Trip to Scotland and Ireland

Part II

 Friday, August 17th

And yes, I woke up at one in the afternoon today!  Nothing like grabbing a bowl of cereal as the sun begins it descent and defining it as breakfast. 

I left the apartment with Chris and parted ways with him near the Edinburgh Castle.  After doing some professional strolling, I received a call from D Walsh who requested my services at the show that evening.  To be accurate, he requested the services of Future Queer.  Ecstatic at such an international opportunity, I accepted on the behalf of Future Queer.  To my knowledge, he has not yet transmitted the secrets of the gay future to this Scottish city.

I hung up the phone and left the cemetery I was walking through, a weird place to discuss Future Queer’s itinerary.  I rushed home, ate quickly, assembled Mr. Queer’s wardrobe, pondered how I would be able to secure FQ’s grey mustache over the beard I’m currently growing, solved the dilemma, and rushed over to the venue.  The Walsh Brothers show was at a place known as the Underbelly.  An interesting structure built into a combination of the earth and a bridge, the theater space was actually a cave.  Ironic, I thought, that such a highly advanced life force like Future Queer would be dispensing his wisdom in a cave. 

Dave and Chris performed a great show and I did my part which was an honor and a rock-steady experience.

After the show, the three of us walked over to the Gilded Balloon so Chris and Dave could perform in Andy’s show.  While the lads did their gig, I went to another theater downstairs in this large, fascinating student union building that hosted several shows, to watch two American comics: Kirk Fox (the heroic mustached-warrior I met the previous night) and a former Boston comic that now resides in New York City, Mark Maron. 

After enjoying their show, I walked back upstairs to watch the maniacal musical comedy of a Scottish man named Phil Kay.  An incredible heap of energy and life that was skilled at creating good improvised moments.  Phil was fun to talk to and watch but hard to be within several feet of for more than a few moments.  He told me that during the entire month of the festival, he was camping at night.  This clearly made for a distressing lack of showering that in turn made for a potent and laser-like odor force that shook you to the core.

But the best show I saw at the festival, hands down, was a last minute decision that was urged by Chris Walsh.  It also took place in the Gilded Balloon, in a tiny space called “The Wee Room” and the name of the show was “Doktor CocaColaMcDonalds The One Man Rock Opera”.   Doktor CocaColaMcDonalds was an odd duck, wearing only shoes, dark socks, a Speedo, some kind of scarf/tie arrangement and white face paint.  He too owned a great mustache but his was in the style of some kind of Peter O’Toole, Three Musketeers affair. 

When you walked into the room, on the tiny stage were several, low-quality, electronic Casio music devices, three of which were placed on an ironing board.  This brilliant and quirky creature performed the weirdest, most original songs I’ve ever heard: “When We Generalize, The General Lies”, “Determining Your Personality By Knowing Which Rocky Movie You Like” (I may have the title wrong but I’m sure you get the essence), “Feed Celebrities To The Third World”, “We Didn’t Need It But They Made It Anyway” (a song that discusses the foolishness of inventions that uselessly combine two oddly matched devices, i.e. an ashtray with a toilet.)

During one of his songs, the great Doktor’s keyboard broke so he asked if anyone could execute a beat box into a mic.  Dave encouraged me to share my beat box talents, talents that were honed during the Fat Boys era.  I raised my hand and Dr. Coke invited me down.  I sat near him on stage and took the mic. 

This was a pristine moment.  So much so it felt like it was planned by some greater force.  I beat boxed like no one was looking, like I was all by myself in a room, 20 stories underground.  The results were marvelous.  If the show wasn’t already an amazing experience enough for Dave, this sure added an extra layer of enjoyment to the show for him.

My only fear in watching this show was that nothing else in the festival would entertain me like that.  This was fear was realized.

Dave and I left the Gilded Balloon and went home.  Good night.

Saturday, August 18th

Another late awakening.  I’m beginning to realize I am getting sucked into another way of life.  It’s impossible to avoid being sucked in by the massive festival monster.  You are constantly meeting new people and seeing new shows that start around nine in the morning and go until five in the next morning.  The normal logical workings of time don’t seem to be able to penetrate Edinburgh during the festival.  Before you know it, the sun is rising and you think, “I should secure some sleep.”

Once showered and fed, I walked to the Scottish National Museum and enjoyed its gifts for a while.  I then met up with Dave and Chris at the Underbelly.  Future Queer again made a riveting appearance and so did Barry Tattle.  The Tattlesnake ended the show with romance-laced remarks and a delicate song.

The three of us walked up to the Gilded Balloon and as Andy began his show I peeked at the audience.  Sitting by himself, in the back corner, completely NUDE, was the same human specialty that bought Chris a drink two nights earlier.  Now, I should also mention that this same chap was also at the Walsh Brothers show a couple hours earlier.  So essentially, our poor Chris was being dude-stalked by a 60-year old English fella.

We all then walked over to the Pleasance Dome which would be the site of a show titled, “Lunch With the Hamiltons”.  The Hamiltons were a husband and wife team in their 50’s with quite a back story.  The husband was a conservative Member of Parliament that was involved in a nasty scandal that ended his political career, something to do with illegal payoffs and bribes.

Soon after, his wife did quite well in an English version of Last Comic Standing.  With this new popularity, she and her husband started a television show in England that they were now bringing to the Edinburgh Festival.  Since they were doing a late night version in Edinburgh, they decided to dip the show into a naughty sauce.  The Hamiltons got wind of Andy’s Naked Comedy Showcase and invited him onto their show. 

The first guest was a New Zealand comic named Jarred Christmas (a funny guy I had the pleasure of talking with at the post show party).  Nothing too risky with Jarred, just some friendly, cheeky conversation.  Next up were “The Boys In The Buff”, four annoying guys that danced and sang as if they were in a bus bound for some miserable cabaret hell.  They undressed all the way to their underwear in hopes of teasing the audience.  Mrs. Hamilton pointed out that the purpose of this tease was to drive people to “The Boys In The Buff” show where complete nudity would answer all of our fantasies!  I felt about as teased as a devout Mormon on a game show that almost won a two-year’s supply of gin, coffee and gambling.

They sat down with satisfied looks on their faces and seconds later, Chris and Andy walked out, completely naked.  So here are these fancy, hair brush patter boys trying to be so cute and clever, trying to create an insatiable and mysterious hunger for nudity and Chris and Andy throw a flaming locomotive into their lame strategy.  At that point, Chris absolutely kidnapped the show from the Hamiltons and did not surrender it until eight minutes later.  He paced the stage with wild energy and began to climb into the crowd…an action that sent a shockwave through all 150 members of the crowd.

This was followed by an insane demonstration from the two guys of Puppetry of the Penis.  With the show now at such a frenzied level, the Boys in Buff tried to recapture some magic with another daring song.  This time, a song whose theme was about their nipples – gag me with a rusty, anthrax-coated, electrified spoon.  As much as I don’t have a need to see a bunch of naked hombres frolic around, the entire show was surreal, especially when Andy and Chris took instruction from the Puppetry Fellas and demonstrated their new skills to the crowd.

We then hung out at the post show party in a bar until very late, made our way back and ended up talking in the kitchen until the sun came out.  It wasn’t until 7 AM that we found slumber.

PART III