Sunday 22 November 2015

Noble Professions



If I were Prime Minister for a day, the first thing I'd do - after passing a law that says Brad Pitt has to marry me - is to give teachers and nurses a pay rise.

It doesn't say much for our society, when a stripper who performs as a 'sexy schoolteacher' or 'naughty nurse' gets paid more than the people who actually do these jobs for real.

Of course if there are any kiddies reading this, I should point out that this does not mean the next time Miss Jones bends over to pick up the chalk in biology, you should try to slip your lunch money into her garter belt.

All jokes aside, I truly do believe that teaching and nursing are the most noble and important jobs in the world, and it really pisses me off that sometimes  we treat teachers as though the only qualification you need to teach grade 2 is to have passed grade 3.

Look, we all agree that nurses are great, but I'm not saying that all teachers are good.  There are certainly a few who found their way into it, not through a love of nurturing the next generation but through a love of having 6 weeks off at Christmas.

i had one teacher who was so bored, he used to stand up the front of the class and sniff the whiteboard markers all day long. (I have no real proof, but that's what I think).  On the upside, he did always give me great marks, and once said that I was one of the smartest clowns he had ever taught. Errrr .... hang on .....

I know this will come as a bit of a shock to most of you, but I was a bit of a brat at school. Almost every report card I received contained the comment "Katelyn will do well in life, as long as she stops trying to be funny all of the time".

My major problem at school was boredom.  In most humanities, arts and language classes, I had more As than a Queenslander making a speech, but in Maths and Science, I scored so many Cs, my report card sounded like a Spanish couple on their wedding night. (Come on, think about it).

In year 10 maths, I remember being so uninterested, that a couple of us would sit up the back of the room, tear up our text books, throw them up into the ceiling fan and when they scattered down, we would sing Christmas carols. 

In science, my friends and I spent most classes seeing how many things we could turn into bongs.

Don't even mention economics. we spent every lesson trying to hide the entire class from the teacher. (Errr ... sorry Butch). Who says school is boring?

I remember one conversation we had .... naturally it was all about sex education.  We all thought it was essential that kids should be taught about sex at school.  Let's face it, they are already learning about plenty of things they will never need to know, like algebra and long division.  How about teaching them some stuff that will actually come in handy later in life, like undo-the-bra and leg division?

But the course shouldn't be restricted to simple biology.  It should teach the things we really need to know about sex; like foreplay and how sometimes it's really helpful to recite the AFL ladder backwards in your head to prevent --- ummm how can I put this nicely? --- being like Thorpie and having false starts.

OK, let's talk about 'How to Undo a Bra 101', which should definitely be a compulsory unit. Sadly most men are more capable of completing Rubik's cube, making an origami swan or breaking into a bank vault.

Jokes aside, a course like this would be great for male-female relations, especially if it's focused on the most important sexual organ of all - the tongue.

Now get your minds out of the gutter. I'm talking about talking. You see, I think men in particular don't talk enough about sex.  Sure, men these days bang on about banging on all the time, but it's silly stuff. I know it seems like that's all they talk about, except for the occasional pause to check the cricket scores, and I'm not referring to yelling obscene stuff from building sites. But we need to talk to each other more.

By the way girls on the other hand are a lot more open about their sex lives.  To all you guys out there, I can guarantee that if you've been with your girl for longer than 15 minutes,  all her close female friends would be able to identify your genitals in a line-up.

Anyway .... I digress.

I would constantly get into trouble for things I said back in school.  In one class (and this is not a joke) the teacher was so frustrated by my questions, she snapped "Well Miss Taylor, if you think you can do a better job, why don't you come up here and teach the class?"

I did.  I immediately sent her to the principal's office, cancelled all homework and asked everyone if they wanted to go on an excursion to the pub. Boy, they loved me.

Oh, and I almost got expelled on my last day of school.  At my school there was a tradition among year 12s, to parody the daily school bulletin.  Unfortunately our version proved a bit too much for the teachers we targeted and they demanded we get kicked out. 

Imagine that?  Making fun of those in power.  Phew, lucky we grew out of that!!!!

But while a good teacher can inspire you, a bad one can scar you for life.  When I told one teacher, let's call her 'Mrs Brown' that I wanted to fly when I was a little older, she told me that it was never going to happen.  

That day, I went home in tears.  Pfffffttttt

I'm not going to make any jokes about nurses. I owe those angels my life.  Just pay them whatever they bloody want!!!

Tuesday 10 November 2015

Music Makes The World Go Round


I  went to see Stephen Fry the other day.

Not really much to say about it ... he was - well - Stephen Fry. Like him or loath him, there was a hilarious part of the show when he spotted a guy sitting in the audience and he asked him his name. The man looked back at him, slightly surprised, and in a softly spoken Aussie brogue, told him his name (I'm not saying who it was, but you Aussies would know him). One of Australia's top comedians.

Suddenly all the air was sucked out of the room as the audience held it's collective breath. But the worst was still to come. Not recognising one of Australia's most famous comedians, Fry pursued his line of questioning. "So, my friend, what do you do?"


After looking back at Fry, the man paused and quietly replied "I'm a comedian. What do you do?"  

I've got to admit, I much rather prefer music concerts than stand-up comedy. 

I remember recently, some well-meaning (read - "idiot") friends took me clubbing. Sure, I love seeing the best bands in the world at huge venues, but sometimes I get as much joy from watching someone try to ride a wheelie bin as if it's a rodeo bull. Soooo we went to see an unknown band perform at a relatively small venue.

When it comes to rock and roll and comedy, stand-up doesn't really stand up. For starters rock and roll is cool. Everyone knows the old saying "sex, drugs and rock and roll". Comedy, I guess, is more "sex jokes and getting the dole".

There is no doubt that rock and roll is sexier than comedy. Despite girls often listing 'sense of humour' as an attractive quality, you rarely see us getting randy for Billy Connolly. A male rock star can get ear piercing screams for removing his shirt. Let's face it, there are rock drummers who, I'm sure, who have never owned a shirt. A comedy gig is about the only place you'll hear an audience scream for the comedian to put his shirt back on.

Music can definitely make things sexy. You can take someone home, dim the lights, light some candles, slip on some James Blunt and let's ... get ... it ... on!! I'd somehow doubt you'd get the same effect if the CD was Kevin Bloody Wilson.

In rock and roll, it's expected that the musos behave as offensively as possible, but the same leeway isn't extended to the punters. In fact, I think we need a special version of the Ten Commandments just for gigs.

Now before I go on, I should clarify that I am not a religious person. Nevertheless, I like the idea of existence coming with a detailed set of instructions. God's version of "Life For Dummies", but perhaps I'm being a little demanding of the big fella to come up with commandments for gigs, so I asked my friends for their views. So here, in the name of making this crazy thing called 'life' a little simpler, are my 10 Commandments for concerts -

1.  If you want to have a convo with someone, do it at the bar
2.  If you're going to the mosh-pit, finish your drink first.
3.  If you are going to sit on your boyfriend's shoulders, improving your view of the stage, but obstructing it for half the audience, take off your top so at least the male half of the audience has something interesting to look at
4.  Apart from the aforementioned shoulders commandment, shirts should remain on at all times.  Thee obvious exception is if you are the band's drummer, in which case being topless at all times during the gig is compulsory.
5.  If you are going to follow the lead singer's request to 'put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care', please make sure that you have applied a liberal amount of deodorant.
6.  If you must take photos, try to avoid pointing the flash in the artists' eyes. Unless, of course, that artist is Justin Beiber!
7.  You must be 100 percent sure of the lyrics before committing to singing along. I'm sure Billy Thorpe wasn't singing "Boys on my bed". It was "Poison Ivy" people.
8.  When attending a gig, you must not, I repeat, you must not, wear a t-shirt featuring the band you are actually seeing.
9.  If you don't have fluorescent green hair in your everyday life, don't dye it fluorescent green for a concert.  Chances are, sometime during the middle of the show the dye will start to mix with your perspiration and you'll end up looking like The Hulk's love child.
10. Earplugs should not be worn at any time. If it's too loud, you're too old. Go home.

And here, my children, endeth the lesson.