This is me at open mics

Shit comedians are still better than okay songwriters. Just saying.

Comedy and life advice from the great Bill Burr

Graham: In the couple of years after graduation, what did you do to get into the business?

Bill: Stand-up, it was always stand-up. I had a day job, I was living at home with my parents. I paid off all of my credit cards. I had an old truck, and I debated getting a new one, and I decided instead I just had to rip the power train out and put a new engine and transmission in. I remember this woman at work, she was all excited I was going to buy a new car and I told her that I just had the engine replaced, and she just made this face and goes like, “that was stupid.” I was embarrassed when she said it because she was beautiful, and if you are a true man and a beautiful woman says what you just did was stupid, you immediately want to undo it. I realized very quickly that what I did was not stupid. If you have a dream, one of the things other than the drive and the passion and the mental strength as life keeps slapping you down on the ground to not only get up but to get up and go even harder, one of the major things is you have to keep your expenses low. If an opportunity comes you can just get up and leave. I continued to work my day job for a year in Boston, and at that point I was making money as a comedian. And I was making more money than I had ever made, and I didn’t have a car payment. I paid off my student loans, I paid everything off. I just banked money because I knew I was moving to New York. I saved up 10 grand, I had never had more than 300$ in the bank. I was making 17, 18 grand a year and I was able to save about 10 grand of that.

(...)

Graham: As a final question, if you could give one piece of advice to a student at Georgetown who wants to go into comedy, what would it be?

Bill:I would just sit down, I would write five minutes of stuff that I think is funny, and I would sign up for an open mic, and when they call your name, go up on stage and see what happens. And then, don’t judge yourself, your first 15-20 shows it’s not about how it’s going, but it’s about do you have the nerve to go up there when they call your name. After you’ve done it 15-20 times, you can start to gauge things like “am I the person who just keeps the mic in the mic stand or do I take it out and walk around?” Just start the journey, and then once you become a comedian, be a positive force in the world of stand-up. Encourage other people, don’t steal jokes, don’t be an asshole … being a good person is a major part of it."

 
This 2016 interview with Bill Burr, here. Still packs a punch.

An Evening with the Philosopher

Is there an illness common to all of us, something not even medicine can tackle - a sort of incurable, long episode of Love Island?
"Perhaps," said the Philosopher. "But I would rather submit myself to the mysteries of waterboarding than watch an episode of that. You want to challenge me intellectually? Bring me an episode of the Jeremy Kyle Show."

We gathered around the Philosopher every evening, attempting to emulate his almost divine wisdom. Instead, we would end up digesting cheap Aldi wine and wondering why we didn't choose paint stripper instead, as it would have tasted the same. We mostly looked at memes and released drunk farts, whilst the Philosopher described his views on life and occasionally picked his nose in the most serene manner.

"I don't like discussion, especially arguing, as I think argument is an exercise in ignorance. How can someone prove whether they are right or wrong? Opinions are immaterial as we can't prove them scientifically... so what we can discuss are the morals behind each idea  or person. Which is better, Jabba the Hutt or Chewbacca? Corbyn or May? Obi-Wan or Palpatine? A pointless exercise, although I must point out the DUP is to Theresa May what Jar Jar Binks was to Darth Sidious."

We looked at each other silently and heard a rattling noise in one of the bushes nearby as we sat around the fire. I got up to check if it was some sort of wild animal only to find it was nothing as dangerous but merely Hansel, one of our loyal students, masturbating.

"Politics bore me. Unlike Hannibal Lecter, I have very little interest in seasoned politicians," said the Philosopher.

"So what interests you, honorable Philosopher?" I asked. He paused for a second and looked at me with sweet eyes, sweeter than those of a prostitute from Prague who is about to mug you at knifepoint.

"We have been questioning ourselves since the dawn of time: is there life after death? This is something many religions have attempted to answer, and in my view failed. Because perhaps the foolishness lies not in the answer but the question itself. Do we need life after death? Do we need a perpetual cycle of tiny Donald Trump hands sexually assaulting us? Perhaps we don't. But there is a sort of life after death. Or have you not witnessed the faces of these celebrities after a plastic surgery? These people, who clearly belong more in the set of The Walking Dead than on Celebrity Big Brother prove that."

"Life after death is no mystery. A mystery is who the hell is writing the lyrics to Nicki Minaj's songs, these deep and thoughtful poems, chronicle to the life of this somehow famous singer whose butt looks like a road roller. In a  sense, it gives hope to all of us who are intellectually challenged, I suppose."

Horseback Diaries

Turned my swag on.

The light tortured my eyes in unacceptable ways. That fateful morning, I reflected on the meaning of life as I struggled with the smell of my own breath and armpits.

What had I done to deserve such severe livelihood? Had I been subjecting people to such painful experiences and sorrow that they were being led into madness and suicide? Was I a Mick Hucknall for the Youtube generation?

Maybe I should have had dinner instead of wine, beer and toilet water.
Maybe I should have avoided eating a whole Golden Syrup cake that had given me a irritable bowel syndrome and could have led me to spray paint the streets in poo?
Maybe.

I had been flustered in my existence by the breath of some drunk Polish guy and a vision of hell: an amateur porn video from 1997 that looked more like a horror directed by Eli Roth.

My being was sanguine, hell, I lived a joyous life. I sang and danced on the fields like Julie Andrews and I burped and farted and I once gave a hobo an expired credit card. Why would the universe want to mess with me?

Worst of all, I struggled to find the most beautiful woman in the universe, who I encountered leaving the bathroom of a pub whose name I can't remember on purpose. She had probably gone for a poo and a selfie, but she looked so naive and ethereal I wondered for a moment if I hadn't roofied myself.

I knew her name and attempted to stalk her on social media, to no avail. How can I find her? What am I? Who is this fat ginger bird in my bed? Some questions, I came to believe, are meant to remain unanswered. 

the comedian and his turtle, number three.

He used to wake up and dream of making people laugh. He misses the days where the skies weren't so grey, the food so shitty, and all the women he had sex with morbidly obese. Life was to him a torture and his existence futile. The comedian hadn't made his bed in months and still slept amidst some leftover cheese biscuits from 1993. He smelled like a rancid scrotum, and that was far from being nice.

Something was missing from his life, something beautiful. A naked picture of Jennifer Lawrence perhaps, he thought. But he already had acquired that because he was a pervert who couldn't help look at titties, no matter what. The whiskey in his cornflakes wasn't helping and as a drop of sour tomato soup fell from his beard into his crotch, he felt a deep sadness.

The turtle had left. His friend and companion of many years had abandoned him. One morning, he had told him he was leaving to buy cigarettes and never came back. He didn't even smoke, but he didn't argue with him. After all, he was a talking turtle and for someone who grew up watching mutant turtles eating pizza, that was sort of okayish.

Now without a soul to tell stories about his comedy misfortunes he was alone. Every day for the last six weeks he had tried to commit suicide and failed. He wasn't very good at anything in particular, apart from playing checkers. He could play that shit really well.

Where could have he gone? The town had only thirty-five square metres and most of that space was occupied by fat people on mobility scooters outside Greggs. Who would know. Plus the turtle wasn't very good at hiding, a fact proven before in a game of hide and seek, where he put himself in between pages three and five of The Big Issue for seven months.

Tired of looking for his Galapagos friend and potential ninja, the comedian entered a strip club. The sight of breasts appealed to him and made him cry for a moment. Then he realized he wasn't in a strip club but merely at his local pub and the breasts belonged to a inebriated football hooligan.

He arrived at an actual strip club at last. After thirty-three shots of Sambuca with a Romanian stripper, he was ready to give up on life at last. He would throw himself in front of a train. Hopefully one that wasn't stationary, like last time.

"Comedian! You twat!" the turtle shouted from the other end of the room. Happiness filled the comedian's face.
"Turtle, you're alive!" he said.
"I was hoping you had killed yourself by now man. You were totally about to when I left, I didn't fancy staying to clean up your corpse mind you. Especially considering I'm only an imaginary turtle and all."
"It's okay, I understand." the comedian said, crying. "I love you!"
"Now that's just disgusting." said the turtle "At least suicide I respect you know. You stop bothering people with your shit. It saves a lot of time and money and there are plenty of people on this planet already, watching Pop Idol and whatnot. I'd rather have you die choking on your own balls or something. Like a man. Because I care about you."

Suppose he was right, the Comedian thought.
He had spent his entire time feeling sorry for himself, when he could have been doing something productive, like catching gonorrhea. He could have had a monstrous baby with a minger, whom he would have to end up drowning to protect the environment.

"You're a downright pussy," the turtle said. "Not like a cat or a vagina but a real fucking pussy."

"All you do is sit at home all day watching porn and as much as I like Two Girls One Horse Plus Three German Shepherds it does get boring after the twelve-thousandth time. Get out there, get drunk, fuck shit up."

Suddenly a glimmer appears around the turtle and he grows angel wings. He becomes like an angel turtle and that's just weird. God must be desperate for recruits. The turtle flies to the heavens, leaving a poo on his way and a very special message in the clouds:

"TWAT."

There was never a turtle. There was only him and his insecurity. His fear of failure. The turtle was a fragment of his imagination, an excuse he had developed to think that he sucked balls. But he didn't. He merely licked them. His dog's. Because someone convinced him the dog's bollocks were the best thing ever. And he believed it.

Sea Change

The last months have been haunted by a mixture of change and stasis. Just when I thought I was on the right path in stand-up comedy, shit happened and I stopped. I had to suddenly move house and that had a nice financial impact on my career (attempt) boost. The fact that I live more than two hours away from London, far far away from the city life, certainly doesn't help either. I came to a standstill.

My last gig was a disaster. I bombed big and felt that was it. It's the worst thing, when you finally have your material starting to flow, your timings improving, and then - ta-da - you're shit. But nobody is really suddenly shit. To me, bombing is just something that happens when you and your audience are not made for each other. You are mutually shit. It's the opposite of love, and it's not hate: it's a mutual lack of attraction.

So I stopped, then I started again. Somewhere else. I decided to focus on the things I could do now, even though my love of stand-up remains unchallenged, relentless. Suddenly I found myself in two musical projects where I'm singer-songwriter.

I had no clue I could write or sing songs. But the strangest things happen, and the music has given me a boost, a magnitude of hope I so needed. Every song I complete, no matter how flawed, is an accomplishment, a small piece in my happiness puzzle.


Burger Queen from Ruben on Vimeo.

This led to an urge, and I started working on other things. My routines changed. My bedroom became a workshop. And for that I have to blame Austin Kleon, whose two books 'Steal Like an Artist' and 'Show Your Work' I found in a Manchester indie bookstore laid ground for the work I started doing. I got back into drawing. I started writing again and filming stupid videos. An urge became a routine - shit just got real.

In my workshop, and have two main walls, The Wall of Masters and The Wall of Guidance. The first, is composed of a set of pictures from my favourite artists so that I remember why I'm here, based on Kleon's tree of artistic influences. My friend Ricardo prefers to call it The Artistic Boob (as it turned out, it ended up looking just like one).

In this boob, I'm the nipple.

The Wall of Guidance has quotes from some of my favourite people and others who happen to just have good advice. Louis CK, Ricky Gervais and many others have a place there. It helps me stay on the path. Every morning, even when I don't read it, the words on the wall stay in the unconscious part of my mind.

You probably can't read it, but it's all there.

 So as projects go, apart from the music, I'm writing some poetry. When I went in my garage one of these days to clear out some old stuff I found some magazines, and decided they were going in the bin. But then I decided against it. I remembered Austin Kleon's 'Newspaper Blackout' and how he was using something somebody else wrote to make his art. So from here, and for the last four weeks, every day 'Scattered' is what I'm doing. One poem a day, non-negotiable. The words come from those old magazines I was going to get rid of.

Words waiting to be part of something.

Yes, my words come from a box of deodorant.

After I cut the words out, I put them in a box, which, for the sake of things, I called 'Wordsmith'. The words or wordsmithereens, go in there and only come out when it's time to make a poem. I never have any idea what I'm writing about. The words decide that for me. I'm not writing here, I'm rearranging, I'm completing a puzzle. The words find me and the poem is born.

One of my recent ones, 'Alchemy'

Every end is a new beginning. Things change, it's no big deal. My favourite advice, straight from the Wall of Guidance:

Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work

Flaubert

It's episode one of... Not Japanese!

Not Japanese - Episode 1 from Ruben on Vimeo.

It's a comedy web series. Not in Japanese.

The Very Penis Song.

The Very Penis Song from Ruben on Vimeo.

Ricky Gervais presents: How to Win at Losing

"Twenty-one times I've been nominated, lost nineteen".

Even though I don't agree with Gervais on many things, he's a great fucking comic. For a guy who started so late, his work rate and quality of his stuff is impressive. So to watch him and others lose Emmys year on year off to Jim Parsons seems unfair. I'm not saying Parsons isn't a good actor but is the Big Bang Theory, even though sometimes very funny, the kind of groundbreaking show that draws that much attention to the quality of its acting?

Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, on the other hand, fully deserved their wins with their spectacular (yeah bitch, magnets!) turns in Breaking Bad, even though I think in the show's final season, Dean Norris deserved at least a Best Supporting Actor nod. Considering his initial portrait of the character was almost comedic, the way Hank Schrader evolved to be the super-detective and then head of DEA was some serious badassery. And to me personally, this scene from the episode "Blood Money" is one of the major pieces of evidence that show really how great an actor Norris is, and how he doesn't become overshadowed by Bryan Cranston's incredible acting chops and has a very strong game.



But back to Gervais, the way he jokes with the most times unfair nature of these awards and says what some of us have always wanted to, is refreshing. A kick in the teeth audiences and little grey voting showbiz people don't always enjoy. Proof that all of us can win, even at losing.

talking funny

"I started late. I don't want to die with a good idea. I want to get it out."

"I remind myself it really isn’t work. My dad was a laborer who got up at 5:30 each morning and worked for 50 years in all weathers for, by showbiz standards, petty cash. I remind myself of that every time I feel a bit hard done by. Winston Churchill said if you find a job you love, you’ll never work again. And that’s what it feels like. I used to be a lazy person, unambitious, a slacker, but now I’m a workaholic, because of the privileged position I’ve found myself in.

Fame is an upshot of what I do. If you're a successful comedian or actor, then you're a famous one. But it’s a by-product. It’s not the driving force. The making of it is the fun for me—not the money or the awards. It’s the process that I love, and the most exciting part is the creative thought. I’ve never done anything for a million pounds that I wouldn’t have done for free. Likewise, the awards are a thrill, but deep down I know it's only the opinions of a few people; it doesn't matter whether you win or lose. What matters is the work. You tried your hardest and you're proud of it. That's the important thing."

this is some good shit

reasons why I love 'Louie'

comedy lessons from Jack Dall and in praise of 'Louie'

The word 'masterpiece' is often overused. Everywhere we see artists dubbed as masters by critics and audiences alike, not always fairly. That isn't the case of Louis CK's semi-autobiographical masterpiece 'Louie'. Yes, I said masterpiece. Because 'Louie' on the surface seemed just like any other comedy series, only it's much more than that. As a human being and comedian it's the sort of artistic work that got under my skin like anything ever did before. 'Louie' is as much funny as it is scary and philosophical. It's a comedy and a tragedy. Tragicomical is the word to look for in here.

Very few shows have managed to touch me so deeply. Breaking Bad, the remake of Battlestar Galactica, the recent Hannibal and Twin Peaks were some of the very few. Of course, there are many very funny shows out there, but none as challenging as 'Louie'. 'Louie' dares not to be funny.

"This is real!" Louie yells at his daughter in one of the first episodes of this fourth season. And that is why 'Louie' stands on its own, away from the competition. The barrier between reality and fiction gets so blurry we're unsure whether this is all true. It can be, and if not it could, because every episode is more ground-breaking than the last one. CK shoots like a John Cassavetes documenting fiction and reality in the same way.

"Dig Deeper"

I  knew Louis CK's stand-up but I didn't start paying as much attention as when I started watching the show. My fascination with the man's art led me to discover he was greatly influenced by one of the comics that has the most influence on me becoming a comedian: George Carlin.

Wandering through Youtube videos months ago I found his speech at the tribute to George Carlin held at the New York Public Library after his death.




From a wholly inspiring speech, what stuck with me was this:

"When you’re done telling jokes about airplanes and dogs, and you throw those away, what do you have left? You can only dig deeper. You start talking about your feelings and who you are. And then you do those jokes and they’re gone. You gotta dig deeper. So then you start thinking about your fears and your nightmares. And doing jokes about that. And then they’re gone….It’s a process I watched him do his whole life. And I started to try to do it."

As a beginner comic, I thought this was insane. I barely had any material and this guy was saying to throw all the good stuff away? Then time passed and the "good stuff" no longer rung true and relevant and I couldn't understand how some comics could endure doing the same material for years. The fear of getting rid of your good stuff will stop you from getting to the great stuff, the stuff that will make you a great comedian.

I started doing it and then I improved a little. Louis CK had been doing the same material for decades. It took him years to get strong routines that worked. Then he got rid of them and became what he is today, one of the best comedians working in the world. How do you come up with your best material? "Dig deeper".

Of the many cameos 'Louie' has to offer, the one of David Lynch is something incredible. The way his character challenges Louie and in the end makes him a better comic is a huge lesson. When in one of the episodes he gives Louie a countdown and tells him at the end of it he has to be funny. Louie replies it doesn't work like that. It is truly one of the best scenes in the show for me and one that surely will apply to many comedians. Dall challenges Louie to improvise, to be funny, that that is his job.





Jack Dall has three rules for show business. The first one stuck with me and was the first step on me improving as a comedian.

"Look'em in the eye and speak from the heart"

"You're whatever you have to be to make people laugh". Get out there, be funny - it's your fucking job.