got serious blackmailable dirt on every casting agent in Hollywood? he is in everything....rack off)


Hey what country we in anyway...who cares?....whatever about the racism of the original series, and they had it in spades, (cf the obvious Americans 'browned-up' to be Indian in Temple of Doom) there was at least a sense of what country they were in, they talked to locals even if they were Alexi Sayle or the guy who isn't Brian Blessed from Sliders and Lord of the Rings they had fixers there was villagers etc, this film seemed to be scared in a PC way (note the token implant of one black women student in Indy's class) of the very imperialist reason d'etre of the trilogy's success...every foreign person is evil, rips out hearts, eats monkey brains and sheeps eyes etc., this all comes from George 'Jar Jar....Me so Sorleee Binks' Lucas so in this film we have the same 1930s attitude of 'Living dead' natives but without even the courtesy of some sort of 'noble savage' explanation who are these guys? should there no be some sort of hand shake between the main living dead guy and Indy in a sort of 'for sure you are the best warrior' style exchange....


What?! no drinking competion...best thing about Karen Allen in Raiders was her hardass drinking, and here they turn her into a swooning idiot....oh Indy be a dad to Mutt won't you?...please....oh please...marry me Indy...etc. etc. ad nausem. Plus poor Cate Blancett...she only wanted knowledge, but of course ladies who want knowledge in the Lucasverse...what happens to them, they either get their home planets or brains exploded....

in the meantime here's Indy fucking about in Ireland and being at the GPO and shit...

Thank the gods of DVD releasing....June 16! Snuff Box!

Snuff Box of course being the overlooked sketch show classic of Matt 'Sanchez' Berry and Rich 'Fossil' Fulcher, which for me is funnier than Mighty Boosh and darker than Darkplace...serious. It's out on dvd from June 16.
Viddy these if you don't beleive me....







and to finish, it can't be avoided the amazing...motherfucker..

Monk with Nina Conti

ryanair...

Tales of Schrödinger's Arsebone

Would you let this guy near your arsebone?

Finally, I am back online....'and low! the perversity index of the Internet exploded'. Not that I can make much physical use of it after recent injuries. I have contracted what I describe as ' Schrodinger's Arsebone', due to events that will be described below. Basically, I have a bruised (possibily fractured) Coccyx and can't do much, and sit on cushioned chairs and groan when I have to pick up pounds from the ground. I knew it was sore, when it happened, and could hardly walk, but the doctor cheerfully told me 'well you've probably got a bruised Coccyx, but it might be fractured, we could x ray it , but even if we did and it was there's nothing we can do anyway*, just take it easy and see how it goes'.... hence my overwrought quantum physics/Heisenberg uncertainity principle metaphor.

The real reason for my near broken arsebone is obviously little to do with quantum physics.
I had this crazy idea when finally getting paid from the teaching to go out on a Saturday night in dressy shoes and a dressy shirt like what people do. No one seems to understand my urge to dress like this just once, but, obviously, it's all connected to ideas of maybe getting the ride at some stage before I die. Myself and Ricardo from the kitchen went out and had a good drunken night, at Mustard and I got very drunk and then decided to stay there when R went home. I literally remember nothing about how it happened but I woke up in terrible pain with a CD-sized bruise on my right burtock (to use the parlance of forrest gump) this was because, as I found out later, I had a bad Drum and Bass CD in my back pocket at the time, I've listened to it since, it's not worth it .

My logic was that I must have fallen down the stairs at home after I got home, because if I had fallen down the stairs at the nightclub I would surely remember some altercation with bouncers or punters. I could have been so wrecked that I could walked home quite happily with a bruised arsebone and a bruise the size of cd so, frighteningly it could have happened anywhere. Suffice to say, I was so in shock I worked a split shift in the kitchen and bar on sunday and then on monday I could barely walk and since then it's been a slow pillow/painkiller/babystep recovery type deal. In conclusion, readers, don't fall on your arse, it is quite literally a pain in the arse.


*hooray for modern science...

Speed Racer (2008) Trailer 4

Saw this on Tuesday, serious, it's awesome catch in all it's bonkers digital glory before Indy pushes it out of the multiplexes!

Reasons for not blogging....

1. no Internet until I get paid on the 25th

2. my diary looks like this.

.

can't wait until I get the auld internet back will probably go on a 24 hour blog rampage, in the meantime here's some oddities from the old Rockcorry batcave where the geeky madness began!

Miss yous all

Lorcs

x

Jimmny's Celebrity fun pals exhibition...

As a fun antidote to the madness below!....

we all go through our William Burroughs cut up poetry phase don't we?...

A rare collage poem from the vaults...

Demented tales from the Dublin walk-in wardrobe/proto-batcave

P.S. No prizes for psychoanalyzing them, as the Badbrute says, 'no subtext

One of the guilty pleasures/morbid nostalgia interest in my own twarted ambitions and failures of any trip home is reading old notebooks and finding bizarre scribbings. It's kind of like when an FBI agent is hunting down a serial killer in a movie or something. Sometimes even I don't know what the heck I was on about (writing this in the library so excuse the archiac swears, I'll beef them up later). The below examples are from a wee notebook (circa 1999) from a particularly dark and perverse time but also quite creative. I was juggling a an arts admin job that although superficially suited to I was awful at and would escape mentally and physically from it at any given opportunity. Half this period was spent in a tiny bedsit in Dublin where painted cardboard versiosn of some this sort of demented crap appeared.

On the positive side it did lead to doing the masters and I ended up living with one of my best friends, the fact that we shared a room together for about a year and a half and didn't kill each other is a testiment to our friendship (although I'm sure he came close as I would often do all-nighters inside a walk-in wardrobe while he tried to sleep).

'Bewildered Bob: I could try and pass this off as some wacky character that's a total exaggeration of yours truly, but what's the point!

Another of my sad antics was coming up with the ideas for 'comedy' tv ideas, actually looking as some of these they are actually quite funny, although I don't know if is a relative thing, these ideas for dadatv are not funny compared top Big Train or Jam but are comedy gold in comparison to Swallywagga, as is accidentally ripping off your srotum with the underside of a car driven by everyone you've ever slept with.

It's good to see some people think about She-Hulk more than me

Check out this post via She-Hulk fan blog Shulkie.com speccifically on Peter David's, 'super-strong vagina thesis':

I think any normal man who would have sex with She-Hulk is courting disaster. I don't care how stiff your stiffy is: She-Hulk's vaginal muscles alone, if she were to orgasm, would be enough to earn you a trip to the E.R. The price of a tumble with She-Hulk being broken bones pales in comparison to the prospect of a broken boner because, yes kids, it can break, and not all the king's horses, men or Viagra will put Humpty back together again. Lambskin Trojans? Forget that. Tony Stark must have used an amored condom. The Invinicible Iron Man Thing.

...in conclusion...'sheesh'

Laters yeah? Lorcy's London debut, Comedy Cafe, Shoreditch April 30, 2008!

Jimmny's gonna write you up something good!

Just back from my London debut at The Comedy Cafe a lovely venue in trendy Nathan Barley-style Shoreditch. It was very exciting, went early and was in London about 6 for a 9pm show. Went to a pub around the corner the Barley Mow and got to preparing. When young Tom Moran did it he got a 8-10 min slot but there was a lot on my night so I only had 5-6 minutes, so had to cut loads of stuff at short notice but it went really well. I may have talked a bit too fast but did better than the guy on after me. During his set (something bland about shampoo bottles) a girl who was really pissed fell over with an earthshattering clunk. He went 'ooeer what happened there?', some bloke in the audience goes :'you sent her to sleep mate!'. In the words of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang...'ouch!' It's a strange but great mixture of open mic night and competition where the best of the night by selected audience vote gets to go on for a paid slot the next week. Didn't win but went down really well, when my name got called out there was a definite cheer from certain pockets of the audience (which inspired this bad stand up joke I just thought of: 'ah well, I am an acquired taste, must me all that asparagus I eat)

The demented scribblings of deluded, perverted mind.

My friend Rachel outside the comedy cafe.

The Comedy Cafe has a sort of Beano theme, dad would have liked the fact that they have a 'Bash Street' sign up

I left my camera at my mates' table to take a picture, this is either me finishing or starting, p.s. I'm in the background not the bald guy (the MC) in the foreground.

Was a good opportunity to meet other comedians, met Roisin Mirza (a great comedian from an Irish and Pakistani background) and Lee Hume both from Brighton. There was also a guy from Ipswich and a woman from Dorset can't remember their names because I was shitting it before I went on. (if any of you are reading this and can fill in my blanks that would be great). Then there was about three blokes that were all tall and pretty and too trendy for my liking, Russell Brand has a lot to answer for. One of them had an adoring hot girlfriend than took pictures of every second of his performance. I want my comedians to be bitter, lonely and geeky, not trendy, popular and sexually active, where's the humour in that: 'so yeah, I was banging my hot girlfriend and then I got new tints in my hair from Tony and Guy and then took some coke and banged my hot girlfriend again' comedy gold. These guys could have been models, but pretend to be geeky and dysfunctional, meanwhile the real geeky and dysfunctional guys, i.e. me just seeth from the sideline. Oh yeah and one had that Ricky 'ipodge' Gervais habit of reading tabloid headlines in his act: in reference to Derren Brown being gay...'mindbender', you feel like going, yeah but The Sun came up with that, not you.


P.S. cheers to Rachel, Lisa, Laura and Corin for coming to see my demented ramblings. All in all a very pleasant and enjoyble trip to London, (just to prove to Norfolk people that nice things do happen in London, not just murder and multiculturalism, the two things Norfolk people fear most) the next day I wandered around Soho (of course, I walked past a strip joint at 10am and it was open and a lady asked if I wanted to come in, a)who's dancing nude at that hour and b)what loons are looking at it, the answer would of course be me if I had that sort of money to waste) and walked via the British Library to King's Cross. Bought this book for 2 pounds in a remainder shop across from the Library.

Just back from a Smoking Mic gig in Attleborough, went well, mostly new stuff, they seemed to know who Rocco Stiffredi was which always helps with my stuff. The room was mostly pissed blokes though about 3 women, including one loon with a bumbag which had a gollywog toy dangling from it, must be all the rage in Attleborough. We're in Trowse next Friday.

Oh and I have another London open mic on May 22 at Downstairs at the King's Head in Crouch End. So there'll no doubt be photos and rants on that one too.

Catch you later dudes

I wuv you

lorc

x

HicHop

Apologies for a lack of blogging, probably a reflief for yous not to have the jimmny gibbering more regularly, will get reconnected whenever I cough up the funds for it, things like rent and electricity currently have priority over online entertainments (ahem). Currently using the forum's great wireless system while leafing through comics.

Recently read Batman: City of Crime, Wonder Woman: Love and Murder and Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory exellent stuff.

One of my best friends (plus mentor and usually conscience) Mr. John Burrows (above, with a certain gurning Jimmny) has started up a new blog called HicHop check it out for stuff on Lebowski toys, Watchmen and thoughtful essays on his Robert Crumb-like old time blues obsessions.