Pressure Cooker Me.


I put too much pressure on myself. 

I've always been driven. It's a blessing and a curse. Conversely, I'm instinctively lazy. This combination of apathy and propulsion may seem incongruous. It goes back to my original point; it may not be that I'm lazy, just that I'm never happy with what I've done. 

Even my blog is a case in point. Rather than being content to write something now and then when the mood took me, I told myself I had post something every day. If I didn't do this I wasn't doing enough. Reaching the milestone of my first year was satisfying, but this sense of pride was temporary; I instantly turned my mind to completing year number two. 

I've always had high expectations. When I was in a band as a teenager, I told myself that we had to be as big as The Beatles or I would have failed. It was as black and white as that, with no room for shades of grey. This all-or-nothing mindset was ridiculous in hindsight. 

The band started to do well around the time I left drama school. I was then offered a job as lead guitarist on a No. 1 tour. This led to another job, playing my hero Paul McCartney. The other band members grew tired of waiting for me and the band dissolved. I had to face up to the fact that the thing most important to me had ended of my own volition.

This ate me up for a few years. Then I started to edge away from music, towards comedy. This gave me new drive. With it, came a whole new set of expectations, aspirations, pressures and deadlines.

To be fair, I’ve been quite fortunate. I’ve had some great opportunities come my way that probably only happened because I was striving for something else. I never wanted to be an actor / musician (a horrible cut-and-shut job title, seen by many to mean you're not competent enough to do either aspect on its own), but it led me to front shows in theatres up and down the country, and got me into the West End. I never thought I’d attempt stand-up or run a comedy club and yet I stumbled into it. All these things left me feeling like a blagger and a bullshitter; like someone who'd snuck into a hospital with a scalpel and a white coat, manages to convince everyone he's a surgeon, then spends the rest of his life waiting to be found out. 

(I think I just accidentally paraphrased the plot to Catch Me If You Can.)

I constantly flit between thinking I'm good at what I do and thinking I'm awful. This frustration spurs me on, yet holds me back. I'm seldom in the moment; I'm already thinking about what I have to do next. It’s exhausting. If I could enforce one change in my life it would be to take a step back: to see what’s happening around me and to worry less.

This probably sounds horrifically self-serving and all ‘woe is me’. I know I could be a lot worse off. It may even come across as smug, arrogant, or like I’m looking for pity. I hope not. There I go again, over-thinking what I do. You should see how much angst I put into making a sandwich.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Image
Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera
Read more

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce
Read more

Hoo-ray and up She Rises.

So much has happened since my last post in March that this blog risks sounding like an itinerary. The main news is that Hitchin Mostly Comedy will return in the summer at a new venue, the Queen Mother Theatre . The road to this decision was convoluted, though enough fell into place en route to leave me optimistic about this new start. The catalyst was a survey I ran via our mailing list a few months back, in which I asked, "If the club returned in the current climate, with tickets still around £15 (and with similar line-ups), would you still attend?"; the response to which, in simple terms, was a resounding yes. Nearly 250 mailing list subscribers responded in a single week, with around a hundred also taking the option to leave some feedback. And only two people were abusive, which counts as a win when you consider they posted their comments online anonymously. Imagine how many more insults we would have received if the comedy club was a woman. Particularly if she was Diane
Read more