God Collar

by Marcus Brigstocke

  James got me my first ever stand-up gig. He started my career in comedy. He wasn’t a comedian either, or a promoter. He had nothing to do with entertainment, though he did once DJ at the Ministry of Sound. What a night. He was just a friend of mine who thought I was funny. I tried to get into drama school and failed. I was heartbroken. So he took me out for lunch. As I was sitting down, he said, ‘So, you failed to get in, eh? Wanker.’ You know, bloke stuff, it’s what friends do, it’s supportive. It’s how we men look after each other. There’s a code, we all understand it, nothing’s totally sacred. As long as no one ruins it by crying, it all works. I was gutted, and he said, ‘Well, you’re a shit actor anyway. Don’t go to drama school. You’re funny, be a comedian.’ I told him I thought that was frightening and I wouldn’t know how to do it. Then I made him laugh by pretending to be a stand-up and using a spoon as a microphone. He phoned me the next day and said, ‘You’d better write something, I’ve booked you a gig and it’s next week …’

  My first ever stand-up appearance was in a comedy competition for new acts in Holborn in London. James drove me to the bar and he made me go inside. He stood and he waited with me in the wings watching as I stuffed notes and small props into various pockets about my person. He held my shaking hand as I stood, dreading the moment my name was called out. It never was, the compere said, ‘Marcus Pig-snot’. I guess he thought I was a character act. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone to know my real name anyway. James pushed me out there and I walked out on stage as a stand-up comedian for the first time ever.

  What a thrill. It was so exciting. I died on my arse. I played to embarrassed, coughing silence. It was miserable for the first six minutes. A few people chuckled sympathetically as I fumbled with paper and a rubber chicken (true). Then, when I’d run out of props and had two minutes to go, it began to come together. People started laughing. By the end they were really laughing a lot and then clapping. I still remember exactly how I felt. I’d never been more proud or felt more like I counted in my life. After rehab and obesity and not a qualification to my name and drifting and not being sure, I suddenly felt there was a thing for me to do. I was so excited. I still feel like that about comedy. It’s the best job I could ever imagine anybody having. Every time I do it, I love it, and I know I’m lucky to have had the chance to find that thing. I came second in the competition on my first ever gig. I walked off stage, still shaking, smiling and a bit emotional, and there he was. James was waiting for me, smiling, shaking and a bit emotional. As soon as I came off he said, ‘Aaahhhh, you died on your arse for six minutes. Wanker.’ Bloke stuff, you know, supportive. It’s what we do.

  He had a beer. I had a juice. We were excited. He continued to take the piss, until I got defensive, then he giggled and got his penis out to cheer me up. He wasn’t gay and I’m not yet either, but he did get his penis out a lot. Too much, some said, but it’s easy to judge these things in hindsight, isn’t it? He had a heart condition, that’s what killed him in the end. But it did a number of other things along the way. One thing it did was it excused a huge amount of otherwise quite unforgivable behaviour. He’d get his penis out, and I’d say, ‘Come on, mate, put it away, it’s horrible,’ he’d smirk and shake his head, then look sad and point to his chest. ‘I’ve got a heart condition.’ ‘Well, all right then, keep it out, but just for a minute.’

  James loved rugby. He was quite posh and we went to Twickenham to watch England play as often as we could. We wore berets when we played France and put them on with shrugs and silly faces every time England scored. Because of his broken ticker he couldn’t play rugby. So he made a decision early in life to do all the things that go with the game without actually playing it himself. As many boorish rugger lads know, the things that go with rugby, other than beer, cheering and yelling at the ref, often involve getting your penis out and putting it in other people’s drinks. A game James liked to call Dippy Dippy Sip Sip. Not nice, but there it is. I rarely fell foul of this; as a non-drinker, I was on my guard. But I saw it happen. Up would go the cry, ‘Come on, who’s done that?’ and he’d point to his chest, we’d laugh and all would be forgiven.

  He came to see me when I was at university. He got drunk and we ended up in a kebab shop in the middle of the night. It was one of those ones with the glass-fronted chiller cabinet, where the raw meat is kept perilously close to the chilled drinks. So that even if you just have a can of something, you could easily catch E. coli. The kebab shop equivalent of a petting zoo. We walked in there in search of food and more laughter and James pressed his naked penis against the front of the glass chiller cabinet. Now, I know this is not OK. It’s not that I don’t understand that this isn’t an acceptable way to behave, and James knew it too. If I read about someone doing it, I’d be suitably po-faced and disapproving – but trust me when I tell you it was unbelievably funny at the time. He squashed it on there like a piece of dropped kebab meat. And then said to the poor man behind the till, ‘Excuse me, mate, can I have a drink please?’ and pointed down at the glass panel he was leaning on. The kebab shop owner leant forward to get a can from the chiller. ‘No not that one,’ said James. ‘That’s it, a bit further forward. Yes, past the Lilt, erm … that one.’ And he steered the man’s hand to within about two centimetres of his naked, flattened penis. I repeat, I know it’s not OK. James was suitably ashamed but still laughing the next day. It was wilfully naughty, and that feeling, though it always has a ‘victim’, is a kind of delicious thing that’s hard to resist. I know that at best what happened is unhygienic, it’s unpleasant, it’s thoughtless and at worst it is probably a minor sex crime, but you know what … that’s what I miss. Stupidly. Those are the things I miss, my friend’s naked flattened penis and laughing until we cried. Make of that what you will.

  He came with me to Glastonbury. The first time I ever played the Glastonbury Festival was 1997. He came with me and he fell over. It was a muddy year, a really muddy year, and he tripped. There were survivors from the Somme watching news footage of Glastonbury in 1997 saying, ‘Ooh, that looks a bit muddy.’ When James tripped he did that wonderfully illogical thing that people do when they lose balance at speed. You trip, and then you convince yourself that if you could only run fast enough, somehow wind resistance alone would bring you back into an upright position. That’s what he attempted in over a foot of thick Glastonbury mud. The physics of it are mind-boggling. All he really managed to do was to lose altitude but gain speed. He looked like a panicky jet in a Barbour going down … hippies were blown out of the way as the inevitable impact in the soaking-wet mire was realized. I still remember exactly how he looked down there in the mud. He was drenched; he’d hurt himself. It was Friday. There were three days of the festival left, which were now ruined for him. He’d grazed his penis, which was out. It was as bad as it could be. He sat there in the mud, he looked up at us and he smiled, because he wanted us to know it was OK to laugh. And my God did we laugh. We laughed until it wasn’t funny any more, and then it was funny again. It was one of those ones that several weeks later, when you’re completely on your own, you remember it and just piss yourself laughing. People walk past thinking, ‘Hmm, nutter!’ That’s what he was like. He sat down there in the mud, blinking crap out of his eyes and he began to laugh. He wanted it to be OK for everyone else, and it was.

  For that and a million other reasons I could tell you about, it’s so sad that he’s not here any more. He left two kids behind, two wonderful little boys. I’m Godfather to one of them. So when he died we told the boys whatever they needed to hear to get through. We said, ‘When you talk, if you want, Daddy can hear you. When you do things, if you want, Daddy can see you.’ Just whatever they needed to hear to get through. They were little children, lost in a sea of grief. Surrounded by pain. Watching the family around them weep and stare into the cold empty space stretched out before them. The boys were told what most of us thought was best – Daddy’s there whenever you need him. They shouldn’t be subjected
to any more pain than necessary. Right? They were children. But I afforded myself none of those same comforts. I was at the time doggedly atheist and very impressed with Richard Dawkins and The God Delusion. When you’re dead, you’re dead and it’s finished. There isn’t anything else. So the intellectual side of my brain beat up the emotional and the spiritual side of my brain. Until in a massive victory for rationality, that side surrendered and I slumped into depression for a year and a half. Woo-hoo. Well done, everybody. At least we maintained intellectual rigour. That’s what’s important, isn’t it?

  I don’t care about any of that. I don’t care at all. I hurt. I miss James. I want him to be here. I want to tell him I’m about to finish my book. I don’t know where he is and I really wish I did. He was my first ever speed dial. I’ve got no evidence to support the idea that he’s in the afterlife. I don’t know what I think. I can tell you what I want, though. I want to believe that anybody you’ve ever loved who’s no longer here still exists somewhere else. I want to believe there’s a place where they go. And it’s not nothing and it’s more than just the idea that they live on in your memories. It’s somewhere safe and kind and wonderful. I make no request for you to agree with me. There’s no test and I have no clue as to what’s true. It’s just what I want. I think I’m still an atheist but I’d like to believe that for all the people we know who die, the loved ones we miss and grieve for – that there is a peaceful place for them to continue to be. Somewhere magical and lovely, and I want to believe my friend James is up there with them … with his penis out. And that none of them has seen it, because they couldn’t possibly know how special and funny that is. When I get there, I’ll be able to say, ‘Classic. Mate, you are a dirty, inappropriate legend. Has that been out since you got here, just on the off chance I would turn up? What are the other angels saying?’ He’d point to his chest and the two of us would laugh our arses off, then we’d go dancing until they kicked us out of Heaven for going too far.

  Professor Richard Dawkins gave an answer to a question about human need, ‘The universe does not owe us comfort.’ He’s right, of course. The universe does not owe us comfort. But then the internet does not owe us pornography but it keeps emailing it to me. Along with invitations to extend the length of my penis. If that’s not evidence that James is up there somewhere, I don’t know what is. The universe does not owe us comfort but I have not a shred of doubt that we will continue to search for it wherever we can, and where the universe fails to provide we will tell each other stories until something better comes along.

  There’s no conclusion to this set of ideas. There’s not supposed to be. I didn’t find God. Or disprove his existence. I’m no more comfortable with atheism than I was. I sincerely hope that no one’s drawn any conclusion from this other than perhaps the idea that it is confusion and not certainty that binds us to each other. I hope you laughed. The aim with God Collar the show and now the book was to say, ‘I don’t know and I’m not going to be arrogant enough to presume.’ But you can keep the God of Abraham, if you wish to. He’s not for me, nor I for him. The only thing I’m certain of is this. I’d rather be happy than right. That’s what this boils down to for me. I would rather be happy than right. I know that some atheists are so happy that they’re right that the two things mean exactly the same thing. They wake up every morning and think, ‘Yes, right again, brilliant.’ But for me, I’m not so sure about that or anything else. The universe does not owe us comfort, you don’t owe me your time, so if you’ve got this far, I thank you sincerely and from the bottom of my heart.

  Goooooodbbeeewwweeeyyaaeee.

  Postscript

  Capital G

  I USED A CAPITAL ‘G’ FOR GOD. NOT OUT OF RESPECT, AS YOU can’t really respect something you don’t think exists. No, I used a capital G just in case I was wrong and there is a God after all. If evidence, logic and reason are not factors in any of this, or were perhaps only put here by God as a test to see if we might be tempted towards thinking we knew better than some very old books with next to no supporting documents at all, then I’m thinking that when I get judged and it is decided where I will spend eternity, the capital G will be exhibit A in the case for my defence.

  It’s a shameless act of cowardice, but if it turns out there is a God, there’s every chance He might mind about grammar, spelling, punctuation and those sorts of things. I’m hedging my bets because you never know when God might resume His nasty smiting habit.

  He recommends the most awful punishments for wearing wool and cotton together on the same day or being a man who enjoys cuddling other men or eating lobster or bacon, so I daren’t imagine what He’d do if you failed to capitalize His name. He seems fine with people capitalizing on His name for their own benefit entirely – so I doubt it matters, but you can’t be too careful with God. He’s fickle, vengeful and prone to flights of terrible anger.

  My hope is that in the balance of things, should we all come to be judged at the gates of Heaven, a bit of poor grammar might go unnoticed, but as I say you can never be too careful when it comes to pissing God off.

  Imagine the vile consequences of going for a gay date to ‘Hanks Lobster N Crab Shack’ in a V-neck cotton T with a lovely woollen jumper over it. This could be the event that finally brings the Lord out of smiting retirement.

  ‘You’ve led the life of a sodomite, despite some very clear warnings on the subject. You dressed in mixed fibres, though this I forbade in the admittedly confusing book of Leviticus. You ate of the unclean creatures that I had specifically told you to avoid, and yes I know they’re delicious, that’s the trap and you fell into it. All these things I forgive my child, for I am the Lord your God and I am your father and I love men (though not in the same way you do). What I cannot and will not forgive is the missing apostrophe in “Hank’s”. I am your maker – we’ve already met but figuratively speaking – prepare to meet me!’

  I suppose if God’s His surname then the capital G is the right thing to use anyway, but if God is His surname, then what’s his first name? Does He have one? Is He called Geoff God? Dave? Jenny? Al?

  According to the research I’ve done there are a great many reasons why the God I’ve read about might wish to turn me into a pillar of salt or drown me, burn me, blow me up, crush me or dismember me, so it would be tremendously disappointing if a mixture of my failed education (my responsibility, not the system), some laziness and some dyslexia were the main factors in my violent demise and eternity spent in Hell’s fire.

  I don’t much like the versions of God I’ve been presented with in my life to date, so if it transpires that He’s anything like that awful grammar bully Lynne Truss and her poisonous army of pernickety pedants, then I suspect He and I will have to add that to the list of reasons why we don’t get on. So God it is with a Great big G.

  Hello, god. Oh, it’s fine. I did it and nothing happ—Aaaghh! What’s that noise?

  About the Author

  Marcus, whose television appearances include Argumental and Live at the Apollo, Have I Got News For You, The Bubble, QI and Would I Lie to You? for the BBC, is currently playing Arthur in the national tour of Monty Python's Spamalot.

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

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  First published in Great Britain

  in 2011 by Bantam Press

  an imprint of Transworld Publishers

  Copyright © Marcus Brigstocke 2011

  Marcus Brigstocke has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409045144

  ISBN 9780593067369

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