Stand up and zombies

Well stand up is terrifying! Or rather waiting to do stand up is terrifying!

I finally took the plunge, thanks to my comedy pal Farrah Lawrence and spent 5 minutes trying to make strangers laugh at the Cavendish in Stockwell. 

Up until the moment I got called up, “Please welcome to the stage, Luke McQueen”

Interesting stage name…. thanks for that, I felt that my stomach was going to fall off and release the condor that was trapped within.

As soon as I stepped up on stage, however, something magical happened. I felt fine. I couldn’t see the audience very well and knew I just had 5 minutes before I could hide away again and go back to making Tom and Farrah laugh with funny faces and noises….. Simpletons. 

Although I have no memory of it now whatsoever , the video shows the audience all laughing in the right places and I seem to have said the right words so I couldn’t have asked for much more.

I’m sure I will do it again but I have no idea when. The Cavendish is just about the best place for a comedian to start though. It’s very friendly and a lot of the people watching are other comedians, so if you have that niggling thought that you might fancy it, I urge you to give it a go! I know plenty of you on my friends list who are funnier than me.

So after the rush of emotions from extreme tension and fear to relief and euphoria, a good night’s sleep was in order…… Wrong.

I then proceeded to head down to Whitstable at 3.30 in the morning, after approximately 1 hours sleep to pretend to be a zombie. We got make up and buckets of fake blood applied and spent 6 or so hours chasing cars and 1 survivor around the little harbour. Highlights included Tom’s impression of a dyslexic zombie, “BRIANS!” and thoroughly freaking out a guy in a van just starting work.

I arrived home in time to wash off the crusty corn syrup from my hair and face, and sleep for all of 1 ½ hours before working the evening shift at work. After sleeping off my exhaustion, I am now writing this blog and trying to remember if the past few days was actually a dream or not.

Thanks to everyone involved , especially Farrah for making me talk to people about semen, gay porn and religion.

Link to stand up in case somebody missed it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSTQxsTckOE&feature=mh_lolz&list=FLW2ZCM3mGKYUJxe9v8wlULA

You know who you look like don't you?

Today I rowed. I rowed like a viking. To be honest though, I was attempting to follow the very unclear pictures on the side of the machine. Fairly confident I was doing it wrong, I made the mistake of telling my mother this. She promptly ran off to ask a trainer (Gym Instructor, not a shoe).

Brilliant. Now I get to look even more like a flid in front of a stranger.

In fact this guy was very professional and helped me out, without making me feel too much like a 6 year old. We were even talking jovially for a few minutes. Then he said those words...

"You know who you look like don't you?

Far from finding this offensive, after hearing it approximately 5 times a day on average, I simply find it irritating and redundant. Even more annoying is the stupid smirk people have when they say it. The look of a cat who's just brought you a dead animal and left it on your pristine carpet. Totally proud of himself, looking at me like I should congratulate him on his brilliant observational skills.

I answer with one of my prepared retorts

"Johnny Depp?" (Morgan Freeman, Jackie Chan and Joseph Stalin are all favourites too)

He laughs (a little too hard) and clarifies for me, in case I am still not aware of who I resemble,
"No mate, you know, Ozzy's son, Jack Osbourne"
pause for effect

Captain Meathead stares at me and as I die a little inside and answer, "oh yeah haha"

Just for everyone out there's attention, if someone resembles someone enough to make you feel the need to tell them, they already know. If someone is tall, short, has a hump or bright green hair... THEY KNOW

Noticing things is the simplest skill known to man. Quite literally anyone can do it. Its the same as people who see you have something written on your T-shirt and have to read it out to you. The person with the T-shirt is the one person who is pretty much guaranteed to know what it says.

I really hope "Jack" doesn't become my nickname with this Instructor Facepalm like it has with so many moron regulars at Blockbuster. Something tells me they actually think I enjoy it.

Anyway rant over

Luke Attempts to Get Fit

You know that feeling when you are pretty much a puddle?

Yeah that's me right about now.... As it turns out you can't do no exercise for months and then try an all out session at the gym. But it has been decided, I will get fit this year, starting today.

STEP 1

Join a fancy gym: Thanks to my kindly mother I have a free trial at a posh gym down the road. The kind where business people sit outside and do business in front of you so you can see they are business people. The kind who say, "Let me run this by you" and "We shall have to do lunch sometime". 
The gym is great though, with a pool, fitness centre, sauna, steam room and jacuzzi (of death).
After going along today I was advised to take it slow and go at my own pace. Unfortunately these are two different things all together. I then proceeded to prove I was cool by running too fast on the treadmill, too long on the step machine thingy, swim too fast and spend too long in the overheated jacuzzi.
All of this resulted in my death. I am fairly confident I died. 
Possible exaggeration, but I did feel very light headed and sick. Luckily there were a number of naked gurus to advise me on what to do.
I was not even remotely comfortable taking my clothes off in front of these men, but they seemed to love swinging it around and whistling. When I decided to take a shower, I noticed a guy showering naked, talking to another nude gentleman right next to him. Not too weird you might think, but the showers were in separate cubicles with doors! The gym had designed the showers for privacy and yet these guys were just hanging out together...
Anyway one guy explained that the sauna is broken and the heater makes it too hot most of the time and too cold the rest. So I shouldn't worry that I had essentially been beaten by a bubble bath...
I am now home, and as I said feeling like a puddle, but I suppose a happy puddle. A puddle with a plan.