Happy New YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR

Yes yes yes, sorry I am crap. And I'm afraid nothing is about to change. Well unless you're a new reader that is as it's retro time again!

Yep as I am FLATOUT preparing for my new show:

HOT PINK BITS - Christchurch Busker's Festival, 23rd - 27th January, Repertory Theatre, 9pm, Door Donations Only

AS well as for the Rotorua Festival of the Arts - February 4th and 5th

AND the Wellington Fringe, Bats Theatre, 8pm, February 10th - 14th.

SO

I am repeating an XTRA column from two years ago when I had just done exactly what I'm about to do now.

Enjoy



Hot Head - 01.02.05

I'm sitting in a lovely cyber cafe in Rotorua on a Sunday afternoon. Earlier today, as is befitting my star status, I performed a 10 min set in the local shopping mall for three people and a dog. No I exaggerate, there were three dogs, no really there was a good crowd and it was actually a lot of fun. I always find it fun modifying my material to suit 8 year old ears and I even had an audience participant dressed all in pink be my human microphone stand. Hilarious stuff. Yes It's the Rotorua Festival of the Arts and I'm having a lovely time. Look ma, I'm finally playing Vegas.

This one is even better than usual however as I'm staying at the Novotel! Yes that's the Novotel. The flash place where I don't have to be suspicious if people take my bags, where they call me maam and where people actually bring me food to my room. I get so excited about room service I usually take photos of it. I haven't done that yet but it is early days.

I arrived yesterday, freshly sunburnt from the Christchurch Busker's Festival. There I was staying somewhere slightlyly less palatial - My Parent's house. Again I had a bloody marvellous time. I tell you there are worse ways to make a living than trip about the country making people laugh in the summertime. In Christchurch I performed 4 nights in a row at the Loaded Hog to roughly 300 people a night. Rock and Roll. They had a comedy club going that featured both busking types and comediennes. I explained to the audience that though I couldn't juggle, I was very good with balls, even managing 4 at once when I'm feeling lucky. They seemed to understand me.

It was an amazing vibe in a packed Hog and I wasurprisedy suprised to find many many single men in the audience. I gather I was a little intimidating for your average Christchurch type though with my week being disappointingly chaste. One man did offer up the pick-up line "I may not be Fred Flintstone, but I could sure make your bed rock" but only because he thought it would make a nice addition to my act. Ahhh well.

There was one man on my second night that deserves special mention. Ahhhh he was a treasure. He was part of a stag night, which I think stands for Stupid Tossers And Gonads. He was a prime gonad this one. When I told people to chat amongst themselves briefly while I collected my props he felt it would be a lovely moment to scream "LOSE WEIGHT" at me. Isn't that just too too special for words.

Ahh yes well XTRA if people found me intimidating before that moment you can just imagine what they thought after. Suffice to say, I was so enraged at that shit that I unleashed a torrent of abuse not seen since Mr Hilton thought he might do an internet search to see what his daughter had been up to. His genetalia was treated to a number of stunted vegetation references, as was his brain. His sexual prowess was found comparable with the life-span of bubbles and his general appearance was likened to a baboon's diseased nether regions.

I never actually saw his physique but I'll bet a significant amount that the beer he imbibed to fuel such a neanderthal statement isn't doing his waistline any favours. I was so incensed I went into a swearing frenzy and a bouncer commented at the end of my act; "You have got one filthy mouth - but that was fucking funny." Thank god for that.

That was the only blight on my time in Christchurch however. My parents came along to see me and blushed in all the right places. I saw heaps of wonderful international and local performers. I saw Sam Wills take his testicles out and put them on the forehead of a heckler in a show aptly names - Midnight Madness (ahhh boys). I saw Mario Queen of the Circus crowd surf around a busking audience in Cashel Mall. And I saw more jugglers than you could throw 5 devilsticks at.

Then yesterday morning I got up early, flew back to Auckland, packed up my car and drove to Rotorua in anticpation of Hot Pink Does RotoVegas tomorrow night. Guess I'll just have to see you there!