Friday, February 15, 2008

Reporting from the first Canadian on-the-road comedy tour!

Wow. Wow. Wow.

The tour is already going beyond my wildest dreams. Well, okay, maybe not my wildest dreams, in that Johnny Depp hasn't shown up and ordered me to milk seven grizzly bears in return for his undying loyalty....BUT it's been pretty damn sweet.

Rather early yesterday morn, my headlining comedian from the US of A, Daniel Rock, picked me up from my humble abode and we set off. With a final comforting 'Don't worry honey, you can call me any time you want!' to Ella (which ended up backfiring on me slightly with her proceeding to call me at 10 minute intervals for much of the day, sometimes even just picking up the receiver, hitting redial and singing Every breath you take...) we headed off. Where I was reminded of how much - with the absence of fighting and/or tantruming children in the back - I LOVE road trips.

The drive into BC is just beyond stunning - already I cannot even wait to come back with the family in Spring (which we are doing, by the way) to check it all out sans snow. Aside from an hour-and-a-half stop for 'avalanche control', where we proceeded to entertain ourselves by throwing snowballs at trees in an effort to thwart the system, the drive went smoothly with us talking pretty much comedy, comedy and comedy the entire way. I have henceforth labelled Daniel my 'comedic sensai.' Master.

Then late afternoon we arrived at the beyond adorably gorgeous ski village in the middle of nowhere, Sunpeaks. I wish I could get my freaking camera to work so I could show you some of my pics, but til then...you can click on the link if you're slobbering over your keyboard right now in anticipation. I certainly don't want any keyboards out there malfunctioning on my account. Suffice to say it's the stuff of which dreams are made - again, dreams sans Johnny - and realising our gig wasn't due to start til much, MUCH later, I proceeded to hit the hill for some night snowboarding, then went down and soaked my cares away in the hot-tub. Bliss.com.

We headed on down to the gig - I'm so impressed that with only a permanent population of 300, a place like this even has a WEEKLY comedy room - and waited for the crowd to arrive. MCed by a dude called Chris who uh...was kinda like a comedic Bob Marley, if you know what I mean, the show kicked off to very small but attentive crowd. There were a few hecklers but nothing too nasty, they just wanted to be part of the show more than anything .

Completely inspired by Daniel's philosophies on just being yourself and having fun with the crowd, I just went a bit nutty on stage last night...and had an absolute blast. I feel like for the first time ever I was 100% me up there and it felt so liberating. The crowd were wicked - and so was Daniel who ended up doing almost a completely improvised set, which I have to say is one of my favourite things to watch from other comics.

Beautiful.

Then I had the most delightfully uninterrupted slumber in a beautiful hotel room -

I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Except I'm here to sell my soul rather than my body.

Moiahahhahaha!

Today: snowboarding, snowboarding and maybe a hot-tub. Then we drive up to Kelowna (which I've heard is beautiful) for the night.

Tomorrow: driving all day to Cranbrook, where I will be reunited with the hubbster and kidlets. I'm anticipating spending much of the time beforehand freaking out about them all driving on the wintery highways. Agh.

Okay, what was meant to be a brief 'postcard from the road' has turned into a novelette. Anyhoo, hope all is well in your worlds - take care and will hopefully have photos sometime in this life.

Salada!!!

3 comments:

Girl Clumsy said...

Hey Jen,

It sounds awesome. Enjoy yourself thoroughly!

While I don't envy the cold weather, I wouldn't mind strapping some skis on and heading down some blue runs. If I could get over this cold, of course...

Elaine Denning said...

Wow, indeed. It sounds like you're having a blast and you seem to be oozing confidence. Way to go! Enjoy the rest of it!

Louise said...

J.E.A.L.O.U.S

xxxx Lou