Bendy Grumpy

Most recent Grumpy column in Tsunami. Weird in that it's the third version of something I was trying to write for the blog. Came out different each time. Quite like this version. It's basically an amalgam of many benders had with good friends. Some of them are faint memories from years ago. Others are more recent fun times.

I love swan-diving into the abyss, I really do. But I also like that feeling of swimming to the surface and seeing the clearness again.

New people in my life now, and I totally adore... hang on. Tour de France. Gotta go.

Melbourne Memories

The days were long and sometimes lonely, but it was a pleasant kind of loneliness. Perhaps loneliness is not the right word at all... aloneness. Sometimes I wondered what I was doing there at all.

But the nights, short as they were, brimmed with laughter and good times. Countless funny little episodes as we gazed at the wonderful weirdness that is Dali, huddled laughing in a tiny theatre, or sunk into a couch in a bar and laughed at the antics of fellow drinkdancers.

On those short nights, I didn't wonder, was just glad that I was there at all.

The Weather And Your Health

Drained. Empty. Bit broken. Do love that I love people though.

Here's a thing I saw a couple of days ago: The Weather And Your Health. Sorry about the typos.

Need food. Going out for supplies. Back soon.

Peace

Peace is meeting an old friend, one who has angered you and who you have angered. Peace is accepting you have been wrong and they have been wrong too. Peace is that familiarity that is the foundation of love. Peace is the happiness you feel because you are in the same room as them, same life on planet Earth. Peace is the hug and the smile and the silent look that says I'm glad you are part of my life. Peace is accepting that although you may never see them again, there is a bond. Peace is the happiness you feel because no matter how far away they are, you know they are happy.

More Adventures With Faux Chefing

With regard to faux chefing, things have been quiet on the Big Pointy Building front so I've joined an agency and I've been a chef-for hire. (I was going to mirror the gun-for-hire thing but no chef tool sounds cool. A whisk-for-hire? A spatula-for-hire? A wooden spoon-for-hire?).

Anyway, I've picked up a bit of work and it's been interesting. I'm out of my comfort zone and I'm having to bluff for real now. It's okay at The Big Pointy Building because, as Leonard Cohen says, everybody knows.

But these new people, they don't know that I am not a chef, but rather than being up front about it, I am now willfully acting like I am a chef. I have to. These places are hiring freelance chefs, so I have to be a freelance chef.

My life of deception was going along fine until this week I was hired for six days by a large, very serious catering company... who from henceforthwithforth shall be refered to as The Very Serious Catering Company (VSCC).

The VSCC is located... oh it's located everywhere, but the venue I'm booked for is big to say the least. This is major league, kick arse stuff, and on the first day I'm running not quite late but sort of kind of getting into the red zone. It's a hike to get out there, and this massive stadium... it just feels empty this time of the morning. And I cannot for the fuck of it find this secret underground security entrance I'm supposed to enter through.

By blind luck and tippping my head in different directions to read the You Are Here bit on the map, I manage to find the underground entrance. I buzz for security. Affable security guy gets me to sign in, gives me my security wrist band.

"There ya go," Affable security Guy says, nodding me on.

"Right. Thanks - but go where?"

"Oh you've never been here before? Right. Haha. 'K. Go out here, hang a right, blahblahblahblah. Blahdy blah blah where you should find Bay 16."

I head off, by now deep into the red zone of being late, without technically as yet being late, and it quickly becomes apparent that the little underground road I'm following is the circumference of the stadium. I've had to go halfway around the damn thing on ground level to get here, now it feels like I'm walking the other half to form a complete circle.

I find Bay 13 and Bay 12 and it appears that I've been heading in the wrong direction. Fuckity fuck. I head back and back and pass the security entrance and keep going and going until I see some cleaners on a golf buggy and I ask them where Bay 16 is.

"Oh, it's back that way... it's a long way but you have to go back around...

You get the idea. By now I am definitely going to be late, I just hope it's not going to stand out too much.

Bay 13, it turns out, is the bay I should have been looking for. This is the catering entrance. I'f I'd just walked a bit further along I would have seen evidence of catering, like the signs on the doors saying things like 'Catering inside'.

I see a loading dock guy with a chef's apron on and ask him where I have to go. He takes me inside and it's the biggest, shiniest kitchen I have ever seen. I smack my gob. Seriously. My God.

Loading dock guy hands me a white frilly thing and tells me I have to have it. It's a strip of frilly paper. I have no idea what it is. I ask what it is. He smirks and pulls it apart and I realise I have to start the chef deception thing. I go oh riiight, and pull the frilly thing apart and put it on my head, hoping that it is indeed a hair net.

The guy takes me through these massive, empty kitchens to a couple of doors while I briefly wonder where the other chefs are. He send me through the doors and into the middle of a room of attentive chefs, maybe 60 of them. They all look impeccable in their chef whites and they listen to head chef concluding a rundown of the event as well as asking some pop questions about food handling.

They have all turned to look at me as I quietly sneak into the room dressed in my cargo pants and cammo hoodie, my kit slunbg over my shoulder. I squat down at the back of the room because there are no chairs left, and I listen to head chef go into so much detail about his demands and expectations and I realise that I am possibly very deep in the shit now. It feels very much like those dreams you may have had where you turn up for school not wearing any pants.

But this is so very real. Time slows as I wonder, really, what the fuck am I doing here. The room is so white with all this chef gear that it may as well have been a flamingo that just walked into the room. I think very seriously about bailing as soon as the meeting is over because I am clearly in over my head.

And then I wonder if I'm even in the right place. Maybe there's more than one catering facility at this massive venue. There must be. Maybe I should be at Bay 16 after all.

Back in the days when my insecurities fully had their way with me I would have been crushed. But mostly robust me was howling with laughter on the inside. It was too perfect a fuck up. But I also wondered, how the hell did everyone know about this meeting and that they had to be changed into their chef gear? Why was I the only one who didn't know?

Found out later in the day that it happens to a lot of newbies. The agency just doesn't know or doesn't bother to tell first timers.

Anyway, it was an up and down day but I seem to have gotten away with it. For two days now. Two down, four more to go.

Shun

He gets drunk again. He passes out on the couch again. He sleeps the sleep of the dead. Again.

In the morning she comes to him. They lie in each other’s arms and murmurtalk. She sits up and sees the knife on the coffee table. She stares at it for a while and eventually asks him, why is your Shun on the coffee table?

He looks at the knife. It’s a beauty of Japanese craftsmanship. So balanced. So sharp. It’s one of his beautiful things. His pen made from wood and stone. His mobile phone. His laptop. His special coffee cup from that market stall all those years ago. His Shun knife.

I don’t know, he says, I don’t know why the knife is there. It’s not where a knife should be.

They both think about this. He got drunk again. He passed out again. The warm living room, their soft place, it’s not where a knife should be. They both stare at the knife until she gets up and takes it to the kitchen where it belongs.

All day long he thinks about this. Why the knife, why there, why does he get so drunk? She probably wonders the same. It disturbs him a little because he really can’t remember. Things are not good, but are they that bad? There are still laughs. There are still wonderful people, the thought of them can make a smile. Are things that bad? Why the knife?

All day long. All day long, he wonders.

Then it’s time to go. It’s cold out but they want to go for food and wine. They want to go out and be amongst others. He must get dressed now. He thinks of his shoes. More of his nice things... and then he remembers. He is relieved and amused, tips his head back and laughs the laugh of the living.

What, she asks, smiling, what are you laughing at?

And he laughs and laughs.

Because he tried to go to bed. He made it into their bedroom. One shoe off with a drunken slip. The other shoe not so friendly. No slip. Stuck. Trapped. Struggle. No finesse with tight tight knot. Fingers fumble. Only one solution.

And true enough, there is the evidence. The shoe, slashed lace. They laugh and laugh, relieved. So him. So typical of him. So hopeless. So funny.

He threads new lace, smiling, knowing this will be fodder to make them laugh, but the fact remains, as the smile fades, he’ll get drunk again, he’ll pass out again, he’ll sleep the sleep of the dead again.

A Review of Jeff Green, Interview with Darren Gilshenan about Elling

Here are a couple of things seen recently, out in recent issues of Drum. Both were pretty good, although I thought the play was a bit long. Maybe I was just in a mood but I felt it could have had a substantial slab taken out of each act.

Still, it was good. Funny and really very moving underneath the humour. I thought Gishenan as Elling nailed it in the second act. Very impressive comic acting. And Yael Stone... what a talent. Saw her in the same theatre playing The Monster in Frankenstein. Inspired casting, shining talent.

If you've seen this production I guess I'm talking about scenes such as the poetry reading scene. As funny as that was - and it really was funny - it was just a diversion that didn't move the story forward. You can afford to do that in some plays but I just didn't think they got away with it here. But maybe I missed the point. I really felt the first act took a long time to get going, then after a solid start the second act slowed right down again.

Still. I still enjoyed it a lot. This isn't my review - that comes out next week (after I stayed up until 2am writing it because the mag said they needed it first thing in the morning... grr), these are just some notes off the cuff.

I interviewed a man called Serge today. French puppeteer behind Cabaret Decadanse. Story's due this Friday, out next Tuesday. Would like to post the audio but I think my technology is all wrong. Just seems a waste to, erm, waste interviews when they go all right. I think it went all right. He was pretty gracious, and the word 'sock puppet' rolled off his tongue only as it can when said by a gay French puppeteer. He seemed pretty cool.