Edinburgh

I wonder how many blog posts I have written start out with me apologizing to myself (and several close friends and family members who actually read this thing) about not having written an entry recently. At least three I think.

Well I'm back after a bit of a hiatus, for how long...who knows?!

So after my first six days ever setting foot in Scotland, or the UK for that matter, how is it you ask? Yes you. Whoever is reading this must be curious about my experiences. If you are reading this right now and have no interest in my traveling experiences, I have to beg the question why you are reading it? Are you some kind spy? Even then you would still technically be interested, just not as emotionally invested as my family. Hey mom! I love you.

So on Aug 4th, I landed in Heathrow airport at around 10am. I took 200 Canadian dollars and brought it to a money wizard who magically turned it into 109 Pounds, what sorcery! Landed in Edinburgh around 4pm. I walked out of the Airport and couldn't really tell, much like most airports in the world, I was anywhere different than before. Luckily there is a big sign on the top of a building across the street that says "Welcome to Edinburgh" to put me at ease.

I find the apartment that DeAnne and I are staying at, get buzzed in and take the elevator up, stopping at the 3rd floor, the doors open to reveal a dancing DeAnne right in front of me. I have officially been welcomed.

Edinburgh is an old city, spotted with castles and cobblestone roads. There is also a lower and upper part of the city. The lower part being the original 'old city', where the less financially inclined people lived. There's even a place called Mary King Close where they supposedly bricked 300 people in the underground street, to keep the plague from spreading.

The architecture most certainly lends the imagination to believe you are in a land where dragons, elves and wizards once lived. In present day, the dragons are all gone, the elves are in high finance, and the wizards live on the street as drunks and have lost their powers. To be fair, the two people I have actually seen beg for change looked far too well clothed and healthy to be asking for money. There ya go Edinburgh. So far you have some of the nicest looking street people I have ever seen! What else ya got for me?

The Fringe Festival itself is as everyone had told me. Massive (a population of 1 million, Edinburgh doubles to 2million in the month of August), Overwhelming (there are well over 2,500 separate shows, I'll never get to scratch the surface, but I've already seen some wonderful stuff), and dare I admit...fun? (I'm bunking with my comedy buddy DeAnne, hanging with old Canadian comic friends and meeting some wonderfully bright and talented people from all over the world).

People drink here. I have been staying active and cooking with my friend Dana, but the nights are almost always turn into Bacchanalian displays of dancing, drink, and hyper-socializing. This is the biggest comedy market in the world. There are people here who are helping me realize the vision of performing throughout the world, and making a decent living while doing it. The UK is a gateway to expatriate shows throughout the rest of the planet, and I can't wait to get started.

My first show was full, and I killed it. I knew in my heart that there are things I want to work on while here, and even though it felt good I didn't let the first show lull me into some sort of false sense of security. With the new title, comes a completely new format and I'm getting tired of some of the old standup jokes I do. Which can be very dangerous. Aside from a good new chunk of material that I am very proud of and enjoy, I'm in a comedy growth phase, trying to push newer ideas out from underneath so that the older, less desirable material falls off like unwanted tumours.

I realize that 'unwanted tumours' is arguably an oxymoron. Who would want tumours?

I am very excited to see what happens after roughly 24hours of stage time in 24days. I am going to run up Arthur's Seat tomorrow. A place that I will get into in a future entry. I'll leave you with in image of what I can see of it from our bedroom window. Got to go get my show ready.

JFL 2011 show number one in the can!

Last night was a wonderful show. The place was nearly full and the material finally found a room of people ready to appreciate it again. Aside from being on stage, the most fun was goofing off with DeAnne in the green room in that a particular type of giddy playfulness that nervous energy brings before a show. As soon as I decided to join DeAnne in Australia this year, our schedules are beginning to line up all over the world. It's exciting to think about all the places we're going to experience for the first time together, all because of this strange life decision.
It's also DeAnne's birthday today, which is why I will dedicate today's blog to the most hard working and talented person I know. Whether it's about comedy or girls, there are few people I can talk to at such long length with about the two most important things in my life. I am grateful to have someone like her in my corner. A very very happy birthday D.
What else? Well I am also very grateful to have people like Sylvana whose uniquely creative brain has come up with my new website. It's not completely finished, but man is it on it's way. I feel much better now that I have a good show behind me. It always seems to work out that way.

First Day of JFL

Ohhh shit. Tonight I'm doing my first set at Just For Laughs in four years. I'm just opening for a friend, but the pressure is still there. I have been working at 30 to 45 minute sets the last month, and finding the switch back down to 8mins isn't as easy as just picking the material. There's a whole different energy and structure with a short set that differs greatly from a longer one. First one is you don't have much time to get to know the audience, or have them get to know you. With a short set I feel like all I have time for is firing out the best jokes I can think of in some semblance of an order.
I spent the last three nights working out the jokes that have been doing the best over the past month, and they have all but tanked. I know these jokes work. I know that they are funny. But three brick walls in a row and I'm feeling a little apprehensive about tonight. I'm trying to remind myself about the fun part of it. Maybe if I just get as excited about the material as I can it will infect the audience. Maybe if I care less they will care more (seems to work that way in relationships). Maybe I'll just relax, hang with my wonderful friend and do a comedy show. I've done those before.

Oh Canada...

So I've been back in Canada over a month now. Managed to see some sorely missed people and back to some much needed places of rest.
I've been working steadily while in town thanks to the folks over at Yuk Yuk's. Just finished my first headlining weekend at the downtown club on Richmond St. I got a chance to not only work with some great acts that I admire, but also follow them. To get up and do 45 minutes after Tim Steeves and Ryan Belleville just crushed 10 minutes was a good benchmark to convince myself I haven't been wasting the last eight years of my life. I've started developing the 'Speechless' act, which has one simple rule...don't talk. After talking so much, and often too fast, it's been interesting to slow down and not say a word. I got the idea after watching some acts in Australia demonstrate it with amazing effectiveness. I've been working on my own version of it. I don't throw this around, but when I opened with it in Toronto, it absolutely killed, which set me up for a bit of a disappointment in Montreal, when it wasn't nearly received at the level it was in TO. There's a lot of factors to weigh in there. The layout of the Yuk's club on Richmond is one of the best in Canada, and the numbers for the week were much better than Montreal. One of the bonuses of this past week in Montreal was working with friends Kirsten, DeAnne, and Tim. These are all very funny, intelligent people who helped make the week just by being there.
I'm currently sitting in the Comedy Nest condo in my underwear, listening to Friendly Fires, a band who I discovered thanks to James and Karen (my new pals from South Australia). There are two days left until I get on stage again at Just For Laughs. I've got two days to put together what I think is the funniest eight minutes of material I have, in the hopes that someone will notice. Having worked closely with the festival for so many years, I know the reality of people actually getting picked up for anything is extremely slim, but that doesn't mean I can take the opportunity any less seriously. Of course it's a fine balance between getting focused and just enjoying the performance. I hope to find it before Thursday night.
Only two weeks left in Montreal and then I fly to Edinburgh. All the adjectives I hear people use to explain the Edinburgh Fringe festival are; 'insane', 'overwhelming', 'amazing'. I look on the horizon and begin to get excited about the insanely overwhelmingly amazing month ahead.

Back Home

Hello friends and family,
So I'm back home. Have been since Friday. Australia was a successful trip. I now have people there whoa re going to help me out with Working Visas and money for my return to Oz next year which is amaaaaazing. I've also met some friends for life, something I had originally thought ended when you hit your mid twenties. Turns out. Not true.
Getting back to Toronto to see the family and walk down to the beach was much needed. I suddenly feel that the importance of keeping the house that I grew up in within the family has increased, and I have a new found determination to work as hard as I can in order to make sure it doesn't have to be sold in order for my parents to properly retire.
How fucked is that though? That we live in a system that requires most people to sell their home in order to live comfortably throughout the end of their lives.
People should be able to live in a house their whole lives AND pass it on to their family without so much difficulty. Homes should not be seen as commodities, but as the foundation of a family and a community that surrounds it.
I remember Mrs. Adams, who used to live next door to us when I was little. We would go over to her place and she would give us butterscotch candies. There are many other reasons to like this woman aside from her candy supply, trust me, she was an angel. So after thirty years of living in the same house with her husband, until he dies a few years before, what does her community do for her? They allow something called property value assessment to shove her out of her own house.
Property value assessment came in in Ontario under the neo-conservative Mike Harris government and it is a long shit-stain on the underwear of Ontario. Basically it assesses your home as to it's perceived value, not the frontage (amount of actual water pipe and sidewalk the city had to build for you property). So the focus turns away from having a home as something to live in and turning it into something to sell.
When houses in the beach began to go up in value, Mrs. Adams' property taxes went through the roof because of what her house was perceived to be worth. She suddenly had to double or even triple her payments, because a bunch of people whose job it is to buy and sell homes determined that her house was 'worth' more. Of course they would...that's how they make their fucking money! By shoving old ladies out of houses, bravo (clap, clap, clap).
There is no way to interpret these types of policies as anything but inhumane and wrong. It is laws like these that destroy opportunity for the building of a community. By having generations of families living next to each other on the same street, they can forge strong relationships and be there for each other. The more people you know on your street, the less you need to worry about a babysitter. The less you need to worry about food, if you suddenly had a tough year. A lot of worries would go away because the isolated tribe of two (which is what we've become, we buy more redundant items that way... go capitalism!) would be increased to a more sustainable level.
Seeing as it doesn't seem like it's going to change anytime soon, I'm determined to make a bunch of these goddamn dollars so I can ensure a piece of our family history isn't lost. As shitty as it might be, it seems like I'm going to have to make money in order not to care about it. How does that make sense?!
Okay I ranted a bit there. Still with me? It's okay if you're not, I understand.
So I'm back in Toronto now. Will be here for three weeks. I'm headlining for the first time at the Yuk Yuk's in downtown Toronto. Then off to Montreal to headline The Comedy Nest. Not sure what I'm going to do for the last two weeks in July. Normally I archive shows for the Just for Laughs festival, but they canceled the entire archiving program this year. It's a sad day for international comedy. I used to tape 45 shows that took place, consisting of hundreds of acts from around the world at the top of their game. I've been doing the gig for five years now, and suddenly it's over. Man this blog entry is a downer. Okay on to happy things!
I'm heading to Scotland to perform in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the first time ever. This is the world's largest festival of it's kind and I can't wait to get out there. Afterward I'll be staying in the UK until mid-November showcasing in clubs and cultivating as much work as possible so that I can return on a yearly basis.
Oh yeah. I just turned thirty on Monday. I hope this doesn't mean I can no longer be silly. I kind of need that.

South Australia

So I'm back where I started this journey. Back to the land of Great White Sharks, 'The City of Churches' and supposedly the murder capital of Oz, Adelaide South Australia. Yes, apparently this is the place in Australia where the most people are murdered, and in the strangest ways. Supposedly more than a few people in Adelaide have been taken from this world, and then had the remnants of their mortal coil placed into small containers.
What I like about this place, (aside from the strange murders of course!) is its proximity to the earth. The real one that we haven't completely covered in cement yet. In the span of three days, I went crab fishing off a pier (or 'Jetty' in Australian), tended bar at my Adelaide Fringe venue the Tuxedo Cat for a punk rock show where the feature act was a Japanese band called 'The Jetboys' (where the lead guitarist got naked) and opening was a Melbourne band called 'Strawberry Fist Cake', went olive picking, fishing, wine tasting and surfing. This is what about love about the region. All you do is say 'yes' a few times and life is just waiting to hit you right in the face here.
First off, I landed in Adelaide and was graciously picked up by Bryan, the co-owner of Tuxedo Cat and his daughter, Scout. After taking almost a dozen flights since I've been here, being picked up at the airport has now become a huge luxury.


My first morning back I get a call from Karl "Thundershaft" Lyons (bitumen layer, Arborist, part-time bouncer at the Tuxedo Cat) who asks if I'd like to join him on the Jetty for some crab fishing. I said 'yes' and within an hour we were on Grange Beach where we tying fish heads to a net and tossing them over the side. After four hours, we had split a six pack of Jim Beam & Coke (I also had a tallboy of VB, which every Australian makes fun of here, but my brother in law loves it and I love him) and caught only three crabs. Two of which were too small, but one was well above size. The excitement of catching it was quickly replaced with regret for having doomed the poor guy to a boiled death. I'm still not quite sure on where you might draw the line between how much living creatures have awareness of their impending death. Crabs arguably just have a central nervous system, but whether or not they actually feel pain is debatable. I would now like to make a formal apology to the little sand crab.
Dear Mr. or Mrs. Sand Crab,
Sorry for leaving you in the kitchen for my friends to throw in a boiling pot. Thank you for being delicious.
Sincerely,
Christophe
Not the most sentimental I know, but humans are pretty brutal at the best of times. I am no different. My heart is as hard as a sand crab's shell.
That night was spent tending bar at the Tuxedo Cat. Like any music show, the bands started 2hrs late. The show was awesome, and had all the trappings of a good Tuxedo Cat show. Tons of booze, nudity, and the night ending when Cass discovered that the poo smell near the front of the stage turned out to be some cabbage.
After getting to bed around 5am, I awoke at 9am to start my weekend of olive picking with James. I stayed with Karen and James my last few weeks of the Fringe and already raved about how wonderful these two people are. They won't be able to house me next year as they are currently in the process of building their very own home in the countryside where they will essentially grow all of their vegetables, have chickens for their eggs, and live in a sustainable house eventually powered by the sun! That is way to fucking do it!
James and Karen's front porch view.

So this past weekend, James and I met up with his friends Damian and Matt, to pick olives in order to have them pressed for their yearly supply of olive oil. I was told this weekend was very sacred, and difficult to be a part of, but seeing as I can't take my share of the oil back home with me, I was a welcomed with open arms.


I had prepared myself for some hard, toiling work ahead, but being out in South Australian wine country, raking away at olive trees as they satisfyingly rained down into the tarp, I didn't for a moment feel like it was work. I'm sure if I had to do it more than two days a year I might feel differently, but it was absolutely gratifying to look at the over half ton of olives we managed to pick by the end of the weekend. Taking a photo of areas is nice, but I highly recommend getting your hands dirty and actually touching the scenery you admire.
We finished early on Sunday and managed to get some surfing in. The waves were coming on hard, and the battle just to get out on the other side of the break was the vast majority of the work. After surfing three times now, I'm amazed at how little time is spent actually catching a wave. So much of the basics is just learning how to get underneath the big waves that you are not catching, and reading which ones you can actually catch. I spent most of my time thrashing around, successfully imitating a wounded seal, but finally did manage to catch and ride one big wave. By 'ride' I mean on my stomach and knees. Standing up is going to take a few more tries.

Monday was spent fishing off an area that looks very much like photos I've seen of Scotland. No real fish biting, but the scenery more than made up for it. On our way home, we stopped by a winery to taste some of the region's best old grape juice, left with a few bottles, swung by a cheese shop and made it home for a great dinner with two of my favorite South Australians. I said it in the last entry and I'll say it again. To anyone who doesn't like South Australia...you're doing it wrong.

Queensland

My first experience of arriving in Cairns, in far north Queensland, was the plane descending into some clouds that looked different. Their shape indicated that they weren’t just hanging in the air, but brushed up against some solid surface. My apprehensions were confirmed when we broke out from the clouds to reveal our proximity to wall of green mountains covering the coastline, leaving only room for a small two lane road known as the Captain Cook Highway.

We exited from the plane onto the tarmac and the wave of humidity confirmed I was now definitely in a tropical part of the world. It was the middle of the night and I took a cab from the airport to a hostel type accommodation where I waited to be picked up by the woman who was running the shows for the next two days.

That day consisted of hanging at her place with the other Australian comedians, Lindsay Webb (a man who ability to associate words into puns, brings it to the level of high art) and Greg Fleet (a comedian whose adventurous past has given him an infamous reputation, but at present day I only found a selfless and considerate man with a tender heart).

Our first show was in Port Douglas, a smaller town about an hour north of Cairns. We did the show in a large wooden boat house called ‘The Sugar Hut’ or ‘Shack’ I can’t exactly remember, but it was formally used to house all the sugar cane years ago.

Next night was at the Blue Sky Brewery in Cairns, another great show. Instead of partying that night, Greg Fleet and I went back to our rooms so we could finish our books and trade them. Rock Stars!

I had a few days in between my shows and the arrival of some comedy pals who were on the Melbourne Comedy Festival Roadshow. So I rented a car, quickly oriented myself with the left side of the road, and drove along the coast and up into the surrounding mountain rainforests. Never having been in a rainforest before, the sheer density of the plant life is what struck me the most. You can start hiking into it, until you can’t see the sky anymore, but for a few cracks of light breaking through the leaves.

I also booked a trip out the great barrier reef to see what all the fuss is about. The boat goes out to three different reef sites. I ended up snorkeling one, and diving at the other two sites. The amount of colourful fish is unlike anything I had seen before in my life. I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a reef shark, which used to be in abundance, but are currently not something you’ll catch a sight of on the reef every day. There was also a large stingray floating by on one of the dives, although he looked pretty battered and worn out. Large sections of the reef were also shattered, and looked much like a forest after a fire. The people working on the boat told me that much of the broken reef was due to the recent cyclone that hit, and not just a result of global warming and ozone degradation. While diving through the reef, what really make me feel like I was in another world, more than anything, were the giant clams. These hundred year old creatures, with bright purple and neon blue flesh, look just like out of a cartoon, but they are magnificently real. The feeling of breathing while under water is most certainly something I will have to experience again. Traversing the reef and being able to control my upward and downward movement, just by how much air I kept in my lungs was such a unique way to manipulate my movements.

That night I met up with some friends at the comedy roadshow in Cairns, we had some beers at the Green Ant Cantina. A funky little bar with a refreshing ‘Green Ant’ brew.

The next day we took a trip to Josephine Falls, just an hour south of Cairns, where a natural rock slide and lagoon, included swinging on vines that actually held my weight.

The beauty of far north Queensland is difficult to describe. I’d never seen fields of sugar cane before, but stopping out a rural road you get a chance to see things which your eyes have never come across before. Like when the sun hits the sugar cane flowers and just beyond that there’s a rainforest covered mountain in the background. That’s close to a double rainbow.

I did make it back to Port Douglas on one of my road trips, to stop in for their Carnivale festival, which I didn’t see much evidence of anything different except several tent shops packing up. However I followed a sign to ‘Fresh Prawns’ off of the boat, and purchased a container of shrimp that I could not finish on my own. Sipping a beer on the docks in the sun, while feasting on shrimp, was most certainly a highlight of the week.

I’m missing a lot here still, but needless to say, Cairns was a great trip on all fronts, and I can’t wait to go back and do a show there again next year. There’ll be more shows to do and plenty more rainforest to cover. Going to bed now. I have more to share on my return to South Australia with Adelaide Comedy, and my weekend of crab fishing, olive picking, surfing, fishing and wine tasting. For those who knock Adelaide and South Australia...you’re just doing it wrong.