HIT
My partner at the time and I were in Ortigia, Syracuse, in Sicily and the top recommendation for food on TripAdvisor was a place called Caseificio Borderi, a small deli in the local market. Everyone raved about how good the sandwiches were. We went to the market and stood in the queue for more than an hour. During that time, the guy making the sandwiches was talking and riffing and handing out cheese samples to people. He was a masterful entertainer, getting non-stop laughs. When we finally got to the front of the queue, he made our sandwich with a ferocity and passion unmatched in other sandwich artists I've ever encountered (take note Subway). It cost us €5. We took the sandwich down to the rocks on the waterfront and ate it in the warm breeze. We were in love. With each other, but mainly with the sandwich.
MISS
I did a show for a mining company an hour's flight from Adelaide. It was a massive open-pit mine and a few of us were booked to entertain the workers. We had to do two shows, one for the day workers who had knocked off and then another one in the early morning for the people coming off the night shift. We ended up with a crowd of five for the last show, and one of the guys was named Weasel, who got paid ridiculous money to just go around and paint things grey. If it was grey onsite, chances are Weasel painted it. I know this because instead of doing the show as planned, we ended up sitting down with the five people who showed up, drinking bourbon and eating beans at 5am. The accommodation made me cry myself to sleep. We hit golf balls from a makeshift driving range into the red Australian desert for hours because there was nothing else to do. When I asked who was responsible for picking up the balls, everyone looked at Weasel.
Jamie Bowen's show It Happened Then, Now is on at The Basement Theatre from May 15-19.
