Whats common between me and the British economy?……

……..Every indicator is point South!!

This week been a bit stressful, work is like……… let just say its never good to have a project without a project manager ok? It just stress on everyone involved.

My energy was pretty much zapped for the week and I have my Laughing Horse New acts comp gig on Friday night. Of all the gigs I bombed I bombed the one that matters in front of my friends who never saw me before. I didn’t have the energy that night to maintain the surrealism of my material, the first few gags didn’t worked as well as I thought and spooked me for the rest of my set. After that let just say if you are not 100% confident about your own material neither are the audiences. The room wasn’t sold to the midget ninjas so thats the end of that.

The good thing to come out is this that I learnt some new pointers about my set on how I have to tighten it up further. Also Chris and Phil from the course were there and they gave me their perspective on my material. I am glad in the end that everybody was entertained and no body say they wasted their cash. The eventual winners of the night are all great and I can take solace that it was a close and tough heat, I will be back next year.

Sitting here on a sunday arvo chilling, was supposed to goto the Church but considering today was Australia Day it got so packed that they only letting people in with tickets! Speaking of Australia Day I absolutely lost touch with the concept that Chinese New Year is around now and I called myself Chinese, as Dan my flatmate puts it: Its like a Christian not remembering what date is Christmas!

In my defence I dun work in agriculture and have no need to go by the Lunar calendar.:)

Standup comedy and gay bar……. It must be London!!

Generally have a good week this wekk.

Did a gig on Tuesday at Party Piece @ the Pangea Project. It was a top gig! I wasn’t expecting the Compere Tom to give me such a glowing intro, its cool that I managed to meet those expectations! Phil ( another comic from my comedy course) was also on and trying some new material. His material went down really well.I will definitely go back to Project Pangea, just have to spaced out how often I played at these venues.

Went along to comedy virgin @ Stockwell on Thursday night. The Cavendish arms  at Stockewell is a nice pub, however it is a little in the middel of nowhere as its like a 15 min walk from the tube stop itself. You can play at Comedy Virgins for free but the rule is to get a gig there yopu must bring along one extra person. Its a bit of Faux pas not brining someone along. The whole rational is that there is always going to be apck room with a supportive crowd that not made up of just comedians. I wasn’t playing that night but its good to see that 4 of those on the bill for the course all ended up in the final! Alex even won a trophy for the night! (Alias a dart trophy that David the promoter have plenty from the pub’s last incarnation.)

Was supposed to play at the Lions Den comedy on Friday, but got a call from Tarkan asking me to go into city for a meetup. See it was Kate’s b’day on friday so Tarkan, Eva , Kate and Alan went for dinner. I learnt the surprise news that Tarkan and Eva is now engaged, TBH I am not that surprised they were engaged, it was a bit of unexpected though. It sad that they will all left London by the end of this year, but one thing I learnt is that its part of life for people to leave your life but there will always be new people to become friends with.

After dinner I went back to the Lions Den and it was turning out to be literally a “Comedy car crash”!! There were like 40+ comics on that night with maybe 5-6 people that are non-comics. Apparently all the acts on for the night didn’t get a laugh at all even the more accomplished ones, we comics can be worst audience sometimes!

Have another gig on saturday night and it down really well, I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get onto the final 5 but hopefully luck will balance itself out eventually. Ended the night sharing a few drinks with other comics until closing time. Ended up spending the rest of the night drinking in a gay bar and dancing to Madonna…..yikes, thats London!!

The coming week will be challenging – I got a gig on Monday night and a competition gig on Friday. This is coming amongst the most challenging week of work coming up. Should be interesting week ahead. Hope I am not dead by the end of it!!

All good things………

……….. will eventually come to end. It will be in the past and you will never be there again. However you will always look back at it with great fondness!

This week marks the returns and departure of a few people, see it was Maja’s and Danielle’s b’day (2 Swedish from the hostel days) return to London to catchup with us! So good to see some familiar faces, even just for a brief weekend. And tops to them for returning to London to share their times with us Londoners!

 

Now some of you guys might remember in 2007 I went to a gig at the Redback Tavern. Ummm No, can’t remember?  I met Felipe (The base guitarist of Motel) when I first visit London in March 2007, hes one of the 2 friendly faces (along with Tarkan) that help tipped the scale for me to take a plunge moving to London. Its been good knowing Felipe: hes a nice guy and a genuine mate for me for the last year and a half.

Sadly his visa is running out and he need to return to Brazil to start uni by end of February. His time in London is up and he will have to return home. I will miss Felipe, getting invites on Facebook to see his gigs being out and about checking out indy music circuit. I felt we will meet again someday in the future, someday…..

The other person thats leaving London is Kylee, the Kiwi gal I knew back in my hostel day. Kylee is the embodiment of the care-free party spirit that is common amongst many antipodeans in London:  living and working in the hostel, constantly getting by with little to no money but at the same time always managed to found a way to scrap by and have a ball in one of the most expensive city in the world. Kylee really reflects the diversity of lifestyle and people that you will meet in this city. If there is one person that you can constantly count on to have a massive (and messy) night of debauchery, it will be Kylee. Afterall she and Brooke did both appear on Zed’s farewell video wasted!

Yes I know I didn’t really paint her as saint to you judgemental lot, but than Mark Twain once said:

Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.

Our time on this earth is limited, why be so preoccupied over things like money, job and worldly possessions when you can’t really take any of them back to the big house? Sadly Kylee decision to go home is because she ran out of money and visa is close to running out, it will be shock when she returns home to a normal life after living aboard for close to 2 years. Gosh! Come to think of it I left Sydney for quite a while now! It will be strange when I decided to return home! Friends all moved on with jobs, houses, marriages and kids. I am still on the other side of the world freezing my single ass off.

As a final farewell for Kylee, Kate and Alan did an awesome sunday roast over at their house and invited us all over. It wasn’t a big bang finish but shes not leaving London until tuesday, even than she will be back in London in Wednesday week for one night only to celebrate the last night in London – yep drinking ciders at the old hostel kitchen.

BTW, did I mentioned that this is probably one of the coldest London winter ever? The water fountain in Trafalgar Square freeze up and the fridge in my house is actually warmer than outside. You can leave meat outside and it won’t go bad!!

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Today I also learnt that K-Bo has left the country, thats the end I guess.

To those who follow these pages (Not many of you) I like to portray her as the “villain” in my story. To the contrary I believe there is some good in that gal, that deep down she is a kind loving soul. Its a bit sad that over the last year or so things messed up to such an extend that we dun see eye to eye or be best of mates. I sincerely believe that I tried to mend things as much as I can, but it takes effort on both side to rebuild bridges and its her prerogative not to do so.

I honestly believe that if we actually sat down and have a good chat about this we can overcome any problems. This is one of my biggest bugbear about K-Bo, you can build friendship with her but she will not spent effort in maintaining it. We found that you  never quite sure about the person you are dealing with.

Anyway, all of these are in the past now. Maybe I am naive and still believe that one day we can share a beer and laugh about all our past (mis)endeavours, but this is another lesson I learnt in life – happy endings are not given in reality.

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As I walked from Kate’s house to the pub with the fellows, it dawned on me that all these characters will leave my life this year. Tarkan, Kate, Alan, Brooke all have their own exit plans.  Its hard grappling the knowledge that so many old friends and acquaintances have left and those around you will do so as well. This is part of growing up and growing old.

There are hope on the horizon………..new friends and acquaintances!!!