So I wrote the first two parts a couple of weeks ago, about the chaos of working at Jongleurs.

So the boss’s friends kids were not getting any work done, the rest of us were always on the phone or answering emails with computers that froze, then real chaos started.

The Camden Dingwalls venue had gigs on some Saturdays that we weren’t informed of, so we started having to call 200 people on a Friday telling them the show tomorrow was cancelled.

The Brighton venue closed down with no notice, so 40 people showed up to a show that didn’t exist.

When I talked to other comedians about this, they’d moan about their last Jongleurs gig, but they were earning £250-£300 for 20 minutes work, and I was earning £8 an hour to be shouted at by, as well as customers, a lot of comedians calling up and demanding their money.

Processing returns of money was a nightmare, we were being shouted at all the time.

A new staff member was a young black guy who told us how he’d made a lot of money dealing drugs, used it to open a tattoo parlour that was making him a living, had started a family and was lucky enough to not really need the money, but just did this to keep himself busy.

One day when another staff member was in training, he went on a rant telling him how his cousin was gay, and while he didn’t judge him, he was sure he was going to hell. He was saying this in a loud, shouty voice and I put my call on pause and, probably sarcastically and petulantly, asked him to keep it down when I was on a call. He stood up and told me to show him some respect when I talked to him, properly shouting now.

The next day we were both called into the manager’s office, she said she was angry at both of us and asked us what had happened. The colleague said it word for word ‘I was telling the trainee about my gay cousin and how I loved him but thought he was going to hell….’, the manager rolled her eyes, told me I was fine and gave him some kind of meaningless verbal warning.

I had a real respect for the way the other staff member just told the truth, I’ve spent my life pussyfooting around things. I also don’t think he was homophobic in a hateful way, just a kid – 22 or something and a charming guy who didn’t take life too seriously. I only described him as a ‘black guy who used to deal drugs’ cos this was 5 years ago, memory fades, and I couldn’t tell you his name if you paid me. But it was also just depressing to realise I was in a job where you could be the best staff member or the worst and it didn’t matter. I wasn’t the best, but the other ones that were putting overtime into trying to keep the office afloat were fighting a losing battle.

Jongleurs had invested a huge amount of money into the business right before the 2008 recession, looking to re-emerge as a national brand. They were set up by Maria Kempinska in the 80s and she sounded like a good promoter. She booked a lot of female and BME acts, gave it a variety feel, attracted a lot of drunk banker types. From what I’ve heard about the history her husband thought he could compete with the Comedy Store, blew all the money on the britpop Cool Brittania Cocaine and PR style that took over all the arts, and they never recovered. By the time I was there they’d been bankrupt 3 or 4 times over the years and were circling the toilet bowl of finally going out of business, which they did a couple of years later.

I’ll give more details tomorrow.

I’ve found a way to make it through the day

The old chef habit of the 6-8am wake up depending on the laziness

4 cigarettes before noon

writing or a quiet pint or a walk or a job application

eggs for breakfast

bacon for lunch

family dinner

a youtube playlist of old wrestling interviews or clips of iggy pop in 82

it’s the nights that it comes

like staring death in the face

i know it will go away, but what good’s that to me?

the haunting

i sleep it off, am grateful that i’m not an insomniac anymore

wake up and start again

4 months in a house staring at a wall.

I see them all the time, the old comedians in the circuit. Less and less these days, but we do come into contact.

I want to say – as they ask me about anything except the past

I disagreed with you, and I still do.

I was angry, and I still am.

but it’s still me guys

I’m still Josh

I know you think I was someone else

But it’s always just been me

Owen is Touring the UK and Europe in February, playing shows in Brighton, Southampton, London, Leeds, Glasgow, Manchester, Dublin etc. I wrote it in my own sub-par Gonzo style, including myself in the questions to try and help give a personal feel and a quick retrospective on his work

When I was performing stand up I was obsessed with American stand up comedians. Particularly lesser heard of names from the past like Emo Philips or Jack Benny. Your music is often compared to The Smiths or The Cure or Belle and Sebastian but are there less obvious British influences in your work? I could imagine you being a teenage record collector.

I’ve been a record collector since I was 13 or 14. Before that, it was baseball cards. I got into music through my parent’s record collection, in particular their 60’s rock, soul & folk records. I was always primarily interested in American music, but PJ Harvey’s first few albums had a big impact on me during my high school years. I saw the “Man-Size” video on MTV one night & I was immediately attracted to how raw & spare the music felt. The next day, I went to the record store & bought Rid of Me, & I was obsessed. My uncle gave me a cheap bass guitar for my next birthday, PJ Harvey’s songs were the first that I learned to play along with. I got into The Cure & The Smiths a few years later, after I met some cool goths at my university.

The name ‘Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’, when you were being listened to by a wider fanbase that must have felt like a joke taken out of context. I always felt like your songs are actually about the opposite of that, about someone who grew up very shy and then found that he had a girlfriend, a social circle, a band people liked and was learning to be happy at 24 instead of 14? Did the name feel like a stereotype by 2010?

Since I started writing songs in my late teens & early 20’s, I’ve been interested in writing sad ballads & torch songs, because that was always my favorite stuff to listen to. Although it obvioulsy speaks my own mental state, the “Painfully Alone” in the name was always meant to refer to my intended audience for the music. I wanted to make sympathetic songs for people in need of comfort. I still do. It was the Casiotone part of the name that I first outgrew, as I started to experiment with different kinds of instrumentation, but over time, I got more embarrassed about having to mumble “Casiotone for the Painfully Alone” whenever anyone asked what my band was called, & I started to regret not coming up with a more succinct, emotionally loaded, & non-rhyming band name.

With all of your albums with Casiotone and Advance Base, it feels like you have to impose arbitrary limits on your creativity (limiting chord structure, ‘abstractions’, dogs) but always come back to the same themes. Love, friendship, nature, drinking, troubled families – the gap between youth and wisdom. To write a song now that you’re married with a family, is it a painful process to go back to that headspace? 

I think my songs keep returning to the same themes because those are just the things I tend to think about, or at least those are the feelings I feel the need to process through songwriting. Writing songs was more of a struggle when I was younger & still trying to figure out what I had to say. At this point in my life, writing & singing & playing is pure therapy for me. Most of the song ideas come from my subconscious, & I try to chase the ideas down as a means of understanding where the thoughts are coming from, to better know myself & other people who confuse me.

With your new album, ‘Animal Companionship’, do you think Dogs are an analogy for humans without intellect? They feel the same as us, you can see when they’re happy or sad and they become a part of the family. So at a time when America has lost trust with the political class, we wish we could be more like dogs – more playful and happy and living by less arbitrary rules?

I can’t claim any sort of political allegory within Animal Companionship. The pets in those songs represent steady, unshakable companionship in the forms of both unconditional love & what we humans might hope to find with other humans, & also the looming presence of depression & past trauma. That’s why I chose a black dog for the album cover.

You’re playing some dates in Europe in February, how have you adapted to touring over the years? It must have been a nightmare in 2005 – you don’t have a band to protect you or a back catalogue to dip into or a lead singer persona to fall back on. When I performed stand up I would suffer terribly from stage fright, and would often go onstage feeling like I had completely lost my sense of humour but a lot of the time those gigs would go better than any others. Now you’re able to support some great bands in America and play to an excited crowd in Europe it must be an enjoyable process but how have you found the journey?

I love to play shows & I like being in different cities & meeting new people, but travel & accommodation logistics give me a lot of anxiety. I especially hate flying. If I could beam from myself from my house to a different city & venue every day, & then return my own bed every night, touring would be perfect. But, I’ll fly wherever & sleep wherever I need to in order to be on stage & play my songs for a room full of people. It’s my meditation.

Had break midway through a week of blogs

jongleurs day 3 will come when inspiration strikes and past memories unfurl and reveal themselves

when i include ‘bipolar’ in a blog title i get 30-40 views

when i write about being happy i get 3-4

it’s like Aphex Twin’s Compilation Album Title

I’m ‘Wanking for Cash’

But without the financial imperative

Want to know about how my week’s been?

Mind youuuuuuur owwwwwwwn faaaaaaaackin’ buzzzzzzizsssssinesss

As soon as I started at Jongleurs, it was clear that it was chaos.

Our job was to book tickets over the phone. These were largely for people who’d purchased Groupons at 2 tickets for £8 and had to call back to confirm the reservation. The website was very slow to use and always on the brink of crashing, so halfway through booking someone in you’d often be stuck apologising and waiting for the website to come back to life.

There was a backlog of hundreds and hundreds of emails and dozens of voicemails from missed calls. From disgruntled customers who’d been to crap shows or received terrible customer service, people who’d been stuck calling time and again without response, etc.

The office could be divided into two. There were four of us who came from a comedy background – 3 of us were stand ups and one had previously worked at Backyard Comedy Club and was now an assistant to Donna. All four of us knew roughly what was going on with the business and were able to work as hard as we could.

The others were useless, they were all designated individual tasks that took very little time doing, but that they would procrastinate over all day. One of them was supposed to be in charge of IT, but would spend weeks over a mailing list. One of them was supposed to sort customer emails, but would spend hours doing a reply then lose track over all the customers she’d promised to get back to that day. One worked on the phones, and had a haughty tone where he’d always wind up customers and get complaints. Two were teenagers who were family friends with Anas, who were completely gormless. One of these guys was put in charge of Christmas bookings, but would lie back with his feet on the desk all day half asleep. He tried to convince me on day 1 that he was booking a massive event that Alan Sugar was coming to and he needed a comedian. I had my head in the clouds so much I tried to convince him to book a better comedian than me, not realising that he was just insecure and lying. He used to explain to us how we couldn’t step foot into Brixton, which was strange as he was about 5’7 and Asian. He did have a bit of thinking he was on the Apprentice, slick backed hair, tight fitting trousers.

A new manager came in around the time I started who’d been a successful manager for Highlight, which was the breakaway 5 clubs that were actually successful (Camden, Watford, Leeds and a couple of others) that had broken away from Jongleurs before Jongleurs had brought them back and helped them to get rid of their audience. This manager was always in the office next to us or at meetings, and had no sense of what was going on under her nose. I was going stir crazy. These stressful conditions bring out my bipolar symptoms. On some days I started to be convinced I could save the place. I started trying to write a report about how they could save money by paying middle spots £50 each and break away from the model where they were paying 4 acts £250-£300 in order to compete with The Comedy Store, blood money as these acts were playing to often between 20-70 people, less than 10 of whom had paid full price for a ticket.

I worked for Jongleurs Comedy Clubs from August to November 2014. I had friends who worked there from comedy and I always liked to do dayjobs for material or creativity – before that I’d worked at a local theatre as an usher, which meant I could see shows for free. I saw a great Ruby Wax show, but also saw ‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea’ three times a day for a month and still know the words to a lot of the songs off by heart.

Jongleurs was infamous in comedy, they ran 12 or so clubs across the country and you’d always hear comedians using their name as a punchline. I did one open spot in 2012 to 250 people in Camden, My set got 2 rounds of applause and a lady had come up to me and another comedian afterwards to explain why I was funnier than him, but the booker had replied to tell me I was too green onstage, I needed to be smarter or clearer or less nervous or something, which was true I was absolutely terrified before going onstage. I think I was very influenced by the comedians who didn’t want to play the clubs, I was very new to the scene and I just had no passion for the kind of comedy Jongleurs presented. It felt like acts had been repeating the same 20 minutes for years, Jeff Innocent headlined and he completely won the crowd over, but the venue was too big to feel like a real comedy club and the audience were just there to drink.

The job at Jongleurs paid £8 an hour, I later found an advert for the same job in 2010ish that was advertised at £21k. I met with Anas, the very relaxed British Asian boss, and we had a very straightforward interview at quite a posh office near Hyde Park Corner. I had heard stories about how much debt Jongleurs was in, and how bad they were at paying acts. On the first day someone explained to me that the accountant had terminal cancer and the intern who’d been doing the accounts had just left, which was pretty indicative of what was to come.

It was warm when it snowed yesterday, the sharpness in the fair from the damage done by 4 flight paths over one city. The skies opening.

The last time I was booked in for a new material night at Downstairs At The King’s Head I wrote this poem for it.

On the day I couldn’t do it, I stayed in bed, didn’t even call the promoter or reply to his messages. I couldn’t bring that tension to that night, it was clear to me I was fighting the wrong battle.

(It’s not supposed to be double spaced, but I’m bad at technology)

---

There is a place out in the Pacific Ocean called Garbage Island

All the ships from around the world dump rubbish into that part of the ocean and the waves pull all that rubbish into one mass

Garbage island is shaped like an iceberg, only the tip is above the surface

Scientists estimated it to be as big as Texas

Then thought ‘that can’t be right’ and returned to measure it again

And found Texas was the smallest estimate and it could be as big as North America; USA, Canada and Mexico put together

It’s all on Wikipedia, people say ‘oh but you can’t trust Wikipedia’, but there are links to footnotes full of references to reputable newspapers and journals that have published news and reports on Garbage Island

People are too cynical about everything, but it’s a barrier, they can’t really face anything negative.

David Attenborough will never host a show called Garbage Planet

I think Garbage Island is the most democratic place in the world.

You can fly to New Delhi or Johannesburg and see all the poorest locals throwing their own garbage away.

Adding to the pile.

If there is a continent of garbage, maybe that’s why we all have a small part of us that feels bad all the time.

Maybe that’s why when things go wrong we think we’re looking towards the USA or China or the Middle East, but really we’re looking along that axis and past them all. At that pile of garbage.

I hope it will be a profession one day.

To go out to Garbage Island, find a way to blow it up bit by bit, catch the remnants, find something to do with them.

Until then I feel uncomfortable in supermarket aisles

What about all the regular bins as you walk down the street? Where’s the recycling there?

We live in a world where we’ve tried to find a financial solution to everything.

The European Union was designed to be a financial solution to war, creating a free market.

Now the Conservatives hate the European Union but love the free market.

And the Labour Party love the European Union but hate the free market.

Everyone now talks about Neoliberalism but in the 1970s the dominant theory in International Relations was Neorealism

Neorealism was the belief that every country in the world should have nuclear weapons and then there would be a universal deterrent to war

These are the experts we listen to, these are the ideas they think of.

People act like Trump’s going to start World War Three

But it started on 9/11, we’ve destroyed a region since, and not a small region.

If you want to confuse people, tell them the truth.

Deaths in Iraq are down from 1000 a month to 200 a month under Trump

The lowest they’ve been since Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State for foreign affairs

Thanks for reading. I’ll be posting excerpts 6-10 between Monday, February 25 and Friday March 1st – then continue posting in the last week of each month.

If I’ve asked for your feedback on the work so far, email joshuaross@live.co.uk

I have the following weeks planned inbetween now and then

February 4th-8th – Jongleurs – working in the call centre of a failing comedy business, their lack of an accountant, the comedians that turned up to sit in for their money only to find out there was just me there they’d gigged with 2 weeks ago, the race riot that nearly broke out, and how this contributed to the ‘free’ pay what you want comedy model that destroyed the London circuit.

February 11th-15th – ‘My Grandad Knew George Orwell’ – the story of their time in the National Service and comparing 1984 with 2019 (beyond the crap guardianista white rap crap of ‘talk about BREXIT, talk about TRUMP, a more filtered history than FORREST GUMP’

February 18th-22nd – My social media meltdown in 2016 – the method to the madness. A study in bipolar disorder meets guerrilla marketing.

“rumours of my demise are greatly exaggerated” Joshua Ross

A GUIDE TO THE MODERN WORLD

In London in 2019, try not to live within 3 miles of Hackney or Notting Hill, or you’ll be surrounded by 15 year olds selling coke, or 30 year olds buying it.

If you live in the UK, try to be suburban – it’s underrated. I’ve lived in Margate, Didsbury, and viewed places in Northampton on short term flatshares – IT FEELS LIKE A REALLY CHEAP BAD HOLIDAY.

The UK today is fine if you avoid the hard facts, if you look at any business, private or public sector, for too long you’ll start to worry that we’re all going to explode.

If you have friends who you feel are at risk, try to be ‘on the level’. Sometimes you’ll be answering the phone at 2am, or be on the other side of it, try not to make a habit of it. Talking on the phone is HUGELY beneficial compared to meeting in person or talking on messages. From my experience, the best approach from being on both sides of it is to try and not fill the air with advice, try and give the other person the benefit of the doubt that they are in distress rather than lying or panicking about nothing.

After you’ve talked to anyone, your brain will begin to decipher it the moment you hang up.

Suspension of disbelief is better than disbelief, common sense is usually wrong.