Australia's Too Cool To Be There

On Sundays my post-church conversations (at least those that don't come after a Sunday when I'm on bass) generally go something like this:

Gw2Rs: So what are you up to for the rest of the day?
Whoever: I dunno. A few guys were talking about getting together for lunch somewhere.
Gw2Rs: Sounds good. Who? Where? When?
Whoever. I dunno. Ask Hannah.

Last weekend, sandwiched between the Brisbane trip and a week in Ramingining (East Arnhem Land) with work, my post-church conversation took a slightly different turn.

Gw2Rs: So what are you up to for the rest of the day?
Phil: A TV producer rang me and asked me to audition for Australia's Got Talent. Apparently they're short on applicants and need comedians.
Gw2Rs: ... ?
Phil: Want to come along?
Gw2Rs: Um...
Phil: Let me put it another way. Can you give me a lift?

For any normal Australian, the fact that producers of prime time national television shows are ringing up and asking for favours would be the stuff of several blog posts in its own right, but for Phil it's just one of those things that happen in the universe he inhabits. If John Lennon came back from the dead and announced that the Beatles were organising a comeback tour, the first thing he would do would be to call Phil and ask him to open the show for him. Phil would then put him on hold to check his calendar.

And so it was that I packed up Samantha after worship and drove Phil into town for the auditions. And being a compulsive attention junkie with an electric keyboard in my car, I figured 'what the hell?' and grabbed a sign up sheet of my own.

Much like the producers, I figured there wouldn't be many people there. I hadn't heard anything about it until that morning, so I assumed it would be a low key affair.

Just like the producers, I couldn't have been more wrong. The foyer of the Plaza Hotel was packed out by every wannabe singer, dancer, juggler, comic, rapper and contemporary poet the city could generate. I hadn't heard about it because I don't watch TV, but apparently Channel Seven had been advertising it for weeks.

It should go without saying (but it probably doesn't, so I'll say it to be on the safe side) that Phil and I were both way too cool to be there. But since Phil had been called up specially and since we'd come all the way into town and since sitting around doing nothing was all I had planned for the afternoon anyway, we decided to go through with it.

We were then treated to a parade of young hopefuls walking into the audition room as their numbers were called, each one trying nervously to pretend that they were too cool to be there. Obviously the exceptions were Phil and I, who were neither nervous nor pretending. We just really are that awesome.

Highlights:

1) At one point I saw in the queue a line of three highschool girls dressed identically carrying identical accoustic guitars. I assumed they were a group act, but they all went in identically one at a time and sang identical accoustic renderings of 'Torn' by Natalie Imbruglia. I guess they were all trying to stand out with their distinctive look.

2) Just after Phil went on, a troupe of a dozen septegenarian dancing girls in bikini body t-shirts arrived and performed an upbeat square jive. I don't know if they had talent or not, but they were bizarre enough to get their photos in the newspaper.

3) The cake was taken by an elderly cowboy who wandered into the foyer of the Plaza with his horse and began asking young hopefuls, including Phil, if they would like to perform their acts while standing on a horse. Phil politely declined. The Channel Seven crew arrived and offered the man an audtion form, which he then refused to accept. That done, he took his horse and went home. It turns out he really was too cool to be there.

As for my audition, I'm not really sure I'm the reality television type.

Gw2Rs: My name is Garry with 2 Rs and I'm a singer, song writer and stunt linguist.
Judge: A star what?
Gw2Rs: No.

Still, I sang my song, thanked the judges for their time and got the hell out of there. I doubt I made the required impression, but I've been fooled before. So either I'll rule a line under my blossoming reality television career for now, or you'll be reading the mother of all blog posts in February/March next year. I'm not holding my breath for that as it's at least two months away and my current breath holding record is 34 seconds (I have shallow lungs).

And I'm too cool to be there anyway.



Garry with 2 Rs

P.S. I'll be in Adelaide until after Christmas. It's a well established fact that nothing blog-worthy ever happens in Adelaide, so have a great Christmas and I'll see you in 2011! Peace.