Laugh, Lex, Laugh

So we all know that Lex Pretend doesn't understand comedy/has never laughed in his life/is humourless...so let's educate him. DEFINE THE ILX COMEDY-CANON.

i've seen pictures of him smiling.

he has a nice smile!

Having hung out and drank with lex twice I can confirm that he's funny. He even likes joeks!

^^i can confirm this confirmation

Adding to these confirmations. He's a good egg.

STEVIE COO\OGAN

SOMEONE WHO'S NOT MARRIED TO K. PERRY

A PROP COMIC WHOSE GO-TO SCHTICK DOESN'T INVOLVE A TOILET SEAT

there i tried
i dunno

i like laughing a lot, i hate unfunny things, by which i mean ALL COMEDIANS EVER

h8 coogan tbh - at least i hate his "work", never understood what was meant to be amusing about alan partridge. but! i liked coogan @ leveson where he came over TOTALLY SERIOUS

so what if, for example, an ilxor told you a joke which they'd heard a professional comedian tell?

This thread is just filled with such irony, and really points out the difference between people who know and spend time with Lex IRL and those who know him only as an "interweb personality."

Whenever I spend time with Alex, I spend at least half the time laughing my head off. But then, one of the more recent times I saw him, we were at a David Shrigley exhibition - and Shrigley is very funny, and we spent a lot of time cackling like sick ducks.

So I honestly do think that it's not that Lex lacks a sense of humour, and certainly doesn't lack the ability to laugh - even laugh at something constructed as humour, like a Shrigley piece. It's just, genuinely, that most things presented as "Comedy" with a capital C just aren't funny.

I did a 'stand-up comedy' course a few years ago, first lesson we had to write down 10 jokes about Michael Jackson. (this was 3 years before he died)..

At which point, the thought that popped into my head was John Lennon's "But then again, who are we to judge? I mean, who are we?"

Which made me laugh more than any "I'm forever blowing bubbles" crummy comedy.

(I did the follow-up course, "Writing comedy", and fared much better when I could decide what subject to pursue)...

I like stand-up comedy when it's not based purely on "Agree with me, people!"

yes, most of the rubbish comedians do that don't they? The Peter Kays and Michael McIntyres of this world. The ones I feel are genuinely talented seem to specialize in more stream of consciousness stuff. The only famous comedian I've ever seen live was Richard Herring. Afterwards I found myself thinking like him. His comedy influenced the form my thoughts took and I took this to be an indication of his talents.

This should be on the other thread, really, innit?

I mean, I don't know Lex irl...

Observational comedy is such a strange thing, it's just really weird. That it's the forcedness of the situation of A Comic in a Stand Up Club which contributes to the whole thing just not being funny at all. While something like Shrigley, where it's presented in a very po-faced This. Is. Art. kind of setting and the piece is something so disjointing and jarring that the setting makes it actually funnier. While Shrigley standing on a stage in a club saying exactly the same things wouldn't be funny at all.

I know Lex irl. He is famed for his own comedic gems, of course. You haven't lived till you've heard the legendary "Who is Bob Dylan anyway?" routine delivered by its author, after several glasses of white wine.

My kinda dude. Cheers, Lex.

You haven't lived till you've heard the legendary "Who is Bob Dylan anyway?" routine delivered by its author, after several glasses of white wine.

usually followed by an aghast "what do you mean, you haven't heard the original 'my boo'???" or "how can you have never heard of teairra marí??!!"

:D

Lex's 'drunkenly attempt to work a lighter for 15 minutes' routine is one of the finest comic performances I have ever witnessed.

i was being 4 real, i still don't know how to work a lighter. not my fault i'm not an ADDICT like all those DISGUSTING ADDICT SMOKERS and haven't learned over the years

i'm not v good with fire generally though, i approach matches with trepidation too

Yeah, see, you get it.

I don't know if I could tackle lex's appreciation/unappreciation of comedy, but there's nothing I would like more than to cook for him one day because I know cooking makes him IA beyond all measure <3

Most comedy is terrible, but most of anything is terrible.

This thread is just filled with such irony, and really points out the difference between people who know and spend time with Lex IRL and those who know him only as an "interweb personality."

i know lex only as an ilx personality, and it's clear that he's doing a sit down version of stand up at least half the time

Lex's 'drunkenly attempt to work a lighter for 15 minutes' routine is one of the finest comic performances I have ever witnessed.

― Homosexual Satan Wasp (Matt DC), Wednesday, March 7, 2012 4:36 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i was being 4 real, i still don't know how to work a lighter. not my fault i'm not an ADDICT like all those DISGUSTING ADDICT SMOKERS and haven't learned over the years

― lex pretend, Wednesday, March 7, 2012 4:38 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sounds like a brilliant stand-up routine!

a few weeks back i showed an impressively lex-esque incompetence wrt both cooking and lighters, as i tried to light my gas oven using first a lighter and then a lighter and a piece of paper, and ended up with nothing more than two blistered thumbs, a smoky room, and a pile of ash on the floor. being so bad at things is kind of an art.

glad you're still with us

Clear to whom? There's a real presumptuousness in this assumption that if someone has a "big" or otherwise distinctive personality, that it must somehow be an act, or a pretense, or that they are somehow putting it on - that it's a routine, rather than the acceptance that some people are just like that. I intensely dislike that assumption, it smacks of small-mindedness and enforced conformism to me. That it would actually be abnormal for some people to behave in a way that you would not interpret as "doing a stand-up routine."

I prefer to give people with distinctive personalities the benefit of the doubt that they know themselves better than, you know, disapproving randoms on the internet.

merdeyeux sounds like three men in a boat less two of the men and the boat.

I dunno. Obviously some people exaggerate their personality quirks for comedic effect, but to assume that it's ALL an act, because someone falls outside your expectations of taste or behaviour - that's just so presumptuous.

loool omar

merdeyeux I don't want to read about you on ER stories. Please please please go to the hardware store and get a fire lighter.

hahah omar :)

i now have an electric lighter! now i'll have to die hilariously as a result of one of my many other incompetencies.

:)

Most comedy is terrible, but most of anything is terrible.

^^!!

Clear to whom? There's a real presumptuousness in this assumption that if someone has a "big" or otherwise distinctive personality, that it must somehow be an act, or a pretense, or that they are somehow putting it on - that it's a routine, rather than the acceptance that some people are just like that. I intensely dislike that assumption, it smacks of small-mindedness and enforced conformism to me. That it would actually be abnormal for some people to behave in a way that you would not interpret as "doing a stand-up routine."

nonsense. you, for instance, have a "big" or otherwise distinctive personality, and it's quite clear that you are not, for the most part, attempting to be funny. and it's similarly clear when you are.

http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/misc/ted/ted04c.jpg

so many people i've met irl from ilx are so quiet and so unlike their big brash interweb selves. except ned. ned is sooooo 100% ned everywhere.

Frankly, I feel a bit sorry for people who genuinely believe that almost nothing is funny. How demanding it must be.

xpost -- Haha. Well, what can I say?

my ex laughs basically continuously at, like, seemingly anything & yet rarely laughs at actual jokes, and especially not a comedian or a comedy film

yeah, i'm half with lex in that most comedy repels me, especially stand-up comedy. the desperation and pandering are too glaringly obvious for me to endure, and there's almost always a creepy falseness to everything. the spectacle makes me feel more embarrassed than lolsome, like neil hamburger in a hall of mirrors. dislike a lot of film comedies on similar grounds, but there at least i'm a slightly easier sell.

so many people i've met irl from ilx are so quiet and so unlike their big brash interweb selves

I'm probably even louder and more annoying irl than i am on here.

I don't talk in allcaps half as much as I do on ilx, lol

i would LOVE vegemitegrrl to cook for me, i bet it would be amazing

for you, definitely <3

i don't like a lot of stand-up but then again i saw a jon lovitz/dave attell double bill that had me in *~~stitches~~*!!

I'm probably even louder and more annoying irl than i am on here.

well our meeting was unfortunately quite brief, but i don't recall that

i do have a sense of you as being quite small tho?

I'm much more extroverted and in character in person.

I have only met a bare handful of ilxors IRL, but they all pretty much were in line with their online personalities.

I spend all my offline time celebrating the deaths of people I've never met

I have only met a bare handful of ilxors IRL, but they all pretty much were in line with their online personalities.

I have met approx 1,000 ilx0rs IRL, and of the two that spring to mind as being noteworthily variable from their online personalities, one was much quieter, and one was much louder.

every ilxor i have met has been rilly rilly nice. and a pleasure to talk to. without exception. and i've met a bunch.

mark s.! what a pleasure to spend time with him. i'm lucky. i know a lot of really cool people.

I have met zero (0) ilxors irl, and have so far not been disappointed :D

Well this thread took an odd turn.

was a p odd thread to begin with

I don't talk in allcaps half as much as I do on ilx, lol

― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl)

iirc estela was surprised that i didn't shout as much irl because of this

haha

http://thumbnails.hulu.com/8/219/21222_512x288_manicured__wZ8WQ-EVNkOGN+9WXhhicg.jpg

nonsense. you, for instance, have a "big" or otherwise distinctive personality, and it's quite clear that you are not, for the most part, attempting to be funny. and it's similarly clear when you are.

― meticulously showcased in a stunning fart presentation (contenderizer),

Except for the fact that it is equally clear to *me* from your responses and our many tangles that you don't actually have a clue, and you don't understand nearly half as well as you think you do.

Talking to you is pointless, I'm going to stop bashing my head against that wall.

xxxpost the use of "routine" – certainly by me – was not intended to suggest Lex is putting it on. It was just a joke, positing Lex as a standup comedian against those suggesting he's humourless. This cigar was, on this occasion, just a cigar. Not a personality critique.

Except for the fact that it is equally clear to *me* from your responses and our many tangles that you don't actually have a clue, and you don't understand nearly half as well as you think you do.

sort of figured that was coming. keep up the good work!