Every now and then I'll go and audition for some TV work. I'm by no means an actor (many days I'm barely a comedian) but I always pop along, well prepared and all, and try my best to get the job and the sweet, sweet money that goes along with it. Because I want to buy a campervan.
As you may have noticed, dear reader, I've not been on TV yet. Which gives you an inkling of how these auditions have been going. In my head it's not just down to me narrowly missing out after putting in my best effort (if I'm having a positive day) or being beaten into last place by a plethora of infinitely more talented people (all other days). Oh no. It's also down to my advanced age.
I'm 31 years old and started doing stand-up when I was 27. I like to think that I have the comedy age urse, in that most comedians tend to look younger than their actual age. Problem is, I feel daft lying about my age. I guess that I could tell a slight fib-ette and claim to be 27 or 28, but I'm a rubbish liar at the best of times. I glow bright red and emit pheremones that may as well be a siren above my head screaming "AWOOOOOOOOOOOOGAH! THIS MAN IS A LIAR!".
But even if I could get away with telling a slight lie here and there, if you inspect me closer I'm clearly knocking on a bit. My hair is falling out, steadily. At the back, which is irritating in the extreme as I don't know how well I'm hiding my thinning pate on a daily basis. I can't grow a beard thanks to the skin medication I was on when I was a teenager (I can't sweat through my face either, which is bizarre) so that helps the youthful feel - if I grow a moustache I look like the token 14 year old you knew at school who had been wanked off by the sweaty fat girl who worked at the chippy, played truant and had an off-road motorbike. Every school had one of those chaps, I've checked. With their faint little grey top lip hair that would every now and then get scorched by a rogue spark from the cigarettes he'd nicked from his gran's welsh dresser.
The facial hair issue is however one mere peak in the variety of pitfalls that affect my face. If you look at my tired, sunken eyes then you'll see that I am a man that has not slept for around 17 years. And my forehead is as grooved and furrowed as a freshly ploughed field. All of this gives the impression that my face is some kind of cut-and-shut, with everything below the nose a healthy 19 years old, everything above the nose is around 62.
Of course, none of this would matter if I was American. Because lets be honest, I could get cast as a nine year old in pretty much any show in the states if I tried. The whole cast of Dawsons Creek? In their late twenties when playing teenagers. Beverley Hills 90210? Some of them were in their thirties. You know that kid in Two and a Half Men? He's actually a woman in her forties.
Actually, that could be Bart Simpson. I forget.
Then add in the fact that apparently no-one in the USA is fat or ugly, according to their TV shows. The cast of Friends, for example - all of them good looking thirtysomethings, somehow living in amazing digs in one of the most expensive places on earth despite the fact that none of them seem to have particularly decent jobs. Well, except Rachel who became a merchandiser by wandering into an office one day. Because that's how that shit goes down.
If Friends was an accurate reflection on American life then where is the ethnic diversity? More to the point, the size diversity? It should have been cast like this:
RACHEL - Raised in a trailer in Alabammy. Working as a waitress with occasional lapdancing duties as she wants to create a better life for her kids, especially since her babydaddy went away. The "Rachel Cut" would not be a greasy ponytail, slicked back as harshly as possible during the day, and a crude wig at night so people don't recognise her. Has eyes that could tell a thousand sordid stories if only she could actually motivate herself to do so.
PHOEBE - Has to live in a hostel because her holistic therapy business / handmade jewellery stall actually makes so little money that she's resorted to selling crystal meth to kids at new-age music festivals. A confirmed Wiccan, she only meets men through the Internet. Several have scammed her out of her savings, despite her protestations that they're the one. Current beau is a farmer from North Dakota who has made his own human skin costume from the carcasses of the women he's killed.
MONICA - Massive. So fat that she needs a mobility scooter to get around, and the merest glimpse of her thighs is enough to make you push your meal away, should you be eating anywhere near her at the time. Hasn't worked in years, shares a 15 by 15 foot room in Staten Island with Rachel and an infestation of cockroaches. And Rachel's kids when they're not in care. And bedsores.
ROSS - Monica's brother. Religious nut, he joined a cult a couple of years ago and is close to getting Monica to join. Rail thin, thanks to his parents ignoring him and spoiling his fatter sibling. Works at a Wal-Mart in New Jersey where he hopes to be assistant manager one day. 48 years old.
CHANDLER - Only friends with the others because he feels he has to be, he has a middle management office job where he sits and wonders where it all went wrong. Secretly gay, he has joined the Ku Klux Klan to try and purge his own confusion through violence towards others. Doesn't use sarcasm, because he's American and therefore doesn't really understand it. Has been married 6 times, the most recent of which was to a stripper he met. She left after two days, taking all of his posessions.
JOEY - Wanted to be an actor but is cripplingly untalented. So instead of blundering into jobs he's reduced to working as an escort and as he gets older and more desperate, into prostitution for anyone who comes along - all so he can afford to stay in NYC.
So yeah, that would be how I would have written friends. And I know it wouldn't have made it that funny, I'll admit that. But just a touch of realism is all I ask for. I love the USA and have spent a lot of time there, but the lack of humility and honesty that the Americans have bothers me. I'm proud to be British, but I'm also aware that I live in a country with a vast amount of problems and that nobody is perfect - least of all myself.
But the American TV people would love nothing more than to kid us that everyone lives in a vast house, has an amazing job, brilliant and interesting friends, a dynamic social life, they all weigh below the national average and everyone has a ton of free cash to throw around.
Probably for the best that I'm only too old for TV jobs in this country then. In the USA I'd fail on a zillion levels...
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Monday, 15 June 2009
16: Robbie Williams
Apparently, the Robbie Williams song "Angels" is one of the most popular choices in the UK for people to have played at both their funerals and as the first dance at their weddings. I can't think of anything worse. I have made a request in my will to be cremated as "Straight to Hell" by the Clash plays, as that is surely where I'd end up if there was such thing as a god and the afterlife.
Proof that there isn't a god can be shown through the constant success of Robbie Williams, an untalented wastrel from Stoke who has somehow sold hundreds of millions of albums despite no-one ever actively admitting that they like him. There are hundreds - if not thousands - of more talented singers and songwriters performing in pubs all around the UK this very evening, the only difference between them and Mr Williams is that he was in a boy band and parlayed himself into the position of "lovable joker" in said band by the means of doing a sub-par Vic Reeves impression on Live and Kicking a few times in the early nineties.
The worst thing about supporting my beloved Leicester City is not, believe it or not, the fact that we yo-yo up and down between divisions with a similar action to a harlots undergarments. Oh no. It's the fact that before every home game, at around ten to three, we choose to play "Let Me Entertain You" and every time I hear it I die a little inside. It's not a rousing rock anthem, it's a fat bloke in a Kiss costume pretending that he's a rockstar. Shall we see how many rock star credentials Robbie has?
MUSICAL SKILLS - How many instruments can Robbie play? That's right, none at all. Even I can play "Frerer Jacques" on a recorder.
SONGWRITING - For years he got Guy Chambers to write his songs. Then he fell out with him and his star fell. Coincidence? Of course not.
LOOKS - Simply do the McDonalds test with Robbie. For those not familiar with this - imagine that you're in a McDonalds and an unfamous Robbie Williams is serving you, without his stylist making him look presentable in the morning. Would he still be considered attractive by the fucking 3AM Girls? No, he wouldn't. (This idea works for girls too. See Von Teese, Dita)
COOLNESS - Iggy Pop can be in an insurance commercial and he's still cool. Lou Reed can have his best song (about heroin, for chrissakes) taken by the BBC and he's still cool. Iron Maiden are all 70 years old and still exude rockstar cool. You could put Robbie Williams in a solid cold Rolls Royce, flanked by Pharrell Williams and Snoop Dogg, dressed in finest chinchilla and sipping Cristal from a diamond encrusted pimp cup. He'd still be the same hairy fuck from Stoke with the charisma of a concussed Ostritch.
ECCENTRICITY - To be a true rockstar you need to be a little bit bonkers. The odd stint in rehab does not make you insane. Biting a head off a dove at a record company meeting ala Ozzy Osbourne gives you the legendary level of eccentricty that a true rockstar requires. Going UFO spotting with Peter Andre (the sliced white loaf of popstars) does not make you kooky in the slightest.
PERFORMANCE SKILLS - Ever heard Robbie sing live? It's like listening to a throat scraping on a sealion whilst it gargles a seawater and lemon juice cocktail. I may be exaggerating slightly here, but he's not a great singer. Nor showman. I'd rather watch Shane Ritchie on "Don't Forget the Lyrics". And I'd rather peel my own penis with a rusty ice cream scoop and feed the shavings to a rabid vole (whilst flagellating the bloody stump with a shoelace studded with drawing pins) than watch that. I'm just saying.
Now, I'm aware that Mr Williams does a lot of good things for charity. If I was wearing one, I would take my hat off to him for that. I personally bear him no ill will whatsoever. The bile and teeth-gnashing that comes from me because of him stems from me being a music fan and his "fat dancer from Take That" era of him hanging out with the Gallaghers summoning the end of Britpop and a return, for a few years at least, to godawful pop music in the charts and fluffy, insignificant pop singers claiming they had rock credentials. Oh yeah. I'm looking at YOU, Avril Lavigne. Kelly Clarkson. The Killers. Admittedly, they did things the other way round and went from decent band to godawful art-dance-wank-noise.
Apparently Robbie's next album is due out this year. He's worked with Mark Ronson and Trevor Horn. So it'll be vastly overproduced, full of horns, one no doubt "cheeky" cover version and will sell billions. And I'll cry myself to sleep at the state of this country.
My favourite Robbie story comes from his massive Knebworth gigs a few years back. He got The Darkness to support him and they blew everyone away. Now they've split up and Justin Hawkins is in rehab. Coincidence? Or has Robbie used his alien contacts to destroy anyone more talented than him...?
Of course, you could point out that I'm merely a jealous 31 year old comedian, who is penniless and non-famous. And that this hate-filled rant is merely my jealousy spilling out onto the page.
And you'd be right, dear reader.
http://twitter.com/jimsmallman
Proof that there isn't a god can be shown through the constant success of Robbie Williams, an untalented wastrel from Stoke who has somehow sold hundreds of millions of albums despite no-one ever actively admitting that they like him. There are hundreds - if not thousands - of more talented singers and songwriters performing in pubs all around the UK this very evening, the only difference between them and Mr Williams is that he was in a boy band and parlayed himself into the position of "lovable joker" in said band by the means of doing a sub-par Vic Reeves impression on Live and Kicking a few times in the early nineties.
The worst thing about supporting my beloved Leicester City is not, believe it or not, the fact that we yo-yo up and down between divisions with a similar action to a harlots undergarments. Oh no. It's the fact that before every home game, at around ten to three, we choose to play "Let Me Entertain You" and every time I hear it I die a little inside. It's not a rousing rock anthem, it's a fat bloke in a Kiss costume pretending that he's a rockstar. Shall we see how many rock star credentials Robbie has?
MUSICAL SKILLS - How many instruments can Robbie play? That's right, none at all. Even I can play "Frerer Jacques" on a recorder.
SONGWRITING - For years he got Guy Chambers to write his songs. Then he fell out with him and his star fell. Coincidence? Of course not.
LOOKS - Simply do the McDonalds test with Robbie. For those not familiar with this - imagine that you're in a McDonalds and an unfamous Robbie Williams is serving you, without his stylist making him look presentable in the morning. Would he still be considered attractive by the fucking 3AM Girls? No, he wouldn't. (This idea works for girls too. See Von Teese, Dita)
COOLNESS - Iggy Pop can be in an insurance commercial and he's still cool. Lou Reed can have his best song (about heroin, for chrissakes) taken by the BBC and he's still cool. Iron Maiden are all 70 years old and still exude rockstar cool. You could put Robbie Williams in a solid cold Rolls Royce, flanked by Pharrell Williams and Snoop Dogg, dressed in finest chinchilla and sipping Cristal from a diamond encrusted pimp cup. He'd still be the same hairy fuck from Stoke with the charisma of a concussed Ostritch.
ECCENTRICITY - To be a true rockstar you need to be a little bit bonkers. The odd stint in rehab does not make you insane. Biting a head off a dove at a record company meeting ala Ozzy Osbourne gives you the legendary level of eccentricty that a true rockstar requires. Going UFO spotting with Peter Andre (the sliced white loaf of popstars) does not make you kooky in the slightest.
PERFORMANCE SKILLS - Ever heard Robbie sing live? It's like listening to a throat scraping on a sealion whilst it gargles a seawater and lemon juice cocktail. I may be exaggerating slightly here, but he's not a great singer. Nor showman. I'd rather watch Shane Ritchie on "Don't Forget the Lyrics". And I'd rather peel my own penis with a rusty ice cream scoop and feed the shavings to a rabid vole (whilst flagellating the bloody stump with a shoelace studded with drawing pins) than watch that. I'm just saying.
Now, I'm aware that Mr Williams does a lot of good things for charity. If I was wearing one, I would take my hat off to him for that. I personally bear him no ill will whatsoever. The bile and teeth-gnashing that comes from me because of him stems from me being a music fan and his "fat dancer from Take That" era of him hanging out with the Gallaghers summoning the end of Britpop and a return, for a few years at least, to godawful pop music in the charts and fluffy, insignificant pop singers claiming they had rock credentials. Oh yeah. I'm looking at YOU, Avril Lavigne. Kelly Clarkson. The Killers. Admittedly, they did things the other way round and went from decent band to godawful art-dance-wank-noise.
Apparently Robbie's next album is due out this year. He's worked with Mark Ronson and Trevor Horn. So it'll be vastly overproduced, full of horns, one no doubt "cheeky" cover version and will sell billions. And I'll cry myself to sleep at the state of this country.
My favourite Robbie story comes from his massive Knebworth gigs a few years back. He got The Darkness to support him and they blew everyone away. Now they've split up and Justin Hawkins is in rehab. Coincidence? Or has Robbie used his alien contacts to destroy anyone more talented than him...?
Of course, you could point out that I'm merely a jealous 31 year old comedian, who is penniless and non-famous. And that this hate-filled rant is merely my jealousy spilling out onto the page.
And you'd be right, dear reader.
http://twitter.com/jimsmallman
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
15: The Music Press
For many years it was all I wanted to become a music journalist. I wanted to be at the forefront of music news and opinion, the first to listen to the newest albums and impart my thoughts on them to the masses. Stood on the front row at not just the biggest and the best gigs, but also at the obscure, to shape the up-and-coming trends and sounds by relaying what they meant to me with the joyous power of words.
Then something happened to me. I realised that the music press existed merely to mock us all. The other day I picked up a copy of Kerrang at the train station and thought I would spend my journey to Bristol reading it. It took me 15 minutes to read pretty much every word in it and realise that it wasn't a bastion of hard-rock journalism, instead it was one step above a comic, full of teenage opinion and writers trying to dumb down their skills to appeal to 12 year old Paramore fans and people who only know who Led Zeppelin are because Fearne Fucking Cotton has a t-shirt with their name on.
I thought back to when I would religiously read the NME and Melody Maker, before they merged into one terrible, childish tome. I would read what was written and so many of my opinions on music were shaped by their editorial policies. I would like bands who were completely shit, purely because they were recommended to me by the NME writers. I would hate bands based on who they had chosen to slag off that month. I would get into entire genres of music, almost obsessively, because they had decided that particular style was "in". I dare say the bastards were partially responsible for the way I dressed.
A later rant will deal with Student Music Chauvanism, but the music press are to blame there too. The music press make plenty of twentysomethings and teenagers claim that they like much more obscure music than anyone else, purely because they're armed with a music rag or two under their arm. Bollocks. I thought that when I was a teenager and when I was a student. Let's examine the evidence:
Teenager - Favourite bands were The Clash, Green Day and Ash.
End of Uni - Favourite bands were still The Clash, DJ Shadow and Blur.
Not exactly tiny little artists, right? And the only reason I liked DJ Shadow was because the NME told me to. It took me to my mid twenties to realise I can like whatever the fuck I want, even if it's as disparate as Elton John, Girls Aloud and Gallows. But way back then, I thought I was better because I'd selected what was cool to enjoy. Not simply because I heard something and thought "wow".
Let us not forget, the NME have put Robbie Fucking Williams on their cover in the past merely to shift units. And they've come a long way from the serious publication that mockingly allowed a young Steven Morrissey to rant about the New York Dolls back in the mid 1970s.
I was thinking of bands that the NME tried to get us to swallow but no-one ever did. They do this from time to time, as if to test our resolve as listeners and to see if we're merely just following the herd because they tell us to. I can only think of a few past coverstars that they've failed to get the British public to actually like on a massive scale. I mean, bands like Oasis and Embrace (especially the latter) had massive press merely for being wankers, way before anyone ever heard their music. Don't even get me started on the NME's cool list each year, which seemingly thinks that smack is the key to coolness, rather than my innocent youth where it was merely wearing shades indoors.
So yeah, bands the NME failed to get us to like - off the top of my head.
Bis - how awful were they? Pinnacle of their career was recording the theme to the Powerpuff Girls.
S*M*A*S*H - Ah, the legendary "New Wave of New Wave" movement, loosely translated from journo into English as "we've ran out of wanky genre names".
Campag Velocet - Seriously, in the mid 1990s they never shut up about them. Name one song. I dare you.
Gay Dad - I remember hearing that several members of said band used to work for the NME. Really? Well, that's a massive surprise.
What I like is how you can follow the cycle of a bands career based on how the NME reports on them. Pick any remotely successful band from the past few years and all of them have the same 5 stages of their career as recorded by journalists.
1: THE BEGINNING
A band is doing quite well, well enough to be signed by an Indie label - so that makes them well and truly on the radar already. Nevertheless, the music press (and probably Jo Whiley) will claim them as their discovery, citing some reference two weeks prior where the band was mentioned in their gig listing page. A small pictorial will follow. If the press gets an inkling that this band is becoming popular, they'll then move to phase 2.
2: THE ASCENT
Said band is doing ok, with one minor chart hit. The album comes out. Even if it's awful, it will get at least 7 out of 10 as the magazine hedges its bets and decides to not piss off the band, just in case they become the next Oasis and hold a grudge. The band get pushed to high heaven. The lead singer ceases to have a first name, being pictured on the front cover and referred to by his first name only, like a Brazilian footballer. No-one can remember his surname, as no-one ever really knew it to start with.
3: THE PLATEAU
Band work on their difficult second album, which will be a massive letdown but still score higher in terms of reviews than their first, merely because thousands of extra pounds have been spent on the production of it. It will sell very well indeed, coupled with wispy pictorials of the band and fluffy interviews containing no substance whatsoever. Some letters will be printed in the letters page slagging off said band to test the water for stage 4.
4: THE DOWNFALL
Band release third album. Is actually their best yet, as they have matured musically - but press choose to slag them off mercilessly, making them the butt of "jokes" wherever possible and using their bandname to prefix the word -esque whenever they feel they need to make a negative point about another band, or compare another band at stage 1 or 2 in a favourable light. Band sell millions anyway, and don't give a fuck about the music press. Massive tour goes amazingly well. Move to stage 5.
5: THE PHOENIX
Band has been doing great anyway, but with album 4 about to come out the press try to bury the hatchet (caused by themselves) by doing endless features about how the band are now legendary, bigger than Jesus and so on. Massive tour exceeds all expectations. Editorial in magazine cliams responsibility for the bands success. Somewhere, a kitten dies.
http://twitter.com/jimsmallman
Then something happened to me. I realised that the music press existed merely to mock us all. The other day I picked up a copy of Kerrang at the train station and thought I would spend my journey to Bristol reading it. It took me 15 minutes to read pretty much every word in it and realise that it wasn't a bastion of hard-rock journalism, instead it was one step above a comic, full of teenage opinion and writers trying to dumb down their skills to appeal to 12 year old Paramore fans and people who only know who Led Zeppelin are because Fearne Fucking Cotton has a t-shirt with their name on.
I thought back to when I would religiously read the NME and Melody Maker, before they merged into one terrible, childish tome. I would read what was written and so many of my opinions on music were shaped by their editorial policies. I would like bands who were completely shit, purely because they were recommended to me by the NME writers. I would hate bands based on who they had chosen to slag off that month. I would get into entire genres of music, almost obsessively, because they had decided that particular style was "in". I dare say the bastards were partially responsible for the way I dressed.
A later rant will deal with Student Music Chauvanism, but the music press are to blame there too. The music press make plenty of twentysomethings and teenagers claim that they like much more obscure music than anyone else, purely because they're armed with a music rag or two under their arm. Bollocks. I thought that when I was a teenager and when I was a student. Let's examine the evidence:
Teenager - Favourite bands were The Clash, Green Day and Ash.
End of Uni - Favourite bands were still The Clash, DJ Shadow and Blur.
Not exactly tiny little artists, right? And the only reason I liked DJ Shadow was because the NME told me to. It took me to my mid twenties to realise I can like whatever the fuck I want, even if it's as disparate as Elton John, Girls Aloud and Gallows. But way back then, I thought I was better because I'd selected what was cool to enjoy. Not simply because I heard something and thought "wow".
Let us not forget, the NME have put Robbie Fucking Williams on their cover in the past merely to shift units. And they've come a long way from the serious publication that mockingly allowed a young Steven Morrissey to rant about the New York Dolls back in the mid 1970s.
I was thinking of bands that the NME tried to get us to swallow but no-one ever did. They do this from time to time, as if to test our resolve as listeners and to see if we're merely just following the herd because they tell us to. I can only think of a few past coverstars that they've failed to get the British public to actually like on a massive scale. I mean, bands like Oasis and Embrace (especially the latter) had massive press merely for being wankers, way before anyone ever heard their music. Don't even get me started on the NME's cool list each year, which seemingly thinks that smack is the key to coolness, rather than my innocent youth where it was merely wearing shades indoors.
So yeah, bands the NME failed to get us to like - off the top of my head.
Bis - how awful were they? Pinnacle of their career was recording the theme to the Powerpuff Girls.
S*M*A*S*H - Ah, the legendary "New Wave of New Wave" movement, loosely translated from journo into English as "we've ran out of wanky genre names".
Campag Velocet - Seriously, in the mid 1990s they never shut up about them. Name one song. I dare you.
Gay Dad - I remember hearing that several members of said band used to work for the NME. Really? Well, that's a massive surprise.
What I like is how you can follow the cycle of a bands career based on how the NME reports on them. Pick any remotely successful band from the past few years and all of them have the same 5 stages of their career as recorded by journalists.
1: THE BEGINNING
A band is doing quite well, well enough to be signed by an Indie label - so that makes them well and truly on the radar already. Nevertheless, the music press (and probably Jo Whiley) will claim them as their discovery, citing some reference two weeks prior where the band was mentioned in their gig listing page. A small pictorial will follow. If the press gets an inkling that this band is becoming popular, they'll then move to phase 2.
2: THE ASCENT
Said band is doing ok, with one minor chart hit. The album comes out. Even if it's awful, it will get at least 7 out of 10 as the magazine hedges its bets and decides to not piss off the band, just in case they become the next Oasis and hold a grudge. The band get pushed to high heaven. The lead singer ceases to have a first name, being pictured on the front cover and referred to by his first name only, like a Brazilian footballer. No-one can remember his surname, as no-one ever really knew it to start with.
3: THE PLATEAU
Band work on their difficult second album, which will be a massive letdown but still score higher in terms of reviews than their first, merely because thousands of extra pounds have been spent on the production of it. It will sell very well indeed, coupled with wispy pictorials of the band and fluffy interviews containing no substance whatsoever. Some letters will be printed in the letters page slagging off said band to test the water for stage 4.
4: THE DOWNFALL
Band release third album. Is actually their best yet, as they have matured musically - but press choose to slag them off mercilessly, making them the butt of "jokes" wherever possible and using their bandname to prefix the word -esque whenever they feel they need to make a negative point about another band, or compare another band at stage 1 or 2 in a favourable light. Band sell millions anyway, and don't give a fuck about the music press. Massive tour goes amazingly well. Move to stage 5.
5: THE PHOENIX
Band has been doing great anyway, but with album 4 about to come out the press try to bury the hatchet (caused by themselves) by doing endless features about how the band are now legendary, bigger than Jesus and so on. Massive tour exceeds all expectations. Editorial in magazine cliams responsibility for the bands success. Somewhere, a kitten dies.
http://twitter.com/jimsmallman
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