Mawky McMawk came down pretty much on time today and actually drafted in members of her audience to help her get all her props down to the dressing room. This is the power of my blog displayed once again. Mortals quake before my ability to be sarcastic about them on the internet. She didn't say anything about the blog having shamed her into action, but she didn't need to her. We both know who is the king of the White Belly now. Ha ha ha.
Also either Topping or Butch (I never know which is which, but I have heard a rumour that one of them might be gay) was ill today and their show got cancelled, so I had the luxury of being able to over-run a little myself and did an extra ten minutes. In a way I wish I hadn't as the performance was a little bit too loose and mid-festival tiredness meant I wasn't quite on top form and fluffed my words a bit.
Four people left to go to the toilet during the performance, all of them sitting in the front side sections and all of them choosing different inconvenient moments to go that were in the middle of complicated bits. They all came back (creating more disruption), but it's strange to have so many small-bladdered people at one performance. I had commented a little bit on this phenomenon and the fourth person to go held up a hand apologetically and said "Just a piss", which allowed me to say, "Thanks for letting us know. As long as it isn't a shit then that's OK," and then to discuss how dispiriting it was to have written an hour of material over the last year, only to discover that a man saying "Just a piss" was funnier than anything I had come up with.
I had been slightly irked about the people going out and coming in and wondering at their inability to hold it in, but fate, the coquettish whore had an ironic lesson for me later in the evening. I had been on my way home for an early night, after a couple of pints of Guinness in the bar and bumped into Brendon Burns who told me he was on Talk of the Fest with Rain Pryor and did I want to come along. I decided it would be an interesting show, so agreed to come along and wasn't disappointed. I sat in the front row as the host Paul Provenza likes the comedians in the crowd to join in with the discussions. I had a pint of Becks to drink as I watched.
Provenza got some interesting annecdotes out Pryor about her father and Burns talked quite seriously about his problems with drugs. He also did a bit about the n-word which was rather smart, but some stuff about bus drivers being black resulted in a slap from Pryor and a squirt in the face with a bottle of water. It was all good entertainment.
But about ten minutes in to the show I had started to feel slightly uncomfortable. All this beer had reached my bladder and I needed the loo, yet it would be very difficult for me to get up and nip out as I was in such a prominent position and the chat was so serious, so I didn't want to disrupt proceedings. But as Burns became more revelatory I was experiencing more pain, hoping I could last out the hour, but every time I looked at my watch time had scarcely moved onwards. Finally with about ten minutes to go the chat came to an end (Ironically with the now tea-total and clean Brendon recalling something I had said to him the other night - "I'm trying to cut down on the beer - I mean I'm no Brendon Burns!" - it was my failure to live up to this dictum that had got me in this pissy pickle). I managed to duck out and stop the agony. I made it back for the end of Pryor's second song and luckily had not disrupted proceedings. You have to choose your moment carefully folks, but I do understand that sometimes when you have to go, you just have to go.
Earlier I had seen the fun and life-affirming hip-hop musical "Into the Hood" which is lots of fun. At my age it's entertaining enough to see young people jumping around and enjoying life, but there was a great spirit to this modern-day fairy story and it's worth the entrance fee alone to see the tiny child they have acting as the fairy godmother. It's cute and it's funny and a lovely way to pass an hour in the afternoon. I am going to be seeing more stuff this week as I haven't really been to many shows yet. Tiredness permitting. I also need to get on with writing my radio show. I didn't go to the gym today, but hopefully will go down for a swim in the morning. Just in case you're interested. Of course you're not. What a dull dolt I can be.
