So let me tell you about my week…

Context: When your wife is pregnant, as mine recently was, you lose testosterone so that you don’t beat her*. This may be controversial and I have no science to back it up but I have mentioned it at barbecues and it seems to hold up around salad. My testosterone is now bouncing back. But due to Lady Wife’s unfortunate C Section I’m house bound until she is strong enough to lift more than a baby.  Also, to add spice, I’ve spent the last 9 months trying to find the perfect segue between what my wife is talking about and convincing her to touch my penis. 

 I’m walking up the road on my way to buy cupcakes and my inner monologue is furious. ‘Cupcakes! Cupcakes!  I must be the only inner monologue bitching about cupcakes. ’ And so it went.  Meanwhile Lady Wife was talking about curtains. Not meanwhile back at home meanwhile, but rather, meanwhile by my side meanwhile. In context to banter about curtains, this is the worst kind of meanwhile.  (Curtains. Curtain rod. Emphasise rod and then look at your penis.  Avoid eye roll. Repeat.) The cherry: I’m pushing a pram with two kids in it. The kids are mine, they’re both under two and they’re just screaming ‘Be responsible dad! It’s embarrassing that you only have £13.25 in your bank account. Stop thumbing your cock during the day and get out there and bring home a slice of normal, at least until we get blinds. Step up and be a man dad.’ I love them but they’re little psychological bandits who know how to push my buttons.

I’m in the boutique cupcake shop, we’re buying some for the neighbours who helped with Boy Son during the birth of Only Daughter.  Just as we balance affordability with quality, in walks a guy ten years buffer than me, he’s holding a knife and he’s not happy about a previous cupcake sale. Finally I get a turn to shine. I take thirty-five years of anger and fear and crush this man with nothing but mind vibes. Mel Gibson in his hey day couldn’t beat my stare. Even as Riggs in Lethal weapon 1. My kids love me again, my posture improves, the cupcake lady dies because my vibes are new and need refining but no one cares because she died doing what she loved, combusting. As for Lady Wife, she tells me to snap out of it and open the door as ‘we have the cupcakes now Adam.’ Oh do we? Because from where I’m standing, we are a long way from cupcakes. ‘That doesn’t even make sense’ I know but this testosterone has got to go somewhere.’

And that was my week. No happy ending, not even a plot, just a man plugging along using his imagination to anesthetise the growing pains of responsibility. 

* Not so much her but the infiltrating demon that she never told you about.

1996

I wrote my first page of jokes when I was aged somewhere between eight and ten. I remember the moment I showed them to my Dad, who was paving the driveway at the time. He looked at the my efforts, smiled and then carried on lifting bricks. I’ve been needy ever since. Fast forward between nine and eleven years, and I’m walking up my local hill. The sun was setting, the air was warm and a man sporting loose pants, a tight T and a decent dose of Down’s Syndrome was heading in my direction. As my shadow lapped at his Volley’s he smiled and said, ‘It’s 1996 mate, it’s 1996.’ He repeated it three or four times and then carried on with his life. Now, when you grow up in the outer suburbs of Adelaide and an angel comes drifting down your local hill sprouting wisdom, you take notice. After our paths had crossed and my message had been received I remember thinking, ‘Yeah it is 1996. I should do something with my life.’ I’m not making this up. A lot of people get into comedy because they heard Bill Cosby on vinyl, or because they saw The Big Yin on television. Me, I got caught in the headlights of the ultimate truth and rarely do I look back. Clearly I had an interest in comedy but if I hadn’t met “1996” (I never got his name so I went with what I had) I may well be the slow guy on the Mitsubishi line. Happy and content? Maybe. But always wondering ‘what if?’. 1996 gave me courage. Don’t get me wrong, there have been times when I’ve wanted to punch him square in the nose, ‘I’m broke 1996! Broke and self involved! Why didn’t you tell me to be a Doctor? I could’ve been saving lives. I’d still be the funny guy at the barbecue. That’s all I need. A bit of attention and a side of coleslaw. Why 1996? Why?’ But 1996 wouldn’t have cared for troubles like these, instead he would’ve smiled at me and said, ‘It’s 2004 mate. It’s 2004.’ That’s the kind of guy he was and I miss him. 

My point is I’m just like you. I have thoughts and they are funny and poignant and surreal and serious and callous, sometimes even cold. My only hope is that when you see me I’m entertaining and that maybe, like 1996 did for me,  I inspire you in some way, shape or form to have the courage to do what ever it is that you want to do. 

Red shoes

‘We need an act for tonight’ was the tweet. I responded with a quick ‘I’m nearby, I can pop in.’ I wasn’t nearby, I was an hour and a half a way but you never know, this could lead to work, a big time agent might be in the room or a plane might fall into my house and, because I was proactive, I will be allowed to live. I caught the early train giving myself time to enter the gig with a, 'I was just over there' vibe. The room was in a WalkAbout pub that was made for vomit. Comedy came second to bile in this place but that’s ok, I thought, the audience will get me because tonight I feel gettable. I took off my brown boots and popped on my red shoes, the funny ones that make me look like I’m going places. I started talking to the guy I was sharing the bracket with. We were both given ten minutes. He was young, hung over and told me he’d just signed with a big agent. I’m thirty-five, wearing read shoes and have just signed with Boots to get a discount card.  I then discover that the night is run by a promoter who already hires me. Now I’m doing a try out spot for a guy who I’ve already tried out for. Curse you twitter. Lady Wife was right, you’re a vacuous whore. It became apparent that I was wasting my time and, if the gig went poorly, shooting myself in the foot.  ‘Ladies and gentlemen please welcome to the stage your first act for this second bracket Patrick Morris’. The kid was slick, confident, genuine and funny.  ‘Now keep that round of applause going for Adam Vincent.’ I was disjointed, dark, and on this occasion, a testament to mediocrity. I had just received a kick in the pants from a star of the future. At least I hope he is because then it makes my so-so gig more glorious.

On the tube on the way home I hunched over, it’s my posture of choice after an average performance. Briefly, my mind pressed pause on the replay of my previous efforts, allowing me time to discover that I was still wearing my red shoes. My brown boots! I jumped off the tube, ran down the stairs, lunged to the other platform, waiting two minutes for my carriage (a long lunge), said goodbye to some small talk, ran up some more stairs, tried not to cry, negotiated with a bouncer, dashed down some stairs, rekindled my 'I was just over there' vibe, only to see my boots being thrown about the room by the headliner, a man older than myself playing a character older than himself, which was fitting as he seemed close to death. The snippet I caught included no laughs and a needy tension that I’m not ashamed to say made me feel good.  It’s his own fault, had he been throwing my red shoes about people would’ve been in fits, the reds shoes are rarely mediocre twice in a row. I retrieved my boots, found a booth and popped them on like a school kid who had just been dacked. As I tied my laces a man came up and wanted to know where I am gigging next. 'You were funny. I really like your stuff' he said. It’s a fucking roller coaster people.  

I have other comedy stories that I only post on my website www.adamvincent.com if you're interested.