I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and I’ve already fucked it up: Entry 20 SPANK YOU

I’ve gotten more sleep than I have in a long time and I still feel a bit shattered. I have no food in thee house as I have given up on cooking at home a few days ago. I am proud of myself for managing to cook a handful of meals but I just can't be bothered anymore. 

I spot a review on a poster that is from a site that is infamous for giving five star reviews if you pay for them. This poor bastard only got four from them so it must be a terrible show. How anyone that has done the festival before doesn't know what utter contempt this particular “reviewer” is held in is beyond me. It suggests they need better friends. 

The Scotsman newspaper, junk food  and tote used to be unavoidable at every corner. Now they are like four-leaf clovers only available before 10:00am at the top of Arthur’s Seat. One of the guys I do the compilation show with pick one up for me and I devour the junk food at the bottom as my breakfast minutes  before I go onstage at Funny Cluckers. 

Ian Fox and I have a leisurely lunch and chat about show posters on the Grassmarket at a restaurant know not to be a tourist trap, meaning it is crawling with other performers at the Fringe. An American improv group with no invitation or attempt at engagement,  places their flyers with a four-star review from a reputable source in front of us and every one else in the restaurant. I say loud enough for them to hear, “ It’s so nice when people let you know which show to avoid at all costs.” I get it. Doing a show at the Fringe can make people forget how to interact with human beings but I refuse to reward the perfect storm of cuntyness it creates. 

One of my best friends from Japan, Anisa, comes to the show tonight and we have the perfect number of people in the room to make it as comfortable as possible while still giving people the anonymity needed to enjoy dark humor. I have added a few jokes to the show to keep it interesting for me. The anticipation created when adding something new and the  possibly it may not work gives an otherwise memorized show a bit more of an adventurous feel, at least from my point of view. The gamble pays off.

There has been a drop out at the show SPANK and I’ve been asked to fill in. I love this show so much. It is the perfect blend of irreverence and fun. The act on before me was a little low energy and so when I went on stage, for whatever reason, a small number of people expected more of the same and  booed me. I always enjoy an opportunity to flip off an audience and I did it well. I eventually won the doubters over, even the woman that was upset I made fun of Wales. Besides, if the Welsh don’t want me to make fun of them, they should get better internet. I never said anything about their third eye or six toes. I don't have any idea why she was so upset. 

I make plans to go with Anisa’s friend to a Disney party tonight. I have no idea what to expect. 

I'm doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I've already fucked it up: Entry 19 Watersports world

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. 

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 18 Horizontal Mambo No 5.

Sleep! How long has it been since the last time we’ve seen each other? Yes, it has been too long. I agree but I am so glad we caught up! I feel so much better now. 

Struggling to keep my head out of the Fringe bubble as the guilt of not seeing more shows is creeping up on me. I aim to see one show a  day and this year want to see more stuff not comedy related just to cleanse the palate.

I am slow leaving the house as I was waiting for the other people in the flat to leave before I stank up the toilet. The window is too hard for me to open and will just have to trust that an open door with dissipate the stench eventually. I discover I have a useless superpower. That power is the ability to stink up a bathroom so bad that I give people super human ability to open impossible windows, not unlike when you hear of adults lifting cars off children after an accident. I am mortified that I didn’t realize there were still people in the flat and upon them  entering the toilet a  mere five minutes later, I hear them yell, “Ugh, that is RANK!” followed by the sound of a stiff window opening.” Damn you, burrito!  I scurry to my spot at Funny Cluckers at the Three Sisters on Cowgate.

I was going to go to a show at 6:00 but it is sold out and that is fine. It’s a show my boyfriend will want to see when he is in town next week anyway. We’ll sort that when he gets here. 

I forget how dead Wednesdays can be. Big names often take the second Monday of the Fringe off. B-listers take the second Tuesday off and everybody else can do with taking off a Wednesday here and there. I am very lucky to have 4 lovely people. None of them know what they are in for and are game all the way through. The lovely thing about having a small audience in an oven like that is that everyone can still breathe and no-one looks like they might faint. I probably could have done a bit more crowd work but crowd work with an audience of four can give the impression that the show is a conversation and it’s not.  It was fun and intimate show . It felt like being in command of the lunch table in grammar school. We all got the giggles throughout.

There is a dropout at Imaginary Porno Charades and I happily fill in. I love this show but this time I get a really hard one and I am not talking about my dick. I cannot get my team to guess the song “Horizontal Mambo No.5”  To be fair, I don’t think Horizontal Mambo sounds that dirty. It sounds like a gymnastic dismount during a Cirque De Soleil show.  I get caught up trying to get them to guess “Horizontal” by miming a line graph and focusing on the y- and x- axis but time runs out. 

After the show I have a chat with John Robertson, my twin at the Fringe who has put on red lipstick while I wasn’t looking to do an impression of me. If only he’d put some on his chin, then it would have been spot on. I’ve learned that since I hold the microphone in the had I have less control over, I often hit my mouth with the mic, getting lipstick on it and then when I inevitably hit other parts of my face with the mic, I get  MAC lipstick swipes all over. At least MAC lipstick smells nice. I am reminded of a show title Ian Fox suggested for me, “Spring Day’s Finishing School and Other Places I’ve Demanded a Refund From. 

This daily blog will not be checked for punctuation or spelling, just like Chortle.

Click here for more info about my Fringe 2019 show.

Could be me, could be John Roberston of the Dark Room. Who knows?

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 17 How Karaoke Saved My Tuesday

Wow. I did not get enough sleep last night and am cranky as hell.

I somehow fell asleep before 3:00am but my body forces me awake at 9:00am.  

Tuesday audiences are typically tired and say things like, “I’m looking for the comedy show?” when asked what they are looking for in  hallways hosting 5 comedy shows simultaneously. 

My spot and Funny Cluckers, an afternoon of adult comedy, doesn’t jell with the audience. I genuinely think they thought were in for an afternoon of chicken puns. I tell them I have a show at the Fringe they can avoid. That made me laugh but not them. Today is my day to hold the bucket and I try to convince musical comedian  Robin Das Boot to hold the bucket instead because they liked him better. He hands me a massive stack of flyers for his show to hand out and it is more than my one-hand can handle and drop a couple hundred on the floor. Robin and I laugh pretty hard as we switch back duties. 

The washing machine is broken at the flat so I need to sort out where to do laundry. I am very Japanese in that I like to get it done and out of the way first thing in the morning. It makes you feel accomplished and ready to take on the world because you’ve already done the “hard bit”.  I am not jazzed about the idea of  carrying laundry  down and up seven flights of stairs. 

I have a much needed nap before the show and it is the smartest thing I’ve done all day. I feel much sharper and feel I can handle my room which is intolerably hot again.  I have another full room but am racing through material at 1.5 speed. It is all good fun and I can’t help but feel like Bette Midler in her bathhouse days.  I am working on adding a few bits here and there to the show but I don’t want to add them until I am absolutely sure they will work. The room is too hot to experiment much. 

I decide to go to s show done by the nicest guy at the Underbelly Cowgate, Karaoke Saved My Life. I’ll be honest. It saved my Tuesday. I took the very funny comedian Niamh Marron with me and told her I wasn’t exactly sure what we were in for but I knew it would be fun. It was pure Fringe FUN and I am going to go again with more people. I don’t know where else I would get to see a show like this but it used story and pop songs to bring strangers together to have a really positive night out. The secret to karaoke is knowing that it is not about singing well, it’s about giving your all in the moment to the song and the other people in the room with their tambourines and triangles. Everyone was so lovely and warm at the show, I felt like I was being hugged all the way home.  Deffo going back again soon.

This daily blog will not be checked for punctuation or spelling, just like Chortle.

Click here for more info about my Fringe 2019 show.

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 16 Cool running

You know you are in Edinburgh when you decide to go to the gym to give your legs a break. I am walking about 8 miles a day everyday an had grand plans to go to the massive commonwealth pool for a swim but  decided not to as I was still drying out  from the all-day downpour from the day before. I will make it to the pool before the end of the festival.  I miss swimming so much and hear they have a diving board, awesome sauce. 

There seems to be a fresh batch of people at the Fringe today. I did a quick spot at Funny Cluckers and the audience  seemed happy rested and on their 3rd Corona around 3:00 in the afternoon. Ian Fox fixes my card reader which has refused to work throughout the festival. Grrrr but it’s fine now.

Ian and I have lunch at Mosque  Kitchen with Dave Turquoise, one of my favorite people to bump into on the comedy scene.  Within seconds we are roasting each other like children on a playground. Nothing at the Fringe has made me laugh as hard as him making fun of the way I eat curry. 

My show is full on a Monday night and I am pleasantly surprised at how much fun people were having. Mondays are usually notorious for being difficult during the Fringe.  Aside from having to stop the show for a second to give a woman in the front row a block of ice to eat like an ice cream sandwich to keep her from succumbing to the heat, it felt like a Friday night show. 

The room isn’t quite as hot as it has been. I know this because my hair is still curly at the end of the show. Last week my hair would go from little orphan Annie curly to ramrod straight after 20 minutes. ( I know this because that is what an audience member told me as she put money in my bucket) Then the barman at my venue told  me Scotland’s heatwave has finally ended. Of course! It all makes so much sense now. It never occurred to me that 25 degrees in August anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere would be considered a “heat wave”. If it continues to be as cool as it has been for the last two days, I think my room may just be tolerable. Yay! Happy dance!

Tonight is the first time my bucket speech doesn’t sound like an apology and I pat myself on the back for finally growing a pair.

With my backpack full of wet hiker towels and hand fans, I brave the industry bar with my day of good fortune. There was some sort of festival recruiting going on for a festival in Ireland. Thank god I’ve run into a friend that feels equally out of place at these things and we manage to hold our own. I get to say “ Hello” to people I wouldn’t have had the guts to do on my own and my friend knows how hard it was for me. There us a a brief moment when I am sure someone thinks my name is “Spree” ( Starbucks Baristas often write that on my cup) I then realize it was just his accent and in a noisy environment like that with so many accents going on I can’t code switch fast enough to catch everything people are saying. Me and my friend have a lovely time, high five each other for being fully functioning social people for one night and go home before comedians turn into pumpkins at 3:00am.

This daily blog will not be checked for punctuation or spelling, just like Chortle.

Click here for more info about my Fringe 2019 show.

My room with a view of Waverly Station. It’s always nice to be reminded you can always go home if you want to.

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 15 More Rain Please

It has been pissing rain since the morning. I am awake an hour earlier than I should be and know I will regret it. It turns out I am doing three spots  in addition to my show in at 9:05 pm.

It is a Sunday audience and my theory about them has developed over the many years I have been at the Fringe. Sunday people are tired as they slowly recover from whatever they did to themselves over the weekend. Their brains are in a state of light sleep and cannot be arsed to think. They are squeezing as much fun out of their last day on vacation as thy possibly can and this is never really very fun, like drinking a milkshake after it’s all gone. 

With these audiences you have to be the ones having fun and the tired audience is usually quite happy to live vicariously through you. One of the spots is in a venue with benches which I hate with a passion. Benches  are the worst. They are shitty for your back and nobody wants to sit on them after 10 minutes. People are sitting the booth type seats built into the wall all around the room, “lap dance seats “ as I call them as I first saw them in a documentary about exotic dancers years ago. Nobody used the benches to sit in.The audience use the benches as tables for their drinks and one guy takes out a tin, puts it on the bench and starts eating lentils while everyone watches. This is not the atmosphere of a comedy show. This feels like the waiting room for a backpacker’s vaccine clinic. Nobody is responding to set-up punchline jokes at all. All they responded to was crowd work so I did that for the rest of my time and got out of there. You are only as good as your last gig. Whatever that was, it was not a gig but I enjoyed insulting people that enjoyed being insulted.  

I have coffee with Yuriko Kotani in a super hip coffee shop that have very expensive uncomfortable benches. Her show is doing very well this Fringe and we talk about performing in hot rooms. I bitch to her about things only someone familiar with Japan would relate to and find out Richard Gadd had done a show in the room I am doing now and that was nice to know. I do love my room. I love that it is intimate, has chairs with backs on them and everyone is facing the right way. I just wish it wasn’t so damn hot.

Since it has been pissing rain nonstop from the morning, my room is a little cooler than usual.  I have a surprisingly full room of people who have responded well to my flyerer’s strategized technique. At the beginning of the show, I hand out fans and have hiking towels ready but the audience only uses the fans. A few audience members struggle with the heat but don’t keel over. The show and audience really came together and it felt and sounded like a proper night out. I was very proud of the show which was only marred by a clumsy bucket speech and a card reader that refused to work. 

I am very happy to be home by 10:37 and asleep by 12:30. Victory is mine.

This daily blog will not be checked for punctuation or spelling, just like Chortle.

Click here for more info about my Fringe 2019 show.

Word of mouth…

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 14 SPANK

I stay in the flat as long as I possibly can and get out the door at 2:15. My room smells musty as I have done the laundry and have hung clothes on every available surface that is not nice furniture, as the landlady requested. Not realizing this whole time there is a drying rack in the hallway closet. The ladylady suggests I use it as the musty smell has wafted into the hallway a bit. 

How was I supposed to know it was in the hall closet? I don’t go through people’s hallway closets, who knows what kind of weird shit I’d find in there. If I found bodies in there my first thought would be, “I don’t want to move mid-festival. I’ve got enough to worry about.” 

There are new people in the flat, a mother and daughter doing a children’s show. They are amazed I do a show every night at 9:05. When I tell them I am doing another show at one in the morning, their jaw drops. I really hope they don’t come to my show.

Being a Saturday night, the crowds  are just as I suspect, more tired than Friday as they are still recovering from Friday night shenanigans. The energy is more frazzled and attention spans are as short as can be. I warn my audience as it fills up that it is going to get hellishly hot as I pass around towels and fans. Three women stand at the door who want to be in the room simply because it is full. I ask them to leave, saying I am doing them a favor and they are slow on the uptake. It was a great show although 4 had to leave mid-show as they were just about to faint.  Them leaving gave everyone else a bit more breathing room and energy. A couple of the punters said they came to the show because they were told it was a claustrophobically dark comedy show. I think that is a great way to describe the experience. The show in that room is like someone made an escape room out of an Auschwitz oven. 

I do a spot at  SPANK for the first time tonight. It’s a late night comedy show that is just silly fun. In the middle, a comedian or anyone that wants to promote something will get a minute on stage to promote it if they get naked. Tonight,  I do not get naked but a rather sweet punter did on stage just to tell the audience how much he loved his partner. It was very sweet. There is also a lovely guy doing a show at the same venue space at an earlier time called “How Karaoke Changed My Life” and he gets a shoutout without having to  getting naked because everyone loves him so much. I want to go to this show because apparently he just  sings whatever song the audience wants to sing with them. It’s too bad the show isn’t called “Karaoke Without Cunts.” I hope he can get more people into his show. 

On my way back home, a very drunk man asks me if I sell weed because I happened to be hunched over trying to zip my messenger bag closed in the rain. I unfortunately do not sell weed and tell him so. I wish I did, then I could afford to do the festival properly. 

I call my boyfriend and in my drunk on three beers, two-octave higher than usual voice tell him I love him and stumble home at 2:30am. 

This daily blog will not be checked for punctuation or spelling, just like Chortle.

Click here for more info about my Fringe 2019 show.

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 13 The Bukkake Baby

I am up and out of the house by 9:30am in the summer rain rushing to get to the recording to “Anything but Coldplay” radio show at BBC’s Fringe Central. It is fun and reminds me of how little music I listen to anymore. Tina Turner Tea Lady is a guest and a festival staple, quintessential  British character comedy. I love acts like that. I know being a foreigner, I’ll never totally get all of the references but I enjoy reaching for them. It’s like mentally reaching for a cookie on the top shelf, once you get it, you feel like you’ve earned it. 

I’m guest spotting on a total of three shows today. The under twenty-fives seem to be out in full force, probably because school starts up next week. I do a spot  at a show where everyone is supposed to do their most offensive material. This is tricky as “offensive” is a broad term.  Am I supposed to do material with offensive language, have an offensive point of view or just offend everyone? I am not sure so I do all three. The weird thing about the set is I do a few jokes that are not offensive during my set just to cleanse the palate, like a sip of water between box wine tastings and I can sense people thinking, “Wait, that’s not offensive. She’s cheating.”  It is a fun but weird vibe to the show. 

I then go home for a much needed sumo nap. A sumo nap is when you take a nap after a meal. It’s part of a sumo’s training and helps them gain weight.  I feel like a million bucks when I wake up and decide I have enough energy to flyer. I genuinely enjoy it now. I think I am good at pitching the show now and don’t feel rejected when people don’t want a flyer or the show just isn’t for them. I ask a group of three women if they have a dark sense of humor. “Absolutely not.” They say.  “ You all must be very healthy then. Carry on..” I reply and we all have a good laugh.  If you play it right, even rejection is fun.

We have a full house and they are sort of excited by the idea of being in a completely inappropriate room for comedy or breathing. I chuck hiker’s towels at them as well as hand fans and ice throughout the show. I cut out anything that requires a second or more of concentration or is Edinburgh fringy  because this is a club crowd. A woman in the front is clearly on something other than alcohol but is a great sport and well-behaved. Having parents that did a lot of drugs in their day has taught me how to handle these sensitive souls. 

Afterwards, I guest spot on Imaginary Porno Charades and discover I am actually pretty good at the charming and getting better at staying in the moment for the guessing. Because I spent so much time in Japan, I get “bukkake” within seconds to the shocked delight of the audience but my team fails to guess “the Bukkake Kid “ and guesses “The Bukkake Baby “ instead which starts a fight as to which is more wrong, a baby or a kid. My team captain argues a baby is better because they cannot remember anything.  I say that is how  it starts but I am not an authority. Somebody should ask Epstein, he would know better. I mention to my boyfriend later on, “You know, bukkake just sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?”

This daily blog will not be checked for punctuation or spelling, just like Chortle.

Click here for more info about my Fringe 2019 show.

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 12, I’m a Yenta

Didn’t get enough sleep last night but  adrenaline is still pumping. I have lost so much weight over the past week, I am now the weight I tell myself I am the rest of the year. 

I had grand plans to post some of the hundred posters I bought to put up all around town but I am too tired and all I want is frozen yogurt. 

After a spot at Funny Cluckers in the afternoon, I make my way to Friskys on Forrest road and from a distance see it has been turned into something else, something healthy, yuck. I want comfort food so I go and eat a pork ramen bowl. It doesn’t compare to the real Japanese ramen but real Japanese ramen would make me want to take a nap. 

I go to a tea shop and get a slice of cake that makes me want to sleep instead. I go through my set for the night and realize every night there are about 3 jokes I forget to put in. They are never the same three jokes but there are always three jokes I forget to mention. I think it is partly because I am somewhere between a one-liner and storyteller comic. There is a lot to remember.

I try to take my first nap at the fringe and I can’t really sleep. My mind is racing through events of the day like a bitch having too much fun doing an obstacle course at a dog show. I try to sleep anyway and it seems to have been a good investment. I get a second wind. 

I prep my hiking towels and the buckets of ice and discover the show next door has cancelled for the night and offered it to me to do my show in and it has an air-conditioner in it as well. Yes!

We have a lovely audience of about 20 and have a grand old time. Aaron Twitchen, who is also doing a show at the Fringe ( click here for more info https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/aaron-twitchen-can-t-stop-a-rainbow) 

and is an ideal audience member. 

Everyone is lovely and even though people are spread out all over the room, it still feels cohesive although I should have forced people to sit closer together. Dark comedy always works best when people don’t feel they can be singled out and can’t see other people’s faces. 

I have a lovely chat with some of the audience and one person described me as “Sunshine on speed” I like it. Another audience member tells me he has a lot of health issues and has got to go to the hospital tomorrow and the show has made him laugh a lot. You never know what an audience member could be going through. I hope his load was lightened for a while. 

Afterwards, I am ready for a drink and make my way to the industry bars. August is the most social I am all year and it is the easiest time to be social among comedians because all you have to do is remember nobody cares about you or your show. Just listen to other people talk about their show and give a shit. That’s all you have to do really. 

I run into the lovely guys from the Chesham Comedy Club that are doing a radio show called “Anything But Coldplay” and I promise to go to their taping at 100:00 am the next morning. Let’s see if I make it. 

I run into the very funny Danny Posthill and two lovely guys doing a show at the Newsroom. 

I run into two girlfriends of mine looking for guys and I introduce the nice guys to the nice girls like a proper Yenta and make my way home.  I realize later I have no idea whether or not these guys are spoken for or not but I’m sure they will figure it out. 

This daily blog will not be checked for punctuation or spelling, just like Chortle.

Click here for more info about my Fringe 2019 show.

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 11 The Magic of Alcohol

I was up and out of the house by 10:45, the earliest I’ve been out and about for a few days. I’ve got me a dental appointment and I brace myself for a scolding. Nine years ago, I had quite a few problems with my teeth and once they were fixed, I vowed to myself that I would floss everyday and never let that happen again. It is a common problem for people born with good teeth they say. When I was a child, dentists complimented me for my good teeth when I hadn’t done anything other than brushing them not particularly well. I was given the impression that I had superhuman teeth that would take care of themselves forever. Flossing was particularly hard for me as a one-hander but as a teen I figured out I could tie one side of the string to my right thumb and maneuver with my left hand. I devised this method this out once dentists insisted I start finding a way to  floss or I was going to have a lot of problems in the future.

The dentist I see  is a lovely woman who laughed a lot and said a filling had come out and just needed to be replaced. The temporary filling she put in for me set me back 7 pounds and I scolded myself for waiting a whole week to  go to the dentist in the first place. It’s the American in me that is afraid a medical visit is going to cost me more money than I’ve ever made to fix something. I should know better than this but I find it a part of my process that is hard to shake. I’ve also thankfully  found out  sharing teeth problems is a bonding experience among performers, especially among street performers that breath fire. That shit will fuck up your teeth in no time. 

I brace myself for a slow day because it is Wednesday, not a day people typically go out to see a show unless they are full-on festival goers. I’ve mentally prepared for the possibility that no one is coming to show. That happens sometimes and it is no big deal if it does. It’s not like I am in a paid venue. I had the opportunity to be in a paid venue this year and I turned it down knowing that with Brexit looming, I needed to penny pinch a bit. Sure there are all sorts of rubber stamps I might have been able to get by being with a paid venue and spending two thousand pounds more than I would otherwise.  However,  the fact that I would be filling in for someone who dropped out at the last minute meant I would most likely get the rawest part of the deal as well. If I am going to gamble my money, it is going to be at the poker table, not the slot machines. 

We have an audience of 7! Good times! My good friend and fellow American comic Michael Noel comes with his Boston mates as well as a lovely Scottish guy on a mission to see 6-7 shows a day and saw my show on the Festival app. My flyerer comes so he can see what he is selling and we all have a grand ol’ time in that oven. We finish the show at 45 minutes just as the oven starts to blaze. I am relaxing into the material more as I scrap the bit  resembling an “Edinburgh show” and focus on crafting it into a bit I could do in a club if I wanted to. 

Michael, his friends and I go to the City Restaurant for dinner and when a group of teenage girls next to us are served a syrupy mudslide of cocktails. One screeches, “ That is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!” One of Michael’s friends and I make eye contact and then look over at the girl as we cackle at the teenage excitement over alcohol. You’d think she just got her letter from Hogwarts.

This daily blog will not be checked for punctuation or spelling, just like Chortle.

Click here for more info about my Fringe 2019 show.

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 10 Imaginary Porno Charades

I wake up earlier that usual. I’ve been having dreams about people I haven’t seen in a decade or more. They now say sleep is when your brain organizes information it received during your waking hours. If that is the case, I think my brain is trying to clean out the back of the closet so I have room to memorize the show as I play with and  add more to it. 

I have to go to the dentist because when I was flossing, a tiny bit of my tooth popped off. I know, gross. The dentist at the emergency clinic just laughed when I told her that and then she made an appointment for me for  tomorrow since I am not in any pain. They can put in a temporary filling until I get back to London and see my regular dentist. It’s a tooth I’ve had problems with before so as long as I don’t have any new cavities, I am a pretty happy camper. I hate going to the dentist, I always feel like a moral failure because I don’t floss regularly. I have a friend who brags about how she never flosses and has never had a cavity. She has also never had two teeth close enough to touch eachother. None of her friends have had the guts to tell her why she doesn’t need to floss. Some awful boyfriend will probably tell her in the future. 

The show goes great with 7 people. People can breath for most of the show so I don’t have to cut it short as I have done. I took my time with it as I haven’t been able to do in the past as I was trying to finish before people passed out. There were some really lovely moments and I really enjoyed warming them up as nearly everyone there was from abroad and had well-stamped passports. I love me some third-culture kids.

Afterwards, I guest on the the incredible JoJo Bellini’s show Imaginary Porno Charades where comedians act out movie, song, TV or book titles that have been altered to be rude and more often than not, sexual acts I haven’t thought of trying and probably won’t. I am ok at the acting out of a title for the most part but  when I get into open-mode brain interpreting the gestures of my teammates,  I tend to forget important things like how many words are in the title  and what category it’s in supposed to be in. As someone who taught English as a second language, I thought I’d do pretty well at guessing body language but was mystified  by the shorthand for “and”.  Our team won thanks to our amazing captain, Sameena Zehra, a force to be reckoned with whose favorite title of the night was, “Lap dances with Wolves”. It was my favorite too.

This daily blog will not be checked for spelling or punctuation, just like Chortle.

Click here to find out more about my Edinburgh 2019 show.  

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 9 Small Party in the Sauna tonight

 I wake up after dreaming of watching an British High school American football practice  to find  some sort of military training/sing-songy shouting from a group of men on the street outside  my flat that have obviously influenced my dreaming. I honestly don’t know why I woke up. American football is so boring. In school, I rather liked watching the faculty and teachers lose their shit watching a game than the actual game. They would get all red in the face and most of the time, scream like they were just given an unfair parking ticket while out puncturing other people’s tires. They cared so much and I never could understand why they would get so upset about it. There never seemed to be any real joy in watching the game for them, only stress.  I now realize it as Midwestern earnestness. The idea that you don’t truly love something unless it makes you miserable.

It is the Fringe’s first Monday and I expected a small crowd. This is usually the best Monday at the Fringe. Everyone is still on vacation and aren’t yet sick of the people they are on vacation with.

I do a few 12 minute spots at shows that have full houses and air-conditioning. Good times. I also think I see silent disco goer get pick-pocketed. Ah, poetic justice. I can’t be sure but what made me suspicious was the kid that came out from the silent disco crowd looking to see how much cash was in a pretty nice wallet. He then took some  cash out and stood in line at the burger stall. This I find highly suspicious because  I have never seen a  Millennial with such a nice wallet pay for anything in cash. 

I have a thankfully small audience of 6. There is ice in bags all over the room. I have handed out hiker towels and we’re off. 

It takes a minute to be your own warm-up act especially when your audience don’t know who you are or what exactly they are in for. The Fringe has everything and I mean everything. The other afternoon I was flyered for a show about a mother and daughter that do performance art involving Japanese erotic rope binding and suspension from ceilings, all based on a true story as well according to the flyer. I read the flyer and think, “I am glad I don’t have to emcee that show. “

The show goes well but towards the end a few people start to succumb to the heat so I cut a few jokes and the show short out of mercy. Bob Slayer told me I could build my own air conditioner with a Styrofoam box and a fan and that I can learn to make on the internet. I vaguely remember other comics doing something similar in years past and wonder why this isn’t on a “Welcome to the Fringe! Here are directions on how to build your own air conditioner!” given with your members card and lanyard. 

Early to bed tonight as we have a dental visit in the morning. Boo-yeah.

This daily blog will not be proofread or spelling or punctuation, just like Chortle.

Click here for more info about my Fringe 2019 show.

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 8 Hell has got to be cooler than this.

Holy shit.  The room is still too hot. As it turns out changing the temperature from 40 degrees Celsius to 38 does  not a comfortable room make. 

The 20  multi-color cooling towels hikers use and the primary-color hand fans that I bought seemed to help a bit while also making the audience look like members of a Southern gay Pentecostal Church. It was Sunday after all. 

I asked the venue a day before  if I could have three buckets of ice to deposit throughout the room. They agree to let me do that. On the day, they give me one big bucket which is probably more than the three small buckets put together but is not what I need. I need to distribute ice throughout this small room for it to work. Because the bar is busy and I never know how many buckets will be available, I think I am going to have to go out and buy a bunch of buckets.  I place the big bucket in front of the fan.

The hiking towels need to be dunked in water, rung out and snapped for the fabric’s cooling to I activate so I am outside my venue dunking  and twisting towels in a water-filled champagne bucket. I look like a pioneer woman doing  laundry. 

I have 20 towels but only six or seven take the towels. “ What are these? Your panties?!” one punter says in the back just before the start of the show and when there is still air in the room. 5 minutes later, as breathable air becomes less and less available, people started requesting the towels. “Can you throw me one?” Yes. Yes I can. 

Two lovely people who had seen me do a short spot came after I specifically told them not to. I had done some of my best bits from my show in my short spot so why bother ? They are lovely locals and are among the few that seemed relatively impervious to the heat while everyone around them is melting like the Wicked Witch of the West. 

The room is full and the show starts out great. People are laughing and fanning, fanning and laughing but with each burst of laughter the room gets ever so slightly warmer than it was before. 

As the show goes on,  people are struggling with the heat and losing. At one point, there is so little room in the air, people are a little giddy like a sea diver that has come up to the surface a little too quickly or a masturbator about to die from erotic asphyxiation. It feels like a tough mudder for paraplegics and then three people about to faint, leave. God love ‘em. They did their best to make it to the end. 

My bucket speech is still shit but I have bigger fish to freeze. I have two choices. I can take my audience outside somewhere where I will bit the head of of any flyerer that would dare to poach them or I can limit my  audience to half its capacity while taking the same measures I have to keep it cool. Today, I am going to try  to let my flyerer do all the flyering for me (Though I am quite proud of the fact I am pretty good at getting people that would enjoy my show in. Several years of flyering wrong and reading Seth Godin’s books on marketing have taught me a lot.) 

Oh, and I have to go to the dentist. Good times!

This daily blog will not be proofread for spelling or punctuation, just like Chortle.

Click here for more info about my 2019 Edinburgh Show 

It’s not the Fringe until you’ve seen your flyer disintegrating on Cowgate pavement.

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 7

Show day three and it is the first Saturday of the Fringe. The holiday makers have settled into their hotels and are walking around town bewildered with backpacks looking like freshman at their first day at uni.

Since I overdid my walking the day before, I do my best to stay in the flat as long as possible to give my legs a rest. I have very mild cerebral palsy that affects the right side of my body. Naked, I look like my dominant left side of my body has been beating up the comparatively  scrawny right side for its lunch money for a few decades. My left side has been working overtime and I don’t want to piss it of this early in the fringe. I don’t leave the flat till 2:00.

I go a do a spot at Funny Cluckers at the Three Sisters. It is Ian Fox’s compilation show of adult humor and Saturday’s audience was full but very sober. No boozy brunch for these people. They were nice and got onboard with the show eventually. 

Afterwards, I walk to the Meadows park listening to a podcast with my headphones on about how women shouldn’t walk around with headphones on because they could get attacked and raped. I took one headphone out of my ear mid-podcast. 

My temporary solution  to turn my nightly sauna into a comedy room before my more permanent solution arrives from Amazon is putting bags of ice throughout the room. Low and behold it works! Especially since someone put in a fan.  A bucket of ice in front of a fan did manage to bring the temperature in the room down from a boil to a simmer. 

We had a full house last night. So full that I had to stand on the sofa to be seen by everyone, even in that tiny room. 

The show is going well. I am tweaking bits here and there but generally the show is in good shape. I am rushing the show a bit still since the room is so hot. I am doing my best to give the audience no time to even think about how hot it is. I sound like an audiobook being read at 1.5x speed. 

I am still shit at the bucket speech but that should improve in time. I used to think I was a good salesman as a kids because I sold a lot of candy bars for school fundraisers. Looking back I realize a disabled little girl hawking chocolate bars door-to-door by herself  is hard to say not to.  A disabled adult that just made you sit in a sauna for an hour…well, didn’t they just prove in sweat how much they liked your show? Why should they give you a tenner? My solution which should arrive today or tomorrow will hopefully help.

Afterwards, I ran into Chris Betts, a very funny Canadian walking out of one of the Monkey Barrel extension rooms. He was on his way to see Glen Wool work on new material and I tagged along. Wool was amazing as usual.  I’ve seen Glen Wool live a few times and we did the same gig once last year. He is a nice guy whose leather vest and saunter  always makes me think of the Bounty Hunter in Raising Arizona,  especially now that he has a baby. During the show  I wonder if he will get a pair of bronzed baby shoes and attach it to his belt.

On my way home, I run into a friend that 8 years ago, at the fringe, introduced me to my now boyfriend and has said my favorite sentence of the Fringe ever. “I can’t flyer for you now Spring. I have to crochet a scarf.”

This daily blog will not be checked for spelling or punctuation, just like Chortle.

Click here for more info about my 2019 Edinburgh Show

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 6

I don’t know why I contemplated joining a steam room with some other performers when it turns out I am performing in a sauna every night. 

Every comedian complains about how chilly Scotland is in August and how roasting it is in the venues. It is often uncomfortably hot but my room is ridiculous this year. Everyone who went in to the show with curly hair came out with damp straight hair. The only ones not fazed by the heat were the Scottish punters that  could somehow pretend they were on a tropical island that smelled like a cave people dance in.

I am happy that everyone in the audience is facing in the right direction. I’ve learned you need punters not to be able to look at other punters faces when watching dark comedy or they will start to wonder what other people think of them. That said, my room is too hot to think in. I am rushing the show every so slightly in order to distract them from how hot it is. In a way I feel like a child in the back seat of the car desperately trying to entertain the family on the summer vacation drive across the US in a car with no air conditioning and the windows rolled up and oxygen becomes less and less available.  I thought one punter hated it but it turns out he was just trying not to faint. I am working on a solution.

A lovely couple from Nottingham that had seen me at the Glee Club few weeks ago came as well as a punter with a massive guitar who came a few minutes late. I did not let in a woman who asked to come in after a half hour had passed. I am considering not letting in any latecomers at all, it’s not like I am in an auditorium where punters can quietly sit in the back unnoticed. It feels more like someone asking if  they can join a dinner party in progress while the host is telling a story everyone is into. We all get pulled out of the story as we all move over to make room. It is not ideal. 

I go to an industry bar hoping to run into someone I know to spitball possible solutions. Everyone suggests getting a fan but there is zero cool air coming in that it will just exacerbate the situation and it just makes me think of Ebola.  I will try some ideas I have tonight as my big solution from Amazon is coming tomorrow. We will see how that goes.

I then lost my phone. I retraced my steps from the industry bar back to the venue and had no luck finding it there. I then remember googling “How  to cool a hot room” and getting the answer, “Sleep like an Egyptian” (Apparently, that is a thing) near the industry bar. It seems my phone had fallen out on the couch I was sitting on when I realized it was gone and was just behind me the whole time I was looking for it.  Someone turned it in at the bar. 

I go home having made my Fitbit very happy and crash into bed.

This daily blog will not be proofread for spelling or punctuation, just like Chortle.

Click here for details about my Edinburgh Fringe 2019 show

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 5

 the first day of the Free Fringe has come and gone.

I went to the gym in the morning determined to lose not just sterling pounds but also a few pounds of fat if possible by the end of the month. We’ll see how long that lasts. I burned several calories trying to get into  and out of the gym as it is in the basement at the bottom of a maze in  a fancy hotel. This is super weird because it is the cheapest gym in the country. I am passing very important, suited people with briefcases and I’m wearing the kind of workout gear that makes me look like I am about to paint a house. 

I spend my gym time listening to the podcast 99% Invisible, it is a podcast about angry people fixing bad design and Fresh Air, an NPR podcast by Terry Gross. I am spending my mornings listening and reading anything not entertainment related in a futile attempt to keep my head  outside the Fringe bubble. 

I work on the show for a few hours and I am very proud of it. 70% new material and 30% stuff that usually always works. Given that Seinfeld gets rid of 10% of his material a year , I like to think he would be impressed. 

I flyer by myself as the guy I hired doesn’t start until tomorrow and I’m not too worried. It is a small room and the Fringe Fringe hasn’t officially started yet anyway. I spend a few minutes just before the show starts adding another comic as a Fitbit friend that I can compete steps with. That is the weird thing about the Fringe. When you are flyering about a half an hour before your show and are trying to get people in, every comic you’ve ever met in the past year will pass by and want to have a little chat about what they are doing and why they can’t come to your show tonight . This might sound weird  and Californian but  I think it might have something to do with the energy we put out revving up for the show, it is probably our most social vibe .( Note to self: I must learn how to do that at will at parties and industry bars.  I am  awful at those.) To be fair. I love those chats and am guilty of doing the exact same thing to other people. If I go to hell, it will probably be because of all the shows I said I’d go to and never did.

Two friends sent by one of my best friends working in Bahrain come along with two punters that also ignored that start date on the flyer. (I knew nobody reads them!)

The room is stifling hot and sauna like but it doesn’t smell awful.  Nobody is drinking anything and this concerns me. I go out and get water for them. Carrying two cups with one hand means my fingers have been in the water but I assure them that I have just washed my hands and the water is for emergencies only. The gig goes great and nobody faints. My buck have to speech is still terrible but I make a decent bucket even though my card reader can’t find it’s g-spot and I forfeit a fiver. 

The two friends of a friend and I go to Bob’s bus for a drink and have the conversation only Americans who have spent most of their adult life abroad can have. I learn that it is possible to get sick of even the best Italian food and that Saudi mens can’t drive, let alone Saudi women. These new friends are ace. 

I make sure they find their cab back to their hotel a little past midnight. I start to walk home and pass Tom Stade and his wife, the photographer Trudy Stade. They are so super cool. I feel like I’ve just made friends with the most popular kids in school, the cool kids EVERYBODY likes and wants to be around. 

Not a bad way to start the Fringe.

This daily blog will not be proofread for spelling or punctuation, just like Chortle.

Click here for details about my Edinburgh Fringe 2019 show

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 4

Hello August! 

It was the day before the official start of the Fringe so I spent three hours going over my show after a breakfast of croissants, nuts and adrenaline. 

After skipping the gym, I have hot chocolate with my festival wife  of several years and runner of the show Funny Cluckers, Ian Fox. We talked a lot about illogical fallacies and Fitbits. Apparently, you can “make friends” with other people who have Fitbits and compete via the app in terms of how many steps you take a day. You can press a button to cheer them on or another to taunt them. Taunt is a perfect word for socially acceptable bullying in Silicon Valley, I suppose. I  look forward to leaning on that button in the future.

Ian and I go to do a tech run, find my flyers and my posters at my venue Cabaret Voltaire and I am proud to report that mine are some of the most legible out  there on the street. So much so, within seconds of looking at it,  Ian points out that the quote about me  on the back of my flyer from the extraordinary Tony Slattery,  one of the original members of “Who’s Line is it Anyway” is printed as a quote from “Tom Slattery” instead.  A quick google search reveals that Tom Slattery is the English translator for Final Fantasy video games. It’s a stupid mistake on my part but who cares? At least it’s not a quote from my mom.

I then went and saw one of my favorite comedians that works on his feet, do a preview. I sort of wish I was the kind of comic that could “just work it out on stage” . I have done so with bits and pieces, but never whole chunks. I really enjoyed the preview and with any luck schedule-wise, I’ll watch the finished product at the end of the month. It is probably silly,  but I enjoy having heroes at the Fringe, it adds to the magic of it all and makes the “job” more fun. I don’t want to be like my friends that work at Disneyland or Universal Studios and can no longer enjoy it the way they used to. 

I had forgotten to eat most of the day and have to be careful to not let that happen. I then went to the Free Festival launch at the Three Sisters on Cowgate where there is free food. I recommend to a fellow comic who is at the Fringe for the first time to buy a bag of crystalized ginger  at the health food store for when his throat will inevitably get sore. He was skeptical so  I tapped the shoulder of another comic I told to do the same last year. This other comic sang the praises of crystalized ginger and hooked up my friend with a weed dealer so he could experience the healing powers of ginger for himself as soon as possible.

I then went home and called my boyfriend who teased me for still having heroes in comedy. He didn’t use the words” having heroes” he said, “ having a crush” but whatever.

This blog will not be checked for spelling or punctuation just like Chortle.

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 3

Hello from Edinburgh! 

After taking yet the wrong exit out of Edinburgh Waverley Station , I have found and settled into my digs for the month with my portable rice cooker. 

My host has requested that we not charge phones or chargers overnight as “these things are known to cause fires”. Fair enough. I am now worried that my portable rice cooker might start a fire because it is called  the “insta-shef” and anything that spells “chef” with an “sh” probably has a warning in the small print about it “catching phire easily” 

I had a preliminary walk around town. I love this time of the festival when everybody still has hope and hasn’t seen a flyer for their show in the gutter yet. The venues are still setting up  and building things, even the paid venues are, which always surprises me. 

I ran into the lovely Paul Currie about sea swimming and had a chat with my friend Lucy about possibly joining something that has a sauna or steam room for the month. We’ll see how that goes.

Oh the plans we make just before the fringe starts! Everyone I know is thinking about going to the gym while they are here but that is never going to happen.  I’ve been here less than a day and my Fitbit has already orgasmed 5 times.

Just before I went to bed, I bought tickets to a preview for  show for the next day that I knew I would not have time to see once the festival got started. Previews are the best.  They get loads of people because the tickets are half-price or cheaper and I love being around fellow frugals, they are smart, savy people eager to laugh.  When my boyfriend bought me an expensive gift for Christmas, it made me happy. It made me even happier when he told me he had searched for vouchers online and got it for 30% off.

I went to buy the ticket when I realized I couldn’t find my wallet. It was missing from my bag and I panicked. I first thought I must have left it at Tesco’s.  “Every Edinburgh there is a disaster and losing my wallet before the festival has even started is mine. Maybe one of my flatmates stole it while I was in the shower! I knew this room was too good to be true!” I called my boyfriend and he told me to relax. He loses his wallet all the time. It’s no big deal.” Which is fine for him. I am not the kind of person that loses their wallet. I’m he kind of person that gets hit by a bus triple checking in the middle of the street that she has her wallet in her bag. 15 minutes later, I find the wallet under my bed as it must have fallen out when I took out the shopping. This is going to be a long month.

This daily blog will not be proofread for spelling or punctuation mistakes just like Chortle.

Click here for details about my 2019 Edinburgh show.

I have been here for less than a day and my Fitbit has orgasmed 5 times already.

I’m doing the Edinburgh Fringe this year and I’ve already fucked it up 2019: Entry 2

Here we go...

Now on the train to Edinburgh after a day of clean up, packing and a lovely pickle tickle from the boyfriend before I make like Harry Potter and take the train from Kings Cross.

It’s as I get to Kings Cross I realize I haven’t downloaded my tickets and the internet in the station is shit so I take my enormous suitcase which I’ve packed a portable rice cooker and food storage stuff in the hopes I will cook more at home this festival. Where the hell do I get my optimism? I will be eating chips constantly in three days. 

I go to the Starbucks outside the station and order a chai tea while waiting for my tickets to download on their WiFi. 

Once they are downloaded, I head back to the station with a messenger bag, backpack and pushing a suitcase large enough and heavy enough to carry two dismembered bodies while holding the very hot chai with the same hand I am pushing the suitcase with spilling the chai everywhere. My suitcase is drenched in hot tea and my hand is burnt. But I do not let it go. This tea is coming with me on my 4 hour train trip, it is my pacifier, a pacifier that burns my hand. I have an image of me on the train looking carefree with a Starbucks. I am not carefree but I will have the Starbucks dammit. 

I pour tea on everything all the way to the station. My suitcase looks like it has been pissed on by a dog from a balcony. 

A woman dressed in red and looks like she works for the train line offers to help me with my bag and rearranged everything  in the luggage area with the deftness of a Tetris champion and that is when it is apparent she doesn’t work for the train line. She is just another passenger being very kind. Nobody that worked for a train line in this country would be that helpful without an eye-roll and a sigh. 

This daily blog will not be checked for punctuation or spelling so forgive me like you do Chortle. 

I am doing the Edinburgh Fringe and I've already fucked it up 2019 Diary: Entry 1

It’s that time of the year again. The Edinburgh Fringe is starting in a few days and I’ve just renewed my Squarespace webpage subscription and am thinking “I should be getting more out of this website that I never look at or update. How can I get more people to look at it without updating it?! I know! I’ll just pretend it is 2004 and start a blog!” 

I’ve been doing the Edinburgh fringe since 2010 and the one thing it has taught me is that every year when I finish I think to myself, ” I have experienced every challenge  Edinburgh  can throw at someone doing a free show. You can’t surprise me anymore!” The next year, I am promptly surprised and baffled as soon as the flat keys are handed to me. 

This year I have already surprised myself by putting the wrong start date on the posters and flyers. The start date is supposed to be  1-25 of August but I have written 2-26th of August! So smart of me to get my first fuck-up out of the way even before I get on the train.  My spirit animal, Sarah Conner, would not be proud. 

Because this will be a daily blog and I am typing with one hand, I will not be proofreading for spelling or punctuation so forgive me like you do Chortle. And now I’m off to carry out my favorite financial mistake of the year…

It should read 1-25 August