gig 30- LLC

Back at the good old LLC where I tried out some of the notes from yesterday. Go to the LLC site for the full write up, based on Al's blog as usual.

I've never had much luck with women, I think they're intimidated by my raw femininity.
This worked alright - got a 3 out of 5 while I was still asking for marks.

People complain wind farms are unattractive, why don't they just put a modle of two guys sawing a log on the top.
This would have been 5/5 - but has to be accompanied by the explainitory gesture to work-I don't know why-, everyone clearly liked it anyway so I stopped asking for marks.

I once worked in a library. The pay was rubbish, but I could borrow as many books as I wanted for free.
This didn't work - but I went on to talk about a real job I had in a jigsaw shop, and this worked ok. People would mime the shape of boxes while they tied to explain what they wanted, which didn't help much as all jigsaws come in rectangular boxes. Also people always ask for jigsaws for their kids, and when you show them the ones in that age range they always say - well, he's very bright, and add a few years. This is annoying because a. Why did you ask me in the first place? b. They're bullshitting, because if it was true sometimes people would say, well that looks a bit hard. he's a bit thick, he still pisses himself sometimes, he's no Doogie Howser.

Nothing else worked that well, there might be something in the formula one stuff but I needed to work it out more, I was obviously winging it. Well - mission for the next 3 days - write a killer 8 minutes for glasgow.

SATURDAY 3RD OF JUNE.
-GLASGOW, 'SO YOU THINK YOU'RE FUNNY?' HEATS.

Notebooks.

Nearly out of the woods as far as my work goes, so I can start allowing myself half an hour a day to write this. Today the contents of the latest mini note book I always carry round.

I've never had much luck with women, I think they're intimidated by my raw femininity.

People complain wind farms are unattractive, why don't they just put a modle of two guys sawing a log on the top.

I once worked in a library. The pay was rubbish, but I could borrow as many books as I wanted for free.

Have you heard of the freegans? They're like vegans, but they help the environment by not adding to the consumer culture, they just use stuff people throw away. So they get their food from bins outside sandwich shops, there's already a word for people who do that isn't there? Tramps.

Foreign words sound stupid when you translate them.

Ein - one. Stein - beer glass. If Albert Einstein had been british he'd have been Albert one glass. How far would he get with that name? 'I've invented relaticvity!' 'Shut up one-cup! -pissed again.'

Gran prix. Big prize. That sounds like something out of the beano. 'Come on Pie face and Curly - lets design a super cartie to beat the softies and win the big prize.'

Because of the fins and spoliers formula one are pushed down into the road so they can handle really well. They could actually drive on the ceiling, so why the hell don't they? It's so boring now, you might as well watch scaletrics. Why don't they fake it like wrestling? 'Here's Schumaker, going into the final bend, and what's this, he's stopped and got out of the car, and -I don't believe it - he's gone to the sign saying 'Big race Finish line' and he's turned the arrow around. Now it's pointing into that disused mine, well this could cause problems for coulthard.'

I'll try a few bits of this in my compere duties tonight. Plus a new competition which means me, cal and al have to dance - why did that sound like a good idea.


NEXT GIG:
TUESDAY 30TH OF MAY. 8.30 FOR A 9.00 START. -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

SATURDAY 3RD OF JUNE.
-GLASGOW, 'SO YOU THINK YOU'RE FUNNY?' HEATS.

GIG 28, 29.

Good greif, nearly 10 days wothout an entry. oh dear. The loyal readers may well have given up on me. Both of them. Ho hum. Anyway, an entry was needed to publicise the next LLC show coming up on Tuesday, it's actually so long since I wrote anything that I'll first have to tell you what happened last time. I finally got round to doing the cowboy material, and it went down pretty well. The second song is still a bit flat, it's religious country and western about how Jesus is always watching us, even when we don't want him to. It ends with the line;

Standin' by my shoulder, watchin' over me,
Why don't you go and buy your own damn magazine.

I like this line, but it doesn't get the laugh of the earlier refrain;

Why don't you stop and think about how it makes me feel,
Not when I'm on the can, are you for fuckin' real.

As usual the line which ticks both boxes wins. (toilets-check. swearing-check.) If I do it again I'll have to swap them round, and finish on the bigger laugh. It was fun to do the character in the compere slots rather than as an act. I enjoyed playing with the idea that I thought I was hosting the country and western part of the show, and acting bemused as to why all the acts weren't country at all. Especially after the surreal vic anb bobesque doubleact 'The Toothpaste Expedition' where I got a nice laugh returning, bemused, to the stage and sayng 'What the hell kind of bluegrass was that?'

Gig 29 was a minor competition in Manchester. Some of the Mancs up for our show had said it was a weird crowd, and they might be enjoying it but not very vocal. I should have taken this to heart a bit more, but when my first 3 jokes got no audible response it really threw me. I got lost, stammered a bit and had to apologise while I worked out what was the next bit of my set. Rubbish. This cannot happen again. I knew I hadn't won the crowd but a promoter might like the material anyway and have me back, but this is unlikely to happen if I also look unprofessional. I thought I knew the routine inside out, but I'd learned it with laughs. It's like being in a play when your partner forgets their line- it's pretty hard to remember your next line until they've done their bit. I've been remembering joke-laugh-joke-laugh. If it goes joke-joke-no laugh it throws me off. So, audiences, remember to do your bit next time.

See you on Tuesday, hopefully. We may be cursed by the bank holiday again. It would be a shame to be back to 10 people watching, especially after last time when we had to get more chairs out.

NEXT GIG:
TUESDAY 30TH OF MAY. 8.30 FOR A 9.00 START. -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

SATURDAY 13RD OF JUNE.
-GLASGOW, 'SO YOU THINK YOU'RE FUNNY?' HEATS.

Weekly, weakly?

There's been some talk of changing the LLC so it's every week rather than every fortnight. There are good points and bad points.

Good points;
- if it's every week people think- 'Ah, Tuesday! Long Live Comedy Day, off we trot.' 'Rather than 'Ah Tuesday! But is it this Tuesday or next Tuesday?' 'Check on the website.' 'Can't be arsed.' 'Well, leave it then.' This could give us more bums on seats. Which is what we want, not people, just bums on seats.

-We get to perform more.

Bad Points;
-doing it weekly might just thin out our audience even more, rather than 10-20 people a fortnight we'll have 5-10 people a week.

-we have to do everything twice as much. For me this is puting up posters and preparing the handouts for the games, which I guess I could manage.

-We have to find more acts. We've been fine so far but we certainly don't have to put off as many acts as we put on. Finding even 3 or 4 every week might be a stretch.

-We have to perform more. An extra gig to polish existing material is fine, but if we keep our strict 'no repeated material within 3 months' policy, it'll be hard to find that much new stuff. - Maybe we could repeat stuff, so if you came two weeks in a row, you'd see some of the same stuff again, but come back in a fortnight and it's guaranteed all new.

-they might not let us. I don't know if the dog and parrot management are astonished by the boost in beer sales we've created. There are often more people watching us than in the whole downstairs bar, but we're not breaking any records.

So it looks like there are more bad than good. Still, can we call ourselves comedians and turn down a weekly residency slot? Are we men or mice?

I say we pull up our socks and go for it, more ambitious than ever, big ideas, big props, one week biting satire, the next a semi improvised version of 'Treasure Ireland' where Long John silver is made of wood, apart from a real leg, and all the pirates are incontinent, on wards, ever onwards, for England, Harry and St. George!

NEXT GIG:
TONIGHT!
TUESDAY 16TH OF MAY. 8.30 FOR A 9.00 START. -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

WEDNESDAY 17TH OF MAY.
-ANOTHER TRIP TO MANCHESTER FOR A LOCAL COMPETITION. IF ANYONE'S DRIVING DOWN TO SEE US I CAN GET YOU THE DETAILS / GIVE YOU A LIFT.

Lazy, Lazy.

Whoops. Nothing for a week, not good. I am still busy but I'll try to get back up to speed this week, writing the blog can be my break from real work. However, haven't done any real work today so can't write much yet. Last week was the amused moose heat- which I wasn't in. (arse.) It was won by Christian Steel - keeping up the high standards he first demonstrated at the LLC. And tonight in London is the final of the Chortle Awards with (sort of) local boys, Chris Martin and Donnachda O'Connail.


See? Award winning comedians and you could have seen them all close-up for £2 at the LLC. Come tomorrow - and witness the stars of tomorrow today. That's not a bad tagline, maybe I should put that on the posters.

NEXT GIG:

TUESDAY 16TH OF MAY. 8.30 FOR A 9.00 START. -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

WEDNESDAY 17TH OF MAY.
-ANOTHER TRIP TO MANCHESTER FOR A LOCAL COMPETITION. IF ANYONE'S DRIVING DOWN TO SEE US I CAN GET YOU THE DETAILS / GIVE YOU A LIFT.

That Mitchell and Webb sound.

I just came on today to delete the duplicate of yesterday's post which I somehow posted twice, so I might as well write something, even though I am incredibly busy. I thought I'd quickly direct you to the best comedy sketch show I've heard in ages - hence the title, but on checking radio 4 I've found it's already been replaced by Mitch Benn -oh, the humanity!

So, if you are interested it'll be a lot harder to hear this show than if i'd told you last week when it was still available to 'listen again' - but if you come across it it's worth a look. Mitchell and Webb are best known for acting in Peep Show, which I've never got into, but this is also written by them, amongst others. It's got some repeating characters but the great thing is the number of one off sketches which really work without the benefit of a catchphrase or familiar character.

There's a great one about two Nazi SS officers, when one suddenly notices something about their uniforms; 'they've got skulls on them. Actual skulls. Are you sure we're not the baddies?'

A great sketch, reminisent of the spiralling '4 yorkshirmen'- (Cardboard box? yeah. Luxury!-we lived in't hole in't middle't road.) starts with the observation that a mobile phone doesn't need a clock, and that a watch doesn't need to show the date and ends with...
'I had the same trouble buying a car. I told the salesman I required a mode of transport, not a living room on wheels. Let those who don't wish to feel air rushing into their face at 60 miles an hour buy windscreens, rather than foist them upon the rest of us.'

Another one, now a little dated as the show was first aired a few years back, is an address by the head of Hufflepuff house. As none of you will know, you all being too cool to read them, Hufflepuff is the crap house at Harry Potter's school. Even in the real books the situation is described thus;

'For instance, Slytherin
Took only pure-blood wizards
Of great cunning, just like him,
And only those of sharpest mind
Were taught by Ravenclaw
While the bravest and the boldest
Went to daring Gryffindor,
Good Hufflepuff, she took the rest'

-The sketch has the apologetic head trying to console his students; 'You may be feeling a tad disappointed that you've been graded as 'the rest'. But it could be worse - Slytherin's policy of taking all the evil students has come in for some criticism too.'

Anyway, it's a great show, listen in if it's ever repeated again - they're touring some big venues in the winter, based, I guess on popularity of Peep Show, which, as I said, they didn't write.

NEXT GIG:

Tues 9 May - Newcastle
Funny Bones comedy club, The Newton Park, Benton Road, Longbenton, Newcastle NE7 7EB
8 for 8.30 £2 (pay on the door).
Food available.
www.funnybonescomedy.co.uk 0191 266 2010
Compere: JOHN SCOTT
Contenders include AL DAWES, BRATCHY, CALLUM CRAMB, CHRIS MARTIN, CHRISTIAN STEEL, DAVID McCUE, DONNCHAD O'CONNAILL, JOHN PARKIN, KILLIAN MONSON, SEAN MORAN

- CAL AND AL GOT IN SO GO AND SUPPORT THEM.

TUESDAY 16TH OF MAY. 8.30 FOR A 9.00 START. -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

Gigs 26,27, 28.

Sorry for the delay - I've missed 3 days, but then again this is the second time I've made an entry on the weekend, so you're really only down by one. (I don't normally do weekends.)

I've been busy - into the last month for my MA coursework - then just the small matter of a dissertation, and I did 3 gigs last week. (Al did about 10 - but who's counting.)

So, gig 26 was the LLC - see the site for details of that. 27 and 28 were both in Manchester and the whole team - me, al and callum went down. The first gig was a bit of a disappointment - it was basically a get together for comics, about 15 people were in the large room by the time we left, and about 10 were performing themselves. Some of these we'd seen at gong shows and other events. There are so many nights and comics about it sometimes seems there is an unbelievable ammount of competition, but on the other hand, you see the same faces so often it sometimes seems like there are only 50 comics in the north of England. Anyway - Perhaps jaded or overly concerned with what they're going to do themselves - a roomful of comics doesn't make the best audience - it was hard to get a laugh anywhere. I did about the best- my style includes more 'gag' punny oneliners, which can generate a little laugh in most cases - or a groan. Al and Cal build more on personality and anecdotes, usually audiences warm to them much better, but there was no warming this audience.

We'd also been on first and maybe it got better later, but Al had managed to wangle himself a second gig, so we shot off to the next venue. This was a stylish little bar on a corner a few miles down the road, with huge round windows which made it like playing in a diving pool. It was not well filled, they were suffering from the post bank holiday lull that's also been keeping down attendence at the LLC. But, it was (half) full of real punters, nicely drunk.

When we came in Ricky Gervais was on. Well, if I took my glasses off he was. There was a comic who looked like him a fair bit, but who was identical in style and mannerisms - he even had his own carl pinkington. As much of his stuff came from disecting the idiotic musings of a friend. Even if it is a deliberate rip-off, he's a great actor - and if it's not, he's a great comic.

Anyway - best of all, someone hadn't shown up so Cal and I both got on for another 5, which made up for the earlier gig. I think it went OK for both of us - the crowd was spaced out and pockets were geting into it, while others were ignoring us completely. So not an overt success, but laughs in all the right places. Al, who'd been building up to it and had 10 minutes to win them over, went down a storm.

Well- better late than never. But expect more interupptions. I have a lot of work, and on Saturday my back seized up when I bent to tie my shoes. I am officially the world's most decrepit student. So forgive me if don't find time to write this between shuffling my zimmer to the library and back.

NEXT GIG:

TUESDAY 16TH OF MAY. 8.30 FOR A 9.00 START. -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

Notebooks.

I've been carrying my mini notebooks about, but have now got a pile, and never know which one is the current, so I've had a clear out. Here's all the ideas from them that haven't been used in some form already. Some of these aren't jokes yet, and some never will be but here you go...

The posh flush buttons in the dog and parrot toilets, which is actually 2 buttons in 1, so you can select a light or vigorous flush - this seemed out of place in a toilet with no paper and no door.

I've got something about movies with twists, such as 'The Village'- the point being they don't look interesting enough to bother watching until you know the twist. But when you do know the twist, well you know it already so you don't want to watch again.

The difference between us and America - we don't have the right to bare arms. But it's not often warm enough for a T-shirt anyway.

All Daves are nice. Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters - nicest bloke in rock, Good old David Jason - Del Boy and perfick pop larkin. It's hard to think of a Dave who isn't alright. But some names go the other way - try to think of a nice Adolf.

We should have euphemisms for everything, not just rude stuff. 'I was just sinking the porcelain fleet' - washing the dishes.

'I like your shoes- Where'd you get them?'
'Camper.'
'Oooh. I like your shoes!'

When the queen opens an art gallery - 'Got, Got, need, got...'

Animal rights protesters throw blood over people wearing fur, Where'd they get it? They're either very hypocrites or very committed.

Sod's Law - if something can go long it will. (Well, you wouldn't expect someone called 'sod' to be an optimist.)

NEW DEFINITION - Stigmata - dirty marks on the hands and feet which mark someone out as a true devotee of Stig of the dump.

STILL HAVEN'T TRIED THIS LINE; Silks and Spices - this is what explorers always bring back. Why? To impress girls. 'Put your frock on love, were going for a curry.'

One of Jimi Hendrix' most famous moments was playing the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock. It's actually a cover - he didn't even write it.

I might try some of these at the LLC tonight. I'll be either preparing for Wed with new stuff to bring my act up to the required time, or if that's cancelled (possible according to a cryptic message from Al) I'll finally get to give my cowboy stuff another airing - before it goes back in with the mothballs.


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

WEDNESDAY 3RDTH OF MAY.
SOMEWHERE IN MANCHESTER.