Monday 21 December 2015

Real Madrid drinking team

The problem with giving up alcohol for a few months is that when you drink alcohol again you forget how shit you are at drinking. Unfortunately for me me football buddies (we don't play footy they are just round and full of wind) are champions league drinkers, me going out with them is if I were to use the football analogy... Which I will, like Real Madrid taking on the horse and chaffinch Sunday league reserves team.... It's a non contest but there was a real pre match feeling I could give this a go!

I wound up without a gig which allowed me to join in much sooner with the drinking, in a previous blog I had mentioned whisky and so my tiny feeble man brain was lusting for this with amateur enthusiasm the kind of which sees many a Brit crawling along a puke pee and glass coated kerb in a deshevelled state while still convinced they can dance or pull or both!!!

The thing is I had like many a comedy flavoured person does, been hoping for something to happen, something I could look back on and embellish to the point of uber hilarity although in reality just get a mildly amusing anecdote to which I add 3 knob gags and classic Jim lean forth as I relay the story to a bemused audience of 6 punters 4 bar staff and 5 other acts all staring at their phone because they've seen me before.

I have been very much the dull boy of late , sure after gigs I sneak in a drink now and then, usually it's a water with ice and I've tried the diet water with full fat ice joke on a few nonplussed bar staff while at it, it takes away the embarrassment of ordering a drink that's nearly always free and instead replaces it with embarrassment at my dad joke.

Aside from that my social life has involved 4 visits to the gym a week, that's not even a brag, no one likes a gym prick, I'm a Jim Gym prick, if only I liked preserves, I'd be a Jim jam gym prick (I'll stop now) it's involved 2 games of football a week, one day a week writing (usually just some half assed blog!) and 2 or 3 nights a week gigging along with 5 days at the day job, cramming in time to walk the dog and the odd date here and there (well coffee in McDonald's seems to count so I'll take that!)
Basically I'm too busy to have any crazy shit happen to me that would make great comedy.... Which of course means I either have to up my game and do more crazy shit or actually sit back and realise that I, like anyone on this silly little planet can write creatively if I just allow myself too.

There's no need to wait for crazy adventures to happen, sure when they do that's awesome but in reality what makes a comic good is putting in the miles writing because if any other act is like me they need to write 4 hours worth of stuff to get 20 mins they are happy with.... And when I say happy with I mean not happy with but it will do for now, writing is the dirty bit, the hard part that takes time, takes patience and ah fuck it lets just nick some jokes offof sickepedia because no one seems to be saying much to the 4 zillion (slight exaggeration) acts that are doing that.... No seriously don't nick jokes and actually in a car share recently an act pointed out that when you write a joke it's worth googling the premise and the joke to see if it's out there already as it might just save you some pointy pointy fingy.... Although there seems to be little of that at the moment 

So my tender state, created by the thrashing handed out to me by Real Madrid's drinking team allowed me an opportunity to get a bit more writing in, maybe I should just get blasted every weekend and write my way to recovery... Who knows maybe one night I'll get my head kicked in by an 8ft baby on a stag do, or fall in a river and be rescued by a bloke who looks like Jack from titanic, or maybe I'll get arrested for (this one did happen) picking up a discarded hard hat putting it on and standing next to a policeman keeping patrol of the taxi rank singing YMCA.... Whatever happens putting pen to paper each week is the bit where the real comedians will rise up above those gifted actors .... I hope 


J x

Monday 14 December 2015

Happy to quit comedy

Christmas party week this week for pretty much everyone who likes to drink and talk to other humans, I'm not so good at the latter and I am really bad at the former.

I like people, people are interesting, every person on this planet has a complex and interesting life, even that Hopkins woman, sure no one would really care if she fell into a cement mixer and some Polish immigrants made a house for an Indian family in sweaty Scotland out of her cold callous house brick body..... Just for clarity it is not I that thinks Scottish are sweaty.

I like people but I really really don't like people!! I mean if there was one or two people then I'd probably like them but when you go into a bar and there are about 4 zillion people in there and they have all had 6 jäger bombs, 5 Sambuccas 4 pints of craft lager (it's like normal lager but it's more expensive because the word craft has been added to the description) 2 real ales (ales that descended from Spanish Royalty I would guess) and a red bull (because sugar and Taurine are really good ingredients to add to this mix) then it for me becomes a bit awkward.

I've managed to get fitter than I've ever been, to that end I feel youthful, but that's where my pretence that I'm young ends. It's not helped when you enter a bar and you look like you could potentially be someone's dad there to pick them up, there are kids in there younger than a scar I got on my chin during a bar fight I got in when I was of an age that getting in a bar fight didn't terrify me!!

They are prancing around to some bloke who's clearly got an issue with female dogs and garden tools as he raps about all the bitches and hoes that he never used to have before the days he could afford to own luxurious shit such as a Rolex, then for a brief moment I get excited as a song I recognise comes on, but it's not the track I thought, just some guy shouting over the top of the music I once liked when a band in too old to remember the name of once sang over it, then next track... I find myself asking what the fuck is a rizzle kick??

When did my ability to enjoy life die? Fuck I'm not old, it's a mental state....it's not that I don't like other people, sure they are all dressed like cartoon characters and no one wears shirts and shoes anymore but that's not their fault.

It is dawning on me my social life is stand up, I'm getting old in my mind and I only like people if they are sat listening to me and laughing at the bullshit I think is funny.... Who thinks a man turning into a chicken is funny for fecks sake??

I should have known I was getting brainified (it's a word ok!) old, I know the difference between bio and non bio washing powder, I own nose hair clippers (fuck off they are useful) and I consider a nice sit down to be a thing! 

Having a nice sit down with Ronnie

This week is party week, my social life had been negotiating road works and 50 mile and hour speed restrictions listening to Stuart Goldsmith... I'm not equipped to handle busy rooms but as a comedian (of sorts, on can we just assume that I'm a comedian in the basis that I do comedy??)
It's been easier to hide away in the back, show off for 20 mins then piss off home for a nice sit down!

Thing is, I bumped into a former Leeds based act the other day while Christmas shopping, he was so bloody happy!! I mean a million miles from the guy I knew as an act, really happy, like he smiled and it wasn't forced and he even looked like he's been in a bed with a real girl recently!!
I heard a rumour a notoriously hard work act has recently married and will be quitting stand up too because he's happy.... Is this it, do I need to be miserable? You don't have to be happy to quit comedy but do you have to quit comedy to be happy? Nah I doubt that.

I can do miserable but I'm going to go to these Christmas parties, try my bleeding hardest to talk to people without yawning, zoning out or moving the subject to myself as quickly as possible and I'm going to drink some fecking whisky (I have no ideas how to drink whisky but I'm about to learn so I can at least look distinguished rather than old!!) and I'm going to make sure that happy Jim can still be comedy Jim.

J x

Sunday 6 December 2015

Lovely gigs

I have had a busy week this week, the usual stuff really, 6 trips to the gym (I went inside and worked out on at least 2 of them too ) 5 days at the dayjob currently training a newbie, 4 gigs, 3 games of football 2 turtle doves and Alan partridge on DVD!!

The gigs have been quite nice, none of the horrible Christmas party buffoonery I witnessed like last year when a supermarket I won't name, let's just call them Asdur, held their do at a gig I had in Leeds and took the entire front 3 rows.



In fairness we should not allow a pre planned, ticket only, non exclusive to your company, live event ruin a mundane conversation about Steve in accounts hilarious anecdote about the time he called Susan; from shipping; Sarah. 

You hilarious bastard Steve, sorry about our event requiring you to be quiet so the  other paying guests can enjoy the show.

And how rude of us not to realise Lucy from customer services hasn't seen Jennifer from the other side of customer services for 4 days, you must have so much to catch up on?? Tell us more about what happened in goggle box this week that simply can't be enjoyed silently!

I think the most rude and thoughtless thing we did holding a gig there that night was get right in the way of some necessary drinking, because a Christmas do isn't a Christmas do until you're 5 shots of sambuca in, you've some how managed to button your shirts middle button to the top hole, you've just threatened to beat the hell out of someone while wearing a jumper with a flashing Rudolph nose on it and a yellow paper hat or you've had that many copperbergs you've become convicted that they are four value for money!!

Fortunately this weeks gigs have all been lovely (while in comedy terms "lovely gig"
Usually means "I did well" I can honestly say these were just lovely gigs.... I don't know what the code is for I could have been funnier but the audience were nice)

I suspect as we creep closer to Christmas and party season gets in to full swing there may be some more lovely gigs but I know at least one night between now and next year I'll be stood talking to an audience that makes me happy no one carries around rotting fruit and veg anymore.

I hope I'm wrong, being as busy as I seem to be I'd like not ever feel it's time wasted although in fairness time is only wasted if nothing is learned, and there are always lessons to learn ( better grammar may be one I could look at)

I think I'm just going to sit back and enjoy whatever the Christmas run gives me.
J xx