Sam Taunton News Bulletin #14 Happy New Year!
Happy New Year newsletter readers!
What a 2022 we’re gonna have. I can feel it already. Me clogging up your email inbox, you deciding whether to mark this as trash or skim read it before starting your depressing work day.
What a team we are.
BAD TASTE
2022 feels like the future. Maybe we’re already in the future. I went to a Korean restaurant the other night and get this: there was a ROBOT WORKING AS A WAITER.
Like a proper robot. Taking the place of a human waiter. He was taking orders, bringing food out, collecting plates.
Look at this video!
Maybe we’re in the future already?! I didn’t know society was doing robots yet. It seems so futuristic. I thought dinner robots were like flying cars orprivate school boysthat have respect for women.
You can see it happening in the future, but at the moment it seems like a million years away...
This robot was called Ollie, and he was doing a pretty good job. He kind of reminded me of R2-D2. He scooted around and didn’t speak. At one point he bought over my entree, and a waiter (human, not robot) ran after him and yelled “dammit! I was going to do that one!”
That made me laugh a lot because it’s so funny to be in competition for your job with a robot. Can you imagine? Both working in a restaurant kitchen - constantly trying to best each other.
(Also as a side note, it would be funny to see a robot chef and a human chef in the back alley behind the restaurant splitting a dexie and puffing on a vape.)
Imagine if you and a robot were both in the running for a promotion?
There’s one full time position - who are they going to go with? The guy they have to pay sick days to, OR the guy that has a two year warranty and they unplug and put in the cupboard at the end of the shift.
Robots win every time!
There's a brave new world of robot workers ahead of us. That’s the future. People often whine about skilled migrants coming to a country and taking jobs from locals.
They should be worried about the robots! They’re already here!
And politically it’s going to change everything.
What if the robots unionise? How do we beat them? Forget the culture war, the robot workers war will be the only thing that matters.
The Liberal party will HATE the robots. They’ll be running on a platform of ‘JOBS FOR HUMANS FIRST’ and ‘KEEP ROBOTS OUT OF AUSTRALIAN WORKPLACES’.
The Greens will be like “RIGHTS FOR ROBOTS!!” “WORKING ROBOTS ARE AUSTRALIAN ROBOTS!!”
Calling a robot ‘a machine’ will be the most offensive thing you could ever do, videos will emerge of people in the early 2010s wearing robot costumes to dress up parties, Breakfast TV hosts will claim the robots don’t understand our Australian human culture.
We need to get on the front foot now!
Anyway, the point of the story is that Ollie the robot was awesome and his service was five stars. He did a better job than the humans and if he understood the concept of money I would have tipped him.
LUXE LISTINGS
The other day I watched that Netflix series about Jeffrey Epstein and I tell you what, I’m starting to think that guy is bad news!*
I was reading an article about how they’re trying to sell his island and having a lot of trouble finding a buyer.
Yeah lol. I reckon that would be a super tough sell.
Imagine being the real estate agent in charge of that sale?!
Apparently the locals call it ‘Paedophile Island’ - which is not the ideal community spirit you're looking for when flipping houses.
Everyone would enquire and be like “hey, why is this island valued at $250 million going for $25?”
And you’d have to be like “umm, let’s just say this island is very much in the zeitgeist…”
If it was me I’d make everyone sign a document saying they weren’t allowed to Google the address till after they’ve bought it.
In all seriousness though, if we (you, me and everyone who reads this newsletter) put some money together, we could probably buy it.
YES the island would have an incredibly creepy vibe, and YES Trump and Clinton would never accept our invitations to come over, BUT I live in Sydney - the Paedophile island could be my only chance to buy property!
*He is a monster
TROUBLE
The tennis is on.
It’s crazy how much I pretend to know about tennis during Australian Open time. I legit don’t even think about tennis for the other 11 months of the year, but for January I’m the annoying dude at the pub correcting people’s pronunciations of Eastern European players’ names.
Speaking of Eastern Europeans. Novak is in A LOT of trouble! You can’t turn on the TV, open the paper, look through your neighbours windows (don’t ask) without hearing or seeing him.
I don’t really understand what happened. I don’t think most people do. In fact I would argue like 60% of people don’t understand what’s happening in the news at all times.
(LOL at this Herald Sun headline.)
Anyway, this old dude at the back of a stand up gig explained it to me the other night so I thought I’d help all the dummies out there and get you all up to speed. This is the Novak saga summarised.
Novak Djokovic grew up in rural Serbia. His father, a strong, silent type, used to run an illegal dog-fighting ring and would force a young Novak to work the door as punters would come in.
One night Novak was packing away the chairs after a big night of illegal dog fighting. He found a young puppy in the corner whimpering. The pup was called Nick Kyrgios. Novak took a shine to him immediately.
Novak loved this dog. He took it everywhere with him. He’d take it to school, on the bus, he’d even play tennis against it! (Nick Kyrgios had an almighty backhand and would you believe it - a short fuse!).
One day Novak came home from school to find his father had vaccinated Nick Kyrgios. Novak couldn’t believe it. “Vaccination?” He thought? “You mean the thing hollywood celebrities and politicians get??”
“Papa, why would you do this?! To me? To Nick Krygios? This is a breach of our human rights”
(I realise Nick Krygios is a dog but I’m just retelling the story I’ve been told)
But Novak’s father didn’t answer him. His toxic masculinity and all encompassing love for vaccines meant he couldn’t communicate his thoughts and explain his decisions.
Two days later, Novak was walking Nick Krygios down to the shops to buy a jar of the traditional Serbian food, Vegemite. They were on the main street when an ice-cream truck sped past playing the song we all pop on when we eat ice-cream: ‘Greensleeves’.
The noise of the ice-cream truck spooked Nick Krygios. Nick was an incredibly entertaining dog, but also extremely dumb. He insticitly ran off, the lead slipped through Novak’s fingers and Nick ran into the path of oncoming traffic, and tragically, to his death…(cue very sad music).
Novak was distraught. He knew what had happened. The vaccine made Nick Krygios run into traffic. It all made sense.
He told his father he was a worse parent than Andre Agassi’s father (even though at the end of Andre’s book he reconciles his relationship with his father and it’s so heartwarming and captivating that the book stayed on the New York Times’ bestsellers list for over a decade) and he wanted nothing more to do with him.
That night as Novak went to sleep he made a promise to himself: I’ll never get vaccinated. (well, it was actually ‘drink more water’ - but everyone tells themselves that, right? Apparently you’re supposed to drink 3 litres a day?! Are you kidding me! I had a 600ml Mount Franklin on Wednesday and it set me up for the whole week..)
ANYWAY, after Novak pledged to stay hydrated and make sure he had his trendy water bottle with him at all times, he also had a few thoughts about whether he wanted to get vaccinated in the future.
Cut to 2022, Novak isn’t playing the Australian Open.
Okay does that help?
That's what the guy told me and he was wearing a shirt that says 'My wife = My Life' so I believe everything he says.
GOODBYE
Thank you for reading as always. Please look after yourselves out there. It’s a crazy world!
I’m also going on tour in the first half of this year. Adelaide, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane and of course, the whole month of Melbourne Comedy festival. No Perth because of that crazy North Korean guy in charge. More dates to be added soon, everything will be on sale within a few weeks!
Also please watch my segment from The Project the other nighthere.
P.S.S if you’ve missed any of my other newsletters and want to catch up, you canhere. Follow me on Insta, here’s mypodcast, and subscribe to myYoutube channelx
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