Guys with record collections

Published on Wed 9 Dec 2009

The Cambridge Weekly News seems to have dropped its horoscopes. You'd think they'd have mentioned that last week. I'm not sure how I'm going to cope without my weekly guilty crutch. I'm not sure even I'm pathetic enough to check Russell Grant's site. Well, maybe this once. His daily scope suggests that a new romance will start for me tonight. Seems unlikely, unless it's with my television. To be honest, at any point this decade seems pretty unlikely. Though that's only a couple of weeks actually isn't it. The weekly one is all about work. That's always disappointing. If I was writing horoscopes, pretty much every one would say "If you're single a new romance will start very soon (if you're really not fussy it will be with someone whose name begins with P), and if not everything will be great indefinitely". Where's the harm? It's not real, why not be nice? Ha, that reminds me of when I used to work for a popular sms based question answering service and told a whole series of people that they'd meet their next boyfriend just outside Cambridge station at times I was likely to be there. Didn't work. Dan and I went to see Kevin Devine on Sunday (my third trip to The Borderline in just over a month - they seem to have suddenly started putting good things on again) and it was really lovely. I seem to have been going to a lot of brilliant things lately.

We went to Funland in The Trocadero beforehand in an effort to recreate the drum game heroics of Tokyo, but they didn't have it, so I destroyed Dan at Streetfighter II and then Tekken 6. And then I destroyed a series of people from around the world at Tekken 6. There was a fair crowd (or, more likely, a queue) by the end. Eventually we just had to go, but if it hadn't been for the gig I'm pretty confident I'd still be there now.

I can't quite remember the name of the support guy. Something about socks. He was ok, but I found his beard more impressive than the songs. It was a good beard mind you. Kevin Devine's beard wasn't quite so good, but he was a cut above. I've not seen as powerful a solo set by anyone in ages. I'd probably only heard about half the songs before due to gaps in Spotify (I've almost completely stopped buying things - it's a bit naughty really), but I was rapt the whole time. He seemed like a really nice guy too - he even brought mince pies for the crowd. I love The Borderline - things always seem to turn out well there.

I did a short set at The Cornerhouse last week as part of a cabaret thing. The night itself was really good. A couple of comedians who, incredibly for a local show, were actually very funny, a band, and me. It must be really hard being a comedian, especially at a low level - it doesn't matter how funny you are, if the atmosphere isn't quite right then people are pretty unlikely to laugh. As one of them said to me after it was all over, with only a hint of bitterness - it doesn't matter how shit a musician you are, everybody will still clap at the end. I then told him about the gig I once did in Newmarket Library. Anyway, I played badly again. Well, I felt uncomfortable and communicated it to the audience, and then they felt uncomfortable and that made me feel more uncomfortable. My confidence appears to have disappeared almost completely. Not sure what to do about it. Anyway, I played You Won't Break My Heart, This Place is Dead Anyway and Watertight. Ho hum.