How to be a Successful Actor by an Unsuccessful Actor

How to be a Successful Actor by an Unsuccessful Actor

If this is the first time reading something of mine then, welcome. To introduce myself, I am Conor Charlton, a 33 year old Northern Irish actor who has been pursuing acting as a career for roughly five years. From 2016-2017 I attended the prestigious Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and took the MA Acting in Screen course, which I graduated the school with a Merit. In 2018, I won the Northern Ireland Short Film Awards actor of the year award for the role of Sean in 'The Ceremony' – you can watch it here:

I regard myself as thus far being unsuccessful due to my lack of TV, film or play role and the fact that I have overall earned less from acting than I have spent on training. This post should serve as introspection and also a guide for people considering the pursuit of acting.

As a member of various acting and film making groups, I see a lot of posts in this group which basically amount to "How do I become an actor?" or "Help me be an actor". I even get messaged by people for advice on this. Now unfortunately a lot of us jump to the assumption that the people posting are scammers or beggars and are awaiting for long drawn out ways of asking for money. If this is your intention, stop. Actors don't have any money. In the UK for instance, actors on average earn less than £9,000 per year. Compare that to the average salary in London (around £30,000) that's not a lot. For many of us, it's basically a hobby that gives us a little pocket money. Maybe we put a lot of time and effort into that hobby in the hope that we can do it and nothing but it to make a living and with a lot of luck a good living, but it means that we typically aren't loaded unless we have a side job which graces us with a lot of cash.

Now for the rest of you that aren't scamming, let me ask you something - why do you want to be an actor? Maybe there's one answer, maybe there's a multitude of answers. I won't go as far to say that an answer is wrong, but I will go as far to say that sometimes I have to ask myself why I want to be an actor. Sometimes it's because I want to inhabit a character and interact with a character's mindset. Sometimes it's because I like seeing myself on screen. Some people hate that - Dame Maggie Smith, some people love it - Samuel L. Jackson. Right now, I measure my own success in life by how successful a career I've been pursuing for a while is going. Maybe not so good, but then we can lay part of the blame on COVID 19 induced lock-down before we point at the other demons – failure to network enough, poor performances in auditions due to lack of talent, preparation, nerves, the ever, a failure to create my own work that could potentially raise my profile and generate more interest. What I intend to explain here are the various routes of success, how to attempt to pursue them and to a lesser extent, the obstacles faced and consequences that can follow. 

Whilst there are no wrong reasons to be an actor, I do have to suggest you reconsider if you are in it because you have the illusion of being rich and famous.  Success to who I consider "the real actors" out there typically is not about becoming rich and famous, but instead making a survivable income from acting whilst being involved with or creating art which we are proud of.  Fame and fortune can be a wanted  or unwanted biproduct of the 1% of actors out there and if you are in it for these reasons, I highly recommend you think of another career path.  A reality TV show might be a better option.  Most of us are about bringing stories to life or exploring the craft.  That is not to say that it isn't a job, because as I will explain that it is and it is very much a job and one which is often underpaid.  Great stories, portrayed by great actors can have a lot of benefit to society. TV for instance can be used to educate people, whilst a show like Game of Thrones has greatly enhanced the flow of tourism to the locations where it was shot.  Meanwhile actors can serve other roles - aiding young doctors through roleplays to prepare them for exams and the real world, being in company training videos and government health warnings.  Some actors find niches in unusual places.

Broadly speaking, there are three types of actor – the thespian, the entertainer and the writer/actor. While at times there is some overlap of two or even three of these things as trained actors are often diverse in their talents, the three typically have different intentions in terms of their career goals and backgrounds.

The Thespian

The thespain is the actor artist who might come from a classically trained background. They seek to inhabit the mind of a character and learn their mannerisms in the attempt to portray a truth. They may study Stanislavskian based method acting, the teachings of Miesener or obscure forms of European folk theatre. Perhaps they have in-depth knowledge of stage work, Shakespearean texts, Chekovian dramas, fringe theatre or the latest Jez Butterworth masterpiece. They are more likely to have attended a prestigious drama school, though more fortunate ones may have had the luxury of attending a private school with a multi-million pound drama department. I'm not jealous.. well, maybe a little bit.. but a teenager like I was wouldn't necessarily know to take advantage of such great facilities, so the lack of high end drama department won't factor in my current excuse for non success. In terms of where they perform, the thespian is traditionally more accustomed to stage acting but there are of course many who cross over to the big screen and do so with the greatest of success – the legendary John Gielgud, Dame Maggie Smith, Daniel Day Lewis, Marlon Brando and one of my own personal favourites, Mark Rylance. All of these actors either seek to present the “naturalistic truth”, or deliver an artistic interpretation of their character in order to heighten the delivery of the themes, subtext or other artistic values.

If you want to become a thespian then as mentioned before the most commonly used route for this is seeking out and applying for a relevant course in a drama school. However, where that not an option, you could also approach a theatre company and try to get as much hands on training as they can offer. If they don't exist in your area or at reasonable distance, you could always start up your own company. Try at least to find other actors you could work with, or people around you who aspire to act. Do some research about texts, try and get a play you could perform with little or no props. Consider street or fringe theatre. The path of a thespian is a long term investment that in terms of earning potential may never pay off but if bringing characters to life on stage is something that you've dreamed of, then that is payment alone. If I can offer any more advice is, try not to become the “pompous” thespian who peer down their noses at the entertainers.

The Entertainer

I use the phrase entertainer to describe someone who came into the film and television world with the main aim of entertaining an audience, typically in comedy, action or soap opera roles rather than some grand pursuit of truth or dramatic tradition. Whilst some, like the thespian come from acting school backgrounds, others have had little to no formal training at all and instead were famous for other reasons – perhaps they were stand up comedians, sports stars, singers or have the type of celebrity status I have the least amount of respect for – reality TV stars. With the odd exception, the entertainer is less likely to take the “craft of acting” as serious as the thespian, but that does not mean they can't be extremely competent at what they do. Two of the most beloved entertainers in Hollywood today are Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart – a pro wrestler and a stand up comedian respectively. They may be more likely to appear in comedy or action “flicks”. Hardly Oscar winning fare but that's not to say they won't have a place in our hearts and minds, at least for a little while.

Perhaps a little bit controversially, I'll also place the musical theatre performer into the camp of entertainer. I don't want to sound like I'm snubbing the MT folk as these wonderful people are required to be able to act, sing and dance. This guy can just about do one of those things. However, I don't think I'm wrong in saying that Musical Theatre receives a fair amount of snobbery directed it at and the light hearted writing of certain MT shows calls upon actors to give a more “cheesy” or “corny” performance. Sometimes this style of acting lends itself way to zany comedies and of course musical films, but naturalist work may need the MT person to have some additional training. By its very nature, breaking into song and dance can render characters as being chariacatures, not “real” human beings. That being said, I've never seen “Les Mis”, “Miss Saigon” or “Hamilton”, so I guess I'll shut my big mouth on that front!

If you're looking to become an entertainer then really you'll need the passion and talent to pursue a different path before you move onto acting. That path may be as competitive or as difficult to succeed as that of a thespian. You might be good at getting hit with a chair, but are you as charismatic as The Rock or John Cena to make wrestling fans or those who aren't fans want to pay to see you in a film? Are you really as funny as Eddie Murphy, Rebel Wilson or Bryan Callen? Moving onto acting is really the by-product of being incredibly good at another skillset afforded to so few, so before you decide to start venturing down this path, decide what you wish to succeed in more.

The Middle Ground

You may be thinking about the run of the mill actor we see in films and TVs who don't necessarily have fame for being a rapper or wrestler, but don't have a lot of stage experience. Well the likelihood is these folk followed a similar approach to the thespian in terms of drama school training but chose to focus more on modern plays, or screen training. For there are a number of key differences in the styles most commonly seen in screen acting and stage acting. Whilst a thespian can often convert to screen work, their need for those at the back of the theatre to see and understand their work will often call for much larger movement and noise than that of a more contained screen actor. They may have a tendency to over-gesticulate and over-project for a drama where the camera is designed to represent the viewer's eye. So they'll get a little bit of training. If you intend to skip the stage stuff and head straight to the screen, like I largely attempted, I'd encourage you to get to workshops in your area or find small or student film makers who need amateur actors. This may mean unpaid work, where you should receive show reel footage in return, but there are big arguments in the arts world about whether or not doing something free is ethical. The theory goes that if nobody acted for free, good actors would be more employable and receive a higher rate, whilst acting for free leads to the amount an actor can ask for getting drastically reduced.

Whatever way you choose to build your show reel, whether it's via student films or by paying a reel service to cut a reel for you, a good reel is important. Likewise having a great set of headshots done by a professional photographer should heighten your chances of getting noticed by directors and agents alike.

The Rest

So those broadly speaking are what I would say are the main two, but I would be remiss not to mention the writer/actor and give a brief shout out to the voice actor. The writer/actor is often a major player on both the stage, small screen and the big one too. Take Sylvester Stallone, rejected more times than I care to Google before he got the funds to produce “Rocky”, a film that he wouldn't sell the rights to unless he was given the title role. More recent British examples would be Phoebe Waller-Bridge who wrote and starred in tragicomedy “Fleabag” or mockumentary, “This Country” penned by sibling duo Daisy May and Charlie Cooper, whilst an American favourite of mine would be “It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, written largely by Rob McElhenney. I have the most respect for these actors, purely because it's the type of artistic endeavour I want to be involved with the most but a combination of laziness, the constant fear of inadequacy and a dash of paralysis by analysis and bingo – you've got the recipe for an actor who doesn't write. Who instead hangs in there, waiting for castings to come to them.

Don't be that guy.

No matter what type of actor you wish to become, sitting still and not developing your own work will increase the likelihood you get absolutely no where with your career. Even if you have done a gruelling three years at drama school and landed some fantastic representation does not necessarily mean you should sit back and wait for castings to come to you. Sure, there is a time to relax and “discombobulate”, especially after something as intense as drama school, film shoot or theatre run but doing nothing for long periods of time, in that often dreaded period of time most of us actors refer to as “between jobs” likely won't create a lot of opportunities. Writing is one of the best ways to create opportunities for you and as the Roman philosopher Seneca once wrote “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”

It may be a skill as difficult or if not more difficult than acting and require you to study and learn it from books, lectures and videos but should you prove to be good at it, it will serve not only as a career booster for your acting, but potentially as another career in itself.

Without putting the time in and doing something to attempt to further your career, you are probably not heightening this luck factor. You may feel like you're floating, whether or not you are. Maybe you're not. Maybe you're actually still developing subconsciously, by studying how people interact, maybe your imagination is expanding from a lot of reading and watching of great shows. Perhaps being relaxed and not worrying about your lack of preparation will actually mean when a juicy casting comes up you will smash it out of the park rather than crumple in a shambolic nervous heap in the room in front of the directors or relevant casting people. But if we're being realistic, being proactive should put us in an ultimately positive frame of mind.

That's why I ultimately recommend picking up a pen and writing. After all, we as actors should be storytellers; playing a character is playing one part of a story puzzle. The creation of a whole story, or just the story of the character itself should come natural to us. Just like acting, there are countless books on the subject of writing and thousands of online lectures and videos online which can offer you guidance on the subject. If you're as serious about it as you will need to be to succeed, once again, you're in for a long haul. Just like anything else that you try in life, you will probably suck.. until you don't. What's needed for any career in the arts, you will need a thick skin and the willingness to grind, all the while having your decisions and efforts torn apart by critics and friends alike.

Before I come to the conclusion, I said before, shout out to the voice actors out there. Voice acting is something that a lot of actors will have a base level of ability in due to extensive practice at using their voice in a similar fashion to a musician playing an instrument. With the right recording euipment, and a voice reel, they can potentially pick up a lot of work either voicing over advertisements or mobile phone apps, or provide character voices for animations, computer games or radio dramas. Building a career as a VO artist does not necessarily need the same focused training as that of a traditional “thespian” but there are still some skills to be developed over time that will make you better at the job and help you land gigs.  There are various services which you can pay for to help you get a good reel, but even with a good reel, you'll need to network to make the connections which can give you a steady flow of work. Much like acting, it helps to have representation, who may have the connections to audio casting directors.

Conclusion

I've probably repeated myself a bunch of times throughout this and for good measure I'll do it again. If it's not abundantly clear, becoming a successful actor either requires a lot of the “preparation meets opportunity” luck and a fair amount of the right place, right time and right look for the role luck. It'll also need a lot of sacrifice. Time effort and emotional energy will be spent over an extended period – a period that can entirely undefinable in its length. You could spend a lifetime trying to succeed in this industry and there is a danger that you may never succeed. All the time and effort could be sank into one thing with no great outcome in terms of status or financial stability. Your love for acting and your desire to do it must outweigh the fear of failure. Yet that same desire must not control you when it comes to your castings and performances. You must feel only what the character feels. Think only what the character thinks so that for those looking to hire you, or the audience you seek to captivate the energy and connection your character has is both captivating and believable.

As an actor you will need to be both stubborn and flexible. A will to make hard decisions, but a pragmatism which allows you to create opportunities, recognize them when they appear and take advantage of them when they fall into your grasp. Do not kid yourself about “being discovered” on the street or even as an extra. For a miniscule percentage of people, this may have happened but the vast majority of folk who want to have a chance of succeeding have to embrace the grind. If that's what you want to do, then go for it. I hope opportunities present themselves to you and I hope you have the clarity of mind to take advantage of them when they do.  

That'll do.

- Conor Charlton 2nd June, 2020

P.S. Some of you may have got to the end of this article and thought "surely this is nonsense, after all it's not what you know, it's who you know..."  And while I have touched upon networking briefly, there may be a certain level of truth to the old addage.  There are countless actors who have benefited from nepotism and there are cases where the actor may have only gotten as far as they have done through knowing a writer, a director or a producer before their career began.  Whilst I can't claim that I wouldn't utilize any family or friend links presented to me, I can ask to those actors out there who benefit from these links to please put the same amount of work into your role preparation as an actor who doesn't have the opportunities that you do.  I'll not waste my breath and complain about this, that or the other being unfair, because the world we live in is unfair.  I have been incredibly fortunate to be born where I was, when I was and to have had the support of the people around me to even pursue acting, I could not imagine what it'd be like to be facing that struggle in somewhere much more hostile to this pursuit.  Perhaps in the future, I could write another article where I theorize ideas on how to cultivate your talent in more difficult conditions.

P.P.S. Any mathematicians who want to tally up the number of times I say "perhaps", "maybe" or talk about the odds and want to try and calculate the percentage chance of someone succeeding (making a respectable earning) through one of these career paths, let me know.

Also check out the Worst Ever Reading of Ulysses

https://audioboom.com/posts/7599625-episode-3-the-worst-ever-reading-of-macbeth-part-1

I write almost entirely for fun and because I love storytelling, but if you're feeling generous and want to throw a coin or two my way, below is my paypal tipping address.  A fair amount of the money I spend these days goes on either writing classes or tipping other artists for bringing us cheer at this grim time, so I wouldn't say you're wasting too much if you do.   Christ that last sentence is even more try hard.. What a virtualling piece of..

Paypal Link

That Time I Got Arreseted in Spain

That Time I Got Arreseted in Spain

The years was 2011.  A young Conor decided to leave Belfast after a year of handling a death in the family.  He moved to Barcelona, the city of sun and fun and lived his life by the motto of "let's get fucked up and make bad decisions."  And bad decisions he made, all the time.  One particular bad decision was when he decided to book the weekend off work to go see a friend who was living and working in Mallorca.  This wasn't the bad decision - the bad decision was when he decided to go to a bar where a girl he felt big things for was working.  The two had been dating, but she had been playing him like a fool.  Regardless, he got silly drunk that night, going from her to pub to another pub, to a friend's flat and then finally the walk to Plaza Catalunya where he could get the bus to the airport.  Half way up la rambla, he couldn't continue walking for fear of passing out, so he took a cab to plaza catalunya and fell asleep, he found himself way off off Catalunya - the taxi driver had taken him for a ride.  He paid the man and got out then realized it was too late to get the bus, he had to get another taxi. So he did.  Which cost him another fortune.
He got to the airport, got through security, then couldn't find his way to the gate on time.  Just a few minutes after final call he pulled up, but it was too late.  He couldn't get on, so he decided to have a sleep on the seats.  Security eventually found him and told him he couldn't stay there, but they seemed to suggest he could get a free ticket to Mallorca after all.  They dragged him around the airport and passed him around a series of security guards who seemed to be just toying with him at this point, one even riding on her segway to the desk of the plane company.  The advisor informed him that no, he'd need to pay for a new ticket.  One that he couldn't afford.  Tired, still drunk/hungover and ready to pass out, Conor took himself outside the airport terminal and sat down on the pavement to call his friend and tell him what had happened.  Then a voice in Spanish told him to move.  He turned and looked to what he thought was a security guard and not at all happy told him "fuck off.  Puta de madre"
He got up and walked away, but the man followed him and grabbed him by the wrist.  "Passporte?  Nombre?" the man asked.  Conor tried to apologize saying "No pasa nada, lo siento, lo siento."  It wasn't enough though, as Conor tried to move away three more men appeared  The secuirty guard was not a rentacop after all, but an actual cop.  Conor got dragged into a small brightly lit office and was told to sit down.  He sat down but what followed was a giant *whack* to the head.  Realizing what had happened he put his hands up to cover his head as the second slap came across, this one glancing across his forearm.

"In this country, no fuck off!  No puta de madre to police officers!" the cop bellowed
"In my country, you slap me around the head, you lose your job" Conor responded snarkily.
What followed was a conversation which consisted of the cops with varying degrees of English language proficiency insisting on seeing his passport and asking where he lived.  Conor demanded to have a translator or a lawyer and refused to sign until he had those, feeling that the documents given to him to sign could have said anything, or landed some hefty fines in his lap.  In the end, the cops relented and just told him that if he signed, he'd be let go.  Conor spat back, looking at the one who had slapped him.
"I'll sign it when he agrees to fight me.  Can be boxing, judo, MMA, whatever" he said, nodding to the man.
"That's not going to happen."
"Why not?"
"He's not a fighter"
"He's a fucking pussy" Conor said udner his breath before signing the document and checking if he could go.  He could and did.
What then followed was his attempt to walk the eleven miles in 30+ degree heat back to the city centre.  Something which he failed at and slept in the shade of a bridge for a few hours before going back to the airport to take a bus back to the city centre.  He never did make it to Mallorca and hasn't even attempted it since.  Still though, that's why how and why he got arrested in Spain.

The First Time I Ever Did Stand Up

The first gig I ever did was in Prague. My friend from Cork was living there and running a charity event, I'd volunteered as he was putting me up so I could play a card game called  Magic: the Gathering that weekend and he had a drop out. The guy who dropped out actually sat in the crowd and heckled one of the previous comedians.  Classy.

The American guy before me was also filling in for a drop out. He had gone onto stage and said "listen, I'm not a comedian and none of this material is my own. These are all recycled jokes, I'm filling in. Please don't be offended by my jokes, they're all racist, sexist and homophobic. Don't worry, I hate everyone eually."   Now this disclaimer may seem a little bit weak, but I would be surprised if the guy had a genuinely racist, sexist homophobic bone in his body.  Whilst I appreciate the notion that jokes based on negative stereotypes can perpetuate stereotypes, there are also times when jokes are just jokes.  Some of my strongest friendships are based on us being able to rip into each other.  In one group of friends I often joke that I'm the "token white guy".   Half way through his act he tells this joke "What do you call a bunch of white guys running down a hill? An avalanche. What do you call a bunch of Mexicans running down a hill? A mudslide. What do you call a bunch of black guys running down a hill? Jail break!" Now, the one black guy in the audience loved it. He was a really dark skinned guy who I later found out was Nigerian and being that the crowd area was really dimly lit, his beautiful white teeth really lit the place up. However, the guy got a few more jokes in and a Mexican girl with her German friend took to the stage, grabbed the mic and said "I'm Mexican and I find this offensive." The guy just shrugged and left the stage. Those two seemed unsatisfied with not just getting the guy to leave the stage that they had to talk loudly throughout the next act - me.

Now in fairness, I'm not saying I would have gotten too many more laughs if anyone could have heard me over their chatter, being that it was my first time ever doing stand up and I had been on the sesh for about a week before I got on stage, hadn't really written proper jokes and decided to just ramble in my fairly incoherent (to the largely central/eastern European/American audience) Belfast accent about living life in Barcelona and how I was going to set up an Arnie does 80s covers busking act.  However there is tiny little 4chan trollboy who lives inside of me who wishes I had turned round and said "Hi could I get the bar staff to bring over two shots of tequila and a pinata to the Mexican girl over there."  Whilst experienced comedians like Andrew Schulz seem to get away with it these days with the crowds that they have, I have neither the quick wit nor the balls to pull that off.  So, I resisted exacerbating an already awkward race issue and proceded with my terrible set.  I tried to sell a bag of my freshly shaven pubes to the audience with the money going to the charity. Nobody took an interest. The whole thing was supposed to be an amateur comedian competition, with the audience voting on their favourite. I got the least number of votes and as a penance I had a punishment of having a petit Norwegian bonde girl slap who I had sexually disappointed two days earlier slap me in the face.

That was back in 2011. I didn't attempt comedy again until 2013 when a friend of a friend was running a charity comedy event and pressured me into doing a warm up set for a pro. I literally told him how bad I was and he still insisted that I would do it. Only for him to complain to me for months after about how bad I was.

There's no wonder it's only been the last year or so that I've even attempted comedy again.




Don't do this.

Don't take your pubes on stage and actually write some material.  I'm still not writing material properly, or practicing enough, so it'll be a long time before I make any waves in the stand up world.  It's a grind, like anything else and needs due dilligence paid to understanding it.  This is in largely in terms of what a joke is, or if you're telling a story knowing how to punctuate it with jokes at the right moments, or just editing so that you don't ramble incoherently.

Live Stream Review

As a short film events organizer, it’s generally in my best interests to not pick favourite films, only to show as many high quality shorts as possible in order to ensure a great turn out of audience members.  However, every so often I have to stop and give praise to a film which really encapsulates modern issues.  For this reason alone, Vivi Hernandez’s “Live Stream” is an eight-minute masterpiece.  It tells the story of Susie, a video logger with young Nigella Lawson vibes, who we see sensually preparing cakes for her online fanbase and portraying herself as one half of a perfect marriage.  However as is often the case, things are not so perfect beneath the surface.  Her husband, skilfully played by Kristian Evans, is nonchalant to the point of emotionally neglectful, treating her not as the modern Goddess Susie hopes to be, but as a kitchen slave.  It’s a poignant reflection that even in 2019, archaic values of a woman’s place being in the kitchen still persist.  The film’s real genius is derived from its use of the text comments from the online fanbase.  The text acts as a third character, praising Susie, then delighting in her downfall, initially heightening the comedic response from the film, then the emotional response the viewer has for Susie’s emotional turmoil. Hernandez’s acting is vibrant, with the right level of theatricality to land not just its comedic punches, but the emotional ones as well.  I can think of only a few better ways to spend eight minutes than watching this endearing little short.

A sleeping bag story

Two and a bit years ago, I did a sponsored sleep out for "Moving On Homeless Support", which is now the "Moving On Project" due to the fact public liability for stuff like tea stands is now £3,000 a year. On the Saturday night, we were slightly drunk lying under the shutters of where Poundland is on Ann Street. People were bretty generous and gave us a lot of food and money even when we tried to refuse it. However one guy from somewhere in Eastern Europe comes up to us and is obviously on something. Kind of seems stoned but the likelihood is it's one of the synthetic drugs like Spice etc. He's chatting to us and despite us appearing homeless and him not being homeless, asks us for food. We've been given a lot so sure, why not - we gave him a sandwich and he fucking INHALES the thing like every cell in his body was dependent on getting the energy before the void within consumes him. He's still hungry but we've got to hold off. Sure we're fine now and I gained weight over the weekend sitting there, drinking rum and eating Happy Meals teenagers gave us, but we don't know when the next sandwich is going to come. He danders off and we go about the rest of the sleep out as is. Turns out that dude was one of the "Russians", a Lithuanian crime family the PSNI according to Sunday Life are shitting themselves about and even the UDA are getting out muscled by. He's now doing time for posession of heroin with intent to supply. Now on the one hand I'm annoyed I gave this sociopath cunt a sandwich. Would probably rather he died of hunger than having allowed him to sell poison, intimidate and harass people. On the other hand, it's probably just as well I gave him the sandwich. As much as I train BJJ and Muay Thai, there's fuck all I could do if the guy took a knife and decided he wanted to stab me whilst my legs are caught in the sleeping bag. Man I would have been opened up like the very hungry catipillar going through a gastric bypass. There's no moral to the story other than sleeping bags have their uses, but don't make the best defensive shield.

Easyjet Feedback Form

EasyJet Feedback Complaint
By now you should realize part of my rants are customer service aimed ones.  I'm a big believer in making a point to multi national companies that they usually suck and they should probably give you free shit.  Local businesses I tend to go less harsh on, because there's usually some guy who's livelihood is deeply dependent on it and besides that, trying to get free shit out of a small restaurant or bar "just because" is usually a dick move.  I'd rant about sue culture, but it's not a tangent I'm going down today.  I'm just firing out my EasyJet Feedback Form about an issue I had. Also note, I did try an incognito window and on my phone for the same flights before I booked them, so this is not one of those "cookie" things.




First off, your prices are ridiculous.  On the morning of the 5th June I checked the prices for some flights to from Belfast.  Roughly they came to around £90 all inclusive, unfortunately I hesitated and went to book it later.  The prices jumped up by £50.  Then, when I was finalizing the booking, it jumped up another £5.  I was hugely irritated, but I booked the flights anyway.  I checked my bank account the next day.  Strange.  There were two withdrawls of the same amount  taken by EasyJet from my bank account with different confirmation codes on them.  I rang customer service and after ten minutes of explaining the situation and passing the code on was told to use the website to forward a screenshot through and an explanation.  TEN MINUTES I WASTED ON A CALL THAT WAS CHARGED TO FIX A PROBLEM CAUSED BY EASYJET'S WEBSITE/SERVER/CONNECTION/LAG I DON'T KNOW.  I'm not a tech expert, but this is clearly your fault.  Then after going through your website to submit the complaint form with the screenshot receive an e-mail to say that it will take up to 21 days to look into this issue.  Does this seem acceptable to you?  Maybe to Stelios he can afford to have £144 taken from his accont for no apparent reason.  In fact it probably doesn't even pay for a glass of champagne in the Burj Khalifa but why do I have to foot it.  You guys get to make interest on it over the 21 day period, I don't.  In fact, I am lucky that I have enough in my bank account to not immediately worry about £144, but had I not saved a little bit of cash in my account to cushion me from various emergencies, the double withdrawl could put me deep into an overdraft, or to the point that the bank charges me for being an unauthorized overdraft.  Would you guys be prepared to foot that bill?  Probably not.  So as you can see, despite the fact I have to fly with EasyJet because you guys are one of the few airlines to cover the London/Belfast trip these days, if I could avoid it after this, you're damn sure that I would.  So, your move Easy J, do better or have people like me writing snide replies to your feedback form forever more.

Trolling in the deep..

Over a year ago, I was sent this e-mail:

Hi
These are the wedding dresses I'm deciding between. Thought you might like to see them. I was going to get an idea with mum then go back with you lib and elia to decide but they are samples so think I'll need to decide and buy one early next week in case they sell. 
http://www.weddingbellesotley.co.uk/images/dresses/tia/5365.jpg

http://www.bridalboutiqueleeds.com/collections/diane_harbridge.html

Let me know what you think if you get chance to look at this.

Jo jo xx
http://www.bridalboutiqueleeds.com/collections/diane_harbridge.html


I kindly asked the people of Facebook for answers on how to respond.  I copied and pasted the best one and sent it on its merry way:


Dear Jo Jo
I'm strangely excited by this idea. I've not spoken to Lib or Ella before, but the thought of sitting through a few hours of watching brides-to-be trying on dresses makes me all tingly in my trouser parts. That you think I'm responsible enough to help you, out fills me with pride. Don't worry about all the sex offenders register stuff... that's all behind me now.
Can we arrange a time to meet at these shops?
I can't really do Tuesdays or Thursdays. Thursday is benefit day and I need to buy my drink for the week and on Tuesdays I meet the girls from the over 60s waterobics... well, I say meet... I sit in the observation gallery with my iPhone, they only chase me out if the flash goes off accidentally. I really need to remember to set it to off.
Anyway, can't wait to see these dresses, keep in touch.

Conor XXX


Strangely, I never received a response.

Long unnecessary post about McGregor, just because

Me looking like a fat McGregor, last NYE

A lot of friends over the last two or so years have asked me the same question “What do you think of Conor McGregor?”.  Knowing that I’ve been following the UFC for over seven years and having trained in both Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu extensively (I’m not saying I’m any good at either, or that I could scrap my way out of a paper bag, but I’ve learned a few things over the years) enquirers have taken an interest in my opinion with presumption I’ve got some vast insider knowledge which would provide some ground-breaking insight on MMA’s mouthiest fighter.  I’ve always found my opinions quite conflicted on the Dubliner’s success, so decided to write a blog post examining this point of view and somehow managed to ramble on for over two thousand, five hundred words.  So, if you have literally nothing else to do with your time, please feel free to read what follows.  If not, I can only congratulate you on your intelligent selection of priorities and time management, may you have a pleasant evening, afternoon or morning.

Let’s go with the most obvious bias I may have towards McGregor – we share first names.  One of the first things people now say to me when I introduce myself is “Conor?  Like McGregor?”  Which is somehow a welcome change to “Like Sarah Connor?”  It also means that they’re more likely to be able to spell my name correctly.  As with many Gaelic names there are sometimes a handful of ways to spell it, Conor, Connor, Coner, Connaire, Conchubar (there’s a lot of silent letters in the Irish language), Conar.  One of my personal hates are when people who are writing an e-mail or Facebook response to me can’t even spell my name right, despite it being on screen.  Mac’s success has somehow prompted a drop in the occurrence of this.  So, I’ve got one thing to thank him for.  We’ll get back to the other obvious of being Irish a little bit later, but I’m going to delve a little into a lesser known bias I may have: gym affiliation.

McGregor’s team, coached by John Kavanagh is based at the Straight Blast Gym headquarters in Dublin.  It has been so successful that Kavanagh has been able to expand, opening up several gyms with great coaches all over Ireland.  One of which (previously Maeda BJJ) is based in my hometown of Belfast and I’ve had the benefit of training in from time to time over the last year or so.  Not only has the gym been a boon to me developing my Jiu Jitsu abilities, but it’s allowed me to try a range of classes – striking, yoga, even a movement class taught by a ballet teacher.  There’s a great vibe in the city centre gym, with an environment conducive to building a supportive team and the skills of the team members, so with that in mind does that me even more biased in his favour?  The answer to that is – no.  In my six months of living in Dublin, I didn’t get to train at the SBG HQ once.  My hectic work schedule didn’t give me much opportunity to the massive dojo and even if I’d been able to make the trip, the gym has earned enough prestige to charge a premium rate, which may have been outside of my attempted “save money whilst getting wrecked at the weekends” budget. 

Instead, I found myself gravitating towards closer, smaller gyms which offered potentially more focused instruction.  I can’t comment on the quality of the coaching in the SBG HQ as I’ve never been there, but I’ve mostly good things.  Kavanagh is heralded for his expertise as one of Ireland’s first black belts in BJJ and his dedication to the gym are unquestionable.  The few bad things I’ve heard largely connected to the complex being a victim of its own success – such a large number of students eagerly coming in, can be a little bit chaotic, but I’d rather not comment to much on the circumstances of the gym as I’ve only ever been at the gym for a competition.  Much more suited to me price wise and geographically were Andre Ramos’s gym and Hugo Borim’s Arena MMA were two gyms that I got to practice BJJ with instructors who not only made me feel like part of their Jiu Jitsu family, but showed an interest in making me improve my game.  Andre, having won the SBG Fighter of the Year Award in 2007 had good things to say about McGregor, having trained with him throughout his time at the gym, commenting on how McGregor was largely humble during their time training and would take an interest in his teammate’s progress as much as his own.  During those months, coach Hugo Borim, though he seemed to have nothing personal against McGregor,  was dismantling .  TThat is to say that the European IBJ         JF Rome Open and Euro No Gi Championship winning brown belt had been building a reputation for calling out McGregor’s team mates such as Philip Mulpeter and Cathal Pendred in  professional cage grappling matches.  MMA fighter Joe McColgan, whom I occasionally trained Muay Thai with and have only the utmost respect for has been doing the same with MMA matches, performing at a high level in Clan Wars against SBG fighters such as Peter Queally, going so far as to call out Artem Lobov.  So, when all said and done, my loyalty to McGregor on a more local level is kind of split.  He’s a team mate of my team mates, whilst a rival of past coaches or past team mates of mine.   It’s a bit like having a third cousin twice removed.  E.g. You have no earthly idea who they actually are.   One could argue I’ve only got myself to blame, flitting from one gym to another, partially out of interest and out of convenience.  If we’re honest though, there’s enough ugly politics in the big bad real world that I’d much rather keep something as fantastic as Jiu Jitsu free from it.  I also believe that to really see personal development, you need to train with as many different people as possible, so you can learn different things from each of them, incorporate different techniques both offensive and defensive. 

  As for the Irish connection, this is something which has made things a little more difficult to make a firm decision on whether I like what the guy does.  I could go on about my own personal opinion of Nationalism for another ridiculously long blog post but, as stand-up comedians like Doug Stanhope have argued is simply taking pride in the achievements of other people, purely because they were born under the same politically defined borders as you.  It’s a little bit difficult to argue against this, but yet there’s something so intrinsically fun to considering yourself Irish and wanting to relish in the excitement McG has when he invokes Irish pride.  We’re considered some of the friendliest people on the planet and we’re somehow able to turn the negative stereotypes of being alcoholics into being sociable charmers with sexy accents.  McGregor has been able to tap into a different part of the Irish identity to promote his  – that of the Celtic warrior.  He’s harnessed references to the Viking TV show (filmed in Wicklow), haunting melodies from Sinead O’Connor (though you could say it was incredibly cheesy depending on your point of view, this was the first time there was a live performance of an entrance song for a UFC fight was when Conor took on Chad Mendes weathered a storm of ground and pound and came back with a stunning TKO victory) and made statements which have made everyone from the classic “My great grand pappy was from Tipperary” Yank to people with not one Irish relative feel Irish.  When Notorious made short work of Dustin Porier and declared “We’re not here to take part, we’re here to take over” he had the entire crowd on their feet.  Go on any given post on the UFC Facebook page and you’ll see random Eastern European McGregor fans harp on about how he could beat literally anybody, sometimes following it up with Irish flag emoticons.  The ghost of Bruce Lee, the dragons from Game of Thrones, young Mike Tyson.  For this reason, it’s hard to deny that McGregor is anything short of a cultural phenomenon. 

It’s hard to name a sport star that has generated as much hype as the result predicting Dub.  Messi might make more money, but his fans don’t suddenly want to become Argentinian or Catalan because of his beautiful ball handling skills.  Mohammed Ali is probably the most charismatic talker in sporting history, but it didn’t cause a whole heap of Polish people to convert to Islam and support the black civil rights movement.  Now, it’s easy to argue that McGregor’s trash talk lacks the class that Ali’s talk had.  Ali didn’t have to engage the sailor mouth that McGregor has, but this is a different era, a post-Limp Bizkit, post Stone Cold Steve Austin vs The Rock at Wrestlemania era.  Use of the word ‘motherfucker’ is so prevalent in today’s society that it has lost almost all of the shock value it would have had back in the ‘60s.  It’s also notable that McGregor has used homophobic or even sexist language to get into the heads of his opponents and upsell fights that in a society where political correctness is a point of contention.  Whilst I generally believe that political correctness is necessary, especially when you’re going to stoke that feeling of Irish pride, you need to remember that it wasn’t too long ago the signs were saying “No backs, no dogs, no Irish”, it’s easy to see how going against the grain to drum up controversy is still a valid tool in trash talking, increasing ticket revenue and running mind games despite its arguably abhorrent and hypocritical nature.  Let’s try to remember who the competitors in the sport are – fighters aren’t typically from affluent, well-educated backgrounds (well, aside from the American collegiate wrestlers), McGregor has said himself gave up plumbing and had to survive on the Irish welfare system until he was successful as a fighter.  It seems a little bit bourgeois for someone like myself coming from a middle class background to take massive issue with language used by someone from McGregor’s working class one, even when there are a few question marks over the actual level of how working class his background actually is. 

The trash talking has led to two other effects though.  It has inspired whole swathes of other fighters to start running game with their mouth to generate interest in their bouts.  With a few standout exceptions prior to McGregor’s big mouth emergence – Chael Sonnen, the Diaz brothers, Michael Bisping, Tito Ortiz, UFC fighters have had a tendency to play the “humble warrior” card.  Whilst it may be a fairer representation of their personalities, or of the martial arts philosophies, it’s unlikely to appeal to a wider, layman audience.  Now everyone from McGregor’s team mate Artem Lobov to relatively unknown Jeremy Stephens (now better known purely because his words in a press conference prompted McGregor to sneeringly ask "Who the fuck is that guy?") are trying to get their own slice of the pie.  Whilst not exactly the Irish fighter’s fault, the volume of insults thrown around press conferences and fighter’s social media accounts have increased exponentially.   Some of it is enjoyable, but considering McGregor at times sounds like a budget version of one of the Rubberbandits, the vast majority of it is cringe worthy and has transparent as a large chested woman’s t-shirt in a wet t-shirt competition.  Or in another words, as awkwardly spoken as that last sentence was written.  The second effect, perhaps a by-product of this professional wrestling style atmosphere, or by the expanding fan base has meant that fight purses have gone up.  The UFC may be a business, but by most accounts, it’s been underpaying the vast majority of fighters for years.  Considering these fighters are putting not just their long term health but their lives (there are only a handful of MMA related deaths and none in the UFC, but with any sport involving head trauma, there’s a risk) on the line, those not on the upper echelons of the sport are typically grinding and barely earning enough to pay living expenses and trainer costs until they make it to the top five or top ten of their division.  There’s often more money for fighters in lesser known organizations like Bellator and One FC than the UFC itself.  With UFC’s recent sponsorship deal with Reebok, the organization has also made it impossible for fighter’s to get paid good money for wearing other brands of MMA gear such as Affliction, Sprawl, Bad Boy or even Tap Out for instance.

That being said, I do take great issue with the aforementioned bandwagon fans.  More so because I’m a long term UFC fan than for any other reason.  I may not have been around there at the beginning when Royce Gracie was choking out strikers two hundred pounds heavier than him, but I was around when a Mohawk sporting Chuck Liddell was savaging people with deadly combos and refusing to let the fight go to the ground.  I’m happy that these days the likelihood of me being able to have a pub conversation about the sport has grown massively, but I’m not so happy that Johnny come-latelies will decide to turn every conversation about the sport into a conversation about Notorious.  McGregor might be the most successful fighter in terms of pay-per-view sales and purse size in UFC’s history, but when I hear ridiculous statements like “He’s got the best kicks in UFC” and challenge those statements with “What about Anderson Silva or Mirko Cro Cop?” and have nothing but blank expressions fired back at me, or get told that McGregor was once a successful bare knuckle boxer who killed a man with his bare hands I have to suppress the rage from building up.  I’m just plain baffled by the level of ignorance I’m subjected to.  It may not be the most important issue in the world, but it’s my own personal gripe.  I’m sure if someone said that Christiano Ronaldo was the best defender in the history of football, it might enrage a few football fans as well.

So, there you have it.  A ridiculously long blog post no-one is likely to read about the double edged sword that is Conor McGregor.  Other than a series of yeses to questions the few people who’ve actually read it might ask.   Yes, I think he’s a very good technical fighter -  though he could work on his jitz game more and learn to tie that belt!  Yes I think he barely won the last fight against Diaz, but he just about edged it and lastly, yes he probably was about to get sparked out by Nate in the first fight only going for the take down because he was aware it’s a lot more ungracious to be knocked out than it is to be tapped out.  And yes, I am looking forward to the fight against Alvarez.  It could go either way.

Meth-Gregor.  AMIRITE?  (Please don't hunt me down and punch me in the mouth.)

My teenage years described in pretentious prose

The chubby boy scurried home that day in a sweaty hurry.  Dark patches had formed under the arms pits of his scratchy white shirt, as the straps of his school bag laden with worn out textbooks and trading cards dug into his shoulders.  As he pried open the door of the Victorian terrace house, the package lay there in wait.  He tore into it with the dirty nails on the end his chubby digits, clumsily shredding through the brown exterior of the parcel, into the bubble wrapped contents.  There they were: three CD cases, each containing the soundtracks of the teenage years that lay ahead of him.  One bore the image of a cockroach, another a flaming skull, the third and final one had a cockroach rubbing its fetid legs together, looking some how as eager to spread its disease as the boy was to delve deep into the music.  This music was aggressive.  Sometimes whiny.  It was his whiny though.  Undeserved self-pitying whiny.  He'd return to his quarters, those which contained that adolescent stench of wet towel, used underwear and discarded tissues to play each of them in turn to complete  ad nauseum.  As the music would begin, so too would the familiar screech and bleep of the old telephone modem.  56 kbps was all he needed to dial into his virtual worlds.  Aside from the ignored maternal or paternal enquiries of "Have you done your homework?", he was free to partake in whichever form of Walter-Mittyism took his fancy.  Wizard, starship commander, lothario.  Why leave these realms when the material plane held no such respect for him.  Social status and the insecurities which accompanied it held no baring on his success here.  The cacophony and the words on his thick screened monitor encapsulated him in a blissful vacuum.  This was his realm and no others need enter.

Domino Gate

I've recently been made aware by a colleague of mine that you provided him with a pizza with both anchovies and pepperoni as toppings. I want to know what world you live in where this could ever be deemed acceptable. I'm appalled.

This flavour mispairing is not only in very poor taste but potentially dangerous. I've a good mind to contact my local MP as this is surely infringement of several clauses of the Geneva convention.

I'm going to beg you to reconsider allowing this in the future as this diabolical construction should never have seen the light of day in the first place. And before you say anything, yes I think it was wrong of him to make the order but it was even worse for you to let him purchase it.

Until this happens I cannot advocate the purchase of any further pizzas from your establishments.

Regards

Conor Charlton

Scraps, near scraps and drunken bolshie confrontations, Part 1

There are a few ways you've stumbled across this particular blog. The most likely one is that you're a Facebook friend of mine and presumably know a little about me. You probably know that I live up to the Irish stereotype of loving drinking and loving fighting. The drinking is a given. I enjoy few things more than a good session. With regards to fighting its a little bit more complicated than that. I love martial arts. I've trained in run down boxing gyms, Muay Thai camps in Thailand and stretched my limbs out with the most aggressive form of yoga known to man: BrazilIan Jiu Jitsu. That's not to say I can fight well. I'll whole-heartedly admit for the length of time I've spent getting my ass kicked in dojos, sports halls or make shift rings over the last ten years I'm still as soft as cotton wool, no more able to take a punch than the next slightly doughy-round-the-edges guy. More to the point, I like my fighting well contained, to the environment of sporting venues and action movies. Street and for that matter bar fighting is messy and nine times out of ten almost completely pointless. Why risk hurting your hand trying to smash somebody's skull in when you can kick back, relax and have another drink.  UFC legend Chuck Liddell's first two pieces of advice to anyone wanting to win a fight are simply "Don't get into fights". If The guy with a Mohawk and a Chinese famed for dropping wrestlers with a baseball pithing style overhand letter tattooed into the side of his dome advised not to start scrapping with the guy who stares at you too long, you should probably take his advice. What do you have to prove? That you can physically hurt someone? That you can assert "alpha male" dominance over another drunken fool in front of a crowd of strangers. Behave yourself. Your testosterone fuelled outrages impress almost no one. Any woman aroused by outdated displays of barbaric "masculinity" are probably entirely defective, her mal aligned decision making process are cruel missteps in our evolution. Or at least that's what I try and tell myself as my fight or flight reactions kick in and I find myself firmly on the flight end of the bargain, trying to puff my chest out and flare my nostrils in order to conceal my inner desire to plead "please don't hurt me. I'm too pretty!" So generally speaking I play pacifist, sometimes even drunken Jesus as I foolishly step between two warring factions but very rarely the hard man, I just don't have the stones to back it up. 

Despite all this, sometimes my judgement is still poor. I'll say the wrong thing or decide I'll stand up to perceived bullying, or believe I'm capable of teaching some clown a lesson. Sometimes my levels of natural social awkwardness will provoke disdain in others. This is the beginning of a series of posts about times in my life where alcohol, poor judgement, bad luck or just general dumbassery got me into scrapes or almost scrapes, Narrowly avoided punch ups or rare occasional full blown ones.  For the actual street brawlers this may seem tame and for the sanctimonious some of these things may seem tedious proof giving examples of why drinking is a pointless leisure pursuit, but Id like to believe these fables will provide mirth to some.

Let's begin with my first night of drinking, 

Conor learns basic boxing combinations, goes out on first actual night out

Amongst some of my friends who have endured me during my extremely awkward teenage years (and later general wanker years of which I still progress through these days) there is some confusion as to when my first drunken night was. Some would point to an Easter "fling" night. A school committee organised underage drinking session in a hotels ball room, where bar staff refused to serve me, knowing full well most of the other students were underage, they had feigned being of legal age by dressing the part - stripey shirts, glitzy dresses and Lacoste polos. I had rocked up in a skull and crossbones embossed skater hoody, as acne ridden as I had been the year I bought the scruffy, bleached by whatever doctor prescribed ointment damn jumper. Made an example of, I was forced to ask others to buy pints for me using the measley £10 coins Id scraped together from my paper round. Four pints in and I was mine sweeping, abducting any wayward pint left unguarded more than 120 seconds. Thankfully no bad came of this grand theft pinta other than being warned by a friend not to open my pig swill filled gob on the journey home, lift granted by her father.

The other grand popping of the inebriation cherry came when I decided I'd head out to meet some potential friends. I say potential friends because Id schooled with them for six years, had shared hobbies and wanted to be part of their group. Maybe, just maybe, if I spent some outside of school time I could prove my coolness and say some witty things. They'd want my trading card shuffling ass in their gang and would want to play all those great games I tried to force upon them. Alas, it was not to be. I soon got brushed off with questions like "what are you doing here?" And "who did you come with". The "you guys, I guess" suggestions quickly became scorned, sniggered at and I stood around feeling out of place. Thankfully, more accepting folk were in that bar. A young Niall graham, whom id become acquainted with through the aforementioned world of collectible card game geekery and his friend Daffy, whose real name is unknown but stands as a pillar of the people nicknamed after looney toons community. They were buzzed, bouncing around the place like they'd drank the maximum sugar squishy from a very specific Simpsons episode you should go watch again (and if you haven't seen it, you're a wankdog, get a life, fuck face).  In their haze they seemed far more interesting than those who shunned me and invited me to join them on their level ten hallionry.

After more beers we headed off to nightclub famed for its disdain for anything bright: The Venue. This haven for goths, moshers, metallers, fishnet wearing pale skinned princesses and chain smoking make up wearing men and generally unwashed folk was disregarded by . Though no doubt many cherries of the other kind were popped over the years in the bar, my main concern was being the drunkest bastard in there.

Being that it was a particularly shady club for quite sometime it made a point of not selling alcohol. It sold tickets instead, that could be traded for drinks. I don't know how exactly this got around whatever legal restriction it was faced with but for years it dived right through that loophole reasonably successfully.

Firstly I'd need to buy drinks tickets, then I'd exchange those drinks tickets for vodkas. Straight double vodkas in fact. I'm not entirely sure how I managed to stomach one of them, let alone four of them - not all subsequently but certainly within the space of two hours, the Russian poison had infected me, turned off most of the part of the brain that says "don't do that, it might not be such a great idea...". Id taken up boxing only a few months previously. Now it was time to remind everyone just how skilled I'd become - by busting out my three punch combos at the air. Jab, cross hook! Cross, hook, cross! Hook, cross, hook! With a combination of cheap alcohol and adrenaline coursing through my blood stream, I deemed myself unstoppable, capable of knocking out Mike Tyson with one well placed punch. I needed to show the world how this air in front of my face was no longer any threat to me, how I could dispatch the once mighty foe like it wasn't even there. Maybe then the chicks would flock to me, bountiful breasts bouncing free from their corsets as they leapt towards me.

I had to be sat down multiple times. A group of older guys who I also knew from geeky gaming aimed to ensure I was safe from bouncers disdain, or from landing a stray punch on some unfortunate fat girl's jowl. I'd stop momentarily, gorge on the paper-plated curried chip produced in the restaurant's seedy kitchen, a delicacy made solely so the could maintain "restaurant" status but I couldn't be held down for long.  A single back turned and I'd spring to my feet, launch myself towards the dance floor and start drunkenly comboing off again, sweating vodka and dribbling luminous yellow curry as I did.

With the help of the older goths, I somehow made it to the end of the night without anyone doing anything to truly get beaten up or thrown out of the club on my first night of getting steamed. I managed to provoke only one drinker into doing anything giving me any kind of negative response.  When the music ended and the lights were up I found myself dancing circularly round the dance floor with a punk shouting obscenities, taunting me, seemingly intent on getting me to fight. I was game, this drunken fight was the one I had been preparing for all night after all.

For the third time that night my wisened goth and metaller friends stepped in to lead me away from the potential fray, intercepting the punk and physically motioning away from the scene. It was utterly anti climax but it would mark the beginning of a series of booze fuelled idiotic adventures.

I'd later go home to throw up a fusion of straight vodka and curried chips or a combination I like to call currodka.

The Worst Jobs I've Ever Worked - Part One, the Teenage Years

I'm almost 28.  This means I've pretty much missed my opportunity to get famous and die of a heroin overdose/motorcycle accident.  Whilst I've been close to the latter form of death, I've never been close to achieving fame or fortune.  That's not to say I won't achieve them, who knows - I could well live my dreams of being DR Actor-Model-Lead Singer-Superstar DJ-MMA Fighter-King of Humanity-Alpha Male-Love Machine-Superhero but until then I may continue to pass my time in part time jobs gaining enough money for the next travelling experience whilst trying my hand at a few different activities along the way.  Whilst others from my school peer group may be in positions making £30-40k a year, I'm currently shifting sideways and having fun doing it. I've done all sorts of low paid jobs, some great fun, others horrendously stressful for wat they were providing me with.  So here's a run down of some of the worst.

Paper Boy - Ormeau Newsagents

The owner of Ormeau Newsagents was by all means, a nice old guy trying to run a shop which the western world was beginning to have no use for.  Who needs a newspaper when the internet will provide you with up to date coverage of world events?  Perhaps those of older generations still want to play sudoku or do their crosswords with a biro on an actual piece of paper, whilst truck drivers still get a kick out of page 3 of the Sun but sales of paper editions are on the decline.  Meanwhile confectionery and soft drinks can usually be picked up on offer from any of the twenty million Tesco's that seem to dot the city-scape of Belfast.  So old Stevie had to keep his primary source of income keep running whilst he entered his retirement phase by acting as an old school newsagent, providing services like you've guessed it door-to-door paper delivery.  If you lived near the Annadale Flats building or on the Ravenhill Road area you could have the service just by paying the daily price of the paper plus an additional weekly 20 p delivery charge.  The money from that delivery charge went to the courier, in that case - 16 year old me.  Even with nearly forty people per area this didn't amount to much.  Especially when you consider how long it would take you to deliver that many papers.  Now the job wasn't as difficult as playing the NES classic - I never got mauled by any dogs or knocked over, but the whole affair wasn't exactly easy.  Papers couldn't be thrown, they had to be dropped onto the porch of every paying customer, on time - or there'd be complaints.

Classic my hole, hated this game almost much as I hated that job

On a few occasions I'd be late to the job either due to having to stay late at school or because I wanted to stay home and wank over Sabrina the Teenage Witch.  When these academic/masturbatory debacles kept people from getting their papers before their 5.30 supper they'd start whining.  Customers would ring the newsagents up, demanding that the paper would be left there on time.  Some even came out of their houses to tell me to my face that I wasn't doing my job properly.  I'd typically freeze up in my teenage awkwardness, unable to respond with anything other than stuttered apologies.  In the same position today, I'd love to tell those cunts to fuck off, but unfortunately it's an opportunity I will never have.

The job took too long to complete every day and often meant striving through horribly wicked weather just to complete it.  It also on a number of occasions put my back under immense strain.  Have you ever lifted a stack of 40 newspapers, including all of the extra magazines and  glossy adverts?  Now imagine trying to jam that same stack into a PVC bag and cycle it around for an hour and a half.  Not exactly a comfortable bike ride.  When I tried suggesting to Stevie's wife who ran the shop that she should have dumped the advertisements before I picked up the load she would roll her eyes as if to say "why should I waste my time doing that".  Splitting the load into two piles and delivering them in two runs would have increased my delivery time to about two hours an evening.  I might have been a loser teenager with few friends and no romantic prospects but even two hours a night for a measly £7.50 a week.  Not to mention I seemed to spend half of my miniscule pay packet on sweets as soon as I received it at the end of every Saturday afternoon. 

Whilst the job was generally awful, I think the absolute lowest point was meeting some drug addled smick in the Annadale area and having this conversation

"'ere mate, my aunt lives on Lower Ormeau and they all know I'm a protestant and they'll get me if they can.  Lend us yer bike would ye?"

"No, I can't."

As I cycled on he delivered this threat

"If I see ye again, I'll chase ye!"

Now at 16, I was far too old to be starting that job - a job that was meant for a younger kid, who didn't have as much AS Level Coursework as I did at the time.  I think the main reason I stuck the job out for a full year was that I was told the last paper boy had received big money in tips that previous Christmas.  Maybe it was my occasional lack of tardiness that meant only half of the customers seemed to give me anything at all.  Maybe those that didn't tip didn't realize they should have been tipping their paper boy.  Or maybe those well off middle class types of the Ravenhill area were just tight as a duck's bum and if that's the case then I hope they end eating breakfasts of microwaved dog turd. 

I made a lot more money when I was ten going door-to-door offering to wash people's cars for a quid and I was my own boss.  God I miss those days of being a small business owner.

Sales Associate - TK Maxx

In the summer of lower sixth, I decided it was time to get a "real job".  At least one that paid at least minimum wage and provided shift work.  This meant filling in a job application form, lying a little about experience and gaining the position of Sales Associate.  I don't know how long the position of "sales associate" has had the title "sales associate".  Really it should be "teenage cunt that works the tills" or "shelf stacker/bitch that has to clean up the entire store after grown women have trashed it on their hunt for a bargain.  This was my first and last play in the retail sector.  

Whilst I still shop at TK Maxx from time to time as it genuinely is a good place to pick up reasonably priced fashionable items, I would recommend working there to no-one.  It desperately tried to follow the corporate stylings of its American brother "TJ Maxx" and in doing so encouraged its minimum wage paid staff to be Shiny Happy People saying "have a nice day" with a shit eating grin to every customer who traipsed through the doors.  I still remember the badly acted "educational" videos shown to us how to detect store thieves, price ticket-swappers and what to expect if we were ever caught "skimming".

The job was full of things that plagued it - incompetent mangers, rude customers and awkward hours.  I was typically scheduled to work 6-10 on a Tuesday and Thursday night.  The store would close at 9, much like all of the other stores that shared the retail park.  However, whilst all of the other employees would get away within ten or twenty minutes, TK Maxx had a long "recovery" process required.  Because of its layout and the fact it stocked such a varying range of clothing, customers (more often female than not) would pull things clothes off of the rails and throw them out of the way like packs of shit tossing chimps.  I think the latest I ever got out was around midnight, whilst my father sat in his driver seat waiting for me to emerge.  When the Christmas period ended, I decided focusing on my raising my dreadful grades was far more important than enduring red shirt slavery.

Sandwich Artist - Subway

If Sales Associate sounds like a made up position, the official job name of a regular Subway employee brings things to the next level.  I made bread sculptures, painted them with a variety of thick sugary sauces and filled them with freshly prepped, insecticide covered vegetables and heavily processed reconstituted meats.  I was another pimply faced teenager in a American chain fast food franchise and I hated it.  The late night shifts were the worst, feeding drunken students the means to soak up some of the cheap alcohol they'd spent the night guzzling.  When they were finally ushered out by a security guard (the fact these places sometimes need a security guard is simply hilarious) the dreadful clean up would involve taking a scrubber to a meatball marinara encrusted steel saucepan.  

Unsurprisingly my co-workers tended to be unskilled Eastern European workers whose limited English skills prevented them from getting better tipped hospitality roles and archetypal stoners.  I quit to focus on my studies and spend more time involved with a much more enjoyable part time position: Officer Cadet.

On the upside, I got a free Sub on every shift I worked.  Within reason I would create Scooby Doo style monstrosities which would tie me over for the seemingly never ending six hour shifts.  For most employees, this perk of the job was quickly ignored.  The GMO flavoured garbage would become intolerable.  As a result, I now only  eat Subway about once every three years.  There are rare occasions the smell of that preservative enriched pre-rolled dough baking drags me in and I just can't help myself ordering "Sub of the Day" or steak and cheese with extra bacon.  I may never have a fantastic "Veggymax with Ham" on honey oat again though. C'est la vie.

I do not miss this one bit

The Mephedrone Mystery - The time I tried to start a novel

After doing some room cleaning, I found a couple of scrappy pages with a bit of writing I'd done a couple of years ago. It was the start of a novel set about five years back, when a certain drug was legal in the UK.

What's the price of a good time these days?  Back then I'd have put it around twenty five quid.  That and a small portion of my emotional well being for up to three days after but I'm less willing to make that exchange these days.  Sure, I might take the odd bump for old time's sake, a pungent nostalgia but it just isn't as good as it was.  That was back when a certain plant fertilizer took over the drugs market of both UK and Ireland.  For a mere three quid you could have a little parcel of nastiness shipped from China right to your doorstep.  It was an unregulated substance that for a small period of time was allowed to slip past our Majesty's drug hating law makers to provide sensational highs and crippling despair inducing lows.

It was in the midst of one low that I experienced the loss of a good friend.  I had been up all night before, bouncing from shite bar to shite club to an even shiter student after party in the centre of my home town: Belfast.  Ah Beal Feirste, a town that could be heralded not for its greatness, nor its shiteness but of its overall mediocrity.  Danny and I had ended up chasing after two well off law students in sparkly dresses that led us to their gaff on the Lisburn Road.  One of those bare basic toilet room at the top of the stairs, three bedroom, 80's carpet and a kitchen full of plates stained with Tesco's basic curry sauce.  We'd picked up some Buckfast from an illegally open bar on the Ormeau road en route to the shitty little place.  Danny had scored with the 7 whilst I had kissed the 8 before she decided her combination of Bacardi breezers and the soap bar spliffs Danny and I toked at were too much and she sulked off back to her room, presumably for a tactical boke.  Yes it might seem horrible that I remember those girls more by the score out of ten I had attributed to their physical appearance but really that's all they had been to me.  I didn't have a chance to delve too deeply into their inner psyche and chances are I may not have liked what I saw had I done so.  I'd taken an interest in them because I found them attractive and more importantly willing to listen to the drivel I spewed into their ear on a busy dance floor.

What remained of the situation was me, some skinny gay guy, his fat Manchester-Chinese fag hag friend and our friend in common - Mr Meph E Drone.  Don't get me wrong, they were nice people but once we got rid of that point seven of a gram, I'd probably never see them again.  One thing you could expect from the drug was the sensation of feeling a residue drip from the back of your throat into your mouth in a salty sweet kind of way.  When flavour became too intrusive, I'd wash it back with that previously aforementioned bottle of Bucky.  Definitely against my better judgement.   Indeed there were many clues on the label as to why consuming such a beverage was a bad idea.  Despite being produced by the monks of some abbey in Devon, there was a clear reminder that there were 37.5 mg of caffeine per 100 ml of liquid.  This quality only gave the imbiber the illusion that they were perfectly sober with only the clearest mind, despite all the outward signs suggesting otherwise.  I was surprisingly acting very well behaved for a man cock-blocked by vomit and under the influence of two substances capable of leading the user to make very bad decisions.  

"The name tonic wine does not imply medicinal properties," I read out loud musing over the yellow label's largely unheeded advice.  Seeing that a recent news story had emerged stating that out of every 1000 Glaswegian cases of alcohol related crime report the word Buckfast had appeared on average 932 of them.  Buckfast was medicine for the sober, the bored and the stupid. At that point in time it acted as an antibiotic to the malaise of the cheap vodka wearing off.  It was in a ropey arm chair probably purchased by a cheap landlord in Oxfam where I sat Youtube DJing on a laptop.  The music ranged from the Dubliners to MGMT.  At about 6 am I retired to the spare bedroom.  It was like the spare bedroom I seemed to end up at all those so-called parties complete with a dingy sheetless mattress in a room with a shadeless light so bright it invaded not just my eyes but the corners of my brain that just wanted to be left alone.  I had two lose/lose options - turn the light off and risk the soap bar joints putting me into a slumber too deep for the faint bleep of a £10 pay and go phone to rouse me, or leave the corrosive light on thus binding me to an unpleasant twitchy experience bereft with paranoia and the feeling that time was slipping away all too quickly.  

I'd find myself in work less than three hours from whence I'd made that decision to leave that sun-like ball of self loathing on.  It was my second job since leaving university and was only marginally more shite than the previous one.  Thankfully I'd worn a shirt and a pair of jeans dark enough to fit under the "smart casual" requirements of the office dress code.  I kept a bottle of non-alcoholic mouth wash in my desk drawer to masque the stench of booze and plant food on my breath.  Call centres were as one friend put it "The Devil's Workshops".  You have to sign in five minutes to the hour to get paid for and almost certainly didn't get paid for the fifteen minutes you worked after your shift ended to resolve a complicated call.  How many souls can attest to a real sense of satisfaction towing the company line and informing single mothers that the couch bought on credit was going to cost them thrice as much as it was worth.  It wasn't that I was having to endure Bukowski style industrial madness, it was that I had to be the bearer of bad news on almost every single call.  I answered the phone around eighty times today.  Ten times higher than the average person in the office.  I was good at what I did but my God did I hate doing it.  Allow me to break down for you what my company did..

Here's where the story ends.  Worth reading?  Probably not.  Too much preamble.  Plus the entire novel's concept was self-loathing.  We may have enough misery already.

Complaint letter to DX

I'm e-mailing as a complaint with regard to the poor services you are currently providing me.

I was supposed to receive my passport on Wednesday and was surprised to receive not my passport but a letter saying you have failed to deliver.

As there were two people in the house throughout the day and neither the doorbell or the knocker were used it seems your delivery man invested very little effort in obtaining my signature or delivering the item (which thankfully isn't that urgent but if it were, I'd currently be very alarmed).  Furthermore on receiving the letter I immediately texted the number referenced in the letter and received neither the passport or even a confirmation text message.  This begs the question - when do you intend on delivering my passport?  Also, do I have to be sitting on my porch on a rocking chair brandishing a shotgun and occasionally firing spit into a bucket in order to ensure I'm able to collect this passport?

Regards

Just a note to my followers

There's only 3 of you - Dave, Rachel and Rodney but if you want something (hopefully) fun to read, try my fictional Asian blog

www.ranchocontrol.blogspot.com

The part where my blog ends up as my dream journal.. again.

You only have mere hours to record a good dream.  Otherwise it'll be gone for good.  That's my theory anyway.

Last night I dreamt..

I was competing in some sort of Grand Prix form of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (Cage Fighting to those not in the know).  A Grand Prix is essentially when fighters compete in multiple matches in a small period of time - either a night or a weekend.  These kind of tournaments do not allow time for injury recovery or training to adapt to the next fighter's style, it's simply the best on the day.  These kind of fights don't really exist in UFC any more as it's adapted a league style of tournament but if you watch the film "Warrior" you will see what kind of competition I'm referring to.

During this tournament I was getting pretty far, despite being absolutely terrified of having to compete, knowing that despite my years of training I'm vastly inferior to the majority of professional or even amateur fighters.  Hell if you walk into my class having never trained Muay Thai before, you're probably better than me.

In the smaller weight category though something extraordinary was happening - an eight year old boy was winning every match by decisive swift knock outs.  That was until he faced up against a ten year old in the final.  The ten year old however didn't fight him, he pulled out a childish game, one I remember from my childhood where you hold a hand over somebody's head and say a number, which was referring to the number of boyfriends the other person had.  The two boys then started acting not as fighters, but quite rightly - as kids.  The eight year old ran off to get a jumper because he was cold and the ten year old was declared the winner.  The eight year old wasn't angry or sad to lose, kind of just happy to be a kid again.

Turned out that in the dream the whole story was part of an audiobook collection written and performed by the prodigy, despite the fact I was seeing everything very visually.  I then looked on Amazon in the dream and found out that the story had rave reviews.

That's all for now folks.

Charlto answers an online application question

 Question 1: We like people that are interesting. What would you say is unique about you?

Well first off, I'm not going to answer this question by starting with "I am unique because..." I don't want to give you a starchy ego driven response to this listing off all of my greatest attributes, how I'm so intelligent, enthusiastic and goal orientated.  I'd rather illicit a response from you (whoever is reading this, whether that's plural or singular) that makes you say "Hey, I think I like this guy" because generally when most people meet me, they do.  I'm in the habit of treating complete strangers like friends after all a little bit of empathy can go a long way.  We're all human beings after all and we're all unique in our own way despite 99% of our genetic coding being exactly the same as the person beside us, in front of us or ten thousand miles away from us.  We all witness good times, bad times and everything in between.  I've experienced personal tragedy from being around a dying family member in his last days.  I've lay in bed with the person I loved probably just as much as anybody likely to read this.  I could tell you about my hobbies - how I love martial arts like Brazillian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai, playing obscure card games and arguing with racists on youtube videos.  I could tell you about my charity work, teaching asylum seekers English and helping out with ecological concerns in a stretch of countryside that runs through my own city but its all part of a bigger picture.

 As you may be beginning to see, I'm a little eccentric.  One good pal who I lived with for a few years stated "The thing I like about you Conor is that you don't do anything overly eccentric it's just that every little action, every behavioural quirk you exhibit is just a little bit eccentric in it's own right".  I stand out from the crowd because I'm not afraid to.  Allow me to give an example. A few months after I graduated, back in 2009 I attended an open interview day at a graduate sales recruitment agency, the boss asked the attendees to one by one, stand declare their name, their star sign and their greatest achievement to date.  I stood and delivered the following quip "I'm Conor and I'm an alcoholic.  Oh sorry.. wrong room!"  Immediately the room erupted into laughter and that's exactly what I sought.  Nothing fills me with a greater enjoyment than knowing I can cause a whole crowd of strangers to laugh because as soon as you do, everyone can relax a little and start remembering that we are just humans and that we don't have to put ourselves on some pedestal to be judged.  We can do our best but worrying about whether our best is ever good enough only increases our chance of having an early heart attack and I intend to make it through my forties at least.

February Reviews

It's been a while since I've had time to sit down and churn out some reviews.. or rather I've been watching far too much crap to spend the time writing about what I see.  Excuses aside, here's a break done of some of the TV shows that have been emerging in the states over the last month or so.

Sitcoms

 

I got introduced to the extremely offensive Australian comic Jim Jefferies just before Christmas.  His stand up is arguably inspirational in its crass but beautifully crafted manner.  His routine is storydriven, layered with awkward pauses, intejectory comments and sickening crudeness and he displays his abilities on stage to such an extent that I would count him as one one of the top ten stand up comedians performing today.  However this new venture, where he plays a charicature of himself isn't quite on par with his stand up routines.  This is partly due to his realiance on those stories he has already told in said routines.  Some of these work brilliantly, namely in the first episode where he brings his severely disabled friend (played by the nerdy guy in American Pie-like teen comedy Roadtrip) to a brothel to receive his first blowjob.  It's a story that I feel wasn't concocted by Jefferies but one I genuinely think he lived through, making the whole event picture perfect for a comedy seeking audience and it's recreation on screen gives the viewer the most perfect feel-good comedy experience.  Others don't quite hold up to these fables on stage, the retellings been forced into awkward situations ensuring that for the viewer they can feel somewhat misplaced: urinals and park benches, the latter place has Hughes declaring after one story "it's alot better on stage". 

The show has a fair  bit in common with American comedian Louis C.K.'s show, "Louie".  Both are semi-autobiographical and both rely on the wit of the starring comedians to fuel the shows' scripts.  In comparison though, Legit feels a little bit stale to those familiar with him.  The jokes that aren't taken from his stand up feel too obvious already - centering on him being a young, obnoxious Australian man dropped into a pond of American civility and seriousness.  Louis on the other hand is a little bit more subtle and surreal, we aren't laughing at C.K.'s obnoxiousness, rather his hopelessness.  The live audience sections show us that C.K. is far from running out of things to say about society or his place as a balding, overweight forty something year old within it.  It's his nervousness and haplessness in a hostile environment that generates a comfortable awkwardness that we empathize with the writer/main character.  For these reasons, it's understandable how C.K.'s critically acclaimed show has made it into its third season.  I can't quite say the same thing about Legit.  Whilst there is hope yet and without doubt the first two episodes have provided me with some of the most euphoric feel good moments a sitcom could, the comedy has largely wavered in episodes 4-6.  They haven't been entirely laughless but I don't see the show making enough waves to warrant much more of the same thing.  Legit is unlikely to gather the same cult following as another recent Australian/American collaboration, "Wilfred" has. 

Action/Drama

It's a few months away before HBO's and AMC's big guns come back on US television screen's/laptops everywhere of every telly addict, ever.  Whilst we wait for our Breaking Bad/Game of Thrones/Boardwalk Empires, we've got a little bit of things to enjoy in between.  Perhaps I should start chasing after the subtitled Danish thrillers after shows like "The Killing" and "The Bridge" made a big splash with more experienced reviewers but I've opted for the lazy man's route: look for something forgetable and American.  On the top of that list is Banshee.  Brought to you by the maker of Twilight-for-adults "True Blood".  I have to admit, I despise True Blood.  It's not that it's written extremely badly because I do humour the concepts of the supernatural forces playing out in a more realistic world.  I don't think it's that bad in terms of intrigue and suspense either.  I just hate every damn character on the entire show.  I would quite happily tie every one of them up around a big wooden stake and shove cotton wool in their mouths.  I don't want to see them die, I just can't bare to listen to them for any longer than I have.  For this reason, I'm surprised to enjoy Banshee, which takes on the similar stylish cinematography as its supernatural sister.  If Banshee had been realeased when I was fourteen on Channel 5, I would have waited for my parents to go to sleep and sneak downstairs to watch it every single night.  It has everything that a growing boy needs: a stereotypically badass male protagonist, vicious amounts of violence, blood and brutality and most of all a softcore porn level of sex and nudity.  Forget watching reruns of "Red Shoe Diaries" and "Compromising Situations" (who does that anyway), this is the show you were crying out for when you were sprouting pubes for the first time.  Taking place in the fictional midwest town of Banshee, ex-con sees New Zealand born actor Antony Starr stars as an unnamed protagonist who after being released from prison,  flees from his vicious Eastern European gangster nemisis, Rabbit to locate his former lover and partner in crime and the diamonds that they stole.  When it turns out that she is now married and  the diamonds are gone, he goes to the town's saloon, witnesses the brutal murder of the new town sheriff and decides to assume his identity, allowing him to act as an edgy "play by his own rules" cop. 

If you were ever a fan of the 1980s hit movie "Roadhouse", you're probably going to be a fan of Banshee.  Parallels between the two are easily drawn: both feature lawless towns in the pocket of sophisticated villain who are not just money making sophisticated schemers, but violent, sexualized psychopaths, both feature bold, martial arts practicing protagonists who aren't afraid to kick a man in the back of the knees and lastly both feature sex scenes with attractive big titted women (Lili Simmons has a lovely body on her).  Like Roadhouse, Banshee is primarily an action driven viewing.  Although its not quite as monster of the week as the similiar albeit softer superhero show, "Arrow".  It's fairly obvious how the ongoing storylines with the multiple villains and multiple love interests are going to develop. 

It will never be heralded for its intelligence and the number of wide open plotholes present probably urged HBO execs to pass the show on to the smaller sister network of Cinemax.  That's not to say we won't be seeing Banshee on our torrents list for quite some time.  Only half a season through and Banshee has already been renewed for another ten episode season.  Likely to be viewed by the same people who watch the tedious "Sons of Anarchy", this fun, fast paced romp of a series will attract its own crowd for its energy and slickness.