Saturday 20 August 2011

Day Sixteen: Three good days in a row Beags?

I write this to the sound of the Friday night sing-a-long to the tune of Living on a Prayer... it's like they're reading my mind. Jon's just worked out that it's a silent disco going on, why didn't I think of that? I always wondered how they could sing in harmony without me being able to hear the track. Amazing. Still fucking annoying though. Silent for whom? Bloody fucks.


After a late one last night, I set the alarm to make sure I was up in time to Skype Jon and make sure he's packed the right things. He had. And onwards to KX for him.


I met a couple of mates for coffee down the road and we discussed how we were all feeling. One, her first Edinburgh, is going terribly too. She's almost packed her bags a few times but her husband has told her to stick at it. The other, more experienced, related her experience of previous years and said that last year, she was so stressed and anxious that she went blind. (She realised it was a migraine but blindness sounded way more dramatic!)


I wandered up the road to MC a lunchtime gig. It was an almost full room and I cracked on. I made a lovely off-the-cuff joke about no one sitting in the front row and how on Easyjet everyone runs for those seats - it got a suitable laugh. I bantered a bit, discussed what people had been up to over the Fringe, what they had for breakfast and took the piss out of a couple of guys who had driven up here and slept in their car that night. "So what are you looking forward to seeing most? The inside of a hotel room I imagine." Quite the nifty MC today, I tells ya. And I got a big laugh with my JK Rowling stuff including a new, less arrogant bit about the increasing sizes of the books as the series went on.


After a bit of washing up, I headed down to Slappers and flyered for a bit. Darren Walsh was there. One of his flyers blew away with a gust of wind and nearly decapitated a woman crossing the road. "A bit aggressive that one," he said. She was quite cross, it did look like it hurt though, the corner caught her right in the throat.


Slappers was a medium sized quiet audience. I went down ok. There were some old people in the room sat at the front, I often think that comedy isn't for them but, as my mother has told me many times, the olds have seen and done it all, it's probably just the jive talk that they don't understand (yes, I've resorted to jive talk to make people laugh, you dig?) (I haven't).


Onwards, to meet Jon off the train. He needed to smoke five thousand fags as well as change from the winter clothes he seemed to be wearing. It made me think that maybe I've been exaggerating somewhat on this blog. It was lovely to see him and I thought about maybe jumping on the train home together right then and DHL-ing my shit down on Monday.


I cooked a mean dinner in a hurry and we headed out to meet friends Elaine and Justin who are up for the weekend. The four of us sat at Costa in the station and I felt at peace. I've missed friendship since I've been up here. Sure, MJ's around but it's not the same. If only I could have transported my family and friends up here for the month like Mariah Carey does.


Gagstro was set to be wild as it's the weekend but actually, it was quite civilised. The room was full enough. The venue have kindly (read: reluctantly) put a speaker at the back of the room which helped. Except that sat next to it, RADA-trained Mark, was blowing my fucking ears off. When he said, "Pop cyclops" I nearly went deaf. "P"s bang on the speaker like no one's business. Lucky he didn't do the Peter Piper Picked A Peck of Pickled Peppers routine. He might have blown the roof off like Macauley Culkin at the beginning of Michael Jackson's Black and White video. I figured out this morning that maybe Mark isn't more angry, it's just that he hasn't had Botox for while and has expression back in his face, maybe he always looked angry underneath the injections.


The audience were lovely and I did ok. There's a bit I'm trying to develop about pre-judging people and films and books and being convinced that I'd hate them and then actually liking them. It's probably something to try out at my weekly "It's my party and I'll die if I want to" bit when I get back. It needs jokes anyway.


The four of us went for tea afterwards and then went our separate ways. Jon and I sat up talking to my flat mates about theme park rides. I think I'm too old but feel cheated out of exciting times given how far these rides have come since I were a boy. Being swung around by the armpits by a traveller for 20p a-go isn't the done thing no more, not since Sarah's Law.


Looking forward to a few days with the man on my arm. I got told off for sounding so negative on this blog. You know how this country isn't in depression? Yet. I'm not in depression, I'm in recession. But after three good Gagstros on the trot, my emotional economy may be on the up. Just call me the Mervyn King of shit comedy blogs.


Silent disco. What a crock of shit-fuck.

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