Some questions about Siamese twins

Hey dudes. Look, I know you were all really keen on supporting me at my stand-up comedy debut this Monday, but the event organisers can’t organise for shit (somewhat ironically, now that I think about it). So, don’t worry about it. You’ve been spared this once. Go see Eric Clapton or something.

Anyway, it’s just as well, really. I hadn’t actually prepared anything. Put on the spot though, one of my ideas was to do something about Siamese twins (and cross my fingers that there wouldn’t be any in the audience).

Actually I've been thinking a lot about Siamese twins lately. Waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, NEEDING to know the answers to some questions. I haven't seen the (no doubt) sensitive and brilliant Farrelly brothers movie, "Stuck On You" -- so that'll be my next port of call. In the meantime, though:

* If one of the twins commits a crime, does the other have to go to jail too? (Presumably he would be an accomplice anyway.)

* If you have a pair of Siamese twin girls with ONE set of genitalia, what happens when one of them gets some action? Does the other one merely look away and "take one for the team"? And, does she actually call it, “taking one for the team”?

* What kind of guy would go in for that sort of thing anyway? Especially considering the twin girls may still only have two breasts between them.

* Would sex with a Siamese twin be considered a threesome? And, then, would it be considered incest? Since two of the participants are not only blood-related, but actually SHARE THE SAME BLOOD?

* Do Siamese twins wear T-shirts that say "WE'RE with Stupid" or, "OUR parents went to California and all WE got was this lousy T-shirt (with two necklines)"? Because that could REALLY cause problems for the humorous T-shirt industry. I imagine they’re all slowly going bankrupt because they’re not catering to this important sector of the market.

* A case study. Abigail and Brittany Hensel, in the US, are dicephalic conjoined twins. Joined at the torso, they have two arms and two legs. And, as everybody knows, dicephalic conjoined twins control only their half of the body -- an arm and leg each. Still, Abby and Brit somehow manage to do things like run, play basketball, and DRIVE A CAR.

Yes, Siamese twins driving. One indicates; one operates the pedals; both steer. Abs and Big-B had to do two driving tests between them.

Now, look, I don't buy into all those "bad driver" stereotypes. Of course I don't look twice if I see a woman driving a car. That's fine, good for them. But, call me crazy… I think I’d get a tiny, teensy-weensy bit nervous at the idea of TWO WOMEN JOINED AT THE FUCKING HEAD DRIVING A FUCKING CAR NEXT TO ME ON THE M4.

I mean, come on: I'm driving down to the shops, getting some milk maybe, and I'm stopped at the traffic lights. I'm tapping on my steering wheel, it's a lovely day, birds are singing and all that. And then, you know, I just happen to glance into the car that pulls up next to me, and there's A FUCKING MUTANT WOMAN WITH TWO HEADS IN A FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE LISTENING TO "THE KYLE AND JACKIE O SHOW".



I mean, I can't be certain, but look I'm PRETTY sure my head would explode right there.

And... SIAMESE twins? Doesn’t that mean they’re Asian too? Oh, fuck.

Word association, goth style

Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend a forty-minute train trip next to a couple of goths -- a goth couple, in fact. Yi-freaking-ppee.

The guy was absurdly tall. As usual, you really only need two adjectives to effectively describe these goth guys: he had a long black trenchcoat with matching long black boots and long black hair. The girl was about half his height, with spikes coming out of freaking everywhere like some sort of hideous reptile that's evolved somewhere nasty. She had a face for radio, and even still you could only listen to the radio with a paper bag over it, in the dark.

This I could deal with. The annoying bit was the half hour-long word association game they played.

"War."
"Famine."
"Pestilence."
"Death."
"Murder."
"Serial killer."
"Life sentence."
"Death."
"Lethal injection."
"Electric chair."
"Firing squad."
"Guns."
"Knives."
"Swords."
"Knights."
"Horses."
"Ponies."
"... Death."

I have some words for ya, matey fellas.

Shut.
The.
Fuck.
Up.

Stand-up gig

Just a heads up, matey fellas. Apparently I'm doing some stand-up "comedy" round Fox Studios in a week and a bit. It's part of the Raw Comedy competition, so you'll only have to endure my onstage antics for five minutes, and there'll be other guys having a go too. Come along, have a drink, throw some underpants. It's my first attempt at this sort of thing so, for the sadists among you, it should be a jolly good baptism of fire. (Baptism of bad jokes more like.)

Sydney #3: Monday 29/1/2007
Sydney Comedy Store
The Entertainment Quarter,
207 / 122 Lang Rd, Moore Park.

Doors open early for 8.30pm show.

OMG

So cockatiels like to imitate any commonly occurring sounds in their environment, do they? Yes, they do. They seem to be especially fond of mobile phone ring tones (my friend's cockatiel whistles "The Colonel Bogey March", apparently), but our front garden has a new resident, that sits in the tree outside my window every morning and goes: "Rrrring ring! Rrrring ring!" It even does the pause between the rings.

Which brings me to the subject of phones.

So a lot of phones now have built-in responses for when you’re too busy to properly reply to a text message, do they? Yes, they do. Among them: “I’m in a meeting.” Okay, fair enough, you’re in a meeting, you don’t want to be fiddling with your phone during it. “I’m running late.” Sure, that’s reasonable, though some sort of explanation would be more polite. But “I love you too”?! Come on, guys. That’s ridiculous.

So, this is what it’s come to, is it? Yes, it is. Is this what passes for communication these days? Will we be reading books in this bizarre dialect next? Well, actually, in 2004, Microsoft released a text message version of Homer’s Iliad, reducing the historical epic to sentences like “Aeneas da Trojan hero woz hit by Diomedes n Aphrodite went 2 help im”.

And don’t get me started on punctuation. Seriously, don't.

Okay, you've got me started. For a frightening number of us, an apostrophe is something that happens to other people. Not to say I don’t understand the importance of abbreviation. As I've said before, I don’t catch a taximeter cabriolet to the cinematograph and snack on chipped potatoes; nor do I take the omnibus to the zoological gardens while pushing round a perambulator. (Although, as I've also admitted before, “perambulator” is an awesome word.)

I do think, however, that there are some things that deserve to go unabbreviated. Like emotions. Frankly, there’s something a little disingenuous about turning the broad range of human feelings into emoticons and acronyms. You know, stuff like LOL (Laughing Out Loud), LMAO (Laughing My Arse Off) and LSMALBOWCO (Laughing So Much A Little Bit Of Wee Came Out).

Text message by text message, we’re being trained to think in bits of 160 characters or less – strangling some of the subtlety, most of the meaning and all of the beauty out of the English language. There’s only one thing to say about it all really. :(

I is written a book.

If you want to blow shit up, maybe you should be a pyrotechnician.

If you want to pull dead animals' gizzards out, maybe you should be a taxidermist.

If you want to saw women in half and get away with it, maybe you should be in jail. On the other hand, if you only want to make it look like you sawed a woman in half, maybe you should be a magician.

Why the career advice? Due to one of our commissioned, professional writers stealing all his stuff from Wikipedia (of all places), the publishing team here at Career FAQs rewrote the book, Career FAQs Weird and Wonderful. So, in every sense that I'm prepared to acknowledge, I've finally gotten a book published. Woot.

Find out how YOU can become a stunt performer, a food stylist, a pole dancing instructor -- or just read the interesting stories of others who've done it. Career FAQs Weird and Wonderful. Shorter, funnier, and less-driven by similes than an Anna Westbrook novel.

Read and buy the book here:

http://www.careerfaqs.com.au/TitleDetail.aspx?TitID=23

Alternatively, don't.

Things and stuff

* A couple of days ago I found myself at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Literally "found myself", I mean: I was one of the exhibits. People with permanently furrowed brows looked at me closely and said things like, "Beautiful textures," and "Such understanding of light and shade," and so on. But I don't know. I don't get contemporary art.

Having said that, I enjoyed me much better than the Paddy Bedford exhibition.

* A couple of days ago I ended up at the Three Sisters, where I spent most of the time playing The Who's Tommy pinball machine. It was awesome. I did get tired of it after twenty minutes, though, and eventually offered a little boy my two remaining balls.

It was a wonderful day in the Blue Mountains.

On the way back, I hit a wombat, which may have been a trifle cruel because I wasn't driving.

* A couple of days ago I saw Sofia Coppola's adrenaline-fueled, action-packed, mile-a-minute new flick, Marie Antoinette. Our Very Own Rose Byrne -- the "rising starlet" and "next big thing" according to the Sunday Magazine a few weeks back -- stole the show. Not that there seemed to be that much of a fight for it. Anyway, anyone that can act alongside Ben Lee and not throw up deserves success, I think.

* A couple of days ago I saw a little theatre company do Alice in Wonderland. The hookah-smoking caterpillar was Rastafarian and Alice threatened to spank one of the audience members. Best adaptation ever. Or was it?

* A couple of days ago I played some Aqua Golf, and a couple of days before that I played Aqua Tennis (well, tennis in the rain, I mean), and a couple of days before that I went for a swim. Just like I always suspected, watersports are much more fun than normal sports.

Speaking of which -- and I'm sure nerds everywhere have talked about this on their forum thingies on their Internets -- but Nintendo really should have reconsidered the name of their fun-for-the-whole-family video game, "Wii Sports". Tsk tsk. Their working title, "Taking A Piss On Someone's Face For Sexual Pleasure", was much better.

* Anyway, what I really wanted to say before I got sidetracked was, I'm going to make a serious attempt at an art blog, and see how it goes. Check it out, if you want, at: Flying Ninja Cowbow Zombies... From The Future

Word of the Year

So, you guys like Toto, huh.

Just a quick note, everyone: be sure to visit www.macquariedictionary.com.au before the 21st of Jan to vote for the Macquarie Dictionary WORD OF THE YEAR. Highlights in this year's additions to the lexicon: "booty call", "emo", and "bath butler" ("a hotel employee who attends to the needs of a guest in relation to having a bath").

Poll poll