no offence

Offence is easy to cause, often we do it without even thinking about it.  Sometimes we can brush it off without thinking too much about it.  "What someone I don't know thinks that something I did without realising was offensive?  Fuck 'em!"  Other times it's more difficult.

Today I managed to cause offence to someone I really liked via the medium of the internet and she blocked me before I had a chance to explain.  The internet makes us all autistic, it removes context and nuance from our words, often I've found myself getting really angry at something that someone's said to me on an internet forum and told a third party what they've said and the third party has responded "That's only horrible with the intonation you've given that.  Read it in a silly or daft voice or as if they're being sycophantic and then think about it?"

To which I always fly into a rage and tell them they don't know what it's like and then flounce out, before realising that I'm being unreasonable and then flouncing back in to apologise.

T'was ever thus.

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.

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.