Yardstick Productions

Always nice to be mentioned in a review anyway, but here I even get nice words said about me (not sure how much i can take as a quote but still):

'Bob Graham and David Boyce... gave respectable accounts of themselves before making way for Richard Hanrahan, the evening's first highlight. Despite a sluggish start, Hanrahan's assured deliver served to steady the ship on the rare occasion where his bright material threatened to dive into the proverbial rabbit hole.'

So there you have it pleasant enough - I'm not sure if the proverbial rabbit hole is in danger of being too weird or too rude, but thankfully I only threatened to go into said warren so taht is a relief.

There are mentions too of Ben Verth as 'the evening's star' which is thoroughly deserved for a man who I think struggles to get critical acclaim as the brilliant comic he undoubtedly is. Phil O'Shea comes off well too as he takes off from 'Hanrahan's giddier moments' (I'm kinda glad someone finally felt giddy from my onstage presence), 'channeling something between a foppish Don Quixote and a Michael Gondrey film'.

If you are interested you can see the rest of the review by Ray Philp in todays Edinburgh Evening News Wed (July 28th 2010  - I'm sure it'll be online at some point)

 

So this was the big week of the big world tour - and its been cracking. Spent the last week in Coventry and have sampled pretty much everything it has to offer - a museum about cars, a museum about art and a big statue of Lady Godiver (she is well fit). Far more important for me (and for this blog) were the gigs. Two of which we had to bail on because of car troubles, which is a shame. But I have succesfully performed three gigs in a week, with one more completing the set this sunday in the Manchester Comedy Store. First Gig. A lovely little function room of the sort of pub that greets you with creepy eyes when you enter. And I took to the stage, bit nervous and out of practice. And I bombed. Turns out you cant get away with my usual student garb at every gig. I ain't no gods gift to comedy. But I turned it - and I won em over, improvising stuff, including a new line which is staying in. Gig was lovely room, bit rowdy, but I jus twasn't ready. Next gig, was a new material night in Lemington Spa, "Wreckless", which was not best attended - making the room very odd. Thought I completley ballsed up the gig, no one went down especially well - which was a relief for me. That said, Carl Hutchinson headlined and was brilliant, especially given the odd room. Was lovely to meet a whole bunch of acts. Tuesday and Wednesday. Car Broke. Wolves pulled the gig their end. Two sad days. Along comes Rugby, with all its glitz and glamour - a charity night in a pub to raise money for air ambulances. The audience weren't up for comedy. So I sung them the opening song to the Lion King. Three times. We laughed. Some of them laughed. I ran away as quickly as possible.

The original images are taken from Jeff Gillette hope he doesn't mind me borrowing them for the front page of my dissertation... its not-for-profit, so I've taken some liberty in suggesting my own creative commons slant on his work... do check the entire "Dismayland" series out.

The last time we spoke, well I spoke, dissertation wise, I was beginning to suggest a problem with Debord, and Baudrillard, and all those fellas. It is basically, a simple problem of nihilism - how the hell are we supposed to argue a position which can in itself be subsumed into the hellish, nothingness of everything - for surely even this criticism is part of that world. True.

To look at Debord's answer we must look at what the SI did, and how they did these things. Taking off from where Baudrillard stops, we need to look at more detail as to how Debord works linguistically; his is a world of confunding, collisions of language, and unknowable details - partly because he is uber-paranoid, and partly because he is having a laugh - but takes having a laugh ever so seriously. So looking specifically at where Wall-E and the SI intertwine, we return once more to this concept of "Psychogeography", and specifically to how the SI documented it, in maps such as that featured here (sorry to which ever site I knicked it off, you can have it back in a bit.):

Basically, what the guys of the SI would do, is a process called "drifting", the derive, and let themselves be taken this way and that by the 'psychogeography' of the city - those elements which seek to control you unconsciously - and then would build maps like this about their route - this way would lead to this and so on. Of course, this is a collage - it is a reconstruction of readymade elements, in this case old maps of the city, and represents the fragmentation of the city space. sure. But this is important, as it suggests they worked not only through negation but construction - never fully creating, never completely destroying, but reorganising into a new 'social mileu' .

This map of 'The Naked City' (not actually this one but one virtually the same) would be considered part of their campaign of detournement, which sought to break up the city's nullifying effects - the urban environment which enchanted you and sated you into a drift like world:

'the spectacle is the bad dream of a modern city in chains and ultimiately expresses nothing more thant its wish for sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of that sleep' Debord '21' in The Society of the Spectacle (1970)

This process, this drifting, to which Debord claims the world has succumbed, is the exact process by which the nightmare is exposed. Like the map, the 'derive', whereby people would go for days sometimes months, purposefully drifting, sought to elaborate and ridicule the already present environment and inhabitant behaviours. This as Detournement, the very act for which the SI exist,  exists in an uncomfortable position, is very much aware of how precariously it is balanced between critique and simply gesture... does this relate to Wall-E at all? Next time, a look at Utopias, Baudrillard and Disneyland...

 

It's a website right, called "Piece Of Mind" or something, and on this website, all music, film and digital media are available to download for free (having been given to it by the artists involved). Hypothetical

(bare with me). As you download stuff, you get given not good karma points. However, associated with all these files, are things you can buy in the real world, again literally everything - tickets to shows, merchandise, etc. For every pound or dollar you spend, you get good karma points, and the value of these is ten times that of unhappy points, and you also get a load of virtual merchandise - so if you buy a t shirt, you get a virtual t shirt for your virtual wardrobe. These are tied up with the associated artist or band, so that their relationship with you improves with the more you do stuff with them, and they have rankings, and for the best fans, there are competitions to win and so forth. Similarly you get good points for sharing things, suggesting, commenting reviewing, and this improves your rating. The website itself improves as you use it - starting of blank, and the more you do, trade, share, the more the website "levels up" until it becomes a badge of honour like Call Of Duty. I got the idea from this amazing video - If you've not seen TED talks you really should, they are inspiring.