Title: Rufus Arenque

acast Time: 1:15:32
Youtube Time: N/A

Original Record Date: Unknown
acast Publication Date: November 17, 2021
Youtube Publication Date: N/A

Please Welcome a Man
Who can’t stop thinking about a man he walked past 30 years ago.

Acronym Modification
N/A

Cool Kids
I was talking to timkey the other day. That’s a little cartoon character: timkey. Eastern European.

Guest Best Known
For his appearance on South Today on the 8th of October, 2018.

Audience

Better or Worse than Last Week: N/A
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Member Member Note
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Emergency Questions

If you were a log that was meant to be burnt on a fire, would you rather be at the back of the log store – like, deep in where you’re not going to get picked out very soon, or at the front of the log store?

I think, if the log is sentient, it probably most wants to be a tree. I think we’ve already crossed the Rubicon, from the log’s point of view. But it was cut down and logged. So, given that… *RH posits a scenario where the log is sentient, post-cutting.* In that instance… […] Then I imagine, in this scenario, where logs become sentient when they’re chopped up and turned into logs, then the logs become sentient to the point at which their destiny is to be burned. And they are showbiz logs; they want to be fucking burned. And they want to be at the front.

Would you rather be sent to Coventry or have the scent of Coventry?

How long am I sent to Coventry for? *RH confirms that the move to Coventry is permanent.* I’d smell of Coventry forever. Yeah. I don’t know that anyone has ever – in a blind smell test – identified Coventry. I don’t feel like that’s a thing. *RH doubts that Coventry would smell nice.* I mean, it would be hard to do this without destroying Coventry. And they tried that once, Rich. And I don’t think we’re on their side.

Would you rather be able to fart the Blockbusters theme tune or own a cat?

Um, well, I do own a cat. Would I have to give up my cat? *RH replies in affirmative.* Would I never be allowed another cat? This is tricky because our cat went missing for five weeks earlier this year. And it was very traumatic and we were very upset. And then she was found. And because she was tagged we got her back. And so I’ve sensed, touched the grief of losing a cat. But fuck it – I’d have the Blockbusters. I think, I mean, to be able to fart something that would make everyone of a certain generation hand jive would be a remarkable party piece. Any anyone who could fart the theme tune to Blockbusters, and couldn’t parlay that into untold riches, doesn’t deserve the gift.

Would you rather be a mime or one of those people who pretends to be a statue?

I’ll go with the mime. Yeah. Yeah. I did do some street theatre once. Yeah, you didn’t know that. No – I, I, I did street theatre once and it was awful. I did it with a mate of mine. We had met a really brilliant street artist guy called Pepe, who did this workshop with us. And he as an amazing bloke; travelled around the world. I think he lived in Coventry, actually. Very fragrant man. He sort of lived this weird, itinerant life, because he was a mime and so his act worked internationally. And he’d just travelled the world. This month was Montreal, this month was Edinburgh, this month was here. You know, he literally did that. And he’d go back home once a year and almost always, um, get his wife pregnant and go back off on the road. It was really weird. I was, like, 14 when I met him. He was really sort of engaging and funny and interesting. And a mate of mine, um – Seymour and I – tried doing an act. We were two of the people from the workshop who actually had the cajones to give it a go. And it’s really hard without a roof. And trying to get people to stop and whatever. We sort of mirrored – we mirrored an existing street act where people would get a member of the audience out and they would juggle things past their face. But we did it with that person blindfolded and the audience in on the joke that we weren’t doing that. So one person thought that we were on unicycles juggling heavy things right past their face; well, actually we were running our fingers right in front of his face like that and trying to make the audience laugh at the idea that this person thought it was real. Which sort of worked on a very small level, but we never got the crowd to the tipping point you need to make money like that. So we then gave up and went home. We worked with the idea that we couldn’t do any of the actual stuff. I can juggle a little, but not that. here might be one person who still thinks it happened to them. I don’t know. That was what we did.

One day will be the last time you are ever thought about; the last time a joke of yours is played or a book you’ve written is read. How many years in the future do you think that’s going to be?

I want my obituary to be a sort of Shelley Winters’s obituary. A Shelley Winters’s obituary s when the moment you find out someone was still alive is the moment you find out they are now dead. You see the obituary and go, “Oh fuck, I thought they’d died ages ago. Oh. Oh, they’re still alive. They’re dead.” Um, and I want to be that. I want to have faded into oblivion and to have people think, “I hadn’t thought about him for ages. I thought he was dead.” I’d kind of quite like to disappear. *RH notes that DG would like to not be thought of during his life.* Well, not my family. I’d like my family to still be thinking about me while I’m alive, but I like the idea of strangers ceasing to be concerned. Genuinely, it would be nice to be able to, you know, be in an old-folks’ home thinking, Ha ha ha. I can see it from that guy’s point-of-view now, with [unclear]. And nobody else there knowing that’s what’s playing through your mind. That actually does appeal to me. So, I’m sort of not worried about it. I have – the word “Gormanesque” has appeared in at least two other comedians’ reviews and that’s a weird thing. So there’s the possibility of that existing and so someone going, “I wonder what that means.” And in a way that would count. But, um, I’m sort of… I’m kind of unconcerned about it because I will be dead, so who cares?

Notes

This is DG’s third appearance.

RH is wearing his wedding suit. He is also wearing new boots he bought online, and they have a bit of a heel so he is taller today.

RH and DG discuss a review that DG had once received, which went on to become an emergency question RH asked a handful of times.

When asking the emergency question regarding being remembered, RH notes that there are three deaths: your physical death, the death of those who knew you, and the death of your memory.

When asking the emergency question regarding being remembered, RH believes he has about 500 years before being forgotten.

DG cycled part-way to the gig.