I liked today.
Life is like playing a fruit machine and though everything is ultimately weighted against you, every now and then it has to give you a pay out or you give up trying. We kid ourselves that a single good day compensates for a month of mediocrity and crud, but it's good we do. And well done to our stupid brains for being able to hook on to these positive days and mainly forget about the bad ones.
Warming Up went live on iTunes (
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Whilst I was hovering at the number 2 spot though the doorbell rang and a gruff man was at the door to tell me that he had two pallets for me. It was the delivery of the new show programme, which is a day I always enjoy. I told him to put them in my hall, but he looked at me with a sneer of his face and grumpily said, "I am not doing that. I'll put them on the pavement"
It was fair enough, because that would mean him helping me carry them off the pallets, but he could have been a little more pleasant about it. "Any chance you can at least put them on the path inside my gate?"
He looked with some scepticism at the width of my gate and then growled, "Perhaps." It would be an effort for him to do that and it wasn't an effort he seemed willing to take.
He did give it a half-hearted go and the pallet fitted through the gate, but it seemed too much effort to push the thing up the tiny incline and suddenly he became concerned about cracking the tiles on my path (he didn't care, this was just a good reason for him to stop trying) and so the two pallets were deposited one just inside my gate and the other on the pavement which meant I was going to have to unload 104 boxes filled with 250 programmes each into my home (there are another 9000 programmes heading to Edinburgh). I wasn't going to need to go to the gym today.
It took me a good 45 minutes to get the boxes inside and as I had much to do for the moment I only had time to deposit them in my hallway, lining the walls with boxes, like I was in some play-version of world war one trenches. As I picked up the third to last box an old man from down the road walked past and said, "That might help get rid of your beer belly." Ah the wonderful candour of the aged. But I laughed and said, "Let's hope so."
The programme looks great, though however hard I proof read it beforehand I always open it up and immediately spot a mistake that we all missed. There was a misspelling of a name in the thanks. Not a disaster, but still a shame. I hope all the details of the donors are correct and that no one slipped through the net and didn't make it on to the page, but apologise if that's the case. I won't be posting out the limited edition programmes until I am in Edinburgh at the earliest, but thanks very much for the donations which have made this happen. I was able to get rid of 50 copies at the gig tonight, so that's lightened the load of my charity trench.
I was a bit exhausted after all that and a disturbed night's sleep, but after lunch I buckled down with the script and by 6pm I had filled up all the gaps and had what I think is probably a workable first draft. I might want to do a bit of pruning tomorrow, but I think it's finally there and only a month late. It was unbelievable how much of a relief this was. I felt a lot lighter and I don't think that was the effects of carrying 26,000 programmes into my house. This script had been weighing me down like a millstone inside an albatross around my neck.
It's hard for me to tell if the script is shit of good (cue Christian singing "Is is shit or is it good?") as I am too close to it and have invested so much sweat and frustration into it over the last four months, but there's a little feeling in the pit of my stomach saying that this is the one. That this might finally be the project that flies. But we shall see and I am ready to see the brains of my baby splattered all over the pavement, with blood on the soles of the shoes of the laughing executives who will make the decision. They can be the loving nursemaid to the project or the cruel King Herod.
Whatever will be will be. It's a crossroads. If this gets the green light then my life changes, if it doesn't then it's going to feel a bit like I am splattered on the pavement myself and it gets harder to pick oneself up and try again the more times this happens.
For me it feels like a script that finally nails some ideas that I have been working towards for 20 years. It's got to happen surely. I don't know the meaning of the word hubris...
For the moment though all I have is the happiness of another thing more or less ticked off my list and can now dedicate myself to my stand up show, which is also showing an awful lot of promise in preview. The final routine, when it works at its best seems to be able to make people laugh like drains and then have tears of sadness in their eyes within the space of literally 30 seconds. If I can pull that off every night then that is something special. Tragedy and comedy walk hand in hand. I am happy with the hour I have, but with another month and over 20 more shots at it, this really feels like it could be my best one man show yet.
I walked back home from the tube after the gig with a new idea for a routine playing through my mind and feeling pretty happy for the first time in a while. The world feels full of potential. I've emptied the fruit machine. But like the mug that I am I can't walk away. I'll soon have spent all my winnings and more.
