Bad Santa and the Angry Elves at Maxine’s

Posted on by Thor

At Maxine’s on Shine the doorman was checking his list twice and the venue started to fill. This show was a precursor to Bad Santa and the Angry Elves going to Edinburgh in a month. Jameson’s whisky was a sponsor, and all drink proceeds would help get the group over to Scotland. Knowing that the drink sales were helping the group, I had to order several Santa themed drinks with chocolate and green whipped cream. The drinks had a kick and probably influenced the sketch. Christmas is here!

My seat was as close to the stage as you can get without being on stage. I had to climb over some speakers and tons of chords to squeeze into my seat wedged against the wall. Diane was seated across from me and we had some wonderful war stories to exchange before the band got on stage. I had searched for a Christmas themed shirt but don’t have any. Diane also wanted to be Christmas fashionable but could only find a blouse covered in hearts. That was close enough. The director got up to the microphone and let us know that the band was having a bite in the back room before the show. We joked that they probably were having a few swigs of spiked eggnog.

This Santa has daddy issues. Being the son of THE Santa, Kris Kringle IV has big shoes to fill. The other sons of Santa Kris II, and Kris III, had no desire to work in the family business. Kris IV brought a radical idea to his dad by suggesting that maybe Christmas should be on every day of the year instead of just December 25. Dad wasn’t having it. Riffs from familiar Pink Floyd songs echoed through Maxine’s. Santa and the Elves were singing, “All in all its just another gift from The MALL.”

Rather than the Elves being Angry, it was Santa who seemed angry as he shouted into the void that every day deserved the Christmas spirit of Kindness, Joy and Gratitude. In a world gone mad, that message is needed now more than ever. The elves were not particularly petite except for the one tied up to a microphone stand.

Kris climbed on the bar to be sure everyone could see him as he sang the punk, hard edged rock and roll Christmas tunes. Besides building Christmas carols from Pink Floyd songs, they also had Prince inspired holiday music. Everyone in the room was beaming. If there was room to dance in the aisles I am sure people would have done that. Kris was certainly dancing up a storm with the elf with the orange washboard abs.

I was flying high by the end of the three hour set and the lines were swarming all over the page. Stop doom scrolling for a moment and pretend Americans are not being put in concentration camps, and pretend a narcissistic geriatric patient who fancies himself a dictator isn’t in charge of this country and live each day with Kindness, Joy and Gratitude, mother F#cker.

Jem Rolls Off the Tongue

Posted on by Thor

This is Jem Rolls 93rd Fringe Festival. He hails from Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. He worked the Fringe lines hard here in Orlando pointing out to anyone who would listen that the flier’s back had an austere simplicity. It was blank. The show offered a solid hour of poetry, at times funny and at times mystifying. This wasn’t a performance that gave any linear narrative. His subjects were all over the map. His energy and enthusiasm are contagious.

One rather funny poem was titled, “We split up because the sex was too good.” He claims to be working on the sequel which will be, “We stayed together hoping the sex would get better.” In one poem he personified words that resisted his every attempt to wrangle them into a poem. He grimaced and leaned towards the audience to show how determined, selfish and difficult words can be. He recited a poem about how the British always win. “We won! We Won, Wewonwewon, we Won!” He blamed the American Revolution on the fact that Germans were doing the fighting not the British.

The poems came out so fast and furious that at times I didn’t know how to react. Bikini Katie sat across from me. Craig’s Lust had purchased ad space on her bare mid drift. Fried cheese curds had an ad on her right thigh and I believe Ship Happens had prime ad space above her cleavage. I could only squeeze a small bit of Lust into the sketch.