I’m at Gate 7 at Melbourne International Airport waiting to catch a plane to New Zealand to entertain 40 ancient dentists. Their faculties may be failing but at least they’ll all have a fine set of knashers to clack together if they’re too tired to clap. Dentists have one of the highest rates of suicide in the world so ancient dentists will be very depressed and praying for a death they no longer have the energy to actively instigate. Hopefully our 40 minutes of comedy and my comedy legs will give them a small spark of pleasure as they shuffle towards the pearly white light.
It could be a tough gig. It could be like pulling teeth. Did you laugh at the gag? I bet the old dentists won’t. They probably won’t hear the gag if I scream it into their waxy tunnels as they clack morse code at each other. I remember doing a gig once for a bunch of old farmers and afterwards while crying in a cubicle I overheard this assessment of our performance.
‘Hey Len, what did you think of the entertainment?’
‘I dunno, couldn’t hear a fuckin’ word they said.’
From memory we were pretty shit so Len got lucky. On the topic of shit gigs another one that sits deep in the cerebral cortex like a confidence sapping cancer was a wee gem for 200 builders and architects in that mock Tudor Christchurch marvel The Chateau on The Park. We dressed up as builders and thought it would be a great idea to build the stage as the night went on. I wore short short denim shorts, a white string singlet and a mullet wig. To this day I don’t know why I did this. I’m sure all the builders took one look at me pretending to be one of them and wanted to stick a splintery bit of four by two up my two by four. (I have no idea what this means, I just like the way it sounds.) Things went from bad to worse when we realised we had forgotten about steps and dropped one poor lady as we tried to lift her onto the stage to accept an award. You could actually hear the hatred in the room. You could feel the waves of anger crashing onto our stage with no steps and not even my comedy legs could save us. Even worse it was being beamed live to all of Christchurch via CTV’s one camera set up at the back of the room. We ran from the scene of the crime and upon arriving home I discovered my father had been watching the horror unfold as we unfolded it. We sat in mutual silence and I prayed this was a sign neither of us would ever speak of the abomination again. SuddenIy he spoke.
‘I was just watching some builders awards and Potpinto and Dori were doing the entertainment with some really ugly girl. Who’s she?’
‘I don’t know…she’s new…I’ve never worked with her before.’
‘She’s a bloody strange looking thing.’
To this day I’m not sure if dad was telling the truth. They say when people witness traumatic events like car crashes and Feelers concerts everyone describes what they’ve seen differently, so maybe in a fit of self preservation he substituted me with a skanky two-bit crack whore. It wouldn’t have been hard. There are some things a father should never witness his son doing and that gig was one of them so I am forever indebted to the mullet, CTV’s lack of budget and my milky feminine legs.
Oh pooh. They’ve just announced my flight has been delayed until 7.15pm because of a Chile explosion so I shall keep rambling. God….I WISH I was in the Koru lounge right now. It’s so close. I can almost smell it and it smells better than KFC dipped in beer and sunshine. I can almost smell the free pastries with their viscous apricot and raspberry centres. I can almost hear the clacking and cackles of the ancient dentists as they spray free bottles of Lindauer Special Reserve and Steiny Pure over body painted Air New Zealand nymphs in kiwifruit bras and sheepskin thongs. The finest New Zealand lambs will be turned by bronzed trolly dolly eunuchs on spits of gold before being torn apart by the presidential dentists in an ecstatic hedonistic gorging orgy. There will be a food fight and then as the 42 bottles of pinot mix with the 42 Below, inhibitions will evaporate and everyone will start lap dancing on laptops all connected wirelessly for free. Hayley Westenra will serenade you and whisper in your ear that she wants you to be her first. Dave Dobbyn will serenade you and whisper in your ear that even though he’s a born again Christian and off the bottle he’d still be happy to let you finger his slice of heaven in the posh bogs. The Feelers will serenade you and explode.
Oooh, we’re boarding, I’ll stop here. Let’s hope Air NZ knows something Qantas and Jetstar don’t because I’ve splashed out on ‘The Works’ and have to drink a whole lot of red wine and watch two movies to get my $30 worth of upgrade.
It could be a tough gig. It could be like pulling teeth. Did you laugh at the gag? I bet the old dentists won’t. They probably won’t hear the gag if I scream it into their waxy tunnels as they clack morse code at each other. I remember doing a gig once for a bunch of old farmers and afterwards while crying in a cubicle I overheard this assessment of our performance.
‘Hey Len, what did you think of the entertainment?’
‘I dunno, couldn’t hear a fuckin’ word they said.’
From memory we were pretty shit so Len got lucky. On the topic of shit gigs another one that sits deep in the cerebral cortex like a confidence sapping cancer was a wee gem for 200 builders and architects in that mock Tudor Christchurch marvel The Chateau on The Park. We dressed up as builders and thought it would be a great idea to build the stage as the night went on. I wore short short denim shorts, a white string singlet and a mullet wig. To this day I don’t know why I did this. I’m sure all the builders took one look at me pretending to be one of them and wanted to stick a splintery bit of four by two up my two by four. (I have no idea what this means, I just like the way it sounds.) Things went from bad to worse when we realised we had forgotten about steps and dropped one poor lady as we tried to lift her onto the stage to accept an award. You could actually hear the hatred in the room. You could feel the waves of anger crashing onto our stage with no steps and not even my comedy legs could save us. Even worse it was being beamed live to all of Christchurch via CTV’s one camera set up at the back of the room. We ran from the scene of the crime and upon arriving home I discovered my father had been watching the horror unfold as we unfolded it. We sat in mutual silence and I prayed this was a sign neither of us would ever speak of the abomination again. SuddenIy he spoke.
‘I was just watching some builders awards and Potpinto and Dori were doing the entertainment with some really ugly girl. Who’s she?’
‘I don’t know…she’s new…I’ve never worked with her before.’
‘She’s a bloody strange looking thing.’
To this day I’m not sure if dad was telling the truth. They say when people witness traumatic events like car crashes and Feelers concerts everyone describes what they’ve seen differently, so maybe in a fit of self preservation he substituted me with a skanky two-bit crack whore. It wouldn’t have been hard. There are some things a father should never witness his son doing and that gig was one of them so I am forever indebted to the mullet, CTV’s lack of budget and my milky feminine legs.
Oh pooh. They’ve just announced my flight has been delayed until 7.15pm because of a Chile explosion so I shall keep rambling. God….I WISH I was in the Koru lounge right now. It’s so close. I can almost smell it and it smells better than KFC dipped in beer and sunshine. I can almost smell the free pastries with their viscous apricot and raspberry centres. I can almost hear the clacking and cackles of the ancient dentists as they spray free bottles of Lindauer Special Reserve and Steiny Pure over body painted Air New Zealand nymphs in kiwifruit bras and sheepskin thongs. The finest New Zealand lambs will be turned by bronzed trolly dolly eunuchs on spits of gold before being torn apart by the presidential dentists in an ecstatic hedonistic gorging orgy. There will be a food fight and then as the 42 bottles of pinot mix with the 42 Below, inhibitions will evaporate and everyone will start lap dancing on laptops all connected wirelessly for free. Hayley Westenra will serenade you and whisper in your ear that she wants you to be her first. Dave Dobbyn will serenade you and whisper in your ear that even though he’s a born again Christian and off the bottle he’d still be happy to let you finger his slice of heaven in the posh bogs. The Feelers will serenade you and explode.
Oooh, we’re boarding, I’ll stop here. Let’s hope Air NZ knows something Qantas and Jetstar don’t because I’ve splashed out on ‘The Works’ and have to drink a whole lot of red wine and watch two movies to get my $30 worth of upgrade.
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