The Fest Is Yet To Come

The Fest Is Yet To Come

To the uninitiated, Scotland totters on the stereotype that they are a nation of kilt-wearers eating haggis and wandering around the highlands screaming “If it’s no Scottish, it’s crap!” Obviously this is not the case. The educated among us know that the Scots have been known to wear pants, even jeans as they saunter about, will munch on deep-fried-pretty-much-anything, and use the proper pronunciation, “If it’s NAE Scottish, it’s crap!” At least that’s what happens on my mum’s side of the family.

So, ten years after going over with my brother on a hostel tour that took us to the clan castle (M[a]cRae’s Eilean Donan, if you’re wondering what the hell a Dutch last name has to do with Scotland), pubs, and football matches, I’m heading back to stay with buddy and his girlfriend in Edinburgh. “Hey,” you ask, “isn’t there a festival going on there?” Why, hang on…[thumbs through interweb searching under keywords ‘Scotland’ ‘Edinburgh’ ‘Festivals’ ‘chance-for-Canadian-to-take-stage-and-tank-it’] Why yes, yes there is.

“And further,” you persist, “don’t Rangers play in Glasgow in the next while?” Just a sec…[back to the interweb to Google the words ‘Glasgow’, ‘Rangers’, ‘effing’ ‘brilliant’] Yup. Looks like they do.

“And another thing…” Determined little bastard, aren’t you? “Isn’t Edinburgh a mere hour train ride from Glasgow?” Huh…[typing in keywords ‘British’ ‘Rail’ ‘Football’ Special’ ‘Saturday’ ‘Tuesday’ ‘and-again-the-following-Saturday’] Well, I’ll be. Says here it is. Isn’t that the bee’s knees. Best find my way over there, then.

So, yeah, thanks to my pal’s friend Jim Park (www.toecurler.com) who you may or may not know is a former-drummmer-of-Scottish-punk-legends-The-Exploited-turned-stand-up-comic (and really who isn’t these days) has seen fit to give me some stage time. Also with his assistance, I’ve landed a few other shows as well. Well, hopefully. It may come down to a case of showing up at the venue and getting the “And you are…?” face. So if all goes well, I’ll have these shows, some others by playing the Johnny Foreigner card, and have to schedule stage time around Rangers games, which is a problem I’m cool with having. So it all kicks off today. 9:00pm, on a flight, land at 8:30am, and then find myself in seat X72 in Ibrox Stadium. Nice. As for the shows, the ones I currently believe I have are Hudsons at 6:00pm on Monday and Thursday, Black Bo’s at 10:00pm on Monday, and the Outhouse at 10:30pm. If I get more I’ll post them for sure. If all goes well and I don’t arse up the transit to Edinburgh and end up in Glenbrittle, I should be on stage on Monday firing my Tim-Horton’s-based brand of comedy on the unsuspecting masses. They’ll love it. If by love it you mean ‘heave pint glasses violently towards the stage’.