BETAMAXNOMATES

'All she can do is dial and yell...'

20060730

GET ME AWAY FROM HERE, I'M DYING

Obligatory update time. Don't get too excited though, I'm strictly going through the motions here. Phoning it in. There's an overwhelming sense of 'will this do?' about this one, all right. Which is to say: hello! Apologies for the lack of writing and stuff but I've been blah blah made-up excuse. Just couldn't find the time; not a minute to myself. Actually, that was certainly true of today (not the rest of the week though, that was mostly spent playing GTA and watching Veronica Mars. But I digress...) Today my penance was to make awkward small talk with a bunch of strangers I invited into my house. No, I haven't started rounding up Jehovah's Witnesses and forcing them to act out my tortured existentialist playlets. Not yet anyway. No, I'm afraid I'm looking for a new housemate. The old one got engaged to his girlfriend last month so he's bought a place with her and they've moved in together in a sickening display of smug suburban middle-class heterosexist contentedness. Not that I'm bitter or anything. Anyway, today we had four 'hopefuls' come over to (separately) audition for the once-in-a-lifetime role of 'Idiot Housemate #2'; we decided to assess them according to the criteria set by reality TV - which is, of course, all we know - namely: the degree to which the potential housemate could be said to be 'in [my] face', their 'up-for-it'-ness, their willingness to 'tell it like it is', their professed intolerance for/celebration of 'bitching', 'backstabbing', and 'bullshit', and the extent to which they admitted to being 'a bit mad', 'well zany', or 'just a right ol' nutter really'. Extra points were awarded for sexual deviance, alarming racism, extreme campness, and 'idiosyncratic' uses of the English language. No real contenders so far - a couple of computer geeks, some foreigners (ding ding ding! Racism! One of them asked me if I was Polish) and a ridiculous D4 stereotype - complete with Ugg boots and rugby shirt with upturned collar - who seemed especially reluctant to leave the house - not so much that she liked the place, more that she had never been this far from the Shelbourne. Don't call us, we'll call you.
Not much else to be saying. Superman is mediocre at best: I mean, it has its good points (Kevin Spacey and Parker Posey) and its bad (everything else). Probably not such a good idea to cast - as the all-powerful saviour of mankind - some Gap model-looking guy who you could happily smack around in real life with no serious consequences. And speaking of WTF, the website Playground Law has been made into a TV show, following in the footsteps of other such web-to screen successes as... uh, MySpace... and, I dunno, MILF Hunter. In theory this could (should?) have been really hilarious; in practice it was yet another Friday night laugh drought from the Nuremberg comedy war criminals that brought you Balls Of Steel and 8 Out Of Ten Pitiful Panel-Show Whores. As self-regarding as it sounds, Channel 4, as far as I can ascertain, now exists for the sole purpose of pissing. Me. The Fuck. Off. I mean, with the exception of Peep Show, have they produced anything of any worth in the past ten years? I remember when I was a kid (no really I do! Not all of us were raped, you know) when Friday night on Channel 4 was a LOLlercoaster of Father Ted, Frasier, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Friends (when it was good), and - later - BrassEye. Y'know, 'comedy' programs - with actual 'jokes'. There just are no words for... this. (I lie, there's a few...).
Anyway, before I go I may as well engage in some medium pimpin'. My latest mix is now online - titled, with crashing inevitability, the 'Betamax Bootymix' (#1, as there will be further instalments). You can download it directly here or from the link on the sidebar. I'm also working it setting up a podcast (projected title: the 'homogenizedcheesepodcast' - somebody stop me! No seriously, stop me: I'll end with a job in marketing if I'm not careful). Podcasts seem to be 'all the rage' these days, 'everybody's talking about them', so I'm told, but I'm still not entirely clear how to, y'know, 'do' them. I know it has something to do with RSS or something but I couldn't get the hang of it right away so I gave up. Until I figure it out then, here's the mp3 tracklist:

'Wicked Party' (from 'Peep Show')
Nightmares On Wax - Les Nuits
Bruce Springsteen - Missing
Cut Copy - Saturdays (Headman Remix)
LCD Soundsystem - Too Much Love
Martinez - Shadowboxing (Trentemoller Remix)
Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
Ursula 1000 - Urgent/Anxious feat. Cristina
50 Cent - Outta Control feat. Mobb Deep (Acapella)
Elastica - Connection
White Rose Movement - Girls In The Back
Andy Freer - Super Galaxo
Hot Chip - (Just Like We) Breakdown (DFA Remix)
Madonna - Get Together
Daft Punk - One More Time
'Most People Are Out Right Now' (from 'Peep Show')

posted by Fergal # 22:01

Comments:

I meant nostalgic before someone points it out.

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:26 PM

I liked Frasier. Sure, it was never particularly daring or even original but it was consistent: the writers they had were shit hot and you were always guaranteed a laugh. Which is more than you can say for the shit they're putting on now.

In other news, I am an old man.

# posted by

Fergal : 12:30 AM

Ger's right. The kids of today (of which I have* 5) united and demanded C4 bring them a Wankathon and that's what they're getting. Ok, Pops?

/canned laughter/

*not necessarily in the fathering sense

/canned laughter. Applause/

# posted by

Anonymous : 11:06 AM

Fraiser was clunky, akward and convoluted. It's sole purpose was to make smug Americans feel clever.

Take off your rose-tinted spectacles grandma!

# posted by

Adrian : 3:59 PM

BETAMAXNOMATES

20060730

GET ME AWAY FROM HERE, I'M DYING

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