#for both my new york trip and montreal

[reigningmax]

girl in your tiktok, what make up do you have on that lasted 13 hours !!

i will do a video probably at some point!! but essentially:

elf gripping primer + halo glow

nars tinted moisturizer

elf peach color corrector + hourglass concealer

huda beauty loose powder

elf bronzer, rare liquid blush, benefit powder blush, rare highlighter

elf brow lift + benefit precisely my brow

charlotte tilbery airbush setting spray

mac stack mascara

[billthedrake]

DAD'S HABIT

It had become a birthday tradition. Ever since my parents' divorce, Dad would treat me each year to a guys' night in the city. I was a hockey player, and my father the textbook hockey dad, and we were both big Rangers fans. So every year, Dad would drive me to New York, where we'd spend two nights and catch a home game.

I think Dad thought I'd outgrow it as I got closer to graduation, but I enjoyed the father-son bonding time as much as he did. My father is a brash, blue-collar kind of guy. Very heart on his sleeve, but also not good at talking about emotional stuff. The divorce made him even more closed off, but I knew he always looked forward to his custody weekends with me. Even at the pissiest, moodiest points of my teenage years, I got it.

I could tell Dad was surprised after I went off to college - on a hockey scholarship at a New England college - when I asked if we were still doing my birthday trip.

"You bet, buddy," he beamed with barely contained excitement in his voice. "Though I guess we'll need to wait till your season's over."

So that's what we did. A few days later he got back to me wondering if I'd want to catch an away series in Boston later that spring. That's how a new tradition got started, going to different cities each April.... Chicago, Montreal, and now that I'm 22 this year the trip is in DC.

The first night, Dad and I found a sports bar, where we watched a couple of games, but mostly caught up. About school, life, and just boring stuff. Dad seemed to be in a good mood, chattier than normal, and just happier with life. His contracting work was going well, and he promised that he'd take me out for a nice steak dinner the next night.

I asked him if he was dating any one, but he just cocked a grin and shook his head. "Nothing serious," he said with an uncharacteristic blush. "I mean, your old man gets out there for a little fun now and then, but I don't know if I'm ready to date."

"Dad!" I objected with a laugh. The man had given me the birds and bees talk and had checked in with me a couple of times. I'd admitted to him that I'd become sexually active, though I made up more experience with women than I really had. But we weren't the kind of family who talked much about sex.

"Goddamnit, Joey," he chuckled. "You're not a kid any more. I figure you know the score."

"Yeah, I guess," I said, pressing my leg against my father's next to the bar. "Guess you don't get used to the idea of your parents having a life."

"Could probably use a little more of one, to be honest," Dad chimed. God, he was really opening up this evening. "What about you, son? I thought you'd be going steady with someone by now."

"Nah," I hemmed and hawed, trying to hide my embarrassment. I'd gotten real good at bullshitting with my buddies and my teammates but for some reason had a harder time lying to Dad.

My father's hand clasped on my shoulder. "s' OK, I'm not gonna pester you like your mother does," he said. "I guess I wouldn't be a good Dad if I didn't want to know what's going on in your life."

Looking into his gruffly handsome face and his puppy dog brown eyes, I was THIS close to telling him. About the gay thing, about my doubts, about how I wanted to tell everyone but was too fucking scared. How I seemed to be putting my life off until after college.

Instead I gave a silent nod of acknowledgment and turned my head back up to the big TV screen behind the bar. Dad followed suit.

***

We were three beers in when Dad said the day was catching up with him. "It's early though, you should stay out," he urged. "Have some fun."

I almost said no, but it was barely 9 o'clock, and a part of me wanted to take advantage of some independent time. I told Dad I'd maybe stay out for a while longer.

"You got the spare room key, right?"

I told him I did. "I won't be out long," I said.

"I hope you are," he chuckled. "Seriously, enjoy yourself, Joey," he said as he got up from his bar stool. I try to not to perv on my old man but seeing him in his casual jeans and sweatshirt, it was hard not to admire his sturdy body. I mean, Dad's got a beer belly but otherwise is pretty damn solid. I felt his strength as he gave my shoulder one last squeeze before bidding me good night.

I gave it maybe five minutes after he left, then I downed my drink and found my way to the Metro to Dupont Circle. I'd only been to a gay bar twice before, and each time was nerve wracking as hell. But something about being in a different city made me feel anonymous. I felt giddy and excited as I walked the blocks to some bar I found on Google.

Maybe I picked the wrong place, or maybe it was too early, but the bar was dead. I may have been anonymous, but I stuck out in the place, the only dude under 40 in a place of older man. That would have been fine. I mean, I kind of get turned on by men in their late 30s, or 40s and 50s. But a couple of obnoxious guys made a beeline for me in turn, as soon as I got my beer. I tried to do the thanks but no thanks, thing but they wouldn't fucking let up. It brought out my whole anxiety about being in the place to begin with. I didn't even finish my beer, I just bolted out of there.

The whole way back to the hotel, I was frustrated and maybe a little mad at myself. I maybe should have tried another bar, but at this point I wasn't in the mood.

I tried to be quiet when I got back to the hotel room. There was the click of the key card, but other than that I slipped into the room silently, so I wouldn't wake Dad. It took me a second to realize that the light was on, and that Dad was hardly asleep. I was a few steps in the room, far enough to see half of the beds, when I realized what the fuck was happening.

"You like that cock, Daddy?" the voice was youthful and masculine, and it seemed to match the very attractive athletic younger guy who was boning my father doggy style.

My beefy bodied old man was bracing himself on all fours and actually bucking his meaty ass back against every hard thrust. If I wasn't hard yet, that sight alone made my cock feel more rigid than I'd ever felt.

"You know it, buddy," my father growled in that deep, loud voice of his. "Pound my fucking hole." God, Dad was being really loud and his sex talk seemed to echo off the walls. I hoped to God there was soundproofing, then realized I hadn't heard anything before stepping into the room.

The young dude just gripped Dad's waist and used the leverage to pull my father's body back and forth onto his shaft. "You wanna do the scene we talked about, man?" the guys asked, quiet in his voice now.

Dad nodded and blushed beet red. "Yeah, let's go for it."

The top's chest seemed to puff proudly. I couldn't believe they'd not noticed me. Hell, I couldn't believe I had the balls or the stupidity to just stand there and watch them. But they were so caught up in their mating. The man's hips now slowed to a slow sexy grind and he leaned forward and kissed along Dad's thick shoulder and neck. "I've wanted to do this for so long, Dad," he growled. "After every hockey practice."

"Oh god, yeah, Joey!" my father hissed, not as loud this time.

WHAT THE FUCK!?!

My heart pounded and my dick throbbed, but my mind was in a major head-fuck place now. I was actually hyperventilating, and the voyeurism had gone from a sexual turnon to a sense of invading Dad's privacy, or seeing something I shouldn't have seen. I backed out as quietly as I entered, and let the door open and shut as silently as I could.

"Fuck!" I hissed to myself as I stood in the hallway, feeling my heart race. I tried to gather my thoughts to something that would get my dick to go down. It half worked, but not fully. I thought of going somewhere else for a while, even the hotel lobby. But I had to know. Know who'd been fucking Dad. Probably not a boyfriend, cause Dad never came to DC. Maybe some dude from Grindr, I don't know.

It took ten minutes, maybe a little more. I waited down the hall, by the elevator bank, and when I heard the click of the door, I peered out. The first one was a different room, but the second, a minute later, was from ours. I pretended like I was I just coming from the elevators and walked slowly down the hall. The dude was busy with his phone as he walked, texting or something so I could get a good look at him. I'd seen his body in profile, but now that I saw him head on, wearing joggers and a zip up pullover, I could make out that he was almost a dead ringer for me! Blue eyes to my brown, and higher cheekbones, but otherwise there was so much similar. Same height, same athletic build, same dark brown hair, same jockish demeanor.

"Hey," he grunted in acknowledgement as we passed. Bro to bro.

"Hey," I said, nervously, trying to pass it off as a normal exchange. He kept on his way, and I paused at the room door, wondering if he'd look back. He never did.

I wasn't quiet this time. I wanted to give Dad time notice. I shut the door loudly and called out, "Hey Dad."

"Hey, buddy," he called out. He was lying back in bed, watching some sports news on the TV with the volume turned down. Wearing only a thin pair of gym shorts, his body was relaxed and I got a good chance to admire his muscle. Big bulging arms, rounded shoulders, and full hard pecs. Dad's surprisingly smooth for a guy his age, but there was a dusting of hair on his chest and torso... finer and lighter colored than my own body hair. Below his pecs there was some extra weight... more than middle aged spread, I guess, though his beer belly was shy of a full gut. On Dad it looked hot. The thin fabric didn't leave too much to the imagination, but my father's genitals were soft so didn't form too much of a package. And in some ways those thighs stole the show, with a rounded curve and palpable meatiness. They were hairier than his upper body but not outright furry.

I couldn't believe this man, my father, had just taken dick like a porn star.

I snapped out of my perving reverie and rifled though my bag for my own pair of shorts. No way was I sleeping in just underwear tonight. I even pulled out some compression to layer underneath, to keep any boner in check.

I ducked into the bathroom to piss, change, brush my teeth, and just collect myself. When I got out, bare chested as Dad, he was still on the other bed, absorbed in whatever boring sports talk program was on. I couldn't believe how nonchalant he was being. Then again, maybe getting laid puts you in that kind of mood.

I settled onto the other double bed and pretended to be interested in the TV. I'd sneak glanced over at my father, to get a look at his half naked body but also to imagine that forbidden spot between his legs, deep in his ass. No way did he have the chance to shower off after sex, and I just knew that cleft and hole were still wet with lube.... and if the guy didn't put on a condom, then cum as well.

I had to lift my leg and surreptitiously reach down to pinch the base of my cock to tame the hardon. Compression would only do so much.

"Have fun tonight?" Dad finally asked. "I thought you'd be out longer."

The messed up thing was that I felt guilty for coming back too early, of not giving my father enough time to hook up with a dude. "It was all right," I said. "Just wasn't feeling it."

He looked over at me, his brown eyes filled with normal fatherly concern. "Yeah, buddy? I figured a good looking dude like you would be able to score a hot girl for the night."

"Dad!" I objected.

"What?" he asked. As if his concern were just a normal dad's male bonding with his son. In another instance it might be, but I knew now that Dad got off on the idea of me fucking. That's why he was always asking me about girls.

I had every intention of playing dumb. Of just filing this evening back into my memory bank for stroke sessions. Because this was potentially explosive stuff.

Instead I picked up that stick of emotional TNT. "I, um, saw you guys... just now... earlier," I eked out through a shaky voice.

Dad's relaxed, happy go lucky face turned dead serious. "Oh," he said. "I thought I head the door click." He looked at me and I just knew what he was thinking. He was trying to figure out just how much I'd seen. "Sorry you had to see that Joey."

"Guess I should have picked up the hint you wanted some alone time," I said. Trying to pass it off like Dad was my dorm roommate needing to get laid. I even forced a chuckle to make light of the weirdness.

Dad turned off the TV and turned toward me. God, I wished he wasn't looking so hot just then. Chest and arm muscle bulging as his body pivoted toward me. "I'm serious, Joe... I didn't mean.... Damnit... I guess you know now... your old man likes to have a little fun now and then."

It was none of my business, but curiosity won out. "He wasn't your boyfriend or anything, was he?" I mean, it didn't seem likely but I had to know if I was getting a step dad my age.

He shook his head. "Nothing like that, son," he said, pausing before adding, "It's just, well, sometimes I splurge on a hustler."

It was a weird first reaction, but I was a little mad that Dad paid that dude when any number of men would be lucky to fuck him. But as the memory of that primal scene flashed in my head, I was getting rock hard again. "Dad, I'm pretty sure you don't need to pay anyone."

Dad's eyes were on me intently now. Deciding how to take my comment. "Sometimes I want someone who's not gonna pass judgment," he said quietly. Damn he was making himself vulnerable now, for sure.

I was too. Meeting his gaze, I said, less quietly now, "I'm not gonna pass judgment, Dad."

"No?" he asked. I could hear his voice catch in his throat.

"Nope. And I hope you don't pass judgment on me," I replied.

"What would I...?" Dad started to ask before he let out a surprised, "oh!"

I'd pulled my legs out and was revealing my hardon to dad. Even beneath the shorts and through the compression, my ridge of college-jock cock was visible. My heart raced nervously but I also sat up proudly in bed and spread my legs further to show my dick off to my father.

"Fuck, you're big, Joey," he gapsed, without thinking before he took his eyes off my crotch and looked back up at me. "How long?"

"I dunno, Dad," I said. "Maybe 7 and a half inches. Almost eight."

"Shit," he grunted. Then shook his head. "But I meant how long have you had a thing for me?"

"Honest, Dad?" I replied. "I don't know. Maybe longer than I realized."

He nodded, taking in the information.

I looked over at my father and could see his dick firming up to a spike again in those shorts. "How long have you had a thing for me, Dad?"

"Maybe longer than I realized, too," he shot back, now sitting up on the bed, facing me. "I swear Joey, I tried not to go there, but you grew into such a hot fucking stud."

I'd had sex with men a couple of times before, and I'd enjoyed the naughty thrill of it. But this just seemed to click, the mutual sexual attraction. The fact Dad was as boned for me as I was for him made me wish we weren't father and son.

Then again, that was the thrill of it, too.

With a playful grin, I hooked my thumbs in my shorts and pulled them up over my boner. Dad was silent and his attention fixated watching this simple, taboo act. I slid off the shorts and the compression and let my long, thick cock ride up. It was fully engorged and stood up from my treasure trail at a rigid angle.

Dad gulped again and looked up at me. "We doing this, son?"

"Yeah, Dad," I hissed, scooting off the bed and standing up. Horniness winning out over my nerves. "We're fucking doing this."

I heard a low rumble as my butch father scooted over and with one hand on my leg to guide me, he took me into his mouth.

"Holy fuck!" I gasped. At first it was just the sheer forbidden fact that my own father was licking and now sucking my bone. But quickly I was going wild at realizing how frickin' good Dad was at this. Not going for the kill, he gave slow, sensual head that seemed to be worshipful and did the trick of working me up to a boil without sending me over the edge.

I'd had guys suck my dick a couple of times, but I'd never fully gotten a blowjob, not for real. Dad was giving me my first.

"Dad," I hissed, spreading my legs to brace my body and running my fingers softly through his light-brown hair to encourage him. I rode out the incredible incestuous pleasure, then had to put on the breaks. "Dad..." I urged, using my fingers to nudge his skull back off me. "I don't wanna cum yet."

My father let out a soft, deep growl as my wet thick prick cleared his lips. And just as quickly as he'd taken me into his mouth, his face dove down to start tonguing and kissing my balls.

"You've turned into such a stud, all right," I heard him say between kisses. "Big fucking balls, too."

I'd had two hookups with older men. Men Dad's age. One was fun, the other I felt a little skeeved out by the man's lecherous fixation on my youth. But with Dad, I responded instantly to his worshipful lust for me. Something about it brought out both my loving and aggressive side. Holding the back of his head, I pulled him roughly into my crotch, then relaxed my grip and patted his head affectionately. Dad seemed to love that.

"I wanna fuck you, Dad," I let out. As I said the words, I knew they were a messed up thing to think, much less say. I was so horny, though, and after seeing Dad practically slut out earlier, my dick was doing the thinking for me.

Dad pulled back, spit on his lips and excitement in his brown eyes. "Yeah, Joey?"

If I didn't know before, I had a pretty good confirmation that Dad had thought a LOT about that very idea. His hand stroked my spit-wet prick, as if he was sizing up how much he'd feel my size.

A nagging doubt hit me. Not incest, but my inexperience. "I might not have the moves that hustler did, but I wanna bone you, Dad."

Dad leaned back, his burly body on display for me, with its hard blue-collar muscle and that extra bulk. He was beautiful and my cock twitched seeing his masculine build offered before me. "How you want me? On all fours?"

I stepped back for a better view, shaking my head. "Face to face," I growled, feeling my cock twitch. I'd had my experiences with men and a hell of a lot of self time with porn. This was better than both combined. "I wanna make out with my dad while I fuck him."

"Joey," Dad grunted, scrambling up to lie back on the bed. I was following him, already greedily tugging at the waist band of his shorts. The elastic snagged on his erection, but he helped me work it over and off his thighs, before I pulled the shorts off and tossed them aside. "This is SO fucking wrong, son," he hissed, and I knew we were on the same wavelength. Riding that taboo.

"Fuck yeah, it's wrong," I growled, the words almost catching in my throat I was so turned on. "A son shouldn't wanna fuck his father."

Dad honest to god whimpered at that. Or maybe it was the feel of my hardon nudging along his thigh as I leaned down and claimed a kiss.

This itself was a line crossed, more than the cocksucking, more than the sex talk. I was French kissing my own father and he was sucking my tongue into his mouth before battling it with his own. We grunted into our kiss, humping our heated bodies and feeling that incredible flesh-on-flesh contact.

This desire had been bottled up so deep inside me, but this evening had brought it out so quickly, I knew it was always there. Knew my father had been deep in my psyche as I masturbated all these years. Knew he was an implicit comparison for any man I went for.

I'd have to ask Dad where I fit into his fantasies, or if there were other men, young men, in his life. All I knew now was how hungrily he held me and felt up my hockey-jock body and spread his legs, inviting me in, then wrapping those feet around to guide me to enter him.

I wasn't hustler-skilled, so I had to reach down and guide my rigid cock to root around for his entrance. But that escort had left a good amount of lube there, and as I nudged my father's recently-fucked pucker, I could tell there was a good deal of cum, too. The idea excited me and made me jealous at the same time. That fucker should have been paying Dad for the privilege...

I thrust inside my old man. Between the suddenness and my size, it was a LOT for Dad to take. Turns out the man liked it that way. He growled into our kiss and used his heels against my strong ass to urge me on.

I didn't need my invitation engraved. I let my body and my hormonal need take over. I fucked Dad, maybe just shy of rough, but definitely hard. And the faster and deeper I went the more the big man's body responded beneath me.

"Fuck me, Joe," he grunted as I broke the kiss and leaned up to get a good look at the man I was shafting, the man who made me.

"You love your son's cock in you?" I prodded.

"Fuck yeah," Dad replied. "Hot fucking incest."

That alone about got me to cum. My hips were a blur of motion and I was THIS close to orgasm.

"Open your mouth, Dad," I urged. I don't know what possessed me to do this, but I think I'd seen it a porn video and something about Dad's need made me wanna try it.

My father opened his mouth and I did it. I spit right into it, hitting the back of his throat like a bullseye target.

Dad actually fucking whimpered once I did.

I hawked some more spit and let it fly once more. And that did it, I was cumming HARD. Harder than I ever had in my life. My hips were now longer thrusting madly but giving a couple of deep jerks into my dad's guts to add my seed to that hustler's.

Dad was rock hard against my abs as we made out and held each other. Holding on to each other and not wanting this father-son fuck to end.

After a couple of minutes I realized I didn't have to end. Dad hadn't gotten off, and I was still rock hard. I could probably go for another... yeah, I could definitely go for another. My hips began a soft, shallow thrust, enough for Dad to feel it inside him.

"You going for another, Joey?" he asked, surprised and excited.

I nodded, smiling down on my father. His hair was matted down with sweat and he had a vulnerable edge to his handsome looks. I felt a strange sexual domination over my old man, but a hell a lot of love, too. It was all in the mix.

"You ever been fucked all night, Dad?" I asked, putting on my deepest, sternest voice I could manage. Yeah, maybe it was a boast, but at that point I felt I had it in me. In any case, I wanted to try.

"God, Joe," Dad hissed. His hands openly massaged my arm muscle, not as big and round as his guns but still with that athletic harness from sports and working out regularly.

I grinned, feeling playful as hell. "Is that a 'God, Joe,' I can't handle that? Or a 'God, Joe, please fuck me all night, Joe'?" I teased.

I felt Dad's heels on my ass cheeks again. "God, Joe, please fuck me all night, Joe.... son."

"You got it... Dad."

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Okay. This post has been a while in the making. Here is a screenshot of the spreadsheet where I have tracked all 65 shows from the Edinburgh Festival 2024, that I have gotten to experience in one way or another (seeing it live, NextUp streams, etc.). They're sorted by a ranking that I gave them out of 10, though it's actually out of 40 because I couldn't keep myself to just 10 numbers, so I started giving half points, and then quarter points and three-quarter points. But I drew the line there. No further decimals.

The rankings are very subjective, based on how much I enjoyed each show at the time, and may in some cases not line up with what a reasonably objective observer would think. Obviously, because of this, reducing comedy shows to numbered rankings and stars and things is fucking pointless. But on the other hand, I do like putting numbers in spreadsheets, so I've done it anyway.

And here are further thoughts about all 65 of those shows. It is... it's nearly 21,000 words. There or thereabouts, is the word count of this post. It's long, even by my standards. I'm pretty sure it's the longest post I've ever made on Tumblr. It's so long. It's too long. And it's not edited, because fuck that. I spent long enough writing it. So it might be unreadable. I know that lots of my posts are ridden with errors, but usually with the ones I spend more time on I do at least a quick glance to try to catch some, I'm not even bothering here. Sorry about that.

Also, Tumblr formatting appears to have made the whole numbers very large, for reasons I do not understand and cannot be bothered to try to change.

10

- Nish Kumar – Nish Don’t Kill My Vibe

It’s one of the best stand-up shows I’ve ever seen. I’ve been lucky enough to get to follow this show as it’s progressed over the past year, and it was still officially labelled a WIP in Edinburgh (but a WIP that he’d been developing since the previous fall and for a tour that was about to start, so very well put together for something with that label), I was blown away by how great the initial version was and then he just kept adding more stuff that kept being excellent. It’s a very rare show where I can’t think of a single bit that seemed weak or like filler. On the contrary, he was struggling to squeeze all his great material into only an hour. In the version I saw in Edinburgh, he overran slightly, and talked even faster than his usual breakneck pace, and managed to do almost every bit that’s been in the show all year, and every single part made me laugh.

If I hadn’t seen it the week before, I’d have wondered what part of it was a WIP at all anymore. But I can see he’s still playing with it because he ended on a different routine from the closing routine at the WIP I saw him do in London the previous week (I’m not… I mean… it’s fine, in 2022 I drove 8.5 hours just to see him perform in New York City and then a few months later drove 2 hours to Montreal to see him do that show that I’d already seen, in 2024 I got a two-week trip to London and Edinburgh and saw him twice, I like Nish Kumar a normal amount). I find that sort of thing fascinating, being able to see his workings as he tries to decide what tone of closer he wants to go for, and normally I’d have an opinion on it. But in this case I actually don’t know, they both fit the bill very well in different ways (do you want to close on a sensitive moving anecdote or a furious call to arms?), I just think it’s a shame that he can’t do it all. He’ll have to cut some stuff for the tour show, but I wish he could do a 1.5-hour version just once to film it and have this whole show forever.

His 2022 show, the one I saw live twice in a few months because he kept coming to North America, was one of my favourite stand-up shows ever. I think his 2024 show is even better.

9.75

- David O’Doherty – Ready, Steady, David O’Doherty

I came very close to giving this show a 10, knocked it down to 9.75 because I feel like I shouldn’t be able to give more than one show a perfect score (totally arbitrary rule that I’ve made up), and if I’m really honest, I know that my experience of this show was enhanced by the fact that it was the first time I’d ever been in a room with David O’Doherty, after several years of being obsessed with his entire career. In my subjective view it was a mind-blowingly wonderful masterpiece, while a more objective observer would – if they have any taste – call it a fantastic show, but not necessarily, you know, perfect 10.

It was so much fun. That’s my overriding memory of it. He played a big room – an Assembly Rooms theatre with a capacity of nearly 500, sold out the night I went, I checked and saw he sold out a bunch of other nights too despite doing a full month-long run, and good for him – but I turned up really early to get the front of the line and front-row seat, and I’m so glad I did. It was so exciting to be right up there.

This was a rare show in which I was totally unaware of the time. Usually for any kind of show, even if I’m enjoying it a lot, I do have it in my head how long it’s been since we started, and by the time they start wrapping up I’m ready for that. Not with DO’D. DO’D has done this thing for nearly twenty years where the second-last bit of his show will be that year’s “My Beefs” song, about all the things that piss him off that year, get something silly and fun with lots of energy in the room, and then he’ll do his more poignant closing routine. In this show, he built up to it briefly by saying sometimes things bother him, it took the whole room a moment to catch up and realize what he was introducing, and then there was a massive cheer all across the theatre as he shouted “My beefs 2024!” and started playing his keyboard, and that was the coolest fucking thing. I think I cheered out loud. I never cheer out loud. Not at a show. Maybe at a sporting event, but not at a comedy or music show. I clap politely and I see the people around me outwardly expressing their excitement, and I think “Oh that looks like fun, being a person who does that.” But in this moment, I got so caught up in the “Oh my God new Beefs song and I don’t have to wait until the MICF gala short videos come out to see it, I get it live, right here!”, that I think I might have shouted something like “Yes!” I’m not sure, any noise I made was drowned out by everyone else’s cheering.

It was fucking cool. I’ve joked before about DO’D being a rockstar to me, but he was in that moment, and it was so much fun, but also it made me realize we only had one more short song until the closing routine, and I honestly had it in my head that we were still in the first 15 or so minutes. But nope, and he didn’t underrun or anything, I was just enjoying it so much that an hour felt like half that time. I was nowhere near ready to be done when he finally did wrap it up, I could have stayed there forever.

The show itself was lovely. Classic DO’D, just him and his keyboard up there, standing to talk and sitting to play, this is the first time that I realized how much the variety helps him avoid any lulls in a show (just when talking starts getting old he switches to singing, and vice-versa). It was a sweet show about his parents, which he used to talk about bigger cultural stuff in how he was raised and how people view their own lives and affect each other, it had touching messages and it was so funny. A couple of the songs had better end up getting officially recorded at some point, because they were so funny. Brilliant show from start to finish.

- Jordan Brookes – Fontanelle

This was the first show I saw at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I got there on Sunday evening, saw this show on Sunday night, and then went back to the Air B&B to sleep before I started my full days in Edinburgh. At the Air B&B that night, I wrote a post that said I was genuinely a bit worried I’d made a mistake in putting Jordan Brookes first on my schedule, because that was so fucking fantastic that it’ll set the bar too high for everything else. Jordan Brookes was waiting outside as we emptied the room, to hand out flyers and stuff, and as we walked by, the audience member in front of me told him, “I’ve been coming to the Fringe for twenty years and that was the best show I’ve seen here.” I thought… yeah, I’ve been coming to the Fringe for about 90 minutes, but I feel like I could come for 20 more years and wouldn’t outdo that.

They gave him the award too early, I’ll say that much. It’s a shame that this show wasn’t eligible for the Perrier Award, because he already won it, for a show that’s on NextUp and is very good, but isn’t as good as this one. He has a few shows on NextUp, I like them all quite a bit – that’s why I bought a ticket to see him live – but this was his best one.

There was so much going on in it. Costumes and props and music and lighting cues. Background dancers (including one of the guys from Crizards, whom I was pleased with myself for recognizing because I'm quite bad with faces). The premise was that he’d written a musical about The Titanic, and every time there was even the smallest risk of a lull, he’d launch right into something high-energy about a musical, before going back to intellectual ruminations on societal conceptions of masculinity. It went dark in places, but that never felt like it was for shock value, it was just seamless. It was this whole big production, but at the same time it felt intimate and personal. This had the feeling to it of a masterpiece, a magnum opus.

Fun comedian-spotting side note – Jin Hao Li was in the audience when I saw it, conveniently seated across from me in the seating that went along both sides, so I could very easily glance at his face any time. Which I probably did too often, because I was interested in how an actual comedian was receiving this, and I suppose because I was interested in the validation of knowing whether my favourite comedians share my taste in comedy. I’m pleased to say that every time I looked over, Jin Hao Li was dying laughing, probably enjoying it even more than the rest of the audience, which was a lot.

- Sarah Keyworth – My Eyes Are Up Here

I’d heard a few earlier versions of this show, but the most recent was when they filmed it for Access Festival in January, so it had a lot of time to grow between then and August. It’s been on some international tours, won the Champion of Melbourne Award, developed over eight months. And that showed. I thought it was a very funny show even in its earlier forms, but by August the routines had been polished, the narrative was more coherent, the jokes sharper and even more had been added, and it was a beautiful piece of work.

It is so funny. The joke rate is really high, they’re all good. There’s a big variety of types of jokes, from quick little gags to drawn out, well set up ones. I think that really sets this show apart from similar ones. I hate it when people say things like “Oh, comedy doesn’t have to be funny anymore, you can just be emotionally moving and people like that now.” Because lots of emotionally moving shows are also funny, otherwise they wouldn’t be good comedy.

But I will admit, sometimes, the really emotional shows are probably, overall, less funny than ones that focus only on humour. Which is why I’m so impressed when I see one like this Keyworth show, that had a really moving emotional arc and covered their personal experiences with significant political issues (ADHD and top surgery/non-binary identity, primarily, which I feel weird calling “political issues” because it’s someone’s life, but those are big contentious things right now where voices of lived experience matter), that spoke touchingly about the importance of family and inter-generational connection and had an appropriately emotional conclusion, and when I look back on what that show did to me, I remember it making me properly laugh almost constantly.

Okay, I have one tiny issue. There was one joke in earlier versions of the show (they did this joke when they streamed the show for Access Festival, so I assume it’s okay to refer to it, as they chose to film that joke, it’s not just some WIP that they later scrapped), where the target was Ricky Gervais. In the Edinburgh version, they kept the joke but made it about transphobic Netflix comedians in general, and cut the references to The Office. I would love to know why they did that, because I thought the joke worked much better the first way. But that’s the only thing that I thought changed for the worse. Every other part of the show got even better.

This show deserves all its accolades, Sarah Keyworth deserves all the accolades, it felt like a privilege to sit in a darkened basement and get to see it live. Also, fun comedian spotting: Jordan Brookes was in the audience with me. I didn’t realize he was there until after the show when I saw him in the crowd emptying the room, but I heard him talking to some people about how good it was.

9.5

- Amy Gledhill – Make Me Look Fit on the Poster

I watched the NextUp stream of this show on the day that Amy Gledhill won the Perrier Award for it (or you know, whatever, Champion of Edinburgh), and I could immediately see why. Actually that might not be quite true – I made the mistake of going in thinking “Wow, show me what made this one better than the other, like, thousand eligible comedy shows in Edinburgh this year”, and that’s not the right way to go into a show. The opening routine was funny but not instantly groundbreaking, which led me to wonder why this isn’t the best fucking thing I’ve ever seen. And then I caught myself thinking that, told myself to knock it off and stop buying into fake award hype and just enjoy a comedy show on its own merits. And then it got really, really good. It got better and better as it went along, I got really drawn into the building narrative, it all came together in a strong and emotional ending, and by the time it was over, I found myself saying, “Wow, I see why that won the award.”

I hadn’t seen her perform solo before this, but I’ve seen and really enjoyed all the Delightful Sausage shows on NextUp (okay, if I’m honest, I’d really enjoyed two of them and the third not so much, but I’d enjoyed those other two a lot), and I think those skills really came through in this. It was just an hour of straight stand-up, but it felt more theatrical that most straight stand-up hours. Her facial expressions, her act-outs, and just her stage presence. Her ability to keep a crowd’s attention, to be playful and interesting no matter what she’s talking about. Those felt like the things she does in sketch to make the narrative more compelling, and it was interesting to see it applied to stand-up.

- Dan Rath – Pariah Carey

Holy God, is he ever funny. Some of the material was recycled from last year’s show, I’m Not Doing Well Folks (which is free on YouTube and excellent), but I didn’t even mind because so much of what’s funniest about Dan Rath his stage presence and delivery. He does a lot of one-liner-type jokes, stuff that should get less funny when you know the punchline, but in his case I could watch him say this stuff over and over and it’ll still be funny because of how he says it. And the majority of the show was new, and also funny. Dark, fucked up humour, but the kind of dark humour where he’s the target of every joke (so, not that thing where edgy comedians just say racial slurs and then say “sorry you don’t understand my dark sense of humour”).

At one point he asked me my job, and I said autism therapist (which is true), and he’d just done a bunch of jokes about how very autistic he is, and he did a whole riff about how I’ve come to get him, and then he tried to have a further interaction with me but I was too awkward for it, and he asked “Do you have what your clients have?”, and I said “Yes” before realizing he meant that rhetorically, which sort of made his point.

- Kiri Pritchard-McLean – Peacock

Probably the closest any Edinburgh 2024 comedy show came to making me cry. It came so close. It might have… I might have had, like, one actual tear in my eye, near the end. Blinking it away so people wouldn’t see me cry in a big theatre. And it was a big theatre. Kiri Pritchard-McLean is too famous for this festival, she did three nights in the Pleasance Grand with her name in massive lights behind her and a blindingly sparkly dress, it felt glamorous and exciting.

The show’s topic was one close to my heart, about how to be an adult who raises kids and teenagers while not being their biological parent. It’s not exactly my experience, as I’ve never been a foster parent, and that’s what the show was about. But so many of the themes and messages resonated with me so much, from all my years coaching, about how to be a mentor a safe place for youth who need it and might not get it from their biological parents. How to find fulfillment in a rewarding experience like that even if you don’t want to do the biological parenthood thing. And I don’t want to do the biological parenthood thing, but a couple of weeks ago I went to the wedding of a guy whom I started coaching when he was fourteen years old, and now he’s 27 and on his wedding day he hugged me and told me he’d not have got here without my support and that I was his rock in his teenage/early twenties years, and I told him I wouldn’t be able to be any prouder of him even if he were my actual son, and it was fine that that made us both tear up because it’s a wedding, a normal place to cry, rather than a theatre where a woman in a sparkly dress is talking about the code name she used with her foster kids.

…This one hit me too personally for me to be able to talk very well about the show itself, rather than veering off into my own stuff that it brought up, but it was such a well put together show. The type of comedy hour that just constantly signals experience and professionalism from the person who wrote and delivered it. Polished, coherent, confidence. Took what could have been a really boring topic, the admin involved in navigating the social care system, and made it consistently funny. And took what was always going to be an emotionally affective topic, the reasons to work in the social care system, and hit all the right emotional notes without once feeling over-wrought.

I’m so glad that my 5 days (plus one evening) in Edinburgh overlapped with Kiri’s three, this one was worth taking the opportunity to see live.

- Marjolein Robertson – O

This was a rare chance I took on someone I knew very little about before this. I’d heard a few short sets that she’d done on mixed bills, and I’d liked them well enough, but little 10-minute things aren’t really the way to appreciate a comedian like this one. I’d read a lot about how great her 2023 stand-up hour was, so I figured I’d buy a ticket for her 2024 one and hope it’s true that she’s very good.

It was true. Whatever my expectations were, she exceeded them. I didn’t know the topic going in, so I was immediately surprised by (I assume this isn’t a major spoiler, I’m pretty sure the synopsis is easy to find) realizing she was going to spend the whole hour talking about menstrual complications (that seems like too small a term to describe some of the quite severe health issues she discussed, but she also discussed the issue more broadly). I initially thought, “Wow, you don’t hear much about that in comedy.” And then I thought, “Hang on, it was a stereotype for years that female comedians only talk about periods.” Marjolein even addressed that stereotype in her show, in a moment that got one of the biggest laughs out of me that I got from the whole festival.

But 1) Obviously that’s bullshit, some female comedians made a few jokes about periods and then they got defined entirely as that by misogynists who think even two minutes on the subject is too much, and 2) Yeah I’ve heard a few period jokes before, but not like this. I’ve never heard any comedian address it like this. This took on an incredibly weighty subject (not that menstruation has to be an inherently weighty subject, but it is when discussing a possibly life-threatening medical condition associated with it), and handled in a way that gave it its due seriousness while still being funny at regular intervals. I say “at regular intervals” because yeah, this show had times when it would go a few minutes without being funny. It had to, for the whole thing to work. But those few minutes would always hold your attention in some other way; they’d be interesting (giving me information I didn’t already know about medical situations, or Scottish legends), or scary, or sad, or occasionally heartwarming. And she used that brilliantly to highlight the funny parts. Playing with tension, turning it all the way up for the serious bits, and then getting an even bigger laugh for her next joke because she had so much tension to release.

I was captivated from start to finish in this show. Any time there was any risk of a lull, she’d launch into some mythology, and then bring it back around. I guess the mythology bits could maybe have been integrated slightly better into the main themes of the show – I could see where it was going by the end, but not always in the middle. I don’t know, that’s a tiny nitpicky thing because I felt like I had to find a flaw in it. It’s a very good hour of comedy.

- Natalie Palamides – WEER

Fucking brilliant, obviously. Should probably be rated even higher than this, really. It’s probably the most impressive display of talent that I’ve seen in the entire festival, one of the most impressive displays of talent that I’ve ever seen on a stage. It’s theatre, rather than just comedy (I don’t know where the line is between a play and a narrative comedy show, but this was definitely a play), but it was still frequently funny.

I wasn’t planning to see it until the last moment, because I enjoyed the two shows that Natalie Palamides has filmed before – Laid and Nate – but they also made me feel weird and uncomfortable with the nudity (entirely my issue, not anything she did wrong – I just do not have Theatre Experience to be chill about a naked person on stage), and creeped out by the puppets, and I was sort of glad that I watched those alone where I could curl up in a ball of discomfort, rather than in a theatre full of people. But a friend of mine gave this show a very high recommendation to me, and I figured this is the type of thing that’s better for a live experience, so I may as well take the chance to see her. I bought a ticket a few days before I arrived in Edinburgh.

Natalie Palamides plays both the man and woman in a romcom, half her body dressed/made up as one and half as the other, constantly switching which half of her is facing the audience so she can play one and then the other as they interact with each other, and that sounds like the worst thing in the world if done badly but blindingly impressive if done well, and this was the latter. Very much the latter. I was occasionally distracted from other aspects of the play, by just marveling at how impressive the situation was. I don’t really have enough Theatre Experience to have a proper informed opinion about this play, beyond “fucking hell, that was impressive”. She did get naked at one point but at least I was expecting it this time and I did not curl up in a ball. I’m so glad I saw it live.

9.25

- Ed Night – The Plunge

This show was not in a glamourous theatre. It was in a cramped, small, dark basement that smelled bad. And I don’t know how to make it sound like the high compliment it’s meant to be, when I say that is the perfect venue for Ed Night. It’s almost a shame that he’s so talented he’ll probably get too successful to play a room like that soon. But it’s only almost a shame. It’s not quite a shame, it’s actually a very good thing. Because I have now spent several years rooting for this guy to get famous.

I wrote this story out a few times during the posts that I hastily made from the festival itself, but I’ll write it again for this one. I first discovered Ed Night a few years ago, when I made the very ill-advised decision to watch every episode of Roast Battle UK, one of the worst guilty pleasure shows I’ve ever seen. “Guilty pleasure” probably isn’t an accurate term, because I didn’t even enjoy most of it. But there were a few that I found funny. And my favourite of the whole show was one with Huge Davies, a comedian I knew a bit, and Ed Night, a comedian I did not know at all. I looked up Ed Night afterward, and was disappointed to find he’s done nearly nothing else on TV or radio or recorded stand-up. I found a couple of really short sets he did on YouTube, liked those a lot, but there was no more.

For the next while, I kept trying to follow his stuff, and being annoyed that he wasn’t famous enough for me to see him from Canada. I could go see him in a club if I lived in the UK, but there’s an ocean. He started a podcast with Huge Davies and Sunil Patel, and I tried the first episode, but could not get through it. Maybe it gets good, I don’t know. I couldn’t get into it. And I hear it now involves making Ed Gamble read pornography on a podcast, as though someone else didn't do that 15 years ago, and do it so well that that idea's been burned. No one else could come close to matching that glory and shouldn't even try.

Anyway, Ed Night has that, and has a YouTube series about bad movies, but that is a topic that I care so little about. I just wanted to see his stand-up, to test my hypothesis, based on like 8 minutes of Roast Battle, that I bet I’d really like this guy, if I could see his actual work. That was the hypothesis, that I probably put way too much faith in, based on so little evidence. That he was both objectively good at comedy, and that his comedy would probably be the sort of thing that I subjectively like. I spent a couple of years rooting for his career to succeed as thought it were a sports team, hoping he'd get famous enough to record a special or something, but he didn't, so I had to go to him instead.

So when I got the chance to plan a trip to Edinburgh, one of the first tickets I booked was Ed Night, dedicating a whole primetime timeslot this guy I knew basically fuck all about. I nearly walked into him on the street outside the Pleasance Courtyard, a couple of days before I saw his show, and I had a moment of thinking… "Fuck, I had to cut so many comedians from my list of people to see, what if this guy is a waste of one of my precious few 7-8 PM timeslots? Can I really be sure he'll be worth it, just because I like that he referenced Pokemon in a Roast Battle?"

So after I actually saw his show, I was so fucking pleased to report that it turns out Ed Night is good at stand-up comedy. He could have been shit. Some people are shit. But he was so good. So good that I bet he’ll get famous soon, and then there will be more stuff by him that gets released in ways that I can see it from across the ocean, and that’ll be convenient. But I’m glad that before that happens, I got to see him in a small cramped darkened basement, where his style of comedy clearly belongs.

It was funny, and, as I’d suspected, the specific type of thing that I like in stand-up. Very dark, but not in a racial slur way. On the contrary, sprinkled with angry left-wing sentiments (I wouldn’t call it political comedy, but it was sharply opinionated and on the left side of whatever political issues did come up). Reminded me of Dan Rath, in some ways, with its level of darkness of his stand-up persona being extreme low status, but with Dan Rath it was more obviously a character, while with Ed Night… I mean obviously it was curated, but it felt more real.

It was about mental illness and physical illness and anxiety about the future and dangerous dogs and death and caregiving and the healthcare system and he found some time to talk shit about Tom Binns, a fairly left-field target but one that’s definitely worth shit talking. He got a Pokemon reference into a suicide joke, which is right up my alley. It was also surprisingly gag-heavy, they were constant and sprinkled around all the pessimistic rhetoric and you can tell he’s spent a long time crafting this show to get as much as possible out of every minute.

I think my description of this show has been longer than my description for any of the others so far, and I really have to start cutting these down soon because there are 65 shows on the list and if I continue at this rate, this post will technically qualify as a novella. But I needed a long time to explain this one, because I need one thing to be very, very clear: my decision to watch Roast Battle has now been artistically justified. It’s not an awful guilty pleasure, it’s the way I discovered a guy who turned out to be very good at stand-up comedy, so it was actually a good decision for my overall experience of art.

- Emma Sidi – Is Sue Grey

This is another one where I took a bit of a chance on someone I didn’t know well. I knew she was supposed to be good, she did amusing characters on YouTube, she did good acting on Starstruck, she hung out with Rose Matafeo so she had to be all right, comedians I like rate her. I was trying to expand my comedy horizons a bit, figured it would be a safe bet to go with her as a way to experience character comedy. Plus it was advertised as something political, and while I can’t stand it when people say “PoLiTiCaL cOmEdY iS dEaD nOw” as though Andy Zaltzman and his entire Bugle empire just doesn’t exist, it is true that political comedy’s not as common as I’d like. So I booked a ticket (booked it just before the Taskmaster season 18 lineup spoilers came out, which I’d like noted for the record so I get credit for jumping on the bandwagon before it was cool, if only just).

It was so much fun. From start to finish, it was huge fun to be in that room. I must admit that about five minutes in, I was thinking… “Okay, this is funny so far, but surely she can’t keep it up. Is it really going to be an entire hour of just this one character? She can’t have a whole hour worth of material on this.” But she did. It never felt, to me, like a sketch stretched thin across an hour (though I’ve seen some reviews that say it was, so I guess your mileage may vary, if your mileage is incorrect). It felt like she had more ideas than she knew what to do with. She took us through the history of Sue Grey’s career chronologically, which I liked. It gave the narrative a coherent arch. She threw in all these different things, water cooler audience participation and weirdly hilarious Spanish bits and this surreal thread with a dwarf, that kept it feeling fresh to me, like it wasn’t just the same stuff repeated.

And the ending really got to me. I’ll admit I’m a sucker for a good ending; I’ve probably come away from some stand-up shows thinking they were better than they really were, because the ending was better than the show and that’s what forms the lasting impression, and I will fall for that trick if it’s executed well enough. I don’t think that’s what happened here. It’s now been a couple of months since I saw the show, I have enough distance so if I was just taken in by a manipulatively strong ending, I’d have noticed by now, as I look back on the whole show. It was all good. But that ending did work on me.

I guess I’m not supposed to write the details of what she did at the end due to spoilers for a touring show (I’m not avoiding spoilers altogether here, but I try not to go too heavy on them), but I have to say, she brought it all together, she suddenly and really sharply brought home the way that these fun sketches represent real things and it’s affecting real British people’s lives, and it wasn’t long after the election when I saw this, and I’m not even British but I’ve been invested in their politics for long enough to feel the emotional weight of that too (and I can relate, Canada’s had its own struggles with long-term Tory rule, and alternatives-to-Tory that are weak centrist bullshit), and I thought that was a pretty powerful statement to make on this particular summer. Which is why I don’t understand all the reviews for this show that say it was a fluffy character piece but missed the opportunity to make any actual satirical points. Maybe Steve Bennett and I saw different shows.

- Laura Davis – Albatross

Okay, for real this time, I need to start making these commentary sections shorter. Laura Davis writes brilliant poetic comedy, and I need to apologize to them for using that term because they complain in the show about people who call their stand-up poetry, but they also complain about pretty much every way this show could possibly be described, they’re not leaving us much. I’m pretty sure it is, in fact, a show about loneliness. And it’s poetic as fuck. It’s atmospheric. It’s so atmospheric.

I think it might fall just barely short of being my favourite Laura Davis show, just a notch behind If This Is It, but God, that is a high bar. I think it probably surpasses their other stuff, and their other stuff is really good too, but Albatross feels a bit like the show they’ve been trying to write for years. The atmosphere. The brilliant, engaging atmosphere they create, with stories of walking alone at night and staring at the abyss in the ocean. It probably helps that I, personally, romanticize the ocean a lot. I’ve spent many of my favourite hours of my life staring into the abyss of the ocean, and Laura Davis perfectly captured how it feels to look out and feel like you could be swallowed up by it. By the ocean, and by the information in the world, and all these other themes that came together brilliantly.

The stories about their childhood were poignantly relatable. The stories about feeling an instinctive dislike for people who can have fun in public but then feeling guilt about that dislike and trying to understand it – that was poignantly relatable too. And the stuff about dead birds on the beach. Atmospheric as fuck. I want to live in the world that Laura Davis sculpted for me.

I try to avoid the temptation to just reflexively compare everything good in comedy to Daniel Kitson. Laura Davis is the person with whom I have the second most difficulty in avoiding the comparison. The person with whom I find that comparison most difficult to avoid is Alice Fraser, who unfortunately was not in Edinburgh this year. But the end of this Laura Davis show had me really thinking of some of the old Kitson shows that end on a bit crescendo, like Impotent Fury of the Privileged or even It’s the Fireworks Talking. I’m just big on shows that metaphorically take you to the ocean and throw it all at you.

And it was also funny. Okay? Things can be poignantly relatable and atmospheric and also funny. It made me laugh. Laura Davis is really good at this.

- Sheeps – The Giggle Bunch (That's Our Name For You)

This was another “take the chance to see it live while it’s there, and broaden your horizons beyond straight stand-up” gamble that paid off hugely. I had heard some Sheeps stuff before and found it funny, and I like Liam Williams a lot from his other work (Ladhood TV/radio, Pls Like, that one stand-up special he did for the BBC), but to be honest I didn’t know Sheeps well enough to expect this one to be a standout. Luckily, my expectations were significantly exceeded.

Every sketch was funny, which was a good start. I always think of that Mitchell & Webb sketch when I see sketch shows, and it’s pretty accurate, they’re almost never all hits, even the good ones. But I think this Sheeps show was. Obviously some sketches were better than others, but all of them made me laugh at some point, none felt like they were just filler.

There was a fairly ambitious one near the end where they were doing some sort of anti-humour thing about AI, which got deliberately unfunny at times and then got funnier again as they ran the joke further and further into the ground, and to be honest, I’m still not sure what I think of that one. It was either a genius bit of writing and the best bit of the show, or their only miss. Probably the first thing, I think. It’s hard to tell.

But aside from that one sketch, every other one was straightforwardly good, accessible, funny. There was a bit of political stuff. There was an emotional arc that had the twist being, as far as they presented it to the audience, true (I mean, I assume stylized for stage and stuff, the same way that truth gets stylized in straight stand-up, but it was apparently an accurate representation of their professional relationship, which isn’t something I’d normally expect to see in a sketch show). Whether or not the “true” bits were objectively real, that heightened the impact, I think. The result was a collection of (mostly) unrelated funny sketches, and an emotional throughline with a big conclusion at the end. The way all those things came together was amazing, I felt like I was watching something really polished and great. Overall, it was just great.

9

- BriTANick – Dummy

It was so fun! It was like high school! In the best way! Not in the way that the comedy quality was as though a high school student made it. In the way that it immediately brought me back to when I was in high school, trading memes and College Humour videos with my friends. Not that this was meme-quality humour either! It wasn’t, it’s the College Humour that it reminded me of. Cracked. That stuff. Their opening song was so much in that vein, it immediately put me in the frame of mind to enjoy that sort of thing and remember how funny that very silly style of comedy can be, and then they kept it up for an hour (well, 45 minutes).

It was another sketch show with an overarching narrative, though this one was entirely fictional, and absurd, to the point where it didn’t really work, but intentionally so. Like, the plot not working was the joke. And it doesn’t sound like that joke should be funny, when I write it like that. But it really was.

The individual sketches were also funny, they way they’d start out as one thing and inevitably spiral into the confusing messing of the overarching plot. This might be really specific to my high school experience of being into the types of comedy these guys did, but hearing this type of thing again made me feel like a teenager, and laugh like a teenager, and it was so well written and just enormous fun.

- Guy Williams – This Glass House Makes It Easy to See All the Cowards I'm Throwing Stones At

I have already established – long established, repeatedly – that as much as I’d like to be someone who says “I’m not into that shouty comedy, I just don’t think you need to be so brash to be funny”, my list of favourite comedians shows the opposite is true. I fucking love having my own political views shouted at me aggressively from someone who will cathartically give me a break from the relentless efforts I make to try to “be fair” to the other side. See the one person on this list whose show I rated a 10. See Tom Ballard, a couple of spots down from this part (same rating, just lower alphabetically, I sorted the spreadsheet by rating and then by comedian first name, I know how to make consuming art fun). And see Guy Williams. So they can be British, Aussie, Kiwi, doesn’t matter. As long as they will shout my own political opinions at me in a cathartic way. (They do not have to be men, either, but unfortunately Josie Long did not arrive at this festival until after I’d left.)

I think the most impressive thing Guy Williams achieves with this show is managing to be genuinely edgy from a left-wing perspective. There are so many comedians out there claiming to be edgy. Most of them are right-wing edgelords, saying “Sorry you don’t have a dark enough sense of humour to appreciate my racial slurs.” Some of them are left-wing people saying “Fuck the queen of England – oh, sorry if that’s too offensive for you,” while speaking to an audience of people who clearly are not fans of colonialism. Guy Williams is a very rare person expressing views that made me say – “Okay, if you start saying ‘Sorry this material might be too edgy for some people’, that would be fair enough, he’s earned that.”

There were some genuinely interesting ideas in this show, like some stuff about reversing the mathematical formula for comedy + time = tragedy – a bit that I wished had gone on longer because I thought he was on to something cool with that. There was also a bit about Cat Stevens’ music that probably went on for slightly too long, but he delivered it with so much enthusiasm that I stayed on board anyway. There was probably the best Ricky Gervais joke I’ve ever heard (as in jokes about Ricky Gervais… not by him), in a festival where I heard quite a few Ricky Gervais jokes (even though Keyworth cut theirs, there were lots of people referencing him).

This show didn’t feel nearly as polished as most of the great shows at this festival. I have tried to work this out, but I cannot tell how much of that was a master of the craft intentionally making his work look effortless, and how much was genuinely shambolic. Doesn’t really matter though, since it was all so funny.

- Mark Watson – Work-In-Progress Is Not a Cop-Out, It Demonstrates Respect For The Paying Audience

This was billed as work in progress, as per the title, and it was certainly more like an actual WIP than the other half of Wumar, who turned up with a show he’d been perfecting all year and stuck a WIP label on it. But this was certainly not an early WIP, as most of the material in it was stuff I heard Mark Watson do at Access Festival in January (though it’s improved since then). So it was material that he’s been working on for a while, but performed in a room with literally 37 seats (I counted them), and for not very much money, due to its WIP status. It was the first time I’d seen Mark Watson live, after being a huge fan of lots of his work for a long time (don’t think about the cheating on his wife thing don’t think about the cheating on his wife thing, we’re just trying to have nice things here), and it was pretty cool to see him in a room that small.

It was really funny. I’ve got to admit I’d kind of forgotten, by the time I saw that show, how very funny Mark Watson can be. I like Mark Watson a lot as one of the more intellectual comedians; he’s so good as an interviewee on podcasts and things, because he’s so thoughtful, speaks so insightfully about aspects of the human experience that I find really resonate. I find him inspiring, the way he talks candidly about even the less savoury sides of anxiety, like bitterness and envy and frustration, the way he talks about alcohol and mental health stuff that makes me feel less shitty about my experiences with that, if someone as smart and talented as him can describe those same experiences with it (don’t think about the cheating on his wife thing just let us have nice things). But in the midst of this, it had been a little while since I’d watched his actual stand-up, and I think I forgot how purely funny he can be.

I was very much reminded of that in this room of 37 people, around the corner from the actual Stand, upstairs in a weird room where you could hear all the traffic outside. I laughed so hard, almost constantly for a whole hour. I’d heard a bunch of it before from Access Festival, but there was new stuff, and the older stuff got polished, and there was more of an arc to it. I could see, during Access Festival, where this might be going – bringing overall themes about the disconnection in technology and AI. By Edinburgh that was even clearer, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it’ll end up once it’s all integrated.

For ages, he has been mentioning on podcasts and things that he’s scared of thunderstorms and thinks that should be considered a normal and reasonable fear, that it’s weird that people are considered an anomaly if they’re scared of explosions and fire in the sky. Which I have been saying for years, but obviously I haven’t been saying it in a way that’s as articulate or funny as the way Mark Watson says it. I even once cut out a clip of Mark Watson discussing this on a podcast and sent it to my mother, to back up my side of the argument that we’ve been having since I was a teenager, where she says “But thunderstorms are fun!” and I say “No they’re terrifying and it’s weird that not everyone thinks so.”

I’d heard Mark Watson say this on podcasts before, hadn’t heard him say it in stand-up, until this stand-up show. Where he asked the audience if anyone’s scared of thunderstorms, and I said “Yes” – I swear I wasn’t trying to draw his attention to me, but I assumed lots of people would say “Yes”, and my voice would be lost in the crowd. Instead, I was the only one who answered, because I’d kind of forgotten that there were only 37 people in the room. So Mark Watson pointed at me, said “Thank you” for being one of those few people to agree with him about thunderstorms, and proceeded to do a whole routine on thunderstorms, in which he kept pointing to me and saying “Me and this woman are the ones in the right, by being scared of them.”

And that was... look, I know we’re not supposed to parasocially put our favourite comedians on pedestals or else we’ll get all disappointed when we inevitably find out that they cheat on their wives and stuff. But that was fucking cool. Mark Watson looked at me and it was fucking cool. Okay? Let me have nice things.

- Tom Ballard – Good Point Well Made

I’d never noticed, before seeing this show live, that Tom Ballard is too big for a room. Too tall, shoulders too broad, he could barely fit onto that stage in the cramped basement. His delivery style didn’t help, waving his arms around, reaching up in the air, leaving forward to yell at people. I even saw him live in Montreal last year, but for some reason, he didn’t seem quite so larger than life at that time. I really noticed it this year, though. He was everywhere. Loud and relentless and in your face and all over the stage.

I have a friend who very much dislikes Tom Ballard’s comedy, and I’d wondered why someone would reaction with such a strong dislike to Tom Ballard, even if you’re not really into the material. But after seeing him live in that cramped basement, I get it. If you like that stuff, it’s great. If you don’t, it would be overwhelming dose of stuff you don’t like, and would be incredibly annoying.

Luckily, I love that stuff. Tom Ballard cathartically shouted my own opinions at me at top volume for an entire hour, but shouted them in a more articulate and funny way that I could manage. Took my opinions that I find exhausting day to day, to walk around carrying the weight of these frustrating fucking opinions that put me at odds with everyone I know, and Tom made them into something that could make me laugh, that made me feel connected rather than alienated.

He was furious, talking about a specific political situation in Australia, but putting it in a way that will be relatable to anyone who’s seen a vote by their fellow citizens make them realize what kinds of people they share their spaces with (not that it needs that broader relatability, really, as that one Australian situation is bad enough to deserve its own focus). But his underlying thesis was a broader one, about wanting the left to stop trying to moderate its opinions in the name of reaching across the aisle, about how fucking cathartic it is to say “Actually I’m right and your opinion does make you a bad person because it’s racist and racists are bad.” I don’t even realize how tiring it is to try to “be fair” and not say that stuff all the time, until I let a comedian take that burden off me for a bit.

This show recycled a little bit of material from his 2022 show, about how right-wing people aren’t listening to us and aren’t making art because they’re too busy running the world, so left-wing people should probably stop considering whether we listen to enough right-wing people when making our art. I did not mind that material getting recycled at all, because 1) it’s stuff I liked a lot and was happy to hear again, every time I lament the fact that I don’t live in this mythical “liberal bubble” that sounds like a great place to live, I think of Tom Ballard shouting about how the liberal bubble is actually great, and 2) it fit really well into the thesis of his 2024 show, he’s developed the idea a lot further than he had a couple of years ago, and I liked seeing that get developed.

The whole show was a great time. I even managed to stop and the end and briefly speak to him, something I almost never do because the thought of speaking to famous comedians terrifies me, but he was waiting outside the venue after the show with a bucket, and I was able to hang back so I’d be at the end of the line and wouldn’t hold up other people, I gave him some extra money even though of course I’d paid for a ticket, and I told him how I saw him live in Canada last year and loved it but I think this was even better, and it was a great time and he’s so cool and very nice to meet him! And he was so nice. It was actually weird, after the hour of high-energy aggressive shouting, how different he was out-of-persona outside, came across as really humble and asked me what my name was and thanked me for coming. It was cool. I was glad I did it.

8.75

- Catherine Bohart – Again, With Feelings

Well, at some point I’d started to succeed in keeping these commentary passages short, and then they got long again. There are 65 of these fucking shows, this isn’t sustainable. However, the ones I rated between 9 and 10 were the ones I felt the most strongly about, so those will mostly be the ones I have the most to say about. They need to get shorter after this. Like. Significantly shorter. I have a life to lead.

This hour was very funny. Catherine Bohart discussed topics that are not at all relatable to me, about long-term relationships and considering parenthood (even her stuff about being gay was not all that relatable to me, as most of it was based around being one of those gay people who actually has relationships on a regular basis), but that made it more impressive to me, because it made me laugh so much, and if someone can make me laugh with material I do not personally relate to,  

- Chris Cantrill – Easily Swayed

I’m going to copy some stuff from a Tumblr post that I wrote right after watching this show, to save me a bit of time:

I didn’t know what to expect when I went into this show, given the offbeat Delightful Sausage, but this was straight stand-up. Stories about his life, told as himself, but he did wear a cape for much of the show, which made sense in context. It hit some themes that chimed quite well with me at the moment – depression and the loneliness of old friendships deteriorating as you get older. So it got a little dark at times, but it never felt very dark, and it ended on a note so hopeful that I may have been briefly, genuinely moved.

This was one of those stand-up hours where you can feel how competent and experienced the person who put it together is. It was paced really well, everything felt like it was in the right order and it really built up and came together nicely. I love how easily he could move between whimsey (there was some stuff about Medieval fantasy lands in there), straightforward storytelling, and occasional breaks to add something like a political opinion or a fact about history. All the different types of material flowed so well that none of the seams felt jarring. It felt honest about depression without seeming overwrought or overly emotional, which is pretty impressive.

He dropped little threads early on that I’d assumed were nothing but came back unexpectedly, and I always like that. He had so many little ways of describing things that I’ve found myself going back to in my mind, I feel like this is going to be one of those things where a year from now I wonder why I use a certain turn of phrase when I talk about certain things, and then remember I heard it in a Chris Cantrill show.

And I love how much care he took over all the people in his story, who were mainly his friends. That seemed like his skills as a sketch comedian coming out, he could make all these people come to life in the stories; I ended up sympathizing with everyone and getting really invested in all the different things that were going on. He’s spent all this time in Delightful Sausage making fictional characters seem real, and he continued that in such a lovely way when telling us about people he knew.

This show had, you know – heart, or whatever would be a less cheesy word to describe that.

- Milo Edwards – How Revolting! Sorry To Offend

More political comedy, in an era when supposedly political comedy is dead. I don’t know if this show is quite as good as Voicemail, my favourite Milo Edwards show, but that’s a fucking high bar. This one is certainly a close second for my favourite Milo Edwards show, it’s sharp and clear and goes into uncomfortable territory but deals with it deftly – all the stuff Milo Edwards does best. This is a weird comparison and I don’t know if it makes sense, but I sort of think of Milo Edwards as the edgy intelligent analytical comedian that Alfie Brown wanted to be, and maybe would have been if he weren’t such a dick.

This latest Milo Edwards show is almost entirely about class, a topic that frequently gets referenced in British comedy, occasionally gets lampooned for a few minutes, rarely gets truly examined. It has more explicitly political material than some of his previous stuff, the joke rate is very high, and they’re consistently good. Great show.

8.5

- Eleanor Morton – Haunted House

This show started a little bit slowly, I was slightly disappointed for the first five minutes or so. Because the room promised a lot – there was a funny and atmospheric ghostly recording playing as we walked in, there were candles and an intricate dollhouse on stage, Eleanor came out dressed dramatically in white. And then she started some somewhat conventional material, when according to the setup, she should have started floating through walls and stuff.

However, it started getting better very quickly, and snowballed that way until I was utterly captivated by about 20 minutes in, until the end. She had some really interesting stuff about being from Edinburgh and having her colleagues all descend upon her hometown for one month of every year, during the festival. I found that a really interesting perspective, and one I had been wondering about, how someone from Edinburgh feels about the festival every year (according Eleanor Morton: frustrated that her complex city gets reduced to touristy stuff like Harry Potter and ghost tours; according to an Uber driver I asked: nice to get the extra work; according to the woman who ran my Air B&B: incredibly annoying as there’s nowhere to park and too many people around to run errands in town).

She slowly brought in this other thread, about the sexual predators who are all over comedy, and I thought she came up with some really interesting ways to weave that around her theme of ghosts and haunted buildings. She said something that Guy Williams had also specifically mentioned, which is that everyone at this festival says we have to do something about predators in comedy, but everyone is also aware that there were comedians performing at that festival that month, and no one had done anything about it. She told a few specific stories but named no specific names.

It all came together really nicely by the end, the stuff about Edinburgh and about ghosts and about dangerous people, and I found the very end pretty emotional, as she talked about wanting to protect her city and her friends and her colleagues in her own home. I don’t know how well this show would travel outside Edinburgh, but performed in a darkened basement during the Edinburgh festival with the candles and the dollhouse and sort of surreal, outside-the-real world feeling of the entire festival (a feeling she addressed repeatedly), it was a very good show.

- Jin Hao Li – Swimming in a Submarine

Okay, I’m going back to keeping this short again. So short. Super short. There was really ambitious structure here that hit all the cool notes that he couldn’t have gotten to any other way. It was ethereal, mesmerizing, in a way that just enhanced the jokes because the laughs were bigger when we were all too mesmerized to expect them. Like an edgier Johnny White Really-Really, which is a fascinating thing for a person to be. I could listen to Jin Hao Li talk for hours. I want him to be my nephew, I think.

- Lou Wall – The Bisexual’s Lament

Blinding, lightning-paced show that really needs to be seen in person to have any chance of taking it all in. Dealt with some very heavy topics without ever getting over-emotional, jumped around from idea to idea, was consistently funny enough to distract us from how fucked up the subject matter was, though every once in a while they’d bring that back into focus, quite effectively. There should be no way to do a routine about Facebook Marketplace that’s at all interesting anymore, but Lou Wall managed to find it, I can’t believe I’m staying this but holy hell their Facebook Marketplace material was funny. All their material was funny, except the stuff that was harrowing, and that was successfully harrowing. Fun comedian spotting: Rhys Nicholson sat behind me during this, so you know it’s a cool show.

8.25

- Jonny & the Baptists – The Happiness Index

I saw them in a circus tent-like room, with about 20 people sparsely scattered across benches. I’d never seen them before (I bought the ticket on the strength of: 1) political comedy is not dead and I wanted to see as many people as I could who were out there proving it, and 2) Josie Long likes him so he has to be all right), but then since then I have bought four of their albums off Bandcamp, so that tells you something about how much I enjoyed this hour. It felt like a proper “experience the Fringe” moment to sit in a circus tent sparsely populated by about 20 people, and watch Josie Long’s life partner and his friend’s little brother (I also listened to their ComCom episode after seeing them, apparently that’s how Jonny Donahoe and Paddy Gervers met) perform what was ostensibly a musical version of Shakespeare, but was in fact a detailed, chronological, musical critique of how 14 years of Tory rule had dismantled the NHS and arts funding in Britain.

…The above paragraph is unnecessarily dismissive, reducing the whole thing to a twee novelty, when actually it was a well-written and well-performed hour with funny songs, touching moments of friendship, and a genuinely important political message/call to arms that was delivered well.

- Melanie Bracewell – Attack of the Melanie Bracewell

I’m vaguely paranoid to write her name here because she is one of the very few celebrities who are actually on Tumblr, but I’ve probably buried this enough so that it’s all right. I was sure what I was expecting from this, knowing Melanie Bracewell only from Taskmaster (though since this I’ve gone and watched her YouTube special), but I enjoyed this a lot. It’s almost all one story, which I generally like in a comedy hour, if they have enough material to fill an hour of one thing. In this case, the story of trying to retrieve stolen air pods. Which I expected to just a storytelling device, a story where the message is that sometimes you don’t get closure, so I was surprised and quite entertained when this turned out to be a full narrative with an ending and everything.

I won’t spoil more than that, I guess, but it was fun all the way along. The story had twists and turns and I was genuinely invested, in addition to enjoying the jokes and everything else. There was an underlying message about standing up for yourself and things like that, but it was mostly just an interesting narrative with solid humour and engaging personality. Good stuff.

- Pierre Novellie – Must We?

When I made a spreadsheet like this for the 2023 Edinburgh Festival (which I didn’t even attend in person, but some shows got streamed or otherwise put in forms where I could hear them, and those still had to be tracked, there’s no point to consuming art without spreadsheets), I gave Pierre Novellie’s show Why Are You Laughing? a 9.5, and it is still one of my favourite stand-up shows I’ve ever heard. This one had some of the same type of stuff that was so good in the previous show, it just felt slightly unfinished comparison. Pierre Novellie even addresses that within the show, saying he’s been writing a book and touring his previous show and had so much else on that it was hard to write a whole new hour at the same time. Which is fair enough – his book is great, everyone should buy it, but it was pretty dense in places and must have taken a lot of time and effort and stretched him pretty thin.

There were a lot of funny individual bits, but they didn’t come together as well as they have in some of his previous shows (not just his 2023 one, but the 2022 one on which he based his book). He had an ending routine with some deeper stuff behind it, and I thought that had a lot more potential than he actually got from it, it felt slightly tacked on. On the other hand, it made me laugh repeatedly, and he also said at the beginning, quite correctly, that it’s odd that “It was just a funny hour of comedy” can be an insult (or at best, damning with faint praise). This was a really funny hour of comedy, which is why I’ve still ranked it above most other stuff I’ve saw, I’ve just unfairly spent most of this description explaining why he’s come down from a 9.5.

This was a funny hour of comedy. No need to mitigate that. He had some good jokes about food, and I normally dislike jokes about food, but his were so good that I liked them anyway.

- Shenoah Allen – Bloodlust Summertime

These are getting long again, I need to curb that. This was an hour of trauma. There were frequent jokes within the trauma stories, and they were funny. I found myself thinking he could have gone further in putting some overarching meaning or analysis into the trauma stories, but as Pierre Novellie would say, what’s wrong with just telling a bunch of good jokes? This had jokes and happened to also contain a lot of trauma, rather than being one of those “here’s a deep analysis of how my trauma’s affected me” shows. Which I think sort of surprised me, as I’ve been conditioned to expect trauma-filled comedy shows to go that way, and this didn’t. But it was funny, and fascinating, a complex look into a certain type of life. It was definitely not what I was expecting from a guy I know from an improv clown duo. It was not improv and it was not clowning. And to be honest, as much as I want to expand my horizons and appreciate experimental comedy more, I enjoyed this stand-up show way more than I’d enjoy improv and clowning. It’s very good.

- Stevie Martin – clout

A show about internet comedy vs. live comedy, the arbitrary nature of algorithms, the changing nature of the comedy industry as a whole with the rise of social media. A topic I find very interesting, and I know I’ve got some prejudice against the social media comedians, so Stevie Martin was a great person knock through some of that prejudice by putting a great show about how sometimes you do what you’ve got to do, social media-wise, but live comedy is hardly perfect either, and surely there’s room for both. This was incredibly well put together, with slides and videos and some props, I appreciated the way she used this to what a really dedicated comedian can do with technology. It consistently set up expectations and then subverted them.

- Susie McCabe – Merchant of Menace

Another show that’s mainly about class, this time told by a working class Glaswegian, who had observations on a lot of different areas of life that get divided by class, like schools and hotels and grocery stores and travel. Sharp observations, captivating delivery, especially impressive for a woman who had a heart attack about ten days before the festival. I’ve been a big fan of Susie McCabe ever since I first saw her on Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, I liked her 2023 stand-up special, thought this one was better. It ended on a poem, a really unassuming poem delivered in an even tone so the quality of the writing could speak for itself, and I love stuff like that. A really funny hour of comedy., and I don’t mean that as faint praise.

8

- Judi Love (MC), Ivo Graham, Sophie Duker, Jin Hao Li – ITVX Presents Live Comedy from the Edinburgh Fringe, 1x01

The only one of the NextUp mixed bills, streamed from this festival, where I enjoyed every act. Judi Love was all right, had some stuff I liked and some that I didn’t, but all three main comedians were really strong. Jin Hao Li’s stuff breaks down into shorter sets surprisingly well, for something with so much structure to the full hour. Ivo Graham, whose shows I did not see in Edinburgh but I heard a preview of his comedy one (he had two shows in Edinburgh this year, comedy and theatre) and it was one of the most boring hours I’ve heard in my entire life, so my expectations weren’t high for him, but on this bill he didn’t do any of the boring story from his comedy hours, he riffed a bit about previous events of the night and it was absolutely hilarious. Sophie Duker was fantastic, she was one of the comedians whom I regretted cutting from my schedule because I just didn’t have enough day to fit her hour in, but sample form it that she gave us here was so much fun and I hope she films the whole thing eventually.

- Lauren Pattison – Big Girl Pants

Copy-pasting from a previous post again. That’ll speed up the process a bit.

It started a little bit slowly, I wasn’t sure about it at first, but she quickly picked up steam and started building on stuff. By the end, so many threads had been tied together, and she’d made me laugh so many times along the way, that I was totally on board for her powerful ending. She did the requisite 40-minute-mark emotional stuff, along with a requisite self-deprecating comment about how she knows it’s cliché to go into an emotional ending at the 40-minute mark, but I thought she also had a very good justification for why she introduced the sad bit at that point in the story (basically, she needed to do all that buildup to give it proper context and meaning), and I thought it worked very well.

Obviously this is also personal, her themes hit some stuff that’s familiar to me, with anxiety and alcohol issues. But I think this show was really well put together no matter who the target audience is. It was smart and funny at the same time (difficult to do), it was structured nicely. It was dark at times but overall hopeful.

- Two Hearts – Til Death Do Us Hearts

Enormous fun right from the first moment, I loved the opening song and then was impressed that they kept up that energy. Most of the songs were good, they did a pretty good job of walking the awkward line that comes from mixing their work with their personal life so closely. It was a show about a wedding and a marriage, which is really not my favourite sort of comedy show, so it’s fucking impressive that they made a show that I liked as much as I did. Objectively this show’s probably about a 9; a show about marriage has to be pretty fucking good to get an 8 in my subjective rating.

- Zoe Coombs Marr – Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life

I’ve seen/heard three Zoe Coombs Marr specials before – Dave, Bossy Bottom, and The Opener. They were all ambitious, brilliant, some of my favourites. This one I was not as into as I was with any of those, but still pretty fucking good. If the weakest (in my subjective opinion) show I’ve seen a comedian do still rates an 8/10, they are quite a good comedian. It also had a cool and ambitious premise, putting Zoe’s whole life into a spreadsheet and letting the audience pick stories, but that last part is where it seemed to fall down a bit, as it basically came down to whether the crowd picked funny enough stuff. Which they did sometimes, but didn’t at other times. I really liked the overarching stuff in the show, when Zoe would veer off from audience-selected stuff to discuss, mostly, non-binary identity, their recent mental health breakdown, ADHD, and their love of spreadsheets. I’d have liked to hear more about all those things, but it was still a lot of fun.

7.75

- Amy Annette – Thick Skin

This has something in common with the Two Hearts show, which is that it had to overcome being not my sort of thing, usually, and still became a show I really liked, just by doing it so well. It’s a show about being a teenage girl in the 2000s, but from the perspective of someone who spent those years reading women’s magazines and having crushes on boybands and trying to fit in as a girl. And when I hear comedy material like that, it immediately gives me the anxiety of remembering my time as a teenage girl in the 2000s, where my mother really wanted me to be that, and I wasn’t. And when people do comedy about it there’s often such a strong focus on the relatability of it all, the “the boys have dominated comedy for so long but now we girls get to talk about what our adolescence was like”, and because it wasn’t for me, that feels more alienating to me than hearing a male comedian talk about a male adolescence that I’m not supposed to relate to (though to be honest, male comedians talking about adolescence usually describe years spent being the nerdy kid in school and having crushes on girls who didn’t like them back, which is in fact relatable to me).

I don’t know how to write about this without coming off as a “Not like the other girls” internalized misogyny person. And I don’t mean to be that! I had a little while, when I was a kid, when I was like that. Because I’d see girls with the teen girl magazines, wearing makeup and shaving their legs and being into clothes and shopping, and part of me resented them for being the thing I was supposed to be, or even blamed them, like if they just wouldn’t do these things then my mother would stop expecting me to do them. By my late teens I got into feminist blogs and realized that that’s bullshit, obviously, and they didn’t have it any easier than I did. They were caught up in expectations too, they were navigating really difficult stuff, they definitely weren’t responsible for gender stereotypes. Some of them made fun of me for not wearing the right clothes, but lots of them were happy to get into buying particular clothes as their own hobby, and they didn’t give one fuck if I wanted to exclusively wear boys’ jeans and t-shirts that were several sizes too big for me, and if I resented them for that, then I am the dick in this situation.

I know that now, and in my twenties I made friends with plenty of girls who’d have intimidated me in high school, girls who wore makeup and wore girls’ clothes and shoes and read those magazines. But it did take me a while to get over my issues with them, and I really hate (I hate this about myself, that is, not that I hate the comedy or the comedians for it) the way when I hear a comedian talk about the “teenage girl experience”, especially if they’re around my age, it brings that back and I immediately feel defensive, like I need to justify that not all teen girls were reading Cosmo, even though obviously at no point has Amy Annette said that all teenage girls read Cosmo. She’s just trying to represent some experiences that were very common for many teenage girls and that don’t get talked about all that much (or at least, don’t get talked about in a way that really analyzes them and gives those girls agency and sympathy – they get talked about plenty by people mocking the girls for it), and that is a good thing.

Amy Annette does this thing when she comperes where she asks some woman in the audience what was their favourite teen heartthrob singer they had a crush on in school, and I always want to say “Well Amy, not every woman had a favourite boy band, some people spent their teenage years exclusively listening to Canadian folk music that was mostly made by people who were like 60 years old, and yeah I know that obviously if someone says that from the crowd they’ll sound like an asshole who’s ruining everyone’s by refusing to just play along, but this question puts audience members in a position where they have to either lie about listening to boy bands or ruin everyone’s fun, and it’s not like lying would be a big deal but being in that ‘lie or else you’ll ruin the fun’ position seems a lot like middle school, where I used to Google names of pop bands that I could say if people asked me what music I liked so I wouldn’t embarrass myself by listing folk singers, and I understand that this is cool and relatable for many women but it would be so easy to just ask them for their favourite singer as a teenager rather than making it so specific.”

Okay, those are a lot of reactions to Amy Annette that I have, automatically, due to my own baggage that has nothing to do with her, and isn’t fair to her, and it sucks that this tends to happen to female comedians more than to male ones, that they’ll run up against audience defensiveness because girls get pitted against each other so much that they have automatic defensive reactions to each other, in a way that can also happen with boys but not as often, and then I feel guilty for being part of the problem by having that automatic reaction. But anyway. Once I recognized that that reaction was happening in me again, and I consciously tried to stop it – I realized that Amy Annette’s show is actually a really interesting look at how things weren’t easy on any side, at school. Sure, some girls did not have their mother constantly asking them to start shaving their legs like I did, but they did have some horrifically toxic advice from magazines that they had to figure out at way too young an age, and with growing bodies that could be harmed by dangerous weight-loss culture. Most of them didn’t care what I was wearing because they were too busy trying to keep up with the expectations on themselves.

Amy Annette unpacks this in a way that’s deft, intelligent while coming off as playful and fun, and, once I got past the initial reaction, easy to understand even if it’s not personally relatable. The show is funny, it tackles important issues with a light and irreverent touch, it’s well done. And I’m sorry, Amy Annette, for the years of toxic baggage that meant I couldn’t just say that, instead of writing several paragraphs to navigate through all these other thoughts about some comedy routines on Cosmo magazine’s weight-loss advice.

- Dan Tiernan – Stomp

Okay, that last part was way too long. These need to be shorter. Dan Tiernan’s first hour, in 2023, was good and showed potential. I feel like his second hour develops that potential. Not fully formed, maybe, but more polished in a lot of ways, even while he’s still loud and jerky and way too intense (in a good, if you like that sort of thing, which I do). It matched the intensity of the subject matter, which managed to kick up a few gears from his previous show.

- Mat Ewins – Ewins Some You Lose Some

I should have enjoyed this more than I did. I enjoyed it, obviously, I’ve ranked it above lots of other perfectly good shows. But I know that objectively, as much as comedy can be objective, the thing Mat Ewins does is a extremely cool and exciting and should be rated as one of the best things at the festival. While for me, it was fun, and incredibly technically impressive, but I found that my most frequent reaction was thinking “Wow, that must have been difficult and taken ages to make.” I mean, I did also laugh. And it is my own fault for going to a show that’s known for audience participation, and then getting anxious about all the participation (I didn’t get asked to participate, which is good, but I also didn’t find that much enjoyment in the bits where others participated). It was good. But I didn’t quite get on board with the greatness.

To be fair to Mat, it was the last show I saw live in Edinburgh, and I was very sad about having to leave the next day, so I may not have been fully in the mood for this brand of silliness. I might have enjoyed it more earlier in the week.

- Paul Williams – Mamiya 7

I liked this. It was funny and the songs were fun. It was… I think I made the mistake of getting into this one right after Melanie Bracewell’s, as they were both about solving a mystery by tracking someone remotely, but her story had more to it, so his story seemed weaker by comparison. It doesn’t help that Daniel Kitson once did a show about coming across a camera and tracking down the person who owned it by the pictures in it. Not that the idea’s been stolen or anything – that Kitson show was only ever performed a few times in London and then for one month in the US so it’s very unlikely that Paul Williams has even seen it, and Kitson doesn’t own an idea that broad. The comparison just works out badly for Paul because you don’t want to go up against Kitson on any idea.

I feel like I should be really into Paul Williams’ work. He’s so very good on Taskmaster, and he does the type of nerdy, offbeat comedy that I like. I’ve tried to get into his music before, and that’s just stylistically not for me. While his comedy is… I liked his previous show, In the Moonlight, better than Mamiya 7. And I still liked Mamiya 7. I just don’t like either of them as much as I feel like I should. Mamiya 7 had all the good components, it had whimsical stories that came together nicely and were funny along the way.

I don’t know why I don’t fully connect with Paul Williams’ stuff. Mamiya 7 was good, but it did not turn me into a huge Paul Williams fan the way I’d hoped it might. I love him on Taskmaster, but when it comes to stand-up, to quote the latest NZ season, I prefer the touch of his brother.

- Stuart Goldsmith – Spoilers

Again I’m copy-pasting from a Tumblr post that I wrote just after watching this, to save time.

I like Stuart Goldsmith a lot, as I think he’s one of the best interviewers I’ve ever heard. Probably the best one I’ve ever heard, when it comes to entertainment interviewing. So many things make his podcast (the Comedian’s Comedian) so much better than other comedy interviews. He gets interesting stuff out of his guests because he’s so very informed, so knowledgeable about comedy in general and whomever he’s talking to specifically, so interested in what they have to say, so good at knowing when to add his own thoughts and when to shut up. He’s able to challenge them on stuff, to push back and ask for more detail or to call them out if they’re disingenuous, because he does his research so well. And he talks so insightfully about the processes in writing and delivering stand-up comedy, all the pitfalls and all the best parts. I figured a guy who knows that much about all that must be great at it. I was really interested, the first time I watched one of his stand-up specials.

And I was inevitably disappointed, because obviously that’s too high a bar for anyone to meet. It wasn’t bad. It was a pretty good hour of decent jokes. But I came away disappointed because he hadn’t managed to showcase all the greatest aspects of the entire form in a single set.

Months later I watched another one of his specials, this time with expectations recalibrated to a more reasonable level, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. He did have some good insights, in addition to a bunch of good jokes, he is good at comedy. He’s just not able to live up to what I’d imagined from his interviewing skills.

I knew this show, Spoilers, was supposed to be different from his others – he’d found a niche where he could stand out a bit, in doing a whole show about the climate crisis. I’d been curious for ages to see how he approached that, and now I’ve seen it. And it was… pretty good. Pretty good. It was a good show. It was much better than the many bad shows out there.

Once again, I realized my expectations were too high. Most stand-up hours are themed, but they’ll jump around for topic to topic. I figured a stand-up hour that’s so focused on one topic would have to go deep on that, wouldn’t it? I was looking forward to seeing how much research he’d done, how he’d managed to make all that funny, what new and interesting angles he had.

And that answer to most of that was, not much. I didn’t learn anything about climate change that I didn’t already know. I didn’t see a particularly new perspective. I did wonder if this might be one of those shows that was better in earlier WIP versions than the finished product. I’m thinking of Olga Koch’s current show, which I heard in a couple of early versions and I absolutely loved it, it was complicated and dense and fascinating, but obviously unfinished. I said at the time that once she irons out some of the thornier bits, it’ll be perfect. But then I’ve heard a very recent version, and I think it’s still very very good, but not as good as the earlier one. Because she had ironed out some of the denser stuff, but that meant simplifying things, cutting the more informative and nuanced bits where she couldn’t fit enough jokes. I think her current show, Comes From Money, is one of the best shows I’ve ever heard, in all its forms, and it probably deserves several awards. But turning something into a finished comedy show can dilute the most interesting parts, sometimes.

I have no particular reason to believe that’s what’s happened with this Goldsmith show, except that I feel like a few remnants of some early version might have been left in. Some references he made to how difficult he found it to make dry facts and depressing stats funny, how he’d tried to find quirky ways to make the research more palpable. Maybe this show did once have more of that stuff in it, and he cut it because it wasn’t funny enough. But I think that would make it more interesting.

I’m being unfairly harsh, again, because a guy who knows an incredible amount about comedy took on a very ambitious show theme and that set my expectations too high. It was a good show. It had a little more of what were my favourite things from previous shows I’ve seen him do – the parts where he goes deep into describing the experience of anxiety, and other difficult neurological things. I think that might be what he’s best at, in his own (non-interviewing) work. He’s great at talking about that stuff, finding angles from which to describe it that I’ve not heard before, despite how often it’s discussed in comedy.

7.5

- Caitriona Dowden – Is Holier Than Thou

Of the shows I saw in person, this was pretty much the only one where I took a chance almost completely “blind”. I’d never heard of her before I started looking up comedians who were performing around noon because I had that timeslot to fill on one day (because, to be honest, I heard a preview of Sara Pascoe’s show and decided I definitely do not need to use my noon hour seeing that live, I’ll watch something that at least might be good – nothing against Sara Pascoe in general, I like her stuff and that’s why I’d originally planned to see her in this spot, but my God, is her current show ever not for me). Caitriona’s show blurb seemed mildly interesting, so I looked her up, saw that this was her debut hour and she recently won a student competition. She seemed all right in one short YouTube set, and that was enough for me to put her on my schedule.

It’s probably the only show where I did the Fringe “properly”, using it to discover something totally new to me, rather than just as a chance to see Wumar in person (and I know I should have done more of that stuff rather than the Wumar, but the cross-Atlantic trip was a lot of money, too much money to “punt” on things that might turn out to be shit). I mean, I guess really doing the Fringe properly would be just wandering into something based on who happens to hand me a flyer, but every time I got handed a flyer, I cringed at the thought of being someone who plans a trip so badly that by the time I’m physically on the Royal Mile, there’s still room in my schedule for a flyer to make a difference.

Anyway. Caitriona Dowden was good. Not better than the well-established acts that I’m a big fan of, but better than all the shows that weren’t very good, and better than some shows that actually were pretty good. She had this really deadpan delivery that occasionally crossed the line into just seeming flat, but she was saying interesting enough stuff for that type of delivery to sort of work, a funny contrast to her material and she didn’t risk losing my interest. She had a solid premise, suggesting that she wants to get canonized as a Catholic saint and then going through how she could meet the criteria, which let her both weave in stories from her own life, and do esoteric material about Catholic doctrine. I enjoyed both those sides of the show, and how neatly the fit together. The whole show felt neat. They had a big thing of paper and marker instead of a projection screen, which combined with the small dark room behind a pub to give the whole thing a cool underground feel. I would be interested in seeing more stuff by her.

- Harriet Kemsley – Everything Always Works Out for Me

Again, I shall copy/paste some bits a previous Tumblr post:

I’ll be honest – I was a bit disappointed by this. I’d actually booked tickets to this one live because I had such high expectations for it, though I ended up skipping it when I learned that I could see it on NextUp instead (and by a nice coincidence, Harriet Kemsley happened to cancel the night I was going to see it so I got a refund). I was excited for it because I find Harriet Kemsley incredibly funny on panel shows, one of the funniest people they can ever have on. I watched her 2023 stand-up special Woman Child and thought it was pretty good, but I didn’t enjoy her as much as I do on panel shows. I found some parts of that show very funny, but other parts not so much, and the ones I enjoyed the least were the domestic bits about being married and complaining about her husband.

That’s not necessarily Harriet Kemsley’s fault; I happen to have fairly low tolerance for comedy about romantic relationships, unless they’re saying something really new. I think it’s very difficult to write an interesting or original show about that stuff when there’s so little that’s new to say. But I probably dislike that stuff more than is objectively reasonable, as it’s not relatable to me. I don’t do dating and hardly ever do relationships, and when comedians talk about that stuff, I usually have the same reactions as when people in my real life talk about it, which is – you know you don’t have to, right? Yeah, all those aspects to dating and relationships and weddings sound really annoying and frustrating. Just don’t do it then, if it’s that bad.

I have heard some great stand-up hours about dating and relationships, but they are far outnumbered by the shit ones. I tend to be more partial to their opposite. Breakup shows can be boring for similar reasons – it’s such a common topic that it’s all been said before – but at least those make sense to me. Someone tells me how much something in their life sucked, I think “Well stop doing it then”, and then they tell me they did stop doing it and here’s the story of how that happened. It seems like a reasonable course of action, so I can enjoy the show about what a reasonable thing they did.

So for all those reasons, when I heard some Harriet Kemsley material in early 2024 about her recent divorce, I suddenly became much more interested in seeing her in Edinburgh. It sounded much more fun to hear her complain about her ex-husband, than to hear her complain about her husband. And not just because I have also always found Bobby Mair fairly annoying. I’m always down for a breakup show.

And the breakup show parts of this were fun. A lot of it was fun, it was a good show. Just not quite as good as I was expecting, largely because there were so many dating stories. How do people have time for so much dating? I found those really boring, and there were a whole bunch of them. All the stuff about dating that needs to be said has already been said. People don’t need to say more stuff about it.

But some parts of this show, like the previous show, I liked a lot. The stuff about her own mindset, letting us in a bit on what’s behind the extremely daft panel show persona, was interesting and got very funny at times. There was some gossipy stuff about a book that I assume was the Seann Walsh one, though I don’t care quite enough to actually look it up, and parts of that were quite funny though other parts dragged a bit. I liked some of her stories about trying to awkwardly co-parent post-divorce.

So it was a good show, but it wasn’t quite the show I was hoping for. A lot of the most interesting threads, like what goes on in her mind to make her this way, or how her divorce might connect to those things, were sort of left hanging. And it’s her choice and totally fair if she didn’t want to go that deep into some of those things, but that did leave her show a bit more broad and not as compelling. But honestly, I think I’d have enjoyed the show a lot without the dating stories. As it was, I still enjoyed the show quite a bit, but there were too many parts that dragged.

- Rob Auton – The Eyes Open and Shut Show

I like Rob Auton; I’ve heard him do a few things that I found utterly brilliant, captivating, beyond whimsical and into immersive whisking me away through the worlds he created. There were several times times when this show achieved that, and it was wonderful. There were other, longer times when it was pretty good, not anything really special but nice, relaxing, whimsical humour. And there were a few times when it dragged for a bit and I had trouble maintaining focus on it.

This is a weird thing to be an issue, but – okay, I’m not good enough at parsing audio to be able to tell whether he happens to have the exact same specific accent as Alun Cochrane, or whether he has the same style of delivering material as Alun Cochrane. It’s definitely at least one of those things, and I think it might be both. I think it maybe has to be both, for hearing his voice give me such overwhelmingly strong “This sounds exactly like Alun Cochrane” vibes to actually be a distraction. Particularly because the material is so different from anything Alun Cochrane’s done (both pre-2018 Alun Cochrane, back when he was cool and quite funny, and the more recent Alun Cochrane, now that he sucks on a number of levels), so my brain is trying to enjoy the Rob Auton experience, but in this show he keeps telling us to close our eyes, and if I listen to him talk while I have my eyes closed, all I can think is “It’s fucking weird to hear Alun Cochrane be so whimsical.”

- Rosco McClelland – Sudden Death

This is one I watched just because it streamed on NextUp, as I’d never heard of the guy before, but I quite liked it. He certainly had an original angle for the show, discussing his very rare and likely fatal heart condition, and getting into some stuff that’s tough to even imagine having to think about, like how living with that condition affects his choices about relationships and potentially having kids. That's a fucking intense USP.

He also gets into some pretty hard-hitting political stuff. And yet, the show is funny. Dark humour, obviously, but not the racial slur kind, just the “I could die at any moment” kind. Puts all those racial slur-saying edgelord comedians to shame, with his level of dark humour. It made me laugh, it made me think, it made me uncomfortable, it covered some important issues. Good show.

7.25

- Stuart Laws – Has to Be Joking

I’ve felt for a while like I should like Stuart Laws. All the comedians I like rate him, he’s in the acknowledgements of everyone else’s stand-up show as a producer or whatever he does, and I got the impression that he’s the vaguely nerdy comic type I like, and he’s autistic. Because of this, I’d started watching some of his older NextUp shows a couple of times before, feeling like I should enjoy them. But for whatever reason, I failed to get into it, and never watched past the first five or so minutes. I’ve always assumed that if I gave his stuff more of a chance I’d probably like it, I just need to watch it at a time when I’m in the mood for something that might take more than few minutes to pick up.

So I watched his full show from 2024. And it was… fine. It was fine. Some parts were pretty funny. Some observations were interesting. It was well put together, structure-wise. It just… often felt like he had all the components of a good comedy show, and had put them together in a by-the-numbers way that worked, but never really took off. Which was the same feeling I got from his previous shows. I should really connect with his material, but for some reason I just don’t.

Maybe it doesn’t help that this was a show about his relationship? But most of it wasn’t even about that, it was mostly about going through life while autistic, which is obviously a topic that’s of interest to me. And I even liked what he had to say about it, this running metaphor about playing with all your cards once you know how your own mind works. I thought the metaphor worked, though it did feel slightly tacked on at the end, like he could have done more with it.

I don’t know what it was. Some of his jokes were funny. The thing as a whole just didn’t quite land for me. I still think I should try his older shows at some point, see if I can get into those more easily.

There’s some comedian gossip there too, as in 2023, American comedian Chloe Radcliffe streamed her Edinburgh hour on NextUp. I watched it, it was about how she cheated on all her partners because her dad didn’t love her. It was an interesting hour, I think, though I had to really work on the open mind thing to try to see that from her perspective (fair enough, some of my favourite comedians have cheated on their partners – realistically probably most of my favourite comedians have cheated on their partners and just choose not to tell everyone – though Mark Watson didn’t write a whole show trying to justify it). Though once I did that, it was an interesting show. In 2024, Stuart Laws wrote a show about how he also saw that Chloe Radcliffe show in 2023, and shortly after that, began a relationship with her, and wants to tell us about his new girlfriend and autism diagnosis. It was an odd perspective, the way he tried really hard to fuse those two concepts together. I guess it kind of worked.

- Elsa McTaggart – Caledonia

This was a concert of traditional Scottish music, not comedy; I’ve only included it in the spreadsheet for completism, so I can have all the shows I saw in Edinburgh on there. I mostly stuck to comedy on my Edinburgh schedule, but I was raised on folk music, particularly Celtic and Celtic-inspired stuff, have been a huge fan of Scottish folk music since I was very small, and I could not miss the opportunity to see some live during my first-ever trip to Scotland. This show was lovely, they played a few songs and tunes that I knew and some more than I didn’t, I liked them all. I nearly started crying when they played Dougie McLean’s Caledonia, as that’s a song that I’ve always associated with my grandparents’ house by the ocean in Nova Scotia. It was a nice hour.

- Judi Love (MC), Chris Cantrill, Huge Davies, Kemah Bob – ITVX Presents Live Comedy from the Edinburgh Fringe, 1x03

Chris Cantrill of course was good, Kemah Bob was great and made me wish I’d been able to see her full show (it was on my long list and I just couldn’t fit it into the final schedule). I was a bit disappointed that Huge Davies only did material from his 2023 show, even though I liked that 2023 show a lot, because he was another person who got cut from my schedule of people to see at the last minute (replaced with Natalie Palamides), and I was interested in seeing a bit of what he was doing this year, but he didn’t do that. I mean, what he did was funny – his 2023 show is on YouTube and it’s great. So overall the show was pretty good. I’ve rated it a bit lower than I’d rate any of the individual performances, because a cut-down set for a mixed bill is (almost) never as good as a full hour. But this was a pretty good show.

- Judi Love (MC), Colin Hoult, Josh Jones, Katie Norris – ITVX Presents Live Comedy from the Edinburgh Fringe, 1x04

I didn’t much like Colin Hoult’s set, though I might by biased by how annoying I find the Anna Mann character, so I was just predisposed to find Colin Hoult annoying too. Katie Norris I’d never heard before and I liked her a lot – that’s the sort of thing you want to get out of a mixed bill livestream, finding a new person to be interested in seeing more of in the future. Katie Norris definitely became that. And Josh Jones was pretty good, better than I’d been expecting.

7

- Elsa McTaggart – Hebridean Fire

This was another music concert, lovely Scottish traditional music that I’m really glad I saw live when I had the chance, included on the spreadsheet for completism.

- Judi Love (MC), Chloe Petts, Jack Skipper, Jason Byrne – ITVX Presents Live Comedy from the Edinburgh Fringe, 1x02

Chloe Petts was also on my list of people I wanted to see when I went into the festival, and I just couldn’t fit her into my schedule. So I was glad I got the chance to see her and I ended up liking her a lot, even more than I’d expected to. She was great. Jason Byrne was also pretty funny, better than I’d expected. Though I was basing my expectations on my previous knowledge of him, which is mainly from around 2006 (not that my previous knowledge of him made me think he was bad, just sort of solidly average), so it was nice to see he’s still fun. Jack Skipper brought the average down a lot, I could not stand that guy.

- Monkey Barrel Big Show – Garrett Millerick (MC), Alexandra Haddow, Micky Overman, Ed Night, Tom Ballard

Obviously I quite enjoyed Ed Night and Tom Ballard, particularly Ed Night, in this. I quite like Micky Overman and she made me laugh several times. Alexandra Haddow I found disappointing, I liked her 2023 show but this one wasn’t really for me. And I found the host incredibly annoying, which brought the average score down.

6.75

- Aaron Simmonds – Harry Potter or My Girlfriend... Who Do I Love More?

Now that I see this in the context of where I rated similar shows, I think I rated this one too low, it should be in the 7s somewhere. Because it was a good show and I had a good time there. It’s just that I went to see it because I’d enjoyed his NextUp special, Disabled Coconut, and then this show ended up being mostly recycled stuff from Disabled Coconut, with a few Harry Potter references tacked on.

He was open about that being a gimmick, and I think it makes sense. He said he was writing a show of new material that he’d do in the second half of the festival, after spending the first half doing a free show with the “Harry Potter” thing to draw in nerds who might not have heard of him but would like the “Harry Potter” in the programme and come check it out. And would hopefully use the exposure he got from that to bring in people for his new show later. It’s fair enough, especially since his first show was free (though of course I gave him some money at the end). I don’t know how that second show worked out for him because it started after I left the festival; I’d have gone to see it if I’d had the chance.

It's not a bad idea, probably, as a way to draw an audience if you’re not already really established. I mean, he’s not un-established, I watched his NextUp special because I liked him on The Russell Howard Hour, but he doesn’t have a lot of credits besides that. The Harry Potter thing was a gimmick but still used pretty well, he’d threaded the references throughout and tied them all together, rather than just tacking on a few mentions of it. And, as someone who was deeply obsessed with Harry Potter for several years of my childhood and knew all the trivia, I was pretty impressed by his knowledge of it; he wasn’t just using the popular IP, he had put in the hours on that. I was also pleased that he immediately clarified that when he says “Harry Potter”, he meant books, not movies. And of course I was pleased that he clarified quite early on, that when he says “Harry Potter”, he means intellectual property that he paid for years ago and the author in recent years can fuck off. That got a big cheer in the room, the crowd were clearly all on the same page as fans of the stories, not the author.

Anyway, it was a fun time to revisit my childhood in the Harry Potter fandom with all his references to it, and Disabled Coconut was a good show and it was fun to see that stuff again. He created a fun atmosphere in the room, and to someone who’s not seen his previous show, it would rank higher than a 6.75/10. I’d just heard the stories before.

- Bronwyn Kuss – Sounds Good

This was fine. There wasn’t a single joke in that made me really, properly laugh. But nearly every joke made me go “Oh, that was all right.” It was fine. I was pleased, however, to have further confirmation for my theory that there are no straight Australian comedians.

- Mark Silcox – Women Only

I wanted to like this one more, as he had an entertaining gimmick with the extreme deadpan delivery. He delivered this show like a lecture, where the joke was that it was presented in an intentional parody of a boring talk, with a slideshow. And there were times during this show when I found what he was doing quite funny. It’s just… maybe I wasn’t in the right mood for it, but he did such a good job of pretending to be boring that it was, at times, boring. When he had my attention, he made me laugh. A few times he got quite good laughs out of me. It’s just that much of the rest of the show dragged. It felt quite long and it was hard to pay attention.

6.5

- Tarot – Shuffle

I found a few of their sketches funny. I found a bunch of their sketches not funny. I wondered if my problem with it was just that I’m not into sketch comedy enough, but then BriTANick made me giggle like a teenage and I thought no, it’s their problem. It wasn’t awful overall, it wasn’t great.

Which is too bad because as I’ve said I like Kiri Pritchard-McLean a lot, and I know she writes on this sketch group. I don’t know any of the people who actually perform in the group, besides Edward Easton, who played James Acaster in James Acaster’s sitcom (and in Rose Matafeo’s sitcom). This particular show did not turn me into a fan of theirs.

- Thom Tuck and friends – ACMS

Thom Tuck was great fun. It was a cool thing in the middle of the night and it felt like experiencing the Fringe. Thom Tuck was great fun. Being there for all their little ACMS in-jokes was cool. Thom Tuck was great fun. Jin Hao Li came on first and he made me laugh so hard even though I’d already heard all his punchlines several hours before at his own show. Then a succession of other people came on, and a couple of them were all right but most I did not enjoy. I think that’s sort of what ACMS is supposed to be like, though, which is all right. I didn’t really mind the ones that I didn’t enjoy. Thom Tuck was great fun.

6.25

- Live from the Big Cave – Mark Watson (MC), Kate Cheka, Kate Hammer, Adam Knox, Oliver Coleman, Plastic Jesus, Aidan Sadler

I quite enjoyed Mark Watson. I’d never heard of any of the other performers. I liked a couple of them but wasn’t into most of them, I can’t remember which ones I did and didn’t like, and given how long I have already spent writing this post, I absolutely cannot be bothered to go back and check.

6

- Jessie Cave – An Ecstatic Display

Oh God, Jessie Cave. I’ve got to admit that I find both Jessie Cave and Alfie Brown, in some ways, annoyingly interesting, even though I do not want to. I do not watch reality TV, but occasionally being into the comedy of Jessie Cave and/or Alfie Brown is probably the closest I come to that.

…I nearly referenced Roast Battle just now, saying that being into their soap opera comedy is about on the level of Roast Battle in terms of stuff I’ve watched while knowing that this is shit, but then I remembered that they have, in fact, gone on Roast Battle together. And, fun fact, of all the UK Roast Battle couples (Sarah Keyworth/Catherine Bohart, Harriet Kemsley/Bobby Mair), they’re the only one that’s together now, so I guess they won Roast Battle. Good for them. Fucking hell.

I realized a while ago that if Alfie Brown were not a comedian, or some other public figure where we could recognize his identity, I’d probably assume Jessie Cave was a character. A young comedian who got her big acting break in Harry Potter, and then figured the best way to use that in her live comedy career would be to become her Harry Potter character on stage. She played Lavender Brown in Harry Potter – a character who’s been accused of being a misogynistic stereotype because she’s so over-the-top “girly”, and that’s connected to her being silly and airheaded, and the only time she becomes a major character is when she gets into a relationship where she’s a toxic possessive girlfriend. I would assume that Jessie Cave thought it would be interesting to just keep playing that character on stage, and to even give her love interest the last name “Brown”, as a little in-joke, that all she wants to do is marry him so she could have the same last name as her Harry Potter character. I think that sort of character comedy… it would get grating after a while, being a character who’s that annoying, but that could be funny for a bit.

But it’s not a character. I mean I’m sure it’s exaggerated and written for the stage the way any stand-up persona is, but it’s not a character. Because Alfie Brown exists and his stories match up with hers. I mean, I like the idea that Alfie Brown and Jessie Cave have been in a stable, happy relationship for ten years, and they’re just playing out this soap opera of a toxic relationship between two awful people, on stage/social media, because they realized it’ll generate no end of material for both of them. But that’s obviously not the case. It’s real, and that makes it seem like something that people shouldn’t just watch like it’s a soap opera.

So given all of that… I watched her 2024 show because it streamed on NextUp (I didn't actually pay money to see Jessie Cave of Alfie Brown in Edinburgh - when I say I find them weirdly interesting I mean I've occasionally spent a few minutes thinking about it, not that I'd ever actually choose to go see it, and in fact I almost didn't watch the Jessie Cave show when it streamed because I thought it would be bad, but I watched it due to my Edinburgh NextUp stream completism), and it was better than I expected. My expectations were very low, and Jessie Cave exceeded them. It had some interesting observations, some insights into why someone would stay in a situation like that. Some descriptions and observations that I find deeply unrelatable, but that became interesting in its own way, trying to understand such a person, as she opened herself up to show us what it’s like.

It definitely didn’t make me laugh at any point. But Jessie Cave is clearly a talented writer, performer, and storyteller, and that came through, even if the material was fucking bleak. It was interesting to watch. I think I might have enjoyed this a fair bit, if I’d thought it were fiction.

- Stephen Buchanan – Charicature

Scottish guy I’d not heard of before, who streamed his show on NextUp. It was okay. It had a gimmick where he kept switching between himself on stage and videos of stuff he’d filmed beforehand, with a “twist” ending in which it all came together, which was kind of fun. A lot of the material that got slotted into that structure wasn’t stuff I enjoyed much, but the structure was fun. I found him likeable.

5.75

- Seymour Mace – Seymour F*cking Mace You C*nts!

I wasn’t in the right mood for this one. I put it on my list because I wanted to try to expand my horizons and understand the alt-comedy clowning or whatever, but I also put it on the last day of the festival when I was sad about having to leave soon, and that is not the right mood for enjoying this extremely silly show. There was only one part that I properly liked, which was a game near the beginning that people played with the word “cunt”. That was the highlight, it was downhill from there. There were several puppets. I do not like puppets. The overall energy was fun at times, but I wasn’t into it.

5

- Tony Law – The Law Also Rises

Before he went right-wing, I felt like I should be able to enjoy his stuff, he’s the cool alternative guy that Stewart Lee likes. And I didn’t hate it, I sometimes found him funny, but other times I had to try to see what’s funny about it, because as I’ve said before, I am not a cool person who always “gets” alt-comedy stuff. Then I found out he’s in with the Comedy Unleased crowd and I stopped feeling bad about not always understanding his schtick.

If I’d been more on board with his persona from the beginning, I probably could have enjoyed this show. It only had a couple of references to how the woke cancel culture nanny state are ruining our lives, so I guess that could have been worse. I genuinely did try to watch it with as much of an open mind/lack of prejudice due to his political views that I could manage, and because of that, I did find a few bits of it funny. It’s certainly interesting, what he does. But overall, not for me.

4.75

- Anesti Danelis – Artificially Intelligent

A guy I’d never heard of who streamed on NextUp. It was a show about AI and internet comedy. Some of it he claims was actually written by AI, and even if he was lying, just making that claim (in a way that didn’t seem to be joking) was enough to knock my rating of the show way down. It felt like internet comedy trying to be live comedy – which, to be fair, can be fun. I did not find it fun in this instance.

4.5

- Kavin Jay – Unsolicited Advice

A guy I’d never heard of who streamed on NextUp. Did a lot of material that felt pretty hack to me, very little that seemed original or interesting in any way.

3.75

- Dan Willis – Cobra Kai, the Way of the Comic

It could have been good! I can think of so many ways that this show could have been good! There are so many ways to tie the themes in Cobra Kai into real life, in interesting and insightful ways. The inter-generational trauma, the complexities of interactions across socio-economic class, the role of sport in society, the transcendence of high school stereotypes, the way our past always shapes our future, the changing media and cultural norms that shows in the differences between the original movies and the TV show a few decades later, and that’s just for a start. But he didn’t do any of that, which made me mark this show down even lower than it maybe deserved, because I was so annoyed about the wasted potential. It was just a gimmick to get in fans of Cobra Kai, like what Aaron Simmonds did with Harry Potter, but unlike Aaron Simmonds, this wasn’t a way to advertise another show, and it wasn’t wrapped around a bunch of strong material. It was just the gimmick, wrapped around boring material. And, unlike Aaron Simmonds, he didn’t even impress me with especially in-depth knowledge of the source material.

3.25

- Takashi Wakasugi – Welcome to Japan

A lot of material that I’d expect to hear from a comedian who was doing a parody of the hack, overused observational stand-up comedy tropes from 30 years ago. Except this wasn’t a parody. There were so many observations about food, and I so don’t care about food-based comedy.

3

- Some Theatre Kids – NewsRevue

I found this as un-funny as some of the other shows to which I’ve given low ratings, but I’ve rated it even lower than them because I also found it frustrating that it tackled such serious issues so badly. It’s one thing to make boring observations about sandwiches or whatever, it’s another thing to do bad parodies of political issues that have ruined and cost innocent lives. I love political comedy, and I don’t know where the line is between “using humour to skewer bad people and policies and ideas in politics”, versus “treating serious situations like a joke”. But this felt like the second thing, and I really disliked it.

…I feel bad for writing that when it was just young people making theatre and I'm really not the target audience for it. I mean it streamed on NextUp so it's got to be fair game to critcize, but still, I'm sure there are people who like this sort of thing. Also, I really can't justify why I think it's all right for people to shout my own political opinions at me in a political stand-up show but it seems crass to display them in a musical, so, you do you, I guess.

2.5

- Michelle Shaugnesy – Too Late, Baby

I hated this, but now I sort of feel like I probably hated it because I’m too judgemental, and I feel bad that I was mean about the theatre kids before, so I won’t be mean again and go into detail about why I hated this. I actually also did go into that detail in a Tumblr post I wrote right after I saw it, no need to get into all that again. It wasn’t my thing.

- Bonus list: shows that are not on the spreadsheet because I haven’t heard versions of them that were performed at the Edinburgh Festival, but I have heard versions that were performed quite near the Edinburgh Festival, so no far off from were like in Edinburgh.

Shows that I thought were good:

- Olga Koch

Incredibly intelligent show about a complex issues that still managed to be packed with good jokes, criminally overlooked for awards this year, I thought.

- Greg Larsen

Some material recycled from his last couple of shows but I didn’t mind because that material was so funny, also lots of new stuff that was also funny, his usual level of dark and consistently hard-hitting humour.

- Fern Brady

Interesting and funny observations that make me laugh in autistic perspective.

- Patti Harrison

Wild, off the wall hour that did not slow down and made me laugh repeatedly.

- Guy Montgomery

Just enormous fun, observational comedy/wordplay, and describing it that way should mean it's conventional and boring but it's so much the opposite of that, so much fun, I really enjoyed it.

Shows that I thought were not good:

There are a few in this category, shows where I heard a preview and thought “I have no desire to see that again”. I’ve already referred to a couple of them, but I figure there’s no need to list any others, as I already feel bad for being a dick about the theatre kids and some of the other shows that I didn’t enjoy. So I’ll leave it at this.

[lonita]

Montreal - part 3

The weather during the trip can only be described as damp. It rained every bloody day. We'd go outside and say, "Ooh, not too bad out today," and within five minutes of saying it… rain. It wasn't at all cold though, which it has been in Ontario. Cold and wet don't go together very well at all. In fact, the day we were walking up to Mount Royal, it was raining so hard that my hat was dripping purple drops. Some of my hair turned a bit purpley until I wiped it out.

Many of the streets of Montreal, particularly some of the crosswalks, are all paved with cobbles; which is kind of nice, but funny to walk over if you're wearing thinly soled shoes. The big hazard for pedestrians are the drives. Crosswalk lights seem a touch haphazard, and the drivers there are much like the drivers in Paris it seems; don't stand still or they'll park on top of you!

The city is riddled with museums of all sorts; of particular note is one near the port which has an excavation dig as part of its display. This shows a dig down through the city's history, including old building remains and such.

The port itself seems to be overpopulated with several species of moths, which I found kind of odd, and yucky. (I hate bugs. All bugs. So I spent most of the walk through there keeping my mouth tightly shut.)

The city is not only good about its public maps, it's also very good about garbage bins. They're all over the place too. Very handy. They seem to take public cleanliness very seriously, which is something that some big cities either don't, or can't, do.

I think the oddest thing about some of the shops, is simple name changes. The Body Shop is called Le Body Shop, for example; it just seems kind of cute to change just the one word.

The city, as far as big cities go, isn't terribly expensive; prices seemed the same as they are where I live. That might just be normal for Canada, though. I have no idea what the sales tax in Quebec is, but one thing that did seem to cost more was cigarettes; only by about 50 cents, though, but that still adds up. Milk seemed much cheaper, at least at the tabac I bought it from.

The metro cars were a bit more modern than what I remember Toronto's being like. Some of the cars had little pixel boards that showed the next destination and connecting bus routes. They also had announcements of current stop and next stop. This is something they've only recently started in Toronto.

Max and I both thought that the windows of the Mariot hotel made it look like a beehive. We called it The Hive or The Collective.

Inside the tower of the Olympic stadium is a display of the major towers of the world. It's quite nice. They show, to scale, etched outlines of the buildings, list locations, building facts, etc. It's right across from the place where you buy your tickets to go up to the tower's observation deck. Among the displayed towers are, of course, the CN Tower of Toronto, the Eiffel Tower of Paris, The BT Tower of London, and The Empire State Building of New York City.

[glendas-recollection]

+ image collection: She's my twin flame

December 25th 22:53pm

Maybe it's because I've known her since I was only 5 years old or because our younger brothers were best friends way before we were, she felt familiar. Her simple, "Hey do you wanna be friends with us" was enough to peak my attention and so the next weekend we had our first playdate. From there we went from 6 and 9 year olds playing every other week to a handful of trips to Montreal and New York three times in a year to 14 and 17 year olds seeing each other only during holidays or exchanging playful bumps at the art studio so her mom doesn't catch us chatting away. I've known Tina for just about the same amount of time I've known my brother and our dynamic is more than just friendly. She's my best friend, my younger sister, and my twin flame. No matter how many times we argue about who is the better sister or if it's socially acceptable to eat soap for fun, we know that we still love each other. At the end of the day, we could go home crying and fighting saying we never want to see the other again, but the next weekend we're fine and forget all that's happened. She's stupid and I'm loud; we're chaotic together, but she changed my life for the better. While being best friends, we've both gained another family. We have two dads, two moms, and two younger brothers. I cheered her on when she got into Havergal and she cried of excitement when I got into USC. We'll move on with our lives, but not without each other because we still laugh and play like children when we're together. Merry Christmas to my twin flame...

[razorsadness]

September first we set out on our day trip. Through Kenosha County, Walworth County, and Rock County, I thought of all the boys I’ve loved from those small towns and others, oh my small town boys. Then Beloit, and the Rock River; I hadn’t been there in over twenty years. And Big Foot Beach State Park, where I found a fairy circle near the old playground. (We stayed a safe distance away, at the newer playground.) And to and from and in-between, we took the backroads, blue highways through the weird small towns, stopped when we felt like it. In parks and parking lots, I made friends of strangers. Saw hills and horses and hay bales; wind rippling through the corn. Broken-down barns and silos. Turkey vultures, hawks, sandhill cranes. Rattlesnake master and black-eyed Susans. A tree that had been split nearly clean down the middle by lightning, with one side still living and the other dead. A run-down antique store that seemed to specialize in Christian iconography. Swamp Angel Road.

It was good to travel, even just for that little stretch of miles and hours, but instead of scratching my restless itch it made it worse. Travel and sex can both be like that, for me. I can go a long while without them, and at first it’s terrible, my constant longing. But after a while that longing fades to a dull ache. And then I fuck, or take a little trip, and even if it’s really good—especially if it’s really good—it doesn’t satisfy me. It just reminds me how much I need it. And then it’s terrible again, the kind of relentless desire that would only be sated by driving hundreds of miles a day or having hundreds of orgasms a day, and probably not even then.

Speaking of longing. The end of summer/creeping into autumn nostalgia is thick upon me. I’m thinking of all the lives I’ve lived in this one lifetime. I’m thinking of Augusts and Septembers past. Thinking of 1997, Door County. Me and Ali getting stoned at the coffee shop, reading Kerouac. And Princess Di died and my Auntie was dying, that trip to Door County was the last time I saw her alive and she spent most of the time glued to the 24-hour news of Diana’s death. Thinking of 2003. Heartbreak and perpetual motion. Montreal and New York City and Cincinnati. 2004; Iowa and Look Homeward, Angel. (O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.) 2006; Oshkosh and the girl I loved. 2007; Milwaukee, and meeting my rain dog boy. 2008; Thee Hobo Love Tour. Emchy and I opening our show every night with our duet rendition of Concrete Blonde’s “Side of the Road.” St. Louis, and the cats we opened for asking me to jump in with my accordion when they covered Bob Dylan’s “Buckets of Rain.” And New Orleans, New Orleans, New Orleans. 2009; driving cross-country with P. to begin our new life in Oakland together. And all the other years and...

I’m here sending mail to far-flung (and not-so-far) pals in Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Kenosha, and Oakland. Listening to sad bastard music, missing playing music, and my friends, and my favorite places, and everything else, all the time.

[reddeavth]

Everything happens for a reason and it’s up to you to understand that reason and make the most of it. Danel Garcia knew this better than most people and thanked God every day for the chance to continue this dream. January of 2019, Daniel Garcia and three other wrestlers were traveling back to New York after a show in Montreal, Canada. It should have been a simple trip back with the boys excitedly talking about the night's show, but Daniel’s life took a turn, almost a deadly one as the car they were driving slid on black ice and crashed straight into a guardrail that almost tore the car in half.  The crash could have been fatal or ended the career of Garcia and his friends. The doctor told him that he was lucky to be alive and his career was possibly over. 

“I’m twenty years old, doc.” Daniel whispered, his words slurring from the drug used to control his pain. “My friends?” He was scared to hear the doctor's answer.  “All of you survived but barely. If you're a religious man then you should thank God, if not then you should be thankful for having good luck. “I saw the car and the police said you had to be cut out of it. You were inches away from being killed instantly. Few walk away from that kind of accident much less walk at all. I’m not going to lie to you, Daniel. You may be in a wheelchair the rest of your life. Wrestling’s out of the question.” 

The kid from Buffalo had broken both his legs, his ankle, his right femur, fibula and tibia in his left shin but moreover he was left with multiple scars in his lower half.  Daniel looked up at the doctor with a cocky smirk or perhaps he was high as a kite from the pain meds, but he shrugged and made a joke. “There goes my centerfold career.” Not that he cared about scars. The doctor patted his shoulder in a light way to avoid hurting him and left the hospital room. Daniel wasn’t a guy to cry but as it all sank in the tears ran down his face. Luckily no one was there to see this weak moment. 

Daniel had survived the crash, but it was a moment that changed him in more ways than one. Just a kid living his dream, he was forced to contemplate the thought of giving up on his dream and finding a new one. In a few minutes he would be going into surgery and vowed to recover as quickly as he could, one day lace up his boots and step into a wrestling ring. Nothing in life was going to stop the stubborn man, not even death. 

He looked up as he heard the door of his hospital room opening and saw Jesse walk in the room.  Jesse was his trainer, his mentor, virtually his dad after he and his wife Laura had taken Daniel in under their wing, they had only been married about three years and didn’t have kids. Daniel for all sense and purposes was their kid. “The doc told me and your mom that you’re lucky to be alive.”  Jesse wrestled as Pepper Parks at the time, but since then was known as Braxton Sutter or The Blade. His wife, Laura was known as Cherry Bomb, soon to be Allie and The Bunny. Wrestling was what they did. 

Jesse stands over the bed of Garcia and looks at his young trainee with worrying eyes. He and his wife had been the first people by Daniel’s bedside when news broke about the almost fatal car crash.  “I’m good. Tell her not to worry.” He had to downplay it not to worry them, but it was obvious the doctor had already spoken to them both before Jesse walked in the room. “The balls on you kid, you don’t have to be tough all the time.”  Tough was what Daniel did, it was one of the reasons he bonded so closely with Jesse. The two would spend hours talking about wrestling and Garcia owed his career to the man in front of him as well as Jesse’s wife. 

“I know the doctor talked to you. I can read your face, where’s Laura?” Jesse doesn't answer immediately, it was hard for Garcia to see his trainer almost in tears because of the reality of the situation they were in. Garcia might have survived the initial impact of the crash, but he had a long road to recovery and surgery was a forgone conclusion. His wrestling career was as good as over before it had even really begun. “The doctors are positive.” Daniel closed his eyes because he knew that wasn’t true. “You don't gotta lie to me Coach. Daniel was trying to keep his own emotions in check and barely doing it.

Garcia can see the pain in Jesse’s face. “Laura’s outside, probably chewing all her nails off. This has hit her hard and she wants to see you, but I told her to let me talk to you first. You know how emotional she gets.” It was true, Laura saw Daniel as her son, and he was laying broken in a hospital bed. Every mother wants to protect their child, but this was a freak accident due to black ice and no one’s fault. Did that mean her, Jesse or Daniel weren’t blaming themselves? No, it was normal to think if they were there they could have been driving and maneuvered the car through the ice or if Daniel had been driving, he could have done the same. This was no one’s fault but natures.

“Did they say I'll be able to wrestle again?” Jesse looked down and Daniel knew the answer. It was then that he heard the door open again and the small blonde woman walked in and went to the bed and placed a kiss on his cheek. “My sweet little chicken, you're lucky to be alive. Let's take one step at a time.” Garcia closes his eyes to hide the fact tears were beginning to well up in them. Jesse places a hand to Laura’s back. “That guardrail almost tore the car in half Danny, the four of you are lucky to still be breathing. A few inches over the rail your mom and I would be grieving for our son.” 

Those words hit home hard, and Daniel gave into the emotions that he was feeling. Bursting into tears the twenty year old realized how selfish he was to only be worrying about wrestling again. 

Laura and Jesse had been through so much already and he needed to suck it up and think about their family, not just himself and his career. He hated himself. He felt Laura’s hand on his face wiping away his tears. “That didn’t happen so let’s be thankful for small miracles.” That would be the last and only time he would cry over the accident again. He had to get on with his life, whatever became of it. “I’m scared.”  Laura leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I know but you’re alive and it’s going to be okay.” She had to be strong for him and send him into surgery with positive thoughts. She glanced at Jesse urging him to do the same thing. “I’m sure you’re going to come back better than ever. Now dry your face, us Buffalo boys don’t cry.” It was a lie and the three of them knew it, but Jesse had to be the strong one for his family right now. “Thanks, dad.” 

 A knock is heard, and the nurses come to wheel Daniel into surgery. “We’ll be here when you wake up.” Laura told him and Daniel nodded as he watched them both leave the room. He was lucky to have them and was determined to make them proud. “You got this Red Death.” Daniel whispered to himself as they wheeled him towards surgery.  It would take six months until Daniel Garcia stepped into a ring again to wrestle for a crowd, but it was all worth it. He wore his scars with pride. Nothing or no one was going to stop him. He was going to be a champion and make his family proud, return the support they always gave him. He had beaten death and now he was going to live his life as if it could end tomorrow because it could.

[theabhorsenslibrary]

10 Places I Want to Visit

This is a post that I’ve been really excited to write as an avid traveller and I’m glad it’s something which one of my friend’s has suggested we write about. I have not been out of the UK since December 2018 when me and my family went to New York City over Christmas (an amazing experience even if it didn’t snow!). Since then, I have only really visited places in the UK before the Pandemic hit and put a stop to any sort of travel. So without further ado, here are my travel plans post-pandemic (not neccessarily in order)!

1. Chicago So I first wanted to travel to Chicago when I read the Divergent series, and this is probably the only place on my list which I have a Lonely Planet travel guide for that has been stickered up with all the places I want to visit while there. Its a place I considered booking up for 2020 but am glad I didn’t as obviously the pandemic hit hard.

2. Vancouver to San Francisco I would absolutely love to do a train trip through the USA and I think the one I would like to do most is a trip from Vancouver to San Francisco. (or vice versa). This would take in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and San Francesco and takes roughly 27-28 hours (obviously with stops this would take longer). This one I would have to plan around my parents who also wish to visit San Francisco.

3. Bochum, Germany There is one reason only for me wanting to go to Bochum and this is due to being the only place in the world which is currently doing the full stage show of Starlight Express. Its something I’ve considered doing for my 30th birthday in 2021 but obviously this is relying on the world being back to normal - and I would not just be visiting for Bochum which has little interest apart from Starlight Express.

4. Washington DC to NYC/Boston Another potential train trip I wish to do though I’m not sure how far I would go. Having previously visited both NYC and Boston, I would only wish to spend a few days in both. NYC as I would like to visit the inside of Hamilton’s Grange and Coney Island. And Boston so I can catch a train to visit Exeter, New Hampshire which is named after the place I was born and raised.

My main visit on this trip would be Washington DC (because it would be an amazing experience), Bethesda (on the outskirts of Washington DC and the setting for Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants) and using Amtrak to get up to Philadelphia for a few days.

5. New Zealand So I thought I would give you a break from the US places I want to visit and add somewhere on the opposite side of the world! Lets face it, this trip would probably be one that takes a few weeks so I can cover as many of the cities as possible, try to get out to where the Lord of the Rings films were filmed and see some of the beautiful scenery.

6. Disney Parks & Universal Studios Orlando Not so much a place as some theme parks I would like to cover. I have been to Disneyland Paris on numerous occasions and somewhere I will inevitably get back too but I would love to hop across to the US to cover Disney World in Orlando and the original Disneyland in California. I’ve also consider Tokyo Disneyland but am not 100% that I will definitely visit due to other places I want to visit. Linking in with my visit to Disney World Orlando, I would love to go to Universal Studios Orlando, especially for their Harry Potter theme park - because despite JK Rowling being an idiot (me being polite), I still want to visit here.

7. Canada Yes I know this is a very big category so lets split it in two. Firstly, I want to cover off the cities I haven’t yet visited on the East side (Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa) which are all easy to connect via train - as you can see there’s a theme here! My parents also did a really cool trip a few years back on the Rocky Mountaineer which I would also like to do which covers a few of the cities on the West coast as well.

8. Interrail through Europe Time for one a little closer to home since I’ve covered off some of the far-off places I wish to visit! If you haven’t gathered by now, I am a big fan of train travel and the Interrail service in Europe covers this at a sensible price! I’ve been to a lot of places in Europe already but I would love to do some sort of trip through Europe by train at some point - especially covering Germany and Italy!

9. The Nordic Countries/Northern Europe While my previous point covers mainland Europe, I’m counting the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway and Finland) as a separate point. I know all three of these are expensive places to visit but I would love to visit at least their capitals (Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki) at some point in my life.

10. Ireland Even closer to home as this would just involve jumping across the Irish Sea! I plan to at least cover Dublin and Belfast as the main cities but would love to get further afield if possible - either by car or public transport when I get the chance! Especially as this would give me a break from the long-haul flights to the US, Canada and New Zealand!

[howaminotinthestrokesyet]

Road Dogs: Metallica on Tour

Metallica‘s first ever gig took place at Radio City in Anaheim, California in March 1982. Their set list included primarily covers with only two original songs, “Hit the Lights” and “Fight Fire with Fire.” They did Savage’s ‘Let It Loose,’ Blitzkrieg’s ‘Blitzkrieg,’ Sweet Savage’s ‘Killing Time’ and four Diamond Head tracks. For diehard fans, this original lineup did not include Cliff Burton as of yet, but instead Ron McGovney. They eventually asked him to leave the group because the guitarist did not contribute anything of value. Another good reason came in the fact that Dave Mustaine fought with him repeatedly. James Hetfield would later say this about that show. “There were a lot of people there, maybe 200, because we had all my school friends and all Lars’ and Ron’s and Dave’s buddies. I was really nervous and a little uncomfortable without a guitar, and then during the first song Dave broke a string. It seemed to take him an eternity to change it and I was standing there really embarrassed. We were really disappointed afterwards. But there were never as many people at the following shows as there were at that first one.”

Metallica’s second and third show took place at the Whiskey a Gogo in Los Angeles. This venue would be where Hetfield and Lars Ulrich first heard future bassist Cliff Burton and his band Trauma. More recently, Ulrich revealed diary entries related to Metallica’s appearances there. "No sound check. Sound was awful. Played great myself, but the band as a whole sucked. Went down OK." The group opened for Saxon, who the drummer had met six months prior after sneaking backstage during one of their shows. After the concert, the monitor engineer asked Ulrich if he had ever heard of Diamondhead. “Of course, we have, we just played a bunch of their songs!" As it turned out, the crew member was only joking about Diamond Head. He would later go on to work for Metallica in the same position for 22 years.

On April 16, 1983 Metallica played its first show with new guitarist Kirk Hammett at the Showplace in Dover, New Jersey. They had begun recording their debut album Kill ‘Em All in Rochester, New York at that time. The set list included all original material that would land on that first album making up nine songs. Hammett had replaced Dave Mustaine, who held quite a bit of ill will towards him for years claiming in 1985 that Kirk ripped off all his guitar riffs, which got him noticed in the metal community. In defense of Hammett, he was simply trying not to make waves in his new group as Ulrich and Hetfield had definitely decided not to cut any contributions from Mustaine.

On March 5, 1983 Metallica played its first show with Cliff Burton at The Stone in San Francisco, who had replaced Ron McGovney. In 2018, a recording of the show came to light online, which you can listen to on YouTube. The lineup still included Dave Mustain as well taking place a month before the other band members would fire him. They performed 12 songs that night essentially previewing everything to be included on their debut album. At that time, James Hetfield was still struggling over whether he should sing lead. On the recording, you can tell why this became the case as his voice sounds incredibly scratchy with absolutely no technique whatsoever. The show also became memorable as a Cliff Burton debuted the future track, “Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth).”

Cliff Burton played his last show was Metallica in Stockholm, Sweden in September 1986 before his tragic passing. A few years ago, Metallica released a boxed set of rarities for their album, Master of Puppets, which included a recording of that final show. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett talked about their memories of that last concert with Cliff. Ulrich noted, “We played the show in Stockholm, and it went incredibly well. I think it may have been a rare case where we actually played an additional song that wasn’t on the set list, because the show was so good. That’s not something we did a lot then or now. So there was a good vibe.” Hammett would say this in the same interview, “It was significant because it was the first show where James played guitar again (Wrist Injury). He strapped on a guitar and was able to play the encore; I think it was “Blitzkrieg” or something. But I remember the five of us, including John Marshall, being really stoked James was back and playing and looking like was gonna make a pretty healthy recovery. I distinctly remember that show being good, and the feeling when we got offstage was really great and positive and forward-looking. Like, “Great, James is back in and it won’t be long ’til we’re back to our old selves again.”

In November 1986, Jason Newsted would play his first show with Metallica at the Country Club in Reseda, California. He did so in front of a sparse crowd because it had been a secret show for the group Metal Church. Newsted had played with the band for only a short time during rehearsals for the next album. James Hetfield introduced Newsted for the very first time in this way. “Welcome to the very, very secret Metallica gig that every fucker knows about! Here’s the new fucker right over here man, this is the guy… Jason Newsted, we fucking love him, man, so make him feel at home, alright? I want to have some fun tonight.” Their set list would consist of 14 songs from their first three album releases.

In the summer of 1992, Metallica decided to perform a few dates with Guns ‘N Roses. The hype for these shows represented the tour of the year, but the show in Montreal turned into a tragic affair. A pyrotechnic accident occurred as they performed “Fade To Black” causing second and third degree burns on half of singer James Hetfield's body. He recalled the incident, “I'm burnt – all my arm, my hand completely, down to the bone. The side of my face, hair's gone. Part of my back. ... I watched the skin just rising, things going wrong." Jason Newsted would remember that Hetfield looked like the Toxic Avenger from his vantage point. The group immediately cut the show short, so the singer could receive medical attention. He would later say that during the trip to the hospital a road crew member bumped his burnt hand leading him to punch the guy in his “nuts.” For fans still at the show, things only got worse as Guns ‘N Roses delayed getting on stage for two hours. Axl Rose probably only sang for 20 minutes before cutting his night short. GNR Had known what had happened to Hetfield, but they still phoned it in anyway. After that, 2000 people rioted in protest followed by several arrests. This night would lead to great animosity between the two groups for years continuing to this day, but it should be noted that Metallica acted professionally completing the tour with an injured Hetfield. Slash of Guns N’ Roses would later talk about the tour being a financial disaster for them. “Metallica was earning the exact same paycheck as we were every night but while they pocketed the whole thing, we were blowing 80 percent both on union dues for all of the overtime we cost ourselves going on late and on these stupid theme parties. It was just bad." Axl had spent extravagantly on backstage parties in an effort to impress members of Metallica.

In April 1999, Metallica recorded two performances on successive nights with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra led by Michael Kamen. The idea for such a concert had first come up when they worked with the composer on the Black Album song, “Nothing Else Matters.” He had approached them about such a collaboration, but never heard anything until years later receiving a phone call from Lars Ulrich. They filmed the live show at Berkeley Community Theater in San Francisco as Kamen had written additional material to supplement Metallica’s arrangements. The band also released two new songs specifically for the show, “No Leaf Clover” and “Human.” According to James Hetfield, This idea of combining heavy metal and classical music was originally an idea brought up by Cliff Burton, who had a strong background in both. One can see this throughout Metallica’s songwriting in their early years as the bassist relied on melody and instrumental qualities found in classical compositions like his favorite one, Johan Sebastian Bach. S&M would be released as a concert film and an album, with the latter reaching number one on the Billboard 200 chart.

In 1991, Metallica would play a concert in Russia that has become the stuff of legends because 1.6 million people watched it in person. The highlight of the show came when they played “Enter Sandman” as one could see Russian military personnel rocking out just as hard as anybody else. One must note that they were not the only band there that day as other artists included the Black Crowes, Queensryche, Motley Crue, and AC/DC. The Monsters of Rock Festival would only occur this one year in what would become the former Soviet Union. Motley Crue had played one of the early versions of the festival in 1984, but ironically Metallica had surpassed them as a more popular headliner by this time.

In August 2020, Metallica became the first rock act to perform a pre-recorded concert for Encore Live’s drive-in series. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, live concerts were canceled all over the world, so artists like Blake Shelton and Garth Brooks participated in this drive-in movie concert experience. Tickets to view this at your local drive-in cost $115 for up to six people per car. The show took place at an undisclosed location near their home in San Rafael, California.

[fadesinthelight]

turkish tea, matcha, darjeeling! :0

thank you for the ask!!

turkish tea: where have you travelled?

Oh let's see. Across most of southern Ontario, I've been to both the east and west coasts of Canada (Halifax and Vancouver respectively), also Montreal Quebec, Manitoulin Island, P.E.I., the badlands in Alberta, and the ice fields in Banff BC. I've road tripped across the country, but these are places I've actually properly visited. Outside of Canada, I've been to Texas (when I was Baby), New Orleans, New York State a few times, and NYC once.

matcha: favourite book?

Watership Down. Hands down. That book made me cry so much as a child and I think about it Often. Fuck if I remember any of the rabbits names aside from Hazel and Elil'hrair'rah it's been too long but I Love Them.

darjeeling: a hobby?

Hmm gonna say writing and art don't count since those are all over my tumblr so. d&d. which I post about occasionally but. yeah. I make a lot of characters in my spare time and I'm in a couple campaigns. I long to play more Pathfinder.

[ghost-in-the-stalls]

Had a real weird dream last night lemme tell you. Putting it under a read more because it's long as hell.

I dream a lot about malls

Some of the dreams are about other things where I just happen to end up in a mall. And often those are usually the same mall. And usually only one spot of it- the emptier area outside the movie theater.

But there's a consistent theme across these dreams of the feeling of being lost. Or at least being in a rush to get somewhere when I dont know exactly HOW to get there, or being in need of a vehicle or something to get to my destination.

Usually, though, the mall isn't the focus of the dream. Navigating through it is crucial to whatever im trying to accomplish, but the only dream I had where the mall itself was the focus was honestly a really weird one. I dont remember much about it.

But I just woke up from a dream where mall were kind of the focus but also part of the problem.

It started off with myself, one of my sisters, my mother, and my maternal grandparents all on a train together. I was way younger than I am now, but somehow still old enough that people weren't as concerned about what i did. We were going from our hometown in New York to Montreal- but for some reason my brain threw geography out the window. Because this trip also included traveling through Russia and Japan.

Anyway, partway through the trip some stuff of mine somehow fell out the window?? And because the train was going slow at the moment, I thought we were stopping. So I hopped out to get my stuff, only for the train to then speed ahead without me. The area was still full of people, though, like it was a bustling park on a nice day and not a section of busy train tracks. A worker came over and told me to follow a certain girl to walk me along the line to get to my destination.

So I started following her along with some others. We walked in a line, but then she started walking faster. There were a group of 3 who were following us and trying to get to us. They were clearly bad but I think it was because they had mistaken us for someone else. The main problem was that if they caught us, it would take time to convince them we weren't who they thought we were (if we COULD even convince them) and that would put us too far behind trying to catch up with the train.

So the girl started running, and the line behind her could keep up with her just fine. I was at the end of the line and for some reason was the only one who couldn't keep up.

This is where the malls came in. For some reason we stopped traveling along train tracks and started traveling through malls. Each mall led to the next if you got through it in the right way. And I could see the progress. Signs were in French, then the Cyrillic alphabet, then seemed to be Japanese.

The malls were all crowded and because I'd lost the group (and was also occasionally being tailed by this group of 3) I was in a major rush and was desperate to get through and catch up to my family.

So the dream then became about me frantically traveling through these malls, making turns on instinct and desperately searching for any sign of where I had to go next. Along the way I saw lots of graffiti in small hidden areas in the mall. These areas werent really hidden or closed off, but were ignored by all the other people. The only ones who inhabited it were people who had chosen to stay there. They didn't have anywhere else to go and had decided this was their home now. I kept going through the malls, frantic, trying not to dwell anywhere.

Occasionally the group of 3 would almost spot me again and I'd have to outrun them. But even when they weren't around, I was trying to move as quickly as possible to get back to my family. I had left most of my stuff on the train, so I didn't have anything with me that could help. No phone or money or anything.

The other thing is that I wasn't sure how much time was passing. I knew it was passing, but I never seemed to see the night. The malls were always bright and packed regardless. I found myself never having to stop for food or sleep or even a break. But I knew time was passing and it scared me that it didn't seem to be effecting me or these malls.

Eventually, though I don't completely remember how, I caught up to my family. They were all happy to see me safe and had been very worried. They cried a bit and I did too, but I just kept crying. I couldn't stop. We were on the train again, now and we had couches with pillows and blankets instead of normal seats. They'd left space for me to curl up between them and I remember finally feeling safe again but so tired. And I couldn't stop crying. Because I was finally safe but I almost wasn't. I'd almost lost everything.

Then my mother and grandparents started talking about some address. And I realized I had seen the address in the graffiti in one of the malls. I realized there was something weird going on with the graffiti from the malls, and for some reason it compelled me to go back through. In my mind, as long as I made the same turns I did the first time, I'd be okay and end up safe again.

The problem was that I was acting purely on memory of knowing in the moment what turn to take. For a while it worked okay. I could tell again that time wasn't passing as it should be, and I was scared and lost again. But for some reason it was worth it to find and notate that graffiti I'd seen. So I could put the pieces together and figure out what it all meant.

But this time around I got truly lost in the malls. The intuition wasn't there like it was the first time so I was acting only on memory. And eventually my memory failed me. I started going in circles in one of the malls. When I'd finally got to the end of the mall, a met a group of kids who were familiar with it. They were from the area. And the parking garage I had to go through to continue had the gimmick of being an actual maze.

And unlike before it was now nighttime. The parking garage wasn't lit up and you couldn't see anything. Anyone who wanted to travel through it had to use their own light of some kind. This group of kids led me through though and we were talking as we went. They lived in the area and confirmed for me that I'd made it to New York state. Everyone had a weird accent, so I asked if we were in NYC. They said no. When I asked where we were, they said they didn't know actually.

I know the state well enough that I was ready to ask a bunch of questions to see if I could figure out where in the state we were. But then things got scary.

We ended up climbing through an old playground to move forward. (This is a theme across a lot of my dreams too, including the mall ones. Everything in the world becomes a maze. A puzzle to move through. An obstacle.) The plastic playground tunnels were kind of falling apart and there were some we had to nudge in place properly so we could continue. Then something really scary happened.

The plastic was bent enough that the little doorway we had to go through to continue got blocked when you didn't hold it up as you went. Most of the group went through ahead and then the door collapsed again before myself (once again at the back) and a guy could move through. It took us a moment to figure out how to nudge the plastic back in place properly so we could move through.

When we finally got it, we saw the others on the other side. Only they seemed to be dead. They were all sickly green-pale. They had maggots all over them and their skin was stretched thin in certain spots in a way it really shouldn't be. I screamed, and they all sat up like I'd just woken them up from a nap. They were confused about why we'd taken so long- it had been days for them- and they didn't seem to understand that they genuinely looked dead.

The dream started hopping around more from that point on. But I returned to running lost through the malls and trying to get home. If I happen to see graffiti on my way, I took notes of it. At least so I could feel like I hadnt gotten lost again for nothing.

Eventually I happened across my mother completely at random. We were thrilled to see each other and we both cried. She said it had been weeks since I'd gone missing again. We didn't leave the mall right away and I just remember wishing we would sooner. I was so scared of getting lost again- like the malls would pull me back in if I didn't get some distance from them. Soon after, I woke up.

I've only been awake a little while now but I'm still really unnerved by the dream. I remember how sad and lost and scared I felt. How I couldn't stop crying when I was finally safe, because I was still so traumatized from being lost in the malls. I remember the feeling of being in seas of people but feeling so lonely. So many people gave me smiles as I passed and were polite and pleasant to me. But I felt so scared and threatened nonetheless. And when I was finally safe, the feeling that it would stick with me anyway. That I'd remember that fear for a long time to come. Thats what made me cry so much.

Anyway fucked up shit right?

[kerwritesthings]

The Start of Our Love Story

Summary: Before there was a me and you, there was me and there was you

Word Count: just a hair over 7k (buckle up y’all)

Warning: fluff and feels, a little bit of angsty longing, a little bit of messy, a bunch of sweet

Author Notes: So this is another one of those that festered from a tiny germ of an idea after something @fallinallincurls​ said and it kind of became, well this. It’s how it all started for these two. A look at their backstory. I kind of really love this. For me, I always want to make things I write feel real, that it’s not too much of the storybook, easy cliché. I want it to feel like this could actually be a thing that happens. This one feels more like that than anything I think I’ve written. I’m quite proud of it. 

As always, this falls in my yet to be named verse. The rest of my works can be found here at my newly cleaned up and shareable masterlist. This honestly, if you’re just starting to read my pieces now, would be the first to read, then follow the rest as I’ve got them down on the master. However, it can be read as a solitary one shot. Much love to @whenidance​ for listening to me whine constantly at stupid o’clock that I’m writing more fic yet again and to @fallinallincurls​ for being the kickstart to this and for being the best damn cheerleader.

Toronto was never in your plans. Work wise, you were grinding away, working like crazy to make a name for yourself. That’s what mattered. Nothing else outside of work, your tiny apartment on the Upper West Side, brunches at Sarabeth and Jacobs Pickles and abusing Class Pass studios with your best friend Didi made it on your radar. But when the SVP of Charitable Corporate Giving came to you to chat about the expansion of their presence through the other international offices outside the US, more so growing and figuring out new ways  to introduce corporations with their donations and their CSR programs with new charitable efforts; specifically an opportunity that would have you sitting possibly between New York and Toronto for a few months, eventually leading to full time position in Toronto, you sat up to listen. She immediately sets up time for you to head to Toronto along with a dossier of meetings with key folks there.

Didi came with you the first time you went up to Toronto for the exploratory conversations. The both of you came to love your time traipsing through Canada, Toronto and Montreal specifically. Plus, you both have friends scattered between the two. “This also means we can go harass the shit out of Hirashan, who we have not seen nearly enough of,” she trills off gleefully. “Plus, you know he throws killer parties, if we both visit you know he’ll do something fun.”

She was right. As soon as Hirashan found out you were coming into town, aside from the key smash that you may be in town for more than a brief trip if all works out well, a calendar invite for dinner shoots through immediately, then with a quick follow of ‘my friend Tristan is already having a few friends over for drinks that Friday night, we’re crashing’ which had you and Didi rethinking your packing knowing how Hirashan rolls.

After a day full of productive, thought provoking meetings that have you questioning everything back in New York, dinner with Hirashan, his boyfriend Miguel and Didi was exactly what you need to put the heavy thoughts in your head back a bit, at least for now.

“Tristian’s place is like Architecture Digest worthy,” Miguel raves, arm in arm with you as you head into the building. “The views of downtown and the CN are ridic. I’d say splurge if they want to drag you here and give you budget, but I’d much rather have you closer to us.”

“There is no way I’d be able to afford this building, let alone this neighborhood,” you quip, heels clicking on the tiles as you head up past the front desk to the elevators. Tristian’s ‘few friends over’ was tamer than you had expected, a solid number of people are scattering through the condo, but enough room to still feel like you could breathe.

Hirashan introduces you around like a proud parent, it’s sweet and not nearly as embarrassing as you thought he would be. There’s no way that you’ll remember everyone, your brain already feeling at max capacity after the day you had. However, luckily for you after the first full round of the room, you fall into an easy conversation with Tristian. He’s down to earth, a transplant from Georgia, and someone you could easily see becoming friends with if this move becomes an actual thing

“I have to introduce to my friend S,” Tristian says his thick southern twang bleeding through, craning his head around looking for him. “Normally, you can’t miss him he’s so dang tall. Whenever he gets here though, I must make the intro. I think y’all would get along well. He’s my neighbor, well not directly, but he lives in the building too.”

Didi and Miguel pull at you, passing around shots, and passing you around to meet and talk with other people. Your head is spinning, less from the whiskey you’ve been plied with through the night, more with the sheer fact that this night is making you see that Toronto may have to become a thing; and you’re smiling.

“Wait, here she is,” you hear Tristian first, before you feel him tug at your elbow before you go stumbling forward before tipping sideways. Another pair of hands come to steady you at your waist.

“Easy Tris, don’t break the girl before I can meet her,” the voice belonging to the hands at your sides retorts. He helps right you on your feet and you’re met with a pair of the prettiest eyes you’ve seen in awhile.

“As promised my dear,” Tristian grins, throwing his arms around the both of you. “This is Shawn.” 

He looks oddly familiar, but you can’t place it or him. He’s quite stunning though, gorgeous really. And unlike some of the others around the apartment, he’s dressed for the occasion. A well put together man is a weakness for you. Let alone one with eyes like this, a swath of riotous dark curls and a bright smile.

You fall into talking easily, not even noticing when Tristian leaves. This Shawn of his is well spoken, funny and it feels like you’ve known him for much longer the way the two of you chat. You wander into the kitchen at some point to grab another round of drinks, a glass of white for you, a beer for him, continuing the conversation of why you were up in Toronto this week in the first place.

“Sorry man, I need to borrow this one for a few if you don’t mind?” Tristian calls from over the breakfast bar. “Couple more folks I need to introduce her to before they head out.”

“It was really lovely talking to you Shawn,” you say, smiling. “I’ll find you before I leave.”

A few minutes turns into an hour, Tristian and Hirashan passing you around through a new group of people that just arrived. Next thing you know, it’s almost 1:30 am and the boys are starting to fade. You’ve lost track of Tristian, as well as his friend Shawn. You were hoping to see them both before leaving.

“Can I steal you for a minute before you go?” Shawn inquires, as you’re grabbing your coat from Didi’s outstretched hand. Miguel just smiles, elbowing Hirashan and pushing Didi towards to the door.

“We’ll go down and wait for the Uber,” Miguel says, nudging you forward.

You slide into your coat as he walks you around the perimeter of the living room, out the French doors to the balcony.

“I didn’t want to ask in front of everyone, especially your friends,” he gets bashful, a light pink flushes his cheeks. “But I really liked talking with you tonight, getting to know you. Can we stay in touch? Even if Toronto isn’t in the cards for you, I’d still like for us to talk more. Become friends even.”

You nod, smiling softly. “Yeah, I’d like that. Here’s my card. Everything is on there. Cell, email.”

“I’ll text you in the morning, so you have mine,” he replies, squeezing your hand after sliding the card from it. “Let me walk you to the elevator.”

He loops your arm through his, guiding you back through the groups of people in the apartment, down the hallway and to wait for the elevator to pop back up.

“You don’t have to wait with me,” you say softly, hands in your pockets so you don’t do something like reach out to grab a hold of his.

“Yeah I do,” he smiles, and it seems like he shifts closer to you. You get a whiff of his cologne, and you hope in lingers in your nose for the rest of the evening.

The elevator doors slide open. “Thanks for the lovely night, Shawn.”

“We’ll talk soon,” he responses with a smile and a cute little wave before the doors close in front of you.

“Good night?” Didi asks flopping down onto the bed in your hotel room. “I saw that look on your face a few times, this is gonna be a thing now isn’t it? I should warm up the Star Alliance frequent flyer number soon, eh? Figure out the best flights from LaGuardia up here.”

“It’s feeling good, I want to really think on it though once all the big brass talk everything over,” you start, changing quickly, the day finally catching up to you. “And more so what they’re thinking with transition plans and comp package.”

“You do realize though you were all chatty flirting tonight with Shawn Mendes, right?” Didi fights through a yawn once they’re in bed. “Major thing to throw in the plus column for this. He looked all smitten kitten too, especially when he came over before we left. Get it girl.”

You’re suddenly not as sleepy as before. “What the fuck, no way Dee.”

“Mmhmm, why do you think the three of us let you guys be for as long as we did. Tristian mentioned him coming by. Thought right off the bat you two would get along after you and Tristian got to chatting. Tris was right and I’m glad he made that happen,” Didi mutters, face smushing against the pillow. “Plus, he’s so your type. One of us needs to tap that, and I think Tomas would be beyond pissed if I did, so it’s your mission now. And you must share all the details once you get dicked down by that hot piece of man candy.”

You throw the smaller decorative pillow on the bed over at her face. “I didn’t, I mean. We were just talking Dee. He looked familiar, but. Oh god, Didi,” you grab the other pillow and place it over your face to scream.

You try to put it out of your mind, especially with everything else going on around the Toronto whirlwind. Even more so when a few days go by and you don’t hear from him. He flat out asked for your number, you slid him your card which had your cell and your email address. He said he was going to text you, so you had his number, and he wanted to stay in touch. You thought he was being sincere. You try not to let it get you down. Thinking of it now after everything, he’s a massive pop star, what would he want to do with someone like you? He was probably just being polite. You’re about to pop into the meeting with the SVP of Charitable Corporate Giving, when a text pops up from a number you don’t have in your phone.

Hi it’s Tris! Found your card in my guest room, must have slipped out your bag at some point when you were here last week. Let me know when you make your decision. Welcome to crash here until you find a place if the decision is a YES!

The only card you gave out that night was to Shawn. Did he lose it? Did he leave it there? Too many questions, you had an important meeting to get to.

Your apartment is almost completely packed up, the movers coming in a few days to take everything. It was a no brainer to say yes, though it meant less time of a transition and more of an immediacy in Toronto. You decided to spend your last full Sunday in the city at some of your favorite places. Breakfast at BEC, a facial from Facehaus, a wander through Strand Book Shop and an afternoon at Té Company. You manage to snag your favorite table: a half-padded booth in the back corner next to the window. A pot of tea and a book that has nothing to do with work and you’re ready to take a deep breath or three.

“That young man asked me to bring you over a fresh pot of whatever you were having,” the server gestures, swapping the steaming pot in her hands with the cooling one you have on the table. “Shall I bring over another cup?”

You look up from your book, and from her, to see him. Your breath catches for a moment. He’s got a shy smile, looking straight at you. Beat up black boots, dark jeans, cozy grey sweater, a vintage black leather bomber. Curls a windswept mess and eyes bright. He looks like he belongs here, in your perfect Sunday afternoon in New York City. You don’t know how you feel about the fact you’re thinking that way, especially after everything. Damn your subconscious. You’re too polite to ignore him or flip him off, so you nod and wave him over.

“Of all the gin joints, Shawn…” you sigh out softly.

“This is so crazy, that you’re here. Hi. So, I owe you an apology,” he explains carefully, sitting down across from you despite wanting to slide onto the bench next to you. “Because the nervous asshole I am, I totally put your number in my phone wrong. I tried texting you a few times, and nothing. I figured when they weren’t going through as iMessage I got it wrong and then I realized I lost your card, so I had absolutely no way to check or get in touch. I also didn’t want to look desperate or completely pathetic tracking down your friends through Tristian to hound them for your number when I had already asked for it myself, especially the way I did, or stalk you on social that would have been worse.”

He’s adorable when he’s flustered. “Take a breath, Shawn,” you smile softly. “Tris has it. He texted me the following week that he found it in his guest room.”

“I went in there after I walked you out,” he runs his hand through his hair, messing his curls about even more than they are already. “Needed a minute cause the pretty girl I talked with all night actually wanted to keep in touch too. I sat on the bed and put your number, or what I thought was your number, in my phone. I thought I slid it back into my pocket, it must have jostled out.”

“I thought, well, honestly I didn’t know what to think,” you begin. “I didn’t realize you were, well you until after I was back at the hotel with Didi. I thought you looked familiar, but I just couldn’t place it. Then when you didn’t reach out, I was like what would this guy, this Rockstar, want to do with me?”

He shakes his head at first. Then, he slides his phone out of his coat pocket, flipping through a few things before sliding it across the table to you. “Go ‘head,” he nudges it closer to you.

There were four or five green text bubbles in the open message window, an 8 in the place where the 0 should be in your number.

I know I said I would wait until tomorrow, but I just wanted to say how nice it was to talk with you tonight. It’s Shawn btw :)

I know you’re probably crazed with just getting back but wanted to see how decisions were shaking out? I’m bias but I’d be happy to talk up Toronto some more.

Let me know when you’re back in town? Would be great to see you.  

I may be in New York soon, would love to see you in your element. Can we grab a drink if you’re around?

Chat soon?

“He was kind of taken with you right away. Because that night? He got to just be just this guy Shawn talking to the prettiest girl in the room, who also happened to be so easy to talk to and laugh with,” he says honestly.

“It’s happening by the way,” you respond, pouring him a cup of tea despite your shaky hands. “Toronto. Next week. It’s my last full Sunday in New York, I’ve been hitting some of my favorite spots today as a last hurrah, including here. Movers come Tuesday; I fly out Thursday.”

“I found this place on my first solo trip to New York, and have been coming here ever since,” he sips at the mug that looks awfully small in his hands. “How many times do you think we crossed paths here and didn’t even know it?”

“We did on the time it really matters though didn’t we?” you smile over your mug.

You’re there for hours without even realizing it. Talking about whatever comes to mind. Everything from Toronto to New York to music to hockey, life and everything in between. After the second pot of tea, he moves to sit next to you on the banquette. By the third, he’s turning to face you straight on, head resting on his left hand with his knee pressing warmly into your thigh. Not once did anyone come to interrupt or bother the two of you, no wonder he’s gravitated to this place. By your fourth, you’re mirroring him, turning towards him. It’s comfortable, he’s comfortable. It’s easy, too easy actually. There are no awkward silences, no weird blips in conversation. It scares you. You’re already on the precipice of something majorly life-altering. You’re not sure you can take up another major change. And you believe him and his rambling explanation before. You do. But there’s a part of you that’s scared. Maybe you were just meant to have these pockets of time together, these brief beautiful moments. Nothing more. Your head is a swimming mess of emotions.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you two, but we’re getting ready to close,” the older gentleman you’ve come to know as one of the managers explains.  

“Holy shit, it’s almost 8,” you stretch, popping your shoulders. “I didn’t realize it was that late.”

“What time did you get here?” he asks.

“Only 20 minutes before you did,” you say, timidly, resting your hand over his that’s resting on his knee. “But this was a really good way to spend my last Sunday in New York. Honestly.”

He flushes brightly, “I’m really glad I came in here today.”  

“Now, may I please see your phone?” he questions, a sly little grin creeping up one corner of his mouth.

You nod, reaching for it out of your bag and unlocking it.

Shawn takes the most ridiculous selfie, you can’t help but fight giggling, then flipping back to poke at the screen before handing it back to you.

“You’ve got mine and I sent a text to make sure I’ve got your right number this time,” he expresses, his finger tracing over the knuckles on your hand. “I know you’ve got a lot on your plate and it’s all going to be crazy for a good while for you, but I’d like to keep whatever this may be going.”

You duck your head, threading your hair behind your ear, nerves suddenly rearing their ugly head. Your stomach flips at his touch.

“I don’t want to lie to you Shawn, or lead you on,” you exhale, voice shaky. “This is all a lot. The new job, the move, this, you. I’m pretty fucking terrified as it is. But then add this in? Especially cause you’re you and… This isn’t a no, but it’s not a yes. It’s a not right now and I know that’s a lousy answer and the last thing I expect is for you to wait, because why would you. I’d like to text, when I can, at least for now.”

You know that answer wasn’t what he was expecting. Honestly, it wasn’t what you thought you would say to him either. You want but you also know you to listen to what your gut is telling you, despite your head and your heart fighting to have a say in this too. You’re afraid to look up, to meet his eyes, as you fear it could be the last time you see them up close and in person like this.

“Hey,” he replies softly, nudging your chin up with his pointer finger knuckle. “You’re turning your entire life and everything you’ve known upside down. I get it. It also means a hell of lot to me that you’re being honest. It also means you’re not placating me, which I’m appreciative of. It’s actually really refreshing and kind of a turn on. I’ll be here and I’d really like it if you still texted, call if you want even. I promise you I’ll answer, anytime ok?”

You nod, trying to fight back the fog shifting across your eyes, a small sniff breaking through though. “I’m going to just…” you say gesturing to the ladies room.

“I won’t leave,” he states.

You quickly splash water on your face, blow your nose, grateful you had your facial before, so you don’t have a mess of makeup to clean up. Taking a few more deep breaths, you head back out. He’s got your bag in hand, your coat over his arm. He’s making this whole not now thing hard to stick to, but you know truly know that if it’s meant to fall into place, despite everything, it will.

“What about the…” you start, looking around the table for the billfold the owner left.

“Taken care of,” he cuts in before you could finish, holding out your coat to help you into it. You itch to hold his hand as you head out and down the steps, but you don’t want to go back on everything you just said. Instead, you set to order an Uber. You peek over, and it seems that he’s doing the same, looking at you out of the corner of his eye as well.

The nip in the early spring air is out, now that the sun has set, and you snuggle further into your coat. He shifts closer, rubbing his hands lightly over your arms. You’re coming to realize how much touch is a part of his language.

“I won’t let you say goodbye, because it’s not that. I won’t let it be that,” he murmurs. “It’s a see you later, ok? And, I’d like, if you’re comfortable with it, to give you a good luck I’m here for you hug before you go.”

You nod, thankful it’s dark so he can’t see you blushing. He takes you in his arms easily and holds you close. He’s warm and solid, he smells like fresh laundry, boy and springtime wrapped together and it feels like you fit just so. He leans his head down to rest on top of yours, squeezing his arms around you tighter. “I mean it,” he whispers. “I’m here ok? However you need me to be, whenever you need.”

He keeps you in his hold until a car pulls up, and of course it’s yours that comes first; the driver calling your name through the open window.

You pull away slowly, reaching for his hands and squeezing them in yours. “We’ll talk, I can promise you that, Shawn. Just bear with me?”

He nods, squeezing your hands in return, “Travel save and go be awesome.”

Your resolve lasts a whole four days, texting him simply a photo through the plane window of the approach into Toronto.

She’s looking all pretty for your arrival – welcome to your new home! he texts back with a Canadian flag emoji and a red heart.

It’s not easy, you knew it wouldn’t be. Your new apartment is lovely but it’s still not feeling comfortable and like your home yet. You’re thankful that you have friends that have taken time to wait for the cable guy, accept furniture deliveries and your moving truck because you don’t have the time. Not with work. Work is hard, harder than it was in New York. They throw you right into the fire immediately. It’s new office politics, it’s a new role, new everything. Even the fact you don’t have your favorite Starbucks baristas nearby anymore to supply you with your afternoon pick me up the way you like it when things are crazy irks you. You look back through your texts, hovering over the chain you’ve got with Shawn. You haven’t texted him since that flight photo. You want to, but it would just add more to an already full plate.

Bringing you dinner and a surprise! LMK what you’re jonesing for comes through from Tristian late Friday afternoon after your second full week in the new office.

A gigantic bottle of white? you text back with the side eye tongue out emoji. He’ll think you’re kidding. You’re not.

I’m bringing a few bottles and Japanese. I’ll use the spare I need to drop back off. See you in a bit!

The surprise, you come to find, once you’re both on the couch with chopsticks in hand, is even a mystery to Tristian.

“I couldn’t say no,” he fights out around a mouthful of shrimp teriyaki, pointing at the package on your coffee table with his chopsticks. It’s carefully wrapped in butcher paper with a pretty silver ribbon. It’s a box, thin and flat, nothing too large with a white notecard underneath the ribbon. “I’m not going to butt in on what’s going on with y’all, but we had drinks after he got back from New York. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that besotted, but all he’d tell me was that he’s playing off your lead. He’s not pushed or anything. So, when he asked me to help get this to you, I had to. At least I didn’t give him your address, girly.”

“It’s complicated,” is all you can really give to Tristian to explain or encompass it. Because that’s exactly what it is. You slide everything off your lap to exchange it for the box. Carefully, you unwind the ribbon, it’s too pretty and something you’ll want to keep to use in another way. It’s two notecards under it, and they fall out into your lap. They’re handwritten in deep blue scrawl, to match the border of the card. You pull the shorter of the two notes out first.

I’m really hoping this isn’t too much or crossing any lines. I saw this and thought of you immediately. It’s just a little something as you’re conquering the world. – Shawn

The little something is a gorgeous journal, soft deep midnight blue leather covered in silver embossed vintage maps with a silver pen slipped in the loop.

“Damn,” you mumble, fingers tracing carefully over the leather for a moment before snagging the other notecard.

I know you’re probably still figuring everything out and exploring. I’m giving you a list of some of my favorite places in the city, so don’t go spilling my secrets ok? :) If you go to the link at the bottom, it’s a Google Maps planner so you can save it to your phone.

“This boy,” you sigh, leaning your head back on the couch. It’s sweet and thoughtful and just on the right side of tugging at your gut. Damn him.  

“Tell me why y’all aren’t knockin’ boots yet?” Tristian quips, leaning over you to grab a Spider roll.

“Because I still don’t know my head from my ass up here yet and he’s Shawn fucking Mendes, Tris,” you take a large sip of your wine. “And I’m just some girl.”

“By the looks of it, you’re not just some girl. Just saying,” he says, nudging your shoulder.

Well after a few bottles of wine are polished off and Tristian on his way back home, you’re finally in bed. You’re still not used to the sounds of this city and you’re fidgeting, tossing your phone back and forth between your hands. It’s late, too late to call. So, you do something completely out of character, you record a voice memo to send to Shawn.

“I wanted to call, but it’s too late and I’ve had a little bit of wine that would make my resolve even weaker if we actually talked on the phone and I heard your voice. But your delivery boy came by this evening,” you speak quietly and carefully. “Thank you, Shawn. It’s perfect and so beautiful. I’m going to start using it on Monday. Then that list, with that Google link? That’s the absolute sweetest. I know I haven’t reached out and I’m sorry, really, I am. This is a lot harder than I thought. I miss home, this doesn’t feel like home yet. I know it will, but it’s not right now. Work is kicking my ass, and I’m grateful they trust me and for the challenge, but it’s so different than New York. It’ll all come together, but right now it’s just a fucking lot. I think though that this weekend, I’m going to try some of your list and I’ll try to share my adventures along the way. I promise you though Shawn, I am thinking of you and I want to get through this and feel like I’m good to talk more to you, with you. Thank you again, sweet dreams.”

You can’t bear to listen back, so you just save it and quickly shoot it off in a text to him with an old school t9 heart. You wait a solid 20 minutes before setting your phone on do not disturb, plugging it into charge and flipping over to try to get some sleep.

The next morning, your phone is scattered with different alerts: a missed FaceTime call and a handful of text messages, some with attachments, from Shawn. You press play on the memo first.

“So, please forgive me for trying to FaceTime, especially at like 1am, but you sounded so defeated in your message and it just killed me. Then I realized what time it really was and hoped you were already asleep, or your phone was off, and I didn’t wake you. I was in the studio head down working on something when you sent that, I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you right away especially after I told you to reach out at any time,” he rambles before taking a breath. “First off, you’re welcome. I spotted it and knew it belonged with you. Please do let me know what you think of these places, I’d offer to come with you especially since you’re having such a hard time, but I’m going to respect your wishes. Just know, if you do need company, I’m good for it. I’m sending you a couple things to read and to listen to, too. Things that have helped when I’m on the road and just feeling overwhelmed or scrambled. I hope they help some. I’m here, remember that ok?”

You send him a video of your mug of tea next to the journal on your coffee table, steam swirling from the mug with his latest album playing in the background.

Step one – making this journal about me and for me, not about work, with my favorite tea at the ready and I may or may not be listening to something special today to get me started.

You do something you haven’t in a long time, you write. You journal, and you let yourself feel and get everything out. Including about this darling boy who keeps making his way into the forefront of your mind.

I feel honored – need to know what your fav is, you know for reasons ;) I’m hoping it gives you a bit of a breather that you’re needing.

You spend the day concentrating on you, hitting two spots off his list: the tea shop and the record store, purchasing way more than you need at both. Once you make it back home, you feel lighter, more at ease. You spend time setting up the new record player, immediately sliding the first item you searched for onto the turntable and snapping a quick picture.

You sound better on vinyl btw – please don’t make me pick a favorite, I kind of love this whole entire album.

From there, you keep randomly texting, haphazard things, no rhyme or reason. Just talking and photos and whatever comes to mind, and it goes both ways for the both of you and you keep that up for a few weeks. It’s easy, it’s fun, neither of you putting pressure on the other for what’s next or what’s to come.

A touch over a month after you sent him the vinyl photo, he texts you a Dropbox link one afternoon.

A little something since you liked the album so much. Hope you enjoy.

That little something? It’s the whole album, acoustic, just him and his guitar stripped down. It’s soft and intimate and absolutely amazing.

Shawn, are you kidding? This is stunning. How come I haven’t heard any of these before?

It’s only late that night when you’re about to fall asleep that you think you hear your phone chime. You don’t pick up, waiting to look at the message the next morning. There as plain as day is his very simple response.

Because I worked on it for you.

You want to call to really talk to him, hear his voice, you want to see him, something, anything. But you can’t. You’ve got an important meeting at 9 am sharp that you cannot be late for, a jam-packed schedule the whole day and an event that night with one of the new clients, a charity benefit showcase at Horseshoe Tavern they asked you to go with them to. You don’t want this to be a brief tete-a-tete either with him. You quickly send off a string of every heart colored emoji there is because right now that’s what it feels like, your heart is exploding in its feelings.

The club is filled to the brim that night, your clients are overjoyed and your new boss keeps texting how she’s pleased the clients are happy. However, you’re frowning at your phone. Nothing from him, not a peep all day. You normally wouldn’t be concerned, but after yesterday, you’ve got a little bit of worry niggling at your stomach. You can try him after you’re out the doors of the club later, but for now, you need to put on a smile and make sure the rest of the night goes smoothly. The talent wrangler for the evening is dragging you backstage with your clients. A surprise guest is coming to perform and the CEO wants them to all meet before this person heads up to the stage for the last songs of the night, a thank you to your clients for their support of the charity. Backstage is a shit show to say the least, you’re jostled around trying to make your way back to the green room before being slammed by one of the sound guys and his massive rig bag.

“Watch it,” you call out, rubbing at your hip as you try to catch up to the rest of the group ahead of you.

“Damn, are you ok? It was a hell of a hip check if I ever saw one,” you hear from behind you.

You know that voice. “Shawn?” you ask, turning around to face the voice.

His eyes grow wide, his smile even wider.

“Oh, I see you’ve met our special guest,” the wrangler says, nudging Shawn forward. “Shawn, you can head back with this group if you don’t mind? I need to find a few other folks for this meet and greet.”

He agrees easily, shifting closer to you as you head back to the green room. “Fancy seeing you here. An unexpected surprise for sure. The best one really.”

You nod, biting your lip, the corners of your lips quirking up. “It is. Let’s get the business stuff out of the way first. Then maybe, after everything, and the show’s done tonight, we can talk?”

“I’d like that,” he snags your hands, squeezing them in his before he lets you go to you knock on the door.

The green room is small given the venue, but it’s a loud cacophony of sounds and people, and you’re both pulled in opposite directions immediately. You can’t help but catch sight of him here and there, he’s one of the tallest in the room so it’s not difficult. He looks good. His hair’s a little longer, curlier. You can’t help but smile, for a few reasons now, but at this moment you hear his laugh from across the room and it’s bright, infectious. It simmers in within you, but you can deal with that after the event’s over. The rest of the evening flies smoothly. You manage to sneak a drink from the bar in time to catch Shawn taking to the stage. You stay out of sight, tucked in the corner, wanting to observe him in his element.  Him performing is nothing like you’ve seen before, especially in such a small venue. This could easily become something very addictive. Just as the show wraps, you shoot him a quick text.

Need to get my clients out the door then I’m free, maybe take me 10 more min. Somewhere around here good for a drink of some kind? Quiet?

His answer is quick, quicker than you expect, in two rapid texts.

Yes, Suite 114: https://www.suite114.ca/

It’s a 20 min walk from here, about 2km not bad - but I saw your heels so there’s none of that tonight. Uber over? I’ll meet you there as soon as I’m done with packing up and I have to say goodbye to the club owners. Promise I won’t be long.

Once you’re wrapped, an Uber comes quickly, surprising for a Friday night. It’s a quick hop over and the bar is cozy, dimly lit and decadent. A modern-day speakeasy vibe. He’s right though, it’s quiet, not overly full and there’s a couch you can claim towards the back of the room. You order something simple, a champagne cocktail with grapefruit and St. Germain, to sip on as you wait for him. Something light and celebratory. It was a good day all around.

“Am I allowed to say you look beautiful tonight?” you look up to hear him say, your cocktail and a rocks glass in hand with a few fingers of something dark in it.

“Only if I can wax poetic about seeing you perform live tonight,” you reply, fingertips brushing his hand as you slip the glass from his grasp. You may have done it purposely.

He blushes, settling down close to you with his arm stretching across the back of the couch. “I just might have switched songs at the last minute, after seeing you. Wasn’t supposed to do Lost tonight, but it just felt right.”

“Special in a room like that, like that small and intimate yeah? It felt that way at least, from watching it. You’re something else up there, Shawn,” you muse, twirling the flute carefully between your fingers, eyes catching his.

“Had a pretty girl I needed to impress tonight, so,” he drawls, looking down at the drink in his hands. “It was the best thing seeing you there tonight.”

“I wanted to call you this morning,” you begin, sliding your free hand to his forearm on the back of the couch. “But I didn’t want to rush the conversation. I had meetings, this tonight. I just. I had to send something, so I exploded all those hearts in that text. I needed to make sure I had the time I wanted, that, after your text with what you said, and that Dropbox. Shit, Shawn you’re making me all jumbled and to be perfectly honest? After seeing that text when I woke up? All I wanted to do was to hear your voice, talk, laugh, spend time with you, hug you tightly. I didn’t expect any of that. Whatsoever. It’s thrown me for a loop. A good loop, but still a loop.”

He places his glass on the table next to you, slides yours out of your hand to take a hold of it. “The last thing I want to do is scare you or overwhelm you. But. Is it okay if I say I feel the same? After Tris’ thing, then even more so after New York, I knew I needed to have you around, whatever way you’d let me. Your call and your speed. I was drawn to you in a way that I hadn’t been to anyone before, and I didn’t want to give that up. I was so glad to hear from you, after Tris got you that package. Your voice I mean. And then, the last couple weeks, not going to lie here. I’d look forward to your texts, those random little photos you’d share of those looks of how your life was settling in here. When you went to Sonic and it was my album you got and started listening to, it just hit me and I went into my studio at the condo to start laying those tracks down for you. That was, it meant a lot to me, so I wanted to just do something for you just as special.”

You lean your head on your hand, the one that’s still laying on him, now closer to his wrist and take a deep breath. “Honesty continuing? I’m scared. This whole being here is still such a rollercoaster, and then add in what this could be, especially… You’re you, Shawn. Shit, I don’t want to sound like that but it’s there. There’s a lot that goes with it, you get that right? I don’t think…”

“Take a breath,” he murmurs, slipping a piece of hair that’s fallen across your cheek behind your ear and trailing his finger down your cheek ever so lightly before tanging his fingers with yours. “I understand. I do. I’d like to, if you’re game, see where this goes. No pressure, nothing but the two of us. Only the two of us. Can I take you out on a proper date? I’d love to, please?”

This boy, this sweet, kindhearted adorable boy, this ridiculously famous pop star, really wants to take his time and spend it with you. This time, you listen to what both your head and your heart are telling you. Take the jump.

“I’d really like that, Shawn.”

 TAG LIST: @whenidance, @parkerdavis, @sinplisticshawn, @hollandraul, @fallinallincurls, @itrocksmysocks, @rainbowshawn, @lasingphomustra, @illumecherry​

[ilovejevsjeans]

At the Forefront

Its a gladitorial sport, it can be seen as macho testosterone fueled. How easy is it to ask for help if youre struggling, having a tough time for whatever reason?

Dan: You use the word macho and I guess I thought of that, it’s probably a bit harder for men to break through that because there’s a perception of “I’m big and strong and the provider” and that old way of thinking but you know the thing which helps me is having close people around me, friends and people that I can trust and if I do get emotional or something they’re not going to call me weak or anything. They’ll put their arm around me and understand where I’m coming from so, I think that’s the biggest thing. I think everyone has the ability to open up and at times wants to open up but it’s that uncertainty of who to open up to. So it’s just finding someone you can really lean on. And even if that person is someone you’re not sure of I’m sure 9 times out of 10 they might surprise you and be open ears and arms. 

Could you tell anything to a teammate? Because as you know in F1 they’re the benchmark and any weakness can easily be exploited by a teammate and used against them on the track.

D: Yeah that’s a good question. You probably have to be a bit more selective with what you say to a direct competitor but you know on the flip side I think if you have enough confidence in yourself a lot of the time you can be happy to put everything on the table and deep down you’re like “I’m not longer vulnerable, I’ve put everything out there so at least my plate is clear so I can go out there and give it my all”. It can probably work both ways

You can go from hero to zero very quickly in F1, not least on social media. I’m wondering what your techniques are for handling the stress, the scrutiny, the pressure, the demands.

One thing I’ve always found helps is having other interests. If my life was only  F1, I think that would consume me and the pressure of the sport would. Not having a good race would probably eat me in inside for to long. If I have a bad race or a moment where I’m not to happy with my performance or what’s going on in the sport it might consume me for the Sunday evening but by Monday I’m trying to put my thoughts somewhere else and I don’t know go out and do some sports or go see some music. I think to just have an escape. I think that’s important for everyone whatever your job is. To have an interest outside of it that you can go and attend and clear your head a little bit.

Is there a moment that you could share in your career where things looked or felt bleak and what you learned from that episode?

A highlight for me as back in 2013, still relatively early in my career and I was very strict on myself. I was very disciplined and wouldn’t allow myself a beer or to go and party and you know what was I a 23/24 year old kid, it wasn’t really normal. In my head I was doing everything right, and the results for a few weeks weren’t there and I was kinda banging my head against the wall wondering what else could I do. I just got away for a bit. I was like maybe I’m putting to much into and this and maybe I’m going down a rabbit hole of trying to look into to many details and maybe I need to step away for a bit. It was the Montreal race and Montreal is close to New York and I’d never been to New York so I was like “I’m going to go to New York for a few days and I had some friends with me and I was like let’s just go”. Basically just not think or talk about racing and just go to a new city where racing doesnt exist and have a few drinks and go out and just take a break. That was really the best thing that I did. It really eased me in a lot of ways and it also kind of made me appreciate the sport like missing it everyday made me happy to go back to it after that holiday. 

That’s really interesting, cause I was gonna ask you about the lifestyle. Cause F1 is seen as a very glamorous profession . You’re on the road, you’re living out of hotels, you’re away from family etc etc. How do you cope with that and you’ve done it from an early age. You came to Europe and that’s a big step. So how have you managed to shape your mind and keep yourself on the straight and narrow when sometimes it’s just a hotel room and you?

That’s one of the hardest things. I think that’s what actually can break a lot of kids. When they move home it’s really having that long term vision. The first years of me living away from home, yeah I missed home, you know at that point I wasn’t earning any money or I wasn’t guaranteed to make it in F1 or anything but I was like “okay yes this isn’t particularly perfect right now but this is what everyone went through”. This is what Schumacher went through , this is what all the good guys did and this is what I have to do if I want to get there. So it was just I saw it as that. It was a sacrifice but ultimately if this means I can race F1, get paid to do the job I love , then this is nothing. So it was really just that and its all perspective and mindset. It’s understanding that sometimes there is a bit of a slow grind but if it’s going to get you a step closer to what you want then I think anythings worth it. 

It’s clearly working cause this is your tenth season in F1 so you know what you’re doing. But I wonder how much of that do you put on you as a person and as a driver? You know the ups and downs, you’ve talked about Montreal, also as someone whos prepared to stand up for what he believes in. I mean look at Lewis Hamilton for example, he seems to have grown into this statesman about black lives matter. But in terms of you and your development in what matters to you would you stay quiet and stick to racing or are you someone who would go “No I need to speak up here”

Yeah that comes with age. Through confidence I guess. Even here in F1 in the drivers meetings you know when I first got to F1 I was quite shy and nervous and didn’t feel like I really belonged in the room so I would be less vocal, less opinionated on somethings and now I feel like I’ve paid my dues in the sport and if I feel like more of a right to speak my mind. Whether that’s right or wrong I don’t know it’s just kind of what I went through in my head and you evolve as a person and you find things that work for you and things that dont and you learn from other people as well. From the path they’ve gone on and whether that did or didn’t work for them. You meet some amazing people and become a sponge basicaslly at a young age in an intertnational sport with you know people from all around the world. I think you know, whether it’s mental health or black lives matter, a lot of this stuff is new for so many people and it’s about allowing yourself to be vulnerable and if you really feel strongly about something to speak up and normally I think you can find it goes a long way. And we have that platform in which to do so. 

He seems so level headed don’t you think so Mark. He’s able to ride the storms and whirl pools in Formula 1 and also ride the rapids too and when he gets the right car,he has the ability to show his talent. He’s one of the best out there, the best overtaker there is. He’s able to take the slings and arrows very calmly. I was fascinated to hear about that trip to New York early in his formula one career, just when he had to clear his mind. He was thinking, maybe even overthinking, that everything he was doing should be contributing to success in F1 but it wasn’t. He just had to unplug for a while regroup, rethink with friends and suddenly things start to flow 

Yeah that was really interesting. We think of Daniel Ricciardo as not just a great racing driver but as something as a joker, having a good laugh and as a very jolly individual. So to hear him talking about some of the darker sides of being an elite sportsperson was really interesting. My big takeaway from listening to Daniel talking to you John is that when we think about some of the criticisms that Lewis Hamilton gets for some of the interests he has outside of F1 is effectively what Dan is saying are really good things for you mental approach to the sport. That by taking time away and actually doing something different that when you get back into the car, suddenly you’re refreshed and you’re able to crack on. Interesting to hear that in their different ways Daniel and Lewis are essentially doing the same thing and benefitting from it. (X)

[maxbegone]

Ally, my dear! How about... top 5 song that make you get up and dance, top 5 destinations you want to visit and top 5 feel good memories <3

LANA OK OK OK THIS IS A LOT!!! 

SONGS: 

1. September by Earth, Wind & Fire - obvious reasons, but it’s been playing at work a lot.

2. Want it Back by Amanda Palmer - the beat alone. 

3. Apparition by Troy Baker - this whole song is a jam, but the outro especially! 

4. America’s Sweetheart by Elle King - thanks to Ginny and Georgia, this song is one of my recent faves

5. Fade by Alan Walker (NCS Version) - I was obsessed with this song a few years ago, and no I’m not kidding.

DESTINATIONS: 

1. Scotland/Ireland- they’ve been on my list since I was a kid, and I will not rest until I get there. I am completely convinced that I will cry upon seeing any of the nature there. 

2. Australia/NZ- I need to go, but for an extended period of time. I know the flight is long, but I want to get over my flying anxiety and just live.

3. Anywhere in Canada - specifically Toronto, Montreal, New Foundland, and Banff. I went to Toronto and Montreal two separate summers when I was in my early teens, roughly ten years ago and I loved it. I just want to explore those cities as an adult and less like a tourist.

4. England - I have a very close friend who I went to school with that lives in London, and England has always been one of those places I’ve wanted to go since I was a kid.

5. Oregon/California - A little more domestic, but I want to get to the west coast at some point and hike. That’s it, that’s my reasoning. 

MEMORIES:

(this is tough, my memory sucks)

1. The Women’s March in 2018, being surrounded by incredible people, having gathered a group from school and guiding them to the UWS where the march started. I was looking at pictures on IWD and reminiscing - it was beautiful out, maybe 60 F, and it was just a celebration of women, of love, of each other. 

2. My solo Boston trip from 2019. I took a train from NYC to Boston and explored the city by myself for five days. I’ve never gone anywhere alone before, but I needed to and my god was it one of the best experiences of my life. I cannot wait to go back.

3. Going to baseball games when I was a kid, or really any time. There is nothing like New York baseball, and I will forever stand by that.

4. Surprising my friend up at her school for her birthday our freshman year of college. She nearly tackled me to the floor when she walked in the room.

5. Seeing the Nutcracker at Christmas with my grandma at Lincoln Center back in 2018. She came in from Florida to see me at school and surprised me with tickets since we’ve always wanted to go. We went to one of our favorite Italian restaurants, and cried the while watching the performance. 

Bonus memory - since I’m thinking of my grandma, she and my grandpa would take me a few times a year to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, a hub for Italian markets that they both have been going to since they were younger than I am now. It was something they only did with me (which felt like a goddamn triumph, since I constantly felt like I was competing with my cousin), and we all went two years ago when they came to visit me. 

I need to call them, I really miss them. 

OK!!!! WOW THAT WAS A LOT!! 

ask me my top 5 anything

[flvcr]

— ( harry styles, twenty-five, cismale, he/him ) did you see ETIENNE FLUOR walking down main street earlier? you know who i’m talking about, they’re a POTTER / HOCKEY PLAYER. everybody in town says that they’re IDEALISTIC & INTUITIVE, but have a tendency to be UNPREDICTABLE & DESTRUCTIVE too. ETIENNE has been in town for THREE years. c'mon, they’re always requesting RUNNIN’ WITH THE DEVIL BY VAN HALEN at karaoke nights. well, i’m sure you’ll see them soon! @westmerestarters​

hiya! i am kt &+ underneath the read more is a LOT of info about my bb, etienne. ** insert clown emoji but make ‘em yee-haw ** if you’d like to plot you can reach me on here or at space cowboy#8536 on discord !! <33 v excited to interact with y’all and your bbs !!

𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖎𝖈𝖘

name: etienne ‘ marcel ‘ fluor. 

nicknames: goes by marcel, only allowing very few people to call him etienne.

gender / pronouns : cismale / he, him.

age: twenty-five.

birthday: june 27th.

zodiac: cancer !!

orientation: pansexual / panromantic.

occupation: hockey player ( currently injured ) // potter ( for fun ) !!

languages spoken: french, english & italian.

𝖎𝖓𝖘𝖕𝖎𝖗𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

- PINTEREST - featuring his wardrobe, his home, his aesthetic, some character inspo and olive, his german shepard pup !!

- SPOTIFY PLAYLIST - what he is currently listening to !!

personality type: INFJ-T / THE ADVOCATE

moral alignment: chaotic good

style-wise: etienne is v stylish, but isn’t overly flashy by any means. he’s intuitive in the sense of what works and what doesn’t. willing to explore the latest wardrobe craze, but also just likes what he likes and likely won’t venture out unless pressed by another to do so. post coming soon for his wardrobe !!! they say that the cancer man’s clothing is selected to reflect “ sophistication over flash “ but kdgjn i’ll let ya’ll be the judge of that. he’s v much harry inspired clothing wardrobe, but also tones it down with some casual looks, especially when it comes to getting his hands dirty in creative aspects !! but can be a bit on the flashier side as well, especially w/ hockey press and what not !!

𝖇𝖆𝖈𝖐𝖌𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉

   etienne ‘ marcel ’ fluor was born in montpellier, france to two lovely parents, theodore and estelle fluor ( both born in england themselves ) . he is the youngest of his siblings, having one older brother and an older sister, all of them being roughly two years apart. at the age of eight, his family relocated to montreal, canada as a result of a promotion his mother received, which at such a young age, etienne had no qualms with, despite his siblings’ uneasiness.  upon moving to a new country at a young age, etienne truly found himself via escaping into various books and movies. often attempting to write his own and would force encourage his siblings to act his skits/plays out for his parents enjoyment. he continues to be very close with his parents and siblings - recently he taught his parents how to use facetime, so catch him face timing his family on sunday nights. 

   growing up, etienne also enjoyed playing all types of sports ( his parents signing him up hoping that he’d make friends as a result, which he did ). when it came down to it, athletic abilities-wise, there truly wasn’t anything that he wasn’t ‘ good ’ at, and that’s simply because he’s always been such a competitive individual / as well as a perfectionist. that competitive/perfectionist energy caused him to go home and practice a skill or trick for hours in order to be able to come back the next day and whoop everyone’s asses. overall, he’s very athletic, found alternating between various sports offered not only at school, but as well as through local clubs. ultimately, his love and appreciation for hockey swayed him and soon enough it became his sole focus. due to his perfectionist tendencies, etienne is very dedicated to his craft, he will spend hours practicing specific tricks and skills in order to be the best at what he does, which transcends past hockey and into, really, every aspect of his life. 

   throughout highschool ; etienne was a v dedicated student. although he’s a bit reckless and loved to goof off, he was always acing classes and applying himself. he genuinely cares for others, you could’ve seen his ass volunteering at a soup kitchen with his mom on sundays and what not, as well as take part in various clubs and sports ! just SOFT and sporty things. during this time, he joined the ontario hockey league and from there was eventually scouted out and recruited to the pittsburgh penguins as a defenseman at the age of eighteen - forgoing his parents desire for him to attend a university. although he enjoyed his time with pittsburgh, he was excited when the idea of being traded came up - eager to explore a new city and immerse himself in a new area. 

      trigger warning - injury, dislocation ( just in case !!!! ) however, he really didn’t enjoy new york ( hehe ), so he relocated to westmere soon after his initial arrival to nyc - finding a lot of comfort in living in a less populated area. he would commute during the hockey season to nyc, which to him wasn’t very far away, so this is where he’s been residing for the last three years !! however, in the last couple of weeks while training for the upcoming season my lil bb injured himself - not to get into tooooo much detail, i’ll just leave it at shoulder dislocation / joint separation due to a hard hit !! basically he’s out for this upcoming season, already having surgery completed, he’s currently healing for the next couple of months, allowing himself to fully experience that westmere fall !!!

   overall, etienne can come off as a bit reserved, and distant whether that be a result of his untrusting nature of others, or simply unfamiliarity. it takes a bit of time before he feels comfortable to share his true opinion / commentary / only doing so when he feels secure to do so. he’s not necessarily unfriendly, just a bit distant / lost in his thoughts. which varies, as with most ppl ofc, upon person to person and his level of comfortability among them. despite his often lack of conversation, he abhors an uncomfortable silence to settle and will fill it with nonsense to simply avoid the feeling altogether. so, if you ever want to catch him rambling, just making him uncomfortable dkjfngdf. he definitely approaches most things with a bit of ‘ tough love ‘ . he doesn’t mind getting into a quarrel or two if he knows its worth the outcome he’s envisioned. etienne will tell others when they are fucking up, and if they are throwing a punch as a result - catch him leaning into it, which explains his bout of reckless antics. he can come off as a know it all, when it comes to advice giving, but more so because he thinks he’s really good at analyzing others and situations they are in, not necessarily because he’s lived through them himself, he’s just rather intuitive and able to empathize quite easily with others despite his verbal admittance of it. when it comes down to this binches reckless bits, he just feels so intensely that he ends up numbing himself in the aftermath of it all ( especially bc he’s definitely not sharing those feelings with the people around him ), therefore he’s willing to put himself into harms way in order to get a bit of that - happiness / pain, it doesn’t matter to him as long as he no longer feels overwhelmed by numbness. so, if ya see him with some scrapes and stitches ~ mind ya business. but he’ll likely try to drag somebody else into it, and make it seem like it was their idea. but if he is truly comfortable with somebody, he walks a fine line of won’t stop talking, especially if it’s an interest of his, and comfortable silence.

_________________________

𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖔𝖓𝖆𝖑𝖎𝖙𝖞 & 𝖍𝖆𝖇𝖎𝖙𝖘

he is a CANCER, therefore in this essay i will..... kidding but here’s some fun cancer info i saw that applies to my bb !! at first he appears to be wistful, sarcastic ( maybe a lil crabby ) , shy, distant and mysterious. this personality remains if he isn’t completely comfortable around somebody. but overall, that’s just his facade, his ‘smokescreen’ of sorts to scare off the world from his outwards persona. underneath that layer ( makes me think of shrek metaphor with onions // don’t mind me ), BUT he’s gentle, kind and affectionate ( if you manage to make it to that level * bell dings * ) !!! overall, etienne is a sensitive soul, a bit emotional although he’d rather d*e than show that to others. likely will internalize anything that can hurt his feelings / a low blow and will do something chaotic as a result later on bc of it. very polite, and a little worldly, he is truly the epitome of old-school gentlemanly manners. chivalry coming as a second nature to him !!

that was getting ramble-y, so continuing HERE. but when it comes to romance, as per the cancer man, the concept of love is a mystery, one that etienne is trying to attain. however, his shyness and innate distrust of others make it difficult for him to allow himself to fall in love. his guard is always up when it comes to his emotions, and it’ll take a bit of prodding before he’s willing to speak up on what’s desired from him. he’s v picky when it comes to finding the “ partner of his dreams “ - but he’s def willing to throw himself into the romance of the situation, i.e. buying flowers, riding white horses, and slaying metaphorical dragons. the traditional side means that he will shower his partner with thoughtful gifts, wine and dine them in the best restaurants, and try to grant their every wish. he will take the garbage out, fix that wobbly shelf, navigate on road trips, and kill more so trap and release bugs for his partner, and most important of all he will do it all without being asked. his loyalty and keen attention to the needs and wants of his potential partner. so basically, more so willing to showcase through actions than speak on it. it’s the little things, right ??!?!?! he def cherishes not just the act of being in a relationship, but what it means to become one with another person in mind, body, and soul.

prides himself on being able to make a mean cup of coffee, likely the worst person to watch a movie with bc he knows exactly how it’s going to end after only watching five minutes of it, he has a godawful sense of direction, will walk in circles for fifteen minutes before even raising a question about it/noticing ( but he refuses to acknowledge it. )

his house, car, workspace, junk drawer, closet….you name it - it’s organized, practically sparkling. often times arranged by color, and / or style. nothing is ever out of place, and if it is - there’s trouble brewing. but, more than anything, if he’s visiting somebody’s place and it’s messy, he will spend a solid thirty minutes picking everything up before doing whatever it is that was intended.

likes : reading, flowers, handwritten notes/letters, deep cleaning, baking, working on his pottery, watching the history channel and true crime docs and playing / watching hockey !!

dislikes : artichoke, clutter, sandals ( fkjgh ), unrealistic plotlines in movies &+ burnt coffee.

habits :  likely has a severe caffeine addiction, although he’s now normalized having six cups of coffee throughout his day. he’s an early riser, no matter how little the amount of sleep he’s received, he’s always the first to rise - for his early morning runs !!

strengths: creative, insightful, inspiring, convincing, determined and passionate, decisive, altruistic, intuitive !!

weaknesses: sensitive, extremely private, perfectionist, low-key always needs to have a cause / purpose, can burn out easily !!

overall : etienne truly strives to be kind, and genuinely wants for everyone to get along. treat people with kindness and the like. he has the best of intentions, but often times that can get a bit muddled with the way he goes about things due to his bit of chaotic energy / as well as his often points of getting lost in his thoughts. he won’t realize he’s been quiet for the last three hours unless it’s mentioned to him. he will do anything to lighten a dark mood, and will sacrifice / throw himself under the bus if its needed. however, he also is the type to cause the dark mood depending on the day. wahoo! his more reckless antics increase when he’s feeling a bit emotional !! but he’ll likely try and convince somebody to propose the idea so it’s not on him.

𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖔𝖒 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖉 𝖈𝖆𝖓𝖔𝖓𝖘

he lives with sebastian !! with his commuting to nyc for the hockey season, he wanted somebody to be able to take care of his house / garden and what not, and thus, seb arrived.

he’s v into making ceramics, cups / bowls / vases / etc !! what began as a fun hobby to distract himself in the offseason became something that he truly enjoys. ( laughing about that scene in ghost BUT DKJFNG OKAY ) although he’s pretty low-key about it, you can catch him at the farmers market selling his creations !! some pictures of his work can be found on his pinterest board !!

he is a vegetarian ! he has been since his freshman year of high school and has no plans on eating seafood/meat ever again.

he loves fancy wine ~ he’s cultured. 

he can play the drums !!

he collects vintage matchbooks and the stickers off of various fruits ( he puts them in a little notebook - can be found on his bookshelf ).

saves handwritten notes and letters from pals.

he loves to garden !!!! he has a specified rose shearing hat.

HE WANTS TO JOIN A BOOKCLUB PLEASE !!!!!!!! or at least have some casual moments of silence with another reading. plz and tysm.

to make things a bit simple, he has all of harry’s tattoos !!  might add more along the way !! stay tuned, folks !!

𝖜𝖆𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖓𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖘

i am so up for anything!! please accept this ramble of ideas thrown below.  if you have any other ideas, lmk !!!! <3333 :’-) down to start from scratch and PLOT PLOT PLOT !

( 2 / 2 ) - BFFZ : the z for an added emphasis dkfjgnd. somebody who likely has a key to etienne’s house, they can enjoy one anothers company as well as the bouts of comfortable silence. you know how best friends are but kdjfngd still !! whether they are likeminded or polar opposites that just flow ~~ down for anything !! even a trio of sorts ?!

( 1 / 1 ) - RIDE OR DIE / CHAOTIC COMPANION : it would be wrong to say one is the more likely the bad influence over the other, although etienne may just be. these two find themselves bounding into, well hell, ( i guess??? ) together. playing on one anothers impulsiveness and if one ends up in the back of a police car, the other is handcuffed to them. and yet despite the length of their potential injuries, they find themselves thinking of something crazier to subject them to the next time around.

( 1 / 1 ) - GUARDIAN ANGEL / GOOD INFLUENCE : with etienne being a bit chaotic in nature, he needs somebody that is likely going to steer him clear from all the ideas that’ll bring him to the brink of disaster. he’s impulsive and in that desperate attempt to feel again, he’s very likely to bring a bit of mayhem upon himself. so while they may be worrying and attempting to talk his ideas down, he’s trying to get them to go along with his plan. it may be rare that he actually takes their advice, but when he does it seems to be for the best.

( 1 / 1 ) - PARTY FRIEND : these two know how to have a good time together. despite the amount of alcohol they are throwing back and the shenanigans they find themselves in as a result, this is a time where they also find themselves confiding in one another. if you look at their camera rolls, it’s likely they have tons of embarrassing and unflattering videos and pics of one another, in between their sob-worthy confessionals and venting/rants. these two trust one another, and although they love getting wreckT together, they find themselves discussing very raw and personal details. likely the only person etienne confides in, simply bc he’s completely plastered.

( 1 / 1 ) - SIBLING-LIKE RELATIONSHIP : these two have a love/hate relationship, very sibling like filled with pranks, competition, teasing and playful banter. however, when it comes down to it they have so much love and respect for one another. they know that no matter what happens they will always have one anothers back and be supportive of the other. truly a pure content filled relationship.

okay quick mention, ENEMY PLOTS ?!?!?!?!?!? i would live for one. i can’t imagine etienne being hardcore nasty, but i’d like to see whatever version comes out for this. so let’s get it djfngjakdfg maybe they just hold different viewpoints on the world and what not and clash, anything really !!! v open !!

( 1 / 1 ) - MENTOR - etienne needs a bit of structured or unstructured guidance, all depending on what their deemed mentor is wanting to impart on him, a bit of wisdom or slight chaos. kdjfgn he’ll take anything !! 

RANDOM LITTLE IDEAS : maybe they’ve heard of one another in town, but haven’t quite met yet! or maybe they see each other around all the time, but have yet to introduce themselves to one another but low-key maybe in some online forum for the town together ?! who knows some fun things kdjnfg i AM OPEN !

ooh maybe a slowburn of sorts ?! something spicy to wreck HIS and my life with.  dkfjgn we can base this off of chemistry !!! :’-)

[dalygrace]

🔆 + [post] college au featuring @catherinedaly @evcravens @katarinadvpont

“Grace! Mamma wants a picture to make sure I got here okay and didn’t die en route!”

Catherine’s voice floats from the living room into the kitchen where Grace has her head in the fridge, looking for the bottles of wine Katarina had put in there to chill. She grabs the first one she sees (Kat can come back and get a different bottle herself if she wanted something specific, she thinks, swiping the corkscrew from the counter) before sweeping into the living room and depositing herself onto the couch beside her younger sister. Catia’s face is flushed from the two glasses of wine she’s already consumed, and Grace laughs as she fumbles with her phone for a moment before finally taking a selfie. Grace knows she’ll likely get a scolding voicemail from Simona before the night is out for the wine in her hands and Catia’s clearly buzzed state, but she’s happy, so she doesn’t care.

“Are you going to open that or just let it get warm in your hands?” Mikael asks, slouched in the armchair opposite her, and Grace laughs again, deftly uncorking the bottle and pouring him a glass. “For you, m’sieur,” she says in her snootiest sommelier voice, the one she’d perfected  those long nights in college when they used to mix something awful for each other and have a guess at what was in it, an exercise in masochism on both their parts that left them more often than not hating themselves the morning after. They’d grown since then, matured to real cocktails and wine that came in bottles instead of boxes (Thank god, Everett had exclaimed at the sight of real Italian wine, last year when they’d all gathered to christen Mikael’s new apartment in Jersey), and Grace’s liver thanked her for it.

“It’s Italian,” she says before Everett can ask, pouring three more glasses and pushing them across the table to their intended recipients. “Kat put aside her homeland snobbery just for you tonight, so we can indulge in your homeland snobbery to celebrate you finally deigning to grace us with your presence.” Mikael roars with laughter as Kat and Ev make twin faces of affront and Catia sneaks Grace’s glass off the table, taking a big sip before Grace can snatch it back. “That’s the last glass for you, drunky,” Grace says fondly, “You’ve gotta be with it when Papa comes to pick you up later or else Mamma will start thinking Kat and Everett are bad influences.”

The two in question pull faces again, and Grace settles back onto the couch with her new glass of wine, smile so wide it hurts her cheeks. 

She loves nights like this, family and friends gathered in the living room, when the house is full of laughter and conversation. The brownstone she shares with Katarina is warm and spacious, always kept tidy (Grace) and packed with art and photographs of their mutual friends (Katarina). They have a spare bedroom that they use to house the rotating cast of characters that come through New York, because despite only being in their mid-twenties, having a six figure salary (Grace) and coming from a long line of successful stock brokers (Katarina) means they can afford to live somewhere that isn’t a shoebox, exorbitant rent be damned. Its most common occupant is Mikael, despite the fact that he lives only a short train ride away, because he always whines about how annoying New Jersey Transit is and how cold it gets in the winter. Grace, who grew up in the City, thinks he’s full of shit; then again, he’d spent his whole life in Southern California before moving east after college, so she supposes he gets a free pass for the first few years of real winter.

Sometimes she wonders how they all ended up like this, living in each other’s pockets. Everett and Katarina had met first at an orientation for international students; then Mikael had crashed in, a fortuitous roommate pairing; Lillian came next, trailing in Katarina’s wake, and the four of them became MikandEvandKatandLil easily in the first months of freshman year. Grace, down the hall in Reiber and two rows back in econ classes, was an outsider to the fearsome four, too snarky to fit right in, raising hackles with her quick anger and the drinks she kept accidentally spilling on Everett. Ironic that that’s what brought them together in the end, she thinks, sleepy and warm, before excusing herself from the room.

It’s strange, she thinks, basking in the glow of their laughter as it follows her down the hall to the bathroom, that they all stayed together, relatively speaking. Lillian was off being beautiful somewhere in Europe (she’s in Paris, Grace knows, but she still instinctively pushes down the knowledge of the kind woman with whom she never quite clicked, a sequelae of having pushed down for years the frustration over whether she wants to kiss her or be her, a crisis she’s become more comfortable with since it first started in sophomore year) but she visits as often as she can; Everett was still in Boston, a godsend for Grace’s mother’s nerves as Catia settled into her first year at Tufts (Simona can’t quite handle being an empty nester - it doesn’t matter that Grace lives an easy ride away on the NQR, with Regina fucked off to Montreal for most of the year and Catia in Boston now, Simona is struggling to adjust to not having them all at family meals again like they had been once Grace came back from UCLA), but he too made the pilgrimage to New York with some regularity. Mikael was practically a third housemate. They’d muddled through important years together, through good ideas (vandalizing USC and using an unassuming Everett as the getaway driver) and bad (Grace’s brief affair with Rafaella, a beautiful but flighty exchange student; Mikael’s everything with Lucrezia, a Kappa a year younger than them all who’d moved back to Chicago after her graduation and summarily dumped Mikael over text when she was introduced to a player for the Cubs). Something expands in Grace’s chest as she looks at herself in the mirror, bright and warm and painful in the best way, and she has to sit for a moment on the tub to catch her breath. She leans against the wall, tired and overwhelmed by all the love she holds, and she doesn’t notice the minutes slipping away until the door opens with a quiet click.

To Everett’s credit, he doesn’t startle when he sees Grace, only makes an appraising noise and moves to the sink. Grace, head fuzzy with wine and sleep, does at the sight of him, and smacks her head hard against the tub. She groans, long and low, and Everett laughs at her, the bastard, before stripping off his shirt. “Not that I’m not enjoying the free show,” Grace says with a joking leer, “but why are you rinsing your shirt off?”

“Catia spilled her wine on me,” Everett says evenly, running the bottom of his shirt under the tap. “Must be genetic,” Grace mutters, and he laughs again. 

“I still don’t believe all those times were accidents,” he says, wringing out the shirt as best he can. “I’ve never seen you be clumsy around anyone else.”

“They really were,” she whines, clambering out of the tub to perch on the edge. “It’s not like I was purposefully trying to ruin the godawful number of polos you owned.”

“Really? All of them?” He turns from where he’s hanging his shirt on the towel rack to raise an eyebrow at her pointedly. “Even when an entire bucket of punch somehow went from your hands onto Castora and I all through the second story window senior year?”

“And she never forgave me,” Grace says solemly, and Everett only shakes his head with a bemused smile.

“We thought you all went to sleep without telling us.”

It takes her a moment to process the change in topic, but her mouth has always been quick on the draw, ready to spout nonsense until her brain catches up. “I only disappear mysteriously from parties that I am not hosting,” she says, “and this is, regrettably, my house.” She yawns, listing forward from the rim of the tub with enough force to alarm Everett, who easily catches her and pulls her to her feet.  “That begs another question,” he starts, bemused, “of why you’re in the bathtub and not, say, your room, where there’s a real bed?”

“Going to bed while you still have people ‘round is admitting defeat,” Grace says haughtily, though the effect is somewhat ruined when she almost trips going out the door on the hallway runner. She rights herself before Everett can steady her and flashes him a placating smile as she turns pointedly back towards the living room, where the rise and fall of Kat’s voice and Mikael’s laughter can be heard over the humming of whatever music Catherine’s put on the stereo. She’s only made it a few steps before Everett is in front of her, turning her around and shooing her back towards the stairs. “I just found you half-asleep in the bathtub,” he says pointedly, boxing her in as she tries halfheartedly to push past him. “And most of us are sleeping here anyway, so it’s not like you need to make sure we all leave without stealing your things.” She gives in with a frown, too tired to argue, overwhelmed by the nearness of him, the warmth he radiates, the sudden urge she has to latch on and not let go.

“Why do you do that?” He asks as he corrals her up the stairs, interrupting the low grumbling she’s kept up all the way down the hall. “What?” She replies brilliantly, caught up in her false irritation and the effort it takes to not trip up the stairs. “Sleep in the tub,” he continues, to which she stops on the top step and shrugs, full body. “Dunno,” she replies, truly uncertain of where that particular quirk came from but now painfully aware that this is not the first time that Everett has come across her asleep in a tub. Once is an anomaly, twice is a pattern.... She can’t quite figure the rest of the thought and instead flings herself onto her bed, loose-limbed and nearly asleep by the time she’s horizontal.

She looks up to see Everett leaning against the side of the doorframe, soft smile playing over his lips. She smiles in return, warm and open and real, and pats the bed beside her. “C’mere,” she says, rolling over to make space for him beside her. Grace closes her eyes as he closes the door, and she feels rather than sees him settle onto the edge of the bed, perched as if he wants to take up as little space as possible. She cracks her eyes open to level him with a withering look. “It’s okay, Mr. Chivalry. Let your hair down. Relax, take off your shoes and dive in, the water’s fine,” she quips stupidly, too tired and buzzed to filter herself. She’s suddenly aware as she rambles that this is the first time he’s seen her room since their freshman year at UCLA, all three thousand miles and seven years away from where they sit now. He’s been to her house before - to her apartment on Levering after their tentative friendship blossomed into something real; once, notably, to her parent’s Upper East Side apartment the summer after their graduation where he’d charmed her father with his talk of his Harvard MBA courseload and her mother and sisters with his insistence on making dinner to repay them for allowing him to crash on their fancy and entirely uncomfortable couch for a night - but never in those times did he come close to entering her room, a strange and sacred space. He never visited her in the shoebox of a studio she kept for the hell of it in Alphabet City that first year, too busy in Boston to do more than catch the Amtrak up for a weekend once or twice every few months. Grace, who had been pulling hellish hours in the office to prove to herself as much as her superiors that she was worthy of a promotion so soon into the job, saw him for an hour at most when he did make it up, safely tucked away in the dark corners of pubs that Katarina and Mikael kept locating in various parts of the city.

It is strangely intimate now, having him in her space, seeing the emptiness of the pale blue walls, the way each thing had its place and no mess was allowed to exist. This was where her fastidiousness for work was echoed in her personality; there was no room for her trademark wildness here.

“Just lie down,” she says finally, after they’ve sat a moment too long in a silence that’s toeing the line of discomfort. “Or walk down two flights of stairs to the guest bedroom, I don’t care.” With a shrug, she flops onto her back, closing her eyes again. She hears him type something (obvious by the quiet click of his iPhone keyboard because he has his ringer on, the maniac) and set his phone down on the bedside table, feels him settle beside her a moment later. She waits a beat before reaching out to tangle her fingers in his.

“Grazie per aver guidato Catia qui e prendersi cura di lei a Boston,” she mumbles sleepily, feeling him tense lightly at the language change. She likes that he forgets sometimes that she grew up speaking Italian around the house, likes that she can still surprise him by volleying his native tongue back at him. She saves it for moments like these, just the two of them, but tonight it feels different and the aching love in her chest feels different too. Tonight Italian feels like the hushed French she can hear from Katarina’s room every night when she talks to Lillian, devotion bridging the hours and miles that separate them. Tonight, sono contento che tu sia mio amico feels a little like I love you. Everett’s hand in hers is warm.

“È facile. Non c'è niente di cui ringraziarmi. So quanto eri eccitato di vederla.” The bright thing expands in her chest again.

“Sono felice di vederti anche io,” she mumbles.

“Lo so,” he says, smile evident in his voice, and he gives her hand a little squeeze. Grace grins stupidly at the ceiling, warm with pleasure and the gentle weight of Everett beside her, and falls asleep.