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I did a tour last year to which as many people came as there were seats available. Now unless there was an extraordinary cosmic coincidence and it just happened that at every venue I visited, the number of seats correlated exactly with the number of people who wanted to see my show, we can infer that in all probability there exist some people who wanted to see my show but were unable to, due to demand for seats exceeding supply of seats.

So. I’m going back on the road y’all. Fuckin yeah. Woot. et cetera.

During September and October, “READY FOR THIS?” will be playing at the following venues in the following order::

Salford Lowry; Derby Assembly Rooms; Warrington Parr Hall; Swansea Grand; Swindon Wyvern; Cheltenham Town Hall; Cardiff St Davids Hall; Southampton Guildhall; Norwich Theatre Royal; Buxton Opera House; Dublin Vicar Street; Brighton Dome; St Albans Alban Arena; Stoke-on-Trent Victoria Hall; York Grand Opera House; Cambridge Corn Exchange; High Wycombe Swan; Birmingham Town Hall; Coventry Warwick Arts Centre; Bradford St Georges Hall; Tunbridge Wells Assembly Hall; Bristol Colston Hall; Reading Hexagon; Newcastle City Hall; Perth Perth Concert Hall; Dunfermline Alhambra; Inverness Eden Court; Glasgow Pavilion; Aberdeen Music Hall; Bournemouth Pavilion; Belfast Ulster Hall; Sheffield City Hall; Oxford New Theatre; London Hammersmith Apollo.

Not all these dates are on sale yet, but I thought I’d give you kind persons the heads-up, as I don’t want you finding out some other way, and feeling all dirty and used. Keep an eye out on the gigs page for shows coming on sale.

My Australian tour seems to be selling with heart-warming rapidity. As a result, there have recently been extra shows added in Perth, Sydney, Wollongong and Adelaide and we’ve shifted to a bigger venue in Geelong. (If things continue like this, I’m going to buy myself a pair of trousers in celebration.) Yessirree.

Again, the place to find out about these shows and all the others is the gigs page.

This post is very linky ain’t it. I just like linking. I feel like Abraham Linkin’ would feel sitting in Linkin’ Park.

There are also a few shows happening in Auckland, New Zealand. Tickets for them ones is got by clickin’ here.

And as always, one must plug ones crap: Get a DVD. Buy a song.

Oo, oo, also, (almost forgot) I PROMISE there’ll be Tee Shirts (including a new design) and Canvas Bags on sale on this site by March. Not to mention the little detail of the “Ready For This? Live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall” album being available around the same time.

Oh, it’s all so exciting. I hope you are all healthy and amused.

tx

For those of you interested in the not-so-comic side of my songwriting…

“Drowned” – the ballad I wrote for the film “Two Fists One Heart” – has been released on itunes. This oughta take you straight there.

You can also watch the music video exclusively on this site. Check it out.

I will be conveying my medium-sized arse to Australiatown in March next year to perform my show, “Ready For This?” in various cities. I suspect it’s going to be pretty fun.

Here’s the plan:

Adelaide Her Majesty’s Theatre, Friday 13th – Saturday 14th March, 8.00pm
Tickets here!

Gold Coast Gold Coast Arts Centre, Sunday 15th March, 5.00pm.
Details here, or phone the Box Office on (07) 5588 4000

Brisbane The Powerhouse, Wednesday 18th – Sunday 22nd March, 9.30pm
Tickets here!

Wollongong Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, Friday 3rd April, 8.00pm
Tickets here!

Sydney The Enmore Theatre, Saturday 4th April, 8.00pm
Tickets here!

Geelong Performing Arts Centre, Thursday 9th April, 8.00pm
Tickets here!

Melbourne International Comedy Festival The Forum Theatre, 14th – 26th of April, 7.15pm. (No Monday show)
Tickets here!

Perth Concert Hall,Thursday 30th April, Saturday 2nd May, 8.00pm
Tickets here!

If you live in the top half of the world and feel subsequently left-out of the above plan, you can compensatorially furnish your home with my “So F**king Rock” DVD, which you can get here.

Sorry, this one very quick but informative.

1. I can be seen making an idiot of myself tonight on Never Mind The Buzzcocks. (This is a British panel show, for those elsewhere.)

2. On Sunday night, Channel 4 is screening the Secret Policeman’s Ball, during which I will perform… assuming they don’t cut me out. (This is a British Amnesty fundraiser, for those elsewhere.)

3. My new DVD, “So Fucking Rock” is available to pre-order from HMV ahead of its November release date. I’ll also being doing a gig at HMV in Oxford St closer to its release. Stay tuned.

tim xx

Martin Martini and the Bone Palace Orchestra are playing at the Soho Theatre in London for the rest of this week.

This music is original, brilliant, cool, weird, uplifting, thoughtful and just plain mad, and is performed with a manic insanity the likes of which you have never seen.

You know I don’t spam much, and never about other acts, but you MUST go and see them if you can get to London this week. If you happen to like me, this guy and his band have been described as a mixture between me and Tom Waits.

9:30 pm at the Soho Theatre. Do it. Buy a furkin ticket.

tx

Hi. Just a quick one.

Next Sunday 13th July, I’m performing alongside Jo Brand, Jo Neary, Jo Enright, Ed Byrne, Milton Jones,
Steve Merchant, Mark Steel, Mat Holness, Dan Antopolski and the great Robin Ince to raise money for the Childhood Cancer Research Fund. Pretty amazing lineup I reckon, more Jos than you can shake a stick at, and obviously a seriously worthy cause. Hope you can come.

Also, I am doing four previews of my Edinburgh show, “Ready For This” at Soho Theatre in late July. Tickets here. They (the shows, not the tickets) should be fun and a bit messy. Featuring brand new hits – that at the time of posting I still haven’t finished – such as “Feminist”, “The Good Book”, and “Racist”.

x

Hello hello hello.

As you may have noticed, I’ve posted all the Autumn tour dates of my new show, “Ready For This”, on my gigs page. Scary huh?

And Linzy, bless her, has made this ace mappy thing for those of you who crave cartographical augmentation of the temporal.

tx.

The writing of this post finds me well and truly back in the United Kingdom Kingdom Repeated.

And that, dear friends, is the extent of my justification for my title.

I feel like I ought to write a proper blog for once, one in which I actually regale my patient reader with reflections on my activities, rather than simply advertising my latest gig behind a thin veil of over-short sentences and mildly amusing non-sequiturs. Unfortunately, I’m not a natural anecdotalist. I know that that sounds ridiculous, given my chosen profession, but it’s true. Even the most exciting events in my life can be rendered completely suburban in my retelling. However, there has been a small wave of requests for details about my US trip, so I’m going to try.

Thus:

We flew to New York in an aeroplane. (Or as the Americans call them “Airplane”! Huh! Hahaha! Airplane! Hahaha!!! Crazy Americans!!). The driver who took us to our hotel asked me what I did and I told him I was a comedian and THAT is a mistake I will never make again. He told me countless jokes on that seemingly eternal drive, my favourite of which was, Why did the rake break up with his girlfriend? Because she was a ho., and my least favourite was something to do with Mexicans at airports. I didn’t understand the latter, because I’m not fully versed in the subtleties of the local racialist oral tradition yet. I will be though. Bloody Mexicans with their… hats… and their… outdoor parties with

Drinks.

The hotel we stayed in was nice. The restaurant downstairs was said to be owned by that irascible British gastronome, Gordon Ramsey, but I heard no foul-mouthed rants from the kitchen nor caught sight of the famous leathery scowl even once. I did however pay $US110 for breakfast on our first morning there, so I believe the rumour to be true. After that morning, I chose to break my fast at more economical eateries.

The venue in New York was called Ars Nova. That’s Latin for “New Arts”. I assume it was named thus because they were trying to target a Latin-speaking audience – in a country like America, it’s all about cornering a niche market. Unfortunately, it’s more likely to be translated as Butt Star by the average punter. Assuming, that is, that I am the average punter. Which I think I am. I punt mean. (That’s a pun. The mean bit, I mean.)

Language barriers, quotients and flat-bottomed boats aside, it was an amazing room. Only tiny, but the piano was great and the gear was great and the people were fantastic. Such a cool venue. The shows went great. There was clapping and drinking of wine. I met a couple of people who had traveled large distances to see my show, based only on my youtube presence and the enthusiasm of my UK and Australian fans. They were nuts and extremely nice. Just like my UK and Australian fans.

New York City is cool. If you like feeling you’re watching a TV show from the inside, you’ll like New York. I don’t like that feeling, but once I’d shaken it off, I liked the city very much. The people are nearly all Americans there, and for the first 24 hours I just wanted to shout, EVERYBODY JUST STOP FUCKING SMILING AT ME AND TELLING ME TO HAVE A NICE FUCKING DAY, but I didn’t which was good because you get used to it pretty quickly. I went up the Rockefeller centre and looked off the edge. It’s high. I like the Chrysler Building best.

We caught an airplane (when in Rome etc) to Las Vegas next. Everything that can be said about Las Vegas has been said. Oh except this: It’s a place where if you leave your ipod in the ipod dock in the obscenely massive hotel room, you won’t ever see it again. And maybe also:

It’s ridiculously hypocritical for I who, like all of you, live in the unprecedented luxury of the western world surrounded by everything I want or need and with more wealth than 96% of the earth’s population, to get on my soap-box about affluence, but. Vegas is fucking awful. I struggled to have a sense of humour about it. Perhaps the best symbol of the… discardability of the place is the “Colosseum” – a 5000 seat venue which they built for Celine’s show and which apparently is now to be torn down. And named after one of the most permanent and extraordinary human-built structures on earth. I dunno. When is irony not funny? About then I reckon. The whole place feels exactly like Sideshow Alley did at the Royal Show: a simultaneously cheap and expensive oversupply of crappy, shiny, colourful ephemera. Like an extra-marital one night stand or a Big Mac: even while you’re digging in and enjoying it, you’re suffering from premature remorse.

I did one 40 minute set in Vegas as part of the HBO Comedy Festival. It was OK. It was in a ballroom at Caesar’s Palace and I didn’t like the vibe of the room at all. Spoke to Mr Izzard after he had done a gig later that night in a (much bigger) ballroom in the same Hotel, and he hated it too. So Eddie and I have that in common, at least. Jerry (you know who I mean… my mate Jezza Seiny) was doing the Colosseum on the same night. I didn’t chat to him about it, but I think he went OK. Obviously he would have struggled to sell tickets, but I hope he doesn’t resent me – it’s not my fault we were billed at the same time.

So from Vegas, we went to LA. We hired a big car and I played some pool at Roger Taylor’s house. Not THAT Roger Taylor, the other one – the drummer from Queen. Cool huh. He wasn’t home, but I don’t think he would have minded. Oh and the shows were pretty good. And I had loads of meetings with people. And they were nice. I signed with an agent called Richard. He seems good. He’s going to either make me a movie star, or not make me a movie star. Huh! What are the odds on one of those things happening? Crazy Americans.

And then we took an aeroplane to Australia. We were on the same flight as Damon Herriman who was previously my hero and is now my friend. For you Australians, he played George on Love My Way. And he’s brilliant. Oh and he was the weird hick guy who picked up the dude and the chick in his pickup truck in House Of Wax. Huh. I liked the bit when Paris got the thing through her head. Huh. Huhuh.

I had a fine old time in Australia. There was a beach and I chose to go to it quite a lot. I got a tiny bit brown. My baby went in the ocean and that is good. I saw my mum and yes, I drank white wine in the sun y’all.

And so, on we go.

Some of you reading type people will now know that my next big coming-up-thingy is a 6-week run in New York, starting on March 3rd. I’ll be performing at the New World Stages six nights a week until April 12th. Unless, of course, I don’t sell tickets and we have to close the season early, but that will never happen because everyone in the whole of New York is going to be rushing for tickets. “Why”, you ask? Because if they don’t, I’ll have to close early. And that, my lovelies, is an example of Petitio Principii, or begging the question. Sort of.

You may encourage your buddies in New York to click here to buy tickets. If you are actually in or around New York yourself and would like to buy tickets, then you my special friend, should click here.

My Edinburgh and Glasgow shows this weekend have sold out, which is very exciting. I do hope you enjoy yourselves, you Scots.

tim.
x

Dearest friend humans.

Thanks very much for all the nice comments and messages about the BBC radio show. Very nice.

And thank you for coming to my shows in Brisbane and Perth. If you did. If you didn’t, that’s ok.

Below I’ve copied an article I wrote for Drum Media mag here in Aust. Some of you would have seen it. It’s about Christmas. Which is timely.

Have fun ChristMAS times wherever you are. See you in the New Year. You are all wonderfully nice.

Snogs.

tx

The History of Christmas. by Tim.

Christmas to me means writing a column about Christmas. The only time I ever get asked to write columns is at this time of year. An editor of a music magazine somewhere says, Who are we going to get to write a column about Christmas? We need someone moderately well-known, musical and preferably comic. And some spotty intern says, How about moderately-well-known musical comedian Tim Minchin? And the editor says… well the editor says, Yes.

I do understand my task here. I understand that I am expected to produce some amusing whimsy about turkey with in-laws and drunken blowjobs at office parties and why no one ever gives Myrrh and more. What ever happened to Myrrh?, I might write, and you might think, Good point, C-grade celebrity Tim Minchin, good point. What did ever happen to Myrrh? And that would be nice. Because we would have achieved empathy.

But instead I am going to write a short History of Christmas. Note: everything I write is true.

Go.

Christmas was originally a Roman pagan festival of lawlessness called Saturnalia. For a week, no one could get arrested for wrecking shit or going nuts. There was lots of singing in the nude (a practice recommended by Tim), plenty of shagging (also recommended by Tim), some rape (not recommended by Tim, but you can watch heaps of it on CSI SVU – I heart modern morality), and some eating of human-shaped biscuits (Tim impartial). It was fun for everyone. Well… nearly everyone. See, at the beginning of the week they’d find a dude who they didn’t like (could be a chick, whatever, lay off) and they’d feed him loads of food and make him shag and party and stuff and then at the end of Saturnalia they’d kill him. Totally kill him dead. Kill the living fuck out of him. Ostensibly in order to ward off evil forces and enemies of Rome.

Saturnalia was – understandably – pretty popular. Completely amoral behaviour (not immoral – who am I to judge?) and a wee bit of human sacrifice. If they’d had cameras, it would have made perfect reality TV. (But they didn’t have cameras, not for many many years yet. In fact not until Joseph Nicéphore Niépce squeezed out his first image over an 8 hour period in 1827. Eight hours! Bet he didn’t delete that fucker, even if it made him look fat or whatever.) So when the homies who were running the increasingly pop cult of Christianity wanted to get more members, they decided they’d just tell everyone that Jesus (or whatever his name was) was born on the final day of the festival, which was… wait for it… December 25th. (Actually, the most likely date of the big J’s b’day is thought to be September 11th. How fucking weird is that? Someone make a documentary.) In this way, the Christian leaders back then were very similar to the leaders of the Pentecostal churches of today: to increase membership, you just change the frickin rules dude. Reinterpret the story. Like reinterpreting the Lord of the Rings to make it about lanky people with hairless feet on a journey to get rid of a necklace. Don’t fucking start me.

So Jesus was introduced and the hitherto pagan Romans just shrugged their shoulders and went with it. They didn’t really care about the justification for getting nude and singing and rooting and eating person-biscuits, as long as they still got the week off. Of course, even back then the Christian church was pretty into their moral directives and all, and they weren’t really sure how the traditions of Saturnalia fitted in with said directives, but they really wanted to get their numbers up, so they just started calling it Christmas and let the Romie Homie’s get on with the raping and the eating of the gingerbread men (or women, whatever, lay off).

To reiterate: the church put Jesus’s name to a festival of sexual abuse and human sacrifice in order to increase income. Oh, and here’s a cool thing: you know how Jews are always banging on about how their people have been so mistreated through the ages? Blah blah blah. Well in 1460ish, Pope Paul the Twoth revived some of the old Saturnalia ways for the amusement of the Roman people by force-feeding a whole lot of Jews food and booze and then making them race naked through the streets while all the good Catholics laughed at them. I think it’s a hilarious idea, and I don’t know why Jews are so sensitive. Maybe ol’ Pope Benedict should revive the tradition, but use gays instead of Jews. It’d be just as funny I reckon.

I know what you’re thinking: “But where does Tim Allen come into this?”. I’m getting there, alright?

Nicking bits of other cults was the bit of business development strategy that made Christianity what it is today. Another example: the church encouraged decorating Christmas trees when they were trying (successfully) to pinch the members of the pagan hippy mob, the Asheira cult. Oh and I assume you know about Santa? He was a Turkish bishop called Nicholas who was the dude who first called Jewish people the “children of the devil”. Bless him. He was idolised by these sailor dudes who took his bones to Italy where he usurped the stocking-filling attributes of a local lady-deity known as The Grandmother. The cult spread to the Germans and the Celts where Nick got mixed up with Woden (big white beard, rode a flying horse), then the Christians took him on board to try to… wait for it… increase membership. Time passes, Coca Cola hires a Swedish artist to make a Santa who drinks coke, and now here we are, 5 years old in Myer Perth city, sitting on the knee of a fat man in a red suit who is touching our thigh and asking us what we want for Christmas and the answer is: to get away from you, you obese, sweaty, antisemitic paedo fuck.

Hold on, hold on, I’ve skipped a bit. Roughly one thousand nine hundred and fifty three years after the birth of Joshua (or whatever his name was) and twenty-two years after the birth of Santa Cola, a boychild was born in Denver, Colorado to Gerald and Martha Dick. His name was Timothy Dick. Timothy Allen Dick.

Tim Dick’s dad died in a car accident when he was eleven, and his mum married an Episcopalian deacon two years later. When Tim was twenty-five he was arrested on drug (dunno which type) charges and spent two years in gaol, after which he changed his name to Tim Allen and made the hit ABC comedy series Home Improvement before bringing us the cinematic joy of The Santa Clause 1, The Santa Clause 2 and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.

A clause can be defined as an article, stipulation or proviso in a treaty, bill or contract. In the case of Allen’s seminal trilogy, it is a pun.

In the case of the above sentence, the word seminal is a pun.

Have a spoofy Christmas.

Well would you look at this: I finally got me a fancy new site. Although to be honest, it’s kind of a similar site to my old one – it merely looks all new and funky. I do hope you like the new vibe. Some people might claim my compulsion towards skintight bodysuits is indicative of a certain dearth of aesthetic sensibility. To them I say, “you just can’t handle the confronting beauty of the curve of a lycra-clad bollock.” Again, I lie. I don’t say that. I actually say, “Are you saying I’m fat”? And there are tears: silent tears, swept uncaringly away by the winds of reality which are, in turn, generated by the fan I take with me everywhere I go.

Oh yes, the News. Gee I love News. Especially when it satiates my voracious desire to consume the misery of people who are kind of like me but not actually me. Mmmm, human misery. Yummy.

Right. Let’s do it…

NEW WEBSITE LAUNCHED!
Look, to be honest, I think we’ve covered this one. Moving right along.

DVD – SO LIVE ON SALE* REALLY SOON!
This is really exciting. SO LIVE is a big, fat, two-act show filmed at the Sydney Opera House Studio in May 2007 which combined all the best bits from my shows, Dark Side and So Rock.

The DVD also contains extras including clips from the ABC’s Spicks and Specks and Sideshow, the BBC’s Comedy Shuffle and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala. For full details or to preorder now, go to the STUFF page.

Officially on sale on November the 7th in cool stores* that sell cool DVDs with me in them.

* Please note, for various boring reasons, SO LIVE will only be available to buy in stores in Australia and New Zealand. If you are elsewhere in the world, it can be easily ordered online and mailed to you with very reasonable postage fees and all that jazz. Also, unfortunately the DVD is PAL, which means some (most I think) US machines won’t play it. Which is a bugger. However, don’t fret sweet Americans, because…

US TOUR DATES CONFIRMED!
I will be performing the following dates in the US in November:

New York City: 12th, 13th, 14th at The Ars Nova 511 West 54th Street.

Las Vegas: Saturday 17th as part of the HBO Comedy Festival at Caesar’s Palace.

Los Angeles: 19th and 20th at the ACME Comedy Arts Theatre, 135 N. La Brea Avenue.

I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally be doing some shows in the US. But I’ll try: wahoo. I’m very much looking forward to meeting some of the American YouTube / Myspace friends I’ve made in the last few months. (When I say friends, of course I mean potentially mad stalkers who I convince myself are friends in order to quench my unquenchable thirst for love.)

BRISBANE SHOWS ALMOST SOLD OUT!
I’m doing six big chunky two-act shows at the Brisbane Powerhouse between the 12th and 16th December. Tickets are selling encouragingly fast so, y’know, get onto it Brizzy humans. Some of my Myspace friends are flying from far-flung cities just to see me. Frickin weirdo stalkers. (By which I mean, hot lovely ladies).

LAST MINUTE PERTH SHOW ADDED
I’ve decided to add a last-minute, pre-christmas Perth show. I did a couple of shows at His Majesty’s back in April and they went really well. So I’m doing another one on December 19th. Tickets on sale now from bocs.

FILMING BEGINS ON WEST AUSTRALIAN BOXING MOVIE
By the time this site goes live, filming will have begun on the as-yet untitled boxing movie being made in Perth, West Australia. I’ll be on set in late November, shooting my scenes in which I play a… wait for it… funny musician called… wait for it… Tom. Hmm. I’m actually very excited about it. Fun. Catering. Yum.

OK. I think that’s all for now. Feel free to comment me below, and let me know how my News made you feel in the trousers. Or wherever. And don’t forget, there’s a rather cool (if I do say so myself) community of my online friends who like to discuss stuff at Linzy’s rather humblingly me-oriented forum, which you will find on the angryfeet forum.

And don’t forget to sign up to my mailing list if you haven’t already done so!

tim
x

Hello.

This being another of my spasmodic blogs. I’m going to start calling them Spasmogs. I’m going to one of the internet’s most unprolific Smasmoggers.

So you may notice I have put up some dates. Not much of a tour – they’re mostly just there to make up for the gigs I missed due to illness earlier in the year. Looking forward to it.

Apart from the ones posted…

Scotland is ALMOST locked in. When I say Scotland, I admit it’s not going to be particularly comprehensive coverage. It’s likely to be one gig in Edinburgh (at the Queens Hall – wikid) and one gig is Glasgow (dunno where yet). We’re looking at the 1st or 2nd weekend of November for those shows… I’ll let you know as soon as they’re on sale. (Helen.)

For you Londoners, I’m not going to be doing any full shows in London in the near future (just cos I’ve not got a new show), but the Beck Theatre in Hayes is a sexy space and not at all far from the city. So go there I reckon.

And Ireland is still in negotiation. (Last year, I did a support set for Deidre O’Kane at the Bulmers Fest in Dublin, and this year they asked me to do a support again, cos they’re concerned my profile over there isn’t strong enough to sell my own show. Soft fuckers … so we’ll see.)

Ahm, what else.

Last Friday, I filmed a ridiculous video of “So Fucking Rock” for the ITV show Comedy Cuts. It involves the compulsory air-guitar and air-drums etc, but also features air-banjo, air-flute, air-trombone, air-decks, air-tennis, air-cows, air-squeeky-toys, and an air-stage-dive. The new season of Comedy Cuts starts in January, I think, so no hurry there.

On Tuesday, I was a guest on BBC Radio 2’s Jammin’. It’s a sort of funny music show thing. The other guest was Hughie from the “Fun Lovin’ Criminals”. Fuckin hilarious dude. We got a bit drunk and the recording took almost 2 hours for a show which will be edited down to 28 minutes. Hmm. Not sure when it goes to air… I’ll try to let you know.

Apart from those wee bits, I’m working on a script for a bit of an idea which may end up being a radio series or a television series or a hollywood movie or a stack of A4 paper torn into strips sitting by the phone for notes and shopping lists.

I’m also working on a script for a film that is being shot in Australia in December. In it, I will be playing a musician (amazing), despite the fact that it’s a boxing flick. I might be writing the soundtrack for it too.

Oh, which reminds me. The Brisbane shows that I started a rumour about a month ago are still a maybe. Just trying to fit them in.

So. That’s the boringest fucking spasmog i’ve ever written. Although others would run a close second.

To everyone, hello.

To all my excellent myspace friends, thanks for sticking around.

To everyone who visits my website – I PROMISE that it’s going to get a major overhaul some time in the next month.

t.x

Hi, it’s me. What a surprise.

I’m sitting by a swimming pool in Melbourne. The pool is too cold to swim in, which is sad. I have a broken toe, I think. I kicked Danny Bhoy in the shin during a fiercely contested game of Comedians’ Volleyball, and although initially I thought it was just bruised, the 3 weeks of little improvement have led me to the conclusion that I’ve dicked it in a more permanent way. Which is annoying, because I can’t run. And if I don’t run, I get fat. And depressed. Remember, Paws? Running makes you happy. Danny Bhoy’s shin makes you sad. These are truisms. (For those of you nursing sympathy for that violent-but-disarmingly-charming Scottish-Indian laugh-machine, rest assured that his beautiful olive-skinned shin is absolutely fine.)

Since I last posted, Events have occurred and Things have happened. Many of them were nothing to do with me, but the ones that were to do with me interest me the most. By definition. (I think I’m obsessed by self-obsession. Relativist morality to suit my world view. The death of me will be the death of the universe. etc etc. A few days ago, I wrote a song for the Melbourne Comedy Festival Gala called “Fuck the Poor”* – the central idea of which is that charity is never purely altruistic, but that it should be entered into anyway for the sake of alleviating one’s guilt. If you’re in Australia, tune in on Monday night -16th – to see if they edit it out of the show. I wouldn’t blame them – it was a little morbid. Although not much more distasteful than my opening tune, which was called “Happy Little Africans”. To put it in its comical context – the show is an Oxfam fundraiser… I was attempting to tread close to the satirical line.)

Where was I? Oh yes, Events. Things. Me.

So last time I posted, we were talking about skiing and fun-loving, fur-wearing Americans. Then what?
I did some more shows. Cardiff was the unlikely scene of a particularly fun one. Them Welsh folk were smart and gregarious. (If I have a son, I might name him Greg, short for Gregarious. He’d grow up to be a sociopath, doubtless.) So thank you Wales for your acceptance and encouragement. (“Our pleasure, young Tim”, say a chorus of Humpbacks and a couple of Great Blues, misunderstanding my intent.)

We flew to Australia (using an aeroplane) a couple of days after my gig, which was stressful. My baby was rather well-behaved on the plane – she mostly did Sudokus and read Proust, the work of whom she finds irresistibly soporific. (Aahhh Marcel, you are nothing if not a great boon to jetsetting parents.) My wife, on the other hand, was as uncontrollable as always, and was halfway through painting a mural of pre-9/11 Manhattan on the overhead lockers before a Flight Attendant managed to wrestle the crayons off her and settle her down with a half-dozen Temazepam and a sing-song rendition of Where Is the Green Sheep?.

We arrived in Perth, where my girls remained for a couple of weeks, while I tootled around this enormous and blandly beautiful country of ours, doing a bit of this and that. I filmed an episode of that lovely Adam Hills’ wonderful show Spicks and Specks which screens in Australia this Wednesday… and yep, I do a little song at the end – this time dedicated to that kind and brilliant New Zealander, Alan Brough. It is a mere curiosity, and will mean very little to our fine friends in the UK… but it’s cute.

I then flew to Wollongong to start off my Australian Tour in the presence of my #1 Fan, Sarah, who had managed to convince the venue to give her a six-foot high poster of my head. She’s looking hot, and her boy Blake dealt admirably with her pleas to have me sign her boobs. The show went fine, I think… although I was so jetlagged I actually barely remember doing it. And I fucked up the words to RocknRoll Nerd – of all songs – given that it is my #1 Fan’s myspace moniker.

Adelaide Fringe was next – me and my piano in a big red tent. Highlights include an improvised song about a pretty girl who walked out straight after my cot-death gag. I was so worried that I’d upset her that I fucked up all my Tony-the-Fish stuff, but redeemed myself by making up a song about her visit to the toilet. Typical perverted nonsense, but fun at the time. (I’m pretty sure the timing of her walk-out was purely coincidental and motivated by the sensitivity towards the needs of her bladder rather than the particular gag.) Also interesting was the night that The Space Cowboy – a mind-reading, spoon-bending, sword-swallowing legend of a man – stuffed up one of his tricks and put a knife through his hand. And by through, I mean fucking through. It somewhat overshadowed my drama of a couple of nights previous when my piano-stool collapsed when I jumped on it. Sigh.

Alright, this is getting boring.

So, I’m in Melbourne now. I filmed the Gala last week (as mentioned) and have had a bit of time off over the Easter weekend. I’ve been parenting a little more, which is novel and good. Off to Perth again tomorrow… I’ve nearly sold out 2 shows at His Majesty’s – which is very exciting for me, because it is the theatre I went to as a child, wide-eyed and never dreaming I might get to do shows there myself. There is some sort of significance there, if I choose to impose it.

Hope everyone is feeling mentally healthy.

Thank you Kirsty and Hannah for keeping my myspace page from being overwhelmed by spambot bitches. Hello, hello.

And on and on.

txx

* You’ll notice below that Kirsty has pointed out below that GUD – my musically comedic forefathers and friends – also had a song called “Fuck the Poor”. I – in my eternal ignorance – didn’t know this… however I think I’m OK: they’re very different songs. So my Gala song is now called “The Guilt Song”, which is what I originally called it anyway. Phew… no law-suits just yet.

Below are the lyrics to “The Guilt Song”, of which I am proud. (Mostly because of the almost masochistically small amount of time that existed between its creation and its – thankfully – reasonably error-free performance). The only little bit of local knowledge you might need for it to make sense is that the Oxfam number in Australia is 1800 034 034.

Orright:

I would be a liar if I pretended I admire
The red-light windscreen-cleaning empire that you’ve built.
But my heart is good it’s not a thing of stone and wood
I’ll give you 50 cents to take away my guilt.

I give money to folk who just don’t have enough,
To try to justify my further purchases of stuff
That I don’t need.
I know that one less Vodka Cranberry tonight
Could probably feed some foreign family for a fortnight,
But I might just have one more.
After all what is Vodka for
Apart from making you want to shag your best mate’s wife,
And drowning out the guilt you feel about your perfect life?

Fuck the poor, what is all this hoo-haa for?
There’s only one reason I’ll phone 1800 034 034
It’s the force behind Teresa and the school that Oprah built,
I’ll give you 50 bucks to take away my guilt.

Fuck the poor, I’m not pretending any more
That I really give two shits about some kids in Bangalore.
I’m more interested in footy than seeing the Solomons rebuilt,
But I’ll give you 50 bucks to take away my guilt.

A quick wrap-up of Aspen, for those who fell victim to cancellations forced upon them by said festival.

I flew there in an aeroplane. I caught a bus to my hotel.

Waiting for me in my hotel room was a welcome pack containing a Nike Ski Jacket, Tom Baker Sunglasses, a couple of shirts, and a whole lot of other crap including discount vouchers for Botox treatments and Private Jet hire. You getting the vibe?

I was involved in two shows – 20 minute sets at the end an “alternative comedy” night called “The Fat City Lounge”. I opened my set with “So Fucking Rock” and by the end I was panting so hard that I had to ask for tinned oxygen. It was spearmint flavoured. And very amusing. The reasons for the panting were (a) my on-going poor health born of that flu I got a few weeks back, and – more significantly – (b) the high altitude.

On Saturday I went Skiing. Skiing is a sport involving standing on slippery things and going down a hill. It is enormously enjoyable and as a result I have done it twice.

While I was skiing I got a text encouraging me to go to an Awards presentation that I hadn’t realized existed. (I had found no evidence of it, and am not inclined towards faith). However, when I turned up, it did indeed exist. To explain just how much it existed: William Baldwin was in attendance. And the mum from “Who’s the Boss?”. I won the award for best Alternative Comedy performance. I was presented my award by that really cool girl who plays that cool IT chick, Chloe, in the television series, 24. Mary Lynn Rajskub.

Aspen is fun. If you have thousands and thousands of monetry units sitting around somewhere, I’d spend it on a trip to Aspen. There’s loads of shops selling the furs of dead animals crafted into apparel. And many of the local people have teeth that didn’t originally belong to them.

And you can buy oxygen in a can.

If you want to read an article regarding Aspen which is flattering towards me, clicking to this little puppy should fully sate your desire.

So. Four more shows in the UK. Looking forward to seeing loads of my online chums this week. Let’s just pretend I don’t have tonsillitis.

With feelings of great fondness I remain forever yours,
Timothy D Minchin.

Hi guys.

This one for the Aussies. I’ve finally uploaded the details for my Australian tour. You can find out everything by clicking on Upcoming Gigs on the right of the page… or you can use the calender thingy to look up a particular date. Cool huh?

I also just want to make sure the Melbournites know that the show I’m doing at the Comedy festival will be all old material. I’m having a non-writing year due to migration and baby and touring business. I also realized that a lot of people in Melbourne have never seen me, especially the Dark Side material from 05, which I haven’t performed since back when I was a total nobody, rather than the vague shadow of a maybe somebody.

Perth and Wollongong are also going to be a “highlights” show.

Sydney is getting “So Rock”, which is the show I did in Melbourne and Edinburgh last year… even though in Melbourne, I hadn’t given it a title yet.

Adelaide is getting something called “So Rock”, but I might chuck some “Dark Side” stuff in it, because pretty much nobody in Adelaide has seen my stuff. (Unless you were part of the elite group who ventured into the foyer of the Festival Centre during the 2005 Cabaret Festival.)

As for Brisbane… my deep apologies for anyone who was resisting suicide only to see my show this year. I’m not able to get to Brizzy, mostly because the Powerhouse – my venue of choice – is closed during the months I’m in Oz. And other venues made nasty offers. And then we ran out of time. However… I will be back. Promise. Sorry.

t.

Hey guys.

Colin Murray’s show on BBC Radio 1 is ace i reckon… not least of all because he sometimes plays my tunes.

This Wednesday night he’s airing a radio-doco about Stand-up comedy, and I’ll be in the studio chatting and maybe playing a toon or somethin’.

Details below.

Hope your days are nice.

tim
_ _ _

Wednesday 24th January @ 10.30pm as part of The Colin Murray Show
“No Laughing Matter”
BBC Radio 1. www.bbc.co.uk/radio1

A documentary looking at the lives of Stand Up comedians, from open mic nights to big stars, Radio 1 investigates why they do what they do, and see what life is really like for a comic. Russell Brand, Tim Minchin, Russell Howard, Trevor Lock, Lucy Porter and Stephen Grant talk about comedy along with some open mic performers who are trying it for the first time.

You can listen to the whole thing live from 10.30, where Tim Minchin will be in the studio to chat about his upcoming UK tour. Or you can download the podcast from Friday at bbc.co.uk/radio1.