Why didn't someone stop me?

I used to think it was important, in some areas of life, for us to take a small amount of responsibility for our actions, like when that woman in the US a few years ago sued a fast food outlet for burns to her, uh-hm, inner thighs from driving with a take-away coffee between her legs. I remember thinking at the time there may have been a few things she personally could have done to avoid the incident.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the horror that is the fast food industry or their inexplicable desire to douse our nether regions in hot coffee, but I just felt the fast food joint wasn't entirely to blame for the unfortunate mishap.

But that was then and I hadn't seen Jerry Springer: The Opera.

Post-Jerry Springer any question about where responsibility lies for all future actions has been resolved. From now on, responsibility lies with everyone else but me: friends, loved ones, associated acquaintances and, why not, complete strangers. Clearly I am unable to make sound decisions for myself so the best thing I can do is stop making them and pass the decision baton on to others who might make less of a hash of it than me.

This is all a long way of saying, when I said "Jerry Springer: The Opera? Sounds awes!" you should have said "are you out of your frickin' mind? No, you fool! Put your money away and go sit on your hands."

From the refrain of the opening song ("my wife used to be my Dad!"), through the call-and-answer "'what do you want?' - 'lesbians fighting!' - what do you want?' - 'open-crotch sighting!'", to the Ku Klux Klan having their 'Jerry Springer moment' it was all so very wrong.

The funniest part was that the audience was full of dressed-up Opera House aficionados who were whooping and guffawing it up big time.

[The nicest part, as always, was the company.]

So from now on when I come up with some sandwich-short-of-a-picnic idea, like getting tickets to see Shane Warne: The Musical, what do you do?

You wave your big decision baton at me and yell: "Are you out of your frickin' mind? No, you fool! Put your money away and go sit on your hands!"

Excellent - things are going to be ok from here.

I thought the day would never come

Jerry Springer: The Opera!


It's on tonight, peeps. Be still my beating fun stick.

The King of Musicals

I've been trying to think of a way to describe, in the few short words that make up a post, just what fabulosity is in store for me in 58 short days when I go to see Jerry Springer: The Opera. I couldn't put it any better than this blurb from the Opera House's website:

A pre-op transsexual… A man with nappy fetish… A pole-dancing housewife… Dancing Klansmen… The Devil… And a Jesus who admits he’s just a little bit ‘gay’…

A cast of 21 performers, with an 8-piece band, play a succession of lowlife characters, each desperate for their own ‘Jerry Springer’ moment. They fight, they cuss, they reveal their secrets – all via a sung-through score that ranges from pop and Broadway to classical and contemporary opera.

“It’s got tragedy, it’s got violence, there are people screaming at each other and you can’t understand what they’re saying. It’s perfect for opera.” Richard Thomas, Conductor

And oh my lordy David Wenham is Jerry! Be still my beating fun-stick.

How ever will I hold down my job, perform home economics, and remember to wash and dress myself when such a transcendental, transformative experience awaits? (Seriously, any suggestions welcome.)

The only thing that would top off the show itself would be a pre- or post-show interview with the pre-op transsexual, the chap with the nappy fetish, or the pole-dancing housewife, etc.

I reckon it's so gonna happen because my brother's uncle's sister's nephew snogged a guy who knows the chick who used to work behind the bar in the restaurant across the road from where the guy who donated his left testicle to the infertile couple who were on the real Springer show in June a couple of years ago used to have noodles after work. It's all coming together beautifully.