I had so many grand plans for yesterday. I was going to go to a ballet at 1:00 and got there 3 minutes too late. They allowed late comers but you don’t get the full effect. So I go get breakfast at a cafe near the Meadows instead.
A friend of mine that used to live in Japan and now lives in Glasgow, David, gets in touch and wants to meet up after his meeting while he’s in Edinburgh. The meeting is 3 hours longer than he expected so I wander around Edinburgh’s many many Harry Potter shops. There are about 6 or 7 of them in the center of town, there was only one or two of them last year. I am only surprised by how long it took this city to cash in on the Harry Potter train since JK Rowling lives and wrote a lot of it here. I love the Harry Potter stuff. It’s a nice little world to escape to every now and again. They even sell the bottled butter beer that made my boyfriend and I instantly sick. There are a few shops that sell totes and mugs with Harry Potter in Edinburgh inspired and very busy fan art that is fun to look at. After three hours of wandering, my friend and finally meet and catch up quickly about an hour before my show.
The show is full and the room is very warm. A lot of people in the audience do not know what they are in for and have “only come down for the comedy” There are three uni students and a teacher in the audience who’s ex-pupil was sitting in front of her. Thank god they weren’t on a date. We have a fun time getting the giggles.
David has seen me do comedy in Japan years ago and we talked about how the material has changed and how since it has been almost four years since leaving Japan, my Japanese material is less and less relevant. It always bothered me that my Japan stories made me sound middle class. It is hard to explain to audiences that teaching English in Japan is probably one of the only well-paying jobs for Liberal Arts degree graduates that makes paying back your American student loans a possibility. I managed to pay my loan off in a little over ten years by living in essentially a hostel for a large amount of that time but I have yet to meet any peers that stayed in America that were able to do the same. I am a unicorn in that respect. In any case, it is nice to have someone that has seen you at an earlier stage in your career see you grow.
I do the Imaginary Porno Charades after and learn that waterports is a sex act. That is what I like about this show. I learn something new every time. It’s like if sex were a menu and there is this whole list of options I didn’t know were available because the pages were stuck together with jizz.
I have wine with a a very funny comedian and her mother. We talk a lot about the idea that some people have. “ You have to be poor to be an artist.” I disagree, in my opinion, a lot of people think, “ In order to be an artist, you have to be screwed over.” It is a more active approach with the same result. We also talked about the morality of recommending a bad show. I think it is great as long as you are not recommending it to a reviewer. There are so many smart and brilliant shows at the fringe that a show that is accidentally brilliant is a real pearl that should be shared with those that can appreciate it’s brilliance.
