This place is wild

So, I have been in Adelaide for a week now, I have learned a few things about this city. Firstly there are random signs written on buildings all over town that say POLITES I didn’t know what it meant turns out its a Greek bloke who owns half the town and likes marking out his property portfolio and if rumour is to be believed he buys drinks for young sexy girls. That’s me out of the picture then.

Each night after my show Ashley and I head down to the fringe club which is basically a garden with a make shift bar and tree lights which annoy the bugs. The lights in the tree annoy the bugs so much the hurl themselves at my hair and face every fifteen seconds, that’s in between angrily battering themselves off the lights until they get angry enough to hurl themselves at my face. There are so many performers here and cabaret/Burlesque is huge in Australia, basically any ‘resting’ actress/actor who is thin enough to fit into a leotard or belt and braces, has a repertoire of ditty’s from Berlin, will don a jaunty hat and sing a funny song with bad make up on their faces will do that and charge money. That’s after they do a free performance on my downtime they stand up on a chair and say ‘tonight, for your delectation’...then nothing is to my delectation, am annoyed and feel cheated to be honest. Unless they are actually funny, dirty and sexy am not impressed. They end up drunk and screaming at the girl with the powder puff backpack with bunches in her hair and getting into fights with wandering homeless aborigine folk who also don’t need or like burlesque in their city.

Then there are the many young people who ‘theme’ dress, I know I sound surly and grumpy but I have done 15 festivals and am old and dressing like a 50s housewife is so....1998.

Everyone under the age of 25 seems to have white face powder, a red curly hair-do with a dark red lips and a short shift 50s dress as they try to smoke and look like they walked out of a Doris Day movie. One woman doing that is amazing and interesting and a real commitment to an arty lifestyle, heaps of girls doing it is annoying. The bugs don’t even bother them they are too busy hurling themselves at my grumpy Scottish skin.

The Aborigine people wander around town, I have seen loads and they don’t always wear shoes, they look sad/angry/drunk/messy/angry and sometimes shouty. I am a big advocator of homeless as readers of this blog will testify, but it seems nobody talks about the Aborigine issue and I haven’t come across an Aborigine comedian. Unlike in NZ where there were heaps of Maori comics on the scene. They are just a weird backdrop to the city landscape and that irks me. I attended the mayor’s reception and didn’t see one coloured face in that room, all the council attendees were as white as a Tea dance in upstate New Hampshire.

I know me coming here and mentioning one thing that I know nothing about, but it is disturbing, especially as they collectively hate my daughter Ashley and chase her with sticks as she walks home at night. She tries to be nice but the hissing bothers her, she thinks it’s because she has a white moon face and that’s upsetting to most people.

The show is going great, am getting good reviews and nice houses and just wish there were more people up at the Town Hall so I can feed off other crowds. But that’s not happening, the shows up there haven’t yet established a busy crowd going scene, am also happy that am not at the Garden Of Unearthly Delights as the noise leakage from venue to venue is horrific and that would bother me no end.

The Rhino Rooms comedy night is awesome and you should go there at weekend nights where the shows are cracking fun. I love doing the late night gigs there.

Ashley and I are not coping well in this heat its over 100 degrees most days and we just die in the direct sunlight. The city is amazing though, really I do love it here, the ordinary Adelaide folk are smashing and I adore their feisty attitude. I am hoping by my next blog, I will be over the bugs, the burlesque people and will have made friends with some Aborigine people.