HELLO.
What a huge two weeks it’s been! Halloween, the new federal budget, five Lions escaped at Taronga Zoo! So much stimulation!
They’re all pretty scary things, but I think we can all agree Halloween is the scariest of them all. People wear scary costumes for god’s sake.
There was a real cultural shift when it went from dressing as a skeleton or a monster to the sexy version of ANYTHING.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the sexy version of anything. Sexy is cool and fun and makes everyone happy (in fact, I am a big believer in only letting hot people do all the things), but I’d love to be a little bit scared on October 31st.
I was reading an article on Halloween and it started as a night to ward off evil spirits and reconcile with death, hence the scary costumes.
On the weekend I saw a man dressed as Yoda, but all he was wearing were some green long pointy ears and a g-string.
What evil spirit is that warding off? Aren’t we worried we’re going to make the evil spirits horny, then they’ll come back to earth and try to have sex with us? I don’t want to have sex with an evil spirit! I’m a regular Joe. I like black coffee and sex with normal, non-evil spirits.
ALTHOUGH when you think about it, having sex with an evil spirit is probably the scariest thing you could do, so maybe sexy g-string Yoda is actually a super scary costume, and the end result is that I am actually very scared and it worked perfectly.
A lot to unpack there.
SELF CARE
Speaking of scary, I’ve been flying a lot lately. I love flying. I sip a gin and tonic and pretend I’m George Clooney in Up In The Air - on my way to a working-class town to hand out mass redundancies to unsuspecting factory workers. I feel like a god!
My favourite thing about airports is watching couples embarking on a big trip. There’s something about people travelling and sitting in a food court that excites me so much. The scrolling of the phone, the activewear, the occasional hand hold, the sipping of a $12 beer/wine. It’s good stuff.
So much of a couples’ trip is the Instagram photo near the beach, but they never document the silence while their Jetstar flight is delayed and they spend 3 hours nursing a warm Pure Blonde and sparkling rosé.
Couple watching is such a fun thing to do. I always see elderly couples sitting in silence and I think “oh god, how sad. They have nothing to say” but I’m starting to think they might be the happiest people in the world. Getting to the point with someone where you can sit in silence, completely comfortable in yourselves must be unlocking the next level of functioning adult.
When I flew to London a few months ago, there was a man sitting next to me in the middle seat, who said “hi!” when we sat down, then for next 14 hours to Abu Dhabi he didn’t watch a movie, listen to music, read or even sleep.
It was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen.
He’s either the most mentally sound person alive that he can be alone with his thoughts for fourteen hours OR he’s in real need of some serious therapy time.
Fourteen hours? What the heck was going through his head? I was two seasons deep into the Big Bang Theory and he was still staring at the blank screen, eyes open, not making a sound.
I kept thinking I should tell the air hostess to be like “watch this guy, he’s either gonna drive this plane to the ground, or he’s reached a place of mindfulness nirvana”
Either way both are suspect. They should be able to scan for that in the security check.
“Okay pop your keys, laptops, belts, insecurities and voices in your head in the tray. Oh what’s that sir? You don’t have any self-doubts and thoughts you wanna block out? Okay come this way to the security room…we’re going to have to do a cavity search.”
“Even if you don’t have anything up there we need to give you some trauma and even the playing field for everyone else in society. Sorry, it’s airport procedure.”
That guy was happy and assured of himself yet the rest of us have to take half a tub of valium like normal people. Sounds like terrorism to me!
DOCTOR DEATH
I went to a new doctor yesterday. I don’t have a normal GP so half the time I end up at weird bulk-billing medical centres. My doctor was a very nice man named Richard, but the entire consult (and this threw me) he was sipping on a two-litre Sunkist bottle.
Richard, mate. Come on.
It feels wrong to be at the doctor’s worrying about their health.
I felt like saying, “Okay Richard, time to keep a food diary. We need to work out what you’re putting into your body. Time to grow up.”
It just sends the wrong message from a doctor. Like even I know drinking a two-litre Sunkist is one of the worst things you can do for your body. I half expected him to open the drawer and pull out a Big Mac and start chowing down on that as well. What medical school did he go to? I started scanning the walls for qualifications and degrees.
Normally I wouldn’t care about qualifications, but if I saw anyone drink a two-litre Sunkist in a professional setting I would think twice about engaging them in their services.
People that love soft-drink are the funniest. We all secretly like it, but it’s such an obvious public display of weakness to be drinking it in public. It shows you simply have no self-control. Everyone else plays the game of buying the expensive drink bottle to sip water and say lies like “oh, maybe I’m just weird, but water is just actually my favourite drink!” but public soft drinkers don’t care what anyone thinks about them. They’re true to who they are!
When I was at high school there was a kid called Nick Gray who would come to school everyday with a big Billabong backpack and there'd be nothing in the bag except two, two litre CocaCola bottles.
That was his day. No lunchbox, no books. Just two massive Coca Colas.
What a way to live your life. He told me in Year Eleven that he hadn’t drunk water in four years. I think at the time I was impressed but now I feel the overwhelming need to call his parents and tell them never to raise children again. I’m not sure what he’s up to today, but if two, two litre Cokes isn’t a gateway to cocaine addiction or a career in real estate (the same thing), I’m not sure what is.
GOODBYE
Okay toodaloo. I meant to write about the lions at Taronga but got completely sidetracked. I didn’t really have any hot takes on the story except that it’s scary but also very exciting.
Everyone was like, “What if they got out of the suburb?!”
It was 7am peak hour on the lower-north shore of Sydney! They would have been stuck in traffic for 90mins!
Okay, what a terrible joke to end this beautiful piece of writing. I hope your lives are going well. Come and watch me do stand up soon!
Adios.
P.S if you’ve missed any of my other newsletters and want to catch up, you can here. Come to my FILMING IN NEWCASTLE ON NOV 17TH. Follow me on Insta, here’s my podcast, OR you could subscribe to my fledgling Youtube channel.