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Sucking the blood of popular entertainment
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I ‘Comedy.' as Alan Alda's pretentious filmmaker Lester points out in Woody Allen's last truly great film (Jr/mes and Mrsderneanors.
‘doesn't break rt. bends.‘ There seems
to be a whole world of people out there at the moment trying to prove the Opposite. In the Leech's [)rOfOUlldly broad experience there is a trinity of no go areas when it comes to cracking the funnies: namely the Holocaust. child abuse or death and terminal Illnesses. Everything else. it seems. IS fair game given the space of time and meditation. Such Is the speed of the world's media networks today that the gnevrng periods for natural disasters. modern day massacres and unexpected deaths have become shorter. This opens the door to two things: first. it allows fairly monumental news to evaporate fairly quickly off the front pages, only to be roplaced by the shenanigans of soap stars and selected pond life. And second. it creates a belief that said subject Is now fair game. The only thing is that the rules keep changing. So it was that Rodney Marsh (pictured) found himself sacked from Sky Spons for a rather crap tsunami joke (something about Newcastle United's Toon Army). Little did Marsh know, however. when he cleared his desk that he was about to be aced in spectaCular fashion by the seven member US radio morning team at WONT-FM Hot 97. who managed to insult most of their listeners wrth a
12 THE LIST 3—? 5 Fee SOC-5
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rendition of ‘We Are the World’. It Included the .r'erse ‘(Eo find your
mommy ljust saw her float iv. a tree went through her head and or the children WI“ be sold to child slant-r3, ' Fairly indefensible stuff but the l ()rrl
gave us fingers to turn things; off and a
brain to decipher satire frorr‘ Sillll‘, brain damaged pundrtry Leech says rehire the lot of them ill time to compose a krddy friendly ‘Body Bag Counting Song’ in time for the second anniversary of the invasion of
Iraq.
I Rant over. Just enough space to mention a few Other stories that tickled the Leech's fancy this fortnight, Hundreds of Charlatans Iprcturerlr fans were infected With the Winter Vomiting Disease after a gig ll‘r Aberdeen recently An llltjtlll‘, rexealed that a fan threw up on the steps outside the venue. only to llavt: his diseased puke tramped into the gig where the germs from said barf were Circulated around the air conditioning system. Now that's what the Leech calls DOsrti\.e discrimination viral terrorism_
I Talking of terrorism. W; na‘. e get their knickers all in a twist about a Superny fake Polo car ad.ert shows a suicide bomber olo\.-.;rwg himself up Ito little effect, in the night,
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com. It's fuer as hell. Corr‘edg.. it seems. can both bend and break.
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With many of the major fashion labels rediscovering the chunky knit over the last year or so there has never been a better time to pick up those needles and ‘knit one, pearl one‘. The humble art of knitting is enjoying a major comeback — knitting cabals and clubs are springing up all over the east coast of America and they look set to do the same here in 2005. so get yourself down the yarn market and challenge your best friend to three needle bind-off.
BOOK GROUPS
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Annie Griffin, what have you done? How many times can you try and blag the fact that you've actually read Yann Martel’s Life of Pi? Let's face it — reading is meditation, a lonely pursuit that has nothing to do with flexing your limited vocabulary in front of a room of wannabe brainiacs. Book groups are pick up joints for those who need a copy of The Da Vinci Code as a cipher for their pathetic charms. Book burning groups. on the other hand - they're great.