Whoever said ‘live for the day’ was a bellend. I mean, what else are you meant to do for the day? Die? I mean, I’m sure some people do, otherwise the whole world would be horribly over populated, I just think that the very least I can do, per day, is live. I’ve done it for quite a while now. I don’t want to boast, but I think I’ve got the whole breathing, eating and all that nailed. I mean today for example, I’m definitely living right now. Thanks to booze, I do feel somewhat undead, but knowing that I’m about to eat weetabix and not brains confirms I’m not. I like to think of that as the definitive ‘Check If You’re A Zombie Test’. If you find that you’re worried about your living, dead or undead status, then just say to yourself, when peckish ‘What do I feel like eating? What am I hungry for today?’ If your answer is along the lines of ‘I could murder a cheese and pickle sandwich’ then you’re ok. The fact you want to massacre food in an immoral way is a worry that will have to be dealt with at another time. I only hope for your sake that you don’t stroll into a bakers, lose all willpower and ruin your life by stabbing some innocent baguettes. If however, your answer is ‘Braaaaaiiiinnnnnnsssssss’, then you are undead and you should probably cut your own head off nowish. There. If your answer is ‘ ‘ then you’re dead and you don’t need to eat which will save you a lot of money on food shopping so well done. Worryingly, I check this most days. Today however, I fancy weetabix, so at ease zombie hunters. Phew.
Actually to be fair my first thought this morning was that I wanted to eat nothing as by pummeling my stomach with whisky and then later some horrible halloumi concoction from a takeaway restaurant who’s health and safety standards were highly debatable has left it more than a tad upset with me. That’s where the term ‘upset stomach’ comes from. When you punish your gut to the extent where it exacts petty revenge. If you really piss it off, it bursts. I often try and steer away from such things by giving it occasional chocolates to make it happy. Then my second thought was, ‘actually it might be quite nice being dead, or at least undead today.’ Not for any miserable suicide reasons or anything. Chill with the still and all that worriers. No, its because today is the day the comedy starts properly again. From tonight I only have 1 night off until the 12th of October and then after that there’s another long run of endlessly doing the funnies until around Christmas. The more astute of you will note that I often complain when I am not busy. This, yes, is hugely true. And no, I should totally not be annoyed with having enough work to live and gaining the monies and all that. But at the same time, I really like not working. This combined with the fact that since Edinburgh I have written all of about two new jokes and generally felt like idea of coming with more material would be harder than finding a well built Commonwealth Games Stadium in Delhi. That’s the level of shit comparisons I’ve been making. I haven’t even read about the Commonwealth games. I honestly couldn’t care less. I just checked BBC News, saw that on the front page, considered making a joke about it being harder than ‘being a Labour leader candidate that wasn’t a Milliband’, realised that will be old/irrelevant/wrong about an hour after writing this, and gave up. Sigh.
This is the problem with being self-employed. Its mostly that my boss is a wanker. Everyone has a wanker boss, that’s sort of a fact about life. Every now and then you come across someone who is generally happy with their workplace overlord, but it will often be the case that the uber boss above them is such a total prick, that it balances out. With self employment, you just end up hating yourself in order to fit in with everyone else. Sometimes I even accidentally send myself emails slagging myself off, and then have to have a disciplinary chat. Its all very awkward. I was offered a gig last night, I turned it down in order to drink with friends, I spent the rest of the night berating myself about it. Did I have fun drinking with friends? Yes. Did I prefer that to gigging? Yes. Was I still annoyed at myself? Yes. Hugely. And now to reverse all that, here I am, annoyed that over the next few weeks I won’t have a break to do more drinking with friends or generally just have a life. Yet were I to cancel gigs to do those things I’d spend the nights thinking ‘I should be gigging’ and again the circle of self loathing starts.
I’m currently reading Stewart Lee’s book. I’m not going to harp on about it, as it appears to be in everyone’s blog right now. As it should rightfully be, because its ace. I just thought that I should point out how bloody lovely, as a comic, it is to realise everyone goes through the same highs and lows, the same crap gigs then brilliant gigs and weird gigs, and that overall, its a very silly business. Years ago, as a struggling open spot (I am now fully able to say I’m a struggling comedian. Winner) a book called Ha Bloody Ha by William Cook did much the same as I read interviews with Harry Hill and Eddie Izzard speaking of the trials of making it. Its hugely reassuring, reaffirming and overall makes you realise its really not that bad as a job whatsoever. In fact its brilliant. Unless, like me you’re hungover and feel it necessary to book a meeting in with yourself about drinking on a school night, and how my punctuality has been less than perfect. Dead people don’t have to deal with this. Neither do zombies. I’m going to go eat some brain flavoured weetabix and hope for the best.
