This is a short blog about the last two days which, have been a bit of a weird one. I was just reading my friend Alex Valentine's Blog and there was thing on there about people thinking it's alright to give her shit because she works in a gay bar in Manchester's Gay village, and they used her picture for one of their posters. It's essentially people who feel insecure about themselves and their place in the world having a go at someone they think has too much self confidence or a higher social status and that they can either take the abuse (not criticism, it's usually abusive in an attempt to make the person they're attacking feel small whilst they feel big). And it raises a valid point. I get that quite a lot too, from people who've seen me perform who come up to me when I'm out with friends and go "You're Bethany Black that comedian aren't you?" Yes, yes I am. "I saw you the other week, you're shit." and they think that that doesn't hurt, well these days it doesn't, but it used to, though I have infinately more respect for them than people on Myspace who send me messages, ususally from an account with a handful of friends and no picture of themself on the page hiding behind anonymity who give me abuse, it's cowardice of the highest order.

I can take criticism. I know not everything I do is for everyone and there will be people who dislike what I do and even hate me as a person based on what they've seen me do on stage, I know that and that's no biggie, whilst I'd love it if everyone got everything I try to do on stage and either take it as the silliness it's meant to be or enjoyed the underlying message of love acceptance and tollerance that I try to put in to some of my stuff or just laugh at the silly cow on stage and the embarrassing stories she tells glad that it's not them who shit themselves in public. If everyone got everthing I did I'd storm every venue I played and be able to pack out theatres by now and be well on my way to getting a DVD and a TV series. But it's not like that, comedy is subjective and one man's Bernard Manning is another man's Stewart Lee. I'm aware of this.

What I find funny though is the people who come on here and find me, after having seen me perform or just find the page and watch the videos and decide to send me a message telling me I'm shit, I got on about a year ago from someone telling me they'd seen me perform at Glastonbury and that I was shit, really really awful, that, after a year they'd found me, remembered me perform and then taken the time to send me that message suggests anything but the point that they were trying to make. There's a thousand comics out there who could for most of the general public blend into one, that I stood out enough for them to remember me and feel strongly enough about it to message me shows that I'm doing something right, you should always have a healthy supply of enemies and nay sayers it keeps you on your toes trying to be better than you are.

Then today I got a message from someone who hides behind a cartoon picture with no pictures of himself on his myspace page, calling himself Jolly and from Leeds and the message read like this: "You are so, so not funny! Yawn..... out with another cliche aftet that last one, eh? And the one shortly before that! Oh well, I suppose we can say bless you for trying..."

Why would you feel like that sort of thing needs to be said? There is no reason except to make yourself feel important or big, it's real Charlie Big Spuds behaviour especially to send that whilst hiding behind the anonymity that the internet provides.

Normally I'd just let these pass as they're not worth my time or effort to deal with. But here's where the story of last night comes in to this.

I was out at Vanilla after foing to a poetry night in Leeds, which was great but made me realise that there are just as many delusional no hopers in the open mic poetry nights as there are in the open mic comedy nights which was soothing to know, and also that there's the self confidence bell curve, that up to a point people develop self confidence if they're good, but above a certain point the self confidence someone displays about their work is inversely proportionate to the actual quality of the work. Which is why you see some people who are so incredibly confident in what they do that their work's shit, anyone who describes themselves as "a Genius" clearly isn't, just like you've all got one friend with a face like a bucket of smashed crabs and no social skills who unshakably believes that they're gorgeous and has the self confidence to back that up and so they're the one who does all the chatting up of people whilst you cry yourself to sleep alone on your sister's couch wondering why it is that you're so lonely. Ok, maybe that's jsut me, but I'm sure it's true for certain values of truth within a level of variance.

I forget my point, but after this night I'd gone to Vanilla and got talking to some people and we were having a laugh, then it came to throwing out time, and there was a sleazy guy who appeared to be in there on his own and tried rubbing up against a couple of my friends which I didn't see but was told about later as eventually Alex went and got Claire the bouncer to chuck him out.

Outside we stood round having a laugh, Alex, her girlfriend Emma, the DJ (sorry I totally forgot your name I'll ask and amend this as soon as I know) and her girlfriend, and me and it was loads of fun, then they set off and I was going to Give Alex and Emma a lift home, as we started walking down the side street to where my car was parked the guy who'd been frotteuring around in the bar earlier appeared to be following us, and then he got really close. Then I went to get into my car, which was parked about 18 inches from a wall and there was loads of space on the other side. he came up the side that I was stood on next to the wall, I smiled and said "Looks like you've made an error!"

A split second later he had when he grabbed my arse on his way past. I've said before I'll not be frightened to walk on my streets, and the streets of any town are my streets, just as they're your streets, and we all havew the right to be able to walk them wtihout fear. Ok I'm fully aware that this is an opinion that if I see it through might well lead to me getting stabbed one night, but if that happens so be it I will, in the meantime have made some anti-social arseholes think twice about their behaviour.

He walked past as if nothing had happened, right up until the moment I booted him in the hoop. at which point he stopped and turned round as I shouted at him "Don't you dare grab my arse!" he started to defend himself saying I was lying and then I squared up to him bringing myself up to my full height and broadening myself out, a bigger target psychologically makes the smaller target scared, which worked as he started screaming at me telling me I was an ugly bitch and that he didn't need to grab my arse as he had a beautiful girlfriend at home. Sure, sure he did, that's why he spent the evening getting drunk and rubbing himself up against lesbians. Arsehole. He told me if I didn't stop calling him a liar he'd punch me in the face. To be honest the way I roll that'd be a slightly sexier prospect than being touched up, though not by him. Alex made a show of calling the police to tell them what was going on, and I suggested he could stay here and face a charge of harrassment and sexual assault or he could go home. He continued calling me a liar and saying about his girlfriend at home and then called me a racist, and that I was only saying this because he was Asian.

I wouldn't back down and told him that I wasn't doing this because of his race but because he was a prick. Eventually he burst into tears and ran off.

I waited to get into the car, and eventually Alex said "Yeah, we can go, I didn't actually call the police." Followed by "you made a grown man cry!"

On the drive back to their house we talked about this and I apologised, I shouldn't have got angry, and I shoudn't have shouted or got as aggressive as I did, what made it worse was that it came after the conversation earlier in the evening had got onto fights that I've ended up in, including me punching a hippy into the worst acid trip of his life afte he stole my hat at glastonbury, which was at 6 in the morning on the day of the solstace leaving the sacred space of the greenfield feeling spiritually calm enhanced by industrial quantities of MDMA, not the perfect recipie for a fight I'll grant you, but on that occasion one that worked for me.

All the way home I thought up different scenarios, I thought up the things I could have said that would have made me sound cool and funny off the cuff. L'esprit d'escalier the French call it, the spirit of the staircase, those moments after an argument when your brain's caught up and told you what you should have said. It's a horrible thing. But if you're a comedian, it's very useful, because you know for next time, and in this case, by the time I talk about it on stage, it will be what actually happened.

So in summary, don't fuck with me, I'm beligerent and don't feel embarrassment of shame and won't take shit without giving it back.

Here endeth the lesson.

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