Sargasm
Jon Brooks @ Rhino Room – Downstairs
6:30pm, Wed 24 Feb 2010
It’s a lovely afternoon, and I happen to be in the city a few hours before my first show of the day; up to the Tuxedo Cat I trundle, sinking a few beers whilst chatting to Nik Coppin. I’m in a joyous mood; the temperature is perfect and the early-evening Asahi slips down easily. Before too long I realise I’m almost late for the show, so I dash down the stairs and around the block to the hotter (and muggier) bar servicing the Downstairs area of the Rhino Room. Luckily there’s still time to grab a Corona before heading in.
It’s a reasonable crowd this evening, with perhaps a third of the seats filled. Jon Brooks introduces himself in a very low-key manner, briefly chatting about his former lives as a political staffer and journo, before presenting the fundamental underpinnings of his show: that sarcasm, correctly wielded, is a tool for discussing (and even uncovering) the truth, allowing safe traversal of traditionally social taboos.
And this premise is extremely interesting to me, both as an avid (over-)user of sarcasm, but also because of the political shadow this places on the rest of his act. Because, even as Brooks wanders into tales and observations that may be deemed “normal” standup material (there’s bogan jokes a-plenty, with the northern suburbs’ Space Torana being cited as a uniquely South Australian solution to the international problem of Space Junk – upon which there’s the expected deposit), there’s always the feeling that there’s a deeper meaning, another level to his jokes.
Yes, there were a few Indian Taxi Driver assault jokes, and a nod to AC/DC, that felt a bit below the intellectual level of the rest of the act. But when the pragmatic approach to religion was proposed, and Brooks starts cynically digging at the distraction of Festival Month on the State Election, you realise that this material is a cut above regular standup fare. The attack on advertising – with the recurring (and perfectly timed) Zoot! Review callbacks – was sheer genius.
Throughout, Brooks maintains a sort of detachment from his subject matter – gruff in approach and coarse in language, he manages to come across as an informed ocker Aussie bloke: a classic pub politico. But the presentation is misleading; as he carries on his secondary aim of “reclaiming” words from their inappropriate modern uses, the distanced delivery manages to pack a heavy punch.
UrbanDictionary, always the most reliable source of NSFW word definitions, manages to accurately (with regards to this show, anyway) define sargasm as “deriving far too much satisfaction from glibly berating another with sarcasm”. And Brooks clearly enjoys his work, loves sinking the boot in, and manages to get more than a little bit political to boot… and that all adds up to a pretty bloody good show.