October 26, 2006
POETRY NEWS
I’M IN A BOOK OF POETRY BY COMEDIANS!
It’s a huge book and I’m lying down between a couple of sheets with Simon Munnery and Isy Suttie. It’s warm. Ha ha ha ha ha! Of course I’m not physically in it! Fucking hell, what’s your problem? I just meant that a couple of my poems have been included in the volume, which is called That Which Is Not Said. Read a selection and buy the thing here, all proceeds go to the homeless charity Crisis. Apart from two of my own funny and thought provoking pieces, there are brilliant poems by Arthur Smith, Phil Nichol, Russel Brand, Harry Hill and many more. Here’s one of my favourites by Simon Munnery whose stuff I sometimes find almost impenetrably weird so it’s a surprise to find his poems so tender and straightforward.
It’s a great book though. I bought a load to give as Christmas presents because it’s kind of the perfect thing for people who aren’t morons, so this year my non-moron friends are in for a treat. The morons are getting a copy of Brick on DVD. The Pin!? Give over. I mean, if you are one of the ridiculously large number of people who thought Brick was a work of genius, I’m not saying you’re definitely a moron, just that if you do happen to be a moron, you are considerably more likely to believe that Brick is a work of genius. Shit, now the Brick fans aren’t going to buy the poetry book and help the homeless because I’ve insulted them. I’ve been tactless and stupid haven’t I? I apologise.
I apologise too if you’re one of the people who’ve been irritated by some of the voice-overs I’ve done recently on TV and on the radio but I have to remind you that if it wasn’t me it would just be Xander Armstrong or Rob Brydon or someone else who isn’t going to spend the money they earn from those voice-overs on building a better tomorrow by making amusing videos which they occasionally post on You Tube. That money also feeds my wife and sons so remember; every time you get annoyed by my voice, you are effectively punching a woman and two toddlers in the stomach. Is that really what you want? What are you, TONY BLAIR?! I think it’s time you bought that poetry book, don’t you?
October 16, 2006
LUDDISM NEWS
DENNY DIGIT
I know it’s already been posted on You Tube, but below is my Denny Digit promo, which was beeped in Time Trumpet, in it’s full foul mouthed form. This was of course a kind of riff on those ‘Digit-Al’ promos featuring a sweet robot with the voice of Matt Lucas encouraging people to bow to the evil technological conspiracy that is digital TV! It all started going wrong when they started the switch from 4:3 to 16:9 if you ask me… Keep TV square, crappy and as unlike film as possible I say!
October 4, 2006
XFM NEWS
TARDY LAST XFM PODCAST AND TOY ‘SEVEN’
The final Xfm podcast of our first ’season’ should be out around Monday 9th October (on I-tunes and the Xfm website as usual). It was going to be this week but I got swamped with preparations for Friday’s Out Of Focus Group, which is now sold out. Sorry about that. Over the last few weeks things have been fairly busy for Joe and myself so the regularity of the podcasts has suffered and I think maybe it’s affected our chart position as a result (I enjoy talking this way because it helps me believe I’m in a band or something). Anyway if you’ve been downloading the podcasts, thanks very much indeed and I hope you’ll continue to recommend them to your friends. The plan at the moment is to find a way to get some help producing them, probably outside Xfm, so we can do some more in the new year and make them regular without going nuts doing so. We’ll most likely carry on doing the Xfm show though but again not until the new year, if they still want us back of course. If you’re desperate for more Adam & Joe shite in the meantime, you could check out the monthly Coke New Music Podcast we do although it’s a very different thing, albeit hilarious, uplifting, important and much better put together than our Xfm one (because we don’t do it).
And if you’re still not satisfied, here’s another toy movie nugget which I believe has not made it on to You Tube so far: our version of David Fincher’s Seven which was only the second toy movie we ever made. We didn’t put this one on the Adam & Joe DVD because there wasn’t the space and as fond as I am of it, it’s perhaps not the funniest. I think we got a bit wrapped up in the idea of it being about the Seven Dwarves (ha ha) and it got a bit literal as a result, but it was fun to do and the title sequence works a treat I think. I think we were able to clear David Bowie’s The Laughing Gnome for the original broadcast but certainly when it turned up on the video we released after the first 2 series of The Adam & Joe Show, we had to use a piece of Nine Inch Nails style library music instead. Anyway, here it is in its original Bowie based glory!
September 27, 2006
OLD NEWS
SOME OLD ANECDOTES FOR MATT YOUNG
I got a card from someone called Matt Young the other day. He was saying he had been listening to The Adam & Joe Xfm podcasts (which are nearing the end of their first ’season’) and wanted to know more about the ‘Kiki Pee’ anecdote referred to fleetingly in podcast 1. Matt gave me his e-mail address but I’m always a bit cagey with entering into e-mail correspondence too quickly with someone I don’t really know. I mean it was a very nice card and I’m sure Matt’s totally fine but I like to keep things formal. If he’d supplied his postal address I would have written back, but as he didn’t I’m responding via blog. Hope that’s OK Matt. Here is the Kiki Pee anecdote along with another couple of stories from when I did the Edinburgh Festival in August 2005. I would have put this stuff in my Edinburgh diary but I never finished it in the end. Better late than never though, yes?
KIKI PEE
When I was in Edinburgh my PR was being expertly handled by a girl called Claire Walker, who goes out with Ed Byrne, (a fact that isn’t totally relevant to the story but I don’t like to miss a name dropping opportunity). Ed and Claire were out drinking late one night and were sat at a table with among others these two queens from New York who do an act as a failed lounge singer and her pianist called Kiki and Herb. I haven’t seen them personally but I hear they’re excellent. The guy who plays Kiki was wasted though and at one point he just got out his winky and started to spend a penny beneath the table where he and Claire were sitting. Due to their close seating proximity a lot of the tinkle hit Claire’s foot and understandably she jumped up, disgusted, shouted at the guy and went to the lavvy to wash off the Kiki pee. Far from being contrite, Kiki grabbed her by the arm on the way back from the ladies and said ‘I’m sorry I didn’t pee in your face’. Nice.
Admonished by a mutual friend Kiki then said ‘Oh OK, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I pee’d on her ugly shoes’. Nice again.
When acquaintances of Kiki heard what happened, a lot of them were surprised, saying ‘but he’s just not the kind of person who would ever do something like that’. I wonder how many times you have to wee on someone’s foot before you are the kind of person who would do something like that. I would say once.
Incidentally that story didn’t come to me from Claire Walker or Ed Byrne. Unlike me, they’re far too discreet to mention that kind of thing, but it was a reliable source. That said if Kiki somehow reads this and is upset because he believes he did not wee on Claire’s feet then I will remove this story and issue an apology. I say that because a couple of people I know and like have read what I thought were completely innocuous comments about them on this blog and been upset so now I’m getting nervous about telling wee wee stories featuring famous drag queens I don’t even know…
BIKE ASSAULT
On my way to a party on the last night of the festival I was riding on my bike downhill across the bridge to Princess Street when a young guy leaned out of the window of a passing car and pushed me! I could easily have been killed but thanks to my exceptional cycling skills I kept my balance and stayed on my bike. The car sped away, weaving dangerously through traffic as the yobs inside watched me shouting abuse at them helplessly. I caught them up at the lights briefly and took a picture of their number plate then, fizzing with adrenalin, shouted triumphantly to the passengers of another car that was watching me, ‘THAT CUNT’S GOING TO JAIL!’ Brilliant.
Anyway I finally got to the party and on my way in I bumped into Dara O’Briain who I’d met a couple of nights previously. I was in a state by then, apoplectic with impotent rage and keen to get pissed but the fucking doorman wouldn’t let me in because I didn’t have my festival pass with me. Lovely Dara protested to the doorman on my behalf saying ‘don’t you know who this is? Did you never see The Adam & Joe Show?’ I think it was mainly for my benefit to make me feel better about not getting in (because the doorman certainly had NOT seen The Adam & Joe Show), but finally, because Dara is so giant and charming it worked and I got in to what turned out to be a shit party.
One of the first people I saw there was Kevin Bishop, a very funny actor who was in The Last Chancers and can now be seen on Channel 4’s Star Stories. I told him about being nearly killed by these yobs and the fact that I had a photo of their number plate, which I was going to give to the cops. He just chuckled at me and said ‘what d’you think the cops are going to do? Anyway what are you so upset about? They were just kids having a laugh’. That made me feel pretty fucking old. It reminded me of Joe talking about a spate of stabbings near where we live in south London and how if it’s a shallow stab you can’t really complain cos that’s like an informal greeting. That wasn’t so much an anecdote as just a kind of rant about kids these days.
LOU REED
At the same shit party Kevin Bishop told me that he was in the VIP area at this festival in Spain called Benicassim and Lou Reed came up to him out of the blue and said ‘Hey, you’re the guy from The Last Chancers. I loved that show. That’s exactly what it’s like being in a band!’ Kevin swears this happened and it was definitely Lou Reed and not just an old man with sunglasses. One day I’ll probably find out Kevin was just winding me up, but so far he insists it’s the truth. How Lou Reed managed to see a show that only about 15 people in the UK saw before it got cancelled is a mystery but in a world where David Bowie will turn up to write songs for Ricky Gervais, anything’s possible.
So there we go Matt. That’s why this blog is NUMBER 1 for lame gossip that’s over a year old!!! Oh, and if you see these twats, hurt their feelings from me would you?
ADDENDUM I saw Kevin Bishop recently and he finally admitted to me that he was lying about Lou Reed.
September 23, 2006
LIVE NEWS
OUT OF FOCUS GROUP 12, FRIDAY 6th OCTOBER, 2006
I’m doing a one off Out Of Focus Group comedy night at The Zetter Hotel on Friday 6th October. As usual it will be starting at 8pm sharp but if you show up nearer 7pm (having reserved a seat if you’re sensible!) you can get a drink and enjoy a video of me cycling from my house to The Zetter set to enjoyable music.
Already confirmed for the night is Todd Barry a brilliant American comic who’ll be doing about 20 minutes of more stand uppy stuff than we normally have. Here’s Todd in action on Comedy Central in the US. I’m also very glad to be welcoming back lovely Jo Neary who does character pieces that wipe the floor with a lot of the very predictable character comedians you see around town. She’s going to be big news in 2007 I reckon. There should also be other guests TBC and I’ll be doing a couple of character things too though I haven’t yet figured out if I’m going to try out something new and watch sadly as it dies or have a relaxing evening doing familiar bullcrap that is more likely to satisfy. Go forward painfully or stagnate with a beery smile, that’s the tedious question. And of course I’ll be showing a few new video bits as well as more older nuggets.
Call NOW, before it fills up with non blog readers, and reserve a table or just a couple of seats for an evening that is being described as ‘a delightfully bourgeois antidote to everything hateful and shit in the modern world‘ Now it’s being described as ‘essential‘. Ooh, hang on, now it’s being described as ‘inessential‘. Now it’s not being described. I’ll let you know as soon as anything changes.
The Zetter Hotel 86-88 Clerkenwell Road, EC1 0207 324 4455