Johnny "bagpipes" Johnson, Allyson Smith and myself.

I sit here in my hotel room wondering what the hell is with the water here in Edmonton??! The last 2 times I was here my ring tarnished very quickly. I have this silver ring that was given to me as a gift. Every time I come to Edmonton it tarnishes within a few days. Odd. No other city seems to do that. It was just cleaned a week ago. Is it the oil refineries? Something in the air? Some weird silver attacking germ??
If anyone else can shed light on this I would appreciate it.

This has been a great week. It started with a drive up to Grande Prairie to do a show at the casino. The weather was warm and sunny which was a pleasant surprise this time of year and made the drive easy.
What a great crowd! Lots of CD sales after plus I got to work with an old friend, Marty McLean, who I had not seen in some time. Marty did an awesome job getting the crowd going.

The next day it was down to Edmonton to work The Comedy Factory for the week. It was my first time there and I must say it is not a bad little club at all. Nice crowds, they got most of the clever bits. You could tell they had not been weaned off of a steady stream of vulgar acts. The new clubs I am working now all seem to be going that route. I like the change in the industry.

The weird part was not being able to use the "F" word....AT ALL!
Those that have seen me know that I work mostly clean (always clean at a corporate show) without a lot of blue language. This club is the first I have worked that has a "no F-word policy" on stage. No worries, I can respect that and have done it many times at corporate shows.

I do have the odd joke where the F-bomb can push the punchline over the top but knowing I can't use it requires me to change my wording and re-write. I enjoyed having the restriction of language as it makes me write cleaner material and more of it and to find ways to write material that is TV clean. There are too many comics I see that cling to the same old lines, dirty language, or easy ethnic crutches. They refuse to adapt to their surroundings or clean up language due to some perceived purity of their act. I say let them. I feel for those guys but we will not always be fighting for the same gigs. The comedy pie is big and I am happy to let the dirty guys with no message eat the crust while I dine on the sweet filling.

Yesterday I caught up with 2 great comic friends who were in the city working another club. Allyson Smith and Johnny "bagpipes" Johnson met up with me for some lunch. Although we all get our bookings from different sources and agents it is the comaraderie of comics that matters. That is what makes this the best job in the world. We all just want to make others laugh.
We dined at an amazing sushi place on Jasper Ave called Kyoto. If you want some good sushi, this place rocks!! Despite our protests Johnny picked up the tab! What a guy! Thanks bud, beers on me next time. I think the 3 of us ate enough fish to grow gills!

It is now Sunday and I was supposed to be home however a new show was dropped in my lap. A post Christmas party for a hospitality company tonight. It is a nice add on before my run to Vancouver next week. I am not at liberty to say as competing agents sometimes scour other sites for leads but it is good to be busy.

The latest news is I have set up an account with myspace.com. Click the title of this post for the link or cut and paste it from below.
Sign up and get faster updates on my goings on. You can also join my Yahoo newsgroup/newsletter from the link on my website which is where my "Makk's Meanderings" newsletter will be sent from.
These are both part of the improvements that will be going on with www.darylmakk.com which will be getting a brand new look soon.
See you laughing in the seats soon!
Later
Makk

http://www.myspace.com/darylmakkstandupcomic