The first night of our charity shows at McVeigh’s, “Nuthin’ But Skirts” went fantastically. The all-female line-up (save me, but I’m a bit of a pussy anyway) knocked it out of the park for all there. We raised a good chunk of coin for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and if nothing else, we had possibly the most famous person to ever grace our room in the audience, whose name my Gentile mouth still couldn’t pronounce right, Theodore Bikel. It was truly an honour to stand perform this world renound actor and do my dick jokes.

This was a perfect way to start off the next two months, and I’m hoping that the good times continue for the other shows and the other charities.

Oh, and we got written up in Now Magazine so that’s got to be cool.

Thanks all, and we’ll see you at the other themed charity nights!

It seems I tend to have weeks and months where I plumb forget how busy I am until I open up my calendar in Outlook. That happened Thursday. It was one of those things where you know you’ve got the things going on that you do, but you didn’t think it was “that day” already. I had three in a row. I really should hire a PA. Or get a new head.
Something. I got to perform with a pack of my friends and colleagues and also see one of the best acts Canada has to offer. I travelled five hours round-trip to do 30 minutes for 30 people (everyone walked home with a minute’s worth of show!). And after months of scheduling bleah, I finally got to perform at a friend’s room after podcasting the heck out of it. Busy as stink and it ain’t even December yet.

(more…)

So after the tragic moose confrontation and the few times that I screamed at the TV whenever a Montana’s commercial would come on, the tour continued. I at least got off a wee bit easy in that Andrew Grose, the moose collider, had to now deal with a broken car, get a rental, and drive his arse to Calgary for a spot. Apparently when he told his insurance agent that he’d hit a moose, the rep on the line said, “Where you calling from? Heaven?” We fully admit that we were lucky to leave alive, the pain was mitigated for me after I played drinking games with the Tragically Hip the following night.

(more…)

So with the “Fail Whale Tales” now nothing more than a memory in the Twitter-Space, the odd Google alert that garnered traffic through people looking at it and the like, and a stack of posters that were too numerous to hang, ditto the FWT postcards that I’ll now use as index cards and bookmarks for magazines, it’s been more than a daily trip down the QEW to Hamilton for the Hamilton Fringe. The whole experience of building a show from idea, to script, to production was as arduous as it was rewarding. I’m a bit wired and knackered at the same time as I write this, fresh from the drive back from the Hammer, so here are the thoughts I currently have on it that are now able to be more than 140 characters in length.

(more…)

“Germany.”

- end of transmission -

So that was the enforced triumphant closer to the first show of my run at the Hamilton Fringe Festival. “The Fail Whale Tales” stopped suddenly for those watching on the web, but not for those in attendance at The Pepper Jack Café. Apparently it wasn’t just the folks in the room learning stuff about Twitter. Seems Twitter checks the number of tweets you send out over the course of time and cuts off your ability to broadcast tweets after a flurry of activity. As you can imagine I send a few tweets over the course of the show, so this was a small setback for the remote audience. But that will just motivate folks to come down and see it live.

Admittedly, the first show did feel like a first show. Nervousness, excitement, nostalgia. And that was just from finding a Dr. Disk in Hamilton, a music store franchise that I’d not seen since my university days. Sadly, the closing of the Twitter-dam was not the only obstacle that I was going to hit.

(more…)