Winter driving across the country just to get some laughs
Comedy team in their Mazda, ‘like sardines packed in a can,’ defies December to lift Canada’s spirits
The day I turned 16, I marched into the Service Ontario in Oshawa to take my G1 with two friends. We all failed. I thought the idea of getting my licence was more important than studying.
Once I got it, I was given the family car. It was a 1998 maroon Dodge Neon and it was the first love of my life. The Neon took me to high school every day and then followed me to the University of Waterloo. Then the problems started.
The driver’s door lock broke; the solution was to leave the car unlocked at all times. Not long after, it started to get hard putting the key into the ignition so I just left the key in there. I realized there is no greater theft protection than a car falling apart. My next car was a 1999 Pontiac Sunfire, another family-donated vehicle. I took it to work one morning and heard some rumbling in the engine. So I turned up the music. As I got on the Gardiner Expressway, I looked into my rear view mirror and saw smoke so thick I could not see the car behind me.
I pulled onto the shoulder of the highway and it was then that I noticed the smell of burning plastic and saw smoke pouring into the car from the heating vents. I ran out of the car. It was the first time I made it on the radio.
Today I am far from Toronto, I am on what I’m calling my Weather Permitting Comedy Tour. My ride this time is not an aging family vehicle but a 2012 Mazda 3 sedan that I will be taking coast to coast.
I have been doing standup comedy for two and a half years now and chose to do my first tour in a Canadian winter. Go figure.
The west coast leg consists of 38 shows in 38 days, and started out in Timmins. After Christmas, we’re heading east
Our sponsor, Westowne Mazda in Toronto, provided us with a set of Bridgestone Blizzak snow tires.
Good thing. Northern Ontario was hit with 50 centimetres a few days before we arrived, and we did not want to end up like the livestock trailer we saw jackknifed on the way to Thunder Bay.
A few cattle made it out alive and had gone into the woods. A news report we found made it clear they remained private property, but I hope they live out their days as free cows. They have been through enough.
I am doing this tour with Andrew Barr and Michael Flamank, and we are like sardines packed in a can. The Mazda has a large trunk that fits our speaker, lights, and mic stand. Our clothes take up most of the back seat and Andrew has to carve out a spot for himself.
We often have to share a hotel room and Andrew volunteers to take the floor. The first night I felt bad waking up to him on the ground — until he explained he sleeps on the floor when he’s at home.
This has been our lives: get up and go. Every city and road we travel could write our next joke.
Our venues have ranged from college campuses to ski resorts to local bars. Our show in Thunder Bay was at Lakehead University’s campus bar. There was a screen on stage that had the Leafs game on it and the manager refused to turn it off. Michael went on as the second period started and the students began yelling for him to sit down. The manager told us to kill the show and I gave Michael the signal but he was in the middle of a joke. So she turned on the music.
He left the stage just like the actors at the Academy Awards who go long but instead of a swell after-party to go to, we had one room at the Econo Lodge. The next morning when we were leaving, Michael had to pull over because of the flashing lights dancing in the rear view. The speeding ticket was a parting gift from their police force. Karma for interrupting a hockey game in Northern Ontario.
The car has been our mobile office; the outlets allow our phones to charge while researching and booking the East Coast dates. This trip is possible because of advancements in technology. A digital woman tells us what direction to take. I cannot imagine using paper maps. The aux cable provides us with some much needed music to keep us alert during our longer drives. Fort McMurray to Calgary is the record: 750 kilometres. Oh, Canada, my home and native land. One of the first signs we were in the North was driving past a Canadian Tire billboard that stated, “We sell firearms and ammunition.” I was not in Toronto anymore. Excited to see signs on the highway warning of wildlife, I spotted a dark animal in the distance and poked Michael awake. “Look, there’s a moose!”
“No, Michelle,” he said, “it’s a horse.”
I guess you can take a girl out of the city, but you cannot take the city out of the girl.
On our drive to Brandon, Man., I saw a woman with a dead deer in the back of her truck and I thought about what she must have done that day. She got up early, put on her long johns, grabbed her gun from Canadian Tire, shot a deer and put it in her truck. Me? I spent 30 minutes trying to get on the motel’s Wi-Fi. I grabbed a pen from the glovebox and wrote my first hunting joke, just in time for rural Saskatchewan.
We arrived in Moosomin and were put up in a motel called the Prairie Pride. If that motel was the Pride of the Prairies, we needed to get the hell out of Saskatchewan. I had my own room, but I awoke in the middle of the night to what I thought was a person pouring a bucket of water onto the floor. To my relief, it was only the ceiling leaking.
Flat land gave way to the mountains as we headed through Banff. The roads were bumpy with packed snow, so Michael moved into the far left lane, where the path was smooth. It wasn’t until we rounded a corner and saw a tractor trailer coming at us that we realized it was not a divided highway. CAA could not have helped us that time. We swerved out of the way but it was close.
I took the Mazda for an oil, lube and filter in Kamloops and I was shocked when they charged me $90 bucks. Was this them greasing a poor girl from Ontario? Always ask the price before letting someone under the hood.
Thirty-one days into the tour, the Mazda took its first break on the ferry ride to Vancouver Island. My adventure is starting to feel like a pilgrimage to the comedy gods. I have yet to choose my sacrifice since landing on the island, though. Something needs to be tossed into the Pacific.
Our show in Victoria impressed a gentleman so much he handed me his jacket and insisted I keep it. A used jacket that fits no one has been added to our cargo.
The other night, I found myself in Port Alberni, the western-most point of our tour. We drove more than 8,000 kilometres to perform at Char’s Landing, an old church converted into an event space. A fitting place for our pilgrimage to head back east — once we toss a jacket into the ocean. Michelle Christine is a standup comic from Toronto. This is her first article for Toronto Star Wheels. For more automotive news, go to thestar.com/autos. To reach Wheels Editor Norris McDonald, email: nmcdonald@thestar.ca