It’s here! Stop the taxi. Yeah. This must be it. Uisge Beatha. What kind of a name is that? Oh it’s gaelic. Holy shit is this place ever over-the-top Scottish.

It’s here! Stop the taxi. Yeah. This must be it. Uisge Beatha. What kind of a name is that? Oh it’s gaelic. Holy shit is this place ever over-the-top Scottish. The bartenders are all wearing kilts and everyone’s wearing a tartan scarf. Even the dead animals. Shit. Maybe I bit off more than I can chew. Glaswegians are famous for being the most relentless hecklers in the world. I once saw a woman get nothing but “SHOW US YOUR TITS” for an entire set. Maybe if I inhale 4 pints and have a whiskey, I’ll get into the zone. Slurp.

Fuck, I hope I didn’t overdo it. I just caught myself slurring to the guy organizing the thing. Oh, that’s my name. Here goes…

Hello everyone. Hello. Hello. I’m visiting here from New York City. I’m here enjoying your number one tourist attraction: Grans.

What’s the name of this place? Usage Breathers? You know, if you didn’t let so many immigrants into your country you wouldn’t have to learn their shitty language. I like the guys in skirts though. In New York gay bars, all the bartenders are really effeminate. It’s nice to see homosexuals talk like regular human beings for a change, not that I could understand a fucking word they said.

I’m actually from Scotland originally. I went to school here for a very short time as a kid. I think it was grade one or whatever you call it. Fucking A-levels. What is it? We were living in a shithole called Paisley at the time and the class was huge with a few middle class kids like me, one or two rich kids, and a slew of really, really, fucking poor kids, Catholics I think you call them. One of them was a dirt faced w’ean called Jamie Buchanan and he was one of those kids with so many siblings he got excited when someone punched him in the face because it meant he had been noticed.

So, it was one of those days where the nurse comes in and gives the whole school shots and a basic physical. Towards the end of the day, an announcement comes on that Jamie Buchanan was to come to the headmaster’s office. Now, most kids know this is a bad thing but Jamie was fucking THRILLED. He jumped up out of his chair and marched out of the classroom with a grin so huge like he was head of the Dumb Asshole Parade, he looked like a cartoon.
The teacher went on doing her teaching thing for about another half hour and then, click, the classroom door opens. It’s Jamie, bald as the day he was born. No. Balder. The teacher was gobsmacked and didn’t say a thing. Jamie, still smiling like he was trying to break his face, walked to the back of the class, basking in the attention. Nobody said a word and we were all staring at him so hard our eyes hurt. When he gets to his chair he stares back at all of us and yells out (in his impossibly thick Scottish accent), “I GOT LICE!” It was the best day of his life.

After that, and possibly because of that, we moved to Canada and I didn’t come back until years later when my accent had been pounded out of me by confused hosers. I learned at a young age, the secret to survival in Glasgow is not to be killed. When I approached other little kids they’d yell “WHAT TEAM D’YOU SUPPORT!?” when I got too close like they were wearing an electronic dog collar. My dad told me to say Partick Thistle which is a team so shitty, it absolves you of the Catholic / Protestant beef and puts you in the category of bampot. I’d rather have kids recoil in horror than cut my mouth from ear to ear.

Which is the whole crux of Batman by the way. A guy had his smile cut, not even from ear to ear, but wee nicks on either side. Ooooh. Scary. That’s a bad Friday night for a Glaswegian.

As I got older, I became the master of Glaswegian conflict avoidance. It served me well until one particularly confusing confrontation at the Horseshoe. I was about 18 at the time and I was taking a piss in the big trough at the back. I’m holding my cock and pushing as hard as I can. My cock is incredible by the way. It looks like a male model dolphin but with more veins, and my urethra is about as thick as a garden hose but this was a huge piss and I was still looking at several seconds which was a problem because I could feel a particularly ugly Glaswegian staring at me so intently, it was giving me a sunburn.

Eventually, I could avoid his glare no more and turned, and nodded. As I did that he yelled (Glaswegians are always yelling), “AH’RE YOU TRYIN’ TO GROW A BEARD!?” I had what I have now which is a Scottish worm face hidden behind a fake chin made of hair. “THAT’S NO A BEARD” he yelled, grabbing his huge, black, wirey rug, “THIS IS A FUCKING BEARD, PAL.” At this point I’m pushing piss out so hard it’s denting the steel on the other end. Then he yells, “AH’M FUCKING UGLY, EH?!” Now, while avoiding fights, the key is to never insult anyone and never contradict them. If someone asks you for a cigarette and you say, “I don’t smoke” you’ll get, “OOOOH A FUNNY MAN, EH? HEY GUYS WE GOT A COMEDIAN OVER HERE! MR. FUNNY MAN DOESNAE HAVE A CIGARETTE!” At that point you just have to run as fast as you can. So yeah, I have to either call this guy ugly or a liar so I eek out a meek gesture that is the perfect combination of “yes” and “no” but before I can finish my wincing shoulder dance, he yells, “BUT AT LEAST, I’M NO, A DARKIE!”

What the fuck?

He was in the womb, going down the birth canal. “Look God. Ah havnae been good w you for my whole minus 3 minute life but if you could do me this one solid and no make me a darkie, I’d fucking love you for the whole time Ah’m oot a this fanny!” Then he comes out and looks at his hand and screams, “YES!” Of course, he later sees himself in the hospital mirror and notices he’s hideous but he shrugs to God, “Fair game pal. You cannnae win ‘em all.”

For the rest of the night, every time I saw that guy across the bar he’d wink and give me the thumbs up while mouthing the words, “No a darkie.”

What’s that? I have to get off? That’s already been 15 minutes? I have a whole thing on how I brought a Darkie here once and he was almost raped by Glaswegian women. They want black cock like zombies want brains and I had to practically sneak him out the back door of most pubs. I have another one about Glaswegians calling a dude Paki and then getting wasted with him because they felt bad he was offended. But fine. You’re loss.

Tomorrow night at the Ivory Hotel? Yeah, I’d love to. I’ll get my wife to videotape some of it this time.

Ah. That went well. Got another gig. Got a few good laughs. I don’t think they’re use to hearing an American do a Scottish accent so I got to ride on that’s coattails for a lot of jokes.

Oh, these young gentleman enjoyed the show. I think I’ll stick with them all night because they have such good judgement. Oh! Someone just put a pile of change in that guy’s hand. I’ve heard of this cheap man’s game. You put all your shit change in a Scotsman’s hands and he’s too cheap to throw it away so he has to carry it around all night. Hey, wee man, tell the folks at home how cold it is here.

Related posts:

1. GLASGOW STORIES: I GOT A GIG
2. GLASGOW STORIES: A WEEK IN SCOTLAND
3. GLASGOW STORIES: BORN TO SHOP
4. STREET CARNAGE STAND UP
5. MISSBEHAVE: SEX ED GLASGOW STYLE