Monthly Archives: April 2016

Journalistic thoughts, This one did not

Reviewing the scraps

As it turns out, I was allowed to compare a play to chicken nugget in my review.

 

For those playing along at home, you’ll know what I’m on about. For those raising a quizzical brow right now, click here for clarity.

 

I handed the page to my editor and told her she wasn’t allowed to fire me. But, to my surprise, she didn’t shred the page, set it alight and then burn some sage for good measure. She didn’t just let it go through, she said it was aright reading.

 

She let me keep the line about Clueless, and let me say “this play was about as pretentious as a chicken nugget, and just as delicious”.

 

However, there was quite a bit of meat cut from the printed piece and I would like to rectify the situation. This is an unfortunate reality in newspapers; you can only bang on for as long as the ad stack allows.

 

Sometimes even the greatest yarns have to have to be slashed open, the guts ripped out and then stitched back together – like bypassing the whole small intestine and hooking the stomach right up to the bowels. Sometimes, things are cut right down to their skeletal frames, and sometimes they need to stick to an all carb diet to fatten up.

 

But, like in life, I find myself never needing to add more bread to the equation. I have a tendency to overwrite and so I end up having to cut back on the treats. There’s so much I would have loved to have seen in actual print, however, like a bulging thigh being violently shoved into a jegging leg, it just wouldn’t fit the space.

 

I’d already desperately squeezed into every millimetre of space I could, sneakily cramming things in like a stash of hidden chocolate bars in a child’s room. I kerned words down, I took out spaces, I grouped sentences into paragraphs instead of keeping to the standard rule of hitting enter after each full stop. I was ruthless in my bid to fit more in, as if I was standing at the fridge in the first five minutes home after finishing work, shovelling as much of anything edible into my mouth as possible. Unfortunately in both cases, when you try to fit too much in, digestion – of words and of dangerous combinations of leftovers – isn’t easy. So some things had to be cut.

 

But, sweet reader, we live in the world of the Internet. It’s a magical place where we assume everyone is hanging on to our every word. We can gaily tap away at our keyboards until our finger callouses become infected and leak pus everywhere, which gets into the buttons and eventually destroys our computer. There are no word limits in the blogosphere and since my imaginary audience is obsessed with me and would read my shopping list if they got their beady little eyes on it, I freely breeze past my goal weight of 600 words.

 

So here’s my self-indulgent binge on the things that were trashed, because they’re no shame in eating hot chips from a garbage bin if they haven’t been there that long (I’m speaking literally AND metaphorically, from my own experiences, of course). Here are a few things that just didn’t make the final cut:

 

* Calling one of the actors “mystery meat”.

* The phrase “fangin’ for a nugg”.

* a suggestion the lead actor had a beard full of secrets.

* Critique of the high-five techniques.

* Questioning whether the playing of a Limp Bizkit song beforehand was intentional, what it meant and whether Halle Berry admits to featuring in the film clip for one of their absolute masterpieces. I then could have compared the demise of Limp Bizkit to Lincoln Park and Nickleback and penned a really poignant essay about which group left the biggest mark on our hearts and made the strongest contribution to music (spoiler: it’s none of them).

* A snarky remark about daydreaming about stabbing the person sitting next to me through the eardrum with a ballpoint pen for taking up my arm space.

* A definitive list of all the ways audience participation could backfire on a performer (if the person they picked to stand up gave the performers Ebola or vomited with stage fright or still had their umbilical cord attached and it fell out of their shirt etc).

* My soon-to-be patented six-pack of nuggets rating system. I gave the show five nuggs and one with a bite taken out of it but no one will ever know that.

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This one did not

Unescorted at the theatre

Last night I went to The Theatre alone.

 

I was asked to review a play I’d written about, and the director/playwright/lead actor set aside a seat for me. It was all very fabulous, except I felt a wee nervous about it. I’d never reviewed an actual play before (mostly because I don’t count Cats as a play and also because only three people read my bitter rant, so it hardly qualifies as a review), and this play was all about Shakespeare, no less.

 

My first experience to Shakespeare was a vague awareness of the great Leo Dicaprio in the 90s. I would watch Ten Things I Hate About You as oblivious to its Shakespearean roots as I was to its dick jokes. And it wasn’t some time after I watched Cher Horwitz cream that self-righteous, shitty-cap-wearing pimple of Josh’s college girlfriend about Hamlet with her extensive Mel Gibson knowledge, that I understood what they were talking about.

 

Yep. My only experience with Shakespeare was rather through the pop culture filter that happens to colour all facets of my ungodly life.

 

So knowing I was probably going to write my review to include the line “well I remember Mel Gibson accurately” didn’t fill me with a lot of confidence that I would pen something anyone would respect. But it turns out that wasn’t the only aspect of this development that would throw me into turmoil, and I didn’t realise it until I was standing uncomfortably in the theatre foyer by my lonesome.

 

Everyone likes to think they are capable of being alone, what with all these affirmations about being independent women and not needing a man and wild ideas about birth control and such. But the truth is, sometimes it can be uncomfortable to be alone. All the single ladies is a formidable force, but being a singular single lady doesn’t leave you with much to do when you show up half an hour early for a play and don’t know any bastard.

 

I don’t often have a problem with being on my own, but that’s usually when I have something to do, like read a newspaper or eat. The only thing I could do in this situation was wait; I’d already been to the ladies room and picked out my seat. So I did what any self-respecting/self-loathing millennial would do – I started playing on my phone. I didn’t have anything to do or anyone to talk to, but I didn’t want these strangers thinking I was big old loser. If there’s anything I’ve learnt in my life as a womanfolk, it’s that the opinions of people who don’t know you and will most likely never interact with you in any way matter. And yes, everyone in the room IS looking at you and wondering what the fuck you are doing. Obviously. They have nothing else going on in their shallow, meaningless lives so clearly they’ll be wanting to direct all their attention your way.

 

So, with this in mind, it’s important to know that you can’t just “play on your phone” when you’re alone in a public place; you have to make it look like you’re doing something either salaciously social or completing important tasks.

 

Because if you’re just mindlessly scrolling on Facebook, you’re a loser. And you can’t just sit there pouring through meme after meme because you won’t look overly cool sniggering to yourself. I should know, every time I find myself loitering outside the courthouse waiting for a family or child court matter to finish I inevitably wind up looking at funny dog pictures in Instagram chuckling to myself like a brightly-dressed Disney villain who has finally hatched a fool proof plan for evil. You don’t realise you’re doing it until an impressive police prosecutor or well-dressed solicitor looks at you with a mix of confusion, amusement and contempt and you can feel the judgement searing through the back of your skull, frying your brain and basting it in the juices of shame. Your head becomes a mid-sized pot roast of indignity. It’s difficult for me to give off a professional vibe at the best of times (my liberal use of the word “dingbat” perhaps doesn’t help) but after I’ve been caught snickering to myself I may as well be wearing denim shorts and sporting a tattoo that says “family”.

 

You’ve got to be texting someone. I don’t care who, as long as they’ll text back within about 30 seconds to two minutes. Fire off a message to that douchbanana somehow got your number and tells you about how much they hate Tinder and want a girlfriend but can’t get one because girls are too stuck up these days (when the real reason they don’t lave a life partner is because they are about as exciting as a bottle of whiteout and except a girlfriend to solve all their problems) if you have to. I don’t fucking care. You need to look like you’re having a witty exchange with someone, not like you’re texting someone anxiously trying to work out where the shit there are. You don’t want people to think you’re being stood up by your dreamboat. Because no one wants strangers who they’ll never talk to and probably won’t see ever again to think they’ve been stood up. The trick here is to keep a nuetral, slightly smiley expression on your face, and put your phone face down every now and then so people can’t see if you’ve actually got a text to respond to or not. And, for the love of all things holy, don’t fake an overreaction laugh to a text – people can smell a bogus LOL a mile away.

 

The other alternative is to look like you’re actioning important business emails which you’ve only just been able to get to because you’ve been so busy with business and they’re from international business people doing business in different time zones and you simply can’t ignore them because you need to consult them on business matters. For all intensive purposes, you’re a business woman, and by god do you need your own personal assistant. To differentiate your “emailing” from “texting”, all you need to do is furrow your brow and channel your inner Angelica Pickles’ mum from The Rugrats – no one actually knew what the lady did, but no one questioned how much of an important businesswoman she was.

 

Last night I decided to combine the witty exchange and business woman technique. As I was technically there for work purposes, I felt like I could swing the business angle by texting myself notes about the play to include in my review (texting yourself is excellent practice for remembering stuff and saving all your hilarious jokes you thought up when you were alone to use when there are people around you want to impress). These texts to me included:

 

Me to me: Tswiz bad Blood remix (a note about the music)

 

Me to me: There are rappers

 

Me to me: Does the original song actually have rappers? Endeavour to find out (here’s the call to action – which what businesswomen thrive on)

 

But I also went with the witty exchange option, because I was seated be that time and decided there could be nosy people behind me reading my texts. Obviously they would be, because I know I would try to read what the grown woman in front of me wearing buns in her hair like she was godamned Scary Spice was texting if she was indeed sending a message of some kind. So I messaged the one person I knew would be doing nothing on a Saturday night: my married sister. The exchange went something like this:

 

Me to Married Sister: So I am seeing a play tonight to review for the paper and I didn’t have time to smash a few chicken goujons beforehand.

 

Me to Married Sister: I’m fanging for a nugg

 

Me to Married Sister: I really hope this doesn’t skew my thoughts on the production.

 

Me to Married Sister: This is a variable the director could not control.

 

Thankfully, about two minutes later the lights went down and I no longer needed pretend I wasn’t uncomfortable on my own because the play started. As an added bonus, looking back at those final few texts has given me an idea of how to frame my review: whether it was worth skipping dinner for. Shall I compare thee to a chicken nugget?

 

Let’s see if it gets past the editor.

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Checkout thoughts, This one did not

The cent of desperation

You know you’ve got some problems when you stop and question whether an 18 cent purchase is too decadent.

 

I’m not kidding.

 

Today I stood in the supermarket debating whether it was a wise financial choice to buy marked down flowers. Severely marked down. I’m talking EIGHTEEN BLOODY CENTS. At this point the supermarket surely can’t be any profit from that bunch of vegetation. It’s probably actually costing the store more in terms of employee effort at that price – there’s sticking on the discount sticker, scanning the item and then putting them in a bloody bag. That’s the 18 cents right there.

 

Sure, they were a bit on the wilty side, and some of them looked like the plant equivalent of Ezma from The Emperor’s New Groove, but surely they were worth at least the full 20 cent coin. They were still doing their job, which is to sit quietly and distract us from the blisteringly depressing realties of life with their presence – like potted cacti or women.

 

I mean, who even decided on the number of cents these leafy disappointments were worth? Why did they land on 18? Did they think that 17 was too cheap, but reasoned that 19 was too steep? Was it a cheap ploy to scam back two cents in the vague hope someone would use actual physical tokens of currency to pay for them? When there’s no such thing as a two cent coin anymore, you really do have to wonder whether these supermarket giants haven’t conspired with the government to scrap the metallic disc in a bid to get out of having to give change for figures such as these. They’re all in this together I tell you!

 

Or was this some kind of sick psychological experiment? Were the flowers marked down so heavily so scholars could keep a tally of the people who chose to buy the haggard but very reasonably priced decorative items, and draw conclusions from our similarities? Did buying them mean I was forever to be a member of the loser group?

 

All this was going through my head as I stood there at the buckets of flowers actually pondering whether I could justify the purchase. I saw there were two bunches in the bucket for 18 cents, so I grabbed them both. Clutching them in my arm, I began interrogating myself with the gusto of Iced T in the questioning room fresh off the back of a dramatic arrest scene.

 

Was I being too decadent?

You already have a bunch for 30 cents in your basket, should you really be spending more?

How can you live with yourself, man?

 

Even though the pollen from the very, very ripe flowers was now yellowing my hair, I put them back. I was being silly. I was being reckless with the contents of my purse. Who did I think I was, one of those Jenner sisters?

 

Thirty seconds later I picked them up again, after the thought struck me that I probably wouldn’t be able to change my mind again and come back for them, because some other savvy bastard would have snatched them up. I also reminded myself that it was going to cost me less than 40 cents to brighten up my room and, by extension, my meaningless existence.

 

I decided that I needed to follow my heart if I was ever going to find happiness. I had to listen to my instincts. I needed to trust myself. Hesitation was only going to slow me down, and let opportunities dissolve right in front of me. The time for boldness was now.

 

Two minutes later, I put a whole wheel of brie in my basket.

 

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Journalistic thoughts, This one did not

The hot chook and the big cheese

The other day I took a call from our Deputy Prime Minster.

 

This is the guy who gets the sash and crown should the actual Prime Minister perish in a great firey mishap while riding on the head of giant gasoline-soaked swan (it could happen). If the big bopper has a cold or goes on a trip, this is the bloke they call in to take the metaphorical reigns (although in an election year, I wouldn’t put it past any politician to jump on a horse on front of the cameras) of our country.

 

He may wear crocs and Stubbies on a trip to the hardware store, but he’s still kind of a big deal. We once put a photo of him eating a piece of fruitcake on our front page.

 

Here I was, a few years out of uni with just a couple of years of experience under my belt having a yarn to the second-most powerful man in the country (behind whoever is handing out the roses on The Bachelor, obviously).

 

On the other hand, I’ve also written a story about a local woman planning on treating her grandchildren to a Red Rooster dinner. Now, being so far away from the Darling Downs, I appreciate the joint for attempting to fill the void that Super Rooster has left in my heart. It sells chips in family-sized-box-form. It offers garlic bread as a suitable snack option. It can hook you up with half a litre of gravy like it comes from a tap. It’s an excellent establishment by any stretch of the imagination, however, you wouldn’t think that someone thinking about frequenting a chicken vendor for dinner would make the news.

 

But that’s where you’re wrong.

 

The grandmother at the centre of the story was special. Our chicken-loving heroine was a winner, you see. Our sales staff were running a promotion with local businesses in which shoppers were given raffle tickets to win a $100 jackpot of vouchers for participating stores.

 

And my girl Pat was one lucky duck.

 

She was the winner one week, and to keep the momentum going, the editorial staff were asked to include a small piece about the competition. Nothing huge, just enough to put the promotion in the forefront of readers’ minds. And on the day of Pat’s momentous victory in the lottery of life, I was called upon to cover it.

 

She was given the fistful of vouchers, and presented with a list of participating businesses at which she could exchange the printouts of a templated ticket for actual goods and/or services. The list was reasonably extensive, but it didn’t take this savvy shopper to make up her mind: Red Rooster it was.

 

This woman could have made sensible choices to trade her winnings in for linen or plastic storage containers or even the medication needed to keep her alive. But she was courageous enough to listen to her instincts. Sometimes you just have to follow your heart, especially when it is pointing you in the direction of a hot chook.

 

And being the hard-core, dedicated journalist that I am, I couldn’t ignore the potential for a story in her bold choice, nor the opportunity to make a “winner, winner chicken dinner” reference in my copy.

 

We put that story on page 2, from memory.

 

This juxtaposition, my friends, is the real beauty of small-town journalism, and Australia by extension. It’s a world where the guy who controls the nation from time to time starts a telephone conversation with you with a casual greeting followed by only his first name (although, there aren’t too many other people with the same name as his, so fair enough). A world when a chinwag with the Deputy Prime Minister is nothing major, but a grandmother wanting to buy a hot chook and chips for dinner makes the paper.

 

Small-town journalism is beautiful world in which the delightful quirks of our society are highlighted and revelled in – except for that whole rampant inter-generational institutionalised racism thing, but we don’t need to talk about that because it doesn’t affect anyone you know, so who cares? Right?

 

 

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This one did not, Thoughts from the road

The Cheezel

The other day I discovered that I didn’t hate Cheezels, and I think I’m a new person.

 

Growing up, I’ve always known I was different.

 

There was my burning distain for all things Wiggles for one thing. I would also chew up my Fruitybix Bar and regurgitate it to eat it like a baby bird. I would exclusively poo outside. All kids are weird, but I was a confronting kind of weird. Another indicator of this, it could be argued, was my tendency to steal off by myself to play The Lion King – there was this amazing log in my preschool that I thought looked like Pride Rock and I would perch on it on all fours like a magnificent lioness for hours without saying a word.

 

When I was introduced to the idea that there were other people than me who were equally deserving of the attention of adults, it was a tough time. My little sister had not yet been ripped from my mother’s body and, up until that point, my contact with other children was largely restricted to family members. I couldn’t count to ten at the time, but I had enough sense to know that I was superior to those plebs. I can’t pinpoint the exact time when I started operating under the impression I was exceptional, but I suspect it had something to do with an overdose on the confidence-boosting educational programing of the ABC (More Than Words was my fave – yep, even as a youngster I was one of those smug bastards who thinks they’re smarter because they don’t watch commercial television). So kindy was an adjustment period. But even though I slowly got used to the fact that those other walking fartbags were considered just as special as I was, I never felt on the same level as them.

 

I wasn’t one of the common folk, which is why I would mock my classmates’ artistic integrity when I caught glimpses of their paintings/prolapses over butcher’s paper. But, arguably, my distinction from other children was at its clearest contrast at birthday parties. As much as I loved fairy bread and chocolate crackles, I always felt the sting of being an outcast at such events. It was The Cheezel, or, more correctly, my dislike of it. Kids would walk around the crowded backyard with yellow, powdery hands, licking their fingers with gay abandon while I was free of cheese dust. Something about those toxic-looking rings just didn’t sit right with me. It is fitting that the defining feature of The Cheezel was a hole, because that’s what its absence from my childhood left in my heart. And jamming a finger through an artificially-coloured chip is much more acceptable than walking around with a human heart threaded on an index finger.

 

I wanted to like them, oh how I tried. Like the Twistie, The Cheezel is an integral party of the great Australian childhood. They were there at every sleepover and swimming carnival. I desperately wanted to be part of that tradition. But to me it tasted like pee-soaked carpet that had been ripped off the floor of a low-quality nursing home. They smelled, made me gag and left a discerning-coloured crust on my fingers – make up your own anecdote to go with that one, I’m sure you have one in mind after that description, you sick puppy. This meant I missed out on classic Aussie experience throughout my childhood. Every clickbaity listicle I read about Strayan youth makes reference to The Cheezel and each time I read it I feel empty.

 

So when I was recently starving on a camping trip I had inadequately prepared for, I was unsure about taking up an offer to crack into a box of Cheezels. But I was hungry and, because of a slightly-superficial promise to The Lord that I wouldn’t eat potatoes until that Sunday, it was the only snack food I was able to eat without condemning my soul to an eternity of suffering. So I grabbed one, and tentatively placed it on my tongue, expecting my body would reject it like a three-day-old room temperature chicken.

 

But I didn’t gag. Something about that hollow cylinder devoid of nutritional benefit of any kind changed me.

 

Maybe I had heatstroke, maybe the warm beer was beginning to destroy my brain cells, or maybe I had just seen the light. Suddenly, I was seeing the world through the barrel of one of the world’s truly remarkable nibblies. And I finally realised a great truth. The Cheezel is the epitome of human engineering: the pinnacle of the achievements of man. It’s a crumbly testament to our five-fingered tenacity to create, to dream beyond the limitations of nature. The Cheezel is why we fought the urge to walk on all fours, it’s the reason we developed opposable thumbs, it’s what made us decide to stop inbreeding. I finally got it.

It wasn’t long before I was knuckle deep in powdery goodness. Making up for lost time, I stuck a Cheezel on each of my fingers, like every phalange needed to wear a floatie. And just like that, I felt whole. I realised that I had previously been living a worthless life alone (and by alone, I obviously mean “without Cheezels”). I mean, I’ve always been aware of the existence of Cheezels, but I never before pictured them being in my life. I never thought I needed them; I had Dorritos and Smiths Chips, after all.

 

I finally understood those women who flaunt their engagement rings about on social media –this was a bliss I never thought I would ever be able to enjoy and my existence was finally validated. And all I had to do to get here was to convince myself to like something I hated for years.

Suddenly, I saw the great truth: sometimes it takes a hole to make you feel whole. Hashtag blessed.

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Checkout thoughts, This one did not

An emotional purchase

I’m becoming far too involved in the lives of the people who sell me food.

 

The other night I was in the line in the 12 Items or Less aisle in my local supermarket. There are a few in the store, but at this time of the night there was only one open. The lady in front of me had clearly violated the universal treaty of shopping by filling up her trolley and high tailed it to the 12 Items or Less – I wanted to throw a box of soot-covered sparrows at her face. As I watched this woman take 17 years to bloody unload her unauthorised amount of grocery items on to the register conveyor belt I wanted to lance her multiple cartons of long life milk with a burning icicle. I essentially wanted to boil her childhood pet in front her eyes while shouting out Game of Thrones spoilers.

 

Thankfully, I was told I could go to the other register, where a supermarket attendant – let’s call him Steve – was ready for action. He had yet to remove his the little sign that politely tells shoppers to bugger off, but began scanning my impulse-buy avocados anyway. Some 30 seconds later another shopper arrived at the scene.

 

Another Shopper, to Steve: Are you opening up?

 

Steve: *makes grunting noise to indicate his register was open

 

Me, to Steve: Emotionally?

 

We both giggled, but Steve didn’t give me an answer.

 

This reluctance to answer could mean one of two things. Perhaps, for him, that book had closed long ago. Perhaps the heart beating in his chest was a mere pump concerned only with circulating blood around his veins. Perhaps the ventricle in charge for pulsating feelings had collapsed into a rusty mess or had seized completely.

 

If so, I can only hope my probing question was the first drop of oil on to that vital machinery. A quick Google search tells me that fixing an engine that has seized due to a lack of oil is generally impossible. But a Gas Engine Magazine article from 2003 says you can try, and something called “penetrating oil” is the answer. And I think Gary’s on to something

 

“Start by shooting oil down into the cylinder through the spark plug hole, and don’t be shy – use a lot of the stuff,” the writer called Gary says. Now, if I’m applying Gary’s advice to a seized feelings motor, I’m going to have to use emotionally penetrating oil. And because I enjoy taking metaphors too far, I’m going to classify “emotionally penetrating oil” as any verbal or visual cue directed at lubricating the cogs which control the hatch trapping emotions in the recipient’s brain to open the trapdoor just enough for a few feelings to escape. This could be anything that might prompt a recollection of a feeling or bring an important memory to the surface, but I just have to be careful to keep things happy. So emotionally penetrating oils could include comments about babies or a grandmothers baking or Colin Firth – anything that could elicit some kind of warm sentiment. And, if I go with Gary’s counsel, I really shouldn’t be shy (this shouldn’t be a problem).

 

Gary goes on to say, “spray some [oil] in every day for about two weeks…”. So it looks like I’m going to have to make my shopping trips much more frequent if I want to see any results. I’m obviously going to have to come up with an extensive list of conversation topics. I’m going to have to keep multiple puppy videos saved on my phone. Not to mention all the bright colours I’m going to have to incorporate into my wardrobe. It will be a lot a work, but Gary reckons it’s worth it, advising, “if you’ve been patient, and if the engine wasn’t too badly rusted, it will usually break free…”

 

And that’s what I want to see. I want to see Steve’s soul break free. I want to cause this checkout boy’s heart bust out its rusty cage of misery and soar gaily over the registers and out the automatic doors, leaving a shimmering trail of ecstasy in its wake. I want to witness it with my very eyes, and perhaps recount the scene to news cameras. That’s the goal I’m working towards.

 

On the other hand, he could have declined to respond to my question because he didn’t know me and didn’t want to engage in an uncomfortable conversation about his personal state with a complete stranger. In which case, the next two weeks are going to be a testing time for Steve.

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Journalistic thoughts, This one did not

Daryl: Part Two

For those of you playing along at home, I am dragging out a recount of the time I saw Daryl Braithwaite live. In the flesh. You can catch up on Part One here, but it’s really just some bulshit about glitter. Here’s were we get into the name dropping. I’m actually a bit of an insider you guys.

 

So I was in the same vicinity as the many who made a nation believe in love. And I was feeling good. I had avoided peeing on myself in a portaloo. I had dropped a few swears in front of respectable old people. I hadn’t had much breakfast. I was in the zone.

 

But it wasn’t just Big Daryl who was gracing the stage that day, but also Ross Wilson, the guy who wrote The Eagle Rock and Come Said the Boy, d-floor favourites I love to gyrate to while keeping eye contact with the most squeamish person at the party.

 

Now, as someone who went to uni in Brisbane and likes to prove how much of a fun person I am, I have this obnoxious insistence on dropping my pants along with Da Boiz when The Eagle Rock comes on. I also like to assert my tertiary institution was the birthplace of said nonsensical tradition. So I feel an affinity for that tune, an, by extension, the bloke who sang it. So I was excited for the warm up act.

 

By the time old mate took to the stage, I had well and true gotten into the sugariest bottle of wine one can purchase at these kinds of events. I was ready to dance, and I didn’t care how many old people’s views I obstructed with my moves.

 

As an aside – why do people go to concerts if they’re not going to cut a rug? Bastards were sitting in their assigned white plastic chairs throughout the whole set like they were enduring a child’s Easter dramatization. It just strikes me as very odd that people would sit in chairs of a lesser quality than those plastic outdoor sets that get brought out at barbecues (at least those chairs have armrests!) to listen to music they won’t dance to and drink overpriced, watered down wine. And they were packed in so close to other people so that they were touching. How is that fun?

 

After the set, there was an opportunity for a quick meet’n’greet and when the announcement boomed over the PA system, it occurred to me that I could make someone semi-famous sign my canvas sneakers. I also thought the guy deserved some kind of recognition after he played a ripsnorter set to a bunch of sitting elderly people, so I grabbed two wines from the bar lined up with the middle-aged reformed groupies. I was the last in the line.

 

People ahead of me bought t shirts and CDs and asked for selfies. But I had a better plan. I ignored the repeated offers to pay merchandise for signing purposes and heavily plonked my foot onto the table. My request for a shoe signing was met with an amused reaction, rather than disgust.

 

I assumed we “got each other” because I had previously interviewed him over the phone about the Eagle Rock drop and because I was one of the only people who wasn’t too lazy and jaded to get up out of my seat and dance. I felt like I would have stood out. Plus I was also wearing these attention-seeking bright, floral high waisted shorts I love that practically set fire to retinas. I also dance like someone stuck in a seriously strong rip trying to fight the current, tread water to stay alive and grab the attention of life savers back on the beach. So of course he could see me from his prime vantage point onstage. He made some remark about me enjoying the music and I thought this was the perfect time to sink piss with an Australian icon no one would recognise on the street. I offered him one of my glasses of urine-warm, sugary wine, imagining it to be more like a child leaving a glass of milk for Santa.

 

Instead it was more like one of those foot lotion salespeople you see in the middle of shopping centre walkways. Only I was loud, sweaty and had reached my intolerably chirpy tipsy stage. What I thought would be a welcome, top-bloke gesture was actually just straight up heckling. At least I wasn’t wearing an apron.

 

At this point I was feeling pretty buzzy, so this is paraphrasing, but I think I have most of it right:

 

Me: I thought you would like some moscato. Do you want some?

 

Daddy Cool: I don’t really.

 

Me: No it’s ok. Have some. It’s terrible. You should have some. Drink it quickly.

 

Daddy Cool: Um ok.

 

*drinks wine

 

Me: *wipes sugar wine drool off mouth with hand, makes caveman exhale grunt hybrid

 

Me: See ya.

 

Me: *runs off. Again, a little hazy so let’s just pretend I didn’t run off talking to myself. I probably said something really witty.

 

 

I later posted an Instragram photo referencing this encounter with at least one grammatical error. It gained 18 likes in total.

 

Standard