Comedy Hero

It became quite clear, fairly quickly last night, that I am properly shit at Beatles Rock Band. Or Lego Rock Band. Or probably any Rock Band of any sort. I have complained about this before (see HERE) and very little has changed since then, except that as well as trying to understand how to press red, blue, blue, red, green and yellow, blue, green or whatever for ‘Here Comes The Sun’ on the guitar, I also hugely failed on the bass, the drums and the vocals. Yes even the vocals. But ‘Douieb’, you cry, ‘you clearly have the warbling tones of a lark at sunrise? How can this be?’ Well firstly, please stop crying. All you ever do is cry when you ask me questions on this blog and I often wonder if you have some sort of behavioral problem. Unless you stop crying, I will refer you. Or perhaps you are standing face on into some strong winds? In which case, why not go stand behind a wall? Well done. And in answer to your question, singing is something I’d like to think I can do. What the main problem was, that I didn’t know as many lyrics to things as I really thought I did. For example, The Two Princes track, I had it down when it was doing the ‘di di doo do doo do doo doo doo doo doo’ bit, but as soon as it said anything else, I lost all hope, fumbling through the words like an unwilling drunk groom at a wedding ceremony. With the drums the main problem was that I just don’t have any kind of decent hand to eye coordination and just thrashed around smacking anything that resembled a drum pad in the hope my timing would coincidentally be somewhere close that of the track we were playing. If we were the Beatles last night then I was definitely the one that was made to leave way early on and they made a film about but to be honest, no one cared.

Here’s the thing though. I really feel like I should be decent at these sorts of games. I am not a man without rhythm. Back in the day (excuse me while I have a Werthers original) I used to do breakdancing classes (stop laughing) and got pretty damn good at busting a move. Shit yeah. Sure I can’t do any of it now, for fear I will actually break something, but the sense of rhythm is still there and whenever I am alone in a hotel room I spend at least 30 minutes practicing some body popping and general 6 stepping. See, I even know the terms. I am a B-Boy sitting in my retired B-Boy stance. So this should mean that if I can move in rhythm I can play rockband drums in rhythm? No apparently not. And I can definitely sing a bit. I am king of my shower, and the car. In both circumstances I can belt out a tune like Sinatra on red bull. Infact, once again back in the day, I was in a few musicals at school and at actual theatre type things, and I sung some of my own songs. Yeah, that day back then was pretty chokka full of interesting things.

Sadly however, it is forward in this day, and I fear pretty much all of those talents died the day I realised beer was a closer friend that I ever knew, that I have some sort of symbiotic bond with a sofa, and my discovery that late night service stations only sell food of the devil. I like the devil’s food. This equals bad things. So, all I can do is sit in hope that they make a Comedy Hero for the Xbox 360. You could belt out a routine of your favourite comedian, timing the ‘errs’ and ‘jams’ correctly as Izzard, or having to wipe your brow consistently as Lee Evans. There could be various special controllers: a wireless feather duster for Dodd, a pint glass for Al Murray or a drink driving fine for Jim Davidson. Certain people would be impossible such as Ross Noble, or Andy Kaufman, the latter of whom you can only clock the game if you leave your flat entirely and take your controller for cookies and milk unexpectedly. Personally I think its a winner. Although the only draw back will be that as I don’t do stand-up like any of them, I’ll probably be really shit at that game as well.

Still, it was bloody lovely to see real friends last night. Its been far too long since I’ve seen Mat, Sam and Stef and no doubt it will be stupidly long again. It was joked that such things are my fault due to my silly social hours. Some insults were thrown about and it was laughed at but they were mostly right. The next few nights include the sort of driving you would get given as a punishment in the Dante’s 9th circle of Hell – the one for people who’ve been a bit naughty but not enough to get a pitchfork in the eye. Tonight, I’m back to Kings Lynn and its bumpy roads. Strap yourself in peoples, or you genuinely might get thrown out of the windscreen on the way there.