Farce in Perpetuity.

Down the guitar shop for strings and realise guitar shops are the closest men get to shopping comme les femmes. “Does my bum look big in this vintage Fender Strat?” Twiddles are twirls and a full-length mirror is a Marshal 100 watt combo. Bumped into a chap who played on Thursday, “Was that your wife? She’s got a lovely voice.” I say thanks but am secretly peeved at the absence of the other complement, MINE! At least I refrain from saying, “Well you were shit mate, and don’t give me all that bollocks about the guitar neck.” I explain that though she may appear a pleasant woman she’s a pain in the butt to work with. It relieved my resentment and sort of kept it in the family. Which reminded me of other fraught gigs I have known. A five-piece cover band in the East End where the drummer was going out with the singer who was also the manager’s wife. Said drummer offered an opinion that she was flat, she offered an opinion regarding his opinion, he reiterated his opinion with added expletives and she voted with her feet and left us an instrumental four-piece as she was the only one who’d taken the trouble to learn the words. Much guppy-ing. Later in a jazz ensemble in a pub in Attercliff, which is now a, er ‘gentleman’s club’, I got sent to look for the landlord for our measly twenty quid and found him hiding in the cellar. Actually I felt sorry for him seeing as if he had taken twenty quid that evening it would have been a miracle, and probably ours, jazz not being renown for its pulling power in Attercliff. Up at Crooks in a jazz improv session the trumbone player put the music on the stand and we all blasted away not realising it was in Ab, the sax was Eb, the trumpet Bb and guitar was concert pitch. Everyone playing in different keys is jazzy but not in a good way. In a play after hurriedly donning the wrong size tights I spent the performance joined at the knees, my giant pair of scissors came apart flailing dramatically but not as intended, and my nose started bleeding while prostrate so I had to play the rest of the scene holding my nose. In the final death scene of the ‘The Duchess of Malfie’ the imminently to-be-deceased fell on a box that hadn’t been locked down and disappeared off stage. It totally spoiled the dramatic effect when he had to walk back on to deliver his dying words. It’s no wonder I see life as a perpetual farce.