Slowly Improv-ing

It's been a while since I inserted a gratuitous plug into the 'ol Clumsy Blog, so I just wanted to say:

Battle of the Suburbs - the latest season of improv fun at the Stones Corner Hotel.

I'm playing in the first show tomorrow night - Tuesday 1st May. I'm in the "Ascot" team. It's worth coming along to see our team uniforms alone...

Show starts at 8pm and admission is free! How nifty is that?!!?!

Also, the 22-24 June will see the first ever festival of improv in Brisbane - Briz Improv Fest.

I'm getting on the publicity bandwagon, and you can also find more details (including the Clumsy-penned media release) on the Briz Improv site. This is the hub improv site I've been running for years, but it has now been spiffily updated with actual content. Hurrah!

Question Time

Today I had lunch with the Prime Minister.

It was not a one-on-one, sadly (or maybe thankfully), but in fact a Queensland Media Club lunch, graced by the Right Honourable John Howard MP, Prime Minister of Australia, a bunch of Liberal and National party heavyweights, a contingent of press secretaries and government advisers, and a relative shiteload of local Brisbane businesspeople.

So many people in suits.

So much pressure to use the right cutlery and not spill iced Pepsi down the front of my shirt.

Anyway, I was sent to cover the event, being the station's "political" journo at the moment. I'll get to why my presence why inevitably unnecessary later, but first I must tell you about my First Ever Attempt to Ask the Prime Minister A Question.

Mr Howard was in town for a little bit of pre-election campaigning, cunningly disguised as... pre-election campaigning. He gave a speech extolling the achievements of the Coalition government over the past 11 years, and warned against installing a Labor government which would only tear down those achievements, and take us back to the bad old days of union dominance, high interest rates, and non-involvement in arguably illegal overseas military action. Well, maybe not that last one.

I sent my father a brief text message, the old Conservative that he is: "Having a nice prosciutto chicken with your mate Johnny Howard. So close I could throw a glass of Shiraz over him".

Response from father: "Do that and forget your inheritance!"

At the close of his speech, the assembled media were invited to ask questions. At that point, I started becoming nervous. Very nervous. So nervous, in fact, that my stomach started knotting, I began feeling ill, I began rocking softly back and forth in my chair. The microphone passed to me after three questions; I couldn't do it, and passed it on.

Then I started thinking. "I have to do this. I HAVE to. I have to ask a question. For pride. For my own self-confidence. For all those who keep calling me a journalist when I personally feel like the biggest fake in the world. This might go some way to convincing myself that I can actually be an honest-to-God journo, able to look the devil in the eye (figuratively speaking, of course), and ask something relevant, something meaningful. And maybe get an answer."

So I psyched myself up. I wrote the question out on the back of the copy of the speech, which Howard's minions, I mean press secs, had distributed to us before he began. I signalled for the mic, and it was cheerfully passed to me by a nice journo from The Australian. (I'd kinda half-hoped he wouldn't relinquish it, but suddenly it was in my hands). I gripped it tightly, and worked myself through the sharpest pang of stage fright I've ever had. I can't remember a time I was that nervous - and I've done all manner of stupid things in public and on purpose. But this arena was different: I wasn't in control. Howard was effortlessly in charge of his surroundings - watched on by business people and party members, why wouldn't he be?

But I would do it. I would do what my democratic right entitled me to do - question my elected leader. My sweaty fingers grabbed the mike, I held it halfway up to my dry mouth, as the Prime Minister finished his response to the previous question:

"... no man has ever uttered a truer expression, and that is: fairness in the workplace starts with the chance of a job. And by that yardstick fairness is at a 32-year high in Australia at the present time. Thank you."

And with that, he closed his folder and walked briskly away from the podium.

My heart, stomach, liver, appendix and colon flipped.

"No WAY!!!!!"

I had finally pysched myself ready to ask a question, I had the mic, I had the words in my brain just waiting to be spurted out, I was ready... and he finishes. Finishes.

Could. Not. Believe. It.

The tight knot of nerves in my stomach exploded in a burst of part relief (I'll admit it), but mostly anger. Not fair, not fair, that's not fair. Not when I was so ready, and so fired up.

I should have asked the first time the mic passed me, it's true. But it would have been crap, and blethering, and stuttered, and non-sensical. Moreso, I was too chicketshit.

So I learned my lesson today. Ask, and ask quickly. Don't be intimidated by the flashy lights and white linen of the Sofitel ballroom. Question and be damned.

Next time, Gadget. Next time...

And by the way, if you're interested in the question, it was in response to the PM talking about his "vision for 2020, a time when today's children will be young adults". In passing, he mentioned that for a country like Australia "there'll be no holiday from history or from the long struggle against terrorism." (my italics).

So my question was to be:

"You mention in your vision of 2020 that Australia will still be threatened by terrorism. Does this mean that the so-called "War on Terror" cannot be won, and will we still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan when today's children are, as you say, young adults?"

I reckon it would've been a good 'un, too.

Rhyme time

For some strange reason, rhyming couplets keep popping up in my head. I'm not really thinking about them; it's more like words are falling into place as I think about the traditional "da-dum, da-dum, da-tum" cadence of rhyming couplets.

Gosh darn, that sounds wanky. Well, it's unfortunately about to get a whole lot wankier:

Time and tide may turn and flow
All is past for you to know

Speeches from beyond the glass
Whispers float while ages pass

Once upon a time, she said
The clock has struck, the hands are dead

Now these are really quite crap. They don't mean anything; they don't fit together as an actual poem. But now I'm wondering why my brain is going all arty poet on me - especially since I get so frustrated when I try to write creatively these days (outside wanky blog posts, of course). It's like the Season three finale of Battlestar Galactica* - something inside my head, inside the fracking ship!!!

*Apologies for obscure/possibly spoiler references to Battlestar Galactica - it's just Greg and I have just finished watching seasons two and three and gosh darn it I'm addicted. Adama and Roslin, man... that's just the best relationship on a current TV show. Full stop.

Adventures on the Great Wall

Phew! It has been a busy blogging day. I'm almost up to date with my reviews page, and I've discovered how to upload videos to YouTube. So keen has this made me, I've gone and edited a video of Greg and I walking the Great Wall of China way back in August last year. This was one of the earliest and physically toughest parts of our holiday. Looking back, it's also one of the funniest! Enjoy.

Who is this masked man?

Uh-oh.

I've discovered YouTube.



This is my first test upload - as I work on editing footage of our overseas trip last year. Will upload soon, and then you'll ALL have to sit through tedious travel adventures! Cue maniacal laughter...

I told you so

No need to watch all of this clip - just the first few seconds:



Is it just me, or is this a somewhat bizarre way to announce your paternity of a child to the world?

"I hate to be the one to tell you this, but... I told you so!".

To me, that response is more suited to a smarmy 11-year-old, who's just successfully outsmarted his ignorant classmates by proving that the upcoming Transformers movie is not a new concept, but is in fact based on an old TV cartoon.

And the fact that his statement was greeted with cheers and whoops, you'd think he'd just won a gold medal, or an Oscar, or successfully developed a cure for chronic hiccuping. But no, they're celebrating the fact that it was this man - and not the line-up of fakers - who managed to get his sperm into Anna Nicole's egg all those months ago: "Yeah, man! You go! You knocked up Anna Nicole! Rock on!"

He is not a returning astronaut, or popular talk show host. He's just some dude who accidentally became the father to the world's most famous baby-with-a-now-dead-Playboy-bunny-Mum. I know nothing about Larry Birkhead, but for the baby's sake, I hope he realises fatherhood lasts longer than 15 minutes.

Pimp my Marselan

Last night I held my first ever (and certainly last for a while) housewarming party. It was a lot of fun, with lots of lovely people in attendance, who brought us wonderful gifts. We have so many household products now I don't think we'll need to visit a shopping centre cleaning aisle for at least two years. And boy, did we over cater. We have so much food stuffed into our Westinghouse, I'll be shoving cubes of cabanossi and cheese down my gullet for the next fortnight.

Being overexcited by seeing so many friends and family members, I actually forgot to get my camera out to take phots. Until, of course, later in the evening - once most people had departed - I noticed this:

How could one not take a photo of this? For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Marselan, he's a great friend we know through the theatre (specifically, Arts Theatre productions of Terry Pratchett plays). He's also the proud owner of a pair of leather pants, which you'll notice he's wearing in this picture. I didn't think there was anything that could make my red lounge suite sexier, but I hadn't reckoned with Marselan's self-described "wild, unkempt masculinity". ;)

Thank you once again to everyone who came along to the party; and especially to those who brought gifts for us. We are like, totally stoked that we know so many awesome people. Awesome!

P.S. In case you didn't believe me about the overstocked fridge:

Stacked to the max!

To market, to market

Over the years, I've assembled a fair bit of crap. Being in an apartment, I'm not really well situated for a garage sale, so yesterday I braved the early morning and headed out to Chandler to run my very own flea market stall!

The Chandler markets run every Sunday from 6am to 1pm. I had found it listed on the web, and also had it recommended to me by my aunt Helena (who we'll meet again later). I had been thinking about doing it all last week, and on Saturday I made the decision and rang up to book a space. It cost $25 to book - which may seem like a lot, but I figured for 7 hours of entertainment and the chance of making some fast cash it was a bargain. As it turned out, I made that back within minutes of reaching my spot.

This is the scene on arrival - I had found my spot (228, to be precise), backed the car in, unloaded, then driven it out to the parking lot. At this point, people (other store owners, in fact) had already started to descend, many with torches, pouring over the stuff I had quickly covered with a tarpaulin. I sell a box of Greg's miniatures scenery and a small case to one lady for $30 - and although I'm sure they would have been promptly put on sale at another stall for twice the price - I didn't mind, as it covered my entrance fee.

Luckily I had borrowed a fold-out table and two tarps from the aforementioned aunt Helena (who had decided she would join me a bit later to flog a few things of her own), otherwise everything would have been on the bitumen. I started setting up a very basic, and in fact rather dodgy display.

At first light, it looked like this:

Neat, huh? The car at the right of the pic belonged to Val, my tiny stall neighbour, who was making a return to the market after 18 months of Sunday sleep-ins. The trailer up the back belonged to the stall guy behind me, who was selling wine. I think. Something in a wine bottle at any rate. Helena turned up around 6am, and added her stuff to the pile.

I'd heard this many times before but I can now attest to the truth that markets do their best business in the wee hours. I most definitely sold the lions' share of my crap between 5:30am and 8:30am.

This is what the stall looked like by about 10am:

You can see Helena carefully avoiding the lens in the background. ;)

As you can see, the two framed prints are the most noticeable missing items; sold for $15 each to two different people. Nice. By this time I'd also flogged a whole lot of books, although sadly not my nice Hollywood Portraits series (they would prove impossible to sell). I'd also sold my brother's stereo, which he'd passed to me to sell, as well as a petrol-powered remote-controlled car, which went about an hour after this. All up I made my brother $295 - and yes, I did take a handlers' fee!

By 11:30am, the clouds were looking ominous (although being without cover the blockage of the hot sun was most welcome), and the crowd had really dropped off. I did sell a few more things over the next hour, but it was more sporadic, and I began the slow process of packing up. Here's my cousin Tiffany (Helena's eldest daughter, who'd been dropped down only to find herself sent on hot chip-buying errands by her hungry cousin), amidst the half-packed up site:

You can see the poor teddy bear and stuffed monkey, which sadly failed to get a nibble, let alone a bite. I also thought my big box of handbags would be empty by market end; but that's the thing about markets, you can never tell what people want. Things I thought would never sell went out for good prices, and items I thought would fly out (like my Kath and Kim still-in-packet fridge magnets) sat gathering dust and dirty fingerprints.

It was all over red rover well before 1pm, but we stayed anyway, mostly hoping someone might come along and buy some things for cheap, to save us having to cart them back to the car. No luck there, so we packed up - along with everyone else. I thanked Helena and Tiffany for their time and effort, and vowed to return to flog off the crap I still had left over - as well as boxes more of the stuff still in storage at my Mum and Dad's place.

Mind you, for a first time, it wasn't too bad. As mentioned, I sold $295 worth of stereo and toy car for my brother; $100 of books and DVDs for Greg; and the rest - about $250 - was all for me. Huzzah! Ten times the price of admission - not too shabby indeed!

(And you can even see the mighty Hummer in the background.)

Next time, Gadget, next time...