18 December 2010

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.

11 December 2010

Three Sixty Degrees

I’m a big fan of U2’s work, both musically and humanitarian…ly so last week while I was in Brisbane I went to the U2 360° concert. I’ve been trying for three days since to find the best way describe the experience in writing. I’ve decided that it probably can’t be done. But I’ve always held that just because something is impossible is no reason not to do it. So here, in my typically sophisticated, eloquent, counter clockwise and totally-not-a-squealing-fan-girl style, is my literary portrayal of U2 360°. Enjoy.

We queued up for about five hours but it was definitely worth it because we managed to get a spot right next to the circle stage under the dome set which was freaking huge and shaped like a giant green and orange space invader and once we got inside we watched three guys getting harnessed into the lighting rig and hoisted up about twenty feet above the crowd to run the lights show which was spectacular but even so you would normally think that putting on such a grandiose display would make the band themselves seem small by comparison, but Bono and his mates rocked out and made the whole space ship seem exactly the right size, mainly because all four of them are basically built out of solidified charisma and next thing I know they're out walking along the stage and I'm a metre and half away from The Edge which is just nuts, not to take anything away from the awesomeness of the set which swirled around and set off a light show that would have been literally mind boggling if that was semantically possible and then there was the sound blasting out of speakers that really were the size of my unit playing all my favourite songs and celebrating with Aung San Suu Kyi and then playing “In The Name of Love” and my head just about exploded (that one’s probably purely figurative) but that might have had as much to do with getting a lung full of smoke machine and then Bono wanders out in a leather jacket with lazer pointers sewn into it  shooting beams everywhere and two days later my ears were still ringing (really) and I still couldn’t stop smiling and I bought a T shirt.

But I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.




Garry with 2 Rs

06 December 2010

Lending A Hand

I'm in Brisbane this week for a wedding and a U2 concert. Wandering around the Brisbane CBD this morning I realised how much I've missed the opportunity for some sporting backchat with the friendly neighborhood charity spruikers. I mean, sure we have them in Darwin, but not with the same intensity and optimism as in the larger eastern cities.

I met a really nice Amnesty girl named Freda who was cleverly set up under cover out of the rain beside a set of traffic lights, so she could pick off helpless pedestrians waiting for the green man. She wasn't even asking for money, just signatures on a petition demanding an increase in living conditions in Myanmar.

Then I met a really rude one from some child sponsorship agency called The Plan. She didn't even give me her name, she just asked me a whole series of rhetorical questions about the benefits of giving them money. I explained that I already had a sponsor child through Compassion and that I couldn't afford to take on another at that time. She responded by asking how good it would be if I gave more. I impolitely excused myself and moved on. I really don't like it when they force me to be rude in order to end the conversation.

But by far my most unusual experience today came from a spruiker not for a charity but for a manicurist's Christmas package. I guess he thought it was worth a go.

Golan: Hello. Can I ask you just one question?
Gw2Rs: Only one question.
Inside Garry's head: How would you like your remains displayed?
Golan: How long do you think it would take to give yourself a full manicure?
Gw2Rs: I have no idea. You're asking the wrong man
Inside Garry's head: Really? Of all the questions available to you, that's the one you're asking?
Golan: My name is Golan. I'm from Israel. Have you heard of Mount Golan?
Gw2Rs: No
Inside Garry's head: That's two questions, punk.
Golan: It's in Israel. It's named after me.
Gw2Rs: Is it in the Bible?
Golan: Yes
Gw2Rs: What happened there?
Golan: ... Many things.
Gw2Rs: ...
Golan: I'll show you how this works. Can I have your hand?
Gw2Rs: Um... (proffers hand anyway)
Inside Garry's head: That's three on a technicality.
Golan: Is there a special lady in your life?
Gw2Rs: No.
Inside Garry's head: Thanks for asking.
Golan: A mother or sisters?
Gw2Rs: Well...

At this point Golan started rubbing my finger with some sort of rectangular shaped piece of plastic. I still don't know what it was. He made some more chit chat about how although men aren't usually interested, women will spend hours coating their nails with chemicals to make them shiny and smooth. I wasn't really listening, as I wasn't really interested. Blah blah no chemicals...blah blah easy and quick blah blah. He finished buffing my fingers and took his plastic rectangle away.

Golan: Wow.
Gw2Rs: ... ?
Golan: WOW?
Gw2Rs: Oh... yeah. Wow.

My right index finger was now faintly reflective. Apparently this warranted a capitalised wow.

Golan: And that will last for two weeks.
Gw2Rs: It's going to stay like that for two weeks?
Golan: Guaranteed.
Gw2Rs: Um... Thanks for your time.
Inside Garry's head: Challenge accepted.

So now I'm typing away with one ridiculous looking fingernail reflecting my blogger screen back at me. You'll be happy to know I'm making progress on returning to normal with a combination of soft drink and hamburger grease.

On the other hand (see what I did there?)



Garry with 2 Rs

02 December 2010

A Night at the Opera

Okay, that’s enough philosophising about dead celebrities. I promised you all a write up of my insights into the swirling morass of emotion, drama, fame, riches, bright lights and fast women that is the Darwin opera community. And now that Nanowrimo is successfully done and dusted (refer right) I'm in a much better position to do it

Of the above list, “dramatic” is probably the only term that actually fits, being inextricably linked with opera and all, but apart from that it’s hard to find the right words to describe the experience. ‘Aquatic,’ ‘polynomial’ and ‘vengeful’ don’t even come close.

We, the good folk of OperatuNiTy, put on "The Merry Widow from Gumtree Creek," which is a modernisation and Australianisation of the original Merry Widow by Franz Lehar. There were plenty of laughs and a generous helping of good old fashioned racial stereotypes on display. I got to play a French nobleman, which called for my 'unique' talents in accent mimicry. If you can imagine the French peas from Veggietales having a conversation with John Cleese on top of the wall in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, then you probably need to take some sort of medication. But you'll have the basic idea of the vocal effect.

From the outset, it was clear I was always going to be slightly out of my depth with this one. Whereas I was approaching the production from the point of view of an actor who could hold a tune, most of the other cast members came from a background of singers who could hold a plot. That’s not to say that any of them were bad actors – far from it – any more than it is to say I’m a terrible singer – a little closer to it – but it did bring to light some critical differences in the way we approached the preparation for the show.

For me, learning lines and knowing where to stand when you’re saying them was the easy bit, while learning overlapping melodies for vocal ensembles was a daunting challenge. For most of the rest of the cast, it seemed to be the other way around, which made for some crazy upside down rehearsals for me in which from my perspective we spent five minutes quickly going over the impossible bit and then three hours hashing and rehashing the really simple bits. Fortunately I was just the comic relief and most of my time on stage was either spoken our sung with the whole chorus, so if I couldn’t land the musical bits it only really mattered for about seven seconds out of a two hour show.

We managed to get our costumes sorted out just in time for the dress rehearsal. My character was a master swordsman, and one of the other cast members was a fairly high ranking officer in the Australian Defence Force who lent me his military dress uniform sword for the show. It was, without exception, the coolest prop I have ever used. Although the plastic Voltron blazing sword we used during rehearsals was pretty awesome too.

And as always, it all came together on the night. We put on three really good shows to much bigger crowds than I was expecting, and I made it through the whole experience without succumbing to my morbid fear of sopranos or poking anyone's eye out with a sword.

So I guess that's a win for the good guys.



Garry with 2 Rs