Taking a deep breath and counting to ten.

Well we all got our proverbial knickers in a bit of a twist over the youtube footage featured in the last post. I never expected that kind of drama, I must admit…

I’ve taken a week or so to regroup and revivify myself.

I did, it must be said, spend a brief spell on the brink of an MH breakdown. I took two days off work. I endured a humiliating trip to my GP to ask for advice on why I kept sobbing uncontrollably. My GP’s advice wasn’t to stop listening to the hurtful things people say about me. No, my GP’s advice was - I should sleep with my Mum. (Something to do with her scent being a calming influence). I have not slept with my Mum. I will not be asking my Mum to sleep with me. I am now looking for a new GP.

And in the meantime, I have picked myself up, brushed myself down and am trying to get back to some sense of normality. Well you know … my quite particular version of normality.

I do want to address what happened, but don’t want to dwell on it too much.

Nate (of the forthright and controversial feedback) completely resigned from blogging and twitter when things blew up last week. Yes, he closed down his blog and he said goodbye to all his Twitter followers. This seemed a bit of an over reaction, but Nate has since revised that drastic decision and is back to blogging and tweeting now, so no lasting damage done there...

While I don’t want to cause any further upset or awkwardness when things finally seem to be settling down, I couldn’t help that notice that Nate is now claiming to have barely slept for ten days over things said here and I do think I have a right to answer that.

In fact, I find his latest posts a wee bit over the top. Poor old Nate is now the victim of the situation living under a constant fear of violence. He was the one to slate my creative pursuits in a most tactless and heavy handed way, but all that seems to be barely mentioned. I’ve lost time at work through upset at our busiest time of year. Nate on the other hand with no commitments to speak of, can run away and hide for a week, then emerge saying how my friends have threatened his sense of personal safety.

I wrote to Nate and made clear and genuine apologies for the reactions to his comments only a day after they appeared. I reiterated that Norm had also apologised for his slightly over zealous, but wonderfully loyal and protective remarks.* Thank you Norm for being there when you were.

In short, Nate has had no reasonable need to fear for his safety or keep a hammer by his side for the last ten days. Norm is a criminal lawyer, not a criminal.

Nate, I know you pride yourself on your imagination, but on this, I do think you could go a bit easy on over dramatising things quite so much.

OK, I’m closing the door on the whole episode, I hope others can too.

And so on we trundle…

I did my first gig, since the youtube terrors this Wednesday. It didn’t go brilliantly, but I happened to have a frightful hangover that day and the room was a bit quiet for whatever reasons. Anyway, I got some laughs and I’m glad to be back on the horse. I’m going to try and make it to at least two gigs next week to get properly back into the swing of things again. I have a charity gig next Friday and I am performing at the Comedy Café on 2nd June and want to get some practice in before then.

Oh and in the midst of all this kerfuffle, I’ve met a man that I like. I’m pretty sure he likes me back and we are going on date three tonight… A real life man… That I didn’t find on the internet. I don’t want to jinx it by saying too much. You shall have to bear with me, while I try my best not to make a complete arse of myself over this one.

Oh and just this second, just now, literally just a moment ago, I got an email from Oxfam saying I’ve been selected for the early shift at Glastonbury. This does mean I have to arrive on the Saturday before the festival and spend an extra 2 nights under canvas. But the benefits are well worth it. I’ll get to pick the best camping spot. I’ll finish all my shifts by Wednesday. Then I get to enjoy the whole festival without having to do any more work. Coolio - I’ll take the extra 2 nights under canvas then!

Whoop, whoop.

Niiiiiice one.

Sweet.

Aces.

A lot of other happy words.

Bring on the sunshine.

I’m smiling and I’m ready for the weekend.

Giggling Gibbon, Jo Ogden 5th May 2010 (v2)

Q: WHAT DO YOU GET IF YOU TAKE AN ORDINARY FIVE MINUTE COMEDY SET AND CROSS IT WITH A VERY DRUNK FRIEND IN THE AUDIENCE?

A: TEN MINUTES OF SHOUTY COMEDY MAYHEM... ONLY SOME OF WHICH IS FUNNY, UNFORTUNATELY!!

Meet the Gang, Giggling Gibbon 5th May 2010

Here are my friends. They created major disruptions at my latest gig... The video of which I'm still trying to upload...

Election Fever.

Blog posts like buses - you wait ages for one, then two come along at once.

In case you were wondering I did vote this morning. Yes, I think I've got this politics nailed. I was allowed to pick three on the local election sheet and one on the parliamentary sheet. I voted for two girls and two boys just to be fair. Two of my choices had Asian names because I figured they'd be most popular in my area. I did pick by party first, then ethnicity. I feel like I've done my bit for equality as well as democracy.

I'd even done my homework and looked up the local choices before I went too. I established that we had an indepent chap who specialises in conspiracy theories and is a proper anti war nut (not that I'm condoning war.) I didn't vote for him, but his name was Paul Warburton if you want to check him out and find out why.

Oh yeah, I really got involved!

On my way out of the polling station, I met a ginger tom cat on his way into the polling station. I gave him a little stroke and said 'Hello fella, are you here to vote?' Then I started chanting on his behalf. "Votes for Cats!" "Votes for Cats!" The assembled gents in rosettes looked none too impressed. Just as well I didn't do that on the way in or I may have got myself excluded from the vote on the grounds I wasn't of sound mind.

Then I noticed the cat was a bit scabby and I've felt quite unclean and a little bit queezy ever since. I think perhaps I'm coming down with something. Or is it just election fever?

I hope all mine win. I love it. It is like a night out at the dogs.

Coming Soon...

...Video footage of one of my gigs!

Recorded last night, I now have to figure out how to get the moving pictures from the little camera box into the computer box and onto the world wide web... A job for the weekend... It wasn't a gig I particularly stormed, but I know you are all growing impatient. By "all", I refer to you tireless reader, yes you... you know who you are. So we shall start with average recorded performance and work up from there... Watch this space and think of it as a test!

I know I've been quiet for over a week now. Soz. I'm still tweeting like a lunatic, if you like your ramblings in bite size chunks.

But why have you been abandoned for so long? In my defence, last week I was quite busy. I did three gigs. Highly unusual I know - Party Piece, DSS and Cradley Heath. #85-87. You deserve proper gig reports, but I don't know that I have them in me.

Here is a snippit of the way things played out, with a small amount of pre amble...

You know how I've been fiddling about on that there OKCupid? Trying my hand at dating and all that. Well on Monday of last week, I met up with another young chap through the website and let's just say things went slightly differently to the picnic date. In the long run, no better than the picnic date, but differently.

This is completely uncool and there is no nice way to say it, but by Tuesday I had to go to Boots for Emergency Contraception. Listen and learn kids...

One night stands* can be cool. Each to their own. We don't judge here. I've had a few over the years.

Unprotected sex on one nights stands is most definitely not cool. I have no defence. I can't even be bothered to publicly apologise for myself or explain myself at this juncture. We'll accept it was totally stupid and move on with the story.

*Re Overnight Romances - I generally enter into these things in good faith that there might be an opportunity for a replay at some later date, so technically I don't really get to find out it was a one night thing until after... Taken to it's logical conclusion, it is only on the day I die that I get to tott up how many one nighters there were, as there may always be an opportunity for something to happen with any of those people again at some stage. Then of course, they are no longer one night stands, they become casual, if sporadic medium to long term flings! I can think of a few cases, where I've slept with someone a second time, even though I wasn't that keen, because in a crazy mixed up way, it made the first time seem more respectable.

Dear oh dear Joanne - What ever happened to two wrongs don't make a right?

Gosh, anyway, where were we?

Tuesday! Yes, on Tuesday I went to Boots, right before Party Piece, with my good friend Lucy, "Levonelle" was purchased. Then straight to the pub, downed the tablet with a large slug of Guinness and onwards with another night of fun. I like to experiment with my material at Party Piece because it is a nice friendly gig. I'm not sure Tom Webb always appreciates this approach, but when Lucy said to me before I went on "oh, you should totally tell them about the Levonelle" I agreed without actually looking for the funny part of the story. Turns out you really do have to search properly and find that funny when admitting to this kind of humiliation.

What ensued was a stunned silence that quickly spread across the room and me desperately trying to recover the situation with what increasingly felt like a bit of a comedy cul de sac. I tried not to over stay my welcome, changed subject towards the end, got a laugh or two on a much sillier more innocent note and left the stage.

OH!

Anyway, not one to be easily beaten, I got to thinking about my Levonelle escapades and I tried again talking about them at DSS on Wednesday with a lot less horror and marginally more comedy success. By Thursday, in Cradley Heath, it had worked into quite a nice little 'bit' of my set and got a few decent laughs. I like to think I'm putting the fun back into emergency contraception... Three days, three gigs and a nice way to see a bit of material progress from comedy carnage to something half decent.

And as I said at DSS ... join me next time, when we get to talk about the horror that is the trip to the sexual health clinic and other embarrassing repercussions of a night of wild abandon.

Actually, let's not do that. Join me next time for the video of gig 88 - recorded last night, at The Giggling Gibbon, where my drunk buddy Chris talked through every act's set and I barely got out of the venue alive after bringing such a drunken loon to the event...

Wish me luck with the camera/computer/internet technology...

PS - I think a lot of people are using OKCupid as a bit of a casual hook up site. On some levels this is proving to be fun, but I for one need to be a bit more careful about who I hook up with and work out if that is actually what I want...

I do enjoy searching out the freakiest of the freaks and sending their username to Lucy with ... your next boyfriend (insert username of freak) says hi ... That makes me smile a lot. Sound a bit cruel? Maybe, but we are not vain enough to imagine others do not do the same with our usernames. In fact, we'd be offended if they weren't.

Thanks all, I'm off to see if I can get some work done. Cheerio xx

Word of the moment - Clunge. So wrong. It had to be said though.