Layla goes away on her friend’s hen weekend today. She will be in Amsterdam until Sunday leaving me on my lonesome for two whole days. This of course opens up a realm of possibilities as to what I can do over the weekend. Mad partying across the capital? Severe mayhem with friends? Watching all of my Ulysses 31 box set that Layla calls a mere cartoon, in one go? Its like a whole new world of fun. And instead of embrace that fun and treat it like a new buddy that I am probably man-hugging too soon, I am gigging tonight and tomorrow. Tonight was booked in ages ago, but tomorrow is a last minute booking that requires me driving all the way to Leeds and back despite being there next weekend. I am doing this for several reasons. 1) I really like the gig, its a bloody lovely gig. 2) I really need the dosh. 3) I am hoping that by visiting Leeds that many times in one week they will accept me as one of their own and give me a key to the city allowing me to unlock all of its secrets and a golden scroll. 4) Because if I don’t gig, chances of me doing anything fun are actually slim and I will just sit at home playing on Twitter in my pants for 48 hours. Its for my own good health and sanity that I have to do things.
Limited Freedom
I had my second unusual gig of the week yesterday. I knew it was coming as I had pre-arranged it with an old friend of mine, Kelly. We used to work together in the call centre of a housing association in the worst job I have ever had. It basically involved scary tenants shouting at us because something in the flat had broken, exploded, leaked or generally screwed up. We would then call builders to repair it who would then shout at us because they had no time to do it. We would then get called back a week later by the tenant and shouted at because the builders had done a shit job and it had all gone wrong again. It was 8 hours a day of getting an ear bashing. I escaped, fearing that if I stayed there I would either kill all the tenants and builders or have a breakdown. Or both. Kelly however is of a stronger mind set and has stayed with the company but now she works for a housing association dealing with clients who suffer from depression, schitzophrenia and other mental health disorders. Every 6 months they hold a meeting for these clients with food, drink and other stuff going on and this year they decided it might be nice to have some stand-up, so Kelly emailed me.
I never see the warning signs when I respond to such things. Clearly staring at me were all of them. Big obvious glaring signs. Its for people with mental health problems, its in a church, its in the afternoon, they will have free biscuits which will damage me. Ignoring all this, I asked Andrew O’Neill if he would do the other set and he stupidly said yes. Then yesterday got here and I suddenly realised how scary it all was. Especially after being heckled by a violent 8 year old the day before, I started to wonder what being heckled by someone with multiple personalities would be like? Would they heckle me several times at once? Would they tell themselves to shush or just shout as though three people were shouting at once?
Unsurprisingly, it was quite nice in the end. The church aspect meant we had to erase all swear words which was taxing for about 2 mins (I accidentally said ‘nob’ and think that I will now definitely be condemned to hell. Which doesn’t exist, so nob nob nob). Other than that, most of the crowd hadn’t seen live comedy ever before and started off bemused, but gradually got more and more into it. There were certain bits they liked more than others and in the end seemed to appreciate us being there. I’m not sure how their other personalities felt, but the ones that were present were very nice. So I survived and now feel like I have some nice points for doing work for the community. This means I can now go and punch that kid from Wednesday and it should cancel it out leaving me back where I was before.
That gig was in the afternoon which meant I was able to get home early and decide never to watch the steaming pile of turd that is Heroes again. It had all started out ok, but by series two and three I feel I have seen enough of each character becoming good then bad then good then bad and having powers then losing powers then having powers again. Oddly with all the abilities that each character has, the super power of believable acting and credible writing is completely absent from the show. Perhaps they lost that power and will get it again and then will lose it again but I don’t have the patience to find out. Hayden Panitierre is no longer enough to hold my attention for an hour. I’m all for saving the cheerleader, but I’m starting to think the only way to do that is to cancel the show thereby allowing her some other career options before everyone realises that there is no healing work that is clearly written by a 3 year old. ‘And then he saved the lady then the lady was bad and then the lady was good and then he died but then came back to life, the end.’
