After that last post, I feel like I need something to bring the tone back down into my gutter.
So, I’ve dug into the archives and pulled out something that you can listen to that will fully counteract any benefits you might have received from watching some of the TED presentations: Shut Up Little Man.
I’m not sure how to explain this recording to you if you don’t already know about it.
The short story is that two guys moved into a cheap apartment in San Francisco in the late 80s to find that their neighbours were a couple of drunks who were constantly engaged in… um… loud disagreements. (As the History of the recordings puts it: “evenings charged with belligerent rants, hateful harangues, drunken soliloquies, death threats, and the sound of wrestling bodies thumping against the wall that separated our apartments.”)
Anyway, after a while the guys started recording the ruckus, and ended up with fifteen hours of tape, that became an underground trading phenomenon. You can read about the details at the History, or you can read about some of the follow-on effects, including the comics and the play, at the lengthy SFWeekly article on the recordings and their aftermath.
And, of course, there was eventually a CD. As I write this Amazon has one used copy.
You’d think in this Internet world that there would be an online copy of this recording that you could pirate. You’d think. That way you could have just downloaded the material to sample it for yourself.
Of course this isn’t for everyone. The language is Deadwood-level foul, and these are real people at their nadir: whatever comedy is here is the bleakest and blackest of comedies. As Kelley Deal told Rolling Stone, “Raymond and Peter are sad. The eavesdroppers who recorded it are sad. The label that released it is sad. The people who buy it are sad. And I’m sad for listening to it.”
And yet…
Well, let me quote a review of the recording:
Listening to the desperate ravings and shouting matches of these two mean old drunk bastards, I can’t help but break out laughing. Am I a misanthrope? A leering voyeur? Beats me, but I’m sure of one thing–I got my money’s worth.
And hey, if you don’t think it will be your thing, no one’s forcing you to click.
