Sunday, Bleaky Sunday

This is the story of Sunday. It’s not much of a story, but then it wasn’t much of a Sunday. I’ve tried to make it funny, but haven’t managed it. It’s not a good post and I've probably said more than I should and I dont just mean lengthwise. It makes for pretty grim reading, but if you’re a fan of the bleakness, championship moaning, or have ever wondered what a fun-filled day in the life of a Stand Up comedian must be like then read on. However, I’d suggest taking it in small doses - because believe me it’s going to be a long, longg, lonnnggg day. Enjoy!

4.30am Sunday Morning – Get home from a party. It was a good party, that had people and fireworks and chilli. The only thing that marred the evening was a train journey earlier in the evening from Glasgow Central to Crossmyloof:

The train was full of 15 year old kids that I assume were coming back from one of those pre-adult alcopop and chlamydia nights in the town centre. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that one of those girls in particular was by far the worst human being on the planet.

She looked and sounded like a spoilt brat as she shouted into her mobile at what I presume was her mother or father. ‘You’d better fucking pick me up at the station!’ was the general message to the parent and the rest of the carriage.

An old man sat down next to her. She took a second out from swearing at her parents and growled something at him. He didn’t understand, so she snapped again ‘You are sitting on my scarf!”. When she’d finished chewing out her parents she gave the old man both barrels “Why are you sitting next to me? You look like a rapist. You’re scaring me, go and sit somewhere else”. The man old man looked bewildered and didn’t move. “Stop staring at me” She continued as the old man read his paper. “You look like a paedophile! Are you a rapist? Are you a rapist?” Oh how I wished the old man had answered “Yes I am actually, so what stop are you getting off at?”

Forget the police, I also wish there had been a tough middle aged Glasgow wumin on the train to sort her out. I felt bad about not saying anything, I glared at her, but was heavily outgunned by the most vicious group of evil psychopaths known to man, the gang of pissed 16 year old girls.

Anyway apart from that it was a good night. Right where was I? Ah yes..

4.50am – So to bed.

9.07am – Vaguely aware of religious music drifting in to my semi-dreamlike state from somewhere.

10.03am – Switch off the Sunday service on the radio.

2.30pm – Get up. Go in search of food. Every dish in the house is in need washing, as am I, but it feels like it will be a thankless task (the dish washing) because there’s nothing to eat anyway. I tell a lie, there are tins of tuna, but I don’t think I can cope with a fish breakfast this morning, I mean afternoon. I manage to wash a cup and make some tea, then go on the computer and do some writing and shit.

3.03pm – Get the following email from mum.

Hi son Missed your calls going out tonight at 8 so will probably miss if you phone tonight. Anyway was going to ask you how do you fancy dad you and me going to Lochgoylehead for a few day's for xmas as Jen and kids going to Rab's sisters this year. And Sally and Mike going to Jill and Mark's. What do you think?

Mum xx

It’s nice of them to ask, but I can picture the look of pity on the waitresses face as I have Christmas dinner in a hotel with my parents. Looks like the family Christmas has just gone the same way as birthdays and Halloween.

4.43pm – Starving. Leave house in search of sustenance. Head in direction of Safeway’s but get as far as the Chinese Carry out at bottom of street. No one is serving at the counter. I can hear people in the kitchen, but wonder if they haven’t heard me come in, so I open and shut their door again. Still no one comes. ‘Cough Cough’. Still no one comes. ‘Hello’. Still no one comes. I’m about to leave when a woman comes in the front door, goes through a hatch in the counter and into the backroom. I can hear her talking to the people in the kitchen.

4.46pm – She comes back through to the counter, takes her coat off, and arranges some things behind the till. I’m not sure if she knows I haven’t had my order taken. I think about saying ‘can I make an order please’ but I’m worried her response will be ‘Aye just haud yer horses son, I’m comin, let me get ma coat aff first’. So I wait until she’s settled. I stand at the counter and wait.

4.48pm – I think she’s probably settled enough when she starts flicking over the channels on the TV. “Hi. Can I make an order please?”

She looks surprised “Oh, I thought someone had taken your order, why did you no say?”

“Well nobody came and took it”

“Aye, the service in this place is terrible” She tells me, without a hint of irony in her voice.

As she already knows the service is terrible I don’t bother to mention that she over charges me 20p.

5.16pm – I’m back in the flat having a ‘sweet and sour’ breakfast, although it tastes like they’ve given me ‘salty and doughy’ by mistake. I’ve got a gig at 8.30pm in Edinburgh tonight. Plenty time to get there, as I plan to get the 6.30pm bus from Buchanan Street. Who says I have bad time management skills?

6.00pm – Realise that getting the 6.30pm bus to Edinburgh is not just a question of leaving the flat at 6.30pm and I have to get to the bus station. Try to quickly print out some gags I want to try out tonight, but the printer jams. Oh well I can think about them on way over. Plenty of time. Shower and go into bedroom to get dressed, the light bulb goes and I get ready in the dark. Hmm, I’m starting to get a bad feeling about today.

6.28pm – Leave the flat with 2 mins to get from Partick to Buchanan Street. Not plenty of time. Go to the underground - but it’s shut. I keep forgetting it shuts early on a Sunday (although I have no idea why it does?) No other option than to catch a bus and head for the train station. (I don’t like taking the train, it’s overpriced, and the last one home is 11.30pm, which is a pain in the tits if that’s when you’re on stage). I don’t know which bus to take to the train station – as Glasgow buses don’t employ the same system as other cities of putting the routes up on bus stops – I will have to resort to asking the cheery bus driver.

6.39pm – Get on first bus that comes (a first bus) and the driver tells me the bus goes to Queen Street Station. The bus goes to Central station.

6.51pm - Struggle off the bus which is by now crammed full of folk going to fireworks parties. Run to Queen Street station to try and catch the 7pm train.

6.54pm – Queue up at ticket office.

6.59pm - Get to the front of ticket queue and ask for return to Edinburgh. The guy behind the counter tells me that due to track maintenance the trains aren’t running to from Queen Street, they’re leaving from Central station today. Run back to Central.

7.10pm – I’ve just spotted the harbinger of doom. It’s the worst human being in the world again. She’s either here as a bad omen or, less likely, is waiting for a train with her friends. This time I don’t think she’s had half pineapple Bacardi breezer and doesn’t appear to be hassling the bewildered. She doesn’t get on the Edinburgh train. Thank heavens for big mercies.

7.15pm – On the train to Edinburgh. A guy sits down in a seat across from me and starts eating a burger king meal. The smell annoys me. I realise everything is annoying me now. I’m in a state of general annoyance. I’m about to get up and move to a different seat when a woman sits down opposite me. I don’t feel able to move now in case she thinks the reason I’m moving is because she’s black. So I stay where I am and enjoy the burger smells and later on the sound of the train tracks battle with the tracks on his ipod.

7.25pm – Phone mum and ask her if she could tape Video Gaiden for me. I stupidly mention my transport hassles and having to fork out for a train "I hope you’re getting paid for it?" I know where this is leading and tell her I’m just doing it for the practice. She starts her usual “You’re mad! You must be mad!” speech so I change the subject to Christmas. I tell her I appreciate being asked to have Christmas dinner with them in a hotel somewhere in the highlands ‘but I’d feel like a bit of a dick’. To mums credit she replies ‘Well I know - but couldn’t you feel like a dick for me’. Hmm, I suppose I could.

7.45pm – The train stops at Livingston South, and no one gets on or off. Starting to really panic that after all my running about I still might not make it to the gig on time.

7.55pm – The train leaves Livingston South.

8.20pm – The train arrives at Waverley. I get a phone call from the comedy club wanting to know my whereabouts. I say I’ll be there in 5 mins and start running.

8.25pm – I arrive with only 5 mins until the show starts. I check the running order to see how much time I’ve got to prepare, and relax, before going on stage. No time, I’m on first. (This is the worst spot on the running order because the audience aren’t fully warmed up yet, they don’t really know what to expect, it’s particularly bad for comedians that are a bit unusual, like myself, but fuck it it’s all practice and that’s what I’ve come for) I down a can of red bull and go back stage.

8.27pm. – One of the acts says to me in front of all the other acts “I couldn’t believe it when I saw I was on after Allan Miller. How am I supposed to follow you?” It’s supposed to be a friendly compliment, but I squirm (it was actually something far cringier than this, but it’s so cringy I can’t bring myself to write the words). Compliments are not good infront a room full of nervous comedians with fragile egos. I feel as if the other acts will on hearing this be saying to themselves “Just who the fuck does this guy think he is?” - even though I’ve not opened my mouth. I try to undercut what she says with a bit of self depreciation and reply ‘Well don’t worry, now you’ve said that I’m bound to be shit’.

8.29pm – The compere asks me if there’s anything special I’d like him to say when introducing me. I say not really, “but it might be an idea if you warn them the first act is ‘a bit mental’ or something like that”.

The compere replies “Yeah, but what if I go out and say you’re a bit crazy, and then when the other acts come on and they’re actually a lot crazier than you?’

I’m kind of taken aback by this. The compere doesn’t know me though, and I can sort of see where he’s coming from, people who say ‘Oh I’m a bit crazy!’ are generally the least crazy people imaginable. I only suggested he might want to say that so the audience aren’t freaked out by a weirdo at the start of the night. All I can think to say to him in the 10 seconds before he goes out to introduce me is ‘okay, well you can judge for yourself’.

8.36pm – The compere is onstage talking to the audience, I’m listening through the door. He introduces me, but he doesn’t say to the audience “Our first act tonight is a bit crazy, so brace yourself” or anything like that, what he says is “The first act tonight asked me to say he is a bit crazy, but I’m worried if I say that and he’s not very crazy then I’ll look a bit daft, so lets find out now…”.

The second he says this I know that my gig is fucked. It’s over before I’ve even stepped foot on stage.

(Instead of coming out and just doing what I was going to do, the audience have an expectation, and they expect me to address what the compere has made such a big deal about – the issue of my crazyness, or lack thereof, has just become.. an issue)

The audience are now thinking, like the compere, “‘Oh so this guy coming up thinks he’s 'a wacky funster' does he? Well we'll soon see about that”. It’s not really the comperes fault, as he’s quite inexperienced, and I should really be able to deal with it, but my stress levels have just gone through the roof.

8.38pm – I go on stage feeling angry rather than relaxed and start too fast, too loud, too mental, and it’s not funny. The audience are freaked out. I start singing and swearing. The audience look embarrassed. I’m embarrassed. I stop and turn to the compere standing just off stage, “Sorry, is this crazy enough for you?”

I slow right down and start analysing on stage just how bad the gig is going. I think if I can acknowledge the audiences embarrassment they will be less.. embarrassed. It works to a certain extent, but not to the extent of it being that funny. I get off the stage as soon as I can.

8.50pm – I’m back stage and thoroughly pissed off with how day is going. One of the visiting acts tries to be supportive and offers ‘well at least you had good energy’ then follows it up with ‘but I don’t know how you’d cope if you had to do a 60 min festival show’. I keep my mouth shut, I don’t want to make them feel bad by telling them I have done a 60 min show.

9.00pm – I can't face anyone and sneak out the back door of the club to head back to the train station. I’ve been in Edinburgh less than 40mins and I’m off home again. If I get the train now I can get back just in time to watch Video Gaiden and the day won’t be such a write off. Also if I stay until the end of the show I’ll not get home till about 2am and I figure my chances of getting stabbed or used as firework target practice during the walk from train station to house will be significantly reduced if I leave now.

10.05pm – The train departs Edinburgh. Track maintenance has put pay to any attempt to get home in time for Video Gaiden. I watch displays of fireworks across central Scotland.

11.00pm – Back at Central station again. Start the walk home. On the way I find a bus stop with a computerised screen that says a bus is coming in 3 mins time.

11.20pm – The bus screen changes to 2 mins

11.26pm – The bus screen changes to 1 min

11.29pm – The screen changes to ‘due’ (surely all buses are due?)

11.34pm - The bus comes. It’s full of neds. As the bus sits at the traffic lights on Argyll street a fight spills out of Bannister’s Bar. A dozen or so men and women are indiscriminately knocking lumps out of one another.

11.44pm – Get home, put on telly and watch the end credits of Video Gaiden. A five and a bit hour rounds trip for ten mins stage time - hmm, maybe mum's got a point. I make a cup of tea, crack open a tin of tuna, stick a hot water-bottle up my jumper and sit at the computer. I do some writing and shit. But mainly shit.

3.05am – I get a message sent to my myspace page from some guy who was at a gig I was on the previous week. Even though I was basically doing the same stuff I was doing tonight, the two gigs were very different:

stumbled across your myspace page. I thought...this guy looks somewhat familiar!!!! Then I remembered.....last Sunday, you appeared in The Stand! Just wanted to say you were easily the best act that night!!!! Utterly hilarious! I was on a first date too with a comedy club virgin and thanks to you, she has discovered the magic of it all!!! Will definitely be keeping an eye open for future appearances and will be bringing along a good few mates! Well done and keep us laughing!!!!

Oh well at least my comedy is helping someone get laid.