Privacy on parade

It's an interesting time for me at the moment, I'm newly single and not too happy about it, but time moves on and I'm sure I'll feel better soon enough and be ready to move on with my life.

To be honest I'm quite excited about all the opportunities that this brings, the end of a relationship is a time to reinvent, to reassess who you are and what you're about.  See if any of those opinions you held so strongly have changed or if you were holding on to them because you thought you should cling to some unchangeable truths.

I'm fairly sure that I've done some of that, I'm stil trying to overcome the fact that I can be massively co-dependent, and trying to balance that with being a good partner who's helpful and kind without being too helpful and kind and making myself indesposable would be a good thing.

One thing has changed this time though and I think it's a testament to my mental health getting so much better, my opinion has changed on being dumped.

I use to say to partners, "if you ever leave me, please leave me for someone else."  People always thought this was weird, that it's far worse to be dumped for someone else than just dumped because there's the extra level of betrayal.

I never understood that, but that's partly because I always though that there's nothing worse than being on your own, so at least if you get dumped for someone else there's a reason;  they want to be with someone else.

Whereas, if you get dumped and they're not leaving you for someone else it means that they'd rather be alone than go out with you.   And that's much much worse.

Unnatural disasters

One of the signs that I may have a circle of friends that possibly wasn't the best for me came when I flat shared with a couple of pals of mine who weren't the cleanest and tidiest of people. On a scale of "Ikea show home" to "Sitting on the back of the sofa using an air rifle to shoot the rats that scurry around eating days old take aways from plastic bags", they were definitely towards the filth end of the scale.  


But one Saturday night we were having a party, so we cleaned and tidied, got rid of the beer cans and over flowing ashtrays that covered the table so that they could be replaced by fresh beer cans and overflowing ashtrays. We even got the Mr Sheen out to clean it down, such was the mental state of our flatmates that when we finished no one thought to tidy away the cleaning products.  So sat in the middle of the coffee table stood that  bottle of furniture polish.


This, however, was not the thing that let me know that my circle of friends was possibly not the best for me, no, the thing that clinched it, was that as each of the guests arrived they walked in to the lounge saw the Mr Sheen out and said "Are we having crack tonight?"  That being crack the cocaine derivative, not that I had a bunch of Irish friends going "are we having craic tonight or what"  No, a group of friends who walked in to a party saw some furniture polish out and knew that one of the easiest ways to freebase cocaine and make crack was to heat cocaine in a solvent like Mr Sheen until it makes a popping noise, that that was their first thought when they saw furniture polish at a party should have set alarm bells ringing.


From that night on we referred to Crack as "Charlie Sheen"  I don't know if The Charlie Sheen has ever partied with any of my friends but it would make his statement:  “I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available because if you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body,”  make a lot more sense.

What I think about when I think about Heckling

What's the worst heckle you've ever had?  That is amongst the most popular questions asked by journalists, people at parties, civil servants, the Police, whoever; When you tell them you're a stand-up comedian that's the question they want to know.  Partly it's down to the fear that people have of doing stand-up themselves, their biggest fear is that they'll get up on stage and no one will find what they say funny.  As Oscar Wilde might have quipped, the only thing worse than being laughed at, is not being laughed at.

The embarrassment that the average person thinks they'd feel is enough to deter most of them from trying out the business that I work in, as they convince themselves that when you go on stage it's a battle between you and the audience who are only ever a few short seconds away from shouting something horrific at you that you'll never be able to deal with.  That you deal with hecklers at every gig.  For some people they think the whole point of going to a comedy night is to heckle.  In fact I know for a fact that some people get nervous all day before going to a gig that evening because they think heckling's expected of them and they're already trying to think through what they're going to say.

I know that for a fact because before I did stand-up that was me.

Horses For Courses

I've been thinking about these for a while, when I first started out I went on one with a friend, I'd already been doing stand-up for a couple of weeks when she got in touch and asked if I fancied going.  It was run by Janice Connolly and Archie Kelly was guest tutor, both of them fresh from Phoenix nights (which I know dates this story.)

The course was useful to me, but the lessons I learned wouldn't really help until much much later.

Cut to 6 years down the line and the same friend got in touch with me to ask if I might help out as a guest tutor on the stand-up course that they run.

I jumped at the chance, as I think that if you can you've got a duty to the industry to try to help make it a better place with better comics, promoters and audiences for the good of us all, but that's possibly because I think I might be a goddamned communist, or at the very least un-American.

Now, of the people who went on the course that I was on I believe I'm the only person who's still performing, my friend is a teacher and works in the industry in another capacity as well as running the stand-up course (she doesn't teach on it another comedian does the teaching).

And I've heard a lot of discussion about whether stand-up courses are worth it, if they can actually help anyone and if those who would succeed would do so anyway without the aid of the course.

Another Country

There are times that I'm transported back to being a small child again and I get the feeling I used to get when my friends older brothers had their friends round and we'd get playing, because I could never resist a play with the older kids, and it would go too far and someone would use their superior strength to hold me still and no matter how I struggled I couldn't escape, and the frustration was palpable.  These days  like I get that feeling when I'm battling with putting a duvet cover on, and I never fully trust anyone who doesn't approach this task with caution and a little bit of their heart going "Right there's the outside chance of making a massive cunt of yourself here, be careful, the last thing you want is to end up with the duvet on the floor and you trapped in the cover."

It's my second worst feeling.  Even thinking about it now has brought a little bit of it back to me.

I should have told ya that the things that you love start to own ya

Judgement, and prejudgement.  We all do it from time to time, it's natural and it's one of our basic defence strategies passed down to us from our ancestors on the plains, a stranger comes in to our group from the outside, we're suspicious and fearful, and if something bad then happens to upset the equilibrium it's clearly their fault.

It's not always the first answer that's the right one though is it?

It gets better

I've always been of the opinion that the world is incrementally, day by day, step by step getting better and better, there's little hiccups along the way but gradually we're getting more enlightened and getting closer and closer to figuring out the one simple rule of life.  "Don't be a fucking dick"  and if you are being a fucking dick "Stop being a fucking dick".  Which is the simplified version of what I believe Siddhartha, the Buddha said upon realising that suffering is an inherent part of human life and that the only way to end the suffering of the self is to not harm another living thing.  A less nihilistic version of Sartre's Existentialism, which was built on realising that life has no purpose, no overriding meaning, and that in discovering that we are truly free we first despair, and then realise that the only true choice open to us is to extend the freedom of others.  Fuck yeah, check out my basic level of general knowledge masquerading as intelligence!

Rituals.  They make us who we are, they remind us that in a world where everything can change in a single second, and change back just as quickly that we're still who we think we are.  From paying taxes (if you're self employed) through to Weddinbgs, Stag and Hen Parties, even through to your morning poo and a cup of coffee (not always in that order)  They remind us that in the transience of life some things remain constant.

For me, first thing in the morning involves singing the Doctor Who Theme tune whilst doing an interpretive dance with jazz hands, getting a cup of tea, and a shower and then playing "Dance of the Knights" by Prokovief (AKA The Apprentice theme tune) as I sit down to my computer.  It's at that point I know I'm ready to face the day.

You probably have a slightly different routine, maybe you have a wank to the Blake's 7 theme tune, I don't know, it's up to you you magnificent pervert you.