Erm. Hello. It's been a long while hasn't it. Sorry about that. Why have I been gone so long? Well, to my shame, I've been in prison.
Eh?
Let me explain: I’ve been slacking off. Not with the gigs. I’ve been keeping up with the gigs, I’m on target. Promise. (Dunno why I’m making promises. I’ve broken more promises than a fruit machine addict with four kids. And, by 'on target' I really mean ‘behind already by about a month and a half’). No. This fucking blog. This absolute arseache of a blog. Since I’ve moved I’ve had no unlimited wireless internet at home. I can’t afford a new package right now. And I still haven’t figured out how to steal/siphon off other people’s internet like Richie and Eddie stealing the next door neighbours gas. GAS MAN!!! GAS MAN!! GAS MAN!!! (If you don't get this reference, GET OUT OF MY LIFE) So I have to travel to internet cafes or the library just to go online. What a fucking arseache. So I’ve been putting off the blogs. But I have to do Edinburgh. So I have to get these blogs done. I have to clear all accounts. So I looked at my wall chart and counted how many blogs I need to catch up on.
Eleven.
Fucking ELEVEN.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am genuinely a broken man. 11 blogs to catch up on. ELEVEN. I feel like I’ve been given a life sentence. I feel like this:
So how the hell am I gonna catch up with this shit? Easy. 11 blogs - that's a prison sentence. I’ve been sent down for life. I’VE GOT ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD
"Cause I've got all the time in the world
All my life for you, girl
Now the timin' is right
Baby, we've got all night!"
* A lesser known classic by seminal Irish Rock Band 'The Boyzone'
July 11th, Friday. Gig No.69, Dog House, Kennington
I will not talk about the gigs. I will talk the hard time I’ve suffered as I write this blog. This first post - my first five years in jail. The hardest five years.
The Doghouse! How apt. I’m in right in it. This gig, I was taken there in a prison bus handcuffed to all the other acts. As we entered, we were lined up in a dark room in front of the promoter warden. She starts talking about “Discipline, and the Bible”.
One act pipes up.
“When do we go on?”
One of the promoter warden's guards starts screaming at him
“YOU GO ON WHEN WE SAY YOU GO ON! YOU
PISS WHEN WE SAY YOU PISS! YOU SHIT
WHEN WE SAY YOU SHIT! YOU SLEEP
WHEN WE SAY YOU SLEEP! YOU MAGGOT-
DICK MOTHERFUCKER!”
Then he rams his club into the acts belly, sending him collapsing to the floor in a wheezing, asthmatic mess.
Oh. It’s gonna be one of them gigs.
(Your enjoyment of this blog will depend entirely on having watched the Shawshank Redemption. If you’ve not seen it and want to find this blog funny, you’d better go watch it pronto.)
Gig No.69 done. Promoter warden So Ying Pang (“Rule number one: No blaspheming. I'll not have the Lord's name taken in vain in my gig”.)
14th July, Monday. Gig No.70, Hideaway, Tufnell Park
The acts upstairs walk down into this dingy basement bar, cuffed in chains, each of us barely suppressing our private terror. The punters are taking bets on which of us will crack first.
Joe Grant, the horrible promoter, motions to one of his stinking little minions:
"Delouse that piece of shit! Next man in!"
He flings a huge scoop of delousing powder in my face. I collapse in a heap on the floor, coughing and spluttering in a heaving shitty mess.
Oh. It’s gonna be one of them gigs.
Gig No.70 done. Promoter/weasel Joe Grant
July 15th, Tuesday. Gig No. 71, TNT, Kentish Town
Next, we are shoved into the Infirmary. The MC Jake Pickford is in a white coat, bored expression, a pair of white rubber gloves, and a big pen light slash forward anal probe.
"SQUAT!!"
I bend over. Mr Pickford puts the penlight in his teeth, and has a good root around in my shitpipe. I don't argue back.
(I don't remember this scene in the actual film, have I imagined it?)
Gig No. 72 done. MC/Anus Dr Jake Pickford
July 17th, Thursday. Gigs No. 72 + 73, Rascals, Stag’s Head + Genesis Cinema, Whitechapel
Ah, mama mi. They say your first two years in prison are the hardest. They don't lie. I spend the next two years/gigs being serenaded and courted by 'The Sisters'. John Talbot (Bogs) and Sammy Tuitalifalinoa'a (Rooster). The Bull Queers. Two vile men rapists* hell bent on turning me into the prison fairy.
The first night was the toughest. The Sisters taunted me with their creepy vibes:
"Fishee fishee fisheeee...You're
gonna like it here, new fish. A
whooole lot...Make you wish your
daddies never dicked your
mommies...You takin' this down, new
fish?"
The next day. The showers. Talbot stands next to me, naked as the baby he kidnapped. He sizes me up like a fresh loaf. (Don't ask) He makes a pass at me. I rebuff him, turning my back. (Probably not the best of ideas, as this gives him the ideal opportunity to sneak a peak at my cheeky bottom).
Sammy and John, the Sisters, then proceed to chase me for two years, two long years, until that fateful day when Talbot tries to force me to suck him off:
"Now I'm gonna open my fly, and
you're gonna swallow what I give
you to swallow. And when you
do mine, you gonna swallow
Rooster's. You done broke his nose,
so he ought to have somethin' to
show for it."
Only to be told I'll bite down on his yoghurt slinger harder than Jaws wolfing down some chum.
Bogs steps back.
To Rooster: "We're gonna need a bigger boat"
*this is definitely a joke. They are not, I repeat not, prison fairy rapists
Gig No. 72 + Gig No. 73 done. MC/Promoter John Talbot + MC/Promoter Sammy Tuitalifalinoa'a - The 'Sisters'. 'The Bull Queers'
18th July, Friday. Gig No. 74, Theatre Royal Comedy Club, Windsor
Head Guard James Lillis is talking about his financial problems while we're tarmacing the roof. (We do comedy mainly, but occasionally we'll be required to do other jobs for stage time in return). He starts talking about his wife. I stop tarmacing and stand up.
"Do you trust your wife?"
He turns to me. He asks me to repeat myself.
"Do you trust your wife?"
He grabs me and surges toward the edge of the roof. I quickly tell him all sorts of practical financial advice and win the tarmac crew some free beer. Then I tell em I fucked his wife.
Gig No. 74 done. MC/Promoter/Head guard James Lillis and other assorted loonies
21st July, Monday. Gig No. 75, Rhythm Factory, Aldgate
I am doing less comedy and more accounting for all the other acts. They all bring their receipts in to the gig and queue up as I legally shelter all their cash and help them avoid tax. Weirdly, Gary Barlow is in the queue. I didn't know he's started doing comedy? Jimmy Carr is there too, but the promoter tells him to piss off
Gig No. 75 done, MC/Promoter Geoff Alderman
24th July, Thursday. Gig No. 76, G+B Comedy, Camden
An new inmate/act tells me a story that an inmate/comedian at another prison/gig claimed responsibility for doing the 365 challenge! He can prove my innocence (This whole Shawshank thing is getting a bit weird/implausible. Fuck it. Lets drag this shit out to the bitter end.) If someone else is doing this challenge, I can stop writing this fucking blog!!!
I go to the warden. I tell him my story:
"I am trapped in a never ending blog nightmare, and if another act is doing the 365 challenge, I can finally stop writing it and you can release me from prison!!"
He looks at me. He has no fucking clue what I'm talking about. He's just a comedy promoter. I'm just some act he's booked to do 5 minutes.
"We must take his deposition and go to the court of appeals!! I can be a free man!!"
He looks at me like I've smeared myself in shit. He says, er, I'll be on in 5 minutes. He smiles at me like I'm carrying a knife.
What??
"How can you be so OBTUSE?"
"WHAT?? What did you call me?"
"Obtuse! Is it deliberate?"
He goes APESHIT.
"Don't ever mention this shit to me again!!"
He presses an intercom. (No idea why he has an intercom)
"Get in here! NOW! "
His burly guards storm in
"Solitary! A month!"
A MONTH??
"What's the matter with you?? It's my
chance to get out, don't you see
that? It's my life! Don't you
understand it's my life???"
I am dragged kicking and screaming into solitary, thrown into the darkness and I collapse, crying like a baby.
Gig No. 76 done, MC/Promoter/Warden Kyle Wallace
25th July, Friday. Gig No. 77, T Bird Bar, Finsbury Park
After two months in the hole, I come out of solitary. I sit on the floor, leaning against a wall, staring at the other walls. My imaginary friend, Red, an articulate, well spoken Basset Hound, sits beside me. We have a deep conversation about life and I fuck off. But not before I give him instructions to meet me in Mexico. Which is perturbing to my friend Red, as he doesn't have a passport. He's a fucking Basset Hound. He has a worried look on his face.
"He's talkin funny..." (Told you he was articulate)
Gig No. 78 done. MC/Promoter Marilyn Muruako
28th July, Monday. Gig No. 78, Hideaway, Tufnell Park
Red the Morgan Freeman Basset Hound is worried about me. I'm talking funny, and I've started wearing the wardens shoes:
"I have had some long nights in
stir. Alone in the dark with
nothing but your thoughts, time can
draw out like a blade...
That was the longest night of my
life... "
Stop banging on you moaning little cunt
Gig No. 78 done. MC/Rapist Joe Grant
July 31st, Thursday Gig No. 79, Wickham Arms, New Cross
That's it!!! I'VE ESCAPED!!! YEEEE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
How did I escape? Long story short, I dug a hole in the wall of this gig and robbed the promoter. He wasn't happy, and neither was the pub. Still, fuck em.
Red gets paroled from the prison of my subconscious mind. He books his tickets to Mexico.
Red, the Morgan Freeman Basset Hound:
"I find I am so excited I can barely
sit still or hold a thought in my
head. I think it is the excitement
only a free man can feel, a free
man at the start of a long journey
whose conclusion is uncertain...
I hope I can make it across the
border...
I hope to see my friend
and shake his hand...
I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been
in my dreams...
I hope..."
At last. Mammoth blog done!! All I have to do now is chill out, relax, and enjopy my hard earned freedom. And do my Edinburgh blog. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, fuck.
Gig No. 79 done. Promoter/Mc Douglas Layton
