Australia: International Comedy Festival

First off - Rupert the Bear: thank you for the additional class notes on English English (see previous post and comments). Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated. Although I do have to disagree with you on one thing: Brits may spell it "footie" or "brekkie" but all the signs I've seen around here in AUSTRALIA spell such words with a "y." And we are ready and waiting for you to make your appearance here in Melb - Ben is more than happy to share his big lonely bed with you. But walls are thin so please keep it down.

Moving on...The 22nd Melbourne International Comedy Festival is happening right now between March 19th through April 13th and I already got to see two shows! One of the three largest comedy festivals in the world, the Melbourne Festival is an annual event that showcases some of Australia's and the world's best comedians every night for a month (left pic of their daily board of comedians). Two weekends ago, Jimmy, Noules, and I saw Spicks and Specks based on a popular TV music quiz show (think Name That Tune) that features famous guests like Weird Al Yankovic. To put it into context, it was like seeing a live show of Wheel of Fortune inside a theater with Pat and Vanna as the actual hosts. I didn't get some of the Australian jokes but I understood 92% of what they said (sometimes it's a little hard with their accent) and recognized 87% of the songs.

This past Friday, I was out on a blind date with Tamie (introduced by my LA friend Debbie) who brought her friend Frank along. (My friend count in Melbourne has gone from 4 to 6.) Like all the Aussies I've met so far, they were super nice and funny. We dined at Shanghai Village in Chinatown (left pic) then watched a comedy show featuring Reginald D Hunter. The advertisement said Reginald was from the U.K. so we were expecting a British comedian. But it turns out he was an American living in London. I flew all this way to Australia, attend an international comedy festival just to watch a bloody AMERICAN comedian???!!! Good thing I understood 100% of what he said and he was pretty funny. His jokes were mainly about black Americans vs. white Americans (it's ok - he's black) and ended the 50 min. show with this:

He loves "F*ck you" movies because they don't give a rat's ass about happy endings with fat chicks finding love (a la Bridget Jones) and bad guys getting killed. His all-time favorite is a short Japanese film about a bus that gets carjacked. Two men point their guns at everyone asking them for their wallets then drag the bus driver out of the bus by her ponytail and proceed to rape her. No one on the bus does anything to help even at the urge of a scrawny teenager who gets out of the bus and tries to fight the two villains off. They beat the crap out of him and he is left lying on the ground bleeding. When they are done with the girl, she gets back on the bus and resumes her position in the driver seat, emotionless and speechless. Then the boy who tried to save her earlier gets back on the bus but she yells at him to get off. Instead she throws his backpack out the door and drives the bus away. The boy, utterly bewildered, limps along until 20 minutes later when he sees a herd of ambulances and police cars. He finds out that the girl has driven the bus off a cliff killing herself and everyone on the bus. The end. WOW! Those Japanese, I tell ya.

Oh yea, the punchline of the joke was: He didn't know if that was a "F*ck you" movie or just that women really can't drive.