So I’m over whatever man flu or bat ague I had last week. It wasn’t that bad. I’m hoping that it was a mild case of Omicron so I’m now immune to the latest machinations of nature and/or Xi Jinping.
Either it was Omicron and I might still be infectious, or it wasn’t Omicron and I’m still at risk of getting infected and spreading it to my family in this apparent ongoing massive wave of infections - either way, I’m not going to do any gigs until next year (some of the gigs I was supposed to be doing before Christmas have been cancelled anyway).
I have a few dates booked for January, but I get the feeling that we’re probably heading back into some form of partial lockdown for a while, so I’m not even going to bother publicising them yet. I’d hate to disappoint you.
Recommendations
Anti-recommendation: the new Samantha-free Sex And The City series And Just Like That… is trying really hard to stay relevant. A little too hard. Stand-up comedy as depicted in TV and films is usually terrible, but the scene with a super-woke ‘comedian’ doing a show in episode 3 is particularly terrible in my opinion. You’ve really got to see it to believe it.
I originally had a link to the scene on Vimeo here, but they took it down -
here it is on Dropbox
.
Maybe that is what stand-up is supposed to be nowadays. More of a self-aggrandising lecture. Maybe I’m the one who’s out of touch.
Louis CK has released a new special called Sorry. It’s very funny, better than his previous self-released special. It’s maybe not as good as some of his previous hours, and it costs $10 (which with tax comes out to £9) rather than the usual $5. Also it turns out he showed his dick to some ladies in conditions of dubious consent, so factor that in to your purchasing decision. The best thing he’s done since all the trouble is still the audio series Long Distance Relationship with the French lady comedian Blanche Gardin, which I strongly recommend.
Generally when TV or films depict videogames, you can tell that most of the people involved have no idea about videogames. That was the problem with Mythic Quest on Apple TV, which has a good cast but too many moments where I thought “that just doesn’t make sense”. The sitcom Dead Pixels has been around for a while but I just started watching it and ended up binging both available series. It’s funny and seems like it really nails the culture of people who are horribly addicted to MMOs (which luckily I’ve never really been into).
I’ll probably get bored over the holidays and write some longer reviews and essays so you can know about my very important thoughts. Requests welcome.
Comedians’ special secret corner
Has anybody who applied for spots on December 1st heard back from Angel Comedy RAW yet? Or heard from the Soho Theatre Comedy Lab about courses starting next year?