After our recent chat with the Doug Anthony All Stars, Tim Ferguson decided that he wasn’t done with Newcastle Live just yet. Such was his fervour that he took pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) for a rant on hipster baristas of Wickham, funniness and coming to his spiritual home of Newcastle on May 9.
WRITTEN BY: Tim Ferguson
People often ask the Doug Anthony All-Stars [DAAS], “Is there a funny side of the moon? ” Clearly, we have no idea.
And if we did, we wouldn’t tell you.
Funniness is subjective, and we want no part in subjectivity. Our agenda demands disregarding the sensitivities and opinions of the public. Instead, we favour truth-delivery systems that cannot be denied or assuaged.
When people ask us to define our style of comedy, we become confused and angry. Making an audience laugh is the byproduct of what we do, not the Raison d’etre.
Our chief purpose and function have always relied upon presenting the blunt and sparkling truth in all its dark glory. If we manage to package those truths in the ways that cause the involuntary spasm known as laughter, all well and good. Laughter is the jaw-clamp that helps the medicine go down. It is the stiff middle finger that smears honey down the belly as the ants approach. The gift that keeps giving herpes. Being funny is not funny.
A comedian who just wants to make the world laugh should turn their career skills to the priesthood or become a grinning greeter at Costco. Or a clown-nosed Hillsinger.
You see, the world does not deserve to laugh without feeling any discomfort. Human beings have done little but ravage the planet like a children’s birthday party at a squirrel zoo. All the baby wipes in the world cannot cleanse the grubby smears and finger-painted obscenities of the human virus.
War, Conquest, Imprisonment and Exploitation are the calling cards of Humanity. For this, we are supposed to create laughter, to titillate the gorging hedonists of the West? IAre we supposed to perpetuate the flawed equation: Crimes + Merriment?
We are coming to Newcastle on a Mission, and it is not from the Almighty-But-Busy God. (Too busy to smite the UK, USA and Canada for legalising gay marriage and plastic surgery, despite all His Old Testament threats, and Cory Bernadi’s insistence that children need a mother and a father who is busy away from home as he works in Canberra. Sigh… Even the Netherlands has escaped His wrath. The Netherlands!)
We are coming to defy the Hypocrisy, the Villainy, the Cheap Sexual Allure of Newcastle’s enemies.
We do this in the name of the Novocastrians who have never exploited anyone but themselves (and the hipster baristas of Wickham).
We grew up in Newcastle. It is our spiritual home, the cynosure of our youthful yearnings. Newcastle stands for all that is left of Good in this darkly spiralling world.
There is no funny side of the moon. In fact, it is all funny.
And we will fix that problem on behalf of our beloved motherland Newcastle. Prepare the kittens.
The Doug Anthony All Stars play the Civic Theatre Newcastle on May 9.
