the flowers of Natal

my billet gillian had an aunt
winifred
a navy scientist in 1916
!
who
amongst many other things
wrote a book called
the wild flowers of southern africa
natal
a rambler's pocket guide
and the dedication reads

IN MEMORY OF
John
my husband, who, coming to
Natal in 1947, loved the wild
flowers, and suggested we buy
a little book to tell us their
names, but there was no
little book

...
ahhhh
...

The Race To Save My Audience From ...THE CLIFFS! THE CLIFFS!

Dateline, Victoria

...
Ok
Lets get this straight
I love my audience
Even when a show is as hideous
ghastly and
superultraterrible
as that was
And the whole dreadful hour was a
travesty of theatre
everyone would rather had
not happened
...
So apologies are simply not enough when i race out of my venue after the show to see the audience have already all gone, vamoosed, exited... and, with an awful jolt, i know where they're heading, i know exactly where they're heading ... so i am suddenly on a mercy mission to save them from the very understandable but slightly OTT fate of...
The Cliffs! The Cliffs!
So once i got off stage and confronted the full chastening horror of the past hour for a full nightmare minute, i knew there was only one place i could go and only one thing i could do...
The Cliffs! The Cliffs!
To save them from themselves,
from me,
from their sudden understandable desire for a
total and
irredeemable
end to it all
The Cliffs! The Cliffs!
So i stopped a passing car and yanked out the driver
like Steve Buscemi in Reservoir Dogs
and sped off to the cliffs,
crashing three times, and ending up in,
yes in,
a McDonalds...
and having to abruptly steal another...
from a six foot six, brick shithouse security guard ...who
took one look at my demented death-rictus face, and started running,
fast,
much faster than his 250 pounds of muscular bulk would seem to allow
The Cliffs! The Cliffs!
So i'm belting along,
unused to driving on the right,
swerving,
smashing,
screaming expletives and agonised imprecations at a
non-existent God
with a long stream of self-abuse in no sense
adequate enough in the face of
what went on on that stage,
in that chasm of a room,
to those unfortunate
slumping
life-ebbing punters
The Cliffs! The Cliffs!
And as i approach the cliffs i'm suddenly scared that,
like the second Mrs De Winter in Rebecca,
i'm too late...
and i see my kamikaze audience are already there and
like Zombie Lemmings,
they are staggering towards the cliffs to...
throw themselves off
...
but handily the horrific show has so utterly enervated them,
has so vanquished and vanished every
remaining energy
except the inner screen urgently flashing
Die! Die! Die!
that they have yet to reach the edge of very darkness
The Cliffs! The Cliffs!
Die! Die! Die!
So i hurtle off the road onto the green and
smash heavily and loudly
into some concrete posts,
cursing and shouting ...
which brouhaha briefly
distracts them from their voidward stagger so i can
run in front of them at the clifftop and imploringly shout
NO, NO, NO,
DON'T,
I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY I'M SORRY...
except i then foolishly try to reason with them
by saying, it wasn't that bad
so they can all slowly groaningly reply,
Y-e-s I-t W-a-s,
as the first of my woebegone audience flow past me and
over the edge and suddenly,
hideously,
they are pouring past me out and down
The Cliffs! The Cliffs!
...
Except...
after a characteristically
self-indulgent brief moment while i
ponder the undeniable fact this does not
constitute a good review...
i look down behind me and see its not really a cliff,
cos this is Victoria
and they don't do really cliffs...
but some of my tragic clientele have
broken bones and are
writhing and crawling around the rock and sand on an
impassioned mission to
reach the sea and
immerse their forever within its unfolding endlessness...
...
Then i woke up... And discovered it was all ...

true.

...
...

this story would seem a lot truer to me if i could
reconcile it with the fact i
did actually get a curtain call!
!!!???!!!

which, personally, makes far less sense than the above
...
!!!???!!!
...

first thing i was dead
sorry
first thing that happened was whilst making my entrance i
fell over the curtain
...
that was the good bit
...

colonic revelation ...

i've had this great revelation
or perhaps
something great has come out of the colon
...
the world is all: that is the case

in-lit joke
...

its all gone a bit daphne du maurier

g has no cat
but feeds the crows
and the gulls...
so out on the wooden porch
its all gone a bit Daphne Du Maurier
...
so i'm trying to think of the
crows from Dumbo
but its all gone a bit Alfred Hitchcock
...

g says she has a slightly damaged seagull who visits
who does a quasi goosestep
so she calls him Siegheil
...
she says that
because she feeds them
they buzz her car
in kinda friendliness
...
so i'm thinking Dumbo rather than

...

the best translation of
Dante's Inferno I've read
was translated by Daphne Du Maurier
a woman of many parts, obviously

song of the morn is
each man kills the one he loves
by jeanne moreau on youtube
with
is that all there is
by peggy lee
...

first show good
i was ok
[adjusting to new space]
but audience were great
rocking
feels good
rob gee is absolutely sell-out 5star killing
so we'll see how i do
...

the bath has a menu

the bath has a menu

...
yes a menu
...
and as g my very nice billet
originally from guildford
says
its the only complicated thing in the house apart from me

yes a menu
a computerised menu
...

yet i can't get the bloody taps to produce any water

...

victoria
bc
still waterlines
dark rock against silver sea
easy flight
leave p and the albertan autumn for 3 weeks and
head for coast
easy landing
staying in esquimault
[pron. esk-why-moult
a deliberate pronounciation i can't get my tongue round]
on the panhandle
by the gorge waterway
very nice flat water in the wan sun for a morning coffee

...
so i arrive and de-bag
and buzz caffeinated round town meeting rob and nile and tamara and kristel
and flyering
and dan and claire and ellison and david and martin i just saw in edmont
[jimmy hogg has fled, has never arrived, why?]
...
...

and await first show at 2
...
...

favourite fringe shows ever...

...
...
boy groove - chris craddock, jonny p, matt alden, andrew busey, aaron macri, etc
uber alice - jonno katz'' first show... taught me a few extra meanings of freedom
the hiphop book of job
moving along -chris craddock
the fringe show a love story - ryan gladstone and bruce horak
slipknot - tj
...
...
and then it might be
straight from that side of town - catherine montgomery
teaching shakespeare - keir cutler, first great fringe show i saw
totem figures - tj
wanderlust & the bike trip - 2 martin dockeries
antoine feval - chris gibbs
...
...
and then
wool - alex eddington
cactus 2010 - jonno katz
legoland - jacob richmond and those atomic vaudevillians from victoria
PS69 - susan jeremy
betrayal - pinter in toronto in 2008/7?
poison the well - andrew connor and elison zasko
...
...
and three great cabarets
the late lamented
rumoli brothers in toronto
the 13th hour in montreal
and our own tourer's cabaret
doctors caligari's
in winnipeg
...
...
will update this as thoughts strike

no hair

whaddappened?
i go to meet chris gibbs for coffee and i come back with no hair

...
i thought i was safe
i mean, i need a haircut
the grey sticks straight out from the temples after 40 mins of show
but i thought i was safe
out at staples on calgary trail
the industrial zone
the roads and depots
the square and square
then whoops
a rock'n'roll'n'auto barber/ keyshop
and whoops
before you can say
jack robinson
no hair
...

and slope back down mill creek
for the cricket score and spud salad
and some more sleep before
victoria tomorrow
...

and straight back into it
...

...

...

root beer floats

...
...
what a discovery
...
or rediscovery

...
so we have david samurai gaines and martin wanderlust round for lunch
salad
hoorah
first time we've had people round
p cooked
even though i've forgotten how
and i'll be doing the cooking all winter
and the very first mention of
root beer floats
gets a big rousing cheer
and an awwww
...

so i've come late to the
reality of the
root beer float
...

how many other pleasures will i discover too late?
...

carver story

can you imagine a robert carver story in which a
couple are watching short cuts
the robert altman movie made up of
various robert carver short stories put together into one?
...
i can
...
and where one of the couple
the woman
spends the entire story asking
who is that?
what was she just in?
and saying them excitedly
who is that?
wasn't he in?
that's...
and, at best,
whatever happened to marilyn stowe??
is he kissing her with a toothpick in his mouth?
and
was this julianne moore's first ever movie
and quoting andie mcdowell's worst lines
its raining?... i hadn't noticed
i can
o brother i can
...
cos everyone's in it
and a certain male was reduced to saying
nothing but things like
jennifer jason leigh
last of the mohicans
peter gallagher
margot at the wedding
that film with alan cumming
and, alot
i don't know
i can't remember
and, at best
its andie mcdowell, who cares?
...
i can

...
when lily tomlin came out as a lesbian
some people were actually shocked
like shocked
wow
like wow
...
that
is heroic

...
great biodoc on carver by pbs on the short cuts dvd
inspiring and very interesting...
ugh the demon drink again...
...

over the hump

...
nothing i do for the rest of the year
will be as hard as that
nothing
...
that's the hard bit
the killer bit
the chew it out bit
the tough bit
the hours of hard hard work every day bit
and it was a triumph
seven sellouts out of ten
thank god
...
throat recovering
cash banked
brain reviving
movies watched
plans made
words reviving
language reviving
ideas reviving
...
over the hump
...

victoria saturday

the beast

...
the beast
the beast
the great big anarchist beast
...
and i built it
me
the beast
the beast
the great big bloody anarchist beast
...

more bye than hi

and once more
the cycle of saying goodbye to those
i won't see again for a while
if ever

...

for
every year there's a few who go and are gone
never to be seen again
great people, you've spent alot of time with
and then
...
whooosh
no more

...
and we're now six fests down, two to go
so the cycle of hi and bye is now more
bye than hi
...

so bye to cameryn moore
as in phone whore
a great strong woman i liked a lot
to annie lefevre
from the squatter heart
a muscular type
to dave dawson who drove me from winnip to sask
and sask to edmont
who i didn't even say bye to
to zak?
chris cantwell?
to alex eddington who's show i never even saw
to others

most will be in vict and vanc
but those are real names to say bye to
and p is saying BYE to almost everyone for she's
staying here to start school
and not enjoying all the BYEness
the no more chris bange
the etc
...

more bye than hi
...

last vestiges...

ON 87th ave new
a truck with four portaloos
portapotties
heads away from the fringe

the unjoys

barry smith's blog

http://www.aspentimes.com/ARTICLE/20100823/COLUMN/100829956/-1/RSS

very funny on the unjoys of flyering

dorando pietri

...
are you with me?
...
dorando pietri
the italian marathon runner in the 1908 olympics
london
who was so knackered he kept falling over
like so knackered he's staggering all over the place
beyond exhaustion
so some stupid officials helped him over the line
...
and he got disqualified
...

well i was that marathon runner
sans disqual
and now i'm home
...
final show was beautiful
killer
a dream

best way to innocently muck up someone else's show

...
stand outside as the audience are going in
handing out packets of chips and popcorn
to everyone
...
so, inevitably, there is going to be some rustling
the whole time
if not lots
...
...
...
and then
if you're feeling sadistic
stand outside after
when the actor or actors are leaving
and watch the chastened look on their face as they've had a
bloody awful time
with their show
...
the good thing about this malevolence is that a successful show will have the worst time
as there'll be more people
...
hee hee hee
...
this would be a very mean trick

stagger to the finishing line

...

once again

...
teeter totter tipsy tippy tumbly turvy
to the finishing line
again
...

one show left
nine down
one to go
again

...

knackered
but not knackered enough to stop the
show from rolling
the hour has been fabulous
and the pub has been extra open after
cajun chicken and pitchers
again
...

again
again
seeing how this year's edmonton run has been remarkably like last year
...

similar selling
similar hustling
similar greatness
similar bestfeelingofsummer
and maybe pretty like the year before
again

...
similar selling
similar hustling
similar greatness
similar hours of days hustling to 8.30 selling selling
ticket sales over 40 over 50 over 60
cranking into serious blagging 5.30 6
stopping by 7.30 if all is/was well
and all is/was usually well
similar bestfeelingofsummer
and maybe pretty like the year before
again
...
...

so the show's going well

and the show's going well

...

and these two things are not necessarily connected

...

at all

...

there's how the show feels

on stage

to the punters

and it feels great

best show-stage moments since this weekend last year

...

and then there's how the show is selling

and its selling great

six sell-outs

...

so yeah, its all ok

edmonton has been v nice to me again

so i says to priscilla

i says

stop starting your sentences with stop

...

and she says

start stopping your sentences with start

webreview

totally bonkersly great review of me on

http://labonneviveuse.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/edmonton-fringe-2010-jem-rolls-one-man-riot/

crazily good

an essay

wow

however, as a caveat to that website
i should state that i think martin dockery's two shows
wanderlust
and the bike trip
are the best shows i've seen all year
...
and the way he tells his stories
most noticeably how and where he concludes them
is both subtly beautiful and
aesthetically risky
...

chewing through the days

cruisy days
chewing on through
seen zero shows
flyering as hard as i need
cbc radio spot, fun
blagging bulling flyering dozens
wander in early and mooch about for 90 120 mins
chatting with mates
other performers
todd who owns my venue
volunteers
whoever
coffee
snack
the odd minor chore
then crank into the box office for flyering 5ish
keep checking sales as i go
and keep flyering till
sellout is either guaranteed or achieved
day after day
ten in all
getting there
aiming for seven sellouts out of ten
and should make it
...

one man waterfall [again]

...
show going great
the actual hour
most of my best shows of the year are in edmonton
at the b scene
despite its imperfections for the audience
and the absurd heat
and sweat sweat stickiness of the performer
drenched
sweat running up and down and curlicuing off his flailing drippy arm
...
one man rainbow
one man tropical rainstorm
...
as i've got older the sweat isn't as much as it was
some years it wouldn't be a drip off my nose
it would be a pour
...
but i am still the
drop of water with a human being inside
after all, the human waterfall
a sheen of fluid with a noticeable downward flow
...

and now that i move about more
...
i no longer have the
pool of liquid coming together at my
feet and running off towards the
audience
o yes
its no big
its not clever
its no sanitary
and its not at all nice
...
...

one man drop in the ocean

...
but the venue is marvelous for the performer
because its a pressure cooker
the audience of 90 is very close
and its super easy to power the show to the audience
like nowhere else
to make the show explosive
to fuel and air to the perfect mix and then
...
whoomph...
...

... marvelous

nice moment

...
nice moment sitting in the cheap bar/ pizza joint
steel wheels
with
martin wanderlust
priscilla
elison sputniks
david samurai and his wife
cos we're all happy
our shows are all doing well
when this young blond guy comes up and
congratulates me on my show
he saw it earlier
which is nice
so we're talking
and martin is a superfriendly guy
better than me at talking conversationally to punters
[rather than hustlingly]
and they chat a bit about the fringe
and then martin asks what the guy's going to see and he says
i'm really looking forward to wanderlust
and we point at martin and say
hey that's him
and the guy goes
great
and then we point at elison and say
she's from the sputniks
and the blond says
hey i've got a ticket
and they all chat a bit
and then we say
have you heard of the samuari show?
and the guy says
i've got as ticket for that too
and we all clap
cos he's got the full-set of everyone round the table
...
nice moment

autumnal already
the bright-behinded sitting grey above
...

journal review

Fringe regular Jem Rolls loses none of his trademark physicality in this departure from his usual perambulating performance poetry shows.

This time out, the angular Brit sticks to one narrative — all right, with some digressions — in demonstrating yet again his rare knack for working over prose and metaphors until they shine with impressionistic splendour.

One Man Riot finally reveals the secret of all this shout-out wordplay Rolls has immersed himself in over the years. All those thousands of shows, those sweat-stained shirts, those countless well-timed vocal crescendoes got their start in the bloody streets of Piccadilly back in London, 1990, during the infamous poll tax riots. Rolls’s funny and vivid account of the events of that day, and the odd little role he played in them, makes for clever social commentary, and a ripping good story.

And it’s a story that may come with a ghost, if that’s to your liking.

3 1/2 stars

fatty gud

...
n'kd
...

the yanks

...
i remember my uncle john talking about "the yanks"
from the war
or just after the war
in vienna
a divided zonal city
he said the yanks were
the best people in the world
not got something?
ask a yank and he'll give it you
some austrian wants something and you haven't got it?
ask a yank
and he'll give it you to give to them
...
the yanks?
best people in the world
and he would never hear anything against them without saying
the yanks
best people in the world
...
...

he also said the viennese had zero respect for the british or americans
would take the piss in any way they could get away with
but that they'd walk past the Russians
on their knees

**********

o my god
whatever i said about tiredness before...
forget it
this is terrible
the show is murdering me
all timing was different yesterday
cos i was so tired
after the dream of a show the night before
almost perfect except i'm so hot
and sweaty
and dripping
and red
and sweat spraying
and nose dripping
and unsanitary
and hideous
and i began to feel profoundly unwell five minutes before the end
where last night the journal were finally in and
blimey it was hard
maybe he liked it
we'll see
...

but this is being tough
the flyering and performing are making me so tired i can't do much else
...

but we watched peeping tom
what a killer movie
a mean pig of a film
but excellent

...

no brain?

no brainer
three shows
two sellouts

busting an absolute gut to get a sold out sticker up on the boards
flyering like crazy
five six hours
super slick
the same old routine rattling slickly out three hundred times a day
honing honing honing the spiel
adding new comic lines
inflections
retimings
making them laugh and
slowly getting them in
...

show great
shattering
to do
am forty minutes in
completely exhausted
sweat-drenched
breathless
staggering
and then i get to the actual riot part of the story
...
and i think
o jesus no
o jesus here we goi
o jesus

peeping tom
not seen it for twenty years
what a marvelous film

priscilla says
i 'm depressed
the fringe is so mean and cruel
and i say
what do you mean, the reviews
and she says
yes
and well its true
bad shows get good reviews
good shows get iffy reviews
a few people get what they deserve
and one show i know has an outrageous review
maddening
disgusting even
that makes me mad as hell
a crass piece of small-minded stupidity from a good journalist in a decent publication

...
but well
and it might sound cowardly but
i am in no position to go round slagging off media
who have the power of life and death over my show

surrounded by

bloody clowns

everywhere

...

first show dead good

no press in

all feels good

...

we'll see

...

The Big One

slow early days leading up to the start
of this
the big one
edmonton
...
yesterday was the opening parade
always a laugh
even for the most unparadey of acts
me
where the best bet is to simply enjoy it
to blag and flyer stacks of people
and even shift some tickets
while the paradey acts
with casts
and costumes
move showily behind me
...

except i got surrounded by a horde of christian clowns and the cast of hair
yes an army of bloody hippies and a
gaggle of oxymoronic clowns
of inconceivable humorousness
and found a bilious bile rising from a deep gorge of a reservoir within me
found myself spitting
glowering
growling
grring
cursing
found myself approaching strangers
thrusting a flyer into their paw and growling
Never Trust A Bloody Hippy
found myself venomous
increasingly gleefully venomous
found myself without the spirit of the event
the opening party

...
followed by the free-for-all
where i was on for a five minute slice early
and gave my customary speech about the fringe tour
and how far we've all come to be here
and then did a short slice of the show

...
kinda bad
but who cares
twas all fun and here we are
its The Big One
should be good

dockery
as in wanderlust
my fave show of summer
gets a five from the journal
[unusual for a one-man show]
which means his tour
an unstoppable juggernaut of a success
is guaranteed an unclouded
untainted
success...
the journal was the last hurdle to leap
and it could have stuffed him
it has stuffed many
but he's over and he's clear and its
plain sailing to the finishing line
...

the journal makes you or breaks you in this town
four and over makes you
three or under sinks you
especially if you're not a comedy
...
everyone else in sask got reviewed by the journal there
while
mysteriously
i didn't
but i've done well with them the past few years
so we'll see
...

and this fest is big
there is bundles bucketloads and billions of audience out there
and my best audience experiences of the past few years have all been in that/ this
small venue
so this could be
should be
...
good
...

a pain in the neck

...

aside from my non-existent lower lip
which has been blown off by shouting
[see blog sept 09 below]
yes shouting
...

my chief vocational ouch is my neck
first ouched in 97
during Edinburgh
its a shoulder neck muscle thing
which feels like a complaining bone
but is really an inflamed muscle
and blimey does it hurt sometimes
bloody ouch
it stiffens up and it spreads
so walking turning anything becomes an
ouch
so performing becomes an ouch
and sometimes it lasts a week
...

and jonno katz
just a got a great review for cactus from the scotsman
from kate copstick
who i kinda used to know
and is also a tv producer who once put me on tv
very nice review
...

albertan coupledom

...
brimming over with goodness
scudding flat whiteness
first day back at college, again
day one of the usual poster frenzy
day two to come
click of staplers, off-taste of tape
futterbingers twist tape
boards fences windows poles
folks not seen for a year
mark meer, thomas scott, sage
a very fleeting kevin gillese
quiet night in with la belle epoque
and boudu saved from drowning
both over-rated
wine sandwiches and yesterday's chinese
buddy's on 104th
enervating heat of the hot sun
comfy new bed
furniture bills
50 cent and
60s pop songs
vatloads of coffee
a new world to go for
engorged muscle
root beer floats
p taking me on tour of kitchen
all those things i never had
ice cream scoop
...for root-beer floats
a new life
in albertan coupledom
...

the documentary hypothesis

...
of how and when the first books of the bible
the pentateuch
were written
...
which posits four distinct sources/ writers
and a final editor, or two
of different age
and place
and agenda
and literary quality
and that those different sources account for the
contradictions and double statements
...

J, Jahwist source

The oldest source, concerned with narratives, making up half of Genesis and half of Exodus, plus fragments of Numbers. J describes a human-like God, called Yahweh (or rather YHWH) throughout, and has a special interest in the territory of the Kingdom of Judah and individuals connected with its history. J has an eloquent style. Originally composed c. 950 BCE.^[4]

E, Elohist source

E parallels J, often duplicating the narratives. Makes up a third of Genesis and half of Exodus, plus fragments of Numbers. E describes a human-like God initially called Elohim, and Yahwehburning bush, at which Elohim reveals himself as Yahweh. E focuses on the Kingdom of Israel and on the Shiloh priesthood, has a moderately eloquent style. Originally composed c. 850 BCE.^[4] subsequent to the incident of the

D, Deuteronomist source

D in the Pentateuch is restricted to the book of Deuteronomy, although it continues into the subsequent books of Joshua, Judges and Kings. It takes the form of a series of sermons about the Law, as well as recapitulating the narrative of Exodus and Numbers. Its distinctive term for God is YHWH Elohainu, traditionally translated in English as "The Lord our God." Originally composed c. 650–621 BCE.^[4]

P, Priestly source

Main article: Priestly source

P is preoccupied with lists (especially genealogies), dates, numbers and laws. P describes a distant and unmerciful God, referred to as Elohim. P partly duplicates J and E, but alters details to stress the importance of the priesthood. P consists of about a fifth of Genesis, substantial portions of Exodus and Numbers, and almost all of Leviticus. According to Wellhausen, P has a low level of literary style. Composed c. 600–400 BCE.^[4]

R, Redactor

The first redaction of the Torah (Rd1) combined J and E to create JE, c 750 BCE. A second redactor combined JE with D and P to put the work into its final form c 400 BCE.

this hypothesis held for a hundred or so years
till the 90s

for it has proved to be a perennial
permanent in fact
very difficult task for historians to
assess the actual source
contemporary pressures
and inspirations
for the writing and the editing
...
and has thus far proved
in fact
an impossible job

...
for this view, the DH, reigned
with general acceptance
for most of the 20th century but is now
slowly dissolving into desuetude
...
scholars now doubt the dates
the entire notion of four different writers
doubt every one of the writers
doubt the dates
doubt everything
...
and so
classically, for the post-modern era
the certainties have collapsed
and now no-one can say much for sure
where before they could
...
and all the recent works are near unreadable
not for the faint-hearted
in the marvelous words of one scholar
...

but, i have to wonder
weren't we better off when there was a working hypothesis?
a version of history many or most could agree with?
even though it was wrong?
because now we have no certainty or certainties
no solid mental ground to stand on
and perhaps a diverse range of different views
now we can no longer say anything at all
...
and there may not be for centuries
another hypothesis many or most can agree with
and looking at history
one can confidently ask if
there will ever be a theory as solid as that one
as popularly believed in
...
so that the DH may be the best we ever got
the golden age of biblical scholarship
when we actually had something to believe in
something we could believe in
where now its chaos
where now everything is utterly disputable
and there are a whole host of competing theories
each with its own advocates
its own agenda
pressure
inspiration
slant
bias
institutional investment
career investment

...

while me i like the DH because it
fits my mindset that
the priestly source be the dull one
the least well-written one
the Vatican-style self-agendaed self-interested one
...
my longheld fraser-esque idea
or was it mcluhan-esque idea
that
in ancient israel
the scribes were always at war with the prophets
and in this rationale
the yahwehist would be
the prophet
and the priestly the
powerseeking scumbag dryitout
scribe type
...
...

the great god Pan throws a storm

and he doesn't muck about, Pan

...
utterly demented hailstorm
right now, still
bashcrashbattering on the roof of the car
at first a few clicks but then the
clattering batter
peasized and billionfold
a thickpour soaking you in ten seconds as you
run from garage to door
a once-in-a-century style storm
glowering depthless greyness
crashing thunder and
startling lightning
the streets of bucketing rain aired with craziness
with overover energy
with drenching downflooding chaos
the pavements a scatter a sprawl of tidal hail
...

the kind of storm which
ruins crops
ruins farmers

o no no no its the magic mountain

...
o no
we have the magic mountain
i'm gonna be here the whole winter
stuck indoors away from the 18 hour dark and the murderous murderous cold
and that gives me no excuse not to read it
o no
do you know how long it is
at least the holy sinner was short
do you know how thick that book is?
do you?
does anyone ever read thomas mann anymore?
they should
but do they?
...

would recommend
the holy sinner
to anyone
the bells the bells
man becomes hedgehog becomes pope
great stuff
...

and there's don quixote
but i've
always
wanted to read it
but been lazy or distracted

...

new pad

new pad
blimey its nice
bright new
very new

...
p has been buying stuff with her mum all week
since arriving last sunday
furnishing the rooms
buying stuff
and here we are
...
i have come home
home
very tired
kinda jaded
new bed
sweetheart
...
home
to a home i've never seen
...
nice drive from sask with dave dawson
and rachelle fordyce
...

got a message from bruce partington
who i wento school with
hi bruce
how's life?

bright sunny square green streets of my new home town
...

we won the cricket
hurrah

...

so here i am
edmonton
where i started this blog a year ago
a big fringe
tough in some ways
but with billions of audience
to go out and get
should reviews go poorly
...

i remember the first couple i flyered last year
they stopped moving as i spoke to them
they froze
and the man said very slowly
we are aware of your show jem
...
???
...

my first year here was hard
2003
the tour was going great but this was sticky all round
reviews
feeling
everything
i was an exceedingly full on english poet and it didn't feel they got it or me at all
at all
..
one show
the last saturday
when everyone else sold out
and my audience was chiefly composed of people who couldn't get in to everything else
blimey was it hideous
they made 10 per cent of the laughter and applause of any show on the tour that year
and i began to break half way through
at the end i didn't take a bow but simply ran
i bet i was 300 yards away before anyone else had left the building
..
i was discovered two hours later
wandering the streets
with a death mask rictus for a face
muttering
they didn't laugh... they didn't laugh...

and my second year i was trepidatious
was worried the whole westward way along the trail
and got here and people poured in in big numbers
and they were all like
we loved your show last year
and i was like
you know what
that is not what i remember
one of us wrong and you know what
its all of you

whatever, i had a great time
the audience caught onto me years before the reviewers did
...

and now i very much like this fringe
...

and respect it
...

this

that

out of that and into
...

NARMER and LUGALZAGESI

i've got the names

NARMER and LUGALZAGESI
the first egyptian
and the first sumerian
leader bastards
...

going home today
to a home i've never seen
...
out of this and into
...

end of fring end thing

end of fringe

...

well i've done my last show
and i'm done
kinda knackered and pretty happy
with a new home waiting for me
6 hours westwards in edmonton

...
saskatoon worked out
word of mouth
and flyering
did me fine in the end
it built nicely towards
100-120 punters in a glorious show
less laughing, but more rapt

it was one of those spaces which are great for the performer
but poor for the audience
sightlines are lousy
and the room heated up with the week
so once again i was
a drop of water with a human being inside
once again
the human waterfall
once again

the shiny sheen descending to the stagefloor

...
so i recovered from the dent of the star phoenix review
and did fine
did well
had a chilled laugh
and even made some cash
...
haggeringly stammered
...

the boozer the blag the bullshit the blah
the blog the babble the blagging and the blur

...
jayson meghan martin elison allan erik
lisa bremner dave amy
dan claire josh sarah matt daniel carly
peter cooley john stewart
...
the folks the gang the army the team
...

last night bumped into chuck hamilton
good slam poet of this parish
who reviewed me for planet s online
the sask freebie
and gave me a great review which was only 3 and a half stars
so i got to tell a reviewer that
3 and a half stars don't butter no parsnips
in fact it tells people DON'T GO
as in
DON'T GO
aka
do not go

which he didn't know and
most of them don't
...
...

have enjoyed sask more than ever before

and tomorrow off to the new home
p is well excited by it
and here i go again on the ever westward chute
...
...

dixie hummingbirds/ isley brothers

...
just watching the isleys brothers doing shout on youtube
and the dancing is very
very
like the dixie hummingbirds
the guys who kinda invented soul
witness
i've got so much to shout about
...
ain't that great?

latest night of summer

5am
worst party in years

...
so we`re leaving about four
its hammered guys doing very little
plundering the be freer
some guy the whole time in a sleeping bag in the
middle of the living room floor
over-animated shouty hippy-grunge types
and i find my jacket and then
put it coat down and it ain`t there
so i wander round
its a harrington
black
very english
with the check lining
so i delay the folks i`m leaving with
and look for it
and look for it
and then look for it where it can`t be
out the back of the house
and there`s some guy wearing it
really?
sitting there by himself in it
so i say
is that my jacket?
it is?
can i have it back?
so the iffy wally takes it off and gives it me
and we leave
...

that was the post-spoof night party
me and berkeley stait from the fringe hosted
an annual ttradition
where everybody spoofs everyone else
names are pulled from a hat three days before and no-one knows who's spoofing who
and it was not bad
great even
allan gridon
and dockery
and jayson/ meghan
did great spoofs
except it finished at 2.40
...
depositing me into the
early lunchtime kinda morning
with a
fagfilled beercan for a head
...
...

nicetimes

...
having a nice time in this town
streets to walk
shows to see
folks to meet
easy strolling easy thinking easy talking easy living
as nice a time as i've had in this town
...

fave shows of summer are still die rotenpunkte and wanderlust/ biketrip
here have thoroughly enjoyed death live
and one man show
goofy goofy fun from young very funny toronto guys
...

i like walking but sometimes i think
i'm not that good at it
i always forget to stop and sit down
and read
and think
i always keep going and
arrive a tad knackered from what
should have been
a relaxed ramble.
...
witness yesterday
off up the saskatchewan to see the pelicans and
walk over the railway bridge and
come back
too-soon
with legache
for ...
another Daniel McIvor
Marion Bridge
which i liked alot
zipped by
some great lines

...

tonight is spoof night
and i am hosting
its going to be a long long night
starts at midnight
and my show is this aft at 2.30pm
...
edmonton reviewers still not been in
maybe they won't come
my last show was a killer so i wish they had
...

film of me on
...
http://start.shaw.ca/start/enCA/videos/featuredvideos.htm?fvPgID={15AAF02C-CA3A-4D5E-A7E7-81EE03161E4B}&fvTitle=Fringe%20Veteran%20Jem%20Rolls&href3D171C4BD6BC=mms%3A%2F%2Fprdmediax1.shaw.ca%2FStart%2FShawTV%2FSaskatoon%2F073010-5-arts.wmv
...
you have to view it through internet explorer
...
its not bad
...
show doing ok
50 on thurs lunchtime isn`t bad
my time slots were horrible
but i`m never up against anyone strong
and it feels great
superstrong
though physically murderous
...
...

also have realised i only have two months left of this blog
i said i`d finish after this year`s fringe tour
so i spose i will
...

the shrinking of the possible

p's show
...
so she did ok in winnipeg
with her show falling people
she didn't do great
but it wasn't a disaster
which it looked it might be when
she got trashed by the free press
two and a half stars
but towards the end she got
good word of mouth
and nice reviews from cbc and uptown
and was half full
...
she made little money
and probably won't do the piece again
why not write a better one
...
and its still shocking to have to
realise again
how cruel the fringe
can be
how all that work
months of writing and rehearsing
culminates in
one destructive review

...
what's particularly telling
is that
well
priscilla's show did not have a linear narrative
she went back in time for a few scenes
and there were references to events in the past
and she revealed the story in bits
so at first you couldn't know what was going on
and only later did the viewer have all the pieces of what was going on
and be able to see the whole narrative picture
which is of course a valid way to structure a story
however
with the fringe
you clearly cannot take the risk of
structuring a show in an oblique way because
the chances are so high a reviewer will
see the piece as muddled
and simply abolish your show in
two adjectives and a couple of
missing stars
and
as reviews are so important
and
constantly threaten to
completely nullify
months of your best work and
creativity
certain aesthetic approaches are made
near impossible
...

more ice cream

ICE CREAM EVERY DAY
or A CHILDHOOD DREAM COME TRUE

when i was little i loved ice cream
yet only rarely had one
so i thought,
when i grow up i'll have an ice cream every day
...
but i forgot about it till i was 38 or 39
which is handy in a way
because i was always ridiculously poor till i was about 36
and only when i was about 41 4

when i could very easily afford them

did i realise i could have one every day
without any worry
so now i do
i give myself an ice cream
every day of the summer
why not?

...

strawberry, rum'n'raisin, tiramusu

great stuff

sometimes its easy to make your life better

and as the cockney song goes

a bit of what you fancy does you good"

surely does,

new york cheesecake, please

one scoop

waffle cone

thanks

...

great stuff

why not?

and it was in lampang

in northern thailand

we found the

ALL YOU CAN EAT ICE CREAM PARLOUR

yes the

ALL YOU CAN EAT ICE CREAM PARLOUR
...
...
...
the
...
ALL
...
YOU
...
CAN
...
EAT
...
ICE CREAM
...
PARLOUR
...
...

twentimental soddle

...
...
....

blimey its

august
...
how did that happen?
...

we are paying rent on the edmonton apartment as from today
...
...

fringe day

...

fringe day

...
wake up
coffee
rehearse slowly over saskatchewan river
very carefully as edmonton reviewer likely
show
small house, 12.30, great show, lots of fun, no reviewer
ice cream
see show, hockey dad, fun show, does what it says on the can
see wanderlust again, great show
thai foood with dockery and eden the hong kong street performer
chit chat
flyer
see show
unadulterated me
have known rachelle a while but never seen a show
and suddenly she's doing great, when before she struggled
great clown show
very sweet, super face, endearing nervous pathetic funny mousy sweet
chitchat
flyer
see show
the pig of happiness
good to finish the day on some songs
pub
4 beers
pop corn
whingeing
spraffing
martin jayson amy bremner meghan dan
home by 1.30
...

out 15 hours
good simple fringe day
...
...