Tuesday, July 19, 2005
The secret of comedy
Just as I prepare to elbow my way into a corner of London again, Fellow Zombie decides to up and hie her away to Brighton with T. I'm happy for them, of course, but y'know, bugger. Nearly wept, especially since previousness dictates more than distance that we won't be able to see each other much and I certainly won't be able to go skipping down to the Hove Actually area, as I imagined for one foolish happy second I would.
I suppose you know you're not young anymore when you realise that you have a Past that involves actual meaningful relationship stuff, rather than university frivolity and ooh-what-madness-tee-hee giggle-fodder without reverberation. Previousness. I wouldn't swop any of mine (although the university years and the subsequent London-based lack of proper discrimination could benefit from some editing, I suppose) but it's sobering to have it sitting there, prodding at the present.
Nice though to be a real grown-up, out of the teenage creche. I'm not ten years away from my teens yet and I can't believe I actually got through them - it never suited me, whereas some people are at the absolute peak of themselves at 18 or 19. I'm much more comfortable without the pressure of being young. (Any minute now I'm going to start on how it's about time we got over the obsession with Youth that was spawned in the excitable 1950s and then someone will have to shut my head in a volume of Social Theory For Beginners. Although surely Oscar Wilde has to shoulder some of the blame, even if he didn't really mean it, which he never did.) Unless I'm over-estimating my maturity now. But I forget what age I am - it's just great to have another several decades' worth of people to play with who don't seem any older to me than myself. When you're in your late teens and early twenties you're more or less stuck with your own age group - regardless of opportunity, I think. I got to mix with older people when I was that age but I never felt quite up to it, wasn't quite on their level. Experience, see? It's what makes a person, innit. What connects you to others - not the content of the experience itself but just the volume of it, it can't help but contain lots of hard stuff and good stuff and unusual stuff that is made of the same stuff as everyone else's.
Saw Madagascar last night. That didn't add much to my experience. Self-consciously and indolently written, making the mistake of thinking that the animation would do all the work. David 'Schwimperer' Schwimmer did more or less the same thing, failing to even make a decent hypochondriac giraffe because he was too flat and aware that he was doing a voice-over rather than acting (you still need to act even if we can't see your dumb face, idiot). Dock that man's enormous pay-packet. And. . .it's ridiculous but the story was so far beyond daft, even within the acceptable boundaries of anthropormorphic animal stuff like this. Carnivore battles his instinct to eat best zebra friend, and finds redemption in learning to love sushi (fish aren't cute - oh wait, that whole Finding Nemo thing. . .never mind, it was a few years ago, just don't make it orange and white, OK?). So much for the Circle of Life. Really, though, I grew up watching lions rending asunder the delicate flesh of Thompson's gazelles and I turned out fi. . .oh.
Just looked at the (four - four!) writers' experience - Antz (good), Ren & Stimpy (smashing), 2DTV (um. . .well, occasionally), er, Murder Most Horrid. Right. Cheers.
Then we went driving. I can actually park, ish, although the steering on the Tanklet is so heavy that I'm going to resemble Popeye by the time I take my test. Managed to get some fat security oaf out of his chair and pelting towards the gates of the disused hospital - I was only turning round, you silly man, you should have been here at the weekend when I was taking pictures. Maybe it was the bullbars. I suppose at a pinch they could ram a rusty fence but. . .come on, jobsworth, your coffee's getting cold.
Given the success of that excursion (biggest mistake - misjudging turn onto pitch-dark country road and ending up on verge, but it was very funny and no rabbits were hurt) the next one is bound to be demoralising and horrid. But at some point I will no longer be a menace to myself and others, at least not without intending to.
I can absolutely understand how people get attached to their cars. I smile at mine fondly whenever it starts first time.
The new Stool Pigeon turned up - it's very, very beautiful, looks like a pristine new copy of a Melody Maker from 1975. Makes you want to get all soppy about the bygone days of good craftsmanship, but really, it is great to see someone putting in the effort to make something lovely. My copy isn't really up to the way it's presented, it's like putting an ornate balcony on a grotty council house, but fuck it, it's only in the funnies page and funnies in 'serious' music publications have always been a bit like the stories in porn mags.
Damn, I remember when I wrote the bits no one read in a top-shelf publication. That was a laugh. A lucrative laugh. But I'm not sure I'd want to do it now. It was pretty nasty. I don't have a problem with porn, although I keep tabs on how I feel about it, but I'm not sure I want to contribute to that form of it.
Meanwhile, there's editing to do, and doubtless a greater volume of work tactfully convincing writer of validity of edit. And chocolate. There must always be chocolate.
I suppose you know you're not young anymore when you realise that you have a Past that involves actual meaningful relationship stuff, rather than university frivolity and ooh-what-madness-tee-hee giggle-fodder without reverberation. Previousness. I wouldn't swop any of mine (although the university years and the subsequent London-based lack of proper discrimination could benefit from some editing, I suppose) but it's sobering to have it sitting there, prodding at the present.
Nice though to be a real grown-up, out of the teenage creche. I'm not ten years away from my teens yet and I can't believe I actually got through them - it never suited me, whereas some people are at the absolute peak of themselves at 18 or 19. I'm much more comfortable without the pressure of being young. (Any minute now I'm going to start on how it's about time we got over the obsession with Youth that was spawned in the excitable 1950s and then someone will have to shut my head in a volume of Social Theory For Beginners. Although surely Oscar Wilde has to shoulder some of the blame, even if he didn't really mean it, which he never did.) Unless I'm over-estimating my maturity now. But I forget what age I am - it's just great to have another several decades' worth of people to play with who don't seem any older to me than myself. When you're in your late teens and early twenties you're more or less stuck with your own age group - regardless of opportunity, I think. I got to mix with older people when I was that age but I never felt quite up to it, wasn't quite on their level. Experience, see? It's what makes a person, innit. What connects you to others - not the content of the experience itself but just the volume of it, it can't help but contain lots of hard stuff and good stuff and unusual stuff that is made of the same stuff as everyone else's.
Saw Madagascar last night. That didn't add much to my experience. Self-consciously and indolently written, making the mistake of thinking that the animation would do all the work. David 'Schwimperer' Schwimmer did more or less the same thing, failing to even make a decent hypochondriac giraffe because he was too flat and aware that he was doing a voice-over rather than acting (you still need to act even if we can't see your dumb face, idiot). Dock that man's enormous pay-packet. And. . .it's ridiculous but the story was so far beyond daft, even within the acceptable boundaries of anthropormorphic animal stuff like this. Carnivore battles his instinct to eat best zebra friend, and finds redemption in learning to love sushi (fish aren't cute - oh wait, that whole Finding Nemo thing. . .never mind, it was a few years ago, just don't make it orange and white, OK?). So much for the Circle of Life. Really, though, I grew up watching lions rending asunder the delicate flesh of Thompson's gazelles and I turned out fi. . .oh.
Just looked at the (four - four!) writers' experience - Antz (good), Ren & Stimpy (smashing), 2DTV (um. . .well, occasionally), er, Murder Most Horrid. Right. Cheers.
Then we went driving. I can actually park, ish, although the steering on the Tanklet is so heavy that I'm going to resemble Popeye by the time I take my test. Managed to get some fat security oaf out of his chair and pelting towards the gates of the disused hospital - I was only turning round, you silly man, you should have been here at the weekend when I was taking pictures. Maybe it was the bullbars. I suppose at a pinch they could ram a rusty fence but. . .come on, jobsworth, your coffee's getting cold.
Given the success of that excursion (biggest mistake - misjudging turn onto pitch-dark country road and ending up on verge, but it was very funny and no rabbits were hurt) the next one is bound to be demoralising and horrid. But at some point I will no longer be a menace to myself and others, at least not without intending to.
I can absolutely understand how people get attached to their cars. I smile at mine fondly whenever it starts first time.
The new Stool Pigeon turned up - it's very, very beautiful, looks like a pristine new copy of a Melody Maker from 1975. Makes you want to get all soppy about the bygone days of good craftsmanship, but really, it is great to see someone putting in the effort to make something lovely. My copy isn't really up to the way it's presented, it's like putting an ornate balcony on a grotty council house, but fuck it, it's only in the funnies page and funnies in 'serious' music publications have always been a bit like the stories in porn mags.
Damn, I remember when I wrote the bits no one read in a top-shelf publication. That was a laugh. A lucrative laugh. But I'm not sure I'd want to do it now. It was pretty nasty. I don't have a problem with porn, although I keep tabs on how I feel about it, but I'm not sure I want to contribute to that form of it.
Meanwhile, there's editing to do, and doubtless a greater volume of work tactfully convincing writer of validity of edit. And chocolate. There must always be chocolate.
