The Big Thing.

Newcastle hasn’t stopped being odd since I got here. I got off the train and saw a woman get her purse stolen. She screamed so loudly then turned to her adversary and started hitting him. He defended himself by shielding his face with his hands and shouting “OK, Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry, Mum”. They hugged while relief and tears took up the woman’s face.

Then I went to the Hyena Comedy Club to pick up the keys to the flat that Nick Doody and I would be staying in for three nights. It turned out that people there hadn’t heard of Nick and I. Or the flat. Or keys. What I’m saying is it took a while to actually get to the flat where a collection of meats and cheeses left by comedians from weeks, maybe months previously, awaited us in the fridge.

Then there was the gig. It was a Christmas gig and, for any normal gig, it went fine. For a Christmas gig, it was the greatest piece of art ever performed in front of the most entranced audience. I got away with it.

On Friday I decided to go to see Tron: Legacy. I was looking forward to seeing this as I’m a huge fan of Tron despite the fact that Tron is absolutely terrible. It’s rubbish and doesn’t make sense and I totally relate to that. But of course if I go to see Tron: Legacy I will have to sit in a room with other people and listen to their talking. That’s the fear, isn’t it? That’s what every sane person dreads days before going to the cinema. People and their fucking mouths spouting fucking shit. You’re trying to watch a magic motorbike spew a wall out of it’s arsehole when some prize dick decides he wants to tell his friend that magic motorbikes aren’t real. It’s annoying and hurtful. But the noise that these awful people make isn’t the worst thing about the cinema. What we forget about so easily is the smell of other people. I was already furious that I had to pay for 3D glasses (What? I have to pay to see the film and then pay to see it properly?) but when I walked into the actual screening room I thought I was going to be sick. It smelled like a fucking butcher’s shop. How is that the piece of common courtesy that has been overlooked completely? Just the assumption that no-one will mind the stench of your cooked dead animal flesh? When will the age of enlightenment start really kicking in? It’s just horrible and the whole room STANK. At least there was one civil person there who reeked so much of cigarettes that I could barely smell the Odeon Abattoir. Thanks, mate. Mind you, I had to tell him off for burping and when I did the 50+ year old said “You can’t help burping”. When you’re a small child, yes. You’re nearly dead and you haven’t learned to control wind yet. Awful cunt. Plus the film was a bit dull. It’s a lot to take from a trip to the cinema.

Then the big thing happened. In fact, I think the big thing always happens to me when I feel like this. Sitting in a room full of smelly, disgusting cunts and then walking the streets avoiding evil charity workers, tedious carollers and moronically rude people gets me so wound up with anger that somehow a big thing has to happen. Either I start killing or something important happens. I was in the bank putting a cheque in when a man in his mid-thirties came up to me. He was crying and he said “Where do I go?”

I don’t know if that’s ever happened to you but it’s completely terrifying. My only response was “Sorry, mate?” and again he said “Where do I go?”

I asked if he needed me to help him and he walked away and out of the bank. I was right behind him and my head was full of right-I-have-to-find-a-hospital-and-take-this-man-to-the-hospital-where-the-fuck-is-the-hospital but when I got outside he was met by a group of women who all asked where he’d been. One said she was worried about him and he hugged her and kept crying.

“Where do I go?” is the saddest thing a complete stranger has ever said to me and I couldn’t stop thinking about him for hours. With all the billion complaints that I have I really don’t know how lucky I am. Then it really hit me. Something completely profound. Something that made me realise what my life has in store for me. There I was, so moved by this man and his predicament that I was immediately thinking of nothing but his care and welfare. I mean, for fuck’s sake. If only I’d pointed at him, laughed and called him a cunt I’d have my own Channel 4 show. I will NEVER make it in this business.

It genuinely did shake me up a lot seeing that guy. I hope he’s OK. It took me a long time to get over that 5 second meeting.

I say it took me a long time, half an hour later I held a door open for some girls at a Starbucks but they just stared at me. I gave up and walked through the doorway myself. As I passed, one girl said very sarcastically “Oh, charming. After you”. My response was a simple “I HELD THE FUCKING DOOR OPEN BUT YOU JUST STARED AT IT, YOU MORONIC CUNT”.

I need to stop doing that.

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