I got back from a hot, sweaty preview where I had just stood on stage for 50 mins or so, feeling exhausted to watch a man on the cusp of 70 strutting and dancing and pouting, with seemingly boundless energy after a set of two hours. People on Twitter, who seemed to be unable to hide their jealousy that they were sitting at home however much they affected indifference (they were, after all, still watching it) and not seeing this live contented themselves by pointing out how old the Rolling Stones looked. Ha ha ha. Some people aren't the same age as they were before. I remember them being much younger than this and now they're not so young. Look at them. It takes a massive lack of self-awareness to make this point. I hoped that there was someone on hand to hold up a literal mirror to these tweeters and imagined their stunned reaction as they noticed that they too had aged. And probably in a much more extreme way than the men who were on stage at that point.
Surely the remarkable thing was how young they looked and that they were still able to perform to this high standard. If that makes you sneer rather than gives you hope then you, my friend, are a fucking idiot. When I was a kid, 70 year old men sat in armchairs with blankets over their knees waiting to die (I think a few 45 year old men did the same). What a world where white-haired old dudes can still rock and roll.
I am feeling pretty old and unfit and fucked up at the moment and today had such a monumental hangover that my brain was barely functioning in the morning. Seeing skinny, melty-faced Mick Jagger bounding around like a toddler made me determined to pull myself together. There's no point in doing this job if I am not still doing it in my 70s. I need another 25 years to get really good at this. Knowing my luck I will die in 24 years time, just when I am on the cusp of something.
It took me a long time to get my brain into gear enough to write my blog. But then I managed to adapt a bit of my new show for a Metro column, so given how I felt I had achieved an awful lot.
I don't know if someone spiked my food last night, but this morning my wee smelled of asparagus wee, even though I hadn't eaten any asparagus. Had an asparagus eating ghost crossed streams with me as I weed? Were all my RHLSTP emergency questions coming to haunt me. What was that dripping out of my armpit? Why did my finger nails taste like pork scratchings? What was that a bigfoot doing in my garden? Why was there an a shrek hanging out of me, like a lion fucking a kangaroo (or a kangaroo fucking a lion if you are in the Southern hemisphere)? Excitedly, I tried to suck my own cock, but alas it seemed to be only my wee that was being haunted by my podcast (it was definitely my own wee - my wife had been out of the house for hours). Perhaps some mad scientist had perfected the ability to beam wee from the bladder of one person into the bladder of another. It has no real applications beyond freaking out people (who have the gene to smell asparagus in their wee) who haven't eaten asparagus and make them wonder how come their asparagus smells of wee now. It was worth the ten billion pounds it cost to develop. It works.
Tonight's preview felt like another step forwards. Still a very long way to go, but a couple of new jokes and some positive reactions to some bits of material that I've only done once or twice. I realised, with some relief, that as it stands (and once Monday's podcasts with Isy Suttie and Sean Hughes are out of the way) I have the whole of July to concentrate on the Edinburgh shows. I think I can make both We're All Going To Die! and the Fringe podcasts something special this year. I hope so. The reaction from audience so far (with material that I think might not even make it into the final show) has been encouraging. And I feel like I have too many ideas - which is good news for the Meaning of Life show. After only having done one brand new stand up show in the last three years I am suddenly really relishing getting this new one right.
Oh, and the article that I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the power of the podcast is finally up on the Telegraph website (maybe they were making some old media joke by keeping it on paper only for so long.
Read it here.
