Dream Diary: Nepotainment

Tonight I was talking to my little cousin and he was asking me about bad (as in offensive and also not funny) comedians for his philosophy of humour course. The subject of the show 'Popcultured' came up and he said "Elvira Kurt has managed to make it to the top of my personal hate list even after my little brother killed my pet turtle."

dream

I'm supposed to be in Toronto for some business thing, but I get sidetracked. I apparently am sitting in on a shooting of the show “Popcultured”. It's an intimate enough setting so that I am in the front of a small group of people observing the show and the desk is in front of me. The set is obviously very fancy and expensive.

After one joke falls flat I say out loud to Taylor who's also there: “You know, the show may not be funny but at least it looks pretty.”

Elvira hears this and is sort of half-offended. Apparently the Elvira Kurt that inhabits my dream world is at least intelligent enough to know that she isn't funny. I'm not sure how that works. I say to her “sorry, but come on, your gum smacking overuse of the phrase ‘umm.. yeah‘ ceased being funny about 3 days after “Valley Girl” fell off the charts. (Apparently the me that inhabits my dream world relies on Dennis Miller-esque references for comedic effect.)

Scene switch to Taylor and I walking away from the room where they are shooting, and a scarily tall woman with red hair done up in a upside-down triangular beehive stops me. She's about a foot taller than I am and is very imposing. Apparently she's 1) the producer of the show and 2) Elvira's mother. This explains why she's on the show.

She says “What is it about my daughter's show that you don't like?” I give another I'm sure very clever version of the previous cutting remark, and mostly blame the writers. I mention that in laughs per minute they haven't risen past the Mendoza line of unintentional laughs gotten while watching “Entertainment Tonight”

Scary woman says “the writers, huh? Come over here” and we go towards a corner of the open, shopping-mall like building to a carpeted area with a few couches arranged in a closed-in pattern with young-ish looking people asleep on all of them, notepads at their sides.

The woman stands in the middle and says “listen, this is Alex. He's going to tell you why you're not funny.”

They sort of look up, bleary eyed. I start by asking each of their names. One responds enthusiastacally. That's not a good sign, that means he doesn't know that what he's doing is bullshit and still has a passion for it. The next one is an Indian-looking guy who says his name and I can't understand him so I get him to repeat it. The next couple also either have unintelligable responses or don't wake up, as I turn around looking at the various bodies stretched out on the tacky leather couches.

I say to the second guy “OK, you think you're funny, read me the funniest thing you've written today.”

He blinks, goes through his notepad, and says “OK, here's one:” and says someone's name, incorporating it into a ‘boom-chica-boom-boom’ porn music.

I stare him down and he breaks and says “OK, OK, I know none of this is funny.. I know Elvira's only got that job because she's related to someone.. I applied for this job because it was listed in my school's job board, I was just applying for every job there. I never expected to get it.”

As he's blubbering I start looking at my notepad, I see one page that just has a date and the name of a movie at the top. The whole rest of the page is one giant check mark to show that I had seen it and liked it.

I showed this to the kid, and tell him that his show didn't get a check mark.

Scene switch to being outside the door of some kind of mall. It's winter, and there's a swimming pool just outisde the door. I'm with someone I don't know and a rather large dog. I notice that the pool is frozen over, and I go and stamp at the ice until it breaks apart.

The dog then jumps in and starts to panic when it realizes how cold the water still is, but still swims to the other side. It's now shivering and in trouble, I let it back inside where it's warm.

Awake.
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