Second attempt at blog writing today. First was from my iPhone. The amazing iPhone that can do everything except save my blog on it. I spent 30 minutes giving the forefinger on my right hand RSI just so the tPhone could tell me to get bent and erase it all. To be fair I don’t blame the phone. I think its something to do with the flat we’re in. Nothing really seems to work. It has the all the basics. A broken television next to a sort of working television, a shower that refuses to get even remotely warm, and a bedroom view that looks out onto an alley of other people’s rubbish. Technically I suppose that is still a view of sorts, although if you went to a hotel and had asked for the requirements of a ‘room with a view’ and received that, I can’t help but feel you’d be a tad disappointed. We were also given lots of clean bedding, but oddly each of us was given four bedsheets but no duvet cover. They were clearly worried about what we would do to the mattress rather than our comfort. To be fair that should have evident from the shower, tv and view of a mini-dump. Then when we returned from the gig, we found that someone had been in the flat and put duvet covers on all of the beds. It was like being burgled by a mum.
So now I’m writing in an internet cafe that I was given directions to from Michael Legge. He told me it was an upstairs scary place. He was not wrong, but its not scary in a threatening way, just that I am probably the only one here who has friends I know in the flesh, rather than via a roleplaying game. I have often read Michael’s blogs about being in this part of town, and as I sit here, possibly in the same seat that Michael had sat in, or at least I hope it is, I also feel a level of understanding for all the blogs he has ever written about The Hyena. Ah the Hyena, never has there been a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Well maybe not villainy, but definitely scum. Last night me, Keith Carter aka Nige, and Cole Parker had to contend with five stag dos, one hen do, one leaving party who sadly did not leave at any point and a small handful of actually normal punters. I doubt the normal punters will ever return having witness comedy that was entirely based on telling the crowd to ‘shut the fuck up’ and insulting dicks in t-shirts that said things like ‘Neeeele’ and ‘Kelroy’. I was MCing and it started ok. I managed 13 minutes at the top, most of which involved using politically incorrect insults that I would never normally do, and being loud. 7 minutes in I dodged a flying straw, insulted the straw thrower’s aim, called him a big girl for using a straw, then a bouncer kicked him out. It was like being in the front line of a beverage based warzone.
In the second section I only last 7 minutes overall. I started by insulting a man at the back who was blacked up and dressed as BA Baracus. I thought it would be funny to say how he was less Mr T, and more Mr Y, or Mr O(h). It wasn’t funny, mostly because I hadn’t used a four letter swear word in the two minutes I was saying it and so they got restless. Eventually over the rabble of noise, I gave in and brought ‘Nige’ on. Apparently I did very well ‘for a Friday’ and they said it was the best Friday they’ve had in a long time. While on the one hand you might think that sounds like a compliment, I think it means that their usual Fridays must be a mega bubble of torrid shite. It must be like some sort of medieval battle with thuggish stag men throwing offal at each other. Last night the men’s toilets had an actual river of vomit running through it. Again, I was told ‘that’s nothing compared to a usual Friday night.’ I guess they usually have a veritable tsunami of sick being thrown from drunken twat to drunken twat.
Overall though I felt pleased I dealt with it. While it wasn’t my favourite gig, or any fact anywhere near my top 500 favourite gigs, I got laughs and I didn’t leave with new scars. Success. To reward ourselves we all had a few post gig pints in the bar downstairs. They were playing Bobby Brown without irony and at a level that meant lip reading was essential for any conversation. Keith, Cole and myself spent a while watching the people we had just been entertaining try to dance like Michael Jackson and then decided it was probably best just to leave. I think even more so now that he’s dead, people really do make an effort to dance like Michael Jackson. It can be both the most enjoyable and tragic human movement to witness. One of the stag do party blokes was contorting his body in a way that made it look like he was being attacked by bees. I really hope at some point he does and I get to see that too.
Have to do it all over again today. They say Saturdays are nicer, which is hopeful. Although I think it would be hard not be nicer than the bunch of cockwads that were there yesterday. I feel a bit better prepared for this evening’s venture though. Luckily Keith and Cole are ace, which makes being here better. I have also told myself to do a dick gag or insult every second word and every now and then get everyone to cheer for something, anything, just to unite them as a crowd and hope they don’t fight each other, or me. Now to go and fix the shower. I spent 20 minutes earlier pressing different buttons on the boiler, only to find none of them changed a thing. There really is nothing like that to completely demean your manhood. I’ll go back and see if I can make anything work before just having a cold shower and deciding that this really isn’t my idea of a fun weekend.
