People I meet…

I love my job, being a comic does mean you get to meet really interesting people and I don’t always mean the folk who step onstage. Yes I know Jonny Vegas, Jerry Sadowitz and many more famous telly celebs…but I am talking about the people in the audience and ordinary humans we meet in life.

Meeting that lady Carole the other night when she was in the audience in Newcastle was good for me. I love the eccentricity of some women. You know what I mean, the ordinary woman who is clearly too old in society’s eyes to wearing those boots and that smile, or the mad looking woman who dons bright lipstick and odd wellies…I like her; I want to talk to her. Not that Carole was too old or too weird…but she looked like she had lived.

She reminded me of a woman called Peg who I met in the West End of Glasgow. Peg was a real character. She had worked in television and moved in those circles. Her clothes were all bought from charity shops and she loved telling you about where she got them and for how much, in a bar where the TV society tried to outdo each other with their status, income and important-ness. Peg was a fucking breath of cold refreshing startling air.

She had dark Indian looking hair, beautiful brown speckled eyes, sallow Italian skin and a smile with a dirty laugh that made people stop and stare. She loved animlas and kids and had a strange affinity with both. She once babysat Ashley for me and had an almost stand up fight with my 12 year old daughter because my child ‘made up’ a word on Scrabble! Peg declared war if you pronounced a word wrong or used a sentence badly! Ashley loved her mad ways.
She in some ways would be the female Malcolm Hardee (Infamous comedy promoter and South London pirate who died early this year).

In some ways Peg reminded me of my mammy; it was her dark hair, sparkly eyes and crazy impetuous spirit. I once told her this, although she was only ten years older than me she never took offence and said to me “I am glad I remind you of your mammy, coz she made you and you are ok Janey”. Peg died this year and we are a sorry society for her loss.

The REAL reason I like people like Peg and Carole from the other night is the way they speak their mind. I recall the very last time I was with Peg, we went to see a play that was written by a famous Glasgow playwright, after the show Peg and I went into the bar. The man who wrote the play was standing beside us and Peg turned to him and said “Fucksake I hope I never have to watch your over inflated ego being played out on stage ever again, I am sorry but your life wasn’t that interesting and someone should tell you that it was shit”
I thought I was going to faint with trying to hold that laughter in. Good old Peg…
Carole in Newcastle contributed to that comedy show last night with gusto, she spoke about heroin, and dildo’s and gave us all a good laugh with her openness.
I applaud her, my mammy, Peg and all the other women out there who refuse to grow old according to society’s rules and speak up when they want to. They are the role models for our daughters, women who have lived, fucked, travelled and wont lie down because their hormones wobble a bit.