16/06/05 On Your Bike

my name in lights...! 

Well, the gig got off to an inauspicious start when Irish,flame-haired, former sambista Trish introduced me as Jim Parks...it was a dagger in my chest.
It was a tricky gig. I was the first "comedy" (allegedly) spot of the evening. Before I came on, a band played some nice, way down, ambient stuff featuring acoustic guitar and digeridoo. Very enjoyable.
It's difficult going straight from this to stand-up comedy. Usually a compere will spend 10 minutes warming the audience up to get them into comedy mode. Plus, it takes a little while for people to stop talking. Thanks to Mr Kay for hassling the crowd at the bar to belt up.
Anyway, after this slow start, I thought the set went really well. There were a few heckles, a guy came up on stage with his mobile phone after it went off. I'd said that if I were a more experienced comedian I'd have taken the phone off him and have had a hilarious improvised conversation with the hapless caller. He came onstage anyway. It turns out it was a text message (?). He asked me if I had a message that he could send to the person who'd texted. I came back with the side-splittingly funny ad lib, "Yes, just tell him to fuck off!" ...comedy gold, comedy gold...
It was great to see Phil Kay onstage. I haven't seen him perform for ages. First of all he drew the raffle. Probably my favourite part of his show. Just great off-the-cuff madness. He then told a series of bike related anecdotes. Apparently he has had 11 bikes stolen because he can never be bothered to use a lock.
He spent the last 20 minutes strumming his guitar and improvising a song about his problematic marriage. He tends to split audiences. I like acts that do that. I think it's better to make some people laugh a lot, rather than have everybody laughing at a lower intensity. Avoid lowest common denominator comedy.
One of the things that impressed me about Amsterdam was that there are thousands of unlocked bikes parked all over the place. Admittedly most of them are old bangers, but I just like the fact that people feel comfortable about doing that.
I heard a bizarre new ambulance siren yesterday. It sounds like an alien spacecraft about to land. Curiously similar to the Space Invader flying saucer that taxi'd periodically across the top of the screen. That's 300 points if you count your shots and hit it. I was always shit at Space Invaders.