MY FATHER THE TROLL (Patreon)

I've been feeling a bit all over the place recently, and let stuff get to me that otherwise wouldn't. I think a lot of us are more vulnerable than usual at the moment, given what we're all dealing with to one extent or another. The armour I usually wear is still attached, but it's sort of been on me in a wonky way. There are gaps between the plates, which means a well-placed attack is going to get through. 

I mentioned recently getting a speeding ticket while borrowing my dad's car. No biggie, right? But my dad was seriously not impressed, and his reaction to it brought up a whole ton of deep stuff from the past that - frankly - is one area of my life that I've never really gotten a handle on. If you'll allow me to lay my soul bare for a minute... I've always felt like I was never good enough for him, that he was never proud of me.

It's why, when my ex-brother-in-law committed suicide last year, it hit me harder than I would've expected. Growing up he'd been more of a dad to me than my own dad had been. He always had time for me. 

I joke about some of it - like the time a few years ago when my mother asked my dad why he'd never told me he loved me, and he replied with "I don't need to. Paul knows I like him.". 

Which is pretty funny... but also pretty sad, because it's so true and raw. Don't get me wrong: I know he loves me, and he was just raised in a house where affection was hard to come by. He finds it impossible to express affection, but when you're a kid... that shapes you, and you carry it with you. It's why I've always made sure my kids know I love them and accept them unconditionally.

I've never gotten beyond how disappointed he was when I left Teletext and went freelance. He never approved of me trying to make it as a screenwriter, he repeatedly told me that it would all end in disaster, and made it pretty clear that he thought I was giving up work to be a bum and spend all day lazing around watching telly. 

I mean, I've proved him wrong repeatedly, almost working myself into the ground, keeping a roof over my head for decades, raising three brilliant kids, and three step-kids, winning awards for my work, rising to the top of my industry...

But in all honesty, I've never had a single outward nod of approval or acknowledgement for any of that. When I won the Royal Television Society Award for best children's show, I took the statue down to show him, and his response was "Oh". He literally said nothing more than that. Not a word. 

I feel for him; it can't be easy not being able to express your feelings - or even pride - for people that I know he loves, but it has also been hard, as his son, to see him give more time to his grandsons - particularly the ones who played football and joined the army - than he ever gave to me. I mean, it really hurts. I've gotten good at ignoring that hurt, at acting like I don't care, that everything is fine, that I don't need it,

But when I choose to get into it, of course I care.

So yes... ha ha, I got a speeding ticket, and feel like a teenager. But there's a whole lot more beneath the surface of what feeling like a teenager means to me, and what it means is that I feel that I'm not good enough for my dad. Like he sees me as this alien creature he just can't relate to. Who likes drawing, and making things, and stupid jokes... rather than 'normal' things like football and the army and cars. I don't even own a car now, so that's another point of connection lost! 

Having all this float to the surface has made me feel raw, and vulnerable. So when - as has happened recently - I've felt like I was second fiddle on my own YouTube channel, that being me wasn't enough for a big chunk of the audience who only wanted to see some of the Barshens alumni (even if it has become abundantly clear that a lot of those complaints were from just one person using multiple accounts), it went in rather than bounce off like it normally would. 

In the same way that I feel that no matter what I do I will in some way disappoint my dad - even though generally that isn't a conscious feeling - it was starting to feel as if nothing I did on YouTube was good enough for some of the audience. 

My tastes, my choices, the things I want to create, how I want to spend my time and my life... it wasn't what people wanted to see. Lost Footage, the storytime videos with Sanja... stuff that has nothing to do with video games... all things that I enjoy, I'd get comments (again, mostly by one or two people pretending to be more) that they were shit, and that I should bring back the other people. You SHOULD do it this way. Should should should. It built up, waiting for a moment of weakness to uncoil in me.

The word 'should' was part of why I ended up so stressed on the set of Digitiser The Show, because rather than being given the space to figure it out, rather than trusting in my process, I was being told what I SHOULD be doing. It's akin to being a kid who's just trying to draw something from their imagination, but somebody is stood at their should offering a constant critique, and telling them what they should be drawing instead. 

In the same way I feel that everything I've achieved in my career is irrelevant to my dad, because it's not me being able to score goals, or fight in a war, the same wound was being poked when Digitiser's 27-year existence, everything I've done as Mr Biffo, was starting to feel irrelevant next to the relatively short time I've been collaborating with others on YouTube. Normally, I'd be able to ignore it, brush it aside, but that pesky speeding ticket was the chink in the armour that let it all in. 

Hence me being a bit all over the place, changing the channel name, talking about setting up a second channel, and blah blah. I was doubting myself, listening to others, rather than sticking to my guns like I would usually. In short, I was panicking, trying to hold onto what I wanted to do, like clinging to a flagpole in a storm, and ignore the storm. In short: I've been flailing in recent weeks. 

The good thing is, I now know I was flailing. All this has given me an opportunity to look at all this baggage over the last couple of days, and now I can get a grip on myself again. 

When we were doing our counselling training, Sanja and I jokingly called ourselves The Understanders, because we would dig and dig and dig until we understood where our emotional shit came from, rather than just push it down, and move on. 

And hence, that's how I've managed to put these pieces together, as to why things have been getting to me recently more than usual, and as always... there's a point of origin. And in this instance, it's my relationship with my father. Knowing where your feelings and reactions come from is how you get a handle on it. You can't deal with the monster under the bed unless you shine a torch on it. Our monsters only have power over us when they lurk in the shadows. 

Consequently, having dragged my monster out from under the bed, and given it a kicking, I feel like I've got a bit of a handle on everything again. 

Of course it was wrong to change the name of the channel. Of course Sanja and I shouldn't punt our videos off to a second channel (though we still might, possibly... we'll see, but my belief is we need to send a message that I'm the one constant on Digitiser, and that only works if it isn't always me and Gannon together). 

Thing is, Digitiser is a part of me - it is me, as much as Mr Biffo is - and I have to accept that the cold light of YouTube has exposed me to an audience that has no knowledge of who I am, what Digitiser is, and that long history. After a few weeks of wobbles, my armour is back on though. I'm ready to forge ahead, as stubborn as ever. 

PLANS!

Now that it's clear that Coronavirus isn't going away anytime soon, it's time to get serious about the channel again. I've loved doing the Storytime videos, but my plan for this year had been to really put some planning and production into the channel. Digitiser Deluxe was kind of the template going forward - a pilot series, if you will, from which I learned a lot. 

The new ethos going forwards is that I want the audience to learn something from every video. It doesn't matter what we do; I want there to be substance. I feel the storytime videos offered that. I even feel the recent run of Lost Footage had substance. But that's my goal; we can go off at the usual bizarre tangents, as long as we also have substance. 

It's what Digitiser always did best; it aimed to entertain in surreal and silly ways, but it also informed. That's the entirety of the format, and I will check every video to make sure that's on track.

It's weird, however, where inspiration will come from. I don't know how many of you follow me on Twitter, but recently I went down a couple of rabbit holes concerning firstly Billy Bear Ham, of all things, and then Duck Tales. Though they're both completely absurd subjects - especially Billy Bear Ham - I loved doing the research on those threads, and that's what made me realise that there's a whole string to my bow that I've not been using. I mean, I was a journalist, theoretically.

So, for some of the videos going forwards, we're going back to the early days of the Digi Minis, by looking at old tat. One of the subjects I'm currently working on is about the toy Hugo, Man of a Thousand Faces. Some of you will know I've long had a bit of a fascination with it, given that it appeared as the puppet sidekick in the Biffovision pilot. I recently bought one on eBay with a view to using it on the channel. 

At some point, the dots joined up, and I realised there might be a story behind Hugo. Suffice to say, once I started digging... it was another rabbit hole. I'm hoping we might even be able to do an interview with the man who created it - who was otherwise a cult filmmaker called Alan Ormsby. I'm waiting to hear back from him, so we'll see.

I think I'm also going to do a video about my Duck Tales Twitter thread. I sort of like the idea of taking completely ridiculous, and irrelevant, topics and doing a deep dive into them. Still not being able to be in the same room as Gannon for videos - I've really struggled with wrapping my head around how Zoom calls can work - it seems like the perfect format for us. 

I'm also thinking about doing some quizzes with guests over Zoom. I enjoyed doing those on Digitiser Deluxe. 

And my favourite ep of Digi Deluxe was the prison food one, so we've some more ideas in that sort of area coming up. One I've wanted to do for ages is a food episode, where we see if we can replace ingredients in recipes with crisps. So; can you have a Margherita pizza, where the cheese is replaced by Quavers...? For instance.

Anyhow, that's where we're at. Thank you for the continued support, and sorry for the whingeing of late, but I'd been going through some stuff. Stay tuned, because I think the channel is going to go from strength to strength.

Lastly, I should say in all this... I love my dad. He's a good man, he's a great grandfather, he'd do anything for any of us, and I know he loves me. It's just that sometimes it would've been nice to hear aloud the words that I know he is incapable of offering. 

Paul