Pernicious

You may remember I recently engaged in a no-holds-barred fight with gravity and grace, and came off second best to a flight of stairs at Parliament House.

What you didn't know was that physical decline was only one element of my physical decline.

Epic Status Win

My friend Steve Martin (not that Steve Martin) is one of nature's gentlemen. He also wears his heart on his sleeve in a sometimes confusing, but always endearing way.

Steve, like many people on Planet Earth, has a deep and abiding love of breasts. He's openly admiring too, incapable of sneaking furtive glances at cleavage when their owner isn't looking. He has such a comically wide-eyed and appreciative way, that I've been known to torture him by telling him firmly "Steve! Do not look at my breasts in this top!" in order to guarantee an immediate glance downwards followed by a forlorn "I'm sorry, I was really trying not to."

It's entirely possible Steve is a secret genius who's worked out a way of ogling women without ever getting in trouble.

Regardless, I always enjoy Steve's unrelentingly honest Facebook status updates, and chose to exploit him somewhat today.

I set 'em up, Steve knocks 'em down. Thanks to Steve for allowing me to re-post this.

On another topic - thanks to everyone who suggested names for drunken car-based heckling. They all made me snort like a pig watching Letterman.

But after careful consideration, I am going to award the double pass to ImproMafia's Agatha Holmes Ahoy! to Syme, for the simple, efficient and evocative "Alco-Holler". Now when I get yelled at by drunks in a passing cab, I'll turn to my friends, wink, and say "Charming alco-holler, wasn't it?"

Syme - if you want to shoot me an email, we can arrange a time for you to come and see the show!

The Shout Out

The other night, I was standing with some friends outside the Brisbane Arts Theatre, when we fell victim to a common scenario - being yelled at incoherently from a passing vehicle.

There we were, enjoying a pleasant chat, when we heard "I LOVE YOU!" hurtled in our direction by a young man in a car full of young men. Of course, with the Doppler effect, it had a curious lilt to it.

"...I lovE You"

I responded with a jauntily yelled "Thanks!", then questioned my rather self-entitled assumption that it was aimed at me in the first place. The Wah agreed that they actually aimed the compliment at him, because he was bending over to lock the theatre gate at the time.

Not 30 seconds later, we heard a horn toot and turned to see a cab making its way up Petrie Terrace, full to bursting with a gaggle of young girls. Two of them, clutching cigarettes, dangled out of the front and rear left side windows, and delighted our ears with the following melodious example of high-speed wit:

"...ablurghingahfalamajagawooooh..."

Being the top amateur sleuths that we are, we determined that both carloads of aural assailants were as sloshed as Ipswich during the floods. Although we gave extra props to the girls for getting the cabbie onside enough to toot his horn at us.

Due to the theatre's location up the road from a notorious party precinct and cab rank, this is not an uncommon event. For some reason, people standing on a footpath seems to be like cat nip for drunk people. They are simple overtaken with the intense desire to holler - generally invective - at innocent bystanders, simply for existing.

Now I don't want to take away their fun. I just want to NAME this practice.

Frankly, using the phrase "yelling drunkenly at random strangers from a moving vehicle" gets tiring to say.

"Hooning" means driving fast and recklessly, so it doesn't really suit. "Drunken abuse" is technically correct, but there's a whole other school of random yellings, the kind that often isn't insulting to its recepients, just mystifying.

So the call to arms is to invent or re-purpose a word to succinctly express this particular type of heckling.

The winning entry will have the honour of having their word pass into the GirlClumsy lexicon, and I hope, into wider use.

I will also shout them a DOUBLE PASS to come and see ImproMafia's upcoming production of Agatha Holmes, a murder mystery comedy playing at the Brisbane Arts Theatre from 4 to 13 August. That way, you can stand outside the theatre and experience this joyful part of inner-city life for yourself!

The Sticky Sticker Situation

This evening I finally cracked a charming little prank that has been played out, targeting me, for the best part of this year.

You see, every month or so, I've discovered a sticker on the back of my car. But not just any sticker. Oh no.

This sticker.

Radio & Romance

This week is being mostly spent on Planet Impro. I've just returned from three-and-a-bit days at the 2011 Improvention in Canberra, where ImproMafia presented a very well-received talk about our unique long-form genre work. It was really great to chat to other improvisers from around Australia and New Zealand about the types of shows we put on, and how much we've grown as a company.

Of course, it was also a chance to be inspired, and I was able to do some great workshops, hear interesting stories from the international guests and play in a couple of shows with a bunch of different people. And when you include the social events (because improvisers require beer the way the human body requires air), it amounted to a very busy schedule.

But there's no time to be tired!

The Improvention runs until Sunday night, but I had to return early for the big ImproMafia "double header" this weekend.

Friday 22 July is Meet Cute, a romantic comedy with a time-travel twist. While we've done romance before, we've never tackled that very particular form of "the rom-com". It's going to be a wonderful challenge, and I think it will be very sweet.











Saturday 23 July is Tales from the Wireless, an old time radio serial performed live onstage - including foley sound effects! If you like classics like "The Goons", you'll really enjoy this.

Each show begins at 8pm at the Brisbane Arts Theatre. Tickets are just $12 each at the door. Come along to one, or both!

Oh, Rebekah

Because sometimes commentary on current issues can only be made by writing new lyrics to 1980s pop power ballads.

To the tune of Vienna, by Ultravox.


It's been quite an affair
Teenage death was a crying shame
Lying and faking
The News hacking phones, now you're in the frame
Sadistic and so cruel
My choice as a fave has to say goodbye
Just stay with me until...

The police have come for you and not I
They're not f**king with me
They're not f**ing with me
Oh, Rebekah

The public is grieving
At our throats, saying nasty things
Colossus is falling
We'll try to revamp, but the shit still clings
The fools want us silenced
Disaster's at hand, there's no chance at Sky
It's futile resistance...

The Guardian and Hugh Grant can f**k off and die
They've been f**king with me
F**k them f***king with me
Oh, Rebekah

Esprit de l'escalier

Sometimes I wonder if calling myself Girl Clumsy has turned my life into something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yesterday, while working at Parliament House, I fell down this flight of stairs.

It was about 10 steps all up that I tumbled down, smashing headfirst into the wall at the foot of the staircase.

Now doctors were seen, and it would appear I'm mostly fine, nothing broken, just a bit banged up.

But of course, I REALLY should have thought about my first post-accident tweet a little more carefully.

The Rough Diamond

For close to 40 years, the Brisbane Arts Theatre has had a rehearsal/costume space at 222 Petrie Terrace.

That era has come to an end.

The property has been sold, and the past few weeks have seen a mammoth effort by hard-working volunteers to clear the place out.

For over ten years, I've been in that building countless times. But tonight, during my final visit, I got to see something I've never seen before.

222 - completely and utterly empty. Costumes gone, furniture gone, props gone. It was a shell.

And yet, it remained full - of character, memory, warmth, laughter and chatter. Ephemeral, immeasurable things.

But it was still full of physical things too - just things I'd never really observed before. Things like wallpaper, and cracked windows, and decaying linoleum, and the grill in the fireplace featured on an album cover by legendary Brisbane rock band The Saints.

Before the theatre bought and converted the building in the 1970s, it had been a boarding house. Before that - early 20th century - it was a fine home, known as Kelso House, with beautiful wrought iron railings.

Walking through for the final time, I got the sense of these ghosts of 222 past - the terrace house, the doss house. Our own ghosts, our theatre spirits, now get added to that list. Natalie as actor, director, improviser, volunteer, costume lover... she is in there, running lines, blocking scenes, trying on costumes, digging out props, energetic, tired, crying, laughing. The floorboards were never the sturdiest, but they have borne the weight of countless Natalies for the past decade, holding her up even as she felt like collapsing.

In a wonderful stroke of fortune, the buyers of 222 are not going to raze it to make way for inner-city units. They plan to take their time and restore it as a residence. For this I am grateful. It may be rough, but it's still a diamond. I cannot wait to see it polished.

A Boring Machine

As a member of the Queensland Parliamentary Media Gallery (with the Speaker's Handbook-shaped scars from the notorious hazing process to prove it), I am a reasonably regular attendee at what we colloquially refer to as "hard hat jobs".

This is where We Esteemed Journalists get kitted up in safety vests, goggles, steel-cap boots and yes, the obligatory hard hats, and follow Our Illustrious Leaders onto an infrastructure project, there to Gape in Wonder at the Awesome Power of Technology and Construction and Stuff.

They can be a bit of a pain - often because they take a long time, but mostly because of the safety gear rigamarole. No matter how early I arrive, there are never any supplied boots that fit me, so I wind up clomping around like a wounded hippo. In a bright orange vest. It's just impossible for me to not look like a bumbling fool dressed like this.

But sometimes the small part of me that remains unbattered by cynicism escapes.

A Hat Person

The last time I wore a hat on anything resembling a regular basis was at high school. Wide-brim, white straw, ribboned - it made you look as if you were balancing a small Scottish microwave on your noggin.

Once I left the cosy confines of the Anglican education system (our school even had its own paedophile! That no one talked about! We thought he was the nice, if slightly eccentric, school counsellor! Top stuff, carers of children!), hat-wearing joined Maths B in the pile of "Things I Won't Be Bothering With Again".

Apart from the odd baseball cap on sunny days outdoors, I don't wear hats. But I'm not alone.

When was it last the done thing to wear a hat?

I'm going to say the 1960s.

I am guided in this - as I am guided in so many ways - by the James Bond films. Sean Connery's opening gunbarrel shot sees the actor clearly wearing a hat. Possibly a fedora, maybe a trilby. But by the time Roger Moore assumed the role in the early 1970s, the hat was consigned to the history books. And it makes sense - can you imagine Roger Moore in a hat?

.....Ladies.

It's somewhat sad that hats are no longer an integral part of a daily outfit. These days, hats are confined to protective duty, such as the aforementioned baseball caps, or "special occasion" - such as going to the races, or attending a Royal Wedding. And I think it's a bit of a shame that hats have lost their ubiquity.

With certain exceptions, obviously.

I say all of this because at the Brisbane Arts Theatre's recent Winter Wardrobe Sale, I picked myself up a number of vintage hats.