Bears

Words escape me today, which is a shame as I have this blog to write as well as some new material for tonight and various other writing type things. I blame staying in bed too long. My bed is a small haven of warmth at the moment though and its very hard to leave. My flat is not cold and it could be warmer if I turned the heating on, but I am using the pretense of protecting the planet while in fact it is just because I am stingy and hate getting a huge gas bill. It upsets me that I have to pay for warmth when I can just wear a jumper and stay in bed. That seems to do the trick just as well. The problem with this though is that if I stay in bed, its unlikely I will get anything else even remotely done. The curtains in our bedroom block out all light and so it takes little to convince myself I live in a very comfy cave and its time to hibernate. I've often sympathised with the life of a bear. I used to and still on frequent occasion talk about bears in my stand-up, I once got asked to be the 'little bear' on a gay bear night (I politely declined), I played a stone statue bear when I was four in a production of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and if there are bears on the telly I will sit and watch silently, thoroughly enjoying the bearness. I'm not sure what this obsession is, but I put it down to a few things:


1 - Bears can properly mess people and things up. This is brilliant.
2 - They do actually like honey. I like honey. Bears are great.
3 - Bears rhymes with stairs, chairs, lairs, scares, flares and many other words. Bears are great.
4 - They look hilarious in hats.
5 - Quite a lot of them are famous: Winnie the Pooh, Rupert, Yogi, Paddington, The Care Bears, Gummi Bears, Fozzie, Baloo,
Sooty, Superted and Teddy Ruxpin to name but a few. How many famous voles can you name? None. Exactly.
6 - People use bear parts for lots of things. People have bearskin rugs, talk about the right to bear arms (that's Andrew
O'Neill's lovely gag), walking around bear foot, some people have a whole cupboard that's bear.
7 - Add a 'D' and its a beard. This is why you should be suspicious of beady people. They are just bears trying to infiltrate the
humans by having shaved around the eyes.


I don't eat salmon though. This is why I am definitely not a bear. But I would like to hibernate like one. Today I am wearing my most bear like jumper. By that I mean it is big and warm. It does not look like a bear, nor does it have a bear on it. Its just big. So big infact that I increase dramatically in size whilst wearing it. Often people think I'm nearer than I am, but I'm not. I love the fact that winter allows for clothes like this to be worn. Big jumpers, my big Napoleanesque coat and my bright red beanie that makes me look either like I'm about 7 years old or about to go fishing. Its an odd combination of things. In the same way I wear my Timberland boots which make me look either hip-hop or lumberjack. There are links fashion wise there that no once can explain. I like to think that hip-hop comes from the ancient lumberjacks of all time. DJ's chop up beats, lumberjacks chopped up wood. Hip-hop came from the block parties, lumberjacks axe up blocks of wood. Its all there. All bloody there.


I think Canadians will like todays blog.


Its Fat Tuesday tonight with Mark Watson headlining which should be lovely. At the time of typing, there are a weeny amount of tickets left. You should book them. All of them. Thanks:

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/59106


Also, next Monday is this:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=178049797217&ref=mf

You should all come to that too even though I clearly won't remember how my shows goes having not done it since August. If all else fails I will do a lecture on bears.