I’ve just had a small stroll to the Post Office to collect a package. The postman tried to deliver it at 9.30am two days ago, knowing full well I am not up at such a time. Then instead of giving me enough time to don suitable door opening atire, he rang the bell once then scarpered. My postman has a long history of hating me and this is just further evidence of this. ( See http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/01/lost-post.html for previous evils). I was very worried that during my trip to the post office near Holloway, the postman would use that time to pretend to try and deliver further goods to my house leaving me more cards which would require going to Hollway again only for him to deliver more cards. It would be a terrible cycle of delivering failures. I took the bait though and headed to the base of operations. People often remark about how the sunshine makes everything seem brighter and happier. It is the opposite in the case of Holloway Road. The bright sunshine only exaggerates the dirt and makes the rude boys in the hoodies look even more idiotic. Its always an experience walking there in a weekday daytime, watching the sort of people that have nothing else to do except kick cans around outside Argos and shout at each other because they’ve run out of Tennants. Today however the most interesting person was a woman, on her way to work, and running for the bus. She was wearing levels of jewelry that would weigh down Mr T. If she was to exchange her gold for cash she could probably escape the credit crunch. This is of course assuming its real gold. I’m guessing by her vicinity to Argos, it probably wasn’t. Every single step she took to get to the bus shook all the jewelry so loudly it sounded like someone was kicking seven shades of shit out of Mr Tambourine Man. Or perhaps it was the sound of a group of people lynching some morris dancers. She made her bus and I can only assume the driver stopped at every stop thinking the bell was always ringing every the woman moved slightly.
My package was a hat sent by Andrew Shanahan aka @dr_whom on Twitter. Its a rather lovely dark brown trilby with a maroon band, and obviously very well made. He sent it because it was too small for his head and he didn’t want it to go to waste which was a bit bloody lovely of him. Luckily I have a pea sized head and it fits rather well, which now means a day spent prancing around my house pretending to be Phillip Marlowe. I will keep saying internal monologues out loud about how my case is going and fill my day with unnecessary similes. ‘It was a hot day. Hot like a desert in a frying pan on a high heat with some chillies in it.’ Things like that. I’ve been sent a hat once before, by my friend Louise. It was a classic bowler hat, sadly slightly too big for my head, but brilliant nonetheless. There really is something brilliant about being sent hats in the post. For a start they often come in a big box, which is always fun. They say all good things come in small packages, which is a lie. That phrase was made up by cheapskates who only buy people tiny things. There is an awful lot of stuff you can’t fit in a tiny box. Like a car, a TV or an elephant. Unless you are from Lilliput. In which case size is a matter of perspective and you would still have big boxes and little boxes. Although you could get a real sized person a Lilliputian elephant or car and that would be awesome.
I’m not very good at wearing hats. I think you need a certain level of confidence to wear one. I have three triblys now, a stetson and a overly large bowler hat. For winter I also have two beanies. Beanies are easy to wear, triblys require a higher level of confidence, an overly large bowler hat you only wear if you are happy to walk around without seeing where you’re going. And a stetson, well the stetson really can’t be worn in public unless you live in Colarado or somewhere else people often wear stetsons. I live in Finsbury Park, I don’t believe its a stetson safe place. Apart from my beanie hats, the hat I can wear most confidently is my summer trilby. It appeared in Edinburgh last year and may appear there again this year too. Oddly though I often feel a bit embarrased wearing it even though it has often received compliments. My favourite was about 7 years ago when I went to nightclub wearing said hat. The bouncer told me I looked pretty slick in the hat and called me boss. I was tempted to fire him just to mess with his mind, but he was pretty big, so I left it. I’ll get the assistant manager to do it one day. Then when inside the club a rather hot lady walked quite closely up to me with a sexy smile on her face. She whispered in my ear, all sultry like, that she thought I looked like Bugsy Malone in my hat. I smiled at this, feeling all a bit pleased with myself. Then, like a fool, I replied ‘What? 12 years old?’ She gave me a rather disappointed look and didnt speak to me the rest of the night. I think hats require a certain level of coolness that I clearly did not display that eve.
Fat Tuesday on a Wednesday last night was a bit brilliant. Not a massive turn out but that may be because its called Fat Tuesday and we were there on a Wednesday. I know people can work out dates etc but I have a feeling the trick is in the name and that may have caused some confusion. Tiffany’s preview was brilliant again and as I said before when we were in Bristol together, its sure to do well this year. The Maxwell spent an hour and fifteen not having the faintest idea what he was talking about and leaving everyone laughing until they hurt. I’m really not sure how he did that but it was brilliant. There is something, from a performer’s point of view, that is so respectable about watching another performer be that entertaining for that long without really trying. If I walked on stage and attempted to do an hour and 15 off the top of my head, people would complain and throw things. To be fair I doubt many of them would turn up in the first place. It’d probably just be me and Layla and she often hears me waffle on for that long without planning. Her response is to put the telly on or go and do something else like cleaning. Maybe I should advertise that I will be doing an hour and fifteen at my flat then everyone could turn up and clean stuff out of boredom. Good plan Douieb, good plan.
No gig tonight. Lots of Edinburgh writing bits to do like answering stupid stupid questions such as ‘If your show was a super hero, what would his or her superhero power be?’ Its very tempting to answer things like ‘its not a superhero though is it. Its a show. You’re a dick.’ Or ‘it would have the power to avoid answering questions written by morons.’ Or maybe I’ll put something in jest that they can’t print as the sarcasm wouldn’t come across ‘It’d have the power to kill children and anyone who wasn’t white’. That’d show ’em. It also wouldn’t help my ticket sales. Swings and roundabouts as they say.
