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Thankfully the time has been whizzing by on tour and all the gigs are being fun, which is helping a little bit with me missing my family. My wife occasionally sends me photos or short videos of our daughter which make me happy and sad simultaneously. It’s terrific to see her seemingly talking with a toy monkey or smiling happily as she listens to a Dolly Parton song, but it’s also gut-wrenching not to be there and seeing these exciting developments in person. The only way to get through the separation is to try and distract myself and not think about it too much and growing a little protective case around my heart. But the pictures mean I can’t live in denial.I laugh and I cry. Somehow the fact that I will be seeing them both tomorrow makes the longing all the more poignant. I’ve got this far without weeping bitter sweet tears, but I’ve bottled it up too long and now the top has come off and I can’t hold it in. If anyone with a young baby is finding the sleeplessness and relentlessness of it all a bit overwhelming, try being away from your child for three or four days. There’s nothing she can do that would annoy me now (but remind me of this at 4am in the hotel in Norwich tomorrow night). My heart swells and breaks simultaneously. All the best things in life give you extremes of emotion at the same time, from Peter Baynham telling you that he is delighted that your grandfather is dead, to seeing your own baby smile when you can’t be there to smile back.
Yet aside from this tiny powerful magnet trying to pull me back home I am enjoying touring more than I can remember doing so before. As I sat with Giles in the bar of the hotel after an OK gig at the Winding Wheel in Chesterfield (about 150 in, but the room itself had a high ceiling and bright lights and it felt harder to engage with a slightly more shockable and less comedy literate audience than I’ve had for the rest of the week), I recalled how lonely and depressing touring had been just a few years ago. I was needier and more insecure back then and the stints away from home were longer and I was usually totally alone. I would hope that post-gig I might meet seem people who wanted to drink with me or sleep with me, but nearly always the audience would disappear into the night and I’d be sat in the lobby of a Travelodge drinking a glass of wine on my own and not wanting to go up to my bogey-smeared room.
Nowadays I am fine with the solitude (on the occasions I don’t have a tour manager) and my focus is the show and then getting back to the hotel to play Addams Family Pinball and sleep. There are no hopes and expectations beyond entertaining the people who want to see me. It makes for more boring blogs with less fights with University lecturers in them, but I would prefer to be dull and content and to have confined Me2 to the snooker board where he belongs.
The relentlessness of this two weeks of touring is taking its toll. I felt tired tonight before the gig and had also forgotten to bring my show shoes from the hotel. I was in my slightly muddy running shoes and so thought I’d look strange going on in a suit jacket and black jeans and orange trainers. So I ditched the jacket and tie for a more informal look. I did manage to inject some life into the show and myself by going super-specific on the town’s claim to fame, detailing the fire in the shopping centre that had destroyed a Somerfield and prompted the supermarket chain to leave the town in favour of a Tesco Metro (amazing the things that wikipedia think are worth preserving for a town’s history). As Princess Diana had also opened the shopping centre, I blamed Chesterfield for her death - and it’s fair to say that if she hadn’t done that then her life would have panned out differently and she wouldn’t have been killed. And there were plenty of complimentary comments at the end and quite a few people just thanking me for coming to their town. But I am very happy to be here and it’s a good sign that in a place that I have rarely played I can get this many people. Some of the bigger gigs are down on previous years, but I don’t think I have played to less than 100 people yet and usually in a big tour like this, I’d have done a couple of shows with 50 people in. It’s going to be all right. I think I should earn enough to keep my child in nappies, pay my mortgage, pay off my Edinburgh debt and be able to spend some on my over ambitious comedy projects. Which only seems fair as the over ambitious comedy projects seem to be what have prompted most people to see the tour. That’s the dream right there. Let's play this the Danny Baker way, spend all your money and just have faith that you'll be able to make more. Worked so far. What's the worst that can happen?
Talking of over ambitious comedy projects, the final episode of Meaning of Life is now up in free audio version at
the BCG and on iTunes. You can buy the longer version in video and/or audio at
http://www.gofasterstripe.com/rhmol (or buy a badge to fund future internet based comedy) or watch the free video version on my
Youtube channel. All your money will be used to make new internet stuff.
If you’re enjoyed this series then please tell your friends about it.
