Friday 19 April 2019

A Singular Taste in Humour.

Why can I never find stand-up comedy funny? I can’t, you know. The only stand-up comic I ever found funny in the whole of my adult life was Billy Connolly, and he isn’t operating any more.

I used to find stand-up funny back in the days when comedians were simply expert joke tellers telling jokes expertly, but they don’t do that now. Now they strut about the stage with over-inflated egos, apparently in the misguided belief that they’re very clever observers of life-the-universe-and-everything, there to educate a collection of 3,000 sycophants in the matter of the absurder side of the subject. But I’m yet to find one clever enough to do it. Mostly they state the obvious, and then spin it out to a worthless and ever-declining degree until it becomes nothing but an almighty yawn.

I tried to watch a Scottish comic on YouTube tonight attempting to concoct a humorous diatribe on the dangers of being a tourist caught up in the maelstrom of a Scottish ceilidh. I managed two minutes as it gradually turned into an almighty yawn, and then the camera showed a shot of the audience doing the LMFAO thing. That was too much and I turned it off.

I went and fetched myself a drink and pondered the question: ‘How can anybody find this funny? Is every seat plumbed into a nitrous oxide cylinder or something?’ I wondered whether the £30 tickets are maybe dusted with some mind-altering chemical which messes with the facial muscles. It seemed unlikely, so I gave up.

And then I read an old post of mine which made me laugh. It seems I really am existing in a universe of one.

2 comments:

Madeline said...

Not even George Carlin?

JJ said...

You have me at a disadvantage again. The name is only vaguely familiar so I wouldn't know. I'm not as well travelled as you, Mad. Good to hear from you, though.