Townie guide to... Scotch Hopping

Monday, April 28, 2008

Kitty Mitchell, singer, knitter, puppeteer, enjoys singing, knitting, puppeteering…oh, and drinking

Years in Lawrence: 22

Why on earth were you in Scotland? Isn’t it considered the toothless and livestock-raping Appalachia of Great Britain? Isn’t that kind of like going to Woodstock but only sticking around to see Sha Na Na?

“I was actually there for the Annual Scottish Toothless Livestock-Raping Festival. In 1846 Athol Maclain realized that livestock tooth removal made the entire raping process less difficult and so the name and rules were changed. I stuck around for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the largest fringe theater festival in the world. I met up with my friend Will Averill and two other Brits I had never heard of and we performed The Shitty Deal Puppet Theatre Company’s Complete History of Oppressed People Everywhere. It was a lovely adult puppet comedy tackling the dark themes of oppression. There was much drinking involved and a goodly amount of rain.”

As a Kansas Yankee in King Arthur’s Seat, were you ever concerned about America backlash? Is it just safer to say that you’re Canadian or maybe an albino Zimbabwean?

“Yes, that is always a concern. I will say that the Canadians there were, perhaps, the trashiest people I had ever encountered in my life. Small-county-demolition-derby trashy. NASCAR trashy. The population of Edinburgh about doubles for the three weeks of the festival—and there are so many foreigners—it’s kind of hard to pay too much attention to any one group, which worked out in our favor. I also had some English pals to show me the ropes. On my second day in town, we were walking down the street and I saw a man trying to wedge a large box into his car, so I offered to help. Apparently this is not the thing to do. After some wide eyes and awkward silence, we continued walking and I was instructed to never offer assistance to strangers. Noted. We interacted with relatively few Scotlanders, as it took two of us to decipher a conversation with one of them. The drunk ones—and I mean really, let’s be honest here, that’s all of them—are remarkably difficult to understand.”

Submitted photo

Is it true that Scottish people bleed whiskey and crap hard cider? How difficult was it to keep up with these human distilleries? Did you show ’em what a quality, American-made liver can do?

“One has to ease into that level of drinking. We started with one night on, two nights off, then one on, one off, then drinking every waking hour for the last week. Thankfully, there was a delightful pub on our corner called the Halfway House run and patronized by locals. Drinking there was always a bit of an adventure and, oddly, three or four pints of cider made everything a little more understandable. The one thing that Scotland did teach me is that Australians are absolutely crazy party champions. We found ourselves on more than one dawn huddled on the floor, barely gripping consciousness, in the shadow of an Aussie insisting, ‘More shots!’ Also, not the easiest place to find bourbon.”

Scottish cuisine—is it all animal parts stuffed into other animal parts and boiled into paste?

“Gross. It is gross. Everything seems like it might be a good idea but isn’t. Sometimes you think you have found something of home and they manage to destroy it with an absolute lack of seasoning and inappropriate deep frying. ‘But there isn’t such a thing as inappropriate deep frying, Kitty!’ you may say, but there is—there is. On one horrible afternoon, Will and I decided to ‘treat’ ourselves to a meal at a Mexican restaurant. I know, I know—it was clearly a terrible idea, but we were desperate. I can only tell you that a Scottish margarita resembles a melted Screamin’ Green Crayon and tastes like a lime freezer pop mixed with Formula 409. Apparently there was a deep fried haggis joint that was delightful, but I never had the guts—HA!—to try it. Maybe this year.”

Are there any similarities between Lawrence and Edinburgh besides our shared lack of brown people? Noticeable differences?

“I started keeping a tally of browns but stopped when I realized that there were going to be quite a bit more than I thought. I replaced it with a tally of ‘Ghostbusters’ t-shirts. It was a much more manageable list. It is hard to tell if there are similarities as the festival transforms the city into something very unique in those few weeks. It’s sort of like grownup summer camp. Everyone knows that they will only see these people once a year, if that, and people are just getting crazy spring break-style.”

Since all that I know about Scotland I learned from Mel Gibson films, does everybody over there run around in skirts and hate Jews?

“Yes, and thank God! As a skirt-wearing anti-Semite, you don’t know how nice it was to finally be with my people. It is amazing how goofy Scottish Jews look with their ear locks hanging out of the sides of their tams. The city was also very much like ‘Trainspotting.’ It’s an odd image, strung out yet fashionable heroin junkies trying to overthrow the English on a 13th century battlefield—not all that effective, really.”

Looking forward to going back?

“Absolutely. The country is beautiful and the city is an amazing mix of urban, historic and picturesque landscape all mushed together. I am looking forward to embarking on this visit with a greater understanding of how best to approach the culture—ditch the ‘one on, two off’ drinking rules and dive straight into that sweet vat of whiskey. We will have twice the number of performances and will stage two different productions, so there will be quite a bit of work to do and that just might help keep me out of trouble.”

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Townie guide to... Scotch Hopping

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