BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 179 - End Of The Line

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

The fronge is over and Pierre is rotting! Thanks for coming to our shows guys, normal-is service resuming shortly. The country is going to the dogs, Queen's impressions, the terrible memory, Phil's forbidden show, the Bedouin, the Edinburgh bin collection strike and rats. Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Budpod 179. 179, end of the line. End of the line, Piers. The last day of the Edinburgh Fronge for you. I'm still here at the Frong. We're recording this on Sunday because Phil is going to meet the Queen. He's going to put on some big boots

and walk to London to meet the Queen and make his fortune. Yes. She says she's got a tempting proposition for me. An offer I can't refuse were her exact words. And she did the Marlon Brando voice as well. She's a fabulous impressionist, Her Majesty. People don't realise that.

Yeah, yeah. That's why she really keeps her cards close to her chest. It's rare to hear her speak at all. And when we do hear her speak, we can't be sure that that's her actual voice because she might be doing one of her excellent impressions. Yeah. I mean, we all remember when she announced

the birth of Prince Harry in a sort of Schwarzenegger voice that was quite topical at the time. Obviously, these days, the Queen wouldn't do that. It would be quite hack to do a Schwarzenegger impression. Yeah, Schwarzenegger at this point is... Yeah, it's a bit old hat, and the Queen is nothing if not...

New hat. A new hat. Well, I mean, she literally wears a new hat. Well, I mean, she literally wears an old hat. Her job is literally to wear an old hat. But it's comedy styling. She very much pushes the envelope. Yeah.

She's an innovator. She's got high standards and yeah, just a great natural mimic. So, so, beta she's got high standards um and yeah just a great natural mimic um so so so we're recording as a result on sunday the 28th of august the day of my final night of my fringe run as you can hear my voice is on its way out but compared to some people eg friend of the podcast and excellent comedian garen mill. I'm doing okay. But Phil, the bins in Edinburgh. The bins. Oh my lord.

I mean, it was already untenable when I left like a week ago. I can't imagine what it's like now. Oh, it's just like probably like times two or three. So is it just like bags and bags of rubbish along on the ground? it's not even necessarily

bags today it's quite bad i've actually just seen garrett's instagram story very funny it was um the streets of philadelphia by bruce springsteen or something i think while he was just filming like a tracking shot of rubbish bearing in mind that we're now post a Saturday night. Oh, there'll be shit and vomit. It's a shit and vomit. There's a lot of vomit. There's pizza boxes, like loose rubbish from like takeaway. They must just be rotting food in the streets.

Well, they did warn us of a rat surge, didn't they? Yeah, a rat surge. I had a very funny conversation with jacob hawley excellent comedian last night and he was grabbing me by the shoulders and saying a rat surge i'd never heard the phrase rat surge a surge in rats They're all already rats. But there's going to be a surge. Yeah. Hey, you know those rats?

Yeah. They're a surgeon. Oh, man. They're a surgeon. That's terrible. And it rained on Friday, so then that added an element of watery stink. Ugh. Great. Yes.

So the rats can swim now. Oh, rats can swim, baby. I don't think they like it, but they can. Rats afloat. Yep. Rats afloat. Oh, my lord. I cannot believe I'm still at the fringe.

It feels like I was born here. You sound like the sickest man in the world. I hope you mean like in a kind of devil horns way. Your sinuses sound like they're just full of wet cement. Oh no, I don't like that. I don't like that one bit. Yes, it's mainly voice, but I'm sure there's some sinus action in there somewhere.

I've never been very clear on what sinuses should be filled with or if they should be full. I'm not entirely sure where they are. Are they just behind the nose? They seem to go along the cheekbones in a kind of U-shape, don't they, judging from the semi-3D advert graphics for hot tea that I've seen. Hot tea in your area. Local hot tea.

Local hot tea. Want your mouth. Comforting nannas want to make you hot tea in your area. comforting nannas want to make you hot tea in your area um well i have to say it's it's weird to to come to london and go ah clean but when i got back from edinburgh i was like astonished it felt like london had had just had like a million cleaners in and they'd done a bang up job. It takes a lot to make London

feel as clean as somewhere like Singapore but Edinburgh's done it. Edinburgh's done it. Very effective time to go on a binge strike though I mean you know they picked the right time. Yeah yeah yeah. I mean it's very very embarrassing for the city of Edinburgh.

It's not ideal.'s gross it's stinky it's not making people want to come back to the fringe put it that way the mood is low Philip the mood is low it's been a long month but I mean the one highlight not the one highlight but one of the major

highlights has been the sheer number of Kojis in the show, coming out the show, after the show. Fabulous, fabulous. Yes, there have been many pod buds at the Fringe supporting myself and supporting Pierre. Very welcome, very nice to meet you. I always feel like, whenever I talk about pod buds. I always feel like whenever I talk about pod buds, I always feel like Donald Trump. How so? Like the way

I can feel myself wanting to speak like him. There's been a lot of people, big supporters, great to see them, great people, very fine people. Some people are saying the best people. It's into that kind of rolling dementia rhetoric that he has. Yeah. We're going to get

the pod buds to storm the Pleasant's Dome. Take the fringe back. Just storm the Scottish Parliament and demand rent that doesn't require a mortgage. I'm always amazed by how many pod buds there are they they emerge loads

yeah it's like fight club it's like it turns out everyone's a member but let's keep it a secret because it's so shameful i like i do like the fact that like um i'll be sort of in my venue just before my show and just waiting for the bar to clear and they'll just be like some guy buying a pint and like just like a normal looking guy like he doesn't necessarily give any sign that he he particularly knows that i'm actually the act and then just as he sort of brushes past me he just goes go drink what he described him was the way people should describe uh their neighbor who turned out to be a serial killer. He's just a normal-looking guy. He's just like an everyday guy, really. Is he?

But apparently he was listening to podcasts about poo the whole time. Oh, it's horrible to think that, you know, on any given day he could have been down in that basement just laughing at poo. That would be funny, to play, like, the intro music or theme from Dexter, and it's just a guy listening to podcasts. Yeah. So are you heading back to London tomorrow?

Tuesday morning, me and Mr. Alex Keeley, excellent comedian, friend of the podcast, and Edinburgh Flatmate are going to use the Monday as a sort of airlock between this and reality. Yeah, that's a good call. So that's the theory, anyway, that's the plan in theory.

Because if you don't know listeners, and there's no reason why you should, a lot of Edinburgh Fringe runs, if you want, can end on the Monday. You do your last show on a monday and it's known as like um dirty monday or final monday and a lot of people don't do it because they tried it once and numbers just collapse everyone in the normal world thinks the fringe is over often you will be doing your show on monday in a venue that's being taken apart around you like an insane the insane officer of a fallen

fort yeah fools Monday they call it I got the train back on Wednesday Thursday Thursday I think Thursday morning

And In this day and age Pierre I was You're not gonna believe this The train Was not over It wasn't overbooked

What? It set off on time What? And it got to London On time No, no, no On time. The whole way.

Smooth as you like. Smooth. I was astonished. This country's losing its identity. It's... The country was going to the dogs, but now the dogs are returning the country, Pierre. The dogs are giving the country back.

At last! The dogs are giving the country back. At last! The dogs are giving the country back. The dogs have sent the country back, or at least handed it. They've picked up the country in their mouths, and they've returned it. And now they're looking back up at you, panting, hoping you throw the country

again. Yeah, they're hoping we're going to throw the country to the dogs again. People always say the country's going to the dogs, but they never admit when the dogs return it, because the dogs have to return the country occasionally, otherwise we wouldn't be able to keep saying the country's gone to the dogs.

No, well maybe it's like Achilles and the tortoise, and the country's always going to the dogs, but it can never reach the dogs. Right, yes, of course. Unless there's a level of shitness that we could reach as a country where the queen would have to go on tv and go the dogs have got the country

it's over now the dogs have got it she just she looks like she's going to take off her crown, and as she does it, she just takes off her head, and that's it. Broadcast ends. She just pulls her head off her shoulders.

Yeah. With the crown, though. As if the crown is part of her head. The dogs have got the country. They do an x-ray of her head and the crown, and it's like the bones go into the crown. Like, it's all one bone imagine it's all one skull

great death metal cover yeah yeah that'd be pretty sick actually and then the title of the album would be the dogs have the country yeah the dogs the eyes have it the dogs Yeah, the dogs instead of the eyes have it. The dogs have it?

The dogs have it. Imagine the fear that would spread across the land if suddenly there was a special broadcast from the Queen and she went the dogs have got the country and then it's cut out. Yeah, then just like from just into frame the paw of one of the corgis

holding a 9mm gun. And then the feed just goes up. Yeah. Just like static. Gosh. Do you remember it sometimes feels like a fever dream Boris Johnson getting on the tv and going

we together we shall defeat the virus did that really happen i was talking to someone about this last night and memory and the perception of time is a funny thing because well she was saying that um the past year has gone by very quickly because we've been let out again into our lives. And I suppose in a way it has gone by quickly. But in the moment it feels longer because time feels to be going slower the more things you're doing because there are more memories that you're making. So, for example, when you go on holiday and you have a packed schedule, you get to the end of the day and you go, God, can you believe we were at la sagrada de familia this morning that feels like a week ago because they've been they've been so much action right yes but during the lockdown

it felt slow then because nothing was happening but in memory now the whole lockdown to me feels short because I can't remember that many actual instances during it. So is it possible to think that things can feel like time can feel like it's going slowly in the moment, but quickly in retrospect and vice versa? I think that's it. I mean, lockdowns have all sort of blended into one. I think that's it. I mean, lockdowns have all sort of blended into one. And I find that when I'm speaking to people, I delete the time from my reference area.

Yeah, yeah. So I'll be like, oh, I saw you last year. And it's like, no, it was three years ago. Yeah, that happens so much as fringe, bumping into other people I know from the industry and going, oh, hey, man, and talking to them with the familiarity of having seen them a month ago. And then slowly the new

wrinkles like come into focus and they'll go no we haven't seen each other since pre-pandemic and then my mind will rattle through the the last few years and all the distress and all the all the unprecedented experiences and i'll go so the last time I saw this person in person was before all that happened. And all that has happened since. And it makes me quite emotional. It makes me quite sad. Yes, I think there's a real melancholy to it

where you go, all that time, all that time just gone. Yeah. Spent. And I don't think it happened with something like World war ii because world war ii they were as you say quite busy yeah to then in world war like in 1946 i'm sure if you last saw someone in 1939 you'd be like god it feels like a million years ago because i've you know i've been doing all blah blah blah and you've been away doing so much has. Whereas what's unique about lockdown and the pandemic is that it was just this huge slice of nothing pie. Activity-wise.

Unless you're a doctor or something. But I mean, for people like you and me, where our jobs are just like, jobs cancelled, sit at home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very strange.

Yeah. But I wonder if it's... But then again, it's also like a coping mechanism, isn't it? If you were consistently and accurately aware of the last time you'd seen everybody in your life system, it would be traumatic. It would be too much. Yes, I suppose so.

I mean, I like what you said about the wrinkles or the changes in people's faces because there's been a lot of weird time travel aspects of that in the fringe, for me at least. Yeah. Yeah. Without naming anyone who we're going to decide has aged more than anyone

else. I've been moisturizing like a motherfucker the last three years so that I'm the only one who comes out looking the same. Yeah, it looks like you've time traveled and weird in the future yeah and i've been saying what pandemic a lot um and then making sort of confused face and then checking my phone and going holy shit what and just seeing how people react imagine that would be quite funny like a time travel movie where someone goes forwards in time but only by about

four years so the main character has to keep being like whoa well no that was kind of starting when I left okay yeah I mean we're not going to use this podcast to shame the aging

process Phil there are plenty of magazines and TV shows that are totally designed for that oh yeah they've got it covered what will you miss from this year's Fringe Pierre and what will you not miss oh I will

not miss the not a lot of sleep and the and the the fact that when you get the adrenaline from the show you kind of i mean obviously you don't have to drink ever but you you need something to kind of settle you or you feel like yeah yeah i won't miss that um it's nice to do a show every day to people who like it. That's quite nice. Yes, yes, yes. It's a very clear sense of purpose for the day. Yes, and you've had a great run as well. It's gone well.

People have been very nice. Yeah, it's great to be able to perform a show you're proud of every day for a month because I've had the experience of performing a show that I know is shit for a month, and that is not fun it turns out are we talking about your forgotten friend? I don't want to

I don't even want to mention its name I think it wasn't as bad as you think but I do like how it holds this kind of evil and apocalyptic place in your memory memory in your personal mythology it's like it's like a demon child i keep in the attic and i don't want to talk about it

and from time to time i remember it exists and i just go like that yeah but um but performing a show that's good is fun. I think, yeah, 2017 was that for me. I had a hot show. I had this newfound... It was my phoenix from the ashes. It was from my worst show to my best show. And I'd come into my own, as they say.

And that was a thrill, Pierre. That was so fun. I'd come into my own, as they say. And that was a thrill, Pierre. That was so fun. Do you think that you were hyper-motivated to have an excellent show because of your horror? What my third show taught me was I wasn't that kind of comedian.

I tried to make what I thought was an Edinburgh Fringe show and had a story and had sadness and had gimmick. And it was bad and so it kind of gave me i saw drew a line under that i suppose it made it it showed me oh i'm not this comedian i just i write bits i write routines and that's what i'm good at and focus on that and i think that that was good for me yeah that's good. It's good when you can say to yourself,

well, I've tried it and I'm not that X next. Yes, exactly, exactly. It's just a shame to have to try it for a month. The thing about experiments is usually you only have to observe one failure before you can move on. But to observe a failure 26 times in a row is bad science, if nothing else.

Yeah, you definitely ground that particular thesis into the dirt, I guess. Yeah, maybe that's it. It is a funny Groundhog Day scenario. God. yeah maybe that's it it is funny groundhog day scenario god as women our life stages come with unique risk factors like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke know your risks visit heartandstroke.ca but it was so fun this year i i was i did kind of want to stay because you know you you really

are just in a beautiful city surrounded by your friends and booze and and and and if you're doing well fans that's it's so nice. It's so nice. It's very nice. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because Edinburgh is the nice version of something like a fan. Whereas you and I both know people famous enough that when they have fans, sometimes if they're too famous, the fans are like, Oi! Oi! It's you!

Like, insane. It's a subset of your fans who will go to an arts festival which is a nice subset yes if you get all your fans and you go okay hands up who can read and then most people's

hands go up and you go okay who reads for fun though loads of hands go down and you go that's, who reads for fun, though? And then loads of hands go down. You go, that's what I thought. Okay. If your hand's up, come with me. I'm trying to construct a fan base almost entirely of people who, well, people like me, Phil. Dorks, nerds, bookworms. Yes, more people like us.

Fewer people like everyone else. That's what I say. I'm very pro in-group, Phil. I don't know if you knew that about me and I hate the out group me and my brother against my cousin me and my brother and my cousin against was it oh no me against my brother me and my brother against our cousin

me and my brother and our cousin against the, my brother, and our cousin against the world. That's how I... That's how life works. All of us in the world against Mars. Yes, and then us and Mars against... The Vulgatrons from Nebulon 5. Yes, who are inevitably as we've discussed before on this podcast

if they're Marvel villains, either bugs or robots Yeah Because it's okay to kill bugs and it's okay to kill robots Famously It's famously encouraged What, where's that

What's that from? It's an old Bedouin saying apparently those Bedouins yeah apparently gosh I wouldn't have associated the Bedouins with such an anti-the-world

thing well I mean they're like a nomadic desert tribe it sort of makes sense yeah you've got to be pretty grumpy sand and everything oh god that's the real end of the saying um me and the world against sand that's the ultimate enemy for the bedouins well yeah that's i mean the most famous saying of the bedouin people is oh i fucking hate sand do you think um do you think the bedouin like in the sahara desert do you think there's a point where like i don't know well like you know how you know global warming the temperature's going up but for them i guess if the temperature gets high

enough you do just die and all the oasis oases evaporate but for them it's like oh no it's gone from 40 degrees to 44 degrees and it's like well they're on the cutting edge whatever oh right so you're saying they notice it less or are you saying they're on the cutting edge of of global warming because i guess i'm saying that the minimum version of it they notice less the the extreme version of it, they're at the cutting edge. Yeah, sure. It's like when Canadians tell me, having gone through a minus 40 winter, that you don't really feel much difference

after minus 20. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's sort of absolutely insane sentiment. You just think, I guess everything's frozen whatever yeah it's um god minus 40

fuck that no thanks no at least the heatwave isn't going on Edinburgh anymore can you imagine the garbage and the heatwave at the same time well it was quite sunny yesterday and it was pretty stonky. Oh no!

Yuck! Yuck! And it seems pretty sunny so far today. We'll see. Stinky stonks. Stinky stonks for all the little honks. That's what I call clowns. Stinky stonks from the little honks.

Here we are at the Edinburgh fronks from the little hongs Here we are at the Edinburgh fronks My word Do you think you're going to do the frong next year? Do you think the frong will be normal again? I might do the frong next year just because it's so fun

and I might try and do something a bit different or just like maybe experiment with something. Having just recounted how disastrous an experiment in Edinburgh can go. Yeah. I had a real urge to do something a bit musical. Because I keep making songs up on here. And you're a lovely singer. Thank you.

And friend of the pod mari said when she tuned into bacon white she thought it was a real song yes they thought they found this silly song that must have been what they were talking about yeah so yeah i might i might i want to do like like a Rat Packy style show, but I don't know how it would work. It would work however you like, however you can dream. Thank you!

How about you? Do you think you'll be back again? Yes, I'm I've got to. You've got to do it. It's the big boy. It's the big boy, Phil. You can't avoid it.

It's going to come eat everyone's children. By the time I come back, the rats will be in charge. I'll rent a room from them. Try and learn how to do jokes for rats. Jokes for rats is a good name for your next show I think someone's show up is up this year that's called laugh you rats oh yes I saw that that's a good title it's a really funny title

laugh you rats that really made me laugh what would jokes for rats be I guess you could do like you could riff on some stereotypes like, what's it do with mice and cheese? I mean, where do you even get dairy from if you're a mouse? What cows are they milking?

Just drink the milk, mice. What is this perverse process you're engaging in? Well, it's another shortish one for this week folks because Pierre is dying in real time live on the podcast active rotting

mindful rotting that's what they call it Pierre's gonna walk out and just and then just join the rubbish on the street just gonna fall down into the rubbish and just become the rubbish as the street just kind of fall down into the

rubbish and just become the rubbish as well that would be really funny just to watch someone walk past the rubbish and then just very gently just lie down amongst it but like not in not in like a making themselves comfortable way like not plumping up the rubbish bags like a pillow but just lying rag doll suddenly and then one of those sort of time lapses where frame by frame you just become the rubbish like like like the cover of an animal spilled book but instead of you turning into an animal it's just you turning into bags of rubbish it's like your arms become a bunch of like McDonald's cups your torso's a bin bag and your yeah your bum is like an old

football or whatever yeah just like from bin bags to bin bags the Piano Valley story from bin bags to bin bags bums to bums but yes apologies listeners for my rotting in my voice, but it's the last day of the Fringe. Soon we'll be free,

and koji to everyone who has come and made it such a great month. Yes, koji to all, and to all a good night. God bless. Bye. Bye-bye.