Hello!
I’m turning into a 65-year old man. I’ve spent the last 4 days watching ABC iView and I can’t stop. I need the government to step in and ban me from their content.
At the moment I’m watching the entirety of that ABC television series ‘Jack Irish’. It stars Guy Pearce as this Fitzroy ex-lawyer, son of a footy legend, drinks at the local pub, does some woodwork, all whilst solving crimes with nothing but his wits and a bit of good-old-fashioned luck.
It’s a male boomer wet-dream.
I’m normally so critical of ABC programming and the way they cater to 60+ middle-class Australians, but now I’m coming around! I’m fulfilling my future destiny of becoming a middle-aged white man. I’m an actual boomer! But without the home ownership - I’m a boomer that still rents.
:(
That’s the saddest thing you could ever type.
That’s like a pub with no beer, a library without books, Abbie Chatfield without every TV show in the country.
Also I looked up the shitty converted Fitzroy townhouse Jack Irish is filmed in and it sold a few months ago for $2.5 million. Jesus.
Makes me miss the 70s.
WE LOVE THE GONG
I was in Wollongong a few weekends ago doing some gigs with the Melbourne Comedy Festival. I grew up on the South Coast of NSW which meant I got handed the unofficial job of being tour guide and organising an itinerary of activities for all the comedians.
Organisers don’t get enough credit in life. It’s hard work!
I’m not an organiser. Never have been. I’m a great invite - I bring a lot as a guest. I bring wine, talk lots so you can sit me next to anyone, plus I am always the first to post in the group chat saying “thanks for having us!”
A perfect guest!
I love Wollongong and the Illawarra. When I was growing up on the South Coast of NSW every night at 7:30 pm, a man in a possum costume would come on our TV screens and say “Prime Possum says it’s time for bed, kids! Say goodnight and hop into bed!”
Then the possum would get under the covers and drift off to sleep.
That’s weird, right? I guess it was a cute thing the local TV station thought they’d do. I’m not sure why. I think they thought it was adorable and the kids would love a terrifying sleeping possum.
It would happen every night. I think the possum only got fired last year - it’s been going for like 35 years! It sounds weird, but it was normal for every person that lived in the Illawarra and South Coast.
Anyway, I was on stage in Wollongong and a man in the crowd yelled out “it’s past Prime Possum’s bedtime!”
It was like it triggered something in my brain and my entire childhood started flashing before my eyes!
I couldn’t stop thinking about Prime Possum!
What a strange thing to experience in my childhood. City kids don’t have a weird 45-year old man dressed in a possum costume, appearing on their screens as a weird authoritarian figure telling them to go to bed, do they?! So why did the kids in the regional areas get it?!
I remember the day I found out that no one else knew about Prime Possum. It was like that terrible movie where the guy wakes up and he’s the only person on the planet who knows who The Beatles are. I was 18, at a party with my sister in Melbourne and I tried to make a joke about Prime Possum and this guy was like “wait, who?”
I was like “what, do you mean, who?”
I tried to explain to him that every night a man dressed as a possum appears on our TV and ‘he should drop the act because of course he knows about Prime Possum’.
He’s like “what the fuck are you talking about? A possum?”
He thought I was crazy!! I started running around the streets. It felt like my whole life was lie! I couldn’t trust anyone! There was no one to turn to!
I honestly thought the possum was world-wide. Approved by the United Nations or NATO. Like every household in the world got Prime Possum. I assumed there were kids in China getting the same possum on their screens telling them it was bedtime.
Nope! Just the 200,000 people that live on the South Coast of NSW.
What a cruel prank to play.
The Pursuit Of Comedy Has Ruined My Life
If I have any sway whatsoever in your life, please do me a favour and listen to this comedy album by my favourite Canadian Nick Nemeroff. It’s called ‘The Pursuit Of Comedy Has Ruined My Life’. Nick passed away a few days ago. He was only 32. It’s super sad. He was one of the funniest and most unique comedians I’ve ever seen, not to mention one of the kindest and friendliest people I’ve ever met.
When I started comedy he was living in Melbourne. He was already so much better than everyone else. I’d be trying to do jokes about share-houses that everyone had heard before and he was already carving out his own voice.
There used to be this open mic gig that my buddies Pete Jones and Luka Muller rang at The Wilde - this failing shitty bar on Gertrude St in Fitzroy. They’d do 3 brackets of comedy, starting at 7:30pm. If you put your name down you were guaranteed to get a spot, it just meant that spot could be in the never-ending 3rd bracket. Sometimes the show would go till midnight. The audience would be a few weirdo punters left with a few weirdo comedians creating the most unappealing environment for comedy possible.
Trying to get laughs in that third bracket could almost be a pointless endeavour. Everyone would be half asleep or exhausted from watching 3-4 hours of open-mic comedy beforehand.
I have the best memory of watching Nick just waltz on stage and start talking in his own unique way about pig’s ears for 5 minutes and seeing a crowd of near-zombies come alive. He destroyed the place. The kind of laughter that is uncontrollable. People making noises like they were in pain. Wheezing, heaving and doubling over.
It seemed like there were no jokes. Just Nick letting the funny flow out of him and the audience realising they were part of something special and super cool.
He moved back to North America and went on to do a bunch of cool stuff like a spot on Conan and releasing that great comedy album. In the back of my mind I always thought
Nick would go on to be the most famous comedian alive. He was special.
It sucks when people die. It also sucks that everyone waits till they’re dead to say all these amazing nice things about them. If Nick was still here I’d say the same thing, but he’s not. So I can’t.
Please watch and listen to some of his stuff, you won’t regret it!
Okay back to me watching ABC iView. Defund the ABC so I can recapture my youth!
Goodbye x