Homo Sapi-apes

Good news! I’ve actually found a benefit of getting older, ok it’s just the one at the moment, but it is a big one. 

The body creaks and aches and pains are always a reminder of the passing of time (and fitness), but between the ears hidden deep away there is this great little benefit called memory and experience.

This week the horrific terrorist attacks in Brussels brought the usual response  as society tried to come to terms with the madness of the few. Political rhetoric of ‘clamp downs’ and ‘determination’ and ‘unity’ and all the other things we expect to be spoken at such moments of grief and anxiety. 

Images of human pain and despair mixed with acts of courage,compassion and real unity. 

One thing stuck with me, and that was the feeling that ‘I’ve seen and felt this all before’ not exactly the same, but very similar moments and feelings of despair and anger and solidarity all mixed together and racing through my brain. 

I heard one politician say “this will not end shortly, we will have to live with the threat of terrorism for a long time” , how many times have I heard that ? 

In my own experience I have- in my lifetime-heard politicians say the same thing about 9/11, IRA attacks, ETA in Spain, who remembers the bomb explosion in the Bologna train station ? all moments in time when the world seemed to be falling apart and becoming a ‘living hell’. 

Even further back, the Oklahoma bombing of government buildings in the USA, attacks on a Japanese subway, Nigeria, .... in fact all over the world, almost on a weekly if not daily base we hear of atrocities. It’s never until these acts of hate and barbarity are suddenly on our doorstep that we truly stop to think about them. 

There is never, and should never be any excuses for the slaying and maiming of people who have nothing to do with the ‘terrorists of the day’ and their perceived injustices, aims or holy missions, no excuses whatever.

Just as there are no excuses for government intervention and bombing of countries for economic gain. Terror comes in many forms and takes on many guises and always ,always has an ‘excuse’. 

We humans are the greatest of all beings on this planet, or so we like to think. 

What we haven’t completely come to terms with is our ‘nature’ our ‘being’ ,the way we are. We see acts of violence and hatred as being ‘inhuman’ as if these acts are something new, something that is rare and not human,yet they have always been part of our make-up, part of us. 

Personally I like to think that generally we are ‘ok’ and we are gradually (in evolutionary terms) getting to grips with ‘us’ and how to get along with the growing number of us living on this relatively small rock in space, our shock at seeing and experiencing hate , violence and destruction increases because generally we have banned it from society. But we are still human, the sad,angry,violent,loving,caring,hating,egocentric,compassionate ape.

The more crowded this rock becomes the more we will ‘irritate’ and ‘annoy’ each other, the more of us the more tension that will arise. 

The organization of society (politics) ,the actual meaning of life or the lack of the necessity for meaning (religion,philosophy,etc) the fight for survival (rivalries for food and existence) will all be driving us toward endless conflict and forming of new alliances.

So I look at the terrorist attacks of this week, misguided,well armed psychopaths on a ‘religious’ mission have tried to destabilize the society we live in, they have a hatred for this society we have created, for whatever reason, they have no other desire than to destroy the way we ‘get on‘ ,they are prepared to kill themselves in the quest for what they think is a better life, for a comedian that is ‘ironic gold’. 

Society, the way we get on, is not perfect and never will be, we can only try to get it as good as we can, so many of us, so many opinions and ideas, so many different views on how the world should be, it’s almost impossible to see it ever working, and yet it does. Society may creak and groan under the strains of all our differences and injustices but ‘in the main’ it works, because of that ‘human experience’ the survival gene ,call it what you like. 

Hatred ,violence, terror are all part of our being, but even more so are being loving,caring, helping, united. So don’t let the actions of the few allow us to lose our faith in the many, we need each other to survive, always have. We were the weakest , became strong because we learned how to work together to overcome our physical handicaps, our brains developed and we learned new tricks (as apes tend to do) to survive and grow old. 

As far as I’m concerned one of the greatest inventions is the mirror, it gives us the opportunity to look at ourselves, and we should do that, and at the same time ask ourselves the question “what sort of ape was I today? did I do anything to make stuff better? or did I fall back into the pattern of destructiveness ? Because after all I’m just one of the many homo sapi-apes that roam this earth, and (even) I have to keep all that ‘human-ness’ within me under control”.

  

Stand-up Comedy the drug.

This last week I've done gigs in a (ex) Convent (and that on a Sunday morning) , in a ex pat club in Budapest and yesterday in the old mine district of Beringen (Belgium) in a Theatre, tonight I take my show to a Cultural Centre on the edge of Brussels, Halle.
Stand-up Comedy at home everywhere there is a stage a microphone and an audience that are willing to open their minds and listen.
Personally I prefer the intimate clubs and places where the audience almost sits on stage with you.
People who just watch Stand-up on TV seem to think it's all about the Michael McIntyres of this world in huge arenas or Theatres, if that's your thing ,do it, but real -gutsy, rock n roll stand-up will always be the small venues, with affordable tickets and exciting new talent.
In huge arenas you get a certain percentage of the audience who are there because it's a huge 'event' and some of them are not stand-up comedy 'regulars' - this week the hype is a comedian next week 'the dog whisperer'.
If you want to get down and dirty and see what stand-up is and what it should be you have to venture out to the places that don't get all the PR and the management induced hysteria.
For 4 years now we've(my wife, daughter and me) been running a monthly stand-up comedy club in Antwerp, an original stand-up comedy basement style, with (top) club comedians from the UK, USA ,Canada and from other parts of Europe.
Stand-up Antwerp has become almost a part of the London club scene, every week we receive mails from comedians in the UK who want to come and perform. It's a small club (under a bookstore) and has the look and the 'vibe' of the comedy clubs of the UK and US where legends were born. Each month the 100 seats are sold out in advance,we could move to a larger venue ,but then it would become more about the money and the 'prestige' than the grass roots stand-up comedy we try to preserve.
As in every performance art form there is always the pull of the 'big' and the 'money' as opposed to the heart and guts of the art form.
Television (and more and more you tube etc) feed the masses the celebs and the artists that 'should be watched' and held high, only people who are really interested in the art form itself go and seek the new talent, the names that don't appear on (almost) every TV programme.
So do yourself a favour, if you are a 'comedy lover' go watch stand-up in a small club or bar, go where the vibe is real and not commercial thought control. Treat yourself to something new, open your mind and 'get real'.
See ya!

Sitcom?

Fears of a clown.

The irony of the bussiness  I'm in (comedy) is that a lot of the time the audience goes home happier than the artist.
The adrenaline rush of the gig usually wears off a couple of hours after the show and doubt and self-hate sets in soon after that. Usually the truth is that a show is usually never as good as you think it was and never as bad as you think.
There is something magic about being on stage and hearing people laugh at something you say, whether  for 10 people or a 1000 people the kick is there, and very very addictive, but like every drug it gets harder and harder to reproduce the first 'kick', you get used to it and the search for the 'high' becomes more and more difficult.
I can remember being almost physically sick before a gig in the early years whereas now it takes 'effort' to produce the tension needed to create the 'edginess' on stage.

Performing comedy on stage is an addictive drug, and like all addictions it's a love/hate relationship, my Mother who was a alcoholic grimaced as she drunk her daily portion of sherry as if it was some horrible medicine. So it is with me and comedy, driving to the gig can be a very negative vibe, my head seems to throw up all the alternative things I could be doing. All the doubts about the venue, the audience, my material etc etc come to the surface, but once I'm on stage everything falls into place and I feel the warm glow of the junky flowing through my veins. Then I'm off stage and very scared that someone will come and say how they hated it.

So remember when you go to a comedy gig, that man or woman on stage might look very confident and full of confidence, but a lot of the times the 'ego' is very very fragile.