If you know me, you'll know I absoloutely love the original Star Wars trilogy. I grew up watching it with glee so it has a huge part of my heart. As a teenager, I cared a little bit less for the preequelbut I loved the expanded universe and the world building that had gone on in them. As an adult, I've taken a real disdain towards the sequel trilogy and no, it's not because of the "SJW pandering" which right wingers will complain about, much like Star Trek, Star Wars should be more inclusive and have characters of different ethnicities, genders and sexual orientations, it's just that the stories the films told were neither engaging or sensical. That's right, I'm complaining about the sense made in a science fantasy film series, but I do this because the original trilogy, for the most part was able to tell a simple yet complex story which posed as an analogy for either the Vietnam war or the WWII (depending on who you ask, or the particular film involved) with both reasonable word and time economies. Very little of A New Hope, or Empire Strikes Back feels supurlfuous in terms of advancing the story or character development. Return of th Jedi definitely isn't on the same level, but I would argue, the brilliance of some of the scenes, makes up for the slightly more questionable pacing and structure. Overall, the first three films could do with only a little bit of tidying up.. Get rid of an incestuous kiss here, an alien jazz band there and maybe a slight re-write of one or two scenes, dialogue wise. In that last regard, I decided to rewrite one scene which has always bothered me as an adult, not solely because because Robot Chicken so deftly took the piss out of it, but because I just feel it could have been handled a little bit better in the writing stage.
That's right. The scene where Leia, after losing her own planet and everyone she's ever known has to comfort Luke, showing how much more of a strange teenager he is compared to the well adjusted, ass kicking diplomat, Leia. In my mind, it could go something a little bit closer to this.
INT. MILLENNIUM FALCON - CENTRAL HOLD AREA
Luke looks downward sadly, shaking his head back and forth, as the princess stares at him understandingly.
LUKE
I can't believe he's gone.
LEIA
There wasn't anything you could have done.
LUKE
It's not just him. If I hadn't told Uncle Lars to buy the R2 unit, he and Aunt Beru might still be alive.
LEIA
You can't blame yourself for the Empire's actions. Otherwise, I would never forgive myself for what they did to Alderaan.
LUKE
I'm sorry.
LEIA
This is why I fight them. This is why I'll never stop.
LUKE
I will join you. We will do this together.
Han rushes into the hold area where Luke is sitting with the princess.
HAN(TO LUKE)
Come on buddy! We're not out of this yet!
So it's not perfect, maybe a little wordy and I'm aware Luke is supposed to be a bit of an annoying bratty teenager, but I feel this way you get at least a hint of resolve and a reason to follow the character a little bit more. At worst case scenario, this would be "closing" some part of the character arc, but I don't think so. Anyway, that's my two cents.
This is a piece that I originally wrote for stand up, but decided it works better as a blog piece than anything else. Please note artistic liberties have been taken regarding things like sex drive. It's not that low.. and well some other parts too.
So.. lock-down.. it's
been.. GREAT! I can take some tie out to show my mum what kind of
human being she raised. A fucking thirty three year old manchild! I
am able to say that despite growing into my goddamn gorgeous looks a
little, I am still the lazy loser geek I've always been. You see
whilst some of you have been learning new skills, being creative with
your sourdoughs and twenty five push up challenges, I've started
playing Dungeons and Dragons again! I can feel my virginity growing
back every day. But that's OK. Because I'm 33. Sex.. it's over.
Look, as soon as the average man hits thirty, his testosterone levels
drop by about one percent a year. In my case it's more like ten
which is why my plans to get prison-hench in isolation haven't been
going that well. I started lifting weights so I'd have a real “don't
drop the soap around me” look. I even tried to give myself a
mohawk to scare my cat. You know, walking round like I'm 90s Phil
Anselmo.. He was a muscular ex racist heroin addict turned metal bad
ass. Instead I look like a racist doughnut addict. Or an Aryan
Brotherhood rentboy. “I'll suck your dick for a pack of cigarettes
Mr White Man” I might appear sculpted but I've my pecs are smoke
and mirrors. Humps, lady humps, or perhaps even camel humps, because ladies, gentlemen and every one of you beautiful sentinent beings on or outside of the gender spectrum out there, I can now identify as a wank camel.
And I chalk this down to the fact that with low
testosterone I now have the added superpower of being able to go a
really long time without.. shooting fast swimming genetic material
out my flesh cannon. Yes, I can go for about ten days in a row
before I suddenly stop and think “My goodness, my balls feel so
heavy today. Perhaps if there were some way to drain them, I would
feel so much lighter and aerodynamic!” Which is lucky for me
because my masturbatory tendencies have been entirely encroached upon
by one person. Rupert Murdoch. Nevermind the fact he'll probably
install more 5 G towers to give us all COVID 19. His parental shield
on Sky Broadband prevents me accessing certain websites of
uestionable moral integrity.. before midnight. Don't ask me why his
parental shield seems to drop after midnight. I can only assume he
employs some good natured mogwai who consume the pornography and
prevent it from getting to me but when those four zeroes line up,
they have to be removed fro the server lest we hear “GIZMO! GIVE
ME BRAZZERS!”
So I'm basically the
Cinderella of handsheathing the meat sword. Except in reverse
because I get to the ballllls at “the stroke” of midnight.
You're probably thinking why not use your imagination or just scroll
a little bit more tactically through Instagram. Cultivate it so that
only practically pornographic pictures are coming up. Get all the
hash tags right - #thicc...penis. But my imagination doesn't
function that like any more. I'm 33, gone are the days when fourteen
year old me could stick on Countdown and bang one out into the coal
scuttle over Suzi from the dictionary corner. And somewhere since I
was fourteen and now, Channel 5 decided it was somehow, too cultured
to show soft core porn. I know it's utterly ridiculous the channel
that has brought you such uality programming such as ASBO and Proud,
The Sex Business: Swinging both ways, OAPs on the Game and World's
Most Scenic Railways decided “hey you know what? We don't need to
pretend to have sex any more.”
Because that's what soft
core is – they used to show this drama programme on Channel 5 with
Moulder out of the X-Files where he would go off and investigate
dirty stories and write them in his big dirty story book like one
where this sexy female bounty hunter is tracking down a sexy buff
criminal on the run from the law. Can you feel the sexual tension?
“Oh my, they're gonna bang..” and then you'd get a series of
steamy sex scenes where they might get topless but you'd be damned if
you're even going to get a peak of anything more because the
likelihood is that they were likely just pure dry humping in slow
motion. Being a soft core porn actor must be a shit job, I mean
you're expected to have a slightly higher standard of acting than a
hardcore porn actor, probably get paid less money and have to leave
set with a set of balls that are so blue they resemble my bald
epileptic mate's head after he had a fit whilst walking down a flight
of stairs. Anyway, the only benefit of being a soft core porn actor
is that you can have a small penis. In fact, fuck it – you don't
even need to have a penis. Nobody is going to check. Essentially,
I'd be great at it. My sex drive being as low as it is means that
since lockdown, I've only increased the number of days I don't have
sex each month by ten percent. So pretending I'm having sex would
come naturally for me. Maybe that's what I should be doing with my
career. Otherwise, who else are they going to get? Some very
monogomaous married guy “Um no.. my wife says it's not cheating if
I only lick your nipples and don't go too rough on your aeriolas.
God says it's only adultery if there's penetration.” So yeah,
going to look into that career option – gyrating my hips back and
forth like I'm failing at the hoola hoop.
I can't believe that when
I was fourteen and watching those shows, I would have to engage in
domestic espionage just to watch them. If I wanted to cry having
and let loose the protein tadpoles of war I would have two options –
one – feign tiredness and go to bed early, waiting for my parents
to do the same, then sneak around the hallways like the Solid Snake
of masturbation like an over eight year old trying to catch Santa
Claus deliver all the Christmas goodies or option two, program the
VCR with codes from Radio Times like I'm stealing crypto-currency
from a deep web drug dealer. At the time I even had a network of
spies sharing dossiers of dirt that they probably don't even print
any more. I don't know if I could look at 'Reader's Wives' any more,
never mind cover it in my DNA PVA. I don't have that pre-teen
porn-sharing secret-illuminati any more, so what do I do? Go up and
ask random eleven year olds if they've got any top shelf magazines?
Are you fucking kidding me? Eleven year olds have learned Filipino
knife fighting from YouTube by then. It'd go
“Hey kid.. you got any
di-”
“Have that you paedo
Aryan brotherhood bitch!”
With me shooting blood out
of sixteen different places out of my neck.
I did think of calling up
my old cum happy comrades from back in the day but figured it'd go
something like this
“Yo Wee Ryan!”
“Um nobody has called me
that in twenty years, I have a wife and kids now...”
“Wee Ryan, that's great
and all, wonderful reconnecting after all these years. Listen you
don't have any dirty magazines? Hello? Hello?”
So maybe you're thinking –
why nt ask your mum for the account details? I mean she's a grown
woman, she can undertand sometimes you need to wrangle the pinkest of
salmons. Well.. the thing is, I have done. We had a whole
“Mum, erm is there any
chance.. I can get the broadband passoword?”
“It's on the back of the
box.
“Um.. no.. the account
login. I need to change something that's blocking.. legitimate
websites.”
“Oh? What kind?”
“Umm... gambling.. under
21s.. 21s.. uhhh jacking black.. blackjack!”
“Well I'll take a look
and let you f I find them.
“Great! Thanks mum,
love you!”
Despite telling her that I
love her, she has not found the details. So I decided that perhaps
the reason that she hasn't is that she knows that Dad never sat down
to have “The Birds and the Bees” chat and sadly he passed away
ten years ago. So I decided what any horny teenager with a dead Dad
would do.. draw a pentagram on the floor in my own blood and summon
the spirit for my old man.
“What is it son? I'm
shagging the ghost of Suzi from Countdown here..” he said, in a
Northern English accent.. which he seemed to have acuired after
death.
“She's not dead though,.
Dad.”
“Look at her.. no woman
in her fifties can be that attractive. Unless she were a vampire..”
“Do vampires have
ghosts? How do you do it anyway?”
“What do you mean how do
I do it? Your other's still warm, I've got to shag something to pass
the time.”
“I mean.. it.. shagging?
How do I shag?”
“What do you mean how do
you shag? I've seen you shag. Terrible techniue. Much smaller
penis. You definitely don't have your father's package. Definitely
got it from your mother's side.”
“Well could you just
tell me.”
My ghost dad sighed.
“When a man loves a
woman..”
“Yes..”
“Why are you asking
this?”
“Well I feel the reason
mum isn't telling me the Sky Broadband parental shield password is to
stop me from wanking because I've never had 'the talk' with you”
“No, it's because she
wants you to do something more productive than wank all day. Also
she'd much rather not walk in on you shooting your man milk into the
coal scuttle in the middle of the day again. Grow up and get a proper
haircut. You look like you'd suck white supremacist penis for half a
pack of cigarettes.”
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 virtue signalling piece of..
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.
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..
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
