10/03/08
It's Dark and We're Wearing Sunglasses -
Categories: I'm typing this overdue blog with some difficulty and much squinting today. I had my annual diabetic eye check this morning and they put these drops into your eyes that enlarge your pupils for hours and hours. It basically means it hurts to look at anything bright so I am sitting in a dark house with sunglasses on being bored. After realising I cant watch TV, use the computer or just about do anything of any use, I am attempting to touch type this on a dark screen and see what happens either you'll get a great blog wit ha few spelling errors or all the blood vessels in my eyes will burst due to the strain. Cant resist a challenge me.
So what's been happening in the world of Douieb? the past couple of weeks have been madly gig heavy and I've done so much driving that while I sit on my sofa I'm moving my feet as though they are on the acceleration and brake pedals. I had a true moment of clarity when two of the acts I was with on one journey asked if we could stop somewhere. My prompt response was 'In 17 miles there's the Leigh Delaware Moto Services. Its got an M and S and is half decent, although not my favourite service stop.' They looked at me like I was the saddest man alive. There is no real need for me to know such things but I do feel that now bestowed with this extremely dull knowledge I am indeed truly qualified as a full time comic. I also think that officially part of the fun in my life has died. I look back on those days when I knew only of fun and nothing of bleak Little Chefs and sigh.
Most of the recent gigs have been good, but I realise its wonderfully unexciting reading about those ones so here's what happened at one particular gig that wasn't any fun at all. I had been looking forward to last Friday's gig for the whole week as its a truly lovely club and a place that I would recommend time and time again to punters. Before the gig I asked the organiser how it had all been going and her exact words were that it had 'been going very well with great audiences, although by saying that I've probably jinxed tonight'. Indeed she had, because as the night started it became glaringly obvious that there was a woman in the front row who's level of drunkeness meant that statistically there was a high chance that she would ruin the evening before ending up half naked in a gutter somewhere. She was truly obnoxious and as we had all guessed, as soon as the superb Ray Peacock took to the stage, she got rowdy. Ray dealt with her brilliantly, but when someone doesn't shut up after fifteen minutes, they never will. So the club had her forcibly removed leaving her to, no doubt, fall asleep in the aforementioned gutter. Problem dealt with. Or so I thought. There was now the new problem of tension in the room, and despite Ray re-warming them up nicely, being the first act on I was treated with a starey crowd who couldn't quite deal with anything that didn't directly engage them and so for twenty minutes i took the proverbial 'bullet for the team'. To be fair there was little that could be done. The situation had been dealt with perfectly and by the end of my set they had warmed enough to make the rest of the night great.
My main problem is understanding why people like that go to comedy clubs. If you are going to be that drunk and shitty then go to a nightclub where no one can hear or see you, rather than ruin a paying crowds enjoyment of quality entertainment. Only comedy encourages those sort of people though and its not fair. I'm not quite sure where the rumour that comedians like hecklers came from but I am going to avidly start to discourage it. I think my plan will start by spreading gossip that its increasingly trendy to shout out abuse at the opera and west end theatre. Hopefully this will spread and in three months time our gigs will be full of nice people while Andrew Lloyd Webber productions get the tirade of hate that they deserve. If I heard 'tell us a joke' or 'you're shit' at any point during 'We Will Rock You' I feel my life would be complete. To be fair I'd have to watch it first and that would take willpower I don't have.
My eyes are hurting. I'm off to do something that doesn't require seeing things. I give myself ten minutes before I get hurt.
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