CRUMBS in Frankfurt

Frankfurt, the birthplace of the Frankfurter hot dog wiener. Birthplace of the Frankfurt airport. Birthplace of everyone named Frank.


We stayed in a hotel right by the station which means we stayed in a hotel right in the middle of the roughest part of the red light district... pretty cool stuff. What is it about red light districts and bordellos in Europe, we just end up knee deep in them while on tour.

The show was at the Gallus Theatre, which we played once back in 2004 or 2005. The show was great and from some reports, it was the biggest audience that Frankfurt has had for an improv show EVER.

The suggestions were: “Circus Artist” and “Knife”

The show centered around a trapeze performer who desperately wanted to be called an artist rather than a performer. She was being mentored by a total dick, the supposed famous trapeze artist who controlled her every move. He even made sure she didn't eat... yes, what a dick.




We also followed a butcher who wondered what it would be like to butcher a person... I know crazy right?


Back at the circus we also find out about the secret lives of clowns (CoCo, Big Red and Mr Farty Pants were the clowns at this circus... classic clown names). CoCo was in fact in love with the trapeze gal but their relationship was forbidden.


The butcher keeps getting tempted by this mysterious stranger who wanders into his butcher shop. No ID, no family, new to town, nobody knows he is here... Oh the butcher goes through a moral struggle. He decides to give it a try. It then turns out that the mysterious stranger was a serial killer himself and was going to kill the butcher. They laughed.





The trapeze gal and the clown are still in love and get reunited. She leaves the dick and finds a true master and then performs the most dangerous trapeze move ever... the one handed reverse butterfly. Amazing!


The butcher and killer team up and kill the dick who was at the circus... everyone cheers. The other folks start their own new circus... everyone is happy.

CRUMBS in Goetting

Goettingen, Gotting, The Gott, Gertingen

These are all nicknames for where we were in Germany. We have been coming to this town and doing shows at the Lumiere for years now.

This is also home of “The Coach” and the Goettingen Comedy Company. Lars was nicknamed “The Coach” many years ago on our tour, so long I can hardly remember why. It must be the way he takes care of us. For those of you that have followed the tour blog for some years may remember that “The Coach” nearly lost his leg in a freak trampoline accident. His recovery is coming along quite well. He can walk and he can now almost move his foot naturally.

The show's suggestions were: Looking for Wind and Practicing Piano...

This became the story of the wind farmer looking for wind which has stopped mysteriously since the volcanoes in Iceland have been erupting. He also informs us all that he makes power from the wind and doesn't create the wind with the windmills... some people huh?



And the man who plays the piano so horribly that his wife makes him get rid of it. He always wants to play it even though he sucks so bad. She isn't perfect either, she obsessively brushes her teeth.



The wind farmer goes on a mission to defeat the volcano to bring the wind back. His son wants to just be a real farmer instead of just a wind farmer. We also see a weatherman and a banker who find friendship over a game of squash.


The piano playing man finally finds someone who plays worse piano than him and this gives him hope. (It isn't a cat though, that is just a funny picture...)


The wind farmer defeats the volcano and just as mysteriously as it stopped, the wind returns. His son steals chickens and starts to be a real farmer, he also finds a friend with the farmers who are his neighbours.


A happy ending once again.

CRUMBS IN Bremen, Germany

We arrived in Bremen to a hot hot day. Spring had evaded Europe up until now, it seems that Spring is now invading Europe (but you know, not in a WW2 kinda way). It is great to have some beautiful weather finally, but beautiful weather makes it hard to convince people to escape the beauty to sit in a dark theatre to watch a couple of Canadians do some “make'em ups”. Thankfully, the theatre was full in Bremen.



The show suggestions were “Sex in the City” which I tried not to take (we used it anyways, though quite briefly), “Pencil” and “Camping”.

Cut to a couple of guys in the woods setting up camp, they are there for a manly weekend of “roughing it” and also to escape from the girl that broke one of their hearts. It turns out that one of them thought that roughing it included not bringing anything out to the woods and really surviving like the cavemen did. The other, who is the one with the broken heart, brought a tent, and food, and a lighter, and a need to express his grief.




We then jump to an art class where Ramone is learning to become an artist. He gets caught “cheating” by his art teacher when she sees him looking at other people's art. It turns out that Ramone has a gift for doodling amusing comics of people that annoy him. Later we see him with his buddy at a bar complaining about the art class, his buddy reassures him of his talent.


The two guys in the woods argue about what it means to be best friends and to “rough it”. Meanwhile, Tanya (the former girlfriend of broken-hearted guy in woods) is being hit on by a co-worker named Rocco. Rocco is the epitome of manly man, the perfect example of “meat head”, he is exactly what a “douche bag” is when not referring to it as a feminine hygiene product. She turns him down, as she is still having feeling for her freshly broken-hearted boy. Rocco decides to sneak into the woods to scare the boys, because that is what assholes like him do.


Now it turns out that everyone keeps talking about the woods and the mysterious murders that have taken place there. This freaks out the broken-hearted boy (who perhaps had a name, but jeez, I just can't remember it).


Ramone finds success with his doodles, sells a piece, and becomes a professional artist. This attracts the attention of one of the art students and they end up getting married even though she seems to be interested in Ramone for the art fame.


The boy and the girl get back together. Rocco and the other guy become friends (by hunting rabbits with their bare hands). They all four also end up finding and catching the “demon” that has been wandering the woods and murdering. This included Tanya's father, one the boy's uncle, and Rocco's aunt. The “demon” turned out to be the mayor of town who was trying to scare people out of the woods so he could buy it and make it into a mall... And he would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those kids...

CRUMBS in the Hammer!

Hamburg, the Hammer! And no I don't mean Hamilton, Ontario...


The first thing I should say about Hamburg is that we did some great workshops with Die Spieler (which translates directly into “The Players”). Super fun and generous group of people.

The second thing I should say about Hamburg is that we saw Gogol Bordello play a show, tear the stage down and set it on fire with their Gypsy Punk energy. Let me just say this, on their second encore they walked out on stage with a Mariachi Band!



The third thing I should say is we visited the St. Pauli store. This is St. Pauli's 100 year anniversary and a celebration of their entrance into the Premiere's League.

The fourth thing we should mention is the show. The suggestions were “Space” and “Nurse”. Now we have done many shows in spaceships and we have done many shows about Nurses and Doctors, the trick is to keep it fresh every time you do it. The trick is to not fall into the trap of laziness and be tempted to repeat... because repeating loses the magic. We also don't want to simply redo ideas that have been done before by other people, other movies or other stories.

We started with a nurse (let's call her Ruth) who was incredibly good at her job. The doctor was incredibly bad at his job. The doctor kept asking Ruth why she had never become a doctor and was always just satisfied being “just a nurse”. This of course drove the nurses in the audience mad (there was at least one nursing student in the audience who may or may not have been one of the members of the host group). The doctor was working on an Olympic javelin thrower who was mysteriously sick. The doctor could not figure it out (even though he had taken x-rays?).


Space. Space is vast. Space. With matter and anti-matter. With stars and comets and planets and quasars and pulsars. Space. With extra terrestrial life? We zoom in on a space ship looking for alien life forms. The Captain is in a hurry and wants to fly the ship faster. The first mate is a loser and a wimp and is bullied by the Captain. On the ship we also have an engineer (which garnered at least one cheer from one person in the audience... I can only assume was an engineer) and a robot (again X-13).


Ruth (the “just a nurse”) begins to research on her own and figures out what is wrong with the Javelin thrower (we will call him Jimmy). Ruth gets books out of the library (known as a book place to some) and even does her own blood tests. Jimmy meanwhile is going through some rough girl troubles as his girl Jacklin has now hooked up with Mark (the new captain of the javelin throwing team going to the Olympics).


It turns out that the Captain of the ship is desperately looking for “Space Women” that he can sex up. This has clouded his judgment and the wimpy first mate tries to stand up to him. This all happens as an alien ship approaches... Of course, with Space Women that then board the ship demanding sex, but from the robot.


The doctor feels horribly guilty for not being able to do his job and learns the secret to it all lies in actually caring about the patients. The doctor and the nurse switch roles and forge each others diplomas and certificates. Meanwhile the doctor has become famous as the person who cured Jimmy the javelin thrower. Jimmy won the gold medal by throwing his javelin past everyone else's, past the previous world record and right into the heart of Jacklin, who was in the audience trying to win Jimmy back.


The sexy Space Women end up being impressed by the first mate standing up for himself and decide to take him back to their home planet for endless space sex. Leaving the Captain alone and confused. (he was obviously the alpha male, why didn't he get the space sex?).



The fifth thing we should mention is the Crazy Horst. This is a famous bar in St. Pauli that we visit every time we are in Hamburg. Horst (the owner of the bar) was a boxer, ran a Bordello and now runs this bar. He has famous people and tourists pay a visit to this little place (it can seat maybe 20 people comfortably). He has even kicked Brad Pitt out of his bar for being smelly (“I don't care who you are, you smell and this is a small place”)

CRUMBS in Amsterdam, Netherlands



Oh Amsterdam, for some people you are like a theme park of party that has gone on to long. When will it end Amsterdam? When will you again just be a city?

Oh yeah, we also did a show...

Part 1 the mixed show:

We played a free Harold mixed show. The theme was chair, you know, chairs, good for sitting on. We had scenes about a husband living in a bubble and the wife that wanted him dead. We had the story of the man who wished he lived in a bubble, because of his girlfriend always wanting to touch him and maybe even have the sex (he was desperately afraid of any human contact). We saw a failed and then successful chair maker whose chairs went from costing two thousand euros a piece (already expensive) to twenty thousand euros a piece (perhaps these were Booker chairs? * see post in Luzern). We also got a peak inside a lab that would do testing on humans that always seemed to end in tragedy (don't they always?). The human “guinea pigs” would eventually have to be disposed of by being incinerated. Eventually the husband escaped from the bubble and lived happily with his wife. The other guy took over the bubble, finally being inside a bubble made him feel safe enough to actually allow his girlfriend to touch him... she liked that. The end... of part 1.





Part 2 CRUMBS show:

A very nice CRUMBS show, perhaps the best we have done in Amsterdam. But who knows, we have done a show in Amsterdam that involved 52 Einsteins.
The show opened with a man sharing with the audience the huge risks he endured everyday as a professional in one of the most dangerous jobs in the world... the Dentist. We cut to inside the Dentist's office (dentist was one of the suggestions) and we saw the sexual tension between the Doctor and his assistant, but they needed to keep things professional. She brought in his first patient of the day, who hated going to the dentist and wanted all his teeth removed as to never have to return.




We also see two people walking up to a phone booth at the exact same time, a battle ensues over who should use it first. “Phone Booth” was the other suggestion. A phone booth really, what is that? Well back in the olden days, before everyone had phones in their pockets, we used to have little rooms on the street that had phones in them. The fight ends with one of them losing consciousness after getting hit on the head with the torn off phone receiver.


The Dental assistant quits her job so she can be with the dentist. The dentist removes the man's teeth and gums in one of the most dangerous procedures in the world of oral surgery.

The man dies of his head wound and the other man then goes through the guilt of actually being a murderer... mostly he gets in trouble from his wife. He eventually calls the police, but it turns out the coffee shop he left the body in has been murdering and disposing of bodies for years and the cops are willing to just look the other way in return for some good evidence to lock them up... happy ending are easy if you want them to be.

Also taught some workshops in Amsterdam, some DAM good ones, some AmsterDAM good ones.

Oh Amsterdam, with your bar that is on several bikes that “Stag Parties” can rent and bike around town while drinking beer. Oh Amsterdam, with your “Hen Parties” at every corner. Oh Amsterdam, with your 24 hour party mentality that really closes at around 11pm. Oh Amsterdam, with your confusing lay-out that means you are never really lost but you can never get to where you want to go. Oh Amsterdam, with your grumpy tram workers and your new chip card transit system. Oh Amsterdam, with your bikes and bike lanes and bike traffic signals and your bike bells and your bike locks and your bike bike bikes. Oh Amsterdam, with your canals, or is there just one big canal? Oh Amsterdam, with your umbrella market places. Oh Amsterdam, with your virus of tourists threatening to destroy what Amsterdam is and was in the first place.

Next Stop: Hamburg, potentially the Amsterdam of Deutschland.

CRUMBS in Belgium

Look at me in Antwerp!



show #1 at the Joker

short form comedy improv show
highlights:
-making fun of Christoph (who we then dubbed Christie... Oh jokes
-Dirty Dancing (nobody puts baby in the corner)
-Ghost knocking you up with a ghost baby (my womb is haunted?)
-seeing the stand-ups like it

show #2 at the Fakkeltheater

The first half was a “Tap-Out” and we tapped our way through stories about a couple of astronauts on a mission to save Earth. We saw the children of the astronauts and their problems in school. We saw the evil professor who made the robot (X-13) to go on the mission and how he had actually made the robot to destroy humanity. We saw the teachers at the school eventually fall in love. Love and poetry won out in the end.




The second half of the show was again the “Director's Cut”, which just seems to be the easiest way to throw together a quick improv jam type show.

The story lines:

1)Film Noir story with detective Dick and the femme fatale and the local bar “The Wicked Banana”.


2)The scottish epic with clan leaders, a mysterious man with no accent and the clan leaders daughter who fell in love with him.


3)The Horror story... that really was a fairy tale, but hey. A princess, a white pony, a prince, a white pony that turns into a monster... you know, the usual.


4)A Canadian tale of a woodsman and his battle with the Grizzly Bear that slaughtered his family. It also involved beer.


The show also had a Birthday of one of their number one fans in the audience so Tom (who just happens to be a world class Balloonist) made big balloon flowers for her. Lee tried to blow up a balloon, just to blow one up and could not. This was a great demonstration of “Natural Comedy” occurring in the wild.

It is always nice to play and hang with the Improfeten. Our old friend Jeron started this group after seeing it in a dream. He has been following the dream ever since. It is also inspiring to just talk to him, he always seems to have a project on the go. It makes me feel lazy and makes me strive to actually do something and to write something and to get my own projects going. Thank you Jeron for kicking my ass into something that will be productive.

Belgium isn't over yet...

We then took the train over to Leuven to teach some workshops with a group called Inspinazie. If Antwerpen is the striving for comedy in improv, then Leuven is where they strive for the art.

But hold on a second, I am getting ahead of myself here.

In Leuven I was also able to do some shopping. It turned out that Christoph (from Improfeten) was from Leuven and his mom runs a tuxedo rental store and was going to be closing it, therefore selling off the old pieces. Yes, I bought a 3 piece suit in Belgium, I am classy. The other bonus was that her English was so bad that we had to communicate in French. Merci Christoph.

We also stayed in a building that was a former Bordello... which of course is a classy way of saying a Whore house. Oh Belgium, when will the fun end?

Leuven, for some reason, has a statue in the middle of a square of a giant bug impaled on a huge spike. There must be a story behind.



Next stop: The world theme park of parties... Amsterdam!

CRUMBS wedding crashing

Oh double wait, did I mention that we crashed a wedding in Luzern?


What happens at a wedding that you crash in Switzerland? Good question readers, good question. Of course there is unlimited wine and food, of course there are old people and young people hanging out together when they shouldn't. But here are a couple of things that set this apart from the weddings we are used to.

#1 The wedding game where the bride and groom sit back to back and answer questions like "who is the best at... (insert thing)". They can't see you the other answers. Hillarium ensues.

#2 The wedding game where people stand on chairs holding tin cans that have balloons stuffed in them and a fuse. The bride and the groom take turns lighting the fuses and the "balloon bombs" explode reveling the "prize" which usually involved a poem and feathers... you know, that game.

#3 The wedding would not have been complete without an amusing skit filled with inside jokes and one very huge wig.

#4 Actual pics to prove it...



But wait, there's more folks. Here is an actual transcript from an actual conversation we had with an actual person at the actual wedding.


Karin – I work in an office, we sell "Booker" watches
CRUMBS – Do you make the watches?
K – No, we just sell them, we are like a distrubutor
C- Oh yeah, how much do they cost?
K – Well, it depends...
C – Okay, how much are the cheapest and how much are the most expensive?
K – The cheapest would be 5000 Swiss Franks... and the most expensive, hmm, 2 million?
C – You could have just told us the cheap price, that is expensive enough. Hey, maybe we can get payed in Booker watches next year?

Oh Switzerland... will you're watches ever be affordable?