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Hello, Sternal Journalists!
Back again with a late-y because I am still in Edinburgh. We’re having a very fun time with our show and I think that’s at least partially to do with being at The Fringe itself.
Because after being here for nearly two weeks, I can report that almost everyone I know has given in to the real artsiness of this arts festival. That might sound kind of obvious, but I guess I’m speaking from the experience of being specifically an American stand-up comedian.
I came in with the intention of having a well-rounded artistic experience, but it’s hard to immediately abandon the ingrained hustle mentality of gottabookshowsgottahitamic that most if not all rising stand-ups feel.
Not to mention the pressure, even if you are trying to ignore it, of knowing that Fringe is a career-catapulting event in some cases, so if it doesn’t catapult yours, are you less than? (A gross thought, but a fair one to have)
And it has been fun making a little expat community of American comedians, but whenever I’m with them all at a bar outside of the three stand-up shows we all just did, I have a very strong sense of just being back in Silver Lake or Brooklyn and trying to book certain spots that will book us bigger spots that will book us the biggest spots.
This is nice because when you’re away from home, you do want to be able to go back to some familiar experiences. But I also don’t want to fly around the world to just have the exact same experiences I could have in LA.
So the very fun thing about this Fringe halfway point is that I’m feeling like, whether somebody came into it with the intention of just having a good time or the intention of making significant career gains, we’re all realizing that the best way to do this is to soak it in.
I walk to get a coffee in the park and pass a mime-jazz band, a walking silent disco, and a literal circus tent. Yesterday, I went to a 30-minute dance show involving a crate of tomatoes, many of which were lasciviously smashed by the end. I went with a group of grizzled New York and LA comics, all of us only days earlier avoiding anything that wasn’t a specific opportunity to further our careers.
It’s a great time and I am loving it. And again, I think it’s informing Absolute Friendship! To be candid, we chose the title because we are friends and it started early in the alphabet. We didn’t think much of it beyond that. But in being around all these artsy norm-breakers, we’ve been more open to experimenting and playing in our show.
So even though it is essentially a double bill stand-up act, we have really embraced the friendship aspect of it by waiting at the entrance for our audience to arrive, seating them ourselves, asking their names, assuring them we’re all gonna have a good time, and trying to get them to meet each other.
It’s a tiny thing, but it goes a long way in setting the tone of the show and setting it apart from a show as we might do it in LA (although I hope we can bring this show and this energy back to the States).
Which is all a very roundabout way of saying: a lot of my creative friends have asked to hoard all the advice I can and bestow it upon them when I return. There is a lot of boring marketing advice about flyers and posters and venue location, but I think most of that is easy to pick up (and maybe only pick-usable) while here in Edinburgh.
But I think the most important actionable piece of advice is to go with the intention of doing something different than you do at home, even if only slightly. And let yourself wait until you get here to find out exactly what that different thing is. It might be a little risky, but it’s a lot of fun.
Recommendations
Tomato. Performance. This is the one I was talking about above. It’s from choreographer and dancer Chou Kuan-Jou and if you like abstract things that make you laugh, wow, and think, keep tabs on it in case it comes to your city.
The Twist…? She’s Gorgeous. Netflix Special. I have not seen the special, but I got to see the supposed one-night-only final performance of this Catherine Cohen stand-up and musical comedy tour de force that made waves at Fringe a few years ago. The jokes are hot, the singing’s impeccable. If the special captures half the dazzle of the real thing, it’s absolutely worth a watch.
Sirens of Titan. Novel. Just finished this Kurt Vonnegut book. Damn. Can’t recommend enough.
Okay, that’s all! If you’ve read this far, please enjoy this absolutely horrific portmanteau I walk by every day. It is the only thing I don’t like about Edinburgh:
Love!
Julian
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