Winner, winner, shave for dinner
I shaved my legs for...THIS?! Newsletter #18
The comedy festival is over and what a fest it was, I come back to my prudes wearing the pandemic crown as the RAW 2020 winner/hero of the people. Though I will have a short reign as they start another round of the competition shortly, I fully intend for it to be a powerful one.
Welcome to I shaved my legs for…THIS?! The newsletter exploring the 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 (semi) critically review every shave and the subsequent day/week/experiences and give it all 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
I shaved them. It went well. The ArCTic BLasT makes it a lot harder to justify any point to a shave.
Rating: 10/20 for being a shave I barely remember and couldn’t really argue for its value.
The Content
We are currently in the middle of a new season of Line of Duty (love this show so much I am even paying for ‘BritBox’ of all things. I do say in the middle because this show has gone for a week by week release, which is…not ideal. The ‘let’s watch each ep as they come out’ (me, with absolutely no appetite for delayed gratification) vs his ‘let’s wait until they are all out and then binge’ is pretty much the key argument in the relationship and the issue most likely to take us down.
The show is a procedural police drama and before you shout ACAB at me and run off into a wooded area (probably to meet your untimely death), it focuses on a unit that investigates anti-corruption within the police force. And, in a twist surprising no one, the place is bloody rife with it. The show will ruin you for all other procedural dramas because you will constantly wonder why they aren’t showing the completion of the proper paperwork at each step of the process.
Better still the show has a character with about a million catchphrases, and we all know that nothing makes a relationship stronger than endlessly quoting from a shared TV show.
Rating: 20/20 for every time Ted Hastings says ‘nicking bent coppers’
The Food
What I am eating has been a real gateway for feeling guilty about my laziness lately, so I thought this newsletter we would capture some of the other emotions associated with the meals I’ve been eating.
I shared a two-person platter of Ethiopian food at Jambo before Footscray Comedy Club. Eating a huge meal, with your hands, before performing to a sold-out crowd - now that’s BRAVERY.
A seafood laksa at North Melbourne Fave, KL Bunga Raya to plan the future of Funny Stuff comedy at Club Voltaire. Brainstorming a new brand and not falling asleep during the meal - we can call that AMBITION!
Cheese ravioli with a semi zhujed up tomato sauce from a bottle. I added garlic, some chorizo that was languishing in the fridge and a splash of tart celery vinegar (as seen on the Instagram) which really lifted it. I know from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat that if a dish isn’t satisfying it’s because you haven’t included an acid element - which makes your mouth water and thus want to eat more - either way, we are talking CREATIVITY… it’s also learning if you didn’t know that sweet lil acid tip.
And finally, still eating chips for 1/3 of my meals, including a lovely lemony bowl at Stalactites - this girl is CONSISTENT baby!
Rating: 15/20 because we are out there, doing our best to eat a diet that is, if not healthy, at least more varied.
The Social Stuff
Look, I’m not going to beat around the bush, I’m a winner now and that means my phone has been BLOWING UP and I was absolutely loving it. I actually said on the evening of my win ‘Oh I thought I was out of messages from people, but then I opened Instagram and there was a whole fresh wave of messages rolling in!’ Which is maybe the saddest sentence ever uttered?
Unfortunately, despite the initial joy, it has meant that my fortnight has primarily consisted of responding some variation of ‘Thanks so much!’ to each message before quickly asking a question about the person messaging so they wouldn’t think I was too up myself. There are some messages I probably missed in the middle of it all and I feel guilty about it to this day. Which is actually a nice equilibrium for me, because guilt is by far the emotion I am most comfortable with.
If there is one skill I want to hone over the next year it is the ability to reply to anyone saying they liked my set with anything other than a high pitched ‘Oh thank you, thank you so much’. If anyone has any ideas for a cool way to respond I am absolutely open to hearing them. Hoping for a real zinger I can use, so they walk away chuckling and I can leave with the glow of another laugh squeezed into the night instead of the shame of a disappointing social interaction. I’m currently leaning towards some variation of a ‘your mum’ joke, so clearly I need help here.
Rating: 15/20 because validation is sweet, but it is also fleeting.
The Miscellaneous Stuff
This great article about the middle class and orthodontia, which I related to despite never having braces due to a ‘thrusting tongue condition’ and my parent’s heavy investment in my brothers messed up teeth.
This Slutever article on ‘Am I having enough sex?’ really spoke to me, particularly the line “Arriving at a party without a hilariously tragic sex story felt akin to a comedian walking onstage without material.”
I tried the tik tok egg trick and it did not work for me. I am convinced everything on this app is a scam.
This movie ‘Together Together’, is surprisingly not an ill-planned pandemic movie but looks like a fun non-rom-com-com romp.
Despite never having actually eaten one, this is an excellent piece on the virtues of a Fillet-o-Fish.
There is nothing harder than finding an ending - six screenwriters, on their hardest (spoilers for Palm Springs, On the Rocks and Soul, plus some other movies I haven’t seen/planned to see).
Obviously I am going to link to an article titled ‘How I learned compassion from my lesbian gym teacher’.
Rating: 12/20 no promo for you! But I am a little sad I had the time to half read these articles instead of non-stop gigging.
Final Rating (72/100)
Ooooo, just shy of the threshold, what a shame. Another experience that will help to keep me humble. I am looking forward to the first true winter of the podcast and whether or not I will have to lie about having shaved my legs within any given fortnight.
Anyway, I am glad to be back and writing these newsletters in their full and glorious form yet again. I am always amazed that I manage to pull them together (normally at the last minute) though also worried that I am just endlessly repeating myself. If you liked having a skim through or clicking on a few links, I would love it if you could share this newsletter with a friend. My mum needs to know I am getting good readership numbers to feel proud of me - so it would be a huge help.
Okay I think that is it, thanks for everything and see you back here in your inbox two weeks from now!
Always funny and thought provoking, plus a really good culinary tip!