A Day In The Life Of…Craig Campbell
Craig Campbell
At noon the phone rings and I thrash around like I’ve been shot; the process of trying to figure out where the fuck I am begins. Ignoring the vibrating buzz of an iPhone for a moment I hear voices in the hall. Foreign? Estonian? Polish? I see the curtains I closed before turning in to shut out the glare of casino lights – the casino of my late night food stop – a tuna melt and three orders of two chicken wraps mistakenly taken by a Polish bartender too busy telling me that Crack-off is the most beautiful city in the world (it isn’t) to type in my order correctly. Fuck me I’m in Dundee!
I stumble through the hiking boot and clothing maze I’d made for myself the night before and grope towards the phone still throbbing like my dick used to in the morning, on the desk. It stops as I reach it and hastily bash ‘2 secs’ into a text window and fire it off, piecing together it’s the first of three press interviews of the day that I’ll need an empty bladder and room brewed cup of Instant Joe to help get me through. Stalling in the door-jam of the toilet for a heartbeat I quickly hatch a plan that will allow me to be tethered to the landline for the next hour (at least) of my life.
Piss, fill kettle, I’m momentarily distracted by the trousers, socks and gaunch (Canadian slang for underwear) I left to soak in the now not so soapy water in the sink, lurching toward the lifeless bundle and diving my hands into the murky water I’m determined that one last thrashing is worth prioritizing before yarning on about myself to various members of the press for the next looming hour, this task I perform from the shitter.
Kneading a laundry load is awkward while trying to squeeze out a seated piss and I forfeit the project immediately taking away only clean hands from the effort and focus instead on preparing the bathtub as a rinsing pool – redoubling efforts on my piss which is fast evolving into a shit. How very not a ‘Green Comedian’ I am, I reflect as I time spinning the hot tap on while snapping a turd off. Snap is an overstatement as the lamb Karahi and Sag Aloo I ate before the show at The Stand in Edinburgh last night squirts past my quivering ring. Fuck me now I’m going to need a shower, no time, no fucking time!
I work fast like a short stop making a double play, bundle up a wad of the Hiltons finest shit tickets, tamp my now painfully winking anus, flush behind myself while standing-up like a double jointed circus performer, double pump the suds off my clothes, fire them across the bathroom into the tub with minimal spillage and launch my ass to hover over the now draining wash basin. A delicate splash’n polish and seconds later I’m skipping across pile carpet like a teenager in the spring with a hand towel waving in one hand as insurance against any potential leaks to lay across my leather swivel desk chair. ‘Ready when you are’ my second text of the day blasts off – shit no water in the kettle! Steve Jobs’ masterpiece begins its infernal buzzing again!
‘Morning’ I chirp out in a tone that in no way reflects my mood, trying to merge gracefully with people who’ve been up since seven and haven’t (to my knowledge) just washed their ass in a sink. ‘Afternoon’ coos back to me in a way that subtly points out to me the miscalculation in the time of day I’ve just made. ‘It’s @&£@&£ from &@£# TV’ ‘ Aren’t they Television? What do they need of a phoner? No quick answer. I poke away. Is it a reporter? Yes. A reporter for TV?? Yes. Ok, so it’s a reporter for TV who wants to talk to me on the phone? Yes. ‘Ok. Can you give me just one more second?’ I ask. ‘Yes.’ ‘Great!’
I put the phone on speaker and can still hear talking as I bolt to fill the kettle – ‘Yeah, yes, okay’, I bellow in the general direction of the phone to words I haven’t understood as I brim the kettle with an elephants yearly allowance of chlorine and fluoride (don’t panic if you’re reading this in Dundee, there isn’t added Fluoride in your water, at least not yet). Seconds later my percolating rump is back on the towel. Interrupting with ‘Will do, great, thanks, text you when I’m done’, I submerge into the interview like a diver disappearing beneath waves.
‘Yes me, me, me, me and more fuckin’ me’, I drone on to the electronic glass sandwich, noticing spittle gradually building up on its screen like bugs on a shiny bumper as I crack four UHT creamers into a chipped Hilton cup followed in quick succession by two Douwe Egbert gold instant coffee sleeves with enough sunshine blowing self-congratulating add speak bullshit written on the side of each to make you believe the Dutch pricks had snuck to Damascus and picked a bag of beans from the Pashas pocket 10 years before the halfwit abandoned sacks of the shit at the gates of Vienna.
On top of this I poured a pouch of Carnation instant hot chocolate criminally void of even nominal chocolate content and as such unnecessarily Fair Trade, I’d scoffed off a maid’s trolley in the highlands. Losing track at times as to whether my sure to be bored to tears interlocutor was listening or even still alive, I exclaim ‘Right’ loudly as if to sum up a point and pause for a reaction. ‘Right’, comes back the voice from the abyss – oh God he’s listening. Did any of that make sense and what was ‘that’? Did the ‘that’ of ‘any of that’ make ‘any’ sense?!
‘Fuck I need a coffee’, I conclude in a millisecond, glancing down at my Breitling big ben to realize in even less time that I’ve only been awake for nine minutes. ‘Yes Devon. Yes, nine years. Yes, Canada. No, I don’t. Yes, I do. Holland. Of course. Yeah I love the travel. True, true, true, yes, it’s all true,’ I bark one more time as I feel for the first time in more than a month (since a taxing snowboard comedy tour in Canada) my voice annoyingly and ever so slightly going hoarse. Last question, ‘Sure’ I meekly encourage as I half swallow what feels like a pinch of sand: ‘What kind of show can people expect to-bzzz’, the line goes dead as I mindlessly stab at the chunky bits of coff-choc sludge stuck to the walls of my mug with a spoon. ‘Ya we’ll answer the last one by e-mail’, a flurry of texts to my Gu-ress quickly reveals and wham, another call is connected.
This goes on 30 minutes at a time, 3 times over the first two hours of my day. During the 30 minute break I have between the first hour and the last half I catch-up on my e-mails, one thankfully breaks-down a cheque confusingly accrued of 15 gigs of various amounts each with VAT, the sum of which had confounded my attempts to divide it into its necessary portions. A Norwegian contacting me through my website moosefucker.com [shameless self promotion] is playfully incensed I stated (as a Swede) that Swedes invented the Cheese Cutter ‘the proudly Norwegian Ostehovelen’ on Michael MacIntyre’s Roadshow, and is threatening to renew the attacking of Canada with Longboats if the error isn’t retracted. I compile a diplomatic response, cleverly insulting him and indicting the clearly lying dirty Swedes for causing the entire commotion with their erroneous claim (i.e. the claim made by me in character) as I unwisely gobble the cold remains of the Edinburgh Indian that’s already caused my bowels so much grief.
Invoice this, availability for that, I tappitty tap tap before somewhat in a panic I realize that it’s nearly 3 cunting o’clock and if I hope to have a sauna soak before leaving for Aberdeen – and I fuckin’ well do that – I’d better get my pimply ass shaking. Luckily for me and my love of a scorching torture session, when I get to the surprisingly conveniently located cedar lined hot box its temperature’s set way past 11 to near Finnish (famous sauna people of a country sandwiched between Russia, Sweden and Norway noted for a national suicide rate that could evoke the envy of a Goth Bridgender, and for having more saunas than citizens and more guns than people. To top it off they speak a language even weirder – yes, it’s possible Denmark – than the rest of the Scandies) competition standard; and even with my heat tolerance able to elicit jealousy from Kenyans through to brimstone eating bacterium was only able to tough out three short sessions of diminishing time lengths breathing mostly through a wet towel, broken up by Baltic-ly cold Scottish winter-water showers. 15:45, time to roll.
By 4 on the nose I’m in the rig connecting my six yr old iPod classic to the cigar lighter, typing Dundee to Aberdeen into the phone as the Nokia WR G2 winter radials begin to roll. A90 the whole way, first round-about right, follow the signs, piece o’ piss. Under the Tay bridge my mind drifts to the disaster, the strangeness of all that icey horror, the poem by the apparently shite-est of all poets (splitting hairs me thinks) William McGonagall and the lessons of gross engineering incompetence learned, ‘A90 South’ my mind drifts quickly back again. I need petrol, LPG if they’ve got it and according to the just appearing dash light washer-fluid.
I leap out to pump unleaded in my now stage regulars orange and black surf shorts into a chilly Dundonian March and no cunt bats an eye. I love Scotland as ‘nae cunt gees eh fuck’ what you look like – in a country where blue faced Picts used to light their hair on fire you’ve got to make more of an effort than being a beardy weirdy wearing shorts in March to get a rise out o’ the locals. ‘Water’s around the back’, the Indian feller behind the counter nods without putting down his call in response to my pointing at the empty screen wash bottle I’m holding while mouthing w-h-e-r-e?
After prying on a few locked doors I find the object of his subtle suggestion and wrestle with the weakest pressured water hose man has ever attached to a dual purpose air/water machine, switching hands to relieve a painful squeeze I begin to shiver. The pressure suddenly surges in the line and races to the top, releasing the lever just in time; I marvel at my snappy reflexes and march back to my Beemer just in time to observe a cock in a Jag box me in at the pump.
Into the wiper fluid res I pour the water happy with a 1 to 1 ratio rather that the 1 to 1 1/2 that the bottle’s recommending. Thinking I can’t face the pain of the ‘Squeeze Trickle Express’ hose again I convince myself the richer concentration will provide a more robust protection for next month’s Norwegian snowboard holiday if it doesn’t run out again before that time, while at the same time thinking it might eat its way through the windshield in its higher concentration for all the fuck I know scientifically about it. Jag pulls away after his lightening quick stay -not a cock after all – yay, drive!
Drive is painless – busy but not too – and I arrived 30 minutes quicker than the Sat Nat predicted going 5mph under the speed limit the entire way. The thrill of engine performance replaces that of speed for middle aged males btfw (by the fuckin’ way). Find the venue or where the Sat Nav – or the crazy bitch as she came to be called on the Boyle (Frankie) tour – thinks the venue is and park-up. Use the 30 minutes I’m early to tap, tap, tap this piece (of McGonagallian rambling shite) tap, tap, ‘crang’ a woman trying to squeeze into the space behind me slams into my car. I get out to check my bumper and struggle to avoid eye contact and the urge to communicate, ‘honk’ I look up to find the honk’s source – it’s a Grampian cop in a Land Rover 90degrees to us who has now de-Rovered and is striding our way.
I retreat to my cockpit and fidget about pretending to look for something, knowing his partner must be watching the partner must always be damn watching, I can overhear the officer bawling the woman out – ‘blah, blah, blah you’ve hit that man’s car’ – me far more used to the North American style of policing, expect my turn must be next, surprised I wasn’t in custody already under the suspicion of terrorism act for creating panic in a woman by suspiciously prancing about in a pair of beach jams in late winter! I call my good lady, have a laugh about the cops and the prang, call the club tech, confirm the soundcheck, put £3.90 (!) into the meter for one hour thirty to take me up to 8pm when it’s free (not 6:30 pm like the rest of the cunting PLANET Cuntly McCuntfuck!) and skulk myself and some photos from the boot for signing after the show over to the club, it’s only six damn thirty!
The Lemon Tree Aberdeen I’d been to once, opening for the Morose Montanan Rich ‘Otis-Lee’ Hall; but never having approached it from this angle I was thrilled when it came into focus three strides from the car! The first venue to sell out on my tour, to see it made me beam. I couldn’t wait to share my thanks with the folks who made it so! Head of house pulls me through a scrum of techies killing fags and I start to remember the venue as we ascend stairs to the painfully austere dressing room. Just as I’m about to ferret local knowledge out of the show manager on somewhere to eat I spot a plate of sangers’n (sandwiches) fruit, it’s mild serendipity but I’ll take it! I check my messages: Big John from Cardiff comin’ down tonight and York just sold out and is adding a second date – f’in beauty!
I trot downstairs with my mash stuffed full of tuna and cuke and swing through the testing of the on and offstage mics in seconds flat. For the first time since I spotted the cop watching me earlier my tummy starts to flutter. Up the stairs striding like a long jumper I’m suddenly in need of solitude, doors in ten I glean as I forearm my way into my dressing room which is oddly labeled ‘Chapel’. The half eaten sandwich on the table no longer looks like food, my mouth is dry and I have to shit. Costa cups, where’s the Costa coffee then? I scan about, don’t tell me the Lemon Tree has no deal with Costa and has in fact just scammed a tower of their cups. Looks the fuck like it!?
I pour the leftover water of unknown origins from the kettle into the ice bucket and replace it with a bottle of Strathmore Springs (posh cunt me). It’s boiling in seconds and I swig a full glass of milk poured from a 2Lt bottle provided I assume for use by all as a condiment out of my contraband cup before slamming it onto the table like I believe a 19th century prospector would have in demanding more whiskey and chuck in two tea bags (cause I deserve it) from a box (probably stolen also) on the table.
The show manager knocks on the door to let me know some folks have arrived with doors rather than show at eight written on their tickets and to ask if I mind if we start at quarter past. ‘Of course not’, I lie, thinking how pissed I’d be to be cramped into a seat for 15 minutes past the stated show time even as a non-Scot – non-Scots less likely to already be in a pishy mood – and without a drinking problem. The timing of drink quantity with show start and interval time is a very close run thing in Scotland (and the UK) and the rickety cart of apples can be very easily toppled if the game isn’t played right. ‘Please let those without the bum tickets be aware by way of an announcement’, I ask the manager and am told they were informed as they came through the door, ‘What, about a problem that you weren’t aware you had and have just told me about now?’ I ask. ‘Yes’ flutters back. ‘Ok’ I answer with a furrowed brow.
‘Nice cups’ I say pointing at the leaning tower of Costa. ‘Thanks’ says the manager with a quizzical look, now we’re both perplexed. The next few minutes disappear into a flurry of panicked actions, hat off, hair tasseled, trousers off, shorts on, fleece off, ‘I Love Cheese’ favourite tour shirt on, banana forced down with last gulps of tea, teeth brushed (to prevent tuna, cuke, bananna spatter – I love my Peeps) while pissing and finally boots tightened (you never fucking know what might happen at a gig, google ‘Great White fire’). Mouthing a few bars of ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’ to make sure the tongue ‘n’ lips are ready to tango, I dance down the stairs two at a time.
The show manager is peeking through the window on the fire door as I round the last flight of stairs and without talking he guides me to the offstage mic like a hangman to a gallows. I’m revealed for a brief second to a small wedge of the audience and I smile although I wish I hadn’t scoped them yet, and ‘ah’ another quick escape provides brief respite sliding beneath the backstage curtain like a mouse under a grannies corset. Safe for only long enough to make out the ringleader of the Costa-cup gang in headphones mouthing l-i-v-e while pointing toward the barely coming into focus mic, reaching for it the music begins to fade and for a heartbeat I feel I must be passing out and then the bit I love: ‘How the fuck are you Aberdeen?!’ The roar lifts me to the stage as they respond to my request for applause. The rest is easy and you’ll need to buy a ticket to find out, but suffice to say we had the next best thing to sex (And ‘no’ if you were thinking ‘chocolate’?) for two hours!
The hotel feels a lonely place when that kind of show finishes but thankfully the hectic pace and workload of the tour has me dropping face down on the bed like an ungulate shot just below and behind the shoulder.
That was one of my days on the tour. Besides the story of havin’ my pole smoked by the best lookin’ twins in Aberdeenshire there isn’t much left to tell: so if you made it this far, thanks for reading and thanks a bunch G’beats for posting it the fuck up!
Yours,
The Belgian Assassin
