I Was the Perfect Dead Body at a Comedy Show

Hello, everyone!

How’s everyone holding up? I had a brief-but-bad mental health episode yesterday panicking over every single element of my life, which ironically means today I’m feeling very well rested. Going to bed three times in one day will do that sort of thing for you. And, I guess, eating a tube of Pringles with flavors they don’t sell in America. The Burger King Bacon Double Cheese XL flavor? NOT GOOD!

What caused the mental health episode? Why, that’s a story for another time! (Honestly, a combination of utter exhaustion and a minor conversation that set off a spiral that I was in denial about being a spiral until I slept it off and was like, “Damn, that sure was a spiral.”)

That said, the most relaxing moment I’ve had during Edinburgh Fringe was pretending to be a dead body on stage for 30 minutes, so let’s not dig too deep into what that might mean. Read on and you’ll eventually find out more!

I’m still at Edinburgh, and I’ve resumed by run of Shit Arcade. We’ve had two fantastic shows so far in this half of the run and I’ve got seven more to go. I’ve loved doing these shows, but passing the mark where the metaphorical announcer screams, “CHECKPOINT” was a relief. Also, if you want proof that I write too much about video games, the notes app I’m writing this in kept trying to change “relief” to “Reggie.”

Also, we need to confront the fact that autocorrect has gotten severely, significantly worse over the last few years. It’s stopped trying to fix words that you don’t know how to spell and just replacing random words. I just turned off autocorrect and predictive text entirely on every Apple device I own because this shit was driving me insane. But autocorrect at least used to TRY to suggest the correct word (outside of replacing “fuck” with “duck”). Earlier it also tried to adjust “change” to “calamari,” which makes so little sense that it feels like AI is just fucking with me now for being negative.

I think part of the exhaustion I’ve had is performing this show so many times and working what amounts to two nearly full-time jobs at once this month, as well as three freelance assignments that each will take a four or five hours. All are projects I’m extremely excited about and that pay human money, so I’m very grateful and happy to have them. Like, I literally bounced up and down like fucking Tigger at getting those two big projects, so we’re all smiles there. But it’s all certainly forced me back into college cram mode.

As it stands right now, I’m in a lovely cafe in the middle of a beautiful city writing on a ridiculous fold-out keyboard on a ridiculous iPad Mini that I’m also using to read comic books. So, at least the work - that is, the work that I can do in public, which sounds very secretive (and a lie) but is just me fearing an NDA-adjacent lawyer knifing me to death - is pleasant. I want to stay in all these companies’ good graces because the entertainment industry, she is not doing too hot.

I’ve also been lucky enough to do stand-up a few times in the city, which has been fun. The odd thing about Fringe is that you sometimes get mostly American audiences. That’s not bad, but it is funny to be like, “I really gotta make sure I connect with this audience, a group of people I’m not normally performing in front of,” and then 80% of the crowd is from the Mid West.

The best thing - outside of my show, which, of course, is the talk of the town - I’ve done so far is John Robertson’s show The Dark Room. The best way I can describe it is an interactive version of old Zork text adventure games. An audience member, or comedian, gets to make choices on the the screen such as “Go North” or “Turn on Light,” which often results in John and the entire audience screaming, “YOU CAN’T BECAUSE YOU’RE IN A DARK, DARK ROOM!”

During the sold-out show, I was brought on stage and John was kind enough to let me promote Shit Arcade three times over the course of the night. I made some bad choices on stage and my video game self ended up dying. I’ve made a lot of bad choices that led to dying on stage before, so this wasn’t a completely new experience.

However, John asked me if I wanted to die on stage and stay dead. Which I did. I crumbled to the floor and stared forward, open-eyed, dead. Luckily, I landed right at an angle where I could see the projector screen which basically meant I got to watch half of a Fringe show while comfortably lying on the floor. I was complimented more than once for being good at being a dead body, something I’ve told myself in the mirror more times than I can count.

The fun part was a moment when John - and the audience - inexplicably started singing that Proclaimers son, 500 Miles. As other comedians came out on stage and began stomping to the beat, I, a dead man, reached out my hand and slapped the stage in rhythm, which actually got a fantastic reaction. I kind of imagined the old dancing skeletons from that old, old, old Disney cartoon and just went with that. I’m glad I did. It’s one of those silly, stupid, insignificant moments on stage where you make a fun choice and you know it’s something you’ll remember.

I’m having a great time, and I’ve got only seven shows left to go, but I think I’m ready to be back home in my own big, adult bed in a room with an air conditioner that goes below 80 degrees and is in a system of measurement I understand. I have learned a lot of painful, expensive lessons on promotion and what works and what doesn’t work, but I’ve also made Shit Arcade much, much better than it’s ever been before. I’ve met great comedians. I’ve met great producers. I’ve met great audience members who are now legitimate friends.

In conclusion, to sum up, that is how I spent my summer vacation.

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