'Blind Man On Crack'
I only hope you enjoy it as much as I didn't.
Chapter
4
Lambs
To The Laughter
Veering
down Great Portland Street, I got to work, still feeling like a spectre expelled. I was first in and made a beeline for the
kettle. I guzzled my coffee like a
desperate crow, reflecting at my desk upon this living dusk I’d stumbled on. Then, I imagine, I must have set about doing
whatever menial tasks were on the menu for the day. Probably more mailings, more
telephone-enquiries, the answers to which would be same inadequate rote
rubbish, which was good enough to make the caller go away, but rarely
enlightening. How was I meant to
describe the difference between psychoanalysis and humanistic psychotherapy in
the space of five minutes. Even the
therapists squabbled about that kind of thing.
And that was the nature of my job, dishing out inadequacies to a needy
public. But I didn’t resent the
callers. They were just doing what they
needed to do. But this day, not that I remember
too much about it, I was not at the height of my person-centred powers. I felt more like Dracula working, due to a
CRB mix-up, in a crèche, pale as sin, without a grain of goodwill left for
anyone.
I
was due to meet George and Emma the following Monday, having booked myself in
to do a bit of stand-up comedy at a pub in Islington. Monday night was open-mic night, as run by
the world-weary Percy. His jowls were
hamster-like and the rings around his eyes panda-like, and these are just two
of the symptoms of overexposure to the lower echelons of the comedy hierarchy
he displayed. Week after week, he’d
introduce the acts with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, which was quite
a lot considering most of them were painfully ordinary. Lambs to the slaughter, you might think, but
these lambs rang ahead. To get a spot on
open-mic night, you had to ring up a few weeks in advance, book yourself in and
turn up at the appointed time. Many of
them were people who just thought they were funny, or hadn’t had a girlfriend
in a long time. Funnily enough, I fitted
nicely into both categories.
So
around came Monday. Even though my life
was on the brink of freefall, I’d somehow managed to write some new material,
learn it, practice it, if only in my mind, and cling on to just enough
self-belief to stay the course. Bottling
out was not an option. I had my script
at work, and read it through the day to avoid any possibility of a forgotten
link or a fluffed line. Then it was off
for something to eat with George, and on to the comedy-club for eight. I think I was the first of the acts to
arrive, which meant I could book in with Percy and, more importantly, choose
where to come in the line-up. There were
usually eight acts, split into two sets of four. It was my view that the best place to come in
the running-order was first up in the second half. This way, you’re saved the fairly onerous
task of starting things up, you’ve seen the standard of four of the other acts,
and if things have got a bit rowdy, or the audience has lost interest, Percy,
ever the professional, will quieten them down for the beginning of the second
half. Suddenly, you have the full attention
of a slightly drunk audience who are probably as ready to laugh as they’ll ever
be.
Then,
gradually over the next hour, my entourage arrived. Emma, with sister and boyfriend, my best mate
Jon, who I think was staying with me at the time. He was a friend from school, and my quality-control
consultant. I could run ideas past him,
and if he found them funny, they were good enough for public consumption.
So,
at nine o’clock, Percy welcomed the punters to open-mic night, did a bit of
banter, then resorted to one of his Monday night staples, pulling back the
curtain at the back of the stage to expose a fairly ordinary bus-shelter outside,
waved to the unsuspecting travellers at the ‘comedy bus-stop’, and encouraged
the audience to do the same. Well what
with the little stage actually backing onto the front-window of the pub, why
not? Any mirth extracted from this stunt
was always of a visual nature, so lost on me, but it’s ok for the mainstream
world to have a laugh on its own once in a while. A bit more banter, and Paddy introduced the
first act. Onto the low, small stage
they’d spring, usually a single bloke with some lame observations and a lone wank-joke,
which he’d fumble.
I
was still going through my routine in my head as the first four people plied
their wares. I could barely talk to my
friends, fearing that any distraction might render me unfocussed. Then Percy rounded off the first half and bad
us get more drinks. I, by now, was
knocking back my cider with a keen anxiety.
Then, ten minutes later, he retook the stage to whip the audience into a
frenzy suitable to welcome the second batch of would-bes. One more look at the bus-stop, which was
empty, and it was me. I was coming out
of the loo when he introduced me, which meant I had to make my way through a
fairly dense crowd of punters to reach the stage. For a moment, I felt like the Fonz, and I
hadn’t even been cool yet.
Up
I sprung, feigning assuredness, removed the microphone from its stand, and
retreated into that part of my brain where my script was stored. I did the same ‘character’ I’d done on
previous occasions, a kind of naïve Londoner called Brian Brown, who worked at
Catford Leisure Centre, for no particular reason. It seemed to go down pretty well. The audience remained fairly attentive, I spoke
clearly, didn’t rush, left pauses for laughter, most of which were filled, and
when I got back to my seat, Emma seemed quite animated. She’d been at my first gig, another Brian
Brown exposé, and called me a ‘dark horse’.
This time, I surpassed even this smouldering accolade. Tonight, I was ‘the best’, and it seemed my
bestness was beginning to spill out beyond the parameters of my act. For a while, Emma and I were sitting not with
the others, but at the next table, holding hands, chatting away to the
exclusion of even her boyfriend. Things
felt different – we didn’t work together anymore, so our getting together was
no longer ‘prohibited under the country code’.
I felt a bit awkward though, wondering what her boyfriend might be
thinking…was he scowling, throwing disapproving glances in our direction? I couldn’t tell, but I convinced myself they
had a loose sort of relationship, or had maybe recently finished. Either way, as for holding hands, I was the
grabbee, not the grabber, so I at least I could plea passivity if it came to
court.
I
don’t know how long you’ve ever gone without touching another person in an
affectionate, let alone an intimate way.
At this point, bar a string of soul-destroying encounters with
prostitutes, I’d spent about eight years in a state of lamination, unable to
touch, or be touched. I was beginning to
feel almost equal, to my peers, and to the challenges I was setting myself. But I knew I had the capacity to ruin
anything. When shatterproof rulers came
out, some time in the late 70s, I couldn’t help but bend them to the point
where they did indeed shatter.
My
conversation with Emma seemed to press quite a lot of pre-relationship buttons. She said girls don’t like dumping someone if
they’ve got no one new to go to. I liked
hearing this, and it reminded me of Spiderman.
Even he wouldn’t leap from one rooftop if there wasn’t another rooftop
to land on, or at least a wall to cling to, so why should a mortal office-clerk
such as Emma? She asked me if I wanted
to meet up on Friday - apparently her boyfriend was going away for a
stag-weekend. I leapt at the offer as
Spiderman might from bridge to speeding train.
No doubt I hounded my friend Jon about it all as we travelled back to
mine. I had a bad habit of
deconstructing all the ifs and maybes of my non-existent love-life before him, like
a mechanic in a Happy Days style garage pulling a Cadillac to pieces and
expecting his colleague to put it back together, or at least tell him that all
the components look sound. I was on a
kind of natural high, a healthy high, one of those highs without a grotesque
comedown, one of those highs that doesn’t cost £200, one of those highs you get
through doing normal things like meeting people, facing a fear, excelling - one
of those highs you earn. I had good
reason to feel good about myself. But
sometimes good reason isn’t good enough.
And, as ever, here is a song to spoil your day.
It's a disco-storm discordant 4-tracker, linking ye to my little youtube channel, Reader:
Maybe tomorrow?
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