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.

Back again..

So did I mention I'm rubbish at keeping up with my blog. I should of known really I've always bought diaries and kept them up until march. the n I usually come back to them in august and don't go back to them as the reams of blank pages are too embarrassing. however the blog just sit without loads of blank space so going back is alright. So what's happened since the Magoo licence?

Well I just went on holiday by accident. I remember our neighbour Fran came over with a giant bottle of wine. Drank that moved on to BUD E, beer and ginseng hmmm.. Three in the morning Beth and i decided we were going on holiday. Three fifteen booked it. Seven thirty in the morning staggered through the airport trying to look sober. Seven thirty one pulled for a special security check. took off my shoes realised no socks, little murmur of cheesey feet not appreciated. looked across the airport at Beth who was willing me to say nothing. I said nothing but was less than a second away from waving my arms and hooting like an owl when asked to put my arms up.

On the plane Chicago, miami,curacao. By the time we got to the island I was cruising into a hangover and didn't know where I was. took me 2 days to realise I was not in curry cuckoo and thats why I was getting odd/slightly aggressive looks. "Its great to be here on your lovely island Curry Cuckoo" Not as popular statement as you would hope.

curacao is in the Dutch Antilles and they do take the sunbeds at 600 hours. Very relaxed and quiet, like holidaying in the calm aftermath of a bit of a row.

curacao is beautiful. If you go, hire a car or remortgage your house so you can cab around the island.

We went snorkelling. Beth is really good at it, gliding along and enjoying the fish and the coral. I was that bloke, spluttering and half drowning, coughing and  blowing water out of my airpipe., like a spasming sealion.

I was so bad that when we were dropped above a shipwreck I didn't know until we got back. apparently it was great.

Lovely holiday, I think we need more of it. Of course it depends how good Chase's credit card division's sense of humour is.