You know what a laughter famine is like? You know when a depression comes - A great crash comes, and people are unemployed. The unemployed have no wage and cannot buy things, which causes more businesses to go bankrupt and creates more unemployment? That’s exactly what it’s like. You get no laughs at one gig and have no confidence to do your jokes at your next gig, which causes more laughter voids and creates more lack of confidence. In the end, you are a broken man, travelling in an old mobile wooden shack, ruminating on the hardships of life, travelling to a new land in search of hope, dignity and a future.
Gig No. 64, Wednesday 2nd July, Old School Yard.
This is where the whole famine started. Front row, 3 girls. All three of them couldn’t stand to look at me. Literally look at the floor, at the ceiling, anywhere but at me. Even when I talked to them. I literally couldn’t do my act. Impossible to do your act when the audience won’t even look at you. Got off.
Gig No. 64 done. MC/Promoter Brian Chimombo
Gig No. 65, Thursday 3rd July, Battersea Barge
Oh, me. I followed a rather attractive Spanish Burlesque act who got her knockers out (Saving her modesty with tasteful nipple twirlers) and as I walked out they immediately took a disliking to me. Course they did. I FOLLOWED SOMEONE WHO GOT HER TITS OUT. Actually it wasn’t that kind of crowd. Not a pervy sex club. A gig on a barge. A good gig, a joyful, up for it audience. I have no excuses. I died on my hole.
Gig No. 65 done. Promoter Paul L Martin
Gig No. 66, Fri 4th July, Tottenham Chances
Now, after two rotten gigs, I’m going on with low self esteem and little confidence. Apologetic. They pick up on that, and assume I’m shit. One bloke decides to walk off right in front of the stage halfway through one of my bits. (By bits I mean jokes, not my genitals)
Gig N. 66 done. Promoter Jason Why
Gig. No. 67, Mon 7th July, Hideaway
More laughter void. I have a little Facebook rant to blow off steam. Someone suggests at the next gig I do, I say to myself: ‘I don’t give a SHIT if I die on my arse”. I resolve to try it.
Gig 67 done. MC Stephanie Laing
Gig No. 68, Thur 10th July, Pegasus
So. I try it. “I don’t give a shit if I die on my arse”. And I die on my arse. But, strangely, I feel OK about it. Maybe the Famine has turned a corner. Light at the end of the tunnel. The rains have fallen on the lands, and the seeds are finally beginning to grow. A new dawn, the smell of spring. A butterfly fluttering it’s wings in the dew fresh morn. It better not fly near me, I'll kill it.
Gig No. 68 done. MCs Matt Smith and Gary Knightley
I’ll end with a quote from the Grapes of Wrath:
“Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow. ...and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
How this applies to my comedy journey? Fuck if I know. He’s talking about angry grapes. Fuck is he on about? He’s mental. Let me try another quote:
“For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man—when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it.”
Yes Steinbeck. You’re right. When everything crashes around you, as long as you keep stepping forward, you’ll come out the other side. Step forward and keep going. Keep going and maybe, just maybe, you’ll outrun the angry grapes.
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