from comedy trapeze to stand-up comedy
Today was what has become an enjoyably standard Friday in London for me. I went to comedy trapeze, which was a great time as always, even if, as usual, I wasn’t able to nail as many of the tricks as I’d have liked. Sometimes I have to remind myself that the whole point of doing trapeze for me is to have some fun and get some exercise, so I’m never going to perform at a crazy high level, and if I started to really try, it would definitely ruin the fun. Thankfully, teacher Michelle is so endlessly entertaining that it’s always a good time. At one point I slowly tipped over during a stretch just as she happened to be watching, and after I bemoaned the timing she explained that she's been trained to catch those moments and in a variety of responses to draw attention to them. At the end of class we got the big update that her neuroscientist girlfriend attended her Tuesday class, which I got to see photos of, and I can only hope that sometime she’ll make it to a Friday one.
Instead of heading back home or indulging my normal impulse to walk to Borough Market, I found a little Turkish restaurant nearby and had a great small meal of a plate full of salads and baba ghanoush. It was a perfect way to relax and enjoy some sunshine next to their patio filled with flowers, and then catch the tube home. I went one stop extra to duck into a couple of shops on Turnham Green Terrace, and then went to M&S to buy the usual assortment of sweets that I like to bring to comedy night at the George.
Bill indulged our recent Indian food obsession with a delivery order from Dishoom, which was excellent for all of us other than Ben, who claimed it was the spiciest thing he’s ever eaten in his entire life. Despite that, he insisted that he did like it, and just sat taking sips of milk between bites. The three of them sat down to watch The Hunger Games movie as I headed out to meet the Kiwis to walk to the George and meet up with a few other of the usual suspects for stand-up comedy. The Italians joined despite Elena’s insistence that her English wasn’t good enough to follow along.
The Kiwis also invited some friends I hadn’t met, who turned out to be the most fascinating people: journalists who covered wars in multiple countries and had lived in Iraq for years. One of them reported for the BBC and the other for Dutch TV, and somehow between comedy sets I managed to get a good dose of their perspective on recent world history and where they see things headed. I genuinely appreciated their condolences on the Trump election and their larger perspective on the cycles that history takes as progress is made.
Amidst these heavy and compelling conversations, there were four fantastic comedic sets that had us howling. The comedians did a particularly excellent job of carrying a thread through the whole night by creating characters of the people seated in the front row and running with elaborate stories about them. It wasn’t mean-spirited so all of them were good sports, though all of the comedians and most of the audience had fun turning on a drunk heckler. He wasn’t too obnoxious but his occasional disruptions created a common enemy vibe that all of the comics played into well. My favorite bit of the night was one comedian making fun of extroverts: “you needy [expletives], shut up and learn to daydream.” I also enjoyed, “I'm a male feminist. We need more male feminists. Because women are doing a shit job of it. We need to replace women feminists with men.”
After the show ended we all went into the front room of the pub where a live band was playing, and danced a bit before the band went on a break and I figured it was a good opportunity to get home early. Elena was telling me about an early wake-up tomorrow for the gym and I was telling her about my early wake-up for a train at which point she said, “oh what time, 11am?” and we both laughed at her very accurate call-out. To be fair in order to make an 11am train I do have to wake up before 9am. I don’t expect much pity from anyone, though I do request it. The night ended with me walking up to my front door and stepping on a big slug and seeing lots of other slugs and freaking out and writing a note about it to my family.
