THE THINGS I GOT DONE - PLUS SWEARY BONUS RANT! (Patreon)

Been a bit of a day for Getting Stuff Done. 

I finally finished compiling the Digitiser Live DVD. Now I've just got to burn the master copy, and it'll be ready to go off to the makers. We did discuss burning them ourselves (and the brilliant Nikki Heald kindly offered to help), but that would take forever, and you won't get a version with printing on the actual DVD if we went that route. I want you to feel like it's a professional - albeit chronically delayed - product.

If you want to understand why I might've been dragging my heels over it, because Digitiser The Show isn't exactly my favourite thing to have worked on... well, there's more on that below. 

I also spoke with Harrow Arts Centre about Digitiser Live. Once again they offered a refund, but I reiterated that we want to honour the booking. It's a sign of how venues are struggling that I swear the woman on the phone would've hugged me if she'd been in front of me. They must've had a lot of cancellations, judging by how grateful she was. Big shame. 

I've suggested to them September or October next year, because I honestly can't see us being out of this mess before then. She did say it may be that we have to reduce the capacity. What this'll mean, I don't know - two shows? Cap attendance where we have it? - but they're waiting on more government guidance, apparently. Good luck there. I'll keep you posted.

I also finished online present shopping for two of my kids, who both have birthdays later this month. 

And I made this week's Digi video live. It took a whole 90 minutes this time for the first "When's Gannon coming back?" comment. 

Well... it'll probably be next week, as we're going to be attempting some sort of Zoom-based filming on Thursday.

FRANKLYSTEIN

Frankly, though, both he and I agree that it's for the best that we use him more sparingly on the channel going forwards. At least for a while. The more comments that we get to the effect of the one above, the longer it's going to be until he returns in any kind of regular capacity.

I mean, he warned me when we started doing stuff together that he tends to dominate the shows he's on. He's aware of it, so he works very hard to give credit where credit's due, and step aside when he feels it's necessary. None of it is remotely Gannon's fault.

Consequently, he's embarrassed and pissed-off with some elements of the Cheapshow fanbase, and the way they've been behaving towards me. We're good friends, we live near each other, I love working with him, and it puts him in an awkward position when people are saying Sanja and I are boring, and Gannon and Eli are better. 

The change of format was only due to lockdown - and we will creep back towards a hybrid of what we did before, and what we do now, alongside more, glossier, mini-series (once we're able) - but it has been a revelation in many ways.  

I swore I wouldn't moan or vent on here for a while, but please excuse me while I expunge a primal scream of frustration (ie; rant). 

I mean, I'm among friends, right? 

As I've said before - due to the recently comments, the exodus of un-subscribers whenever a new video goes up, and other remarks - it's clear that I failed to build my own audience over the last couple of years... and a large percentage of them weren't there for me. I do enjoy working with other people, but I clearly leant on them too much, and clearly too much of what I did was invisible to their fans. 

It has been kind of eye-opening in the past month or so, the longer we've gone without other people on the channel. For a long time, I think Sanja believed I was exaggerating or overreacting, but she now accepts that I was seeing things she didn't. 

Aside from the comments on YouTube, which I can take up to a point - I mean, I've got a pretty thick skin when it comes to most criticism - I had someone else on Twitter mention that they assumed that Gannon was always involved in the channel behind-the-scenes - even when he wasn't on screen. Why?! Where did we give that impression!?

Someone else on a livestream podcast, clearly unaware I was listening, said that "Biffo always needs somebody" (or words to that effect) - be it Gannon, Mr Hairs, whoever. My stuff is "better" when I have somebody to rely on, in his opinion, like he'd assumed I'm somehow always the junior, less talented or less focused, partner in my working relationships. 

I mean... what?!? 

I mean... fuck OFF!!!!?

Even when people are trying to be nice, it's revealing. Someone this week left a well-intentioned comment on Facebook that they thought Sanja and I "should definitely be included alongside Larry, Octav1us et al" in any online event to mark the original date of Digitiser Live 2.0... (even though Octav1us and Larry's involvement was going to be limited, if not completely non-existent, due to reasons that I won't get into). 

I mean... no shit I should be included in my own fucking thing!!!!! 

And you can add to this to someone I'd considered a friend and colleague anonymously posting disparaging comments on Digitiser2000.com (smelled a rat... and looked up the IP address), and... well... Christ. 

You'll excuse me for being at the end of my string with it all.

STUCK WITH ME

Out of all the comments we've had, those above have stuck with me, because they struck at the heart of what I do, and the stuff I'm most proud of. I know I'm not the world's greatest performer, but I'm great at getting stuff done, and staying focused. I tend to have a very original, singular, vision for things. I know that. Whether or not you like what I create, cut me and I bleed creativity. 

I mean, I enjoy collaborating, I work well with others (otherwise I wouldn't have worked in TV professionally for 20-odd years), and I'll always listen to outside input - on Digitiser The Show, I perhaps listened to too much - but I tend to have a very clear, usually fairly unique, idea of what I want. 

Albeit with the assistance of Sanja, Digitiser The Show, Digitiser Live, Found Footage et al were all pretty much solo projects (with Horsenburger helping on the day). 

I mean, I know most of you know all this already, but I worked my arse off on all of those things... heck, the last 7 years of Digitiser itself were written entirely by me (barring the tips and charts pages), and I hate to say it, but I wasn't the one who got fired...! Tim and I argue over who had the biggest influence on the Digitiser style, but the fact is... if I drop the false modesty for five seconds... most of the things people think of when they think of Digitiser were my creations. 

Everyone who was involved with Digitiser The Show, apart from Sanja and I, mostly got to kick back and have a good time, but we worked until we dropped that week. We were the only ones shouldering all the stress. 

Yes, we had a lot of help, and lots of people worked hard, but we were the only two working on it before the filming, late into the night the week of the filming, and then long afterwards. To then realise that so many people seem to view it as a Larry, Gannon and Octav1us project has been a major slap in the face. Maybe it would've been fine if I was getting paid for it, but... y'know. I wasn't. I was even sinking my own money into it. And, ultimately, for what?

I'm glad people liked it, but it has been nothing but a miserable headache for me.

Heck, even yesterday somebody on Twitter pulled me up about not crediting the amazing Jerden Cooke on the Sound Footage album. Hello?! That's because he's only on two of the songs, and he's visibly credited on those!!!!!! GAAAAGHGHGHGHGHGHHGVHawpkdjzds!!!!!

Enough!

AN AIR

I dunno if I give of some sort of air of not being capable of pulling a project together or something, or that I'm reckless... or have done too good a job of downplaying my involvement, or I'm too self-depreciating, or too good at giving credit to others, or what.

But I've always been driven, always been capable, and always been pretty single-minded. To have things I'm proud of somehow attributed to others, or be told that I can't do stuff without somebody to help me, is frustrating. It's galling, it's maddening, and ultimately it's upsetting. I don't need praise and adulation, but I at least want acknowledgement for what I've done, and not have that go to others all the fucking time, as it has been recently.

 I mean, the one thing on the channel that people universally seem to credit solely to me is Lost/Found Footage... and that's frequently in the same breath as "Er, it's weird, sorry... don't do too many things like that... I prefer the other videos LOL!"

Hence this (probably belated) attempt to reclaim what I do, by renaming the channel (I would've preferred keeping it Digitiser, but that has clearly become indelibly associated with the cast of Digitiser The Show), and more personal sorts of videos. So that's why the channel has become Mr Biffo's Biffovision, because it evidently needed pointing out. 

Will it make a difference? Dunno. I certainly don't need a big audience. I certainly don't care if people don't like my stuff. I just want people to at least give credit where it's due. That's literally all I need. Some acknowledgement.

I know you lot get it, otherwise you wouldn't be here. I just needed to get it off my chest, otherwise it's going to start bleeding out elsewhere.

And nobody wants to bleed out of their elsewhere. 

Paul

PS. Please don't tell me not to read the comments. I WILL fight you.