Massive coincidence is....

Going to the Wendy's drive through after the Word of Advice incident below to get a frosty, and finding myself in the queue behind the cops I'd chatted to earlier.

A Word of Advice

If you find yourself drunk off your ass, shirtless, preparing to win a bet by heroically dashing into the cold abyss outside the pub, and then the police turn up; don't start telling them stories. If your commonsense is taking a well deserved break at lager beach, make sure you have a brit on hand to whack up the maximum english, for example chatting  to one of the cop's wives on the phone, to ensure a fun and happy resolution.

However, i have a horrible feeling the footage from the cop car camera is going to end up on an episode of COPS entitled "Sometimes it ends o.k."

Ipod as music seer

as anyone who has one knows, the ipod's shuffle selections can be inspired. Today I went from Public Enemy's Louder than a Bomb to The Pogues Rainy Night in Soho. After a couple of seconds I found this odd mesh really appealing. Also, I remembered that Rainy Night in Soho is a slice of beauty for anyone who has ever lived in London. The song evokes the amazing walk that occurs in the warm rain at night in the middle of town. No matter how bad my day was, that stroll made everything seem alright.

Monday, I'm still in monday

 I last blogged friday. Unlike every other diary I ever started, I have come back. If it were like the other diaries   I would be reading the madagascar post sometime in september, muttering, "This was fun, I wish I'd kept it up.  A blog about being crap at blogging? Nice.

The Madagascar Giant Palm, a modern Aesop's Fable

There is a palm tree in Madagascar so huge it can be seen in satellite photos.  Its 20m high and its leaves are 5m long. It  took years to flower expending  so much energy that it collapsed and died.  As Aesop would have said, "Men, be content with your length and girth. The last thing you need is a gigantic piston which drains the blood from your brain, then erupts like a volcano, only to hang like a limp wet rope on your leg for the rest of your years." Is this a be careful what you wish for fable? Or was Aesop hung like a gerbil?

A Gig in a proper club...

last night I did the Funnybone out in Easton in columbus. I'd avoided doing it because I had a cob on about corporate gigs. The funnybone reminded me of the chicken in a bastard circuit back home. I say reminded, I just didn't bother checking it out. Go there last night, great gig. Really cool setup, and very supportive of new comics in a way I never saw back in England. I mean back in London we were all mates, but the fall was as much fun to watch as the rise. I sat there at one point and thought "wow the bloke running it, Rick, is really helping these new acts out, and they all want each other to do well. Am I in Brigadoon?"

No major deaths, except for a woman who I thought was doing a drunk act. She was in fact pissed as arseholes and led the room down into an ever growing abyss,which culminated in her talking about living alone with her cats. Very rarely do you see a whole room of people nodding their heads sagely, all mouthing, "I knew. I knew that."

My gig went well. I over ran my time (5 minutes) by about a minute and a half. I haven't done a 5 minute gig in years. Its a completely different discipline. It usually takes me 5 minutes to say hello. I spent most of my time messing about with the crowd, then remembered I was supposed to tell jokes. Got some in. We recorded it, you can check it out on the web page once I've tried and failed to get it on, and then sat back while Beth does it in 10 seconds.

American audiences are a lot less aggressive than English audiences. I got my training in the London "Get off you're shit! " battlegrounds. Watching the audience watch the acts last night, I saw, amazed, that they were willing them to do well. Even when cat woman did her pissed pied piper to comedy hell, they just sat politely and waited for her spasms to pass. I am in Brigadoon.

So in order to stop tossing about when I go back in 2 weeks to the funnybone I'm doing themes and trying to stick to them. The first one is winter wonderland. Come along, enjoy the evening, make sure I get on (I need 5 people saying they are there for me), and run a sweepstake to see how long it takes me to come off script. Last night it was instantly.

Something simple

While I was in London last october I was sitting with my old friend Kirsten and my mum in a bar down the road from my dad's flat in Covent Garden. Kirsten was in London working at the RNIB (royal national institute for the blind), I was in London as I'd had a MS episode and couldn't fly back to America. Actually it worked out well as Kirsten and I went to see the Macbeth that was on. I think its transfered to New York now. If you get the chance, see it, its the best Shakespeare production I've ever seen. Scary as fuck start to finish.

On the night in question me and me mum were going out for something to eat. I asked her

"What would you like to eat?"

"I don't know Si, something simple."

I then said

"You're in luck there's a slow kid with a hot dog stand at the end of the road."

Mum said she couldn't believe I'd said that. I tried to explain that I wasn't being horrible, that I actually felt the lad had done really well for himself. Of course the kid in question doesn't exist and I have no idea where that statement came from.

Yoga monday

So I'm blogging early tuesday morning, Snakes on a Plane rattling away on HBO in the background. This film is like The Chronicles of Riddick in that I know rationally its shit, but if its on, I sit and watch it. There's loads of films like that, rubbish but compelling. Like going out with someone who you know is crap but for some reason (usually sex) you stay in there. I'm not saying crap films work on a primal sex level, or am I? When I first moved to America Miss congeniality was on HBO about 10 times a day. I think I watched it every time....

 Monday was MS Yoga day. If you don't know me, I've had MS for about 16 years. Yoga is the single best thing I ever did for it. I saw my neurologist (people who train for years to charge top money to look you confidently in the eye and state "haven't got a clue whats going on mate. Good luck.") in London and he said that I was doing better than most anybody he'd ever seen who'd had MS as long as I have. I then said, but my health regime has been smoking,drinking and fucking. He said, "well you'll probably die of the smoking then...."

The Wii party....

Sunday afternoon. Sit and watch a game. Eat rubbish and look forward to the dentist fixing my chocolate ravaged left hand side teeth in february. (did the right a couple of weeks ago. 4 in one go. Great job but a bit like picking a fight I shouldn't have). The dentist always gives advice about being careful about what I eat. Decay is lurking. One life to live my friend. You keep fixing them, I'll keep eating the sweets.

Anyway the Wii party. If you haven't done it yet, do! I spent from 2 until 4 with a permanent grin trying to pretend I was of a generation that understood how to play. Word of advice , don't play a ten year old  girl at the boxing. They are lethal and have no conscience. Your ego will be delivered to you in a small box marked old.

 The party was at Beth's bosses' house. Great food and an afternoon meeting people I really liked. I asked her "Why haven't I met these people before? They're exactly the sort of people I like to be around." Maybe she was saving them as a treat.

When the price comes down get one. And if anyone at nintendo is reading this. free advertising man, send me a wii and a few games, happy days all round.

religion

When someone who pushes their faith at you begins talking about money, exhort them in your finest biblical fashion, to go forth and multiply.

The thing about....

The thing about a macaroon is that it sounds racist but it tastes great. This is not true of Rush Limbaugh.

Good Lord

So I decided if I'm going to blog, it may as well be interesting and uncensored. Ten minutes ago I got hit with a wave of the stealth shits. You think a fart will roll through gently like wind in a meadow on an early spring morning and then realise with micro-seconds to go that, like golf , sometimes the follow through is all. Now sitting writing letting immodium work its magic. Like advil, immodium does what it says on the tin. Most drugs are nearly helpful and possibly deadly. You can use our diet pill, but beware anal seepage?!! Give me another pie and chuck that crap in the bin (garbage). Can a drug dance to its own tune? If it can, immodium and advil are old hippies dancing around the lilac tree, whilst the diet pills stand embarrassed, pop tunes clanking, leaking into the canal.

check one two

Check one, two! Just testing me brand shiny new blog.