True Blue

I have often been asked about my wicked sense of humor and fun and where it came from. Many of you will know about my Dear old Dad and the rolling pin so you can guess where much of it comes from but it is more than that.

It is a cul­tur­al and nation­wide way of look­ing at life that is unique­ly Aus­tralian.

Aus­tralian’s often are labeled “laid­back” and “casu­al” with the abil­i­ty to laugh at our­selves as a nation as well as find­ing the fun things and the humor­ous side of events. We are indeed in gen­er­al very casu­al and laid­back, espe­cial­ly when it comes to our own selves. Maybe it is a part of our proud con­vict her­itage. Every Aus­tralian proud­ly claims at least one first Fleet con­vict as their own ansces­tor. We are hon­est and forth­right.. per­haps a non polit­i­cal cor­rect species but we say what we think.

On the oth­er hand Aus­tralian’s are also coura­geous, loy­al and strong willed. We make great friends and the word “mate” is a val­ued part of our vocab­u­lary. Aus­tralian’s will walk a mile for their mates when the “chips are down” and will be there for them when called. We help oth­ers and do not turn our backs on peo­ple who need help. Although sad­ly once again as time march­es for­ward in the new mil­le­ni­um peo­ple every­where are becom­ing cold­er and more heart­less.. con­cerned with the chase for the dol­lar rather than giv­ing a per­son a hand up

Aus­tralian’s have a built in “Bull­shit detec­tor” and do not suf­fer fools glad­ly. An Aussie will tell you that you are full of it with­out a blink of an eye. We are an straight­for­ward lit­tle quirky species that sees beyond what is pre­sent­ed to us and that allows us to take away a full col­or pal­lete of events.

We are a mul­ti­cul­tur­al race of peo­ple.. Aus­tralia is only a few hun­dred years old so an Aus­tralian’s ansces­tors can come from any­where in the world but we are all Aus­tralian.
We trea­sure our leisure. We used to find enjoy­ment in the sim­ple things.. beer and bar­be­ques, a drink down the pub with our mates, footy on week­ends, camp­ing and fish­ing in the bush. All that is chang­ing as hi soci­ety, tech­nol­o­gy and urban pres­sure starts to pre­vade and over­take our lives.

But we still stand on our colo­nial roots. We have an expres­sion for some­thing that is Aus­tralian and is REAl ..

I remem­ber being nine years old and camp­ing in the mid­dle of Aus­trali­a’s cen­tral desert at a place called Dev­ils Mar­bles. I had­n’t both­ered pitch­ing a tent as expe­ri­enced had shown me that it was impos­si­ble to ham­mer tent pegs into rock ground, so I had laid the tent out as a ground sheet then inflat­ed my matress and “bob’s your uncle” … I was ready for bed .. sleep­ing under a blan­ket of stars in the outback..That night I will nev­er for­get and I still see the sky that night clear­ly in my min

I have relat­ed ear­li­er the sto­ry of assist­ing the guests to try and pitch their tents by show­ing them the soft­est ground pos­si­ble but being “noobs” as they were, they kept try­ing to ham­mer into sol­id rock.

There was anoth­er side of this event that is typ­i­cal­ly Aus­tralian and True Blue. Lat­er that night the team leader and my dad got every­one togeth­er and held a “kan­ga­roo court” around the fire. This was a mock court tri­al where all the guests were put on tri­al for their “crimes”. My mum was up first. Mum’s crime was to fall asleep in the Coach with her mouth open snor­ing. her Kan­ga­roo Court pun­ish­ment was to have her mouth taped up with duct tape for three hours that morn­ing while trav­el­ing. When it got to me, my crime was talk­ing to much all the time so I got the duct tape treat­ment too.. except I kept dis­solv­ing in a fit of gig­gles and rip­ping it off. Anoth­er old­er girl and guy on the trip had got­ten real “close” to each oth­er so they were sen­tenced to be tied by the arm to oth­er part­ners for the day and anoth­er cou­ple of guys who hat­ed each oth­er were sen­tenced to be tied togeth­er and to sleep in the same tent. Then it came the turn of the lit­tle group of guests who kept pitch­ing their tents in the sol­id rock. What a trav­es­ty in Aus­tralia. What a crime.. Aussies who just can’t “camp out” prop­er like. Their pun­ish­ment was to have to be the first out of the coach every night for the remain­der of the trip and have their tent up ready for inspec­tion with­in five min­utes with every­one watch­ing and cheer­ing them on. Con­sid­er­ing they had nev­er pitched a tent with­in an hours time this was quite some chal­lenge for the group and a hell of a lot of laughs for all of us.…It was all a riot of laugh

Thats just Aussie humour.. and laugh­ing at our­selves.… True Blue
Aus­tralian Come­di­ans Writ­ers Poets and artists of all kinds have influ­enced our way of think­ing immensly over time just as soci­ety at the time has been reflect­ed in these peo­ples work. I grew up around camp­fires and in “aussie pubs” lis­ten­ing to these peo­ple per­form and laugh­ing my ass off the entire time. These peo­ple made us as a nation, laugh at our­selves, at our odd­i­ties and quirks and at the things that dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed us from the rest of the world.

Leg­ends like Kevin Bloody Wil­son and Rod­ney Rude paved the way for a unique style of com­e­dy that is total­ly Aus­tralian. Every Aussie over the age of 30 can recite and sing these and oth­er Aussie leg­end’s songs when drunk and dis­or­der­ly. It is part of our cul­ture and the pop­u­lar­i­ty of these guys helped a nation have the abil­i­ty to laugh at them­selves.

Enter­tain­ers like Steve Irwin and Croc­o­dile Dundee would not have made sense to the world and espe­cial­ly to Aussies, if these pio­neers had­n’t blazed a trail of “Aus­sism” across the world before them. These Come­di­ans and enter­tain­ers had total­ly polit­i­cal­ly incor­rect mate­r­i­al but all True Blue Aussie. So what do we do today with this work of the years that have passed that is so polit­i­cal­ly incor­rect?

Do we as Aus­tralians toss out and ignore an impor­tant part of our her­itage because it is so polit­i­cal­ly incor­rect? Do we now “act” embar­rassed about our prime come­di­ans and enter­tain­ers like Kevin Bloody Wil­son and Rod­ney Rude and pre­tend they nev­er exist­ed? Do we now whis­per their names in shame or scratch their names off our famous peo­ple lists?

Do we stop laugh­ing now because we are told we are not sup­posed to think that it is fun­ny any­more? Were we as a nation wrong to think it was fun­ny in the first place?

I freely admit it.. These guys inspired me…

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