I’ve been aware of George Carlin for many years. And even occasionally watched little bits of his stand-up routines online. But I’d never really bothered to ‘check him out’. And, truth be told, that largely remains the case even now.
That said, I just watched about a half-hour’s worth of him ‘roasting’, as I think they call it these days, religion. When I say religion, really I mean – or rather George Carlin usually means – Christianity, that being the big one in his neighbourhood. And mine too, as it happens.
30 minutes, or thereabouts, is my biggest single dose of Carlin so far. And it was fun. He did allude to other religions a few times, such as when discussing the bewildering array of religious headgear, and rules surrounding it. Or the ‘every country’s army believes it has God on its side’ thing.
It’s kind of weird that we can and do live in a world that holds all this mental or psychological dissonance. Weird, and simultaneously totally predictable. One of life’s enduring paradoxes, perhaps?
On the one hand it seems very obvious to me that the irrational thinking promoted by religion, be it the ‘personal revelation’ or the ‘socially coercive’ kinds, or any other, has been – and perhaps still is? – very useful for the surviving and even thriving of both individuals and groups (often to the detriment of other individuals or groups) at times in our evolution.
And perhaps that’s why it’s so hard to shake? And that brings me to the ‘on the other hand’ aspect; it all seems so obviously foolish and ridiculous. I’m with Carlin, every step of the way, on this (and probably other things, see below).
Funny and wise. Great combo’.
Some folk I know are like, why are you so bothered about all this? Well, because I was brought up in it. Or in certain bits of it. And because it’s still such a big force in the world around me.
Anyway, God rest his sceptical Soul! I think I’ll try and watch the documentary picture at the top of this post.
In addition to enjoying time out with the family today, there’s been some stellar tennis at Wimbledon.
Alcaraz serves…
The new young lions were brilliantly represented by Sinner (20) vs. Alcaraz (19). The tall skinny orange haired Italian (looks more Dutch than Italian!), Sinner, against the swarthy and stockier Michelangelo-esque Alacaraz, was a great match.
Sinner prepares to return…
Sinner somewhat confounded expectations by beating the emergent darling Alcaraz. The latter did claw his way back a little by winning the third set tie-break. But it was a temporary reprieve. Sinner returned to dominance, and took the match.
Victory for the Italian Sinner.
This meant that Djokovic’s match was delayed. And Djokovic, widely held, especially amongst his fellow professionals, as the current GOAT, was set to play a virtual unknown, Dutchman Van Rijthoven.
Van Rijthofen‘s a cool card!
At the time I’m writing this it’s nearly 10pm, and they’re level on sets, one a piece, but Djokovic is, as McEnroe just said, totally ‘dominating this set.’ After two long sets, the Serbian is making short work of set three!
But Djokovic is like granite.
And Centre Court is 100 years old today. What a great pair of gladiatorial combats for such an anniversary!
It’s a little bit sad to say this, but perhaps the most interesting things to happen so far, in the much-hyped Trump vs. O’Sullivan ‘22 World Championship snooker final, might be the spats ‘twixt O’Sullivan and Belgian ref’ Olivier Marteel.
The match itself has been a bit one-sided. Trump being rather dominated by O’Sullivan.
What caused the latter of the incidents is not altogether clear. The first was totally cut and dried, and arose when Ronnie wasn’t happy with Martel’s replacement of the white. Marteel was in the right, as the cameras very clearly showed. But he rather politely and somewhat meekly allowed O’Sullivan to bully him.
O’Sullivan suggests Marteel try taking the shot.*
The next time – apparently in relation to a hand gesture Marteel thought Ronnie made – O’Sullivan suggested, rather ironically, that Marteel check the cameras (doing so in the first instance categorically showed Ronnie to be in the wrong!). Add to this that Ronnie is already under official investigation for a allegedly similar incident in another recent match… well, Ronnie looks bad in all this. At least to my eyes.
It’s not as if he’s a stranger to getting shirty with refs. I’ve seen him do it to Marcel Eckardt as well. When he gets like that, I think ‘you conceited prick; get on with your job, and let the referee do likewise’!
I can also recall a time when he had a go at Mark Allen, and Allen commented after the match, ‘Ronnie just tries to bully people out there and I wasn’t having any of it.’ Well, yes, that’s what it looks like to me.
Two titans of the green baize game.
Then there’s the shoulder barge thing with Ali Carter in 2018. Who’s the recurring character in all these incidents? Can you think of any other snooker player linked to so many spats? Maybe Alex Higgins? But he had the ‘excuse’ of being an old school pool-hall hustling alcoholic.
I hope Trump makes a comeback. In fact, for reasons of karma, I hope he beats O’Sullivan, as did Ali Carter in that 2018 confrontation. That didn’t look very likely at the point where I started writing this post. Nor does it based on form coming to this point, either. Ronnie’s firm favourite any way you slice it!
But Trump has fought back this afternoon, taking the first three frames. Yay! Keep it up. I feel for Marteel! Who’d want to do his job when Ronnie’s in of his moods?
* I’d suggest Ronnie should try a spell refereeing!
POSTSCRIPT
Well, Ronnie won, convincingly. And it seemed pretty inevitable. So not the most thrilling of snooker matches! It was quite nice to see how moved Ronnie was, at the end. A tearful embrace with Trump almost got a bit weird, it was so prolonged!
He’s a funny fish. No two ways about that. But, as Hendry observed, he’s taking the game to other levels, and is an artist. So an odd character seems fitting.
Today a cinema fairly local to me is showing Casablanca.
Billed as an 80th anniversary screening, it’s a one-off. I really want to go see it on the big screen. I’ve only ever seen it at home, on TV or DVD, so on a relatively tiny screen.
Truth be told, it’s Woody Allen’s wonderful 1972 Play It Again, Sam, that is, I believe, the chief reason I love Bogey and Casablanca. And, exactly like me, Allen’s movie is 50 this year! So Casablanca and Play It Again, Sam both celebrate significant anniversaries this year.
Allen’s Walter Mitty like Bogey daydream visitations are priceless.
Pity the local cinema isn’t doing the two as a double-bill. They’re missing a trick there. How I’d love to see that! I wonder if anyone anywhere is putting on such a bill? I’d be there, like a shot! (Adopts a faux-Bogey accent) So… would that be a two fingers of bourbon type shot, or a slug from a 45!?
Indeed, such is my yearning to see Casablanca on the big screen, I’m going to try and shift my Monday drum lessons around a bit and make it happen. Wish me luck!
Allen and Keaton do the ‘airport scene’.
This post isn’t the place for reviews or synopses of these great movies. That said, a few notes or observations seem fair game. For one thing, it’s fascinating how this, one of the best and most quintessentially Woody Allen-esque of all Allen’s movies wasn’t directed by Allen himself. Strange but true!
Also, it may very well be that it was Allen’s original stage play, from whence this movie derives, and of course the film itself, that have helped propagate the ‘false memory’ that the title of Woody’s works is actually a direct quote from Casablanca itself. It isn’t.
Vintage Hollywood!
Both are terrific films. I do hope I do manage to see Casablanca later today. We shall see, I guess…
The restaurant scene from Brazil superbly captures the gulf between products as advertised and as actually delivered.
This isn’t my first post on this topic. I doubt it’ll be my last. Why return to such a theme? This time it was prompted by a silly FB post by a friend about which David Bowie number, of four he specified, ‘would you rather’… etc.
Pointless silliness, perhaps? Well, yes. I.e. totally suited to and at home on FB. As, indeed, is the constant harassment of advertising. But it so happened that the most popular choice was Heroes. Admittedly an excellent song. But, for me at least, tarnished by its heavy usage in adverts.
I also recall the pride with which several drummers on a FB drummer’s forum related that they had been in that recent ad’ for a gambling sports sponsor that features hordes of drummers. I’m glad to say I can’t recall exactly which such parasitic body it was.
I’d love the exposure that might bring (well, perhaps for a few of the more ‘featured’ of the many hundreds of otherwise anonymous players). And I’m sure the nuts and bolts of actually filming it might also be fun. Did all these drummers get get paid, I wonder?
But what about taking a principled stand against the cancerous blight on our society that is gambling? Or even advertising as a whole? Or, better still, advertising as a hole… specifically, an arsehole’!
Talkin’ ass: the allure of the ad’ (Renault Megane).The anti-climax super-unsexy reality!
That’s r-r-r-r-right f-f-f-f-folks, I’m talkin’ ass! Now I felt this way long before I saw Bill Hicks do his anti-advertising schtick. Indeed, a loathing for advertising – and a contempt for gambling – was something I learned at home, mostly (I believe?) from my father.
But in order to keep things relatively short and ‘sweet’ here and now, let’s wrap this up with a short consideration of ‘the asshole in contemporary culture’ (sounds like a topic on a college degree syllabus!).
It turns out that some of the ugliest ideas of the worst types of racists and those dearest to many a ruling elite converge, for differing reasons, around a certain nexus of ideas. As mentioned above, I don’t intend to go into great detail on the subject(s) here. Perhaps another time?
What I will say is that there’s a culture of brashly aggressive ugliness, massively on the increase, from the politics of Trump, to the shouted egotism in rap, or the gurgling screams of extreme metal. It’s also manifest in the strident upbeat chirpiness, and even – I contend – the zombie-smiling lockstep of Nuremberg-rally style formation dancing.
The massive and very visible rise of the latter, especially obvious in advertising, had me baffled for a little while? Why the sudden effusion of such stuff? And then it struck me; we now have loads of educational institutions, pumping out hordes of glassy eyed dreamers, who have become production line product, trained in dance and/or drama.
And what’s the glorious acme of their profession most might earn a buck or two from? Depressingly, it’s advertising. I suppose some might get Butlin’s style gigs. Some might go on to teach more aspiring dreamers. But, as with Fine Arts and Music, most will have to eke out a living by other means.
Dammit! I’m still skirting around my chief focus… the omnipresent asshole! So, let’s get to it, let’s really get stuck into the fundament/als! Thar’ she blows…
Basically it boils down to this; would you be happy inviting the kind of hectoring, patronising, wheedling, insinuating assholes that one hears in advertising in off the street to harangue you in your home? ‘Cause that’s what we’re all doing, when we tolerate advertising.
Again, rather depressingly, that’s what a great deal of what I’m increasingly thinking of as contemporary serf-culture trains us to do. If you like a lot of modern pop music, which includes supposedly ‘underground’ or counterculture (but in reality totally commercially co-opted) genres like rap or metal, you’re already being inoculated in the required ‘herd immunity’ to such internalised or even self-inflicted bullying.
Anyway, enough ranting, or sounding off, or whatever it may be. For now! my thoughts on all this are fairly clear, if not, perhaps, terribly well formed. But they may change, with time, and further consideration or information. For the time being, however, I remain resolute in my disavowal of the pollution that is most TV advertising.
Another night of insomnia, with yet more snooker as my medicine. This 1996 match finds Hendry looking young, fresh, handsome, even. O’Sullivan looks a bit dorky, with his altar-boy pudding bowl hair. But I prefer this look to the later match I watched next.
This shot sums up the match, for me.
The pic above captures the balance of power in this match. It was a bit one-sided. Hendry pulled rapidly and decisively ahead, after the fourth set (two all at that point). A few flashes of Ronaldo brilliance were not enough to claw his way back, from 8-3 behind. Hendry dominated this best of 19 match.
2002, Ronnie’s hair stylist is still in the ‘90s.
After this four or so hour March, I tried to sleep. No dice! Sooo… another long ‘un. This time, still going with the fag-peddlers as sponsors, but now Embassy, as opposed to B&H! This one is the best of 33 frames, and in excess of six hours!
Does this pic indicate a re-run of Hendry style cold hard domination?
At the time of posting, as with the first of the two matches mentioned in this post, it’s two frames all. A long way to go. Will Hendry dominate again. The pic above came up when I googled the match, possibly suggesting an outcome with a whiff of deja-vu?
Or will I be mercifully enfolded in the arms of sleep? I do hope so…
Wow! Now that’s what I call a snooker match. Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Selby, two of my favourite players, slugging it out in a best of 19 final.
I’m not going to précis the entire match. Just watch it. What I will saying, in summary of the events, is that it’s what what could happily call a ‘come back special’.
I’ve always enjoyed snooker. Probably partially because I’ve watched it since my childhood; my father is or was a fan of the game.
Perhaps surprisingly, David Attenborough is also a part of the story. It was Attenborough, when running BBC2, who chose this working men’s sport as a part of showcasing the introduction of colour TV to the United Kingdom.
Attenborough, when running BBC2.
We may come back to the issue of class at some later point. Billiards has been portrayed as a posh man’s game. Pool is a brasher more American blue-collar pursuit. And snooker sits, perhaps, somewhere in the middle.
But here are some of the things I like (and dislike) about this game.
First, the table. I love the green baize (what if any difference is there between baize and felt, I wonder?). It’s like a mini battlefield. And as a wargamer I like that! It’s the terrain in which the combatants engage in a warfare that’s both physical and intellectual.
Then, the balls. I love those bright, hard, shiny orbs! And the choice of red, against green, for the little army of low value ‘grunts’ is perfect. The higher value colours could be various brass or ADCs (Aide-de-Camps), dotted around the battlefield, running errands for the commanders.
The beautiful baize battlefield of the snooker table.
Then there are the players and their magic wands, the cues. Snooker players are a funny bunch. Mostly they seem to be drawn from working class or what we class-conscious Brits might call lower middle class, or upper working class. The latter might be best exemplified by someone like Ronnie O’Sullivan; resolutely working class in terms of culture, but from an affluent (if shady) background.
Do such considerations apply to foreign players? One wonders about the Chinese and Thai players. I really don’t know!
Having mentioned the whole ‘working men’s culture’ thread, that brings in some other things. Mostly these relate to what I don’t like about the sport. These also concern the ‘showbiz’ and fiscal aspects of the game (not unique to snooker). So, whilst I don’t mind the silly nicknames, I’m not so keen on the player’s theme tunes. A recent trend I could happily do without. And the ubiquitous advertising, gambling being the most pervasive, pernicious and, frankly, repulsive.
Snooker players and umpires also have – in all the snooker I’ve ever seen, UK or elsewhere – dress codes, which are a mixed bag. That any people in sport should act as advertising hoardings I strongly disapprove of. But the tradition of dressing smartly? That’s alright. Rather like cricket whites it’s a tradition I find cosy and comforting, rather than oppressive.
Alex Higgins looking sharper than a razor blade!
There’s obviously the game itself, with its combination of bravura and strategy. I love flashy aggressive players, from ‘Hurricane’ Higgins and ‘Rocket’ Ronnie, to newer guys, like Trump. But then again, I also love the more measured tempi of guys like Neil Robertson and Mark Selby. There are a good number of what I deem to be duller players. In the gentlemanly spirit of the sport itself, I’ll refrain from naming anyone. They may be highly skilled. But I don’t enjoy watching them ‘at work’.
But the chief attraction of snooker, as with many sports (or indeed any human activities), is to do with something I just mentioned, skill. Watching the more flamboyant players when they’re ‘in the zone’ is a kind of Zen poetry.
And with this introduction, via my reference to Zen, there’s the calmness of the game. Crowds occasionally get a little rowdy, at certain junctures. But by and large they watch in rapt silence, as the gladiators fight hard, but silently. If one excludes the TV commentators (quite often on YouTube the commentary is missing), the clack of the balls, the numeric narrative of the umpire’s interjections, and the occasional burst of applause, are all that breaks the almost monastic silence.
In the end it’s the mix of skill, drama, aesthetics (of the game in particular) and pace/peace, that I love the most. It’s a game I can focus intently, or just bathe in its ambience. It can command attention, and it can soothe and relax.
‘Whispering’ Ted Lowe.
Whilst mentioning such qualities, and having consciously excluded them above, I feel it’d be churlish not to mention some of the commentators. Perhaps my favourite might be ‘whispering’ Ted Lowe (Clive Everton may be his heir?), whose soft-spoken delivery really is very charming. Especially in an era when the tawdry brashness of so much of our culture – the intrusions of adverts really throws this into stark relief – is pitched at such a glaring blaring level. As alludes to via Everton, Lowe has some noteworthy heirs, although the professional pundits of old are increasingly being replaced by former (and even sometimes current) players.
As I type this I’m watching a Trump vs Robertson match from 2020. And it’s great. Trump has the flash speed and power, and Robertson the cool, smooth methodical game. And – this might sound superficial; I’m a tad embarrassed confessing to it – they’re both trim and relatively (for the snooker world, perhaps not the acme of fashion) stylish.
Two trim stylish gents.
Certainly snooker is not as bad as darts, in which you can picture many of the players as drunk, racist, aggressive bigots. The kind of folk who might keep the worst of rough pubs in business. Sure, snooker has its cadre of tattooed skinhead porkers, evoking a culture I find total anathema. Along with the role of gambling in supporting the sport, this is an aspect of snooker I have real issues with. And I won’t pretend some of these relate to ‘issues’ I have with what is often popularly called ‘chav’ culture, but I prefer to call contemporary serfdom.
Scots dart player and former tyre-fitter Peter ‘Snakebite’ Wright.*
* Peter may be a very nice chap. I really don’t know! But his theme music is by a band called Pitbull. And he looks like a proper cnut.
But let’s leave such thoughts there! And instead, reflect on the the simple but satisfying aesthetics and mechanics of the game itself, the prodigious and entertaining skills of its best protagonists, and the range of responses it can provoke from excited awe to soothing and relaxed admiration.
For me snooker – not all snooker, mind; but snooker at its best – is a wonderful and almost therapeutic spectator sport.
8/1/‘22
3 am: when insomnia bites… snooker soothes!
Since first posting this I find I am in company with a certain Mr Osman. The only game show I like enough to watch regularly is his House of Games. He’s not ashamed of being suavely polite and clever. And he’s also an author. Apparently he chose the BBC Snooker theme when he appeared on Desert Island Dicks, on the most recent Boxing Day,
I don’t know why, but there are just three episodes of this terrific TV programme on Prime at present. And I watched them in reverse order: guitar, telephone, lawn mower.
Utterly wonderful!
About to start the guitar…… nearly finished.The final piece… the pick!*
* Not really part of the guitar. I mean, I play guitar quite a lot. And I never use a plectrum.
The old Bakelite telephone is a thing of beauty. It looks great. And the ringing bells? It sounds great as well. We simply must have one!
Paddington 233?
I’m not really one for GIFs, they’re dumber than Trump, by and large. But I did like the bit in the guitar episode when May discussed and demo’d’ ‘air engineering’ (as opposed to air guitar). And when I googled for pics of the show as a whole, the GIF below did make me smile. What am I becoming?
The lawn-mower man…… assembles the engine.
I adored these programmes. Why are there only the three episodes (currently available on Amazon Prime), I wonder? I seem to recall seeing others when they came out on BBC4, a ways back. I want to see the other episodes!
Having recently read Michael Palin’s excellent Erebus, I thought I’d revisit the Top Gear Polar Special.
Watching the lovable trio of – Jezza, James and Richard – flippant but funny morons, gradually realising how hardcore their undertaking, or rather their environment, is, is very entertaining.
And it makes excellent TV.
A snapshot of Clarkson and May’s transport on our TV screen.Got myself a plastic Jesus…
The arctic is, as you expect, breathtaking, sublime, awe-inspiring. It’s great to be able to watch such things from the comfort of the sofa in your warm home. And as oafish as the Top Gear trio are, they’re also brave (foolhardy!?).
Hammond goes via dog-sled, with a lady musher (whose name escapes me), whilst Jeremy and Cap’n Slow go in a modified Toyota four-wheel drive.
Hammond and co.Hammond with one of his crew.
They encounter Polar Bears, a plane-wreck, and play ‘eye-spy’ (under limited conditions!), get exhausted, scared, and traverse some frighteningly beautiful landscapes. Great TV!
