CRUMBS are back on tour in Europe. It hasn't been since 2014 that CRUMBS have been together on European soil. Pretty exciting stuff right? And to think that it was way back in the spring of 2001 that CRUMBS first hopped over the pond from Canada to Europe so if I do the math correctly and crunch the numbers... it is the 15 year anniversary of CRUMBS on a Euro Touro. Wow, time does fly by.
Here's what the little Euro Touro looks like: Sat, May 7th - Hamburg Thu, May 12th - Berlin Sat, May 14th - The Hague Thu, May 19-May 21 - Leipzig Sun, May 22nd - Baden (CH) Sun, May 29th - Berlin
CRUMBS are on tour in Europe. Yes, we're on tour again. We just did our show in Hamburg at der Motte. Here's how it went.
First, we show up and for some reason they haven't got turntables for Dj Hunnicutt. We've played there before so I don't know why they didn't think we needed out turntables. But after some phone calls, the turntables showed up. Then we did some classic CRUMBS show fun.
For our inspirations we got the classic occupation of "dentist" and the not as classic suggestion of "deep living". Deep Living was the title of a book someone in the audience was reading. He gave us the explanation of it as "there's a boy and a girl... you can imagine the rest".
So of course the show started off in a dentist's office where we saw a man who was afraid of the dentist. His mouth was in really bad shape but had it all fixed up. Fixed up so well that he became more handsome and more confident. So confident that he decided to divorce his wife and live the life more suited for a man of his stature. He gets a promotion and a new secretary. The thing is, while his outward appearance improved, he was still in love with the woman he just broke up with and broke the heart of. He couldn't even have sex with his sexy secretary. His wife tried to start over too, going out to the club and took home a bouncer for some meaningless sex. The bouncer just happened to catch the husband coming home for his wife. He beat the crap out of the husband... so much that he had his beautiful teeth knocked out. The husband and wife eventually made up and got beck together, on the promise that the husband would never make the same mistake again. Love prevails right?
The other story in the show involved a failed writer alone in her house, lonely. Her books about pigs that go on adventures for some reason won't get published. A failing traveling salesman, of course he's selling travel packages. They meet and it turns out, his last travel package is to Hawaii, where she finds out that they have pig roasts. She decides that they have to go there and set the pigs free. They go on their own adventure and fall in love. Again, love prevails. I guess you can imagine the rest.
After the show we go to the "Kleine Pause" for a little break (and a little bite to eat). We then go the "Crazy Horst" for a little drink.
The suggestions were = sword & advertising illustrator
We start with Dennis Franklin carries on his father's rat trap business but business is slow and needs some new advertising.
Then we go to the museum of "Really Old Stuff", it holds as its central exhibit, a half sword. The other half is lodged in the heart of a warrior killed in battle hundreds of years ago. He rises from his unmarked grave and seeks the other half of the sword.
The rat trap execs go to advertising firm “Joe's Advertising” (after jokes about computers and porn). The advertising firm riffs on slogans. (A sample slogan for diet coffee “on a diet? Try it”)
We meet the two old security guards of the museum, they have worked together for years but have never really hung out and decide to take lunch together. It turns out that they both go to the same place “Frank's Italian Restaurant” and also always order the same thing “spaghetti and red wine”. The alarm goes off at the museum while they are becoming best friends.
We meet Sally/Margharita and Donny, who are cool kids at school who also love the latest trendy rat traps from Japan. They make a date to go down to the ravine together to trap rats, which is where teenagers go to make out.
Joe, with the help of the old janitor Charlie, comes up with a campaign that involves a cartoon rat that is so cute and wants to be caught by a Franklin rat trap.
The kids meet the warrior at the ravine and Margharita falls for the warrior and helps him find the owner of the sword, which has Franklin engraved on the hilt. (Jokes about how to pronounce sword)
The two old guards (Hank with a wife and kids + Georgee and his ugly dog) realize that one of them has to take the fall, Georgee makes the sacrifice. But upon getting home to his dog realizes his dog can track the swords whereabouts.
The warrior confronts Franklin and an epic battle ensues between sword and rat trap. In the final clash, sword and trap are fused in a burst...
This then transforms into part of the pitch for the ad campaign selling the rat traps. A movie... the best kind of commercial in the world.
Here is some fan art of the final print ad that Franklin's Rat Traps made. (hooray for fan art)
CRUMBS on tour in Europe (yet again) and taking a ton of photos (yet again). Here are some of those photos for your eyeballs. The above photo is Lee and myself in the Crazy Horst bar, our local bar whenever we are in Hamburg.
This is Germany's most famous hand model showing off his talents with our CRUMBS flyer.
And this is a poster of Horst advertising a book he is in that has famous words from famous Hamburg pub owners. He is saying something about peacocks... translate it.
CRUMBS makes a short film in a couple of hours and then waits years to finally share it with people?
This was shot in 2006 on a 16mm Bolex on one roll of film in one shot as part of the WNDX One Shot Festival. It was shot using "in camera" editing and "in the moment" acting. The music was mixed by Dj Hunnicutt. The camera was operated by Darren Wall. The film was directed by Stephen Sim and stars Stephen Sim and Lee White.
Next post will be an update about the CRUMBS shows we have done. Someone came up to me after the CRUMBS show in Hamburg and told me that he appreciates the updates where the shows are summarized. He said it reminded him of when he used to keep a dream journal. So for those that have seen the shows or cannot see the shows, I will try my darndest to update with pictures and details from each show.
CRUMBS are again in Hamburg, again in St Pauli and again at the Crazy Horst. We do our show tonight at the Motte and then return to Berlin.
St Pauli is the area of Hamburg we live the most and the home of Germany's best Football club. Not the nest because they play the best on the field, but the best because of their fans. It turns out that a lot of right wing fascists are fans of the other teams (not just fascist as an insult, but actual god fearing fascists) while the St Pauli fans are the only real team that the Left can call their own. We heard a story where a whole bunch of hooligans from across Germany showed up before a football match and decided to "cause a ruckus" in St Pauli. What ended up happening in the ensuing violence was all the apartment windows opening up and the residence making it rain bottles on the invading trouble makers. The cops eventually showed up and tear gas was used, but not before humans got hurt. Hurt over sports rivalry.
I am so glad that hockey is not treated the same ferociousness in Canada. Image if all the Harper fans loved the Maple Leafs and the Liberals loved the Habs? This is just plain crazy.You should be able to be a fan of whatever team you want, no matter what your politics. I call for a separation of Sport and State!
Speaking of crazy, The Crazy Horst is a bar in St Pauli run by a legend named Horst. I have written about the bar on this website before, so I won't go on and on about it. But it is nice (and more than a little strange) to have a regular bar in a city so far away from home.
Hamburg, the Hammer! And no I don't mean Hamilton, Ontario...
The first thing I should say about Hamburg is that we did some great workshops with Die Spieler (which translates directly into “The Players”). Super fun and generous group of people.
The second thing I should say about Hamburg is that we saw Gogol Bordello play a show, tear the stage down and set it on fire with their Gypsy Punk energy. Let me just say this, on their second encore they walked out on stage with a Mariachi Band!
The third thing I should say is we visited the St. Pauli store. This is St. Pauli's 100 year anniversary and a celebration of their entrance into the Premiere's League.
The fourth thing we should mention is the show. The suggestions were “Space” and “Nurse”. Now we have done many shows in spaceships and we have done many shows about Nurses and Doctors, the trick is to keep it fresh every time you do it. The trick is to not fall into the trap of laziness and be tempted to repeat... because repeating loses the magic. We also don't want to simply redo ideas that have been done before by other people, other movies or other stories.
We started with a nurse (let's call her Ruth) who was incredibly good at her job. The doctor was incredibly bad at his job. The doctor kept asking Ruth why she had never become a doctor and was always just satisfied being “just a nurse”. This of course drove the nurses in the audience mad (there was at least one nursing student in the audience who may or may not have been one of the members of the host group). The doctor was working on an Olympic javelin thrower who was mysteriously sick. The doctor could not figure it out (even though he had taken x-rays?).
Space. Space is vast. Space. With matter and anti-matter. With stars and comets and planets and quasars and pulsars. Space. With extra terrestrial life? We zoom in on a space ship looking for alien life forms. The Captain is in a hurry and wants to fly the ship faster. The first mate is a loser and a wimp and is bullied by the Captain. On the ship we also have an engineer (which garnered at least one cheer from one person in the audience... I can only assume was an engineer) and a robot (again X-13).
Ruth (the “just a nurse”) begins to research on her own and figures out what is wrong with the Javelin thrower (we will call him Jimmy). Ruth gets books out of the library (known as a book place to some) and even does her own blood tests. Jimmy meanwhile is going through some rough girl troubles as his girl Jacklin has now hooked up with Mark (the new captain of the javelin throwing team going to the Olympics).
It turns out that the Captain of the ship is desperately looking for “Space Women” that he can sex up. This has clouded his judgment and the wimpy first mate tries to stand up to him. This all happens as an alien ship approaches... Of course, with Space Women that then board the ship demanding sex, but from the robot.
The doctor feels horribly guilty for not being able to do his job and learns the secret to it all lies in actually caring about the patients. The doctor and the nurse switch roles and forge each others diplomas and certificates. Meanwhile the doctor has become famous as the person who cured Jimmy the javelin thrower. Jimmy won the gold medal by throwing his javelin past everyone else's, past the previous world record and right into the heart of Jacklin, who was in the audience trying to win Jimmy back.
The sexy Space Women end up being impressed by the first mate standing up for himself and decide to take him back to their home planet for endless space sex. Leaving the Captain alone and confused. (he was obviously the alpha male, why didn't he get the space sex?).
The fifth thing we should mention is the Crazy Horst. This is a famous bar in St. Pauli that we visit every time we are in Hamburg. Horst (the owner of the bar) was a boxer, ran a Bordello and now runs this bar. He has famous people and tourists pay a visit to this little place (it can seat maybe 20 people comfortably). He has even kicked Brad Pitt out of his bar for being smelly (“I don't care who you are, you smell and this is a small place”)
Hamburg is a wonderful place, just arriving there made us smile. There are cool people and it is just a city that still exudes a cool vibe. the nickname for Hamburg is quite obviously "The Hammer", so it's sister city is obviously Hamilton, Ontario if only because they share a nickname (though i suppose if they were really sisters it would be silly for them to have the same nickname, they would have different nicknames).
The show we did in Hamburg was in a school, our only show on this tour at one. We usually play at a theatre, brought in by a theatre company or an improv group. This stop we were produced by someone who is a teacher at the school and who is partners (politically correct for girlfriend) with someone we know in an improv group in Hamburg (Hidden Shakespeare). The show was a good one, the lights were nice and easy, the stage was nice and big and we played with a very good musician... oh good musicians. Since we don't do the whole tour with our dj (which we do wish we could) we end up playing with music mercenaries. Sometimes this works out well (like in Hamburg) other times it works out okay, and other times we wonder how these musicians exist, how they play at other shows and how they keep getting work (these times will remain nameless). Our musician was from Hidden Shakespeare and played perfectly the soundtrack and atmosphere and mood for our show, he made the emotions worth more with only a couple of notes and made the monologues better than they were just by choosing the right key, thank you.
We stayed at Frank's place (he is the partner of the producer) and he was out of town on a gig playing shows on a cruise ship on the pacific coast of South America (lucky guy). So we stayed in St.Pauli (which is also the coolest neighbourhood in Hamburg). Lee and I are also fans of the local football club from that area (named St. Pauli of course), they are famous throughout Germany as the cool team. Punks and alternative folks will be seen wearing their St. Pauli shirts with the trademark skull and cross bones. You will get nods on the streets by strangers just for wearing this emblem. It is like being part of a secret society except that it isn't such a secret and you aren't trying to take over the world (or maybe that is the secret?). Mortal enemies of St. Pauli fans would be the Bayern/Munich fans, whose football club is the richest.
We have never actually seen St. Pauli play a match, but this time in Hamburg we did see Bayern/Munich play. We went to this bar that wasn't really a bar but a multi-use space that had a beamer (German for projector) and a bunch of chairs and a bar. At least 200 people packed into the place to watch Bayern/Munich play Barcelona FC in the European Cup. Barcelona kicked the asses of the Bavarian team. It was wonderful to see. All the German fans in the room were silent every time Barcelona would score (which I believe was four times to their nothing). It was like Bayern/Munich was afraid of the ball. A nice illustration of the differences between these two teams would be the sponsors on the jerseys. Bayern/Munich = T Mobile (phone company) & Barcelona FC = Unicef (halloween boxes).
We are hoping to be in Hamburg next year during the celebration of the 100 years of St. Pauli. What a party that will be.
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