Drunk Blog!

That's right motherfuckers. I'm drunk! Well, not really. I'm a little bit tipsy. I reckon I'm at the the stage where I might find it difficult to do more than 5 kick-ups with a football whereas when sober I could do about 7 or 8. So, it's a Friday night, I've had a couple of drinks (4) - why am I writing a blog post and risking a reputation as a writer that's gathering pace by drunk typing? 'Fergus!' I hear you say. 'You are no Hunter. S. Thompson! This will not end well.' Good point, well made - but here's the thing...

I'm in Porthcawl, Wales and I'm on my own. The life of a travelling stand up is something I can't truly appreciate because I dip in and out of it. I can however document a small part of it. Tonight I did a gig at a venue known as the Grand Pavilion. Thanks to the relatively mid to low profile of the other act and myself we were in fact performing in a basement bar below the Grand Pavilion. The gig was fine. It's a Friday night and luckily the good folk of Porthcawl were up for a laugh. What follows is the problem.

Now that the other act has left to stay with his mum in a nearby town (pussy) I am left at the Porthcawl Hotel. Fine, you say. 'A couple of chapters of that soperific Catherine Cookson you've been inhaling of late and you'll be dead to the world'. It turns out that there is only one nightclub in Porthcawl and it is below the Porthcawl Hotel. As I write the song 'Black Velvet' is genuinely booming out below my feet. Surely that's karaoke? No. I think that is a song they still play in nightclubs in Porthcawl. Are there people slow dancing to that right now? Or are they stood at the bar, in serious mode, preparing the moves that will get them laid?

'Why don't you go down there, Fergus? If you can't beat them, join them, right?' No thank you. I hold no grudge against these people. I have spent much of my life among them in shit nightclubs in small towns but to do that on my own, at the age of thirty, would be surely be a suicide trigger. Having said that - I am genuinely starting to twitch. The atmosphere seems to have taken a leap in the right direction, there's some whooping and cheering, and it feels like it might be the place to be. Maybe I'll wander down there and stumble across some people who were at the gig. They'll tell me how great I was, massage my ego and buy me a drink or two. Or... maybe I'll wander down there, look like a blatant outsider who is on his own on a Friday night and summon the Friday night kicking that is so often dished out in these places. Maybe I'll pull! I've been in a relationship for nearly 7 years with someone I love but I see no logical reason why the person whom I belong with isn't in the basement of the Porthcawl Hotel dancing to what I think is now Tinchy Stryder.

Earlier on I had a drink in the 'lounge bar'. I felt like a 1950s American salesman away on business. To complete the image I was reading a book about baseball called 'Moneyball' by Michael Lewis. I recommend it highly but this is a digression. I've taken a gin and tonic (which is now pretty much finished) to my room. What now? Seriously chaps! What now? The music will go on till 2.30am. It's 11.43pm. Do I join them downstairs? I cant. It will bring back memories of when as a 21 year old I desperately scoured nightclubs for romantic (or otherwise) interaction and habitually failed. I am curious though. If nothing else it would surely provide the material for another blog post. My choice as it stands is... at least 2 hours in my room playing Football Manager OR going downstairs and having what could potentially be an incredible experience but what will almost certainly be one of the most depressing episodes in my life. As I sign off from this blog the decision is yet to be made. First! I will have a piss!