The Three Stooges. I’m a man. I’ve performed comedy. Those two things right there automatically say I must love the Stooges. Heck, even the first one should make me an automatic Stooge fan. But I don’t like them at all. Even despite being a huge Marx Brothers fan (similar time frame).
TOS and TNG. This is one I’m even afraid to admit in a room full of other Trek geeks. I love me some Star Trek, but the first two series (especially the first one) seem far too cheesy for me to enjoy and I really don’t see why any Trek fan does enjoy it unless it’s for the camp factor that it exudes all over. I wouldn’t say I hate it, I have watched episodes of both, there are episodes I like of both (Tribbles of TOS (of course, but that is a subtle nod to my not liking of it, I only like the most popular episode) and mostly later TNG) but I can’t back either horse in the endless “Picard v. Kirk” debate.
Seinfeld. Again, when I was performing standup, Seinfeld came out with his seminal TV work, and everyone said I had to watch it, since I was a comedian. But I never got into it. It seemed to be, to me (and pardon the extremely overused cliche coming up in 3 … 2… ) “a show about nothing” - and not in a good way.
Now if you claim to be a geek, of any kind, and don’t like The Big Bang Theory, there is indeed something majorly wrong with you. I’ve met geeks who don’t like BBT, I’ve ordered them to report to the nearest geek headquarters (to the non-geek population: they’re cleverly disguised as Radio Shack stores (formerly, it was Sharper Image)) and turn in their geek card. Any geek trying to say they don’t like BBT here will get the same directive from me in this thread. No arguments. March!
I think at his best Terry Pratchett is more of philosopher, humanist and observationist than a humourist. I think it is always difficult to warm to something when your expectations are elsewhere.
I can get on board with most of these, but Robyn Hitchcock has been around longer and done better and more influential work than almost all of these artists combined. Doesn’t seem to fit in with the relative flashes-in-the-pan of your first paragraph.
And dhkendall, as I said, I’m a music (and film and book) geek, but I can’t stand BBT. The jokes and situations are so standard they might as well be stolen from Alf, and the laugh track only makes it seem more hacky. Just MHO, of course.
See, I absolutely love Haruki Murakami - I like the spaces he leaves that I can fill in mentally with his higher-concept books like Wild Sheep Chase, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and Kafka on the Shore…
With music, one I have mentioned regularly is **Carlos Santana **- I am clearly a huge guitar geek, love Peter Green (who’s style was the basis for Carlos’, IMHO), etc., but I find Carlos noodly, tedious and over-selling-to-the-point-of-Kenny-G-ness :eek:. I’ll listen to his big hits, but have never thought to seek him out…
When people find out I’m a Stephen King fan, often their first response is “Oh! You must love Dean Koontz!”
No. No I don’t. Don’t even like him, really. Other horror/fantasy fic authors I do like include Dan Simmons, Poul Andersen and Harlan Ellison. But I don’t like Koontz.
I’ll agree with whoever said Seinfeld; when it was in its’ heyday, the smartest people I knew loved it. I tried it. I like observational/commentary style comedy. But I could never get into Seinfeld.
Me four. In fact, other than King, I don’t really like horror at all. I probably only like King because I read the Dark Tower first and then moved on to everything else.
As for music, Radiohead. Pretty much all of my alternative rock/indie music faves keep pointing me towards Radiohead, but I’m not a fan. I don’t hate them, but they’ve never hit in a way that made me think “I want to listen to an entire album of this.”
I love Return To Forever/Al Dimeola/Bill Connors, Billy Cobham/John Abercrombie, and Weather Report. I can’t stand John McLaughlin or Mahavishnu Orchestra.
I love Joe Satriani, but am not a fan of Steve Vai.
I’ve tried to watch Firefly and Serenity. Nope. Not my cuppa tea. I just can’t get into them. I also can’t get into South Park.
I’ve tried and tried and tried to like yogurt, but I hate it. I don’t care if it’s plain or with fruit or whatever, I hate all of it except TCBY’s frozen yogurt. And really, what’s the point of eating really sweet frozen yogurt? Why not just eat ice cream? It’s about the same, healthwise, isn’t it?
Yep. Me too. Although not to the point that I can’t stand to hear it at all; but I just don’t get all the intellectual wanking over, say, Miles Davis or Charlie Parker. The only quasi-jazzy thing I’ve every really been blown away by was a clarinet concerto that Aaron Copland wrote for Benny Goodman. All the rest is just vaguely pleasant sounds, to me.
Well, even Pratchett-lovers (of which I am emphatically one), will tell you that Sir Pterry has written some stinkers. Pyramids, Eric and Making Money, for example.
Also, as Novelty Bobble pointed out, Pratchett is not primarily about comedy. Sure, there are always humorous situations and jokes, but his stories are more character- and idea-driven. If the Discworld novels don’t do it for you, but you still want to see what all the fuss is about, try the Tiffany Aching series - Wee Free Men, Hat Full Of Sky, and Wintersmith. In my mind, this is Pterry’s most consistently good writing.
But hey - if you don’t like 'em, you don’t like 'em. No sense wasting your time on literature that doesn’t entertain you.
I read The Color of Magic and Guards! Guards! and some others whose names and plots I’ve forgotten.
And I am not so stodgy that I cannot adjust my expectations when a book or movie turns out to be something other than what I expected. I am pretty sure it was not misplaced expectations that caused me to find Pratchett’s stories interminably dull.
I do like Good Omens, although some of the WACKY! ODDBALL! humor - which I now realize was all Pratchett’s doing - falls flat for me.
*Six Feet Under. *I’m morbid, like gallows humor, loved *My Girl *as a kid and even toyed with becoming a funeral director or forensic pathologist. On paper, it’s my favorite show ever. In reality, I watched a few episodes and just hated every character.
Whedon. I like vampires, I like sci-fi, I like the quirky sort of stuff he does, but not him.
Big Bang Theory and The IT Crowd. You know, because I’m a geek, ha ha. Except I don’t like that kind of humour.
Miyazaki. Because I like anime and Disney. Except that my favorite anime genres are Tolkien-esque fantasy and space operas. And Heaven’s Light/Hellfire is probably my favorite Disney song.
Raw fish. Because I like anime and Japan. Except the senses of taste and touch inside your mouth are not connected to your sense of sight.
Neither of which was very good. They are very early novels, though.
Well, you might like Carpe Jugulum or Night Watch - both of those are short on the “wacky”.
But again, I wasn’t trying to tell you that you should like Pratchett - if you do, great; if you don’t, that’s fine too. De gustibus non disputandum est.
The novels of Angela Carter, the late English, feminist, magic realist author of …well, her own versions of fairy tales. In The Company of Wolves was a movie made from one of her books. All the elements of why I should have loved her work were in place, on paper she sounded just my thing, but I must be stupider than I thought. What I read just sort of turned me off (and I read a review saying you would either love her stuff or hate it).
Romantic comedies. Romance novels. Lifetime Channel. All this is aimed directly at my demographic, and I flee in horror. Even in junior high, I was the biggest Star Trek geek in the whole school, and the one and only girl who just loved it.
Yet another Pratchett non-fan here. Everything about him makes it sound as though he should be right up my alley. Any time I’ve tried him, it felt like a chore.
And another Whedon non-fan as well. Never got into any of his main shows and the new ones don’t even ping on my radar.
To throw a new name into the mix, everything about Cat Power sounds as though she should have an esteemed place in my music collection but every time I’ve tried listening to her stuff, it just left me feeling “eh”.