London 2017; Day 2

Day 10, April 1^st, 2017

We have a lazy morning and an English breakfast and though we have no plan other than a comedy show tonight, we head out just after noon, but not before cracking a beer.  We walk along the Thames and spring’s in the air and it’s warm and lovely.

We spot a pub and Aurora needs to use the loo, so we head towards it.  There’s a very drunk forty-something-year-old woman sitting outside at a table with three guys and she asks me if I’m Crocodile Dundee, because, though I ditched the poncho, I’m wearing the Australian model cowboy hat.  We briefly chat and I perform a bit, but I also don’t want to get roped into it with people who are hammered drunk by 1pm, so we make our excuses and head inside. 

I get us a round and Alex and I are chatting when the woman (we’ll call her Kelly) comes in and asks to sit with us and then she’s telling me how I’m fascinating and I’m like, all right, here we go.

And though we slept, I’m still just sorta worn out tired from the trip and we did it up the night before and I go to push again and it’s improv with folks who have no idea again, but something goes wrong, as it sometimes does, and I’m not hitting the notes right, and I’m being a bit of an ass.

The key to improv is the very basic, but crucial, dictum “yes, and…” whereby you go positive.  But tired and drinking, from time to time I’ll get on a bad angle and then I’m negative and crap on people’s good time because the meta of being a bummer is amusing to me in that condition and whelp that’s where we are. 

So Kelly is very drunk and hadn’t been to bed last night. She and her friends just kept it going.  She’s not getting that I’m being straight-faced ridiculous and I’m saying things like “Well, you know you shouldn’t feel bad about staying out drinking because, at the end of all this, we’re all going to be dead and nothing means anything. Babies die of cancer. Jerks make billions of dollars. Nothing’s fair.”

She pauses and says, “Are you single?”

To which I say, “Of course. Always. People are awful.”

Kelly wanders off to use the Loo and Aurora says, “I think she likes you. She asked if you were single.”

And round about the time Kelly returns from the loo, her mates come in and here we go. They sit down and join us and they’re a rough bunch, but pretty darn friendly.  And one of them, a forty-something Jamaican DJ, takes a shine to me and he and I banter and I ask him if he’s as good a DJ as Paris Hilton and he pauses and sizes me up and laughs and laughs.

And then I see if I can bum him out and go back to the negative well and finally Alex has to say, “Yeah. Ha. That’s getting a bit old.” Which, if you know how polite the British are, means I am being a shit because he had to say it.  I try to curb my behavior, but fail. Mea culpa.

And they buy us a round and they tell Aurora and Alex that they’re a good-looking couple and the DJ says, “You know how I can tell you’re rich? It’s the teeth.”  His teeth are jacked up; as are Kelly’s; as are the two other drunk guys.  My teeth are middle-class messed up.

Somehow the drunk folk ask about guns, but I explain that guns are tools and it’s really the willpower is what matters. I shake the empty pint glass in my hand and say, “My go-to is the Old Crack-and-Stab!” as I pretend to break the glass and stab the DJ with it and he howls with laughter. “The Old Crack-and-Stab! Hahahaha!”

They want to do more beer, but I have no interest in letting strangers hijack our day and I can already tell I’m being too much, so I apologize and tell them we have to meet people and off we go. Kelly is heartbroken.

We walk along and have to go by Parliament and Big Ben, where there was recently a terrorist stabbing, and there’s a huge crowd out in front of the McDonalds. There are lots of tourists, but then also immigrants, and I see many women in hijabs.  I don’t like crowds at all.

We walk on past the crowded areas and find another pub. We get a pint and have a seat and then I turn into the bummer guy, but not because I’m trying to ruin Alex and Aurora’s day, but because I’m tired and in a way and we had enough beer to put me in a mental rut and I’m really displeased with my behavior. It’s sunny in London! And I’m being a bummer.

We leave and find their friends at an outdoor market and there’s more drinks and I’m pushing again and being way too much. This time I’m trying to pretend I’m a Kiwi. Then it’s more drinks as we head to the comedy club and then it’s more drinks and we kinda, sorta, forgot to eat lunch or supper and I’m being, in a word, obnoxious. I even tell a few folks my goal is to be obnoxious up to the point of being punched. Because that’s a great way to behave with folks. “It’s meta!” I slur.

The comedians are funny, but my hat gets me called out by the MC and then I make a particularly loud groan at a joke and get called out again and not great. Not great. 

And then we head to another place, but, by this point, my go-to move has kicked in and I’m just exhausted and I’m falling asleep any time we sit for longer than a few moments. This time, it is not sleep, blessed sleep.  It’s “Wake up. We’re leaving.” And we get back to their place and I pour into the bed and I am not real proud of myself; I can tell you that.  It's April Fools' Day. I'm the April Fool.