13: Is “Done” really better than “Perfect”?
In this episode, Jules ponders the concept that just because the way you do things might not be the same as someone else, it doesn’t necessarily mean your way is no good….
She bumped into a former pupil and has actually found herself smiling at memories of being a teacher after believing that that could never happen. Jules is an international comedian now, don’t you know?! (Well… not quite but it felt like it for a brief, wonderful moment.) She’s watched a couple of new horror movies (of course she has!) and shares some rather controversial advice for anyone cursed with an RBF.
Transcript:
Episode 14: Generational divides, Velcro human centipede, and self–acceptance
Jules O’Brian:[Music] Hello, this is Jules O’Brian with the “Avoid Excessive Cleavage” podcast. The podcast for anyone who wants to grow older gracefully or disgracefully,
and the podcast that says “no” to unsolicited advice and inspirational quotes. This week’s inspirational quote is from Cheryl Sandberg, and the inspirational quote is, “Done is better than perfect.”
Now, I’m going to be honest, I quite like that one because it has actually inspired me. I was talking to a friend last week about how I will put off doing things because I worry that it’s not good enough. Now, I’m definitely not a perfectionist.
I really don’t think that that’s my issue. But I do worry about not being good enough. And I think that’s something that we all do to a certain degree,
in whatever aspect of your life that might be. But certainly, I don’t record many of these podcasts. Really, I need to do one a week. That’s what I ought to do.
Not because I’m changing the world with people listening to it or anything, but because it does me good, it helps me to come up with new ideas, which obviously I can use then to feed into my comedy sets.
It lets me try stuff out. And you know what? It’s just bloody good therapy as well. I can’t afford to see an actual therapist, but just sort of speaking into this microphone in the quiet of my own home
where nobody else can hear me, and I feel kind of free to articulate whatever is going through my head. It’s a really nice thing to do, but I listen to other people’s podcasts.
And I just feel very aware that theirs have got more to offer than mine has, that theirs are more interesting, that theirs are funnier or more intelligent, or more passionate.
So I sort of think, “Oh, what’s the point in doing mine?” You know, I just sort of waffle on about things that have happened to me, life in general, inspirational quotes,
being angry about getting older. And I worry that that’s not good enough. So I saw this quotation this week from Cheryl Sandberg.
I’m going to be honest, I didn’t know who she was. Turns out she’s kind of a big deal. You know, she’s a really important person who is a millionaire, a philanthropist.
So I’m just reading here from the New York Times about her. She has been lauded for Facebook’s tremendous success and private wealth creation and also her focus on Women in the Workplace in her landmark 2013 “Lean In” book,
which made her a major corporate star. And I didn’t know who she was. And I come on here slagging off inspirational quotes.
So anyway, Cheryl Sandberg, quite a big deal. And I really like that inspirational quote, “Done is better than perfect.” And like I say, that’s what’s made me do this one.
I just thought, “Okay, what’s the worst that can happen?” Well, the worst that can happen is that, Yeah, it’s not particularly brilliant or inspirational. And nobody listens.
Well, you know what? I’m living with that at the moment. I know that there are some people who do listen and say very lovely things to me about it, so thank you very much for that.
But, you know, it’s not the end of the world, is it? If it’s not the most amazing podcast that anyone has ever recorded? And this is the thing, I think, when it comes to all kinds of things,
when it comes to just life in general, you know, when I was a teacher, I would compare myself with other teachers who would have completely different teaching styles from me. You know, they would be just so good at their job.
But for different reasons, I think I was quite a good teacher. But I, you know, had very much my own style, very much my own way of connecting with the young people that I was teaching.
And yeah, that was something that I would do. Now, as a comedian, you know, if I, if there’s a comedian on before me, I’ll been watching the MC do their stuff
and I’ll be stood there waiting to go on thinking, “Oh God, I’m not going to be able to do as well as them. “Look how good they are. “Really got the audience eating out of the palm of their hand.” Oh, and I’ve got
I’ll have my jokes going through my head because obviously, you know, you’re thinking, “Oh, got to remember my set, and I’ll do that bit, or should I’ll do that bit, …which bit do I think this audience is going to prefer?” And I think, “Oh God, it’s all shit, they’re not going to think this is funny.”
And then what usually happens, nine times out of ten, thank God, is that I go on, do my bit, it goes well, and I think, “Oh, okay, why was I worried about that?”
And it’s the same kind of principle as I was just talking about with teaching that just because I’m not the same as that person that’s just done really well, doesn’t mean that I’m not necessarily as good, it’s just different, isn’t it?
So, yeah, I’m trying to take that on board a little bit: “Done is better than perfect.” It’s been a few weeks since I last recorded,
and I say this every time, but I’m going to try and make it a more regular thing for all the different reasons I mentioned earlier. Since I did the last podcast, I have become an international comedian.
That sounds far grander than the actual reality in the truth of the situation. But I went out to Switzerland, I was booked to go and do a gig in Switzerland. It was absolutely, it was just the most wonderful experience.
I felt like a proper rock star, and I just… And this thing where I kept saying, “You do know who I am, don’t you?” Not in the sense of, “Do you know who I am?”
But in the sense of, “You do know if you got the right person, you did mean to book me, didn’t you? Because I’m worried that you think I’m someone else.”
I just had the loveliest time I travelled with my lovely comedian friend, Steve Day, who is just gorgeous company, so funny and kind, and he, bless him, drove us to Heathrow,
and we caught the flight from Heathrow to Zurich, we were picked up by the wonderful woman who I became… you know, when you just click with somebody?…
and she was just this gorgeous, kind, friendly, clever, interesting human. And I just wanted to hear all her stories. She’s lived in all these different places all over the world
and done all these amazing things. Anyway, she picked us up from Zurich Airport and chauffeured us to a lovely hotel near the venue
where the comedy night was going to be. Now, we were put up overnight, we were fed, watered, given
whatever we wanted, I mean, it was amazing. It was literally, I could just go up to the bar and say, “Hello, I’m one of the acts performing tonight.
Can I have another glass of wine, please?” And I did that several times after I performed. And just kept thinking, “Am I taking the piss here?
Is this all right to keep doing this?” Such an amazing time. At one point, Andalize said to me,
she said, “I’m ever so sorry, the only thing that we can’t let you have are spirits, you would have to pay for those yourself.”
As if, you know, she was quite apologetic about it, as if that would be, you know, the kind of thing that’s going to make me flounce out of the gig
and go, “Oh–ho–ho, I demand to return to the UK immediately.” Yeah, so it was kind of a phenomenal experience. The gig went really well.
I did a little bit of German as part of my degree, so I opened, I mean, God, and I'm going back a few years and I say that.
So I did practice this first, obviously, but I opened the first 40 seconds or so of my set in German. Because it was a particularly German speaking part of Switzerland,
although most of the people in the audience actually were expats and all, obviously, fluent in English anyway, because people are aren’t they? Puts us to shame.
But yeah, so I opened it in German, which they loved, and I immediately got a round of applause for that, which feels like a bit of cheating, really,
because I did, it wasn’t comedy in German, it was just a, you know, “Thank you for having me. You’ll have to forgive me if my grammar isn’t what it used to be.
It’s quite a long time now since I studied any German at all.” So I just sort of spoke very generally and, you know, to get around for applause for something that wasn’t even comedy
when I was supposed to be there as a comedian, like I say, felt a bit like I was cheating. But you know what?
I’m taking it anyway. It was great. And then, yeah, and then they just love the comedy
and then in the break, people were coming over and chatting to me and the night before I had looked at which other comedians had performed their previous to me.
And it was all people that I always refer to as proper comedians. You know, people that I’ve watched and know about and admire over the years.
And it just felt so surreal that I was now in a position where I was doing what they’ve done, you know? So, yeah, what a fantastic experience.
Loved it. Came back, feeling like, you know, Billy Big–Bollocks.
I mean, “Jules O’Brian, International Comedian.” It was just the best experience. Two nights later, you may be one step ahead of me here,
you may know what I’m about to say. Because two nights later, I had another gig in… I won’t say where it was because I don’t want to sound like I’m being horrible
about that place or anything. I’m not, I’m 100% not blaming the audience or anything. I’m the one in charge of, you know,
making sure people have a good time when I’m on stage. But it was in a proper theatre, which is usually lovely, you know, bloody love a proper theatre
because I’m such a ham. And, oh God, it was just… It was one of those situations where
I kind of, at one point, wanted to say to them, “You know, I wanted to do the whole thing, you know, is this thing on?” I was second–guessing myself.
I was thinking, “Am I getting my punchlines wrong?” “Am I tripping over my words? “Do they just… maybe they just don’t understand me?”
It’s horrible. I mean, I came off stage and I apologised to the promoter and he was very lovely, very gracious
and was saying, “Oh God, no, what are you talking about? It was fine, they were laughing,” and whatever. Really, really sweet about it.
But I was there, you know? I just, like, talk about, you know, back down to earth with a bump, what a reality check.
I mean, I’m very lucky in that I rarely have gigs where I come off and think, “Oh God, that was horrible,” which probably just means I’m not doing enough gigs.
I’m aware of that. Often, you know, there’ll be gigs where I come off and go, “Yeah, that was okay.” But, you know, like I say, I’m very lucky
that this is going quite nicely and I will have a very nice time at most gigs that I do. But, oh my God, what was that?
What happened? It was just so far from what I’d experienced that couple of nights before, you know,
being flown to a different part of the world and then put in front of this audience that it felt as though they’d been, you know, created for me
and had the best time. Wow, but I think it’s good, I guess, isn’t it? You know, not that I need humbling:
I’m very aware of my place in this whole little game of comedy that I’m playing, but, yeah, that was a bizarre experience— sublime to the ridiculous in the extreme.
As I mentioned quite often, I used to be a teacher and I was in the supermarket the other day and an ex–pupil saw me.
I hadn’t seen him. I mean, he’s, you know, he’s a man now. He’s 29 years old and when he said that to me, I was like, “That’s crazy,
I’m also 29. How can you be 29,” you know? Because that’s just terrifying when you, you know,
I can remember him as a 15—16 year old, little ginger boy. He’s still ginger, but he’s not little anymore. And he was, oh my goodness,
I used to…. It was back in the day when you had a really, really bonkers class— and they were a bonkers class—
And it was period four and five on a Friday afternoon, so last part of the day. So kids would be, you know, off their rockers
and, like I say, bonkers class. But it was back in the day when if a class was, you know, in need of that little bit more support,
they’d put two teachers on. So my colleague and I would be there to support one another.
So just, you know, to keep this class sort of in some kind of control…. I don’t really like talking about control, you know, when you hear people say, “Oh, they can’t control the class.”
I don’t like that. I don’t think, you know, it should be a case of teachers having to ‘Control’ anybody. I don’t want to be in control,
I don’t think kids should have to be controlled. But that’s a, that’s a different debate. I bumped into this, this man now with his wife or partner and two children.
And he saw me first and said, “Oh, excuse me, but did you use to teach at— the school I used to teach at—?”
And I said, “Yeah.” And as soon as I said that, I thought, “Oh my God, I know who you are.” And he’s now tall, slim, you know, he’s this man.
And I thought bloody hell, look at that. And he was just an absolute delight to chat to in the supermarket. But I was laughing to myself all the way home because it just brought on a lot of memories
in a really nice way because it was back in the days when even though there would be classes that would drive me mad and don’t get me wrong, I was still dread those classes because you had to be on the top of your game.
It was crazy, crazy times. But I also loved it. I loved those kinds of kids that were naughty but funny. You know, when you’re laughing and you shouldn’t really be laughing,
but what they’ve said is not meant in any way malicious: it’s inappropriate, it’s not malicious.
It’s not, you know, it’s not horrible. It’s not unkind. Just inappropriate, silly, funny, totally unrelated to anything that is going on in the lesson.
Just to get attention for themselves or to, you know, get a break from the monotony of Shakespeare or whatever it might have been I was teaching. Case in point.
So this is one of the things I was thinking about when I was driving home because this lovely lad, that man had said to me, “Oh, you know what? I know I was a little shit, but I’m not going to let my kids grow up to be like that.
They’re going to have respect.” And I stopped him there immediately and I said, “You were not a little shit.” I said, “You were naughty.
You were very naughty,” and we were laughing as I was saying it, “but you were lovely. You know, you were a good kid. You were just, it was just naughty, but in a way that… it’s fine, you know,
it’s fine for kids to be naughty and funny because that’s what kids are like, because that’s what teenagers are meant to be like.” I was a proper Goody Two Shoes when I was a student at high school.
Yeah, so kids are kind of different now. That was one of the reasons that I stopped teaching because it’s gone from kids being… Not all kids obviously, but more than a minority I would argue of kids now in high schools
are that it’s not naughty and funny and a bit cheeky and, you know, it’s something else. It’s something quite unpleasant. Anyway, so I was driving home from the supermarket having just chatted to this lad that I used to teach
and his wife and their kids and I was just laughing to myself about some of the memories that it brought back and I was so grateful to have those. Here’s a case in point, right?
So, period five on a Friday, everybody’s ready to go home. I’m fantasising about opening the wine the moment I walk in the door because this class is mental so I just started Macbeth and I’ve given them the context, you know, when it was written,
what life would have been like in Shakespeare’s time and one of the things that happens towards the beginning of Macbeth is one of the characters commits an act of treason and is therefore killed.
Okay, so the kids didn’t know what treason was, fair enough, so I’m explaining what treason means and that, you know, people could be put to death for committing an act of treason so something that goes against the royal family goes against the king or the queen.
And so of course this sparks a little bit of interest from the kids because it’s actually stopped them having to think about “Thee,” “Thou,” and all of that stuff. So, you know, as soon as you mention Shakespeare, everybody starts groaning.
Although I should say, I think Macbeth is a fabulous play, I still love it. He used to have to do Romeo and Juliet as the set text at GCSE and I hated, I hate, I still hate that play.
Oh God, it really gets on my nerves, but Macbeth, Macbeth and Othello, I’m there for them all day. But anyway, so I explain treason, the kids are all talking amongst themselves. Finally, the kids all shut up, they’re quiet, they’re settled again for that class,
you know, I mean, they’re still jumping all over the place and whatever, but for them, it was enough to be able to carry on with teaching the play. And I can see this lad that I saw in the supermarket the other day
and his little huddle of friends still talking. So I'm like, “Oh, for Goodness sake, can you please be quiet? What on earth are you still talking about?”
“Misa, y’know treason, yeah?” “Yeah.” “So would it be classed as treason then if you bummed a corgi?” “What?
What? What, how did your brain even go there? How, what? …What was your train of thought?
How did you end up coming to that image in your head in relation to treason? I’ve just spoken to you about the Thane of Cawdor in Macbeth. I’ve just spoken to you about Guy Fawkes, Bonfire Night, the 5th of November.
Where, at what point did your mind go down a little path and ended up bumming a corgi? That’s amazing.” I was trying to explain this to my mum, I was laughing as I was telling my mum about it.
My mum’s now 75, she's brilliant, she’s a wonderful person who, as, and my dad as well, as they have gotten older, they’ve become more broad–minded, which I think is, I think it’s quite unusual, isn’t it?
I think a lot of us, as we get older, tend to get a little bit more narrow–minded. My parents have gone the opposite way. They’re, they’re very, very broad–minded now.
And I can talk to them about things that, you know, just a few years ago, might not have been able to. But I was relating this story to her.
And my mum went, “What, bumming a corgi? How did they…. Why was he talking about bombing a corgi?” “No mum, not bombing a corgi, bumming a corgi.”
“What, what, what does that mean?” Oh God, so then, I had to explain what that means. And, you know, you don’t want to explain that to your mum about anything, but
certainly not the idea of that action being carried out on, you know, an animal that belongs to the Queen. It just felt everything about that… “How have I ended up in this situation?”
But anyway, so, “Would it be classed as treason, miss, if you bummed a corgi?” About the time, obviously, I didn’t know how to respond to that, other than, “What on earth are you talking about? How have you started thinking about that?
Let’s carry on with the play, shall we?” But over the years, like I said, this kid now is 29. And this, that has stayed with me, that little moment in that English lesson, has stayed with me
and I’ve come to the conclusion that, yes, it would be treason, but I don’t think that’s the crime you’d be charged with. I think that’s fair to say.
As I mentioned, a couple of episodes ago, I have rejoined the gym. I thought that if I spent the money, I would force myself to go. Do you know how many times I've been to the gym in the past three weeks?
Once. Once in three weeks. What do I have to do to force, …you know, what, so what I’ve done, this is something that’s happened this week: I…, I’m going to be hosting a gorgeous night of Christmas
singers in Lichfield. It’s just, it’s going to be such a nice night and oh, I get to perform a song. I’m very excited about that. Yeah, that, because that’s what I always wanted to do really,
I didn’t actually want to be a comedian, I wanted to be the cheesiest musical star in the world. But I didn’t quite have the talent for it.
I’m not saying that I have it for comedy either, they’re letting me get away with the comedy. But yes, so I get to introduce all these different acts on who are wonderful
and who are going to be singing an array of Christmas songs. And it’s going to be all Christmassy with twinkly lights and everything in December. And, and yeah, I get to sing, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” with one of the fabulous guys who’s going to be performing.
So, here is, this is how this links to the gym. I have ordered some dresses. These dresses are really gorgeous, tight–fitting, Christmassy, bright colours. So I’m trying them on to work out which one I want to wear.
They look nice, but I’m not happy with the lumps and bumps that you can see, which won’t take that much effort to iron out: If I can just force myself to go to the gym three times a week between now and the 15th of December
and cut down on all the crap that I’m going to want to be eating because it’s that whole thing, isn’t it, of “Oh, it’s Christmas, I love what I like,
gotta let you head down. Got to relax. It’s what the baby Jesus would want.” You know, not be sort of drinking half a bottle of Bailey’s a night and that sort of thing. I reckon that I can make these dresses look nice.
So that’s my motivation. It’s very shallow. It’s very vain. But I’m a point where I don’t care. I’m just going to have to lean in, as our Cheryl would say, lean in to the vanity and the shallowness and try and force myself to go,
no, not “try,”—and force myself to go to the gym to iron out those lumps and bumps so that I can feel nice and look nice, you know. So that’s the plan. That’s how I’m going to get to the gym. Any other ideas gratefully accepted. I feel a little bit like when it comes to the gym,
honestly, the excuses I can make for myself are really quite something. I feel I need sort of, I just need someone following me around all the time and you remember the really, really strict teacher at school that would be clapping their hands and saying,
“Come on, come on, that’s what you need to do next.” So that kind of idea, I think, or, you know, in the “A–Team”, where B.A, Baracus would, the only way they could get him on a plane was by drugging him in his milk
and then he’d just wake up on the plane. That’s what they need to do. So somebody needs to do for me, but instead of waking up on a plane, I wake up on the treadmill. Actually, if I could just do it when I’m asleep, is there a way of doing that?
Because somebody, I don’t know, strapped me onto a weights machine or something. Oh God, I just hate it because it’s so boring. Anyway, see I start to actually feel quite full of rage when I think about the gym.
It just feels so dull, but no, I’m going to go to the gym. I am determined to look nice in those dresses. Couple of brilliant films that I’ve watched over the past couple of weeks.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I do love my horror films. One of these is particularly horror and one of them is kind of thriller–horror–documentary. So I have watched “Women of the Hour,” starring and directed by Anna Kendrick.
It’s based in truth, but if you start to read about it, there’s a lot in the film that didn’t actually happen. It’s been quite embellished, but it’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. She is brilliant. It’s her directing debut.
And yeah, it’s considering that it’s based on a true story it’s quite terrifying. And the other one is called “The Substance”. The Substance is a new Demi Moore film.
Now, I loved it. I absolutely loved this film. As somebody who is now 52 years old, I got especially the first 20 minutes or so of that film,
I was watching it and just going, “Yep, I get that.” “Yep, that’s exactly what I would do. Yeah, I would 100% do the same thing.” It’s about Demi Moore, who is now about the same age as me.
I think in real life she’s a little bit older than me, but I think in the film she’s just around about my age. I mean, she looks phenomenal anyway, but clearly, she is now older than the desirable age for a woman to be, especially when in the public eye. And she’s a famous TV star in this film.
And she is offered this substance that you have to inject yourself with And it gives you the opportunity for every other week to experience being young again. But it’s more complex than that: there are certain very rigid rules that you have to follow.
It’s brilliant. It’s just absolutely brilliant. I will warn you if you do choose to watch it, when you get to the last act, it’s weird, right? You will be thinking, “What am I watching?” It is weird.
But I love all of that stuff. I love weird. I love body horror. Anything that’s a bit out there, and it is bonkers. I wouldn’t even say it’s scary. But it is affecting, if that makes sense. So yeah, I would thoroughly, thoroughly recommend the Woman of the Hour, which I think is scarier, actually, than The Substance.
But The Substance spoke to me in a particular way, I think, because I am a woman of that age, and I loved it. Just to finish off, I’m going to talk about an issue that I think there are people in the world that need to be dealing with this. And it is this whole issue of Resting Bitch Face.
And I know this is going to be controversial, but I am sick and tired of having people sit in front of me in an audience when everybody else in the room is having a great time. Everybody else is laughing. Everybody else is smiling. Everybody else is, you know, just even if they’re not thinking that I’m the most hilarious thing they’ve ever seen in their lives, they’re smiling along, whatever. People with Resting Bitch Face is, you know if you’ve got a Resting Bitch Face. And if I became in charge of anything, if I became Prime Minister or the Queen, I would make sure that anybody with Resting Bitch Face had to have compulsory surgery.
Because you know you’ve got it, you know that it’s upsetting and unsettling for people around you. If you’re choosing not to just try to turn your mouth up at the sides when you’re in a public situation where you can see everyone else around you is having a nice time and you’re making somebody uncomfortable, sort it out, have a word with yourself. And before anybody comes out of a room, “Well, perhaps you should be funnier and then we wouldn’t have a Resting Bitch Face….” Piss off.
Okay. I just needed to get that out of my system because they’re the only people that you focus on. You can absolutely storm a gig. And at the end of it, all I can focus on is that one or two women who, and it is I’m afraid it does tend to be women that it happens to, that I haven’t cracked their faces. Anyway, if you’ve listened to this—me rambling on as usual about pretty nonsensical stuff, thank you so much for listening.
I really do appreciate it. Hopefully see you again next time. This was the “Avoid Excessive Cleavage” podcast and my name is Jules O’Brian. Thank you for listening. [MUSIC] [music fades out]