Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

I went to the Chaser’s War on Everything on Tuesday night (yes, two weeks in a row!). It was really good. I felt like we were part of something historic, and all the Chaser guys definitely felt it, and were a bit rattled. There were lots more flubbed lines, and quite a bit of last-minute writing and alternate footage for different scenarios (they filmed an alternative beginning, on the off chance that Howard got kicked out on Wednesday). It ran quite long, though that was mostly because of the musical number at the end. We were out at 9:30pm after a late 7:30 start, and then we hung around to get photos of Kat with the crew. I got interviewed by the guy on the right here:

Kat is on the left. Apparently the interviewer was a presenter on Big Brother a few seasons back, and is now a writer for the Chaser. Anyway, he was famous enough for Kat to want a photo with him. He asked me a couple of questions about the APEC stunt, and I blathered on in a rather uncharismatic way, so I suspect I will not make whatever final footage is shown wherever they are showing that bit. Probably not on the Chaser.

The controversial APEC stunt was very interesting – Julian Morrow (who is clearly in charge – unlike last week’s show, this one was quite revealing about the relative seniority of team members) was very embarrassed, and answered lots of questions in between filming bits and after the show. The stunt got way out of control, and they were horrified that they got their crew arrested. They really, really weren’t expecting to get inside, and the footage clearly shows that when they did get inside – only just inside, too, having gone through the security fences – they immediately turned around. I’m very much on their side on this issue. If they get sent to prison, I’ll be protesting.

(I am visible in the audience in the front row on the right hand side, by the way. I am wearing my hat.)

Speaking of upper-body exercise, I went to the Chaser filming last night, so people watching tonight may notice me (and Jade) in the studio audience. As proof, I offer photographs.

It was very enjoyable. What really surprised me was how quickly they got through the show. There was only one retake, and they did that at the end of the show. Otherwise, it pretty much resembled the TV version, except that they gave us about 20 minutes worth of extra “warm up” material, including an extended running gag on a mispronunciation of “cavity search” as “cavity church”. They really are good at improvising.

I really wasn’t expecting what he would look like. I figured he’d be something like Crumb, or comic book guy, or someone much younger, but he looked rather like Colonel Sanders – white hair, neat white beard, immaculately dressed, and he had the unblinking stare and unusual outlook on life that reminded me of Chris F. Apparently, each of the Frank comics is very carefully written out in advance, but if Woodring at any point realises what the comic is “about”, he will immediately abandon it as being insufficiently interesting. I’d be more sceptical of this, but that is exactly how the comics appear, so fair enough. He really is after the goal of apparent lurking sense, just out of reach (and later on, he will most often realise that there was sense behind it, just that he didn’t realise it at the time.)

It has made the Frank comics both more accessable and more obscure for me. The fact that he has acknowledged the semi-sensical nature of his work does make me rather more relaxed about trying to understand it, and I think makes it slightly more enjoyable to just enjoy the dream logic. Jade thought that his monologue was utter wank, but was entranced by the comics/cartoons themselves, which she hadn’t seen before. I could see her point – it *was* wank – but it was provocative, and I’d be interested to read the transcript, because it contained some beautiful turns of phrase.

Anyway. Not impressed. I was similarly unimpressed with James Morrow’s Blog until I realised that it wasn’t the same James Morrow who writes those wonderful satires, “Only Begotten Daughter”, “City of Truth”, “Towing Jehovah”, and some of my favorite SF stories, “Daughter Earth” and “Continent of Lies”.

Lazy
Yesterday was a very lazy Sunday, though. I slept and slept and felt quite sad for no really good reason. I’m a little frustrated at my lack of progress through my big list of things to do, but more, I’m bored with being unemployed. The novelty has now worn off. The trigger for the burst of ennui was the (entirely valid) criticism that my new web page design – which I’ve been working on all week – looks a bit samey and a bit like-every-other-webpage-out-there. The threat of redesign was enough to send the old creative circuits into meltdown, briefly.

Spike Milligna, the well-known typing error
It’s still hard to believe that Milligoon is dead, but in another sense it’s odd to realise that he was alive until just last week. I grew up with my Dad’s infatuation with the goons, and got infected myself, and I’ve read all the war diaries, and I watched a couple of the Q series, and I saw him alive at the Townsville Civic Theatre doing an exceedingly silly one-man show. I liked him.