When driving home on the ever boring M4 last night, Tom Craine and myself were discussing the only aspect of missing a 9-5. It sounds bizarre that there should be any part of the general drudgery of day to day boredom, waking up early and being shouted at by management who spend most of their days wondering if their life will ever contain any enjoyments, realising it won’t and then deciding to take it out on their staff, but there is. This one tiny weeny bit, that Tom pointed out, is having Fridays and weekends to yourself. It might sound odd, as you will know from all my blogging and the fact I clearly have enough time to write this everyday, that self-employed comedians have a lot of down time. You will all have gathered that I wake up late and often, especially Mondays to Wednesdays, not have to gig, or even remotely leave my flat. But while this might all seem like I am a huge dosser – and I will not by any means deter that view of me from you – when I am not working, I spend every single moment feeling guilty that I should be.
This, apart from the constant poverty, is the mega downside to self-employment. If I hadn’t spent a day playing Xbox, then I could’ve worked more on my sitcom/show/comic strips/sketches that may be the ones to get me further in my career. If I didn’t spend that last 3 hours on Twitter debating just how the appearance of Jedward and Vanilla Ice on the National Television Awards last night had almost caused my eyes and ears to implode in an attempt at saving me, in a biological self sacrifice, then I may have written the best gag I could ever have written. So technically, you are never not working, or at least never not thinking about working, unlike many jobs, where Friday to Sunday is pure free time. Apart from that bit on Sunday night where you are filled with dread about Monday, and wish you were self-employed. And sometimes just sometimes, I miss that 2 days and one night of not thinking about work. And that is why I think my job is very similar to that of Jack Bauer’s.
I started season 8 of 24 last night. I won’t give any spoilers for those that haven’t yet seen it, but essentially its the old cliched thing of the man that’s wants to give up the job but is too committed to the truth and justice and those other things American’s bang on about. Really Bauer has been through so much that in any real situation he’d have been given some large wads of dosh and go and live on an island somewhere in the Med, while all his previous injuries have given him shingles and problems walking, with such mental scarring that he wakes up at night screaming. But no, not in 24. In 24 he is all too ready to risk his neck against terrorists, whilst battling with ignorant authority just to make sure the president isn’t attacked for the umpteenth time. I sat through episodes 1 and 2 last night with the eye of a cynic. By that I mean my eye, being cynical. I hadn’t carved out AA Gill’s right eye and popped it on the sofa next to me, though god knows it would serve him right for that incident with the baboon.
I was saying out loud about how cliched this and that character was, how terrible that plotline was, and yet when it got to the end I immediately got annoyed I didn’t have 3 and 4 ready to go and I now know that another few months of my life will be spent concerned about CTU’s top man. His days really do get longer and longer and I just hope that at the end of this series he will actually die. Partly to give the character some respite and partly to give me some too. Then I can finally stop watching and get on with some work that I should be doing. I really would. Promise. You’re gonna have to trust me.
I shall leave you with this today. I saw @helenstone post it on Twitter earlier and got pretty excited. My brother’s already heard the album due to his musicness and he says its ace. I truly think Albarn is a legend of many things.
