Games not to play and thought for the day

don't put your scarf on your dog for a laugh. She will look at you, twitch and take off, trailing your favourite scarf through the poop laden garden beyond.

Sunday thought. "Sometimes you have to walk through the shadow, so you can emerge, blinking, in the beauty beyond."

The Eternal Question

Burial or cremation? The answer is of course burial. Who doesn't want a shot at coming back as a zombie. cloud of Dust? Rubbish. What are you going to do, choke mankind to death?

You are being robbed

I just saw this blog hasn't been updated since thursday. Truth is, I blog all the time on my myspace blog.  Again, I will do better. On the other hand, you are the only blog to get this blog,,,,,

The MS Nod

just woken up on the couch from an MS nod coma. Its quite amazing, its like my body is an old laptop that goes from hell yeah to sleep in seconds. Like a heroin nod but way more trippy. No hallucinations tonight, but over the years I have seen shit people pay a lot of money for. Once told a neurologist that I sometimes saw people I knew were not there. They last 5 seconds and then they vanish. Am I mad? He sat back in his chair paused  and said "Everybody does that!" Really? Cool. Once you get used to it, its fun, part of the MS rollercoaster.

Currently loaded on 12hr Mucinex and Zicam nasal spray, lets see what we can see....

Behind the curtain.

I was given cause today to reflect on what sort of person I really am.

I am very personable and will go out of my way to include any one i see that is shy or has difficulty around groups. I'm lucky that I've always found it easy being around people. Its a gene fluke, great upbringing, luck really. I also realise, if you meet on a wrong day, I can appear cocky and annoying.  I usually spot this and will go out of my way to win you over. its the tart/challenge lover in me.

I truly believe it cost nothing to be nice, and if my actions can improve your day, they improve mine more than you realise.

However, if you are one of those people who can only be happy making others unhappy. The sort of shit bag who is living proof that anal sex can lead to conception, stay far away from me. I am a true bastard when I come into to contact with toxic turds such as you. World's hard enough, do us a favour, fuck off, die, alone. in the dark, whimpering.

This is the kind of attitude that led me to be a comic, as I can't hold my mouth shut long enough to build a career in the real world. Twats are twats, fuck 'em. Doesn't look too good on the resume....

Close to the edit

In the Life and Arts section of the Dispatch today they quote a new comic's joke.

"I have a friend who has a smart car. Two things. My friend is an idiot and he was recently in a fender Bender with a Tahoe and broke both his legs. He's not so smart anymore is he?"

Inspired me to edit it. the jokes in there just needs to get there quicker.

My friend bought a smart car. Crashed it into a Tahoe. 2 broken legs and an intellectually superior car that wont speak to him any more.

I don't think my version is the best this joke can be. It just fascinated me to work on it.

Flow....

I sat all of yesterday wondering whether I should post this. sitting in my new kitchen, the new paint job drying in the front room, listening to Guy Garvey's Finest hour on Radio 6 at 3 in the morning. My conclusion is it might come across a bit poncy but that's OK.

When I walked from comedy in 1999, I did so believing I would never perform again. To be honest  it broke my heart. fortunately I was going between London and Chicago dating my wife beth, so I could distract myself from what had happened. I actually did a gig in Chicago, open spot night, 24 comics, no kidding. But I still couldn't face trying to carry on. My MS had kept me from what I needed to do to take the comedy further, although being resident compere for Screaming Blue had been a god send.  The problem was travel, not gigging. I've solved that now. If you want me to work for you, you have to take me to the venue and bring me home. I was embarrased about this back in the day. Having voiced it, I've found people incredibly understanding and very cool.

When I moved to Columbus I still couldn't face going back to stand up. I did impro  classes and enjoyed working with others. The first comedy I ever did, having been taught by Spontaneous Combustion, was in rough house pubs and at the Comedy Cafe. We actually tried a Kabuki game and I heard Eugene Cheese, front right, spit into his beer and yell "What the fuck are they on about?"

Impro clubs in America are way too polite.

I then auditioned and got into As You Like It and Merry Wives Of Windsor having lied to Actor's Theatre and told them I could do a Welsh accent. I played Hugh Evans.

Then spent five years acting. I enjoyed working with other people, got to play my way through the comic cannon and learned how to work. You can't bluff Shakespeare, I tried it. What was great was bringing all the stuff I'd learned in the London Battlegrounds and using it for something different.

The MS put stop to the acting this year. I quit out of Hay Fever and playing the Porter in Macbeth(one of the roles of my list I really wanted) I felt that the theatre people couldn't trust me, how I felt when I walked in 1999. So I walked again.

This time however, I'd figured out how I could do the comedy. Put me in the room I'll do the gig.

It dawned on me I was doing it differently. All those years of acting and thinking about stand up had changed something.

Today I figured out what it is. I've achieved flow.  Flow is the moment where you don't think about storming or dying. Its not that you don't care  its just irrelevant. I feel I am where I should be, doing exactly what I always wanted, exactly how I wanted to do it.

The rush I got today when I realised what was going on was amazing. Its probably the best high I have ever had (and I did 5 gramms of intraveneous steroids) It was so over powering (prepare your kicking boots Mr Legge) that I sat and wept.

For anyone doggedly following the art their heart is in, I hope you see this day. It is life changing. 

Of course next gig I'm gonna die on me arse, but just for today, I understand what it is I was trying to achieve all these years.

Phoenix From The Arses...

This one is difficult to believe, but it did happen, exactly as detailed below.....

4 miles from the gig am told that the venue doesn't know I'm replacing Jay the headliner.

get to venue lock myself between 2 security doors. Smash myself and my thumb out.

Go bleeding to the local Subway, they're very nice, get a plaster.

Back to venue, owner told of minor change. He looks like I just took a shit in his salad.

4 gruesome minutes, with me trying to plan at least an airbag gig. Crash imminent, minimize damage.

Jay the original headliner walks in. Whew.

Re-plan gig with me going before a raffle, yes a raffle, then Patsy and Jay to end.

2 minutes before I go on to a sold out gig.  i need a pee and assume the mens will have a couple of urinals.

Walk into find a urinal next to a toilet with a chilled out hippy taking a dump.

Explain that I am on in 2 minutes and have to pee.

He says "If you're ok I'm ok."

Take a pee with the man less a yard behind me taking a shit. Manna from the comedy gods.

Go on stage open with this and storm it. Phoenix from the arses.....

This is the dawn of the gig of appocalypse

its early. its raining. Getting smashed on wine last night seemed like a good idea. shouting in the garden with Rhonda against imaginary foes at high volume such classics as which one of you cunts is first? It will cost you one eye to get into my house! Turns out my dog Abbey had been crashing through garden canes, so there was no night of the living dead attack squadron circling at all. Then drunkenly apologised to the houses around us using even higher volume and pretty much the same words, but in reverse. I don't know how we were going to give them an extra eye though.

This evening 1 and a half hour drive (too far), 9 comics (too many) and me doing an hour at the end(too much fun for one man to handle). It might be alright, or it'll be one of those gigs, the gigs that live in the memory and are discussed around pint number 5. To be honest I'm looking forward to it. As long as no one says they are going to get their knife(essex Xmas 1996) and I don't have to stand on stage watching a riot I'm pretty sure I caused (Bracknell 1997) its all gravy.

About Bracknell. I know its one of the nicest gigs ever (if its still there) and its nearly impossible to create a situation where the bracknell police come running into a room where bedlam is indeed ensuing, while the compere (my good self) is jumping into the fray mic and stand in hand yelling "you can't do that you have to leave." Difficult my friends, but take it from me, not impossible. anyone gigging with Kev McCarthy this weekend, see if he remembers. Also ask Simon Evans and Jeffrey? Toombs.

For those who don't do stand up, these kind of gigs are the best ever. Visceral, with a certain savage beauty

How long do it take to be a comedian?

This question has come up over and over in the past few weeks. Rhonda (aussie veteran comic) reckons it takes 8 years to start to understand the job properly. I think it takes 10. Bill Maher was on iconoclasts with Clive Davis said 20 years to really feel comfortable. He compared it to being a gondolier, a journeyman always seeking to find the new depths to what he is doing. 

Having been in comedy walked away for a while and come back I realised that once  its in the blood you can never leave it. The more you do, the better you get, the more you realise that there is so much more you can discover. Not to put off any one thinking about doing stand up, it will take you a year or to to get consistent laughs. If that's all you want you can get it, if you want to really try and understand what comedy is (you never will) its a life choice, that to be honest you don't actually make. When you begin to hear in funny its fantastic and a curse that you will never shake.

Is this bollocks? No, I've talked to people who act and paint and write, they all say the same thing. When you decide to follow a particular arty path its a never ending journey. When I walked from comedy and went into acting I brought the performance skills I'd learned in stand up and soaked up all I could learn from the actors. Its the same thing. Like comics the actors do whatever play they are in the best way they know how to do it right now. I think the equivalent for a comic is when you realise that a joke is never finished, its the best it can be for now.

Any comic worth their salt doesn't really care about fame or money, its a by product of what we do, although money would be nice....

here's my poncy opinion. I have always felt that all art is the same thing, the attempt to bypass the conscious  mind and engage the emotional core. There you go Dad, that money spent on education not completely wasted. This idea is of course nigh on impossible to achieve, but its a lot of fun trying.

Come in Robo-Milf, your time is up.....

Its late in the evening. Everyone knows the party was fun, but its over. We must do this again murmur the guests as they shuffle back to their lives. Hang on, who's that skonking on about how wronged she feels, about her being blamed for the party not going quite right? The one who accused everyone particularly that really popular Denzel Washington looking kid about not being in tune with the real party (boring kids down the hall that we all ignored) and pitching a hissy fit when everyone wanted to go to Barack's, not hers, for afters.

Sarah,Sarah, Sarah. Nobody's being  horrible. we are just tired of the would be prom queen of the western world, having lost, sticking about like a stubborn unflushable turd, blaming everyone else for its own sticky shitness. Get the message, get gone and stay gone. We don't love you no more, and some of us never liked you in the first place...

Just Sometimes....

Things I learned today

1 Reconnecting with all the comics used to work with is the smartest move I have made in years.

2 I'm going to sends songs and rubbish to Paul B's punkyradio

3 I'm seriously considering taking a show to Edinburgh.

4 I'm going in with a producer mate of mine to write and voice a cartoon and write for horror films.

5 Connected to number 4.  Spliff is to Blunt as Weekend away is to 2 weeks in Hawaii

6 My mate Stewart makes the best Death by Chocolate ever.

7 Quite sleepy, time to dream of flowers and dragons...(see 4, 5 and 6)

Blog every day?

I know if you read the dates of the posts, it would appear I did not blog yesterday, despite insisting I was going to blog every day. Well. actually I did blog on the one I have on myspace where I am contacting all the english comics I used to work with. 

Oh great I hear you say, so we don't matter then. We get cast aside like a like a friday night spite shag, cast coffee-less into the bright searing truth of a lovely saturday morning. Destined to take the walk of shame. Destined to sit on a bus surrounded by the deafening silent judgement of the ricket-riven old, journeying to a coffee shop they don't like, to talk with someone they have hated since they were at primary school together. Cheers...

Hey its not you, its me..... I'll try to keep up.

But that was 23 years ago....

This evening saw Tom Wilson at the Funnybone, Biff from the Back to the Future films. he was excellent, as was his opener Jim Short. Rick Tempesta was the MC and was a really good warm up. One thing about the Funnybone, don't buy a ticket if you are not 100 percent sure your guest is coming.  You will be nickle and dimed , lose the money for the tickets that you didn't use and leave with a faint air of disappointment in the cheap twat -house way you just got treated. However the show was fantastic, 3 really good acts and a nice room to watch them in.  Only pay them when you have to and you will have a very good time....

Brave New World

If Obama can descend and put the world back on an even keel, the least I can do is me blog. 

So last night did a gig at the harvest  moon cafe in Canal Winchester, amusing because the start of its anagram is anal cist..... Cool gig half an hour squeaky clean. I'm really getting into reducing swearing on stage. I think its funnier. I never swore for effect before, that just happens be how I talk. There were kids at this gig. Gave them the brown chicken brown cow gag,(cheers Leslie) "Put that in your pocket son. Monday. School. Winner." Found out afterwards that every kid in every school across America knows the joke, which means I came across like a geography teacher trying to be hip....

The  harvest Moon also has one of the best turkey wraps I have ever tasted. Worth doing the gig again just to get that.

And a guy played a war game on his computer the whole time the gig was on. I of course didn't call attention to it. Well he didn't attack me afterwards, so I think we can call it even.