Sam Taunton News Bulletin #1
HELLO!
Welcome to my newsletter!
I’m not really sure what this is, but it’s something I’m going to try and do fortnightly. Basically it will be a funny little piece of writing that I’ll send around and hopefully it will be a welcome 5 minute break from your goddam stressful life. I might even have some friends contribute little bits and pieces!
You’re receiving it because either you’ve signed up OR you’ve bought a ticket to one of my shows at some point. If you don’t want to hear from me, please, please use the unsubscribe button! I’ll never bother you again. I swear! I won’t make eye contact on the street, I’ll delete you off instagram and if anyone asks, I’ll pretend we’ve never met and I don’t know you exist! (Basically the deal I have with every girl I’ve ever dated).
Okay! Let’s go through the headlines.
I JUST GOT BACK FROM RURAL SOUTH AUSTRALIA
I really like South Australia, and when I say ‘South Australia’, I mean Adelaide, and when I say ‘Adelaide’, I mean there’s a small cafe just off Rundle street that I really like.
Adelaide is this weird place I only go to during Adelaide Fringe when it’s overrun by carnies and cabaret performers.
Once at Adelaide Fringe I was performing in a tent (I know lol. A tent) and next to that tent was a woodchopping competition. There was a man who had his skin tattooed as a lizard and his job for an entire month was to spruce the woodchopping competition during my show.
Because I was in tent, all you could hear was the lizard man* banging on about woodchopping and no one would pay attention to my jokes and stories.Each night halfway through my show I’d lose like 10-15 audience members as they’d hear about this red-hot 2-for-1 woodchopping deal from lizard man and they couldn’t resist!
I started retaliating and screaming into my microphone during the lizard’s man woodchopping performance – trying to win back back punters by yelling “come back! I’m funnier than the lizard!!!”
It ended in an altercation between me, the lizard man, and comedian Lloyd Langford (he was also having his own separate issues with lizard man that I can’t go into). Lizard man told me “watch myself” as I was “messing with his livelihood..”
I don’t know if you’ve ever been threatened by a man who is that serious about his job that he’s had his skin permanently altered to resemble a lizard, but you can’t help but side with him on whatever matter you’re discussing.
Like he changed his skin for his job.
I doubt I’d get a haircut for a job.
He wants it more.I’M DOING COMEDY SHOWS
Anyway, I’ve been on the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow for the last week. It’s pretty cool. It’s me and a bunch of other comedians doing shows in country towns. It means I get to eat a lot of pub dinners at 5pm which results in me trying not to spew a chicken parmigiana on the front row mid performance.
I saw a man pissing out the front of one of the venues the other night. That’s been the highlight.
Just a punter, pre show, weeing into a garden near the entrance as people are walking into the show.
I was standing out the front with one of the other comedians and he looked at us, holding his dick in one hand, beer in the other, and said with a grin “How are ya fellas? Getting ready for a bloody laugh!!!”The comedian I was with turned to me and said “isn’t everyone in the country just so friendly and polite!!”
I was like“what?! he’s literally holding his penis!”
Dude you can still get metooed even if you have good manners.I think it really shows the difference in mindset between the city and the country.
In the city that person would get arrested, but in the country everyone is like “Oh it’s so nice how everyone says hello!! What a sense of community! Yes he’s holding his dick, but that’s the country charm! The city is such a rat race! We don’t even have time to hold our dicks in the goddam city!!”He finished up and walked straight into the show.
It reminded me of the I time got pissed on at a music festival. I’ve tried blocking it out over the years but you never really forget that sort of thing.It was the hottest day and I was watching a band, pretty close to the stage. I thought someone dropped a beer can and liquid had flicked up onto my leg. I didn’t pay much attention, but after I felt more and more liquid, I suddenly turned around to see a chubby white guy wearing an LA Dodgers cap, a face that suggested he’d done half of Western Sydney’s MDMA, holding a lemon-lime UDL in one hand and his dick in the other.
He was just pissing! Out in the open! Just going for it. Unfortunately the back of my leg was close enough that it was right in the firing line. I couldn’t believe it!
I screamed “what the fuck man!” and leant back in horror, accidentally bumping a bunch of girls standing next to me. They all saw the MDMA-pissing man, screamed and jumped back, which formed a circle around the pissing man.
Because he was high as a kite plus being mid wee, he wasn’t able to stop the flow. So the circle that formed around him was kind of like a dance circle. Except he wasn’t dancing, he was just pissing. Like a breakdancing circle (actually called a ‘Cypher Circle‘) except the main attraction was a chubby man pissing and grinding his jaw.
(BTW I was thinking the other day that breakdancing has had a real fall from grace. I feel like when I was growing up breakdancing was everywhere, never cool, but definitely had a presence. With society slowly eradicating white guys with dreadlocks, I guess breakdancing has been an unintended victim?? Something to think about I guess?**).Anyway, the MDMA guy, whilst not having his full senses, realised he was in the wrong and made a quick getaway from the circle. I wish someone had filmed it. In 2021 that does big numbers online. Kinda like this.
POP CULTURE
(I’M READING MICHAEL PALIN’S DIARIES FROM 1969-1979)
We’re coming to the end of the newsletter so I just wanted to quickly shoutout what I’m reading and listening to at the moment. This book of Palin’s diary entires was recommended and given to me by comedian Sam Campbell. I think it’s a prank. It’s incredibly dull and hard to get through. Each entry is mainly what he had for breakfast, then him describing the various methods of transport available for his commute to the BBC offices that day. Some days he gets the Tube, some days he gets a cab. Fascinating!
BOOK REVIEW: 3/10
SONG RECOMMENDATION
Stevie Ray Vaughan ‘Life Without You’
Stevie Ray is a guitar hero of mine. He died in a helicopter crash which sucks but look at him playing his guitar behind his back! Cool huh! Also his pixie boots, earrings and cowboy hat somehow really works! 10/10!
GOODBYE
Okay so there’s the first Newsletter! Very wee heavy to start. I swear it will get better. If you made it this far thanks so much for reading and I’ll talk to you soon!
* THIS IS ACTUALLY THE LIZARD MAN. I WASN’T LYING!!!!
** lol Breakdancing is going to The Paris Olympics in 2024