As I said it was all bit TL;DR and a mature person would have left that last blog post at that but I'm petty and frankly I've been fighting with people about comedy since I was 14, I'm not going to stop now.
Assuming you read it all; it seems Jacques isn't all that good at judging brief, nor is he that good at judging audience responses to jokes that come across as playground homophobia but this isn't about me kicking down Barrett. In all honesty I think he is too busy to be getting fighty and angry with someone who isn't using the blog in the way it should be used. Firstly, f*ck him, I will use my blog how I like and when (I can be arsed to) like and secondly responding to any criticism with "Why don't you do it" never looks good. In fact I'm tempted to take him up on it. I couldn't be any worse than him and maybe we could do a role swap?
In all seriousness, perhaps I was too hard on him. I should have mentioned that joke that went slightly better than the others because it was only a bit misogynistic but to be honest I had to dig deep into my brain to remember that, however it did get laughs and I shouldn't take that or the fact other comics were really nice to him, no mention of audience members though but who cares about them when you are performer.
I will end it at this; Jacques knows where the comment box is if he wants a final say but his response was a pathetic as I hoped it would be when I asked him about publishing. He didn't want a discussion and still doesn't so I won't engage in one. He wanted to rant & boohoo about a blog, that has been up less than a month and barely registering on search engines, that had criticised him. I understand that, as I suspected Barrett is a teeny bit insecure and a blog confirming what you already knew (it didn't work and it clearly hurt Barrett that it didn't work) but his defensive alongside poor material will be his downfall.
Perhaps mine too if I keep upsetting comics with this blog.
Never tell a reviewer how to review. It's a hiding to nothing. If you think someone was misguided or missed the point of what they were reviewing, point this out gently and politely, or just keep your trap shut. I've had one stinkingly bad review in the seven years since my first book came out (several indifferent but well meant). I considered taking said reviewer to task, not for the fact that he didn't like my book, but for the way he seemed to be concentrating on minor errors in order to discredit my research. Then I thought "What's the fucking point?" and went for a walk. This isn't to say that if I ever meet him, I won't knee him in the pods, but as I don't think either of us gets out much, that ain't going to happen.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. Some reviewers are just petty, like the minor errors man you had and some reviewers don't go in with an open mind I am not saying I am not capable of that but I wite as I see it and the small but loyal number that read this blog are accepting that is this is just my opinion and I would never say "DON'T SEE THIS SHOW/COMIC" because who am I to dictate that.
ReplyDeleteIf someone if checking my work I want their review of it to be constructive; i.e how we can all avoid me messing up again and again but in this instance my review was about a piece that didn't work, which has been acknowledged by both parties, and why it didn't work. It wasn't my place to say how to change it and thus be constructive.
It wasn't a review filled with praise but none of my reviews have been and I've not received any emails about them (I suspect they don't know, to be honest)