http://mondomagazine.net We're not geeks! Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:51:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-george-carlin-%e2%80%94-overrated/ http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-george-carlin-%e2%80%94-overrated/#comments Tue, 23 Sep 2008 04:00:38 +0000 lifestyle http://mondomagazine.net/?p=2246 Mr. Robinson's opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the management. Really, we might want to make this a standard disclaimer for this column. Ben Robinson I've read Albert Goldman's racist, sexist, and homophobic biography, Ladies and Gentlemen: Lenny Bruce! At one point it mentioned that a young George Carlin was arrested for obscenity along with Lenny Bruce. "Wow," I thought, "this guy must be really hardcore." Some of my nerd-snob friends already were talking about George Carlin, quoting lines of social criticism that were quite poignant. I decided to download his discography. This was around 1999. I started with his first albums from the 70s. The stuff was really tame. It was stoner "observational humour." Jerry Seinfeld, if he was a hippie. For example, he has a routine about [...]]]> http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-george-carlin-%e2%80%94-overrated/feed/ 7 http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-my-step-grandfather/ http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-my-step-grandfather/#comments Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:00:45 +0000 lifestyle http://mondomagazine.net/?p=2025 How the past informs the present By Ben Robinson My grandmother is a lover of men. She has been married five times. Three of those times, it was to someone named Bill. My dad's name is Bill. Creepy. Currently, she is married to a Bill. He has 20% of a stomach and a huge nose. Huge because when he was in the army, he got some polyps up there. A polyp is a row of beads. It kept him from breathing and stuff. You gotta breathe. Wise men once said, "You don't breathe, you don't live." So he had to get those buggers taken out. So the army doctor reaches down into his nose and pulls out the polyps. The procedure permanently enlarged his nose. So he sits there on the Lazy Boy with his large belly - somehow bigger than his small television despite the fact that he only has 20% of his stomach intact - he sits there on the Lazy Boy, with his large nose, he sits there in front of the television, and when he's awake, he talks about grandfatherly things. [...]]]> http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-my-step-grandfather/feed/ 0 http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-the-good-comedy-movie/ http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-the-good-comedy-movie/#comments Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:00:02 +0000 lifestyle http://mondomagazine.net/?p=1691 http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-the-good-comedy-movie/feed/ 0 http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-bill-hicks/ http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-bill-hicks/#comments Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:00:13 +0000 lifestyle http://mondomagazine.net/?p=1448 This week, the column's title can be interpreted in a fairly literal sense. By Ben Robinson Bill Hicks restored my faith in Texas. George W. Bush had just been elected President and my prejudiced notions that Texas was filled with nothing but a bunch of hicks seemed to be confirmed by Bush's Presidency. King of the Hill was mildly funny, but their main joke was that Texas is an awful place to be. Then, late one night in the summer of 2003, I came upon the website of Shecky Magazine -- an internet rag for comedians, by comedians. And reading its sacred pages I found that these comedians had something in common. They were in love with Hicks. I held my nose and downloaded his album Rant in E Minor. [...]]]> http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-bill-hicks/feed/ 0 http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-sean-cullen-the-comedian/ http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-sean-cullen-the-comedian/#comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:00:10 +0000 lifestyle http://mondomagazine.net/?p=1260 Comedians often age. Usually, this results in them becoming old. By Ben Robinson Seán Cullen first broke through into comedy consciousness with his musical comedy group Corky and the Juice Pigs. I was too young and nerdy to be a part of that scene, but my friends assure me they kicked a lot of ass in their day. According to Wikipedia, Corky and the Juice Pigs were active from 1984 to 1998. That makes Seán Cullen an old man. Old men are not to be respected. They are to be feared. Hear me children: old men are to be feared! I first learned about Seán Cullen from his appearences on Just for Laughs and his Comedy Network special: Wood, Cheese and Children. Seán mixes improv, music, and traditional absurdist standup into a high energy combination that sadly has not made him famous. Oh, he's Canadian Famous, but that's not really famous, is it? [...]]]> http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-sean-cullen-the-comedian/feed/ 1 http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-dashas-response/ http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-dashas-response/#comments Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:00:11 +0000 lifestyle http://mondomagazine.net/?p=1225 In this article ,"conservative" is used synonymously with "prejudiced." A double-edged sword? By Ben Robinson Two weeks ago, I wrote an article with some questionable humour in it. A reader named Dasha posted a comment that said I had crossed the line. I had offended Dasha. That was not my intent. Here is what I wrote: "Maybe if you had said you had just hit your girlfriend because she wouldn't shut up about being on her period, you would be allowed to continue to exist spiritually with your brethren, but owning a blog — and what's worse, advertising its existence — were capital crimes." This is Dasha's response: "Good point about blogging; I agree. Although I'm not at all crazy about the reference to violence against women as an acceptable conversation topic. It is my understanding that this was a joke, but it was a stupid one indeed, one that might alienate a sizable portion of your audience. Keep that in mind, son." The point of my paragraph was that violence against women is unacceptable. More accurately, the point was that talking about it is unacceptable. When writing this, I thought to myself, "What is something one could say that would be so shocking that one might not be allowed to continue to speak?" Violence against women sprung to mind. [...]]]> http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-dashas-response/feed/ 5 http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-blogging-humour/ http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-blogging-humour/#comments Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:00:33 +0000 lifestyle http://mondomagazine.net/?p=1185 Remember: chances are, your mom IS reading it. By Ben Robinson Time has passed. It is once again "in" to have a blog. I know this because of the way I was motivated to resume my own. Blogs experienced a trend-overload a few years back. Once it became easy for the average person to own a blog, the blogosphere exploded and every moderate to heavy internet user out there was pontificating daily about their depressing, fucked up lives. And each one of them craved attention more than my six-year old niece who, coincidentally, I babysat last night. I am an only child, and the concept of having a young girl yearn for every second of my time was foreign to me until recently — but looking into her dark, souless eyes as she cried, "let's play Barbie!", I was reminded of the early days of blogging.]]> http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-blogging-humour/feed/ 3 http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-facebook-humour/ http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-facebook-humour/#comments Fri, 23 May 2008 04:00:25 +0000 lifestyle http://mondomagazine.net/?p=1119 Perils of humour in the age of information By Ben Robinson I consider myself to be a Facebook humourist. So far I have created four groups geared towards making people laugh. It is a tough business, Facebook. Don't have to leave your home. Don't have to look anyone in the eye. Whenever you get bored you take some pictures of yourself and post them online so all your…"friends" can see. Or in my case, create a zany new group. I was raised on RPGs, and there is a collection element to Facebook. It's like you get a point for every member who joins your group or posts on your wall. Let's go through my groups in reverse order [...]]]> http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-facebook-humour/feed/ 0 http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-improv/ http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-improv/#comments Fri, 09 May 2008 05:00:09 +0000 lifestyle http://mondomagazine.net/?p=1026 "...Such a deceptively seductive harlot this game is..." By Ben Robinson Improv. Improvisational Comedy, or Improv, or (as Keith Johnstone spells it) Impro, is an absurd waste of time that makes many young men drop out of math class. Theoretically, Improv helps build the dramatic skills needed for serious theatre. Even more theoretically, Improv is a challenging set of games of wit that are capable of "amusing" audiences and also capable of producing very inexpensive television. Like all art forms, the old school is better than the new school. The British Whose Line is it Anyway? is better than the American version. Second City gets progressively worse the further [...]]]> http://mondomagazine.net/2008/death-of-a-comedian-improv/feed/ 1