IDOL DAY DREAMINGS

You know, there occasionally comes a time when you question some of the life decisions you've made which have contributed to you being in the exact position you find yourself. You know the kind of moments I'm talking about: when you're bartering special favours for a piece of mouldy bread in a turkish prison; when you're getting beat senseless by a musclebound manbeast at the top of some jungle waterfall; when you're forced to take a dive for the no good multinational that put bread on your table for ten years then finally went under; or when you find yourself huddled awkwardly in a miserable heap as the dawn light breaks across the bleak carpark you've spent the last ten hours shivering in, loose gravel still stuck to your face and eyes bleary and bloodshot as you're pulled up from your concrete pillow by a voice barking "cameras coming by in ten seconds, move your sleeping bags outta the way!" And then pull yourself up into a squint-eyed and bewildered crouching position, a Channel 10 lens sweeps by scanning the legs of the hundreds of others standing around, legs about the same height as your own face right now. And yeah, you sort of question what you're doing with your life.

This wasn't the only time I pondered the meaning of my existence during the Idol auditions on Saturday. After all, there was plenty of time for reflection: about 10-12 hours, in fact. I arrived at 2am, hoping to bunker down for some nice al fresco napping, or perhaps reading at worst. I didn't bank on the fact that another hundred or so people would already be there, and when their number had doubled the noise meant that sleep wouldn't be forthcoming. Moreover, the combination of extreme cold, giddy anticipation/trepidation, physical discomfort and, most of all, boredom meant that going solo wasn't an option. You had to get along with your neighbour, if only to survive the night.

Now, the 2am-midday stretch is clearly the best thing about the Australian Idol Experience (tm). While the low turnout this year meant that anyone turning up by midday or so would get an audition (and apparently Sunday's auditions ended early due to lack of numbers), the elite Idol contestants are those I shall dub The Allnighters, and I am proud to count myself among their numbers. You meet all sorts, and for a distinctly antisocial person like myself it's pretty impressive that I spent ten hours with talking to strangers, many of whom were unafraid to bust some songs on me, and had a good time in the process.

That said (and I've said it elsewhere), there is an issue in trying to go from ten hours of this:

To one minute of this:

Icy concrete snap-freezing your arse while some glorious tennis centre architecture finds new and ingenious ways of realigning your spine: well, it's no warm bath and a cup of Horlicks. When the makeshift shanty town which was the Idol queue was finally roused at about 8am, we were manhandled into a rough and unruly line of standing bodies which snaked around the carpark, where we would stand, moving slowly forward, for about another two hours. Early in this set piece, the show's two hosts turned up.

I'm not as freaky in real life.

I'm WAAAY FREAKIER

Andrew G made a beeline for me so he could spring the probing journalistic question on my sorry behind: "So, do you have a lot of luck with the ladies?" In my addled and sleep-deprived state I somehow twisted this conversation around to, firstly, commenting on the similarities in our hairstyle (though his was screaming 'practised disarray' while mine murmured something like 'just bin lyin' in a cement ditch all night'...) and ending a minute later after a discussion on his large fanbase of male devotees had him quickly becoming uncomfortable with this new investigative direction our interview was taking.

As our appointed hour approached, we were all subjected to increasingly bizarre organisational routines of crowd management - kind of like fancy card shuffling, but with no sense of logic or coordination: Everyone in this row take 10 halfsteps towards the back, then allow the Garnier Segway team to ride past, then people at the north end of the group face north, then everyone jump, then you, yes you, do the caterpillar, and I'm just going to crouch down for a bit...

Did I mention the Garnier Team? Oh yes. They turned up at about 6am (I think), a group of attractive young models struggling to master the controls of some tricked-up segways.

Plastered all over the machines were sandwich-board type things advertising Garnier, and the teams themselves were there to offer free hair and/or make-up sessions to anyone up for it. I...well, I wasn't, not even for the sake of research.

But really, the Garnier folks were just padding when it came to the product placement side of the day, since the real breakout star of the queue was Ronald McDonald himself! Now, I've never seen him in the flesh (did you know there is only one appointed Ronald in each state at any one time? I guess it's to stop them accidentally coming face to face with one another and thereby causing the universe to collapse or something) but I was impressed that he was much older than I'd expected. And I wasn't alone in remarking upon his very funky red sideburns which could have just been loose clumps of red dread (yep, up close he's a natty mon) which had slipped down cheekside, but either way he gave the impression of a Ronald who was hoping to take a sideways step into the lucrative world of Elvis impersonation. Thankyouverrmuch.

Then came the filming: with such a large gathering, the show's producers couldn't help but take the opportunity for some promo/ad/filler bits to be shot. We were bunched up next to the gates which blocked the entrance to our final destination (the conference centre) and waiting to get into the warmth, but we had about half an hour in which we were instructed to scream "Melbourne! Yay!" (sic) again and again, while Andy G and James M ran through some bored sounding dialogue ('one thing is certain: you're about to experience the unforgettable singing of Melbourne" or some rubbish - Andy and Jim couldn't even pretend to be interested in what they were saying. I thought "Melbourne!" was the wrong choice, since the couple of hundred tired and shambling bodies pressing up against the gates would seem to be a more obvious phrase like "BRAAAAINS...BRAAAAAAAAINS" but some producers lack that creative spark. We went through the routine and made it through the gates, where another few hours of waiting were laid on us.

This was a nice time; a time to sit down, grab a coffee, warm up inside the cavernous conference centre and chat with your newfound friends. This was really helpful, as inside everyone was curling up like a millipede and crying "NOOOOOO! I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS!". Maybe it was just me. But the little door at the end of the room, through which contestants were being sent ten at a time, well it kind of felt like the doors to Hell.

It took a long time for me to make it through. At one point I received a call from a photographer, who'd been organised to cover the event, and wanted my shot. Now, up to this point I'd been incognito. But when the photographer for a major daily pulls you up to sit in the front row of around 2000 people just so he can snap your mug, you kind of wonder if the cover's been blown. I did get a few odd looks from producers, and Andrew G reassessed his earlier appraisal of me, but nothing immediately untoward happened.

And then my name was called along with those of my erstwhile companions and we all filed into a little waiting room where nobody even dared to breath. We sat, avoiding eye contact, waiting for our chance to step through a pair of doors into the audition room. One by one the others were called, disappeared for a few minutes, then came out rejected. They didn't seem too disappointed; after all, of the couple of hundred who'd gone before us today, only a handful had emerged clutching the coveted pink form (like a Wonka Golden Ticket but a bit more camp). And then it was my turn in the hot seat.

The hot seat turned out to be a big yellow gaffer X on the floor of a large grey room - grey walls, floor, ceiling, and grey expressions on the two judges who sat behind a featureless desk waiting for me to sing. Didn't want to know anything about me, just what I sounded like.

And thanks to the many who offered suggestions as to my song choice. Some faves which weren't included in the last post's comments include Milkshake by Kelis or anything by Kraftwerk, but I decided to go with the one song I knew the lyrics for...George Michael's Faith. The only reason I know this song is because of a great episode of Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends I saw years back, in which Louis visits the home of a family of fundamentalist Christians. While he's sitting round the living room table with them (think wood panelling, cream throw rugs, cableknit sweaters), they pull out the guitar for an old fashioned God-fearin' singalong, and ask if he knows anything he could play. He says that he only knows one song, called Faith, which obviously gets their vigorous approval. But when he begins (well I guess it would be nice, if I could touch your body, I know not everybody has got a body like you...)...well, it always gets me laughing. And so I thought I'd lay the same lyrics on the judges.

They seemed to approve, if only in a slightly shocked and bewildered way. If I remember correctly, there was a little eyebrows-raised moment, and some exchanging of glances, but they asked me for another song as well. I hadn't really banked on that, so I went for a track by Icelandic folky songstress Emiliana Torrini. They hadn't heard of her.

Oh.

Should have guessed that.

And they weren't that impressed. "Very interesting interpretations, but not what we're looking for this year."

And thus ends my story. Needless to say, I will not be the next Australian Idol.

A Whole New World

Ah.

It's you.

I see.

Ahem.

Well, you're probably a little confused and/or irate. And I'm not making any excuses, no. So I've been absent of late, not putting in my share, and I know, I know, two-way street and all that, but you have to understand that I'm sincerely trying to make this work.

I am.

It's just that I've been so busy. I've had a whole bunch of new jobs this year, including writing media stuff for a major theatre company, and running a course at a university, and all that on top of everything I already had running and now...well, now I've just been given another job, one which will pretty much replace some of the others, and it's a full time gig, but you have to understand that I'm doing all this for us, so that we can be financially stable and not have to worry about money or anything. You understand, don't you?

Anyway, I've just been given my first task in the new job, and I'm going to ask for your help here.

I have to audition for Australian Idol on Saturday.

Yeah.

I know.

Seriously.

And then I have to whip up a story to run in a major Australian newspaper the next day. On, I guess, the experience and all that. So...

I need you to give me some ideas as to a choice of song. I'm hardly the world's best singer, but I can hold a tune. So hit me with your best shot and I'll ruminate.

Help me, internet. Help us all.

Yours,
(the ironically named)
AHFLV

Dream Four

THE DREAM:

These two Canadian white boys run a thoroughly half-arsed and downright stupid lecture on the A-Z of hip hop, educating similarly ignorant fools on how to be the baddest rappin' mofos this side of tha East Side. By the show's end you'll know what's so wack about tofu, be down wit' some hip hop exercise workouts and be crying bitter tears as you realise the terrible mistake of forgetting about Dre. The two performers are gleefully aware of their complete inadequacy as hip hop avatars, and work this side of things to excellent effect, relying instead on wit and surprise to counter their natural deficiencies. Anyone with any knowledge of hip hop (or comedy for that matter) will probably start the show deeply skeptical if not plain contemptuous, but few won't be won over by the final result. And of course there's plenty of bad jokes, puns and hokey physical comedy in there too, so don't go expecting comedy gold. Rather, it's gloriously trashy, silly and uneven but the net effect is hard to fault. The show's called Hip Hop 4 Dummeez, which perfectly summarises it, too.

Well, one of the weirder dreams of late, so we've gotten in that maestro of weirdness, Mr David Lynch, who'll be explaining some of the deeper symbolism of this thing. Hi Mr David Lynch.

Well hello.

So: what have you got?

Well, here's my take on it, AHFLV. There's a man with penguins for hands whose nose is dripping constantly, but he doesn't seem aware of it. A staccato stabbing piano soundtrack cuts in and out of consciousness, perhaps conjuring images of it being played by a recently deceased pope or perhaps some sentient balsa wood. Perhaps both, in a duet. You decide. Can we get some more light on the penguin hands? No, strike that, I like it better the way it was. I once held an exhibition of art made entirely from rotting meat, so that the flies and maggots which were attracted to the works became part of the art's meaning. This was well back in the day, of course. There's a feeling of two-dimensionality to Penguin Hands, so we'll have him reading a book and the book comes to life and we find ourselves in an operating theatre where all of the surgical instruments are made of thorny rose stems, so that the white-clad surgeons are constantly pricking their fingers. They don't seem to notice the tiny blood spots appearing on their gloved hands - but they're surgeons, they're professionals, they're probably used to it. Probably hopped up on painkillers, too. You notice, though, lying on that cold metal slab as they move towards you. Wait! Is this an operating theatre or a morgue? Are these people surgeons or bowler-hatted clowns? No no no, I would never use bowler hats, done to death. But maybe death is the point. Probably not. Don't dwell on it. It's just a dream, son.

Thank you for your contribution.

Not at all, a pleasure. You have a nice day.

Dream Three

THE DREAM:

For today's dream, I tried to get a crazy wild-eyed gypsy to interpret my somnambulent wanderings, but there were none available. I went for the second-tier gypsy, namely Natalie Wood as Louise 'Gypsy Rose Lee' Hovick in Gypsy (1962) but again came up with nothing. So, today's guest dream analyst will be a Natalie Wood Impersonator sitting on a staircase.

I have no idea what this dream could mean.

Ah well. Maybe all will be revealed if you pay a visit to Captain Frodo's show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It is limb-snappingly awesome and perhaps the most limb-snappingly awesomest shows I've seen in a long while. Top marks. Highly recommended. Must see. It's called The Adventures of Captain Frodo: Tales of a Modern Day Showman.

DREAM TWO

[Part one of an ongoing series in which the Melbourne International Comedy Festival is explained through reference to a range of curious and intriguing dreams experienced during my wanderings in the desert]

TODAY IN GLORIOUS B&W

THE DREAM:

I am holding a party to celebrate the birthday of an acquaintance who for some reason is a half-completed Sudoko grid. Only problem is, the party is entirely virtual, taking place in a small corner of the website Common Errors in English. Also, the only attendees are a potted vine, Peter Allen and half the cast of March of the Penguins. The words "Not for Resale" maintain a powerful presence. There are no shadows on the internet.

To unpack today's significance-loaded dream, we all welcome our special guest Sigmund Freud! Hi Dr Freud!

Don't you wish your analyst was hot like me? Don't you wish your analyst was a freak like me?

...

...

...

Doncha? Doncha?

I sure do. So what's the story with my dream, man?

Well firstly, and I shouldn't need to say this, but it's clear you've been eating a lot of heavy foods including cheese late at night before bed. Am I correct? I believe I am. And I certainly shouldn't need to lecture you on the dangers of carb-loading after 5pm. But as for the actual content of your fantasy, I believe that a certain level of repressed libidinal energy supplies its motivation. Let us look beyond the surface and explore this.
This party is transparently some kind of event at the Comedy Festival, one held by someone with whom you are familiar. It is one which appeals to the intellect, yes, but also plays with language and offers an unreal mental space within which to imagine oneself. "Not for Resale" obviously indicates the way that comedy does not often work when jokes are retold by non-comedians. For instance, despite it's obvious inherent humour, I can never seem to raise a laugh when I tell the story of how a hausfrau enters a butcher's establishment and complains that the bratwurst she has purchased is largely composed of meat, but the ends are stuffed with straw. The butcher comically replies that the middle of the item is is relatively easy to produce, but that "it is hard to make ends meat". This is the end of the joke.

In one of my many writings, I have theorised that laughter is almost always provoked when we witness a character acting mechanically, whether it be in his or her actions or his or her speech or mental behaviour. It is for this reason that the robot dance is humorous, but also why so many situation comedies make us laugh violently, because we are witnessing people responding in mechanical ways to situations that require them to adapt alternative responses. This is a theme taken up and extended by Henri Bergson, the thieving swine.

We seem to be wandering here a bit, Sig.

So be it. I am long dead. And all that one hears in the afterlife is the music of the Pussycat Dolls.

I see.

To return to your initial question, your dream tells us of American comedian Arj Barker. His is a witty and wry series of comic routines which appear lazily delivered but unfold as complex and carefully-constructed brainteasers. Also, he is a very sexy man and you clearly have sublimated some kind of man crush.

I think that'll end things for today thanks, Sigmund. Though I still don't understand the whole penguins etc deal.

That would be the carbs, dude.

Got ya.

DREAM ONE

[Part one of an ongoing series in which the Melbourne International Comedy Festival is explained through reference to a range of curious and intriguing dreams experienced during my wanderings in the desert]

THE DREAM:

My good friend Chris Martin (from the popular modern musical act Coldplay) is attempting to tongue kiss a slightly oversized crow on the pitch of the MCG. I'm looking at him as if to say "dude! Please!" and he's all "what?" and I'm like "so gross!" and all the while the randy avian is pecking away at his mouth since it's fallen for his lines about how "Gwynnie just hasn't been there for me since the new kid came along, I mean been there emotionally..." and he's having trouble because the pointy beak isn't exactly conducive to teen-style pashing and I sense a certain second-thoughts-havingness in his attitude now. And I'm thinking at this point that maybe Chris wasn't the best guy to sign on as the new P.E. teacher in the community school that I run for orphaned Native Americans living in Australia, but I stand by my choice on the grounds that pulling the hunky and inoffensive pop-rock star card is always acceptable when justifying poor professional practice before a board of trustees. All this reflecting on our schoolside practices has conjured up images of Takeshi 'Beat' Kitano in Battle Royale, and Chris and I are discussing the stylish matching tracksuit he wears throughout most of that film and wondering whether we could get away with something similar in our own teaching life. Man, says Chris, that was one messed up film, and I say yeah, sure, but it wasn't nearly as shocking as everyone made it out to be, and even provoked some interesting and philosophical interior monologues during my viewing experience. As in: is this simply an expression of the fact that the educational system itself is designed to establish a competitive heirarchy between students, and in fact implicitly encourages bullying, survival-of-the-fittest behaviour and clique-type tribalism, etc? So that the kid who gets his head flushed down the toilet is roughly analogous to the kid who is ritually shamed in class for not doing his homework, even though his rough family life makes a quiet study space all but impossible? But if that's the case, retorts Chris (wiping blood from his pecked and ragged lips), then doesn't basic Marxist theory imply that this system of repression will always lead to a corresponding revolutionary impulse on the part of the students? Exactly, I say, and am about to continue when I am rudely interrupted by a baseball-bat toting Richard Grieco from 21 Jump Street with a bone to pick or an axe to grind or a score to settle or somesuch and I'm suddenly woken-

Anyway, that's the dream, so it's time to introduce our first celebrity dream analyst who'll be explaining the significance of this mental narrative, so let's put our hands together and give a big round of applause to... Dr Phil!

Much obliged, AHFLV, and I gotta say I'm real pleased to take time outta my busy schedule to be here today on your program-


Well, it's not exactly a program-


-and I'm gonna cut right to the chase, cos I'm not the kinda guy to pussyfoot around, I mean I got an internationally syndicated show of my own to run, so let's get down to business and talk some turkey, okay?


Sure.

Now what we got here is a classic case of Comedy Festival introjection, and if I had a nickel for every time I've heard this exact same dream spelled out for me by some narcissistic loser I'd be upgrading the amenities in my Learjet faster'n you can say 10 points rolling gross for my upcoming biopic "Shooting Straight: Phil up the Tank" based on my somewhat fictionalised tour of duty in Iraq.


Really? I've never heard-

Did I tell you to speak? Do you remember me giving you those orders? No, I don't think so, and you'd better cram a sock in your spit faucet before I kick your sorry ass all the way to Tallahasee (Population: the contents of my butt!). Do you want some dream analysis or not? Cos when it comes to dreaming, that's your mind's way of telling you something important, and if you aint gonna listen then you may as well be shutting down the whole facility right now.

So what I'm hearing from your dream is an underriding theme of disappointment: you got Chris Martin disappointing you with his crow kissing, you got Chris himself disappointed that the kissing aint up to scratch, and you got the fact that all this is going on somewhere where big things should be happening, the MCG itself. Add to this the whole Coldplay angle, a band who can rightly play somewhere like the MCG but never really live up to the hype, and it's clear that your subconscious is playing out a scenario of expectations unfulfilled. No wonder that you wander off into that frankly irrelevant debate over the meaning of a Japanese film, since what the facts of the scenario aren't even interesting enough to hold your attention. And is it any coincidence that it's a crow the man's kissing, since a gathering of crows is called a murder? The paucity of content is murdering the man's artform, and this combination of disappointment, expectations unmet and overinflated hype, along with the concern that the result will murder the medium in question makes it damn sure obvious to me that what your dream is really about is Adam Hills' new show, which is a fine enough way to pass an hour but never starts scoring the goals. I mean, the guy goes on for way too long about an audience member who gave him a carrot, and while in any possible metaphorical sense this would be a ripe subject for a few laughs, it's unfortunately entirely literal. So you have to ask yourself, AHFLV, what's in it for you? I mean, what's really in it for you?


Isn't that your answer for everything?

You can bet your bottom dollar. I'm outta here.


Thanks Dr Phil! You've cleared things up for me!

So I guess the lesson from this dream is that Adam Hills' new show is nice and pleasant but so sweetly inoffensive that I can't even remember the name of the thing. Fans might enjoy it, but like Coldplay, the material and delivery just don't explain why there are so many of these fans to begin with. Let us ponder that, before proceeding to our next dream.

Dream a Little Dream

Not so long ago, dear reader, I was visited by a strange and unearthly series of dreams and it is of these that I wish now to speak. They came upon me of a restless night, the sort which rattles the soul with its wanderings, of an echoing summer passing almost imperceptibly in autumn's shadow, and winter's creeping embrace sliding beneath the window cracks. These dreams, then, were perhaps the workings of a fevered and seasonally maladjusted temperament, yet I cannot but return to them and their possible significance. Of course, I realise that one's dreams are of no interest to anyone but oneself, one's psychoanalyst, one's resident hippie, any gypsies who may be passing, third-rate novelists, unreconstructed new agers, Scientologists, the Biblical king Nebudchanezzar, Dr Phil, the cynical purveyors of dream diaries, particularly intelligent cats and whomever may be sleeping next to you at the time you have said dream. If the dream ends with you in the role of Jean Claude Van Damme executing a roundhouse kick to the neck of a Russian arms dealer, and you wake to find your own foot has punched through the cheap plasterboard wall next to your slightly musty-smelling mattress, then we can add your landlord to the list, but that's a rare occasion and you're probably better off googling the website of your local community legal service rather than reading on here, but hey, whatever works for you.

For me, I have no choice but to explore these dreams, and by 'explore' I clearly mean 'write about on the web in a vaguely ill-informed manner', and by 'dreams' I mean 'device for posting about some shows I've seen recently'. We in the business call this 'meta-blogging', and by 'business' I mean 'bored way of passing time', and by 'time' I mean 'wind', and by 'wind' I mean 'dreams'.

To begin, however, me must go back, way back in time, to what seems many months ago but is really only a few months. Maybe enough to be called many, but not that many. Or...no, not many. Or...

For some time I'd been writing here of shows that I'd seen, the good and the bad, and those with excellent post-show catering. But as 2006 rolled around, I found the shows dried up a little, and with it my need to write on every show I attended. Moreover, I found that a fulfilling and utterly delightful relationship, a couple of new time-guzzling jobs and the need for more sleep took their toll. No time to write. There were still the shows, of course, calling me with their high-pitched siren-like tones, and of course I was there, but I couldn't write on them all. I'd lost the spirit. I'd lost the blogging* touch.

And so it was time to face my demons, to holster my shooters, saddle up and head off into the shimmering yonder. For forty days and forty shuddering nights I wandered the wasteland with naught for company but a stick useful for divining and the occasional brandishing; some cheefully packaged cheese stix; a flyer for a now-defunct pizza cafe; a photo of a zebra (by day 12 I'd called him Leroy); an Alanis Morrissette DVD; a memory of a plasticine Gorgon from Jason and the Argonauts; a wry smile; a team of bullocks (imagined); a sense of foreboding; and a scrap of paper for recording my dreams (you haven't forgotten the dream conceit, have you?). When my peripatetic nomadery was done, I found myself long-bearded and faraway-eyed returning to my domestic comforts, a long way from the nightly opening-attending boob I once was, yet still unsure of what I had become.

And so it is now, nestled neatly amidst my books and roaring fireplaces (two per room) and smugly attention-seeking cats that I have decided to revisit this period of wandering, in order to determine the meanings of the 40 Great Dreams which I found there. These dreams, sundry, are of such a diverse character that I cannot see any common theme therein, but I have a feeling that each and every one bears a mutual subliminal focus, and my only thought in this regard is as follows: the Comedy Festival is on and it lives in my mind. Perhaps we can work from there.

The first five dreams will be interpreted by a variety of guests tomorrow.

*note: this is the first time this blog has used the term 'blogging' or 'blog'. It may be the last. I prefer to use the term 'Guadalupe', a particularly endearing and colourful Hispanic name (feminine) which perfectly describes every blog in existence.

OF MONKS AND MARTIANS

On Wednesday night I went to see The Borough at Gasworks in Albert Park. I was mildly trepidatious. All I'd heard about it was that it was a history of Port Melbourne, which doesn't to me scream 'must-see theatre' (I don't know if that phrase even makes any kind of sense, actually). But a friend directed it and some other friends had expressed interest in going (for that reason, not the subject matter) so we piled up outside some bar in Chapel St just as dusk began to spread its warm husky hues across the land.

Somebody decided it would be a good idea to grab something to eat. Time on our side, we went for a Thai-Vietnamese place with tables outside, and spoke of many things. Most of these aren't that interesting or relevant, but one thing that came up was how the biggest obstacle preventing a manned mission to Mars from taking place was that a bunch of people cooped up in a tin can for a four-year trip each way would undoubtedly end up killing each other, or something equally horrible. I mean, it only takes a few weeks on Big Brother before the honeymoon is over and people are going at each other with the wrong end of the pool cleaner.

Being amongst the finest minds of our generation, a few solutions were batted around before we got bored/ADHD kicked in:

- one of the crewmembers must be an annoying robot, and therefore the first to go (but not tragically so). Doesn't work for me.

- one of the crew members must be an annoying human, and therefore the first to go. Much better. When the others realise what they've done, there will be no more killing.

- the sole crew member must be Tom Hanks, who's been into space before and who lasted much longer on his own in Cast Away and should be fine as long as a steady supply of volleyballs is at hand. If he does go mad, it will be entertaining for Earth viewers.

- send a bunch of Buddhist monks.

Now, I wouldn't mention all of this talk if it didn't come up again later. As we were leaving Gasworks, we noticed a poster for another event coming up in the same location: namely, these guys:

THE GYUTO MONKS

They almost look like Martians themselves. But lo! Do they look suspiciously like anyone in particular?

YES:

And we'd just spent an hour learning about Port Melbourne, home of the very nice MARS gallery!

AND ONE OF OUR NUMBER WORKS FOR THE COMPANY THAT SETS UP PLANETARIUMS AROUND THE WORLD.

All very strange.

Anyway, opinions were divided on The Borough. Half of our number (myself incl.) enjoyed it, other half didn't. I guess I kind of like historical stuff and also the fact that now I know more about Port Melbourne than most people, which makes me feel superior and non-ignoramus-like.
But it wasn't for everyone - culled from 25 interviews with residents, it was a pretty straight delivery of various voices expressing their opinions on the good ol' days, the bad ol' days and the current over-development of the area. Played out by two actors, one of whom wrote the thing, the job was pulled off pretty smoothly and economically, with a minimal design and lighting scheme. It was part verbatim theatre, part community event, part performed lecture. If you had an interest in the area (or lived there) you'd be well off seeing it. If you're not big on historical details and parochial anecdotes, though, maybe not.

Kid Cool

I found this picture while randomly searching for something else in the chaos that is my working life right now, and frankly it brought on a sense of immense calm and inner peace. I want what this kid's got (the coolness, not the sunglasses or thermal jumper). I'd love this kid to answer the door at an exclusive bar. I'd like him to be the celebrant at a shotgun wedding. I'd like him to turn out to be the elusive Mr Big I've spent the better part of my police career hunting down, narrowly missing him in midnight stakeouts and spinning high-backed armchairs around to reveal nothing but a taperecorder and a ticking timebomb.

Whoever took this photo is the John Woo of children's photography.

If you're in a time of crisis or doubt, just check in on Kid Cool.

Work = Play

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, they say.

This was demonstrated to memorable effect in the hilarious comedy The Shining, in which Jack Nicholson struggles with his career as a writer while trying to juggle his roles as father and husband. I think there was a wacky sidekick in there somewhere, but I'll confess it's been a while since I saw the movie.

But back on topic: what do you do when your work INVOLVES plays? Or worse, dull plays? Please revise the aphorism IF APHORISM IT INDEED BE.

Jack: Now I am confused.

Short story - I've seen too much to write up here lately. But in brief: The Theatre @ Risk show One-Way Street was great, and if it's remounted you get yourself along to watch it. A peripatetic tour of Berlin and its history by a very unreliable English guide whose own romantic and familial past is inextricably tied into his tale-telling. Simon Kingsley Hall is so much stronger in this than in his previous work that I was pretty astonished by his performance. Even his director laughed that he'd never realised Simon would be so good at comic stuff.

Wednesday night was Jo Lloyd's Public=UN+Public, a new dance work she's choreographed with Off Nibroll (from Tokyo). It was a very charming piece visually - the multimedia projections which took up three walls of the Chunky Move Studio were top quality CGI stuff, and probably cost a pretty penny. The soundtrack was awesome as well, mostly composed of the squeaky, beatsy, staticky electronica that accompanies most contemporary movement in Melbourne these days. The dancing was for the most part as good as I've come to expect from Jo & Co, who I think is up there with the best in town at the moment. I'd call this one

A HOME RUN

That's all for now. Like I said, I've just got too much work on these days.

Can Leave, Did Leave

Last weekend I went to the opening of Can't Leave Tomorrow Alone, a play whose title is suspiciously reminiscent of a Bond film. I was looking forward to it, quite a bit really, perhaps for the potential Bond-factor (I was thinking knife-throwing midgets and deadly-yet-open-minded ladies in lycra playsuits). Didn't really work out that way.

We got incest, kidnapping, psychological torture, miscarriage, human trafficking, pedophilia, bondage, irresponsible Elizabethan ruff-wearing and a whole lotta shouting. Oh, the shouting. Part of the problem with the shouting stems from the venue. When you're performing in Theatreworks in St Kilda, you have to be loud to be heard since the space is so huge. But if you're loud, you end up getting lost in your own echo. They really, really need to invest in some kind of cladding for the roof or even painting it with an absorbent coat or something. Or more curtains. I don't know - I'm just a big picture guy.

But the shouting was also a feature of the play itself, which started things off at an emotional level of about 9 or 9.5 and got to ten in a couple of minutes. Doesn't leave much room to move, there. And watching a play at that heightened emotional frequency for nearly two hours is bound to leave you with strong impressions, good or bad. In my case, I like some modulation of tone, and at times probably had a pretty sour look on my face, as if I'd just taken a gulp of milk and felt solid bits go down.

The story concerned a wealthy couple who buy a third-world baby. When baby is all grown up, we find that Dad has just gotten her pregnant and Mum is in a state of denial over the whole situation. Baby soon gets kidnapped and held prisoner by a weird, creepily zen-like dude whose face we don't see much of. The expected amount of hilarity ensues.

Helen Thomson gave the piece a right old excoriation in today's Age, and I think she went too far (there were good elements to the play, and the story had more to it than she gave credit for). But the negative aspects were too much for this viewer: after someone miscarries, is it really necessary to bring the lights up on a massive jar of tomato paste? And when someone burns their house down with themselves inside it, does tipping said jar of paste over their own head really work as a symbol? Actually, I'm beginning to wonder if it wasn't the tomato jar that was behind every flaw in the play.

Maybe I'm getting it wrong. Maybe it was a Howard Barker-type Theatre of Catastrophe piece set in a contemporary and recognisable world. But then again, I've never liked Barker that much, either.

Maybe it should have been a bit more like this:

Tell me there isn't more drama and excitement in that collage than you'll find in a thousand local productions. I have no idea what those images are from, by the way, or why someone felt the need to put them all in one place.

I left Can't Leave Tomorrow Alone really quickly, and even though it wasn't opening night, I didn't even glance at the catering.

Was there even catering?

I don't know, because I didn't even glance at it.

I just mentioned that.

Are you even paying attention?

My Life, My Cheese

Like most people, I have every expectation that one day, sooner or later, I will receive a telephone call during which an anonymous caller will state their intention to make a movie of my life. I usually imagine the voice to sound remarkably like the late Orson Welles, for some reason, and in the more elaborate versions of this fantasy I am speaking into an oversized gold receiver dangling from diamond-ring encrusted fingers (my own or somebody else's).
Now, I'm not delusional. I put my pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else (especially one-legged people). As an aside, however, I have developed a method of putting on my underpants two legs at a time, which involves lying on my back on the bed or floor and flinging them up in the air while kicking wildly. It usually takes four or five attempts, but it's hell satisfying once achieved.

Anyway, since I'm not delusional, I'm fully aware that such biopics don't just come along to any old joe. That's why I've been working on several secret projects that will set me aside from the common folk once revealed (hush hush for the moment but if you're thinking "could he mean robots who look just like normal peoples?" you MAY be on the right track.

But this is also why Orson doesn't just come out and say "we want the rights to your life and we're already two weeks into shooting with several leading Hollywood actors including Denzel Washington in an uncredited cameo as your fictionalised half-brother/table tennis coach". What he says is more like "we're going to begin with a six month development period in which we workshop the script we're using and conduct test readings with real live audiences".

And so it was with interest that I went to a reading on Monday. The script in question was a play, not a film, and it didn't so much tell the story of one interesting man's life as it did explore the grim future offered by cloning technology. Futur Deluxe is by an acclaimed Swiss playwright, and now that I think of it, Orson Welles made a famous comment about the Swiss in his film The Third Man. It was something about nothing ever coming out of Switzerland except cuckoo clocks. There was more to it than that but I'm so lazy I'm not even going to google it.

The play reading was a pleasant enough experience, comfortable and presented in the attractive environs of fortyfivedownstairs. The cast were mostly good, but I just couldn't get excited about the script. Cloning is not and never will be an interesting subject for a play, and if it does feature in a decent script it will be a 'despite' thing, not a 'because of' deal. A conversation afterwards included something along the lines of "it might have been a better play if the whole cloning bit was cut out", and if somebody is saying your play might be better without its central theme, you might want to rethink things.

The Theatre @ Risk crew have been responsible for some outstanding stuff, and this was just one of a week of different play readings they're doing alongside the season of performances of One Way Street which I'm seeing on Sunday. Since Futur Deluxe was the first of this season, opening night featured catering from some Swiss folks (might have been the embassy). That meant pretty good wine and bucketloads of cheese - white cheese, Swiss cheese and the biggest monster-truck-wheel-sized block of blue I've ever clapped eyes upon. And it was all great, in that "ewww, I think I'm sweating cheese" post-event manner. But kudos to the Swiss for a fine spread.



NOTE: this scene will probably be cut from the final script of my life.

Ode to a Grecian...

In the interests of full disclosure and transparency, I might as well come out and say it: I'm not a big fan of Greek tragedy. Now, those of you who've read along for a while might be pursing the corners of your mouth and "pfft"-ing and pulling the same face you wore when Howard denied any underlying racism in Australia, thinking "Of course he doesn't go for Greek tragedy! He's already complained about Shakespeare, Brecht, Williamson and plenty of other stuff whichmakes up the cornerstones of theatre education in this country! NO SURPRISES HERE thank you".

Well, sure. But there's a difference. See, and gather round now children, there you go, make room for your brother, there's plenty of room for all...see, here's the difference: if I want to know what happens in Troilus & Cressida but can't be bothered reading it, I can always find a shoddy 80s BBC version featuring ugly men with wispy beards and have a good laugh while I'm watching it. Same goes for most of the modernist theatrical masterpieces. But there's no way I'm watching a film version of no greek drama. I'm stuck either a) reading the damn thing (which isn't so bad) or b) watching a really boring rendition by a bunch of graduation VCE students.

I understand the contribution this stuff has made to contemporary theatre. This includes The Chorus, wherein a gang of hangers-on pretty much tell you the plot (like sitting in the tea room at work the night after a particularly good episode of The Bill); excessive overuse of masks, which always brings up vague Eyes Wide Shut paranoia in me; and the cathartic function of drama, also seen in forms such as the daytime soap and Jerry Springer.

But a lot of the time, I'm thinking "don't fart on me, sonny, and call it French perfume". No amount of white pancake and hollering can really make me that intrigued by the machinations of Theban rulers. Just give it to me straight, or find something more relevant to my situation and the situation of my aching bumcheeks, usually screaming at me for putting them in a moulded plastic assembly-hall chair for two hours plus.

This week I visited the opening of Unholy Site, an interpretation of Sophocles' Antigone by Jacklyn Bassanelli. And I'm pleased to say that nary a mask nor chorus was in sight, and the cathartic element of the play wasn't its focus (not for me, at least). And I really enjoyed it, though opinions differed as to why.

The wonderfully-initialed JB gave a solo performance which took the basic tale and shook things up a bit (or a lot). She tells the thing from Antigone's POV, and plays her as an angry, violently rebellious princess. One punter later called her "Paris Hilton with more neuroses", but I didn't see it that way. Either way, it was a compelling and well-considered interpretation of a character fairly done to death these days.

The big thing what got me, though, is the method of presentation. On opening night at The Crofts Institute, the entire performance was delivered on a video screen with camera attached and sound pumped through an amp. In one long take, with lighting and sound operated via a remote by the actor herself onscreen, we saw the performance play out in real time but strangely absent. Bassanelli might not have even been in the building, though I later found out that she was. One reviewer noted that the effect of the TV screen showing meant that Antigone became curiously entombed alive in the black box, which is entirely thematically appropriate. For my part, I was wondering all sorts of other things, about the "live"-ness of prerecorded performance, and about the effect of a theatre audience watching a TV screen (totally different to a projected film/video) and the alternating or even concurrent sense of presence and absence, passivity and interactivity this creates. There was also the sense of the prerecording as a suicide note, or a voice from beyond the grave.

But I was in a minority here, and others couldn't help but want some more life to the show. I'll state it bluntly, I really liked the daring of playing things the way they were played, but I can understand the reservations others had about it. And after opening night, a joint decision from the creators saw the live element reintroduced, and the show now offers the same story played live while the camera simultaneously records it and plays it on the television. I'll try to go back and see how this looks some time next week.

Diamond Dust Blues

John Michael Howson, a person who wrote Dusty

I read recently that the first draft of Dusty didn't get the big toothy grin and double-thumbs jerking skywards from the late singer's friends. The exact response, according to one of the writers (professional gossip hound and campy socialite John Michael Howson) was something along the lines of "you haven't captured her at all!".

I would love to read that draft. I can't imagine how it could have gone wrong. Not when the final version included an exchange so molar-impactingly awful that it will probably have quite a few dentists throwing their little mouth mirror things across the room in disgust and despair in the coming weeks.

Allow me to recount the scene ('scene' is industry talk for 'bit' - I sometimes forget that not all readers are in The Biz). Dusty Springfield is about to go on tour to Australia. She complains to her gay hairdresser friend (is there any other kind?) that she's getting a bit too chubby to tour. And he replies that it's ok, THEY ALREADY HAVE ONE SLIM DUSTY IN AUSTRALIA.

Here's me after hearing that line:

Anyway, it's taken me a week to write on the show, but not for any interesting reason. I enjoyed it quite a lot, though there are huge gaps and oversights and misjudged plot maneuvers. It's a musical, however, so I'm willing to give it some slack since the musical isn't my preferred genre and I'm not as qualified to judge their worth or lack thereof. For my money, some toe-tappin' tunes and a bag of spirit fingers are enough. Dusty already came with the music in the bag, and it wasn't long in before a saw a scene in which about twenty people were all doing slow spirit fingers around the show's star, so I felt I'll gotten what I asked for.

Tamsin Carroll might well win a whole heap of awards for her role as Dusty; especially when you consider that she's only 26. It's an amazing performance for someone so young, and though she doesn't try to replicate the singer's vocal style exactly, she can sure belt out a number. In spoken sections, she does an incredibly unnerving accent which I've since been told is pretty faithful to Springfield, but nonetheless had me worried that she'd been listening to water-damaged tapes of the singer or something.

The opening night after party was an epicentre of Melbourne artistic elite, if you interpret the word 'artistic' to mean 'recognisable' and the word 'elite' to mean 'nobodies'. Lots of Aussie Idols, ex-TV celebrities, music industry old guard and the like. I won't name names because I don't do that sort of thing (remember them, I mean). But I was most impressed to see even JM Howson making an appearance and eagerly answering questions from admiring young things.

The food was okay: leek and gorgonzola arancini things; basil, cheese and tomato 'panini' (I'd call 'em 'toasties') and party pies topped with some kind of salsa (they called them 'beef and burgundy' but they sure as hell looked 'four and twenty' to me).

But I didn't stay long. My significant other/girlfriend/main squeeze/whatever the terminology is these days and I hoofed it off before the speeches, because there was only so much backslapping and belly-rubbing and metaphorical high-fiving we could handle. And there was also that other thing.

You know on those dark cold winter nights when you realise you've been idling in the car alone out the front of the house for about two hours, playing Hotel California over and over and remembering how it thrilled you in your youth before the responsibilities of life shoved all your dreams to one side, responsibilities which are now lying in bed inside that heavily mortgaged house wondering where you are and why you always seem so distant nowadays and have taken to strumming that old guitar in the shed for entire weekends, not uttering a word or making eye contact, and how you wish you could go back and do things differently because now you've dug yourself into a hole you can't get out of? And how you could have been a contender, a real musician, and how they should have been writing musicals about YOU goddammit! You know that feeling?

No, me neither. But I think a lot of the people at that party might.

I'm not making accusations. Supposition and vague aspertion-casting are more my forte.