Remember when that ice skater had her leg bashed in by the competition? Of course you do, it’s the most exciting thing to have happened in figure skating, and one of most exciting things to have happened in any Olympic-featured sport since Munich. Network experts have finally acknowledged the popularity of this incident, and in a strange attempt to boost ratings have urged the inclusion of a new sport called ‘Sabotage.’ The idea was an immediate success with the Olympic board. Beginning in Vancouver this year, Sabotage will be an official sport at both the Winter and Summer Olympics. The rules are simple: you must hurt an athlete to the point where they cannot compete, or at least to the point where they compete poorly. A Sabotage athlete may not injure another Sabotage athlete. Murder is allowed, but usually results in a lower point score, being that it’s not exactly sabotaging a career, just ending it permanently. Points are awarded in a variety of categories, the more difficult the attack the greater it scores. That is why attacks in public score so high, anyone can quietly sneak into a home in the night and push some poor, unsuspecting loner down the stairs…but it takes a real artist to go unnoticed whilst punching an Olympic swimmer in the face in a roomful of nosy reporters. Silence is encouraged with all sabotage attacks, and indeed the stealth factor usually brings home the top prize. Just like Olympic divers, you have to make the smallest splash to win.
The best part of Sabotage is that it requires no great athletic skill to bash at someone’s legs or arms, so all the Sabotage ‘athletes’ are in fact lazy slobs. Network Experts saw this as a terrific opportunity to make the Everyman part of the Olympics. Studies show that people want to relate to athletes, not feel as if athletes are part of a separately engineered and biologically superior race, like in Gattaca.
There are so many mysteries, some more vital than others: Which country will maim the most athletes and take home the Gold Medal in Sabotage? Will there even be an Olympics at all considering most of the athletes are now injured and unable to perform? These questions will not be answered on commercial television…visit the TooFar blog for accurate, up-to-date, uncensored Olympic news.
The Official Olympic Merchandise Store has 253 items listed for purchase. There is page after page of key chains and drinking glasses – are they subtly encouraging us to drive to an Olympic event whilst spending mad money on booze? Most of these overpriced atrocities are something you wear, indeed the best products turn buyers into walking billboards. There are dozens of shiny pins to cover yourself with, however the faulty sweatshop-made catches might prove fatal should you take a fall.
My question: Where is the variety?
Are you a local athlete looking to support the 2010 Olympics by purchasing a snowboard adorned with the Olympic logo? You might be surprised to learn the Official 2010 Store is the worst possible place you can visit to do so, as none of their products can be used in sports more extreme than ’Olympic-Watching’ and/or ’Couch-Surfing.’ At best you might manage ’Leisure-Driving’ or ’Fatal Pin Stabbing Caused by Falling Down Due to Alcohol Poisoning, All of Which Due to the Fact that You Drank From an Olympic Glass.’ That last sport is a new one, and still questionable in my opinion. I think of it as more of a game.
Who needs a real snowboard anyway? At the Olympic Store you can buy a miniature one for only 10 dollars! At no additional cost, all mini-snowboards are blemished with pictures of those over-cute cartoon mascots posing as representations of cultural diversity.
While the Olympic Store was busy manufacturing items of pure banality, such as a little metal ring for attaching your keys, they forgot about tapping into more lucrative and exciting ventures. We should have Olympic Breathalysers and Radar Detectors to go with our drinking glasses and key chains! Olympic Condoms anyone? And what about the stoner demographic? I propose marijuana-related Olympic material to be a potential fortune waiting to happen. Olympic Bongs, Pipes, Papers…ten years from now if you’re smoking weed out of it, chances are it has an Olympic logo on it. They already have a head start, think about it: someone known to be a smoker of marijuana actually won the gold medal in snowboarding. They‘ll be riding that train until it plummets into a chasm. I’m not speaking metaphorically either, I‘ve rigged a train carrying many Olympic bigwigs to plummet into a chasm.
Buy Olympic Papers and you’ll zig-zag your way to Gold Victory just like Ross Rebagliati!*
Watching TV this afternoon, I realized the most perpetrated myth of all time is not the existence of Jesus Christ. It is the apparent Herculean cleaning strength of paper towels.
In actuality there is a limit to the amount of liquid a paper towel can soak up, and it’s usually arrived at immediately, as opposed to the usual ‘after the whole filthy house is mopped up’ theory as shown on TV.
The stuff they show people doing with paper towels on television is faker than every edition of the Bible combined with half the fake boobs on earth.
Spill an entire jug of grape juice on the carpet? No problem…grab a sheet of paper towel! You can ring it out again and again without any rips or tears! Got a chronic masturbation problem? No worries…grab a sheet of paper towel and you’ve got the next 12 years worth of spankerchiefs taken care of!…Perhaps Bounty Towels will be the major product placement in the upcoming Hobbit movie…instead of wearing flimsy Elven mithril, Bilbo and the dwarves will ride into battle shielded only by the impenetrable power of paper towel. Recently committed murder in an exceptionally grisly manner? Don’t sweat the small stuff…every practical serial killer of the new decade carries around a trusty roll of paper towels. Are you Homeless? Is it cold and rainy?…Have no fear! Warm up with a layer of paper towels! They never really get wet!
I was lucky enough to recently attend a screening of the new Documentary called Paper Towels Are in Fact a Cover-Up for the Destruction of Mexico. Although not widely known, Mexico has in fact been used as the garbage depository for every used piece of North American paper towel since 1946. At first we tried burning the used towel, but that proved to make things too smoky for the asthmatic, so it was decided with an overwhelming majority that paper towel would be dumped in Mexico…forever. 64 years later, Mexico has finally reached the brink of apocalypse. Mountainous, reeking, rotting piles of paper towel now loom over the once beautiful countryside. Dozens of children and pets are lost in the papery maze by the hour. The air is noxious and one requires the constant aid of a gas mask to live. The plight of Mexico is not widely known because if you go there you never return.
The main cause of the towel problem, aside from the fact that paper towels suck, can be attributed to drunk people in public bathrooms who use far too much of it. Everyone’s seen these assholes…dispensing enough towel to reach the floor and then wiping their hands on their pants anyway.
Every square inch of used paper towel is a dead Mexican.
Ricky Gervais has called him “The funniest comedian working in America” – and if you spend any time in the world of stand-up comedy, you’ll find that’s pretty much a unanimous assessment. Last night I saw Louis CK in Vancouver for the second time in less than a year, doing a completely different hour than the flawless performance he gave last November, when he was prepping for his next special “Hilarious.” As always, the man was hysterical, and it was interesting to see him still working out the kinks on bits, as opposed to the already perfected and ready for recording material we saw last year. Certain parts of this material obviously weren’t completely fleshed out, he had to deal with some shouting from the crowd, and at one point a loud hissing sound of some sort of gas/air being released behind the curtains interrupted the routine, which Louis dealt with masterfully. It showed he is in fact human, and that the incredible finished product of an HBO special being written, developed, and recorded in a years time, doesn’t just happen. I won’t give away any of the material, but let’s just say this latest installment is vintage Louis, and any fan will be more than satisfied.
For me, the CK love affair started a few years ago, when I heard Graham Clark, one of Vancouvers best, being interviewed on the radio podcast “What’s So Funny.” When asked who his favorite comedian was, Graham said Louis CK and played a clip from shameless. I was amazed I’d never heard of this guy, and immediately got ahold of Shameless and his first HBO special “One Last Stand.” Me and my girlfriend watched them back to back, and at several points had to actually stop and rewind the video because we had been sent into uncontrollably outrageous fits of full body spasm laughter… literally falling off of the bed, rolling around on the ground, spitting liquid, every cliche in the book. Never before had we laughed so hard in our entire lives. His unique blend of terrific writing, a complete lack of censorship and a genuine delivery so real it hurts… was like nothing we’d ever seen. We looked online for his tour dates, and found out the closest he was coming our way was San Francisco. Without a moments hesitation we cleared our schedules, got the tickets and prepared for the drive down. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled, and we missed our chance to see the material that would become “Chewed Up” – his third special.
It was around this time I began to suspect that Louis was perhaps following the formula that George Carlin had developed in his later years. That of touring with a show, recording an HBO special and then tossing it out and starting on a new batch of material for the next special. Chewed Up and Shameless were such masterpieces, and they were released so close to one another… Could it be that we’d get to see new Louis every year?!?! A lot of really good, professional comedians will do two DVD worthy hours of comedy in their life… in their entire career. So to come out with such a plethora of dynamite comedy in such a short period of time, is truly incredible. Sure enough, I recently read this blog Louis wrote shortly after GC’s death about how much Carlin influenced him and revitalized his outlook on stand-up comedy. (A must read for anyone remotely interested in comedy.)
So it’s official, the torch has been passed. As Dave Chappelle says about Richard Pryor in his Inside the Actors Studio interview: “The true mark of greatness is when everything before you is obsolete, and everything after you bears your mark.” (Paraphrased, I can’t find the exact quote right now).
George Carlin was truly great, and without him, who knows if Louis would have ever become what he surely is… the best working comedian on the planet.
So what is it that makes Louis so great? To me, it’s all about his honesty. I believe that comedy is nothing more than the uncensored truth. The reality we all live, but are afraid to talk about, the thoughts we all have, but are afraid to admit. What separates Louis from the rest is that he is so painfully relatable. No matter what the subject matter is, you can’t ever get mad at him because he’s so real and genuine about it. He knows he’s not supposed to say what he’s saying, but he doesn’t care.
And he reaches across all generational lines, race, religion, and just says what we all wish we had the courage to say. I love this clip of him on Jay Leno, doing some of his signature material about his daughter… you can see the fake, awkward smile on the girl next to him, and Jay getting uncomfortable, and Louis just doesn’t care. He has a look on his face that’s a mixture of “I know I’m not supposed to say this, but I don’t care and fuck you, you know it’s true, at least I can admit it.”
The response from the crowd exemplifies what it feels like to be at a CK show. It’s an outburst of “Finally, somebody said it” mixed with “Oh my god, I can’t believe he actually said that!”
This level of unwavering honesty is what allows Louis to ‘get away with’ or talk about material that most comedians wouldn’t dare approach. Take for example this masterful breakdown of the three most controversial words in our society: Faggot, Cunt and Nigger.
With surgical precision, Louis bravely OPENS his routine by dissecting in detail three words that caucasian comedians avoid like the plague. Louis isn’t afraid, because he knows how to tackle them intellectually and get beyond the surface to the deeper truths that most people are incapable of seeing. He’s not afraid to call bullshit on us all, challenge our accepted viewpoint, because he has put the thought into crafting his side of the argument. No one can deny that what he is saying is true, and that is what makes it undeniably hilarious.
When you combine the quality of his work, with his unrelenting drive to produce new material, it’s hard to dispute that Louis CK is the reigning king of stand-up comedy, and likely to remain so for a long time.
With the economy of the world spiraling into oblivion, the death of good music, rampant disease, natural disasters, and all the rest of revelations coming to fruition… there’s not a lot you can look forward to in this world.
But every year, you can count on Louis CK coming to town with a new hour of comedy gold.
Welcome to the all new blog of TooFar.TV – where we do our best to showcase uncensored sketch, musical and stand-up comedy. We are based out Vancouver, British Columbia, and started out as a rag-tag group of nobodies with no money. Now, after a year of hard work, we are a rag-tag group of nobodies with no money and a website.
With our latest re-design of the site, TooFar.TV has expanded to include multiple online shows, while continuing to create our own videos and provide exposure for talented comedians who adhere to our comedic philosophy. We also have a an updated classics section, new T-Shirt designs by the good folks at SolTshirts.com and our first of many contests… The Aristocrats!
We’re always looking for new comedians, writers or musicians to work with, and hope that the next year will be as productive as our first one. We’re looking to up our production value, expand our network and start blending genres like stand-up and animation. Should be fun!
Check out our debut comedy album TOOFAR.TV PRESENTS – VOLUME ONE… THE MUSIC LP – download it for free, or pay for it on Itunes and other music stores and help us produce the next one.
Our blog will be featuring comedic writings, rants, satirical news stories, comic strips, short stories, guest blogs from comedians/writers, reviews and commentaries. So get your subscribe on and leave a comment. Until next time, stay tuned.
Remember when that ice skater had her leg bashed in by the competition? Of course you do, it’s the most exciting thing to have happened in figure skating, and one of most exciting things to have happened in any Olympic-featured sport since Munich. Network experts have finally acknowledged the popularity of this incident, and in a strange attempt to boost ratings have urged the inclusion of a new sport called ‘Sabotage.’ The idea was an immediate success with the Olympic board. Beginning in Vancouver this year, Sabotage will be an official sport at both the Winter and Summer Olympics. The rules are simple: you must hurt an athlete to the point where they cannot compete, or at least to the point where they compete poorly. A Sabotage athlete may not injure another Sabotage athlete. Murder is allowed, but usually results in a lower point score, being that it’s not exactly sabotaging a career, just ending it permanently. Points are awarded in a variety of categories, the more difficult the attack the greater it scores. That is why attacks in public score so high, anyone can quietly sneak into a home in the night and push some poor, unsuspecting loner down the stairs…but it takes a real artist to go unnoticed whilst punching an Olympic swimmer in the face in a roomful of nosy reporters. Silence is encouraged with all sabotage attacks, and indeed the stealth factor usually brings home the top prize. Just like Olympic divers, you have to make the smallest splash to win.
The best part of Sabotage is that it requires no great athletic skill to bash at someone’s legs or arms, so all the Sabotage ‘athletes’ are in fact lazy slobs. Network Experts saw this as a terrific opportunity to make the Everyman part of the Olympics. Studies show that people want to relate to athletes, not feel as if athletes are part of a separately engineered and biologically superior race, like in Gattaca.
