Vim Fuego.

“Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” – Revelations, 13.4

There are only two places you’re likely to see a quote like that, if you don’t count this blog, and those places are some boring, rubbishy bible or the inner sleeve of a totally amazing Heavy Metal album. In this blog I would like to pose a very important question that I think each and every person on this accursed earth should ask themselves: Is Heavy Metal the most perfect form of music ever?

I’m going to stick my tattooed, headbanging neck out and say yes. Heavy Metal is the ONLY perfect musical art form. Not rock, not fucking soft rock but proper chunky, fast, galloping Heavy Metal. The difference between Heavy Metal and all other kinds of music should be pretty clear. It gives a shit. Other music wants you to relate, understand, sympathise or actually make you take stock of everything you’ve ever said or done. In other words, other music is manipulative. Other music is a liar. Heavy Metal isn’t like that. There is only one emotion in Heavy Metal and that emotion is FUCKYEAH! It just wants you to have a good time all of the time. No one has ever nursed a broken heart to Heavy Metal. It’s so infuriating when someone says “Every time I put the radio on, the song reminds me of him/her”. THEN LISTEN TO A METAL STATION, YOU TWAT. Heavy Metal won’t patronise you like indie music will. It doesn’t talk down to you, it lifts you up. Those guitar riffs are there to make you want to raise your fist in the air and shout “I ONLY HAVE ABOUT 85 YEARS ON THIS PLANET SO LET’S START LIVIIIIIIIIING!!!” Big, fat, cartoon guitar riffs and thundering bass lines and drums like bombs and lyrics that take you to the very heart of what it must be like to be an Orc.

And why not? Who in their right mind wants to wallow in real life? That’s why most indie music doesn’t make any sense. Music is escapism but if you listen to My Bloody Valentine or Arctic Monkeys or Ed fucking Sheeran where are you escaping to? Escaping to your own existence doesn’t seem like much of a journey to me. That’s the beauty of Heavy Metal. And it is beautiful, by the way. Heavy Metal isn’t about you (well, not unless you’re Genghis Khan), Heavy Metal is FOR you. It doesn’t want to see you down. It doesn’t want to remind you of your problems and it doesn’t want to hear your problems. Jump In The Fire by Metallica is a song that demands you get up off your cry-baby arse and join it, Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne is offering you a piggy-back and a slap in the face at the same time and if you put The Trooper by Iron Maiden on your iPod instead of Adele you will definitely walk taller and with a much more purposeful stride. And that’s good for your health. Healthy Metal.

Which brings me to this: Why is Iron Maiden not opening the Olympics? That just doesn’t make any sense. They’re the biggest band ever from East London selling over 85 million records and they definitely know how to put on a show. Instead we have Duran Duran. Let’s think about that. How many athletes train while listening to pumped up Heavy Metal and how many have pushed themselves to the very limits while listening to “Save a Prayer”? Does the Daley Thompson/Lucozade/Phantom of the Opera advert mean nothing now? Also it would just be nice if the London Olympics were represented by a band from London. Duran Duran are from Birmingham and even if the Olympics were held in Birmingham, Duran Duran still shouldn’t be asked. It should be Black Sabbath. When I saw Black Sabbath performing one of their many last ever gigs in 1997 I genuinely felt an incredible outpouring of love. As soon as I saw Ozzy run (he sort of ran) on stage my heart just grew. The first song they performed was War Pigs and for the next two hours 8,000 people bounced. We bounced because it was two hours of music that wanted everything outside that room to just fuck off. War, famine, heartbreak, financial ruin…these were all tedious and insignificant nothings next to four old men being very, very loud.

And that volume is what it’s all about. Why listen to some acoustic boy wailing about how he doesn’t fit in with this cold, cold existence when you have noise that bricks up the outside world so we don’t have to even register it? I mean if a song doesn’t make you feel like you’re charging on a horse while thrusting a sword in front of yourself it can’t really be much of a song, can it? But then Heavy Metal is whatever you want it to be really. To some I suppose it must be dark and serious and meaningful. It’s even political sometimes. I’ve never got all that. To me it’s just fun, energetic and brilliantly daft. I’m sure there are Metal fans out there who don’t really like to admit this but there’s not too much difference between our superb music and a big, camp, brilliantly daft West End musical. Have I lost you with that bit? OK, let me try to win you back with two wonderful Heavy Metal facts. Firstly, Black Sabbath are a four-piece band with three vegan members (The Smiths only have one vegan member and it’s not even leather-wearing, cheese-eating Morrissey) and secondly, the song that toppled Mistletoe & Wine by Cliff Richard off the top of the charts was Iron Maiden’s Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter. God, I love Heavy Metal.

Of course, I love my indie music really but I’m glad I had those Heavy Metal teenage years. I can’t tell you how fucking fed up I am right now (mainly because I don’t know you and it’s none of your business) but it isn’t my Rough Trade 5-disc boxset I’m turning to. It’s Heavy Metal. Loud, obnoxious, unpopular and ridiculous Heavy Metal. I guess I just relate to it.

Recommended listening: The Real Thing by Faith No More, Among The Living by Anthrax, Iron Maiden by Iron Maiden, Powerslave by Iron Maiden, Master of Puppets by Metallica, Paranoid by Black Sabbath, Reign In Blood by Slayer, Holy Diver by Dio, Blizzard of Ozz by Ozzy Osbourne, British Steel by Judas Priest, Stay Hungry by Twisted Sister (Well, I like it), Antichrist Superstar by Marilyn Manson,  Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying? By Megadeth and pretty much any AC/DC album. It’s a basic, pretty obvious list but if you’ve never given Heavy Metal a go because you think it looks stupid just remember that looking stupid is fun and funny. Fun. Just remember fun when you’re next listening to your fucking indie music next time.

That’s the schmaltziest blog I’ve written in ages but I get the feeling tomorrow’s will be furious. I’ve noticed that the comedy world has decided that Mrs. Brown’s Boys is actually very funny indeed and, oh look, it’s won a BAFTA. I feel fucking sick.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge  

If you like being embarrassed as much as I do or just want to point and laugh at my many embarrassing moments then why not go to Michael Legge's Private Hell on the 3rd June with guests Richard Herring, Catie Wilkins and Dab & Tench or on the 1st July with Nick Helm and Bridget Christie? Shows start at 3pm at The Phoenix, Cavendish Square, London (nearest tube Oxford Circus) and it costs an unbelievable £5.  

Or you can get more Legge embarrassment at the Edinburgh Fringe. I'm very proud and happy to say that my show, Michael Legge: What a Shame, is on nearly every day of the fringe at the fantastic Stand Comedy Club. Here's info: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/michael-legge-what-a-shame  

If you're too lazy to read my blog or are in fact blind then why not subscribe to Blogging For The Blind at www.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or look up Michael Legge on iTunes and subscribe there for free also. Thanks.This blog is also available on Kindle but I don't recommend you get that. It's bollocks.

I've Been Meaning To Say...

There comes a time in a lot of relationships when it just feels right to say those four little words that you've been dying to say for ages. It's nerve wracking of course. What if you say it and it puts that person right off you? What if those are the exact four little words that they never wanted hear? Well, not from you anyway. Is it too soon to say it? Is it too late? The fact is, if you've built a bond with someone and this incredible feeling is growing inside you, then just let it out. It might be the best thing you'll ever do. Go on. Say it. It's only four little words and you've been dying to whisper them for ages. Say it. "I love you. But..."

It's weird how often that last word is silent but really every single time you say "I love you" you're really saying "I love you. But..." because no one is perfect. You actually can never completely love someone.

"I love you". Really? You love my psoriasis and my foot lump and my grumpiness and my Sugababes CD's and my irrational hatred of people I don't know? Well, you're weird. How can I possibly ever love anyone who loves things like that. Fuck off.

That is definitely what you should say next time someone says "I love you" to you. If there's no "But..." at the end it's meaningless. Insulting, even. Don't be depressed about the fact that you can never completely love someone. There's something you can do to make yourself feel better. It just means that you have to say "But..." and the end of I love you. Which brings me to what I really want to talk about. I've been in a relationship for a very, very long time and I've yet to say those four little words. I've said three of them but that's just not right. So, after all this time of being together I think I'm ready to finally say it. England, I love you but...could you please stop pissing in the street?

I was raised on English culture and it has had a far stronger effect on me than Irish culture ever has. Monty Python, The Young Ones, Fry & Laurie, Blackadder...that's pretty much my youth right there. I liked England so much that I moved there. The English are insane and funny and who couldn't love that? It's just there's not a day goes by when I don't see someone pissing in the street. I think it's bizarre that generally the stereotype is that Scottish and Irish people drink a lot. Where I'm from you drink on a Friday and Saturday night. There isn't an hour of the day when the English aren't drinking. It's constant. There is no such thing as a quiet pub in London. They are full from 11am until midnight. The Irish and the Scots have the reputation for being hardened drinkers but we all secretly know that any old lady from Kent could drink us under the table. And that's fine. I just don't see why you have to prove how much you've had by pissing in the street.

People from Northern Ireland, where I'm from, piss in the street. They do. But you know what? You might go a week or two without seeing it. Not in England. The home of Shakespeare and Morrissey is awash with it's proud stream of urine that twists and turns round every street in the land. I've seen people pissing in phoneboxes in Chester, bus stops in Nottingham and just anywhere they fucking feel like in Liverpool. There isn't a shop doorway in Lewisham that I haven't seen some cheeky scamp getting his penis out and releasing his majestic cascade of golden relief. Napoleon was so close to getting it right. I think what he meant was "England is a nation of shopkeepers who are permanently cleaning piss off their doorstep". As horrible as late night train journeys are I actually dread getting off at my destination. Men get off the train, cocks out, pissing on the trees beside the platform. YOU HAVE YOUR COCKS OUT IN PUBLIC. YOU ARE URINATING IN THE STREET. I CAN SEE YOU. It might not be so bad but THERE ARE TOILETS ON THE TRAIN.  I once saw a man in the park pissing up against the public lavatory. You English fucking love pissing.

I've noticed this for years. Maybe once ruling the world and giving birth to The Beatles and winning a World Cup has given you the kind of confidence that I could never have or understand but just last week I met a man who's assurance and faith in himself could make God feel like Andrew McCarthy. I was walking Jerk in the park when he said to me "Excuse me, please". I was impressed already. It's rare that you get proper manners in Lewisham so the very fact that he addressed me correctly made me warm to the gentleman immediately. "Can you tell me where the hospital is?", he continued. I did know where the hospital was. It was just down this path to the man's right and when you come to the small bridge on the left, cross it and the hospital is right in front of you. "Thank you", he said. Lovely manners except for one tiny thing. Throughout this entire exchange the gentleman was pissing on some railings.

HE WAS PISSING ON RAILINGS. He asked a stranger for directions while PISSING ON RAILINGS. Then he smiled and said "I'm visiting my mum". He smiled, proved what a good son he was and he PISSED ON RAILINGS. Look, England, I don't want you to ever lose that confidence. "So what if the world is watching? This is who I really am". That's so amazing to have that amount of self belief. But come on, guys. It's the street where we all walk and live and get on with things. You have a really nice place here. Don't make it all damp and smelly. I love you but sometimes you really do take the...Oh, forget it. 


www.twitter.com/michaellegge 

If you like being embarrassed as much as I do or just want to point and laugh at my many embarrassing moments then why not go to Michael Legge's Private Hell on the 3rd June with guests Richard Herring, Catie Wilkins and Dab & Tench or on the 1st July with Nick Helm and Bridget Christie? Shows start at 3pm at The Phoenix, Cavendish Square, London (nearest tube Oxford Circus) and it costs an unbelievable £5. 

Or you can get more Legge embarrassment at the Edinburgh Fringe. I'm very proud and happy to say that my show, Michael Legge: What a Shame, is on nearly every day of the fringe at the fantastic Stand Comedy Club. Here's info: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/michael-legge-what-a-shame 

If you're too lazy to read my blog or are in fact blind then why not subscribe to Blogging For The Blind at www.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or look up Michael Legge on iTunes and subscribe there for free also. Thanks.This blog is also available on Kindle but I don't recommend you get that. It's bollocks.

That Synching Feeling.

We all have been given one gift and mine is being great at doing embarrassing things in public. They don't always embarrass me but they do make those around me cringe. One of my proudest awkward moments happened just a few weeks ago. And, yes, I am very proud of my embarrassing moments. They're my beautiful gifts to you.

I was compering the new act night at the Comedy Cafe in East London. It's a show featuring 14 of the brightest and best new comedians trying to break the circuit and, as a result, I was drinking heavily. I mean there's really only so many jokes about Groupon or rape that one can bear listening to. And the jokes about Groupon AND rape are even worse. By the end of the night I was drunk. So drunk that I decided to have a couple of nightcaps before heading off home. I stumbled on to the train and made my dizzy way to Lewisham.

The train was noisy. Really noisy. Noisy and nasty. Of course it was. It's the last train of the night and there's only three types of people who take the last train at night to anywhere. The noisy, the nasty and the unlucky. Even though I was drunk and probably could have fallen asleep inside an explosion, the noise was really annoying me. People were shouting and swearing and being aggressive even when being kind. "I'm getting us a taxi when we get off", someone threatened. "Have another beer, Tom", another enforced. It was certainly way too much for my delicate ears so I decided to listen to some music.

I put my earphones in and scrolled through my phone to find some music to match my mood. Not loudly, of course. Just because everyone else is being thoughtless doesn't mean I have to be. It was loud enough to just about hear it. Now, here's the thing...

I don't know if you're like this but, when I'm drunk and listening to music, I mime the song. I'm not over the top with it. Just a tiny lip-synch of a mime. No dancing, no air guitar, just a small movement of the mouth. Alright, my eyes sometimes squint when I mime a soulful bit but that's only because I want to make sure I really hit those notes that I'm clearly not making. I'm not pretending I'm on Top of the Pops, I'm just doing a tiny lip-synch. It's a quiet mime, as most mime's should be I think. But it's so noisy on the train that I can barely hear the song that I'm soulfully and mimimally miming to.

People near me are making so much noise. Talking and laughing. Now, I've never been drawn to the sound of laughter. It's a very cold and hollow sound. Hateful, even. But these guys were laughing loudly and I needed to be able to hear the song to give an authentic performance of it in my head so I broke one of my own train rules: I turned up the volume. Not too loudly, just enough so I could hear a bit better. I continued with my number. Moving my lips to match the voice and squinting my eyes a little to give the folks at home the show they deserved. But the laughter got louder.

Ah, I see. Some of them THINK they've spotted me miming but how can they be sure? I mean, I KNOW I've been miming but how do they know I haven't just been yawning funny or maybe I'm smacking my lips with my tongue because my mouth is dry? They can't KNOW for sure what I'm doing so their laughter is unjustified. Only I know the truth. But I can't worry about that now because I'm halfway through a song that I'm miming to a crowd of thousands (in my head) and I mustn't disappoint them. So I ignored the haters and picked up my phone to turn the volume up again.

That's when I realised that my earphones weren't plugged in.

Don't ever use the phrase "reality check" again without thinking of me, please. In my head the crowd of thousands were loving every note I sang to them and screamed their agreement when Simon Cowell said I gave the greatest performance of that song he had ever heard. But that wasn't true. The truth was I was sitting on a smelly, sticky, late-night train while being pointed at and laughed at by about eight people who all thought I was a cunt.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if the song wasn't Man Or Muppet by The Muppets. But it was.



 www.twitter.com/michaellegge

If you like being embarrassed as much as I do or just want to point and laugh at my many embarrassing moments then why not go to Michael Legge's Private Hell on the 3rd June with guests Richard Herring, Catie Wilkins and Dab & Tench or on the 1st July with Nick Helm and Bridget Christie? Shows start at 3pm at The Phoenix, Cavendish Square, London (nearest tube Oxford Circus) and it costs an unbelievable £5.

Or you can get more Legge embarrassment at the Edinburgh Fringe. I'm very proud and happy to say that my show, Michael Legge: What a Shame, is on nearly every day of the fringe at the fantastic Stand Comedy Club. Here's info: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/michael-legge-what-a-shame

If you're too lazy to read my blog or are in fact blind then why not subscribe to Blogging For The Blind at www.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or look up Michael Legge on iTunes and subscribe there for free also. Thanks.This blog is also available on Kindle but I don't recommend you get that. It's bollocks.

Smartphone/Stupidman.

Do you embarrass yourself easily? I don't. It's almost impossible to embarrass me because my entire life has been one cack-handed catastrophe after another. I'm so constantly embarrassing that being embarrassed just doesn't register with me. In the same way that a half of lager will have no effect on a committed alcoholic, it takes more than a simple trousers-falling-down-in-front-of-a-primary-school to make me go red in the face. I wake up every morning and from that second onwards its a shambolic cascade of twattery until bedtime again. If I was to compile the last few days into one day it would read like this: A man asking me for directions to the hospital while pissing up against railings, a woman in Sainsbury's held my hand because she thought I was her 5 year old son, someone thought I was Dave Gorman, a teenager called me a wanker because I was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a hedgehog on it, someone else thought I was Dave Gorman, I talked myself into actually physically following a complete stranger and reporting his movements on Twitter as part of Follow Friday (that made me late to meet friends in Greenwich because I followed the complete stranger and he got on a bus to Catford. I admit it. That was my fault), an old woman in the park called me Paddy Arsebandit, several more people thought I was Dave Gorman, I died on my arse on stage at the Comedy Cafe and I went to a book launch party looking like this:

So, you see, if it's always this awful then you've really got to put the effort in to get the red in my cheeks. I think it's safe to say that you will probably never see me looking embarrassed. But that's not to say I'm NEVER embarrassed. The thing is, I'm just more likely to be embarrassed when I'm alone. That's actually when it's most shameful. At least if I fall down a flight of concrete steps and break my neck I know that I'll have entertained some people who saw me fall but when you're on your own...well, your own basic patheticness is highlighted. You're stupid, awkward and completely alone. So very, very alone.

I felt completely alone just a couple of weeks ago. I was on the toilet and using my phone to do emails, texts and tweets. That's right, when I do my business I also like to do my admin too. About 10 minutes after toilet-time I decide to have a quick look at Twitter to see if anyone had RT'd my hilarious tweets about whatever celebrity death had happened that day but I couldn't find my phone. It's probably in the bathroom. No, hadn't left it there. I must have left it upstairs. No, not there either. That's weird. I checked my pockets again and the bathroom again and upstairs again. It was nowhere to be seen. That's OK. I'm very popular and someone from the entertainment business is bound to ring me soon and when it rings I'll know where it is. But just in case, I'll check my pockets again and the bathroom again and upstairs again. No, it's definitely not in any of those places. I checked the kitchen cupboards and the fridge because putting my phone in those places sounds like something I would do. Nope. Oh, well. I've got things to do and my phone will turn up sooner or later. Mickey Bigtime from Bigtime Television was probably getting his personal assistant to call me right at that minute and when he does my phone will hollar and I'll find it. Until then, I have some boxes to move from the upstairs hall and I have to get something from the attic.

It took me five minutes to move the boxes and other stuff from the upstairs hall. That's five minutes. Plus the ten minutes between toilet-time and wanting to check Twitter. Plus, I'd say, eight minutes trying to find my phone. That's twenty-three whole minutes. Plus an extra minute for me to get the ladder for the attic. It's twenty-four minutes since I left the toilet and my admin behind. Twenty-four minutes have passed and now I'm halfway up a ladder and that's when my phone rings. My phone rings and it vibrates.

It was in my underpants.

How the hell does anyone live for twenty-four minutes of their life without noticing there's a telephone in their pants? I know phones are small these days but they're not that small. It was right there, pressing itself against my testicles and I didn't notice. And how the hell did it get in there? I don't put phones in pants. That's just not me. But I must have. I must have put my phone in my pants and then pulled my pants up with a telephone in them and just got on with my day. Like an idiot would. An idiot who thought it was totally normally to keep a phone in your pants and a TV remote in your sock and your car-keys in your anus. I am that idiot. And there I was. Halfway up a ladder listening to my pants ring and feeling my testicles vibrating. I was embarrassed and alone and halfway up a ladder. There's no way that I could put my hand in my pants and confidently take the phonecall-of-a-lifetime from Mickey Bigtime. When opportunity rings I don't want to be halfway up a ladder with my hand in my pants.

So I didn't take the call. I actually just stood there, on the ladder, and got redder in the face with each ring. The more my testicles got vibrated the more incompetent I felt. Plus it felt nice. What if it was my mum ringing? I'd have felt awful.


www.twitter.com/michaellegge

If you like being embarrassed as much as I do or just want to point and laugh at my many embarrassing moments then why not go to Michael Legge's Private Hell on the 3rd June with guests Richard Herring, Catie Wilkins and Dab & Tench or on the 1st July with Nick Helm and Bridget Christie? Shows start at 3pm at The Phoenix, Cavendish Square, London (nearest tube Oxford Circus) and it costs an unbelievable £5.

Or you can get more Legge embarrassment at the Edinburgh Fringe. I'm very proud and happy to say that my show, Michael Legge: What a Shame, is on nearly every day of the fringe at the fantastic Stand Comedy Club. Here's info: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/michael-legge-what-a-shame

If you're too lazy to read my blog or are in fact blind then why not subscribe to Blogging For The Blind at www.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or look up Michael Legge on iTunes and subscribe there for free also. Thanks.This blog is also available on Kindle but I don't recommend you get that. It's bollocks.