This morning I got a text from one of the acts booked for the Lyric gig tonight saying they'd be unable to perform due to illness. Which meant I had to work the way through my mobile phone address book and text all the comedians of a sufficiently high level of proficiency to fill the giant shoes of the poorly comedy legend. Luckily Daniel Kitson came straight back to say he might be able to do it and indeed we managed to work that out. Hooray for Daniel Kitson.
But what I found a little odd on looking through my mobile phone address book was that there were at least four people in there who are now dead. Obviously they were alive when I put them in my address book, I'm not sick. Well, I'm not that sick. Nor that stupid. There's no point in having the email address or phone number of someone who is already dead. But I still have the details of four friends or acquaintances who have passed away in the last couple of years. And the issue I was presented with is what should I do with those entries?
It's a modern day conundrum, but one I suppose that existed in the old days when you kept your addresses in a book. It seems strange to have the contact details of someone you can't contact without the assistance of Doris Stokes - who I think is dead now, so you'd need maybe that Derek Acorah to get through to her, then she could get through to the others. Derek Acorah on his own is not enough, because he is, I believe, unable to actually contact the dead and is just pretending. But I think that Doris Stokes is probably powerful enough to actually set up the conversation from her end, which would freak out Acorah no end.
On the other hand it seems rather brutal to simply delete the names of people that you knew and liked, as if they had never existed. Just keeping their names in your phone though, does not seem like enough of a memorial. He may be dead, but he'll always live on in phone form. Hmmmmm.
I remember seeing Barry Cryer talking about the issue. He waits a few weeks after death to cross people out in his address book. Which in a way seems more brutal, to put a line through them, like ticking people off in a sort of reverse book of stickers. Maybe when you've crossed off the whole lot you can die happy knowing you've outlived all your idiot friends. But in a way, a line through a name is not as final as a phone deletion. Because at least you are left with some indication that the person once existed: it's not like a digital deletion, which is essentially a removal from history.
It feels strange having the names in my phone and slightly upsetting as well, but it seemed stranger to take them out. So I left them. And I guess every now and again as I scroll through I will see their names again and think about them and remember stuff about them. So maybe that's the best way. Unless it gets to the point where so many of my friends are dead that I can't remember which ones are still with us and which aren't. Which is where Cryer's crossing out system works as a useful
aide memoire. Which I clearly still need: I nearly forgot about the fishfingers I was cooking in my George Forman grill tonight - without even having got to the eating stage - and I left my lights on my bike when I went down to Hammersmith - not only on the bike, but switched on. Weirdly only the front one got stolen though, and someone kindly turned off the back one for me. So humanity is half good and half bad.
What is stranger about the address book is the number of names of people in there who I don't actually remember: either first names of potential or actual dates or people I had briefly worked with or thought about working with, or friends who didn't stay friends for that long. At least I remember all the dead ones. Dead by not forgotten. Worse surely, to quote the old Rowan Atkinson routine, to be forgotten, but not dead. Or even, as may be the case, forgotten and maybe dead.
I also realised how I don't have the numbers of loads of comedians who I would like to ask to do gigs, and so I should probably get better at collecting them. But was surprised to find that I do have the number (or at least a former number) of Russell Brand (I met him at a gig in Bristol maybe four years ago before things just broke for him). Maybe I should give out the number to you all so you can ring him to tell him
you have fucked his grandma.
No, I'm classier than that.
Wouldn't it be cool if you rang the number of a dead person that you somehow still managed to get through to them. Shall I try it now. I'd love to speak to
Uncle Barrie one last time.
I won't delete the numbers just in case that technology becomes available. Just cos we can't conceive it now doesn't mean it won't happen. Just ask
Marc Bolan. If you kept his number in your address book.
And that technology becomes available.
The Lyric gig was awesome by the way. I even managed to top Kitson who was brilliant as usual by saying, "Seeing Daniel Kitson makes me want to give up comedy.... not because he's good..." Only took me a week to come up with that!
