The Null Device

This evening, I went to see Otis Lee Crenshaw (aka Rich Hall's white-trash country singer persona). I saw him a few years ago, and enjoyed his show then; this one was just as good. This time he was supported musically by two members of some outfit called The Gadflys, including Phil "The Great Muldavio" Moriarty who's also in the Black Sea Gentlemen. Anyway, the routine was quite amusing, with Crenshaw performing a number of songs, improvising with the audience (this show's version of Big Joe was about a printing worker named Winston) and cantankerously ranting about his romantic life, Texas and the poor state of country music today:

What the fuck is wrong with country music? Jesus Christ, the biggest selling song is Toby Keith... You look at one of them fuckers like Garth Brooks with his 14-acre field of felt around his head... he's about as country as a fuckin' bag of wet mice. This man with his bullshit country metaphors, he's 4 foot 3 with friends in low places, yes I believe you do you fucking midget, you're in a low place you prick. "The road is like a woman sometimes..."; what the fuck is that? Who needs to hear that, what is he saying? She's been laid over six or seven counties?... Shania Twain, "that don't impress me much". First of all you're Canadian. Anything would impress you and you know it... Look at Patsy Cline, now that was true country music. Every song she sang was about psychotic breakdowns.

¶ comedy country music otis lee crenshaw rich hall 2

While opinion of American politicians has never been lower in Britain, American comedians are doing very well; well, the more liberal ones like Rich "Otis Lee Crenshaw" Hall (whose act includes a song titled "Let's Get Together And Kill George Bush", whose irony would be lost on the typical middle-American audience).

Conversely, some jokes are now acceptable in America that would never be permissible in a mainstream British comedy club. "Why are there no Muslims on Star Trek?" Hall heard one American comic ask. "Because it's set in the future." "It's a very heavy joke, laced with blanket hatred. I disagree with that, but you can do that. You can get away with that in America, because the basic mindset of most Americans is that we're at war with the Muslims, and that really bothers me."

I seem to recall that there weren't many Christian Fundamentalists on Star Trek either (which would make its secular, vaguely multilateralist future, profoundly un-American, if some polls are to be believed). Though I recall that there were religious Jews on Babylon 5.

Meanwhile, British hip-hop comic Ali G has fallen flat on his face in America, partly due to an inopportune joke about 9/11; and partly because the idea of a white gangsta news anchor isn't that much weirder than some of the things sincerely on US cable TV.

Anyway, apparently Rich Hall is doing some gigs at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. I saw him a few years ago, and can say that he's well worth seeing.

¶ 9/11 ali g comedy culture rich hall star trek usa 8