Warming Up

4471/17390

It’s good to be back home, even though that means disturbed sleep and dirty nappies. We’re two weeks into this now and it’s still very hard to find time to sit down and work out all the things we need to do (like registering the birth and arranging visits to the GP and working out how to put on either of our two slings). Some things I have learned to do, but Catie hasn't (like empty the nappy bin), other things she is more on top of (like bathing the baby) but there’s not much time to sit down and plan things out (beyond who will do the next feed or nappy change) or learn how to do new things. We’re spinning plates and most of the plates are smashing on the floor, but the main one, keeping the baby healthy and alive, seems to be working out fine. She’s an utter joy, to the extent that I held her this evening, with her examining my face with forensic seriousness and I started filling up a bit at the idea of having to be away from her for four days this weekend. This sucks. I was much happier when I was miserable and alone. At least then there was no one waiting for me at home and I could go out every night and seek oblivion. First my wife came into my life, then she brought our cats and now here’s someone even more precious and fragile to worry about. People with nothing to lose and no one to love don’t know how lucky they are.

I am not really getting anywhere with work, beyond blogs and podcasts. I put together episode 2 of the Lord of the Dance Settee podcast this afternoon, a little bit of it with Phoebe on my knee and she also played a bit of a role in one of the Warming Up podcasts. It’s nice for her to see what I do to fail to make a living. The nice thing about this stuff is I can do it from home, with Phoebe in the room (she’s sleeping in a Moses basket as I write this - I think she might have pooed herself, but I don’t want to embarrass her by bringing this up).

I wanted to give my wife as much of a break as possible from the baby after all her sterling work while I’ve been away and so had Phoebe sleeping up in my office as I bagged up last week’s eBay items and put a load more up, including one of Histor’s stunt wings and a “You Can’t Even Drive” T shirt and loads of snooker balls. . I am delighted that these items are making a couple of hundred pounds a week which I can put towards future internet projects. I saw Chris Evans (not that one) yesterday and we’re trying to work out if it’s possible for us to afford to carry on filming RHLSTP and do something else with the badge money. It’s ticking along nicely, but two RHLSTP episode recordings use up a month’s worth of badge money at the moment. And I feel that people should be getting something else for their donations and I’d really like to start filming some stuff for AIOTM by the end of the year. Ideally three or four times as many people would give us a pound (or more) a month and we could turn their change into comedy gold (or at least comedy bronze), but the eBay money will help us move onwards. I am wondering about getting people to sponsor the RHLSTPs, not necessarily a big business (in fact preferably not) but maybe smaller businesses or individuals could pay money to get their face or product on an episode. I don’t know. I’d really like to be able to make these things work without adverts and with the listeners being my massive cock-based Medici family. 

I fear that any kind of sponsorship would compromise the content of my podcasts, but also dissuade people from donating. The beauty of the badge system, if it works, is that we get a monthly sum to spend on creating comedy, but it’s provided by people who are fans of what I am doing and won’t be able to insist on censoring content or adding things in to justify their spend. If you don’t like what I am doing all you can do is withdraw your pound a month, whilst perhaps indignantly saying, “I Paid A Pound”. So selling off my past and crazy signed snooker balls is a nice way to raise a small amount of money. But if you are a businessman (in your suit and tie) or just an eccentric millionaire comedy fan who’d like to have their face broadcast at the start and end of a RHLSTP, then get in touch and we can at least discuss things. 

I know in my heart though that I want to make it work with the paid a pound idea. And I think it might. You get lots of benefits for your money. The secret channel is filling up with some great stuff.

I don’t know if all this is tragic or inspirational - I guess that time will tell. If I create the comedy version of Facebook then me bagging up signed snooker balls in my attic will be an early scene in the movie (with me playing myself at snooker in front of a massive crowd at the Reading Hexagon will come later), then this will seem heroic. If my daughter gets to 12 and has to tell her friends that her dad makes a living by selling stunt wings from a puppet that no one really remembers…. fuck it, I hope I will raise her to think that is much cooler than if I was a scatalogical Mark Zuckerberg. And I am fucking awesome anyway. What I have may be crazy and bizarre and of limited appeal, but it’s still pretty cool. It’s working on some level. I mean, my daughter is going to be embarrassed about me anyway, because she’s my daughter and that’s her job. So maybe it’s good to give her some awesome stuff to be embarrassed about.