I was exhausted today. Lethargic and fuggy and feeling slightly blue and incapable of getting anything much done. I think a lot of this is to do with last night's gig.
It had been a draining and dispiriting night, even though the other comics seemed impressed with how I had coped. And though I was only on stage for 40 minutes, which might not seem a lot to any of you who have a proper job, it was a bit of a marathon effort for my brain and my will. When the audience are behind you then that can give you energy and leave you high, but nonetheless can leave you with a kind of hangover in the morning, but when people have made things difficult and you don't think you've been able to give of your best and you've been forced to think on your feet and work at it to rescue the situation, then you get none of the temporary elation and double the hangover.
I felt punchdrunk all day. My brain was fetid and sluggish, my limbs were heavy. I had planned to go to the gym and do some much needed work on my book, but instead I read about Brian Clough, watched the entire second series of Peep Show and then descended into an even more comatose state where I just sat on the sofa, dicking around on the computer, half-watching TV, playing patience.
I was glad to have a rare Saturday night in and was not even bothered that I was alone. Eighteen months ago I would have been climbing up the walls at the prospect of spending an evening in on my own and desperately trying to find someone to go out with, but I am happier in myself and more comfortable with my own company and nights off are so rare that I didn't mind being alone at all. It would have been nicer if my girlfriend had been here, but she's away for the weekend.
I felt a bit bad for wasting my time quite so much, but then my body and head were clearly telling me to take it easy and I was way too exhausted for anything that required concentration.
Perhaps influence by my hero Brian Clough and wanting to emulate him in every way possible, I had my first alcoholic drink for a week - a large glass of whisky. It's not something I usually drink, but I was still feeling tense from the previous night's experience and it made me feel like a grown up. Drinking whisky alone on a Saturday night is surely the destiny of the middle-aged man. And I knew that I was flirting with disaster - look what the booze had done to Clough. I could live my life vicariously through his legend. I was risking heading for the slippery slope that would lead to alcoholism and death, but knew in my heart that that was not the way things were likely to go for me. As much as I'd love to be a Clough or a Bukowski, I am too straight and sensible and dull. Would either of them have stopped at three large whiskies? Not when there were bottles and bottles more booze in the house. Would either of them have had a whisky miniature which had been sitting on a shelf for over three years? No, but I did and it was seeing it there that made me think maybe it was time to drink it.
Of course alcoholism and depression can just be one tragedy away, but I was only playing at being the maverick depressive loner tonight. And I was pretty happy. Just the after effects of last night gnawing at me.
I wondered how the women from the gig were feeling. Had they woken up filled with shame and angst about the way they had disrupted the night and made fools out of themselves? Or had it just been water off a duck's back? Had they forgotten about it entirely or convinced themselves that they had been hilarious and helped the evening along?
"That was me heckling you," is usually the proud boast of the barracker if you happen to see them in the bar. They think you'll be pleased. They think (in fact they often vocalise it to you) that they were helping you out, giving you something to bounce off. By shouting out in every gap between feedline and punchline, by more often than not failing to find that gap and just shouting over you, by making the lamest observations about your appearance or most pathetic cock-based pun about something you've just said, they think they are helping the night along. Even if you defeat them, they will take the credit for having set up the destruction.
Yet very rarely indeed does a heckler add to an evening. Usually when they do it's by choosing their moment and shouting one pertinent and witty observation. Something that is funny, but also inclusive, and which gives the comedian no option but to step back and admire their quip and admit that it is funny.
Then, having proven their worth, they shut up. Most of them realising that there's no point in spoiling it by risking another contribution that might not be as funny; often knowing that they got lucky and there's no point in riding their luck. One comment, well timed, big laugh. Rest on your laurels. Accept the congratulations of your friends.
But what about these majority of hecklers, the ones so drunk that they are merely shouting out non sequitirs or swear words or managing to take umbrage at every single joke, believing that nothing is a subject for levity?
Did those women from last night have their day as badly affected as I did? Did they have a hangover of the soul as well as the body? Were they filled with mortification at what they'd done? Did they wake up in a cold sweat realising how their actions had impacted on the enjoyment of 200 other people? Does the
the bus driver from this gig feel shame that over 350,000 people have seen him behaving like a dick, or does he still think he was in the right, still believe I deserved to be hauled over the coals for joking about some bald men taking photos of the strippers or "Murder on the Orient Express"?
My guess is that none of them feel any contrition. My guess is they all believe that they were in the right. I would imagine that today, those women, if they remember anything about the night at all, it will be that they had helped me, or defeated me.
I am not saying I am always right either. I have documented on here many, many more of my bad gigs than my good ones, gigs where I know I have fucked up. I can look back at my first year of return to stand up and realise now that many of the aggressive and difficult situations I found myself in were of my own making. But neither last night's gig or the bus driver one fall into that category.
All I know is that despite me being a very easy person to get in touch with I have never had a single apology from a persistent, drunken heckler. Not one of them has ever emailed me to say that in the cold light of day they feel awful for getting so drunk or for spoiling the gig. The only feedback I've ever had from hecklers is "That was me heckling - just helping you out!"
Maybe they are so ashamed they can't even bring themselves to send a brief email, maybe they think it's just part of my job, but more likely I think is that the kind of person who gets to this level of incapacitation has no concept of how they've been, no self-awareness at all. They just wake up the next morning and get on with their lives and do the whole thing again over and over. Not just heckling, but getting drunk in bars, being rude to people, losing all sense of what's going on, getting into more and more trouble and yet blaming anyone but themselves for what's occurred.
I don't really expect an apology - it's just interesting that one has never been forthcoming. It just annoys me that my day was at least partially poleaxed by those women last night, that the hangover affected me and the only thing they woke up with was a sore head and a belief in their own infallibility.
