So, being the angsty gawth what I am, I needed to go and see something to cheer me up lest I put a loaded .38 in my mouth, pull the trigger, spraying my brains out all over the wall, and then leaving a little cardattached to the wall with the following text:

Title: Don’t mind, doesn’t matter
Medium: Human ejecta on brick veneer
Price: $3,800 Gst inc.

And as I’m clearly writing this post, I obviously went to see a show.

The problem I have with the Comedy Festival is you don’t know what to see. There’s a lot on, and if you don’t like the style of humour (i.e. Chopper’s Bingo) it’s going to be crap and bore you to the point where you contemplate how you could market your own suicide as a piece of installation art (i.e. Chopper’s Bingo).

So I decided to go see a show that a friend of mine actually happened to be in. Massage My Medium with Marc Fennel (from JJJ) and Dan Ilic (from 10). I figured if it was good, I’d laud them and heap praises… you know, sucking dick basically. And if it was shit, I’d give them so much hell, they’d break down and cry like Emo bitches… Just like being at a club, basically.

A good thing for them that the show was fucking brilliant. And I mean that from both a comedy perspective, and an intellectual perspective. Massage My Medium is a witty romp through TV in Australia, and how as a medium it’s going to die, thanks to the internet, and that “Freeview” is about a decade too late to actually stem the tide of people downloading better content in their own time.

There’s some hilarious stuff in there that shows how pretty much everything on Channel 9 is stolen from US networks, how TEN attempts to use subliminals, how 7 has no idea what it’s doing, and lamentations about SBS’ decline. Contrary-wise, there is some educational content on the new televisual medium of choice for our generation (and Gen-Y, those lazy emo bastards) is basically on demand, on topic, and online.

The show is not without faults though. It certainly needs more polish, particularly in the rehearsal department. Dan & Marc know what’s going on, what to do next, etc., but they keep referring to their scripts / notes. They’re both confident and witty guys, so the notes in hand really makes them look like they don’t know what they’re about to say next. Unfortunate, because from the way the show went, I think they knew… Security blanket, I guess.

Perhaps for me, the most confronting thing about the show, wasn’t the content as I’m already well aware of online entertainment and marketing trends (although I was not previously aware how much money a viral meme can make someone if their Tshirts hit a major retail chain). It was that Dan has a very striking resemblance to Jon Lovitz. I found this resemblance remarkably creepy as I’d recently been re-watching The Critic on YouTube (it stinks!)… And here he was, criticising TV. I just kept thinking he could be the live action Jay Sherman.

If you like to laugh at things that aren’t entirely one liners, and rest at the polar opposite of the intellectual scale from Dave Hughes, give this one a go. It’s 8:15 each night until Sunday this week at 95 Flinders Lane.

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1 Comment »

1. [...] though, this was getting me nothing but hunger. Hunger for comedy, lest I blow my brains out. So off I went, seeking such from other [...]

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