Laid bare

Awfully clever of me to shave my beard off one week before the coldest day of the year, don't you think?

The reactions have been fun, ranging from "He doesn't look any different to me" to double and triple takes. But the most satisfying reactions are from monshu. All this week, he's been cracking up every time I pull a face. I don't know how much is the increased expressiveness of a beard-free mug and how much is still the shock of the new. (I tried to get him to shave down for the party as well, but he wasn't having it. Too bad, because the shock would've been incredible. I've done this a couple times before, but even I've never seen the Old Man's bare chin except in yellowed family photos.)

Several people have told me I look "younger", despite my protests about exposing my double chin. Too the extant I agree with them, it's not in a good way: when I look in the mirror, I see the dorky face I had in junior high. Fortunately, unlike bunj, I don't have to worry about seeing my father's face emerge from under the whiskers--not unless I trim my nose as well. And unlike poor e., monshu is well protected from any stubble effects. I'm the only one who has to fear beard burn right now.

Stewart Lee, comedy ninja

Pretty much everything I know about the current comedy scene in Ireland in the UK is thanks to YouTube. Only the biggest acts stand a chance of coming here at all and I couldn't be arsed to go out and catch them live even if they did. For a while I watch Jack Dee Live at the Apollo Friday nights on BBCAmerica, but that was well prior to the adoption of their current "All Shite All The Time" format.

As a consequence, I'm just as likely to discover an act that's been around since dirt as I am one that's fresh as mayhem. And very rarely there's a conjunction by which I discover both at once. I've been a big fan of Stewart Lee for years now. The first time I saw Eddie Izzard, I was blown away by his ability to spin wacky comedy from European political history. But that can't compare to Lee explaining to a roomful of Glaswegians that William Wallace was "a Scottish paedophile--the worst kind of paedophile" and taking the audience with him. He's one of those performers whose make it his life's work to constantly redefine the very medium of their performance, guaranteeing that even their failures are interesting.

So it's no surprise that he has very strong feelings about comedy, feelings he expressed forcefully last July when Foster's, having just taken over sponsorship of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, announced an online vote for the public's favourite from the previous thirty years of winners. Among his many reasons why the whole thing was "a load of shit basically", he stressed the fact that "no-one can possibly have seen all the nominated shows...so the vote is immediately unfair and skewed towards the most well-documented and famous names, especially from the last few years." To make his point, he randomly chose one of these forgotten acts--an expat Japanese performance art troupe called Frank Chickens--"who for all anyone under 30 knows may be the best act on the list".

A couple of his comedian friends seized on this bit and started a viral campaign. And Britons being Britons embraced it. Foster's was embarrassed into burying the campaign as Frank Chickens became the clear winner and emerged from obscurity to charm the hearts of a new generation--including me. It's a heartwarming tale of corporate cynicism defeated by grassroots agitation, and my only regret is that I wasn't able to watch it unfold in real time.