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There was a lot of time to kill today, with Liverpool little more than an hour away and no hotel to go to (we’d decided to do the four hour drive home after the gig to save ourselves some time and money), so after I’d checked out of my room I sat in the hotel bar and did some work/played Terminator 2 pinball (which can also be classified of work if I am to become a professional Terminator 2 pinball player). There were some families with young children at the nearby tables and so I had a bit of a vision of what is on the horizon for me. And all these kids were good adverts for the idea of procreation, playing nicely (apart from when one of them tried to kick his uncle in the head) and saying funny shit. The youngest of three sisters at one table kept endlessly repeating the phrase “Slap me”, which is the kind of strange challenge to the rules of polite society that I am looking forward to having to deal with. I don’t think she wanted anyone to slap her, but was just enjoying making those words, but goodness knows where she picked the phrase up from. There is no really good explanation.
Still, I could see that it’s going to be a real force for good having a crazy tiny human being around. There’s still three months to wait (and it’s felt like we’ve had three months to go for an awful long time now - this is like the never-ending final week of the Edinburgh Fringe), but it’s telling that I don’t feel excitement at 12 more weeks of freedom, but frustration that a baby takes so long to cook. Apparently at this stage our baby can hear our voices and so I am looking forward to using my wife’s tummy as a telephone to the future, familiarising the whelp with my voice. Ideally I’d like to teach the baby to speak whilst still in the womb and make one of my dreams come true, where it came out able to talk.
I’d sold around 200 tickets tonight, which is acceptable, though I’d have hoped for a few more in a city of this size. It was another great response though and I was lifted from my pre-show tiredness and really went for it. It’s not a typical Saturday night comedy show and I know it wouldn’t be to everyone’s tastes. So it’s great when nearly everyone seems to get it. I have found my crowd. Maybe there are only 200 people like this in each city, but that’s enough to keep me going.
The long drive home passed relatively easily, mainly because I wasn’t driving. I listened to Robin Ince’s interesting radio show about comedians and mental illness. There seemed to be a feeling that many comics are driven by demons or at least some massive event in their past like the death of a parent or adoption. I struggled to think of any incident from my childhood that might have shaped my path. I would love to blame my dad being my headmaster, but as I discussed in “The Headmaster’s Son’ (now part of the insane gfs sale), the things that made me who I am developed long before then. Like some comedians my father was an authority figure (quite a few headmasters and vicars have sired comedians) which maybe had something to do with it. But as someone who explores and occasionally apes mental illness, whilst hopefully being relatively sane in “real” life, I found the subject fascinating. I think the job itself might send a few of us slightly crazy, but hopefully you don’t have to be mad to work in this job, even if it helps. I might be a rarity amongst comedians, driven to the job by my love of being made to laugh and the thrill of making others laugh. I like to show off on stage, though am relatively reserved and introverted off stage. Maybe I’d be a better comedian if I didn’t come from such a solid home or if my dad had died when I was 5. Bloody bastard. It’s all his fault. Perhaps it’s this happiness ruining my chances of being an edgy comedian that has driven me to be a comedian. It may make me the most damaged of all.
The winner of the October monthly draw is Nicholas Tarr from Rochdale, who will be receiving my original script for the Lord of the Dance Settee show and some other bits and bobs like a hip flask I have been improbably sent to promote the Channel 5 show Gotham. To be in with a chance of winning prizes, plus access to a secret channel of extra stuff from RHLSTP and RHMOL (the backstage interview with “Steve Coogan” is now up - alas we lost the original due to a camera card fuck up, but we recreated it and to be honest this is better), plus a badge then go to www.gofasterstripe.com/badges and donate at least a pound a month. All your money will go to funding future internet projects. It’s thanks to the people who have already donated that we are able to give you free RHLSTP videos now. And we’re hoping to bring back AIOTM as a monthly video podcast soon (but we need more subscribers - at the moment we can probably start to do an annual one). If you all gave a pound a month we could do some extraordinary stuff. I will do all I can to pay you back for your support.
