HeadSpill

Back in March my car was broken into while I was doing my show at the frog, and my projector and screen were knicked.

Despite being bloody annoyed and having to clean up broken glass before driving home, I noticed a small disgusting gobet of snotty phlem on the drivers seat…and it wasn’t mine.
I don’t watch the show CSI, but being the ’slightly detched from reality’ person I am it occured to me that if I wiped it up and kept it safe the police could do a DNA test on it to find the culprit.
They came round the next day and dusted the car for prints as a matter of course, when I told them about my bit of snotty evidence and I don’t know if they were amused or intrigued at my attempts to be a forensic detective, but they humoured me and swobed the snot with their special police dipper-probe thing.

And a few weeks later they got a match. And they caught him. And they charged him.

TAKE THAT MANCHESTER CRIME!

The police agreed I was lucky, they don’t always catch the pettiest of thieves, but did commend my presence of mind, which help catch the bugger. Hurray!

Have you seen the new advertising campaign from Microsoft? The one that goes ‘I’m a PC’ and uses clips of people all over the world adlibbing the slogan? “I’m a PC and this is my office” quips a deep sea fisherman. “I am a PC and I am a human being. Not a human doing. Not a human thinking. A human being.” spurts a mind and body doctor at his work desk lazily, not caring who knows his lethargy.

Theres something wrong with these ads and it took until last week to work it out. Microsoft dont make PCs. Microsoft make operating systems for PCs.

I dont go around saying ‘I’m a house’ even though I live in one. The operating system lives inside the computer, it’s not the board and chips inside the casing.

I recently dusted down an old laptop we’d bought on the cheap that was formatted ex-office gear sold on. My intention only use it for writing, the absolute bare minimum. The 30 day trial of windows ran as successfully as a slug escaping from a salt factory and I was buggered if I was going to fork out for a new licence, let alone new laptop.

I’m no techy, just inquisitive, but I know there must have been a way around it, and there was. A free operating system.

After fishing around on the net I found there’s a good few ones; Ubuntu, Fedora, Lynux. All operating systems just like Windows. Ok, so you can’t play games on ‘em  like Call of Duty, but for basic office and internet they are fine, perfectly workable and not hard to install.

I’m not very political, and  still use windows, but have a wonderful feeling of satisfaction in relinquishing dependancy from the worlds largest corporation by not needing windows just to type a bloody letter. In their adverts, by aluding to ownership of the actual hardware, the ferret like marketing bods are seamlessly wallpapering over distinction between a computers hardware and what they actually sell, and while an accurate revision would be ‘I’m an operating system’ I see no reason why they should get away with it when other brands like ‘kellogs’ have to clarify with terms like ‘*serving suggestion’ just so you know your packet of cornflakes doesn’t comes with a free bowl and cockerel.

I’m a PC, and I use Ubuntu.

Life without microsoft windows, life without walls.

Wedding
So I’m at the wedding of some friends in Windermere, it’s December, cold, and the ceremony is at the bit where the bride throws the bouquet. As the bunch of flowers flies into the air behind her I try to take a photo but all I can hear is my girlfriend shouting the word ‘baggsied!’ (a term meaning ‘get off, it’s mine’). According to tradition I am now next in line to get married. Apparently.

The Speaker
I’ve done some filming with ther BBC for a new show called ‘The speaker’ (see more here: www.bbc.co.uk/speaker ) which goes out in January on BBC 2. It’s a competition to find Britain’s best young speaker and after every new episode there’s a new short film published online covering a day in the life of someone who’s job is public speaking. One week It’ll be a singer, another week a teacher, and then I’m on week 6 or thereabouts talking about being a comic.

The recording took place at a small gig in Stockport which was lovely, so I’m hoping it shows in the broadcast.

Fallout 3
The last 2 months my life has been sucked dry by the gaming pleasure of Fallout 3. The joy of wandering around a post apocalyptic landscape listening to ‘I dont want top set the world on fire’, and shooting big monsters with bigger guns was the best game I’ve played in yonks. I want my life back now.

Telly
As you may or may not know I’m a massive fan of old and cult telly; everything from Quatermass and Starfleet (the puppet version, not the roddenbery one) to Edge of Darkness and my all time favourite Day of the Triffids (BBC ‘81 version), which is currently being remade, thanks to the success of New Doctor Who and the recent remake of Survivors.
Survivors, a  show from the 70’s was all about everyone dying out from a virus, this time a bird-flu type epidemic. It’s been all been a bit too sexy for my liking, not enough grime and unpleasentness. My biggest problem, however was the last episode didn’t actually end and just stopped as it got going to leave you wanting more, which is a bit rubbish.

Bye Bye 2008
It’s nearly the end of 2008, a time to reflect on what 2008 brought and set goals for 2009. For me the biggest achievments have been my edinburgh show,  despite the successs not being large in commercial terms I feel I’ve evolved as a comic. Also going fully self employed, which as no small task and will probably form the basis of a show in 2009.

Goodbye to the man.
I am now the man. My own boss. In October handed in my notice and filled in my first fax return to go self employed. It was and is a big deal.

Balancing life and work is not an easy equation, you can either have time or money. Ever since I decided I wanted to be a comic back in 2001 It soon became apparent that time was needed to write, travel and perform. This is opposed by work, or more specifically money. Money to travel, pay rent, eat and live generally.

Some comics, even pro comics still do work other than comedy to pay the bills.  It doesn’t make them any less gifted as comics, but it’s merely a temporary means of supplementing their career, nothing more.

I’m a comedian. I’m also a middleweight graphic designer and have been for a while, with a ‘career’ job, the kind agencies advertise for in newspapers, and can pay quite hansomely, up to 30k in some places.

Q. Which of the above titles is more valid?

‘Middleweight’ might sound grand but I never called myself ‘middleweight’ by choice. I was told I was ‘middleweight’ by an agency bod over the phone once when they asked what I could do, I still prefer simply ‘designer’, if at all. It took me years to confidently say I’m a comedian, and anyone can use that title simply by getting on stage for 5 minutes.

A. neither. 

I’d managed to negociate reduced hours to accomodate my career in comedy, which didn’t happen overnight, but even then the more time I’d had the more I wanted to fully capitalise on the gig opportunities I was getting.

I spoke to a few freelancers, most had become freelancers due to other commitments or because they’d never been in full time employment and couldn’t ever see themselves staying in the same place for long time.

People I know who are self employed are the most overworked people I know, they don’t have a pay cheque coming in at the end of the month, so whatever work they get needs to be done as soon as possible. Also while they are doing that work they need to be looking for more work and selling themselves to do when that work is done.

I went to to ‘business start up’ seminar. I thought it would help and it did, but not in the way I thought. The main lessons I pretty much already knew from chasing comedy bookings, self confidence, go out and get the work, have an angle thats uniquely yours.

I liked freelancing, and started doing some out of hours work as well as gigs (no time to socialise), but did nothing to get more, thinking it too unstable and irregular to take seriously. Though suppose I knew the real reason wasn’t this, or abilty, but somthing more substantial. Fear.

Fear is a great motivator. You can do a lot of things with it. I’d never not had a full time job and couldn’t fathom how I’d survive without a regular pay packet at the end of the month. Even though some months gigs and freelance paid plently.

Life had become like ’stone soup’, the story where a traveller puts a stone in a pot, adds water and veg and makes stone soup. He deceives the locals it’s the stone that makes the tastey broth, when in actuality it’s all the other stuff thats added that makes it wholesome.  I was making stone soup and focusing on the stone.

The next day I handed my notice in. That was 3 months ago.  I’ve not looked back.

(Submission piece for The Scotsman)
August is fast approaching already I’m packing and racking my brains to make sure I’ve covered everything. clean underwear, check. Digs, check. Multimedia bells & whistles, check. Tightly written hilarious Show, check (I hope).
I’m taking my first full stand up show to the fringe, and to be honest the thing stressing me out the most isn’t submerging my brain into the all encompassing creative din of sound, colour and taste. Or my show, which still needs work, but is robust enough to set sail on the sea of competitive mirth. The cause of my furrowed brow is the multimedia elements that go with the show. Also being the control freak I am it’s all triggered by remote control instead of having a tech on hand.

Comedy and technology aren’t exactly a marriage made in heaven, one is born of sponteneity, adaptability and  tangents that creates humour, the other is about order and numbers, and safe predictability. Arriving at a recent preview show, loaded with AV gear like an powerpoint terminator, one of the others comics, armed with only a handful of written notes made the comment ‘how can I compete with that?’ and as much I as I understood the question, it’s a bit of a moot point.

Multimedia Bells and whistles are exactly that, and shouldn’t be a distraction. If anything he’s far better equiped, and purer to the art form of stand up. Good writing is the core of any show, and if the show can’t be done without multimedia, then arguably it’s not straight stand up.

Increasingly comics at the fringe are using projection and multimedia elements to enhance their shows, and I’m biting off a sizable of in mixing character comedy, stand up and multimedia together in a themed show about eczema. Did I mention my show was about eczema?

The previews I’ve done so far already I’ve pressed the wrong button good few times. Ironically pressing the wrong button is getting a big laugh, which is a result, but not what I’d planned at all. As long as I don’t do it too much, I might just keep it in the show.

‘John Cooper: The 30 Year Itch’ is on at the Canons Gait at 7.15pm from 2nd - 25th August and is free.

I got the chance guest on the new Alfie Joey afternoon show on BBC radio Newcastle on friday, so I took it. We talked about the Edinburgh show, and it’s the first time I’ve tried to succinctly leap the verbal hurdles of ‘yes, it’s a comedy show about eczema’ and ‘eczema’s not funny’ its more about the experience of living with it and growing pains.

Before all that however, I remember I went to school with one of the presenter’s at the station, and on Alfies’ questioning, called Gilly Hope ‘posh’, which was probably not entirely true. I think I meant to say ’smart’, as she always had pig tails in, but then I had a big basin cut. Anyway, after the interview I called in on my mum, who as well as being a teacher at the school we both went to way back, was all to happy to dug out some embarassing old photos at my request.

If you’re reading this Gilly, it’s just a bit of fun.
Here you are behind and to the left of me. twice.

BEFORE.

AFTER.

oh yeah, my mum thinks Aflie is one of the ‘more sensible’ DJ’s on the radio.

Sometime last year I think I fell out of love with comedy. There were no signs, I didn’t see it coming. Everything in my personal life was great. better than great. Comedy was work, good work, but work all the same. I moved in with my girlfriend, and that was, and still is utterly splendid on many levels. In hindsight it’s a simple trap I suppose, sex vs the adrenaline rush of comedy. Why go to a gig for that fleeting but massive adulation of a job well done, or on occasion feint praise and a three hour drive, when there’s a steady flow of love at home, like having a lounge bar in the front room. I got sloppy, was making notes, but not really writing and over the relatively short space of 6 months my set became unpolished and flabby.

When I was single I was singularly motivated, I went to gigs and worked, and when I wasn’t gigging I went to gigs anyway as it was better than sitting at home.
Living with someone else changes that. It sounds obvious, but you don’t quite know how and what shape you’re life will take until you’re in that position yourself. You can’t just do stuff when you want like before, you just get in each others way, or don’t each other at all.

I read that back and it sound’s terrible, but it’s not. When you live with someone in ‘togetherness’ your stuff and her stuff start off sitting next to each other on bookcases, but eventually overlap, and when there’s no room left, you have to assert that that space on the shelf is for your Beat Takashi films, and not her Monkee’s DVD’s.

In the five months since moving in there’s a facet of me that wasn’t there before, well rounded isn’t the word, a difficult birth of compromise and assertion, tolerance and aggression.

There’s a difference between what you want and what you need.

When I was single I had a point to prove, a good point, but a point nontheless, comedy was my passion, and performing my outlet.

Finding your bestest partner, and someone who loves you regardless, I forgot the point I was trying to prove, and the dawning horror that I might not have actually had a point to prove at all, I just liked making the funny on stage.

I never planned to get hooked up and settled, it just kind of happened. I once said quite loftily ‘a successful relationship is by it’s nature compromise’ and still think that rings true. However a good relationship is also life experience and experience is good.

I’ve started writing loads again, I’ve started writing a about something very close to me, which might be quite painful in places, but it isn’t born out of proving a point, just wanting to live life better and more than I currently do. Not that anything was bad before, by my actions and experience I’m just a little more defined.

Leicester summer sundae festival. It’s cult rock poet John Cooper Clarke! How we laughed at the naming similarity. Well, not really. But how rock is he? Well on close inspection most of his face is made of gold, even his eyes. I was impressed.

I am becoming addicted to Hopi ear candles. I had my ears done with them and now I don’t feel like my ears are properly clean without having them done at least once a fortnight. I’d wanted to try them ever since I saw the picture in the holistic therapy shop of an old woman lying peacefully on her side while an unidentified hand holds a lit a candle made of beeswax in her ear, like her head’s a big waxwork cake, or she’s just died and they’re having some sort of weird party.

I also didn’t understand how they work either, and in my speculation before I got the courage to use one I made up my own theory about how they worked. What they actually do is create a kind of vacuum chimney in your ear because the candles are hollow so it gently sucks the wax out of your ear, but not knowing this I came up with the idea that their must be some kind of really long wick on the bottom that is pushed into your ear like an enema and all the wax drips down and mixes with the wax your ear, then cools down and you pull the whole thing out like one big plaster of Paris mould of your ear drum which you could keep and put in a jar.

Since I came back from the US I have work coming out my ears. Some good, and some utter bobbins-but-needs-doing-to-pay-the-bills. Gigs are slowly picking up as the new season approaches, and there’s been plently of freelance stuff on, but some things still need doing, like the small matter of looking for a flat with my partner of seven months, she’s in Edinburgh at the moment and I’m not. Not that I’m jealous or anything, I’m not (Grrrrrr). When she returns we begin the hard veiwing and staring and looking process. Having done one viewing myslef recently just to familiarise myself with the process, i now have my bull**** meter turned up to eleven to dismiss anything and everthing I hear from anyone from a lettings agency. If and when I, er, we, find somewhere we like, I reserve the right to fiddle with taps, poke things down radiators, sniff paint and afterwards drive to the property at night to measure the distance to the nearest shop selling fresh bread and monitor how long it take for two kids to drive past that constiutes ‘gang activity’ until I am wholely satisfyed that the new abode is a silent but accessable stealth castle, in which the feng shui will prevent all arguements from ever happening, and there is a wall big enough to for me to hook up my projector to my HD laptop with the Geforce 8600gt inside it and play Oblivion with the widescreen settings on, 8ft wide, like it’s on at the IMAX down the town. Such a place exists, I just need to find it.