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I’ve been a fan of Billy Connolly, for as long as I can remember. I’ve been to all of his shows, watched his television world tours at least twice, bought and hired video tapes and I have even impersonated him once.
My lovely wife and I decided to make a night of it by attending one of his shows a few years back, we booked into a motel, and hired a stretched limo. You know the sort of thing, the usual Saturday night entertainment. We arrived at the venue with half an hour to spare and a drunken fan rushed up to the window of the car and yelled “Hi Billy”.
I replied in my finest impersonation of a Scotsman impersonating a Kiwi “Gidday Mate” and gave him a big thumbs up, too this day I’m buggered if I know how he new my name, I’d never seen him before in my life. I hope he enjoyed the show, I think I made his night by the look on his face.
Billy is a keen observer of life, irreverent, and a brilliant story teller. He uses clothes and bad language to shock you into paying attention. Then with a stunningly simple but extremely well executed technique, he spins a web of funny yarns around a central theme or topic. He deliberately leads you down false trails of irrelevance and then masterly brings you back to the point. To say that he doesn’t suffer fools lightly is an understatement and no one, or thing, is sacrosanct.
I have tried for years to use similar techniques when training, to inject some humor and wit into the situation to smooth the progress of learning.
It’s a simple philosophy “If its fun, you will remember it and want to do it again”
Some of his finest one liners, I believe are delivered not on the stage, but in his everyday life. I watched him on telly a while ago and some clown of a reporter was in his face about some thing he had said “off the cuff’ a few days before. Billy was tired, jetlagged and totally over being hounded by the Press, who were just looking for a cheap headline. It was hard not to feel sorry for the poor guy who was left stunned and gapping after Billy nailed him with his scathingly sarcastic comment, but he did deserve it.
Billy’s latest New Zealand gig was titled “To Old to Die Young” and I turned 50 a while back, I guess I’ve now joined the same club.
My lovely (sometimes sneaky) wife organised a weekend for two in the North Island.
A hired Saab convertible for me to play with for the long weekend, she had for so long secretly planned.
Our family started mysteriously arriving along the way to help celebrate the occasion and to thwart my own evil intensions. A great weekend was had by all.
Lots of laughter and witty repartee mixed with my family, very expensive motor vehicles, good food, hot sun and warm winds.
Perhaps the greatest gift I received all weekend was the one that my lovely wife has been trying to give me for a long time and that is to take time out occasionally from our busy schedule to enjoy who we are, our family and friends, our country and the simple pleasures available to us all.
It was fun; I will remember it and I want to do it again and again and again.
For a workaholic it was the perfect tonic.
So if your feeling a little bit like Billy and are tired and jaded, jetlagged and totally over some idiot that wont stop asking stupid questions.
Go ahead and scathingly, sarcastically rip their ears off, the barstard probably deserved it; then sit back and remember it’s the fun of simple pleasures in life that make it all worth while.
But then, that is “Just and old trucker’s point of view”
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