'I long to lack irony like this' | Demin's Amrou Al-Kadhi picks their Perfect Playlist

'I long to lack irony like this'

Demin's Amrou Al-Kadhi picks their Perfect Playlist

Jessie J does an air guitar

I'm a queer person of colour living in a straight white world, and irony is my armour. After years of being insulted in playgrounds and city streets, I've become adept at quick acerbic comebacks, and drag is a great way to armour yourself with layers and layers of irony.

The only time I'm not ironic is when I'm having anal.

This is why clips of Jesse J performing resonate so deeply with me - she is one of the most deeply unironic human beings alive. Her performances are profoundly sincere, almost criminally lacking in self-awareness. In this clip, at around 3:41, watch how she air-guitars to Purple Rain.

Yes, without irony, she performs an air guitar on television, with an expression that suggests she's just solved world debt. Not only does it unsettle me - it inspires me. I long to lack irony like this, even for a moment, so I can experience life without a filter of self-awareness.

Marathoners crawling to the finish line – true winners

Part of being a drag queen is embracing failure. You embrace all your weaknesses, and wear them as strength. You rejoice in being a misfit - indeed, you're defiantly a non-conformist. There are those moments when you fail so badly, that really you're winning.

Like that time you go to a work meeting only to clock dried cum on your chin in the bathroom mirror afterwards. Or that time you fall onto a table at a bar and smashed everyone's drinks, cut your back with glass, but pretended to your date that you were totally fine even though there's blood all over your shirt.

This clip helps me see the joy in failing. Watch how these two marathon runners, so desperate to get to the finish line, even with their legs giving way, crawl over each other to get to the end. Never has winning looked so glorious.

OJ Simpson being sentenced by a judge drinking a massive cup

When I'm feeling low, I usually trawl YouTube to find clips of people being sentenced to prison. It calms me down. And no, I haven't really mulled on why, so let me be.

One day on my pleasant foray into the dark crevices of the American justice system, I saw OJ Simpson being sentenced in Nevada for a theft, years after his being acquitted for murder. The judge is a queen, living for the fact she gets to put the wife-beater in his place.

And what better way to sentence a woman-killing-man for 33 years by drinking from a supersize fast food soft drink whilst you're doing it. WORK.

When Lady Gaga Pretended a shit helicopter was a flying dress

Remember Artpop? That Album of Lady Gaga's that obliterated itself in its sheer nonsense? The meeting of art, technology, pop, music, that, as Gaga said, 'would alter the human experience.'  Remember that? Here it was at it's pinnacle of delusion.

 Lady Gaga claimed to be unveiling a flying dress. She organises a press conference which feels more like astronauts about to go into space for the first time, ready to unveil this flying dress as if it's the most advanced contraption known to mankind.

What is revealed is no more than a cumbersome mini hovercraft with HUGE propellers, with the passengers seat roughly taking the shape of a dress. And it barely lifts off the ground. It's quite, quite useless. She called this dress Volantis. It was a pile of piss.

Chiropractor compilations for 'crack addicts'

Drag is bad for the back. When it really hurts and I'm too broke for a massage, I do the next best thing. I watch chiropractic compilations on YouTube. If you don't do this - WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?

Someone out there - I don't know who you are, but THANK YOU - has compiled millions of videos of chiropractors cracking the necks and backs of their patients. It's the most soothing thing there is - and on some level, if you watch enough, it's even better than getting a massage. And it's free. Money Supermarket dot com.

• Amrou Al-Kadhi is creative director of Denim, whose Reunion Tour is on at Assembly George Square at 22:30

Published: 11 Aug 2018

Live comedy picks

We see you are using AdBlocker software. Chortle relies on advertisers to fund this website so it’s free for you, so we would ask that you disable it for this site. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. Help keep Chortle viable.