Everyone @ Chortle

and now i think i can more clearly express what i was talking about --

"i'm dark and i'm outraged about things any thinking person would already be outraged about and we all feel better and special for sharing this outrage though this shared feeling isn't going to change anything and i'm not half as funny as a laurel and hardy movie or an episode of 'fawlty towers'."

now, i have nothing against darkness or outrage in comedy but there is a perhaps unintentional disingenuousness here. as in "i'm, shocked, shocked that government lies to us and corporations aren't our friends." (yes, i know i also used the inspector renault template in my last screed on disingenuousness. it fits.)

i remember last year in edinburgh, critics mentioned excitedly how doug stanhope seemed positively on the verge of destroying himself.

this is comedy? watching a guy destroy himself?

i guess it is if you're the type of person who finds people being thrown to lions funny or finds risible a guy collapsing with a heart attack in the street. (yes, it would be funny if he fell into mud.)

oh, yeah -- i forgot -- stanhope was throwing himself to the lions because he couldn't stand the pain of all the truth he had to bear because of his inability to shield himself like we mere mortals in the audience.

"ah, but my sacrifice is worth it as you may be able to benefit from what i'm forcing you to face, even if i go under."

come on, do any of you really believe doug stanhope was/is "destroying himself" (if, indeed, he was or is) because of the world? self-destruction is more personal than that. it comes from within. the societal commentary, true or otherwise, is just something you hang on your pain.

(this is as far as i got with these thoughts.)

i was just reading steve bennett's chortle review of joe rogan, in which he categorizes rogan as -- like kinison, hicks and stanhope -- an outlaw comic.

BULLSHIT

. . . to the very notion.


i remember one night at the westwood comedy store, sam kinison said to me something along the lines of, "i know we're different but i respect you (that was a paraphrase but this is a direct quote -- ) we're both outlaws." (well, it coulda been "we're all outlaws," he mighta been talking about him and me and his outlaw entourage.)

my reaction at the time was twofold -- i was flattered that he included me -- i wanted to be an outlaw

and i thought the whole notion of those guys or me being outlaws was ridiculous.

this may be harder for those of you in britain to understand than for those over here: there was/is no amazing risk in doing what these guys do -- telling the truth that they tell. regardless of what it looks like on the outside, the most transgressive ideas are all over the place here and have been since before any of the people under discussion were born.

i'll give ya an example that may place it in relief -- the so-called "unbookables" show in edinburgh last year. those guys weren't unbookable. they were ultra-bookable/exactly what people wanted to see and hear.

heartfelt and brilliant though the people in question may be, they never, in my experience have said anything unprecedented, except, perhaps occasionally, in the context of a mainstream stand-up milieu.

i don't doubt that the hickses of the world thought they were blazing trails and maybe, coming from the southwest, as the hicks/kinison guys did, there are more strictures, religious and otherwise, than those i encountered as a jew in new york. but the fact remains, none of these guys were originators of big ideas; they were marketing them to like-thinking people at a time when, to a reasonable extent at least, their notions -- in a comedic context -- were welcome.

and that's why they were/are not "outlaws," except if the term is considered generic rather than literally descriptive.

oh, yeah -- you know what else i thought when sam said that to me? "why would we want to be outlaws?"

comedians always have a certain license. the degree to which sam was actually an outlaw was mostly outside the realm of the comedic and it probably damaged his life. the reason he was great was because he was funny. as time wen by and he became more outlaw and less comic, he became less great and less successful.

now, hicks might actually agree with some of what i'm saying. he was funny before he was anything else -- before he was a smoker, a drug-taker, anything.

i remember him waxing rhapsodic about gaylord sartain, with whom he had made a sitcom pilot. gaylord sartain is most famous for having been on frigging "hee-haw," for christ's sake. but hicks was crazy about him because he was funny.

this little rant is neither detailed nor complete but it points the way to certain truths (as i see them) and you guys can fill in the blanks, rebut, agree, whatever.

my notions may make more complete sense to you if and when i return to the subject here. (i think i may have written about this before, during the last fringe. couldn't find it in a search, though.)

and i have to admit, i thought then (when sam "included" me) and i think now that if anybody is an outlaw, i'm an outlaw.

subtlety in truth; to tell the truth as closely as possible to the way it actually happened, with a minimum of exaggeration, and still have it be funny. that's what i'm going for.

i don't always succeed. and i'm not the only one trying. and it's not the only kind of comedy i like as a performer nor is it my only enthusiasm as a member of the audience. and i'm not the best at it.

but in many comedy environments, one takes a lot of heat for goin' at it that way; for breaking the rules; for being an outlaw.

(but who wants to be an outlaw?)

fringe office took the 1100 bucks i offered and will tell me how much more i owe and when i owe it on monday. it strains credulity to think that, after taking all that money, they'll drop my listings because of what i still owe (especially since i won't owe it if they drop my listings). but who knows with these guys?

i'm pretty much recovered from my self-induced stomach ailment. yesterday, i managed to get outside a little.

i had waves of discomfort but could handle them and, more tellingly, i could handle the sikh day celebration i stumbled onto in and around madison square park.

a right festival of turbans, it was. i went looking for native foodstuffs to buy, but it turned out they were giving them away. (it's times like these that i love religion.)

it was good, indian vegetarian food -- some of it familiar-looking, some of it looking like slop. but i ate everything that was handed to me and even the slop was tolerable. (some of the other stuff was nice.)

pure, white, delicious indian rice. perfect tortilla-like breads.

mmm mm.

it made me feel like hell.

a hell i transcended by getting in touch with the pink, white, and translucent green beauty of madison square park. (also its metallic beauty, as mixed in with nature's aesthetic bounty were metal trees, which were part of some art installation.)

the springtime wonders swept me to that pleasurable place inside me where the fact of my existence in a wondrous world generated intense pleasure and a sense of connection to nature.

in addition to which, i still felt like hell.

which made me notice i was right near the train to my gym.

so, i went and worked out hard (as opposed to my typical, perfunctory "tip of the hat" to movement). i took to the sauna to sweat out the toxins that had been plaguing me, then returned to the cat-watching pad to mostly ignore various versions of "law and order" and drift off to slumber.

in the middle of the night i woke up and made myself a steak.

Couple of gigs on the coast since last we spoke.

I always look forward to going to 'the seaside', and always end up disappointed. I think it's because I always compare it to Blackpool. A lot of people take the piss out of Blackpool and do it down, but I have to say, I take people and places as I find them and I fucking love Blackpool. Had some of the best and worst days of my life there, and any place that can run you through every emotion and still put pretty lights on at the end of the day is okay by me.

So the first place I compared to Blackpool was Sandgate, in Kent. There is literally nothing there. I arrived for my gig two hours early thinking I'd be able to have a wander about on the sea front and ended up just sitting in my car, staring at the sea and wishing time away. I was that bored I bought FHM. That just made it worse to be honest.

Anyway, the time arrived for me to go to the gig. Sometimes you walk into a gig and think it's going to be lovely, the room is all set out nice and there's a microphone and stage and lights, and the audience are seated in front of it and facing the right way, and you know that your job is going to be fine unless you personally fuck it up. Other times, like in Sandgate on Thursday, you walk in and think "You have got to be shitting me".

How we got through that gig on Thursday defies all logic. There was a microphone. That was it. None of the other aforementioned plus points for good gigs were met.

I headlined (or rather I had to wait the longest with the dread of going on), and blagged it for 35 minutes. Proper blagged it though, literally not a word of material, the first ten minutes involved me finding and plugging in a light so that the 'audience' could actually see me, and the rest of my time relied predominantly on the drunkest man in the room (and that was saying something) facilitating my piss-taking.

Sometimes gigs are hard work because the audience aren't really laughing too much, and you are constantly trying to kick start them, sometimes gigs are easy because the audience are laughing at everything and you can relax. On this night, the audience were laughing at everything and yet it was still hard work, I'm not sure I can explain it, but I really worked my bollocks off on Thursday whilst outwardly appearing to be just fucking about.

By the grace of god it all went well, and everybody was happy at the 'gig', but I think it has taken about five years off my life. I was exhausted as I drove home, and had a real dull headache (but that may have been because I had a go on some poppers the night before in an attempt to look cool...Little Raji James who used to be on Eastenders told me off for this because apparently they lower your blood pressure but that's a good thing for somebody like me surely?).

Last night was Jokers Comedy Club at Southend-on-sea, and I was comparing.

Southend is far more comparable to Blackpool, and I got the satisfaction of seeing a row of arcades all lit up on the front. Didn't go in them - but just seeing them made me feel happy enough.

The gig is at the Cliff's Pavillion, which also houses a big beautiful theatre as well as the function bar room where they do the comedy. At the moment the tour of The Rocky Horror Show is playing in the main theatre.

For many years in my teens, I was obsessed with The Rocky Horror Show. It's still one of my very very favourites, it's an astounding piece of work in all of it's forms, and as I walked through the dressed up masses in the main foyer last night, I sort of wished I was going to watch it with them. So much so that I even bought some merchandise from the stall and spent a bit of time hanging around and looking at all the costumes and stuff.

Well...I say that...I've made that sound far less lecherous than it was. I noticed a really weird thing last night. When I have been to see Rocky Horror in the past, I have always been kind of immune to the people dressed up, there's so many of them and you're off to see the show and you just don't really notice. Last night, as I was very much an outsider I suddenly noticed that the whole place was full of beautiful ladies in just their underwear, and it took on a whole different feel. And they were all so friendly. How I ever got downstairs to the gig is beyond me, it played utter havoc with my libido.

So, onto the gig.

There's always the feeling in rooms like that, that the audience aren't going to be comedy savvy. In fact, without meaning to generalise (which means I am about to), whenever I go to do gigs in Essex I feel that. As though the audience simply don't know how to be an audience. Jokers Southend has been running for twenty years now, so as an audience they 'get' it. Well, most of them do. Safe to say, that if there's a person there who doesn't, I'll fucking find them.

Two hundred and fifty people, all up for a great night, I find the solitary humourless cunt in the room. In his defence he made it easier for me by sitting right at the front, his all black get up capped with dyed (I assume) black hair diluting his fifty-one years of age and his arm around his much younger pretty blonde girlfriend.

How could I not?

I chatted with his girlfriend first, and she was lovely and giggly and totally entered into the spirit of things. In my head I thought ahead to how much fun I could have with them as the night went on, a couple with a massive age difference, not giving a fuck what other people thought, sat at the front and taking my teasing with grace and humour, whilst the whole rest of the room laughed along.

Then I started speaking to him.

I knew instantly that something wasn't right. It took the rest of the room a little longer to realise, but eventually we were all on board together. The first give away to me was the fact that he simply would not make eye-contact with me. The second clue was the fact that he was not cracking a smile. Like, at all. The rest of his table were falling about laughing, but he was having none of it. As it got more and more awkward, his girlfriend gave me the most apologetic eyes I think I have ever seen, and I wanted to scoop her up and save her.

The thing was, I was going pretty easy on the dude. I wasn't even properly taking the piss, my teasing was 'gentle' to say the least, but the more he didn't play, the more the devil on my shoulder was encouraging me to push it further. In a complete turn around of character I showed admirable restraint, in the second part of the show I made no more than passing reference to him. I said to him "You really don't like me do you?", he said "Well, it just gets boring doesn't it?", I said "Yes...yes it does...".

It doesn't though. Not to me. I was lying. I like the awkward situations.

But on this occasion, I did leave him be. He'd gone by the third part of the show. The rest of his table stayed and had a great night, but his girlfriend departed with him. I felt for her, she'd been having a laugh but had to leave with sulky-probably leather-pants.

I really hate it when somebody gets the hump with me onstage when I genuinely wasn't meaning any harm.

Sometimes there are proper cunts in the audience and they get what they deserve, and I will go full tilt on slamming them down without any conscience about it, but this bloke just...well...took himself too seriously. He could have left that gig a hero, with all the audience thinking he was fantastic and big enough to take it on the chin and give as good as he got, but instead there was just a feeling that he put a bit of a dampener on it. I don't know, maybe I'm being harsh, I guess it's people's right to react however they do, and I don't know what's going on for him in his life or what sort of day he has had or whatever, but the very front table of a comedy club isn't perhaps the best place to plonk yourself if you're not up for a laugh.

I spoke to some of the people who had been with him after the show, and they put my mind at rest, and I sent a message with them for him and the girlfriend with them. I really wish he hadn't left. I didn't like that.

Other than that, the gig was a fucking belter - I may have made the sulky bloke thing sound like it was the whole story of the gig, but it was a very small part of it. Had a lovely night, and spent some time with Topping & Butch who I have never met before. Fucking top blokes - and a really brilliant act. I thought I would hate their act, but I really really liked it.

Tell you what though, you know when you have spent the evening socialising with a couple of gay fellas, and as the night wears on you start doing gay jokes and teasing them in a childish way, and then when you leave the gig and are driving home you notice that they are in the car behind you so you start waving and beeping your horn and doing immature gay signals out of your window, and then the car behind you overtakes you and it isn't them after all but two hard knock blokes?

That's fucking awkward isn't it?

Particularly when you are in Chelmsford...

The fact that I am writing this now would imply I survived it.

Bracknell Comedy Cellar for me tonight for a one-off Saturday gig, I practically live at that place now. Then tomorrow I am off up to Durham to do a gig as a favour to underdog Chortle finalist Ed Gamble at his Cool Fun Comedy Night. A fucking favour! To Durham. It's almost fucking Scotland. It better be sunny. Not driving all that way without the car roof down...

Ulcer-like pain. Marathon tours of duty in the "rest" room. Couldn't close a window in the other room and it got cold, so I closed the door which may be why the cat I'm looking after was yowling at me, at great length, in the middle of the night when I was trying to sleep away the pain.

Allergies kicking in. Took almost a full day's maximum dose of stomach medicine in just a few hours.

Got a friend to let me use his credit card to pay most of the money I owe the Fringe office before the deadline they gave me (which was today). E-mailed them the details hours ago; now, it's heading toward the end of the day/week in Edinburgh and I've heard nothing.

Writing this is making my stomach act up again.

Why did I take that aspirin without water? I never answered that question because I don't know!

The delicious Ziggi's french fries I ate last night covered in highly acidic, tomato-based ketchup didn't help me for some reason. Nor did the whole wheat penne bolognese I made and ate in large quantities.

Nor the Pepsi One,

Nor cold Schweppes ginger ale.

Moan.

I just ate some more of it out of the pan it's been sitting in on the stove. Not a good idea, right?

But it tasted good.

And I was hungry.

it happened AGAIN, with my post about last night's "Subway Stories" set.

i've now changed the categories, so it CAN'T happen again.

the whole point of this blog is HONESTY.

honestly,
andrew

My appearance at "It Came from New York" at the Bowery Poetry Club last night went great. The theme was "Subway Stories" and I told a lot of them in my Edinburgh show last year, so I was more than well-prepared.

I love to test the audience's willingness to go along with me (they often fail the test -- or maybe I'm the one who fails), so it was gratifying to find acceptance and a fond embrace even as I told them of an adolescent masturbation escapade on an empty middle-of-the night train. (Subway masturbation seems to have fallen into disrepute as renegade practitioners have taken to doing it when other people are present.)

There were many smiling people complimenting me on their way out (though, as of my last search, no one seems to have been moved to enthusiastically blog about me). After the show, I went out with some of the gang but left quickly because an aspirin taken without water during the afternoon had turned into an ulcer-style stomach ache. (I had decided that rather than stop eating badly, I needed to take an aspirin to stave off a heart attack during my afternoon nap -- I know you're only supposed to take part of an aspirin for that purpose, but I figured since my face still hurt, I could use the pain-relieving, too)

I was so distracted was I by my pain that I accidentally left without paying for my fries. Since I was too far away to go back when I realized this, I used the "extra" money I now had to buy a cheese steak.

I woke up depressed.

just noticed that the last five posts had been somehow placed by this blog setup into the category of "fiction", (which i created for "part 1" the other day). these are so not fiction.

i wonder what the psychological effect was on readers -- seeing the word "fiction" above what i had written.

i've now fixed the problem but have i been dismissed? has compassion not reigned? has concern not been forthcoming? has wise advice and sage counsel been withheld? have my life, my stress, my fears been seen as a gag?

a joke that is, in effect, on me?

It's a week away from the end of the universityyear for me, I've got three essays due in in a weeks time with a combined word count of 8,000 words and I've not started on any of them. this is the reason I've not posted a blog for over a week as I've had two due in today, and a test this morning. I've learned something though: Never trust my flat mate Hollie to know what's going on. an hour into the exam she assured me was two hours (I don't know, I got bored of the lectures so I only went to the seminars since the middle of October, I'm really getting into the swing of being a student) the lecturer said "Right if you could just finish up." there was then a load of talking, and in spite of the fact that as a dyslexic student (an actual proper dyslexic student, not some posh kid who's a bit thick getting statemented as so many people seem to get annoyed about), I should have had at least an extra quarter of an hour on this, which would have been enough to turn it round. Instead I freaked out and went a bit mental.

Maybe I shouldn't have shouted at my lecturer. Maybe I shouldn't have finished the essay with the paragraph "Fuck this, this is bullshit, I can't concentrate as there's loads of noise and really I should have been allowed extra time in a quiet environment, it's a fucking disgrace, I'll be lodging a formal complaint."

I then found out that I shouldn't have actually even done the test, the special dispensation for the dyslexic students is that they get to do the essay on their own time. Arse.

Never mind, I got my essays in and done on time.

But that's not what this is supposed to be about, it's about comedy.

So a couple of weeks ago, after I posted my last blog I headed off to Lincoln, if you'll remember I'd been dying on my arse at gig after gig and I was needing a good one to pull back the average. Arriving at the bar it was empty, a situation that didn't change as show time apporached, though it was good to see Andy Kind, who I've not seen for ages. anyway the show was pulled, and I collected my cash and got ready to head off home when the promoter called me and told me that one of the acts hadn't turned up over at the other venue, a place on the marina called YOTS, so I headed over there to do the middle section.

Now my sense of direction is terrible at the best of times, and this wasn't the best of times but I managed to get there in the end, and just in time to go on stage. I've decided for a while at least to dress down when I'm on stage, with some of the topics I'm covering at the moment there's enough barriers between me and the audience without throwing a load of leather and PVC over it.

The audience seemed lovely and Barry Dodds had managed to do really well and they even went for his darkest stuff so I thought this will be fun. as I headed up onto the stage I felt really confident, and the opening three jokes (I've now removed the ones that caused trouble) worked and then suddenly I lost them. Really lost them. I was two minutes into a 20 minute set and they were just really staring at me. and it wasn't working.

This game works on tension and release, you build tension with a set up and release it with a punchline, when you die it's just build up after build up of tension. I also at this point started to realise that they weren't going to go for stuff, so rather than front it out I tried to ease my way into some of the stuff I was going to do and they still weren't going for it, essentially for the first ten minutes of this I just gave them set-ups that they didnt' like adn then decidednot to bother with the punchline.

It's funny how your mind works when you're on the spot. Then after ten minutes of this I just thought to myself, there's nothing you can do, so you might as well just go with it, and then I relaxed into the death and enjoyed every second of it. As I referenced that I was dying on my arse the audience loved that, I followed it up with "Really this has become a war of attrition, neither of us is prepared to give an inch and both of us will consider this a win." they loved that. What was odd was that they didn't seem to dislike me, they just really didn't think that I was funny in any way, but when I suggested that they wanted me to go, they all yelled "No" I wasn't going to go, I was only half way through my time, and however it's going I'll do my time and no more or less.

So I kept smiling and I kept talking and trying to do something to entertain them and they just weren't going with it, after 20 minutes I told them I was leaving and that I was confused as to why this had happened "It's just weird, don't worry, I'm not normally this shit." They laughed, I signed off with my usual message of love and acceptance and said I was off to the bar to think about what I'd done. and they liked that too.

It was a strange gig all round. I left fairly soon after and in the car on the way home it was playing on my mind. For 3 weeks now I'd not had a gig that'd gone right in any way, whatever it was that makes me funny had deserted me somehow, and it was confusing me. I was still in a place where I feel like I should just quit, but at the same time I'd really enjoyed the death I'd just had.

Dug and Dolan talked me through it though. But for the life of me I can't remember what it was that they said.

anyway, a couple of days later and it's the anniversary of Sarah and I splitting up, I bought her some flowers and I'm now really enjoying her company again. Turns out Brendon Burns was right, it does take a year to get over a broken heart.

That night, however I was on at the opening night of the Columbus Comedy Cave in Bradford for Fox Bronte.

Fox, crazy name crazy guy!

As I got to the venue I had a real sense of foreboding, which wasn't helped when i walked into the upstairs of the venue and asked at the bar about the comeddy telling them I was one of the acts "The show starts at 8:30" Well can I not go in? "Not until the show starts."

I headed off to try and find some cigarettes and came back just after 8:30. as I walked in to the gig the foreboding got worse, the guy on the door when I told him who I was and that I was tehre to perform just said "Oh" and then carried on talking to the people who were arriving.

I went over to a secluded spot away from the stage Fox came over and said hi and then told me that there were a few difficulties, the mic lead had been stolen and some of the other acts were very late.

It looked like it was going to be a disaster. I just wanted to go home. Experience should have told me that when this happens it means the gig's going to be good, but after the run I'd been through it just looked like hell.

Eventually Chris Brooker, my old flatmate turned up, he was MCing it and I was doing the opening 25, now without a microphone.

As it got closer to 9:30 the gig started adn more people wer coming in whilst Chris was mcing, by the time I got on stage there was a sizeable crowd, and you know what. This time it worked, it really worked, I just dropped right out of the front I've been building up over the last couple of years and was just me, telling my stories making people laugh and it was one of the nicest feelings in the world. Someone described me as "like an enthusiastic Stewart Lee" which made my day, as did the audience coming over and telling me how much they enjoyed it.

When you start out people tell you to be yourself, and you try, but it's like so many things in this never ending jigsaw puzzle, you can be told it but you don't know it until you know it, and then when you do it just seems so obvious.

After that aside from doing my college work I was getting ready for the third night of my new night at Vanilla Bar in Manchester, it wsa the first night I'd be resident compereing, and the pressure of doing that was starting to get to me, especially as I'd essentially overrun last month when I was just doing a set and used up pretty much all the material I've ever written.

Monday was fast approaching and I was starting to worry about it more and more, but fortunately Sarah was going to be there, along with her sister. Now it's not normally such a great thing to have loads of people you know in the audience, and especially not an ex, but we have a great understanding wtih each other, and essentially she doens't mind me telling stories about the stuff we've got up to, especially as it makes me look like a bit of a tool.

The only problem with it is Sarah's hideous attempts at time keeping, the show was supposed to start at 8:30, and so that I didn't have kittens I needed her to be there at 8:15 at the latest. I told her about 6 times in the run up to it that she needed to be there at 8. and she was cool with that. At about 4 she calls me from Manchester and says "Right, so I need to be there for 9 then?" so I say no, 8 at the very latest. after the call I send her this text:

"be there for 8, 8pm, 8 o'clock, 8 o'clock in the evening, 8. 8. eight. and not eight as in "Oh it's midnight, have I missed it?" 8, eight o'clock. remember that number I need you to be there for 8. hugs xXx"

Then as I'm drving into Manchester, a little late myself I get a phone call at 7:20 saying that she's not gone for food yet so she'll be down later.

Suddeny it's all loking a litte too real again. Essentially I've got 25 minutes of totally untested new stuff to do tonight, a good portion of which requires her to be there to back it up, or at least that's what I think, in the event, her being there makes it funnier but isn't neccessary to make it funny.

As I get into the bar, there's George, Vince and Susan, and about three other people there, it's 8:10 20 minutes to show time on a rainy Monday night. it's going to be shit, or worse, it's going to be pulled and then no more gig, which is a shame because it's a lovely venue and the crowd so far have been really good, not too good though, if you do something that's not funny they won't laugh, but they will laugh overall.

I go over to talk to Bex about it, now I'm shitting it because of the new material, and because there's going to be no one in. then at 8:20 Sarah gets there with her sister and her friend Avril from Back home, (she's ace by the way, one of the few people I've ever met who I'm able to totally just be wisecracking with from the get go and who gets it without trying to make out like I'm the mental one in some sort of show of charlie big spuds "you're funny so I'll be dismissive" way which really winds me up, but I've given you more than enough insight into how my head works so far.)

I'm glad to see them, it's only a small venue so even an extra 7 people starts to make the place look like it's ready for a gig, then something strange happens. between 8:22 and 8:30 the place totally fills up, it's just packed, we wait a while to see if any more come and at 8:45 we start the gig.

the new stuff works, they love it, they love the fact that I've got my ex there and talk about the stupid shit that I've done, they can't believe that I'll talk about it and that somehow makes it even better. George Cottier is first on, and though not all of them get him he does really well. I'm really impressed, then Susan Hanks goes on and rips it up, they audience is loving it, Vince Atta is magnificent and then splits the room with his rape and racism material, but if you're going to do rape material then you should have the courage of your convictions and do it in a lesbian bar. By the end of the night Sarah Millican takes what's been set up and really sets the bar for anyone who's going to perform there again, she is simply the most fantastic act I've seen in a long time and the audience love her.

It's a night that's included stories of Stalin, all 43 presidents of the US, Tricolor, lynx, rape, racism, paedophilia, zoophilia, ways to harm children, shitting yourself and suicide. it was probably the most fun I've had at a gig for a very very long time and the venue loved it, the audience loved it and all the acts wanted to come back and play agin. Later when a bunch of us were out having a curry I reflected back on that evening and I'm really proud of what we've managed to achieve there.

Roll on next month and Ray Peacock :D

right, best get back to work, no rest for the wicked.

I love you all

xXx

between $1500 and $2000, depending on how it's figured and who does the figuring, by friday evening gmt or -- i have been threatened by an accountant -- i will be removed from the 2007 edinburgh fringe programme.

$326, by next thursday morning, or my stored belongings will be sold.

total -- min. $1826.

expected income -- $700, minus withholding, maybe by friday, but in check form and after close of business gmt.

and maybe not by friday.


remember, i'm doing a show tonight -- "it came from new york" at the bowery poetry club in new york city at 8 (midnight friday gmt).


ps. they're not really following gmt right now in the uk, 'cause they also have daylight savings in force, but i don't know what initials are used to express that.

I don't really know why yesterday felt so rubbish. It should have been good.

I had to go and do some ADR on Doctor Who in the early afternoon.

There are several different ideas as to what ADR actually stands for, and nobody seems to know - not even the people who are in charge of it. The top two suggestions are Automated Dialogue Replacement and Additional Dialogue Recording. The constant is Dialogue - and I suppose that is the most relevant. I had to go into a recording studio and speak an additional line four times. Yes, you heard it right - an additional line...taking my line count in Doctor Who up to four (or it might be five), which would surely warrant an action figure or trading card of me? If you need an image to set the scene, it was like that bit at the beginning of Mrs Doubtfire where Robin Williams is doing the voices for the cartoon with a big screen in front of him - just imagine me instead of Robin Williams and an episode of Doctor Who instead of the cartoon. I recorded the lines and then I was released back into the wild.

The bit of the episode that I saw only showed my back, but let me tell you, I did some fucking brilliant back acting in that bit. My manager assures me I have the best back in showbusiness, and thinking about it, people always seem much happier when seeing the back of me.

As the whole ADR process was over and done with in about twenty minutes, I had the rest of the afternoon to kill in London and what better way to spend it than telephoning little Raji James who used to be on Eastenders but ruined it and getting him to come and entertain me?

I wanted to go into Soho and get ripped off at a sex show. I thought it would have been good to pose as touristy people and get charged three hundred quid for a glass of Coke, and then get into bother for not paying and that, but Raji steadfastly refused to play. My logic was that they wouldn't kill us, but Raji countered that they would do "everything but...". I thought Soho was the sort of place where it was acceptable to do "everything but...", Raji however, would not be swayed, so we ended up in a restaraunt on Tottenham Court Road, moaning about our careers and drinking coffee like adults.

At the moment Raji is being in charge of producing my podcast. I would do it myself but I am not very good at computers, and wouldn't know where to start. Raji sent me over some information about it today but, to be honest, there were too many words in it that I simply didn't understand and I stopped reading after about a paragraph, so I have rather cleverly put it all down to him to sort out. I may even let him just do the podcast himself under my name. I'm only mentioning the podcast as I figure that if I say publicly that it is imminent, then I will have to do it. Plus, as I have told you that Raji is reluctantly in charge of it, if it doesn't happen people will assume it is his fault. I can be devilishly manipulative sometimes me...

So, onto the Fopp gig.

It just didn't work for me last night, there were some rather awkward internal politics going on which I attempted to stay out of, and the lights were fucked as usual, and in all I really didn't enjoy it last night. It probably showed. Also, as a note to myself, I have really got to stop taking my shirt off onstage, and perhaps more importantly, I have really got to stop physically fighting members of the audience. As if having my bare chested body flattening him into the ground wasn't enough, the lad on stage last night ended up with broken glasses too. I would like to go on the record here to say that he threw the first punch, so it was all technically me defending myself and so cannot be held accountable for the accident in any way.

I think one of the other problems last night was the fact that a lot of the audience were there because they had got wind of the fact that Stephen Merchant was on, and I certainly felt from the beginning like they didn't want to have their time wasted by the fat lad with no top on, they just wanted the bloke off the telly. I have long since abandoned any attempt to do material whilst compering that gig as I am the resident compere there, and whilst this is usually fine, last night I got the distinct impression that the majority of the audience were staring at me and thinking "What ARE you doing? You're just fucking about! Put the bloke off Extras on!".

This throws up problems for everybody, not least of all Stephen himself, because he was only down at the gig to do a low-key try-out show, and having a room full of expectant people doesn't really lend itself to that. He had a great gig though, although he didn't seem to think so, and it was really cool to see him doing stand up again after a five or so year absence. I have no idea what he has been up to in his sabbattical. He told me he'd had his kitchen done, but that shouldn't have taken that long surely?

So after the first interval, there was a distinct feeling in the room that the show was missing the celebrity factor, but cometh the hour cometh the man and little Raji James etc stepped up to the plate and performed his legendary impression (still available on YouTube). I don't care that everybody else (including Raji) is bored shitless of this impression, until the day I am (which simply won't happen) I shall continue to make him do it to uncomfortable silence in front of paying audiences. It will never...ever...not be funny to me.

Rob Deering headlined the show in all his brilliance, and even humoured my request that he do his impression of the baddie bloke from Men In Black (I like making people do obscure impressions) - which truly needs to be seen to be believed, and everybody went home happy I think. Well, except for me, but I will take one for the team from time to time.

And that was that. The Fopp show changes it's format now, as we are having Edinburgh Previews on there for the next few, and I'll probably try harder at the next one.

And before I forget - some of you may recall from this blog when I was up at the fringe in August in my lost previous life, that I became obsessed with an audience member at the Free Beer Show called Lawrence Diamond. It's back in the August entries, I would link to it but really can't be arsed to scroll back, but if you can be then it is there somewhere. I was mainly enamoured with his name as any right thinking person would be, and made him a Tshirt at one of the final Free Beer Shows. Last night he showed up at Fopp wearing the Tshirt - there it was in big black letters for all to see.

"I'm Lawrence Diamond and I love Ray Peacock".

So no matter how much the audience disliked me last night, I could kid myself that I had at least one fan there.

come if you can.

_____________________________________

IT CAME FROM NEW YORK: SUBWAY STORIES

Tales of the A, B, C, D, E, F, G, J, L, M, N, R, V and W. With the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 and a little QB, GG, RR, CC and LL thrown in for those who remember.

BOWERY POETRY CLUB
308 Bowery btw. Bleecker & Houston
8:00pm
Tix: $8

Featuring:
It Came From FLATBUSH: writer/artstar ERIK SEIMS
It Came From THE UPPER WEST SIDE I actor/writer VID HARDT
It Came From OLD MILL BASIN monologuist ANDREW J LEDERER
It Came From THE UPPER WEST SIDE II writer/comedian KATIE HALPER
plus token non-New Yorker It Came From NEW JERSEY poet/chanteuse
BONI JOI

With music from ICFNY house band LONE VEIN. Curated and hosted by Michele Carlo, who has lived in four of the five boroughs of NYC and can remember when a slice of pizza cost fifty cents.

people never think i'm doing anything.

i mean as an actor or comedian or writer or whatever.

i don't mean that they think i'm out of work. (although they'd be correct in that.)

i mean they think i'm just being rather than doing. that i'm not acting or intentionally creating a persona or tone but instead am just a character, powerless to be anything other than what is paraded before them.

which, in a way is a goal of mine.

in a way, it's a compliment to me.

(and in a way, it's maybe even partially true.)

but this perception of me as god or circumstance's creation rather than my own has haunted me again and again.

at a desk by the window (the sun will prevent others from recoiling at the sight), covered with grease from the approx. 2/3 of a pound of pasta i made for myself and the accompanying home-made, oil-laden sauce. (the pork chop i fried up earlier apparently wasn't enough to satisfy my appetite despite the cookies i followed it up with.)

lots of garlic in the pasta-fixin's. if someone were near me, they'd probably notice that. (great shower here. i should use it.)

i didn't finish possibly (though probably not) remunerative work i had to do this morning. i won't get paid by the fake news people until i straighten out some paperwork but i have to call them and i'm too unmotivated to put new minutes on my phone.

an associate wants to brainstorm and i just want to lie down.

or sit up.

alone and quiet.

miserable and optimistic.


a guy paid me 40 dollars less than he said he had for something. i didn't count the money 'til days later.

my storage is gonna be up for sale again on may 3rd. i owe $335, more than $100 of which is late fees.

you may remember i said this wouldn't happen again, as they were lowering my monthly rate from $25 to $75 and it is true that the going rate for my unit is now $25. however, when i last paid my bill -- over the phone with a friend's credit card -- they ran the charge including the next month, before i had a chance to tell them not to.

rather than create havoc by attempting to have the girl reverse the charge and then reprocess it for the correct amount, i figured i'd be nice and let them reapportion the money based on the new rate after i got the change taken care of. (i had to move to the unit next to mine to get the lower rate -- it had to be as if i was starting over.)

so, i went to the storage place the next day and was told i had to pay a $25 processing fee to start over again.

fair enough, i thought. still a bargain. "take it out of the money left over from the coming month's rent your girl charged me yesterday."

but the manager wouldn't/couldn't do it.

she said something like "rent is rent, fees is fees" (although i'm sure it wasn't as "no tickee, no washee" as that), meaning she could only use the rent i'd paid toward other rent, not toward an account reopening fee. so, even though i had paid three times what would be my new monthly rent, i couldn't use any of the overage to cover the processing for the change.

if i had $25 in cash, the change could instantly be made and the extra $50 i'd paid in rent would cover me 'til the end of march.

but i didn't have an additional 25 bucks.

so i couldn't make the change at all.

and the rent accrued at the higher rate until, when i had some money, it still wasn't enough for me to cover the ballooning balance.

i looked at their website the other day. they don't even have spaces listed that cost more than $25. i've been paying an inflated rate from years ago.

yet somehow i now owe $335 when i should owe $25 or $50 or -- with fees -- $65.

because i was nice and didn't make the girl reverse the charge right after she put it through.

does that seem fair?

(by the way, i'm talking about storage usa, john st. in brooklyn -- an extra space company. maybe someone in corporate will scan the web, see this, feel guilty and straighten this out so that i don't lose my stuff and they get paid what's fair but no more.

. . . nah.)

So...

Friday evening I did the Boat Show at the Tattersall Castle which isn't a castle at all but, as the name of the gig suggests, a boat.

Boats have one of two influences on me, they either knock me sick or send me to sleep. Matter of fact that rule can be applied to most things in my life, like girls and stuff, but let's stick with boats for the time being.

When I was younger my family used to have a boat called the Brenrickian (cleverly amalgamating my real name, Ian, with the names of my parents - and that served as a great name until my brother was born and ruined it with his stupid new name), which would be hauled up to the lake district most weekends for water-skiing and just general driving around Ullswater in. When I sat down in the green room at Fridays gig, that familiar water lulling from my distant youth came back to me and I started to feel drowsy.

There is no worse feeling before going onstage than fatigue, twice as bad when you are the compere (as I was on Friday) and you think ahead to just how long it will be before you can go home and get the sleep that will cure you. Whilst the audience sit a few feet from you, anticipation of the show ahead giddying their senses, all you can think about is "fuck, I've got to go on, then come off, then go back, then come off, then go back, then come off, then go back, then come off, then go back, then come off, then go on and close the show, then come off, then get the tube, then pick up my car, then drive back to Hertfordshire..." - and that doesn't even take into account the time one may need to spend with groupies and stuff...

One of the best ways of being snapped out of the tiredness is to be told before you go on for the first time that the first act hasn't arrived and isn't picking up their phone. This is especially effective when you are playing a new club that you haven't played before and so are already a little nervy about whether or not your brilliant style of comedy will be best suited to the hundreds of London people gathered. To think you may have to fill the first section of the show on your own is enough to spark anybody into life.

As it turns out, the first act did arrive after I had been onstage for about ten minutes so there wasn't anything to worry about and the show went as nicely as it could.

The reason I am telling you about this though is, during my thinking time on the tube back, I made a bit of a discovery about myself when I compere. Well, I say discovery, it was more of an observation really, but it did feel like something was clicking into place. I worked out what I do when I am compering.

My approach to compering, as anyone who has seen me do it will confirm, is apparently very haphazard. I don't fanny about trying to work out a way of doing my material - I certainly don't do the thing that lots of comperes do and just slice up my act into three segments, I fuck about a fair bit, and to (I believe) my credit, I always try to set the room into an applicable mood for the act I am introducing (assuming I know their stuff) and set the microphone stand to the right height for them. These last things, incidentally, are known as stage-craft - and there are more than a few comedians out there who might consider getting to grips with it but anyhow...

Despite the (very deliberate) outward appearance of not really knowing what I am doing, subconsciously I appear to have been working to a theory.

On Friday (before recognising the equation) I went on, talked with the audience, pinpointed a man named Dorian, took the piss out of his name (which he defended, saying it was derivative of ancient greeks), brought on the first act, returned after the first break and pretended that I had been online and found out about the name Dorian (when in actual fact I had spent the first interval writing a fictional essay about the name, whilst my fellow comedians bitched and gossipped), read out my work, brought the second act on, and then after the second break came on and did seven minutes of material.

Somewhere in there I was harangued into taking my tshirt off by a very sexy yet forcefull young hen night too.

So here's what I worked out. Here is what I (up until now, subconsciously) do.

In the first section I find things out. I go on, no material, have a chat, find something out. This is normally volunteered without duress by an audience member.

In the second section, I go back on, and with the information I have gathered earlier, do something that could not possibly have been pre-planned. Even if this isn't the funniest thing in the world, it makes an audience credit you with being able to think on your feet, and flatters them into believing that you are tailoring the show specifically for them.

In the third section, having established the trust bond with them, I do material. The third section of compering shows is always the easiest I ever find 'selling' my material.

The second section however is the most important one - some comperes may tell you that the first section is the most important because it is your first impression on the audience that will count, but that is utter bollocks. That counts for fuck all. The first section is where you do your homework - it is the second that really establishes you.

I have always felt (and I mean always - going right back to the old Big And Daft shows) that what an audience likes more than anything in the world is to feel as though what they are watching is unique, that it only applies to them and on this particular night. That is why people like to see heckling battles, or see people fuck up or forget where they were up to, it makes the money they have paid seem worth it, because that money wouldn't have got them the same show on any other night. It is why Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson would fake corpsing and forgetting lines in the Bottom live shows, it is why I 'enjoy' onstage deaths almost as much as I do the supreme gigs. In a sense it can't fail, because even if the 'comedy' aspect of it doesn't hit, you still provide the audience with the whole schadenfreude thing, and whether they realise it at the time or not, they get the same rush from that as they would from something that is just balls out funny.

I was slightly worried that the fact that I had pinpointed my method so precisely on Friday would mean that I could no longer do it. I had a compering gig on Saturday in London which would prove to be the proof in the pudding, but when I arrived I was told by the staff (eventually) that the show had been cancelled earlier. You'd think somebody would have thought they should perhaps tell the fucking compere, particularly given that his whole weekend had been altered for the gig and he would have been in Leeds had it not been for the fact he was meant to be compering in London, and he also had come out of his house at half time during a very exciting rugby match and missed the second half (when his team went on to lose because, he is convinced, they lost his support from afar) to do a hundred mile round trip for a gig that had already been fucking cancelled, wouldn't you?

Sunday I went up north to watch a special rugby league match which was the St Helens 1996 team versus a Legends team in aid of a player called Steve Prescott who used to play for Saints who has been ill. It was cool - very very good - not taken seriously by anyone involved, lots of cheating and fucking about, and there were shirts from every other rugby league club at Knowsley Road (Saints' ground) yesterday. I'm really not sure you would find that in any other sport. I'm often reminded of why I am very proud of my association with rugby league.

And that's that - I'm off tonight, and then tomorrow I have to go back and do some more work on Doctor Who somewhere in London, and then tomorrow night it is Fopp again at the store on Tottenham Court Road, and if you are in the London area I would seriously advise you to come, because it is an extraordinary secret special bill. Incidentally, my theory of compering does not come into effect at the Fopp nights. I really do just play that one by ear.

And yes, I really did just drop the word schadenfreude into this entry, to make myself look clever...here is a link to it on dictionary.com in case it threw you.

Hello!
Well, long time, no blog eh? I've been busy working on Project V - it's a video blog project I'll be doing for the next 3 months. Very exciting and all rather fun, thought I would give it a bit of a plug, for anyone who's still interested in my rather intermittent Chortle blog. It's www.project-v.net and this is a picture of it:

Because of this I now have some snazzy recording equipment, so for those 2 people who were interested in getting the songs from my Edinburgh show last year - that might actually be an option now. I'll let you know if and when I get around to recording them. Bumblelion sends his love (he's in one of the Project V videos actually) and so do I.

Ruth x

What a fucking beautiful day yesterday. Wandering through Greenwich Village in the sunshine is one of the good things.

Saw Mel Brooks sitting at one of the outside tables at French Roast. Looked great and was with a younger guy, maybe his son.

I acknowledged him as "Kaminsky," -- which is his real name -- and gave a "thumbs up" gesture.

He smiled back warmly.

The white trees were everywhere and almost pure white. (Soon they will begin to have more green -- it's not the same.)

Hey! And now it's today.

Gavin Crain knew he had been exposed to a more-than-reasonable amount of radiation in his youth because of his family's unfortunate taste in collectibles -- radium-filled timepieces and uranium-glazed Fiestaware, which they ate off of every Sunday night because it was special. He often felt sick, which he imagined was related to this exposure and was jealous of comic book characters, whose nuclear experiences turned them into heroes, not somewhat justified hypochondriacs.

"Still," he thought to himself, "getting bitten by a radioactive spider gave Peter Parker spider-like powers. What would my powers be? The ability to tell time? The strength of a Mexican dinner?"

Hmm. The more he thought about it, the more he figured he did have one power -- he was sort of invisible. It wasn't the right kind of invisibility, though. Not the kind that thwarts evil villains.

In truth, Gavin was invisible even to himself. He didn't really notice that he could do things.

Like, you know the stories about adrenaline-fueled mothers who somehow find the strength to lift cars off of their young ones and things like that? Well, Gavin couldn't quite do that but he came close -- he seemed always willing to get one of his students or even a passerby out of a scrape and if it meant climbing something or lifting something that seemed daunting to others, he would do it and think nothing of it.

And he didn't need a personal connection to whoever was in need to drum up the necessary enthusiasm and strength.

Have we always lived in such a disingenuous society, where the prevailing paradigm is Casablanca's game-happy Captain Renault proclaiming expediently that he is "Shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on" in Rick's Cafe?

Merely the latest example of this mania for flogging others as if their actions (which may be wrong, but that's beside the point) are somehow out of the ordinary is the frenzy over Alec Baldwin's rage-filled and perhaps vile message to his 11-year-old daughter.

I don't know. The level of froth didn't seem outside my childhood experience or the experiences of others I know. I heard on CNN that Baldwin's visitation rights were rescinded because of this tape. Come on, now. For calling her a pig?

88% of America's children would be wards of the state if that were the standard of parental inadequacy.

This is what we fiddle with while America burns.

The head of the (Brooklyn school) District 21/22 chorus I joined when I was a kid was a teacher named Paul Anish, with a hard a.

If I had been a little older, maybe I'd have been clever enough to think of him as Mr. Anus, even though he wasn't particularly an asshole, but because I was still in single digits, I instead thought of him as Mr. Amish, also with -- incorrectly, because my cousins had visited the Pennsylvania Dutch (really Deutsche) country and come back saying it that way -- a hard a.

So, because I was too dumb to know how to pronounce Amish, I thought he had a funny name, but if I had known how to pronounce Amish, I would have thought he didn't have a funny name because I was too young to know the word anus, the existence of which means, for reasons other than those I suspected, that he did have a funny name.

Did I intuit that his name was funny and find a way to make it so without the knowledge necessary to find the right answer? Or was it one of life's coincidences that led me to internally laugh at the name of someone who's name deserved to be laughed at for a slightly different reason which was unknown to me?

Maybe that's why he taught elementary school. (He may have taught older kids, but let's proceed for the moment as if he didn't.) Could be he knew that pre-teens and older would have recognized the scatological potential of his name and make his life a living, unholy hell..

On the other hand, if I'd for some reason said "Mr. Amish" aloud one day, even if he was capable of figuring out what I meant, he'd have smiled benignly, recognizing the harsh fate he'd escaped.

Thank goodness none of this was cluttering my mind during those halcyon Saturday mornings as I willingly missed Saturday morning cartoons -- permanently putting me out of step with my generation -- to learn "The Ash Grove" and fa-la-las and all that rot (which I loved).

No, my mind was cluttered by the name of my more immediate choral instructor -- Mr. Gustafeste (guss-ta-fess-tee). Man, I love that name to this day.

He was the first guy, as far as as I know, that I ever saw wearing a cumberbund, which I, for a long time (of course), thought was pronounced cumberbun, as if it were a baked good. (And by a long time, I mean until pretty recently.)

Shouldn't a guy named Gustafeste wear a cumberbund?

I think he should.

the last hour or so of "The Nutty Professor". (Not the Eddie Murphy movie.)

I've probably seen it at least a dozen times in my life and haven't always been in the mood to enjoy it but today I just couldn't get over how awesome it is.

Such control. Brilliant attention to detail. Good acting, even. (Not things you always associate with Jerry Lewis.)

Very clearly inspired by Jerry's primary directorial influence, Frank Tashlin, but also pure Jerry. His final trip and fall into the camera brought tears to my eyes and made me laugh -- genuinely -- at the same time.

Real comedy.

begat a late-starting spring in New York City, which seems to have kicked in today. It's 60-something degrees right now and should be that or higher for the next few days and, presumably, beyond.

The last time it was this warm was (freakishly) around mid-January. There were intimations of change over the last few days; hints that the season was finally ready to spring. White-bloomed trees have erupted in all their transitory beauty, augmented by cherry blossoms in various shades of red and bright yellow flowers in tiny, triangular parks.

I haven't gone out yet today but even the way the sun comes into the window has a new and welcoming quality.

It's a good day.

After months without a place to call my own, at the moment I have two apartments -- the temporarily permanent one and another where I'm expected to feed a cat and take care of other bidness while the master is out of town.

The "cat house", features a Persian feline, formerly a scaredy-cat in my presence, who has taken to following me everywhere. Luckily my allergies aren't acting up too badly. (I think I developed an immunity during my tenure hiding out more or less daily at my chef and video curator's THC-infused den of protection.)

My fear is that the lessee of record at the temporarily permanent place, remembering how sweet life was, will decide that, since I have this other domicile, he'd just as soon have his place to himself. But the cat house is permanently temporary, not temporarily permanent, so if one pad becoming two results in two becoming one, this current residential abundance will have been just another of life's ironic jokes.

Hallelujah.

I have done three gigs in the last two days that, remarkably, passed without event.

First up I was in Coventry (or Birmigham as I like to say)doing a set at Carey's - I went on, did a set, they laughed, I came off again.

Then it was up to Leeds (via Manchester to complete the trinity) where I did the Original Oak followed by The Library. Two gigs on the same night, which as we know I don't like to do, but both were lovely - went on, they laughed, came off again.

So there is literally nothing to tell you about them other than that.

In between stage time I made the following discoveries;

1. Driving around with your car roof down is cool. However, it does make your lips go very dry, and it does make other drivers sneer at you, and it does make you get a sun tan without realising it. I don't like getting sun on me, I personally don't think it suits me. I have also discovered that black cars need to be cleaned at least twice a fucking week when you do as much driving as me.

2. The limited edition Jabba the Hutt model/figure thing that has recently been released is far bigger than you would even imagine it to be. It is certainly too big, in it's boxed state, to fit into the back of a convertible car. That is why there is random Star Wars packaging litter currently being blown around Sheffield Meadowhall car park.

3. My factory installed car radio is practically impossible to get replaced with an Ipod compatible radio, regardless of how much money you offer. On a related note, the staff I met at the following branches of Halfords - Stevenage, St Albans, Watford - were as useless and unhelpful as I have personally ever seen anywhere ever.

4. My friend Sarah, who runs Yew Tree Youth Theatre in Wakefield, has special powers. Whilst visiting her on my travels yesterday, a small child emerged on her driveway with a big stick. Having been in umpteen situations with children hanging about in front of my house, I have found that the best course of action is to close the curtains, turn up the tv, and just hope they go away without breaking any windows. Sarah had a very different tack to get rid of him. He said "I have a stick - it's a real one". Sarah said "Where did you get it from?". He said "in that wood". Sarah said "Are you going to show it to your mum?". He said "yes". Sarah said "Are you going to show her now?" . He said "Yes" and left. Without meaning to bang on in a Star Wars vein it was like witnessing a real life Jedi mind trick, and I was naturally impressed beyond all reason.

5. On stage references to Kevin Smith films only work with student audiences, not with normal people.

6. Katherine from The Comedy Company is a brilliant poet. She sent me the following 'poem' yesterday:

There was a young man called Ray,
who likes to lead young girls astray,
he gets into tussle's,
whilst flexing his muscles,
just to prove to us all he's not gay.

She said I couldn't put it on my blog because she is 'not ready to be published', but I think some people need nudging to fulfill their potential and have made the executive decision to go ahead and print. Actually, that said, she did send me another one that was rubbish, so perhaps the one about me was just a fluke and she is right about not being ready. Ah well, too late now.

7. Mat Reid is a brilliant compere and an all round great lad but I strongly suspect he is in comedy mainly for the pussy. Watching him survey the predominantly young, attractive, female audience at the Original Oak was like seeing a lion perusing a herd of antelope. I don't know why he doesn't just marry it. How stupid he must have felt when I went on and they all fell for me instead. His exuberance and youthful looks are no match for the mature, dark charm that I exude.

8. Simply being in Doctor Who is enough to warrant autograph requests from students. It is of no importance that the part you play won't be aired till episode ten and is little more than a very brief cameo, they still want you to sign bus tickets.

And that's me - no rest for the wicked with a full weekend ahead in London for me. I shall report back as and when the mood takes me but till then...x

Ever wonder why criminal masterminds are often "assisted" by brain-damaged idiots?

As it happens, the underpinning of this theoretically fictional relationship type is reality itself.

When you're on the bottom or off to the side in life -- marginalized by criminality, finance, or whatever -- there isn't a large pool of competent, compatible associates from which to draw, professionally or socially. You gotta go to war with the henchmen you have, not the henchmen you want.

And that, dear readers, is -- as much as anything else -- the reason Superman and his ilk tend to prevail. It isn't only goodness and niceness or truth and the American way.

We in life's margin's simply don't have the help.

st

that word above was gonna be stymied.

but then my for the time being roommate came in and threw me a sandwich and i couldn't go on because i'd be lying.

my mood has improved.

making sloppy joes from scratch.

in the middle of living. no time to write.

but it's simmering, so i thought i'd letcha know i'll be back, at length, tomorrow.

in the meantime, don't miss me too much.

love,
andrew

After reading the article about Jim Jeffries getting punched by an audience member at the Manchester Comedy Store, I think I have come to the conclusion that all of us comedians should get smacked once in a while. It's always good to feel like you are pushing buttons that certain people would rather not have pushed.

I'm not talking about challenging people's perceptions or preconceptions about difficult issues, that would be the easy/arty/wanky way of discussing it, I actually mean literally just for the sake of it. Just for a bit of demonic mischief. There is nothing better than being physically attacked to remind you that you are alive (unless the attack kills you I suppose, then it would be more of a means to and end).

And if it is going to happen, then where better than onstage in front of loads of other people? It's at the very least preferable to getting jumped on in a deserted street in the middle of the night.

I've noticed recently that there is an increase in 'threatening' behaviour, and I realise that this may seem rich coming from a man who squared up to somebody who was physically knocking people out of the way on the tube the other week, but that is exactly what I mean. That bloke was using his size and strength to intimidate people to the point of physical contact, and all just because they were walking up the wrong side of the stairs, but as soon as somebody actually stood up to them, he backed down.

At Fopp last week, Russell Kane was becoming increasingly concerned onstage with a man at the front who was being 'threatening', supposedly as a 'joke' to fluster Russell (which is pretty easy with one as neurotic as Mr Kane). He retained his comedic composure but it was quite clear to anyone that knows the man that his fragile nerves were flipping inside. It's all well and good getting out of these situations with words, and most admirable too, but the problem is that often the protagonist in these cases will only actually understand every fifth word being spoken to them, and anything above three syllables is in danger of winding them up even further, such is the nature of their stock.

I've had a few onstage attacks. In perspective to the amount of gigs I have actually done the percentage is paltry, but they were all exciting in their own way, and I've never been one to shy away from pushing confrontations. Not in a brave way and not quite in an 'encouraging it' way, but I have never caved in when threatened, I've always been one for standing up to the people who talk with their fists.

My Jedi reflexes have got me out of them every time. I don't have many skills, and it is no doubt as a result of many wasted hours on the Playstation, but my reflexes are exceptionally fast, I rarely don't see something coming. Just ask Bethany Black who fell at my feet whilst playing "Buzz" on the PS2 the other week. I was once driving along Blackpool front and said to the passenger in my car that the wheel of the car in front was about to fall off, about three seconds before it actually did, and it is rare should I drop something I am holding that I won't have caught it before it hits the ground.

At a gig in Watford that I used to run many many years ago a man got up very quickly and threw a punch at me - his fist only connecting with the wall behind me as I dropped fast out of it's trajectory before wrapping my arms around his waist and flinging him away. At a gig in Leeds, again many years ago, a disgruntled heckler ran at me after the show as I was leaving the building and swung a punch. Again I ducked it successfully, forgetting that my girlfriend was walking behind me, and her reactions were not as quick as mine. I would of course rather have taken the punch than have her receive it, but the thing about my fast reactions is, they are completely involuntary. I've dodged the bullet before I even realise a shot was fired. This isn't me showing off - the fact of the matter is, it's essentially an accident.

Which leads us nicely onto the best story I have of me being attacked onstage.

And this, I may tell you, is the coolest fucking thing I have ever done, but - I am big enough to tell you - it was a complete accident.

I started my comedy career by running a gig in North Finchley at the Torrington Arms. It was a really cool pub, and has sadly since been converted into a Starbucks. The function room out the back where the gig took place is now an Indian restauraunt, but back when I was running the gig it was the proper place to be for entertainment in Finchley. There was the Big And Daft Comedy Nite on the Saturday (this is in the pre-team days, when B.A.D was just the company name I used) and Los Pacaminos would play the Sunday nights (which was, and perhaps still is, the secret name of Paul Young and his band).

I would book the gig, and compere it. I hold my hands up that I had literally no idea what a compere was at that stage, and thought I could just go on and wing it as I often still do with compering now, but back then I properly didn't have the comedic tools at my disposal to get away with it. What I was good at however, was dealing with hecklers.

The night in question was the first ever gig, and so by default, my first ever gig proper. It was a pretty rowdy gig, mostly good natured as the North Finchley community liked to join in - particularly because most of them knew me by nature of the fact that I was working behind the bar at the Tally Ho pub down the road.

One gentleman at the back of the audience that evening however, was not so good natured. He'd never been in the Tally Ho. He didn't like me. Especially when my putdowns to his heckling got more and more personal. The more I got the better of him, the nastier and more threatening his shouting became.

I have since learned that the time to worry about vicious hecklers is when they go quiet.

At the time I took the period of grace as a relief, and went about my compering duties, chatting far more pleasantly to some folk down the front and setting up the mic stand to bring on the first act.

Events went into slow-motion. This is how I know that my reflexes are not a conscious skill, my brain slowed down time without being asked before I even knew there was a problem.

I noticed a glisten through the stage lights, and glanced up to get dreaded confirmation of what I already feared.

A pint glass. On it's way to my head.

My first fucking gig this was don't forget - glassed at my first fucking gig.

Without being asked, my hand shot up to deflect it and I turned my head away from the missile. Coolest thing I ever did - but an accident. As my hand went up to knock the pint glass out of the way...

I caught it.

It landed perfectly in my palm.

You could have heard a fucking pin drop in that room, which was just as alien a feeling as having a pint pot thrown at you in that particular function room. You'd think I would perhaps be exhilerated, or celebrate my own brilliance, but I was just confused. I didn't really know how I had done it, and I certainly didn't know what I was meant to do next. I looked down at the glass in my (shaking) hand, placed it slowly on the table to the side of me and said "Right ladies and gentleman, it's time for your first act of the evening..." and that was the moment the silence broke. The room erupted like I am yet to see a room erupt again, some big blokes at the back bundled the thrower out of the doors and apparently he didn't fare very well outside (none of this pussy pressing charges nonsense), and I was an accidental hero for the remainder of the evening.

So, I can be cool sometimes. And rather than continue to refer to it as accidental cool, I think I may start labelling it as effortless cool.

And to all of you who have read this entry and taken it as a challenge...bring it on. I'll get a front page on Chortle if it kills me.

to that party.

but i didn't take a shower. the mechanism at the new place i'm staying confuses me. it may be a flaw in the system but i waited a long time and it didn't get warm.

settled for wearing freshly laundered clothes (and buying tic-tacs).

and, boy, it felt good to be out.

i mean, i was out all day -- even walked along with the new york tartan week parade.

the coolest thing was that, past the end of the parade route, bagpipers began playing "amazing grace" for their own enjoyment.

then, farther west on the same street -- after the pipers had stopped -- a laborer began to sing the song with a redneck/country twang. i walked out of its range but who knows how far the chain of musical reverence went and how many different musical styles were applied? (none, probably. i'm pretty sure i experienced the full extent of it. but i can dream, can't i?)

in any event, being out at night, after a seemingly completed day, felt different. in fact, i felt satisfied simply walking on 23rd st and almost didn't care if i found the funky private space in which the party was being held.

the night was soft, cool, and deeply black and the lights of the city stood out in crisp relief, imbuing me with a positive sensation that continued inside "the blue door".

there really were people from divergent of groups which don't usually overlap in my life plus entertainment from a band i like featuring a guy with a plastic arm.

i should fix him up with heather mills mccartney -- maybe if she has a dominant arm gene and he has a dominant leg gene -- and they breed -- they'll have a baby with all limbs intact. (oh, yeah. that would happen anyway.)

be that as it may, i was sociable, i got bought a couple drinks, i got invited to a cd release party tonight and i felt for more than a lttle while like i was a person.

these are good things, right?

maybe they'll continue tonight at the cd party.

my friend rena -- who i hadn't seen for months before running into her last night -- may want to go with me. and carla -- who threw last night's party -- said if she wasn't too hung over, maybe she would go.

but this is all in an almost unimaginably distant future. for now, it's all i can do to get over to the gym where, yes, i can exercise but, more importantly, i know how to work the shower.

for someone i barely know.

she's interesting and almost every other group i've ever been in -- separate in many other ways -- seem to converge in/upon/through her, though i really didn't meet her through any of them.

i made dinner tonight for my roommate of sorts and me -- london broil and spinach with garlic -- and it was pretty good. i feel garlicky and greasy and in no mood to remedy the situation and prepare to go out.

i'm a fool if i don't go to this party but nothing good is going to happen if i do.

i think i'm gonna go.

i'm gonna try, anyway.

but if i'm gonna take a shower, i guess first i gotta take off my shoes.

now that i am somewhat settled in my new temporarily semi-permanent place, i'm suddenly having london flashes.

the longer i've been back here, the more i've felt, from the accumulating burden of slights and failures, that i've got to beat this town. but now that i have a stable residential base from which to mount an assault over the next 3 1/2 months, the things that made me not even want to stay this long have been reappearing in my mind.

of course, i love new york. but the things i want and that make me thrive were (seemingly, at least) more readily available to me in london a few months back than they've recently been here at home.

i won't be vague. i'm talking about two things -- career and women. both seemed to smile at me at least in small, genuine ways during my summer and early fall (resist double meaning) in the uk.

now, i recognize that being an exotic/a visitor plays into this to some extent and perhaps if i were in the uk all the time, i would be taken for granted or neglected just as i am here. conversely, there are positive twinklings of promise here that can hopefully be fanned into conflagrations of personal and professional triumph (or mild satisfaction). but i feel like, in london -- for the time being at least -- i wouldn't have to fight downy-fresh, recent emotional bruises to get to a pinpoint of light. and that greater ease has a lot of appeal for me.

but it's not gonna happen so quick.

first, income -- none.

second, i owe the money for my edfringe program listings, so when i get my check from my short-lived writing job, it will go to that -- and it may not even be enough.. (plus they're threatening to deny me the early filing discount. and i wonder if they know i owe them money from last year.)

then theres a third and fourth and who knows how many other reasons i'm stuck here in the "greatest city in the world"

so, i gotta call women who've expressed an interest in me here and follow professional leads but manifesting the spring in my step necessary for doing it correctly is gonna take some effort.

i guess i'll start small.. i'm gonna head over to the brooklyn botanic garden to sneeze amidst the beautiful springtime blooms in a little while. (it's free on saturday mornings.) later, i'm gonna cook dinner for me and my friend. (london bro