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WILFUL MISCONDUCT (It Begins)…

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:19:00 GMT

I guess the question I get asked most being a comedian is: “What is it like to host Spicks and Specks?”

When I politely point to my thonged foot and explain that they may have me confused with someone else, the question that normally follows is: “No but seriously though, what are Alan and Myf really like?”

Suddenly I have a brief insight into what The Hulk meant when he said: “Don’t make me angry. You’re not going to like me when I am angry!”

But before I end up half naked wearing only torn purple shorts, I tend to take a deep breath and explain that Alan and Myf are both talented and delightful, in fact qualities I would also ascribe to Adam Hills… the bloke who actually hosts Spicks and Specks.

Normally this is followed by some embarrassed foot-shuffling (which I tend to think is bad taste, I mean don’t rub it in) and then a muffled: “So… I guess you can’t get me Hamish Blake’s mobile number then?”

But I digress.

My point, and I think I have one, is that the most common thing people are fascinated by when it comes to comedy is where the material comes from?

Do comedians just walk around with a notebook waiting for funny things to happen?

Are they constantly taking flights just so they can make observations about the quality of the in-flight meals? Are they lingering suspiciously in places where cats and dogs meet to ascertain if there are any discernable differences? Are they walking into bars with a horse and waiting for the hilarity to ensue?

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me at the start of a tour how I put a new show together, I would have… a reasonable amount of money.

I mean not enough money to buy anything really extravagant like a gold car or a fur house, but certainly enough that it would be annoying to keep in my pockets, and I would need to put it in a jar near the door and use it for parking and stuff like that.

Where was I? Oh yeah, questions.

Do you sit down with a plan of what you want to write? How much do you improvise? Do you hope something funny does actually happen to you on the way to the gig?

Do you test the material on your friends? Or do you just lock yourself in a room with some Christmas bon-bons, David Koch’s Big Aussie Joke Book and a bottle of vodka and see what happens? Are you sure you can’t get me Hamish Blake’s number?

All the questions got me thinking: a) Why don’t I have Hamish Blake’s mobile number? And more importantly b) Maybe I should make a doco series that followed by Wilful Misconduct tour from start to finish.

I excitedly rang my manager the next day with my master plan, only to be told that it was a stupid idea and if I really wanted to be back on TV the best bet I had was to start eating pies and bulking up for the next series of The Biggest Loser.

“Well it doesn’t need to be on the tele,” I explained. “I was just thinking maybe a series we could film through the tour to give people the feel of what the process is like, at least for me, to put together a new show.”

“Uh-huh,” my manager replied, “on one hand that does seem like a good idea, but on the other hand… pies!”

I chose to ignore him and barrel on: “Plus people have been pretty good supporting my career buying tickets to my shows and my books and DVDs, it would be good to give them something fun for free.”

I believe it was around this stage I started patting myself on the back so hard I dropped my phone.

“Okay,” he said clearly deciding the best way to get rid of me was to feign some interest “What exactly were you thinking?”

“Well,” I said, suddenly realizing I hadn’t thought it that far through, “how about we get a film crew and get them to tape a bunch of my trial gigs when I am working out material, show people the raw stuff, when it works and most importantly when it doesn’t… and then we take them with us on the road and they can film the show being put together and follow the process!”

“Okay,” he said, “that will cost about this much.”

He then proceeded to name an amount of money that if I were a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire I would have to answer at least six questions correctly to win.

“Do you have that amount of money?”

I thought about checking down the back of the couch, but I knew it would not only be futile, but my manager would want fifteen percent of anything I found down there.

I hadn’t worked in a couple of months, and didn’t have anything coming up soon. To be honest I was only a month or two away from standing in the mall with a cardboard sign that said: “Will Tell Jokes For Food!”

I was about to suggest that maybe it would be more cost effective to make a flipbook of the tour instead, when at the other end of the line my manager offered some hope.

“Leave it with me,” he said. “Maybe we can find someone who is willing to help us pay for it.”

And, as much to my surprise as anyone’s, it turned out there was. (And even more surprisingly it doesn’t involve me having notes shoved into my g-string.)

Not only were the fine folk at Cool Ridge willing to pay for us to make TEN webisodes that will follow my entire Wilful Misconduct tour, but they have also gone a step further and stumped up for a bunch of show tickets to give away (and some more cool things I am not allowed to talk about yet) as well.

Plus they also sent me some free Cool Ridge water, which was nice of them. I drank some and I sent the other half to my Dad who is a farmer who is going to use some of it to feed the cows during the drought and the rest to fight bushfires.

Anyhoo, I should shut up so you can go to http://www.getitout.com.au/ and check out the first episode.

Just to give you some background, it was filmed about six weeks ago now on a Thursday night, at local comedy room the Mic-In-Hand at Vibe (Smith Street in Melbourne) on the first night I tried any of the material I was thinking about for the show.

It features a chat backstage with Justin Hamilton and Lehmo, a rather awkward confrontation with a heckler, and even the beginnings of a piece of material that actually made it into the final show.

I hope it gives you a few laughs, I hope it has a few insights into how painful it is at the start of a new show, but mostly I just hope that Hamish Blake sees it and gives me his mobile phone number. Now that would be cool.

Edinburgh Blog: Friday Night...

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:38:00 GMT

At the back of my mind I knew it was all too good to be true. A week into the festival and the crowds had been much bigger than expected, the reviews great, and most importantly people really seemed to be digging the show.

If it kept going this way I was convinced pretty soon I would be driving around in a gold car, living in a fur house, and collecting so many awards I could use them to play chess.

And then came Friday night.

I knew it was going to be a crappy day the minute I woke up and it was raining so hard there was an old guy at the end of Grass Market loading animals onto a boat two-by-two.

And all day the rain just continued to piss down, little did I know it was washing away my dreams.

By the time I needed to get ready to go to my show the streets were so flooded I had decided that Edinburgh had made a major mistake putting in trams, and instead should have saved the money and invested in gondolas.

But it turned out the conditions outside were nothing compared to the dampness of the audience inside the room.

For the first twenty minutes of the show they literally just stared at me. Thoughts that previously thousands of people had agreed were jokes turned out to be nothing more than sentences.

Goodbye gold car. Farewell fur house. Au revoir awards.

So what goes through your head at that stage? Well for me it was simple. All I could think is why didn’t I try harder at something at Uni? Why oh why didn’t I learn to build something?

At one point I was honestly having a conversation with myself in my head about how I should go into comedy administration, that way I would still get to be around the industry I loved.

I could produce shows, or direct them, or even just flyer for them. And people would be like: “That’s Wil Anderson… you know he used to dabble in stand-up himself!”

And then it happened. The laughter came.

Much like the earlier rain- gently at first, but then more and more as the grey clouds broke and it pissed down as they pissed themselves. They were back, and so was I… now does anyone know where I can buy a gold car?

My 10 Favourite Songs...

Thu, 28 May 2009 23:50:00 GMT

Hurt, Johnny Cash

“Hands down the best cover of all-time. I love the original, but it could have been written for Johnny.”

Where Is My Mind, The Pixies

“This could have been a list of ten of their songs from Debaser to Gigantic, but all I remember is watching them at Coachella sing this and not being able to breathe.”

Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana

“Kurt Cobain said he wanted to write a Pixies song. He wrote this. I’ve heard it so many times I should hate it, but it still makes me want to smash stuff.”

Wake Up, The Arcade Fire

“I changed my mind on which Arcade Fire song to choose but settled on this one which always feels like an angry punk joined the church choir.”

Back In Black, ACDC

“Diablo Cody who wrote Juno used to be a stripper and said this is the best stripper song of all time. I use this as intro music on stage. Best Aussie song ever.”

Wolf Like Me, TV on the Radio

“One of the great modern bands, and there is so much energy in this it can barely be contained in the song and keeps threatening to spill out.”

Transmission, Joy Division

“Most people would go with Love Will Tear Us Apart, but I just love the raw energy of this song… can’t help but dance, dance, dance to the radio.”

Killing In The Name Of, Rage Against The Machine
“This song is just pure anger. Loved it when it came out, and loved seeing 60,000 people at BDO screaming ‘fuck you I won’t do what you tell me’.”

This Mess We’re In, PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke
“I wanted to put a Radiohead song on my list, I wanted to put a PJ Harvey song on, this is my compromise. My favourite duet of all-time.”

Sabotage, The Beastie Boys

“Ten spots is not enough. I was tossing up between The Cure, The Smiths, The Dandy Warhols and The Presets but had to go with track from the Beasties. Just the ultimate party starter.”

Bank Fees

Fri, 22 May 2009 04:34:00 GMT

Is it just me, or are you starting to think the best savings plan in this current environment might be to just hide your money under your mattress at home?

Put it this way, you know you are in trouble when even the people who set the prices at airport food courts think the banks are greedy bastards.

If they are looking for more sequels to Underbelly, then forget Carl Williams or the Lithgow mafia, they should go after the really big players who are fleecing innocent civilians of their hard-earned cash- the banks:

“Coming soon to Channel 9, Underbelly 3: A Tale of Two Tellers. Who needs to sell guns and e’s when you can make more money with overblown fees?”

Now I know pointing out that banks charge outrageous fees is about as shocking a revelation as when Anthony Callea revealed that he wasn’t just “waiting for the right girl to come along”.

But I think for me the straw that broke the proverbial’s back was all these new fees for using ATMS.

These days when I put my card into an ATM I half expect that Westpac lady to pop up on screen wearing a stocking over her head and pointing a gun at my head.

Put it this way, you know the fees are getting too high when you pop down the local RSL and you end up losing more on the teller machine than you do on the pokies.

Now I don’t deny anyone the right to charge for providing a service, but I also know when to call a spade a bloody rip-off.

For the last few years banks have done everything other than yell “fire” to get us out of the branches so they can close them and maximise profits.

Basically we have been told our money is welcome to visit for as many sleepovers as it wants, but if we want to visit we will have to do it from the street or our computers at home.

But here’s the kicker they want to charge us extra for the privilege of doing… it… ourselves.

I mean seriously, eat your heart out Bond villains. You can have all the laser guns and killer hats you want, this is true evil genius.

To put it in perspective, imagine you were hungry and wanted a pizza, so you rang up Dominos.

Unfortunately, they tell you at the other end of the phone, they don’t deliver anymore. Oh well, you think, it’s not that big a deal to go down to the shop and pick it up.

Sadly on the way there, you remember they shut down your local Dominos last year, so you have to drive another ten minutes to the next one. But you have the hots for what’s in the box with the dots, so you do.

Only here’s the thing. When you get there they haven’t actually cooked the pizza for you after all. No they have just thrown some dough, cheese, tomatoes and anchovies in a box and you have to go home and make it yourself.

But wait there’s more. Here’s the ultimate kicker.

Instead of giving you a discount for this, they charge you extra for the privilege. Genius. I’m just glad the banks are not in charge of the sex industry, they would probably charge you $250 per hour for do-it-yourself brothels.

And don’t even start me on the exorbitant extras you will have to pay if you use a rival’s ATM.

I mean sure when you put your card in the slot you will get told how much it is going to cost you and have the option to pull out… but while this may work for sex education in the Catholic Church, it’s not great monetary policy.

In their defence, when the RBA relaxed the laws on ATM fees the idea was to make the market more competitive and thus keep prices low (ah yes, the free market and if you still believe that works I have a Nigerian banking scheme I need to put you in touch with.)

The truth is instead of keeping fees down, they have just got higher… and higher… and higher.

Seriously folks, who is the Governor of the Reserve Bank these days- Larry Emdur?

ATM fees at some pubs are now higher than Pete Doherty, Amy WInehouse, Keith Richards and Cypress Hill doing a benefit concert for Michael Phelps at Nimbin.

Of course- we are constantly told- if we don’t like the fees then we just have to shop around for a better deal.

Sure, technically you can shop around, but sometimes there isn’t a cheaper ATM nearby. I had to use one in a pub the other night and it cost me five bucks.

Five bucks? I was only trying to get twenty out. That’s a 25% charge, even my manager doesn’t take that much. Let’s be honest, there are pimps out there who are charging more competitive rates than that.

If the ATM is going to charge me five bucks for the honour of accessing my own money, at the very least I should be able to put the transaction receipt in the front window of my car and get an hour free parking.

And the idea of shopping around would make sense if there was actually any real choice, but let’s be honest choosing between the major banks is like choosing between the Daddos- no-one can tell them apart, and at the end of the day they’re as crap as each other.

I mean if we needed any more proof, they are all merging now. Westpac and St. George are becoming one superbank, which I guess in some ways this is good news, instead of having to go to two places to get shafted you can get shafted twice in the same place.

Although if they really wanted to combine a bank with another business, they should have combined with a Bunnings, that way when they screwed you, you would be able to buy something to screw them back.

Best Man

Fri, 22 May 2009 04:35:00 GMT

I had something quite exciting happen to me recently. My brother asked me to be best man at his wedding.

Now obviously that’s exciting because I love him and I’m honoured to be a part of such an important day of his life.

But I’m mostly excited because I love the title “best man”.

You see it’s not often in the 35 years of my life that I have ever been referred to as the “best” at anything.

And let’s be honest, as the sort of bloke who when something breaks at my house needs to dial Hire-A-Hubby to tell me the number for Hire-A-Hubby, I’m just happy to be officially referred to as a “man”.

Although the title of “best man” at a wedding is a little overstated.

I mean for starters, your presence there is certainly less important than say, the groom, which immediately relegates you to “second best man.”

Then of course, in most cases the priest is also male (and if you believe in that sort of thing, has a direct line to God) so that knocks you down the order again.

And that’s without even considering more often than not, there is the Father of The Bride, which means you are now not even on the podium coming in as the “fourth best man”.

(And don’t even get me started on a gay wedding where there are two grooms, two fathers of the bride, and I guess probably two best men too.)

In fact, now that I think about it, the only way the title “best man” could be appropriate at a wedding is if two lesbians, who had also been raised by two lesbians each, were getting married and had a female celebrant.

But I digress.

I was excited, but also nervous. I only have one brother, even if I’m really only the “fourth best man” I still want to make sure I do a good job.

Now the speech bit I think I can handle, but the rest I have no idea. Do I get a stripper? (For the buck’s party obviously, even I know that would be bad taste at the church)

You see I’ve never been a massive fan of strip clubs. To me it’s like taking a starving man to a restaurant, letting him look at the food, smell the food, but then making him go home hungry.

But I also don’t want to be the boring bucks bloke. I decided I needed some help, so I called a recently married mate and asked what my responsibilities were as best man.

He said: “Don’t worry mate, it’s a piece of piss. You just get a nice black suit, a cool car, say a few profound words and fight crime.”

It was at this point I realised that due to the bad reception in my house he thought I had asked him what my responsibilities were as Batman.

I decided instead to go to the internet.

After spending a few minutes looking at sites that seemed to skip the wedding, and just concentrate on what happens on the wedding night, I finally found what I was looking for: “The Comprehensive Guide To Being A Best Man.”

“Step One” I read: “Above all else be organised and offer constant moral support.”

My shoulders slumped in despair. Organisation and moral support, my two Achilles heels.

(I know you are only meant to have one Achilles heel, but bugger it, you have two heals, so I think it is only fair.)

You see, above all else, I am really badly organised. For a moment I actually thought: “Would it be inappropriate to get my manager to organise my brother’s bucks party?”

And when it comes to moral support, well, let’s just say I don’t have a foolproof barometer when it comes to knowing where to draw the line.

The devil on my shoulder whispers in my ear, and then I wait for the angel to say something before realising the devil spiked his drink with rohypnol.

I guess the best I can do is make sure I keep reassuring my bro that he is doing the right thing, and if he changes his mind at the last moment have a car full of petrol, with a glove box full of plane tickets, false passports and Tony Mockbell’s old wigs.

I read on. “Step Two: Organise measurements for suits, and pick up groom’s outfit on the day!”

What? Organise measurements? Am I really meant to do that? What is this, Queer Eye For The Engaged Guy?

And what if their measurements change before the big day? Am I meant to keep ringing the rest of the bridal party and say: “So dude, you still making it to the gym? I’m sending you a couple of vouchers for Bikram yoga!”

As it turns out my bro is going to pick up his own suit, which is probably a good idea, as I would probably leave it to the last moment and then just take whatever was left and it would be weird when the priest said: “Do you Kelly take… um, er… well it seems to be Spongebob Squarepants.”

Luckily the next few steps seemed a little easier.

I was happy to dance with the bridesmaids (as long as they knew the Macerena, YMCA, Time Warp or Nutbush); I was happy to organise the tossing of the garter (although I wondered if I couldn’t find enough single men, could I invite men whose relationships were a bit rocky?) and I was even happy to sign the marriage license (although I’ll have to be careful not to go with my usual: “Thanks for watching, all the best, Wil.”)

And then my palms started to sweat as we came to the Big One. “Final Step: Look after the ring!”

You see your main job above all else is to take care of, and guard with your life the ring, until the vital moment when it can be taken out of your palm and flung into the fires of Mordor.

Oh, sorry, I got distracted for a minute by Lord of The Rings on Foxtel. Don’t worry I’m sure it will all be alright on the day, after all I’m the fourth best man.

If anyone has any tips for the perfect buck's night, please feel free to leave your comments below!"