mostly david ephgrave

Today would have been the last performance of my Edinburgh show about my dad, Good Grief. While I'm sad that I couldn't do it this year, if there's a Fringe to go to in 2021, I'll be up there with it; I don't bow out of potential debt that easily. Joking aside, it's strange how it all turned out. Like many people, I've watched the content of my diary vacate en masse thanks to the pandemic. I went into the office for the first time in weeks on Thursday and consulting my wall planner was like enjoying a visual joke, as nearly everything I'd planned didn't happen; no Bath Comedy Festival, no Brighton Fringe, no previews, no Edinburgh, and only two Mostly Comedys since January. I might as well have not put it up and saved money on Sharpies and Blu Tack in the process (and we're talking big bucks). I know I'm not the only one that's facing uncertainty, but there's still so much up-in-the-air. We're currently discussing with Hitchin Tow...

Today I rocked my leopard-print facemask on the bus; trendsetter or cunt? The jury's out. In many ways, I tested this poser to the max by changing buses in Stevenage Town Centre. If there's one place you're most likely to be mocked or taken down for defying fashion norms, it's there. But despite sitting at the bus stop with the facial equivalent of Tarzan's loincloth covering my air holes for a good fifteen minutes, I remained unchallenged; after that, I'm invincible. I may as well visit the Kop in full Everton regalia without feeling I'm tempting fate. The reason I bought a leopard-print mask - along with a few others that weren't plain black - was to quash the conventional male wisdom of not standing out. While I may be prone to anxiety, I'm comfortable enough in my skin to risk not just buying things from the sedate men's sections of whatever shop without feeling I'm calling my manhood into question; moisturiser's moisturiser, for fuck...

I tried to apply a practical mind today by doing some gardening to prevent my incoming directionlessness mindset from scuppering my day. The current circumstances, both personally and on a wider scale, feel like the perfect storm for low mood and lethargy. Meanwhile, I'm standing at Ground Zero, steeling myself against my depressive susceptibility (like Gandalf, dosed up on citalopram, screaming, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS"). At least I'm prepared for this, having spent years attempting to carefully manage my mental health to varying degrees of success. The pandemic, however, has left many people who've never considered what's a healthy strategy to stave off depression and anxiety, ankle-deep in a river of faeces, sans paddle. And that precise location, for those of you familiar with the app what3words, is fuckwit.johnson.shame. The change of scenery from laptop to garden definitely helped, as did focusing on a physical task. It's like when I disappear for an ho...

I found myself pondering the nature of the phrase 'work in progress' this morning. It's a statement that surfaces a lot in my job. Half of a stand-up's year revolves around previews and festival dates that lead toward Edinburgh that you mark as work in progress to alleviate expectation and prevent reviews from coming too early. Just chatting to a friend who attends a performance will usually involve the words, "It's not ready yet." But it suddenly occurred to me today that to ever remove the disclaimer is almost ludicrous as the idea that it's ever finished is a misnomer; the tweaking - like a playground bully with his victim's nipples - never ends. You can also apply the statement more broadly: life is, by its very nature, a work in progress; you're always chipping away at existence bit by bit, trying to change your ways for the positive and doing your best. And, to paraphrase Lenny Kravitz (as I often do), "It Ain't Over 'til Its...

Distance and space are helping me reframe the nature and mechanics of my relationship with my mum, with some startling realisations. It's a delicate process, as mulling over the detail can reopen the door to the pain of all the unresolved feelings in the face of someone who can only shut you down. So you have to tread with caution. But if you sidestep the exhaustion from begging to be heard, the overall picture is revealed. Put simply: my mum could have been kinder. She could have tuned in to my requests, which weren't outlandish, and shown interest in helping my future too. She had it in her power to exercise that choice, and to play a part in what lay ahead as well. But when given the option, time and again with as much calmness as I could muster in escalating circumstances, she stonewalled me and threw up barriers and actively chose the route that led to a future without me. That outcome was of her making - just like the acts of emotional abuse through my childhood were too...

While sorting through some old things today, I stumbled across a cassette of early Big Day Out demos I haven't heard for years and, after putting magnetic-tape-to-tape-head using my first HiFi (which I rescued from my garage last week), I discovered they're still bloody good. The songs were recorded using our friend, one-time band manager and adopted-father-figure Martin Goodrich's 8-track in around 1997ish, and sound remarkably polished considering our tender age and the technical limitations. The joy and energy bursts from the speakers like the band are playing in your front room today and, while there are inevitable Britpop-style musical quotes we'd soaked up at the time - like the odd Oasis-Esque vowel sound - something sparkling and original still comes out the other side of it. And the songs - which are unashamedly out-and-out pop - are catchier than coronavirus. (Too soon?) Before I sound smug, I should point out the driving force at that time wasn't me, but ...

The fact I'd hired a skip the same week I approach the end of my therapy while also taking part in an online meditation retreat was metaphor-tastic, to say the least. A skip forces you to consider what to throw away and what to keep, in the same way that therapy helps you discard or come to terms with some of the rubbish in your life. Sometimes, it's hard to let go of detritus, whether you want to or not. You can also remain attached to things that brought you no good and served no other purpose than familiarity. The brutal choices presented by the circumstances offer an opportunity to move on. That's not to say this will happen instantly, though it stands as a gesture towards it. There's nothing quite like throwing something huge away for taking a weight off your shoulders,  leaving a  sense of uplift and relief. (That paragraph was either profound or just collection of vague, circular sentences; answers on a postcard, marking the left-hand corner, "Dick".) T...

Today saw my first public transport adventure since the COVID lockdown and my first visit to a town centre (Stevenage, unfortunately*) in months. Using the bus was fine, actually, though it would probably have been a different story at a busier time of day. Still, the trip to town was an eye-opener, when you consider people's attitude to personal safety. Whole families were walking around maskless, crossing my personal space, and the covered-over bus stop was full of people sitting next to each other with their masks around their necks like it somehow only mattered if you're close to others in a moving vehicle. It perplexes me how people can be blasé about the risk. These restrictions - most of which have admittedly been poorly executed - weren't just instigated for something to do. The lockdown's not the enemy to celebrate the easing of; the problem's the illness. The public's bad attitude to the pandemic is best illustrated by the numbers who rush to Britain...