Here

I went to work for a major organisation in a far away land, a scary, but necessary prospect off the back of a lean year. In actuality literal as well as figurative as I was poor enough to get skinny, 15 kilos lighter than I am now and I'm not exactly bulging at 75kg.

The work was rewarding and my colleagues gave me open license to be funny and plenty of encouragement to chase my dreams.

For many of them where we worked was what they had been reaching for for many years, it was confronting for some that I'd only had a phone call to come over 3 weeks earlier. I learned to keep that fact under my hat. So often I'd been on the wrong end of years of toil versus dumb luck, this time I really didn't know how lucky I was.

I wasn't there long, but the love and respect of the people in that place is still with me today, still egging me on, still challenging me to go for it. It was so immensely refreshing from the safety first mentality of New Zealand that it made me believe I could do things. Anything.

I was tapping back into who I used to be, bright eyed, confident, precocious, ambitious, a person who constantly tore down the wall of "no's" and proved things were possible. People can't tell me I can't do things any more.

I was told about a course in comedy television in London and I applied, three times as it turned out, but I didn't get in. I guess people can tell me I can't do that one thing. However that didn't stop me either.

The dream is to work in comedy TV, why pretend like it isn't or that I'm not prepared to work two jobs and give up everything to go to the ends of the Earth to make it happen?

So here I am, to chase the dream, to see what happens and see what it makes of me.

Sensible

2006 was a weird year, mostly because it was 10 years ago and that is pretty weird.

I was living in Dunedin doing student radio and student television, I was having fun, as can be seen here

The problem was I was under immense pressure to grow up, have a 'proper' career, a family, a home (imagine) and my recent foray into stand up on the back of years of presenting simply wasn't going to cut it. Or so every single person told me.

I realise now that people were just looking out for me because they cared, the sweeties, but it lead me to believe I was on the wrong track and something needed to be done. So I went to film school and majored in post-production, sensible sound decision making.. which took me a bit off course.

I was now in a long term relationship with video editing, except I wasn't in love. We'd dabbled, played with each others feelings, pushed each others buttons, but we hadn't really clicked. Sure we worked well together, but our relationship was purely practical and eventually when I'd roll out of bed in the morning I'd seethe about having to touch those keys again.

I broke. A bit. My sensible choice had been an unmitigated emotional disaster and while up-skilled with practical abilities and a sound knowledge base, I was in truth blue to the tooth.

While still always laughing and joking, I think at times I could be unpleasant for those who knew me best because I was just so obviously down in the dumps. I felt trapped in the decision I had made, unhappy, but sticking by it because it was the sensible thing to do.

Eventually it was simply better to "fuck sensible". Why paddle round in calm conditions for fear of catching a wave?

Which brings us to 2013.

Miandad

This story begins with a boy, me, more precisely.

I asked my Mum when she first realised I was 'funny', she thought about it for a long time and then told me the tale of a 1 and a bit year old still largely unable to talk who was watching the cricket on Grandma's knee.

Pakistan were playing and one of the greatest players of all time was at the crease, Javed Miandad. That his last name included almost the full breadth of my vocabulary at the time apparently brought quite a chuckle, how funny it was that the player's last name be "Me and Dad".

You could call me addicted to laughter, at the very least susceptible to its charms.. "crushing hard" the kids might say, except they probably wouldn't, maybe "I is sick in the head for funny yeah bruv". Kids.

And I have tried to ignore it, put it down to personality rather than passion, but right now I'm sitting in London.. an awfully long way from home in New Zealand. Not because like so many Kiwis I am enamoured with the fatherland, I'm not. Not because I like big cities, I don't. But because this place of all places is my best chance to make a living being funny and I just can't ignore that desire any more.

So here I am. Flying in the face of common sense or financial stability, personal relationships or family, leaving behind all the good graces of a country people call 'God's own', to be here. Now.

Let's go back a bit and find out how I got.. here.

Failure

Failure, rank abyss of black sinking melancholy, hello again.

Failure is a funny thing, it has a serious finite feel to it, yet it denotes effort and can spur further endeavour.

I'm feeling as blue as the blue man group at the moment because I've spent the last year staring into failure's black lifeless eyes constantly egging it on to "come at me bro".

I can't argue it hasn't been a difficult year, I've effectively taken time out from my busy schedule of existing to throw myself into the emotional meat grinder one more time. Or several more times if anyone was keeping count.

My dream of doing comedy for a living takes regular beatings, it could arguably be the speed ball in a particularly rough gym on the bad side of town next to the most downtrodden of steel factories where the workers truly despise their overinflated money hungry Grinch of a boss.

Now I sit on the precipice of moving to the other side of the world, to a country I've never been to with a plan that no longer exists. My last roll of the dice for the year coming up snake eyes as the gates to comedy film school swung closed.

Feedback would be nice.

When I blew the Billy T, I understood. I didn't connect with the crowd, my performance was rushed and the title of my pitch was poor. The wrong foot, with which I do most of my stepping, was engaged and extended long before I opened my mouth. I didn't perform to my potential and wasn't nominated, quite rightfully.

However no such understanding has extended from my inability to get into this school. This was my third attempt, my best attempt and it wasn't good enough. I simply don't know why.

So steadfast was my belief that I would not fail this time that I booked my ticket to Britain long ago. An act of defiance in the face of the odds, something I could control.

I worked two jobs, paid two lots of rent in two cities, a candle burnt at both ends with no favours left to call in. I wanted this so much.

But those dice stared up at me, two black lifeless eyes..

And I stared back.. into the abyss, without a rudder, without a plan, I'm still moving to the other side of the world in less than a month.

I recognise these eyes. "Come at me bro."

My Jemainecan Guy

A couple of days ago Jemaine Clement said New Zealand television was shit. Now I'm not quoting him verbatim, but in my version he's absolutely right.

But why is he right? One reason is because New Zealand burned public broadcasting at the stake, another is because we jumped on reality television so hard its knees broke and it could no longer leave.

New Zealand has become a roundabout of bad television, but if you work in the industry, as I do, you're not allowed to say so because it makes you very unpopular. Spitwads fly your way from the back of the class if you dare say anything bad about the New Zealand industry because people live in constant fear of no longer being able to afford to buy their lunch at the cafeteria.

You are not to rock the boat, no matter how shit your boat might be. In fact despite how shit your boat might be, you are encouraged to tell everyone there's nothing wrong with your boat, you love your boat, your boat is great and ask would anyone like to buy a boat?

I'm an outsider when it comes to nautical buoyancy, this is a big part of why I'm planning to move to the UK. I'm not making any friends here trying to change things and I don't feel I can learn more about making television comedy when I'm being shown a chart on boat floatation.

'Flight of the Conchords' was a great TV show and very genuinly Kiwi. The irony is if it had been made in NZ, it would have been decidely worse. Not because Bret and Jemaine aren't clever writers and actors, not because we don't have fine world class crew or because we're a naturally sexy people constantly distracting each other from the task at hand.

The reason it wouldn't have been as good is because of the way our networks, production houses and national funding body operate together.

Now this is where things stop being pretty, so if you're an industry person seeking veagence, please don't come to my house.

Here is the tale of "The Little Production That Could."

The production house had a great idea for a production, but it needed money to make it real.

"NZ on Air has money!" Thought the production house and it ran off down the lane.

"Can we please have some money for a production?" The production house asked. "Not without a hot slot." NZ on Air said. "You should talk to the network, they have heaps of big slots."

The production house ran off to see the network and show it the great idea. "Look what we want to make!" said the production house, its tiny hands quivering with excitement as it held up its idea to the network's hole. "That's not going to fit in there!" said the network snidely.

"However.." the network said, "If you change this, this and this, we can shoehorn it on in there". "It can't be too edgy.. and it needs to be as broad as possible to really ram it home."

"Oh." said the production house and they took their good idea away, ritualistically removed its soul and buried the original writers at the back of the garden.

The network and production house were so happy they held hands and skipped off to visit the old man who lives in Wellington under the Prime Minister's shoe.

"Look what we want to make." said the gleeming smiles of puppets in wankersham suits. "Cool!" said NZ on Air, "..but, just one thing.. can we change this?" "Sure!" said the tiny prostitutes and everyone was off to production country.

The little production that could no longer resembled its fluffy bunny self, it was better! It now had one green eye and one bulbous undulating tendril where its other eye used to be. It had one giant scaly forelimb, half a wing and was constantly in labour. "Yay!" said the production house and the network as they nipped behind the bikesheds for a quick wrister. "Nuufffcllaarrrggghhhh!" said the little production that could, long having forgotten it was for an english language channel.

Everyone in production country was happy. The network was happy, they got their hole filled. The production house was happy, their boat would float for a couple more months. NZ on Air was happy, they'd gotten rid of all that pesky money. And the crew were happy, because they could feed their families.. or in lieu of actual families, their dog. The crew long having given up on true happiness because of the long hours and punishing stress of having to dedicate themselves to television in order to make it.

There was just one tiny problem with the little production that could, no-one had noticed it was now a forty anused shit fountain.

The industry had long since forgotten that people watching don't like shit everywhere and the little production that could was cancelled. Or shot. Where ever this loose metaphor has been going.

"Oh no." cried the kids in production country "whatever will we do?!" "I know!" said the production house "We'll make another production, with the exact same people and the exact same process. It won't go wrong this time." "Does that matter?" asked the network "Shhhhh" said the crew.

And they all went home for tea.

THE END.