Mid-week 3

Oh my god. What is that.

As you can clearly see, beloved reader, we have not been entirely consistent in updating the blog. A lot has happened in the 3 weeks we have been here. Will and I have 3 shows a day at 12:30, 5:00. and 8:30, which leaves little time in between to sit and write. There has also been (if you can believe it, and I'm pretty sure that you can't) a bit of drinking. But, John Osborne has prohibited me from looking at Facebook until we've blogged, so here it is.

Ummmmmmm, the shows have been OK? We have hooked up with a group called the Puppet Grinder Cabaret (the third show of the day) and they are amazing people. We have yet to achieve three great shows in one day, which is sort of annoying.

Today we had actual, real life children at the puppet show. I know not all of you have seen the puppet show, but it is NOT child friendly. One of them was holding a balloon animal.

I seriously hurt my foot in a poor attempt at a slipping-on-a-banana-peel prat fall. Today, as I walked all the way to the Assembly Rooms, it got quite cold and started pouring down rain. I got stuck, limping, in front of a man with Turrets syndrome who just called me a cunt, quite loudly, for about 5 blocks. Someone suggested that he might not have been ill, but simply Scottish. That might have been the case.

And there are other stories that I will not tell here. Some involve bagpipes, some involve deep fried cheeseburgers. I will let you fill in the gaps.

Kate Copstick invited us to perform in Spank tonight, so we will.

I'm going to check Facebook now.

Kitty

Things That Go In My Mouth

First of all, I just made myself a cup of tea that didn't taste like crap! HA!! I don't need you Brits anymore!!!!

Second, after Willie made me try lime pickle for the first time, I think I'm going to pull a John Osborne and try a new kind of food every day. So look out for my Adventure Eating Chronicles.

Oh, and Mister UK Keyboard Maker? Would you please put the @ symbol back in the proper place? It's really fucking with me. Thank you.

Kitty

Flyers and Fires

So, yesterday was the first day spent flyering on the mile - something I really enjoy for at least the first two weeks of the festival - after that, people seem to get irate if you even look like you're about to offer them a brightly-coloured piece of paper. But as the festival kicks off, people are genuinely interested in what shows are about and take the time to listen to your pitch. Plus the sun was out (which is quite a rarity in Scotland), and that makes everyone happy (which is quite a rarity in Scotland). We have a few extra people flyering for us this year - a couple from the venue and Matt from East to Edinburgh, and this means that with Willie looking after press people and Tom schmoozing the promoters, I am taking charge of the street team - or my 'footsoldiers' as I like to call them. I always wanted to have footsoldiers, like a mafia boss or the commander of a paratroop brigade. But what title to go by? 'Don Andreas', or 'The Brigadier'? Answers on a postcard.

The first preview of the show was a mixed bag - we had a good crowd (thanks to the attendance of many representatives from the Clan Kitty) but the show was pretty rough around the edges. We got most of the laughs we were expecting, but it seemed more like a dress rehearsal than a polished performance. Still, if we're gonna have a creaky show, best to get it out of the way first. The only way is up, and so on.

Afterwards, Tom and I took in the first shows we have so far seen this year, starting with Richard DeDomenici's lecture Plagiarismo, which was a very interesting discussion of intellectual property rights, Rupert Murdoch, and Whigfield. Or it was, until the fire alarm went off after half an hour, making the audience traipse outside to be asphyxiated by buses. To his credit, Richard gamely attempted to give people their money's worth by continuing the show from atop a yellow concrete soapbox, until his memory failed him and he ended up showing us videos of his performance art on his iPhone. I'm gonna try and go back and catch the second half of the show as some point because Richard is a very clever and engaging performer. I won't have to pay, because he gave us all a special knock to be let into the room. I'd tell it to you all here, but I don't wanna.

After that, we took in Puppet Grinder Cabaret, a hugely entertaining collection of ventriloquism, adult puppetry, animation and object manipulation, expertly compered by the very funny Dave Gibson. We're going to be doing five guest slots for them later in the run and I'm really looking forward to it. Shitty Deal will fit right in. Except for Willie, who's a butt-munch.

Speaking of the illustrious Mr Averill, the show that he and Kitty are doing opens today, and they still have no flyers, due to what can only be described as unscheduled gayness by ParcelForce. So everybody go to Bannermans at half twelve today to support them or they'll probably have no crowd. And no crowd means no pocket money for the pair of them.

I'm back to the mile to hand out flyers and work my Etnies one day closer to destruction. Back soon!

More?!?

Holy shit. Seems like they're gonna make me keep writing this thing, totally oblivious to the fact that I have NO FUCKING ARMS. Who's got gin? Apparently, not me, till after I finish this pointless diatribe. I said I'd never blog. I also said I'd never wind up face down in a puddle of somebody else's urine in a porta-loo with after a two-day whiskey bender with the Ladyboys of Bangkok. I say a lot of things.

Day Three around here and I don't know about them, but I'm ready to do the show. I'm always ready. I'm also always hammered. I think that's the secret to my success. And why I'm really happy we're playing in a bar this year. It may LOOK like my elementary school cafeteria with some epilepsy-inducing horrific Christmas lights strung up all over the walls, but there's a bar, so at least I can get drunk and laugh at spasaming epileptics. Oh like you haven't.

I didn't ask to be this beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful, that blonde one came back to the apartment wearing a big ass sombrero. Now normally she looks like a train full of Laura Dern that crashed into Cameron Diaz, but wearing that sombrero, I was like 'Wow, Pancho Vajayjay, step over here and let me get to smell you better.' Don't think she liked that. Don't care.

That fat one that looks like Harry Potter put his hand up my ass again. He keeps doing that. Then he looks at me adoringly. Fucking weirdo.

The goddamn long haired hippy keeps going on about how great the flyers are. If they're so great, hippy, why don't use them TO PUT IN YOUR BIG MOUTH. Or go light some more Mag Champa. I don't give a fuck.

The little yippy one got a Blackberry. I always thought he was a douche. CONFIRMED. Brought to you from my AssBerry Wireless Device.

Seriously, I gotta get on stage. All this bitterness is killing me. I want to learn to love again. Maybe you.

Till lates, and tell your mom I said 'Hi',

M. D.

The Past Week

Well, as usual, we are a bit late in getting this all started. I have been in the UK for over a week now, which hardly seems possible. The show in Norwich went well, The Most Spectacular Show at the Fringe that Willie and I are writing went.....well....it didn't really go....FINE! We're still writing it, OK???!! What? Get off our backs! We don't actually have to perform it until Saturday. Jeesh.

I did have a lovely time in Norwich, though. It is so nice to have a few days to recover from the jet lag and decompress a bit before catapulting myself up north into this bleak, crazy war zone. I'm starting to develop some good friendships with people there and I hope I'll have the chance to pop back by before I leave.

Yeah, this year's jet lag was....interesting. Thankfully, I drank it away fairly quickly (thanks for the help with that Willie, Lucy, Kate, Tom, Andy, and Tom) but it was pretty serious while it lasted. The nice part was that Willie had it as well, so we BOTH got to stumble around town aimlessly muttering to ourselves. The title of this blog comes from a particularly ridiculous jet lagged conversation we had. Trust me, you are exceptionally glad that you did not have to listen to it, nor will we make you read an explanation of it. You're welcome.

We had our first show last night, as Doper indicated. Oooooo.....yeah.....that was work. Well, it has to get better, right?

More antics and photos to come. Stay tuned!

It starts again.

Okay. So check this out. We're back in Edinburgh. The whole group of us. So are the assholes that make us work all the time--Kitty, Andy, Tom, and Will. A serious bunch of asshats and slave drivers. It's a lot of work being a puppet in Edinburgh, and no goddamn respect. Anyway, I got to spend about eight hours in a fucking plastic box in that douche Tom Butterworth's car on the way up, even though I'm, oh, I don't know, THE FUCKING STAR OF THE SHOW. Then we got moved into this nice flat on Jeffrey Street, which is just off the Royal Mile. It's the first time I haven't had to stay at least 30 minutes out of the city, and so I'm more than a little bit relieved. Or I would be if we hadn't had to trapse down to a press launch tonight, where we performed for a bunch of dancers who didn't give a good goddamn what we were talking about, and we were treated to a mediocre reception. Hopefully things will get better, or I will be forced to kill a man.

Love,

M. D.