Nothing Comes From Nothing.


I’m frustrated that the cancellation of last week’s Mostly Comedy has put me in an impossibly tight financial situation and fed up with the amount of work I put into something that can so easily be affected by pulling a date.

On one hand, I kind of had the deciding vote when it came to the show not going ahead, so I feel responsible for it, which is all the more irritating now I’m out of pocket as a result. While we’ve yet to actually receive any complaints about the cancellation, this is unusual, as people are often very unreasonable about these things, which only compounds the frustration with the amount of work you put in for the amount of money you take out, particularly when cancelling a date is more involved than it going ahead; I can't imagine many of the people who moan about these things would have stuck with a project like the club for as long as Glyn and I did before we took anything out of it financially (we’re talking years here).

It just so happens last week’s date would have brought in enough funds to buffer projects like the St Alban’s shows (which aren’t particularly viable at the moment) while also giving me some money to go toward Christmas. Now, I don’t know what I’m going to do. It makes me feel like I shouldn’t have taken the money I’d paid myself recently from it, which wouldn’t have been a problem if the show hadn’t been pulled. It’s at times like this I wonder why I put so much time into the club for what I get out of it. This feeling will undoubtedly pass, but the lack of money will remain; at least the people who book for the shows usually get what they want out of it, but that’s seldom the case for me.

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