Comedy Festival

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is one of Melbourne's zillion yearly festivals. And this one is actually worth going to*. They import comedians from all over the world to entertain eager Melbournians for the month of April. It's excellent! Comedy everywhere! We did very well and managed to make quite a few shows. Here is a summary of the shows we saw.

Tom Gleeson - April 4
Mr. Gleeson is an Australian comedian who we know from his appearances on Good News Week (funny show that's like a mixture of The Daily Show and Who's Line is it Anyway) and from his Red Rooster endorsements. He's never disappointed in the past, so we obtained some freaking tickets. I wouldn't say that he was Jerry Seinfeld, fall out of the chair good, but still good. He's gangly, ghostly pale, and pronounces the word massage the same way Austin Powers does (mass-auge) - how can he go wrong?

Puppetry of the Penis - April 7
Well, this was by far the biggest impulse buy of the lot - we saw the commercial on tv and decided to try it. They can't actually show any of the performance on the commercials, or on the posters, brochures or website, because it really is an entire hour of two completely naked men** making funny "installments" with their genitalia. No two ways about it. We couldn't decide if we should be frightened or proud of ourselves for our bold choice. The answer was somewhere in the middle.

This show was neither appalling, nor particularly entertaining. You've seen a penis, I've seen a penis, and it isn't a far stretch (no pun intended) to imagine someone doing silly things with their reproductive appendages. I mean, I have been to elementary school...and high school...and am basically familiar with the inter-workings of the male mind. You can't really blame them, as these men demonstrated, they are quite versatile bits. Regardless, we were less than amused and certainly not dismayed (I had hoped for at least one of the two) and basically just spent an hour paying to watch two naked men romp around on stage handling their business. And odd experience if nothing else.

Janeane Garofalo - April 12
You may know Janeane from random stuff in the 90's - you've probably at least seen her before, especially if you're my age-ish. I always liked her; she's always had this plain, straightforward way about her. She tends to play the "ugly", sarcastic, smart girl in movies, though she's actually quite pretty. She has the word "Liberal" tattooed on her left arm. I knew I was going to like this show even before we arrived.

She was quite good. Very random - the only comedian, or performer for that matter (save improv), that I've seen who genuinely appeared to have no rehearsed order to her rantings. She is know for being a political comedian, but she disagrees with that claim. She just happens to talk about politics sometimes. And current events. And she uses big words. And she wears tights under bathing suit shorts. Sounds good to me.

Good News Week - April 18
Good News Week is a show that's on here in Australia every Monday. As mentioned briefly above, it's sort of a mixture between a talk show and a game show. There is a host and two teams of three that "compete" in different verbal challenges, all loosely based on recent news. Points are awarded flippantly by the host, and there is technically a winning team at the end, but no one really cares since there aren't any prizes. And, since most of the guests are comedians, it diverges very quickly from the current events into making fun of politicians and Amy Winehouse. It is quite enjoyable and even sometimes mildly informative.

For the comedy festival, the crew comes and films a couple episodes of this show here in Melbourne. Normally they film in Sydney. Kane and I, along with Alana, and Marc's parents*** got tickets to be in the audience (we're circled in the picture, click to view larger). The live show was actually about two hours long, from which they cut significant portions for the one hour show that aired on Monday. We had a really good time; the guests were great, the material was funny, and it was fun to watch the show on Monday and try to remember what they cut out.

Jason Byrne - April 19

Jason Byrne was one of the guests at the filming of Good News Week we saw the day before. Kane and I thought he was quite funny so invited Grace to see his show the following night. He's an Irish guy and is a bit of a spaz, which I believe are unrelated afflictions. He has a ton of energy and is relatively funny, though I found it to be more of a big-smile type of funny, rather than a laugh-out-loud type. He also picks on the people in the audience (though isn't too mean about it) which can be a bit tiring. At least we know he didn't rehearse it. Overall, enjoyable, but not the best show we've seen. He was better on GNW, in my opinion.

Felicity Ward's Ugly as a Child Variety Show - April 23
This was a one woman show in a teeny tiny room at town hall that, my guess was, is used by day as traffic school for all of us sinners. It was such an odd place to have a comedy show! But, 60 or so of us crammed into our little chairs (it was a sold out show!) and were entertained by Ms. Ward as she told us about how ugly and strange she was as a child, and, by extension, how demented her family is. She did impressions, sang a couple songs, and was generally spirited and engaging. At first I thought it wasn't too funny, but I really warmed up to her by the end of it, and was having a really good time. I went to this one with the book club ladies, who also enjoyed the show. Good work Felicity!

Reginald D. Hunter - April 25
Reg was also a guest on the Good News Week filming we went to, though we have also seen him before on the show (as viewed from the safety and comfort of our own homes). So, we grabbed some tickets to see him with Marc and Alana on the last weekend of the festival. He was good - funny, intelligent, interesting. His material was a bit more topical than I had expected, but I liked it for that. He actually lives in the UK and we might see if he has any gigs when we're going to be up there...stay tuned for further bloggage about our upcoming trip.

*Other festivals are also worth going to, but I would say that Comedy Festival rates higher on the enjoyment-meter than, say, the Flower and Garden Festival. For me, at least.
**They had shoes on - there has to be some dignity maintained.
***Marc ended up with a migraine and decided not to go just before the show. Bummer! He felt fine afterwords - go figure.

Sovereign Hill

On the way to the Grampians last weekend, we stopped in a town called Ballarat to see their main tourist attraction: Sovereign Hill. Sovereign Hill is an "open air museum" (says Wikipedia; pretty accurate, I suppose) of a rebuilt gold mining town from the 1850's. It is probably similar to Columbia in California (we did our gold rushes at the same time, isn't that weird?), though I don't remember a thing about that place*.

We pulled up to the entrance, the parking monitor already diverting us to an overflow area since Easter weekend is apparently a madhouse at any place accepting customers. The Lonely Planet guidebook told us that it costs $30 each to get into this place. We were wary of wasting money - this place could be real crap. Approaching the entrance, we found that, our guidebook being pleasantly out of date, the price was $37.50 each. We decided to eat the $75 and do it. It's not like we're likely to ever be in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia again.

The place was excellent. I still maintain that the admission was overpriced, but I tend to do that. First of all, the place was huge. I though it would maybe be a couple of buildings and a creek for panning for gold and that's it. It was instead a huge area (60 acres, apparently) with one main dirt road lined with probably two dozen old wood buildings. The storefronts apparently were made to exactly match the stores that used to be on the main drag of the town. Despite my inherent cynicism, it really was like being transported back to the 1850's - the only catch being the throngs of unruly children who were apparently transported back with me.

Yes, it's a big family place. But I didn't even mind, that's how good it was. Each little rickety shop** was staffed by period-dressed people and all of the items for sale were either made on site or, at the very least, not the run-of-the-mill plastic crap you see everywhere else. They were different. I think that's what intrigued me so much. It doesn't seem to matter where you are in this modern world of ours, there are Tic Tacs, Pringles, magnets, sunglasses, etc. for sale at any store, market, or depot you come across. The boring side-affect of modern production/transportation/globalization and the like. But this place must have been what it was like in the olden days. Actual unique stuff. I was amazed.

Items were being created in many of the shops right before our eyes. There were men with greasy hands doing whatever it is you do to make pans, bells, and other trinkets out of tin and brass and other materials we don't use much anymore. It was incredible. The machines were powered by steam engines that rotate pulleys that push giant leather belts that somehow make things go. There were belts strung all through some of these places to power machines all over the place. The belts were above us, whirling away, doing their part to help us make these precious items. I think I was just as amazed as someone who was actually going through the industrial revolution. More pictures here.

For some reason, I have this idea in my mind that because something is obsolete is doesn't work any more. This is not true. Obsolete ideas and machines and techniques work just fine. They're just slower and more difficult than something we've figured out since. Maybe it's just because I'm an engineer dork, but witnessing some of these old-fashioned processes at work was truly enthralling. As ridiculous and slow and mean as humans can be, we sure are amazing creatures.

*Our parents had a tendency to take us to exciting places when we were too young to retain any permanent memory of them. I don't blame them, for one thing, how were they supposed to know? And for another, you have to do something with your children, right? I'm sure we had a great time in Columbia. And I hope to go back someday to jog my memory. Or just make some new ones.

**On an engineering note, the buildings in Sovereign Hill were rickety. To the point where I was curious how they managed to get them built because they were clearly not up to snuff with any code anywhere, ever. Mexico has safer buildings, I'm certain. Obviously they're fine, they've been standing for almost 40 years, but some of the precariously placed pulleys and wood to wood connections could certainly use some engineering finesse.

Grampians Weekend

Easter in Australia is not like it is in the States. For some reason, even though it is known for being a significantly more secular society than the US of A, Easter is a big holiday here. I guess it has morphed, like Christmas, into more of a chocolate eggs* and vacation thing than a Jesus thing. This is fine with me. My point is, Easter isn't just a Sunday here, it's a day off the Friday before and Monday after. It's a freaking four-day weekend.

And with said four-day weekend, Kane and I took a little trip to the Grampians National Park. The Grampians is a nice little mountain area that is only about a 2-3 hour drive north-west of Melbourne. The mountains are pretty, the hikes are nice, and the tiny town of 300 that greets you actually stays open until after dark (amazing). The only problem was that, like Tasmania, we apparently decided to visit this location along with every other family in Victoria.

The place was packed. The tiny strip of "downtown" was crawling with people during the day, the cafes were bursting with patrons, the parking lots had men in orange vests diverting traffic to park ridiculous distances from their original destination (come on, it's not like I'm here to hike), and some of the trails were more like going to see Disney on Ice than a nice relaxing outdoor activity. We spent more time waiting for people to exchange right of way on a narrow flight of stone steps going to see Mackenzie Falls than we did actually enjoying the falls.

But, alas, the trip was still nice. Just being on vacation is nice, no matter how many screaming children are trying to ruin it for you. The other hike we went on was far less crowded and, though more difficult, was more rewarding since the trail was awesome and the view at the top was excellent. Overall we had a really good time and the weather was mercifully mild for us (winter has recently been showing its ugly head, much to my chagrin - time to get outta here!).

See some more of the pics here.

*The other "traditional" Easter food here is hot cross buns. I have only heard of these in the nursery rhyme song (hot crossed buns, one a penny two a penny...) but apparently they're real, and they're here. And, I'm sorry to report, I don't like them very much.