tippiseagram’s blog

Now, the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum,
What might be right for you, may not be right for some.
A man is born, he’s a man of means.
Then along come two, they got nothing but their jeans.

Because it takes, Diff’rent Strokes to move the world.
Yes it does.
It takes, Diff’rent Strokes to move the world.

So here are the Victoria Reviews in a nutshell…please note: as with all my reviews I try to record them in their entirety..not this cut and paste, no warts bullshit…but as it is written…I will edit content if the reviewer has given away punch lines..if it’s simply premise then it’s in..hell, any stand-up knows, laughter can only come with surprise so why sabotage yourself from the get go…if it’s criticism, unfortunately it’s in..this is probably not the smartest thing to do spin wise..but hey, I’m making the assumption that all of you out there realize that a review is one persons personal bent and they are subject to bad days, good days, certain bias, sometimes they get you, sometimes they don’t, sometimes they call you on your shit and sometimes you wonder what the hell they were watching to make them say that and heck even some can be plain a-holes or generous patrons…but then again, doesn’t that describe all of us?

Victoria News ***** (Yes, that is 5 stars!)

Getting up-close and personal with Tippi Seagram is well worth the wild and crazy experience. 

The comedic monologue, which at times diverges into a dialogue with the audience, is aptly placed in the Victoria Event Centre, where the bar is open.

Kendall’s quick-witted alter-ego offers her opinions and advice on everything from PETA and politics to mothers and children.  Her racy view of the world is hilarious and laugh-out-loud funny.  Be prepared: Tippi Seagram’s Happy Hour is interactive.

By Jeanine Soodeen

 

Monday Magazine **** (4 stars)

     Though the concept isn’t new-fabulush older lady doling out quippy wisdom-Tippi Seagram raises the bar…or should that be, sashays in with her own bar?  Colette Kendall mixes smart, tipsy, one-high-heeled-step-over-the-inappropriate line with snappy audience interactions in this comic monologue. (At one point Kendall said, “if you think you’re safe back there, you’re wrong.”)  My notepad scratching led to Tippi singling me out as “the most handsome papparazzi I’ve ever met,” but she didn’t need to butter me up, as I’d already been won over with her boozy charm and effervescent takes on PETA, B.C and S&M.  Single men be warned-Seagram is on the prowl and looking for husband number six!

By Bill Stuart

 

Times Colonist ***
(3 stars)
Tippi Seagram comes straight out of Hollywood’s studio-era- a martini-sipping, fur coat-wearing woman in her middle age who says what she means and means what she says.  She’s simply outrageous, darling, and that’s why she’s so loveable.

Tippi (played by Hamilton comedian Colette Kendall) begins her show by coming out to meet the audience, so if being approached by a performer makes you shiver with terror, this show is best avoided.  At times this part of the act felt a little canned, with Tippi leading the audience members towards preconstructed punchlines rather than spontaneously interacting.

Tippi is at her best when she’s at her most outlandish, meaning the sex jokes always get the biggest laughs.  Since she’s getting up there in years, much of Tippi’s act has to do with getting older, covering familiar subjects like flabbier stomachs and floppier breasts with the edge you would expect from a woman who’s been through five husbands.  The expected bits on differences between men and women also got a good response from the crowd, though, the section on parenting felt forced, since the Tippi character is childless (Kendall is not.)  If you’re looking for light and fluffy fun, though, Tippi will provide great company-Marco Ursi
 

Isolated, the Fringe is a wonderful experience in many ways..the larger fringe circuit itself is a very unusual beast…it can be a life changing event…full of roller coaster moments of highs and lows, good friendships, bad experiences, sometimes love and sometimes more momentary moments of amour…now in my 4th province with 4 fringes under my belt I have come to realize that every dog has it’s day…there is a stable of performers (generally the vanguard) that do consistently well review wise…they seldom face much variation in media opinion…Jem Rolls is an example of this..brilliant solid performer that consistently gets 5 stars for his performance poetry..when in Winnipeg he told me he is treated like a rock star there…and no word of a lie, he was…sold out 7 of his 11 shows…amazing..box office and reviews intersect..but then you move on..in this case to Saskatoon and his first audience had 17 people in it….humbling!.. you have to start from scratch every time, regardless of what you just left…no matter how well he is doing, I always see Jem flyering lines….but despite this, he is not always the media darling of every fringe nor the reigning box office…..and this is where myself and alot of others fall into…..we are the lot that hopes that maybe we will be lucky enough to rise to the surface of the milk this time…that the planets will align and we can grab the brass ring at least once…and I see it happen every fringe…what got 2 stars and bad reviews in one province gets 4-5 stars and a brilliant review in another…where you weren’t even mentioned in one city and struggled to perform for 12 in your audience…you get a big, bold photo of your face plastered in the paper and now you have sold out shows…or odder still, bad reviews, no coverage, but word of mouth and you sell out….there is always hope…that maybe, just maybe, this time it will be me!

Second day off in a row and I’m going out of my mind….I’m proudly a workaholic and this down time is killing me….Victoria is freezing and I didn’t pack for that contingency plan…I kept my feet under the dog for most of the day…(throw back to a hippie lifestyle, I never wear socks)…I figured today that I would set out to have a reasonable dinner some where and then start to take in some fringe shows….ran into Tom from The Awkwards who gave me a nice hug…finally a familiar friendly face….he was busy handing out flyers to the line at the show I was going in to see, The Women of Career…got the scoop on the Edmonton Festival..it’s all about the stars and newspaper reviews… 4 and 5 stars and you are selling out…I’m sorry I didn’t make the cut this time…maybe next year?..so in between my next show I head for serious coffee for internet service and a warm beverage…I’m standing in line and by mere coincidence I start speaking to a gentlemen who has just left the same show as me and is also beverage seeking…one question leads to another and I realize that he is the gentleman that was in the back of the audience for my last show….when I asked about who had children loud drunken lady proudly proclaimed that she ‘got rid of her kid. let the ex do all the work and spend the money’…I steered away from her as it was all about the attention seeking for her….I then spoke to a man and his wife in the back, he had said he was the father of her child..pointing to drunken lady…I took it as just a put on..laughed and left it there…. because, other than my own family reunions you don’t expect to have a Jerry Springer show break out in the middle of your performance…but tonight when we met he tells me it was true!…he was there with his new wife and that, that was his ex-wife and mother of his child…..man, what an opportunity missed for comedic gold…I tried as best as I could to have patience with her in the audience and not let Tippi become mean-spirited…but had I known the situation the show would have taken a different turn…for starters I would have told him that I see that he finally decided to venture past the trailer park to choose his next wife… he said he felt she was trying to upstage me…oh yeah! that was pretty evident from the get go when she uttered her first drunken affirmation…..well it just goes to show you never know who you are going to bump into..and that sometimes truth is stanger than fiction….”the kid” by the way…seemed to be a very nice young woman who was obviously her father’s pride and joy…hat’s off to him…he said he jumped at the opportunity to be able to raise his daughter…and judging from what I saw…thank-goodness.

My first day off…but really off….absolutely nothing planned and no idea what to do…Louise is at work, no idea where the other performers hang out, shows don’t start until 6ish, John and the kids are at the CNE for the day so unavailable for skyping…..I feel just like I did when I was a little kid and lacked the imagination to entertain myself despite the scoldings from my mother..”go find yourself something to do”…usually I could convince her to play a game of hangman with me…what a gruesome concept that game springs from…talk about pressure…you just better hope you have the mental agility to save this man’s life ..because if he swings, it’s because you were a bad speller…for those overachiever parents, try naming the poor soul…guilt can really act as an incentive bumping up your little one’s cognitive skills….I did get my mom to play tent with me once…the horribly huge glass blown, orange ashtray (a 70’s fad) that acted as a weight on the blanket fell off hitting me in the head and cracking in half….between woosiness, I was so scared I was going to get it when Dad got home….gone are the good old days of fear parenting….for years it sat on the top shelf of the wall unit, glued back together, as a reminder that even fun can be painful…so sitting here feeling as if after 43 days I’ve just jumped off a whirling dervish onto solid ground..(I was in his monk backpack)..the phone rings..it’s CH Victoria (CH Hamilton’s sister channel)..I’ve been trying to get you all day!..can we do an interview?…right now..we’ll pick you up….OK! I respond, heart racing…can you give me 45 min to get in costume…20min later Gordie Tupper is at my door and off we go to do an interview for the 6:00 news…you never know what to expect with these pieces..you usually end up with maybe a 2 min segment so it all depends on editing…the final product on the news….I’m not sure??? good or bad…it was me seemingly loving to laugh at my own jokes, with an introduction as one of the raunchier acts at the fringe..followed by me being bleeped out lots…even words that weren’t bad were bleeped?..I ended on the comment..’oh yes, I love older men too..you’re closer to death, easier to get your money’..when they pan back to the news desk…the 3 anchors look shell shocked…no laughter…just the comment…”she even shocked Gordie!”..hehehe…it just seems so silly that it’s laughable…energized with purpose I made dinner for Louise and I then we spent a night of drinking wine while watching TV…Louise said she had been trying to appear highbrow and not watch the tube while I’m here..I haven’t watched in 43 days and thankfully we have the same favorite programs…Law and Order (old style with Jerry Orbach, RIP, and Chris Noth, ahhh Mr. Big) and The Sopranos (Tony is so sexy…it’s the power, not the 280 frame)….ahhhhh, a day off. 

Got up early today so that I could get back into downtown Victoria to see the putt putt tug boats do their water ballet to the Blue Danube @ 10:45…how could you not see this when in Victoria…not only did it have the grace and choreography associated with 5 tug boats..but it had thrills and chills as they narrowly defied death weaving back and forth in a figure 8 pattern….the finale being that ice capade move where the guy in the middle stays still while the guy on the outside is whipped about at the speed of sound…it was cool…I liked it!..

I was going to do a cemetery tour today but Louise couldn’t make it so I was worried that I would be late for my interview with Kathleen.. so instead I went to see CraigDurroch castle…why I decided to see this I don’t know…I don’t think I’ve ever been through Casa Loma in Toronto…and Hamilton is known for the having the largest concentration of castles in one city…I bet you didn’t know that but it’s true..I have seen Dundurn Castle because it was a school trip and I volunteered….but then to boot this was a self-guided tour..so I thought…great, I’m not going to learn anything because I have an idiot for a tour guide….well I did!…it’s amazing when you don’t have kids that you can actually take the time to read all those signs they put up..the castle was really beautiful

Louise was home by the time I got back and she dropped me off at the Douglas Hotel to meet Kathleen there…it was a pleasure meeting Kathleen she just seems like a very nice woman..in fact she’s my age and sometimes it’s just nice to talk to someone who knows where you are coming from…it was a fun interview with topics ranging from where Tippi originated.. to talking about kids in general, fringe life, the publishing industry and what’s falling apart on each others bodies. Kathleen’s article will feature myself and 3 other women in the fringe…Jane Chen and her mother, from Chinese Clown Cabaret and Sarah Hayward from Stripes:the Mystery Circus…it’s such a small world because if you look at the comment section on my blog..a dear friend of mine Owen, told me to look up Jane and say hello! So after the interview I scurried home to grab a quick nap before tonight’s show..it wasn’t a good nap and my stomach was bugging me…by the time I got to the theatre I had no energy and was very groggy…small crowd with one very loud exception who had decided from the get go that she would add her 2 cents after everyone of my sentences…hey it’s an interactive show…what do you expect…but the deal is…if I’m on stage…I got a show to do..there is a script that needs to be followed..when I come off stage you are free to talk to me..I encourage it..let’s see what direction it goes…hell be funnier than me I don’t care.. but when I’m on stage I’m just a little busy trying to set up the history of the character…and tonight…my head was so clouded that I couldn’t even see the forest for the trees to adequately deal with this woman….ahhhhh! you know, if at least one more woman had had anal sex I wouldn’t even be discussing this right now.

I lay in bed until 9:00 this morning…oh sure, I heard the world going by but I had no interest in being part of it today, too warm and comfy under the blankets…but I pulled my sorry ass out of the bed to start the day anyway…because I’m a semi-adult….when I was young I thought…I’m never going to work..what ’s the point, takes up too much of your life…John used to think, wow I can hardly wait to decorate my house with posters of naked women…somehow, these things just never seem like such great ideas once you’re older than 16….Louise was already very busy going at her day..a run, bottling wine, refinishing an antique…she offered me a ride to my 1:00 nail appointment so I jumped at the opportunity to avoid the hill….and off I went..I had however forgotten my keys..so Louise said that she would swing by and pick me up when I was done…haha take that hill Colette 2 Hill 0….thoroughly exhausted from holding my hands in front of me…I came home and went back to bed…..I got up feeling much better around 5:00 to get ready for tonights show….I had received an email from Kathleen at the Georgia Straight mentioning that she would be attending my show tonight…ahhhhh! just a bit of pressure to not suck tonight…Louise was coming to my show tonight as well so she said that she would take me to the venue…is life good or what?…I had a big crowd at the show tonight and they were pretty responsive…the show was a good one, not my personal best…but it was fun..I really enjoyed myself and the people in the audience tonight…an older couple up front were gems…and there were several really fun women in the crowd…my young man that I threw myself at all night turned out to be a reviewer..leave it to me to play with fire!..I’ll post his review in a day or two..Kathleen’s review won’t be out for another 10 days and apparently there was another reviewer in the crowd as well…the crowd was generous with their applause and even put money in my jar….and now the real fun begins…I had an 83 year old woman come up to me after the show and tell me what a treat I had been, that she thoroughly enjoyed herself…she was a doll, didn’t look 83, full of piss and vinegar this one…she asked me if I had a good lover back home….well I have a lover, I said…(that was for you JG)…what a cheeky monkey!…then I had 2 women from North Carolina come up to me with nice things to say…then as Louise and I are packing the car another woman comes up to me and asks me to come back to her place for a drink…gives me her phone number and tells me she’ll make me a great dinner and even give me a stone massage…then she goes over to her car and comes back with a flute full of champagne for me to have…this is a hoot!…and Shannon thinks that just because I’m sleeping with her up at Whistler that I’ll put out..you gotta do better than that honey, the bars been raised….meanwhile Kathleen is taking this all in…I can only imagine what she must think…alas, sadly this is the drudgery that is the rock star life of Tippi

*Prepare for day with big breakfast at Polish Restaurant
*Head for China town to check out Fan Tan Alley
*2 young guys going through garbage cans say hi and tell me I’m beautiful…oh yeah, I ‘ve still got it…and by it, I mean the ability to attract losers
*Can’t find Fan Tan Alley..leave disappointed and feeling unsuccessful in tourist capacity, now I’m the loser..2 guys looking good now Ms. HighandMIghty
*Make way down to walk the waterfront..start at Empress Hotel…my mermaid that I enjoyed on Wed. isn’t there yet..thinking of donning a couple of barnacles and taking over her busker spot
*Follow shore around through all sorts of beautiful condos and hotels
*Low Tide…see Freaky seaweed trees…oooooo…scary
…saw some dungeness Crabs crawling on the rocks…last time my ex and I were in Nanaimo we caught a bunch and took them home..good eating..yum
…Red Jellyfish didn’t make it back to water…too far away to poke it..but the urge there….oooooooo….jelly!
*Crazy water highway…pontoon planes going up and down every 5 min, little putt putt tour butts buzzing by non-stop, huge yachts and sailboats going in and out
*Making way to the Fisherman’s Wharf…finally see what looks like a floating trailer park..yahoo! I made it…funny floating houses…some so tiny they look like you couldn’t stand in them, some look like miniature dollhouses, some look really funky and boast hardwood floors and gas fireplaces and proudly say “Unsinkable” all for $99,990.00
*Go to Barb’s Fish and Chips because my friend Peter tells my daughter I should go…Sammy the seal is there!….floating in the water waiting for a hand-out…wow, not often you see a wild seal so close by….not close enough to poke at…but the urge there…..oooooooooo…..sealy!
*Head back to Empress Hotel
*Have iced tea on the front balcony of Empress Hotel…costs me $4 but I feel like Ernest Hemingway…not sure why, but I did, so don’t belittle my reality.
*Go back down to waterfront…my mermaid finally dragged her butt out of the seaweed bed…watch Mermaid…mental note….take longer poking stick tomorrow
*Get on little Putt putt boat to take the Gorge Cruise..1 hour cruise…it was good…learned of all the history of Victoria…ticked off I learnt something while touristing
*Headed back to Chinatown…found Fan Tan Alley…my mission is accomplished I may return home
*Stop at florist and get flowers for Louise
*Stop at Liquor store…pay outrageous price for bottle of wine…Ontario, never deregulate!
*Louise throws dinner party, meet Kathleen and Bruce, nice people, have great meal…the Martha Stewart artery clogger meal..lot’s of drinks
*Good Day

Apparently, much to Tippi’s chagrin this tour is not an ethereal happening

The road that preceeds Ryan St on the top of Mt. Stephen…where it actually first starts to level out…is called Acton St….it’s worth the drive to Acton!…(audible groans)…oh yes, I know it’s bad

Ok, so Day 1 in Victoria and it’s a busy one…I’ve settled in as best as possible with my 115lbs of luggage…made friends with the dog, Blanche…a very active Border Collie pup who never tires of playing tug on the chew toy…pirated a local wi-fi signal and now it’s time to figure out what I’m up against…where am I in relation to everything…so I set out for the walk to my venue….it’s a very brisk walk of 30-35min and I’m booting it…but I get to see the neighbourhood, and it’s cute..and I make my way with little problem to my venue…making mental notes of where to eat, where to get my water bottles and olives,nails re-done etc…now that I’m there I decide to set out for a tour of Victoria…and it’s really a beautiful city…it has everything…the touristy mecca stuff, the historic buildings, the lush vegetation, an active cultural climate, the ocean…it’s really a fantastic city…and clean!..and compact and artsy….and it will take me at least 3 days to scratch the surface..so after 3 hours of walking I figure I should head back to get ready for the performer get together at Adrianne’s Cocchina Mexicana Restaurant for 5:00 so off I go….and there it is…..Mt. Stephen…the road that stands between me and home….the vertical incline that is the drill sargeant to my flabby ass…the stretch of road that I so easily overlooked as I was coming down ….only now to realize that Mt. stands for Mount, which is short for Mountain…so with resolve I start up it…thighs burning, lactic acid accumulating…then as if to mock me, the Oak trees begin…and with Oak trees you get acorns…or natures ball-bearings…so now panting heavier than I’ve ever done since I was 16 and in the back of my boyfriends TR-7, trying to keep my footing, I, dogged Capricorn, plug away at doing my zodiac right…two young girls are on their descent with their cool, dry skin and full breath chatty conversation…I hold my breath until they pass so I don’t have to hear their school girl laughs as they taunt the wheezing old lady…I palpably hate them as they pass…finally, slowly, with legs that seem to singly attract all of the gravimetric forces on the planet I near the pinnacle….fuck! I have to do this at least 13 more times…asthma inhaler in hand I fling myself onto my bed..realizing that I need to leave in 15 min if I’m going to get there in time…so now, not Colette, but Gumby girl heads out….back down the beast, briskly walking the 25 min to the restaurant…screw the no drinking before the show rule…where is the sangria?…..55 min later…I’m heading back….insert sounds of little girl crying…I drag myself back home to shower and Tippify myself so that I’m ready for the 9:30 fringe preview at my venue…with no idea what I’m going to say…let alone whether I can lift my leg to get up on the stage…it’s a big crowd…rowdy…and there to support the local talent…they are savvy theatre goers…I finally get on stage second last at 11:20pm…and I’m not silly, nor hip hop, nor young and it’s all of a sudden quiet….do they hate me?…I have no idea…when I first saw Alex Dallas on stage…it was just her and quiet…she filled the room…a presence was commanded…I thought…shit! she own’s it…I can only hope that one day that is what I will do too!…..I took a cab home!

Staging Sauciness
Once again, the Fringe raises the curtain on throbbing theatre
By RINGO WILDE

Coat me in peanut butter and roll me in sesame seeds while I gargle stream of consciousness poetry Darlings, it’s Fringe time again. My
favourite part of the Fringe Festival? Those daring and darling outlandish exhibitionists who just can’t resist getting strange on stage. And who can blame them? If my day job wasn’t bogging me down, I think I’d be developing a Fringe show based on my own nightlife as Victoria’s preeminent kisser and teller. Just imagine the costumes.Same as every Fringe, this year has a few shows guaranteed to pull in some box office based solely on their saucy content. I mean, what healthy hedonist wouldn’t be interested in checking out a live touring version of the KamaSutra, direct from India? Especially when it’s promising a translation featuring “clear and sexually frank Englishâ€?(which is always so much better than muddled and asexually boring Hindi). Then there’s that tasty lesbian dildo scene in Cannibal: The Musical, a sequence which I hope they’ve extended with the current remount of last year’s late-night Fringe fave. And, of course, we can also look forward to Pride diva April O’s one-woman show “Feel BetterDear?â€?—which, April promises, will be “full of lust, power and masturbation . . . . and a lot of umbrellas, but I’ll leave that up to people’s imagination.â€? (April, you minx!)

But this year’s naughty three seem to be Bullfrog Lullaby,which promises “tea and bondage� (how Victorian!), TippiSeagram’s Happy Hour (“Comic Confessions of a Casting Couch Cougar�), and, naturally enough, the lickable BawdyNights. And while the latter sounds like it could well be based on my life, turns out it’s actually a lusty spin on a 500-year-old story The Decameron, for all you frustrated lit majors out there). Better still, it’s the work of local lad Jim Leard, the man who (ahem) swiped my column name for a different Fringe show a couple of years back. And while I personally can’t imagine the 13th century being particularly sexy, Leard says yes.“Lust was on the rise, so to speak,� he explains. “Coming out of the dark ages, people started to have a bit of time on their hands and, not having television, they turned to each other—and each other’s partners—for entertainment. They began to travel again and needed a place to stay; stories that mirror the ‘traveling salesman’ stories got their start as people would offer money to stay with local farmers and their families and, well, their daughters.� But just how bawdy will these Tales be? “You will see some actors having fun—fooling around with sexual situations and romantic entanglements,� teases Leard. “Having fun with people’s notions of what may be a little risqué. For some people it might be too much and they’ll walk out . . . but I always feel that there is nothing that you can’t do onstage as part of a story, as long as you approach it with a sense of good taste.� Wait, let’s go back to Bullfrog Lullaby’s tea and bondag for a minute. Since it’s a local production, was it written with Victoria kinksters in mind? “Until you mentioned it, Ringo, I hadn’t realized just how ‘terribly Victoria’ tea and bondage sounds,� laughs playwright Raquel Mann. “Then lastnight, I kept having dreams about the Queen in leather lingerie with the nipples cut out, squealing while gigantic high heels marched to British war songs all over her stomach . . . but to answer your question, no, I did not have a particularly Victorian audience in mind. On one hand, the story is raw and rusty with a redneck edge; on the other, it’s urban underground, twisted kink.�And was there any bondage experts brought in for consultation, or does Mistress Mann have, er, experience aplenty? “A very close friend of mine has been working as a dominatrix in Montreal for close to three years now,� says Mann. “I spent some time living with her, and after a long day of work, we’d sip on Jagermeister and discuss the psychology of her latest client. But the session undertaken by the dominatrix in Bullfrog Lullaby will be far from accurate. Mistress Shandra La Torrent is the worst dominatrix in the dungeon and that is what much of the comedy in the piece revolves around.�
As for that Happy Hour, just how cheeky will Tippi Seagram get? Happy Hour is definitely cheeky, darling!� toasts Seagram (okay, it’s really her other half, actress Colette Kendall, but let’s just go with it, shall we?). “It’s very tongue-in-cheek . . . that is, my tongue and your cheek.� Yum! Now we’re talking. And isn’t it delightful that Seagram is a confident cougar, while Kendall is most definitely a yummy mummy herself. “Cougar is really just a polite way of saying you have an experienced pussy,� quips Seagram. “Ten more years and I’ll be a sabertooth! Grrrrr!� “The response from the audiences has been amazing,� she continues. “Essentially, I’m a middle-aged housewife and mom of three young children with no theatre background who hit 40 and said, ‘Screw it, I’m going for it!’ Women especially love that Tippi is not only strong and confident but that she oozes sexual confidence as well—she refuses to be invisible to anyone under 30.� Hear, hear, Darling! Ringo’s with you, and I hope you’ll be with me at the Fringe this year. I’ll be the one offering real tea and bondage.