No More Mr. Nice-Guy.

I'm not nice anymore. I think I lasted nearly a week and really enjoyed the upset caused by simply being friendly and intrusively courteous. But it's not me. I knew I had given up being nice on Saturday when I saw a man running towards the escalator in London Bridge tube station. He was going down, the escalator was going up. I saw him stride confidently towards it for quite a while knowing fully well what might happen but, instead of being nice and stopping him from embarrassing himself or falling or dying, I just watched him do it. It was fun. He looked a twat for about a second, I felt like a git for an hour. Balance restored.

But what is the point in being nice? Everyone else is a complete cunt so why can't I be? Think about it. Seriously. Do you know anyone who isn't worse than Hitler? You don't, do you? Everyone is a big, annoying, embarrassing, evil cunt so, fuck it, if you can't kill them, join them.

When I logged on to Facebook yesterday there were 5 fucking, fucking, fucking photos IN A ROW of comedians on stage at The Comedy Store with the logo behind them. WELL FUCKING DONE! You utter genius. You managed to phone up people who despise you and grovel for a five minute open spot and a friend who owns a camera saw you there. That logo isn't a smile, you know? That's a detailed picture of Don Ward's toothy sphincter that he uses to eat desperate acts cocks with. So please, new acts (and others who should know fucking better), don't put your head too far up Don Ward's arse, you'll be decapitated.

That put me in a mood, to be honest. So I thought I'd spend the day sorting my house out. I built a bed! Fuck, yeah. I'm a carpenter now just like Jesus and Harrison Ford and Karen and Richard. It's a good way to get all your frustrations out, putting a bed together. It's so fidgety that you have to scream your face off every 9 seconds. Very releasing. Very primal. Probably good for you. I was dumping some old bed crap in the bin when my neighbour pointed out that a fight had started at the corner of our street. Good old Lewisham. Such a civil place.

She was right. A man was grabbing a woman by the head and trying to shove her into a flat. She was screaming (obviously) and he was shouting the language of the pissed at her. I phoned the police while I approached them. He stopped hitting her and said everything was fine. I disagreed. Luckily, our country's finest only need to be told 85 times where the "disturbance" was taking place and they'd send someone round right away-ish. In the meantime, I stood by the angry, drunk man and listened to him dribble his explanation. I said that he needed to tell this to the police not me. He then hit her again. She went into the flat and closed the door on him. The police arrived! Then drove right past. Eventually they got out of their car and started to walk directly into my neighbours house. She told them it was the house at the corner they wanted. You know? The one with the shouty drunk man outside it. The then briskly marched to the house at the corner. It was the WRONG corner. Again, I pointed out that it was the corner with the shouty drunk man. Fuck's sake.

The man was cuffed and taken away. I saw him this morning (about 9.30) coming out of his flat drinking a can of lager. He said Hello but, to be honest, I don't really want him as a friend. I bet he DEFINITELY has a photo of him beside the Comedy Store logo on his Facebook page.

So, back to being a cunt for me. It's the only way to fit in. Shame because during my (near) week of being nice I met some really nice people that just seemed so friendly and lovely (though they're probably faking it) but since I gave up nice on Saturday I seem to be surrounded by cunts. Maybe it's me?

I said I'd leave the subject of Michael Jackson but I saw the latest copy of Q Magazine yesterday. Jackson is on the cover and the story inside is about his upcoming O2 gigs with the claim "The Comeback of 2009!" Also on the cover is a story titled "Dead Rockstars Exhumed". Surely they regret all of that?

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Michael Who?

Well, everyone. Glasto 09 was totally wicked! The weather was incredible and the facilities were perfect for me. No queuing, clean-ish toilet and a proper bed to sleep in. Plus there were no hordes of out-of-touch with reality crusty smelly people who like to pain stuff on themselves, just perfect views of all the bands plus you could fast-forward through the tedious world music artists. There's such advantages to watching it on TV. Of course, if you were there then you would have missed terminal cunt Edith Bowman's tedious sycophancy on the BBC so you win.

The Michael Jackson being dead thing still seems to be going on but not in the way I thought it would. It's actually quite interesting. Sure, Michael Jackson fans are upset but I kind of thought that a lot more people would have pretended to care too like when Princess Diana died and everyone forgot how much they hated her before. Well done everyone for not losing your minds over this one. Sure, there were a lot of folks on Facebook that had their R.I.P. status updates like they actually knew him but besides that it just seems that the media are excited about it all but the public have largely got over it really quickly. The BBC went insane, really scraping the bottom of the barrel to find people to discuss the cultural impact of The Jackson. Uri Gellar was, of course, insane. Practically salivating at the thought of being on TV again even if it was to talk about a complete stranger who was best man at his wedding. Mica Paris prided herself in her own insanity when she said that Michael Jackson's death was more "important" than Princess Diana's. She didn't say who's it was more "trivial" than which is a shame. I would have liked that. "Michael Jackson's death", said popstar Mica Paris. "Is big. But, you know, when Howard Jones dies that's when we'll really start crying our eyes out".

My favourite really, really famous person to say boo-hoo to Michael Jackson on BBC news was definitely that man who used to be in 5 Star. He must have wondered what that noise was when his phone rang. Surely there was someone more trivial than him that the BBC could have scraped out of the desperate barrel? Was Owen Paul busy? Did Jim Diamond have other commitments? Fuck sake, I WAS FREE. Why did the BBC think that anyone, including the other members of 5 Star, would give a shitting shit what he had to say about Michael Jackson's contribution to popular culture? Fuck the guy from 5 Star. I want to know what Stephen Hawking thinks about it. Or God. Or, even better, Prince Philip.

I did a couple of Jackson jokes at gigs this weekend and they went down fine (one person booed one gag). In fact after one MJ gag a member of the audience shouted "I love you". I just don't think people connected to him the way the papers think. Still, he was quite good if you like that sort of thing but it's Monday now and that's the last I will talk about it.

King of Everything did the first preview in over 6 weeks last night at The Hob in Forest Hill in front of 12 people. They were 12 absolutely lovely people. We couldn't have asked for a better 12 people. The Apostles look like turds compared to our 12 people at The Hob. We were good too. Not perfect, far from it, but good. Still lots of work to do but that's part of the fun. Isn't it? Please come along to our next preview this sunday at The Funny Side of Covent Garden. We'll be singing. Don't let that put you off.

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Sham Off.

What a brilliant day for death yesterday was. Farrah Fawcet, Jeff Goldblum (although that turned out to be a hoax) and Michael Jackson, the singing man.

Personally, I think Farrah is the greatest loss. Charlie's Angels was a coming of age eye-opener for me and there will always be a tiny, tiny, really tiny part of me that owes a great deal to Farrah. But the news seems to be more fixated on Michael Jackson, the twirly dancer. I bet Jeff Glodblum is happy he's not dead after all. He'd never get a look in on the telly dying on the same day as a man who had a fairground and a monkey.

All hail Twitter. Twitter was the first to break the news last night, way before BBC and SKY. Sadly, some people on Twitter think that a comedian making a joke is unsuitable. I got a good few nasty comments wishing for my suicide because I made a joke about a man I, or they, had never met. "about the whole mj dancing with dead people - why don't you cut your wrists and find it out yourself : - P", said one angry fan of a middle of the road entertainer. Not that I could be offended by anyone who finishes a sentence by drawing a face but I'm pretty surprised that anyone who would follow a comedian would be offended by a joke. The great thing about Twitter last night was that our little community all came together, all shared the breaking news and then all shared jokes. No-one was saying "HA HA HA! Michael Jackson is dead", it was just a lot of very clever jokes (and some stupid ones from me) being shared. We were having a laugh. Strangely, not many people were tweeting tributes to the self-appointed King of Pop. Anyway, my favourite Tweet came from a charming chap who wrote "Comedians thinking that they can joke about this are completely wrong. Far far too early! You should be ashamed. And @michaellegge is a prick". Not even a face at the end....

He is wrong. Comedians can joke about anything at any time. It's up to you as to whether you're offended or not. Personally, I loved reading the funny comments last night. The best came from Richard Herring, Tiernan Douieb and some utter classics from Johnny Candon. Check their Tweets out.

I saw Michael Jackson in 1987. He was good. He sang and danced and cried. Just like he's supposed to. He did Wanna Be Starting Something and that made me happy because I really like that song. Can't really think of any others of his that are that amazing but the Off The Wall album is generally great. It was a good gig. I went there with my friend Dotes but we were more interested in seeing the support act (Kim Wilde) and getting off with two girls we met on a bus.

Anyway, if you stop reading this now and watch the news you might catch some report about the death of the man who sings and wears hats and has a funny face and is "friendly" to children.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

I Think We're Going To Need A Better Blog.

I'm nice now so I thought I'd do you a favour and recommend a couple of films to you.

The first is a film that I beg you to see and implore you to ignore. If you can do both then this is the film for you. It has a dream cast: Mark Hamill, Christopher Reeve, Linda Kozlowski and Kirstie Alley. Could you ask for better? NO! NO, YOU FUCKING COULDN'T SO SHUT UP. The film is Village of the Damned made by John Carpenter, a man who got lucky a couple of times, in 1995 and tells the every day tale of a cloud that rapes women, impregnates them and their children grow up to be blonde. Terrifying. What is more frightening is Mark Hamill as a priest trying to organise a village fete. He's the son of Darth Vader for Christ's sake. At times you can really see the Hayden Christensen in him. Plus you get to see creepy children make grown adults put their hands in boiling water WITH THEIR MINDS and, as pointed out by Tweetolla, this is probably Christopher Reeves final 'walkie'. Recommended (but not very highly).

Jaws is a different matter. I saw it last week for the first time in years and I've thought about it every day since. It has had a huge impact on my life anyway. The first time I saw it was during a family holiday in Dublin when I was six. Basically, I haven't set foot in the sea since. I'm genuinely terrified of the sea and it's Jaws' fault. After my evil parents forced me to watch it when I was just a baby (sort of) I was actually too scared of turning on a tap just in case a 60 foot shark came out (I wish I was making that up but it's true). Sometime in the 90's my then girlfriend, Hairy Maude, persuaded me to go into the sea via a pedalo. The pedalo was in the shape of a smiley duck and, after explaining that I might not be comfortable in the sea, I stupidly got in it. We were six feet from shore when I started to panic. I screamed at her, called her a fucking bitch and, generally, lost all fucking reason. We didn't speak much after that day. It's hard to look at your boyfriend after he's called you a fucking bitch while sitting in a big duck.

The thing is, there's no fat on Jaws. It starts really quickly. There's no slow, mysterious beginning. It just starts. BANG. Naked woman runs to the sea, dives in, gets eaten. That's the first minute of the film done. And the way she dies is just horrible. It's not a cartoony sort of death-by-shark, you can hear her drowning as she struggles to get away from a million razor sharp teeth. Her lungs are filling with water and blood and you can hear and feel every bit of it. Horrible.

All the characters are amazing too. Our hero Chief Brodie's flaws and mistakes are the driving force of it. He is scared of the sea but, hey, he's basically to blame for the death of at least one shark attack victim. That doesn't look good to the rest of the classic Spielberg suburbanites on the island. Can you have suburbia on an island? FIND OUT. Anyway, luckily Brodie has a twat and a prick to help him find and kill the shark. They're a fantastic twat and a brilliant prick, though. The scar-comparison scene on the Orca is classic.

The main thing Jaws has going for it is that it's exciting from beginning to end. When people aren't dying you think they're about to die or they're already dead. That's a lot to constantly take in. Obviously, it would be nothing without good characters and the fact that Brodie is with two shark hunting experts for practically the whole film just lets his character drag it's way out of it's comfort zone. He permanently looks like he'd rather be anywhere else doing anything else while the other two revel in the thrill of the chase. And the shark DOES NOT look shit. You barely see it and when they remake Jaws with a CGI shark you will be mourning the loss of Bruce throughout the entire shitty, forgot-about-the-characters, soulless, Zach Braff led pile of regret.

Recently, I met someone who hasn't seen Star Wars yet. I didn't think that they were stupid for missing the greatest film ever made, I felt jealous that they had this piece of utter perfection still to see. Jaws is the same.

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Michael Legge (Pretentio).

Actor and, in a way, comedian Michael Legge began his career back in 1971 when he used to get money from complete strangers by doing impressions of his mother. His furious mother then decided to send him to stage school and that put him off wanting to perform for the rest of his life. That said, Michael did attend a Shakespeare In The Park play last night and it may have somewhat influenced him and his blog.

Michael has received no formal training (1968 - date) in anything whatsoever but was very excited to meet an old acquaintance, Silas Carson, who performed last night in As You Like It (1599), a play about mistaken identity and people marrying their cousins. A real fucking departure for Shakespeare, the bald, dead cunt. The play was very good indeed and the meeting with Silas, although brief (11:31 - 11:34), was fun. Michael and Silas performed together in Eircell Mobile Phone Advert (1999) along with the comedian Paddy Lennox. It took place over an amusing three days in Ireland where, only at the end of the filming, Silas revealed that he was not Irish and had been faking the accent the whole time just to get the job. Fucking brilliant. Silas also revealed during those three days that he would be starring-ish in the then upcoming Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999). Michael felt that he had met his hero (he had yet to see the film, obviously) but the two never saw each other again after the shoot until last night (Yesterday).

Not only has Silas been in all three Star Wars awfuls but he has also been the voice of The Ood in three episodes of Doctor Who (1963 - date). Fucking hell. Silas fucking rules, doesn't he? During the brief meeting last night, even though the pair had not seen each other in 10 years, Silas said to Michael "I always knew you were a cunt". Not only did Silas use Michael's copyrighted catchphrase but it also means that, in a way, The Ood have called Michael a cunt. Michael feels dizzy.

FILM
Michael is confident that this part of his life will be made into a Danny Wallace-esque film entitled The Man Who Was Really Nice For A While starring Han Solo as Michael. He is looking forward to the scene, created just yesterday, where Michael goes into a local WH Smith to buy the current Doctor Who DVD, Delta and the Bannermen (1987), and when the shop assistant cheerily asks him how long the series has been going Michael overly-cheerily tells him. In detail. For ages. Holding up a queue and making the shop assistant sweat with embarrassment. Michael is childishly proud of himself.

TELEVISION CREDITS
Michael does not credit television.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

My Beautiful Laundrette.

Just a quick being nice update.

Although I've generally been trying to be horribly pleasant at all times since yesterday there have only been a couple of highlights. I've been doing a spot of gardening over the last couple of weeks and have now built up a massive pile of twigs and branches to burn. I love setting fire to things.

Sadly, not everyone likes me setting fire to things. They just don't see the beauty in destruction by flame like I do. Remember that next time you invite me round to your house. Anyway, the fire was going really well and I was standing beside it laughing maniacally when I heard a knock on my back gate. No-one has ever knocked my back gate before and that was enough to set Jerk into a mental frenzy. It was one of my neighbours, although one that I didn't recognise, and she wanted to complain that her washing was getting all smoky because of my beautiful, beautiful fire. That's fair enough, I certainly didn't want to ruin her washing, and she pointed out that "you're not supposed to start fires until after six". Although she pointed this out from a distance while Jerk barked fury at her. Jerk does not forgive or forget door knocking easily. The "no fire before six" thing might be true so I assured her that the fire was under control, it was going out now and I wouldn't be throwing anything else on it. I apologised for any trouble caused. Of course, I did. I'm nice. OK, maybe I didn't need to ask her what her full name was and what house she lived in, but that was just me being friendly. I even offered to wash her clothes for her. Why she said no to a man who laughs at fire and has a dog that's having a nervous breakdown is a mystery to me. No manners, some people.

Later that night, I was in a service station loo. When I walked in I apologised to the man who was already in there. It was my reflection in the mirror. I'm taking the whole being nice thing too seriously. It's just not me. Can I be a cunt again?

I had big plans for this blog today but it'll have to wait until tomorrow. Put it this way, I've watched Totally Saturday. Oh, Graham, you stupid cunt. It's OK to say "No", you know?

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

Nice To Be Trying.

Being nice all the time is going quite well and quite badly. It's going quite badly because, due to my nature, I keep forgetting to be nice. It's not like I go around punching people but I must tut more per day than most people do in a lifetime. In a way, it's everyone's fault except mine.

Friday had a couple of good I'm-nice-now moments. I was on the train on my way to Cardiff and I decided that if there was any wankers on the train then I would be overly-nice to them so that they would freak out and fuck off. There wasn't which just proves that train-wankers are train-cunts. AND THAT'S SCIENCE. I was trying to look over some King of Everything stuff but my mind kept wandering to what my next nice encounter might be. Then the Ticket Inspector arrived. Hallelujah. It had been hours since I was last nice (I said "And a very good day to you, too, Sir" to a shop keeper who handed me my change and said nothing) so I was really looking forward to making this man's day for him. I had my ticket ready and when he saw that I was going to Cardiff he explained that there were delays at Newport.

"Oh, really?", I said. "That must be terrible".

"It might be fine by the time we get there", he replied.

"But what time will you get home for your dinner?"

"Erm...Should be the normal time".

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Don't think so. (TO MAN NEXT TO ME) Tickets, please".

And off he went, suspiciously quicker than he arrived. I brought my swimming trunks (DO NOT THINK OF ME WEARING SWIMMING TRUNKS) with me on the off chance that the hotel would have a pool. It was a Holiday Inn and they usually do. I started my smile about 40 yards away from the hotel to make sure that I had it right by the time I got to reception. It pretty much made the receptionist jump. After checking in I asked her if there was a pool.

"No, Sir. I'm sorry".

"That's fine", I said. "I don't like swimming. Do you?"

She didn't answer in English but rather in a series of coughs and clicks. I like her.

By yesterday I had pretty much given up on being nice all the time but only because I was around lots of people who were genuinely nice and didn't have to grotesquely fake it like I do. I was "working" (I love it when comedians say that) at the fantastic Glee club and Lee and Dale who work there are two of the nicest, friendliest people you could ever wish to meet. Lee talked about cricket for about half an hour and was never once boring about it. I even asked him questions about cricket. THAT is how nice he is. The line up was excellent. It was great fun to listen to the confused stories of Joe Wilkinson, the energetic blarney of Ian Coppinger, the ballsy confidence of Junior Simpson and the topical and topicalish material of Alistair Barrie (he's like watching Have I Got News For You. On Dave). All very, very funny and fun to be with. Pity the fire alarm went off during Junior's set but, hey, who wouldn't want to stand out in the freezing cold watching security experts looking baffled at an alarm system while your audience continue to come up to you to tell you that you're "not as funny as (PUT COMEDIAN'S NAME HERE)". It's what I dreamt of when I started. Not that I'm complaining. It was a great weekend.

I'll be back to being full-time terrifyingly nice as of tomorrow. I have lots of people to deal with for Edinburgh that I can't wait to upset with my faultless manners. How are you getting on with yours?

www.twitter.com/michaellegge