I have had too much sleep and seem to have overdosed on it. I have that horrible feeling where I know sleep is the last thing I need more of, but I’d quite like some. I imagine that’s how heroin users feel all the times. Not about sleep, just about heroin. Although I guess you’d get pretty sleepy after all them drug takings. I’m scared that this is just the beginning. What if it starts with sleep, then next its being awake at all times of day only to excel until I’m suddenly addicted to breathing and just can’t stop myself. Its a slippery slope, and one you can’t sue the council for if you fall down it. Annoyingly, if you have too much of most stuff, you can sleep it off ie booze, food, poor sitcoms. You can’t sleep sleep off though, otherwise you end up in a terrible sleep cycle, never waking up like a modern day Rip Van Winkle. I got woken up this morning by a man from the St.Mungo’s charity who wanted donations to help the homeless. Being in a half sleepy state, I explained how poor I am and then somehow managed to persuade him to come along to the first Fat Tuesday night back. I think I am a better salesman asleep. I might ask for gigs during R.E.M and see if it works any better. That’s the official term for R.E.M not that I will only call comedy clubs while Michael Stipe is warbling in the corner. Although I might try that too. If I pulled it off it would be impressive to say the least. That’s pull the stunt off, not Michael Stipe.
I think my exhaustion stems from all the excitement of the up and coming Twitter Comedy Night. Yesterday, the interest in the event went skyward as it was tweeted about by Graham Linehan, Ben Goldacre, Neil Gaiman and Stephen Fry. Yes, the Stephen Fry. After he and the other Twitlebrities mentioned it, the following for our @tweetcomedyclub account went to nearly 4000 in about 4 hours. Madness. I’d love to say it was all my doing but it was actually lots of Twitter Comedy Club fans, and the celebrity status and ability of Mitch Benn, who just asked Stephen nicely. I did nothing but sat at my computer watching the fanbase increase. That is my favourite type of work. Work where I don’t need to do anything and it just does itself. What is now scaring me is that I had better have some good jokes for the night. I had sort of thought about winging it a bit on the night but if that doesn’t work then 4000 people will witness those wings failing like a Twittering Icarus. Or Twicarus. Whatever happens, we’ve done it first which means even if someone does it a lot better later on, I can say that they stole my idea then sue them and break them for everything they’ve ever owned. In fact maybe I should fail this Twitter Comedy Night in the hope that Jimmy Carr or someone else takes it up, and I can claim dosh for my Edinburgh show. My Edinburgh show no one will come to see because 5000 twitterers saw me write sheer shite online. Its a double-edged sword I guess. Much like a lot of swords. Otherwise swords would have one edge making them a 2D object and rather awkward to wield.
Last night’s gig at Anthology was a lot of fun. Rather than try and spruce myself out up for going to the outside world I decided to just wear my tracksuit bottoms, hoodie and cap combination and see what kind of looks I got from the middle class of Stoke Newington. It very much confused them as they weren’t sure if I was scum or someone very famous trying to avoid the paps. I was tempted to try and mug one of them and then shout ‘Look at photos of my flat in OK magazine’ and see what happens. I think they would have called the police and Heat at the same time, and I would have taken off my cap revealing that I am neither scary or famous and thus disappointing everyone all at once. The show was lovely. There was a whole audience of 6 people, which is 4 better than the last time I did it. They were all seasoned Anthology followers too, so they were ready for tales. Andrew J Lederer regaled everyone with stories of gone off food and obscure teen jeopardy movies, and then it was my turn to tell everyone ‘The Tale Of The Vanishing Squirrel’ which is as terrifying as the title suggests. It went down well and more importantly, reminded me of an incident that occurred with me and my friend Mat about 10 years ago. We were sitting in the garden on a summer’s day, smoking some jazz cigarettes, and drinking beer. There were two snails on the garden wall and we started off on a whimsical chat about how we supposed that when people aren’t looking snails can move extremely fast and its all just a rouse. We laughed about this and at one point turned to each other as you do in parlance. When we turned back a second later, both the snails had completely vanished. We looked everywhere by the wall, but they were nowhere to be found. This still bothers me to this day. It was like they knew we mentally wouldn’t be able to cope with that and so they had played molluscan class Gastropoda type of Beadle’s About on us. Them snails are tricksy.
No gigs tonight, just a few bevvies with my friends Tim and Adrian, which should be nice. I hope I make it there, as I feel like I have a snooze coming on. Maybe I’ll try and wean myself off this sleep lark with a few small dozes or naps, then a 40 winks patch.
