A Call To Arms

I was tempted to write today's blog as an out of office auto reply, especially as the one I left on my email last week has now been read out aloud in at least six different offices, which is nice to know. However I'm fairly sure I've done that as a lazy blog before - I don't know 100% because its not like I read this drivel back to myself ever - so I feel it might be cheating. Its a shame, as I have very little to tell, express, describe or even muse over today. (I can only ever say the word muse as though I'm a small cat. I hope that now I've pointed that out, you will have the same problem.) I have over the last week not had very much sleep and after spending several days of sheer excitement that were my gigs abroad, the anti-climax of turning up to my solo show to a crowd of 7 people was very nearly the final straw to me just lying down and having a sleep there and then. Luckily, they were a very awesome group of people - I renamed them the Magnificent Seven - and so I did my 20-30 of new with a batch of old and they seemed to all leave having had a nice time. There is little to lower your temperament however than performing to large groups of awesome people for weeks on end, promote your show to thousands of people via Twitter and Facebook and then have less than 10 turn up, all of whom didn't follow me on any of those sites anyway. I have always had that problem with Leicester Comedy Festival. Last year was only 4 people and so, in comparison, I've had a 75% increase and could assume that were I to go back next year (I won't) I might end up with 13 in. Eventually by 2015 it might be viable for me to actually have a decent gig there. I do wonder if its to do with all the times I tell Leicester that they are famous for the cheese, the square, Mr Piggot and Mo(Leicester). This might be it. Much in the same way I shouldn't keep telling the people of Bournemouth that they are my least favourite part of the Bourne trilogy. Maybe I'll never learn.

After getting through an hour I jumped in the car to go round the corner to Leicester University and gig to 22 people, a marked increase on the earlier show, but still something purely to pop the ego after Meribel. One of the students had apparently heard of me and I did have a lovely 35-40 minute set talking to them about my past week and how much I hate the coalition. I then drove all the way home, getting back in time to realise I'd spent the day being awake for about 22 hours and having travelled over 900 miles in one day. Phew.

I don't want you to read this thinking 'wow that Douieb's ego's the size of the moon' or that I expect to get more than 7 people into a solo show at any point, but its more an indication of how up and down this job can be. Had I not gigged much for the previous week or been popping into smaller shows it wouldn't have made a difference. Its just that after traveling abroad to have the most fun ever, having that as your welcome back is a tad disappointing. It happens all the time. One day you'll be on a bill performing to 1000 people and the next a pub in a village to 50. Tonight I'm going with Chris Cox to watch Russell Howard at the O2, as we have some freebies. I love freebies. I will never grow out of what many people refer to as a student disposition. If something is free, rather than stay in and recuperate after my week of not sleeping, boarding and drinking, I will happily do it on account of my way of thinking that I shouldn't let it go to waste. I am a fan of Russell, remembering fondly working with him at various gigs, and I'm very keen to see a comic do the O2 just to try and see how it will work. But really, I could probably do myself a world of good going back to bed, and spending the rest of my day, as I have so far, by listening endlessly to the new Radiohead album while giggling at things The King of Limbs might say - ie A call to Arms! etc etc.

So what I meant to stay on the path of was saying that someone like Russell will be performing to 10000 people tonight and I have no idea how you would cope with doing a gig to less than that afterwards. He doesn't have to, but knowing Russ he probably will do try outs at smaller venues before his next tour and some of his tour dates will be smaller venues than the O2. So I like to think he sits there sometimes thinking 'only 5000? Sigh'. Or probably not. 5000 is still a bit better than 7. Sigh. ' I'm legless!' tee hee hee hee. 'Give it some elbow grease!*' hahahahahah. Onwards and upwards Douieb. Then bedwards.



* I know elbow is a joint. I'm not that tired. I still reckon that as its attached to a limb, its allowed.