Bobby Mair - What Is Shocking?
Published: Friday 25th October 2013
We asked stand-up comedian Bobby Mair to write us something about being shocked. He has a reputation for being slightly 'disturbed', so we perhaps shouldn't be surprised that this is what we got back...
When I was a 15, I masturbated to music videos on late-night TV. I wasn't overly selective. I didn't have to be. The point of most music videos was to objectify the lady-singer as much as possible without showing her nipples or vagina. I imagined it was kind of a fun game for anyone who produced a lot of them...
Producer 1: "What if she peeled a banana with her mouth?"
Producer 2: "Nah, that's been done to death. This time she should lick milk off her own face!"
Producer 1: "No, not milk. Yoghurt!"
Producer 2: "Seriously, you're a genius"
Now at 27, I smoke a pack a day and take a heavy dose of anti-depressants that has turned masturbation into a waste of the precious sperm that arrives fortnightly. The world pretending Miley Cyrus twerking is shocking puts me to sleep like a hardy wank used to.
I used to be a medical labrat. I'd sleep in a clinic with ex-cons and illegal immigrants for a weekend while getting stabbed with more needles than a junky with a death wish. When one of my scummier friends was down on his luck, he drove his hooker girlfriend to meet Johns and waited in the car while she turned tricks. Both those things to me are a bit more shocking than slapping your ass cheeks together like some orgy party trick.
What's shocking would be if a female singer with an amazing voice only released audio tracks and somehow she gets popular. Think Banksy, but with pop music. We never find out what she looks like but we all imagine she's incredible because she has a beautiful voice, and we've been lead to believe that incredible vocal cords are always attached to amazing tits and a love for dick.
Then, what would be even more shocking, is when we all discover this secret singer is a mother of six. She's pushing 40, and when she's not singing she spends her time with her head in her hands wondering how the fuck she's going to get her kids to school and get to work for 9am. Her songs about heartbreak sound so real... because her husband abandoned her and the kids for a 20 year-old server at Greggs who would do anal. That's why when she sang about heartbreak - it sounded oh so real.
She'd be a legend around her local till the end of time, but the money would run out fast and she'd get hired at Greggs by the now single mother who stole her husband but is going it alone since he fucked off again. But at least, for a second, we'd all be actually shocked.
Bobby Mair: Obviously Adopted is at the Soho Theatre Thusday 31st October - Saturday 2nd November 2013. Details
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