During
what the world of podiatry would later come to know as my
formative years, I had a lot of trouble sleeping. I would spend
many nights, and a few days, lying awake on sofas and beds,
trying hard to fall asleep, before giving up and watching TV. My
audio-visual cravings were moulded and fired during these cold,
tiring months. Late night BBC1 and ITV brought me a love of 80s
crappy teen comedies and films with Rodney Dangerfield; BBC2 and
Channel 4 turned me on to forin films (pseudo-intelligent,
wankyposey, softcore porn staring Juliette Binoche, or directed
by a little Spaniard with a penchant for cloth inserted into
anuses). As of late this inability to sleep has been tickling my
prostate again; I'm a little older, a little wiser, I no longer
need TV to keep me company all night: I can lay awake thinking.
Yesterday, however, I was called by radiation to work on my tan;
it said to me, it said, it said "Hi, my name's radiation.
Come here and work on your tan." I wasn't going to, but then
it said please. I'm a sucker for politeness, so down I sat, on I
switched, channels I flicked.
None of the above.
Unknown third option. Channel 4 offers the best line in obscure
American sitcoms this side of the Volga. My amygdala ran the
gamut of emotions from A to B. I was back as an impressionable
kid again, recalling the glory days of Bullpen, Bakersfield PD,
and their ilk. Oooh it was wonderful. If I wasn't severely
dehydrated, I would have cried. I love them not for their
soliloquising banter and kraazy scrapes and japes; I love them
for their preconscious insights into the human condition. Get in.
Get down. Boogie. I won't talk you through it; the time has come
for you to spread your wings and fly like you've got wind. Like
Lenny's Broadway musicals, they're all the same, in much the same
way that every single one of us is identical, and any attempt we
make at originality is dismissed by the critics as a poor gimmick
to pull in the audiences. They're based on the comedy of the
star, which means one of three things: i) The programme is the
life of the comedian, with a sprinkling of humour on everyone
else, but never too much. ii) The programme is based on that one
wacky situation in his/her stand-up routine; the deaf priest who
keeps shouting "Pardon?" during confessional, the
unhealthy nurse who gives her patients a new disease each week
through her lack of proper hygiene, or, in the best traditions of
Byron and peers, the stand-up comedian who sells his soul to
television. iii) The ensemble piece, set in a bar, hospital,
school, anywhere with maybe ten people, all of whose
personalities remarkably similar to the star.
We're now firmly
ensconced in late January in the year 25, the weather is
unusually mild, and the current fad is for type i. Welcome to the
world of funny guys in slightly outlandish jobs, and their two
friends. Friend No. 1 is a woman (oooh, don't get many of those;
out of 6 billion people, only 400,000 are women, 3 billion are
men, and the final 2.6 billion are men playing tricks on Stephen
Rea), yes yes, a platonic friend. Enter all sorts of options to
attempt to insure a second series and the attached more money.
Enter realising they love each other and want to rub their
genitals together. Enter unrequited love in one of them (usually
the star; cod emotions win awards). Enter homosexuality in one of
them (usually not the star unless she's a woman; lesbians sell,
sodomy doesn't), the strength of the platonism (I prefer platony,
even though it doesn't exist) bringing momentary doubts and
conversion ego trips. Or just enter staid laurel-resting, with a
good buuuddy you can go drinking with, and just happens to have
breasts. Friend 2 is fat, ugly, bald, or just plain weird. If it
were a British comedy (it's oxygen, moron), Friend 2 would be
Welsh. From time to time you crazy yanks will allow Friend 2 to
be from the 52nd state, Canadia, or anywhere just like Cuba, as
long as it isn't Cuba. Usually though, Friend 2 is a suicidal,
sexless, impotent freak who just happens to be white. The stories
don't matter; it's the interplay between these Proustian
characters not seen since the likes of Proust that really makes
these Proustian comedies really Proustian. Either that or I'm
tiring of this motif, looking forward to tonight's teen comedies
on BBC1, unaware of what Proustian actually means, and too lazy
to look it up. Apparently I'm not too lazy, and apparently it
means, and I quote: "adj. pertaining to Marcel Proust
(1871-1922), French novelist, or to his novels or his
style." I really needed to sleep over those last few
sentences. Bon nuit, and happy cycling to one and all.