so i finally got my guitar back, – the man was out so i picked it up from a pigsty by his -rather nice- country house near Newtown. of course i put his cash through the letter box, i wasn’t going to argue with a man who told me, a few weeks ago, to pick it up my fuckin self -he clearly needs the money, so he can have it and he can shove it up his arse.

to be honest i think it’s been an unlucky year. the initial portent of doom was that gas explosion just outside morriston back in april. well i could hear the bang from my window, a man died. Then i had loads of shit bad experiences during the next few months. Also had a couple of evil gigs the last few weeks. well i told you about that ‘train wreck’ in mumbles: i don’t know why people bother with a comedian really, sometimes, why not just cut the attempt at social conscience and just book a stripper?! the lads in MUmbles booked me instead and by the end i could see why, so they could abuse somebody.

it was similar to some extent when i did a gig for freemasons in Weston Super Mare a week before the Mumbles one. not that it’s as simple as saying the audience were a bunch of trogs – on weston they weren’t, but nevertheless something went wrong, something was badly amiss, and i swear it wasn’t my performance. Or it wasn’t all my responsibility that it didn’t work. it was a pity as i was getting 250 quid, so i want to do a good job. Trouble is, as soon as i arrived i could tell the sound amplification was not good enough for such a large, and high roofed, room, a big function room in grand hotel. One tiny portable amp, with a really crap microphone. The tables were long ones with benches – i don’t know if these seats were immobile but almost half the audience were facing the wrong way, and most couldn’t be bothered even craning their necks in my direction.

 They were freemasons, but it was meant to be special treat for the ladies present, a good laugh. but i don’t think the people there were in the mood for a comedian – again i’m wondering perhaps something else like a magician or a juggler would have been more up their street. anyway i tried my best, but it really was a wading through treacle experience. The only contact i had was really the only person there who was friendly towards me, but he gave me very abrupt intro – nothing about ‘ he’s a bit surreal, you got to listen to him etc’. He wasn’t the actual head host, that job was done by a lady, she never talked to me while i was there , but did email afterwards, a couple of times, with very plain feedback, very negative. Basically , she said, no one thought i was funny and in fact i was really offensive. Now, this is always a strange thing to hear considering how most punters see me as a silly, non-offensive sort. But yes i do swear now and then, and i guess this was their bone of contention, but then why not tell me – BEFORE i go on – that you want it completely clean?? On the day i was actually told the opposite, that a bit of bad language would be fine.

Stand up comedy – why do it??? it’ s odd, because i like doing it, but when i pause and reflect on just the last couple of months’ shows….it’s been like torture. So why do i like doing it? am i a masochist ??

 The cherry on the cake of that weston gig was: after a false start where i was introduced on to the stage (i mean floor) too early, i said hello to the audience – which is actually a very kind way of describing the people there – then went back out to the foyer to change into my stage outfit, so’s i could do my proper entrance. yes i was changing in the foyer of a busy hotel – i’m not complaining about that, it takes me back to my shame ridden childhood when mam would make me change my swimming trunks in bus stop opposite the pool! – I mean comedians change in, and perform in, the shittiest places, the wildest messiest holes and cupboards. Anyway i’m standing there, putting my nice Tony Vino inspired shirt on when a man comes out of the function room and walks up to me. i can see he’s one of the guests, he’s got a smart, if eccentric, tartan suit on, and has a hipster style beard. Also, as far as distinguishing marks go, i see he has a lump on the back of his neck (i reckoned later that this could well have been a chip from one of his shoulders ). He starts talking to me, and not in an unfriendly way. He mentions the sound system and the fact that it’s not great. Of course i’m thinking about that as well, as well as a host of other things, and as i’m due to go on (again) any minute i’m a little nervous. I say something like “ah yes the sound system, yes you probably saw me just now, the sound wasn’t very good”, to which he says “yes, that’s cos you’d turned it off” to which i reply   “i didn’t turn it off, someone did though”….and this is where it gets nasty…he says “ i work in the music industry, and i was going to help you, but if you’re going to speak like that to me you can forget it” He promptly turns around, and goes back into the function room, calling me a prick under his breath as he goes.

Now, why should a performer have to take this? am i whipping boy or something? This whole gig made me feel like i was, plus on top of that the intense critical feedback i got afterwards from the hostess was like salt in a wound.

No idea what this bloke’s problem was/is, whether it was something about my intonation that upset him, but let’s face it he doesn’t know me, if he’s going to go up to a stranger and say something then he’s got to be a man about it, plus if he really does work in the music industry i’m fairly sure he’d have come across a lot ruder people than the polite and mild mannered Noel James. anyway i don t need to justify my response to him. i KNOW inever said anything to deserve his shit. i didn’t owe him an apology for anything, but guess what, once i put my jacket one i do go back in to the room to find him and apologise. it’s like my father used to say when referring to relations between his branch of the family and my mother…’best to keep the peace’.

I found him, patted him on the tartan shoulder, and said ‘ sorry mate’ not knowing, as i said, what it was i was saying sorry for. Basically, as i had to go on stage in a second my mind was thinking about diplomacy – i mean i don’t want this ‘member’ of the audience heckling me and spreading bad vibes. But it was useless. He glanced at me like he wanted to kill me and said GET AWAY FROM ME< like i had the plague. So i did. Back out to the foyer. a minute later i see him and his friends leaving. no doubt he did spread some poison about me before he left.

I went on despite my forebodings. Did had half an hour, not a long time, well not long enough to be crowd manager, a warm up act and a comedian, all rolled into one. with a crap sound system i couldn’t do a nuanced act, merely shout and project my voice so the fuckers could hear me. Ooh they didn’t like it when i said that ‘super mare’ is latin for shithole. they really didn’t , and one man retorted with ‘wales is a shithole’ which is odd because i can’t recall saying anything disrespectful about England. And everyone laughed, even the ones who were facing the walls and the windows liked that one.

 I had a friend, not really a ‘friend’, just someone who could have been a friend, she refused to seem because she read this blog. she said she thought me too bitter, too aggressive. i can’t see it myself, i’m just retelling true things that have gone down, just writing.

But yeah i guess bitterness is always near the surface when you’re a performer. A lot of the time it’s because you can see the conditions are not right, but you’re contracted to go on.

Then you’ve got the rejections. Radio 4 rejected me three times in one season, i give up. One response i had off them was that my submitted idea wasn’t ‘nuanced’. fuckin hell, they wouldn’t be able to tell a nuance if it hit them in the face. not that it would cos i guess being nuanced you don’t do things like that. Ok, if it sighed in their ears…if a nuance sighed in their ears they wouldn’t recognise it. and this is coming from the same company/organisation that kept jimmy saville employed until the end. They can recognise a nuance but can’t recognise a nonce!

Radio 4 comedy is generally shit anyway. and the whole deal makes me feel class conscious, i mean i feel there’s a load of hypocrisy surrounding the way they choose their programme makers. Like i know i’m not diverse in the sense of being from an african or asian ethnic background, but i also don’t see or hear many welsh working class accents from people in the fifties on the BBC. if any. so what? is my background just something to dismiss then?

 One of the commissioners suggested i do a bit more, or inject more about rugby in to one idea i had. so i changed the title of what i was working on, bearing in mind it revolved around notable black rugby players who’d experienced racism whilst playing for Wales…i changed the title to ‘Right Wing Black Rugby Players, and other Welsh stereotypes’.

I was pleased with that. it got rejected. didn’t get any reasons why.

another commissioner apologised for rejecting an idea. apologised? surely you only apologise for something if you know you’ve done something wrong…ah but then, as the man in the tartan suit story demonstrates,-Plaid member perhaps?- that’s not always true. Just wish i could stop remembering these heart breakers.