CRUMBS in Hamburg

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)

The Hammer

The Hammer = Hamburg
















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.

CRUMBS in Hamburg

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.

Next Stop: Arhoena (the magical horse ranch)