Happy Sunday! From me, Melbourne comedian and writer Prue Blake.
Thanks for reading my newsletter exploring my theory that shaving your legs or putting in that bit of extra effort, should translate to having an above-average day. To test this theory I critically review every shave and the subsequent day and give the entire day them a rating out of 100. Any day that scores higher than a 75 was definitely worth the shave and hopefully worth you reading about.
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The Shave (10/20)
Same as usual. No new items of note. Need to buy some new razors. Next newsletter you will get to hear about my adventures in my brand new shower though. How exciting for you!
The Content (20/20)
I’ve been reading Rodham and I tell you what team even though I don’t love the book overall it is still getting full marks because there are just SO MANY references to Hilary being too busy to shave her legs. Yes girl! I feel you, as another strong, ‘powerful’ woman, I am often too stressed and busy to find time to even have a poo. At one point Hilary even has a staff member shave her legs for her in the car on the way to some important meeting or press rally. Why that was important to do I will never know, but I will save this shaving approach for when I am really wanting to mix up The Shave section of this newsletter.
Rodham is described as modern historical fiction but it reads more like a memoir of wishful thinking to me. The whole selling point of the book is imagining the life of Hilary Clinton (nee Rodham) had she never married Bill. Wow, I’m sure your thinking, what a great approach to help center the woman in the story? And yet, there is just so much Bill and Hilary pining after Bill and never moving on or meeting someone new. But she does run for president and lose more times than she did in real life. Maybe at times the book was limited by its own historical grounding, never wanting to fully employ the butterfly effect suggested by its premise and stray too far from the narrative we know in this timeline.
Overall this book might have been aiming for a Sliding Doors moment but definitely leans a little to close to The Butterfly Effect (33% approval Rotten Tomatoes). If I had my choice again, I probably would have saved myself and just rewatched Donnie Darko and not the Donnie Brasco DVD that mum accidentally bought for me instead.
The Food (12/20)
An interesting one. The new year came with the promise of health, wellness and eating some goddamn vegetables. Buuuuut, it also came with moving and the inability to keep either house stocked with anything other than mismatched condiments. So what food has really been a looooot of toast and a lot of pasta.
Luckily, I love toast and pasta so this fortnight still gets a very high rating. Also a shout out to an anchovy butter roast chicken that I had for dinner last night (an Alison Roman recipe, I’m so sorry but I had already bought the book…). A little too rich and a little too fishy, but delicious all the same, especially with some little kipflers tucked into the juice. Plus two points. Minus one point though because I tried to make a stock out of the chicken, got sidetracked doing gigs and fun comedy things then came back to a pot of dry bones and veg. Whoopsies.
For anyone wanting to cook along at home, tonight I will be making sausage rolls with saurkraut from new insta chef sensation - SomethingsIliketocook.
The Social Stuff (15/20)
January is always such an interesting social time, isn’t it? Everyone is away or in the midst of their new years resolutions. I had made a dry January pledge that I have already broken several times and has since become a ‘you can drink once a week but just no beer’ January. Hopefully, we won’t need to go as far down the rabbit hole as just a ‘just no dry whites in January’ pledge.
In addition to just the regular old resolutions that I can’t keep, my boyfriend and I also decided to each set a word that encapsulates all of our goals and what we want to achieve for the year. I like to think we are normally on the same page with these things and work together as a couple because we share similar values if not hugely different approaches to life. This belief was shaken when we finally shared our words we had both chosen…
For him: transition - sensible, reflective, well-considered
Me: tits out - bold, fun, likely to do well on tik tok
This is either going to work out very well indeed (the supportive sometimes bra for my otherwise free boobies) or we are in for a hell of a time making this whole cohabitation thing work out.
Anyway, hope you are all enjoying a tits out new year so far.
The Miscellaneous Stuff (20/20)
The modern-day scandal sheet we all want after Bridgerton. Huge bonus points here for talking about celebrities we know about and not just the many and varied pool of those that have been on reality tv.
A great story about the importance of your other significant others (Thankfully not a preachy, polyamory piece).
GQ interviews my eternal cynical queen Fran Lebowitz off the back of her new Netflix doco, which is…not as good as Public Speaking in my opinion.
Okay this tip from Hayley Nahmans newsletter is LIFE CHANGING. Fellow ‘all the tabs open’ people, chuck em in a group
Buying furniture for my regular square apartment has been a nightmare, so I can only imagine how hard it would be in this ‘perfectly circular home’.
A deeply upsetting recommendation for canned cheese.
AND MOST EXCITING OF ALL. GIGS ARE ON. There are so many great gigs you can catch over the next couple of weeks and these are just the ones I will be at:
18 Jan - Spleen Comedy, 7 and 8.30pm shows. (Sold out, sorry friends - go another week!)
19 Jan - Catfish Comedy, 8pm. Tickets $15
20 Jan - Funny Stuff @ Club Voltaire, 7.30pm. Tickets $10
20 Jan - Comedy Wednesdays at Georges Bar, 8pm. Free entry!
21 Jan - Handle Bar Comedy (Bendigo), 8pm. Free entry!
25 Jan - Comedy at the Classic, 7pm. Tickets $10
26 Jan - LIDO Comedy, 7.30pm. Tickets $10
Seats are still limited for all of these gigs. Best to click above now, book ahead and be a hero and champion of the arts.
Final Rating (77/100)
Oh yeah, squeaking over the line, right into worth it territory. All those sweet gigs up there really came in hot to save the day. And honestly, I’m too tired to say anything more about it.
Thanks so much for reading. If you enjoyed this newsletter please subscribe! And if you subscribed this newsletter, please share with a friend. And if you’ve done both of those things, know I love you forever. I will be back in two short weeks with the good, the bad and the mostly mediocre shave news. Until then, stay cute and see comedy.