Havana syndrome is hot this season
Havana syndrome is hot this season
Stand-up dates for the first half of October
I’m not doing many gigs over the next couple of weeks, because I’ve decided to take some time to work on myself and reflect on what’s important (playing Far Cry 6).
Here are some dates for your diary:
Wednesday 6th October 7pm - Acid with Jesus at Nelson’s Bar (Hoxton)
This goes to 11pm for some reason, but don’t worry: I’m on in the first half.
https://www.facebook.com/events/379199540426950/
Nelson’s Bar, 32 Horatio Street, London, E2 7SB
Tuesday 12th October - Evening gig To Be Decided
I’ll be doing something this night. Might be a walk-up show in Central London, might be something weird and experimental. I’ll confirm next weekend.
Sunday 17th October 7pm - Groovie Grove, Hammersmith *
When people come to gigs because of this newsletter, it’s never the ones I expect. This is a weekend gig, there are always multiple funny acts on the bill, and it’s in a nice room above a nice pub, but nobody seems to be up for coming to see me when I promote it. Is Hammersmith too far away or something?
It’ll be £5.98 on Eventbrite but they haven’t bothered to make the event listing yet.
Grove Bar & Restaurant, 83 Hammersmith Grove, London, W6 0NQ
I think it’s messed up how the pop culture of Generation X has been forced onto the generations who followed us. It’s sad, but natural, for man-children in their 40s to obsess over media from their youth like Star Wars and superhero comics and Ghostbusters and Dungeons & Dragons; it’s fucking weird that millennials and Gen Z are all into the same shit.
Yes, they have newer, gayer versions of all those things, where orcs aren’t evil any more because that’s racist, and the Ghostbusters are a terrible improv comedy troupe. But they should really have their own culture, instead of this condition of cultural stasis. It feels like they’ve been tricked by aging men into swallowing a lot of stuff that is well past its expiry date - AND I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT MY LOVE LIFE THERE etc. etc.
Cultural grooming is what it is.
Links of the week
I was recently reminded of this Star Wars fanfic I wrote. (Bear in mind that when I wrote this, only the first of the modern sequel films had come out. They decided to go in a slightly different direction with Rey’s origin story, but my version makes a lot more sense).
Freddy deBoer has a good take on what went wrong with The Last Jedi.
Why British Satire Is Terrible (James Harris writing in Chortle).
Recommendations
Free Guy is on Disney+ now. The premise is great: a non-player character in a Grand Theft Auto type videogame becomes sentient. And it’s mostly well executed. The main problem with films about people playing/making videogames is that the script is written by people who have no idea about either of those things, but they don’t fall into that trap here. Being set within a videogame world means they can do all kinds of crazy fun action set pieces without it mattering that it’s ridiculous (although the physics is still way more plausible than shit like Fast & Furious). It’s sadly marred by some extremely cringeworthy reference humour towards the end, but still worth your time.
Superintelligence isn’t funny, but it does do a decent job of exploring the premise of a super-AI that can control everything electronic. James Corden is perfectly cast as an entity that seems really chummy to start with, but turns out to be a cunt.
Love on The Spectrum on Netflix is ethically extremely dubious because it’s about laughing at autistic people trying to date. It is funny though. Plus Kassandra from series 2 is a stone cold fox. Why isn’t there an app where I can date high functioning autistic hotties? I want a wife who can make me rich by counting cards at blackjack.
The lobby at the shared office where I work has a bunch of arcade machines which can emulate old games. Hardly anyone actually plays them. They were put there by a bunch of suits who have a vague idea that nerds who played those type of games founded successful companies, so put them there in a cargo cult style hope that somehow they will bring good fortune. Anyway, one of the games on there is Metal Slug, which is a work of genius. Mighty Goose is very heavily inspired by Metal Slug, but less frustrating because it’s not designed to be played in an arcade. It doesn’t have the wanton cruelty and racism you’ll find in the original, but still worth a look. [Seems like it’s on every platform; Xbox owners, note that it’s free with Game Pass].
That’s it, that was my whole load. Let me recover for a week and then I can go again.