SHOCKER! Stars are Just Like Us

Speaking of making money on a cross Canada comedy tour, sometimes you have to go that extra mile in order to make ends meet. Sometimes you have to really WORK that extra mile...along the highway...

Thanks Pete!

Now we have enough $$$ to share a big Timmy Ho's coffee WITH sugar and cream! That should last us a few days...


SHOCKER! Stars are Just Like Us - they comb the highways for change, JUST LIKE YOU!

The Squattinators

The continuing adventures of OBNH, entering your hearts, and homes, whether you're there or not...

1. It doesn't take a genius, or an extra large pocket calculator, to figure out that OBNH needs a home for a few days between the Montreal and Toronto fringes.

2. Enter, this unsuspecting Southern Ontario home. No really, enter it. We did.

3. This is the house's owner, Atticus. Atticus' human caretakers are in between moving out of their apartment and into this bungalow. Cue Trev and Zed!

4. Trev makes friends easily. Atticus says we can hang out at the house for a few days.

5. Hmmm... they've already started moving some boxes over... and they're full of booze! How convenient! We were getting thirsty after our long travels.

See more in Part Duh of our travels.

The Squattinators - Part Duh.

1. Hey - Trev found a drinking vessel! Thanks, Atticus!
2. Aahhh, that's refreshing.
3. Feeling peckish? Hey that PFK we bought 4 days ago in MTL should still be good. The chicken shouldn't feel bad for being old, after all, these china plates are over 100 years old!
4. Mmmm-mmmm. That's "place au gout" - where taste lives, all right.

The Squattinators - Part Turd.

Well, it's time for a nap - hey, here's a handy bed! Thanks again, Atticus!

Just as PFK only lasts so long unrefrigerated, so our welcome only lasts so long too. Time to hit the road, Trev. Oh - I meant figuratively, not literally! Oh well, we WERE wondering where our next meal was coming from.

Buzz buzz

The Montreal Gazette didn't review our show, however they did list it as the show with the Biggest Buzz!

Tell your friends...

Clog-Dor!

Welcome to our tribute to Trogdor, the Burninator, created by Strong Bad of Homestarrunner.com

Truly, there were about 5000 things we "inated" when we first arrived in MTL. it was REALLY funny for about 58 hours straight. Maybe we were a little tired... Judge for yourself.





For the follow-up, "Son of Clogdor" see below when we visited our local Pierrette.


Pete Wins! 1st Prize - double bypass surgery! Yay!

The Fringe Honeymoon is Over

Literally. Tonight is the big Fringe Anulment Party.

As Jem Rolls pointed out tonight, it's pretty tough to do Montreal at the beginning of the fringe circuit. It is the biggest 10 day party you will have all year. Last night was insane in the best possible way. People were dressed to the nines - many beautiful wedding dresses were donned, and not all by ladies. The ceremony itself was presided over by Jeremy Hechtman, head honcho of the fringe, and temporary Rabbi. The mass vows included "I promise to see your show and to buy you at least one beer." The festivities were further punctuated by the usual 13th Hour Traditions of having guests spin the Big Wheel of Fun, which include such possible imperatives as, "33 Second Dance Party," "11 Second Slow Dance," and my personal favourite, "22 Second Hanakengo Party."

Speaking of Hanakengo, like all weddings, the night was not without bittersweet moments - Trev is still available, and although the Dancing Cock Brothers offered to "marry anybody left over," Gina and I felt a little too proud for Pity Marriage, even if it is the fringe. Paul Hutcheson of On Second Thought - the love child of George Clooney and Bette Midler, I'm sure of it - had also offered to marry Gina and I, but we were separated by time and space; mainly there was no time to cross the infinitely packed-beyond-capacity space between us, crammed up between the speakers and the stage and the well of humanity, and the bar, where Paul had found himself wedged after his magnificent lip-synch opening to the 13th Hour, where he did a striptease to Hanson's Mmmm...Bop, eventually revealing an alligator crotch puppet G-string.

Paul is one of our favourite people here. Is that an alligator puppet in your pants, Paul, or are you just happy to see us? Apparently it is the former. Although he does look pretty happy.

Always a Fringe Bridesmaid, Never a Fringe Bride...

So there's this thing going one where there's going to be a mass wedding at the 13th Hour tomorrow night. And all week people have been getting engaged, and tonight things were coming to a head. It was the 13th Hour Bachelor/Bachelorette Party after all, and the hosts wanted to make sure that everyone was partnered for the big Totally Real Mass Wedding tomorrow (to be followed by the Mass Anulment on Saturday night).

Gina and I are as yet unproposed to. As in life, it would have been pretty easy to get Fringe Laid, but no one was going to make The Big Commitment, even for Pretendsies, even for ONE DAY. Sigh. I do feel a bit sorry for myself. I could have offered myself up for auction, but the previous guy who did that wound up being sold off to Crazy Super High Guy who didn't make any sense. And even if it's the Fringe, I didn't want to Pretend Marry a Loser. I still have Pretend Standards.

Others were luckier. Pete proposed to (and was accepted by) Hardcore Pussy, which we all agreed was quite a score. And Trev is more or less Fringe Engaged to one half of a Japanese Ladyboy Virus named HanaKengo. Because of the lack of translator, it's hard to tell if Hanakengo really understands, but it's pretty clear that Hanakengo is fond of Trev, and vice versa. Hey, let's face it, Hanakengo - whatever it is exactly - is a beauty.

I however have not given up hope. Tomorrow I will be on the lookout for a weiner dog I met in the beer tent, and hope to Fringe Marry him tomorrow night. I figure as long as I have bacon in my purse, I've got a date. Til Death do us part...or Sunday. Which ever comes first.

Montreal Reviews

The Net Buzz is In!

Reviews:

Just saw Jihad Me @ Hello. So completley offensively funny I'm still quoting it. If you don't leave laughing & annoyed you weren't listening.
Jean

I was laughing before the troupe even uttered a word. Funny, smart, silly, outrageous. An hour very well spent.
Danielle

So offensively funny, you'll feel like a monster for laughing. But laugh you will. How offensive? The humour starts with Hitler and rapidly goes downhill from there. A must see!
Simon

omg! amazing. SOOO offensive and SOOO funny. see it!
Anon

I went despite the buzz saying how offensive it was. I was pleased to find it very smart as well. If can handle south park you can handle this. Very accomplished performances as well.
Janet

Funniest show of the Fringe so far. Not for the easily offended
Anon

I want to run away and join the circus of pain.
Anon

Video: Panty Guard-ians

Peter and Trev do laundry on the road and stumble upon an interesting conundrum.

Metro Dance Party

Welcome to Montreal's latest sensation: Metro Dance Party.

This is the title we've given to the phenomenon whereby whenever Pete leaves the three of us for a SECOND, he comes back to a spontaneous dance party. Who knows why.

The first time it happened, it was around 10 pm as we were walking up St. Laurent. Pete ran into the drug store for A SECOND, and Trev started absently singing "I think I'm turning Japanese." So Gina and Nicole start absently dancing. Then the thing really gets going, and now Trev is really singing, and we're really dancing, and it's a party - and then two hippie French guys come up and start dancing with us, and now it's a Street Rave. So this is the sight when Pete comes out of the drug store - Trev, Nicole, Gina, and two strangers getting down to "I Think I'm Turning Japanese." He's like, "What the hell happened while I was gone?"

So it seems every time we're on the street with nothing to do for ONE SECOND, the dancing just happens. On the street, in a cafe, on the metro. The best was when we went to the 13th Hour, and the sound is pumping, and we're having our metro dance party on, and I stop and think, "Hey - this is great - this time there's real MUSIC!" So we danced our faces off.

Metro Dance party - Music Optional.

We Are TJ Dawe

This is not Peter Strand Rumpel eating poutine. We are TJ Dawe...

Let me explain. So a few days ago we run into TJ on the road - literally, cause it's in the middle of a street festival, so everyone's in the road. He says, "Hey what are you guys doing Monday night?" and we say, "Whaaaat did you have in mind?"

Turns out he has a corporate gig in the Virgin Islands on Monday night, but he ALSO has a fringe show: his latest one man show, Maxim & Cosmo, which is a very funny very erudite and personal look at the differences between men and women. Fair enough. So the deal is, he has to somehow cover his show HERE while he is performing THERE (in the Virgin Islands).

So he's gathered about 16 fringe artists (including us) together who will read his show out loud on Monday night (last night).

We got our pages a day or so later - each of us had 2 sections of about 3 pages each, and we'd seen the show (and loved it) and those who hadn't seen TJ before were heartened that all we had to do was sit on a stool and speak really really fast. It's a pretty dense show to pack into 90 minutes. At any rate, on Monday we practiced our lines by reading them over once and then spending the afternoon in Old Montreal. We later went to a Tim Horton's to late-minute-panic, and saw a man leaving Tim's with a manilla envelope just like the ones we were carrying. "Stop!" we shouted. We waved frantically. The man stopped, saw our envelopes, and came running in. Turns out he's in the show too. Paul is doing a one man show called On Second Thought and is also nervous about this whole "I am TJ Dawe" venture. We compare notes, we all relax and have a good laugh.

The evening itself was a blast. We knew a few of the people, and then met the rest there. It was a fun and exciting fly by the seat of your pants evening. Keir Cutler (Teaching Shakespeare) was our maestro and gave each person a signal when it was their turn to shadow the current reader and leap in at the appropriate moment. I have to admit that having hardly planned it at all, it worked out pretty darn good. It would have been worth doing even if it HADN'T been an emergency. That's the spirit of the fringe, after all. Just Make It Work. And sometimes, sometimes it's really really cool.

Thanks to TJ and all the great folks we got to play with.

Confession Cam: Gina

Finally, someone has something to say to the confession cam that does not involve my driving...

Confession Cam: Trev

Here, Trevor follows suit and reveals his secret fear on embarking on a cross country tour.



(Okay, guys, this is getting a bit redundant...)

Confession Cam: Peter

In this video, Peter confesses his secret fears about being on the road.

Hunt for Sasquatch

Ah...we've been away from home an entire week and we're already reminiscing about the GTs on the highway. From the vault of my camera, we bring you an undiscovered gem, the third and arguably "best" of the Songs for Sasquatch series...

Also serves as OBNH's "That Seventies Show Moment."

Reasons to Love Montreal

Reason #43: The Pierrette in our neighbourhood.

#59: Weirdos are just regular guys. Oh wait, that's Trev.
















Reason #63: Bagels. Fresh. Boiled. 24 hours a day.

Reason #71: Sexy families.

Reason #87: Young beautiful people in love.

Reason #101: Old Sketchy Weirdos in Love (there's someone out there for everyone here)

Reason #121: Great service. Thanks again, Melanie.

Reason #124: The BYOPBP parties (Bring Your Own Pot Bellied Pig)

...And many more!

Cabdor! - Cab-inating the City

So we do an 11:15 pm show tonight - great house, almost full and it's only the second day of the festival. Standing O from the drunk young man in the front row. A gaggle of youngins meets us outside after the show, congratulating us like, "oh guys! that was soooo awful! I loved it! Thank you!"

Feeling pretty good about ourselves we head down the crowded streets of St. Laurent at one in the morning. We head to the late night after fringe nightly talk show, The 13th Hour, but it's packed tight as a package of French cigarettes, so we decide to catch a cab home and get some sleep before the big Pancake Breakfast down at the beer tent tomorrow morning.

Reason #491 why Montreal rocks: You can always catch a cab. We grab the first one stopped at the light. Crabbie the Cabbie doesn't look too happy that we hopped in but he isn't kicking us out. Yet.

We tell him to head for Verdun Ave. He's like, "it's closed." We say, yes, there is one part that is under construction, but the road is generally still open.

He says, "I was just down there three times already. I go there, I come back, someone else wants to go back down."

As if it's our fault. I say, "we should have caught a ride with the last guys." He says, deadpanning, "You wouldn't have all fit."

So he blows through six red lights, speeding the whole way, and slows down briefly to point out the house where Pierre Eliot Trudeau lived. "Montreal - this is the greatest city in the world." I agree.

We burn down Atwater headed for Verdun. "The road is closed," he mentions again. Gina whispers that yes, a part of it is, but you can easily go around one block and - "

He cuts her off. "No. I go one more block and then you get out and walk. It's good for you."

He does exactly that. We pay him, thank him, ask him for a receipt. He yells at Trev, "You're sitting on my pen!" We get the receipt, thank him again, he's already slammed the door behind us and sped away into the night.

We love that guy.

Got Guelph?

Peter and I spent the night with my dear friend Nancy, who claims she is not "the crazy cat lady" even whilst she was apologizing for the "faint man-cat" smell in her tiny crooked 2nd storey attic apartment. Over the course of an amazing story that is too long to reproduce here, the smell is attributed to the random visits of 2 male strays, 2 feral squirrels, 1 raccoon, oh and one litter of 6 baby raccoons. That being said, the place did not smell THAT bad. However, the floors are a wee bit crooked and the ceiling a tad low, and according to Peter, made him more dizzy than when he lived on a boat.

The upside of Guelph was our breakfast at the World Famous Apollo Diner, which features a real live amateur oil painting of the Apollo Spacecraft. See above.

For me, moments before my morning coffee, see below.

Tour Sponsors

Obscene But Not Heard would like to thank the following unofficial Tour Sponsors who helped us make it on our long journey:

Junior Mints:
"Keeping Trev Focussed
"Since Hour 18"












Tim Hortons:
"The Drive Behind the Drive"

Where was this pic taken? Does it matter? We saw one every 5 kilometres.

















And last but not least,
Brandon, Manitoba, home of the
"Slurpaccino."

"Adding Sugar to Sugar Based Drinks Since 2005."

Driving Hazard #2: Sasquatch songs

Driving Hazard #1: Thunder Bay

Hour One - Hitting the Road

Our First Bump in the Trans Canada

If It's Hour 27 it Must Be Nipigon

It's Hour 27 on the road! That's without stops, except for pee breaks, food, and brief jaunt in Lake Ontario. Now it's lunchtime in Nipigon at the Esso restaurant and we're all a little punch drunk. Which is nothing like being actually drunk.

So far we:
1. Took two hours before we actually left the city limits.
2. Watched Shrek III on my iPod and listened to about 7 hours of Ricky Gervais podcasts over the Regina-to-Winnipeg loop.
3. Got caught between pouring rain and blinding sun alternating every three minutes - no kidding - from Dryden to Thunder Bay.
4. Got a speeding ticket just on the other side of T-Bay. We just can't get to the fringe fast enough!
5. Took a thigh high dip in the most beautiful section of Lake Ontario we could find. Also the coldest. I think my heart stopped twice from the shock.
6. Came up with one new sketch: The Guy From Jaws talks to little kids about the real life perils of the monsters under the bed. "Don't dangle your feet over - or a Great White will take off yer leg. And I've seen the size of the monster underneath...You're gonna need a bigger bed."
7. Came up with one new show: The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Fringe, wherin a sketch company short one member picks up a hitch-hiker and offers to take them across the country, on the condition that they agree to learn the show and perform in the next city.

And that's just the beginning! Imagine the adventures when we actually get where we're going!

Keep checking in, meanwhile check out the videos below.