KickStart Me Up
I’ve been talking up the latest Kickstarter I’ve been running and guess what? I’m going to talk it up some more.
On April 12th, the Dregs and 4 Pints Shy will be doing a show together. This in itself is a big deal because we haven’t really done one before. Not like this anyway.
We’ve performed a couple of brief shows together at the festival and they were a lot of fun so the idea surfaced to do a full-scale show together and at first that was all it was going to be – a show.
Thoughts about a Successful Failure
Sometimes you come up with an idea for a show and it seems to fit perfectly with your vision as a company. You think you have a great idea how to approach it. The audience laughs and you feel you had a success.
And in one way, you did. Most of the audience left the theatre thinking your show was hilarious. You can’t please everyone so it is foolish to try. However, it is the way in which you displease those audience members that says a lot about the success or failure of your show.
Friday’s Vilification Tennis show was, by most measures, a success. We only had one structure that didn’t work and we got a lot of laughs. Most of the people who left the theatre thought it was a very funny show and they told us so.
Not so the people who left the theatre early. Clearly we crossed a line that made them uncomfortable. Too uncomfortable to stay in the theatre.
Shit that Pissed me off this Week – 2/15
Georgia Lawmaker Wants to Make it Illegal to make Fun of People (Specifically Him) on the Internet
Whether or not making mean-spirited jokes about people is wrong, it isn’t illegal. And it shouldn’t be.
Because honestly, who’s to judge which statements are worth fining and which are not?
Right. A Judge. OK. I knew that.
Like this guy.
You know, the thing that bugs me about people who choose to engage in public service is how surprised some of them are when people make fun of them. Sometimes they deserve it. Sometimes they don’t.
In a country as ideologically divided as we are, however, it is going to happen. Constantly.
You have two choices. You can grow thicker skin or you can introduce laws designed to ensure people will make even more fun of you.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why so many people do the latter.
Alphabetical Movie – Left Behind
Left Behind requires no suspension of disbelief because it expects that you already believe. There can be no other explanation for the film. If you haven’t already been brainwashed into accepting the kooky concept of rapture, this movie is not going to convince you that it is anything but kooky.
The god of the rapture is a dick. I would enjoy having a debate with anyone who thinks otherwise and I would use this movie as an example.
Let’s look at a few examples taken right out of Left Behind, shall we?
On The differences between Satire and Bigotry
Yesterday, I posted a satirical post about the Pope. I was happy with it. I thought it was pretty silly. I was especially pleased when I called him “Benedict the Cumberbatch.” Comedy genius, I tell ya!
I knew that it might upset a few Catholics if they read it and that was totally OK. That’s what happens when you write a blog post that is critical of the Papacy – even if it is primarily written as a joke. If someone doesn’t like the joke, the intent is not relevant.
Well, a friend of mine shared the post and then a friend of hers got pretty upset about it and we had a conversation. He kept saying he didn’t want to have a conversation but he actions suggested otherwise. I guess he was obsessed with someone being wrong on the internet. I get that. I’ve been there.
No sarcasm. I’ve been this guy. Thanks, XKCD!
Rope a Pope
Looks like the eighth dwarf
Well, it happened. An event that hasn’t taken place for over five hundred years happened and it has had an immediate impact on millions of people. Most of them journalists.
Pope Benedict the somethingth (I don’t know – it’s more than ten) has abdicated his position. He’s stepping down. For almost every pope that preceded him, the papacy was a death sentence. They literally worked themselves to death. Not this pope, though. He’d like some time to enjoy his final years in a way that is just a little less infallible.
Lots of pressure goes with infallibility, I would imagine. Many popes before Benedict the VIIVXth have felt that pressure and they never had the guts to just give it up. They were probably too attached to the colorful robes that were definitely NOT GAY and the golden jewelry that was also NOT GAY and living in the one country in the world almost entirely populated by men, who are all NOT GAY.
Geeks Without God go to Church?
This week’s Geeks Without God episode is an interview with our friend Bob Alberti, who attends a Unitarian Church. And yet he’s an atheist. We talked with him about his experience as a Unitarian Universalist and why he wanted to go to a church given that he most definitely does not believe in god. We’ve actually been doing a passingly decent job of staying on topic with our guests lately. Listen in and see how we do this week.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 2/8
Catholic Girls Take a no Profanity pledge but Catholic Boys Don’t
Apparently use of profanity is “unladylike” but it is totally “manlike.”
I can actually support the idea of using more civil language in school but not because a civil tongue is a function of gender identity. I’m (obviously) not opposed to swearing but keeping foul language out of discourse in school can, I think, make it easier to learn.
In this case, though, what the young ladies are learning is that they are expected to be proper young ladies while the boys can be vulgar and nasty and, basically, act like assholes. That’s OK, you see, because they are boys.
Can the girls do this or is it also unladylike?
Well I cry bullshit (I can say that because I’m a guy). If you want civil discourse in school, you can’t exclude the boys from the conversation. When you do, you are making it very clear that the young men at that school are simultaneously better than the young women because they can say whatever they want and worse because they can’t be counted on to control themselves.
In other words, swear up a fucking storm, guys! God says it’s OK!!!!
Alphabetical Movie – Lawrence of Arabia
Some movies just need to be seen in a movie theatre.
As home video becomes more and more prevalent, it is hard to understand that movies are movies for a reason. Yes, I love watching films on my video screen at home.
But that experience is an entirely different one from watching a film projected on the big screen.
If you haven’t seen Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm, for instance, you haven’t really seen it at all.
In one remarkable shot, the camera simply focuses on the desert. The shot is held for a long time and nothing changes. Slowly, a figure becomes apparent in the distance and the shot is held as that figure grows.
Alphabetical Movie – Last Train from Gun Hill
Kirk Douglas, guys. Just look at the guy!
No, motherfuckers. I’M Spartacus!
He’s a manly man if ever there was a manly man! The dude is almost 100 and has had a stroke and he still could kick my ass. Of course, I’m pretty sure my eight year old could kick my ass.
Don’t tell him that….
Grail Diary 