Boardwalk Empire Comedy Club Titting About

or if you are in Sims land

Pic courtesy of Marcus Keeley who somehow digitally infiltrated the Batcave to render this cgi Lorcan, God help us all.

It's a while since I've frequented the auld blog, painful memories (all available in the archive forever and ever, or until there is no electricity like in a Snake Plissken in an Escape From L.A. stylee.) I've been busy alternating between overseeing a bootleg alcohol operation in 1920s Atlantic City and killing skuttering aliens in a nanosuit, either that or overdosing on Boardwalk Empire and Crysis 2. Recently, however a few nonbleak things happened that I feel compelled to document.

The first was finding all of Preacher graphic novels in a Monaghan charity shop for 1.50 euro a pop, which meant that after a bit of in-my-favor maths from the lady behind the counter and a wink, I got all nine volumes for 12 euro: Ladies in charity shops regularly think I am mentally challenged for buying 'funny books' from the children's section at the age of 35 and give me discounts out of pity, but I think we all know who the real winner is. Ironically they were in the religion section beside George W. Bush's 'Decision Points', (presumably the 'decision point' for Bush was seeing the advance and accepting one last chance to get a huge amount of money for selling bullshit to shitmunchers)

There they are now, all the lads together.

Rereading it all in one go was an amazing experience, especially liked the cameo from Bill Hicks, put it up on Lorcranium here and here and it reminded me of a more innocent time when references to strap on dildos and sexual perversions evoked illicit thrills rather than mundane jaded tuts of recognition. It would have made a great HBO (home bosum ogling) series.

The second great thing was fulfilling a comedy ambition of playing The Empire Comedy Club. I did an open spot with Sean Hegarty supporting and Simon Evans headlining, all MCed by Jake O'Kane. Comedic brother in arms Marcus Keeley kindly recorded and uploaded it, he says it's good, but all I can hear is some Monaghan mook going "eh" all the time while his gut strains behind a Primark cardigan that looks well the first time you wear it but is gets more embarrassing each time you wash it. Check out the rest of his great videos here. Think it went well though, got asked back in September.

Last but by no means least, and I would say this was an unfulfilled comedy ambition as I didn't even think it was possible, but I supported Kevin Eldon at his first (sold out!) show in Belfast organised by the Black Box and Big Laughs Belfast. He has one of the most impressive comedy cvs of any actor in the contemporary British comedy world. I did a wee youtube tribute to Eldon over on the Tumblr, and Peter "Hotrod" McCaughan's review of the night can be found here.

I don't need to offer my tuppenny bits worth on how good Eldon's show 'Titting About' is, the Paul Hamilton opening section expertly gets the audience in the mood for the sort of actorly character sections that will prevail and the quickfire nature of the show generally leaves little room for an audience to either stop laughing or get bored or agitated. I love the George Martin/Hitler section, the roots of which can be seen here:

Upon meeting him, I had to suppress the fanboy urges to divulge favorite Eldon moments or reveal that whenever I apply for a job I am far too old for I always think of the office assistant/ear severing sketch in Big Train. I also resisted the urge to ask who ended up keeping the Kevin Eldon/Chairman Mao painting from the Big Train Virginia Plain sketch, it must be in someone's living room:

Anyway, in the tradition of the Internet, pics or it didn't happen

(p.s. I'm pretty sure the ice age happened and there are no pics of that)

In the manner of a comedy blog, as mentioned by the mysterious Comedy Guru...here are some gigs/my fleeting roster of self worth:

Monday July 4, 2011, Morgan Hearst's 'Manic Mondays', the Pavillion, Belfast, headlining: Facebook event here

Saturday, July 9, 2011, Millenium Forum Derry, headlining: Facebook event here

Saturday, July 16, 2011, Rock N' ROFL, Auntie Annies, Belfast, headlining: Facebook event here.

Friday July 29, 2011, Courthouse Comedy Club, support.

other appearances include in the gutter and in the bushes outside your window.

Abduct Me!!

Starfire! Abduct Me!

The less interesting, suspiciously cloudlike, aliens of Norwich

Passing a newsagents today* I saw a headline that, according to the Evening News, there was a UFO sighted over Norwich today! (with one of those helpful 'artists impressions', if your gonna make an artist's impression try not to make it look like a feckin' cloud). Previous report from October 2006 here. According to John Sayer of the Norfolk UFO Society

“It seems the Norwich area is a hot spot for UFO activity - a lot aren't reported, but the city has one of the highest number of sightings.”

You know, Norwich, UFO's kinda made me think of Bill Hicks in the Flying Saucer tour a bit:
People are bringing shotguns to UFO sightings in Fife, Alabama. I asked a guy, "Why do you bring a gun to a UFO sighting?" Guy said, "Way-ul, we didn' wanna be ab-duc-ted." Dude, if I lived in Fife, Alabama, I would be on my hands and knees every night praying for abduction every day. A Greyhound! abduct me!

It also reminded me of one my previous incarnations, which occured, courtesy of Gary J Byrnes, around the time I finished my MA, (maybe it's a sign)

The EDP's newsagent headline signs often leave me baffled because they often concern the various men in shorts that kick balls while people shout at them in big rectangle, the shouty bally foot game, I think it's called, one said "No Future for Hughes at City", I thought to myself "you and me both, buster".

Hey, woop! anyone in from Norwich etc...Jimmny's Stand-up Debut.

In summary: 'so I'm a lonely geek and I collect comics and love science fiction and I talk to my action figures...any auld chance?...

There was a row of young ladies sitting on the floor, and two older women in front of me, so talking about Jules Jordan's Chaise Longue, Belladonna and 'Porn Fatigue' was especially difficult. The two older women really liked it though!

What the fuck am I doing was what I was thinking for most of Monday evening last. Tom Moran has been running the very successful UEA comedy night LoL @ Rose and I had vaguely mentioned doing something for the most recent showcase but delibrately didn't tell friends in case I totally bombed, doing it in a place of work was nerve wrecking enough.

This was based on a back-of-my mind hankering to try stand up for years and a recent overdosing on Bill Hicks. There seems to a trend in recent stand up of saying something outrageous (be it on sex, race, disabilitity etc.) and then kind of saying 'but I don't really mean that, I was only trying to get a laugh. I prefer the more philosophical storytelling angle, with material you really believe in. State side at least there is a lot of comedians referring to geeky subjects David Cross, Jen Dziura, Patton Oswalt and Morgan Murphy. (Not to mention Tim and Eric, but that's a whole other bag). Am slowly realising I shouldn't slag random Americans on the state of their stand-up, there is great stuff out there, but they haven't really hit over here yet. It's just we get the most sacchrine and shit American comedy, of the Everyone Loves Raymond variety.

I even looked on the Internet for advice, like that helped (gawd, it's getting like you'd forget how to do a shit without googling it first) but remined me of Tommy Tiernan's Jokerman where they all the talk was about 'F-Bombs', 'aw man don't drop an F-bomb. (is 'feck' a 'f-bomb', with a small f?) like that was the most important thing, not to swear, no matter how funny it is. Dropping real bombs on people is always ok, but it's dropping F-Bombs that's the problem? Which is more applicable in mainstream U.S. comedy, if you're trying to get a sitcom or something.

Although there's a lot talk of porn etc in my stuff, I describe it in quite a polite way (or maybe as it say in Festival anything in an Irish accent is funny?) and adapated some early blog rants Small Bags of Crap and Apocalypse Bus to Thetford so was already learned off quite extensively. The overall material ran at about 2,000 words but the summary I scribbed down just before going on was:

Norwich/Apocalypse Bus to Theford
Irish accent stuff/comic geek/hit with the ladies
films/threequels/Weapons of Ass Destruction 3
wanking/Jesus/CCTV in Heaven
beasttube/dog owners/little bags of shit.

I genuinely surprised by how positive everyone was, it seemed to go down really well. I had emailed by stuff to Tom beforehand and the advice he gave me was to cut out some Lost references, which was dead right, referring to specific shows would lose the section of the audience that's never seen it. I think being older helped, as I was talking about things I genuinely believed in and wasn't antagonistic toward the audience, and the Irish accent helped, it was a talking point to start off with, Norfolk peoples' reaction to it and such like.

It was quite an experience, you could tell who was on stage that night, as we were all nervous, pacing around and around the pub, mumbling to ourselves, but you never know what it's going to be like until it actually happens. It was definitely very exilirating, but I don't know if that's only because you feel so awful beforehand and it's a relief to sit down and see the rest of the show, although there is a residual worry as you hope everyone elses set goes well.


Running Order for prosperity for when they're all rich and famous: Pat Cathill (compare) Christian Ancliff, Lorcan McGrane, Jonathan Brittain, John Kearns, David Brain, and Tom Moran.

Tom Moran and I before the gig, I was shitting myself here, I hadn't eaten all day because of nerves and Owen B, who was celebrating his 21st and the end of his exams had put a pint in front of me for good luck, it tasted of metal and tears. Photos by Jemma T.

An actual Jimmny conversation....at the Goober Patrol gig

Peter Andre and Jordan unveil the 'doner kebab' of wedding cakes

I went to see my mate Tim Tims in his great punk band Goober Patrol at The Cricketers' Rest, check out their youtubes where they lost their galleon and went bowling and dressed up like kirk and co. They were playing with the Mustard City Rockers, which in a small town Norwich stylee also played in the Rose when I was working last night.

Anyway it was a great night, but as usual being allowed out of room to talk to ladies is always a faux pas waiting to happened.

Nice Lady: so your doing a PhD on superheroes, you must really like superheroes.*

Jimmny: Well yeah, but I understand in terms of their historical and cultural context, I don't think Superman's a real person, even if he was I'd probably think he was a boring dick, I'm not a lunatic Christian that thinks there's special superpowered being that's gonna scoop me up to heaven and give me a big hug for being good.

Nice Lady: I'm a Christian

[the actual words of rant are hazy as blogger did that weird overwrite thing that sometimes happens when I tried first tried to type this up on Sunday night, but is was along those lines, and of course you can tell the punchline a mile off, and her friend was a christian too and they had to leave early and go to mass...]

*See here's the problem this is a perfectly reasonable sentence but I sometimes feel that when you say you like superheroes, some religious types think you are a hop, skip and a jump away from being a converted godbiter just because they think you believe in fictional characters that resurrect themselves and fly and shit.

Who's to say that in two thousand years time there won't be any difference in authrity between the old and new testament and the book of mormon and Jordan's autobiography? Can you imagine that travelling two thousand years in the future ,say, and there's factions of Jordanists and you are trying to explain that she was just a model and she married a guy made up of sausage. And they're like 'heresy!' Jordan's secret orbs contain the secret to eternal life and we will all get to live in her fluffy white mansion and get to sing 'Insansia' with St. Peter Andre for eternity....god and then the Jodie Marshists weigh in and it's World War VII...

One person hears a voice and he/she is psychotic, a few thousand or million hear voice and it's a 'religion' and you kill people because of it. It is like people fighting over whether the wolf or the three pigs were 'right', so you're a Little Red Riding Hoodist I can't talk to ya I'm a Big Bad Wolfist....

Where did that come from, see what happens when you watch a Bill Hicks dvd over and over.

In sane Man...

I have amost daily fever dreams about what Bill Hicks would say if he was alive today. With most of the routines it doesn't matter, becuase I just substitute Bush Junior for Bush Sernior and, horrifyingly, the comedy works out fine. But what would he say about Big Brother (the TV and CCTV kind) Guantánamo Bay, Iraq, 9/11, etc. etc.?

The strange thing is though, Bill Hicks dies and Dennis Leary suddenly stops being funny...what are the chances....