30/11/2006 Why me?

I headed into Central Library on George IV Bridge this morning.
It's usually a nice quiet place where I can spend a couple of hours staring at a blank page, breaking the monotony by occasionally glancing up when an attractive female student enters the room.
There were about 30 tables in the room, with two chairs at each table.
I'd say there were about 10 tables being used when I arrived.
I'd been staring at my blank page for about 20 minutes when I became aware of a man standing beside my desk.
He was a pretty big bloke, and about mid-20s...
"Excuse me sir" he said
"Yes" I said
"Could you take your coat off that chair so I can sit there?" (I had placed my coat over the second chair of my table)
"Well, no...why don't you pick another table?" (there were about 20 wholly unoccupied tables in the room)
"I want to sit here"
"You're not sitting here"
At this point a library assistant came across to see what all the fuss was about.
I explained that there were a host of tables to choose from, and she agreed with me that it was unnecessary for me to move my coat.
He then demanded to see her supervisor, and strode across to the other side of the room.
He continued shouting at me "Are you going to move your coat, sir?"
I shouted "no" across the room, and told him to shut up as there were people trying to work in the room.
(by this time everybody in the reference library had stopped what they were doing and were observing this surreal encounter)
He then started arguing with various supervisors, demanding that they answer his complaint "in writing".
He kept going on about "coat hangers" being distinct from "chairs" in their designated functions.
Eventually, a person who I imagined was the most senior librarian available, led him away for a "private consultation".
I thought this was the end of it, but 10 minutes later he appeared at my desk and again asked me to move my coat.
I again said no, and offered to put this in writing if he wished.
He was again led away arguing, and told me I was not funny.
He's not the first person to have told me this, so I am hardened to this particular criticism...and besides, it's just plain wrong...I am as funny as fuck! ok?
10 minutes later he appeared again, and proceeded to sit down at one of the (still many) unoccupied tables.He then opened a large reference book, glanced at a page, closed it, then put it back on the shelf and finally left the library.
I couldn't make up my mind about this guy.
Did he have genuine "issues"?
Was I being fimed for some new "Borat" influenced TV show, monitoring how I would deal with the library nutter?
Was he waiting outside the library with an axe?
Would I be the headline story on the Chortle home page?
The "why does the nutter always sit next to me?" routine is a hoary old cliche...but I really do seem to attract them like no-one else I know...
Ask my Samba band and they'll recount endless tales of our gigs in which a series of drunken elderly women spontaneously begin lewd dancing in front of me, and try to interfere with my drumsticks while I am playing.
But hey, in the midst of all this I think I came up with some funny new ideas, and if you want to hear them you should come along to The Stand in Edinburgh this Monday, December 4th at 8.30pm

29/11/2006 Laugh? I nearly...

In news coverage of the Pope's controversial visit to Turkey, a placard held by a demonstrator was translated as "Stop The Wine Drinking Pope!"...
Well, it made me laugh...
I also received a funny email from Cheesy McLoughlin.
In it he described how he was recently out shopping in sunny Middlesborough, and was taking his young son down an escalator in his pram.
Unfortunately, when they reached the bottom of the escalator, one of the pram wheels got jammed in the mechanism.
As Cheesy panicked and tried to remove the pram, he became submerged in an avalanche of old ladies falling over him, who were coming down on the escalator beind him.
He spent the next 20 minutes helping the tidal wave of old ladies back on their feet,
(no-one was injured)...
He went on to mention that only one person failed to see the inherent humour in this incident...
There is always one, isn't there?
I meant to mention Tom, who came along to see my Blackfriars gig, and as usual put a curse on my performance...
Seeing Tom at a gig is like having an out-of-body experience during an operation and spotting the Grim Reaper twiddling his thumbs in the hospital corridor.
Not very reassuring...
Anyway, Tom is back sailing his boat in Scotland as he crashed his other boat in the Thames and was "re-assigned" in the immediate aftermath....
Anyone who knows Tom will be relatively unsurprised by this turn of events...
I have this recurring nightmare where I board a plane and just as we are about to take off...the intercom crackles on, and the pilot gives his cosy pre-flight chat...and I immediately recognise the voice as the distinctive dulcet tone of Tom.
I still wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat dreaming about this.
I've been zipping around the Pentlands as I try to get in better shape, following the Portugal "video nasty".
I walked past a jogger today...
He'd stopped and had begun to do a long series of press ups as I approached him.
My first thought was whether this was some strange cruising gesture?
Anyway, feeling a bit fitter and less bulbous than I did this time last week.

27/11/2006 A Game Of Two Halves

I had a poor gig at Blackfriars in Glasgow on Saturday night...
It would be a little harsh to say I completely died on my arse, but it wasn't that far from it.
What annoyed me more than anything was the fact I had a gut instinct before I went onstage, that the material I'd selected wasn't really right for the night.
However, rather than do anything about it and change things on the spot, I rigidly stuck to my game plan.
I was locked in the tram rails and carried on regardless, right over the edge of the cliff.
I should listen to myself more...
On the plus side, I was knocked out by how good the compere Susan Calman was.
She's been doing comedy roughly the same amount of time as me, but has made a staggering rise to prominence.
Just great on stage, brilliant at interacting with the audience and had them eating out of her hand effortlessly. A true pro. You will be hearing a lot more of her, dats for sure.
The comedy phenomenum that is Janey Godley was headlining, and she was great as well.
I have to say I don't really like the new, renovated Blackfriars basement.
It used to be a great, dark, dingy comedy den...but is now a pristine, refurbished and very anonymous venue lacking in any character.
Mind you, I'm not making excuses, like....!
By the time I got back to Edinburgh, I was tired, soaked and pissed off...
The last train back from Glasgow on a Saturday night was full of drunken, shouty bozos, and it seemed a long, long journey to get back home.
On Sunday night I had a gig at The Stand in Edinburgh.
I chopped and changed a few things and ended up having one of the best gigs I've ever had there...
It's a funny old game...
It was just a short set, so I'm not getting the cigars out, but there's nothing better in Comedyworld than immediately following up a stinker of a gig with a really good one.
I felt at peace with the world again...!
And, the online gambling has hit a purple patch in the last week...my disastrous run is over (for the time being)...
Chelsea's equaliser yesterday set the seal on a profitable week...
I also saw Ian Cognito for the first time on Friday. Great confrontational and hilarious stuff.
As the evening began on Friday, the compere spotted me in the audience and announced to a packed Stand..."..and there's Jim Park and his failed comedy career..!!!" Ha Ha!
But anyway, there's no such thing as bad publicity!
Is there...?

22/11/2006 Bye Bob!

I was sorry to hear of the death of Robert Altman. I loved his films. MASH, The Player, Short Cuts, Gosford Park...great stuff...and all very original with no sign of any Hollywood formulaic shite...
However, on watching various news reports, I again became a Grumpy Old Man shouting inanely at the box.
There seemed a ridicluous amount of attention paid to the fact that he never won an Oscar for "Best Director"...Who gives a toss? (he did eventually get the "Lifetime Achievement Oscar" instead).
I'm not interested in who wins a stupid fucking Oscar.
It's just a Hollywood PR product...who cares what "The Academy" thinks? Who are they?
It was one news report after another droning on about how "Altman was nominated 5 times but never won" bla bla bla
Just talk about his films and how great they were, ok?
To put it all in perspective, Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, Fritz Lang, Spike Lee, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese and Cecil B DeBloodyMille to name a few, have not won one solitary "Best Director" Oscar between them.
However, Oliver Stone has won this "coveted" award twice.
I rest my case...
I'd rather suck Archie McPherson's big toe for 2 hours than sit through an Oliver Stone film.
I was cheering on Celtic last night against Man Utd...age definitely is mellowing me...My Grandpa will be spinning in his grave...
I always enjoy seeing Fergie getting pissed off..compelling television...
The other interesting news of the day was the discovery that my business associate Mr David Bann has been placed at No. 18 in last weekend's "Scotland On Sunday 50 Most Eligible Men". He mentions that his "ideal date" would be Kate Winslett...! Hmmmm....
My jealously was offset by the realisation that at No. 17 was Richard "I don't believe it" Wilson...
Still, there's no such thing as bad publicity, and I daresay a host of women will now descend upon Bann's restaurant desperate to get a glimpse of the sex god himself...!!! :-)

21/11/2006 Shocking!

I had a really good gig at The Stand last night...although it started badly...!
I made a 9/11 gag about my predeliction to take out a newspaper dated 12th September 2001 to read on buses in an effort to cause alarm amongst the other passengers.
This usually gets a decent laugh...however last night it was greeted with total silence only broken by a female American voice saying "That is NOT funny!".
Thankfully, I recovered from this situation and the rest of the set was generally well received...
I never really set out to offend people and don't take any great pleasure from doing so.
I like to choose potentially explosive subjects to talk about, but I try to take such an idiotic angle on them that it would be difficult for anyone to be really genuinely offended.
The guy on before me was a dead ringer for Uncle Fester of The Munsters, and from what I gather, his material was extremely dark and uncomfortable (although the comedian community still thought he was very funny)...so I think the audience were maybe still slightly freaked out when I came on to lighten the mood with my jolly 9/11 material.
In the past few weeks I've had many conversations with aquaintances about that "Pelican eating a pigeon" incident...
It really has been a big talking point...
And in spite of Nuclear tests in North Korea, continuing unrest in Iraq, US congressional mid-term elections etc etc people are still talking about it.
It leads me to speculate that if this Pelican incident happened on the same day as 9/11, then TV newsdesks would be in a real quandary as to what story to lead with...
"A Pelican??? ate a goddamn pigeon??? we have footage?? hmmmm"
The real shocking element of this Pelican incident is the fact that the pigeon was completely comfortable to be in the same general area, and seemed completely relaxed before being summarily swallowed by the bigger bird...
Just goes to show, it's maybe not a good idea to hang out with a different species with a mouth big enough to fully accomodate you, if you know what I mean...
If only Dick Dastardly had enlisted the services of a Pelican, the pigeon may well have been stopped (it would have been particularly gratifying to witness this just as he was blowing his stupid little trumpet)....
Anyway, I'm sure the Pelican would have been a more effective cohort than the idiotic "Klunk" with his complete reliance on ultimately ineffective,over-elaborate inventions...
Just a thought...

20/11/2006 A Packed Weekend

Are you ready to Rock????




Well, an action packed weekend that was...
It was Ted The Cat's birthday! (although I only became aware of this when my neighbours texted him a birthday greeting. I am an unfit parent, obviously guilty of neglect. Shame on me...)
I visited Mitch and Jo and their very amusing sons Jem and Finn...
At one point I was laughing at a hilarious television programme involving a collection of fat middle-aged British people fooling about on a beach.
I was then shocked to realise that one of them (and certainly the worst offender in the aesthetic stakes), was in fact me and that what I was watching was a video of our holiday this year in Portugal...
Shocking....!
Although it was incontrovertibly me, I didn't recognise myself...perhaps some Japanese Sumo Comedian was acting out a crude caricature of myself and had sneakily arranged to have it filmed on exactly the same location where I spent my holiday?
It would have been quite easy to secretly record a conversation with me, then use the vocal samples to put together artificial conversations, making it appear that this fat imposter was in fact Jim.
In the unlikely event that it actually was me, I'm comforted by the knowledge that when you're filmed on video, the process makes you look 2 stones heavier on screen...
Ask anyone who works on television, and they'll readily agree with me...
Needless to say, since I watched this video, I haven't eaten much and have been out for 2 long jogs...!
I went to see the "be Good Tanyas" at the Usher Hall on Saturday....
Now, they've got a great sound and are obviously very talented, BUT their audience interaction skills are dreadful, dreadful, dreadful....
If you're going to do a show at a big cavernous venue like this, you really need to make a little more of an effort to engage with the punters...
They gave the impression they'd each downed a fistful of valium tablets before they shuffled onto stage...
Buy the CD yes, but going to see them live adds absolutely nothing to the experience...
They were upstaged by the support act Kathryn Williams...
Great songs, but with lots of cheeky, endearing audience banter as well...

...and I finally got to see Borat yesterday...
A posse was organised to see the afternoon showing at the Cameo...
A painfully hilarious film to behold, and my chuckle muscle was well exercised...!
I don't go to the cinema all that much these days, but it reminded me how enjoyable it is to see a film with a few people then retire to a handy hostelry for a couple of swift pints...
You find that each person has their own different take on the film, and it's an entertaining banter vehicle..and a good way of spending a couple of hours on a shitty awful Sunday afternoon...

17/11/2006 Now Hear This

If anyone is really, really stuck for anything to do, I'll be appearing at The Stand this Monday (November 20th), also Nov 26th, Dec 4th & Dec 17th...
mostly new stuff...yes, really...honest guv!

Furthermore, I will be co-running a new comedy night at The Holyrood Tavern on Wednesday nights (weekly), with the grand opening extravaganza scheduled for Wednesday 29th November...so do come along to that as well...you know it makes sense.

The current weather is definitely sponsored by "The Samaritans", isn't it?
Jesus, it's been a grim few days...particularly since I've been sidelined with the bug what I had...
I'm better now, but it seemed at times like my whole body was full of snot...
In the past couple of days, as a conservative estimate, I'd say I could have filled an Olympic Swimming pool...
Today, I think I've finally got over it...hurray...it's been nasty!
Oh, and happy 30th Birthday Mr Mac Star...comedy promoter and talent spotter...!!!

15/11/2006 Poets Day

..that is what we used to refer to Friday as in the days when I used to "work" for a living....
It means "Piss Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday"...
This, as I'm sure you all know, is an example of an acrostic phrase.
At John Hegley's show last night, there was an acrostic competition with a JH CD as a prize.
The winner was "Let's Enjoy Incense, Tea and Heroin" (LEITH)
The previous night's winner in Glasgow was "Only Boats And Numpties" (OBAN)...
I thought they were very good...I didn't do one because I didn't have a piece of paper or a pen. I couldn't really think of one anyway, so I'm not making excuses.
JH was in top form as per usual...his set is always very loose and relaxed.
It's nice to be in The Stand and not have to worry about getting your head bitten off...
In fact, he was so unthreatening that Martin Evans was comfortable sitting in the front row for the second half of the show.
It is difficult for me to overstate what an outstanding achievement this was for JH.
He has conquered K2 by pogostick then swum the Pacific by doggy paddling, in the same afternoon.
I talked to him after the show, and as is usually the case when I meet any of my heroes, felt I had come across as a bit of a twat.
I mentioned something about not hearing a "fuck" on stage all night, but then immediately thought this made me sound like Mary Whitehouse's nephew congratulating him on his clean and wholesome stage show.
I then made matters worse by saying "not that I've got anything against bad langauage per se"....now that was a really wanky phrase to come out with, wasn't it...
This is a bit like the expression like "I'm not a racist, but..." which you often hear as an opening gambit on talk radio shows...
It usually means "yes, I am a racist"...whereas my comment signified "yes, I am a twat".
In a departure from the usual format at The Stand, a band played a short set in the middle of the show.
They were "Preston Pfanz and the Seaton Sands"...
I can't remember when I last enjoyed a live band as much.
They are a beat, surf type combo..."suited and booted", and play a selection of original and cover instrumentals...
They look completely convincing, and augment their music with some very entertaining Shadows-esque choreography...
If I was having a party and needed a band I would book them...just brilliant...
And any band who have a track called "Last Night At Brattisani's" is ok in my book.

When I was recently travelling aboot, I read Richard E Grant's book "The Wah Wah Diaries".
It's about the process of him making a film about his childhood in Swaziland in the last days of its colonial rule by Britain.
I'm a bit of a slow reader, and have to confess to starting many books and never quite making it to the end.
The problem is if you leave too long a gap between reads, you find yourself reading lines from characters that you've completely forgotten about...and can't place them in the plot.
Anyway, unusually for me, I read this book cover to cover in a day...
If you've got any interest at all in the the film industry and exactly what is involved in taking an idea and (eventually) getting a film made, then you must read this...plus Grant is a very funny, sardonic writer.

09/11/2006 Spanish Flew

I was as fit as a flea when I clambered onto the Easyjet plane at Madrid Airport.
However, by the time I arrived in Liverpool I was coughing and sneezing and felt terrible...
I could actually feel the germs getting a hold of me during the flight. Such is the wonder of recycled air on planes.
4 days later I still feel like shit...grrrrrr....
Anyway, had a great time in Spain...
I worked for a few days out in the country speaking to Spanish people as part of an intensive English course they were taking.
All the people I was working with were warm, generous, intelligent attractive people and I found it an immensely enriching experience.
The fact that I know they are likely to read this Blog at some point has had no influence whatsoever in my reporting of this experience, and anyone who says otherwise is clearly lying.
It's surprisingly tiring having to speak for hours on end without any breaks...even if my English is reasonably competent.
I also took great delight in doing my stand-up routine to a sea of uncomprehending expressions, murdered "Maggie May" at a Karaoke evening, and put together some improv sketches to remind me of how bad an actor I am....mercilessly hamming everything up beyond tolerable levels.
I also spent a couple of days in Toledo.
I caused a not insignificant amount of laughter amongst my Spanish friends when I asked if a prominent statue in Toledo was that of General Franco.
(I was not being stupid as I knew that Toledo was a Nationalist stronghold during the Spanish Civil War and was the scene of a number of pivotal battles. Therefore, it did not seem unreasonable that there might be some momento to the Generalissimo)
However, it turned out to be a statue of "Don Quixote".
As I later pointed out to them, it was a stupid mistake, as everyone knows that Quixote fought for the Republicans...
Bored, during my illness, I was rummaging about and found a poster for a practical joke company I founded in the 80s called "Rent-A-Laugh".
Sadly, no longer trading, the content of the poster which caused me to giggle were the advertised working hours of the company. 12pm - 5pm.
The late start spoke volumes of the then lifestyle of the "company directors" involved in the running of this business enterprise.