Hello, Jamie Mykaela from Jamie Mykaela’s Napoleon Complex again – resident cabaret idiot and human muppet of Pelican Magazine, giving you updates on shit you don’t care about (Soz not soz. This is happening every Monday.) Let’s strap in for a couple of paragraphs about admin! How glamorous?
So, Fringe hasn’t started for the punters yet but we’re all full steam ahead with booking spots, organising costumes, having interviews, and procrastinating rehearsals. Unfortunately my anxiety is beginning to kick in hard core as just before Fringe starts I have signed up to compete in a comedy competition. Competitions and I have a funky relationship. The last one I did was in front of four celebrities (including a Spice Girl) and 5000 people for an unnamed singing competition on an unnamed television network. It of course went fantastic, and that’s why I’m doing low-budget un-televised fringe shows. Yay.
This competition is in front of however many people buy tickets to the venue in the CBD. It’ll be a breeze, Jamie! I’m not entirely sure why I’m so stressed out by this competition – I’m doing my second solo show, I’ve already done Edinburgh Fringe, and I’m going to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival anyway, so it really doesn’t matter if I get through the heats or not. Nevertheless, here I am, popping beta-blockers like candy. Joy.
But do you know what is perfect for distracting a nervous brain? Arts and motherfucking crafts, kids! I’m currently putting together a little wee zine to hand out at the end of my show to people who enjoyed it and may potentially want to see more cool art that is in a similar vein to my strange brand of idiocy. I’m featuring a fair few of my friends including Laurie Black, Nicola Macri, Valerie Savage, Clara Cupcakes, and Tomás Ford – the latter of whom I have been helping make passive aggressive tote bags to sell at his weird punk rock venue The Fxxk Yxu at The Four5Nine (Who doesn’t want a tote bag that says ‘Fxxk Astroturf Pop Up Bars’?! Follow up, who does? Please come. We are so lonely. Lonely AND punk rock.)
Speaking of show-promoting, there has been some gosh darn fuckery happening at the moment with Facebook’s paid advertisements. Because of event titles and descriptions, Facebook have been refusing to advertise a bunch of amazing performers’ shows, like Lucy Peach’s My Greatest Period Ever and Sophie Joske and Anna Piper Scott’s Almost Lesbians. Facebook ads are one of Fringe World’s more successful forms of spreading the word and keeping Fringe (and these performers) going, so it’s so disappointing to see my pals being denied that just because apparently someone on the Facebook team has decided mere mention of menstruation and LGBTQIA+ people violates their standards – what will happen to the children if they find out lesbians exist!
Do better, Facebook. We want to like you and utilise your platforms. Don’t make us go back to MySpace, mate. We still remember how to HTML up some sick-ass rainbow text – don’t test us.
But back to my show because this is MY tour diary, thank you very much! I have been in a little bit of a pickle. My show is mostly incredibly dumb and hopefully very fun, but then with the current “Weinstein-Spacey-Craig McLaughlin-way too many fucked up harassment stats for way too long” climate, I decided to try to talk in my show about my experiences with casual sexism and terrifying sexual harassment. I felt a need to say something, with whatever platform I had. It felt like the show should say something more than just ‘LOOK HERE IS SOME PARTY POPPERS ATTACHED TO SOME TITS’ – though that’s great too, and you should definitely come.
But this new, heavier part of my show is fucking hard to rehearse, and very hard to separate myself from when I end up crying about The Patriarchy™ on a bi-daily basis. Hopefully I won’t cry on stage, but so far in rehearsal I have cried all but one time. Who knows, maybe my glitter fuelled hour of power could end up being low-key touching and maybe make some (other) people join me in my The Patriarchy™-related tears.
And all the feelings that writing and rehearsing that part of my show brought up just made me feel the need to do more, have some impact, contribute in any little way I can. So I’m putting out a donation bucket for Zonta House on my merch desk. I’m not really sure what else I can do as a Fringe artist except talk about it, but it’s really amazing to see that so many other shows are also putting out donation buckets. We are all lucky enough to be able to commandeer a room for an hour and have people listen. We may as well use this privilege to talk about stuff that really matters.
Much love, Jamie Mykaela x
P.S. Pals, if were thinking about coming to see my show you can find it here and if you use the code PAYME you can get a cheeky little discount at the checkout. Or you can wait for RushTix, ya cheap shits.
If ya just wanna have a wee stalk you can find me on Facebook, Twitter or on my website.