A virtual comedy store for Manchester alternative comedian and YouTube funny man Bury Bob sharing his funny videos, jokes and riddles and live standup comedy. This Salford lads is all set to be one of the best new comics om the UK stand up comedy circuit.
Monday, 25 July 2011
bury bob writes about his hero Bill Hicks
Bill Hicks is my personal hero. He actually saved my life when he was already dead, that is testimony to the power and genius of his comedy and outlook on life. I was in a rehabilitation unit for alcohol & drugs, struggling to fight my demons, then I came across a compilation album in a grimy old book (and CD) store. ‘Philosophy’ by William Melvin Hicks, totally blew me away and sucked me in at the same time. The strength of the guys convictions gave me the confidence to believe in what I was doing, and why. Thanks Bill. He was born down a mineshaft, with coaldust in his hair, soot beneath his fingernails (but rent was cheaper there). Actually Bill was born in Georgia, USA, in 1961 and grew up in Bible-Belt Central, USA and his reaction to religious dogma, thrust upon him and many others, is evident in his stand-up act. As Bill saw it, “A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross? It's like going up to JFK’s widow, Jackie Onassis, wearing a rifle pendant. Just thinking of John, that’s all Jackie”.
As a teenager he used to sneak out to comedy venues, performing and outshining many established acts while at the tender age of fifteen. People, who saw Bill Hicks live, said it was an experience to be remembered for the rest of their lives. Those who saw him dead, just said that they were really too upset to comment. Bill’s no-holds barred style would never endear him with corporate, image-obsessed, mainstream US Television producers, or audiences for that matter. He venomously spat out the truth, the way he saw it, starkly honest and unabashed and most importantly, funny. “They celebrate Easter the exact same way we do: commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus by telling our children a giant bunny rabbit … left chocolate eggs in the night. Now, I wonder why we're fucked up as a race. Anybody got any idea? You know, I've read the Bible. I can't find the word "bunny" or "chocolate" anywhere in the fucking book”
Once established on the comedy circuits, Bill’s alcoholic intake soared because of the ‘always touring’ lifestyle he delved into, as did his cigarette consumption, which may well have contributed to his sad, early demise. I think his hardcore, addictive personality gave him an edge which honed his insight but sometimes the booze and later drugs, led him into dark areas of incoherence, which he manfully disguised by harassing the paying audience until they left in disgust. He incorporated his excesses into his routine but always with a sardonic eye on political society’s views on narcotic substances, “Wouldn't you like to see a positive LSD story on the news? To hear what it's all about, perhaps? Wouldn't that be interesting? Just for once? ‘Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration … that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.’ “
Throughout his short career, he rallied against the wrongs of the world, corrupt governments, war, ignorance, religion, the evils of huge corporations and mind manipulating marketing, he wasn’t afraid to laugh at himself, and speak the truth at he saw it. Various companies tried and failed to have Bill endorse their products, “Anybody in marketing, kill yourselves rid the world of your evil machinations, please” but he believed that he had a message, to open peoples eyes, and minds and I think he was probably right. In his last few months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1994, he did a select last few shows, then went home to die in the company of his family and loved ones. He was, and is a genius, wickedly funny, and with a philosophical outlook that is to be admired His work will live on for many years, Bill Hicks, a one-off, sadly taken from us all too early.
I’ll leave the last word to Bill “The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and its fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey – don't worry, don't be afraid ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because – it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.”
http://www.burybob.com/
http://www.unclejoebloggs.blogspot.com/
http://www.thousandwordsvideo.co.uk/
http://www.dontrewardbadbhaviour.com/
As a teenager he used to sneak out to comedy venues, performing and outshining many established acts while at the tender age of fifteen. People, who saw Bill Hicks live, said it was an experience to be remembered for the rest of their lives. Those who saw him dead, just said that they were really too upset to comment. Bill’s no-holds barred style would never endear him with corporate, image-obsessed, mainstream US Television producers, or audiences for that matter. He venomously spat out the truth, the way he saw it, starkly honest and unabashed and most importantly, funny. “They celebrate Easter the exact same way we do: commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus by telling our children a giant bunny rabbit … left chocolate eggs in the night. Now, I wonder why we're fucked up as a race. Anybody got any idea? You know, I've read the Bible. I can't find the word "bunny" or "chocolate" anywhere in the fucking book”
Once established on the comedy circuits, Bill’s alcoholic intake soared because of the ‘always touring’ lifestyle he delved into, as did his cigarette consumption, which may well have contributed to his sad, early demise. I think his hardcore, addictive personality gave him an edge which honed his insight but sometimes the booze and later drugs, led him into dark areas of incoherence, which he manfully disguised by harassing the paying audience until they left in disgust. He incorporated his excesses into his routine but always with a sardonic eye on political society’s views on narcotic substances, “Wouldn't you like to see a positive LSD story on the news? To hear what it's all about, perhaps? Wouldn't that be interesting? Just for once? ‘Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration … that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.’ “
Throughout his short career, he rallied against the wrongs of the world, corrupt governments, war, ignorance, religion, the evils of huge corporations and mind manipulating marketing, he wasn’t afraid to laugh at himself, and speak the truth at he saw it. Various companies tried and failed to have Bill endorse their products, “Anybody in marketing, kill yourselves rid the world of your evil machinations, please” but he believed that he had a message, to open peoples eyes, and minds and I think he was probably right. In his last few months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1994, he did a select last few shows, then went home to die in the company of his family and loved ones. He was, and is a genius, wickedly funny, and with a philosophical outlook that is to be admired His work will live on for many years, Bill Hicks, a one-off, sadly taken from us all too early.
I’ll leave the last word to Bill “The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and its fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey – don't worry, don't be afraid ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because – it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.”
http://www.burybob.com/
http://www.unclejoebloggs.blogspot.com/
http://www.thousandwordsvideo.co.uk/
http://www.dontrewardbadbhaviour.com/
Manchester comedian Bury Bob is sick of BBC comedy.
About a year ago I returned to the UK to try and ”get back to my roots” after living in Canada, Spain and Denmark over a period of 15 years.
My goal was to gather together a bunch of talented people I had known for years and get some kind of coop together. People from different disciplines working together to create material that was as far away from the tired BBC, ITV mainstream as possible. My theory was ”If I’m sick of this crap”, there must be a large number of people out there who are thinking the same and with the internet it’s just a matter of finding those people.
I got in touch with the guy I’d met in Spain and we began to meet once a week at my flat ‘ up int thills’ above Manchester,UK. He was an ex ”olic’ , that is, if you could abuse it he’d taken it and he also suffered from schizophrenia – not the best choice of a business partner, you might think – but we found that we clicked on many levels and began to work on a project to take into the schools around Salford to use his experiences to warn kids from rougher areas about the consequences of substance abuse.
He had always had the nick name of bury bobz so we decided to take the z off and make it Bury Bob and build the character around that. One afternoon I said ”Right lets try something different”
We set the camera rolling….my little 5 year old Panasonic camcorder – turned down the lights and started talking. Very quickly Bob appeared. An opinionated scally Manchester bloke with a very warped, but very funny view of the world. I sat behind the camera and watched in amazement as …the one who shall henceforth be known as Bury bob…came to life,
Over the next 3 months we had more of these sessions and uploaded them to You Tube and slowly but surely other characters began to appear from Bob’s schizophrenic, from Terry Bull. q list confidant to the stars,well asteroids, to Snood P Whipper Salford’s urban warrior poet, rapper and general bad boy subversive. We even have a cannibal chef called Canny Kenny Bull ,Terry’s cousin.
Bob built a very strange and very orange website and over the following months developed a place where he could let us share his warped imagination and uniquely funny veiw of the world we live in.
We wanted to get to all those people who are sick of Saturday night pap and have an interactive site where people could send in questions for Bob and then film his responses. It would be an interesting experiment in interactive internet improv comedy. (Try saying that after a few smokes…I mean pints)
We built up Bob’s back story and sketched out a family history so we could begin to involve other people, which was my original plan.
We intend to carry on working as a small tight knit group doing stuff that makes us laugh and having a bit of fun. Eventually we will be doing a full podcast with all the characters turning up and involving a larger group of friends and colleagues, but first we have to make a little money and we are relying on advertisers and donations for that as we would like to keep the site as free as possible for our users who need a laugh, because they don’t have any money or a job or a….don’t let me go there, I don’t want to have a rant.
We are also looking to help local good causes and I recently met a wonderful inspiring man called David Feldman from The Princes Trust group of charities and am hoping to be able to help in their goal to make Burnley rise from the ashes of despair and become the guiding light for inner city regeneration in the 21st century. They are doing wonderful things there in a very practical way.
So you guys , our aims are modest…to bring a little sunshine and laughter into people’s lives in these dark times.
So if you like the sound of Bury Bob and would like to have a private chuckle check out the website and register with us so we can keep you informed and find out what is important in your world.
Just as a footnote we have also done several tunes that might be of interest, one of which is currently in the top 50 at revernation.com an online indie music chart. Your votes would be appreciated there a we would love to get to number one. The song is called Only on F in Salford featuring Snood P Whipper
My name is Ian Jameson …henceforth known as
Uncle Joe Bloggs
Love and peace and all that shit!
http://www.burybob.com/
My goal was to gather together a bunch of talented people I had known for years and get some kind of coop together. People from different disciplines working together to create material that was as far away from the tired BBC, ITV mainstream as possible. My theory was ”If I’m sick of this crap”, there must be a large number of people out there who are thinking the same and with the internet it’s just a matter of finding those people.
I got in touch with the guy I’d met in Spain and we began to meet once a week at my flat ‘ up int thills’ above Manchester,UK. He was an ex ”olic’ , that is, if you could abuse it he’d taken it and he also suffered from schizophrenia – not the best choice of a business partner, you might think – but we found that we clicked on many levels and began to work on a project to take into the schools around Salford to use his experiences to warn kids from rougher areas about the consequences of substance abuse.
He had always had the nick name of bury bobz so we decided to take the z off and make it Bury Bob and build the character around that. One afternoon I said ”Right lets try something different”
We set the camera rolling….my little 5 year old Panasonic camcorder – turned down the lights and started talking. Very quickly Bob appeared. An opinionated scally Manchester bloke with a very warped, but very funny view of the world. I sat behind the camera and watched in amazement as …the one who shall henceforth be known as Bury bob…came to life,
Over the next 3 months we had more of these sessions and uploaded them to You Tube and slowly but surely other characters began to appear from Bob’s schizophrenic, from Terry Bull. q list confidant to the stars,well asteroids, to Snood P Whipper Salford’s urban warrior poet, rapper and general bad boy subversive. We even have a cannibal chef called Canny Kenny Bull ,Terry’s cousin.
Bob built a very strange and very orange website and over the following months developed a place where he could let us share his warped imagination and uniquely funny veiw of the world we live in.
We wanted to get to all those people who are sick of Saturday night pap and have an interactive site where people could send in questions for Bob and then film his responses. It would be an interesting experiment in interactive internet improv comedy. (Try saying that after a few smokes…I mean pints)
We built up Bob’s back story and sketched out a family history so we could begin to involve other people, which was my original plan.
We intend to carry on working as a small tight knit group doing stuff that makes us laugh and having a bit of fun. Eventually we will be doing a full podcast with all the characters turning up and involving a larger group of friends and colleagues, but first we have to make a little money and we are relying on advertisers and donations for that as we would like to keep the site as free as possible for our users who need a laugh, because they don’t have any money or a job or a….don’t let me go there, I don’t want to have a rant.
We are also looking to help local good causes and I recently met a wonderful inspiring man called David Feldman from The Princes Trust group of charities and am hoping to be able to help in their goal to make Burnley rise from the ashes of despair and become the guiding light for inner city regeneration in the 21st century. They are doing wonderful things there in a very practical way.
So you guys , our aims are modest…to bring a little sunshine and laughter into people’s lives in these dark times.
So if you like the sound of Bury Bob and would like to have a private chuckle check out the website and register with us so we can keep you informed and find out what is important in your world.
Just as a footnote we have also done several tunes that might be of interest, one of which is currently in the top 50 at revernation.com an online indie music chart. Your votes would be appreciated there a we would love to get to number one. The song is called Only on F in Salford featuring Snood P Whipper
My name is Ian Jameson …henceforth known as
Uncle Joe Bloggs
Love and peace and all that shit!
http://www.burybob.com/
Is stand-up comedy coming back to life in Manchester - Bury Bob is a good start!
When I was young people judged how 'long in the tooth' they were getting, by measuring themselves against how young policemen looked.
These days you don't see many policemen on the beat so I've started using a different criteria....
stand up comedians.
I don't remember in the early days of alternative comedy anybody talking about their mother, other than in how she had been a suffocating influence in their lives.
The other night I was watching some guy...don't ask me his name they all look the same to me....and he was talking about how his mum was having trouble with understanding a computer....really radical I thought and switched off.
One of the few shining lights in the darkness is Lee Nelson who shows us how to work a crowd, be cheeky, get a couple of subliminal messages across and leave. A real pro who has obviously paid his dues in lots of different venues and appeals to all ages and races apparently.
Unfortunately, the rest of the comedy scene in the UK seems to be bereft of original talent.
Soon Manchester youtube funny man Bury Bob will be taking his internet comedy into the live comedy club environment. He has been working hard on the act trying to find an mood that is both original and approachable. Expect to see him out there in the Manchester comedy clubs in September 2011.
In the meantime he has released his latest video ''Granddad's Sausage''
and it's causing a bit of a stir... check it out here
These days you don't see many policemen on the beat so I've started using a different criteria....
stand up comedians.
I don't remember in the early days of alternative comedy anybody talking about their mother, other than in how she had been a suffocating influence in their lives.
The other night I was watching some guy...don't ask me his name they all look the same to me....and he was talking about how his mum was having trouble with understanding a computer....really radical I thought and switched off.
One of the few shining lights in the darkness is Lee Nelson who shows us how to work a crowd, be cheeky, get a couple of subliminal messages across and leave. A real pro who has obviously paid his dues in lots of different venues and appeals to all ages and races apparently.
Unfortunately, the rest of the comedy scene in the UK seems to be bereft of original talent.
Soon Manchester youtube funny man Bury Bob will be taking his internet comedy into the live comedy club environment. He has been working hard on the act trying to find an mood that is both original and approachable. Expect to see him out there in the Manchester comedy clubs in September 2011.
In the meantime he has released his latest video ''Granddad's Sausage''
and it's causing a bit of a stir... check it out here
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Manchester alternative comedian Bury Bob asks, ''Where is the alternative comedy on the BBC?''
About a year ago I returned to the UK to try and ”get back to my roots” after living in Canada, Spain and Denmark over a period of 15 years.
My goal was to gather together a bunch of talented people I had known for years and get some kind of coop together. People from different disciplines working together to create material that was as far away from the tired BBC, ITV mainstream as possible. My theory was ”If I’m sick of this crap”, there must be a large number of people out there who are thinking the same and with the internet it’s just a matter of finding those people. I got in touch with the guy I’d met in Spain and we began to meet once a week at my flat ‘ up int thills’ above Manchester,UK. He was an ex ”olic’ , that is, if you could abuse it he’d taken it and he also suffered from schizophrenia – not the best choice of a business partner, you might think – but we found that we clicked on many levels and began to work on a project to take into the schools around Salford to use his experiences to warn kids from rougher areas about the consequences of substance abuse.
He had always had the nick name of bury bobz so we decided to take the z off and make it Bury Bob and build the character around that. One afternoon I said ”Right lets try something different”
We set the camera rolling….my little 5 year old Panasonic camcorder – turned down the lights and started talking. Very quickly Bob appeared. An opinionated scally Manchester bloke with a very warped, but very funny view of the world. I sat behind the camera and watched in amazement as …the one who shall henceforth be known as Bury bob…came to life,
Over the next 3 months we had more of these sessions and uploaded them to You Tube and slowly but surely other characters began to appear from Bob’s schizophrenic, from Terry Bull. q list confidant to the stars,well asteroids, to Snood P Whipper Salford’s urban warrior poet, rapper and general bad boy subversive. We even have a cannibal chef called Canny Kenny Bull ,Terry’s cousin. Bob built a very strange and very orange website and over the following months developed a place where he could let us share his warped imagination and uniquely funny veiw of the world we live in. We wanted to get to all those people who are sick of Saturday night pap and have an interactive site where people could send in questions for Bob and then film his responses. It would be an interesting experiment in interactive internet improv comedy. (Try saying that after a few smokes…I mean pints) We built up Bob’s back story and sketched out a family history so we could begin to involve other people, which was my original plan.
We intend to carry on working as a small tight knit group doing stuff that makes us laugh and having a bit of fun. Eventually we will be doing a full podcast with all the characters turning up and involving a larger group of friends and colleagues, but first we have to make a little money and we are relying on advertisers and donations for that as we would like to keep the site as free as possible for our users who need a laugh, because they don’t have any money or a job or a….don’t let me go there, I don’t want to have a rant. We are also looking to help local good causes and I recently met a wonderful inspiring man called David Feldman from The Princes Trust group of charities and am hoping to be able to help in their goal to make Burnley rise from the ashes of despair and become the guiding light for inner city regeneration in the 21st century. They are doing wonderful things there in a very practical way. So you guys , our aims are modest…to bring a little sunshine and laughter into people’s lives in these dark times. So if you like the sound of Bury Bob and would like to have a private chuckle check out the website and register with us so we can keep you informed and find out what is important in your world.
Just as a footnote we have also done several tunes that might be of interest, one of which is currently in the top 50 at revernation.com an online indie music chart. Your votes would be appreciated there a we would love to get to number one. The song is called Only on F in Salford featuring Snood P Whipper
My goal was to gather together a bunch of talented people I had known for years and get some kind of coop together. People from different disciplines working together to create material that was as far away from the tired BBC, ITV mainstream as possible. My theory was ”If I’m sick of this crap”, there must be a large number of people out there who are thinking the same and with the internet it’s just a matter of finding those people. I got in touch with the guy I’d met in Spain and we began to meet once a week at my flat ‘ up int thills’ above Manchester,UK. He was an ex ”olic’ , that is, if you could abuse it he’d taken it and he also suffered from schizophrenia – not the best choice of a business partner, you might think – but we found that we clicked on many levels and began to work on a project to take into the schools around Salford to use his experiences to warn kids from rougher areas about the consequences of substance abuse.
He had always had the nick name of bury bobz so we decided to take the z off and make it Bury Bob and build the character around that. One afternoon I said ”Right lets try something different”
We set the camera rolling….my little 5 year old Panasonic camcorder – turned down the lights and started talking. Very quickly Bob appeared. An opinionated scally Manchester bloke with a very warped, but very funny view of the world. I sat behind the camera and watched in amazement as …the one who shall henceforth be known as Bury bob…came to life,
Over the next 3 months we had more of these sessions and uploaded them to You Tube and slowly but surely other characters began to appear from Bob’s schizophrenic, from Terry Bull. q list confidant to the stars,well asteroids, to Snood P Whipper Salford’s urban warrior poet, rapper and general bad boy subversive. We even have a cannibal chef called Canny Kenny Bull ,Terry’s cousin. Bob built a very strange and very orange website and over the following months developed a place where he could let us share his warped imagination and uniquely funny veiw of the world we live in. We wanted to get to all those people who are sick of Saturday night pap and have an interactive site where people could send in questions for Bob and then film his responses. It would be an interesting experiment in interactive internet improv comedy. (Try saying that after a few smokes…I mean pints) We built up Bob’s back story and sketched out a family history so we could begin to involve other people, which was my original plan.
We intend to carry on working as a small tight knit group doing stuff that makes us laugh and having a bit of fun. Eventually we will be doing a full podcast with all the characters turning up and involving a larger group of friends and colleagues, but first we have to make a little money and we are relying on advertisers and donations for that as we would like to keep the site as free as possible for our users who need a laugh, because they don’t have any money or a job or a….don’t let me go there, I don’t want to have a rant. We are also looking to help local good causes and I recently met a wonderful inspiring man called David Feldman from The Princes Trust group of charities and am hoping to be able to help in their goal to make Burnley rise from the ashes of despair and become the guiding light for inner city regeneration in the 21st century. They are doing wonderful things there in a very practical way. So you guys , our aims are modest…to bring a little sunshine and laughter into people’s lives in these dark times. So if you like the sound of Bury Bob and would like to have a private chuckle check out the website and register with us so we can keep you informed and find out what is important in your world.
Just as a footnote we have also done several tunes that might be of interest, one of which is currently in the top 50 at revernation.com an online indie music chart. Your votes would be appreciated there a we would love to get to number one. The song is called Only on F in Salford featuring Snood P Whipper
Terry Bull talks about his bid to host the Obese Olympics in Bolton
My name is Ian Jameson …henceforth known as Uncle Joe Bloggs
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