For a count down to London, you can count on the Count-Down Man

In five days I'm off to Jolly Ol' England for a month of get-togethers, piss-ups, art viewings and film screenings. Understandably, I'm excited about having "Love Flush" in a film festival in London, being able to hang out in the UK with long lost friends (one of whom dubs everything into brilliantly off-kilter nick-names) and also spending time with my girlfriend in the world that she's originally from. All of this is reason to celebrate, but somehow I can't help but feel like something's missing with the lead up.
This afternoon I realized what that missing element was: a count-down man !!
Over the next five days what I need is a "count-down man", a person dressed up like a British Earl who'll count down all the exciting moments of my life. Before I start work Monday morning for the last time before my vacation, he'll count down to nine o'clock and then jump up and down with joy. Likewise on my last day, he'll be throwing confetti and singing "Old Lang Syne" This is what I would like to have in order to accurately express to all around the excitement of my upcoming trip.
I'm not joking.
In the future I would like to see a sketch about a man who tries to earn a living as a count-down man. Before you get your money out of the bank machine, he'll be there to 3-2-1 the money into your pocket or maybe before your food comes at a restaurant, he can drum up some excitement by counting down it's arrival. People in this sketch will of course be annoyed by his shouting and sweating, but you the audience will laugh at this uniquely annoying form of busking.
What I'm trying to say is: Please give me and my kind a t.v. show.
Thank-you.

start me up with those big Jagger lips of yours

Hello again. It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted anything as I've been as busy as a beaver drawing away at bizarre revelations on a new sketch book that I bought myself. (Continuing with that beaver image, I'd like you to imagine me with long teeth sharpening my pencils in my mouth. Come on you can do it, just close your eyes.. Yes, welcome back. )
I spent most of today emailing away, sending off messages in bottles over the internet to various places and people in London regarding short film screenings. ( explodingcinema.com, shootandslice.com, futureshorts.co.uk, leapfrogentertainment.co.uk, backspace.org, live-stock.co.uk and pinkpink.demon.co.uk ) The gist of each email was that I'm organizing a multi-media tour of the UK and Ireland and blah, blah, blah... Oh Jesus on a Jetski I've been at it all day and I'm pooped with the spiel. Here you can see it for yourself:



Kevin Spenst and Lisa O'Neill will be whirlwinding their way through the UK and Ireland in February of 2005 to:


perform,
( Lisa is a singer/song-writer whose music has been described as eclectic, heartfelt and gorgeous. She will be performing her music solo.)

screen film work,
(Kevin acts, writes and produces short films in a comedy collective called the Narcoleptic Videographer. "The Narcoleptic Videographers are true revolutionaries on the verge of commercial success" - the Only Magazine,

have a drawing show,
(Kevin's illustrations amuse and disgust and then amuse again )

be part of any readings
(Kevin's fiction perplexes you while it tickles your funny bone in places you never even knew you had a funny bone)


and drink, laugh and eat with relatives and friends.


If any combination of the above interests you please email k.spenst@shaw.ca or enterlisao@hotmail.com to book an event.

from sold out to a happy trickle

Saturday night's Dislocated Lips was the first sold out show at Festival House with some people at the door not being able to make it in. My family was happily ensconced in a crowd of strangers who laughed, cried and vomitted in all the right places. (Vomitted ? What am I saying ? There was no audience vomitting. That was totally uncalled for... vomit. Nope.) I raced through the show at breakneck speed once again though and swore to myself that I'd slow it down the next performance. It goes so fast up there under the watchful eye of everyone.
This show is the first time that I've ever really felt self-conscious as a performer. I'm still getting used to the fact that there is so much of me on that stage. I tried to put this out of my mind and I managed to approach Monday night's show at a much more leisurely pace. Unfortunately it was at 10:45 at the end of a long day of teaching. On top of all this the rain must have kept some people from venturing forth on a Monday night. During the performance, a couple of my lines felt like they were slipping through the finger-tips of my mind. (That's a fun game to play anywhere, "the _______ of my mind". Toilet, sewer, rainbow, elbow, etc. Fill in the blank with anything.) But once again when the end game there was the applause and praise which is the gravy-flavoured icing on the cake. I couldn't have asked for a better audience.
Amy Salloway was nice enough to come check out my show. Her one woman show DOES THIS MONOLOGUE MAKE ME LOOK FAT is playing at the Festival House on Fri Sep 17 6:30 pm, Sat Sep 18 3:00 pm and Sun Sep 19 6:45 pm.

I haven't been putting my short-short stories up on this blog so if you're interested in what happens at The Language Construction Zone - the fictional school that DISLOCATED LIPS takes place in - you'll have to let your fingers do the tap-dancing on your keyboard to kevinspenst.com where you can find a new short short story everyday. Once al this Fringeness is over, I'll return to just writing completely disperate stories everyday that have no connection to anything but a strange sensibility that tries to marry Micheal Ondatjee with the Zuckers (In the skin of the Airplane !). That's what I do.

Oh and if you're free today at 4:30 come see my show. I'm giving out free lap dances to the first one hundred people that arrive. (A stripper doing a lap dance while reciting Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" That's something I'd like to see as part of a play. I don't know what it means but it would be a powerful image.)