I watched the whole thing and — maybe it's just me — I didn't find anything funny. The new Biden is James Austin Johnson. He doesn't look much like Biden and isn't leaning into making him ridiculous enough. The real Biden is already someone you can just watch and laugh at, so what are you going to do with it?
The second sentence of his very short Wikipedia page is: "He has garnered attention for his impression of former President of the United States Donald Trump, sometimes being referred to as 'the best Trump impersonator.'"
Okay, so maybe this Biden impersonation is a fake out until they get to what they hired him for. Check this out:
How will they do debates if their Trump guy is also their Biden guy? I guess they're planning to worry about that when the time comes. It's really not too likely that Trump and Biden will ever debate each other again, but that would be far down the road. There will be years of running up to the primaries, with Democrats fighting Democrats and Republicans against Republicans, and Biden probably won't make it to his party's 2024 nomination. Trump probably will. PRES TRUMP TODAY IN CALIFORNIA: " 'WEIRD AL' WAS VERY MEAN TO MR. COOLIO!! DIDN'T ASK FOR RIGHTS. NOT VERY NICE!" pic.twitter.com/kgF5UFYRLP
— James Austin Johnson (@shrimpJAJ) October 18, 2020
So good luck to James Austin Johnson — with his Biden and his Trump. He does have a big problem looking like either of them, what with his huge nose. You can fake a large nose on a comedian with a small nose, but you can't fake small out of large. You have to rely on raw talent.
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Prof A: Your attention to “garner” is a great running gag but also a serious way to measure the quality of media coverage. It’s a distinctive word. The user has to *want* to stick it in; does so with specific intent. What intent is that? I speculate that the user thinks: “Hmmm. I need to say ‘get’ but that’s so…ordinary. Banal. Let me dress up my prose with an academicky kind of locution, to suggest I am deeply schooled in my subject and discussing it in a weighty way, and not let just pulling out of my arse as usual.”
This need of the user to decorate his prose is IMHO symptomatic of a wider cultural malaise; of our descent into BS Nation. Thank you for helping to reveal it.
Good impressions.
A successful impersonation of John Doe does not leave people asking "is he trying to impersonate John Doe?"
I watched the whole thing and — maybe it's just me — I didn't find anything funny.
That you're trolling is obvious, saying something totally outrageous just to get a reaction. SNL not funny? Yeah, right.
The guy doesn't even sound like Biden. At least Alex Baldwin looked and sounded like Trump enough to make the skits funny. This guy wasn't even close and the skit falls flat. The ridicule is mostly aimed at the Democrats holding up Biden's agenda, not Biden. SNL is again protecting "their" side.
They could do a skit of Biden taking questions and giving coherent, specific responses.
I watched the whole thing and — maybe it's just me — I didn't find anything funny.
To watch SNL these days is to be disappointed. Propriety is not the soul of wit.
That impersonation is not Joe Biden. Biden doesn't talk like that, he doesn't move like that, those aren't his mannerism's. I don't know who that is. It's like somebody doing an impersonation of a co-worker I've never met who does an impersonation of their boss who I've also never met.
Maybe they shouldn't do an impersonation of Biden at all. The guy is in pretty bad shape. If they did an impersonation that was honest enough to be funny, it wouldn't be funny, because it would be heartless and mean.
Althouse writes, "The real Biden is already someone you can just watch and laugh at, so what are you going to do with it?"
Unfortunately for late-night comedy and the rest of us, Biden isn't funny anymore, nor is he the Chief Executive.
I've been calling him the Resident of the United States since his suspicious election last November, something I thought was an appropriately vicious jab at an inappropriate, graft-tarnish political hack who had risen far above his competence level, the Peter Principle run amok. Ful ofte in game a sooth I have herd saye. However, by now the humorous patina has worn thin exposing the hideous dross beneath.
Since late August it has become increasingly clear that the officeholder called Joe Biden hardly exists. (There is no Biden. Only Zuul.). The actual "President of the United States" is a cabal of appointees -- former Congressional staffers and Obama Administration hangers-on, mostly -- headed by Ron Klain, who may himself be only a front for even more shadowy and perhaps even foreign (i.e. ChiCom) elements.
In short, President Biden is no laughing matter.
It is Weird Al's policy to ask for permission from every artist he parodies. Only Prince consistently turned him down. But there were a number of other turndowns and semi-turndowns. The coolio story is complicated. From the previous link:
Although Weird Al received permission from Interscope Records to parody “Gangsta’s Paradise,” rapper Coolio didn’t give Yankovic consent to write the parody “Amish Paradise.” After the Grammy Awards in 1995, Coolio spoke out against the parody, saying, “[I] ain’t with that … I think that my song was too serious … I really … don’t appreciate him desecrating the song like that … his record company asked for my permission, and I said no. But they did it anyway.”
According to Yankovic, it was all a misunderstanding: “Two separate people from my label told me that they had personally talked to Coolio … and that he told them that he was OK with the whole parody idea … Halfway into production, my record label told me that Coolio’s management had a problem with the parody, even though Coolio personally was okay with it. My label told me … they would iron things out—so I proceeded with the recording and finished the album.”
Since parody falls under fair use, “Amish Paradise” was recorded and became a smash hit in 1996. Years later, Coolio apologized to Weird Al about the misunderstanding surrounding the spoof. “I’ve since apologized to him,” the rapper said. “That was a stupid thing for me to do. That was one of the dumbest things I did in my career.”
A local (Sacramento) radio duo - Armstrong and Getty - hired Johnson a few months ago to bid farewell to a key staff member who was not a Trump fan. The guy does the best Trump I’ve heard.
I will give James Austin Johnson credit for capturing Trump's seemingly stream of consciousness way of talking... which is characterized by lots of repetition (but maybe the repetition is part of his secret sauce). However, Johnson is a horrible Biden...not really funny at all. And SNL is getting very boring with always doing the gender bending casting. HoHum. It was genuinely hilarious the first time when Melissa McCarthy did Sean Spicer but now it's just old hat.
“That was a stupid thing for me to do. That was one of the dumbest things I did in my career.”
Right alongside glorifying the gangster lifestyle, abuse of women, etc.
Another "garner" use from the Daily Mail:
"Both Manchin, from West Virginia, and Sinema, from Arizona, won close races in 2018 in states that have Republican governors, by garnering support from independents."
Maybe they shouldn't do an impersonation of Biden at all. The guy is in pretty bad shape. If they did an impersonation that was honest enough to be funny, it wouldn't be funny, because it would be heartless and mean.
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you are wrong there
it would be funny because : that would be serious stuff being done in SNL : THAT is a dig at general purpose media which ignores it
The actual "President of the United States" is a cabal of appointees -- former Congressional staffers and Obama Administration hangers-on, mostly -- headed by Ron Klain, who may himself be only a front for even more shadowy...
kinda reminds me of the Notorious RBG; by which, i mean the reanimated corpse of Ruth Ginsburg
The Democrat party has long ago gotten past the need for Actual Politicians
Soon, with Vote Harvesting and HR-1; they'll get past the need for Actual Voters
If they're not already at that point
Apparently they also made fun of Sinema's looks?
quite a bind : cant decide to laugh or cry
may be it is time to cry for the country
SNL is too soft and easy on the insider NBC house party(D). So - yeah - it ends up as comedy that misses the mark.
Although Weird Al received permission from Interscope Records to parody “Gangsta’s Paradise,” rapper Coolio didn’t give Yankovic consent to write the parody “Amish Paradise.” After the Grammy Awards in 1995, Coolio spoke out against the parody, saying, “I really … don’t appreciate him desecrating the song like that"
I don't appreciate Coolio ripping off and desecrating Stevie Wonder's excellent Pastime Paradise. Dude's got a lot of gall complaining about someone else doing a take off of "his" song, which he took from someone else.
When Phil Hartman passed (1998; murdered by his wife) SNL ceased being halfway funny. It had been on a downward trajectory anyway. Maybe the show is long-passed its sell-by date in the opinion of many. If advertisers continue to pony up money, then by definition its sell-by date hasn't arrived.
Did they give him contact lenses to give him those Biden eyes?
Is SNL trying to elect a Republican senator from Arizona?
Probably due to fear, SNL like all of DC, gave Omar got a pass on her dubious past and present despite troves of potential material.
The Shumer character was my favorite. Obnoxious, out of step sleaze.
70’s SNL didn’t even try to make the actors look like the celebrities they parodied. Maybe it was a low makeup budget; maybe it was some kind of acting theory going thru the profession at that time. But it made people like Ackroyd, Chase, etc, focus on the mannerisms and cadence of their target, rather than hiding behind wigs and prosthetics.
Regarding the idea of parodying Biden by making him whip-quick on his feet: the old SNL did something like that with the Jimmy Carter phone-in show, where Ackroyd as JC knowledgeably talked a caller down from a bad drug trip. The gag was that straight-arrow Deacon Jimmy knew all about drugs and their effects.
JSM
17 seconds. They can't garner my attention with that.
Tom Shillue does an outstanding Biden on Gutfeld!, which I think first showed up on The Five during the election last year. Coincidentally or not those are also the only two shows I can stand for more than five minutes on any “news” network. Tom leans into the absurdity of Biden and isn’t afraid to mention the living son occasionally, something SNL will never do. Props-comedy-ganda isn’t funny. You have to leave the Soviet state to make fun of it.
From what I see here, the new guy doesn't have Joetato's addled, nobody's home facial expression.
I wonder if Cat Stevens asked permission of Sam Cooke before he desecrated "Another Saturday Night". Oopsie, Cooke died in 1964.
AA, thank you for watching SNL, because I haven't for 30 years.
>>Owen said...
Prof A: Your attention to “garner” is a great running gag but also a serious way to measure the quality of media coverage. It’s a distinctive word. The user has to *want* to stick it in; does so with specific intent. What intent is that? I speculate that the user thinks: “Hmmm. I need to say ‘get’ but that’s so…ordinary. Banal. Let me dress up my prose with an academicky kind of locution,<<
That would all make so much sense -- if only "garner" and "get" meant the same thing. Ah, but they don't. The dictionary is your friend.
Mike (MJB Wolf) is correct about Shillue’s Biden. THAT is great stuff!
Shillue's Biden is pretty good, actually; OTOH, his standup is just meh, judging by his brief appearance on ! the other night. ! was in Nashville for a week, and will be at Graceland next weekend. I guess most of you know that.
I generally agree with their politics, but I can't watch a full hour of fairly clever people restating the same message over and over and.
I found the snl version a lot more active than the shuffling, easily triggered, distracted real one that has some dementia, with a habit of lying. I find it a bit sad and Kafka-ish to watch the real one, and how his minders try to prevent any non planned interactions. My guess is he has to be prepared for every interaction, and may be given some type of drugs. This way he does not garner the wrong typeset attention.
Even the Daily Mail noticed:
SNL goes easy on Joe (again): Biden's Afghan debacle and budget dumpster fire are mocked as Kyrsten Sinema, AOC, Joe Manchin and Gov. Cuomo all offer conflicting advice to the embattled president
That would all make so much sense -- if only "garner" and "get" meant the same thing. Ah, but they don't. The dictionary is your friend.
Quite so, and so is a thesaurus.
"He doesn't just get attention. He garners it!"
Correct. He did something to get attention, so he garnered it.
"That would all make so much sense -- if only "garner" and "get" meant the same thing. Ah, but they don't. The dictionary is your friend."
What is the nuance of meaning in "garner" that is applicable in that Wikipedia sentence?
In any case, one ought to write with words that a normal native speaker would use fluently unless you have reason not to and if you don't, dumb people might be impressed but smart people will think you're trying to impress dumb people and will think less of you.
The normal way to speak is to say that somebody is "getting attention." If you think there's something more specific to say that's expressed by the silly phrase "garnering attention," tell me what it is?
A "garner" (noun) is a storage facility for grain. So it should be something about how you're building up a supply of attention, but you don't store attention. You have it or you don't in the moment.
SNL is not nearly as laughable funny as a typical night for Gutfeld. Just weak stuff. Perhaps they forgot how to do humor?
But the real signal is that they view Bide n as a confused buffoon, which he is. And they think Trump is much more interested. I think the libs really miss Trump, so they bring him up in almost every context. How sad to love the guy whose politics they are required to hate.
The bosses and higher-ups at NBC(D) will never let the on-air talent rip into Biden and mock him like they could or should.
"A "garner" (noun) is a storage facility for grain"
I learned something new today.
okay, i bit the bullet; and watched the clip.
Now,
we've known, for quite some time; that New York Lefties have Never Actually met any conservatives
BUT!
this clip raises a serious question
Have these New York Lefties Ever met any (ANY!) of these democrats?
Are they Literally living in a Dream World, where they think Joe Manchin wants kids to work in coal mines? Because "all the big pieces are gone" ??
Protip; there's PLENTY of coal left....
THAT'S the problem. Mountains full of coal; Just sitting around.
Our Professor says...
A "garner" (noun) is a storage facility for grain. So it should be something about how you're building up a supply of attention, but you don't store attention. You have it or you don't in the moment.
And gilbar rises up, and takes the bait...
IF you can't 'store attention'... HOW IS IT, that people can have an attention deficit?
Clearly, if you can have a deficit; By Definition, you can have a Surplus.
I've personally Known many of these attention surplus disorder people; they are attention hogs
Constantly trying to Steal ALL the attention.
Mister President! I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed...
but; We Can NOT Allow, an Attention storage gap!
Johnson threshes Biden’s idiosyncrasies with parody as his flail to garner attention into the Woke granary.
Iman wrote:
"Right alongside glorifying the gangster lifestyle, abuse of women, etc."
I can't speak for the rest of his music since I was not a fan, but the lyrics to "Gangsta Paradise" don't seem to me to be glorifying the lifestyle- they seem to do the opposite.
NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN MSNBC, are all parent companies to DNC.
As we say in the acting biz....he really needs to work on his physicality. He doesn't look comfortable in the character. His actions looked forced and not natural. He's not existing in the character; he's playing up the character. It's fine to exaggerate a movement for comic effect, but if the actor isn't driven by the character's motivation to do that motion, it looks fake and forced. And why do they have a woman playing Manchin? Manchin is a hyper masculine individual.
Kyle Dunnigan does the best impression of Joe Biden.
SNL is not nearly as laughable funny as a typical night for Gutfeld.
And since Gutfeld himself is not the least bit funny -- his shtick is really quite unwatchable -- that shows how much SNL really does suck.
Billionaire Star Trek skit was funny, but that's about it
I guess we aren't supposed to say that it's not funny anymore or that it was never very funny. That's the fate of a lot of comedy, though. Much of the funniness is in the originality, in saying things and doing things that nobody else is saying or doing. Sometimes, all the comedy is in the outrageousness or bizarreness. I'll spare you the dozen examples that come immediately to mind and spare myself the work of sorting out what lasts and what doesn't, and just say that it's probably time to give SNL a long hiatus.
There were a few funny things at the beginning of the sketch. I could see that Johnson knows Biden's mannerism, but he doesn't do them very well. Most of the skit was aimed at Manchin, and especially Sinema. The same actress did Tulsi Gabbard a year or two back. SNL really doesn't like Democrats who stray too far from the progressive reservation. The guy who impersonated Schumer was funny and really struck a nerve, but the performance would probably be seen as anti-Semitic by some.
"Garner" is a fancy way to say get. To me personally it can have a connotation of getting something one doesn't deserve, sort of like "wrangled." But when "garner" is coupled with "the prestigious" the connotation apparently is that what one has received is well deserved.
I like Gutfeld's show, but could do without the opening monologues every night. I don't disagree much with what he says, but one lecture a week was about enough.
Why bother with SNL at all. It has not been either funny or relevant for years.
“ He doesn't just get attention. He garners it! ”
My take on the difference between Get and Garner in these cases is similar to that between Homicide and 1st Degree Murder - intent. “Get”, to me, implies intent neutral acquisition. “Garner” suggests much more intent and effort. You can get attention (fame, etc) by being at the wrong place at the wrong time, or the right place at the right time, but you Garner it by seeking it out.
And, yes, that article maybe is misusing the word, suggesting more intent than is warranted. But that is the way of language, it is misused for awhile, and then the misuse becomes the accepted use. There is a lot of stuff that I read, and esp hear, that used to jump out at me, and doesn’t anymore. When I met my partner over twenty years ago, her misuse of nominative and accusative case pronouns used to really bother me. My parents never got it wrong when we were growing up, so we didn’t. But they were a rarity at that time, with all of their parents also having had college degrees. But now, I don’t notice it with her (the first college grad in her family) any more. If I really listen carefully (which, being a guy, I don’t always do), I think that she has gotten better, while I have become more accepting.
The get/garner hill seems an odd one on which to die, Ann. Without consulting references, I take garner to imply that something is earned and possibly accumulated. Let's try this one: "I garnered herpes my freshman year in college."
"where Ackroyd as JC knowledgeably talked a caller down from a bad drug trip"
I remember that one. Peter had taken some Orange Sunshine and it wasn't sitting well,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-68iTvhWNB0
No matter the cost, SNL should get Jason Sudeikis to come back to play Biden for a few minutes each week.
He never bothered to impersonate the man, but was able to capture the essence of Biden's stupidity and political sleaziness.
Plus he was funny.
I am not saying the word "garner" is misused. I'm saying it's silly and makes you look bad.
My thing with "garner" began with Jeb Bush. He had the mannerism of saying it and we were laughing at him, and it seemed to say a lot about his failure to connect with people.
That's the context for understanding my point. Trump wouldn't say garner.
Utilize instead of use sets off my son the genius
I saw Philip Anglim live on stage, dressed only in what's best described as a diaper, convince me that he was the grotesquely distorted Elephant Man.
gilbar said:
Mister President! I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed...
but; We Can NOT Allow, an Attention storage gap!
Priceless!
For those unfamiliar with 1960s movies, watch "
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."
Interesting. Agree it was not funny. Beyond an apparent lack of writing talent, I think the basic problem is that they tried to make Biden much more with it than he is in real life. They also personally mocked Manchin and Simena, but not the liberals (except maybe Schuler). Why on earth would they have a woman play Manchin?
Remembering how completely and ridiculously atrocious the coke-fueled over-amped Jim Carrey performance of Biden was last year, it's truly remarkable that this dreck is even worse.
"Get" can be active or passive. I get cookies. I get the flu.
"Garner" is (should be) only active. I can garner cookies, but I can't garner the flu.
Garner also has a connotation that's hard to pin down, but it involves a long process, with small results accumulated along the way. "I garner cookies" implies not that I went to the store and picked up a box of cookies, but rather that I visited many locations and picked up cookies here and there along the way.
If "garner" is being used as a synonym for "get," it's wrong. It means something more specific than that.
Trump would totally say “garner”.
He just say it in a mocking tone to point out elitism.
I was trying to think how I might use garner in an everyday conversation.
So, I make ask “do you think that proposal will get support?” And “get”
works great there and the sentence flows.
But I may also make the statement “I don’t think that proposal will garner support.” There, “garner” is a fancier work than what’s necessary but it make the sentence flow a tad better.
I’m not sure I’ve used garner in a conversation before - imagining how I could.
Tom Shillue, a writer and performer for the Fox Greg Gutfeld Show, does the best Biden impression. The Gutfeld show is the best thing in late night TV. It's actually funny.
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