Be Excellent To Each Other

I saw Russell Brand for the first time last night, on television.

I'd seen his face before, of course. On the cover of magazines, billboards, Jesus - even biographies. I was dimly aware of his status as a presenter/stand up comedian, celebrated by Heat magazine and its ilk. However, I had never actually read or heard a word uttered by the man himself, due to me not watching TV ever, and rarely listening to any station that would have him on their schedule.

So, after watching Twin Peaks with my housemate Rhys, we found a documentary about Kerouac.

"Hmm, Russell Brand. I don't know him, but he looks like the sort of person who'd annoy me," I warned.

"Yeah, he is quite irritating," said my worthy housemate. "But I'm quite into Kerouac," he added, "I wouldn't mind watching a bit of this." I bowed to his desire, as he really has a thing for beat poetry and jazz - and hey, I quite like Kerouac too.

Ten minutes later I was filled with Comical Gnomes levels of rage. I have never been so unfortunate before to have witnessed such an egotistical, witless cock. Painfully 'hip' every second of his babbling, slurring existence this complete arse-head started blathering on about his favourite writers, adding, "and somewhat unusually Alan Bennet..."

"What the fuck is so unusal about liking Alan Bennet? The man is agreeably vicious and subversive," I said. Rhys shrugged. I let this slide and continued to watch.

With this strange, nattering, nasal whine Brand started buddying up to some homeless people on an American beachfront street. He started blathering at them about Kerouac, and kept affectionately patting this intense old lady with staring eyes whose voice rose repeatedly into a fevervent address. Brand handed out copies of On The Road, and a bundle of dollar bills, got back into his car and then cried out, "Rosy! Stop being passionate all the time!" in a cheery manner.

"Hmm," thought me and Rhys. Brand may have thought he was doing good with the dollar thing, and it is his perogative, sure. But it's hardly a grand gesture giving twenty or so dollars each to a half-dozen homeless when your a TV presenter and evidently unaware of their problems. At this point, a white American male turned up and soberly and calmly informed Brand that they were crack addicts, and he shouldn't be given them money.

Whereupon Brand starts harranguing the man with this whiny speech, accusing him of being righteous and unfeeling. Ironically, those were the very words I was attributing in my head to Brand's tirade. Eventually the man walks off in bemused disgust at the incredibly shallow Brit, and Brand proceeds to spend the next ten minutes blathering on about the 'unfair, uptight, corporate white man hassling the poor' bullshit, whilst his fawning companion reels off a list of great feelings and deeds Brand does.

At this point Rhys has to turn over, as I stood up and shouting.

Damn - library closing, must sign off. But is anyone as incredibly annoyed by this person as I have managed to be in ten-to-twenty minutes of watching him?

minimisation FTFY.

I couldn't agree more, if I had a swimming pool of agreement and was drowning in it.

I'm not really a fan, but he's targeted a very specific niche and mined it for all it's worth, so fair play to him for making himself a success in a tough area. He also used to be a heroin addict, so at least he's actually turned his life around and made a success of himself.

People who watch television get what they deserve!

To the thoughts of the many from the minds of the few.

And people who constantly bang on about how they never watch television as though that fact alone makes them intellectually superior are fucking insufferable.

"You don't have a TV? What does all your furniture point at?"

That annoys me also. I haven't watched any TV for three weeks now (because I am too lazy to put it on, actually) but other times I do watch TV and I always hear people banging on about how they never watch TV in a way that tries to make them seem intellectually superior. It really bugs me.

'Ooh, read a book, you might just find you have an imagination' someone said to me once. What? You don't think I can blinkin' read? That I have no imagination? I probably had twenty times the imagination that idiot had. I really don't think imagination is something that I am particularly short of. Also I read A LOT, but there's time for everything.

Someone once said to me that I must have a lot of 'free time' to find time to knit. Huh? No more free time than what other people spend playing video games/getting drunk. "Oh how nice it must be to have time to knit!" Of all the frivilous activities in the world, knitting accomplishes far less than drinking your weight in beer, or getting a few headshots in, of course.

Read a book - you might actually find you have an imagination in there somewhere!

Also - most people that say they never watch TV LIE. My uncle says it. he's always asking 'Did you see ______"

X-Factor? No, of course I didn't. Coronation Street? No!

Well, you may not watch much TV *coughbullsh*tcough* but at least what you do watch is indeed life enriching... If only I could be like you...

Sorry. Phew.


Ahhhhhh

That felt surprisingly good.

Yay!

There is a lot of good TV. Most of it is utterly terrible though.

I think I'm going to rewatch "The thick of it"

Let's not be hasty here! you could have said, I don't know, charity work or helping starving kids or something.

Well I get mildly perturbed by how few, far-between and fleetingly available his podcasts are. Does that count?

His stand up at the Amnesty Ball was good, I'll give him that, I'll find the clip in a moment.

I think Brand is a funny man and the fact that he's nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is is a trait I find quite endearing. I just want to ruffle his hair and give him a rosy apple from my orchard, the little scamp.

The "not as clever as he thinks he is" thing went a bit far in that Kerouac programme. Cringe-worthy stuff.

Remember folks!

This



Plus



Equals




I'm amazed Depp hasn't sued for royalties.

Gagh. True. My bad.

Does it still count if I have a large stack of frivolous DVD's such as Hercules in New York and Commando?

Similary, I watch very little tv - if there was anything particulary good on, then I would, but it's not like I haven't got another 2000 things with which to spend my time which I'd prefer to do than watch the crap they put on now, which seems to have an extraordinary amount of programs that require you to phone in to vote.

Spookily I cancelled all my TV channels today as I simply don't watch them. Doesn't mean I don't watch TV, just that I do it rarely, I'd rather put a game or a DVD on.

Y'know, when I saw a YouTube link, I'd hoped it was going to be his piece about The Sun. And it was. So: yay. Brand's stand-up (which is after all, his 'day job') is by far his best output. In fact, one of his live gigs was on last Friday night on Channel Four, but it's a bit late to recommend that now.

I watch no TV in my room at all. I'd rather put on DVD or go on the internet.

Saturday nights however, I will quite happily veg out after tea and watch all that vacuous crap like Strictly Come Dancing, the Lottery show, X Factor etc.

Unfortunately I couldn't see anyting this Saturday as I was at a pub quiz hosted by Warwick Davis, off of 'being quite short' fame.

The reason I couldn't play Defcon until ten last night was that America's Next Top Model was on from nine to ten. I thought I'd hate it, but the wife watched it when I was in the room, which led to me watching it, which led to it becoming one of my favourite things on TV. Not only is Tyra Banks fucking awesome, not only are a lot of the contestants incredibly out of touch with reality, but sometimes it's just jaw-droppingly crass and tasteless. Last night's challenge was for the models to pose with homeless people and the sheer reality disfunction of the whole thing amazed me. Awesome fucking television. I mean, it's not the fucking Wire (Lord, I miss that show!), but it's fucking good TV. (When it's not concentrating on the models screaming and arguing. That's dull stuff.) And what's with Jay Manuel's coats this season? He looks like a Nazi transvestite.

(Aside: Britain's Next Tope Model is simply embarrassing. It features even less actual modelling, instead presenting itself as a no-budget Big Brother crossed with the Generation Game, or something. It's one of the worst things I've ever seen on television - and, as you may have gathered - I watch a lot of crap on TV.)

Also, I love The X-Factor boot camp shows. I don't like it when people get sent home - unless they've been cocks - but I love seeing people being told that they're through. Seeing genuine, pure happiness on TV is rare and - regardless of whether happiness at being put through to the next round of a "reality" game show is "worthy" happiness - there's no doubt that the contestants in those moments are genuinely happy and seeing that warms my cold, dark heart. (Shame the audition shows have become more and more formulaic with each passing season. They really need to start mixing things up.)

And talking of "reality" TV, has anyone seen the US version of Wife Swap? The disclaimer at the start is brilliant - roughly: "Unlike British Wife Swap, some scenes in the following programme have been created for entertainment purposes" - meaning it's even more fake than usual. And I've only seen it twice, but it was exactly the same show both times - but with a different cast and slightly different script. The set up and the broad outlines of the two families were the same in both shows. Incredible.

Did anyone see that "Hole in the Wall" show on BBC1 on Saturday?



Sweet Jesus it was bad.

I always assumed saturday night prime time tv was punishment for people that didn't go out.

Having a media centre has made TV watchable again - I queue up everything I actually want to watch, and then watch it from the recording. I haven't watched 'live' TV in years

I watched TV last night just because of this topic. I watched it via iPleyer and watched and enjoyed Mock the Week (though was a bits and Bobs show), Have I Got (old) News for You, University Challenge and Merlin.

Sky + is winnah.

Except when Mrs Z uses it.

The wife does manage to completely break everything whenever she tries to record something, indeed. I often get home to find we have seventeen recordings of the same episode of CSI.

It's a remake of a Japanese show, unsurprisingly.