kindkit | Entries tagged with fandom: daas

Tonight I watched the Jesus Christ Superstar performance that NBC aired on Sunday; I did this mostly because The Exorcist's Ben Daniels was in it, though also because I'd heard that Brandon Victor Dixon was great as Judas, and to me Judas is the most interesting character in any iteration of the Jesus story.

(I was extra inspired to watch it because Ben Daniels posted this tweet with a clip of his sassy little coat-flip that, alas, did not make the broadcast. I wish the critic who dismissed Daniels' Pontius Pilate as too macho and action-hero-y had seen it.)

Anyway, Daniels was great, Dixon was super great, Andrew Lloyd Weber can't write even passable lyrics most of the time, and I was pleasantly surprised, having never seen JCS before, when Judas got to sing a reprise of "I Don't Know How To Love Him." I had spent the entirety of Mary Magdalene's version thinking that Judas should be singing it instead.

I haven't been a believing Christian in many years, but I'm always ridiculously moved by the gospel story. Perhaps especially when it's a troubled, doubting version like this or, far more so, The Last Temptation of Christ, which came closer to making me a Christian again than even my own deliberate attempts to believe ever managed.

Also, and not as unrelatedly as it might seem, I now need to read all the Jesus/Judas slash, and all the Jesus/Pontius Pilate slash.

And to rewatch DAAS's glorious "Jesus Christ Superstar in 5 Minutes":

Watch on YouTube

1) Stuff I've watched

Altered Carbon: The first episode only, because I wasn't that impressed. It looks nice, but the plot is just a bunch of not-very-novel SF tropes strung together, and the characters all seemed flat and uninteresting. I liked the AI hotel better than any of the people, but alas, we will probably see no more of him/it. The male lead is quite physically attractive and had slashy chemistry with James Purefoy's character, but it wasn't enough to keep me watching.

Queer Eye: The new iteration, just released on Netflix. I've never seen more than a few episodes of the old series, but I liked the new one enormously. It's fun, but it's not just fun. Especially in the first four episodes, there's a compelling subtext about toxic masculinity--not the virulent kind that encourages male violence, but the quieter kind that gets men to close in on themselves, trapping them in loneliness because feeling any emotion or reaching out for connections is dangerously feminine. And it's not every makeover show that gives us a black gay man and a white, straight, Trump-supporting cop having a conversation about police violence against black people. Plus, it feels very much like it was made for a queer audience rather than to explain/justify queer people to straight people. All that plus useful (to me) clothing tips = win!

Planet Earth II: Gorgeous, interesting, and not so heavy on environmental gloom as to make me miserable.

Blue Planet II: As you can see, I've been in a mood for nature documentaries. I've only just started this.

Strictly Ballroom: I know it's a cult classic, but I felt pretty meh about it. For one thing, I wanted more dancing and less romance. On the whole, I would rather have watched a movie about Fran's father and grandmother, who were more interesting than anybody else onscreen.

Paddington: Yes, the animated children's movie. It was a lot of fun, surprisingly sophisticated when it wasn't deliberately juvenile, and--perhaps because it's English rather than American--fairly unconventional and not too treacly in its take on family.

Think Tank: New Australian game show hosted by Paul McDermott. A bit too slow-paced; all questions are read out twice and panelists are asked to explain their reasoning for every single damn answer. But it has Paul McDermott. And because there are no prizes except a trophy, there's a friendly feeling I enjoy.

2) Stuff I've read

Not much (well, considerably more if you count reading news on my phone), because my e-book reader came over all brick and the local library system is underfunded as hell. I did read and enjoy The Last Policeman, by Ben H. Winters, which I bought from the Evil Online Retail Empire discounted to $1.99. The premise is that the world is doomed due to an oncoming asteroid, and all kinds of things are falling apart as people quit their jobs or commit suicide. But the protagonist, a small-town New England cop, decides that one suicide doesn't look quite right and proceeds to investigate. The worldbuilding is really strong and the characterization's good too. I especially liked the exploration/subversion of certain common end-of-the-world tropes. The book has two sequels that I haven't read yet, and I almost don't want to, because the first one ends in a way that feels like a real and proper ending.

3) Stuff I've cooked

Red peppers stuffed with leftover cornbread (tasted good but the texture was monotonous), potato soup with ham, red beans and rice. I roasted a chicken a couple of weeks ago and then made chicken stock with the bones. Currently I've got a pot of white beans simmering in the slow cooker along with some onion, celery, carrot, a piece of Parmigiano-Reggiano rind, and bits of not-authentic-but-cheap "prosciutto". Later I will add beet greens, radish tops, and some arugula that needs using. I haven't been in the mood for elaborate cooking, which is just as well because I don't have the budget for it. Fortunately I am ~~a food hoarder~~ a believer in a well-stock pantry, and I have lots of beans and pasta and cornmeal and frozen leftover chicken and frozen leftover ham and etc. etc. to use.

I just watched the first episode of Think Tank, the game show Paul McDermott is hosting. The show's fine, but I confess that I was more interested in Paul McDermott's new look than in anything else.

Paul McDermott, bearded and wearing a frock coat

Paul McDermott, showing the bright green lining of his coat

Paul McDermott, showing his waistcoat and watch chain

I now really want him to be cast as the Fourteenth Doctor, eventually. After Jodie Whittaker has had a good long run, of course.

This is a fantastic clip from DAAS's appearance at this year's Edinburgh Fringe.

It was, shall we say, interesting to watch this at a moment when time and mortality were already very much on my mind. I was actually sobbing during the last song (you''ll see why).

I should note that Tim Ferguson has commented on the YouTube post, very politely asking for this to be taken down. And I get his point--he and Paul McD and Paul L have a living to make--but I also don't think that anyone who loves DAAS is going to decide not to attend a live show because they've seen 15 minutes of it on YouTube. Whereas for fans like me, people who don't live in Australia or the UK or just can't afford a ticket, it's really wonderful to have a chance to see even a little of what we're missing. (Also: DVD, guys. Release a DVD and I will buy it!)

Watch on YouTube

1) Whenever I had a spare moment during my shift at work today*, I thought bitterly about the fact that many the people Labor Day ostensibly celebrates don't have the day off. Because they have no unions and therefore no/few paid holidays.

*I didn't have many spare moments, because all the people with good jobs and money to spend did have the day off and were shopping.

2) I recently watched The Hippopotamus, in which Roger Allam plays a boozy washed-up poet who is hired to investigate a purported miracle at the country house of a friend. It's based on a novel by Stephen Fry, which . . . well, it wasn't as cruelly cynical as I thought it would be, though I should note that the movie's lone gay character was depicted in a way I must describe as homophobic. (I feel like Stephen Fry has form for this, but I'm not completely sure.) It's not a terrible movie, and worth it if you like Roger Allam (Fiona Shaw is also in it, but rather wasted in a small role; then there's a bizarrely miscast Matthew Modine as the lord of the manor, his American accent unconvincingly handwaved as the result of having an American father). I did like Tim McInnerny as the abovementioned gay man, and I think it might have been a better movie from his point of view.

3) I appear to be rewatching as much of Good News Week as I can readily find. Paul McDermott makes me happy.

4) Speaking of which, DAAS were at the Edinburgh festival and appeared briefly on BBC Radio's The Now Show a week or two ago. They sang "The Sailor's Arms," and to my delight, rephrased the transphobic last line to be better. It's still a song that can deservedly be termed problematic, but I kind of love it anyway and I was glad to see it improved. If you want to hear it, I think this episode of the Now Show is still on the BBC i-Player for a couple of weeks.

5) There's an interesting review of DAAS's Shepherds Bush performance here. I don't agree with everything about it (I think even DAAS's cruder jokes are cleverer than Regan realizes), but I liked reading about the show's emotional impact, since I'm never going to be able to see it myself unless they release a DVD. The reason I'm posting about it here, though, is that the reviewer writes that Tim Ferguson "is going to die very soon." This completely freaked me out, especially since the review was linked to both from the official DAAS Facebook and from Tim's own Facebook, and in neither case did Tim say, "Um, actually not dying soon that I know of." So now I'm worried that he is dying and it's something they've acknowledged in the show. Certainly Tim's MS has gotten worse, and he said in an interview that it's moved into the steadily progressing stage and he doesn't expect any more remissions. I even googled "Is Tim Ferguson dying," and found lots about Tim's MS but nothing to say he is in fact dying, so I'm hoping that the reviewer just got the wrong end of the stick. Still, it is worrisome. I know it's ridiculous to feel so concerned about celebrities (plural because, honestly, it makes me worry as much for Paul as for Tim), and normally I wouldn't, but somehow, in this case, I do.

6) To try to end on something positive: I watched the first episode of the new Bake Off and it didn't suck. There hasn't been any attempt to manufacture tension or feuds or whatever between the bakers, which is what I was afraid of. I do very much feel the lack of Mel and Sue, and especially of Mary Berry, but I am one of those weird people who actually likes Paul Hollywood, so I'm willing to watch just for him while I warm up to the new bakers and hopefully the new presenters.

Being able to stream Netflix on my phone is leading to me watching a lot more (old) TV than I used to. After I finished Leverage, I tried a couple of comedies: Master of None, which I noped out on after about two minutes (explicit het sex plus pregnancy talk, nope nope nope nope), and Bordertown, an animated show about two families on the US-Mexico border. It's made by Seth McFarlane, so I should have known better--I lasted about ten minutes.

( Several more TV shows under the cut )

When not staring at the extremely small screen, I've read Charles Stross's latest Laundry Files books, The Delirium Brief. The books have been getting grimmer for some time now, and this one most of all. A good book, but not recommended if you're already in despair about the state of the world.

I also read the new Rivers of London novella The Furthest Station, which is enjoyable as a side story to the main narrative. As usual, there is not enough Thomas Nightingale. I suspect that all those fans who interpret Nightingale as gay (I'm one of them, and I know Aaronovitch is aware of them because reasons) have freaked Aaronovitch out and we're never going to get another tender emotional moment between Thomas and Peter. Indeed, we seem to get less Nightingale with each successive book. *is sad*

Coming up, I want to watch a bunch of the Gay Britannia programming from the BBC. There are two shows about men falling in love during World War II! Oh, BBC, it's like you read my letter to Santa. I don't know yet if either show is any good, but I'm hoping.

1) Last night I watched this concert film of DAAS at Redlands Community College in Queensland. I'd never seen it before--last time I was fannish about DAAS, it wasn't on the internet. It was great to see routines I didn't know, even if a lot of it seemed like new pieces being tested that weren't fated to make the cut. The boys seemed to be having an off night as well. But all that means that the anarchic potential people say was characteristic of their live shows is much closer to the surface than in their more polished concert films. And if for nothing else, I must love it for the "sociology experiment" in which Paul selects a man from the audience and kisses him lengthily.

2) There's a moment in the song "I Love the French" when the boys shout out "baise mon cul." They probably thought they were saying "kiss my ass," but what it actually means is "fuck my ass."* I'm equally amused by the possibility that their ignorance of French turned an aggressive statement in a xenophobic song into a plea for some foreign lovin', and the possibility that they knew perfectly well what they were saying and it's some meta-ironic thing.

*Baiser is a notorious opportunity for French learners to embarrass themselves. As a noun, un baiser does indeed mean "a kiss." But the verb baiser means "to fuck."

Recently I rewatched some old Doug Anthony Allstars stuff and fell in love all over again.* I did some googling and discovered that DAAS have actually gotten back together**, with a new show that they performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and then toured.

I'm torn between joy (it's a fan's dream come true! it's the kind of thing that never happens, but it did!) and frustration that I'll never get to see them play live. Hopefully they'll release a DVD, anyway.

The new show, "Near Death Experiences," is apparently based around Tim Ferguson's worsening multiple sclerosis--he uses a wheelchair now--and the fact that they're all almost thirty years older. Where the old DAAS's favorite taboos to comedically break were sexual ones, now they're joking about illness, disability, aging, and mortality. Or in other words, the topics I am increasingly drawn to as I get older. I really, really want a DVD, oh yes.

Here's a pretty good interview with Tim:

Watch on YouTube

A more group-focused piece in which Paul nearly loses his composure every time he's asked about his feelings for Tim:

Watch on YouTube

And in case you're thinking "The Doug Anthony who with the what now?", have some clips from their days of youth and stardom. The second and third clips are HIGHLY NSFW.

Watch on YouTube

*Seriously, we live in a world in which Donald Trump can be elected President of the US and yet I am still not Paul McDermott's boyfriend. How can this be?

**Sort of. Richard chose to keep his day job and was replaced on guitar by Paul Livingstone aka Flacco.

For the one or two of you who are interested in the Doug Anthony All Stars, there's a new article (basically good article, crappy title) about Tim Ferguson and his new stage show (about his experience of multiple sclerosis, which he was diagnosed with in the mid-1990s) here: In the Face of Adversity.

(Follow up from my last post.)

3. Paul McDermott/Tim Ferguson RPS (6700 words, not sexually explicit). I'm still attached to this fandom, but the unfinished part of the story was just too big and complicated, and I lost momentum. Do try to forgive the mawkishness of the ring scene at the very beginning (I'd have rewritten it to be less so), as some of what comes later, I rather like. Tim really did used to wear a claddagh ring (you can see it in Dead and Alive) and Paul at the same time was wearing a ring that looked similar but not identical.

( click here to read )

4. My Beautiful Laundrette fic (Omar/Johnny, 500 words, nothing sexually explicit). This is the Yuletide 2010 story I started and couldn't finish, eventually dropping out of Yuletide.

( click here to read )

I haven't included two substantial stalled WIPs that I still hope to finish (in Hot Fuzz and X-Men: First Class, both of which only need editing).

Ah, today is the first of two glorious days off in a row! (My days off are frequently not consecutive.)

Besides sleeping, I've also written about 1000 words in a fandom that has, at most, two people in it. And I'm contemplating a fill at

tintin_kinkmeme, where to my surprise there are several good stories and a number of prompts that make me want to write instead of tear my hair out.

Also, I have decided that today is Dead WIP Amnesty Day for me. So I'm going to post some fragments that are unfinished and will never be finished, but are not so terrible or so fragmentary that I want to consign them to hard-drive oblivion. These are first drafts, so read at your own risks of typos and other infelicities.

1. Unfinished Sanctuary story (Henry/Big Guy, teen, 5100 words, nothing sexually explicit). I started this during the mid-S3 hiatus, then it got jossed, then S4 of Sanctuary alienated me so much that I stopped watching and may not resume. Which is a shame, because I like how this one was going.

( click here to read )

2. James May/Paul McDermott RPS (with implied unrequited James/Richard and previous Paul/Tim Ferguson), 1200 words, nothing sexually explicit. Top Gear is another fandom I think I'm done with, although I do have the urge sometimes to write about James May with non-TG men (e.g. Sim Oakley, Oz Clarke, or in this case Paul McDermott, formerly of DAAS fame).

( click here to read )

More dead WIPs coming in a second post. This one can't get any longer if I'm to crosspost it to LJ successfully.

I've started watching QI again. I didn't watch it for a long time, because I got seriously disillusioned with Stephen Fry after he said/tweeted several failtastic things, and with the show after the epically awful "Girls and Boys" episode, which repeated a lot of stupid crap about gender rather than questioning "common knowledge" as QI is supposed to do. But I've returned; I do enjoy the format and the guests (especially permanent guest Alan Davies, plus folks like David Mitchell, Rich Hall, and Jo Brand, although she hasn't been on for a while). And I like Fry when he's not so far up himself that he goes stupid from lack of oxygen.

Returning to QI led me to other Brit panel shows, which led me to discover the truly delicious Liam Fox/Adam Werritty scandal (slash mark used advisedly). Here's ( a summary that's as short as I can make it )

On the subject of comedy news, I've finally brought myself to watch an episode of Good News World, the successor to the much-lamented Good News Week (an Australian news quiz show starring Paul McDermott). ( thoughts )

It probably says something (bad) about me that I'm more informed about Australian politics, and maybe UK politics as well, than US politics. I think that's because when it's happening in my own country, it's too depressing to bear. My country has slid so far to the right that (according to something I read in the New Yorker) people at Republican rallies have cheered for the idea of letting people without health insurance die. A good old graft-and-sex scandal would be light relief. (Unfortunately, the last sex scandal we had ended the career of a liberal who'd been awfully valuable on a lot of issues despite apparently being creepy in his personal life.)

A second factor is that UK and Australian comedy-news shows are funnier and include more gay. I'll bet Jon Stewart has never sung about his desire for Mitt Romney's manly bod.

I'm not sure how ranty these rants are, but I tried.

Spoilers are possible for any of the listed fandoms, although I've made huge/not ubiquitously known spoilers highlight-to-read.

brewsternorth asked about ( Raffles/Bunny )

biichan asked about ( Charles/Erik, X1-3 )

lilacsigil asked about ( Charles/Erik, XMFC )

executrix asked about ( Avon/Tarrant )

silver_sandals asked about ( Dax and Sisko, Deep Space 9 )

vandonovan asked about ( Spock/Uhura, any version )

ansketil_rose asked about ( Vetinari/Drumknott, Discworld )

mcicioni asked about ( Robbie Lewis/Laura Hobson, Lewis )

halotolerant asked about ( Tim Ferguson/Paul McDermott, Australian comedy RPS )

lady_twatterby asked about ( Holmes/Watson )

In his latest Q and A, Tim Ferguson says he's stalking Paul McDermott.

Never before have I been quite so pleased to hear about a stalker. *grins*

Here are my responses to the "what are your favorite pairings in X fandom" meme.

lilacsigil asked about ( Doctor Who, any era )

lemposoi asked about ( Doug Anthony All Stars RPF )

maggie33 asked about ( Spaced )

flo_nelja asked about ( X-Men )

vandonovan asked about ( Doctor Who )

halotolerant asked about ( Top Gear )

be_goddess_like asked about ( Sherlock Holmes and Renault's Alexander novels )

Er, it's been a while since I've made a fannish post, hasn't it? My job and other things have kept me pretty busy for a while.

I'm still all about the RPF at the moment. In a way it's not that surprising: over the last few years I've been feeling increasingly dissatisfied with scripted media, because too often, stories I start out loving go horribly wrong. ( More on RPF versus scripted fandoms )

The With Tim Ferguson blog has just posted a brief Tim Q&A. And, okay, I'm not unaware that there's probably some irony in this answer, like all the other answers, but Tim's response to the "entertainer I most admire" question still made me go awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Brought to you mostly by this evening's viewing of Top Gear (from 2005) and Good News Week (from 1998).

( cut to spare the uninterested )

I have managed to lure the amazing

halotolerant into the DAAS fandom, yay! And she's written a wonderful ficlet, The World's Coolest Walking Stick (Paul/Tim, rated teen, set after Tim's July 2010 appearance on Good News Week). One of the things I love about this story is the way it deals with Tim's disability--showing it as a factor in Tim's life that's always there but also isn't the only thing about him, rather than (as is all too common in stories about disabled characters) using it as a pretext for angst or ignoring it if the author finds it inconvenient. The story is also a powerful look at missed opportunities and second chances.

Discovered tonight: this transcript of Andrew Denton interviewing Paul McDermott for GQ magazine in about 1996/97. The whole thing is gold, but I particularly call your attention to this bit, in which Denton has been asking Paul question after question about sex on tour:

Q: [I]t seems to me, and this is why I've always envied you the touring life, much as I know it's also a dog's life, the great thing about being three handsome young lads who are the centre of attention is that basically you must pull the chicks.

A: Yeah, well, you pull a lot of people. I mean, you know, let's not be gender specific.

I'd heard that Paul had once said something like this, but as no one could seem to remember exactly where and when he said it, I chalked it up as another internet rumor.

Interestingly, Paul goes on to talk about how uncomfortable he often was with casual sex. (And no, he doesn't sound like he's joking.) There's also a lot in the interview about what Denton calls Paul's discomfort with his own existence; a number of Paul's answers make him sound quite depressed. Which killed some of my glee over "let's not be gender specific," I must admit.

The interview feels incredibly open and honest, perhaps because Paul had known Andrew Denton for some years and presumably trusted him more than some random journalist. And it does get a bit more cheerful at the end when Paul talks about watching Xena: Warrior Princess and playing Tomb Raider instead of watching the Logies. *hearts him*

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Page generated Jun. 8th, 2025 12:14 am

something queer going on

Entries tagged with fandom: daas

you can probably predict how this ends

I can't think of a title for this post

never too early to speculate

new DAAS clip

Labor Day

books and TV

DAAS stuff

sometimes old fandoms really don't die

still the pretty one

more dead WIPs

works in progress and no longer in progress

comedians, politicians: is there a difference?

pairings "rant" meme

Tim makes the slash fans happy again

pairings meme answers

not dead, still fannish

wibbling rather a lot here

random RPF-ish thoughts

fic rec

oh internets, I love you

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May 2025

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