Hayden Appleby

A Change of Mind

megashlong — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:46:06 +0000

If I was going back to the Comedy Store, I was going to throw my old impressionist act out. My friends thought I was crazy. I knew that I could get 2,000 people down and I would still be saying to the world that those people are more interesting than me. And that’s just not true, you know.

It was Christmas in 2005, and I went back to the store and started doing Improv, vowing at one point to do an entirely different act every night. Some nights it was a melee, literally, where I’d be standing trying to defend myself for what I was doing. People would be screaming at me to do my old act, and getting actually violent and angry at me. And there were a couple of nights when I was literally on the tables with a broken bottle … fighting people off and stuff. It was a crazy experiment. But it was so good because it made me comfortable with the creative process — with being on a limb, you know? And I’ve been there ever since.

Lost

megashlong — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:01:13 +0000

In September, Dad lost heart, and when mum died, he deteriorated. He was calling Rome to speak to the Pope. He was writing a book about me that made no sense. He was longer been the sole bread winner in the family, having retired at age 67. I sent Carine back to Newmarket to live with Aunt Petra for a while until I’d find the money to pay for funeral expenses. Everything was a fiasco. I was out of a job at the Comedy Store for a couple of months due to renovations, and I so was forced to take a once a fortnight job at a small local Komedy Kabaret a couple of blocks down from ‘The Comedy Store.’ I started to have a nervous breakdown. There were nights where I was sometimes so dejected that all I would do was just sit on my floor and howl. Many nights I’d be up to four or five in the morning, forced to face myself, but I didn’t want to, the adrenaline was rushing up in me. It took a while for me to recover from everything.

I was on Prozac for a long time. It may have helped me out of a jam for a little bit, but people stay on it forever. I had to get off at a certain point because I realized that, you know, everything’s just OK. I had confronted myself. It was adrenaline that got me back onto the stage.

Scared

megashlong — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:12:36 +0000

October 5, 2004. I had turned 24 the day before. Inside myself there were peaks, there were valleys. But they were all kind of carved and smoothed out, and it felt like a low level of despair I lived in. My Mum was sick, suffering slowly from lung cancer and Altheimer’s disease. She was rushed to Toronto City Hospital that afternoon. Her doctor said that she would be lucky to survive the night. She looked grey and wasted, having also reacted negatively to the chemo a week earlier. Straightfaced, trying to contain myself, I sat beside her as she lay in bed, her bottle of pain pills clasped tightly in her right hand, her left nestled calmly on my shoulder. I wanted to make her feel better. I’d start to do impressions of praying mantises, and weird things, and whatever. I’d bounce off the walls and throw myself down a nearby stairwell to make her feel better. Mum would smile through the oxygen mask only couple of times. Carine and I just didn’t know what to do with ourselves, how to handle it all. Death and loss were unknown to me. Plus I had the added anxiety of worrying about Dad, and I’d wonder how he would cope on his own after everything had passed. 40 years of marriage. Amazing.

Down in the Dumps Revisited (Just for Laughs)

megashlong — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:50:55 +0000

While I was working at the Comedy Store, (along with doing impressions) I just knew that at some bizarre point I’d turn the horrendous time of my life at the Titan factory into a comedy skit of some quality. Though, the pain of those moments have never really healed since.

Dad and I would always be in this one particular skit together. I’d get down on my knees, and imitate myself as a ten year old, I’d yell out to my father in the first row:

Dad, are we by chance living below the poverty line??

And the answer would be, (in my Dad’s husky voice):

No , son, we’re rich as long as we have each other. Now get into the dumpster!!!! (he pointed to an oversized yellow bin that was situated right outside of the entrance to the Comedy Store)

We’d then sprint towards it together, and dive head first into a mountain of torn cardboard.

The audience went off their nut, they’d go crazy every time.

On the Road, The Comedy Store and L.A.

megashlong — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:13:30 +0000

After we put our collective nightmare behind us at Titan, in the fall of ’97 we discovered a brown cottage in a popular summer resort of Jackson’s Point on Lake Simcoe, an hour’s drive north of Toronto. For me, at this point in my life, it was hard not knowing or having a complete confidence in the fact that I’d have everything it took to pursue my dream to work as a successful comedian. I mean, for starters, I only had a grade nine education, so that sometimes left me with this heavy feeling that I’d always be forced into playing catch up with people. My time at the Titan factory had robbed me of a normal teenager’s life, and there was nothing that I could really do to fix that. We had practically experienced poverty at that point.

Over the next year or so I’d practice my impressions for hours in front of my mirror. Most of the time I just threw on some goofy faces and jumped around. But every now and then I’d have this thing, where I’d randomly catch glimpse of a moment in my reflection and think to myself, ‘Oh, that looks like so and so.’ And the impression would just come from there; John Wayne, to a wacky sing along duet of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ including Elma Fudd and Kermet the Frog, Steve Martin, Clint Eastwood in ‘The Good, the bad, and the ugly’, and many more. My father signed me up for gigs at this local club a couple of blocks down from Jackson’s point called ‘Deno’s.’ The last thing I’d do before going on stage every time was to look into the mirror one last time – not out of vanity, but because it gave me a sort of comfort and self-assurance. On one Saturday night, I was spoken to by a co-ordinator from the prestigious ‘Comedy Store’ in downtown L.A. Turns out he loved my act and booked me to appear in L.A. on Monday night, in the next two days! I was over the moon!

Dad inside the Datsun in ’84.’

It was gonna be a six hour trip to L.A.. The next day Dad let me take the old ’82 Datsun while he drove Carine and my Mum in the old Volkswagen Beetle. I had some really great adventures with the it. Every day that thing would just go and go. I mean, it was an 82′ but if we’d kept it, it would have lasted me forever. A night of improvisation at one of the most prestigious comedy clubs in North America awaited me, a chance to be discovered, yeah baby!

Choices

megashlong — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:53:41 +0000

In 96′ when I turned 16 I quit ninth grade. It was worse at Titan, everyday erupting into what felt like a race war. For a while it seemed to turn my sister Carine and I temporarily into bigots. We were drawn into ugly clashes between East-Indian and Jamaican co-workers. I was so angry. I wanted to bash someone’s head in, basically. There were days where I’d carry a baseball bat on my cleaning cart, as if I just couldn’t wait for someone to dare look at me the wrong way. Years later when I would look back, I really understood how people who put themselves in wrong situation in life can lose their soul and their spirit. At that time I promised myself that I’d never give up what I wanted to do, that I’d never make the same mistake my father did. I figured that there are no assurances in life, that I should throw caution to the wind at every point and just do what I passionately wanted to do.

My philosophy in life it to just be in the moment. And live now. Because this is all there is. Enjoy now like a child. And be your authentic self.

Down in the dumps

megashlong — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:06:08 +0000

When I was 15 in ’95, I’d admired the sacrifice my father made to the family when he’d given up his dream of professionally playing sax for a big band in New York. (in order to pay the bills when my mum, Kathleen, gave birth to my sister Carine) But what I didn’t know was that one day he would be given a cruel blow and it would all come crashing down. When I was in eighth grade, dad’s former company president of ‘Aldershot Accounting’ decided to step down. Apparently, his replacement meant that important ‘structural changes’ had to be made. And so, just like that, as fast as winkin’ dad was out of a job. He was crushed and heart-broken. After that everything changed. Dad had been hit by a double whammy – he gave up his musical dreams for a ‘safe job’, only to have his ‘safe job’ collapse right after that. Seeing my dad do that kind of work tore me up. We soon lost the house, so dad made a desperate move. ‘Titan Wheels’, a factory in Scarborough (on the north- east fringe of Toronto) needed a night security man. The plant manufactured wheels for tractors and offroad equipment. My father worked out a weird arrangement. He agreed for my mum, Carine and I to work as nightshift janitors and cleaners for the factory. In exchange for our work we were given a place live – a farmhouse, next to the factory, called Weir House, which was owned by Titan.

I was working eight hour shifts everyday, flat out exhausted. Carine cleaned the offices upstairs while I did the cleaning on the factory floor downstairs, using machines. I waxed, polished, dusted, and cleaned the toilets. There was never a chore too scummy for us. Although, the mood everywhere started darkening, and all that I remember feeling was that hated everything and everybody. When you’re kid, something like this makes you mad at the world. While I was at school it was so hard to shake off the embarassment, so I preferred keeping my distance. I had no friends, and, as you could imagine I didn’t want any. I’d ask myself, ‘How can the world do this to my dad? He’s such a great guy, and this just isn’t fair!’

Carol Burnett

megashlong — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:01:07 +0000

Long ago, anybody who came to my house was entertained first by a ten-year-old child flailing, throwing himself down a long flight of stairs. Then, for fresh material I turned mostly to my favourite TV shows and movies. I grew up watching veterans of the oldest traditions of screen comedy. Carol Burnett is my special hero. Her contribution as a person and as a comedian forever inspires me to strive for recognition and someday, hopefully a great success as an entertainer.

(and the audience goes bonkers)

Captain Butler: That gown is gorgeous.

Miss Starlet: I saw it in the window and just couldn’t resist it.

Miss Starlet : Marry You? Why you’re the scum of the ocean and the chicken of the sea. Ofcourse I’ll marry you.

For those of you too young to remember, this is from The Carol Burnett Show spoof skit, “Went with the Wind.” God I miss this show. I won a ticket raffle to become part of the studio audience in this episode in L.A. that year. IT WAS HILARIOUS! I hope to meet her, even if it is for one measly microsecond. It would be anything but an absolute pleasure as she’s an absolute comic genius. For one thing, I think its one of those experiences where you say to yourself, ‘I don’t think I’ve had as much fun in any other place on Earth as I’m having now!’ It was an unbelievably uplifting experience. I love spontaneity. When I see it’s spontaneity and I know it’s spontaneity, it makes me happy. I don’t know why. I think it’s like looking at a child or something. When you look at a kid and they’re completely involved in something, it’s entertaining to watch. As well as in between takes, during takes and bloopers I was watching the actors take opportunities to go off their material while it actually happened in front of me. That kind of stuff excites me, just hysterical.

My Funny Gene

megashlong — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:04:05 +0000

For what its worth, I think its better to go through life laughing instead of crying.

I think it was Woody Allen who once said that “as long as you’re doing comedy your sitting at a children’s table.” I know it sounds weird but, it’s only in wanting to tap into my crazy, live action cartoon energies as a kid, that I’m able to consistently find a joy in performing, in stand up. In ’87, when I started school at Willowdale in Toronto, I was quiet. I didn’t have a friend in the world until I started hamming it up in front of the class; I always used to taunt my music teacher by doing weird dances, grinding my pelvis like Elvis and Tom Jones, and playing all of the Three stooges – Larry, Curly and Moe. That was the turning point. I realized I could do something silly and make people laugh, and then they’d want to talk to me. From that moment onwards I kinda started to feel like I was in a trance or ritual of some kind, and I still am. I’d always get kicks out of spending long hours foolin’ around in front of a mirror; whether it was in my bedroom or inside of a tiny closet up in the attic which I’d cleared out and was happy to call ‘Hayden’s Sanctuary.’ The reason being, was that I wanted to send a message to my mother that for every time she’d interrupt or ask of me to do some errand or another, the following rule would apply: “Not now! Can’t you see I’m in another world? Can’t you see I’m creating!?”

” That’s all I can stands and I can’t stands no more! I ain’t no tailor but I know what suits me!”

Anyway, the point is, I was so lost in it all, it was like being in the womb. It was like meditating or something; you don’t care about anything. Mum would always go on and on about how I’d take after my dad – ‘Percy’ – in so many ways, and maybe that’s true. God knows that if he still were around he’d probably be off hobnobbing with some of my friends today at the Comedy club in L.A., where every now and then he’d clumsily drop cigarette ashes on the sleeve of his rented tux, and say things like “That’s my boy” and “Call me Perce” and “Hayden’s not just a ham, ya know, he’s the whole pig.”

–

When we moved to Burlington, a town on Lake Ontario between Toronto and Hamilton, my father got a job as a bookkeeper at an accounting firm. My mum – a former hairdresser – was the daughter of alcoholics who spent much of her life taking painkillers and staring at a TV set. For a long time it was hard to watch her suffer through her depression, and as I got older, laughs were the reward I came to depend on – a sign that no matter what was going wrong, I had the power to make it okay. Occasionally, I’d encourage myself to rely on my skits as this necessary tool for saving my parents from giving in to this despair, to ease the pain. Sometimes it would get to a point where my dad would, in a desperation, wake me up in the middle of the night and say, “Your mother and I could use a good laugh – you’re on in five.” And so since then, I’ve always felt compelled to impress him, to constantly crave and depend on his approval. I don’t know why. I guess, that in the end I got that it helped to make him feel better about the successes that had sadly eluded him. My father was a frustrated performer who, as a teenager, led a jazz band as well as playing saxaphone and clarinet. He wanted somebody to satisfy his ambitions, somebody he could live through.

One of my favourite performers on Saturday Night Live, Andy Kaufman.