Norm Macdonald.

There's a Ray Romano Netflix special that appears to have just gone live.

Now I fucking hate Everyone loves Raymond. Mostly cos it's shit.

But this is ok. He's gonna pop in unannounced to a couple of small clubs in NYC where he started off and do a couple of come back sets...

He seems like a nice enough guy.. it's slightly undone by him mentioning it's a netflix special several times but the people in the crowd generally seem amazed and that's nice for them I guess.

It's nothing revolutionary but it got a couple of proper laughs from me. So there's that.

Don't know who the stand up doing the interview is but Stewart Lee is always interesting and good value if you have a spare hour and a half.

Yeah Jamali is good stuff. Is this interview the podcast one they had, that was good fun. I always got annoyed about brown comedians calling out racism, seemed cheap and I didn't want to get pigeon holed as a 'victim' but Jamali is one of those that changed my mind on that. Not Nish Kumar, he's just a numpty

Just been reading this quite depressing piece from The Guardian about young comedians’ takes on Bill Hicks. Nothing they’re saying is wrong, but as a whole it leaves me feeling like the world is a much drearier place than it was. 

It’s a strong reminder of how public figures nowadays have unrealistic demands placed on their integrity – any flaws somehow nullifying the good points of their work. 

I mean – Hicks was an asshole, but also a genius and a rabble-rouser. Picasso was a misogynist but also arguably the greatest painter of all time. Michael Jackson was almost certainly a peado but he was also one of the greatest songwriters of his century. Cobain was a fucking junkie but he also wrote Smells Like Teen Spirit. People are flawed, sometimes horribly flawed, but it does not negate their work or their worth completely. And I think that by struggling to stay on the right side of black and white morality at all times, comedians (and any form of artists) risk losing their teeth and claws. I think they risk neutering themselves.

Yeah, totally with you there. 

However (and I am absolutely aware that I’m on thin ice here and treading dangerously close to UKIP/Brexit/arsehole territory) I do worry sometimes about the arts losing their bloodlust. In order to be kind, do we have to blunt our claws? I don’t know. It shouldn’t be an either/or choice. In truth, I reckon we’re probably going through a down slope on the graph that’ll go too far towards ‘safety’ before bouncing back up and settling somewhere near the middle. A bit like someone going teetotal for a while before realising they can have a drink now and again without being a raging alcoholic.

True, but they’re hardly the youth. And both have massively toned down their past extremes in exchange for longer-lasting careers (which has always happened in comedy, no big deal there).

I like Gorman a lot. You should have fun.

Political correctness and comedy go together like porn and itv.

Ah, there's always an exception. But a whole string of Stewart Lees would get tiring. One gets tiring as it is.

Sure, but there's nothing wrong with being non pc. And there's nothing wrong with calling them out over it either.

I just think comedy will be a sad place if more people get dragged into the not offending anyone route.

Kow wrote:

I just think comedy will be a sad place if more people get dragged into the not offending anyone route.

I disagree that being PC equals not offending anyone. It means being more careful with your vitriol, aiming it more carefully, but offence is still on the menu. Just look at Stewart Lee on Richard Hammond.

Hating on Richard Hammond is hardly filed under politically correct anyway.

There are always taboo topics in society, what exactly those taboos are will shift from generation to generation. You could probably take the exact conversation we’re having now and pretty much see a word for word analogue in people in the 70s and 80s complaining about not being able to say ‘darkie’ any more.