Performing knob gags

It's been an interesting week, I've been in Spain and Gibraltar pretending this makes me more important than I am and as brexit vote draws closer making the odd social media comment regarding my opinion on this and holy fucknuts people get upset! 

The Rock of Gibraltar, more impressive and probably more nutritious than Blackpool rock

I've spent time this week writing and performing knob gags and absolutely pointless stories (well there is a point, laughter but nothing more than that)

It's brought me back to the thought that I was once told you have the power in comedy to make a difference and make a point and that's what comedy is all about.

Well I firmly believe there is enough opinion peddling, point making bullshit stirring twatfestery going on away from the entertainment world that why continue it if it's likely half the room won't agree with you?

Sure it's great when someone makes a point you don't agree with and you laugh anyway, Steve Hughes and Bill Burr both do that for me but because someone is a right wing twat doesn't mean they shouldn't have a break from their right wing twattery for a laugh?

As I write that I almost think it depends on how right or how twatty but let's consider that they aren't racist c words, went with c word instead of cunt because my mum reads this btw!

Just breaking off from the racist c word, there's a website called spell check a racist, like them being a racist isn't enough for us to decide that are doucheburgers we then have to confirm it with smug pointing out that they can't even spell forin job theef! 

I chose comedy because I want to make people laugh, I'm of course of the opinion that my perfect audience would all agree with me and understand where I'm coming from but my own friendship group don't all agree with me yet I'm still friends with most of them, I'm just doing this to make as many people as I can laugh away from whatever fight they are fighting if I agree or not.

I haven't deleted the ukip supporting friends I have from my Facebook nor have I made a song and dance about them having to remove themselves so all my mates know I'm proper tolerant! Actually I engage with them sometimes and discuss why they think like they do (yeah sometimes it's like asking a dog to explain why it sniffs its own arse, it's got no idea why you think that's wrong and can't contemplate what you are saying but that's just life)

I was saddened by so many things this week, I shed tears for 49 strangers and then even more for a 50th a few days later, I then laughed at a video of Jim McDonald offof corrie celebrating Northern Ireland's euro win and then wrote 3 ridiculous gags about why I don't think I'll live past 70!

The world can be dogshit and it can be nice, I certainly think my place in it is just to bring laughter not to have a stance , not right now.. That version of me though may be bubbling up inside, who knows.

J x

I made them laugh

There's been so much crazy stuff happened on this planet upon which we reside that my weekly self indulgence seems completely pointless. But then again I've felt like there's a point to what I'm doing for the past 4 years and there most probably isn't so I can either lock myself in a cupboard rocking back and forth seething at all the worlds injustice or I can plough forward in the hope that nob gags aside my attempt at world domination through comedy makes a difference.

I actually feel I am doing ok, this is as close to self praise as I'll ever get as I recall once celebrating a goal with my team mates as a junior footballer and my dad calling me a bighead, a memory I'll never forget, my dad is ace but that really made it difficult for me to enjoy success... Lucky for me I've skilfully avoided having any success just in case! Phew!!

I am doing ok though, although I'm not measuring myself against anything so I could be deluded... Thing is I turned up to MC a gig on Saturday and the headline act had made a diary error which was discovered last minute meaning a re shuffle that saw Jack Gleadow step into MC duties from opener allowing me to close.

Now most people who like sport will know that England were playing in the euros on Saturday against Russia who brought their hooligans along to make our hooligans feel like poor sorry victims (there were a bazillion nice people too who were actual victims it should be said)

So with the football being on I noticed a mostly female demographic in the room... Go back less than a year and if you asked me to close a gig and then do so to a mostly female crowd I would have thought there was no chance... Surely my stuff is too laddy and I can't close, well that was then, now I know my stuff isn't too laddy at all and just because one or two people didn't get it I allowed their shitty opinion to cloud my own opinion of me!

I'm not quite the dogs bollocks so here's a picture of some until I am!

So I'll give myself a pat on the back for overcoming that, and not so much a pat on the back but a nod of approval that I stopped thinking female audience members would switch off once I talked about a big girl in a Yates like it was some kind of lad bants story (it's really not so if you don't get that you're stupid ((I originally typed 'your stupid' so technically I'm stupid)) the gig itself went as well if not better than every gig I've closed so far this year, a tight half hour with stories and silliness I'm actually happy with it and there was enough laughter to justify that! It's not like I haven't worked on it as much as possible to make it solid.

Am I one of the deluded fools that used to pop up on the forums though, Yorkshire folk may recall Roy or Colin Bunyan among the more colourful of characters and Peter Fox of Notts comedy review mentioned a guy who for his 1st gig hired a theatre and did an hour... Yeah I'm not in their ball park so I needn't worry that I'm not in Jim Jeffires or even say Pat Monahans (for non comedy people that's the comedian and not lead singer of Train)

I think measuring myself to anyone else in comedy and any of their standards will only leave me feeling pointless, especially when a promoter tells me I need to try some fresher ideas and then 2 gigs in a row for them their £200 headline act does the same joke I heard when I was 7... Like that's 2 different acts a week apart both of them do the same joke! No one says a word!!

Nah I'll not worry about that (beyond of course mentioning it just now) because a room full of people (about 50) left having had a great night on Saturday because I did what I was paid for and all I really wanted, I made them laugh, I still have my own benchmark and need to push towards that but there's enough rejection in this job already to continue to worry about how I'm doing, just keep doing it and trying to improve and that's all that's needed!!

J x

Travel gremlin

So I had an interesting weekend, I drove to Great Yarmouth on Friday, my 1st visit there and seemingly it won't be my last... It was one of those gigs where opening was always going to be a slog but there was enough in the room for me to not come of stage considering setting fire to myself, drowning in slurry or at the very least contemplating giving myself a Chinese burn!

It was Saturday where there was confusion, I was booked for a gig in Bristol but the Booker had been on holiday and so there was a mix up as his replacement booked another act instead unaware I was confirmed so I was cancelled, I then landed a gig closer to home and better money and with one of my best comedy mates.. Happy days... Only, there was a mix up and someone else was booked... So now no gig (sad face!!)

Then as I'm tootling (because tootling is the best way to describe my fuel saving driving speed) back from Great Yarmouth (it's not bad but they really are over egging it with the 'great') I receive a message from original booker in Bristol and booom I'm back on the line up there again... The bloody glamour!!!

Seriously though, who's that prick?

So that was the weekend, but is that all there is to tell? Oh no, it's so not because the 1st of 2 things I should have experienced/ understood before the age of 36 happened.

Last time I went to Bristol I parked in a car park that closes at 11pm and had to find a hotel for the night as I got back to it at 11.15, the time before... Well I missed a train and had to get a megabus taking 3 years to get home via every city, town and village... This time my travel was not going to be an issue... Oh no, you're not getting my this time travel gremlin... So instead a bird shat on me within minutes of my arrival!!

Several people have said that is good luck, these are clearly people who A, don't understand the concept of good luck and B, have clearly never had another animals shit running down their ear and all over their T-shirt.... That doesn't feel so lucky to me!!

Oddly it has been a trigger for me to pull my finger out a bit though, the luck that I feel I've been having lately has been nothing but bad but that's all bollocks, I've been wallowing like a little cry baby and having bird shit on me in Bristol could have been a sign of good luck but it wasn't, it was just a bird taking a dump as I happened to wander aimlessly underneath and if I want good luck I have to go fucking earn it!!!!!

I took that to the stage with me, I wasn't at my best, I was however confident and happy with myself on stage and the 4 or 5 applause breaks I got at points I wouldn't normally was about that.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not here shouting about applause breaks as if I smashed it, there were massive lulls and a couple began talking midway through such was their apparent boredom I really should have addressed it but could not see where they were due to the lights!

But this was a good change in thought pattern, more hard work no more wasted hours that could be taken up writing stuff to fill those lulls or working on tags and afterthoughts and better self promotion.

That said, I did spend today gardening and the 2nd of the 2 things was that today I found out what secateurs are!! Never before knew they were gardening shears!!

I'm not so clever!!

I am though going up a gear, think I located my mojo today!!

J x 

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