Goddamn am I looking forward to this year being over! I managed to get a few climbs in but never enough. Had a great time hitting the slopes on the board but on January 15 the slopes hit back and I smashed my head against a tree (while wearing a helmet luckily) giving myself a concussion. My wife shook her head at what might have been the outcome and informed me that if I really stack it up she would not be there to wipe my ass till I die. None the less, I still seem to have holes in my memory. For example, I for the life of me can’t understand why 10,000 people would want to file into a stadium to watch one comic. Even if by some miracle Richard Pryor would suddenly rise from the grave and do one of these I’m sure he’d just make fun of them all for showing up. I understand that playing to 10k is probably a skill that must be learned but where do you go from there? Only Hitler could play a bigger room than that and even he had to compromise by killing Jews and invading Poland. Sorry, I’m off topic again. Must be that knock on the head. So, as the year tightens up like a rectum finally tired of losing everything eaten since grade school I am for the most part satisfied with what I’m doing on stage unfortunately I’m the only one. Those with checkbooks, production titles and a better education than I was ever aware was available do not agree and quite honestly I’m pretty okay with that. Recently someone who is doing extremely well (no names mentioned) once commented to me that I was old skool when it came to doing stand-up. I guess that means my goals when I first started only went as far as getting as much club work as I could and to some extent that’s true to this day. There’s something perversely cool about getting in front of a room full of strangers and entertaining them enough to keep them from chucking food and empty bottles at you which by the way if that does happen I drop the mic and walk with my middle finger extended. Exposure is king these days. When I first started gigging in the UK I was lucky enough to get on a few television shows that featured comics sitting at long desks talking shit about something they really had no business talking about i.e. politics, sports and general news items they knew they could get a quick laugh at by simply heckling headlines. This technique, heckling headlines, is really simple by the way and anyone can do it. Just pick up any newspaper that’s free or cost less than 30p, read the headline out loud, pull a face then tie it into something sexually juvenile and bam, you’re now topical! Do I do this? Hell no, I can’t even get past the pictures on the front page let alone the headlines. Maybe that’s why I’m not one of the 60 plus comedians in the UK who has a DVD for sale this holiday season. 60 plus! Wild eh? About a year and a half ago a production outfit I respect came to me and told me they thought I was funny and that they wanted to shoot one of these DVD things. I of course said sure because it really felt like someone was giving my little ego a nice little hand job. However, no DVD shoot has taken place as no one knows who the fuck I am so as a result I can’t fill a theater let alone a medium/large sized club. All that’s fine by me as I’d rather shoot it some small venue where if I have to I can afford to buy everyone in the place a drink if they become too restless to pay attention. Why shoot the messenger if he’s willing to pony up a few shots of Jager, right? Besides, one of the best, early comedy shoots I can remember was Dennis Millers’ Black and White. It looks like it was shot in a small club and has an intimate look that makes you feel like you and a select few are in on the joke. Forget the fact Dennis is one smart prick the show just looks cool. Will I still try and shoot a DVD? Hell yes, why not? However the so called extras will probably not include me doing color commentary over my misplaced idea of a show but it will include guns, riding my motorcycle through traffic like an asshole and if I’m lucky being slapped really hard by someone who has gone to the best school their parents money can buy.