Monday 26 September 2011

Ups and downs and oops and frowns.

I wrote this a few months ago and never finished it so never published it:

"In my last blog I was kind of worried that I had lost my mojo somewhat but was hoping I was coming out of a bit of a lull. I was. I seem to have my mojo back. Yey! The funny thing is I have been feeling a lot more confident onstage but things have been going wrong left, right and centre.
The first gig after my last post was another comedy crunch and I was definitely a bit more myself and self-assured onstage even the inclusion of a couple of new gags that didn't quite work didn't bother me and I would say overall it was a success. My confidence went up a notch.
The day after I was doing 10 minutes for Marcus Keeley at his Voicebox night in the pavilion. I had being playing around in my head with an idea that combined magic and PowerPoint for about a week and had about three lines for it written down on paper. Seeing as I had got back from the Dublin the night before at about 5 in the morning and had to turn the idea into a script, plus make the PowerPoint part of it plus hide some secret electronic thingamajig inside a pack of cards, then learn the whole thing I was beginning to lose faith in the whole idea but I persevered and about an hour before the event it seemed doable. I got there to find the crowd in a bit of a Monday mood whereby they watched the first couple of acts and refused to laugh at what were quite clearly jokes. The ballbags.
 I was on after the break and surprisingly managed to win them over. Whether it was because I was trying something different or just because they had, as a unit, reached the required number of drinks to give the night a break I have no idea. I do think I came up with a great premise (well done me) but I think it has a lot more potential; I'm looking forward to giving it a rewrite and trying it out again. Oh yeah, I was saying that stuff has been going wrong. I did fuck up. I accidently clicked gizmo hidden inside of half a pack of cards that controlled the screen (as you do) a number of times while trying to get a volunteer from the crowd. So everyone saw slides they shouldn’t have and it really should have spoiled the whole thing. Fortunately, I was in one of those moods where I didn’t give a crap about anything, so since I wasn’t bothered by my gaff neither was anyone else.
Big thanks to Caitriona Ward for agreeing to be my volunteer after I failed to get anyone from the crowd that I didn’t know to help me out. That might have been Caitriona who left that wee comment a while ago too. If it was; thanks. If it wasn’t; thanks also.
Anyhow the point it despite my big mistake it went terribly well and my confidence went up another notch."

Well, have had a load more ups and downs since then. Here are some of the highlights and whatever the opposite of highlights is! (In no particular order)

I instead of bursting a balloon I opened a set by stabbing myself in the hand with a screwdriver (and then didn't do too badly despite the bleeding)

Battled a heckler for 30 minutes in Antrim.

Performed a lovely headline gig in a really big barn!

Went to Edinburgh. Didn't do any performing apart from a very small gig to mostly comedians :( but saw some great acts tho :)

Had a mediocre gig at the Empire :/

Went on a trip to North England and beat the frog twice.

Died on me hole in the Pavilion


The last two in terms of good and bad gigs are the two extremes of the last few months and also both happened in the last couple of weeks. If you're on a big high you can usually be sure that the comedy karma will level things out with a kick in the face pretty shortly.

I wrote that last bit a couple of weeks ago and didn't bother hitting publish again! Another 2 weeks go by more ups, more downs. When does it all level out? Do I want it to level out? I don't know. This blog has been pretty pointless this time. I don't really  know if I am making a point or just having a whinge combined with a boast.

I suppose I was being a bit harsh on myself saying I died on my hole at the pav. I actually died on my hoop for 5 minutes then slowly won them round for 10 minutes. It wasn't the easiest of crowds either. Half the crowd had seen me a week ago, a quarter of the crowd were from other countries (a few from Canada and I was wearing my top hat. I'm not sure Canada has been particularily fond of top hatted, magic comedians since Jerry Sadowitz swaggered unto the stage in Montreal shouting "Hello Moose-fuckers") and my target demographic (a group of ladies sitting at the front) pissed off before I went on leaving a big space at the front. Oh, how I love chatting to a big empty table.

So. I had my work cut-out. Also, I did kind of lose it battling a heckler. Whoops

I got a volunteer up. She was from Germany. I like to ad-lib with volunteers. Of course, as soon as I found out she was German I thought "don't mention the war it's hacky, predictable and not very nice".
Unfortunately my brain got as far as "don't mention the war" and took this as cue to send Basil Fawlty goose-stepping through my head.
I mentioned the war.

My history and geography are terrible. The only things I know about Germany are war/nazi stuff and they have a good economy.
A good economy is hardly a comedy goldmine.

Anyhow, I then stole a joke.
I couldn't help it. She said that German is a beautiful language.
I had that thing in my head about how butterfly translates into French and German (butterfly/ papillion/schmetterling)
I wasn't sure if it was an old joke or something someone else had said.
Either way I shouldn't have said it. But if some says to you on stage that German is a beautiful language and that example pops into your head. You try not saying it.

Oh heck, I've just googled it. Apparently it's Tim Allen's joke. I've just doubled my shame.

The interweb is telling me that a fellow called Alex Agnew ripped this joke off Tim Allen. I'm not sure if this is true.
Firstly I thought this was way older than Tim Allen.
Secondly, all references are worded exactly the same so I think the allegation comes from one single source.

What it actually says is the joke was "literally ripped off Tim Allen by Alex Agnew".

So unless, Mr Allen has started writing his punchlines in velcro and sticking them on his jumper, our single source is clearly an eejit.

Anyhow, I'm not in the habit of ripping people off literally or otherwise so apologies to the gods of comedy.
I have now confessed and will do my penance.

I'm not sure what comedy penance entails. 10 paddy irishman jokes and a dirty limerick probably.

All the best,
SCHTHF




1 comment:

  1. Great to see another post. Really enjoying your blog. Keep it up!

    ReplyDelete