Cybershrink and his Awful Advice

So once in a while, I delve into the haunted world of Agony Aunting, and this week a guy is having trouble not being in love with a girl who is dating a guy he introduced her to, while still being in a relationship with someone else:

A friend I work with has started dating a woman I have feelings for, they are both unaware of my feelings towards her and I want to keep it that way. I am in a relationship and I love my girlfriend but it still bothers me. They wouldn't have become acquainted if not for me so I feel doubly stupid. I can only distance myself so much because we work together. He's a nice guy but constantly talking about it and asking for advice, it would be great if I could just get him to shut up about it.

Here is what this 'supposed' psychologist has as an answer:

You are in a relationship with a woman you say you love. How, then, do you feel justified in continuing this secret concern for the other woman, such that you begrudge her a friendship and maybe deeper relationship with someone you know, as a friend, to be a good guy ? Isn't that what you should want for her ? Or is she on your reserve list, someone to switch to if something goes wrong with your current relationship ? What was "stupid" about having introduced a pair of friends who are apparently happy together ? There's a rich irony in him asking you for advice on wooing her.  It reminds me of  the famous French story by Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, splendidly filmed in 1990 with Gerard Depardieu and well worth watching : Cyrano, is deeply romantic but has an enormous nose, which people mock him for, so he feels inadequate and dares not approach the lovely young lady he deeply loves.  Then he is approached by a handsome but rather dim young friend, who has fallen in love with the same woman, and wants help in wooing her.  So Cyrano stands in the shadows, whispering marvelous messages of love for his friend to say loudly to the lady standing in her window above. And in agonies as his words bring her to love his friend, and not himself.   Look it up, it may be instructive

My response to this shitty CyberShrink"Agony Aunt Advice" column which I've sent, and waiting to see if it goes live...

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OLD RANT - When cleverer people get the upper hand

In my previous job, I got embarrassed by a work colleague over my use of the English language while I was trying to explain my assistance with a problem the whole company was having.

Right there, I just felt like a kid again.

In my defense, I suffer from the same type of stigma that most do: when you're in the company of people you place your trust in, in most occasions you fall back on the most comfortable form of speech that is only understood by those who work close to you. This is relevantly a form of trust you impose on the other, and in most occasions when you're being asked to be clearer, it's only that their brain isn't switched on either and they'd like to continue on with the conversation, whereupon you acknowledge it and rev the engine up to get to the destination.

But in that very moment where this person had cleverly nitpicked at my flaw and exposed it to others who laughed at my embarrassment, I felt so small and useless that my instant reaction was to hold my hands up and walk away.
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Applying Business Practices to Stand-Up Comedy

When approaching projects in my employment, I put forth a variety of business practices that ensure I manage them on time and to budget within cost agreed to with clients and get them the product they require. But when it comes to stand-up comedy, I'm as guilty as anybody of treating it like any other hobby; whenever I get to it.

As it turns out, professional stand-ups have to treat their work like any other work: just like a business.

So, without further ado, here's the top ten practices I've learnt in business that I, as an aspiring stand-up comic, would apply:

1. It's all in the Planning
2. What are you doing today?
3. Research & Development
4. Dress for Success
5. Show up on Time
6. Create a Contact List
7. Networking, Networking, Networking
8. Marketing is Your Friend
9. Content is King
10. Learn to Fail

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VIDEO - #ThatsFunny at the All Star Theatre, Brackenfell, November 2014

HashtagThatsFunny - Comedy Photos from Saturday's Show

Post by HashtagThatsFunny.

I painted my nails pink yesterday

I painted my nails pink yesterday.

 

It started as a friendly game with my love interest as she straightened her hair, and I looked at the nail polish she had on her table. I picked it up and wondered, "What would she say if I started painting my nails pink?"

We had just returned from a brunch meeting about our relationship, highlighting our differences while keeping our emotions from flying. We intended to be upfront and straight with each other but, I'll admit, it's pretty hard. I keep everything close to me, I couldn't admit being the soft one when the man in me should be huffing and puffing his chest around like a baboon with a huge erection.

Ok, I'm not a baboon.

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I wake up to Louis CK...and I'm not ashamed of it.

For years, the sound I've used to play on my phone to wake up me up every morning has usually been the standard tones Apple adds preinstalled for the iPhones they've created...from the wistful yet semi-annoying "Bells", to the utterly annoying and relationship-destroying "Radar" that, on many an occasion, an elbow has connected with my ribcage by an irate girlfriend who has already tolerated a few hours of my awful snoring.

But then I discovered the ability to load Louis CK's "Shameless" as an MP3 onto my phone to listen to, and that's become my new wake-up call. Hearing the familiar white-noise HBO introduction, followed by a pattering of conversation before the announcer clears his throat and begins the performance with the familiar, "Ladies and gentlemen...Louis CK," to thunderous applause.

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Why I'm a Full-time Comedian...in my spare time.

You get off stage, having pummeled the crowd with joke after joke that kills, that murders, that slays. Backstage, you wipe your brow as the other acts pat your back and praise you for that quick turn when the heckler almost threw you off-course from the journey of self-exploration you were taking the audience through.

This is your job, this is what you live for.

And that's the vision I see most comedians that have pursued our line of work full-time experience many evenings as a full-time comedian.

Back at the farm, while the young comics emerging into the crowd open-mic circuit trying their luck to impress not just the crowd but the promoter in the hope they get a chance to return, some hardened comedians stand aside and watch as people below them begin to flower, while others above them live the life they dream, and I'm one of those.

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Did my parents teach me anything?

I'm pretty ok with money a lot of the times. When you're living by the seat of your pants every day your blood begins to boil at the sight of the petrol price rising up like cake flour, you tend to forget you have limited funds, and you venture off from the petrol station sulking that your idea of buying an iPad mini seems further and further away.

And then I thought, why didn't my parents teach me how to be good with cash? I mean, they did, to constantly save for a rainy day. In London, that's a silly notion to forget considering its island status, but the notion for never over-spending was drilled into me.

Forget that, I want to know how to invest.
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Hiding

Yes, I've been hiding.

I had a change in my circumstances so fundamental, I've just been both languishing and basking in its gloriousness for too long. I'm swimming in its rapture, I'm bathing in its golden light, and I haven't had the strength to kick just to break the surface and breathe in.
And it's been my excuse for a while now.

I'm 33 years old; it means nothing to most of you, some of you or ev en the ones that classify yourselves as "all of us", since really we're not all of the same age all at once. But I had given it up, just plopped on the couch and went, "Eh."

My dad did that and look, there he is staring at Portuguese television waiting to die.
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Remember Me?

I don't blog. I don't. A lot.

I do not so in the vain attempt that I look at my blog, stare at the screen for a few minutes, then realise I'm 4 hours into my work day and I haven't done a thing.

Today, I'm well aware I'm not done with my work, but I visited my blog and 15 people joined in to read.

Well, bully for me. Thank you.


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Armchair Sundays Comedy Show - Comedians' Photos

Post by Armchair Sundays.

To all my ex-girlfriends...(SERIOUS POST)

So, I know this will be perceived as a very narcissistic or self-effacing post, but as I struggle to understand my own hurtful behaviour, I feel I need to be brave and write it in public, not just for you, the person I wiggled my willy at, but to the public.

All this website really is, is a façade hiding a human being that doesn't know how to be with other people. I do comedy to break that barrier and promote not just the humour within me, but the exploration of a human spirit moulded into a consumer, a sponge, someone who takes and never gives back. And each day, I hate myself for doing that.

And today, I saw something specific by one ex-girlfriend that pained me, but a selfish pain, and I realised it's the same with every ex-girlfriend whose company I've had the privilege to enjoy, and I just feel that they deserve an apology.

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The little things...

Ok, I'll let you in on a little secret...

...I let the SMALLEST little bloody thing get to me.

Whether it be the move someone makes in their car that annoys me by a fraction of a millimetre, the ignorance of another's venomous speech where they proclaim in a terribly loud voice, "HOW DO YOU NOT LIKE JUSTIN BIEBER??" or someone I've never met before in my entire life adds me the one day on Twitter, and unfollows me the next.

I'm tracking who has unfollowed me. I'm a reverse f***ing stalker!
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9 things I do when I live alone

Just discovered Lili Radloff's "9 things you learn when you live alone", a wonderful list of little things you do when you're alone in your abode. I like it, it's a wonderful piece featuring things she does which we relate to, etcetera, blah blah blah.

But my 9 things are a little different:

1. You tend to walk in after a long day at work, sit down in front of your desk, and realise...you have no internet. So you eat yoghurt and stare at the wall.
2. You switch off the geyser during the day because there's no one there...and forget to switch it on in the morning after being awake for an hour watching your favourite TV show you enjoy to forget why you're even there.
3. Your meals, that you make while naked, are increasingly simple and quick to make.
4. You forget to sleep on your own bed, with the couch increasingly convenient in front of the TV.
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REVIEW: "So...You Think You Can Love?" - Sonia Esgueira

"A Portuguese man, to the people of South Africa, is like a grizzly bear: hairy, growls and eats fish." - Nelson de Gouveia

Yes, that quote up there is mine, I'm a comedian and I'm Portuguese. I'm also a man living in a woman's world, if Sonia Esguiera's new one-woman play, "So...You Think You Can Love" is anything to go by. And it's hard to write this review objectively with my own credentials as they are, but thankfully there's no negative aspects to find in this one-hour circus; she's worked hard and the results are, well..."she's a good" as my father would say.

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What does my Dad dream?

As I hear the dragon-esque screams from the aeroplane flying above the home of my two terribly incongruent but tremendously loving parents, lying on my mom's bed as she's recovering in hospital from nose surgery and my father in the next room tucked away in his own slumber, I feel a moment of sheer terror as I begin to imagine these dark and twisted thoughts that would be running through his mind as he lays there…a man haunted by death.
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Please Like Me - Comedians should date more.

Comedy is like dating.

At first, it's awkward, then a little familiar, but if you don't keep a close eye on it, it can tell you to move out and warn you never to try and contact it via its mother.

And like the incongruent facade of everyday courting, comedy is very match a game of cat-mouse-promoter. Can you impress a crowd of people immediately, can you keep the crowd interested, can you give them your number and they'll call you back three days later asking when the next gig  is? 

Uggh. Bluggh.

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Post Holiday Blues - What I'm thinking when I'm at home eating chicken

When your birthday’s in the middle of the year, like mine, you tend to see every milestone as a bout of renewal. 6 months down the line from the anniversary of your birth, you share in the same period of coming together with family and friends that everyone mills around on, like flies on a cake.

A rather LARGE cake.

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Nelson, why don't you blog more??

Well...

1. I'm working in a job that requires my fullest attention. They need me focused and enthralled on their product, ensuring that the quality is set to the highest standard and we ship to our clients with no faults whatsoever.
2. I live with a fun and amazing person who takes up all my focus as she fulfills my day ever waking minute I'm with her.
3. I've been away from family for so long that I take time out from everything else to see them, be with them, annoy them and be annoyed by them.
4. I drive to work, never take public transport, although it will happen very soon that I shall, but for now I keep my mind in my head, never communicating these wonderful thoughts that run through like relay athletes passing one note to the next in a classroom full of ADHD pupils.
5. My g/f's cat has given birth to 4 kittens and I have designated the runt, Apocalypse, as the sole survivor past the weaning process before we send off the other three to the Vet to be used as carpets or glue.

Or...

1. I'm f***ing lazy.