Episode 5 - Christmas

 

Vickie has ruined a LOT of weddings. If you weren’t already mad at her, hearing these stories might spark something.

Happy birthday to Josh and happy Boxing Day to Canadians everywhere and possibly some parts of Australia. Josh wants to know if Christmas crackers are British. Vickie thinks he means Snowflake Ritz.

(03:36) Paid Comedy Gigs

Vickie headlined at Last Minute Comedy this week. Josh says she murdered. And then the next night she went and did ten minutes at Landwash Brewery in front of a packed house. Thanks to the producers of that show.

(06:51) Radio Shows that Play Mulberry Creek songs

Thanks to the local radio shows that play Mulberry Creek songs all year. Home Brew with Sam Whiffen on Krock, Jigs and Reels with Danielle Butt on OZFM, the Irish Newfoundland Show on VOCM with Greg Smith, Coast All Access with Rick Bailey and the regular rotation on CHMR. 

(07:22) Tibbs Eve

Tibbs Eve was an unofficial holiday celebrated in Newfoundland and Labrador on December 23rd when you drink with friends before the obligatory holiday gatherings commence.

The character Tibb was said to be a loose moraled woman. If something was said to happen on Tibbs Eve, it was unlikely it would ever happen. Like saying when pigs fly.

(08:35) Working on Christmas

So we're hanging out this Christmas in our living room. We're going to, open some presents from Santa Claus and then have some delicious food. We were planning on making turkey chili. We're not doing a turkey dinner. We're doing turkey chili and homemade biscuits.

Winning Chili Recipe

Many years ago in Maine Vickie and Josh went to a chili cookoff and got a recipe from Vickie’s friend Christina and it won! Would you like to try the recipe? Send us a message or leave a comment and ask for the chili recipe! It’s delicious.

(13:10) Salvation Army welcome at the Avalon Mall for eternity

There was a big news article that the people who own the mall decided that they were not going to support having the Salvation Army kettle campaign next year. They were fine for this year, but starting next year, they were going to not be allowed in there. And there was an uproar of about 40 people on Facebook

The owners of the local malls made an announcement that the Salvation Army is welcome at the mall for eternity.

(14:13) Nate Bargatze Christmas Special

Go watch it. It’s amazing.

(16:11) Inspiration from the Nateland podcast

Vickie is taking inspiration from hearing and seeing Aaron Weber and Brian Bates on the podcast because they're not just sidekicks on the podcast, they're really funny comedians, and they tell real stories about gigs that don't sell any tickets or someone gets into almost a fistfight.

We're three years behind in that podcast but there are parallels in our lives right now.  A fight almost broke out at Vickie’s gig last week and someone collapsed on stage.

And people were like, well, what should we do? Should we call an ambulance? Vickie pointed out none of the comedians or comedy fans in attendance were qualified to determine if this person who hit their head on the speaker on the way down was okay or not.

(19:27) Advice for comedy show hosts

Please learn a little bit about the guests and hype up the crowd for the openers and headliner. And for producers, please find a host who is going to learn the names of the people who are performing, maybe someone who will encourage the comedians, tell them how funny they are. Preferably don't criticize the people's material after they get down off the stage. Those are just little tips that make things run smoother and make everybody feel, you know, comfortable and maybe want to go back to perform again in the future.

(21:30) Mount Pearl tour / Johnnie and Mae’s

Big words of appreciation for the crew at Landwash Brewery, the show host and producers and the folks at Johnnie and Mae’s who make the best salt beef poutine.

(23:02) The Complete ACOA Sourcebook – one of Vickie’s favourite books

To summarize, when children grow up in turmoil and craziness especially around alcohol, addictions, religious fanaticism, gambling, drugs, etc. when parents are dealing with these addictions, there's a lot of stuff that naturally trickles down to the children. And one of the things is that children never know what who they're going to get, whether it's going to a relative's house and this uncle is particularly nice when he's drinking or this aunt is particularly whatever when she's hung over, you never really know who you're getting. And it's kind of messes up your perception of how the world is and how people are going to respond to you and how lovable you are, and whether you're worthy of affection.

The perfectionist message kids learn is maybe if I say exactly the right thing, at exactly the right time to exactly the right person, they'll love me. And that reality just doesn’t exist. You can spend your whole life trying to get things perfect and it robs you of so much joy.

Many years ago Vickie had a mental health podcast and had Denielle Hann on as a guest and Denielle gave this analogy about the law of attraction and manifesting the life you want. If you’re at the Village Mall and you want to go to Quidi Vidi which is in the east end of the city and you realize you’ve gotten on the wrong bus and you’re headed to Mount Pear what do you do? To which Vickie replied “I wait until the bus returns to the Village and get a transfer” and Denielle said “No you pull the string, get off the bus and you start WALKING toward Quidi Vidi.

In other words when you know what you want, point in that direction and start moving towards it no matter how long it takes you to get there. A step towards your dream no matter how small is better than taking steps away from it or worse standing still.

(38:59) Jimmy Glen

Vickie recounts the year she wrote Jimmy Glen just before Christmas and sent it to Cory Tetford who produced it in less than two weeks and Chris Ledrew played some pedal steel on the song. It’s the most requested song at Mulberry Creek shows and you can request it at your local radio station to help bring Jimmy Glen home.

(42:28) Weddings Vickie Ruined

Vickie talks about weddings she’s ruined in this week’s segment of Are You Mad At Me? including her first one that happened in front of 6247 people and the weddings of her (at the time) two best friends.

(59:37) 12 Days of Comedy and 12 Days of Music 

Vickie promised to post a comedy set every day for the 12 days of Christmas. Then also promises to post some music on the Mulberry Creek page every day for the the 12 days of Christmas and they can be found here:

Twelve Days of Jokes

Twelve Days of Music on Facebook

(1:11:13) Pin Cut Sew - a perfect business model for self publishing

Vickie talks about a channel on YouTube she loves that she came across late one night and was inspired by the lady’s business model and how she promotes her self published book.

Here’s the exact transcript of this segment.

Vickie: So I'm watching this lady's video and she's talking about how she has done all these different things to make money as, like hemming people's pains, fixing people's prom dresses. And then she had a corporate or an industrial job where she was hemming curtains, and she hated all of it. And so in her video, she says, I talk about this in my book.

And then she describes how she made money teaching children's classes and sewing, and how she made money at that, and how she shares in her book, like, how much to charge, how many kids you can handle, what kind of equipment you need. She really broke down her business plan, which most people would say, oh, isn't that sacred?

Isn't that like, you know, shouldn't you keep that close to the chest? But, like, now she's in Hawaii. She doesn't care if someone in Newfoundland makes it the sewing class. Yeah. So I went and bought her book at 6:00 in the morning. I actually got out of bed, went downstairs, got my phone, looked her up, bought the book at 6 a.m. while she was sleeping.

And I love it. It's a very short book. It's very succinct. It tells exactly what it promised it would tell. She self-published it and she sold it from her own website. So I spent $22 American on her 65 page book. The font was huge. It had a bunch of pictures, and I think it was one of the best purchases I have ever made.

Because that lady is an entrepreneur. She makes money teaching classes to kids. She also makes money from her book while she sleeps. She's an expert at the things she's doing. She probably has lots of other hobbies. She's got a Facebook page and she's got a website, but she also sells her book through this YouTube video that other people are watching while she sleeps.

That's just a good business model, right? When people get a chance to get to know you, they're much more inclined to go buy your book. If they've seen a 15 minute video of you sharing your story, instead of an ad popping up on Facebook.

So my entrepreneurship advice from one business owner to another, from one creative to another. First of all, we need to accept that it's okay to make money, period. No matter what how you do it, it's okay to make money.

It's okay to enjoy money. It's okay to want money. It's not a dirty thing to actually be paid for what you provide. And if you make somebody’s day brighter because you, performed a joke or because you played a song or because you passed them their McDonald's fries, you made their life better. You deserve to get paid for it, right?

That's my advice to artists. And I'm going to listen back to this because I need to hear this too. So like setting up my website, it was hard and I didn't know how to do it, but now I do know how to do it. And if you want me to set up yours, I can do that for you.

There's a thing that we can exchange and maybe you can do something for me. I don't know. Anyway, that's my rant about entrepreneurship.

I'm telling you that as an adult, in case you needed an adult to give you permission or tell you that that's okay, I'll be that for you.

Send it back to me one of these days and say, you know what, Vickie? If you want to do those things, you can give me permission too.

(1:16:42) New Year’s Resolution

Vickie: One of these days I'm going to hang out at Zanies until Brian Bates is there, and Aaron Weber and Nate Bargatze and Dusty Slay. I'm not even at the episodes yet with Dusty Slay, but man, I can't wait to see those guys in person. It’s been the highlight of my year to find them.

Merry Christmas to all our listeners. Keep being creative!

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