At the last minute we decided to record
podcast 60 today. It suited me as after travelling back from Jersey I wasn't going to be good for much, so it was an efficient use of the afternoon. Plus it meant we could spend most of the time crowing about our stratospheric chart position and discuss my plan to celebrate getting to number one in a very special way.
If anything our non-ironic childish delight at not even being at the top of an ultimately meaningless leader board slightly overwhelmed the podcast. I can't imagine any other two men in their forties getting quite so much pleasure from something quite so lame, which had been largely engineered by one of them asking people to subscribe in order to facilitate a sexual act that neither of them wanted and which would obviously never happen.
But we still did pleasure from it and are proud to come 6th, even though we know the bubble is about to burst (and that is not a euphemism). It was fun pretending that it wouldn't though and crowing over our actually much more successful rivals who probably couldn't care less about this temporary turn around. I am a big fan of hubris, as you must surely know by now and to claim that we wouldn't do a podcast with Adam and Joe because they're not even in the top 10 and are thus beneath us (in every sense) gave me a giddy thrill. Because in three days time they'll still be 11th and we probably won't be in the top 25.
And none of it even matters a jot anyway.
Except to two men in their forties whose careers have pretty much dried up, haven't got any children and whose lives are otherwise worthless.
Indeed at the end of the day we had fallen to 8th. But we enjoyed it within five place of the top, while we were there. We felt like Chesney Hawkes must have done when he was at the top of the charts (except he at least got to number one), like we'd made it, that this was it, that we'd never fall from this lofty perch again. But like Chesney Hawkes once we've fallen we will never return.
Unlike Chesney Hawkes though we didn't have a massive army of teenage girls with our posters on their wall, or get to go out with Liza Walker or write songs for Caprice and A1 or come third in "The Games".
Plus we actually were totally aware of the transience of our self induced success.
But apart from that we are both exactly like Chesney Hawkes.
Although I didn't get any work done on my book today, I at least put everything I have so far got into one document and it totals over 45,000 words, which is both encouraging (it's about half what I need) and depressing (it's about half what I need), depending if you're a book half finished or half started kind of person. I really wanted to have a rough draft of the whole thing by the end of the month, but that looks increasingly unlikely. I have until the end of next month to finish it off completely.
Then I have two months to put together an entirely new show. It's OK. I don't need any time to have a personal life. I will just keep working and working until I drop dead - in the next couple of years if I carry on at this rate. Comedy may be
good for you if you are consuming it, but it destroys you if you're creating it.
In my bathroom tonight I contemplated giving it all up and dedicating some time to myself, maybe going round the world and having adventures or just trying to work on my relationships with other human beings, rather than words and jokes and pointless crudity.
But comedy is all I have and it is why I will die sad and alone and my grave shall be unvisited by anyone I actually know. On the bright side I might get an advert voice over before I go, so it's not all doom and gloom.
And I am giving my life so that other people might laugh at me and prolong their own. I'm not saying I'm Jesus. I'm better than him. My crucifixion is constant and I don't even get a rest in a little cave to eat chocolate and wank my shroud stiff (although I do seem to spend about 90% of my time eating chocolate and wanking, now I think about it).
The truth is if I gave up comedy I'd just stay in my little hole wanking and eating chocolate for that other 10% of the time as well. I wouldn't get anything else done.
So I'll press on with it all. Pointless as it is.
You can never understand. You don't know what it was like being 6th in the iTunes chart. I don't know if I can return to a normal life now. A taste of honey is worse than none at all. If I had never danced amongst the stars I would be satisfied with crawling through the mud like the rest of you.
"Didn't you use to be Richard Herring, the bloke at 6th in the iTunes Podcast charts? What happened to you man? What happened?"
I wish I'd been nice to people on the way up, because they're going to get their revenge on me on my way down.
Still, man, those three days at the top.... amazing times. I can't even tell you the things I got up to. You wouldn't believe them.
But my gravestone shall read, "Richard Herring - was for about a 24 hour period at number 6 in the iTunes Podcast chart in 2009. And that was really the only thing he did of any value. And clearly the value of this achievement is questionable, but now isn't the place to discuss this. Oh and he could have been the voice of Oatibix if he'd bothered going along to the casting and had been any good. So... you know... well done to him. Quite good."
But no one will ever visit the grave to see it.
