That Guy: Improv after midnight can be a highway to hell

Eric Clapton and Leigh Hart sometimes have some things in common. Photo / Steven McNicholl

Opinion

By the time you read this you will already be nine days into your new year, as will I, though I am writing about it two days earlier, a necessity if you want to get something to the printer on time.

I am sitting here thinking 'what the hell will I write next'. To be perfectly honest I don't really know as this is what I like to call an improv column.

When I write an improv column I just begin writing and see where it takes me.

For obvious reasons it is a very risky form of writing and most columnists are not prepared to try it, especially so early in the year when they aren't really match fit.

Sure, as writers we may have attended a couple of pre-season writing camps, but it's not the same as actually writing for money. More often than not improv writing will not work. The key is not to panic. Yes, if you try this week-in and week-out without success you are bound to lose your job, but you can't let that get in the way of your art, or free-form expressionism.

I like to think of a columnist as a rap artist, jazz musician, painter, and lead guitarist in a rock band all rolled into one.

When writing improv you have more in common with Eric Clapton or Slash - in that split second before they embark on a fully-improvised wailing guitar solo - than you do with other more traditional writers. Sure, you are using words unlike them, but you don't know what those words are until you write them. You only know that it has begun.

You may also have been using drugs, though Clapton doesn't any more.

If you are good, like Clapton, you will make history, and your work will be widely appreciated and copied, but if you are not you will in all likelihood be kicked out of the band and end up playing covers in Levin. Your only real reward is two free pints, your name up in lights on the chalk-board next to 'Basket of Fries', and the occasional one-night stand with an older woman.

Yes this is the life of an 'artist' who lives on the edge.

To be perfectly honest, again, if I lost my job at the Herald on Sunday, because of this free-form expressionism, I am not entirely sure what actual events would have to play out in order for me to be having a one night stand with somebody my mother went to school with, but the point I am trying to make is that the highs are high and the lows can be low.

Having said that, I have had many a one-night stand with older women and these have been among the most rewarding one-night stands I have ever had, certainly since I have been married.

And speaking of one-night stands, many of you, post-New Year's Eve, will have had recent sexual encounters of your own that you may or may not want to discuss. Let's face it, many people do try to channel that festive energy into a situation or scenario in which they can benefit sexually. I am not saying it is right or wrong: it is just a fact of life.

Recent research suggested that 65 per cent of people born in late August, September or early October are probably the result of a New Year's Eve experience. The research went on to suggest that people born in these months are themselves more likely to have a proactive approach to sexual activity over New Year's Eve or the holiday season in general.

Incidentally, I was born in July. I would like to expand on this research a little more but it seems that, as predicted, just as we were getting into something interesting, we have hit the word count threshold.