2 PM Thursday 27 September 2012 Nunhead Heights
I shouldn’t have given the girl the microphone. Never give away the microphone. That’s a basic comedy rule.
But then I shouldn’t have drunk her vodka when she went to the loo again – to do who knows what. Drugs? She had offered the audience if they wanted some vodka – she had brought a bottle in and pour it into a tumbler.
By that point it the “audience” wasn’t an audience anymore. And I wasn’t the comedian.
I had drank maybe three or four shots worth – half a tumbler – a lot. But it was funny to drink it. And when she came back, the audience – the participants – were all quiet, waiting to see what was going to happen. I was drunk and didn’t know what to do. I asked the bartender to get her some more vodka. Two shots. That didn’t help.
I never drink or rarely. I used to be able to say I never drank and was proud of that but now I do drink. I bought a Dell Insperion computer this week – a PC – after 28 straight years of Apple II and Macs. I felt the same as when I decided to drink like an English person: I have let myself down but it feels right.
And I shouldn’t have let her into the show in the first place. She seemed controlled by her soberish French Algerian boyfriend – or the dude I thought was her boyfriend. He seemed reasonable and she was really pretty – tall, slender Moroccan English.
I love tipsy chicks. At least I can understand why they’re being nice to me. How can I trust someone who is sober and wants to be with me?
Something similar happened the other evening when I was called to Mayfair – begged to Mayfair – by an exceedingly inebriated young woman, far too young for me. Men my age aren’t allowed the happiness. We aren’t allowed to run away to France with them. If we do our lives will be ruined. Their lives will go on and on and on. This will be a fun story for her while we’ll be in prison and tarred for life.
The Moroccan girl was 24, she told us. And out of prison.
Let me finish with the Mayfair girl. I go to the posh pub near Berkeley Square. Berkeley Square. Definitely not Nunhead. Flashback to The Patty Duke Show tv theme song. “Meet Cathy, who’s lived most everywhere, From Zanzibar to Barclay Square.” (American spelling on lyrics site). Posh. And Patty Duke was, or is, another insane one. Bi-polar like my mom. I read her book. Before I wrote a blog I trashed her on Amazon and got hate mail from her fans. Scary but fun.
Luckily, the Mayfair girl had very protective friends and even though they looked at me like I was a complete creep I was relieved when they took her home. I don’t like looking after anyone. That’s because of my mother. I had to look after my mother and that isn’t right. She was bi-polar, too, just like that Patty Duke.
It got hairy with the girl at the show when she was about to lunge for the English guy at the back who had told her to shut up. It was about that time that I noticed the suicide scars on her arms, and her whispering to me why she was in prison – something to do with having another girl’s back. I assumed that meant getting into fight to support a friend. She was tough.
Her sober friend eventually got her to leave. I walked her to the stairs and everyone was silent while they were upstairs, I assume he was trying to get her to leave the building.
And if this was anyone else’s show I don’t think it would have happened. If it did I wouldn’t be invited back. But the people there enjoyed it and not at the expense of the poor girl, if that is what you are thinking. I know cause the bucket was big and I got many email addresses.
Free until Famous in Soho isn’t someone else’s show. It is my “show” if you call it a show. And I can pretty much do what I want at my show. And the audience can do pretty much what it wants to do. And the girl can come back, too. But I’m going to ask her to buy a few drinks at the bar.
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Listen to Lewis Schaffer on the Radio Nunhead American Radio with Lewis Schaffer every Monday evening at 10:30PM on http://www.resonancefm.com and 104.4fm London. Or listen to the show’s podcasts at bit.ly/NunheadAmericanRadio
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