Billy Connolly Live In Glasgow 2012.

EVENT DETAILS:
Title: BAFTA A Life In Pictures: Billy Connolly Evening Talk.
When: Monday. Decemeber 10th, 2012. 19.30.
Where: Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow.
What?: Yep.
How Much?: ₤20.00.

The spiel from Glasgow Royal Concert Halls’ website:
“Join us in Glasgow to celebrate the work of Scotland’s most famous comedian Billy Connolly, as he looks back over his career in this very special BAFTA A Life In Pictures.”

“Connolly’s career as a successful comedian, musician, television presenter and actor spans six decades, appearing in over 30 films including The Last Samurai, Gulliver’s Travels and Mrs Brown, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA in 1997. More recently, he voiced King Fergus in Pixar’s Brave, appears in Quartet, Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut, and will play a dwarf warrior in Peter Jackson’s upcoming The Hobbit.”

“Connolly was recently honoured with the Outstanding Contribution to Television and Film Award at the British Academy Scotland Awards.”

You can book tickets right HERE.
See you there!

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Discovering John Byrne Again And Again.

I keep seing pictures in magazines and on telly of an old guy with  the best moustache and beard in the World!
He dresses just like me and I keep thinking to myself:
(a) Who is that guy?
(b) What does he do?
(c) That is exactly how I hope to look in later life.
It turned out to be playwright and artist John Byrne and although I didn’t know it, I’d been a great admirer of his work most of life!

Everything fell into place for me when John Byrne appeared in the recent BBC documentary on Gerry Rafferty.
“THERE’S THAT GUY!” I shouted at the screen.

I’ve only got one Gerry Rafferty album (“Can I Have My Money Back”) and I’ve always really liked the front cover but silly old me, I had no idea that John Byrne was the artist behind it.
I thought to myself: “If I was Gerry Rafferty, I’d want John Byrne’s artwork on all of my albums forever!”
…And that seems to be what Gerry did!

Can you believe how beautiful those album covers are!?
Looking through them all felt really familiar to me even although I don’t own any of them. It was like I’d seen them before but until Gerry Rafferty died, his albums were surprisingly hard to find in Glasgow so I think I can rule that one out.
The album covers reminded me of being really small and after some digging around on the internet, I found out why.

When I was young my folks used to take me to the People’s Palace in Glasgow where these paintings hang:

So there you go. it seems that I’ve been looking at these paintings all of my life and never once bothered to find out about the artist.
Shame on me but at least I made the connection in the end.
I’ve spend all week investigating John Byrne and as the days go on, I find myself thinking: “No way! that was him too?”

I remember being in a shop a few years ago and staring at the downright glorious DVD artwork for “Tutti Frutti”.
Yep, that was John Byrne too! Today I feel really stupid because John Byrne also wrote “Tutti Frutti” and I never even knew that.

My latest John Byrne surprise concerns The Beatles’ White Album.
I’m a huge Beatle fan and I have shelves of bootlegs and one of them is called “A Doll’s House”.
“A Doll’s House” was a sort of working title for “The White Album” and John Byrne was commisoned for the album cover which of course wasn’t used in the end but it’s on the bootleg I have and it was eventually used for “The Beatles Ballads”

I feel like I’ve been looking right at John Byrne’s work with my eyes closed for 25 years!
I learn something new every day.

EDIT:

My pal Natalie just got in touch to say that Mr. Byrne designed some posters for some plays which her theatre group performed. Also, John Byrne happened to write the plays.
I should’ve known.

The Tragedy & Comedy Of Jerry Sadowitz.

There’s Billy Connolly, Eddie Izzard, Rik Mayall and then there’s Jerry Sadowitz.
That’s the kind of comedy I’ve always been into but whilst Connolly, Izzard and Mayall are Worldwide household names Sadowitz is practically broke and out of work for most of the time.

I’ve liked Jerry Sadowitz ever since I clapped eyes on him in the early 1990′s.
He was right in your face and I liked the way he looked and I still think that he’s the best magician alive today.
Most importantly, I think he’s funny as fuck!

I never got around to seeing Billy Connolly live but I’ve seen gigs  by Izzard, Mayall and just 2 weeks ago, Sadowitz.

A Jerry Sadowitz gig could be a terrifying experience for most folk.
Resembling a fucking psychopathic Punch & Judy puppet in a top hat,
He saunters onto the stage and straight away gets ripped into everything that’s ever pissed him off.

He’s loud, agressive, highly offensive, unapologetic and swears like machine gun fire.
Whilst he rambles on, he’s doing mind blowingly good magic without even giving it a second thought.
I like him a lot and you can tell that most of the audience are glad to see him.

He’s a hard guy to get a hold of.
He almost never tours.
He has no merchandise on release and he personally removes almost all traces of himself on the internet.

Most folk in the know know that Frankie Boyle is the poor man’s Jerry Sadowitz.
I’ve always thought that Frankie Boyle was a prick and to me, he comes across as if he’s been up for days on end, carefully planning his jokes out in an attempt to shock people.
Jerry Sadowitz seems to agree.

There’s a sadness to Sadowitz too and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
I always thought “Well, maybe it’s because he can’t get work” but then I’d think “All he needs to do is release some merchandise and he’d be fine”.
I think he thinks that he’d be in someway selling out if he released DVD’s etc… and I can only admire that.

He sold out Glasgow’s Kings Theatre for a solid week and as I understand it, pissed off loads of easily offended people.

One of his jokes was:
“What’s blue and won’t fit?”
- “A dead epileptic”.

He joked about rape, raping Z-Lister Vanessa Feltz while holding a meat cleaver to her throat, how soldiers are idiots and also how Madeline McCann‘s Mum would be attractive and worth raping if only she smiled more often.
He’s never gonna be everyone’s cup of tea

It’s easy to see how Jerry earned this reputation of being a complete and utter cunt.

Personally, I love the guy and I love that his website is fucking useless.
He seems determined to make no money and at the same time, pissed off and bitter that he doesn’t make any.

At the end of the show he seemed to come out of character for a second to thank everyone for taking the time and money to come and see him – A wee glimmer of the man hiding behind the psychopath.

Sadowitz granted The Daily Record a rare interview last month which has now mysteriously disappeared from the internet.
It was one of the saddest things I’ve read in a long time.
For the time being, you can read a similar interview with him HERE.

An Old Man Thing.

I’ve found myself doing some ‘Old Man’ things lately.

There’s no good reason for it.
I was born on November 1981.
I’m 28.

Although,
I live alone so maybe that’s got something to do with it but I’ve always been like that so I doubt it.

This morning,
I spent a good half an hour looking…
No, staring at people out the window, wondering where they were going.
That’s an Old Man thing.

My ‘Old Man’ things don’t stop there though.

When I see half naked 20 year old drunk girls with legs that go on forever sauntering down Albion Street at 4 in the morning,
My first thought is: ‘Idiots. They must be fucking freezing’.

I go to bed late and get up early.
I make a sort of ‘Acccchhhhaye’ sound when I get out of a chair.
I hate clubs and luminous drinks.
I hate text speak and internet slang.
I hate that kids play swimming games on Wii’s instead of going swimming.

I spend far too much time remembering things too.
I remember…

• When you had East & West Germany.

• When you could go to a gig with a heavy, glass paneled beer tanker and ‘Ear Defenders’ weren’t advised or on offer.

• When 10 cigarettes cost 75p and you could buy them from Woolworths (for your Granny) and smoke them in the cinema.

• When only skinny people wore ‘skinny’ jeans and they weren’t called ‘Skinny jeans’. They were just called jeans.

• Standing on top of a Police van and seeing Radiohead at T In The Park and wondering who they were.

• Watching THIS, Live Aid and the fall of the Berlin Wall live on telly with my Family.

• When T.V. stopped for the night and The National Anthem was played just like THIS.

• When Johnny Depp was ‘that guy whose bed ate him’.

• When film studios had original ideas.

• Taping Prince’s latest single ‘Partyman’ off the radio.

• Betamax, Laser and Flexi Discs and how much I hated them.

• When Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Billy Connolly & Al Pacino looked like THIS, THIS, THIS & THIS.

• I remember when Steve Martin’s hair wasn’t white.

Alright, alright.
I don’t actually remember when Steve Martin didn’t have white hair but look!
Apparently at one time he didn’t!

I’m moaning here.
That’s an ‘Old Man’ thing.

Fuck it.
I’ve always been old.
I was born old.

I like hanging about with older people.
I like listening to older people with stories to tell.
I like memories and folk who’ve done things in their lives.
I like hearing about the way things were.
I like to lean on railings in the afternoon and watch the town.

I like change too.
Obviously I like change!
You need it.

I still play on the swings on Glasgow Green every time I get the chance.
But these days,
I bring bread with me to feed the birds.

That’s an ‘Old Man’ thing.