the end of the beginning

these past two weeks have been an insanely beautiful growing experience.

it sounds tacky but it's absolutely true. despite all of the massive drama, onstage and off, the one predominant feeling I have is joy at having been part of a unique theatrical/professional/artistic experience with so many genius people. My last night performing in "And the Devil May Drag You Under'' saw Sxip & Adam accompanying me on melodica/vocal percussion to a Chinese pop song. Youtube video to come, lads and lasses, I promise. It was fun. I even wore my Beijing Olympics tie.

i also found a surprising hint of romance, as robyn predicted. it came last night on my second to last night here and my last night performing at this summer's Fringe. we met after the show, went for drinks with the cast, made out all night, woke up early in the morning to go see bach @ breakfast, missed it, and went for coffee and a stroll in the national museum instead. charming, I'm sure you'll agree.

I was immensely lucky to meet up with two old friends from the states while here, Jane Jones and the brilliant Anna Polonyi. Was frankly disappointed that the New School folks never made the effort to come see "Devil'', and also having gotten four rave reviews so far and a two-page spread in the Edinburgh Evening News under the heading "the number 1 show to see @ Fringe this year'', I'm a little miffed that they didn't make the effort to support us.

I've made a big batch of my mom's famous lasagna for everyone at the flat and it iss decidedly good. Comfort food. Relaxation. I took a hot bath. I decompressed. This is the first time in over two weeks that I will have spent a whole day without getting up on stage. It feels strangely luxurious and yet rather disconcerting.

Tonight, we're all going for a cast drink and a visit to finally see the dionysus/appollo show at half midnight. I'm going to miss this place. I can't believe it's already over, but I simultaneously feel like I've been here for ages. It's odd.

I just want to drink copious amounts of whiskey tonight. Then I will be supremely satisfied. Love to all of you

Hen Ai Hen Ai Ni

Hi all,

At the flat in Edinburgh and drinking a proper cup of British black tea and milk. Just thought I'd say hello and inform you that everything is goinggoinggoing over here, day in and day out. I started performing only four hours after arriving here in eburgh and was greeted most warmly by the amazingly kind, talented and beautiful actress Lizzie Wort. I realize only now that I started a blog to share my experiences with you as they occur, but haven't had a single second to maintain it since arriving. This is probably for the best, as it means I am constantly entertaining and being entertained. It is a lot of hard work. It is a lot of fun. Just like Taylor Mac told me it would be. I've been playing every night since arriving, mostly with the "...And the Devil May Drag You Under" cast, but tonight we shook things up a bit and I performed instead at the George Square cabaret bar. They're going to have me on again at least once more before I leave, when I hope to be drier (it was pouring on my walk over from Arden Street) and slightly drunker (one pint was decidedly insufficient). Everybody is being very kind and wonderful to me indeed, amidst massive pressure from all sides (PR, guest acts, etc.) hovering about like invisible stones. Sxip and I went on a thoroughly enjoyable, decompressing walk today after deciding we needed to get our souls back. I think we succeeded. We're working on a deliciously tacky, overly orchestrated accompaniment to my rendition of the Chinese pop song "Hen Ai Hen Ai Ni" at the moment, which we're pretty amped about.
I'm playing the Supper Club @ Assembly Square tonight for the first time after guesting again on "...And the Devil May Drag You Under,'' which should be loads of fun seeing as the producer for the Club, Natalie, has worked with Meow and Lance before. So, keeping it in the family. Nice.
I've got a running list of shows that I'd like to see here, but honestly I've barely had any time to play piano, or to write or to pracitce, so I took the afternoon today to play a bit in the University of Edinburgh practice rooms instead of seeing Maggie Simpson's Queen of Wyoming with my new New York ex-pat friend Stephanie (who is a self-professed minion of George Square producer Chris Grady) and seeing "Zanna, Don't!'' with Des.
Music is transcendental, as Sxip and I were commenting on this afternoon. No matter what's happening to you or those around you throughout the course of your day, you can always float above it all and achieve a space of purity, of sacredness. And this is from someone who spent a good ten minutes in the piano room practicing "High Fructose Vaginal Discharge.'' There is no shortage of vulgar talk in our flat, because as polite and wonderful and talented as everyone is, it is tacitly understood that grotesqueness and naughty language actually always people transcend their own neuroses surrounding taboo matters.
For example, heard around 39 Arden Street:

Scottee: I want to fuck your big, black dirty pussy with my lepresy-ridden uncut cock.

Lizzie: Oh, Annabel, Happy Birthday. I'd really love to lick your gorgeous jellyfish-like blossom.
Natti: What's a blossom? I've been hearing that for days.
Damian: It's the insides of one's anus which has been pushed to the outside and made large and swollen from excessive fisting.
Natti: Oh, god, that's revolting.
Lizzie: I thought so too, especially when Damian showed me blossom porn the other day. It kind of moves like a large, multicolored jellyfish.

Sxip: She's attracted to me partly because she finds me grotesque.
Lizzie: That's true. (vomits while rushing lustily forward)
Natti: Plus, the vomit's good lube.
Scottee: Look at what we've done to him, he's gotten so filthy!
Lizzie and Sxip together: No, don't be fooled, he's always been that way.

I am suddenly repulsed by sexuality. I am rather more interested in sensuality, which I discussed with the Dionysus/Apollo folks this afternoon at Fringe Sunday in the Meadows in the context of Greek mythology, Nietzsche and the Church. They seem really cool, and it's really awesome indeed that they're living right next door to us on Arden Street. The fact there is even a show calle Dionysus/Apollo is disconcertingly right up my intellectual alley, as it's all I've been obsessed with for the last year or so. There's so much indeed that I'd love to see at Fringe while I'm here, and not enough time at all. I'm sure after a day or so, when we're are really truly settled, instead of running around back and forth, we'll get the chance to expel but also absorb new energy/ideas/beauty/potential beauty.

Cheers to all.

Natti

Days 1 & 2 & 3

There's far too much to write about my experience at the Fringe right now and it's all very very important and simultaneously completely useless. This is the beauty of Fringe. Everybody (for the most part) takes their work extremely seriously here. But nobody takes themselves seriously. Sounds like a blast? It is.

At this point, we've performed two nights in a row and the performances were like night and day. On opening night (which I played only 5 hours after jumping off the plane), we played to a crowd of basically 20 people and the response was good. It's normal for shows here to start off with audiences consisting of basically two people and a dog, so that was to be expected, but the show was really too long and overstuffed. Last night, the show ran rather more crisply and cleanly, thanks to some heavy cutting.

We had a lot of press come last night, and their reaction was that certain acts simply need to be cut from the show. Depending on if, when and/or how this information gets out to the acts themselves, this could cause a major fissure in our company. Here's hoping for the best show possible with the least amount of hurt feelings possible.

and the adventure (almost) begins...

I flew through the air today at great speeds for an hour or so, only to end up in the Philadelphia International Airport where I now await my second flight of the day to London's claustrophobia-inducing Heathrow airport.

Philadelphia doesn't seem so terrible from a sky commuter's perspective. The airport provides college students like myself with classy wi-fi free of charge, they line their terminal halls with autographed photographs of their musical claims to fame (which run surprisingly deep: Nina Simone, Jim Croce, Chubby Checker, etc.), and it generally doesn't conjure sentiments of abject nihilism like the rest of Philadelphia unavoidably does.

If you were to see me now, you would not doubt for a second my readiness to leave the debris of a crumbling America behind, if only for two short weeks.  I am wearing a pink t-shirt covered in lightning bolts which reads "BORED WITH THE USA." This fact is probably not unrelated to the extra thirty-minute search they conducted on my person at Logan Airport earlier this afternoon. Seriously, Mary (honeyoga.com) would be very confused indeed to know that a jar of her honey was x-rayed and sampled extensively for radioactive material/explosives...

Americans are so obese. I would very much like to kindly ask the gentleman sitting next to me how many chins he truly needs to get the job done. But that would be rude. 

I am so thrilled for Eburgh, it's difficult to contain the excitement. Lovely friends, amazing performers, perfect Queen's English, incomprehensible Scottish English, shortbread, whiskey, devils, musical theater: could I possibly ask for anything more?

Good question. Now that you mention, yeah, actually, I could ask for one more thing, and it is only that if you're on the correct side of the pond, you do yourself a flipping huge favor and come see the production I'll be regularly guest-performing in, "And the Devil May Drag You Under," which has been called "dark, hilarious and really rather strange," "a twisted, vaudevillian romp" and which will be presented every night from the 7th-18th at the Musical Theater @ George Square venue right at the center of it all. 

This is high camp at it's best. You will want to come. You will want to invite your friends. You will want to watch myself, Sxip Shirey, Adam Matta, Greg Walloch and many others sing to save our souls from the devil on a nightly basis. And you will thank us.

In the meantime, if you haven't already,  check out my 1st international sensation of a youtube music video for  "the anorexia song"! It is only an infinitesimal taste of the theatrical ridiculousness I am bringing to this art-freak potluck that is the Fringe Festival. Photos, stories, videos galore are sure to come, so stay tuned.

so goodbye for now, America. please try to get outside and exercise while I'm gone, okay? You're melting the fucking glaciers.