I felt and looked like I was deep into Week 2 of the Fringe and it hasn't actually officially started yet. I haven't slept enough, not because I am out having fun - I've not seen any shows and come straight home after all my gigs - but the stress and worry can get you down at this stage of proceedings. It's gratifying to look back to previous blogs and realise that this is normal (even if ticket sales are a little bit down on last year), so my short temper with a man on the phone who rang me up to tell me that my car, which his garage serviced last week, needed to be taken back in as the brake fluid needed changing. I wondered why they hadn't told me this at the time, he seemed to think they might have, but given that I had acted on everything else they'd told me and spent several hundred pounds in the process it would be odd if I'd suddenly got all blase about something like brake fluid. Yeah, who needs that? Working brakes are there for bad drivers. I was cross. I wanted to speak to his boss. Don't mess with an exhausted Herring - we communicate by farting don't you know?
Probably what I needed now was for my podcast recording to go wrong. That would help ease the strain, right? You'd think so, but actually it made things worse. Even though I had thought to back up the podcast on my phone everything screwed up. The recording through the desk made us sound like Daleks and the one on my phone had cut off at about 16 minutes and I couldn't get it to play or upload initially. This was a shame, not so much for guests Peacock and Gamble, who were rubbish, but for their friend (and my new hero) Naughty Keith - a loveable bundle of gaffer tape who always seems to put his foot in it. Except he doesn't have a foot. His body is a Debenham's bag. Naughty Keith thought he could offend me by calling me "King Mong", but like most people he had misunderstood my concerns from last year, which weren't about banning people from saying stuff, just asking them to think about the effects of using words. In any case Keith is just some stuck together rubbish and knows no better. If Peacock or Gamble had been the ones saying such stuff I'd have been angry. But their lips were sealed.
It was also a shame for my wife, Catie Wilkins, who had done a great stand up set. Go and see her show "Joy is My Middle Name" at the Underbelly at 7.45pm. She clashes with my show, but hers is best, so go see her.
I decided that I would probably give up on this podcast and went to the gym. It's good to be keeping fit but with my current mental and physical energy levels this may have been a mistake. I managed a good 45 minutes of running and cycling but it did not rejuvenate me. I went back to the Stand to pick up the recording of the show to see if anything could be done and then was meant to meet my wife and her agent to head to Harry Hill's Art Exhibit. I was actually going to see something at the Fringe. But I couldn't find the hotel they were in on a crowded Princes Street and was frustrated about my stupid day and felt like sitting down on the pavement and crying. I had a mini strop on the phone with Catie, but then calmed down and managed to find her and had something to eat and felt a bit better.
Harry Hill's paintings proved to be a sensory overload. He's a great artist and the pictures are funny and surreal and a bit disturbing, mainly involving celebrities and ex Big Brother contestants. I didn't really have time to take it all in as I had to go and prepare for my evening show.
I went home to get ready and managed to play the recording on my phone, though it wouldn't upload to the internet. I didn't have too much time to mess around so headed to the Udderbelly to do my evening show. It was the first decent sized crowd with the venue a little over half full with 230 or so punters. The low rumble of people drinking outside punctuated the silences, but I didn't find it too distracting. The crowd also seemed a bit lively and one man seemed intent on butting in with heckles. I did 3 penis euphemisms and said that it was best the audience laughed at them as I was going to carry on until they all found them amusing and I had about 1000 of them. The man shouted, "That was only three" and I explained that I had pretty much just said that and wondered if he was having trouble understanding me because I was from a different country. Luckily he calmed down a little as the show progressed (I think he probably fell into a drunken slumber) and what looked like being a tough show became the best one of the run so far. I loosened up a bit and enjoyed myself. Even though this was a fair size crowd I am still a little bit worried that I might not make enough ticket sales this year. But this is usual noughth week stuff.
Despite my low energy the show had revitalised me and when I got home I managed to upload the phone bit of the podcast and listen to the Dalek version and decided that by tacking them together we could make a show that was listenable if not entirely painlessly. It's not as indecipherable as last year's lost podcast. You can hear what we're saying- it's just a bit crackly and fast. All the links and info
are on the podcast page.
We had an earlyish night (though it took me a good couple of hours to sort out the podcast) and didn't have a drink and hopefully the rest will do us good. From an outside perspective I am a man working for two hours a day and still finding that overwhelming, but the pressures and paranoia and fear makes this an exhausting experience as always. Occasionally you manage to step back and realise how unimportant it is and how crazy you're being, but in my self-indulgent job, Edinburgh is like making a milkshake made of pure self-indulgence and no milk in a blender that has no off switch. Nearly everyone is struggling for audiences at the moment and so it's churlish of me to complain about an audience that has more people in it than some acts will manage in the entire run. But it seems impossible to escape the frothing milkshake of introspection to see that other people are being spun in blenders full of shit mixed with razor blades and the AIDS virus. Not even metaphorically. At the Fringe somewhere, that is literally happening.
I certainly worked hard to bring you a flawed but free podcast. It is satisfying to see that the podcast with the second worst production values of all time (after last year's lost podcast) is at number one in the iTunes chart. Please spread the news about it to others who you think might enjoy it and if you can come down to watch then it will help make it financially worthwhile - and it might be the only way to guarantee hearing what has gone on!
And after one last push I am delighted to say that the other Richard Herring has already
hit his £3000 target. Thanks so much to those of you who joined in with this prank. We have done something that is both ridiculous and beautiful at the same time.
