Friday, April 20, 2007

20/04/2007 Birthday Boys!








The fact that all these guys share a birthday today is conclusive proof to me that there really is something in Astrology...
There's an uncanny similarity amongst them isn't there?

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

18/04/2007 Welcome To The House of Fun



It could be worse I suppose...mustn't grumble...!





It's been an interestingly diverse month in terms of comedy gigs...
The sequence of events has reminded me of the climactic scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when those nasty Nazis finally open the Ark.
As the lid is opened (after the dust bit), there is a rhapsody of colour and beauty as smiling ghost like figures soar round the building,mesemerising and captivating the watching Nazis.
To them it all seems a wonderful and joyous occasion and they gawp with wonder at the miraculous splendour of it all...!
Of course, this doesn't last, as the initially friendly apparitions suddenly mutate into apocalyptic avengers, sending searing bursts of flame through the Nazi's bodies and then melt their faces down to the bone. Nice...
The first part of that scene was reminiscent of my gigs at the start of April, with the current crop bearing a greater resemblance to the Nazi come-uppance scene.
It's truly a confidence thing this comedy lark.
A week ago I was chomping at the bit for more gigs as I really felt on a roll, with audience reactions better than I've ever experienced.
Now I'm anticipating a couple of gigs in Glasgow this weekend with the same unbridled enthusiasm that someone held captive by a terrorist group in Iraq would show if he was ordered by his captors to put on a nice orange jumpsuit they'd brought him.
Yes, this week's "Black Bo's" gig was tough...hard work...as free pub gigs tend to be..I'm torn as to whether to pursue it or not...there definitely is some potential for a good gig though...hmmm
In keeping with my eccentric lifestyle I have now decided I want to be cricket player.
I turned up last night for "Nets Practise" with my work cricket team.
Unfortunately, I can hardly walk today.
The first delivery I faced came at me at what I estimated to be 90mph, and thudded into my left thigh like an exocet missile.
"Have you got thigh pads on?" my tormentor asked as I hopped round the crease, desperately trying not to cry.
"No!" I said, (I was unaware of the existence of "thigh pads")
In spite of this I actually played quite well for the rest of the session, and have been promised some first team action in the upcoming league fixtures...woo hoo!

Tragic as the events in Virginia are, it jars slightly that this story gets so much wall-to-wall TV coverage in comparison to the relatively perfunctory reporting on the hundreds of violent deaths occurring in Iraq.
The whole media circus surrounding these events is conducted almost to a script.
There's the voyeuristic details of killer and victims, (in the age of the WWW, the media have a wealth of ready information to flesh out victims lives... Why run around looking for quotes from friends and relatives when you can just look at their myspace pages).
There's the short (and ultimately pointless) debate on gun control in America.
There's the ritual bashing of the culture of violence inherent in TV, video games, rock music etc etc
It's almost beyond comprehension that the NRA spokespeople don't see it primarily a problem of "gun availability", but bemoan the fact that the victims were not allowed to carry weapons on the campus, and consequently been able to defend themselves against attack.
They don't seem to grasp that for every incident like this, when possibly the gunman could have been stopped, there would be thousands of other incidents involving people being blown away over a parking space dispute.

The only certainty to emerge is that once the media mob have left town to allow Blacksburg to begin its recovery, there will be other psychotic loners who will have been watching the rolling news coverage obsessively, fantasising about also bowing out of this world in an orgy of violence and destruction, in the full knowledge that their global notoriety will be assured.

On an embarassingly trivial note, when I heard that the gunman was South Korean, I hoped he wasn't called Park (this is a very common name in Korea)...
Who wants to share a surname with a mass murderer?

Sunday, April 15, 2007

15/04/2007 What Do You Think Of The Show So Far?



Appallingly rubbish gig by me tonight at "The Stand"...

Not death, but mediocre...which I actually dislike more than death...
(death can be funny...)

That's it! No more gigs today!

Friday, April 13, 2007

13/04/2007 It's The End Of The Week (as we know it)



God, I am pissed off..!!!!!!!



The thing is, if you're in an orchestra you sometimes have to blow your own trumpet...
Currently gutted that despite a string of fantastic gigs, the gigs cupboard is sadly bare and the bounce I'd been hoping for on the back of them hasn't happened...
Maybe I should try writing instead...I just can't seem to make any headway on the Scottish circuit...

But hey, enough of this navel contemplation...
I had an idea for a comedy film...
There's hilarious consequences when a lion forgets where it has hid its latest zebra kill ; just before the mother-in-law is due to pop round for tea...!
There's some laughing hyenas who have their own ideas about who's eating what...!

working title ; "Carry On Carrion!"

I was also thinking to myself how big some things used to be 25 years ago...
For example mobile phones were the size of a household brick...a calculator was about the same size...mars bars were about a foot long...with one inch thick chocolate all around it...video cameras were so enormous, you had to have a fairly impressive level of physical fitness to be able to walk any distance carrying them.
Fast forward (clever little link there) to today, and all these things are incredibly tiny now...
Ironically, it is humans themselves who have got much bigger...
Well, this is the case, according to obesity studies...
So if you were transported quickly back 25 years ago and saw a normal built man making a mobile phone call while doing some basic calculations on his calculator...then zapped back to see a big obese man in 2007 doing the same thing...you'd think he'd been miraculously transformed into a big fat giant 15 feet tall with hands the size of rhubarb leaves...
Thankfully, scientists have isolated an obese gene...
It could be embarassing though if you are morbidly obese and find out that you don't have the obese gene, and are subsequently labelled as just a greedy bastard with no excuses...
I wonder if they will one day find an Annoying Twat Gene...
I met a few people today who may be carriers, and I would feel more sympathetic to their plight if I became aware that there was a hereditary factor involved.

I also had this thought that comedians who are dying on stage could utilise the help of "Assisted Suicide Officers" to supply them with even weaker material to hasten their end...

Thursday, April 12, 2007

12/04/2007 Stickin' It To The Man...!



This site is really good...!

I'd read a few articles about how you can now claim back any bank charges you've accrued in the last 6 years.
All you need to do is go to this site ; print off the template letter and send it to your bank.
I did this last week and I got a letter back today from the bank saying that I was made fully aware of their charges at the outset bla bla bla...but anyway sign this and here's all the cash you claimed...110 quid...woo hoo!
It just feels like free money, which is always nice, isn't it?
The Black Bo's club thing went pretty well for a first night...and we're back there again next Tuesday 17th April kicking off at 8.30pm if you fancy it.
The main monthly Electric Mouse club will be strting again next month...
I was zipping about town today checking potential venues...
There are 3 which would work really well...I'm going to try and sort out tonight which one to go for...

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

10/04/2007 The Laughs Clog Up A Bit



I had a fairly ropey gig last night at The Stand...
It was overdue...my current run of success had to end at some point...
On entering ye Stand Comedy Club I was surprised to find that a group of 62 Dutch people had made a block booking.
This made for a slightly different atmosphere to the usual Monday night.
They were a jolly bunch though and were well up for a laugh.
In spite of this, I immediately worried that my stuff might be a bit too weird to easily translate for punters with English as a second language..and my fears were confirmed.
I mean it was ok and all that...but last Tuesday in Glasgow was probably my best ever gig and this seemed all a bit flat in comparison.
I didn't help matters by fluffing a few lines and forgetting big chunks of my routine...(unforgiveable when I was reading much of it OFF A FUCKING CLIPBOARD!)
I then had an uncomfortable chat with some friends who'd come to see me and were obviously unimpressed by my display (and quite rightly so).
It's never really worth analysing it all with yer mates.
If I harped on about how great a reaction I'd been getting in the previous gigs, I'd have come across like a desperately needy arsehole.
In fairness though, I am a desperately needy arsehole, but I should seek ways to disguise this as much as possible as it's not the most attractive trait in a person.
You need the lows to appreciate the highs anyway...
So in a way last night was a triumph in terms of demonstrating the truth of tired old comedic cliches.
Tonight I am running an open mic evening at Black Bo's...
But look I got some nice comments from my fellow comedians .

Thursday, April 05, 2007

05/04/2007 POW Etiquette



I'm not one to judge or anything...I mean, I don't know exactly went on in the background in terms of threats and stuff, but I always thought the thing to do was give your name, rank and number and that's all...!
Of course, I'm referring to the Iran captured sailors saga...
You're not really supposed to participate in TV chat shows and have cosy chats with the prime minister and that...
Don't you get training to prepare you for this eventuality?
(the fact that if I was in a captor situation, I would do anything they wanted me to on the merest hint of a threat of receiving a mild chinese burn, is beside the point...)
I think that the least you can expect is to be fully trained in "Advanced Sarcasm".
This could completely offset the propaganda affect of the prisoners appearing on camera...
We in the UK are world leaders in the art of dry sarcasm.
We should use this weapon more often...
AND it is certainly a lot cheaper than replacing Trident...
You see, the Iranian captors might not even have realised that they were being deeply sarcastic, as it is often difficult to detect it in a foreign language...
"I mean, we're REALLY sorry about trespassing in your seas" and stuff like that...!
"We DEFINITELY won't do it again...!"
Of course, sarcasm doesn't work very well on Blogs.
You have to imagine that the words in capitals are said REALLY sarcastically...
(apart from that last sentence. I was using the capitals there to denote emphasis rather than sarcasm)
I'm not sure why I used italics there though...
hmmm...

Sunday, April 01, 2007

01/04/2007 Dancing With Tears In My Trousers



A while ago I announced that I had retired from dancing in public, however on Friday I broke my embargo and found myself strutting around the dancefloor of The Citrus Club like there was no tomorrow.
In fact there was a tomorrow, which was Saturday which definitely did happen yesterday (I was there).
I had gotten fairly pissed with some people that I used to work with who were celebrating their meaty bonuses through the medium of drink.
They don't work in a Slaughterhouse though...it's an Insurance Company, but yes, you say...what's the difference?
And I would say one kills animals and the other offers financial services, primarily life insurance and pensions...
So they are different as such...
It's fair to say that my interpretation of "Don't You Want Me Baby" by the Human League achieved my biggest comedy laughs of the week from the surrounding onlookers...
I went for a "Pan's People" choreographic approach in terms of very literally interpreting the lyrics about waitresses in cocktail bars and having the world at your feet and all that.
I also smoked a single cigarette...
And have been forced to confess by bullying loudmouth Paul Dance that I smoked 4 cigarettes at a recent party at which we were both in attendance.
(he has threatened to bombard my site with comments calling me a lying toerag in terms of my alleged nicotine avoidance performance)
I definitely haven't had a "sober" cigarette in 2007 though...
so that's alright then isn't it?
Well, no it isn't alright at all...
I've let you all down and worst of all I've let myself down
I went throught the traditional "never again" mantra for much of yesterday...
Much as I enjoy getting tanked up and parading like an idiot on dancefloors of an evening, I hate in effect losing the next day...
I wasn't ill...I was just tired and lazy...I'd call it a 24 hour persistent vegetative state...and I did bugger all of any usefulness...
I just watched a tired old listing thing about "comedians' comedians" which I'd seen already on the Saturday night after spending much of the day in a comatose condition...
Currently toying with the idea of having a "dry" April...