March 2013
1 post
3 tags
Out of the Rut
I’ve been working on a thing recently. And by that I mean mostly thinking about working on a thing and not actually doing it.
But I have recently, through dramatically changing my approach to the project, managed to get the damn thing started. And it’s getting done.
Here was the problem. I pitched a thing several years ago. It included a full outline of what the thing was and a...
January 2013
1 post
September 2012
1 post
5 tags
the day the straightjacket broke
I end the show I’m touring at the moment with a straightjacket escape. I do the whole bit with a person out of the audience - innuendo aplenty, all that stuff and then perform the escape as a rather elegant metaphor.
Today I’ve got the girl up - her name’s Flo, or Fiona or Fee-o or something and I’m all “just heave, you’re going to have to hurt me, it’s...
August 2012
2 posts
4 tags
RNZ turned my words into sounds. →
You can listen to them here if you like.
May 2012
2 posts
WatchFeaturing my team’s little horror movie that could.
theycallmemistertodd:
The trailer for the 2012 V48HOURS Christchurch City Finals, set to rain filmic destruction on Reading Cinemas The Palms at 7:30PM Sunday June 10th.
Tickets available at www.readingcinemas.co.nz.
6 tags
Why I will never enter a BDSM relationship with...
I have been watching the news, reading the papers and following various blogs over the last few weeks and have come to a sad and startling realisation. Were I given the opportunity to enter into a BDSM relationship with Prime Minister Key - with or without Bronagh - I would be forced to firmly decline.
Despite the world of experiences to be found in being John Key’s sub; the delightful...
Diane Revoluta: Something is rotten in the state... →
Great post.
dianerevoluta:
Yesterday somewhere between 2000-5000 people marched in Wellington against the government’s plans to partially sell state assets. This followed a similar sized march in Auckland last weekend and a week-long hikoi starting in Cape Reinga. After last year’s record low voter turn out, it would seem…
March 2012
1 post
writings.
I write in sporadic little bursts. Stutters and jumps. constantly interrrupted by pacing about or looking out the window.
Even when I know what happens next i often can’t just write it down. I gotta mull it over. Stare out the window a bit. Give it some breathing room in the time between being an idea and being concrete words on a page.
I heard a pre-broadcast version of one of my...
February 2012
2 posts
WatchPre show. Yesterday.
January 2012
5 posts
2 tags
I got directed by a nine year old who was on some course.
He was constantly disappointed that my lines weren’t word perfect.
Sorry little dude.
3 tags
Excerpt from an upcoming production
Scene 8: Maria's bedroom.
(Maria, Martin)
SOUND: bedsprings.
MARTIN: The costume looks really great on you Maria.
MARIA (as batman): I'm not Maria. I'm Batman. Take off your pants.
MARTIN: Haha. That's really cute.
MARIA (AS BATMAN): Who hired Joe Cool? Who!
MARTIN: What's that?
MARIA (AS BATMAN): You know I'm real tired of people like you making my town filthy.
SOUND: Maria PunchES martin in the face.
MARTIN: Aaargh! Oh holy s---. Aaah! My nose! Oh F---! It's bleeding. Owwww, Maria!
MARIA (AS BATMAN): I said, I'm not Maria, I'm Batman. I also said, take off your pants.
2 tags
4 tags
2012 - Blog resumes
I heard that the end of the world will be rolling around again this year. Much like it did last year with the Rapture happening and all that.
I probably picked a bad time to start a load of long term projects.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in my house putting words in specific orders. Writing a book for adults to read is much more difficult than writing a play for children. It requires...
December 2011
4 posts
2 tags
October 2011
4 posts
There’s a weird energy in Dunedin tonight. It’s all halloween and occupy dunedin and random people swearing at each other.
I’m in livingspace apartments and trying to write somethign that was meant to be whimsical and fun but gets increasingly more violent and perverse the further I go. I think the swears floating up from the street may have something to do with that.
Or...
If you wanted to always get great reviews for a show or a movie or something that you wrote you should write it about a reviewer of that kind of media who is awesome.
You should make sure it is accurate to that world. Then the reviewer would be like “HOLY SHIT I AM IMPORTANT!” and then they would give a great review so more people could see them up to their work.
3 tags
September 2011
7 posts
1 tag
Troglodyte Underclass
Local train. Middlesbrough to Darlington. Noise cancelling headphones on, working like earmuffs, this train sounds like a bag of rivets thrown into a cheap washing machine. In front of me scruffy youth, whispy beard, greasy hair. Greaser nerd rather than greaser thug, headphones and laptop rather than headcase with lager.
Finger up nose, first knuckle deep. Look out the window. It’s not a...
Meeting people is easy.
I tell a lie at the end of my show (it’s scripted, I didn’t write it) which is “if you’d like to come up and say Hi i’d be really pleased to meet you.”
I think people can tell I’m lying when I say this as mostly they don’t. I prefer this. The show is the show, I’m not the person that was in the show, I’m way more boring and anti-social,...
3 tags
All Black Acrostic Poem!
If I know New zealand primary school educators there’s going to be a rash of All Black acrostic poem assignments being handed out. Kids! Cheat! Just copy one of your Unky Dan’s poems here and watch as you get extra attention from your teacher, guidance counsellor and police community liaison officer!
1
Always
Leave
Lingering
Bruises.
Living room
Attacks.
Casual
Kicks
Score...
3 tags
2am
I got back to the guesthouse where I am staying after a long walk and an even longer session of drinking with buskers. I washed my feet in cold cold water and then fell on the bed and passed out.
My jetlag woke me up, and I stumbled back to the bathroom, pissed and glugged down several glasses of water.
There was a knock on my door.
Why is housekeeping here I wonder. Surely it’s not...
8 tags
Been on the go for 19 hours. Drinking a coffee so i don’t fall asleep in the airport and miss my flight coz you can’t go through the gate until the LAST POSSIBLE MINUTE.
Feel like ass. Reconstituted ass. not even the genuine article.
got another 13 hour flight coming up. Gonna sit down and put on headphones and sunglasses and take a pill and drift away to a land of sleeps where i...
I keep accidentally being an asshole.
Cutting in lines, taking too many snacks, oredering all the gin.
This must be what it feels like to be american,
Fuck yeah!
August 2011
16 posts
Tag lines for new business cards
Creative Asshole
Wandering Comic Hobo
Unemployed Hopeful
Who?
Drinker of poor quality wines
Cold Cuts a specialty
Magical wizard of theatrical happenstance
your mom likes him. In the ass.
Will work for food and praise
Usually sober!
Eldest child syndrome
Tear this card up and your wishes will come true
Not a robot (unless that’s what you want)
Did a thing one time, it was...
Internet popular (guilt)
In my 150 odd blog posts/reblogs/cute kittens far and away the most popular one has been DEAD BALLERINAS.
This says a lot about who is on the internet.
Now I am worried that I am glamourising death to the easily swayed.
So.
Dear Ballerinas.
Do not drown yourself in the Lake. You’re missing the point. Life is too too short. Being dead is only sexy until your body gets cold and stops...
3 tags
Finality
Tonight will be my last performance at Scared Scriptless in the forseeable future. I have worked as a professional improviser for the Court Jesters for nearly ten years. I have met many of my favourite people through it as well as many of my favourite creative collaborators. My work there exposed me to the Court Theatre who have given me many interesting and exciting opportunities to act, write...
An exchange that wasn't nearly as cruel as it...
Camera: Looking good Dan. Ready?
Me: always good man. Ready to go when you are. Just waiting on FUCKING SOUND!
Sound: Dude, your mic's on. I can hear you.
Me: Then why aren't we going?
Sound: Fuck you.
3 tags
4 tags
ABstaining
For those of an international persuasion, or those who avoid the news, internet and water coolers a quick recap. Here are the facts: (also, how are you reading this?)
1) NZ will host the rugby world cup in 2011.
2) Telecom NZ is a major sponsor of both this event and the All Blacks (I’m not actually fact checking this, but it sounds plausible- It’s one or the other or both, I...
I am very adult
Today I have resisted the following IMMATURE and CHILDISH THINGS
- Drawing crying minotaur on myself with vivid
- posting obscure song lyrics as status updates/tweets
- sitting in the snow as an endurance test
- eating raw sugar
- drinking
- working on anything that could be deemed useful or productive by the National Government
I am a full grown man!
2 tags
dead ballerinas
An old tradition of the ballet is that if a prima ballerina dies while in a show, they do the show the next day without replacing her and just move the spotlight through the space she would’ve occupied, marking out the path she no longer inhabits.
Defined by absence and chorus.
I find this beautiful.
Hansel and Gretel show trailer (moving pictures) →
If you can correctly pronounce every word in this...
crimsun:
Read More
me: Make sure you really cue that line up, as it propels the next phase of action.
Tim: That really made you sound like a director.
Me: Really?! Awesome! Annabel, whatever I just said, write that down!
3 tags
On moving to Auckland
Very soon my final two contracts in Christchurch will finish up. When that happens I will have a short while to potter about (maybe finish Mass Effect 2 on hardcore) do a smattering of gigs, spend a day or three in Dunedin watching Avenue Q and seeing my dear friend Kathleen Burns.
Then I have a month of things to do in the UK, talking to university students about how to not be dicks and seeing...
2 tags
The internet is awesome (also, shit)
I did a thing a while ago, where I was booked to write and perform a comedy lecture for the university of about a half an hour in duration with slides and things.
It was a lot of fun, we ended up having to do it extra times due to the popularity of it (caused in no doubt by the attendence of Misters Paul Ego and Leigh Hart from the television) and I must say I was very pleased with how my piece...
July 2011
4 posts
3 tags
On monday
Yesterday i went to a meeting looking suspiciously like a hobo, in a suit, driving a sports car. The meeting was with someone i had never met but who wanted to engage my services as a comic writer. I said yes. I have a difficult task but i think a good deal. We shall see. I already wrote some jokes for them and that is ahead of schedule.
The outline is due on monday.
Today i was at coffee...
5 tags
Believing (On Norway)
Believing stuff is very important to me. If you’re making things in an imaginary world, as I do a lot of the time for most of my various works, you rely on the ability of the human brain to construct a separate reality from the one they are in. In the business we call this the ‘suspension of disbelief’ to make it seem safe. But it is not safe. Not at all. It is loaded with power...
I’m going to pretend that the spam bot that just left notes on a whole load of my posts is a real person.
Ditto at least five of my followers.
Thanks for your love automated robots.
