Archive | January, 2011

DAY 153: Getting my motherfuggin’ ute

31 Jan

Got mah ute.

I’M about as excited as you can possibly get when I bag this handsome ute on eBay. I can’t afford to get it roadworthy for at least three months, but hell – that’s not my drive it’s parked in.

Everyone in my country town has a ute. I’ve gone for regulation white, so I’ll have to fit it with some bumper stickers so that I can distinguish it from those of my brethren.

The owner wheezes the Falcon over from Williamstown, hands over the paperwork and runs. I ease myself onto the furry seat cover to start pulling and pushing things, most of which fall off. The glove compartment’s been fitted with a garden gate bolt, which is a nice touch, but in my opinion the selling point is the cabin – which magically transforms the ute into a shaggin’ wagon.

Overnight, Emerson – who’ll be getting it roadworthy – has turned into the harbinger of doom, forecasting bits that need replacing, fast ones the previous owner has pulled, and the long list of costs to come. I’m not implying he’s pissing on my parade, but I do feel a fine mist in the air when he surveys the handbrake.

I’ve got great plans to pimp the ute up with working tyres and wing mirrors, but in the meantime we give it a bit of a test spin.

“Don’t draw any attention to yourself,” Emmo warns, fatefully.

I start it up and am immediately rattled by the column shift, the operation of which sets off the windscreen wipers, which seems like a pretty major design fault. As we bounce and squeak off down the road, I’m coursing with sweat. The maiden voyage of one’s first vehicle is one of those moments in life you want to go really well, but I can tell this ute has zero respect for me right now; I’m driving it like a stammering apology, like Smeagol with an overbite. Unlike Ralph, the ute fails to learn who is boss.

Despite this less than auspicious start, the next morning there are no weird leaks under the ute, which is a good sign.

Keeper? Yeahargh! Can’t wait to go for a donut-run.

DAY 152: Stalking bats and other stuff

30 Jan


THERE’S nothing weird about someone owning a Gen 2 night vision monocular in suburban Melbourne – they might merely be a bat-watching enthusiast.

(Add a Mossberg and a telescope into the equation and it gets a little weirder, but that’s none of my business.)

 Tonight we’re scanning the skies for fruit bats and skimming the grass for trapdoor spiders, the eyes of which you can see glowing up at you – so I’m told, anyway. I’m more interested in checking the windows of the neighbours, but they seem to be wise to this sort of behaviour and everyone’s got their curtains shut.

Keeper? Yes, but will invent an intrepid mission next time. Apparently someone has borrowed the perfectly normal Gen 3 US Air Force headset with automatic rangefinder and IR targeting laser to go pig hunting. So I’ll wait for the return of that.

DAY 151: Riding Ralph ragged

29 Jan

Ralph.

IN among homesteads with fox carcasses strung up along the front fences is Hepburn Lagoon Trail Rides, and it’s here that I first clap eyes on Ralph, my ‘orse.

Like all accomplished studs, he totally ignores me, even when I’m hoisting myself up for a straddle. Then, when everyone else trots off through the gates to begin their epic journey, he wanders aloofly in the other direction to go and have a look at his reflection in the shed window.

You play a hard game, Ralph. That’s okay, so do I. 

Horses are notoriously shirty, but Ralph’s a joker, cutting up the others to overtake, winding them up by shadowing them so closely that they can’t see him over their hulking shoulders, and not observing stop signs when we’re on the road. He breaks in a trot whenever he feels like it, but for someone who has broken in a mechanical bull, this poses no problem.

Ralph plots a course into the nearest low-hanging tree.

Sometimes, as we stumble through woodlands fragrant with ferns and berries, I imagine his massive horsey vertebrae moving together in sync under his muscles, but mostly I stare at the back of his ears for three hours, which must be quite unnerving.

We reach a muddy stream, which I’m half hoping I’ll fall into – better here than somewhere else, anyway – but Ralph wades through it with a bit of huffing. It’s about here I start to totally trust him. Sometimes he stops dead to violently rip up some grass (in a suspiciously rider-throwy gesture), but for the most part he’s now obeying my every nuance with the reins and not giving me any shit, even as the other beasts pull hi-ho Silver moves and jerk their heads in horsey fury. We clop past a ‘Gestalt equine psychotherapy centre’ but I don’t need a shrink to tell me Ralph has developed a grudging admiration here. I reckon I could even pull some one-legged circus moves if I wanted to.

Keeper? Yes. Don’t be surprised if I whinny and break into a trot when excited, from now on.

DAY 150: Being silly at a tattoo convention

28 Jan

Dave pretending to study a bottle.

WHEN I ask people what the bird I’m getting inked on my arm should be holding between its feet, suggestions range from a chip, to a worm it has pecked to death, another bird’s head it won in a fight to the death, Nick Cave’s head dangled by its moustache, the same bird holding a smaller version of itself which is holding a smaller version of itself which is holding a smaller version of itself which is holding a smaller version of itself…

Thankfully, by the time I take my arm to Dave Undead, I’ve got it all sorted in my head. Custom king Dave beats off hoards of flapping fanboys with one arm to etch out a beautiful bird holding a compass that points north (since things are no longer heading south) with the other.

It’s a bit of a fiddly job, which leaves three hours to discuss how to tell just by looking who has blood that smells like cabbage, and whether or not there are any men who don’t have a problem with their girlfriends having tattoos, because an awful lot of them seem to whinge about it after a few sherries when seemingly they were cool about it.

We also talk about Hey Man, Now You’re Really Living, which is when he says I should do something epic on landmark days, and I say, well, this is Day 150, maybe you could etch a little 150 into a feather or something, and he says, well, I was thinking more like a speech bubble.

An aside: This suddenly reminds me that my friend Lindsay, on whom Dave has inked a mythical b-owl – half bat, half owl – warned me that I should watch closely if I don’t want my tattoo to end up with a little cock and balls.

Any stupid suggestion like this is like a red rag to a bull, so on goes the speech bubble. It does break the cardinal rule of getting tattooed – Don’t Get Anything That Begs A Question – something that someone with four cover-ups should know by now, but when such an urge takes you, what can you do?

“I always say I was just being silly,” Dave offers of unwanted “why did you get that?” queries.

Keeper? Yes.

DAY 149: Fine-tuning my handshake

27 Jan


THE handshake’s not up to scratch; it’s a damp squib. Too apathetic to be insincere, it’s laughably underqualified. It’s like sending Jessica Mauboy to mete out destruction instead of General McChrystal.

I’ve been having a read on the various meanings of the handshake across different cultures – the custom stems from demonstrating you are not holding a weapon – but to my mind there are five to avoid.

1.The Two-Hander: Rife in church groups and AA meetings.
2. The Alpha Grip: Commonly found at school reunions and sales conferences, usually accompanied by a clap on the shoulder. Screams “overcompensating”.
3. The Sly Palm Tickle That No One Else Can See: Beloved of child molesters and senile grandfathers.
4. The Sharp Shake: This dismissive gesture mimics that observed at a urinal.
5. The Arthritic Claw: The domain of sociophobes who won’t commit to the full palm for fear of having their foul secrets leeched out of their fingers.

To this end, I’ve come up with some alternatives. I offer journo Mikey a selection to see which he prefers. He’s pawed everyone from Pnau to the Malaysian prime minister, so he should know which I can get away with.

1. The Don Draper: After the grip there’s one urgent jolt down the forearm, to make them meet your eyes in alarm.
2. The Slapper. By delivering a loud slap, I ensure I’m the centre of attention and instil a hint of don’t-push-me insanity.
3. The Last-Minute Cheeky Squeeze: A normal, firm handshake with a last-minute cheeky squeeze to convey warmth. Hey – fake it till you make it, right?

“The Cheeky Squeeze sends morse code down to my balls,” Mikey gasps, although I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. He confirms that my usual grip is shithouse. “It’s insipid,” he says, banging his own hand repeatedly against the wall in protest. “It smacks of middle management.” Of all my new moves, he picks the Don Draper, which is probably quite revealing.

Keeper? Yes. Coming soon: I iron the creases out of my gobbies.

DAY 148: Breakfast at Vic Markets

26 Jan

SOME bizarro tea I bought on Day 147 had me up and groaning for mercy all night, so it’s pretty impressive that I get dressed at 5.30am and head into Melb to have breakfast at Vic Markets. I reckon.

While I’m there I buy a passion fruit plant as a thoughtful gesture, to leave anonymously on a friend’s desk and mess with her head.

In a good way.

Keeper? Yes. Grouse sunrise on the train down, as well.

DAY 147: Eating curious things

25 Jan

My haul.

COR, I’ve never seen so many junkies in one place. There must be some sort of convention on.

Victoria Street is crawling with the shifty buggers today, all moving in that peculiar, sphincter-clenching gait that’s native to the area. No wonder all the shopkeepers are so impatient with me on my quest to eat curious things.

“How would it be fresh if it was kept outside?” one snaps at my request for durian fruit that isn’t frozen. He stops just short of pushing his tongue into his chin, spastic-style.

Next stop is a bubble tea. Kiwi snow shake bubble tea with jelly, to be precise. Jelly that takes you by surprise when it shoots up your straw. Then there’s a packet of Aloe Vera dessert and a can of grass jelly drink; ingredients: grass jelly, sugar, water. Simple. The woman scoots my change across the counter at me with a frown, so as not to touch my hands.

I take the haul back to the office. Half an hour in, I’ve consumed so much sugar-water, I’ve probably developed thrush. I’m keen to get onto the durian though – a fruit so legendarily stinky that in many Asian countries there are signs banning it from hotels and other establishments.

With the cellophane on it smells like over-ripe mango, but the moment the cellophane comes off, an offensive whiff gusts into the office and clears it. It’s bad, all right. A bit of rotten eggs, a bit of blue cheese, a bit of je ne sais quoi. As soon as it’s in my mouth, I lose the smell, but it adheres itself to my teeth like putty.

Keeper? On occasion. I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied with a drink without jelly in it again.

DAY 146: Picking up domestic skills at the Kyneton Museum

24 Jan

THIS is what I learned in the kitchen of this old goldfields bank in Kyneton – a town to which people in their middling years retire to play lawn bowls and potter:

* If you wrap a hot, carefully wrung-out napkin around sandwiches and then put them in a cool room, they won’t go stale.

* You can sponge stains out of silk with water you’ve boiled potatoes in.

* If you run hot water over plates you want to put in the oven, they’re less likely to crack.

Keeper? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

DAY 145: Helping actors act

23 Jan

IT’S an oppressively hot day, and Ezekiel Ox is looming menacingly before me in a funereal suit. He exhales a plume of cigar smoke and says softly, “How do you kill someone twice, cockhead?”

I gaze back into his pitiless eyes, shaking. That’s on account of the boom mic I’m holding above my head, which is tons heavier than expected. If the vibrating furball bobbing above his nose isn’t putting him off his lines, my grimace should be, but Zeke – an actor and band frontman of much notoriety – is a professional.

I listen to him emote through his lines, mentally urging him faster. Ohcomeonohcomeonohcomeonohcomeon…

“And cut!”

Blockhouse Blues and the Elmore Beast, written and directed by Ross McQueen, is a tale of two bumbling goons who accept a job to kidnap a schoolgirl in the hope of impressing a local gangster. Of course, all goes horribly wrong.

In the scene we’re shooting in a suburban back garden, bumbling goons Paul Cousins and Nathan Strauss (look, I’m going to jump in and point out the latter is ‘Jason’ from that RACV ad, because I reckon we all need to get it out of our system now before the film comes out) are starting to feel they’re in over their heads.

The scene calls for a sunset, so the director of photography, Nicole Cleary, gets me to help her attach a barn door shutter to some antiquated lights, to which we then apply orange gel – essentially thick cellophane. She artfully arranges the lights inside and outside the garage and voila: the actors are bathed in a hazy glow. Jeez, it’s not exactly hi-tech, though. I’m wondering what she’ll get up to next with a couple of toilet rolls and some sticky-backed plastic. “It is like primary school art and craft,” she agrees happily.

Fiddling at the barn door.

Having worked through the roles of boom operator, grip and gaffer (I think one involved moving a light and another involved plugging it in), it’s time for me to be the clapper.

On set, the guys are all discussing the porn version of the film – Blockhouse Blueballs and the Elmore Fist – which’ll no doubt come out in a few years. “We probably won’t have worked since this film, so we can all put our hands up to be in it,” Zeke says, in band banter-mode.

“Zeke, can we get you blowing smoke as you go past?” the director interrupts.

“Up your arse? You’re going a great job, man.”

And… action!

My clapping needed direction.

Found this on my camera later, amongst other stuff.

 Keeper? Ah, the camaraderie of a film set (when the raging egomaniacs aren’t in the scene). This was pretty inspiring.

DAY 144: Gouging eyes and kicking groins

22 Jan

I’VE only been in one street brawl, with some dude my boyfriend totally failed to hit.

I stepped in, the dude punched me back, and after a bit of a surprised pause we just took turns whaling at each other outside Camden Town station, like it was some bizarre courting dance. In the end, I won the taxi cab of contention, although I had a bit of help by that point.

Anyway, turns out I was punching all wrong, so the guy must’ve been being polite. After today’s contact combat marathon, I know how to use all parts of my hand for maximum impact, and how to use someone’s head like a bowling ball.

Krav Maga focuses on the ‘soft bits’ of an opponent’s body: chiefly groin, eyes and throat, and teaches you to steam straight through the target, so that if you’re doing it properly, when you withdraw your arm you should have eyeballs stuck to the ends of your fingers and a trachea dangling off your wrist.

Over four hours I’m hit and kicked so hard and relentlessly on the pad I’m holding by a series of damp and deadly serious male students, that it’s a bit like being attacked. I have to keep reminding myself I’m not being attacked. Although, I am. We’re told that as well as mastering these moves, we should turn anything we can into a weapon (stabbing with a biro is “completely legal,” our instructor says with some glee) and employ simple cunning – the instructor mimics begging for her life while delivering a swift kick to the nuts.

A formidable woman, she explains that she’s been stomped in many street brawls (must ask her where she lives), and has even been stomped since she became a black belt at various martial arts – because her training amounted to nothing when she failed to raise more aggression than her attackers.

To this end we’re told to find our “inner aggression”. This could have turned into an awful drama class assignment, but as it happens the couple next to me have been stroking each others backs and sharing the odd kiss throughout the morning’s kicking and punching, so by focusing on that I muster the necessary rage.

Keeper? Need a bit more wrestling time, I think. (Cracks knuckles)

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