Josie Long's Melbourne Adventures

On Saturday at 3.30pm at the Bosco, I’ll be hosting a one-off gig wholly devoted to baking. Is that your kind of thing, Melburnians?* We have roped in:

 The fabulous Josh Earl, who has written a diamond of a show all about the Iconic Women’s Weekly birthday cake book. Glorious Sarah Millican, who is a connoiseur of puddings all of the way from the North-East of England. And marvellous Maeve Higgins, whose show Ha Ha Yum featured LIVE ONSTAGE BAKING (the second most dangerous type of craft, after white water crafting) and whose re4cent RTE tv show in ireland was called Fancy Vittels.

Here is the thing. if you bring a home-baked pie or cake, you get in for $10 dollars. If you don’t, it’s $20. Bakers will be given priority though! There will be lots of prizes for the best efforts, with special guest celebrity judges and games and all kinds of merriment. And more importantly, think about the maths of it. If everyone brings a pie (average no.of servings 8-10), there will be 8-10 times as much cake as could possibly be healthy or appropriate. Then factor in the people who have come who love to bake but don’t really eat or like cake (creepy feeders), and you’re looking at a surfeit of cake the like of which none of us will have ever experienced.

And if you’re really not convinced yet, then a. what is wrong with you? and b. I have one more way to entice you. As some of you may know, I am allergic to wheat and most gluten, but in addition, since organising the show I’ve learned that I have a big intolerance to sugars linked in with it all. Come merely to watch me sweating like an old addict who’s been left to guard the big pile of Ice while the gang bosses kneecap a grass. How long will I last until I succumb to the sweet sweet pies and cakes that I so adore? There will be a sweepstake. I think I will last almost the whole show and then exclaim the grown up version of “Sod it” and dive in, crying and laughing simultaneously. What do you think?

Thanks to everyone who’s been coming to the shows, I hope this doesn’t jinx it but I am having my favourite season in Melbourne ever this year!

*see how I spelt it properly today.**

**spelt? spelled?***

***I just remembered a really dodgy joke that wheat-intolerant people may enjoy. “Would you like any of this, it’s Spelt bread?” “I know how it’s spelt, dummy. And no. I can’t, I’m allergic to wheat.” “It’s spelt bread” “Do you think I’m thick? I know how it’s spelt.” “No. It’s bread made from spelt flour.” “I know how flour is spelt. I can’t eat it.” “No. Spelt. the type of flour” “oh. sorry i can’t really eat spelt.”

Friends!

I have no news to report, but i just thought i’d better update. A man on the street who was a retired accountant and loved to chat, gave me the following advice: “having a career enables you to work”. If i’m honest he was pretty abrasive and horrible.  I wonder if he reads this blog in addition to sitting on the street drinking wine?

I’m still enjoying my show a lot. The Bosco theatre is a dream place to perform and the crowds have been lovely.

I went to Lunar park yesterday and about 5 seconds into one of the rides a little girl behind me said in a small voice “I don’t like this one.” Her dad replied “There’s nothing we can do about it now”. And then silence.

Happy Easter, superdudes. I went on Alan Brough’s* ABC radio show this morning with Steampunk superstar and excellent comic Andrew O Neill and Indie favourite Josh Earl and I think you can hear it over the www if you’re fussed. We talked a bit about the BAKE OFF gig that I’ll be hosting on 10th April, at the Bosco, in the afternoon. It’s $10 if you bring a cake and there will be all kinds of prizes and surprises too. It’ll be a heavily food-based gig with special guests Josh, Maeve Higgins and Sarah Millican. Do come!

x

*what a legend that man is!

Last night Josh thomas, D O D and I did a guest spot at the Last Tuesday Sociaty at the Hi-Fi. It was a lot of fun, we pretended to be from Nasa, making space cool again for eids.

I tried a new character where I was a bullying nail technician from Kent who answered questions about her recent mission to space including “Why did you go up space?” and  ”Why are you so arrogant about going up space?”. I would recommend the LTS show, they have a great variety of things- yesterday they had someone hula hooping with 5 hoops. It was freaking incredible, and you can trust me as I’m normally one to be suspicious of circus skills.*

I am writing this from the executive skybox that I am staying in for the festival with my friends. It is an apartment called “Living Corporate”. It reminds me of a show I saw in melbourne 2007, set in a bewildering corporate future called The Receipt. We are very high up and the flat is 80% glass, so we are like dogs trapped in a flying car, but with paper thin walls. I feel like how Patrick Bateman must have felt.  My flatmates are Maeve Higgins and Nick Coyle, whose show is  A Rare Sight and Claudia O Doherty whose show is Monster of the Deep 3D . Yes! I know! What a creative household! I simply cannot reccommend their shows heartily enough.

At the moment we are in the thrall of  chat roulette . I am not exaggerating when i say that we have been on this site for 3+ hours at a time. It’s so compelling to keep seeing new strangers, and it brings out the clown in everyone. I pretend to throw up potatoes, Maeve draws on a monobrow in permanent marker. Most of the time you can’t hear the people on the other end, and it’s such a buzz to watch them burst into laughter as you do a little trick or muck around. It’s the computer equivalent of making faces at babies and I wholly recommend it as a bit of pure fun. That having been said there are a number of people who just film themselves wanking, or ask to see your breasts. We call them Nick Coyle and Claudia O Doherty. **

*FAO people who do Poi. Everybody hates you. Put the tennis balls down, and then please set them on fire. And not because you’re going to pick them back up and start doing poi again, but on fire.

** BANG! COMEDIAN ALERT JOKE ALERT!

Hello again Melbournians,

FYI  whenever i read the word “Melbournians” (is that how you spell it?) I like to imagine John So riding Phar Lap. You’re welcome, Australians!

So, I have done my first four shows and if I understood how to make a graph on this thing, I would show how I felt they went. The first one was ok, the second better, the third very quiet and the fourth my favourite so far. To start my show yesterday I made the announcement  “Are ya PUMPED? Have ya been to the FLOWER SHOW?”, which set us up in good stead.

Yesterday I was a guest on “girly is good”, the brilliant 3CR show that plays music made by women. I asked the presenters, Em and Hayleyto give me some BH! advice and Em said you should try and make your intentions match your actions, and try to give others the benefit of the doubt if their intentions are good. Hayley said “Don’t be an a-hole”. I like both. And this morning I did the Nova breakfast show with the mighty Hughesy, the lovely Kate and the Man-Machine that is Ed Kavalee.  It was on at 2 in the morning, comedian time (zing), and so i think i was utterly incoherent. i know i said i liked knife fights, and that I had stolen a tramp’s dog. I worry that this is a flash of my true personality.

Here’s a Welsh proverb that’s very apt: Be honourable yourself if you wish to associate with honourable people. I can imagine Nye Bevan saying that. Sorry if this post is a bit pointless, I haven’t got the hang of blogging yet at all. (If I’m honest, I am terribly suspicious of bloggers and ambivalent to have become one of them- it’s just a few steps above writing on internet forums, or commenting on youtube.).

Speak again in a few days, when I promise SPACE! ADVENTURE! POEMS! and much more…

Hello festival colleagues, I hope you’re all well and keeping yourselves comfortable.

So far I have done two preview shows of BH! and I’ve already found a hip new way to abbreviate the title. I like the show very much but it has work to be done on it and it is five minutes too long and so i am going to spend this afternoon staring at pieces of paper and blinking away proud tears.

So far in the BH! Advice challenge I have asked Greg Fleet, the naughty uncle of comedy, how to behave honourably. He said: “Think about how you’d like to be treated and treat people that way. (But not so rapey)” but he had a faraway wistful look in his eye like a puppy in the ramones. As if he was thinking “my surname isn’t even ramone, guys, how is this going to work?”.

So i trust this helps some of you? Thanks for your comments so far, by the way. I will work out how to reply to them today. I am like a technology nana.

x

I arrived in at 6.30 this morning, as you’ll all know from my hilarious earlier post. F.Y.I, on the plane I watched a documentary about two men who had a pet lion. I also did some cryptic crosswords with Tim Key (a brilliant poet whose show “The Slutcracker” is on at the festival and I heartily recommend it.). In the last week I’ve had a radical rethink about cryptic crosswords. I used to think they were an impenetrable arsehole’s game that I’d never be able to decipher. Now I think they are an impenetrable arsehole’s game that within twenty years I may be able to decipher.

How many people will I now get visiting this blog solely because they have googled “Impenetrable arsehole game”, I wonder?

This afternoon I did an interview for the comedy channel, during which we approached the first stranger and I asked her if she could give me some advice on how to be honourable. She said “Try your reasonable best”. I liked how laid back it was. Not “Try your hardest”, more “60% should do it”.

It is a wonderful thing to be back in this beautiful city.

Also I forgot that your cans and bottles of drink are larger than those of my homeland. WHAT”S THAT ALL ABOUT?!?!?! I like it.

Hello my Australian friends/ internet nutcases!

I am sitting in my lounge trying to work out what i need to pack. I think i’m going to bring beachwear and a hockey mask. Give everyone and anonymous treat.

My flight is at ten pm. I arrive on tuesday morning at 6.30am, which is 7.30pm England time and 2am stand-up comedian time.

That is one of my favourite stock things to say, by the way. If I ever have to get up for anything and someone says “well, 7am isn’t too early” I will always say “it’s like 2am comedian time.” It is never funny. Similarly if anyone ever arranges to meet me at 2.30pm I will always say “oh, i’ll have to cancel my dental appointment”. Never funny.

Even though I understand that I’m not really losing a day, I am a little bit scared that I won’t get to enjoy Monday 22nd March 2010 on the ground. I had big hopes for Monday 22nd March 2010, and now I’m afraid the only thing i’ll achieve on Monday 22nd March 2010 is crying to a film of similar quality to “Bride Wars”*

*please don’t judge me too cruelly. I cry in everything. I cry in chocolate adverts**

**”You’re a really good footballer, son”/”You’re a really good dad, mum”! COME ON!? Do you have Australian Hearts of Stone?***

***does anyone else think “Australian Hearts of Stone” would make a good for a reality series?