I don’t really get starstruck. Very few people would make me go weak at the knees with their ‘famousness’, but there are people I admire. To be frank with you, I admire anyone that is very good at their craft, especially things like acting, writing and comedy.
You need BIG KAHOONAS to go into comedy and do stand-up, so that has a special place in my heart. If you’re really good at dropping boxes of loose matches and can tell me how many just hit the floor, like rain man, then I’m all in there too. Bonus points if you can light one using the stubble on your chin.
There’s a lot to be said for TALENT vs being famous for the sake of being famous, because you’ve got your tits out on Love Island and the tabloids are all over it. But hey, look I’m not judging – people do what they’ve got to do to put bread on the table, this I understand.
Going back to comedy (or acting), ANYONE can say, “Ooh I could do that”, but in life very few people have the balls to do it coupled with talent and that’s why there’s always going to be plenty of room at the top (if you don’t believe me just ask Felix Dennis).
Being at the top is also a lonely place as there is so little company there. As Michael Gambon once said, “Welcome to the layer cake, son”.
You’re born, you take shit. You get out in the world, you take more shit. You climb a little higher, you take less shit. Till one day you’re up in the rarefied atmosphere and you’ve forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake son.
In the title of this ramble I said Ross Noble liked my post. Technically this is true, but I had just reposted something from his timeline so I can’t say Ross is my mate now or anything. Still, a like from Ross Noble must be worth something on the stock exchange 😉 I’d settle for 2 jelly beans and a fizzy flying saucer if you wanna barter with me. Actually no, I’ve changed my mind, it’s not for sale so nerrr:
As an aside, someone I know once excitedly told me that Greg Plitt liked one of his posts. Greg was an extreme fitness guy/sensation that tried to outrun a train for a drinks ad, which I think is always a bad idea. Personally I only ever try to outrun Penny Farthings if they are going uphill and that’s my limit. Anyone would think that Greg had just invited him over for dinner. Ha ha… I felt like saying, “You mean him or one of his assistants clicked a button that took half a second?”, but I didn’t. He was happy someone he was a fan of had seen him for half a second and I wasn’t going to mess around with that kind of unadulterated joy.
No matter, what I actually wanted to talk about was the time Ross Noble helped me when I was ill, which means more to me than any social media ‘like’. He did this via the medium of television, which if you haven’t heard of yet, just spend some time on Wiki looking up John Logie Baird. Up to date now? Good.
Allow me to explain…
It was somewhere around 2016 and I went out for a meal. All was well with the world until the next day when my head suddenly felt like it had been weighed down by a heavy anchor. I had a blistering headache that lasted for days on end, all day and I was weak as a kitten. There was no let-up in this so the only thing I could do was crawl (yes, crawl) to the sofa, lie awkwardly on my side and try to occupy my mind with whatever was on TV at that moment in time (that’s if I could focus long enough to watch it).
The first thing that used to come on during my ‘Dean is ill’ renaissance period, was a programme called Turbo Pickers which was a typically blokey programme about these two people who bought a car and did it up. I remember liking the earthiness of it and the only thing missing was Arthur Daley or Jim Bowen turning up with a back pocket stuffed with used tenners.
To keep me company while my head was as thick as a concrete block, one day this bloke came on TV who I had never heard of before. His name was Ross Noble. He was doing an act all about ‘meat on the face’ which was one of the most zany comedy routines I’d ever seen. All of this was totally up my street, so I was fully invested in whatever meat on the face entailed as long as Ross Noble was presenting it. I lay there on my side, still finding him funny despite not being able to do anything else.
This illness went on relentlessly like something out of Groundhog Day. I thought by 7 or 8 days I’d be feeling better, but no… it just felt like my head had been weighed down by a solid breeze block and it wasn’t going away. After about 10 days I began to panic, wondering if I would ever be able to walk and go about my day normally ever again.
11th day… the same
12th day… the same
13th day… the same (FFS)
14th day… the same (FML)
15th day… the same (WTF)
16th day… the same
You get the idea.
I felt like all my superpowers had been taken away from me apart from suppressed mirth. It’s scant consolation just having that form of mirth as a superpower, that’s no good to man nor beast.
Two weeks went by and I was still the same. Less people asked me how I was during this period of time than I would have expected, which was something I duly noted. It wasn’t until 16 days had gone by that the symptoms began to ease and I could lift my head up.
On Day 17 I attempted walking up the road. Despite looking like someone out of the old folks home by this stage, I managed it at a snails pace. After that my immune system decided to kick back in again and all was well with the world as I slowly recovered.
This period left an indelible mark on me though. Lying down and not being able to move for over 2 weeks was a reminder that I’m not invincible and that you’re quickly forgotten when you’re not available to other people. I thought about people that spend their days looking at wallpaper and felt sorry for the ones that didn’t have interesting patterns to cheer themselves up with.
The Turbo picker crew were with me during this time and so was Ross Noble, doing funny stuff. Comedy helps in those situations and Ross Noble was a reminder to me to always try to see the funny (and surreal) side to any situation even when things are shit.
Incidentally, he was on a series called Apprentice Australia and he was brilliant in it.
I don’t know what was wrong with me when it happened, but I think I had what I like to call “very determined food poisoning’. When someone asked me why I didn’t go to the doctor, I seriously replied, “I was too ill to go”
From my perspective that was a truth torpedo. I couldn’t fucking move beyond crawling, so short of an ambulance whisking me off I wasn’t going anywhere.
The person I said this to pissed themselves laughing. “Good joke, Dean”.
Thanks Ross Noble, Turbo Pickers and anyone who asked me how I was during that time. I won’t forget you.
Merci Beaucoup for reading, see you in the next one.
Let’s play this one out with Eye of The Tiger because that’s what you need to recover from a bad carvery and a chef with the hygiene standards of a filthy pilgrim.