Even more english comedy shows in Porto and Lisbon!

This is a bit late but I’m so busy now it’s hard to keep up writing about all the comedy stuff happening. It was a lot easier when there was one show a month but damn those days are loooong gone. I spent a week in Porto to do three shows up in the north thanks to Adam. The return of O Zebras comedy shows in Lisbon. And there’s a new show in town! And another new show! what in the fuckity fuck.

So a few weeks back I invited Adam to come to perform with me at Selina Porto for Gonçalo’s show. And hot damn y’all he returned the gesture. A dude from Porto named Rui Xará set up a couple of shows with Adam on the 21st and 22nd and Adam asked if I was interested to join. I was already going to do Gonçalo’s show again on the 17th. So I said fuck it I’m gonna stay in Porto all week and DO ALL THE SHOWS. Three fuckin shows at different venues in a week. It was like a micro North Portugal comedy tour. Anyway, they were Adam’s shows but he managed to get me invited and Rui made dope posters with both of us on them. It was cool af.

I did Gonçalo’s show on the 17th and it went well. Those shows keep getting bigger and better. A new comedian was performing in English there named Kerim. Visiting from Sweden. Guess how he found out about the show in Porto? It was through my first blog post about performing there. He got in contact with Gonçalo through the links in my blog and the dates worked out so he could perform at the show. I found that out while we were chatting with him. How fuckin dope is that?

After that show, I still had a bunch of days to chill before Adam came up from Lisbon to do Rui’s shows. It was kinda cool cause O Zebras had a show on the 17th as well which I couldn’t host. I already promised to come up to Porto before I knew they were starting up the English nights again. But Adam was in Lisbon, and he was nice enough to be the host that evening. And from what I heard everyone had a swell time.

But yeah I had a few days in Porto to chill waiting for these next shows. I did spend a night watching some Portuguese comedy at Ferro comedy club. Saw a bunch of comedians I’ve performed with. Hosted by Eduardo Marques who performed at the very first show in Selina Porto. Feels like it was so long ago! It was like what? few months? Crazy.

But a day after that disaster struck! I had already burned through all of my weed and there were still like four days left in the trip. Whhhhhhere am I gonna find weed in Porto? In ended up calling up a friend that went to the University. Of course. College kids. She’s gotta have some contacts right? Everyone knows some stoner from college they can call up. And that’s exactly what happened.

So she gets me connected with some dude. Dude is like “meet me here in 20 minutes”. Prompt as shit, which is nice. After we meet up he’s like “you gotta come to this apartment”. And so now I’m thinking shit I’m about to get robbed by this kid and his friends in Porto. Fuck me running maybe I didn’t need it this bad. Didn’t happen though. I went to his place a got some gooooooooood shit. And it turns out he’s a rapper. So here’s the scene folks. It’s me in a room with like six Portuguese kids in their late teens to early twenty’s and we’re smoking weed and freestyle rapping for a good thirty minutes. I have not changed at all in fifteen years. It was hilarious. I don’t remember the following days very well but eventually, Adam showed up and the Top Shelf Boys 2: return to Porto kicked off again.

I still have no idea where Top Shelf Boys came from. One of us said it on the first trip and it just stuck as a running joke. It’s so pretentious and absurd I love it. I’m more like boxed wine off the floor anyway but we’re having fun with it. So the show on the 21st wasn’t actually in Porto. It was in a town 33km north of Porto called Famalicão. At a place called CRU which is where Rui has done a lot of shows. For like a long ass time. Hugo Rosa did the show there before, which he told me about before I went up there. And when I got to the venue I found a poster of him on the wall among all the other acts that had performed. He looked like a kid. They even printed the poster of me and Adam and had us sign it. So we’re on the wall of posters now too. The show went well. Way more people turned out for English comedy than I thought would.

The second show on the 22nd turned out a bit different. It was in Porto and there were about ten people in the crowd. Didn’t give a fuck at all. Everyone went out and did their thing and the people who showed up loved it. It’s kinda sad cause the venue Hot Five Uptown was so dope. It was a great experience. And I’m sure we can fill the whole place up one day.

But that was my week in Porto. Rui was a great host. Drove us around everywhere. Bought is dinner both nights. The funny thing about Rui is that this guy loves fucking talking. And he loves to talk about how much he loves to talk. He was telling us all kinds of histories about Porto, comedy in the North, and how he and his friends got started in performing in bars. He’s been performing for more than 20 years. That’s pretty wild. I think I’ve been doing stand-up for almost a year and a half? Yeah, dude has been in this game for a while.

So that was Porto. Fuck that was fun.

Oct 1st was a return to the O Zebras shows for me. Continuing my hosting duties here. Hosting those shows is so much fun. And a lot of new comedians are finding their footing there. This was this girl doing stand up for the first time. She was visiting from China and said fuck it - going to do stand up comedy for the first time. And she was soooo nervous before it was her turn to go up. And then she went out there and smashed it y’all. destroyed the room. Like it was not that loud at any other point before, after, or maybe ever. I told her she better keep writing about sideways vagina’s cause that’s what the people want apparently. I love when shit like that happens. You never know with open mics. Some people just straight bomb and some people soar and I enjoy all of it.

More shows. Hey guess what? I’ll be hosting a new show! English comedy on Pink street in Cais do Sodre! Continuing the tradition of Friday night comedy for Cais a rir Comedy Club started by Catarina Matos. I’ll be doing a monthy show there in English. Well, if everything goes well on the first show Oct 11th. Then I have ANOTHER night of hosting the next O Zebras show on the 15th. THEN GUESS WHAT? ANOTHER. FUCKIN. SHOW.

What in the flying fuck is going on in this city now with all the shows?

This one is an idea from Lee Squires, of Red Cocaine film fame, who runs a film festival here in Lisbon called Sunday Shorts Film Festival. I’m going to keep the details of the show and format a secret for now. But it’s super interesting and I’m really curious to see how it works out. I think it’s going to happen on the 17th. So now I’ve got a shows on the 11th, 15th, and 17th.

And still - there might be some more interesting surprises coming up :D