ayanarama

I’m really loving Jon Ronson at the moment, so I was looking for him in podcasts on itunes and I found the Robin Ince and Josie Long podcast and downloaded a few.

ARGH IT’S SO TERRIBLE AND DEPRESSING!

As a left-wing comedy fan it’s quite hard to avoid seeing Robin Ince on some bill eventually, and I’ve never been impressed. Everyone used to bang on about his Book Club so I checked it out at Latitude years ago and was completely confused. Literally just him and some guests reading out books from charity shops in a sarcastic voice. To be fair, I saw him with Michael Legge on the Fringe and it was actually alright, they were just getting angry about various things. But obv that’s Michael Legge’s forte so he was probably carrying Ince.

ANYWAY, Josie Long had been pissing me off a bit a while back, (mostly cos of a set she childishly cut short at a late night show in Edinburgh), but when I saw her talking about feminism at King’s last year it was so good and angry and inspiring and it made me love her again. It is so good to have a loud, confident, unapologetic feminist comedian to point out the ingrained sexism in the comedy scene, because I know if I ever tried to enter that world I would be completely intimidated and afraid to make my voice heard.

But on this fucking podcast she doesn’t show any of that! It’s so sad and disappointing! She barely speaks, apologises when she has something to say, and half the time when she does talk Robin Ince cuts her off or imitates her rudely. I’m sure they’re really good mates and she’s cool with it, but I don’t know if they’re even aware of how it comes across to the listener. So many times, Josie or the guest will be talking about something interesting, and Robin Ince will talk over them and change the subject to something that he’s been reminded of, something more within his area of knowledge. And to be fair, he does know a lot about old films, and science or whatever, but it’s gross how desperately insecure he is when someone else is being allowed to talk, maybe about a subject he doesn’t know about. He is not interviewing the guests, he’s not asking them questions about their lives with any interest at all, he’s the interviewer equivalent of those bellends at Q&As who make their own observations with a question mark at the end in an attempt to show off their own knowledge.

He reminds me of a drunk geeky 18 year-old at his first university party, desperately insecure and intimidated by the cool kids so shouting over them to try and hide his anxiety. He is the worst of all things about men. I would honestly rather fuck Boris Johnson than Robin Ince, (which is the scale I use for how much I dislike a man, fyi).

And it’s sad that Josie Long doesn’t call him out on it! Why is she saying ‘sorry’ every time she speaks? Makes me feel really shitty, reminds me of every meeting I was too nervous to contribute in, every blokey pissing contest conversation that I felt left out of.

we need a new Alternative Comedy to get rid of these smug fucks who *think* they’re alternative

I totally recommend the Jon Ronson episode though, his twelve year old son is on it and he’s DEAD CUTE.

I can’t imagine living in a life where I don’t have terrifying, exhausting, distressing nightmares at least twice a week

Must be frustrating having a giant dick.