Built By Clowns

Hello there

I’ve come back to the top of this post to let you know it’s a long one.  It’s a good one as well though so it’s worth taking your time on the toilet to have a read of it.

So, I got a call off Rob Rouse the other day to check I was alright when Meat Loaf died.

He told me that he had called his mate (who is an actual real-life rock star) on the day Bowie died, so he was calling me on the day Meat Loaf died.  Which sounds about right.  It made me laugh, and it was a lovely sentiment.

We carried on chatting after I’d assured him that I wasn’t going to do anything stupid, and despite his traditionally shocking phone signal (which I share from my own home) we had a long chat. I told him that he’d just beaten me to the call as I was going to ring him.

Incidentally, one of the risks in being pals with me is there is every chance any interaction you have with me will become a Patreon post.  That’s just the way it is. Posting every day requires me to mine everything.  It was the same when I did stand up (actually, that’s true of every stand up), is true for writing work, and is true for Patreon.  It’s only compliments I’ve got for Rob though, so we should be all good. If he calls me and asks me to take this post down, I’ll just say I can’t hear him because the signal is bad. Always two steps ahead this Boldsworth kid…

I was gonna give him a call for two reasons.  One, because I’d not heard from him since the Rocky RobotBoxing day video came out, and I couldn’t believe he would have seen it and not been in touch.  If you recall, at the end of the video, the character Rob plays (Frank) let’s out a loud fart and says “sorry about that” whilst Chip is left open mouthed in shock.  The thing is, that wasn’t in the script I’d written for it.  That was just on the recording that Rob sent me.  It was an actual fart and an actual “sorry about that”. I immediately told Jon I was including it in the video/diveo, and so it was.

The second reason though, which felt a little more pressing, was because I’ve been absolutely adoring his Patreon output of late.  I’ve said it before when I’ve been complimenting Rob’s Patreon, that it’s a really stupid move on my part as it can only dilute the pot.  If you’re not on Rob’s Patreon (and you should be, but that’s a matter for you), and decide to join it (which you should, as it is a very funny, honest and silly one), you might end up taking money out of my pot to put in his so you can have us both (filth).  However, I’ve been genuinely…well, moved, and inspired by his Patreon of late, and I want to talk about it.  I can’t talk about it without making it sound desirable, so here we are.

Before I go into detail, I want to point out that one of the aspects I’ve been enjoying is the diary element to his latest big project.  I like that it’s an episodic journey with a genuine stake. I like that it’s an emotional investment for the viewer, that it’s going somewhere.  I guess the movie has been a similar thing on here, and Rocky Robot will be if I could just properly gather some momentum.  I really miss the olden days where I would do an art project over several posts, rather than obsessively trying to get it done from start to finish in one post, as I seem to often do nowadays.  I don’t know what my psychology is for that.  Might be showing off.

Rob doesn’t have the option to do it all in one day though, because he is building a house in his own back garden and diarising it in videos on his Patreon page (he does other stuff as well, it’s not just building a house on there…hahaha “just”). In a nutshell, it’s a living space for his Mother-In-Law to come and live at their house.

So, in case you don’t know Rob, here’s some things about him off the top of my head;

·  On the opening day of our first Big And Daft show, at our first Edinburgh fringe in 1999, he turned up having not written the one thing he was meant to write, after telling myself and Jon Williams that he had written it. I can remember exactly where we were (we were at the side of the Three Sisters pub on Cowgate) and exactly how cross we were with him (very). It was stupid that it had been left that late, but that had been his job.  He couldn’t understand why we were cross and had every faith in us winging it and we shouted at him a bit more.

·  The following year, on the way up to the fringe, we had been in charge of driving a van up to the fringe because we had a ‘sort of’ set. I’d driven the first leg, and we had met my Mum and Dad at Sandbach Services as she had gotten us some boiler suits to wear in the show (they were meant to be space suits as it was set in space).  Rob took over the van driving from there, and after my dad had wound him up by asking him if he was ok driving the van and saying “well this is the steering wheel…”, we set off.  I know that by the time we got to Edinburgh it was daylight, and when we were on the winding long road into Edinburgh, myself and Jon started singing the Jaws theme every time a vehicle approached in the opposite direction.  It was unfair and genuinely tense, but we couldn’t stop doing it and laughing.  Rob got very cross about it.  I think we only did it one more time after that, and the rest of the journey was just a bit uncomfortable.

·  One New Year’s Eve at his house, Rob made a whole roast dinner at 3am because there was no other food at his party. I recall myself, Rob and Jon deliberately eating the whole chicken like cavemen and telling other people to “get offfff” whenever they tried to get near it.

I mention these three things, from my ancient history with Rob, to demonstrate;

·  A lack of organisation.

·  Inability to deal with pressure.

·  Poor planning.

Now I will remind you that he is presently building a house.  Not getting a company in to do it.  Not being the gaffer or whatever they call it.  He is doing it – pretty much – on his tod.

He is also doing it brilliantly.  The things I told you about were twenty years ago or more, yet – like my mum with me – I’ve got him locked in my head as the spiralling and easily-distracted 25-year-old he was when we used to work together. Of course he’s a grown up now.  Of course he knows stuff.  He’s still, sometimes, daft as a brush, but there’s an inevitable accumulation of experience that none of us can truly escape if we manage to stay alive long enough.  This is the crux of what I’m writing about really. It’s sort of what we discussed on the phone.

I spoke a bit about the animation stuff, and the slow build of it that’s sometimes frustrating.  He spoke about how he’d been in touch with some TV producers about making a show of his house building (he presently calls it “Only Fools and Houses” but I personally preferred his first idea of a title which was “What clown built this?/ “Built By Clowns”).  He’s had mixed results in pitching it, but plenty of kind supportive feedback too.  I don’t think he’s overly knocked by it, and he’s still got irons in the fire and having a go at seeing if it can become a bigger thing.  Regardless, we got back to talking about the policy of just doing stuff.

I told him I had been doing some Lego (don’t write this off yet, I wasn’t comparing a Lego set to his house build, if you’ll just wait…).

Now, I like doing a bit of Lego from time to time, but you’ll never catch me talking about it as an achievement.  My dad used to say, “I couldn’t build that” when you’d show him Lego you’d done, and I used to say, “Not without the instructions maybe”.  There is no skill or creativity in Lego at its base level.  If you just build a set you’ve bought, into the set it’s meant to be, any idiot can do it. It’s also not without its enjoyment on a meditative level, so I’m not knocking it. This had been the purpose of me doing the Lego I did on and off last week.  It was Lego “art” where you just shove …I don’t even know what they are called…pegs is it?  The tiny little round bits. You stick them on a flat Lego board and make a picture.  Hang on, I’ll show you.  This is what I mean;

And this is what it made…I’ve put it up in the bathroom for a limited time…

So back to the phone call.  I had no interest in the end result of that set.  I had no interest in the set really, but my brother had a spare one so sent it me. The process of actually doing it though, I did have an interest in.  I did get something from that (just focussed relaxing really).  Now, if we then compare it to my drawing stuff, we can extrapolate further on the payback.  I get enormously satisfied by doing art drawing.  I get the slow time to build the picture (all those dots are the same as all the …whatever they are called in the Lego), I get the pride in finishing something when it’s good, and I get the option to sell it on my Etsy store.  I don’t get to hang it in the National Portrait Gallery or whatever (I’ve been told very sternly about that), but that doesn’t mean the process is without merit.  As Rob said on the phone, nothing good is easy to just do quick, and the ethos of taking on a long project, and being careful and considered all the way through, is a brilliantly nurturing way to work.  It’s definitely why I lean heavily towards art projects when possible.  You can’t not learn loads, and the pride in achieving something good at the end is revoltingly potent.

That’s me talking about pen drawings and building replicas etc, imagine how it would feel if you’d made a house for the first time.  Not just to sell or whatever, but to house your family members.  Do you see why I’m emotionally invested in what he’s doing?  He’s very funny along the way, and sometimes vulnerable and honest.  It’s fascinating. What can I say, I just like it when people don’t rest on their laurels and phone it in.  And when they surprise you in their development.  I would have put every penny I had in 1999 (admittedly about thirty quid if I’d just had my jobseekers) that Rob Rouse would never, ever build a house on his own.  It would have been a ludicrous claim.  If you had told me he would be making a video series of him doing it as well, I’d have borrowed some money off somebody else and bet that against it too.

He’s nailing it though.  Really is.  I mean, he should probably get some cement or something to keep it properly secure…

I know this is a long written post, but I’ve just been inspired by it and well proud of him.  Hugely impressed with him as well, which is never a comfortable feeling really. No escaping it though.

I think, regardless of how many patrons you have or any of those things, we all get a bit fed up with it sometimes.  Same as any job, it’s a drag on and off.  It’s also a tremendously rewarding playground though.  To be able to have a platform where you can develop at your own pace, push yourself, explore new skills and different ways of being creative, is pretty cool.  That’s the bit that would have swayed my betting in 1999, because the internet wasn’t up and running proper then.  I think we’re really blessed to have this platform as place to work.  Of course, not everything is gonna be for everyone, but I do think there’s something inherently fascinating and inspiring about watching somebody work and attempt to develop. I get it from loads of the folk I subscribe to on Patreon, and hope I’m doing the same myself. I’m certainly trying to.

I do promise I won’t build a house though.  At any point. I will reiterate this promise when Rob’s falls down.

Hope you are having a wonderful week over there

Much love your way

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