Classic Heckles and Racism

So it's Sunday afternoon and the mundane tasks of life have taken over from the showbiz glamour of my gigs. The bed's stipped awaiting clean sheets, the dirty ones are mid-spin in the washer, and life is good.

Last night reminded me just how much I love Up The Creek. Friday's gig was an odd one, but last night was vintage UTC.

I was MC'ing, and had a great start, Mickey Flannagan stormed, new (to me) boy Andrew Bird held his own with the rowdy crowd and had some great lines - he's definitely one to watch - then I brought Terry Alderton on.

I've known Terry for as long as I've been doing stand-up practically, and when I was a simple open spot he was so supportive and encouraging. Over the years we've kinda geed each other up at various points in our careers.

So Terry is firing on all cylinders, taking the audience into his surreal world of strange voices and illogical reasoning. He's trying to guess a woman's age in the front row by throwing an imaginary set of darts at an equally imaginary dartboard. The first three add up to 26 and he's incorrect, so he has another go. As he throws the third dart, a voice at the back of the room shouts "OWWW'. It was classic UTC crowd behaviour. The whole room collapsed in fits of laughter, but none more so than Terry himself. He lost it for a couple of minutes. It was a joy to behold.

The club used to be well known for the quality of their hecklers, but in recent times that's kinda fizzled out. Last night it felt that the spirit of Malcolm was truly back in the room.

Heckling is a wierd thing. The usual stuff, you know 'rubbish' or 'fuck off' is just tedious, drunks just talking too loud or spouting gibberish that sounds *really* funny in their head just pisses you off, but every once in a while you get a stroke of genius that just lifts the whole gig up. I love it when someone in the crowd makes me laugh.

Friday night we had an example of the worst kind of heckling, the ignorant wanker. The middle spot was the lovely Stefano Paolini, who was wowing the crowd with his beatbox stuff and his impressions, Mid flow he was interruped by a young boy shouting 'get on with it you, Wop'. The whole room gasped in shock, but the little fucker had no idea. He thought he was being funny, using a word he didn't know the meaning of.

Stefano handled it so brilliantly, he was a little taken aback but he regained his cool, and asked the idiot if he called his black and asian friends by their relevant derogatory racial nicknames. The kid said no, and Stefano said 'Well then you're a coward. If you're gonna be a racist, have the courage of your convictions". A massive cheer came up from the crowd and Stefano stormed the rest of his set.

The kid appologised immediately after Stefano came offstage, and admitted he had no idea what the word meant. Sadly, he reflects a rise in what I see as 'casual racism'. I know that racism can never be obliterated, but there was a time when people knew enough to at least be ashamed for their thoughts. These days it seems that shame has gone.

Bearing in mind this happened the day after the BNP gained 11 seats in Barking and Dagenham, making them the official opposition party in that borough, it seems like it's ok to hate people for being different again.

This disgusts me. Racism is the only thing I've ever been really passionate about. Mainly cos I just don't get it. If your life is shit, do something about it. Don't blame the bloke with the black skin or the 'funny' accent you dumb fuck.

The scary thing about the new racists is that they often have black and asian friends, and justify it as 'oh well he's my mate, he was born here, its the illegals I hate'. What a load of bollocks. Hate is hate and it has no place in a civilised society. Do these people really think that once the BNP get rid of the "illegals" they're gonna stop? We've all seen the footage of Nick Griffin spouting his bile at a closed meeting of his fellow nazis.

We need to get rid of this notion of national identity. We are all human beings, and we are all striving for the same things. A roof over our heads, food in our bellies, happiness. "They" are no different from "Us". Yes there are people who take the piss, but for every Eastern European who fiddles the DSS I can show you a so-called "British" person doing the same damn thing.

We need to stop being scared of each other, stop blaming each other for our misfortune, and start taking responsibility, not just for ourselves, but for all of the human race....otherwise we're all fucked!