I seem to have predictive powers of my own idiocy. Either that or some part of my brain is enjoying sabotaging my life. Last week I told myself that I must be careful not to knock my glass aftershave bottle out of my gym locker as I got my bag out, before immediately doing so. It was like I'd seen the future but could do nothing to prevent it. Or like I am an idiot who despite being totally aware that something is likely to happy, do nothing to prevent it.
As I went to get my much loved
Bodum Latteo maker out of the dishwasher I thought to myself, "I must be careful, it's a bit wedged in, I don't want to break it." I had, as regular readers will surely never forget
already broken one. We all know where we were when we heard the news that I had broken my Bodum Latteo maker. I was in my kitchen.
But despite my premonition and warning I didn't take it out particularly carefully and it caught on a pan and smashed into three bits. I was hungover and had a bit of a fried chicken stomach hangover as well and hadn't slept well, but still, that is prime stupidity right there.
It was a poor start to the day and I decided there and then that I'd had it with this fragile device, clearly not designed with clumsy idiots like me in mind.
I decided to take the plunge this morning and shave my bushy moustache down to the toothbrush. I have, as you know, been resisting the move, worrying about the repercussions, feeling that it's a bit of a stupid, insensitive, studenty idea. But I think I need to give it a go for at least a week or so, just so I can say I did it in the show - even if it's gone by then. It is an experiment and I am the guinea pig and there's a good chance that I won't come out of it all well, but it has to be done.
I had a rough chop at it first thing and then over the day kept clipping away and refining (even waxing it a little to try and reign in my rather wayward bristles). It was a strange sensation, even having this in the safety of my own house. But I was nervous about the reaction of people on the streets. Shepherd's Bush is a multicultural area and also has a large Polish contingent. Might they think I was taking the piss.
Of course I didn't really look like Hitler. I am keeping my hair as it is and not trying to do an impression, because this experiment is not about seeing how people would respond to a person dressed as the most evil man of the 20th Century, but about reassimilating the toothbrush tache and questioning why it should have gone out of fashion just because Hitler had one.
I just looked like I was mentally ill or possibly some kind of paedophile, with my unkempt hair and blodge of bristle on my upper lip. I thought that people would probably just steer clear of me, or be a little frightened of me, but I doubted that anyone would get affronted or attack me.
On one level I found the new moustache much preferable to the full version. It was the bits at the side that had most annoyed me and got into my mouth and been irritating, but now they were gone it almost felt like I didn't have a moustache at ll, except when I could see it in my peripheral vision. It was cleaner and more comfortable. If it wasn't associated with a gigantic Nazi I think more men might give it a go.
After staying in and getting more work done on the book - I just finished off a couple of chapters that had more or less petered out before, taking the story right up to Christmas 2007, but still added another 2500 words, meaning I've done around 15,000 in three days.
Then with a sick feeling in my stomach I went out to the newsagent to buy a paper. Would everyone look at me? Would I get shouted at? Would people look upset?
Although I don't mind people's attention when I am on stage I really don't like to be the centre of things in real life. Some people dress in wild fashions and have crazy hair cuts because they want to stand out. You would assume the same was true of someone with a toothbrush - they were trying to make a statement and get a reaction. I suppose to some extent I was interested in the reaction, but it felt so alien to me to be doing something that might draw attention that I just found the whole experience tense and unpleasant.
But no one seemed to notice anyway. The thing with London is that the people here don't tend to look at each other if they can help it. You don't want to catch the eye of a lunatic or get into trouble, so we call carry on in our own little bubbles. I suppose had I had the hairstyle and been wearing Nazi regalia people might have given me a second look, but they didn't seem to care. Maybe they spotted me and thought - yeah so what? This is London. There are weirder things than that out here. Maybe they just thought I was looking for attention and didn't give me any. But more likely they didn't even look at me.
And I was aware that as an experiment it was somewhat scuppered from the start. Because in order to gauge people's reactions I would have to look at them, yet in London, any stranger staring directly into your eyes is quite a challenging statement. You're pretty much bound to look away nervously even if they look "normal". So as a control I should maybe have spent a week walking around just staring at people to see how they responded. I think that would get you into more trouble than the moustache. Some people don't want to be looked at.
So I wasn't even really able to look at people to see how they reacted, because by doing so I would have affected the result of the experiment.
I sat in my local cafe for a drink. I sensed that the waitress registered slight surprise - she's seen me before of course - but I might have been imagining. I definitely got my first double take while I was sitting here, reading the Guardian (possibly the first person with a toothbrush moustache to read this particular paper in over sixty years!). A Japanese lady with a small son, who I think might well have been a tourist (they were speaking Japanese) passed my table and looked back at me slightly horrified, before looking away. She might have been ashamed of the Axis power association (and I believe the toothbrush has enjoyed some popularity in Japan in the past - didn't the bloke in Tenko have one?) so maybe there was extra resonance. But it actually just seemed like the protective concern of a mother, realising there was someone who was potentially mentally ill or violent within striking distance of her child. It wasn't nice to upset a stranger unnecessarily.
The moustache was making me unhappy too. I decided to go up to Westfield to get some groceries and my face found itself in a bit of a grimace. It's hard to be light hearted when you have this moustache on your face, and again to go around smiling at everyone would actually be more frightening. But I was trying to keep my head down and not look like I was confronting people. Because the truth is that much as I want to reclaim the moustache for comedy, people don't know that and can really only have one or two assumptions as to why anyone would have this facial addition. Either they were a Nazi, or a madman or were just trying to provoke something.
I really wanted to get this thing off me. It felt like I had deliberately harmed myself. A Nazi tattoo on my face would obviously have been worse, but at this moment it felt like being in the same league. It made me self-conscious and shy and I didn't want to engage with people for fear of what they'd think about me.
I don't actually think anyone else cared, but it was really upsetting me. For the moment at least. Maybe when I had forgotten it was there it might get to the point where it led to interesting interaction or comments.
Later I was getting a coffee and a muffin in Starbucks. The coffee was taking ages to get ready and I was picking at my muffin and half of it had gone. The woman behind me, apparently unconcerned by the moustache, either not noticing it or not seeing it as a warning to not get involved, pointed out how much of my muffin was gone and joked that I would need to get another one. But most people wouldn't interact with anyone in this way in London, so maybe she was a bit crazy herself. I joshed along with her though, not wanting to give the Hitler Moustachioed a bad name.
I was conscious in shops that I might be offending the people I had to deal with, especially if they had ethnic origins. Again I was maybe overly friendly to show that I wasn't actually a Nazi, but perhaps that just made me look even weirder than I undoubtedly did.
I had passed a Jewish man in a skull cap at one point. Did he look away in horror or was he just looking in the other direction anyway? As an experiment this gave no useful data. And if I had upset him then what on earth was the point of this all. I was really hating it.
But I am going to persist for a while to see if it leads to anything. I had a gig tonight and had to go into town, but no one seemed freaked out on the tube. Perhaps the hair takes me so far from Hitler as to take off any offence.
I started the gig in self-conscious fashion, feeling I had to explain myself, but there's a possibility that that was unnecessary. I was in a cellar under a wine bar and it was a small club, "Interesting because Hitler started out playing to small crowds in beer cellars too," I commented.
But I just got on with my normal act and it didn't change too much. People are probably much more accepting and less judgemental than I imagined, which can only be a good thing. My girlfriend was also at the gig and it felt less mental and threatening to have this moustache now that I was with other people. It just looked like some crazy and misguided fashion statement. It's definitely worth continuing with for the moment, because all today demonstrated was my own lack of comfort with the idea and with forcing myself into the spotlight (at those times when I am not literally in the spotlight). The show could well be about that internalisation anyway, as well as my worries about it driving me over the edge into actual mental illness.
I will soldier on. Sieg Heil!
IMPORTANT - READ THIS!
Hitler Moustache Programme
My show "Hitler Moustache" is on at the White Belly at the Underbelly in Edinburgh from 6th-30th August at 20.35.
As usual if you want to get your name in the programme for the show then all you have to do is donate AT LEAST £12.50 to SCOPE via my
new Justgiving page
You are welcome to donate more than that of course, and the more you give, the bigger your name will be in the programme. There will be some kind of prize (as yet undecided) for whoever donates the most.
Once you've donated please email your postal address to me at herring1967@googlemail.com and then I'll be able to send you a special limited edition programme when they are ready.
It's a really great cause and you've all been so generous in the past, so I hope you will be just as lovely this time.
Also I am selling advertising space in the programme so if you want rates of how much it would be for a quarter page, half page or full page then let me know. Would be terrific to get some big company to take out an ad or sponsor the programme, but the rates are reasonable for smaller enterprises too. You must provide your own copy etc. The programme is given out free to 15,000 people in Edinburgh and on my UK tour.
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