August Ends...

So that's it. The Festival is over. Just like that. Well, not exactly just like that -- it's been a long, heavy haul. It was a lot of work, but it was fun and definitely worth it. The last week or so, especially, has been especially crazy, not in terms of work so much but more in terms of celebrating the end. I now realize just why it is deemed a bad thing for bars/pubs/clubs/beer gardens/venues to be open until 5am... A few too many nights in the library bar (where we got in thanks to Fresh Air connections, woo!) that just ended up being rather ridiculous.

But now that the Festival's over, I can see the city slowly emptying out and getting back to normal. Just in time for me to leave. I've got mixed feelings about going home: on the one hand I'm not ready to leave Edinburgh, but on the other I'm never going to be ready to leave and I am looking forward to seeing my parents and friends and home again. It's very bittersweet. I wish I could go home for a month and then come back and continue things here. But that's the way life marches on, with regard only for plans and programs and other such reasonable things. I am going to miss my friends here so, so much.

I honestly cannot believe how fast the summer has gone by. It feels like it's been a large chunk of time -- that's for sure -- but that it's just passed very quickly. Time flies when you're working 39 hours a week in a crap job, and even more so when you're running coverage of the Festival.

Let's try and think of more Festival highlights, put a slightly happier spin on things:
-A record 6 (possibly 7) "celebrity" sighting night: Frank Skinner, Mark Watson, Jimmy Carr, Jonny Vegas, Mickey Flanagan, and Kirsten O'Brien. Best bit: Tim going up to Jimmy Carr and Jonny Vegas (who were talking to each other) and asking for a photo: (in a very obnoxious American accent) "Are you Jim and John from Ipswich?"
-People watching in the Library Bar: the woman who told me, "Oh no, it makes you look fabulous, daaaaahling" with reference to my strong but expensive cocktail; Uncle Pervert; an American comic (one of the Walsh Brothers) passing out pink balloons; Arnab Chanda and Dan Clark; a comic who claimed his boyfriend was going to kill him for dying their dog puce (he spilled beet juice on it); and so on and so on.
-PR people shepherding guests up to the studio, with their various egos (the PR, not the performers). The best comment, from one particular woman with expensive-looking sunglasses, too much botox, and braces: "Oh, these celebrities, you just can't trust them to be reliable can you?" Honey, I'm sure all the comedians and acts you represent are talented in their own right, but unless they're performing at Edinburgh Castle this Fringe, they're not celebs. You're wishing you were in LA repping Posh n' Becks, and have taken it as a personal insult to your ego that you are not realized to your full career potential. (Sorry for the heavy psychoanalysis -- I may have been away for a year, but I understand the LA-style-glamour-mindset all too well.)
-A fantastic and hilarious interview I did with The Brothers Juan from The Incredible Bull Circus
-Getting 100+ reviews of Fringe shows up on the Fresh Air website! Many thanks to all those who wrote them and helped me post them up when I was lagging behind!
But the best was realizing the dream. Okay, that doesn't really mean anything, never mind. What I mean is, for our first year as press for the Fringe Festival, we did an amazing job, quite frankly. It was the hope that in a few years venues would be using quotes and stars from our reviews to put up on the posters and press boards around town... Welcome to the future:


And those are only a couple of the dozens that are up around town. Ace.

We did bang-on good job, in my opinion, with over 100 reviews and 127 interviews up on the website. All of them quality. Of course I may be a little bit biased, but for a student radio station competing with the likes of festival press heavyweights The Scotsman (big newspaper), Three Weeks (massive compilations of reviews), The Skinny (awesome alternative magazine), and others, we've done excellently. I think it's very telling that most people assumed we were getting paid for our work, and were very surprised to find out we were all volunteers. Right, enough tooting my own horn.

I have learned that I never want to work for the media. Well, that's a lie -- I never want to work in marketing. I hate selling things (note my hasty departure from the shop floor of Monsoon). I'm rubbish at promoting things I have no interest in. Ergo, I'm better at evaluating and covering culture than trying to get someone a better slot or more press. I'd rather be the press. Whee. Future in journalism? Who knows. Future at all? I thought we were here.

See you back in the states in 10 days.