Weekend Weekend

Ahh, the rejoice, the cheating of death!

I awake, do morning things and moments before I’m due to leave the house on busking missions, it strikes me from some deep depth of my imagination that my Dad told me I get an extra hour in bed on Sunday.

I just gained an hour!

So did you, presumably. But what a joyous thing to forget. The whole world is an extra hour I can spend writing.

I was reminded of the dread that medium to large quantities of beer does to my system. I got inappropriately drunk (I think because of the rare novelty of feeling that I deserve a pint) at a folk gig, and managed to hideously fail to show up to meet some friends later; instead choosing to stagger about in a drunken and confused manner with Mr Fire in the Loinboat, swearing a lot at my mobile phone’s cruel decision to start playing up at the one time I wasn’t mentally equipped to deal with it.

Yesterday morning had me wake early with a terrible racing feeling in my stomach. My head was dully aching but I was sure that I could just sleep for a couple more hours.

Oh how very wrong. I sweated in bed, my belly doing repeats of The Sopranos. Why am I bolt awake? I’m still drunk, I should be able to sleep this off? Didn’t I used to be able to always sleep off a hangover? Don’t tell me that my hangovers are maturing too.

I didn’t even drink that much. What terrible rot.

Instead of sleeping I had the undesired terror of being left alone with my speeding thoughts. I remembered hugging Richard Dawson, a fairly successful singer songwriter. I’ve only met the guy once before, but I gave him no less than two hugs. My Mum would be pretty pleased with that.

My partner in drink for the evening explained to me that I am among a long line of people who just feel an irresistible urge to hug Mr Dawson. Which, reduces my behaviour from an excusable drunken indulgence to an excruciating passé. I wasn’t trying to add to the guy’s hug complex.

We watched Alisdair Roberts do his curious take on traditional folk music, just voice and guitar. It’s impossible not to feel like you’re watching a ghost when you see him. There’s something so pure and ancient about these songs, like they’ve been carefully crafted and handed down through generations to be faithfully rendered throughout the years. One admires that kind of purity of vision. To be so committed to a particular style of song.

Though of course the other side of me knows that he secretly loves to fucking rock out in his bedroom.

Then I got to see Sir Richard Bishop. Given his title, I genuinely had visions of a sharp man in a suit, endlessly receiving blessings from the Queen. But no, he is fairly shapeless scruff like the rest of us, who wanders onto stage and just plays some incredibly fiddly and quick guitar noodlings. By this stage of the evening, I was disposed to just staring, trancelike, a bit open-mouthed, at this guitar hero. There was a feeling that his incredible talent could be put to more interesting use with some accompaniment, but I was more than happy to see a man do what he does best. It’s good to be put entirely to shame, occasionally.

So, hungover and determined not to waste the earning potential of a Saturday, I went busking yesterday. It was a particularly good day, and I spent literally three solid hours improvising everything I sang. Of course, it’s very easy to go down the same well-trodden lyrical paths, but given my brain fog, I was doing ok.

A man asked me to play at a Christmas party. He asked if I did parties. Blinded by the huge sums flashing in my eyes that I was dreaming up incase he enquired about my fee, I heard myself say, “yes, of course!”

I didn’t feel like telling him that I’ve never done one before. But I guess I just turn up, do my busking ‘thing’ and just miss out the bit where I beg the audience for twenty pence so I can go get smacked up.

He asked if I had a business card. I told him I could make him one. Did he have any card? No, ok, my number scrawled on a bus ticket it is then! No problem.

So this morning I made myself a little appendage to my guitar. It’s a bit of paper that crudely reads: “AVAILABLE FOR PARTY BOOKINGS.”

Have I sold out already? Is my ‘serious’ musical career officially blacklisted if I go make some bucks at a Bar mitzvah?

I do hope not.

So let us all go enjoy that extra hour. How will you spend yours?