on the brow of the hill

one of my earliest memories in life is walking the streets of Hillbrow, on a Saturday night, aged 5 years, with a guy called Ian Mcleod, and a carload of university students, armed with a plastic bag full of ‘the complete gospel of john’ books in a variety of languages such as southern sotho, pedi and xhosa, striking up conversations with people we would meet on the streets, telling them God loved them, and in many cases praying with them, right there on the street.

There is no way it can be a true memory, because I can’t see my parents letting me out on the streets of Hillbrow at the age of five. But it definitely happened as a semi regular event (I remember going out a bunch of times with them) and we moved away from Jo’burg when I was 12 years old, so I must have been fairly young to be doing such a great and crazy thing. I’m just not sure why my brain thinks I was five (much better story perhaps – ‘the stories we tell are better than the stories we live’ – darin petersen). And we are talking 80s SouJesus rica here. Crazy times indeed.

i often think of those times and remember how carefree and fearless i was back then and don’t think i have come close to being that way since.

And last night, as I stood in the middle of a street in downtown Hillbrow (not sure there is an uptown Hillbrow) with my new friend Nigel (who i originally met online and through reading inspiring and challenging articles he had written) at round about 11pm and prayed with and for a young guy struggling with heroin addiction who just wants to be clean and to stop slipping back (and whose swollen eye bore testimony to the story of hours he had been robbed and beaten up earlier while selling clothes) those childhood memories came flooding back. And it felt so good. Like this is where I am meant to be… and this is what i am meant to be doing right now.

i thought about how in philly, and even maybe oakland, we had slipped into the idea and story of how that poverty looks different but is essentially the same as this (not true – took driving into hillbrow for one minute to know this is a far more hectic and messy than anything I have witnessed in Americaland so far).

i thought about how we allow ourselves to be convinced that living a messy uncomfortable sacrificial life as a Jesus follower is right for some people but not for others (and how for some people just showing up once a week and throwing something in the offering plate is more than enough – i’m convinced it’s not) and how challenging others to be radical or revolutionary in their faith is only cool as long as it doesn’t mean we are judging them or making them feel guilty and even the idea of possibly crossing that line and horror-of-horrors making someone feel bad for living in materialism and wastefulness and not actively following Jesus is strongly frowned upon.

i think about how dangerous the ideas and practices of ‘political correctness’ can be and how Jesus was kind of a lot of the opposite of politically correct in much of His thought and word and deed.

i think about a largely complacent church where we rally the troops in a national campaign to defend the right to hit our children, but make much less of a stir when it comes to issues of poverty and homelessness and reconciliation and the increasing amounts of orphans in our land and world because of AIDS. But we must be allowed to hit our kids!

And more… watch this space…

This trip has come at an important time and at a new milestone in my life… And it feels like God is stirring and shaking and moving and waking and I cannot afford to miss that or not respond as I see His hand and hear His voice.

What about you?

Top posts of 2013

2013 has been a good blogging year.

Moving from the completely packed schedule and lifestyle of working with The Simple Way in Philly to working a 30 hour work week with Common Change in Oakland meant that i had a lot more time and opportunity to write [at least until i started working as the youth leadery guy at Re:Gen church and things got a little busy again] this year. I also cut down from the two blogs to focus on Irresistibly Fish and also had a bit of a revelati0nary revolution moment a month or so ago where i transitioned to really trying to write what i really wanted to and trying to steer clear of writing for the sake of writing. i also cut down on the stat watching, which can be an unhelpful motivator and am just trying to write more solid and effective posts, and also to share more of me.

So this is just a summary of some of the best and most enjoyable and most popular and thought provoking posts of 2013 and the opportunity to catch up on some you may have missed. I really appreciate those of you who read and like and share and write encouraging things along the way – this really has felt like a journey we are doing together so thank you. And i REALLY REALLY love it when people comment and add their thoughts and start conversations in the comments section after a post and am hoping for more of that in 2014 – trying to find ways of wrestling with tough issues together or sharing funny stories with each other or whatever it is.

So here we go – a selection of some of the posts that stood out for me [and maybe you] in 2013:

MOST PERSONAL – it’s hard to look back over a whole year’s worth of posts and pick the most anything post but definitely in recent times it was the series i am still busy writing, titled ‘The Serious Quest for Funny’ that started out as me trying to figure out why i was struggling to write funny and ended up as a bit of an autobiographical story-telling which included some stories [the bit about being bullied for example and the failed cricketing career] that i have never told anyone before. The length of it meant a lot of people didn’t read it, which was fine, because i think that one became mostly for me, but reading it will give you some greater insight as to how serious i view my funny. The second one that comes to mind was titled ‘A Kiss Before Dying’ and was influenced by the sad and way too soon death of my beautiful cousin Laura who lost the battle to cancer [shortly after she got married] prompting me to write something reminding us to find ways of saying the things we say at funerals about people to those people before they die. Ah, and who could forget this straight-out-of-a-movie speed-defying dash from and to an airport in the quest to find Val’s lost wedding ring before she stepped on to the plane out of South Africa, titled ‘How to make this man cry at an airport’.

MOST POPULAR SERIES – While the Taboo Topics series on my blog remains my favourite and really has felt powerful in seeing people share personal  stories of rarely spoken about experiences [such as losing a child, infertility, raising a child when it isn’t all that easy, singleness, abortion etc], there was a series towards the end of the year where i invited some friends of mine to share stories of ‘How to Raise your Children as World Changers’ and this was immensely popular and brought forward some incredibly inspiring ideas worth passing on to anyone you know who is trying to raise young children as human beings who really make a difference in their world. Whether you have children or not, this is a series that is worth taking a look at just to be inspired and encouraged at what some people are doing.

MOST POPULAR POST – This one was one of the posts from the Raising your Children as World Changers series and it completely blew away every other post on my blog this year with double the views on every other post except for one [which was an introduction to a different series] and it was from my fairly new friend [who i am looking forward to meeting face to face in just under two weeks time] Nigel Branken and his family who moved into Hillbrow as they felt called by God to live in a difficult area and be part of the change they wanted to see there. So Meet Nigel and Trish Branken and the rest of their family. 

RUNNER UP POPULAR POST AND SERIES – This post, which was titled ‘How to save a marriage [before you need to]’ is actually from 2012 and has found a lot of airplay this year largely due to me adding links to it in a lot of Relevant Magazine articles i have seen on Relationships, and yes, i translate Paul’s ‘be all things to all people in order to win some‘ to mean ‘spam your weblinks around when you are advertising some really great writings of other people’ – This was a series where I asked a whole bunch of my married friends to share one piece of advice about something that helped grow and strengthen their marriage and so there were a lot of different flavours from a  variety of different people who have been married for different lengths of time.

ROUNDING UP THE TOP FIVE WITH SOME TABOOS – interestingly enough, many of the next popular posts of the year were Taboo Topic related. The intro to the Singleness stories continues to be really popular and is the 3rd most read post on my blog ever which tells you something. That was followed by the intro to Sex in Marriage which people were really interested in [you think?] and which i could still use some stories for [married people friends of mine?] and then thirdly the Parents of young children [when it hasn’t been all that easy] post by my friend Candi Bradley who has really just exploded into her writing this year, sharing some amazing pieces with me as well as getting her personal blog up and running and being asked to write and speak at various places. You should check this one out.

WALK THROUGH THE BIBLE: In my attempts to be more regular in my Bible reading, i have used blogging to help keep me partially accountable and invited others to wander through the Bible with me.  I am currently about to start chapter 13 in my walk through the Gospel of Mark which has taken the form of a series of 3 to 8 minute videos as i work from passage to passage titled ‘Mark, my words’. I am also doing a written walk through the Psalms and just recently started a new series where i look at a selection of My favourite verses in the Bible and explain why i find them helpful or challenging.

HONOURABLE MENTION: Other posts that stand out for me as i look over the stats of this last year include Bono’s ‘Jesus doesn’t let you off the hook’, this great community compiled list of ‘Questions to ask round the dinner table [particularly if you have children] and the incredible post share i was given permission for of  ‘a letter, from Magda Pecsenye, to her sons about stopping rape’, which, whether you have children or not is an excellent read; and lastly the inspirational share by my friend Uel Maree, who was paralysed in a diving accident and yet has demonstrated so much hope and life and humour as he has dealt with his new look life since then in this ‘Sharing Dreams: Meet Uel Maree’ post.

FUNNIEST POSTS: As i am still trying to find my funny when it comes to writing blog posts, i had to mostly rely on Stephan Pastis, creator of Pearls before Swine, my favourite comic strip and the most popular strip of his i shared this year was titled ‘Fasting Morons’ while i now have a collection of his strips which i enjoy stored over here if his humour is something you resonate with. However, this piece entitled Cloud Man from my old ‘Weekly Mash’ blog still never fails to make me smile or laugh out loud. And while i have not come up with any new ones for a while, my dabbling with Jack Handeyesque humour from time to time occasionaly has led to a gem or two which i store on my Brett Andy blog. My alter ego, Brad Fish, has been a little less regular with his video series on ‘Dangerous Things you can Least Expect’ although he has a small but loyal following of people and so i keep whipping those out from time to time – i feel like i completely peaked with this one i did on there being too much violins in the world [with the solution being more sax obviously] with the most recent one being a complete explanation of that amazing song and video ‘What the Fox says’ – so lots of silly fun [if you’re just discovering DTYCLE and find that you like them there is now an archive with 25 different episodes]

POSTS THAT FLEW BENEATH THE RADAR: Lastly, if i look at the stats, there are some posts i did that didn’t get much viewing that i thought or hoped would be more popular [there can be many reasons for this and often it is simply because it was a busy time and no one saw it] and so i would like to highlight some that i wished more people had seen:

Let’s start with the controversial ‘Manchester United beat poverty by three goals to hunger’ which made some people very angry with me, which is great cos it means conversation happened – any time i suggest sports people [and i think the same about actors, politicians, CEOs, pastors] get paid disgusting amounts of money, people get cross with me and it’s usually christians which i don’t think i will ever understand [just how vehemently people can defend some of those salaries when people are dying with nothing – my brain is not big enough to fit around that one]

Talking about struggling to write funny stuff on my blog, i guess i could just transpose all the accent misunderstandings that have happened in my preaching time like the time half the church heard me say ‘God, You’re hot’ [Guard your heart] or the time i literally told people that ‘No-one comes to church with their junk hanging out’

Obviously a significant year and time for all of us in South Africa [and the world] with Nelson Mandela passing on and there was so much being written and shared that it is not surprising that the piece i wrote, ‘The Greatest man who ever lived? A tribute to Nelson Mandela’ was missed by many.

This piece on ‘What makes Jesus sadder’ was a reflective piece which was very helpful for me, and might be good for a bunch of you to read as well.

And lastly, this piece called ‘Things i would love for you to know’ and its follow up piece i was really hoping more people would read and share with others, but for some reason didn’t.

So there you have it, there has obviously been a whole lot more but i have enjoyed writing and sharing and wrestling with you and so thank you to all of you who do spend time here and i hope this is a place that encourages and challenges and inspires and makes you laugh. I do hope we will have more engagement and interaction in 2014 and i will continue to try and write and share pieces that will add to your lives. If you find stuff that you like or find helpful, i always appreciate it being shared on your social networks so thanks for helping spread the word.

Last thing i want to point out in case you have missed it, is the tabs at the top of my blog which store some of the most important things and give easy-to-find access to topics such as Relationships and Taboo Topics, The Bible  and Fun, oh and since getting my Nexus Tablet i have started getting more creative and writing some poetry again which has been great and which you can find here,  with this and disappointment/disappointed being two that stood out in recent time.

See you in 2014… or later today and tomorrow and then 2014…

 

the serious quest for funny [part ii]

[Continued from part i]

as i said before, one thing i take really seriously in life, is humour:

‘To me, clowns aren’t funny. In fact, they’re kind of scary. I’ve wondered where this started and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus, and a clown killed my dad.’

[Jack Handey] 

‘I imagine a horse drawn carriage would be a really ugly thing. For starters, it must be almost impossible to grip a pencil with hooves. Plus there is all that fine detail around the edges to consider.’

[Brett Andy]

[one of my funniest guys followed by one of my attempts at making humour like on of my funniest guys, which you can find more of here]

so i didn’t actually plan to write the previous blog post – it just kinda was there and i started on it and suddenly it became this thing needing to be ended off before it became a book and since i hadn’t finished going where i was wanting to go when i started it, i figured i should carry on. it was one of the most personal blogs i have written and contained some stories and revelations that i have never really shared with anyone, especially the bullying stuff. i guess because my self-identity was pretty strong from quite a young age, due to my faith in God, that that stuff never really got to me so much, or at least not in a way that led to any destructive behaviour or anything.

one of the main points of it was that i really hoped to be quite funny in life and in certain contexts and with particular people i have been – and maybe that is enough, or should be – but i guess i always secretly harboured the hope that on stage or in a book or online or something i would be ‘discovered’ and a whole lot more people would find me funny. and also wanting to write a funnier blog [not always but sometimes, something that would really make people happy] and realising that for me that is a really difficult thing to do – i really seem to struggle to write funny [more than i struggle to be funny] and i’m not sure why that is, but stop it.

someone who i think achieves that writing-wise is a woman named Jamie Wright who calls herself The Very Worst Missionary and her blog makes me smile and laugh on quite regular occasions, but she also totally knows how to drive an uber serious point home and nail it between your eyes. [a classic of hers would be how she manages to capture so brilliantly awkwardly her mistrust and lack of skill at ‘The Hug’ – take a look at this one!]

when it comes to stand-up, which i’ve always wanted [but been too scared] to try, i have a strong feeling that once i got going i would be great because one of my skills is working a crowd – i have just never been able to come up with the starting material to lay a good foundation to be able to work a crowd from. and so i never have. and perhaps i never will. [although in my mind i still like to at least think i will and maybe the material that is naturally rushing towards me in the Americans and African Geography theme might be enough for a set one day altho i will need to disclaim that this is a true story… no, South Africa itself is a country. please stop asking me what country i am from. still South Africa. yes.]

THE FRIEND WHO DID LIGHTS AND AN IMPROV LIFELINE

i guess one of the things i am most grateful to my ex-girlfriend Kirsty for, is having a friend called Karen.

Karen used to do the lights for an improv comedy show in Cape Town called TheatreSports [altho these days they are now called Improguise and they do TheatreSports]and because we were friends with her we ended up going to see quite a lot of their shows. and because we went to see quite a lot of their shows i feel like we eventually got to see them for free or something.

but i sat there for a year and i watched these masters of comedy and improvisation and i thought to myself repeatedly, ‘i can do that’ although in my head i imagine the word ‘better’ probably ended off that particular sentence.

and so, somehow i ended up doing the TheatreSports course with one of the scariest women [when she is mad] who was [and always has been in my experience] the most gentlest person when leading people through a very scary-by-nature class where it is all about making things up on the spot [and perhaps trying to have those things make people laugh!] and who led [and leads] and incredible class and i really, honestly believe that everyone in the world should do the Introduction to TheatreSports course once in their life as it is so helpful for learning to think creatively, for helping break your inhibitions and for teaching you how to be generous in helping other people look good.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

# let me give a bit of a sidebar here, because i believe this is of the utmost importance in terms of my journey – the way TheatreSports generally works is that you do the course and then there are three options given to you:

1. Thanks for doing the course. I hope you had fun. You will make an excellent librarian.

2. Thanks for doing the course. I hope you had fun. We would love to have you as part of our team. Feel free to join us for class once a week and we would love you to do the front of house and lights for approximately 6 months before you ever have a hope of being on stage. [this is not said to people but is the general understanding – new people from a course do door and lights for about 6 months before any of them are given a shot on stage and some of them might never be]

3. Thanks for doing the course. I hope you had fun. We would like you to play in two week’s time.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

From most of the courses i have been around for, i can’t remember many more than three people [out of a group that might be 15 to 25] be asked to join us for class. i think everyone who has been invited to class has been a number 2 in terms of the descriptions above.

In fact, i have only ever seen one number 3 that i remember [and that could really just be my memory, but this is the one that stands out] and that was me. And i honestly don’t know that i would have managed to stick around for 6 months not playing if i had not been given the chance. Hopefully i would have. But i know for absolute sure, that the fact that i got on to stage to play with them almost immediately was the hugest boost for my confidence and in my opinion, improvisation is 80% confidence and 20% skills and funny or something like that.

Ashley Brownlee and Megan Choritz, now Furniss, are in my opinion the best TheatreSports players i have ever worked with [and there have been a bunch of other hugely talented people as well] and the secret with them was that they could come up with amazing ideas most of the time… but on occasion they could also have a pretty crap idea and deliver it with an amazing character or with such incredible confidence that it would be brilliant and the audience would love them. i have seen many lesser skilled players have amazing ideas and deliver them nervously and they have crashed and burned. so much of it is confidence. and i am so grateful that, for what ever reason [maybe shortage of players when i was around] i was given the chance to get on to the stage quite quickly.

and sometimes i was good. and sometimes i was really really bad.

i remember one excrutiating Rag show we did in the Baxter theatre [an annual show for the local university students where they got stand-up often filthy comedy for an hour and then we brought our family friendly show for an hour] where we were playing a warm-up game called ‘Environment’ which is a guessing game where the audience pick three words while you are out of the room and then you come in and play the scene in the environment they give you and try stumble on to the words.

Ashley Brownlee: best guy i ever played with.

 Ours was set in a Spur and i got stuck on stage as the head waiter or chef as teammate after teammate came on and guessed food suggestions for the last word we just couldn’t get and left again. Embarrassing, awkward, awful and i died a little inside. fortunately i also remember one of my highlight moments ever came at the end of that show and i forget the exact scene but we were playing Music Style Replay and Ashley and i managed to get our tongues stuck to a frozen ski lift and were singing a rousing duet that brought the house down.

i played with the TheatreSports crew for just under a year and in the beginning there is very much [even if just in your head] the feeling of you being the newcomer and this subtle gap between you and the regular players – they don’t treat you any differently and it is probably again linked to a confidence thing [as early on, most of the notes sessions we have after a show where we discuss how things went and try to learn from them, seem to be aimed at you because you are messing up the most] but i do remember the moment ‘it happened’ and suddenly i was one of the team – and having played for 11 years with them i got to see that dynamic happen with other people as well where there is this moment of ‘yup, you’re really in’ and i imagine each player probably experiences that differently.

so if my first lifeline was being thrown quickly on to stage, my second lifeline happened a year or two later. as i mentioned i was with TheatreSports for a year and then i went overseas to do the Youth With A Mission course that i did in Holland, heading to the UK and London specifically first so as to make money to pay for it. but before i left i really thought it would be a great idea to proselytise the entire team and in a very messy way that was brought about by circumstances and time constraints and fear i guess, i ended up writing a long letter comparing aspects of TheatreSports and improv games and then giving it to each of them and leaving the country.

it did not go down so well.

SO MUCH GRACE AND LOVE 

and i was away for just over a year and i knew that everyone was really pissed with me. and so i just tried to keep/build relationship by sending postcards and emails and staying in touch and letting them know that i missed them.

time managed to heal a lot of wounds. and my TheatreSports crew were incredibly gracious. i remember literally having one moment back stage with my ‘Stunt Double’ friend Sarah before going on to do a show and then it was left in the past. it was a few months after my return that i felt my moment of transition from ‘new guy’ to ‘one of the team’ and i just soared from there.

so much fun. so much funny. so many great memories and great memories of not-so-great-corporate-show memories and trips to Namibia and Sun City and all around Cape Town for a whole bunch of very different shows. i loved getting to lead TheatreSports courses with Megan and others in the team. quite possibly one of the fun highlight moments of life [and a running gag between me and my teammate] was the time Fiona Du Plooy and i were doing a workshop at a boy’s school in Cape Town and playing a game where you basically set up the next kid in line with an action [with the strong instruction to never make anyone do anything you would not do yourself] and one of the boy’s when asked ‘what are you doing?’ [usually the answer is something like ‘I’m eating an ice-cream’ and then the next kid mimes eating an ice-cream] responded with ‘I’m sucking a ferret’ and despite losing Fiona almost completely to giggles at the suggestion, before we had a chance to interject and re-emphasise the instruction, the next boy in line mimed sucking a ferret as if it were a giant lollipop… needless to say we needed a time-out to get Fiona back and it has been a private joke between us for years…

the key focus of TheatreSports is teamwork and making each other look good and i think i took a little while to learn that one, whereas i was surrounded by generous folks who were always modelling it for me – but i tended to try to get the laugh for myself and often do it at the expense of the scene or the believability of the scene and that was never very cool of me and i often got ‘shouted at’ in notes. i guess it was the struggle between finally having the space and the skills to be funny and having people [a whole audience of them] think i was. but i owe so much to that tireless group of improvisers who showed me grace and forgiveness and patience on so many occasions as i learnt to do improvisation more as a team player.

altho one aspect does stand apart from all of that. my favourite game from the beginning [my watching days] was a game called Sign, where much like the recent Mandela memorial service, someone gets up and makes up a whole lot of sign language. the game is played as an interview where two people are given a topic and the third person recreates the entire interview in a made-up sign language.

in my opinion, Ashley Brownless is the king of that game. is and always will be. i used to love watching him do the sign language and because he was so good, no one else ever wanted to try it. if we played Sign, Ashley was going to do the signing.

i imagine there must have been times when Ashley wasn’t around during our time at TS together and i probably would have tried doing it. but it was really when Ashley left that i started doing it more and more and then suddenly i became the go-to person for sign and at some point people even started referring to it as my game. that was a big moment for me. i have always said that i am not as good an actor as most of the rest of TheatreSports [who generally had some kind of dramatic training] and so when it comes to creating [and holding] characters and making scenes happen, i was always on the back foot [especially in the early days, hopefully i’ve improved]. so i used to generally excel at games that involved words or quick wit or cleverness [my absolute favourite game being one we invented as a team called Jonathan’s Lisp where we would get two consonants from the audience and if it was a ‘F’ and a ‘P” then ever ‘F’ in the scene that our characters spoke would be replaced with a ‘P’ – it was a lot of silly pun].

so the idea that i was really good at one particular game really was a great ego and confidence boost for me. and i just also loved playing that particular game so much as well.

and so being part of that amazing group of creative and clever and witty and adventurous and generous people is one of the things i really miss a lot from being away from South Africa [for close to three years now – although in Jan this year they let me play a bunch of shows when i was there and that was so much fun!]

MY NON-EXISTENT [SO FAR] INTERNATIONALIMPROV CAREER

and i did audition for two shows while i was over here:

[1] the first was a group called Comedysportz in Philly and they were really great – as with TheatreSports days of old i would sit in the audience and watch their show and think, ‘I am definitely better than at least half of these people’ and so i was super amped to play but in all honesty probably would not have had the time with our Philly work/home schedule – I went to an audition [and i really suck at auditions – my humour, as mentioned, works well playing off an audience] and thought i did decently, but they auditioned about a hundred people in three days in three minute auditions and so i really didn’t have much of a chance and didn’t make it. i was bummed, but playing improv for 11 years with an amazing bunch of people back home and knowing i could do it, meant that it didn’t ding my confidence or identity at all. their loss really. i still enjoyed watching a bunch of their shows and made friends with some of the people who played and they had some really great players as well.

[2] in the first few weeks in Oakland we found a place online and i went and auditioned there and they said they would email us back with the results within 24 hours and i never heard back from them. i auditioned with about 12 other people and easily thought i was in the top 2 so really didn’t think i wouldn’t get in. however, while i was auditioning, my wife Val was outside waiting for me and got to witness their ‘A-Team’ practising and she told me later it was a really horrible experience with people blocking each other and fighting on stage and just doing a bunch of stuff that didn’t make for good improv. so bullet dodged i guess.

but i do miss playing and am looking forward to a guest appearance at a show or two in Jan/Feb when we head home for a visit which is but weeks away. i have been playing around with the idea of perhaps running an improv course here in Oakland and seeing if we can get a little something together. but we will have to see.

so the TheatreSports crew and my years in improv definitely helped play a huge role in terms of me finding my funny and it has been so amazing to perform for and entertain literally thousands of people over the last decade and more. thank you thank you thank you to everyone who played big and small roles in that.

i feel like there is one more part to share [anyone make it down this far?] which will focus on the more recent years, my failed attempts at viral success and my discovery of a really tiny audience who really appreciate my funny way more than they should and have inspired me to keep on trying simply because i love seeing how they interact and looking at attempts at Jack Handeyesque humour, a nutcase called Brad Fish [who at least four schools in South Africa invited into their online classrooms to teach English to], my standup pulpit and the biggest [and sometimes hardest but most fulfilling when it comes] laugh to strive for – that of tbV.

to close off, one of my favourite movie lines which comes from a Bond movie and was perhaps meant in all seriousness, but which i find one of the greatest and funniest lines of all time – picture Sean Connery’s James Bond strapped to a table with a gold laser beam making its way slowly towards his privates as villain Auric Goldfinger looks on:

James Bond: Do you expect me to talk?

Goldfinger: No, Mister Bond, I expect you to die.

[to be continued…]

I did that. Gold medal right there.

and of course in 11 years of improv’ing where more often than not i have been on the opposing team to Megan, one of my favourite [naughty] things to do is when we do play a game together and i find a way to corpse [make her break character and laugh] her – because she is such a pro that it doesn’t happen often, hence the challenge, and the reward when this results:

[To continue on to part iii which looks largely at my stand-up preaching and the three jokes i invented, click here]

the serious quest for funny [part i]

one thing i take really seriously in my life, is my humour:

“She turned me into a newt!”

[pause]

“I got better.”

[Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail]

one of my favourite lines ever!

…and there have been so many. and i know that comedy appreciation is a very personal thing and so my “incredibly funny” might be your “pass the salt” but i can’t help feeling like i used to be funny…

i remember writing the funniest story ever when i was in school – i think it was some kind of messed up fairytale or something like that and it was so incredibly brilliant, at least until one thing happened. i read it. it might have been a year later –  i feel like some significant time had passed – but i read it and it was completely awful. worst story ever. okay, maybe not, but it was up there, or down there or something.

being funny was really important to me as a young child, cos i remember this one talent evening or something at the church where i dressed up crazy [which might be why i hate dressing up] and i took my 1001 jokes book [it was blue – these things stick with you] and i tried to be funny and i was laughed at. a lot.

but in the wrong way. when i look back now it was clearly bullying – two older guys who i looked up to [one of them in particular, and his dolt of a friend] really made fun of me and made me feel like a big piece of crap and when i remember back then i see that they did it in other ways as well and actually physically bullied me a bit as well [at the time i made all kinds of excuses for it, because after all they were the cool guys i wanted to impress and be around and so it was just stuff bigger kids did] and it definitely had a profound impact on me.

i think to some extent my self confidence was shot and i secretly [in my head or heart or wherever was left undamaged] vowed to myself to not perform for people again unless i was confident i could pull it off.

THE HUMOUR OF A MISSED CRICKET CAREER

this is somewhat linked to the time, i imagine, that i started getting interested in cricket and enjoyed watching it and then decided i wanted to play and so i went to a cricket practice but i remember that on the day i was on the field and heading towards where the cricket guys were practising [this was primary school still] and then for some reason i can’t remember, i wasn’t sure exactly where to go and i was scared of getting embarrassed by ending up at the wrong place and so i gave up and went home and just never gave it a try… became one of the hugest fans ever [on my last trip to South Africa i think we made amends when i dressed up with my buddy MJ as Lord of the Rings characters and he let me be Gandalf and even ducked back outside to get my staff the security had confiscated and snuck it back inside and we made it onto tv for a decent amount of time – thankx for the free therapy, buddy] but i never officially played and actually only ever played 3 or 4 social games of it my whole life and every single time [except the last time, which also brought on my MJ, had me damaging a finger before we started playing from a miscatch and then getting a giant roastie scar in the shape of Africa on my leg from sliding along the gravel trying to cut off a 4 – i didn’t] i took a Jonty Rhodes [my former hero and best fielder in the world ever, don’t even jokingly try bring up Ponting’s name] type catch… and still sometimes seriously wonder today if i wouldn’t have been a him type player if i’d had the confidence to just go to that practice. sad face.

but back to the comedy. so i started studying funny. not officially but in my mind, very intentionally i started watching what worked for other people and what didn’t and what i could do or say that would make people laugh and what didn’t and i constantly tried to work on becoming funnier [holding to that principle of i don’t want to try it unless i know it will succeed]

QUIETLY WORKING AT IT IN THE SHADOWS

i was friends in high school with a guy who went on to become one of South Africa’s more successful comedians in terms of one man shows and corporates and right now he is starring in a UK version of Aladdin alongside IQ heroine Jo Brand and getting his name dropped in virtually every review of the show as a standout performer. His name is Alan Committie and i’ve always felt that i was as funny as him at high school [i’m sure he’ll disagree, as will countless others, but i always thought so] but lacked the confidence to go on a stage and risk not being laughed at.

i really do believe that made the difference back then – i feel like Alan and i were both pretty funny, but he had the confidence and self belief to go with it and so he and a guy called Greg Hutch became the MC’s and faces-of-comedy and go-to people at our high school and i faded quietly into the background and had a largely lonely high school career as far as being at school was concerned. in fact, i was once bullied at high school [threatened?] into being in a drama play with a bunch of lazy thugs [at the time – they’re all marvelous well-adjusted people today, i’m sure] who didn’t want to do any work and so i wrote a piece-o-crap comedy for them to do and they absolutely stunk at it and it felt like a nice fine piece of revenge at the time…

i don’t know that i am as funny as Alan is – he is incredibly talented and i think it was the i’m-funnier-than-him notion in my head that i always held strongly on to when i saw a couple of his one man shows and thought he wasn’t ‘that great’ [especially the one where i threw peanuts at him or something from the audience and he eventually heckled me back] but i remember seeing him in ‘Defending the Caveman’ [which he took over from the incredibly talented Tim Plewman, who everyone raved about] having watched the original and not been as amped as everyone else… and really thinking Alan nailed it and was way better [don’t tell Tim!] but i think that was a bit of a healing piece for me to be able to see Alan after the show and genuinely be able to tell him i thought he was brilliant and then just being able to really cheer him on since then. and so cool seeing him absolutely blow audiences away over there and read amazing reviews and hear and see that he got to meet Andrew Flintoff and tell him that English cricket is pretty rubbish [not a joke!] Go Alan!

COLLEGE RE-INVENTION 

so i somehow ended up at Mowbray teacher’s training college learning how to be a primary school teacher. i had wanted to do a one year mission thing with Scripture Union and my folks hadn’t been so amped and so i went to a career’s guidance counselling evening at school  and the primary school teacher spoke the best and so i ended up there [true story]

i can’t remember how it happened but i do remember it being intentional. something about not digging being shadow man at school i decided that i was going to ‘take over the college’ [it was a small college of a thousand or two students] and become ‘the funny guy’ and somehow i managed it. it didn’t help that i wasn’t too interested in the primary school teaching aspects of the college with it not being my first choice and all and i also got involved with the wrong crowd early on [not so much the drug-taking, bank-robbing, mtv-award-twerking crowd as simply a bunch of okes who had failed a year at college and weren’t so much into the academic side of things]

within the first week i ended up giving blood for the first time [which i loved and love and you should do it and stop being a wuss! giving blood saves lives!] but i also somehow ended up being in the company of i think five students of which two had failed a year and one was my friend Heidi [who i a few years ago reconnected with on Facebook which has been great] who used to faint every time she gave blood and for some reason faking a faint from giving blood in the biggest lecture of the day suddenly became this thing to be done – we were about to have a lecture called ‘Intro to teaching’ which we thought was going to be done by one particular lecturer and so thought it would be fun if we walked into his class and i pretended to faint [i forget the reasoning, i told you i’m no Alan Committie] and so we planned the whole thing and Heidi gave me fainting tips and we did a few practice runs upstairs [the lecture was downstairs] and Ricky was going to walk behind me and catch me – plan sorted.

only problem was that as we were descending the stairs [a spiral staircase] next to the tiered lecture hall where the lecture was going to take place i peeked through the window and caught site of Dr Bauer. Now Dr Bauer was the lecturer i had met in my interview to gain acceptance at the college and he seemed like a much more important person than whoever was meant to be taking the class and so suddenly i was in two minds and was asking the gang, “um so Dr Bauer is there, should i still do it? hey guys, are we still going to go through with it?” and they just kept walking and totally ignored me and so we walked into the class, turned an immediate left and started walking up the stairs to our seats when suddenly i just decided NOW OR NEVER, closed my eyes and dropped…

side note: turns out that because that was our first week of teacher’s training college, the Intro to Teaching lecture was a time where the rector [principal] and heads of all the departments came down to share their wisdom and insights with all these young, passionate, first year students eager to learn how to become the best teachers they could be…

[time passed]

there was a lot of noise [part of it caused by me as Ricky had thought i was going to bail and so wasn’t ready to catch me and so i landed heavily on the floor] and i felt myself being lifted up [still not realising all of who was in the lecture hall as i was so nervously trying to figure out do we do this or not that i never saw any of the panel of lecturers] and carried out of the room and placed on the floor and i open my eyes and am staring into the eyes of the rector [quick decision: this is now a real faint brett, you really fainted, you didn’t joke faint – that’s the guy who can kick you out of the college] and so i instantly closed my eyes, trying not to laugh… Dr Bauer in the meantime paced it upstairs to the cafeteria and comes down and starts feeding me gummy bears to try and raise my sugar levels and the rector keeps telling me to open my eyes but every time i do i see him and Ricky and Dr Bauer and Heidi and i have to close them so as not to laugh… so here is the scene – fake faint boy lying on the ground being fed gummy bears opening and closing his eyes like some kind of blinking idiot [literally!]

i never got into trouble for that and so i like to kind of think we pulled it off, although i do remember the next day or later that week or something, bumping into Dr Bauer and he said something like “I know what you did” or “So you got away with it?” or something like that and when i stammered back, “Um, what?” he changed it to refer to something else [like handing in a piece of work or something like that] but he had the kind of wink in his eye that suggested that just maybe he had figured out that the whole thing was not completely legit…

so that was my introduction to college, and i [to some extent, at least in my own mind and memory, others may have other recollections of the time] became ‘the funny guy’ erasing all the bad memories of high school and finding that attention and crowd appreciation that i had so desired.

[this story, like any other, is so multi-layered so that definitely is not the whole of it and it doesn’t make sense that someone would go from not funny and behind the scenes to funny and center of some attention just like that – i had in the last couple of years been involved in many Scripture Union holiday clubs and week-long and weekend camps as well as been involved in youth ministry in church and i think had gained a lot of confidence and ability to make people laugh at those places which perhaps provided the springboard to intentionally launch myself forwards]

there is a lot more to say and so we’ll have to have another part – there are tales of improv and preaching and summer camps, Brett Andy and Brad Fish moments and whatever it was that got me to the point of sitting down and writing a post about wishing i was funny… er… and so to be continued…

but in the meantime, two other lines from two very silly movies that i really enjoy probably way more than i should are both relating to death and go:

“Kill him a lot!”

and

“Kill him until he dies from it!”

Anyone know the movies?

[continued over here with the Improv Years]

Time for a [Common] Change?

a friend of mine is in serious need of dental surgery… another friend who has a really tight budget has a car that is in serious need of tyre replacement before something goes horribly wrong… someone else i know has their house taken down by the latest hurricane to hit the states and are just needing a bit of a boost to pay a deposit and first month’s rent on an apartment for them and their child… a couple who are having quite a tough time due to the regular circumstances of life could really just use a bit of a weekend break away to be able to focus on their marriage…

as someone who is operating on a fairly tight budget, what do i say to these people? what can i do?

“I’ll pray for you.”

Not that praying for someone is wrong or bad, but if it is all i am able to do, then it does feel somewhat inadequate.

Especially if i can do much more. And the book of James in the Bible seems to suggest that we should:

15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. [James2]

Enter Common Change… the non-profit tbV and i work for… and the group we have been a part of for about a year and a half.

The needs mentioned at the start of this post are all ones that have been met by the group we are part of. Although not necessarily all personal friends of ours, we got to play some part in empowering their friends to walk alongside them as some or all of their need was met.

Here’s how it works:

# you register to Common Change and then either create a group [with a bunch of mates, work colleagues, small group at church, indoor hockey teammates] or join an existing group and start contributing usually a monthly amount to the group common pool.

# when someone in the group knows someone [one degree of separation] who has a need they present the need to the group on behalf of their friend.

# members of the group then respond by giving creative suggestions or asking deeper questions to try and figure out the best way to get involved in meeting the need [so drawing on the wisdom of the group]

# when the group has weighed in, a gift is sent to the person in need and the person who shared the need with the group is encouraged to walk the journey with their friend

it is that easy… and it can start small [ten people each giving 10 dollars suddenly have 100 dollars to be able to put towards a need] or be really huge [some people give fixed amounts, others give a percentage of their salary]

the aim is to eradicate economic isolation – instead of simply throwing money at needs or at organisations we are committing to get personally involved in relationships we already have where need exists and hopefully be part of making a long-term difference in someone’s life.

sound doable? interested in learning more or getting involved? email me at brett@commonchange.com and we can get this ball rolling…

Also, if you like the idea it would be great if you could share this link via your social networking vibes… thank you.

Open letter to Burger King regarding sad cyclist’s disease.

writing ‘open letters to’ seems to be the thing to do these days and i haven’t done one yet, so i thought i must give it a go.

i looked around and the ‘Open letter to Miley Cyrus’ and ‘Ben Affleck the new Batman? Great hordes of catfish’ inboxes were both full and overflowing and so i had to look elsewhere.

fortunately as i was pondering this very thing on my cycle home from helping out at a local Spanish congregation youth group [in which we sat around the table and bilingualled – it’s a word – what to do when you get a small stone or pebble in your shoe] i was presented with the perfect opportunity to do so.

realising on the ride home that the small stone or pebble might have been metaphoric [in which case my very practical assistance might have been somewhat off the mark unless it miraculously translated into helpful metaphorical advice when turned into the Spanish] i realised i was hungry and would give anything for a Burger King Coke slushee and sweet potato fries [i realised this by being hungry and the subliminal message magicked my way by the Burger King sign i chanced upon did the rest] and by ‘anything’ i meant the appropriate amount of money [or a quick lesson in three ball juggling if they were up for some skill swapping]

but when i got to the Burger King, the door was locked. and so in was sad because now i couldn’t enjoy a burger king Coke slushee and the aforementioned sweet potato fries [and i was prepared to settle for normal average potato fries if need be, i’m not that picky]

and then it dawned on me. no, i’m just kidding, it wasn’t THAT late yet. but i did come to realise that there was an alternative means of getting my mealic [that’s probably not a word] satisfaction… as i looked to the right i saw the Burger King drive-thru and knew that all my problems were solved [well not ALL of them, it’s going to take a lot more to get that nasty itch away, but that’s a different open letter]

so i cycled up to said drive-thru. and i decided upon my exact order [add chicken nuggets to the aforementioned slushee and fries cos i have to get my beautiful wife something] and got the attention of the person behind the speaker screen and started to make my order.

she interrupted me. something about “I’m sorry sir, but we can’t serve you because you’re on a bicycle and not in a car.”

I’m sorry, WHAT? Had i missed the ‘don’t make an order if you’re not in a car but on a bicycle’ sign? I looked around. I hadn’t.

Was Burger King really going to push the word “Drive” from the phrase “Drive-thru” to its extreme? They were.

oh I’m sorry [I wasn’t!] – is my cycling money not as powerful a persuasive buying resource as the next person’s car money? [turns out it was not!]

and i don’t they would have even have let me barter my poorly-looked-upon cycling money for the next person who drove’s up ‘highly-appreciated car money’ either. she sounded pretty definitive.

i felt as awkward as a Will Smith family at a Miley Cyrus twerkathon.

the end.

you hear that, Burger King? The end. No happy ending. Just a coke slushee and sweet potato [or regular potato, I’m really not fussy!] and chicken nuggets free evening.

of sadness.

i hope you will consider adding ‘cycling money’ to your ‘car money’ monopoly ridden drive-thru’s in future revampings of company policy. i imagine i am not the only sad cyclist you have caused on this continent. do you want to be responsible for sad cyclist disease?

yes, oh Burger King, sad cyclist disease!

wait, is there an actual Burger King? what is your crown made of? argh, who cares, you suck. cycling money!

your humble servant [who thinks you’re a bit of a car money tyrant!]

brett fish

The People With Too Much Time On Their Hands [PWTMTOTH]

i post a lot of things from a previously fictional collective group i like to refer to as ‘The People With Too Much Time On Their Hands’ – usually brilliantly creative, innovative, full of flair and just stuff that would take way way too long for normal folks like us to put together.

and then i saw this clip.

i think these actually ARE those people… this is insane and you just really have to hope they captured it on the first try…

[If you enjoyed that and have more time on your hands to enthusiastically embrace, you might enjoy these other two cycling trick videos]