Darn It to Hecklers!

[vovat]

After work yesterday, I took my car to get the oil changed and the air filter replaced, which I probably should have done a while ago. Actually, I'm not entirely sure when I'm supposed to get my oil changed with this car. There's apparently supposed to be a maintenance light that comes on, but I've never seen it, and I've driven it quite a bit. Honestly, I'm not sure how I manage to rack up so many miles on my car. I mean, with my old car, I was sometimes commuting back and forth between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but I no longer do that. Anyway, I should probably just stick to getting the oil changed every 3000 miles, whether it needs it or not. The thing is, I probably wouldn't have gotten the oil changed then if I'd remembered that bethje and I were going to a comedy show that night. Oh, well. It ended up working out all right, and now I don't have to drive out there this week.

The show was billed as Eugene Mirman and Pretty Good Friends, and consisted of Eugene, Tom Allen, Kumail Nanjiani, and Reggie Watts. We'd actually seen Reggie before, as he was the opener for Conan O'Brien's tour last summer. Good show, but terrible crowd. I'm not sure I've been to a show that had more hecklers than this one. What the hell, people? I'm sure most of the people there were decent and well-behaved, but there were some bad apples that really spoiled the bunch. They managed to make it work despite the constant interruptions, though, and Beth got Eugene to sign her copy of The Will to Whatevs after the show. It seemed pretty impersonal, though, because Eugene was sitting on a chair onstage while signing stuff. It felt like going to petition the king on his throne. I'm not sure I blame him, though, because with a hostile crowd like that, you probably don't want to get too close to them. Besides, I've never felt that celebrities were required to interact with their audiences after the show. I'm not famous, but I am nervous, and can understand how difficult it is to have to strike up conversations with a bunch of strangers. Also, I didn't think to bring my camera, so I don't have any pictures of the show. I'm sure you're disappointed. :P

Last night's Simpsons episode had a creative premise, but I don't think the story really had much conflict. Even the businessman character, usually a voice for unscrupulous greed on this show, was a decent enough guy in this episode. And the side effect with the eyeballs popping out came across as too ridiculous and gross even for this show. Sure, we've seen gags like that before, especially with Mr. Burns, but they were typically isolated, not made central to the episode like the eye thing. The jokes varied in quality. I thought the child-proof cap door on the pharmaceutical headquarters was a good bit of absurd humor, but a lot of the animal stuff in the desert had more or less been done before. Not a terrible episode, but perhaps a little too bizarre for its own good. As for Family Guy, I found it pretty rehashed. Does every episode featuring Meg have to be about her becoming disturbingly obsessive? And while I liked the meta-reference about Stewie not being as evil anymore, the clone plot was clichéd enough that even the characters themselves acknowledged it.

Right now (okay, not quite RIGHT now, since what I'm doing at the moment is typing this post), I'm working on my annotated bibliography for one of my classes. I think I've found a good selection of articles, but my concern is that I don't have as much of an overarching theme as the professor would like. I mean, I HAVE a theme, but it's a little haphazard. We'll see what happens, I guess. It's due tomorrow, so I can't afford to be too picky.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

Man, who goes to a comedy show to heckle? That's dumb. Was it at a club, or a theater? Like, if it's a club, I guess the dumbasses might have just gone there to drink, but still. There're better places to drink. Like at HOME.

I was kinda eh on the eyeball part of the plot. It was kinda... weird, too, the way Lisa was being such a killjoy -- I mean, honestly, I think she was in the wrong, at least when it was assumed that the eyes wouldn't pop out, because, um, come on? That and no one seemed to mind the eyes popping out anyway? Also, the ending was lame -- not only did it seem a little dated by now (not their fault necessarily since it's like fifty years to make an episode), but it seemed to place more of the blame for the financial crisis on the Homers of the world than the banks who ACCEPTED the loans, y'know? After all -- there've been eps where Homer's been denied a loan. (Like, OK: Yeah, I suppose Homer should get some of the blame, but getting a loan isn't a one-person thing. Someone's gotta give Homer the cash, and they should realize he's a Bad Risk (tm).)

I like Bob's Burgers quite a bit, too. Have you been watching that one?

And, I dunno -- I think with the shortened episodes (yay for deregulation...) -- there should be a philosophy/rule/etc. that they should drop the B plots. The A-plot of Family Guy was pretty good (I really like Crazy Meg, even if this was a little bit of a rehash of the Brian/Fatal Attraction episode), but the B-plot with Evil Stewie was a bit lame and yeah. Maybe it could have worked if they had more time, but as it was, it was basically "oh, here's a real quick set-up! Oh, shit, episode's about over, uh, OK EVIL STEWIE'S DEAD DONE."

[vovat.livejournal.com]

The show was at the North Star Bar, but it's not like there wasn't an admission charge or anything. I guess it's possible that the hecklers came to see one of the comedians and didn't like the others (they all had pretty different styles), but it's still rude.

The eyes popping out seemed to be really easy to fix. And yeah, FG would probably do better with sticking to a single plot. I have been watching Bob's Burgers, but I don't usually have anything particular to say about the individual episodes. I do like it, though.

[bethje.livejournal.com]

You didn't even mention that I have a crush on Eugene.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I didn't know if you wanted that made public.

[bethje.livejournal.com]

Let everyone know!