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Post by Mod City on Oct 11, 2009 19:05:24 GMT -5
Looks like a fantastic trip, Trumpy! Any trip that yields pictures of a person standing next to a yellow school bus in Canada is OK by me Being from the U.S., and not terribly far from the Canadian border, I never think of it as a potential vacation spot. I've been to Montreal but never Toronto. May have to remedy that. And give the U.S. a try sometime. The dollar is weak and you could probably live like a king for a couple of weeks. Seriously, give it a try, or we'll invade your country
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Post by Trumpy's Magic Snout on Oct 12, 2009 14:19:13 GMT -5
So Kevin Smith being in Glasgow tonight is you lot sending an agent to spy on our weaknesses? I'll no doubt make the States one day, still want to see the Twins at home one day. Sadly I used to get $1.90 to £1, now it's £1.55. The pound's weak as well meaning my MST box sets now cost me more! Think we'll end up converting to the Euro some point soon!
Definitely give Toronto a visit. Lots of cool stuff to see and do.
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Post by Trumpy's Magic Snout on Nov 23, 2009 16:58:13 GMT -5
Blog 7 SPONSOR MY FACE! So I've been taking part in this Movember campaign thing ( www.movember.com ). If you don't know about it basically men grow a moustache for the whole of November to raise funds and awareness for mens health issues, in particular prostate and testicular cancer. So far I've had £100 pledged by friends and work mates. A very generous effort I'm sure you'll agree. Even more so when you realise that my face is very averse to growing hair, sadly much like the rest of my head. Don't believe me? Here are some pictures showing my "progress": November 2nd November 5th November 10th November 15th November 22nd I know, I know, contain yourselves! The Movember site lets you set up a Mo Space page to chart your progress. You can find mines here: uk.movember.com/mospace/298654I look a dafty but it's all for a worthy cause, plus my top lip's got a wee mini-jumper just in time for the temperature dropping.
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Post by callipygias on Nov 24, 2009 1:47:34 GMT -5
November 10th: Upper lip normal. Lower lip normal. November 15th: Concern at the apparent retraction of lower lip. November 22nd: DOCTOR! DOCTOR!
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Post by Trumpy's Magic Snout on Nov 26, 2009 19:02:46 GMT -5
Just a quick update: This is how I look as of today: I've had over £200 pledged for this wee number now!
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Post by Trumpy's Magic Snout on Nov 30, 2009 19:26:01 GMT -5
And so the 'tache growing escapade ends with the month of November: About to shave: Shaving: Shaven: I've had £210 pledged so a good little campaign.
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Post by Trumpy's Magic Snout on Aug 2, 2010 19:08:04 GMT -5
Blog 8
I told you this would be lethargic. I've not really been around the board too much of late. It sounds like a hoary old cliche to say "life got in the way" but it kind of did, but not particularly because lots of things happened. In fact it's been pretty much the opposite and as such I've gotten lazy, allowing myself to wallow in the turgid routine of work and catching up on TV shows/drinking way too much/watching sports/anything that takes my mind off work.
That's not to say nothing has happened since I last blogged. In fact something pretty good did but that's been the problem. At the end of March I performed my first stand-up comedy show, coupled with video sketches I'd made. It seemed to go really well and everyone present, plus many who couldn't make it, have been asking when I'm doing it again. Sadly I don't have an answer. you see doing the show is what has made me lazy. Before it I was spending all my spare time, and a lot in work that the bosses didn't realise, writing, filming and practising. Sadly once the show was out of the way I ended up in that position where you feel comfortable, knowing you've done something. The pressure was off, and unfortunately the hunger died a little.
Don't get me wrong, I realised that night that above anything comedy is a route I need to pursue as nothing else interests me. As I said one of the biggest problem was in getting my show out of the way I then had nothing. Getting onto the bill of a Glasgow comedy club, the only place to go if you want to be taken seriously, is pretty difficult as even their "open mic" nights are booked well in advance and you've already heard of most of the guys performing. Writing for TV and radio is certainly an option to look at as the BBC are good at looking at stuff written, plus being in Scotland opens up the extra avenue of regional output.
The problem is the wall of negativity you find yourself crashing into when looking to do this.
I attended a talk some years back now billed as a guide to becoming a TV comedy writer in which all the heads of British TV stations' comedy departments spoke. All to a man said not to bother to the audience. Comedy has no budget and unless we already know who you are there will be no risks taken. This was before the financial meltdown left TV broadcasters in perilous states so I can only begin to imagine the mess there is now.
Now I don't want this to sound like some self-pitying mope-fest of the likes that would make the Twilight characters proud. Rather I just felt like getting some stuff off my chest. I hate my job and Scotland's a wasteland for job opportunities and so I need to look to try and do something that turns my life around. The catch-22 is that being Scottish means it's quite difficult to travel humour wise, there are the exceptions like Billy Connolly and Craig Ferguson but those guys are some of the best stand-ups to ever come out of Britain. Plus as I said, the regional programming means there are actually some possibilities here that wouldn't be open to me in many parts of England, outside London. I'm currently working on some sketch ideas for a project being run by the BBC's main rival in Scotland STV. Slightly depressingly it's clear no money wiull be spent on making this show so ideas have to be simple, plus from the brief it's pretty clear that they're looking for sketches that fit other comedian's, mainly on the BBC, style. Still it's an opportunity to possibly get something made.
So here I am, too skint to quit my job, even though it's kind of getting in the way of what I'd really like to do, and struggling to work out where to go next. Thankfully I have been doing a lot of writing towards a new show, they go on at the local Student's Union thanks to me knowing the guy in charge of entertainment. The first one was ninety minutes (including the videos), ridiculously long for a first attempt but it was a collection of stuff I'd been mulling over for years. I'd be performing to a lot of the same people who may not quite understand that I can't pull a show that length out of my arse every other month, comics that perform the Edinburgh festival do a sixty minute show once a year, so repeating material leaves me wary. Of course many are my friends so would hopefully realise I'm practising even whilst up there so repeating myself is for my benefit as much as anything. That's where the ten minute slots at a Glasgow club would come in handy. Pick a small bit, tighten it, and perform to an audience who are there to see me fail. If you can win them over you're on to something.
Sorry, I've went on a bit. I'm proud of my first show, sure it's rough, but there are seeds of some good stuff in there, plus the video sketches went down well. Now that my friends know what I actually do they may even be a little more forthcoming with a helping hand as well. I just need to clear my head and work out a proper game plan and see if this is something that I can realistically do.
Again sorry for rambling, normal bitter cynicism on a three monthly basis shall resume henceforth.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Aug 3, 2010 4:14:27 GMT -5
Yeah I was wondering where you've been.
Congrats on the show.
I don’t know how comedy compares with music, but I imagine entertainment as a career is a tough road for us all. Good luck with it, hope you find much success.
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Post by Trumpy's Magic Snout on Sept 11, 2010 20:50:56 GMT -5
Just a quicj heads up, I've been kind of absent yet again as I'm doing another show, a pretty big opportunity. I'm playing the local uni's Fresher's Week as the comedy act, them foregoing getting someone else more famous. As such i should be doing my song and dance number for about 300 people so been working like crazy for the thing on the 22nd. Normal service should resume afterwards!
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Post by Trumpy's Magic Snout on Feb 20, 2011 21:11:22 GMT -5
Blog 9 - I knew the idea of naming these would come back to haunt me
It's been a while, so much so that I needed to look back on what I'd previously written. Well the second show didn't go too well. Thankfully everyone I spoke to, friends who can be nice to your face and people who I've never met and so don't have a reason to lie, said that my performance was good. I felt it was a big step up from my first, nervy one. I was confident, I spoke to audience members and improvised with ease. Plus I dealt with a heckler or two. Sadly the thing I was excited about, playing to a lot of people at Freshers, ended up being the problem. I was in a huge room where the sound didn't carry well and it was full of people who weren't there to see a comedy show. They were there to get drunk and I just happened to be there in the background. The other problem is that our local Uni has a fairly large French population thanks to an exchange scheme. French people don't get stand up. In fact, they don't have stand up, and as such don't really know the rules of respecting the performer and what not. Basically I played to a wall of indifference, I'd have even preferred it if they hated me as it would have meant they listened. Annoyingly I had to compete with a table of French ladies who sat at the front, because there were free seats, who proceeded to talk through the whole show and didn't get the hints I was making every time I started talking to them (if you keep talking I'll keep talking to you and making you feel embarrassed like you clearly are now). That said I ended up getting some good material out of the chats with them so in the end I couldn't stay mad at them.
Now I'm the sort of person who is a tad fragile mentally and I struggle with confidence, something people don't seem to believe because I get up on stage in front of strangers, but it's true. I'm needy, and only really do it so I can hear people laugh. I love making them laugh, but deep down it's also about that being a form of acceptance or approval, something I lacked at times growing up. As such this show knocked me and I ended up in a malaise. It didn't help that we got a new boss at work who took an instant dislike to me, he must have been bullied by an overweight, ginger guy when he was young or something, and he set out to make it so difficult for me I'd quit. Of course I didn't, I'm obviously a sucker for punishment. So at this point I wasn't feeling so good.
So I had a rethink.
I decided to sort myself out. Work ended up sorting itself in a way, he still hates me but he knows now he can't touch me mentally the way he did. I decided to have a rethink and so started writing about things I normally don't touch, mainly myself. My material I've done before still stands as stuff I'll do but I decided to work out some stuff by making me the focus. On account of this new direction I decided to stop anything that was acting as, I suppose, a clog. As such I've shut down my film blog. I enjoyed doing it for the first couple of years but it had become a chore sadly. It was making movie watching into a job, one I wasn't being paid for and that meant I kept putting off writing stuff for it, which in turn meant comedy stuff was being pushed further back in the queue. I'm a touch sad to see it go but it served a purpose, keeping my brain active when I finished Uni and entered into dead end jobbery. Now that I'm slowly starting to shape other projects, and help my niece who is studying film at school, I have no need to use it as a crutch any more.
Now I'm at the point of starting afresh with my stand up. First up are a couple of dates at Glasgow's The Stand, a place where pretty much everyone in Scottish comedy starts. Next Tuesday (1 March) will be the debut of some of the new material and from there I'll be looking to get myself into a few of the other comedy nights around about Glasgow and then hopefully back at The Stand on one of the other nights (on other words when you get more time and some money). I also may have something in the works locally which is a new comedy night that I may be a regular monthly participant.
On a more private level, I've quit drinking. I didn't like what it did to me or the amount of money it was costing. As of now I'm two months sober, quite an achievement in the west of Scotland, especially as most of my mates already have serious drink problems that they won't admit to. A few already have liver and heart problems that you don't usually see until your fifties. I don't want that so quitting booze is one small thing I can do to get healthy (although I will cheat and have a small tipple whan the beer festival comes around as the things they serve are the only alcoholic drinks I consume for the taste).
This wee sketch sums up drinking culture here (and how difficult it is not to do so) (sketch starts at 6:10):
Anyway sorry for the long-winded ramble but I needed it really. I've been away from here for far too long as well. I may still only pop in and out but I'll be around more than I have been, which wouldn't be difficult to be perfectly honest. I've missed you guys!
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