Money, Money, Money.

The latest sting-in-the-tail to my current financial/emotional situation sounds horribly mercenary:

My dad's death has put his assets on hold.
Being the legend he was, he was putting forward much of the money for my Edinburgh Fringe run, at least initially.
Now I can't access it.

Crap.

I had a horrible feeling this would happen and tried my best to prevent it. In recent months, I helped him free money from his investments to pay for his care as well as making gifts to a few (to stop some of his estate being lost to investment tax) and paying for his funeral in advance, all with his approval. All along, I kept saying we should transfer a set amount into a designated Edinburgh account, so if the worst happened and his illness progressed, I'd be able to make a quick yes/no decision about whether to go ahead, safe in the knowledge that the funds would be available.

Inevitably, I'm now in the far more awkward position of battling to get the money out. Edinburgh is in and of itself deeply stressful without having to deal with financial setbacks like this.

I'm in a quandary over what to do Re. Edinburgh funding. With everything that's happened recently, I want to resolve the situation in as quick, stress-free and non-psychologically damaging a way someone with chronic mental health problems - who's grieving for his dad - can do it.

The frustrating thing is the money's there - my dad had kindly offered to put it all up if necessary - but because he passed away, his accounts are frozen & I have to wait for probate to settle (which could take months) before I can access it. The Fringe is just seven weeks away.

(I also have to find the time to work on the show itself, which is hard enough with the amount of admin self-producing at Edinburgh usually entails without the extra issues.)

The options are:

(1) attempt to take a loan out against the will. I don't like the thought of this - partly because drawing together the info takes time I don't have and my mental health is impacted by my finances, plus I have a poor credit rating (though this shouldn't matter).

(2) A member of the family (not in a mafia sense) has offered to lend the money, which was hugely generous, but means impacting their situation. I feel very uncomfortable about borrowing, and am worried the amount I need will be a little open-ended and cause more problems.

(3) Do I attempt crowd-funding?

This is the biggie and would obviously be the least stressful if it works, but I don't feel it will rouse people's interest. This is borne less from pessimism and more from experience; I just don't expect people to put money up like that.

What to do? I don't want to make what is already a stressful progress more stressful. Somewhere in the midst of this, there's the task of being funny too; hmmmm.

Though there's also option (4) which is selling my bottom; I can't see there being much uptake (no bum-pun intended).

P.S. I put the rough total - including rent for digs, PR, a show tech, flyerers, artwork, travel, equipment shipment & the remaining percentage of venue hire due before the event - at £6000. I haven't included living costs, but there's a credit card for that.

I may have to turn to it....

Shakerpuppetmaker.

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...

Comedy That's Worth a Letch.

Today, I nipped to Letchworth to meet with illustrator (and one-time - two-time - comedy poet) Mushybees, to discuss an event Mostly Comedy will act as surrogate parents to as part of Letchworth’s Arts Takeover in a couple of weeks. Months ago he got into contact to see if we’d be up for co-organising a comedy stage as part of Letchworth’s weekend of arts-based attractions in July; something I’d provisionally said yes to, before things got hectic in the lead-up to Edinburgh and we didn’t take it any further. Despite not getting down to the nitty-gritty straight away, we managed to pull a line-up together in a back-and-forth of emails yesterday, leading to me getting Glyn’s blessing and us deciding we’d officially go ahead with it (whatever ‘officially’ means in this context). In reality, it’s not complicated: from 12pm until 6pm-ish on the 22 nd July, Glyn, Mushybees and I will host four Edinburgh previews from four acts (including me), before Nor...

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...

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