Drew and I had a pretty fun weekend. We took Friday night off from worship and had a date. We started out by stopping by the Oglesby Gallery in the FSU student union to see a friend’s photography show. I’ve shared another blog about a different show by this same friend. He does a great job of taking pictures of ordinary, everyday things and making them look really cool. Although he does do some photo editing, I heard him say about several shots that he didn’t do anything to it. I admire that, and it’s one of my goals in photography. I want to learn about photoshop, but would rather learn how to capture the shots myself without having to doctor it up. We had a great time wandering from photo to photo and admiring each shot. We even admired his pile of clutter artistically placed in the corner, as a symbol of his struggle with hoarding. He had everything from thousands of baseball cards to a 99 cent barbeque set to a piece of a gutter. He told us he was secretly hoping people would steal stuff and then he wouldn’t have to clean it all up. It was a great show and we even found a piece we want to buy. His show will be up for a month, so if you’re in Tally, stop by the FSU union on the second floor and check it out.
After we left there and grabbed a bite to eat, we headed to the Civic Center for the FSU Pow Wow. It was homecoming weekend, and we were there to see comedian John Oliver. We sat through all the festivities leading up to him, expecting to be bored, but were pleasantly surprised. They featured performances by many different groups from around campus, including the cheerleaders and All Night Yahtzee (an a cappella choral group that I really wish I had joined when I was in college) and even the circus. I never actually went to any homecoming festivities while I attended college (I’m not much of a football fan and was pretty much a stick in the mud through all of college) so it was kinda fun to see all that I missed.
After all that fun, comedian Fred Armisen took the stage. I had never heard of him, but Drew was excited to see him. He’s been on Saturday Night Live. He came out and did some funny stuff, including making the Marching Chiefs play a song for him so he could feel like he was accepting an award. But then he went downhill fast. It became very apparent that he had no material lined up. He did some impressions, then took audience requests for impressions, and then it seemed like he was grasping at straws to finish up. One guy yelled from the stands, “YOU SUCK!” and I felt really bad for him. Apparently he’d been booked last minute so he probably had zero time to prepare. It was painfully awkward to watch as he finished up.
Soon, he did finish and John Oliver took the stage. I’ve watched him on the Daily Show and really liked his material. We caught one of his stand up routines on Comedy Central and I thought it was hilarious. I was really looking forward to it. Then he came out on stage and one of the first five words out of his mouth was the f-bomb. And was one of the words out of his mouth like every five minutes after that. I am not as easily offended by swearing as I used to be, but the f-word is the one that I still really cannot stand. It just sounds really dirty and offensive. I will admit that used properly (and sparingly) with the right timing, it can really enhance comedic effect. But when used constantly, it just makes me cringe. I was really disappointed by his routine. Although he did have some pretty funny jokes, I found that I just couldn’t laugh at many of them. I wanted to stand up and walk out when he went on a tirade about how he hates Tim Tebow. Now, I realize that he was at the FSU homecoming, and the best way to cater to an FSU football crowd is to make digs on Florida football, but I felt that he just took it too far. I don’t follow football at all, but I’ve heard enough about Tim Tebow to know that he seems like a pretty cool guy. And a Christian. He doesn’t seem like one of those really obnoxious Christians either. He publicly shares his faith and isn’t overly obnoxious about it (from what I’ve seen at least). Oliver went on a tirade about how he doesn’t get why a football player would thank God before his offensive line. I get where he was trying to go with his joke and apparently the other thousand people there found it quite funny, but I just found myself sinking deeper into my stadium seat. His closing words to his audience were: “F*** Tim Tebow!” So yeah… I think I’ve lost a bit of respect for John Oliver.
On my way home, I received a text from a friend who had also been there and had seen us from a distance. The text read:
Drew is way funnier!
So true.