Episode 16: Cisagreement

This is a fun one, cut short because Nick had to go. But before that, we have one of the first real disagreements between Nick and Carey, regarding being called/categorised as 'cis'.

Episode 15: Gunn Control

In the last few days, James Gunn (writer/director of 'Guardians of the Galaxy') was fired by Disney because of some tweets he sent years ago. This poses the question: where does your 'employee' identity end and your online identity begin? Do you have the right to have your online life considered separately from your work life, or are you always a representative of your employer? And should anyone ever lose their job over a joke, even one that's in bad taste? How does this compare to Roseanne? And does it matter that this whole affair was effectively orchestrated as a right-wing attack? If this can get someone fired, can  you now end the career of anyone in the public eye just by trawling through their Twitter history? Nick and Carey attempt to answer these questions, after a bit of rambling.

Episode 14: Change

This episode came out of the question, 'What do we do now that we think will become unacceptable in the future?' Things have changed a lot in the last couple of hundred years, and not just technologically; human values have also changed. Attitudes that were commonplace just a few generations ago now seem prehistoric. So do we have to forgive the people of the past because 'it was a different time', or are they all just as guilty as if they were born now? And how long will we keep the values we have now? Will they seem outdated and ludicrous to future generations? These are all interesting questions that could do with some expert analysis, but unfortunately you've got Nick and Carey rambling as usual.`

Episode 13: Cultural Appropriation

You may recently have heard accusations of 'cultural  appropriation'. Examples range from white people wearing dreadlocks or chopsticks in their hair to Elvis's musical 'inspirations' to an 18-year-old being attacked in a social media storm for wearing a Chinese-style dress to her prom. So what is cultural appropriation? Is it a real, well-defined phenomenon? Is it as serious a problem as those who complain about it seem to think? Should we care about it at all?
Nick and Carey try their very best to give a shit.
Some links: 
Time covers the Chinese dress storm: http://time.com/5262748/chinese-prom-dress-cultural-appropriation/
David Frum on the Chinese dress furore: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/05/cultural-appropriation/559802/
The Bustle on Cultural Appropriation: https://www.bustle.com/p/7-things-you-might-not-realize-are-cultural-appropriation-that-are-60679

Episode 12: Free Speech

Nick and Carey discuss free speech, as they have EVERY RIGHT TO DO.

Episode 11: The Crown (or, Should We Throw The Royal Baby Out A Window?)

To commemorate the birth and naming of a new Royal Baby, we discuss whether it would be better for the country if we threw it out a window. Yes, this episode is about the Royal Family. Are they worth it to the country? Does it really matter? What are the alternatives? We talk about the baffling public hysteria over the death of Princess Diana, the weird fact that the public would rather see William become King than Charles, the surprising degree to which the Royals interfere in the running of the country, and how brilliant 'The Crown' is. Also, it's revealed that Nick may have committed treason as a child.

Episode 10: Antisemitism

What is antisemitism? What's a Jew? Why would anyone hate them? What are they up to? Do they control the media? Really? Not even the Jewish Chronicle? And is there a real problem with antisemitism on the left? Have either or both of Nick and Carey experienced antisemitism? And if both, why, given that only Carey is Jewish? Listen to find the answers to a couple, if not some, of these poorly-framed questions.

Episode 9: The Maths of Privilege

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

Episode 8: Optimism, Guns and Trump

This episode may sound like the sequel to 'Guns, Germs and Steel', but in fact Nick and Carey talk about Steven Pinker's new book, 'Enlightenment Now', which continues from his previous book, 'The Better Angels of our Nature' in that it claims that things are, broadly, improving for humanity. Is this true? And if it is, why does claiming it make some people so angry? Carey explains the Mean World Syndrome, then they get sidetracked onto school shootings, gun control and, inevitably, Trump.

Nymphs, Grid Girls and #metoo

Jordan Peterson and Cathy Newman

Nick and Carey discuss the recent interview on Channel 4 News between journalist Cathy Newman and psychologist Professor Jordan Peterson. They are significantly less drunk than the previous episode, but it's still Sunday.

5: The New Year Episode

Every so often there's bound to be one like this: a hurriedly-recorded episode where one or both of us are drunk. That's what this is. We talk about various studies that we've half-read, and a bit about religion.

Language!

In this first-ever outdoors episode, Nick and Carey make some corrections and Nick apologises for using the N-word about the wrong cinematic dog. They then go on to talk about offensive language, and, towards the end, triggers and trigger warnings. Which should probably have come at the beginning. It should go without saying that there's strong language (it should go without saying, but it doesn't).

Disgust, discussed.

Are you easily disgusted? If you are, then you're probably more socially conservative, according to several experiments discussed in this talk by psychologist David Pizarro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YL3LT1ZvOM 

In this episode, Nick & Carey talk about what -
 if anything - disgusts them, and wonder whether disgust could be used to change people's minds.
Oh, and they're both sick, so enjoy this recording of two men talking about disgust while bodily fluids stream from their faces.

Episode 2: School uniforms and 'your mum' jokes.

Nick and Carey totally intend to talk about Centrism but don't at all. Instead, they talk about how far back their resistance to tribalism goes, encompassing school uniforms, religious upbringings, tattoos, anti-Americanism, Trump, Bush, and 'your mum' jokes. The book we talk about is 'The Righteous Mind' by Jonathan Haidt,

Pilot. And we can't fly.

CITIZENS OF NOWHERE - a podcast in which comedians Nick Doody and Carey Marx discuss issues in the world, and their failures to slot into the most convenient categories regarding our opinions on them. CLICK HERE for RSS feed.

Backstage in Cardiff / llwyfan yng Nghaerdydd

I bet you wonder what it's like to be a comedian on tour. That's what people wonder, I bet. It's what I would wonder, if I were a person.

It's one of the unspoken facts about stand-up comedy that it involves more ironing than you'd think. It doesn't involve much ironing, but assuming you'd think it didn't involve any, it involves more than you'd think. Basically, you're away from home, your clothes have to go in a bag, and to avoid everyone on the bill looking like they were pulled out of a skip before the show, most venues have an iron and ironing board. The irons are of varying quality, and the ironing boards are almost universally filthy - the sort of filthy that raises more questions than it answers. You know how if a two-year-old has jam all over their face, it answers the question of how that face got dirty? But if there are also runes and sheep's hoofprints on the child's face, it makes the dirtiness more mysterious? Like that. Most of the ironing boards I've seen on this tour are the sort of dirty that would make sense if you were given them with the words, "Here you go - it was used last week as a surfboard in a daring escape from an island prison in the middle of a lake of dogshit."

At the moment I'm on tour with Dave Gorman. The venues are of varying sizes, between about 600 and 3000 capacity, and usually within the 900-1200 range. I'm writing this backstage at Cardiff's St David's Hall, which seats about 1500. And it has no iron.

You heard that right*.

I had to go onstage 2 hours ago, in front of 1500 people, in an un-ironed shirt, because St David's Hall doesn't have an iron. And why doesn't have an iron?

Because the Waterboys stole it.

The fucking Waterboys. Yet again, they dog my every move. You might not know this, but they're called the Waterboys because they steal anything that contains water. Their audiences, being about 60% water themselves, don't know the danger they're in.

Now, maybe you're thinking, "You don't know for sure that the Waterboys stole the iron. You were just frustrated that the iron was missing and noticed the Waterboys had been on there recently. At best, your evidence is circumstantial."

Well, maybe you're right. So I say this: if the Waterboys are innocent, let them prove it. Let me go through all their houses, and if there is no iron, ironing board or ironing accoutements (little plastic jugs, etc) to be found, then fine - I will downgrade my assessment of their guilt to merely 'unproven'.

The ball's in your pool, Waterboys. Your move.

I better go. Dave's got to the Found Poem.




*Or read it right. I'm assuming someone else is reading this out loud to you**.

**If you are the person reading this out loud to someone else, please ignore this bit, or at least don't read it out loud.

By the way, I have no idea if the Welsh bit of the title above is correct. I don't speak Welsh. I just guessed by extrapolating from the dual-language fire alarm instructions, etc.