I really can’t afford it but fuck it, I want this so bad. I went into Hawaii Express today and they had a Scott S40 down from 900€ to 600€ so I snapped it up right there. I have been beaming all afternoon and I can’t wait to pull on the lycra get back into the saddle tomorrow morning. That’s if it doesn’t snow. Yes. It’s sleeting now.

Here she is, endless kilometres around Tallinn await me!

April marks the 2 year anniversary of Comedy Estonia and we have something stupid like 7 shows going on. Then in May we have a tour too. So there is a lot happening.

Sometimes I get a bit frustrated because I have to constantly explain why I live here. I don’t blame people, it is natural to be curious so its ok but this weekend I have been asked about 28 times. That’s also before I got too drunk and stopped counting. God bless. I wonder if Dave Benton still gets asked. Maybe he will snap one day “I WON EUROVISION MOTHERFUCKER, FOR YEARS I WAS THE ONLY BLACK GUY HERE, HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW?”

Ive had a pelmeenid craving for a while now. Why are those little suckers so good with hapukoor? I like Hapukoor. I hate sour cream. In Australia sour cream is a shitty condiment we put on potato wedges at best. In Estonia, haupkoor gets put on everything and its a delicious and tasty addition in which every mouthful brings you closer to citizenship. Maybe it’s because it comes in a bag?

Here are some photos of the past month or so.

Estonian Air had a social media stunt where if you get a photo with their new plane, you get a discount. I got my photo and my discount.

I was in an ad recently where I had to wear a ring. Except the ring didn’t come off again and had to be cut off.

Stew performed at a party for some classy lawyers the other night. Really nice affair…

except for some reason among the very well dressed best and brightest of Talinn there was a person running around in a chicken suit.

Waterfalls outside of Tallinn, still icy

This guy in his Bentley was in such a hurry to park at Tallinn airport he left it up on the curb. Couldn’t the private jet wait a few moments longer?

Big and happy crowd at Möku for our open mic

Great, now I have the chicken dance stuck in my head!

2 years ago, 4 of us had an idea to do a few comedy shows in Estonia and see how it went. 2 years later its gone further than we ever imagined, we are putting on Dylan Moran in Tallinn. We put the tickets on sale last night at 22:00 and by 13:00 today the first round of 545 tickets had sold out. I can’t believe it. I am so proud of Comedy Estonia and the good people who run it, we have been working hard, putting on the shows and coming up with the jokes and now we have something to celebrate and share with everyone.

I love doing these comedy events because you make people happy, you create a good time and share it with people. I like to think our shows are inclusive. Come, share a good time with your friends.

So shit. First round tickets sold, more going onsale Monday. Not only am I promoting Dylan Moran in Estonia, Stewart and I are the warm up act too.  Sweet jesus, I’m the warm up for Dylan Moran. How am I supposed to do that? We are doing it in the Vene Kultuurikeskus too, which is a rocking retro building from Soviet times. The thing still has a hammer and sickle above the stage. I can’t think of a more perfect setting for this show.

Tickets back on sale Monday at Piletilevi

Good times. I’m hungry time for lunch

I like this one

It has been a big week. The biggest of weeks, the week to end the year. 5 shows, 4 days, 5 cities.

Tuesday: Tartu for the Estonian show. Small crowd but still into it. A fun night also that Nigel Williams joined us to hang out. Everyone got the practise they needed for the night after..

Wednesday: Club Prive Tallinn. Our first big Estonian language show. A night to remember. We had the crew plus Estonian celebrity comedian Peeter Oja performing and the house came down. We showed them that stand up comedy can be funny in Estonian.

Stewart Johnson on stage at the “Stand Up Comedy with Louis and Eric” Estonian show

Thursday: Apollo Helsinki. Christmas party season in Helsinki and the crowd was rough. Really rough. Luckily we had Nigel Williams, who after 2 days of watching shows was like a pitbull unleashed. The crowd was drunk and yelling stupid shit and thank god we had Nigel there, anyone else would have died on their ass. My favourite part was when Nigel threw the mic stand across the stage. The drunks didnt shut up the whole show and afterwards when the main one was standing at the bar, I witnesses him pissing at the bar. Ill say that again. He unzipped his trousers and pissed at the bar. Welcome to christmas time in Finland. I also got to see Phil Schwarzmann again who was back in town for a few nights.

Nigel Williams on stage at Apollo in Helsinki

Friday: Tampere and Turku. Our 550km adventure started by driving to Tampere to do a private show for Intel. It was a fun multicultural crowd and Ahmed and I both had loads of fun. After this we drive another 2 hours to Turku for the main show there and it was a blast, cool Christmas crowd, drunk but not too drunk. Only one guy had to be forceably removed. That’s a good night!

Everyone did well this week: Stew, Janika, Andy, Andrei, Peeter, Ahmed, Ali, Nigel, Robert, Keiu and Derek. It was a great week I work with some great comedians here. So now its 2 weeks off to sit and think about 2012 and how things are going to be even better

This weekend I was in Norway to perform at Latter, which is probably the best comedy club in Europe. They have 3 stages, a great restaurant, a bar / club and the whole thing is so professionally run. I did Friday and Saturday there and both shows were sold out.

Jesus the food in Latter is good, these were the best lamb chops I’ve ever tasted and they gave me a small mountain of them too. Norwegian lamb is the way to go, shove it up your ass Sam Kekovich

The weather in Oslo was perfect, not too cold but a nice layer of snow everywhere. I stayed down by the water and it was super pretty. Getting around Oslo is pretty easy. I like Oslo, its the perfect combination of Stockholm and Helsinki. Doesn’t have the attitude of Stockholm and has more nice old buildings than Helsinki.

Both nights the headliner was Dag Sørås, the best comedian in Norway right now and a bloke I’m happy to call my friend. In a country without much political comedy, he is slamming it to them and the crowd loves him. I also recorded a podcast with him about how the shootings have affected Norway, which you can find here.

I had fun both nights but the second one was definitely better, I had a second half slot just before Dag and I loved the rowdy drunk Christmas audiences. You don’t get many hecklers in Finland and Estonia and I loved facing off against some guys who were so drunk they could barely speak English. I had a load of fun and everyone was super cool to me.

I’m back in Tallinn now and I have a huge week ahead: Tartu, Tallinn, Helsinki, Tampere, Turku. If I can make it through this week the year is almost over.

Here is a video of the take off from Oslo airport today.

Last week Stewart, Eric, Isak Jansson and I went down to Belgium and Amsterdam and did 3 gigs. We had a great time, everyone was super cool to us and it was nice to perform to new crowds where we cant do any Estonian/Finnish schtick. I really need to get out of Estonia more, I miss the eurotrip badly.

Recently I have started a new side project, Presentation Consulting. I work with the Tehnopol Start-up Incubator group and I have been coaching some of their start-up CEO’s in how to give better presentations. This involves watching their pitches and then we discuss both the content of their slides and also their general delivery. I have found this fun as it really bridges all my experiences in business and in the arts. I have been giving presentations for years through my IT training work and as a comedy promoter I see many comedians and have to quickly judge why I like them or not.

Part of working on their slides is not only getting the content and message right but then making the slides look pretty. For this I have been working with my designer guy, Kaarel Johannes and he has come out with some great designs, especially considering he has never worked on slides before.

I had a proud moment this morning when Meelis Resev, CEO of Priienergia delivered his investor pitch to us, using the new slides Kaarel had worked on and using the delivery techniques we had worked on. His presentation was very much improved and tomorrow he gets to do a real pitch in front of real investors with (apparently) real money. I think he is in with a good shot.

I think that you can tell how advanced a city is by the food it serves. If we are looking at dumplings and microwaved burgers from a stand, welcome to Kiev, Ukraine. However if we are looking at the finest Pizza and Pasta, your in Rome, Italy. Wait, so maybe my good food equals advanced society analogy doesn’t hold up but you get the idea.

One of the rungs on the ladder to edible society advancement is the sushi train. Sushi itself is several runs below it. It’s easy to get someone up there rolling maki but sushi train is way more advanced, not only do you need to install the little conveyor to take the tasty morsels to hungry clients, you actually need a certain amount of clients to make it worth while. I was ecstatic, this discovery along with the first kebab store with a real spinning stick of meat heralds a true golden age of Estonian dining!

I LOVE sushi train. It combines two passions of mine, sushi and being delivered food automatically. Instant food and you can eat as much as you want stopping only when you feel like it, for better or worse. Sushi train is culinary power to the people. It is the ultimate in freedom in a new democracy. While the Finns feed their fat holes at the buffet, classy Estonians can have their foreign treats brought to them. The downside of sushi train is your hunger becomes inversely proportional to your wallet thickness. I had a feeling I would be leaving with a particularly thin wallet.

I started to wonder why sushi train had not been in Estonia before. Estonians in general are not good with the trains. Was it a problem that this pint sized express service was the most on-time train service available in the whole country? Maybe it was because trains in Estonia have sort of a bad reputation… from the occupation days. Could it be thought that the chefs were deporting these small tasty sushi pieces to the Sibera of my mouth? Don’t even start with the German speaking guy who joined me as the other only customer.

When I arrived I was greeted by the two ladies working there and I couldn’t believe it, they were genuinely Asian! In Tallinn! How exotic! They seem quite tan so I’m guessing south east Asian and not Japanese but hey progress is progress. I looked at the time and saw it was 10:50 when their opening time was 11:00. It was a cold day and I was very happy they invited me in and didn’t tell me to come back later because “kord on kord”. A new generation of stop assistant who doesn’t know what “kord on kord”* means! Literally. I’m not sure they speak Estonian.

Sushi train isn’t all fantastic however. The store is a bit plain and out of the way. If I know Tallinners, they like their stuff a bit trendy, a bit different, a bit less plain. Who can blame them, after 50 years of Soviet rule where “gray” was technically classed as a flavor you would want the same. It is in this respect that Sushi Cat has the upper hand. Bright lights, endless anime and odd pictures off the staff which makes it seem a bit cultish give it that extra touch of flair over this railroad establishment.

As I took another plate off the conveyor and jammed it down my sushi hole, it occured to me why this will most certainly be a success in Estonia. I have come in, sat down and got my food, all while having to only say 1 word of greeting to the staff. Service where you don’t have to interact with a person? I think we have a winning business model! Maybe the Japanese and Estonian cultures have more in common than we would think. The Soviet era kiosks that still dot Tallinn went half way to automation, they don’t have a robot but an old Russian woman which is quite similar in level of personalty.

The golden age is truly here. Now Tallinn has a way of buying food which will please the locals who don’t want to talk and the scared foreigners who are too stupid to.

* “kord on kord” is an Estonian phrase meaning “rules are rules”

It was another huge week of comedy last week, 4 shows in 4 cities. I am learning to cope with the increasing pace by eating well and not drinking. That’s a bad way of dealing with it.

My Finnish friend Jesse, knows how to knock back a drink

His mouth is on fire in this last shot.

 Josh Howie on stage at “Stand Up Comedy with Louis and Eric” in Tallinn

 Chezek enjoyes the massage chair at Giganti

Two gentlemen who clearly know shit about coffee machines. A stop off on the way to Turku for a show.

I got a flower as a gift

In Drink Bar you can wee and look at a picture of me at the same time