BLOG: IT'S ME, NOT THEM

It’s the one-year anniversary of losing my dad tomorrow. Much of my family went to the Isle of Wight this week to scatter his ashes, but I didn’t want to go. Everyone is different, but it wasn’t how I wanted to remember him. My mum, bless her, totally understood. 

Instead, we’re going away for a couple of days to Wiltshire to distract me. Ostensibly, it’s to film a very exciting Digi video, but also… I’m feeling … I dunno. A bit wobbly? I feel a need to be busy, and get a change of scenery. 

Some of it is to do with the anniversary, but some of it is also to do with the current Russell Brand stuff, and what we talked about in the most recent BYAMPOD about Fish. All of that coming in the same week has kind of made me a bit vulnerable to feeling anxious and off-kilter.

As I said on the most recent episode of BYAMPOD, I was pretty triggered by going over some of Fish’s past behaviour and comments. I owned that it was about me, not him. And similarly, doom-scrolling about Russell Brand – though I’m not for a second equating Fish’s actions to the allegations against Brand – has affected me unexpectedly.

More than either thing should, really. 

I know they’re nothing to do with me, and I don’t want you to think I’m making this all about me. "I'm the real victim here!"

Shut-up, Paul, right?

Nevertheless… here we are. 

PERSONAL

I guess, I worked in the British comedy industry when Brand was an up-and-coming star, and I’ve been a Fish fan since I was 14 years old. I’ve met them both. I also have a whole bunch of daughters. How can these things not feel personal to a degree?

It’s my own fault. I should just learn to step away sometimes, but I’ve been trying to work out why both seemingly quite different topics have set me off; why I’ve been affected by them so personally, and why I find hard to let go or turn a blind eye, and keep my gob shut. They might be different stories, but I've had a similar emotional response to both. 

I've been digging around in my soul for a few days, and think it’s a couple of reasons. Firstly, as I’ve written in the past, I was pretty badly bullied at school. The thing is, it wasn’t the bullying that was the biggest issue, but the people who sided with the bullies. It was the feeling of being the whipping boy for the entire school – even friends at times would side with the bullies to save their own skin. Teachers would join in.... It would make me feel powerless to stand up to it. Utterly isolated.

Now I can look back objectively and say there was no reason for it; I stood out as a target because I was tall and gangly, had a weird sense of humour, wasn’t good at sport, and because… well, once it starts, that’s it; you’re just the go-to target, and for me it went on for years.

I suppose, in some way, the young me found it confusing as much as anything. As an adult, I know that bullies would have had their own shit going on at home that made them that way, but nevertheless… 

I could see that these were the not the kids who showed kindness or empathy to others. They were the ones who’d lash out and hurt people. Why did they get the support over those of us were doing our best just to get through the school day, and bother nobody? Why would they be the ones getting cheers and laughs for vicious behaviour, when I was trying to be a ‘good kid’? 

And not just a decent kid, but one whose family went through a lot of grief in his early teens, a family broken by losing people, and still wasn’t given a break when he’d have to go to school. I already had enough to deal with without literally being punched in the face, kicked in the back, have darts thrown into my leg, get rumours spread about me, or be spat at. 

This isn’t self-pity, or a play for sympathy; it’s just, objectively, the case. It all felt unfair. Frustraing. Isolating. It still does, if I let myself feel it. I thought I'd put it all behind me, dealt with it, but I think the bruises have stayed, become a part of me, even if they're buried beneath decades accumulated life.

I mean, without wanting to go into details, school wasn’t the only time I felt that sense of powerlessness in the face of a mob. It has happened in my adult life too, in ways that left a deep scar, because sometimes it hurts even more when the people you should be closest to, the ones who you expect have your back, are the ones ganging up against you and siding with a bully.

Nevertheless, buried as it might all be most of the time, I guess that disparity and imbalance manifests as a real anger that comes out when I see that sort of injustice play out in the public eye. When I see people being hurt by those more powerful - and their supporters - it brings it all to the surface.

SURFACE TENSION

I realise now that there have been too many times in recent years where I’ve felt that way; again, not just over the actions of public figures (Donald Trump and Graham Linehan being the most notable ones), but by the support they receive. The injustice of a bully getting cheered or feted for their bullying behaviour is something I clearly find impossible to turn a blind eye to.

There's always this voice in me which goes "But... but... why can't they see what he's like?! Isn't it obvious?!?"

It's how it has been with Russell Brand; the more I saw those on social media dismissing recent allegations as an absurd conspiracy to take him down, disbelieving wholly credible allegations in favour of his new-age-conspiracy-wordybollocks… the more upset I got by it. The more I took it personally. The more my own shit floated to the surface, and the scars started to burn again.

Same with Fish, really. When he threatened a writer last year with legal action over a book he’d written in good faith – a book about how much he loved Fish’s work - what I really despised was how Fish’s most loyal fans spoke out against the guy, and my reaction was… well, fan or not... I got upset over it, almost as if it was happening to me. It was mob violence, and there always seems to be someone weaponising that mob.

I’ve read that book. I’ve spoken with the guy who wrote it. I know how that whole situation was INCREDIBLY damaging for him… and it was all for nothing. He’d done nothing wrong in writing it. 

GAAAH!!! JUST LET IT GO, PAUL!!! LET IT GO!!!

See?!?

SHUT-UP

I think what happened to me when I was younger has left a vulnerability, whereby I can’t stand what I perceive as apparent bullying or punching down. Or when I see that the 'bullies' have the support of people who turn a blind eye to terrible behaviour simply because they’re fans, and think that person can do no wrong. 

Worse still for me are those bullies who know they have support, and use it as armour, or to justify their behaviour. If you enable that, have a word with yourself. 

And I wish I could stop myself. If I speak out, I always end up upsetting or annoying someone else, and then that makes me unhappier, but I get blinded by my own stuff. 

It's why generally I don’t comment on politics, or give my opinions on big issues online. What you get in such situations is me, who has his own stuff going on, and others with their stuff going on, and none of us able to look beyond that to meet in the middle. It’s too easy to get sucked into it, misrepresent the intentions of others, and fail to deploy your own empathy. I try to stay out of it, because I know myself. 

So. Anyway.

Couple of days away to calm down, remember my dad, and shoot some silly videos. Think it’ll do me good.