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Work continues to go well. I rewrote an AIOTM sketch this morning which I'd been struggling to get right for a few weeks. Lucky I finally got there as we're doing it on Tuesday. In order to get some stuff in the bank I am doing a feature called “As It Occurred To Me†where I will revisit my past and explore some ideas (some familiar, others less so). It's important to me that this shot at making an internet TV show is as good as possible and I will be thinking of the people who have never seen me before as much as those who are aware of every move I've made in the past.
The first day of filming on the series is tomorrow when we will be putting together the first of a series of sketches about my fixation with robot sex. By necessity this will start with familiar territory, but over the episodes I am hoping to move it somewhere more surprising and darker. I hope so anyway. I've only written the first one so far.
But having gone through a period where I was intimidated by the scale of what I had to get done and the weight of expectation from the people who've paid to see this happen, I have finally (I hope) got to a place where I recognise the potential of this and want to grab the opportunity I've been given. For once I am going to take my sweet time over this so that what we put out will be the best we can do, given the limitations of time and the requirement that I also earn some money. But I am prepared to sell a part of my soul and take some work that I wouldn't usually do if it means getting this off the ground. I don't use all my soul anyway. And most of it is all scuffed up and dirty. So more fool anyone who pays for a piece. If you want a fresh soul, you need to buy it from someone younger.
Tonight I performed at Dave Gorman's excellent gig at Hoxton Hall. He's trying out stuff for his consistently entertaining TV show, but he has guests along to turn it into a full (and long) evening of entertainment. I got to Hoxton much too early and so went for a walk looking for some food. Now I am 49 I can't pretend (and nor do I want to) that I am young any more and it is hard to not walk through Shoreditch without constantly scoffing and shaking one's weary head. I wandered around looking for an emptyish cafe that I could do some work in, but everywhere was rammed and also much too pretentious and loud. A cafe with tables was beyond the bohemian people here and even if you wanted coffee you'd find that the place also sold cocktails or Vietnamese street food and you had to sit crosslegged on top of a spike whilst a tattooed man with the bottom half of his head shaved spat what you'd bought into your mouth.
I hated myself for creating this prejudiced and jaundiced stereotype in my head (though the people of Hoxton weren't doing their best to dispel their ridiculous hipster image). And mostly it didn't make me angry. It made me smile and remember being young and wish that I had taken a few less conventional choices back then and been more dickish. The irony is that as square as I am, I have ended up with a much more unconventional life than the people of my generation who had the equivalent of topknots and pointy beards. So I didn't have disdain for any of these people. I mildly envied them, but also knew that most of them would be squarer than I am in the future, so I was still the hippest hipster in Hipstertown.
But after 15 minutes of walking through this area I was just shouting out for a Caffe Nero or Pret a Manger so that I could have some ordinary food in an environment where I could use my computer.
It should be a cartoon. The man looking for a Pret in Hoxton.
I did find one eventually. And I ate Kale crisps in there. So who is the real prick?
It is me. It is always me.
