What a strange couple of weeks

So yes. Ditto what Will said.

This trip has been so different for me than it was last year. Everything seemed so strange and so new last year, that it took a full week just to settle in and figure out which way was North, which way to look when crossing the street, which potato chips don't taste like ass, what the hell a spanner is. This year I came in knowing all my cardinal directions, knowing to just always look both ways because both Scottish drivers and pedestrians are lunatics, knowing to avoid catchup flavored chips, and that a spanner is a wrench.

It was easy to settle into festival life this year. Our first trip into the city actually felt strangely like coming home. I realized that, other than the places I've lived (Lawrence, New York, Cincinnati, etc), by the end of this trip, I will have spent more time in Edinburgh than any other city. I can give people on the street directions, sometimes.

So now, at the end of week one, loneliness is starting to set in a bit. I'm still having a great time, but flyering is getting a little old, I'm tired, my voice is giving out, but, most importantly, I don't really have anyone to share any of this with. I mean, obviously, I have the boys, but we are together all the time and are working together and that's just a little different than having a friend or a partner here with you.

The fringe is a strange microcosm, completely unrelated to anything else going on in the world. The events that effect our lives so severely here, mean absolutely nothing in the outside world, to our friends and family. And this microcosm only lasts a month. When it's all over, all of these things (reviews, attendance) mean nothing to even us! Next year it starts all over from scratch. I mean, we can generate interest and potentially get other gigs out of the deal, but the primary effect is fleeting but intense.

In addition, we are isolated from our respective real worlds. There are things going on in our lives that are SO much more important than reviews and radio interviews, things that will impact us greatly once we return, but being so far away and so self absorbed, we have absolutely no control over our outside lives. It is a very strange feeling, that of life going on without you at home and not being able to do anything about it. I missed the demolition derby AND the final city band concert for Christ's sake!!!!

My lovely wife is not coming to visit this weekend. In fact, the closest thing I have to a lovely wife is moving to Seattle today. This may account, in part, for my tepid optimism.

So, I will suck it up and go without a really hot shower or a nap in my own bed for a couple of weeks. We are having an amazing time, really, and are faced with some very interesting opportunities in the future. It's just time for a day off, and I am counting the days until I get to drink too much wine as supper club and watch Project Runway. You know, the important stuff.

End of Week One: A Review

So it's the end of Week One already. Tonight we do two shows, then tomorrow we have a blessed and much needed day off. I think I speak for everyone when I say the voices of our merry little band are ragged, the enthusiasm of the initial push has started to be replaced with a feeling of "we've got two more weeks of this?!?", and we're all a little put off by the switch from normal life to the waking up at 11 and going to bed at 4a.m. life. But all in all, I think we're making it through.

As for the show, the plays are tight, but audiences haven't come out as big and bad as we expected. We've gotten some good press--a great article in the Scotsman, several good reviews, and apparently (hopefully) a five-star review in the Scotsman, mother of all festival review papers, to look forward to in the next few days. So all signs are positive, and hopefully we'll pick up on crowds as the festival continues.

My lovely wife comes up tonight, which is exciting. The strain of the Fringe is a little hard on both of us, as it's a selfish and all-encompassing existence up here, so she gets to put up with either A) the pictures of the late night partying fun which she doesn't get to be a part of, or B)me calling and complaining about how much life, the Fringe, and our lack of crowds sucks. So, basically, she gets two kinds of bad. Not so much fun, I imagine.

But so far we're making it--a little rough and ragged, we all sound a little like Katherine Hepburn, with low, gravelly voices, and look a little like Tom Waits (especially Kitty), but we're surviving with enough money to get through the thing, so far, life is alright.

Short and Character Building

Man, this is a strange existence and no mistaking. In 24 hours, we went from sitting and miserably analysing why we lost the crowd last night (turns out there were some drunken arses in the front row who annoyed the rest of the audience) to being chuffed to bits about the show and everything to do with it. We did two strong and funny shows (I broke my own personal best (or worst) by corpsing so hard at Willie that I actually cried), got two great reviews here and here, and found out that we're being interviewed by Lauren Laverne for BBC Radio 6 on 16th and have a talent scout from the Montreal Just for Laughs festival coming to check us out on 19th.

So. Effing. Stoked. The ride starts here.

Sven arrives...

Firstly, the sensible stuff. I watched Andrew O'Neill who is and was, as always, ace. By far and away one of the most under-rated comedians on the circuit. Also Josie Long, who is getting all the press and praise she deserves because she is brilliant and, more importantly keeps getting better. If you haven't, see them.

We had a tough audience tonight. Lots of them, but somehow about two thirds of the way through the show, we lost them and never got them back. Being behind a puppet screen means that we can't see the audience, and as a result have no idea what we did or didn't do to make them stop laughing. So we went to the pub to have a quiet post mortem pint to see if we could work it out. It's now about half five, so you can guess what went wrong with that plan. Sven got involved. I could explain who Sven is, but right now sleep seems more important, so I will end this by saying that Will, Kitty and I have just walked from a random roundabout where we got kicked off a bus we probably shouldn't have been on in the first place, which at any other time in the world would be weird, but in Fringe terms is fairly par for the course. Willie will probably blog this and make more sense, but I'm typing this to keep me awake while I eat Bacon Tastys. And I have the weekend to look forward to...

Thoughts from near the end of week one.

Is it Thursday already? Crap, time is going fast over here. Last night was a pick up from Tuesday in some ways--though we had a small crowd for the Arts show, we had a decent crowd for Oppressed People, and Stewart Lee was in the audience, apparently. Only the one review out so far, though we did have this article in the Scotsman, which is pretty good. Sadly, I don't think there were any pics attached, which would have made it extra special, but I have yet to go out and by the paper itself.

Yesterday was a miserable shit ass terrible horrible rainy Scottish day, with the rain switching between heavy and pissy little drizzle. It was impossible to get dry all day long, and there was almost no one up on the Royal Mile to hand out fliers to. Thus, I went to see some theatre at the venue--a production called 'Alexander', which is a play about our Greek friend in two parts. I saw part one, and what I learned was that Greek men were pretty good at A)Shouting, and B)kissing each other. The whole thing was written, directed by, and starred by a nice young lady who encouraged us at the end of the play to book her show. It was kind of like a Greek Lounge act.

Hopefully today the weather will be better, and we'll start getting some crowds in. We've put tickets on the Half Price Hut, which should get us some play, and I'mma send the boys out flyering and Kitty in a low cut shirt just as soon as they get up. We've still got nine boxes of fliers, with about 1,500 fliers in each box to get rid of, so it's bidness time.

I hope you're well, and it's not my baby.

-W

The Come Down

Wow. How quickly the mighty fall. After a kick ass opening night, we found ourselves last night with about nine people in the first show, and seven in the second (five of which were freebies from our venue). To be fair, we did a small section of the show in the city which ended up taking up a lot of our time, so we didn't get nearly as much flyering done as we should have, but it was a pretty sad scene nonetheless.

Today, we pick ourselves up, dust off, and start flyering to try and get some bidness.

In somewhat better news, we got a good review from some students, right here

The Day After (the Night Before)

It felt like the Fringe last night. Opening night of both shows. 11:15p.m. and 12:15 a.m. First show very nearly full, second show sold out. Some of the people from Paradise Green, our venue, came and represented well. They love us, and they love drinking, so they were nice and loud. Oppressed People, shown up here for the first time since last year, went down great (though a quieter crowd than Arts). We sold twelve pounds of badges, which was a couple of drinks. We drank those drinks across the street at Dropkick Murphy's, where Monday night is two pound a drink night. Several venue type people ended up hanging out with us, and the result was our first stumbling out of the bar at 3a.m. night. We waited for a bus, so then got bored and took a cab. Total cost for bus=5 pounds for the 4 of us. Cab=18 pounds. Let the games begin.

Kitty looking suave and subtle.


Won't you drink with us? Two Will's and a Christian (pronounced Christie-Anne). She's Irish and her Dad owns the Guinness factory. Will's only 18. I look inbred. We had fun.

Kitty in Great Peril.

Apparently, at some point, it was decided by the gays that Tom has the gayest ass (shown above).
By the end of the evening, I had sold Kitty for Five English Pounds. They were good times.