I had a very good week in the third grade when my friends and I discovered that John Travolta said the word “shit” in the song “Grease Lightning”. Every day we had twenty minutes of free time between math and reading. Us boys plugged our headphones into a port and played “Grease Lightning” over and over and over again. We held our breath in anticipation until Travolta said shit and we giggled hysterically, because when you’re eight, nothing is funnier than hearing the word shit while you’re in the classroom.
Side note - kids today with their iPods, DVDs, and Internet are completely spoiled. The amount of effort and teamwork required just to hear a “swear word” in the classroom helped shape our character as men. Today’s youth are probably too busy streaming porn to be bothered with hearing bad words. Kids today have it so damn easy, but I digress...
All good things come to an end and Mrs. Mason figured out why we were listening to the soundtrack. We were forbidden to play “Grease Lightning” again and lost the privilege of listening to records for a full week. I had nothing better to do, so I started playing with a globe in the classroom. I spun the globe around lazily and let my index finger gently touch it as it spun. The globe stopped and I became aware of a large land mass off the coast of Asia called “Australia”. My right index finger landed on the west coast of the continent in a strange city named “Perth”.
Fast forward thirty years and I am a humble middle aged man from Phoenix, Arizona trying to make my way Down Under. I pride myself in speaking perfect American and here, everyone seems to think I have a thick accent. To be clear, my American is flawless. The people of Boston have the worst American accent. Followed by New York and all southerners. People of Chicago - I love you, I’ve lived with you, but your accent is pretty bad. Nope, my American is the same as the American spoken on the bulk of the television shows consumed by the good people of Australia. Yet, when I meet Aussies for the first time, they seem to struggle to understand me.
On my very first day, I was inspired by my self taught geography lesson and came up with my favorite ice breaker joke. Aussies obviously know I am not one of them, but seem somewhat hesitant to ask where I am from. I try to goad them into it by saying things like, “I’m fresh off the plane.”
I can usually get them to ask where I am from. I pause, look them in the eye, and say (deadly serious), “Perth.”
I laugh and laugh as it’s obviously complete bullshit. My timing and delivery are flawless and yet I feel like a stand up comedian tapping the microphone and saying, “Is this thing on?”
Worse yet, Julie hates the joke. The more I laugh at my own material, the more annoying it gets. I have to admit, Julie has a great sense of humor and is a fantastic judge of comedy. She’s been listening to my act for fifteen years and must find some of it funny as she puts up with me. If it’s not landing with her, it might not be as funny as I think it is. I try and console myself by saying that the joke is ahead of its time. I tell myself in ten years, we’ll all be making jokes about Perth. Yet typing the proceeding sentence, I somehow doubt its truth.
The only other possibility, aside from the joke just not being funny, is that Australians are too shocked by an American knowing of the city Perth (it’s the fourth largest city in the country) to laugh. Although, as of this writing, my joke has officially been retired, it will be reincarnated at some point in the future. My mate has promised me the next time he visits the States and someone asks him, “Are you British?” he’s going to answer back, “I’m from Kansas.” I hope to be vindicated in a few years as Mick is far funnier than I am. Until then, I’m no longer the man from Perth.
Side note - kids today with their iPods, DVDs, and Internet are completely spoiled. The amount of effort and teamwork required just to hear a “swear word” in the classroom helped shape our character as men. Today’s youth are probably too busy streaming porn to be bothered with hearing bad words. Kids today have it so damn easy, but I digress...
All good things come to an end and Mrs. Mason figured out why we were listening to the soundtrack. We were forbidden to play “Grease Lightning” again and lost the privilege of listening to records for a full week. I had nothing better to do, so I started playing with a globe in the classroom. I spun the globe around lazily and let my index finger gently touch it as it spun. The globe stopped and I became aware of a large land mass off the coast of Asia called “Australia”. My right index finger landed on the west coast of the continent in a strange city named “Perth”.
Fast forward thirty years and I am a humble middle aged man from Phoenix, Arizona trying to make my way Down Under. I pride myself in speaking perfect American and here, everyone seems to think I have a thick accent. To be clear, my American is flawless. The people of Boston have the worst American accent. Followed by New York and all southerners. People of Chicago - I love you, I’ve lived with you, but your accent is pretty bad. Nope, my American is the same as the American spoken on the bulk of the television shows consumed by the good people of Australia. Yet, when I meet Aussies for the first time, they seem to struggle to understand me.
On my very first day, I was inspired by my self taught geography lesson and came up with my favorite ice breaker joke. Aussies obviously know I am not one of them, but seem somewhat hesitant to ask where I am from. I try to goad them into it by saying things like, “I’m fresh off the plane.”
I can usually get them to ask where I am from. I pause, look them in the eye, and say (deadly serious), “Perth.”
I laugh and laugh as it’s obviously complete bullshit. My timing and delivery are flawless and yet I feel like a stand up comedian tapping the microphone and saying, “Is this thing on?”
Worse yet, Julie hates the joke. The more I laugh at my own material, the more annoying it gets. I have to admit, Julie has a great sense of humor and is a fantastic judge of comedy. She’s been listening to my act for fifteen years and must find some of it funny as she puts up with me. If it’s not landing with her, it might not be as funny as I think it is. I try and console myself by saying that the joke is ahead of its time. I tell myself in ten years, we’ll all be making jokes about Perth. Yet typing the proceeding sentence, I somehow doubt its truth.
The only other possibility, aside from the joke just not being funny, is that Australians are too shocked by an American knowing of the city Perth (it’s the fourth largest city in the country) to laugh. Although, as of this writing, my joke has officially been retired, it will be reincarnated at some point in the future. My mate has promised me the next time he visits the States and someone asks him, “Are you British?” he’s going to answer back, “I’m from Kansas.” I hope to be vindicated in a few years as Mick is far funnier than I am. Until then, I’m no longer the man from Perth.
Funny - I use the same joke when people ask me where I am from - "Seattle" or "Virginia" in a thick Swedish accent usually leave people quiet for a couple of seconds as they try to figure out how to follow up...
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