It’s a good job I’m very disciplined and always up early, even at the weekends, because I have felt so unmotivated the last few weeks. You could probably apply that to the whole year. The gigging keeps me busy and distracted, but there’s a lack of focus that affects my writing away from the gigging.
A big part of that, in addition to the eternal housing situation, is simply watching my uncle’s accelerating decline. There’s a lot to cover from the last couple of weeks, just in general I mean, in terms of where I’ve been - café-wise this is an unusually promiscuous time - the gigs, I even managed to get out a couple of times socially to see friends, which was good and always a reminder of how important it is not to be so isolated.
March’s price rise in THE café will probably come a distant second to my uncle’s cancer when I review the year, but in terms of its silver medal position, it wins that hands down. I knew that price rise would forever alter THE café in my life. I have heard from a friend well-insulated in the SW8 gossip that it’s partly related to THE café’s landlord trying to push up their rents by a considerable amount. THE café has sought the help of SW8’s oldest SW8 Portuguese café in order to fight this. I think this has involved looking at what that café pays in terms of rents and for the space it has. Also, the land around THE café is owned by TFL. I didn’t know this until a few years ago and I don’t think it’s something widely known, though some broadsheet, possibly The Guardian, had a piece on this earlier this year.
‘Back in the day’, TFL invested in a lot of land and unfortunately for THE café, TFL own the pavement area they use for their au fresco dining. The whole thing is rather complicated. The end result is that below-the-radar writers/performers like me, with a severely limited social life end up paying for it.
Gig-wise, tonight I’m in Kent while this Sunday I’m in Brighton. I’ll plug the Brighton spot IF they finally fix my name on the poster. I really should’ve opted for an English stage name. Living in a monolingual country is one of the banes of my life. I would ban people from travelling abroad if they don’t have a second language. That would teach the f***ers.
I’m also holding off reading an email from one promoter. I do struggle with some of these people. Some are brilliant, lovely people. Others, you just wonder why they bother. I can accept some promoter not liking my stuff. That’s not a problem. You’re not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s the gatekeeper mentality of some of these guys. There’s also the frequent failure to actually promote nights, get your name right, or to even be polite in any correspondence. You meet them in person, finally, and usually the keyboard warrior is absent. I’d rather have the consistency. If they were as rude in person as they are electronically, that would sit better with me. I’d respect them more for also being rude in real life. Sometimes it takes a few emails to get all the information you need in the one email.
It does make me sometimes wish I was running a night, just for the challenge of making it work financially. But hey, this is the guy who launched a brilliant football nostalgia show not too long ago and saw it doomed from the off.
I came to the back-up-back-up café this lunchtime after looking in on my aunt and uncle and running an errand for them. I value these coffees and time with them. It’s been such a big part of my life. The only time when I don’t complain about having to drink from a coffee mug (inevitably I have my own mug there).
I was in THE café yesterday afternoon and had a reasonably productive writing session, working on a new short set that I can hopefully roll out in the next month and maybe I’ll be back there tomorrow.
I’d done a slow 5k yesterday in the park, possibly not resting enough after Tuesday’s 12k and I’m still a little sore today. I’ll be back out in the park tomorrow.
As for tonight, I’ve rehearsed my set a couple of times, tweaking it here and there, and will do so again on the way to Rochester for the gig. I’ve also packed a clip board so I can work on the short film script tonight. That first draft of the rewrite is ALMOST there. I’m eliminating a lot of the problems but it’s just trying to work out how I wrap it up that’s proving elusive.
As for good sleep – what is that?
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