Busy, busy.

I've got a lot to do this week - well today really, I'm busy on Friday, so today is my last chance to work out a 5 minute routine for the gong show in Middlesborough on Sunday. - Actually, last time I was gonged off after 2 minutes- so the end of my set can be the same as last time.

Then on Tuesday it's the third Long Live Comedy night. I've got an idea for my bit, a Cornish yokel addicted to cider, but i'll need to work on it a bit. I'm glad it is fortnightly, it seems to come round so quickly, we do one, have a few days off, meet up to discuss the next one - and before you know it we're having to stick up posters again. If we'd tried to do it weekly I think we'd have given up already.

My writing has slowed up a bit, I've fallen out of the practice of carrying a mini -notebook and an IKEA pencil everywhere, because I never missed it - over the last few weeks i've never thought, 'ooh thats funny, if only I had my mini -notebook and IKEA pencil!' But this may be a chicken / egg situation. If I don't have the MN and IP, I wont be dwelling on things to note down.

I have one new joke which is making it's first written appearance here...

"We're worried about my grandmother, she's getting old and confused. She's in such a state these days she can't properly catalogue her collection of chat show host autographs. She may have Parkinson's."

I did wonder about putting stage material on here because a) other comics might nick it. b) The audience might have read it all here and not laugh when I do it live. But then I thought if other comics are desperate to rip-off my material, and everyone in the audience is an avid reader of this blog - that's not really a bad thing.

P.S. The picture is from the Chortle Awards, taken by fellow contestant Merlin, but I'm putting it here as I've only just got round to looking at them closely. You've heard of dying on stage, well here I am dying in the style of Kenneth Williams playing Dracula or Mum-ra. I'm slowly disintegrating and being blown away in the wind, look my hand's nearly gone - I was an empty shirt 10 seconds later.

NEXT GIGS:

SUNDAY 2ND OF APRIL.
MIDDLESBOROUGH GONG SHOW

TUESDAY 4TH OF APRIL. 8.30 FOR A 9.00 START.
THE THIRD 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

MONDAY 17TH APRIL - THE STAND -EDINBURGH.

My dog’s got no nose.

I've been told off for not writing often enough - it seems i do have a few readers out there, but they're getting pissed of logging on and finding nothing new. (be warned, i never do weekends) But i've had a bit of writers block lately and i don't want to write rubbish for the sake of it. So i was trawling through some old files and remembered some old disks too. Our computer doesn't even have a disk drive anymore, so after a trip to Gateshead library to use their pitifully archaic 'number engines' I managed to e-mail myself a load of old odds and sods. Here's a poem based on the old joke...

My dog’s got no nose.
A man said to me
And I wasn’t sure how to react.
It’s a delicate situation and it wants to be handled with tact.
But I wanted to show proper sympathy so I asked him–
How does it smell?
Meaning, does it have olfactory powers at all,
or were they all shot to hell?
Unfortunately, he misread me – or so I’m inclined to think
As he took my harmless question to mean –
does your poor maimed doggy stink?
How does he smell? I asked him.
‘Awful’ he said with a grin
So he didn’t seem to mind it, he took it on the chin.

My dog’s got no nerves, he said.
How’s he feel?
He’s not bitter.
A double blow for the poor old dog,
Yet he told me with a titter.

My dog’s got no tongue he said.
Good god! This dog must envy the dead.
No nose, no nerves, no tongue in its head.
I was starting to get suspicious.
How does he taste? I asked.
Delicious.

As I feared.
The guy’s weird.
He must have hurt the creature himself
That’s why he was so blasé
I looked into the eyes of a killer
And thought –what would Rolf Harris say?

My dog’s got no eyes. This made no sense of course
– my dog had no eyes surely.
He’d eaten the dog with no sign of remorse.
After torturing it most cruelly.
Unless god no, he’d plucked out the eyes and eaten those alone?
I pictured the staggering creature, searching blindly for his bone.
Ask me how he looks, - I heard him very calmly utter
How he sees –would have been correct-
But don’t argue with a nutter.
So, How does he look? I asked.
He’s not a pretty sight.
I mumbled my excuses and fled into the night.

Before I’d recovered from the shock
He said here’s one more for you.
My poor old dog, he’s got no cock.
How does he fuck?
It’s true!


NEXT GIGS:

SUNDAY 2ND OF APRIL.
MIDDLESBOROUGH GONG SHOW

TUESDAY 4TH OF APRIL. 8.30 FOR A 9.00 START.
THE THIRD 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

MONDAY 17TH APRIL - THE STAND -EDINBURGH.

Smoking permitted, fee £200.

If you saw a sign that said 'Smoking permitted, fee £200.', you'd be surprised, but it basically means the same as 'Smoking prohibited, fine £200.' which we see everywhere. Why do we have to specify the punishment? Isn't it enough to say 'YOU CAN'T DO THAT'? I guess authority is so used to rebelious youth answering with, 'Or what?', that they now pre-empt the question. But surely displaying the punishment means this is now the official and only punishment. £200 a fag would put most people off, but what if there's a millionaire on the train? If he's willing to shell out two grand he can puff his way through 10 Bensons with impunity.

Some of these signs advertise relative bargains. There's one in Gateshead Metro preventing access to the tunnels -fine £50, that's not bad for a day of urban pot-holing. And the emergency stop on most trains costs £200, surely as exciting as a parachute jump or go-carting. A bit pricy, but as a once in a lifetime experience, it must be worth £200 to someone.

Q. Who was Oscar Wilde? A. A large, dry fruit.

A quick one today, basically an idea I sent to Callum and Al, for a possible addition to the next LLC.

I was listening to 'chain reaction', which is a great radio 4 interview show. One comedian interviews another then the guest becomes the host in the next show. (last week lenny henry talked to bill bailey, yesterday BB talked to simon pegg.) You can catch that show, the last this series on the Radio 4 www listen again thingy.

Anyway it doesn't matter, the point is simon pegg mentioned how it's reallyfunny just to read a trivial pursuit question then read the wrong answer eg.

Q.What is America's best selling brand of rum?
A. The grapes of wrath.

Q. What was Ghana's former name?
A. Bobby Kennedy.

If nothing else I thought i would do this as part of my links between acts next time.

Then I remembered the 2 ronnies mastermind sketch -where for some convoluted reason(a slow satelite link or something) the first answer doesn't come until after the second question ie.

What is the larget living primate?
(no answer)

Who is the prime minister ?
The gorilla.

Who's catchphrase is how tickled I am?
Tony Blair......

We could do this as a sketch - say it's an homage to great comedians of the past (rip off) the beauty is it's easy to write via e-mail with each person adding a bit.

More exciting is the possibility of having the audience write the sketch as the weekly audience competition. We could pass round a sheet of paper and each table would add a question and answer then fold over the top- so only their answer is visible when they pass it on. The next table would write a question in front of the last answer, so that it made a funny pair, and would add the genuine answer to their question below, fold over, pass it on...

Best of all - at the end we cut the paper in two halves and have two scripts to perform. It looks a little complicated but i think with a good explanation in the intro- and a clear well designed paper to pass round, it could work.

What do you think?

NEXT GIGS:

SUNDAY 2ND OF APRIL.
MIDDLESBOROUGH GONG SHOW

TUESDAY 4TH OF APRIL. 8.30 FOR A 9.00 START.
THE THIRD 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

MONDAY 10TH APRIL - THE STAND -EDINBURGH.

Gig 22 -The Second LLC.

hello. It's midnight, and i'm waiting for the rice cooker to go so i can have my dinner after long live comedy's second outing.
this is the first time i've done the blog while still a bit pissed after the gig.

It was a good one again. Still enough of an audence to justify the whole excercise. I forgot to turn on my tape recorder, so I'll have to try and remember how it went. I did a lot of stuff based on TV themes, there was good and bad- they liked my B.A. based A team lyrics, didn't go so much with the murdoch stuff.

Christian Steel was our unwilling headliner, Sahra Millican switched to an earlier spot as she

Balls - this s taking ages i'm going to save as draft and finish in the morning.

Right! Bright and breezy now! As I was saying 12 hours ago, Sahra had been gigging for a few days and needed an early night, so she went on in the first section and Christian took over as headliner - and stormed it, apart from a weird idea about racing kid/midgets like greyhound chasing savlon (I can't quite remember) it was the best set I've ever seen him do. Anyway - for a rundown of the night go to the long live comdey site.

The big 3 were mostly acting as comperes this week, doing new material in 5 minute links between the other acts. As I said, I did a lot of music stuff - the Johnny B. Goode bit, based on yesterday's entry, and some (fairly cheap) bits based on TV themes.. heres my a team lyrics, to go over the rock guitar bit

"Look at BA he's clearly the best one
just look at all the gold he's got
he went to the jewelers in cash converters
and said I'll have the fucking lot.

he even cares for kids with learning problems
he has set up a special school
some people look down on the mentally disadvantaged
But BA he pities the fool"

-but strangely intolerant of howling mad murdoch, charity begins at home BA.

"Howlin' mad murdoch totally crazy
after all - he'd seen the horrors of war
he'd dropped nepalm on vietcong strong holds
and killed rice farmers by the score

(Over the 'middle 8?' of the tune)
burning death
will fall upon you
like rain
but it will
take your skin off."

DA DA DA DA DA....

-Then pointed out that he's not really THAT crazy, maybe 'delightfully eccentric' murdoch would be better

"If were honest he's not that crazy
but in one episode he talked to a plant
but he was still sane enough to fly helicopters
and take part in elaborate plans"

There there also was face what was the point of him?
The show was supposed to appeal to young boys, but his special thing was he was slightly handsome. He certainly wasn't my favourite and anyone who says he was is lying.

NEXT GIGS:

SUNDAY 2ND OF APRIL.
MIDDLESBOROUGH GONG SHOW

TUESDAY 4TH OF APRIL. 8.30 FOR A 9.00 START.
THE THIRD 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

MONDAY 10TH APRIL - THE STAND -EDINBURGH.

Johhny B. Goode

One of the most famous riffs in guitar history is on Johnny B. Goode. You know it, during the chorus..

Go! Go,
(Ning, Ning, Ning, Ning, Ning!) Go! Johnny, go! Go! Go!-
(Ning, Ning, Ning, Ning, Ning!) Go! Johnny, go! Go! Go!-
(Ning, Ning, Ning, Ning, Ning!) Go! Johnny, go! Go! Go!-
(Ning, Ning, Ning, Ning, Ning!) Go! Johnny, go! Go! Go!-
Johnny B. Goode.

When I was young I thought being able to play that riff would be the coolest thing ever. But, as the more musical among you will already know, that riff is 1 note hammered out 5 times - not even very fast. You put a finger on the string, wait for your solo and 1,2,3,4,5. That's it. This realisation has made me see the song in a completely different light.

"Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well,
But he could play the guitar just like a ringin' a bell."

I always thought 'like ringing a bell' implied easily. Now I know it means he could only produce one monotonous note. Possibly it means he put a rock in his guitar and shook it to make a noise. It's not really surprising he 'never ever learned to read or write so well'. I'm starting to imagine Johnny as an inbred simpleton, perhaps one of his many brothers, saying 'Go, Johhny, go go -show the nice man what you can do with that there gee-tar.' Remember this is 'Deep down in Louisiana, close to New Orleans,' where you have to make your own entertainment. The second verse includes...

"He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack,
Go sit beneath the tree by the railroad track.
Old engineers would see him sittin' in the shade,
Strummin' with the rhythm that the drivers made."

He sits watching trains and copies the noise.
'Choo-choo!'
'Yes, Johnny it's a choo choo.'

"When people passed him by they would stop and say,
'oh, my but that little country boy could play'"

-Yup, and the doctors said he would never walk.

If you wan to see me do something based on this and a few other music based laughs, then come to our gig tonight.

NEXT GIG:

TUESDAY 21ST OF MARCH. 8.00.
THE SECOND NIGHT OF 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

Comic songs.

So much for writing every day. Ho hum.

I'm thinking that the way to add to my act is to add another comic song. I've had a lot of short gigs, (The Chortle Awards, The gong show.) so I've lost track of what I'd do in a 10 - 15 minute act. I think the guitar is one way to stand out and I think I have some talent for it. Also, people doing songs is still pretty rare - at least in Newcastle - there's only me and Les Paul Marshall, While it seems more common among big comics - Bill Bailey, The Mighty Boosh, John Shuttleworth etc.

But a lot of people are resistant to the comic song. Al Dawes is still not convinced, saying a song was 1 minute of material stretched to 5 minutes of time. This certainly can be the case. The warm up at the Gong show was a comedy Neil Diamond impersonator, He couldn't impersonate Neil Diamond - but that's hardly an act. He had a Song about a Pizza Delivery boy from Hell - which didn't seem to contain any funny lines - it was just the fact that a heavy rock song about a guy who (get this) delivers pizzas, was supposed to be enough of a crazy idea.

On the other hand, some songs can be beautifully crafted bits of stand up that would make you laugh even if just spoken. Bill Bailey does an amazing over blown love song about falling in love...

You made me see so many things that I had never noticed
like the snowflake that lands upon the eyelash of a startled deer
or the duck who lands on a frozen pond,
but the power of our love turns this simple act,
into an anthropormorphic drama,
where Mr. Duck's embarrassed and the other ducks are laughing...

And falling out again...

The snowflake on the eyelash of a startled deer,
Has turned to puss that oozes from an open wound,
the deer, now blinded, stumbles into a ravine.
The duck lies shredded in a pancake,
soaking in the hoi-sin of your lies...

Magic. This is what I'd like to do. I think too many comic songs are twisting the lyrics of existing songs into funny shapes. To me this is like getting laughs by drawing a moustache (or a knob) on a painting as opposed to painting your own funny picture. I want to paint my own pictures. Still, I'm not quite at that stage - at tommorow's show you can expect the A-team theme tune with funny lyrics. Oh well.

NEXT GIG:

TUESDAY 21ST OF MARCH. 8.00.
THE SECOND NIGHT OF 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

The BIg Issue.

I do a joke about the big issue which ends;

"when they were just begging I'd feel a bit guilty walking past, now, they're just poorly stocked news-agents - I feel quite justified in taking my custom elsewhere."

I'm starting to wonder if this is acceptable. I've done this at the Cumberland Arms home-cooking night and it's got a big laugh - and that's a fairly hippy dippy place, with more than its fair share of poets, social workers, vegetarians and other left wing stereo types.

But maybe if it was on the radio there'd still be letters in from workers at shelter, or someone who sold enough big issues to buy a suit and got a job. I'm being too sensitive now, that last line looks like a piss-take even though i came up with it trying to think of a typical big issue success story.

The truth is, as I say in the joke, I do like the big issue - at least in theory. The philosophy behind it is that instead of begging, which by definition puts you at a lower status than people who give you the money, they become sellers of a valuable commodity which we actively want to buy. This point is in there - it's just that because it's a joke it has to end negatively.

Here's a joke.
"I had a bad stomach yesterday, I was straining away and finnaly, woosh, all over the place. And then I got off the bus."
(I didn't say it was good.)

Now try this.
"I was doing some DIY, a bit of plumbing. I'm not qualified but it was a simple job so I just had a bash, and now those women don't have to walk 8 miles for water."

Is that funny? No. Well, maybe in a post modern* sense. You can pull back to reveal a situation or behaviour is actually much worse, but it doesn't work when it turn out to be much better. So I'd like to end my joke like this;

"when they were just begging I'd feel a bit guilty giving them money and implicitly stating my social superiority, now, they're just well stocked news-agents - I feel quite justified in making a transaction between equals without the stigma of charity."

But it wouldn't be as funny.


NEXT GIG:

TUESDAY 21ST OF MARCH. 8.00.
THE SECOND NIGHT OF 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

*whatever the fuck is meant by a phrase which appears to mean 'after now'.

gig 21 - our first show.

First, sorry for the delay, if I'm going to bother with this blog at all I'll have to update it more than once a week. I'm basically apologising to myself - this is pretty much a private excercise in writing, it's just that the fact that other people could potentially (though not actually) read it, means I'm more likely to write it.

The first night of Long Live Comedy was last night. It was well enough attended to make it worthwhile, thanks to Callum's mates. I thought I'd done my share by putting up posters in town, but they obviously didn't work as there were no strangers in the audience. Hopefully I can get a handful of people down next time. Thanks to a cancellation I ended up doing more than I'd expected. I did the routine I did for the student awards and Cal and I did a longer link that sort of made a sketch about me performing a magic trick. Al also did 10 minutes including a good dose of new stuff. For a full rundown of the show see the LLC site (although not yet, give me till the weekend.)

Well, I forced myself to write something today -but as you can see I couldn't really be bothered. I listened to a compilation of Douglas Adams' writing in the car last week (thank the lord for libraries and talking book sections) and was inspired. Adams is only laugh out loud funny about once in 500 words, but he's always interesting and just, well, nice. I think rather than always limply describing the trials of a half-arsed wannabe stand up (which is only of interest to other half-arsed wannabe stand ups-and even then not much) I'm going to try writing funny things. And I don't mean always writing bits of stand up. I'm going to try to occassionally write stuff that's interesting and just, well, nice.

But not today, obviously. Today I'll just tell you that I'm planning to write stuff that's interesting and just, well, nice.

20th gig, 4th place.

Well, I didn't win. But I was still hoping for a decent review out of it. Though the eventual winner, Tony Richardson, was so far from the kind of stuff I like, that I had no idea what the judges were after. I'm still not sure. I think all of my stuff is fairly similar - so why the judges liked the start but hated the end - I have no idea. Cal and Al have both seen Tony and were surprised he got through - apparently he's a decent compere, but not really a stand up in his own right, and that's how he came across - confident on stage, but with a few unrelated bits and bobs, rather than a polished act. Strangely, he got through to the finals last year too. I don't think he'll win as he has a very similar style to Chris Martin, but he's not quite as good.

Merlin, who on paper had the best review, thinks there was dirty work afoot. I spoke to him more than anyone else (loner weirdos of a feather flock together) he's a really interesting guy - even though he's studying geology he knows enough about electronics to build his own (rather beautiful) valve amps.

I've shortened the reviews to the worst and (where possible) best bits, and attempted to put them in order of preference of the judges - I don't know how valid this is, as going off the reviews, Merlin should have won. I do have to add that apparent 3rd place Killian isn't my cup of tea either, as he starts with a joke about being unapologetically Irish, 'excuse me if I don't riverdance onto the stage' -but delivers this in an English accent, his next joke being based on the reasons why he purposefully lost his accent.


Tony Richardson
he fumbled an early punchline and muddled the words ‘resignation’ and ‘rejection’
He’s a skilful storyteller, adept at creating comic images in the audience’s minds

Merlin Blencowe.
This dry, sardonic stand-up is relentless in his barrage of often-punny one-liners.
Not every gag worked by any means,

Killian Monson
It’s a low-key approach that works very effectively,
the set went a little off the boil in the last couple of minutes.

Peter Thompson covered lots of bases in his set: starting with some quirky quickies, moving on to a more extended offbeat routine about Isambard Kingdom Brunel and ending with a mini-rock opera dedicated to Planet Of The Apes. The routine, however,  suffers from diminishing returns: starting strongly with decent,  fast-paced gags, the Brunel bit losing its way a bit and the song proving a rather aimless waste of time. A bit too much of a mixed bag, at the moment, but not without potential.

Dan Thornton,
He’s at ease on stage,
like a radio DJ reading out items from the day’s tabloids – entertaining enough, but unspectacular.

Robbie Dale
didn’t even get to the boil.

Vincent Peters
a nervy performance by a clearly inexperienced act

Tim Cant
his act is a none-too-subtle rip-off

So I guess I was 4th.

NEXT GIG:
POSSIBLY- THE GONG SHOW MIDDLESBOROUGH- SUN 5TH MAR.

TUESDAY 7TH MAR. 8.00.
THE BIG ONE, THE FIRST NIGHT OF 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.