Friday, December 31, 2010

Raymond The 2010 Review

Well that's 2010 all done and dusted, and its been...well...long. About a year long actually. Its felt about a year long too, so er, well done the concept of time for sticking to appropriate conditions. Its been a weird year really. Personally its had more ups and downs than a Pixar salesperson in a specific area of Epsom. While there are elements of it I'd happily never relive again, other bits were brilliant and its ending on a rather high note of the sort a Eunuch might warble. Well except for my last gig last night which was more the sort of noise a tenor might make if he had a bit of a cough while eating some toast. Locating itself in a Norwich, home of, er, Norwich residents, the audience were in as much of a mid-Xmas limbo fug as I was and I ambled onstage with a burbled mess of words. The majority of them went along with me, but one man, when I started doing material on our oh so oppressive governance, told me I was rubbish and to get off. Despite my usual sharp wit, my ability to slam someone down with verbal poison darts, my rapier diction bullets etc etc, I was so tired and stupid, it just threw me off and I merely said like a pathetic feeble loser 'Please don't do that. Please don't heckle.' The man seemed thrown by this and said he just wanted to heckle. I again said 'please don't', the audience told him to shut up, one man told me to carry on and we all resumed, with me slightly more off kilter than I was before. I did 10 more minutes of a set that was reminiscent of Lucky in Waiting Fo Godot's brain dump and shuffled off. I felt a bit like I'd let everyone down until two attractive girls came and spoke to me at the bar. They told me they thought I was great and I felt quite pleased at first. Then as they downed their vodka redbulls, said I nearly made one of them wet themselves and that I reminded them of Lee Evans. I didn't know how to respond to this. No offence to Lee, but I am nothing like him and it struck me that these two were not the comedy savvy fans I needed to assure me of my gigging ability. I asked if I was like Lee because I 'told jokes', they said yes, and giggled. They said they could relate to all of it - really? - told me I was the best which I retorted by saying 'but I'm the first act on' making their point invalid, they hugged me and left. I know as a comic all we ever seem to seek is gratification for our art, but whilst beggars can't be choosers, I sometimes would prefer a proper comment or nothing at all.

An interesting last gig of the year and I won't reflect on it too much as any sort of indicator as to how the whole year has been. 'But how has the whole year been Tiernan? Will you give us a review of 2010?' Yes, ok. Well 2010 was not as good as 2001, but I think this is mostly due to the distinctive absence of Kubrick's direction amongst other factors such as an over explanatory script and part destruction of the mystique and enigma of the first film. Oh sorry, you mean the year? HAH!

Well its been, in many ways, a shitfest for the UK. Cameron's New Year's speech has once again parped up the lie that the 'Cuts were tough but necessary', which translated into a language other than 'Eton prick' means 'Haha the rich once again shall happily enjoy diving into pools of money while you poor lot can really really suffer by paying off all the crap our bankers ruined.' Up until this year I really haven't been as politically active or aware as I've wanted to be. The late '90's and the Labour government that were in power as I was beginning to be aware of life outside of my favourite red cap and my Super Nintendo, were confusing in as much as they seemed like the right people in power despite pulling the wool over our eyes, blasting the crap out of the Middle East and paving the way for vast amounts of debt. Luckily, thanks to the Coalition, especially the Tories and Liemaster Clegg (which would be his name were he a rapstar) they are making no qualms about being as obviously elitist and evil as possible and I can use this to finally understand it all a bit. I'm very much making a silver lining of a cloud of despair right now and I'm praying that 2011 sees the British people stand up against the immense poverty that will hit everyone but the Upper Classes. I had a brilliant chat last night with Christian Reilly, who knows far more about all this sort of stuff than my false political pretense, and he was pointing out just how people are ignoring the ever growing divide of the rich and the poor when it seems so obvious. Christian's point was at what point do people Paul McCartney think he deserves to have £900m? Yes, he's been part of arguably the greatest band of the 20th century, but really does that mean you should have more money than a person could spend in a lifetime? He and all those other multi-millionaires, especially those who keep all their money offshore to avoid taxes, to avoid contributing to the country they live in and resources they use, could fix this so called deficit problem in days without it bearing a single smear on their lifestyle. Yet instead those in need of money for survival are having their standard of living lowered and lowered as these ridiculous cuts are being made. What I've learnt this year is that it doesn't matter what well argued point you can make for all the policies that have been going through, none of them will reasonably benefit the UK and the economists who would tell you the same don't get their opinions on the news.

OK, so less of a review, more a further rant along the levels at which I can understand happenings. Thoughts on other aspects? Entertainmentwise I loved Scott Pilgrim, Despicable Me and Toy Story 3, hated nearly all telly, enjoyed the new Alan Partridge web stuff, saw hundreds of comedians I know and love who won't get an ounce of air time anytime soon because they are too interesting, and loved Stewart Lee's and Simon Pegg's autobiographies and got into Kurt Vonnegurt way after everyone else thanks to Paul Byrne. I did music the other day so read that lazy faces. Sports wise I couldn't give a fuck. Morecambe and Wise? Er....and personally, I've gone from being a nearly married man with a mortgage to being single, living in a comedy funhouse enjoying life a whole heap more than I have done over the last few year, and hugely thankful to all the awesome friends I have. Regrets? I've had a few. Well, not really, it just doesn't go with the song does it? No, I just can't complain. Finished retching yet? Good.

Tomorrow I shall harp on about what the next year might hold or let go of, but till then may you all have a very very Happy New Year. Ta loads for reading what, as of yesterday, has now been a two year long daily blog, and please keep continuing to leave me comments about things whether it be spelling mistakes I've made, factual errors, genuine lies or just that you like how much I write like Lee Evans. Here's too another year of me wasting words.....

No comments:

Post a Comment