25/01/07
Ravensbourne College, Kent -
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Sooooo, some stuff.
Arrived at the gig in Kent on Tuesday night after a smashing little SatNav inspired jaunt through a fucking forest, to find that not only was my poster up, but there were also posters up for Mr Rob Deering esq and Mr Rhod Gilbert esq, both advertised to be on the same night as me. Apparently there had been an admin fuck up and they had been sent all of our posters and, rather than call to check, or perhaps look at the contract, they just put them all up.
It was packed - as it should be with that bill - and I was beginning to feel a little uneasy as, with the greatest respect to me, if one of those acts had to not be on, I know who I would choose for the chop if I was in charge. As it turned out, that was the only one they were getting.
Gotta say, as I was driving through the forest to the gig (I don't know what forest it was, all I know is my SatNav brought me off the M25 at Junction 26 if that helps?) I can remember clear as day thinking to myself "Wouldn't it be great if I just did a normal gig tonight? If when I was writing my blog later I could just put that it was lovely and normal and then talk about something else?".
Then I thought "Fuck I may have just jinxed myself".
See, one of the best points of doing this writing on here thing is that I am able to rant and vent and get some frustrations out - and it is a genuinly cathartic process I have to say. One of the worst points is that it does require me to remember what has happened at gigs so as to be able to recount it here for you, I basically have to store it and relive it as I write in order to get the 'closure', rather than just picking up my money and forgetting about it. I think that's why it has taken me a few days to actually write it.
Well I say I have to, I don't have to do it. But if I ever want Steve the editor of Chortle to give me my children back then I do. If I don't do a blog for a week or so he sends me a finger through the post as a little, as he calls it, nudge.
Know what, the gig was fine and lovely. For about an hour.
My total running time was 90 mins, but I added another 20 mins to that in the dressing room afterwards.
It was the age old thing of people heckling and then getting upset when they are destroyed in return. It happened at St David's Hall in Cardiff last week and it happened in Kent on Tuesday night. Thing is, this table that were upset (a minority in the room I hasten to add), then shifted the argument completely and it became a little more heated.
They said I had took the piss out of disabled people in my act.
Now, thing is, I hadn't. I had spoken about disabled people, I talked about the paralympics (which I have been doing for years - it's basically saying that I watched the mens hundred metres swimming and there was nothing wrong with any of them - they were just slow - won't work in type - but I just want you to know what I actually said - the joke is meant to be my ignorance at not understanding the wider reaching definitions of disability) but at no point did I take the piss out of disabled people. And, don't get me wrong, it could be argued that I have done in the past when doing the character act, but even then I was kind of mocking certain people's attitudes (not always successfully but my intentions were pure).
Anyhow, I got really pissed off on stage, and just started an argument. It wasn't funny as such but it was stirring and got regular rounds of applause, kind of like a speech at a party conference. I was really upset though, because it had evoked a pavlovian response from this table. They had heard the word "Paralympics" and gone all fucking snooty and pc and offended yet, and here's the rub, when I gave them the floor they couldn't tell me why.
At one point I offered the main lad a grand if he could quote back to me what I had said that took the piss out of disabled people...
Nothing.
He "couldn't remember"...you see what I have to fucking deal with? Have to admit, I did kind of panic when I offered the grand...I wasn't a hundred percent sure...
So it got pretty rowdy, and then I finished and got my claps and cheers, and off I went to the green room thing. Within two minutes it was full. Firstly with people being very kind and complimentary, I don't think there was anyone in the audience who didn't end that night without a definite opinion about what had happened. Then in wandered the lads from "The Table", swaggering in like fucking Reservoir Dogs - about six or seven of them.
I think I was maybe meant to be intimidated by them, but to be honest I was so surged with adrenalin all I needed was a fucking half-reason to start chucking my (average) weight around. But the discussion was relatively civil in defence to them, the main dude was upset, he'd been humiliated with comedy by me, and he wanted to have his say outside of the gladitorial setting of the performance. Despite his 'arguments' being fundamentally flawed you can't help but respect that. Well I can't anyway.
I repeated my points to him, and my justifications for what I had spoken about. He repeated that he had found it offensive. I gave up asking why, because he didn't know. I said that every single joke in the world, or funny tale or whatever, has the potential to offend somebody for some reason. I challenged him to tell me a joke that couldn't possibly offend anyone. He couldn't. Then his mate said "I can".
This was the joke...Two pieces of bacon in a frying pan, one says to the other "Hot in here" and the other says "How come you're talking? You're a piece of bacon".
I stared at him and then said "As a vegetarian I find it incredibly offensive that you can be so matter of fact about the murder of an animal for food".
Some of the gathered throng clapped. He tried to think of another one and couldn't - again to their credit, he conceded that I was probably right. I left the gig on good terms with most of them I think, and I had a load of really supportive emails through MySpace yesterday, some of which I considered cutting and pasting before deciding that I should just defend myself on this one.
I was pretty charged up driving home though, got very anxious about the whole thing. Even though I felt it had been left on good terms the venue still insisted on escorting me to my car for safety. It can shake you up a bit.
On my drive home I bumped into Isy Suttie (almost literally, she was crossing the road in front of me) who, despite my telling her countless times how stupid it is, is still insisting on wandering the streets of London on her own after midnight. So I gave her a lift home (I never offered, she just opened the boot and put her bags in). It's always nice to see Isy, even though she has a tendency to over-dramatise everything, for example it was apparently "Fate" that she was crossing the road at that time as I was driving past. Isy and I have had many a post-gig-mortem having toured together loads, so we sat outside her luxury appartment in Kensington and I told her all about the night I'd had. It's good to talk to Isy about that sort of thing because she is essentially kind and thick in equal measure so will always take your side. Maybe it was fate a bit. I felt better after chatting with her anyway.
Then I spent most of the day yesterday getting upset to the point of tears because I was part-exchanging my old car for my great new one (The Tigra won in the end - and, as a message to my manager, it's not a girls car actually, I have the boys one - and despite the fact that it was snowing a bit last night, I still had the roof down which only a boy would do). I should have been mainly excited about picking up the new one, but I was just sad to see my old Peugot go. I sat in it for ages yesterday, just having a think and reminisce about all that we had been through together, all the gigs it had never once failed to get me to, all the hours I had spent sat in that seat. When I dropped it off at the garage I felt like I was abandoning a child, and genuinely had to concentrate quite hard not to well up again.
See.
I'm a sensitive soul really.
Just not with spastics.
(I am crediting you with the intelligence to understand what I did there...please don't let me down...oh and I'm not a vegetarian really by the way...)
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