Last night was last night and it was a very last night kind of last night

Last night was last night and it was a very last night kind of last night
Vancouver, September 22, 2009

Well it all got a bit emotional.
And me I got a bit huggy.
So I have now sorted this year's Fringe artists according to weight.
For I hugged the clammy, the plastered, the emotional, the philosophic, the bringiton.
And most of them are not as heavy as you might think.
Though my back does hurt.
I think I did contact improv with both jonno and sarah edwards. Simultaneously. Which is an odd way to do your only dancing of the year so far.
...
So the gang has split to the four winds.
Various are heading for Seattle for a sketchfest run by Andrew Connor from the cody rivers show, where various live … becky poole, keira mcdonald, chris bange … and where lana, jonno, dan, anders and more will be washing up
While I'm off to London, Ont., for a couple of shows. I have to learn 20 minutes more stuff but it won't be too hard.
Harder is trying to remember what happened on Saturday night … specifically, the crazed end of the cabaret.... This, to be honest, is a tad beyond me...

So…
Here we go with my best and worst moments of the summer

Best moments of the summer:
• The first Friday of the Winnipeg Fringe. Those poor Manitobans didn't have a summer till July 15, so the first two days of the Fringe were uncharacteristically quiet, but then the sun came out and it was like they'd all been hanging around inside by their windows so, at the first big summer sun, they poured out of their houses in huge numbers … a teeming swarming mass of the beautiful punters ragingly up for it … and suddenly it was my favourite Fringe again.
• The night of my review in the Edmonton Journal. The whole summer had been tricky till then, though Edmonton was certainly feeling good … and suddenly, yeehah, I was made. Yabberdabber.
• The Winnipeg Cabaret … Doctor Caligari's Cabaret of Desire, at the King's Head. I produced, Jonno Katz directed, we sold out 130 tickets in eight minutes, and the event was plain marvellous. It is every year. The audience is so very crazy up for it, it's a joy to behold.
• Leaving Calgary. And then, when I wrote a letter of complaint three weeks later, I instantly got an apology and half of my Fringe fee back. Not bad. And so did everyone in my venue. Who all owe me a drink.
• Thetis Lake, outside Victoria. Twenty of us had an afternoon out, with picnic, and all jumped in Thetis Lake. Great people, good times. Sooke Potholes the day before was not bad. The Orcas the day after were OK, too.
• Throwing Jayson McDonald out of the Fringe box office in Edmonton. Come six one afternoon we both had a dozen or so tickets left to sell and so we were flyering like crazy to sell out. Jayson got there first and, when I found he had one ticket left to sell, I grabbed him by the belt and collar, took him to the door and literally threw him out. He bounced off down the way, dancing for joy.
• Seeing Chris Craddock's show in Toronto. A killer show. I never saw it again because I could never get in, it was sold out. My next favourite show would be Straight From That… which I saw three times because I could always get in. Because she never got a bloody audience. It's flawed but it has so much going for it and me, I found it inspirational: it reminds me to not back down from going for a strong out-there idea. To go for it.
• The white morning sun on the wet autumn streets of Vancouver.
• My biggest audiences in Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Victoria and Vancouver. So much fun.
• Really getting into writing these blogs. Which made Victoria and Vancouver so much better.
• A thousand of my chats whilst flyering the line-ups in every city, even Calgary and Ottawa. So much fun. The volunteers, punters, Fringe staff in every city, even Calgary and Ottawa. So many nice people, so many lives, so many smiles, so much fun.
• Arriving in Montreal at the start of it all. I love that city. My favourite place in Canada. Notre Dame, the 13th Hour, Portuguese Chicken, Chinatown, ice cream down on the harbour, St. Laurent late on a Friday or Saturday night.
• The Vancouver Cabaret, mister kinski's CABARET OF BS, last Saturday. See blog below. We had no idea what would happen, especially if there would be any audience … I directed and it was very like the Winnipeg Cabaret we run. The audience lit it with flashlights and were crazy for it … and we all ended up taking the bows with twenty marshmallows stuck to each shoe. And, one day after, the last night of Vancouver, of the whole tour, of the gang, the once-only never-again beautiful gang. High emotions and less drinking than usual. I was almost last to leave. I'll never see some of those people again.
• That I won't have a winter. Because I'm off to India for six months. So my summer will keep going.

Worst moments of the summer:
• Losing my voice in Toronto. See below. Oww. And argh.
• The day of the Winnipeg review. Ouch • It was sticky from then on, though in the end I still did pretty well, and had a killer time with the audiences.
• Priscilla my girlfriend flying back to Manitoba at the end of Edmonton. Five weeks apart.
• Cat's Crushes … A kind of awards ceremony in Ottawa where the press officer chooses her "favourite people." The single most obnoxious event I have witnessed in Canada … A new excursion in unctuousness, an uber-obnoxious foray into the far reaches of sickly cliquey s**t. Just hideous. I left, broken, the next day.
• A certain amount of electroverbal vitriol being thrown at me.
• Realising, after ten days pointless struggle, there was no worth going back to Calgary.

Which all means, I hope you realise, that there were far more good bits than bad bits.
So that's it for this blog. Writing it has made the last month much better and, if you've read this far, thanks for staying.
Next stop a beach in Karnataka. Or a hillside in Orissa.
See you.
Jem
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