So I am on the train again. I am, I think, quite an experienced train traveler. Most of all, I know what I want in a train journey - silence. Silence is by far the most enjoyable sound on a train. As such I take certain steps to encourage those around me to be silent, or as close to silent as one can expect without restricting their breathing. On this particular journey I booked a seat in the quiet coach, often the quiet coach is full of like minded people who expect silence. If this is not the case I have to take steps. I do everything that I can to avoid shouting SHUT UP!!!
Step one - display text books. This is often enough to initiate a short conversation about what I have the books for but this gives me the opportunity to explain that I want silence so I can get some work done. As much as I hate the awkward and stilted chitchat if it enables me to get some work done that is a win. Some people don't even require the conversation, they see the books and make the assumption that I want to do some work that's when general courtesy and common decency takes over and they SHUT THE FUCK UP.
If displaying the books doesn't work I have to rely on step two - a surly stare. Never underestimate the effectiveness of guilt. Guilt has been a powerful tool for getting shit done for a long time now. The catholic church for instance has fleeced billions over the years by guilting people into handing money over. Guilt created a country in the middle east and made me admit to stealing a bag of sweets when I was 8 years old... SHUT UP!
Given how effective guilt has been over the years it makes me wonder why guilt hasn't worked today. I am sitting here, I've got the text books in front of me and I'm staring like a surly superhero but I am still surrounded by a wall of sound. Why? The answer is simple - I'm surrounded by four old women from Kent. Selfishness is kryptonite to guilt and there isn't a more selfish force known like a retired woman from the home counties. SHUT UP!!
It's a complete lack of consideration for anyone around them that explains the behavior of these women. They actually had a conversation about how they were sitting in a quiet coach and how they were clearly going to annoy those around them... and then continued to natter. SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!!!!!
I will acknowledge that writing this blog and hoping that the woman next to me will read it may be the most passive aggressive thing I have done this year. I figure if I keep on writing SHUT UP in capital letters throughout this, she'll read it and get the message to SHUT THE FUCK UP... so far this hasn't worked. It's just not going to work. I'm going to have to say something, but how do you tell 4 women that the slack-jaw drivel coming out of their mouths conjures up phrases in my mind like 'justifiable homicide'.
...
Done. And by done I mean, I completely chickened out and since they definitely wont SHUT THE FUCK UP I'm going to watch a film on my iPad. What's the point?
Saturday 27 October 2012
Thursday 4 October 2012
Guilty as Sin
Forgive me father for I have sinned. It's been a shit load of days since my last blog and I'm feeling pretty guilty about it. Okay, I wasn't feeling that guilty until yesterday when a good friend reminded me that I hadn't posted a blog in a long time. I'm not sure what happened because I really enjoy writing a blog. I know it's low tech and that everyone is doing podcasts these days but it's the low tech aspect of it that I find appealing. If I'm going to do something I want it to be something that is already out of fashion... like a comedian actually writing a blog.
I don't know what's happened in the comedy world lately. Every comedian is doing a podcast. A couple of weeks ago I was a guest on a friends podcast and I've been asked to be on a fair few other friends podcasts over the last couple of months. Sure podcasts are easy to consume, I'm currently trying to learn French via podcast while I run to work each day, but are they really better for a comedian than the art of writing. Surely if you're going to write comedy for a living it's beneficial to occasionally write something down for consumption.
So I thought I'd give you a quick update on what's been going on since I last wrote a blog. The wife and I did a show together at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. It was great fun and we managed to sell out each night for the whole week run, which was a huge surprise to us both. This week we've been doing our tax returns and have tallied up our income and expenditure from the trip. We would have done okay from it except we couldn't drive to Adelaide like we'd planned because the roads from Sydney were flooded so we had to pay stupid money for last minute flights. Also we ate extremely well and often in fancy restaurants so we blew any chance of making a profit on food and wine. If you're going to work hard you should totally reward yourself by spending more than you earn. It's the attitude that has fostered a growing world economy for generations.
I have also just done my first solo stand up show. It was a 4 night run at the Sydney Fringe Festival. It was a great experience really and I need to thank all of my friends for coming along and supporting me. It took a few nights to work the show out and naturally I had industry people come to see it before I had got the show to where I wanted it to be but that's how the comedy industry works. What I found really odd about it was that since I knew a large percentage of the crowd I couldn't do any crowd work. One of my strengths is working through the crowd but that was removed from this show. It made the show harder by admission but also kept me from getting sidetracked and not finishing the show.
Originally the show had a introspective thread through it reflecting on my comedy career. By the second night I got rid of that and replaced it with a joke about a butt-plug. I realised that I'm a standup and I do standup. I find those honest and frank shows really wanky and I just couldn't sell it with any conviction. I tell jokes and by the end of the run that's what the show was, an hour of jokes. Just the way I like it.
Not a lot else is going on... oh yeah, the wife's pregnant. That's kind of a major thing that's going on in my life. It's due in January and I'm starting to get marginally weirded out by the whole thing. I guess future blogs (and yes there will be more) will talk about this in more detail but I can say that everything is going well. I can also say that I'm really happy the whole strange body transformation and carrying the unborn baby thing is happening to the wife and not me. It looks really hard!!
I've been doing some reading on this baby thing and books talk about how amazing the miracle of child birth is but it just looks really hard. There's a uncontrollable sick feeling and now the baby is constantly moving and kicking inside the wife causing discomfort and complaining. I'm just saying, better her than me.
I guess that's probably my first blog back. There will be more although I have a few rules with my new blogging focus. No editing. These blogs may on occasion not make much sense and that'll be because I won't spend hours editing and perfecting them. Sometimes i found that I'd spend too long on them and that discourages me from writing as often. I'm going to operate a more is more policy. So you'll see a more honest and more regular blog but with more grammatical errors and more incoherent ramblings.
Don't blame me. Blame my friend who guilted me into it.
I don't know what's happened in the comedy world lately. Every comedian is doing a podcast. A couple of weeks ago I was a guest on a friends podcast and I've been asked to be on a fair few other friends podcasts over the last couple of months. Sure podcasts are easy to consume, I'm currently trying to learn French via podcast while I run to work each day, but are they really better for a comedian than the art of writing. Surely if you're going to write comedy for a living it's beneficial to occasionally write something down for consumption.
So I thought I'd give you a quick update on what's been going on since I last wrote a blog. The wife and I did a show together at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. It was great fun and we managed to sell out each night for the whole week run, which was a huge surprise to us both. This week we've been doing our tax returns and have tallied up our income and expenditure from the trip. We would have done okay from it except we couldn't drive to Adelaide like we'd planned because the roads from Sydney were flooded so we had to pay stupid money for last minute flights. Also we ate extremely well and often in fancy restaurants so we blew any chance of making a profit on food and wine. If you're going to work hard you should totally reward yourself by spending more than you earn. It's the attitude that has fostered a growing world economy for generations.
I have also just done my first solo stand up show. It was a 4 night run at the Sydney Fringe Festival. It was a great experience really and I need to thank all of my friends for coming along and supporting me. It took a few nights to work the show out and naturally I had industry people come to see it before I had got the show to where I wanted it to be but that's how the comedy industry works. What I found really odd about it was that since I knew a large percentage of the crowd I couldn't do any crowd work. One of my strengths is working through the crowd but that was removed from this show. It made the show harder by admission but also kept me from getting sidetracked and not finishing the show.
Originally the show had a introspective thread through it reflecting on my comedy career. By the second night I got rid of that and replaced it with a joke about a butt-plug. I realised that I'm a standup and I do standup. I find those honest and frank shows really wanky and I just couldn't sell it with any conviction. I tell jokes and by the end of the run that's what the show was, an hour of jokes. Just the way I like it.
Not a lot else is going on... oh yeah, the wife's pregnant. That's kind of a major thing that's going on in my life. It's due in January and I'm starting to get marginally weirded out by the whole thing. I guess future blogs (and yes there will be more) will talk about this in more detail but I can say that everything is going well. I can also say that I'm really happy the whole strange body transformation and carrying the unborn baby thing is happening to the wife and not me. It looks really hard!!
I've been doing some reading on this baby thing and books talk about how amazing the miracle of child birth is but it just looks really hard. There's a uncontrollable sick feeling and now the baby is constantly moving and kicking inside the wife causing discomfort and complaining. I'm just saying, better her than me.
I guess that's probably my first blog back. There will be more although I have a few rules with my new blogging focus. No editing. These blogs may on occasion not make much sense and that'll be because I won't spend hours editing and perfecting them. Sometimes i found that I'd spend too long on them and that discourages me from writing as often. I'm going to operate a more is more policy. So you'll see a more honest and more regular blog but with more grammatical errors and more incoherent ramblings.
Don't blame me. Blame my friend who guilted me into it.
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