Feeding the chooks.

I have been a Comedian for a number of years and no matter the occasion, the size of the stage or the size of the audience, I always get nervous before going on stage. When I say nervous, I don't mean, 'Oh I get a few butterflies in the stomach' nervous. I mean ulcer inducing, gut wrenching, hand shaking, parched throat, concrete blocks for feet nerves. The kind of nerves that if not for supreme bladder control, would leave tears of excitement running down my leg.

To overcome my nerves I’ve found the best way to settle myself is to engage in a wide spread public discourse with as many people as I can find in as big of a group as I can find.  Groups of people in libraries, bus stops and on the train platform are prime targets. I initiate conversations and then often take the opposite position on any point just to keep the discussion going. This is a process of what I refer to as mass debating in public and it is very relaxing.  I can mass debate in public for hours and I’ll tell you now it’s not as easy as it looks.  Ever since Brazilians became popular, nobody likes to beat around the bush.

I have not always been a Comedian.  I used to run a nightclub for dwarves (we called it “The Cottage”).  It was a very successful and lucrative business venture mainly because we sold drinks at mini bar prices.
For a while I also worked on a Ph.D in Ornithology. I was doing a research project near Caboolture, a small rural centre just north of Brisbane.  Caboolture is the home of some of my favourite rare and endangered birds, birds like the Double Breasted Mattress Thrasher and the Wide Mouth Fornicator.  I also liked Swallows, but they were neither endangered nor rare around Caboolture.

The Double Breasted Mattress Thrasher and Wide Mouth Fornicator are nocturnal birds and possess very distinctive mating calls.  I can only describe the calls as either a a high pitched E followed by, 'Buy us a drink' or a not very melodic ahhhhhhh, 'How bout a shag?' While such birds are not ever considered by purists to be a prized sighting they are however easy to find, if you know where to look.

Speaking of rare birds let us talk about Dodos and when I say Dodos I am referring to Campbell Newman.  By cancelling the Premier’s Literary Awards it has only taken one week for the Liberal National Party to make Queensland the laughing stock of Australia. Granted, when the Courier Mail’s target readership has an 8^th grade literacy level it makes a certain amount of sense that spending public money on literary awards is literally, a waste of time.


Nonetheless, Newman’s decision to dump the Literary Awards may prove to be a strategic move.  A little bird has told me (it only cost me a Barcardi Breezer) that Campbell Newman favoured the “Translink Rail Services Timetable” as his nomination for best work of fiction and “What Jesus Thinks About Evolution” was a clear favourite to win the science writing category. The pen may be mightier than the sword but in Queensland as Premier Newman shows, the only tool worth holding is one that votes conservative.