| The (A-)Typical Thursday Night |
| Written by Brendon Green |
| Sunday, 23 August 2009 03:39 |
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The Plan: Leave the flat at 3pm and visit my new friends at the Gilded Balloon (a Hogwarts looking building that has a lot of venues inside). Then go for a walk through the Meadows and find a nice relaxing place to sit and write for awhile. Have a cup of coffee and a muffin (as per everyday so far). Go see a show (Australian comedian Sam Simmons) at 8pm, get dinner and go home. A nice quiet Thursday to gear up for the weekend. What Actually Happened: Left the flat at 4pm and visited my friends at the Gilded Balloon (which, btw; has 3 levels with a bar on each level - dangerous), so far so good. But then: 'Hey, let's go see Durang Durang at 5:15pm cos it's a bit drizzly and you can't write in the rain', sure why not? 1 hour and 3 short absurdly funny theatre pieces later - 'Let's go see Bridget Christie, she starts in 15 minutes'. Yes, that's what you're meant to do during the festival right, go see shows? 1 hour of absurdly funny stories later (including an incredible anecdote about being strangled by Gene Wilder), I may as well at least get my coffee in before Sam Simmons. Naturally enough I find someone I know from New Zealand who is also waiting for Sam Simmons (not a day goes by without me meeting someone else from kiwi-land, seriously, we are everywhere). Turns out I didn't need the coffee because Sam Simmons was ABSOLUTELY INSANE. Completely left-field comedy and the absurdist of the absurd shows I saw that day. I loved it, and if he ever gets to the NZ Festival I WILL MAKE YOU GO SEE HIM. After the show we (a GB friend, the NZ friend and myself), go to dinner at the beautifully named The Fat Cow (did I mention how eloquent and charming Edinburgh is? Oh, I didn't? Funny that). A nice traditional Beef+Cheese+Bacon Burger later and I should be heading home. But why head home when you can go up to the top level bar at the Gilded? So a couple of drinks and a good catch up later... and I get a txt message from some of my other GB friends who have just finished work and are at the middle bar. Will I join them? Somewhat hesitantly, yes I will. More good times and some Horrific joke telling (you know who you are) ensue. But as fun as this is, you know what would be even more fun? Let's all go down to the Bang Bang Club! and be the only ones dancing to weird electronicy-post-punk-lo-fi-hum-hum-dance-pop while an obscure art film is projected onto a wall (this one was about a man who literally acted as the arms for a domineering middle-aged crazy lady who had cut her own arms off. The man also poses as Jesus in a room full of chickens a few times. Hey, this is the Fringe Festival ok). Now, every night at the GB they have Late n Live from 1am - 3am, where comedians do a set in front of 400 very drunk audience members. Good times. Luckily, it was just the right time for us to go watch some of it. If you are a comedian, this is the kind of gig that you probably live for, and if you're not a comedian it's the kind of gig that makes you think; 'Why the hell would anyone want to be a comedian?' Heckling, mocking and no-holds-barred. But we can only take so much, and besides, it's getting late. So let's go back to the middle bar for more chat. This goes on for awhile and is a nice way for the evening to end. Except, as one lovely person points out, there is an awesome ska band playing after Late n Live from 3am - 5am. LET'S GO SKANKING! Heck yeah, what else could I possibly be doing? We jump around until the last ska ballad (my 2nd favourite kind of ballad, 1st = power) and run back to the middle bar for last drinks. Now what? It's 5.30am and the GB is closing. We stand outside in the drizzle as the sky begins to lighten. The group thins out until it's me and 3 kiwi girls. At this point I would like to introduce you to the Penny Black Pub. A bar that OPENS at 6am only to service the sad and lonely, the alcoholics, the desperate and; us. This is the kind of place where no good ever happens. And no good did happen, but luckily nothing too bad happened either. Although I was caught in the middle of a fight between an arrogant Englishman and a drunk, proud Scotsman. It was like a bad stereotype joke, even more so because there was also a surely underage Irish guy who just leered at me the whole time. Unfortunately the girls were having a grand old time, so we stayed until 8am. At which point I said; 'You know what, this is actually getting a bit ridiculous, let's go get some breakfast and go home'. So we did. McDonalds for breakfast, walked the girls home, then I got on a bus that was packed with business people going to work. Oddly enough the bus was completely full, and I had a spare seat next to me, but nobody seemed to want to sit beside me. Funny that. So new personal record set; home at 9:30am. I apologise that this story was so long, but you can rest assured that my Thursday night felt a lot longer (not to mention my Friday, ouch). I think the moral of this story is that you should definitely come to Edinburgh, because it will take you places you normally wouldn't go (in some cases with good cause). Also, go see Sam Simmons, but please, for the love of all that is beautiful and decent in the world, do not go to a pub that opens at 6am. |
