I hooked up an old HD to my computer yesterday, and found the most recent backup of the site, made just before I took the site off line in 2000. Among the files were two original pieces I wrote. They are a review and an interview, both of which I’d like to share with you again, starting with the review.

I’ve also put part of the site back online, not originally created by me, but given to me to host. It gives me great pleasure to present: Pantscat!, an early Izzard creation.

The review follows after the break. I haven’t followed Izzard’s career the past five years. I stopped ‘believing’ and thought he was a bit too calculating, too eager in the quest for fame. Not a lot of soul. Then I just lost interest. But this was written at the height of my comparatively brief obsession with the man who said ‘Jam!’

Eddie Izzard – Unrepeatable
Nieuwe De La Mar, Amsterdam
April 19th 1995

A whirlwind affair, this. First time I saw Mr Izzard was on tv and I was wondering who the hell he was. I thought I knew most British comedians. Wrong. I knew all the British comedians who show their face on tv: the Elton’s , the Connoly’s, the Enfield’s… And Mr Izzard has devised a cunning plan for himself – not to appear on television other than to proclaim his show will never go on television. Calculating man. I think it was ‘Have I got news for you’. He irritated me, which is always a good sign. I’d rather have someone bug me than that I’m left completely indifferent. But there was immediate respect as well.

He may have been wearing make-up, or there was somet hing else that made him stand out and you got have guts to dare to be different on television. Then I read an interview with him in Attitude. Interesting article. Made me want to see him. Which I figured would never happen, with me in Holland, he in the U K. The article gave me some idea of who this bloke was. So he’s tv. Okay cool. Gotta thing about men in dresses. Like it.

Come April ’95, friend sends me video of Eddie’s show for my birthday. And this is where it gets weird. I stick the video in the VCR, walk to the kitchen for a bite to eat, flip open the papers and hey presto: an ad. Eddie’s playing Amsterdam on my birthd ay. How many British comedians ever play Holland? Uh… not a whole lot? So I get the tickets.

On the night, the first thing that strikes me is the pearly shine coming from his fingernails. Nice touch. TV in the broadest sense. Eddie mixes it up. The way people should – if they had any sense. Then the shoes, hah – he has taste – black lacquer jobs, like mine on the night. Only mine are more masculine, his have heels the size of London bridge. Makes him in command of things, coming on like a peacock. Scarlet suit, no shirt, rather funky. Bright red lips, too. Brings a smile to my face.

My male friend fixates on the – he says – curious arrangement in Mr Izzard’s pants. He can’t figure it out. He asks me. Well, how would I know about wobbly dangly bits? ‘He has two,’ I whisper in his ear. We come to an agreement. Meanwhile, Eddie makes us laugh. And I’d like to tell you how, but I don’t remember what it was he said. Unrepeatable, you see.

There were thimbles, clarinets, singes sur des arbres, dickhead men and lots of times when he seemed – but then that could be totally planned – to lose his way in his own fantasy world: – sudden silence, ‘I’ve forgotten who I am now …’ and on again, down some unexpected alley. His jokes are the ones we all make. Not terribly clever, no pearls of wisdom, but the silly, childish pranks you play among friends, when you share a particular framework and are close enough to act like a kid again. Others might not understand.

Eddie’s talent is that he can make you part of his framework within a couple of minutes. You just let go and ride upon the cliches made funny again and the everyday silliness of life that Eddie dishes out. And somewhere, reading between the laughs, I sensed a vulnerability. Kids can be cruel. Adults even more cruel, cause they should have more sense by then. And aren’t fantasy worlds created as places you can hide in? Eddie’s the crazy kid down the road that makes people laugh.

It was more than just a bucket of laughs. It was like putting on a record that makes you feel all right, or getting out that book that tells your story. So we left feeling groovy – the ultimate Izzard word – not just for having laughed, but for having recognised. We wandered off, my friend and I, for a late meal. Talking about how we felt about the night, feeling closer for having had the same thoughts and experience. And if videos and newspaper ads isn’t enough for coincidences, Eddie walks into our restaurant.

‘You picked the right place to eat,’ I tell him and – totally uncool – ask him to sign my programme. I haven’t got a pen, and it isn’t for myself. All the wrong words. Eddie’s cooler than me, probably quite used to this kind of BS. I send the programme off to the friend who sent the video, which leaves him gasping and me pining for a souvenir.

‘Come back,’ I told Eddie. He would.

You are looking at the new prolific.org, now known as eachman.com (as in ‘Each man kills the thing he loves’.) It isn’t ideal yet (there’s a lot of stuff just plain wrong behind the scene), the design is a reworking of someone else’s template and WordPress is a little, well, let’s say ‘primitive’ compared to MT, but I’m going to go with it for now. Maybe I’ll switch back, maybe I won’t.

I suppose this is my birthday present to myself. Turning 42 is different from turning 41 or 43. I’ve been looking forward to it with some trepidation, for some time now. Having had some health scares, though none too seriously, in recent months, didn’t help. (And, do, I, like, the, comma, just, a, little, too, much?)

(Here’s where I thought I’d do a ‘read more’ thingy, but there seems to be no obvious way to do that in WordPress.)

My mum died when she was 42 (in 1975… 30 years ago) and so reaching this age is somewhat of a milestone. I’m not sure what to think. Maybe I want some answers, but I’m not sure what the questions are. All I know is, I’m not half as grown up as she was at the time. At least I think I’m not, but how I remember her is not necessarily the way she really was.

Enough gloom. Time for a nice cup of tea and a hearty: ‘happy birthday to me’.

Update 1: Trust Dreamhost to ‘plan’ downtime the day I move my site. (Had to move at least one of my sites away from Pair, since we’re bursting at the seams there.)
Update 2: My laptop arrived this morning, and yes, Dutch OS. Grr.
Update 3: So, has anyone ever moved their WordPress site to Pivot?

26 Responses to ‘The meaning of life and all that’ (imported from WordPress)

I know all about the switching domains bit.