A happy div needs no play dough

Well this one is late, I'm not even sure anyone cares but I do like to churn these out on a Monday, my 12 regular readers may or may not like consistency who knows but I've been busy both being funny and trying to be physically fit!

Excuse out of the way I am in a good place at the moment after about 8 weeks spell of up and down moods and some pretty shitty depression rendering me my own worst enemy, but having knuckled down and battled through that I'm on the high that follows and starting to feel like that bag of shit that life is does have a rose fragrance at times.

I've been working a little on my Edinburger show and while the bun is written the burger but keeps changing as does the dressing and cheese so what I currently have is no where near what I told the brochure people or anyone who's cared to ask (so my mum basically!!)

I don't suppose it matters too much that it's not so much along the plot line I had planned because I'm really excited about where it's heading which is pleasing because a week ago it was heading in the bin!!

Writing that I did earlier in the year when I was having my "not giving a fuck what anyone thinks of me" phase is getting a little tickle and being brought back to life as my show becomes some kind of Frankenstein monster of a creation without any of Mary Shelley's intelligence, it honestly makes me laugh when people say I have some intelligent comedy... I'm a div! Fact!

But I'm bloody happy so a happy div needs no play dough, I know that's not a saying but hopefully it will catch on and if nothing else I have at least achieved that!

A little thing that anyone who is writing at the moment may want to take from this is, if you're writing what you think other people want to hear stop, write what you want to write then when you go back over it you can figure out which crowd pleasing elements you may need to add and just enjoy letting your thoughts spill out in the meantime... That's write, top writing advice from a hugely successful comedian here!!

Anyway I best go as I have some nob gags to crowbar in!

J x

The Struggle

This is my comedy blog, because blogging is still a thing in 2016, I would do a tapestry or maybe even Jims comedy cave paintings if I wanted to be all retro, but blogging is still a thing!

Although it is my comedy blog, yesterday I took some time out from the funny to cycle 108 miles round North Yorkshire (I forgot that I signed up to this sportive and was set for a Hull weekend doing funny and getting drunk/ diseased in Spiders!!)

This cycle event served as a good analogy for my comedy, it was hard work, it took a lot out of me and it wasn't funny!! (I'm well funny ignore insecure me!!)

To be fair the struggle is a good name for the event and very much a good name for working as a comedian, comics who have been going 10 years plus keep pointing out how hard it's become, I thought it would be easy and there would be girls and money!! (I didn't but it would have made me less likely to want to cry every morning!!)

If insecure me is annoying well past me is a little bellend! Past me signed up for this event known as the Struggle because it thought future me would still be working a 9-5 and just doing the odd gig now and then whereas future me which is now present me is busy driving up and down the motorways/ cone storage roads of England and occasionally Wales 3 times a week, writing daily (including an attempt at some kind of collection of all these blogs I've been doing since 2012) and also trying to remain as fit as possible without any routine which is difficult although probably because I allow myself the excuse of calling it difficult.

Difficult by the way is not what I'd call the Struggle, calling the struggle difficult is like calling climbing Everest tricky... It's bleedin horrendous is what it is!! Nothing short of horrendous!! What kind of idiot thinks cycling up hills all afternoon is good idea!! It took me 9 hours... 9 fucking hours with that saddle up my arse!!! It feels like it's still there, I've been walking like I shit my pants for most of today, I may have done, I don't know because my arse is numb!!

A standard Yorkshire crowd at the 30 mile mark, there was even a baa! (Sorry)

My bleedin head is clearly just as numb, I've signed up for 2 more of these bastarding cycle punishments!! It's possible that the views are the only thing that made it more enjoyable than being repeatedly hit in the bollocks with a rolling pin!!

The one connection this has to the ol stand up thingy is at least 15 times during that ride I wanted to give up because I felt like I could not do it or at least not do it well enough, well that's just ridiculous, tell yourself that and that's what will happen.

I recently saw a clip of an act who if I'm being fair was rubbish, that's the nicest thing I could say if their act, it lacked any self awareness and the persona was both pathetic and needy like that of a bullying victim and smug and high status which is I guess unique.. But that act must have worked harder than any other because it wasn't natural to them to be funny and yet this clip that was posted on a forum was very much one of an act you'd probably book, that kind of improvement shows that sometimes it's talent and sometimes it's graft, a bit of both is useful too.

Right, I'm off to book a masseuse 

J x

Awful but true

I vowed not to do competition comedy anymore after my attitude towards a gong show late last year saw me survive barely 70 seconds maybe because I called the audience a rowdy set of cunts mainly because they were a rowdy set of cunts!

I thought to be competing against other acts when the best comedy is when all acts smash it like one big team rather than competing against against each other is the best way for comedy to get its boom back.

I'm not sure there will be a boom of course but comedy is a bit all over the place right now and a lot of these competitions can help the stronger acts shine which is great but other acts buckle under pressure or overthink it or focus on themselves and not the night. It's not the same as the clubs I used to go to where 4 acts and a compere would one by one rip a room to bits with brilliant jokes or ridiculous silliness but competition seems to make me feel like I want acts to do badly.

That's awful but true, I never want acts to do badly and I'd love full comedy clubs every week with everyone having a great time. Too much of an ideal world that.

I died on my bumhole too! I've had about 3 gigs go like that in the past 4 weeks so I can safely say that my mind focusing on this Edinburgh set I'm writing but don't dare perform yet (it's not polished) is making me go back to hating the stuff I currently do and it's getting detrimental.

I'd beat myself up about it but in a weeks time I'll rip a gig feel great and remember that none of this matters, what's happening now is all steps on the path to death!! Ok I should be more positive, on the path to success. 

Not caring I did badly tonight feels like a turning point of its own.

J x

Washed up corporate act

Baking hot this weekend, "you could fry an egg in this" my mate says, to be fair I've fried eggs in winter but I get his point.

This weekend I was enjoying the sun from the comfort of the car as usual. Been over to the Isle of Wight, so that's that cherry popped! I was meant to be supporting Bobby Davro (it was a supporting spot not one of those, I'm on a line up with a tv comic so I'm basically supporting them" type posts and who brags about supporting Bobby Davro anyway??)

Sadly Bobby had some worrying news in his family so we got last min replacement Keith O Keef!!! Wow this guy started comedy 3 years before I was born!! The words old school spring to mind and when I saw him I genuinely and somewhat unfailly thought he was a washed up former corporate act.

He was actually a real nice bloke and although doing nothing to suggest his years of experience had given him a slice of originality he held the audience attention and brought laugh after laugh from stuff that could have been in his set easily 20 years.

I'm not sure the type of comics the circuit produces today would be able to do that, I think most acts would have had enough to of the sound of their own bullshit after 30 years max! It's a different beast now to when I started 4 and a halfish years ago even.

I have some work to do too, really it's going to take some graft. I saw an act post a little celebratory moment from a recent gig where they had smashed it. Fair play and well done, but I don't want to be in that position.

I'm taking nothing away from said act, it's great to do well and have nice things to say about yourself on Facebook, while you do that there will also be some souless cunt either hating you for having the temerity to have some sense of self worth or considering you arrogent for sharing it. So with that in mind enjoy your victories but for me it's not enough.

It's not enough to smash the odd gig and be so proud of that, I need to be ripping the roof off everything, and I'm a millions miles away from doing that right now!

If you've seen the movie the Martian, 1stly how the fuck did Sean Bean survive? He never survives? He would have been a comedian if it wasn't for all the deaths in certain!! But 2ndly that film is a great metaphor for my 'career'

I'm pretty decent at what I do, I'm on with some great people at most gigs now but one night things go wrong and they seem to think I've died and so carry on without me.

I've not died I'm just stuck in planet average jokes and need to work out how the fuck I'm going to become good enough at what I do to not ont beat the odds of fading away on planet shit jokes but to become something special and when I get back to earth I'm capable of much much more.

Ok that analogy isn't great but my point is I'm aware now more than ever how much I'm going to have to evolve as a performer and writer to be where I want to be, exciting, unstoppable and smashing every gig.

It's not just a dream, it's a thing we all could do, just most of us give up when it's tricky... Well let's just see in a few years if I gave up or have I made it back to earth!!!

J x

Skilfully oversold

Because comedy is so glamorous normally, I mean what's more glamourous than standing in the corner of a pub telling it's disengaged regulars all the funny stuff you thought up in the hope that one day you might get to do that every week and not have a need for real work.

So, again because comedy is so glamourous I decided to book myself in for one of those "be seen" gigs that required me to leave home at 9am on a bus to London, 5 hours later walk for an hour across London (because I can't be fucked with tubes) then wait 45 mins for a lift which takes 3 hours to get to the venue, arriving 1 hour early... For 8 minutes before 3 hours back to London another hours walk and then killing time (just the 5 hours) until 7am bus back home

Yep this is what every act who really wants to make a go of this has done at some point and probably like myself right now they have all sat in the coach station trying to stay awake in case someone mistakes us for a homeless person and kicks us out thinking... Was all that worth it.

I mean, the gig went well, so to that end it was worth it but is all this really what it takes? 

Possibly what it takes is just writing funny and original stuff but then I see some of that acts that are doing well and think naaaah... Surely they must know some of those jokes aren't original too!

I reckon it takes balls too, is there a less gender biased way of saying that? But I don't mean guts or bravery or whatever  you'd say to suggest someone has confidence, nah, confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as (park life) 

Ignore that last bit I'm clearly tired!

What I mean is, I really think, despite doing this needy thing where we all want to be liked and lauded and admired by peers... It's really important to not give any fucks what anyone thinks of you.

The less of a fuck you give the more likely you can get away with bare faced online cuntiness, outrageous audience assaults when they are needed, telling the world how good you are despite the fact they have all seen you and know it's only average shit incredibly skilfully oversold.

Seemingly that's what's needed, not trailing all the way to the south coast on a bus flavoured by varying varieties of fart, halitosis and body odour.

I'm not sure this is something that will be on comedy school curriculums and there's every possibility I'm wrong, I have been wrong before, once back in 1997 I think it was.

I still will take the roll up my sleeves and just crack on approach, maybe in a year I'll look back at that decision and think it was the one that got me comitted and locked away from sharp objects in the 1st place.. That or the m25, if I ever have my Micheal Douglas falling down moment it will be there with a shot gun.

One last thing before I go, this aimed at my Leeds local readers, I'll be testing some Edinburgh show material in Leeds on Weds, just some very raw new stuff hence why I haven't invited the masses (you'd think Leeds promoters would book me given how much I'd fill their gig!!) but if you're about and fancy justifying your decision to not be a

Comedian come see me, Hirsts Yard from 8pm free in with a bucket for donations to the acts at the end.

J x