It's the stuff that comes out of my brain
Great Aunt Tiggylina Butternut-Mynge and her Temperance Society chums eagerly await World War I.
7. Teetotal
The superhuman ability to abstain from all alcoholic beverages.
I tried being teetotal once. I went to a bar and drank only tomato juice. I drank so much I spent the rest of the night vomiting bright red fountains of spaghetti sauce. Even worse, I was sober enough to remember it.
Kids, just say NO to vegetable-based liquid refreshments.
Children’s parties are a disaster waiting to happen. Assemble a bunch of restless children dressed in their best party clothes and fill them with sugary pop and Cheetos. Then run.
Create further chaos by hiring a children’s entertainer to keep the little darlings amused.
The local magician’s audience for the day was a gaggle of noisy seven-year-olds at a birthday party. They chattered and fidgeted on the community hall floor as the magician dabbed his aging face with make-up in the washroom. He lurched onto the stage from behind a cloud of white smoke. The children cheered. Looking like Peter Reveen’s long-lost brother, his polyester sequined jacket glittered in the lights and his bouffant dyed-black hair and pointed beard shone with lacquer. Behold the Great Lorenzo! He looked neither Great nor Italian, but the children were mesmerized.
The birthday girl was summoned to the stage, nervous and giggly in her pretty party dress. The Great Lorenzo whipped up a couple of balloon animals before her eyes, tugged her braids and asked her to help perform the Greatest Trick Ever Seen! The children cheered, waving their Cheeto yellow hands in the air.
The Great Lorenzo opened a glittering magic box and pulled out a velvet bag full of ingredients. They were going to make a magic chocolate cake! The little girl rummaged through the bag and dropped eggs, flour and magic dust into the box. Now to bake the cake! The Great Lorenzo waved his wand and dropped a burning match into the box. Abracadabra!
A massive yellow flame shot from the magic box. The little girl screamed and ran off the stage. The smell of burning bouffant and melting sequins wafted across the hall. The children cheered. “It’s alright kids, everything’s fine!” squealed a voice from behind the flames as a fire extinguisher was rushed to the stage.
The Great Lorenzo emerged through the choking black smoke. A showman to the last, he was not going to let the kids down. He stumbled towards the little girl, who had peed her pants in terror and was crying in the corner. He presented her with a slightly charred chocolate cake. The children cheered again. He really was magic after all.
I don’t know what happened to the Great Lorenzo after that. Maybe he ended up performing in some smoky nightclub in Las Vegas. Maybe he never performed again. And the little girl? That was me. And I’ve been terrified of chocolate cake ever since.
Ahoy there my fellow cock pirates! Tiggy is going away for a little while. No, not the ‘orange jumpsuit and scrubbing toilets’ type vacation (can I point out all charges were dropped), but I have been invited by Tiggyblog fan Snorri Twotsson to Scandinavia! After reading my guide to Norway, Snorri challenged me to visit his wonderful country where he’s promised to “Teach me a lesson for insulting Norwegians.” I’m looking forward to learning cheeky Norwegian swear words and enjoy some bawdy banter with the locals! I hope he’ll take me on a wild hamster safari in the fjords too. What a lovely guy.
Now everyone play nicely and I’ll be back in June with even more stuff, things and all kinds of rubbish.
Ha det!
There’s something wrong with my TV. It only shows CSI. No matter which channel I flick to, I still see Gil Grissom prodding a mutilated carcass. Every fucking channel. The CSI team continues to probe blood-spattered bodies all evening. A perfectly coiffured woman slices into a cadaver and harps on about seminal fluid and slash marks. There’s a time and a place for seminal fluid and it isn’t while I’m eating my dinner.
My faulty TV is now subjecting me to a visual horror show. Sweaty fat guys weld motorcycles, plastic teenies squawk Whitney Houston songs and hyperactive Americans demand I buy Super Bam Power Juicer. Realizing this parade of televisual twats is what constitutes entertainment these days, I’ve decided to cash in and develop my own shows to flog to the networks.
Celebrity CSI: A reality show contestant is brutally murdered. A team of other reality show celebrities don rubber gloves and tap bleeping computers to work out who did it. Of course this being a reality show, the unlucky celeb will be sacrificed for real. The victim’s family should be informed of their loss live on TV – think of the ratings!
Infomovies: Movies are practically two-hour long infomercials these days (yes David “Ooh, product placement all over my new movie! Nike! Buy Nike!!” Schwimmer, I’m talking to you). Why not have movie-length commercials? Get Brad or George to pump the Bowflex® Home Gym for two hours. Throw in a sub-plot involving terrorists, homicidal pirates and a shower scene and you’re on to a Bowflex® marketing winner.
Everybody Loves Everybody: Nice middle class family (with a seemingly endless supply of money) headed by lovable chubby guy called Jim. Crime, disease and ethnic minorities do not exist in Jim’s world, apart from one token black friend who gets all the worst lines. Hilarious plots include:
– Jim sneaking out to watch the ball game – just wait until Mrs. Jim finds out!
– Jim arguing with his cantankerous mother-in-law. She’s not bitter because she’s lonely and marginalized, of course.
– Trailer trash neighbour stealing the lawn mower, barbeque etc. Stupid poor people are funny!
It’s a tried and tested sitcom formula so why do anything else?
Nice Fluffy Family Happy Fun Time: To keep those right-wing religious zealots happy, I’m developing a family show just for them. Imagine a wholesome hour filled with children’s spelling bees, jolly songs about Jesus and how lovely he is, children petting puppies, jolly ladies doing jigs, puppies judging spelling bees and jigging children petting Jesus. And knitting. There should be a lovely knitting segment, with sweaters and spinning and jigging. None of those nasty liberal wool colours like indigo and orange. Just nice shades of beige. Amen.
House on Houses: Cranky medic Dr Gregory House helps young couple get on the property ladder by showing them around overpriced apartments (how the hell young couple can afford them is a mystery). Deal closes just in time for House to rush back to hospital to save a young girl from Lupus etc, etc.
Why struggle for original ideas and innovation when you can make easy money recycling the same old formats over and over? And if it makes Rupert Murdoch and Jim Shaw even more money, it can only be a good thing.
Can’t it?
