Well, its the 1st of February 2010 and here in Vancouver, the Olympics are nearly upon us. This means that within a matter of days, the world will be coming to Vancouver to watch Olympic athletes live and the people of Vancouver will be watching those same Olympic athletes on a 14 inch black and white TV on a milk crate sitting in the middle of a 1400 dollar-a-month bachelor suite while eating a 6 week supply of Ramen noodles.
Ah, the thrill of sport.
A few months ago, VANOC (Vancouver Olympic Committee) got together with Vancouver city council and passed a bylaw on advertising that will go into effect for the duration of the Games. The bylaw states that within a 40-block radius in downtown Vancouver, all advertising, including those appearing on t-shirts and newspaper, will have to be approved by VANOC. For example, a t-shirt that reads “Free Tibet” would not be allowed because the it is advertising a cause not officially supported by VANOC.
Now, when this first came up, many called this bylaw unconstitutional and an act against the right to free speech. I don't, I think its great. The second the bylaw comes into effect, I'll be walking the streets wearing a t-shirt with the phrase “FRANCIS BRIAN SHAW HAS A GIANT COCK” on it.
Why would I want to do that, you may ask. Because that's something I want read back to me in a court of law. Repeatedly.
My poor lawyer will be standing there. “Your honour, my client requests that the court reporter repeat that last line again.” (whisper, whisper, whisper) “And he requests that, this time, she takes off her glasses and say it in a “sultry” voice.”
Remember when VANOC sent representatives to Beijing for the 2008 games and they came back saying they “learned a lot from the Chinese”? Yeah, this isn't what I thought they meant.
Even the official Canadian clothing manufacturer, Hudson Bay Company is buying into the stupidity. I saw a poster the other day that had a guy in a sweater with CANADA across the chest. Underneath, it said, “We were made for this.”
Now I'm no Canadian history buff, but I'm pretty sure we weren't. I doubt the British signed the British North America Act and went, “Ok, Canada, you're a country. You have 143 years starting....NOW.”
If they wanted to use that slogan, they should have asked the native peoples and put it with the advertising that warns people about potential pickpockets.
WATCH OUT FOR CANADIAN THEIVES...WE WERE MADE FOR THIS.
HBC is also having big problems with competitors, such as Roots and Lululemon, who HBC says are violating their exclusive contract with the Canadian Olympic Team by making clothing similar to the official HBC clothing.
A little tip for next time: if you don't want other companies ripping off your trademark, make it a little more complicated than the word CANADA on a red background. Maybe a funkier font; its fucking bold Tahoma with the caps-lock on.
And maybe, try making the clothing a bit more athletic-looking and a bit less like that one retarded kid whose mother sewed his name onto each piece of clothing in big block letters so “he wouldn't lose it.”
Speaking of symbols, VANOC takes the cake with their chosen symbol, the Inukshuk which is apparently what the Inuit hunters used to mark what direction they were heading. That is until the bastard Europeans came along and showed them the signpost with a fucking arrow on it, which, at the time, must have blown their minds.
Nevertheless, Vancouver Olympic Committee made an Inuit symbol their official trademark. As someone who lives in Vancouver, I just have one question:
Of all the ethnicities to exploit, why did they pick the one ethnicity Vancouver doesn't have?
They literally could have picked any other symbol from any other culture, and it would have made more sense than the inukshuk. They could have had a picture of Zeus dropkicking Thor on top of a pint of Guinness and you would've had more people nodding in agreement, going “Well, at least VANOC didn't forget about my culture.”
And if they had Zeus eating Chow Mein and Thor wielding a Kirpan, they would've pleased the majority.
Ah, screw it. I can't be grumpy. These next 6 weeks are going to be something I'm never going to forget. Yes, all bitching aside, I'll be telling my grandkids about this time in my life with a combination of pride and accomplishment.
Which reminds me, I got to go. My AMTRAK train to Portland is leaving in an hour. See you fuckers in March.
FBS
Monday, February 1, 2010
Comedy with a Message
When speaking of comedy, there's an old saying: you can't teach funny. Generally, this means that someone who doesn't have some form of natural talent associated with humor can't be taught how to truly be funny. These are things like timing, pacing, rhythm and a good storyteller or comedian will use these all at once without even thinking about them.
Moving further along the same thought, nobody can truly teach YOU how to make YOU funny. Your sense of humor and what it is you find funny is entirely unique to you. While someone else may have some good advice on a technical aspect of a joke or two, your style and the subjects you choose to tackle are decided by what makes you laugh.
Simple, right? If a thought you think makes you laugh, you can turn around and perform it, and providing you've built your stage skills properly, you will be a funny comedian.
Now, in terms of me personally, the thoughts that make me laugh the hardest are also the ones that mean something underneath the surface. To take an example from my current act, I have a joke about the Flesh Light (a male masturbatory aid, which resembles a vagina stuffed into a Pringles can). The main premise is “We've had dildos for decades, why did it take so long to invent the flesh light? It's like someone inventing the lightbulb and then no one thinking of inventing the socket.”
On the surface, it's just another joke about a stupid sex-toy. And largely, it is. Underneath though, there's a message of society using advancing technology to fill needs that didn't exist until the need was made possible by technology. Again, kind of deep for a sex-toy joke, but the message is why I continue to perform it.
I'm mentioning all this for one reason, and oddly enough, its not to highlight my flesh light joke (though it is kind of clever, eh?)
I have a substantial amount of material regarding the fact that in April 2009, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. On the surface, the material is just a pissed off kid making light of a serious event, but again, I like to write things with a message. In this case, the message is significantly more important to me than the joke, in-so-far that the material is less comedy routine and more motivational speech with jokes.
The message of the epilepsy material is four-fold:
1) Epilepsy is a serious condition
2) The people who have epilepsy are regular people, not “people I've never met”
3) Most people's perceptions of epilepsy are incorrect
4) No matter how serious a condition is, humor can be found
Currently, I perform the material very infrequently, waiting until I have at least 7-8 minutes to perform it. I've tried to shorten it down, but every time I've tried, I find I leave a bad taste in my mouth because I've missed an important part of my message.
For example, just 2 weeks ago, I did two epilepsy jokes at the end of an 8 minute set. No sooner had I said the first joke did I see a young man, obviously at a table with friends, turn to his friends and pretend to have a seizure, complete with stuck out tongue and shaking limbs. His friends howled.
I wanted to leap of the stage and beat him with the mic stand. I refrained, because, at least to me, this was my fault. I didn't give him a reasonable exploration into the reality of epilepsy, and so this kid decided to add what he thought, for comedic effect.
That incident with the kid in the crowd is also why I refuse (and will continue to refuse) to add any seizure simulation to my act. I mention seizures, of course, but I don't act them out. I've been told by numerous otherwise well-meaning people that I need to add it because “it's what the crowd wants to see.”
To me, that's crossing a line between making fun of a condition, and making fun of people with that condition. If I'm on stage, pretending to have a seizure, I'm telling the crowd that what they're seeing is just a joke. And that is why I refuse to do it. I'm not going out of my way to appease the exact knee-jerk reactions I hope to raise some awareness against.
And beyond that, if it's not funny to me, then its not in my act. I do appreciate the advice, but while you can't teach funny, you can use funny to teach something else.
Now if you excuse me, I have to go to a party. Apparently, epileptics are hot commodities for the party-throwing crowd. And really, you can see why. I make one hell of a shaken martini.
GET IT, ITS A SHAKE JOKE!
Now that I find funny.
All is well, and my brain is (not) broke.
FBS
Moving further along the same thought, nobody can truly teach YOU how to make YOU funny. Your sense of humor and what it is you find funny is entirely unique to you. While someone else may have some good advice on a technical aspect of a joke or two, your style and the subjects you choose to tackle are decided by what makes you laugh.
Simple, right? If a thought you think makes you laugh, you can turn around and perform it, and providing you've built your stage skills properly, you will be a funny comedian.
Now, in terms of me personally, the thoughts that make me laugh the hardest are also the ones that mean something underneath the surface. To take an example from my current act, I have a joke about the Flesh Light (a male masturbatory aid, which resembles a vagina stuffed into a Pringles can). The main premise is “We've had dildos for decades, why did it take so long to invent the flesh light? It's like someone inventing the lightbulb and then no one thinking of inventing the socket.”
On the surface, it's just another joke about a stupid sex-toy. And largely, it is. Underneath though, there's a message of society using advancing technology to fill needs that didn't exist until the need was made possible by technology. Again, kind of deep for a sex-toy joke, but the message is why I continue to perform it.
I'm mentioning all this for one reason, and oddly enough, its not to highlight my flesh light joke (though it is kind of clever, eh?)
I have a substantial amount of material regarding the fact that in April 2009, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. On the surface, the material is just a pissed off kid making light of a serious event, but again, I like to write things with a message. In this case, the message is significantly more important to me than the joke, in-so-far that the material is less comedy routine and more motivational speech with jokes.
The message of the epilepsy material is four-fold:
1) Epilepsy is a serious condition
2) The people who have epilepsy are regular people, not “people I've never met”
3) Most people's perceptions of epilepsy are incorrect
4) No matter how serious a condition is, humor can be found
Currently, I perform the material very infrequently, waiting until I have at least 7-8 minutes to perform it. I've tried to shorten it down, but every time I've tried, I find I leave a bad taste in my mouth because I've missed an important part of my message.
For example, just 2 weeks ago, I did two epilepsy jokes at the end of an 8 minute set. No sooner had I said the first joke did I see a young man, obviously at a table with friends, turn to his friends and pretend to have a seizure, complete with stuck out tongue and shaking limbs. His friends howled.
I wanted to leap of the stage and beat him with the mic stand. I refrained, because, at least to me, this was my fault. I didn't give him a reasonable exploration into the reality of epilepsy, and so this kid decided to add what he thought, for comedic effect.
That incident with the kid in the crowd is also why I refuse (and will continue to refuse) to add any seizure simulation to my act. I mention seizures, of course, but I don't act them out. I've been told by numerous otherwise well-meaning people that I need to add it because “it's what the crowd wants to see.”
To me, that's crossing a line between making fun of a condition, and making fun of people with that condition. If I'm on stage, pretending to have a seizure, I'm telling the crowd that what they're seeing is just a joke. And that is why I refuse to do it. I'm not going out of my way to appease the exact knee-jerk reactions I hope to raise some awareness against.
And beyond that, if it's not funny to me, then its not in my act. I do appreciate the advice, but while you can't teach funny, you can use funny to teach something else.
Now if you excuse me, I have to go to a party. Apparently, epileptics are hot commodities for the party-throwing crowd. And really, you can see why. I make one hell of a shaken martini.
GET IT, ITS A SHAKE JOKE!
Now that I find funny.
All is well, and my brain is (not) broke.
FBS
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