Thirsty Page 11

  Before the gig that night, Katie said, ‘So guess what? I spoke to that man’s wife . . .’ God, I love regional towns, ‘and she is furious with him. He’s not allowed to attend the show tonight and he wants to call you to apologise.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The wife also said that the council never had a meeting to discuss the show, no one complained, no one was uncomfortable, only him. In fact they all loved the show last year. Hence why they’ve asked us back. Anyway, they’re really sorry and they really want to personally apologise to you.’

  I didn’t need to receive a personal apology, I just wanted to do the gig. So I declined. Plus confrontation makes me uncomfortable. Unless it’s a Real Housewives-style scenario and I have a glass of French champagne to throw.

  I rocked up to the gig that night and it was wonderful. The Country Women’s Association had made us a delicious curry and a cheesecake, the gig was brilliant and afterwards they even gave us these quirky hand-crafted metal statues of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival logo, which were very nice but not something you could have taken in your carry-on luggage because they definitely would have been classified as weapons.

  As I was leaving the gig and people were getting on their horses and their tractors, the guy from the radio station approached me and shook my hand and said, ‘You were brilliant,’ and scurried off into the night.

  Here’s a horror gig that is a bit more tricky and one of those hard-to-navigate nights. I was performing at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. It was a Wednesday night of the festival, which is always dubbed by performers ‘Suicide Wednesday’. This is because we don’t generally perform on Monday nights, Tuesday nights are at ‘Tight Arse Tuesday’ prices so you usually get good crowds and Thursday through to Sunday are considered the weekend. But Wednesdays . . . oof. Now, I really can’t complain, I still had a pretty good audience and I felt bad whining to another comedian earlier in the day that I only had a couple of hundred people in that night. He told me he was cancelling his show because he literally hadn’t sold any tickets. Whoops. Admittedly, I’d possibly have preferred a cancelled show that night to what happened.

  I rocked up to the venue at about nine for my 9.30 pm show. Dave Hughes was up before me so I listened to the end of his show, which sounded great as usual. At the Adelaide Fringe Festival you perform in big circus tents, properly fancy ones, though, with air-conditioning, no carnies and comfy seats that don’t smell of circus pony shit. Dave finished his show and his audience cleared. I saw Dave briefly backstage but we didn’t shake hands. He had gastro the entire week so we had to stay a safe distance from each other. Gosh, I hope he doesn’t mind me putting that in my book . . .

  My tour assistant and I went into the venue to do a quick sound check before heading backstage (and to sanitise the microphone Dave had been holding). The stage manager said to me, ‘We’re just going to be setting up some sound and light equipment for another show while you’re on stage tonight.’

  I wasn’t thrilled by that thought given the only thing separating myself and backstage was a curtain, so the audience and I would hear everything through it. But I also didn’t want to seem like any sort of diva, so I said, ‘Oh. Okay.’

  Then the stage manager said, ‘And we’ve got a few people with wheelchairs in tonight so we’re just reconfiguring the chair layout to make some space.’

  This didn’t register as anything new to me as we have people in wheelchairs at the show most nights and I make a point of always trying to work in venues that are wheelchair accessible.

  I headed backstage and had my pre-show ritual of a long black (coffee – what were you thinking?) and got ready for the show. All was pretty smooth sailing. I walked onstage and looked out at the audience. Within a few seconds of starting, though, I heard some moaning and yelling to my left and looked down to see a group of people in wheelchairs who were both physically and intellectually disabled. Normally when someone is making noise in your audience you can immediately address it, get a laugh and move on. This, however, really was the exception to the rule. I am absolutely thrilled when people of all abilities come to my shows, but there is no way you can really address disabled people making noise and make it funny or appropriate. Your only option is just to ignore the noise.

  As the group got progressively louder, I continued with the show but I couldn’t really leave too many pauses otherwise the yelling would get louder. So I upped my performance levels by about twenty per cent and pressed on, under the pump a little, a slight sweat starting to break out across my forehead. (I’m not usually much of a ‘sweater’.)

  Soon, though, I spotted a girl holding her phone in her lap but with her camera pointed towards me. I kept looking down and checking and seeing it not move, and she wasn’t smiling. I then started wondering why she was filming. Or worse – who she was filming for. I’m the sort of person who always thinks he has some grand enemy out to get him. Plus, given that I talk shit about a lot of people in my stand-up shows, I really don’t like people filming. Also . . . why? I never get people who go to concerts and film the whole thing. Just enjoy the show. Live in the moment, man!

  I started having an internal debate over what to do. I decided she might eventually stop, so I pressed on with the show. I was already incredibly distracted so couldn’t spend too much time focusing on the girl, I had to dedicate my brain juice to performing. I was getting sweatier. Twenty minutes in, however, she hadn’t put the phone down. I thought she might’ve just been trying to get a little footage for Instagram or something, but that wasn’t the case. I eventually stopped the whole show and asked her why she was filming. She quickly minimised the video camera screen and said, ‘I’m not, look,’ and turned her phone around. But I wasn’t going to physically grab her phone and go through the videos, there’s nothing funny about that. Also it was a fucking Samsung – who knows how to operate that shit?

  I had no option but to carry on and hope that one of the venue ushers would’ve seen me flag the situation and go and speak to her. The second I launched into another story, I saw her phone facing me again, filming, the venue ushers nowhere to be seen. And there was still the noise coming from the audience members on the left of the stage.

  I started to feel a little stressed. And that’s when I heard a huge crash from backstage. I immediately turned, as I thought someone was about to run up on the stage and tackle me. This has happened to me before and it’s really scary, so that’s always my first thought. It turned out it was one of the venue technicians setting up backstage for the circus show bumping in in a few days’ time.

  I started to get frustrated. I was already up against it on stage, now I had a show setting up and making noise behind me. We were paying for that venue for that one hour of the day . . . why couldn’t they wait for me to finish?

  It was a seriously tough show. But you cannot stop. There is no point at which you can stop and ask yourself how best to deal with the situation at hand. I wanted to be respectful of the people in the wheelchairs, meanwhile I really wanted the girl to stop filming and I also wanted to turn around and scream at the people backstage. You have to keep going, keep smiling, keep delivering material and split your brain in half – half working out what to do with the situation and half keeping yourself on track and processing the words coming out your mouth. Plus I wanted to give the paying audience a great show, the show that they deserved.

  I normally float off stage in a great mood, having had the best time. That night I walked off and, the second I hit the wings, I stormed back to my dressing room, so annoyed that although the show had gone fine, I couldn’t make it reach the heights of a normal show – that audience didn’t get my proper performance. I got backstage to find my stuff had been moved by the circus troupe and they were all back there rehearsing. It was now 11 pm. They didn’t open till the following week.

  I went to leave the venue but the circus troupe were moving huge set pieces around backstage. I ended up snapping at one of them and sayi
ng, ‘Can I please just get the fuck out of my venue first?’ before hailing the first taxi I could see, going home and eating an entire tub of ice cream.

  The show I performed was Poser, which was nominated for a Helpmann Award that year for Best Comedy Performance. I’m guessing the secret judging panel weren’t there that night.

  8

  Gaycrashers

  So yes, arguably the worst gig of my life was when I was run out of a small country town by thirty angry homophobes. How’s that for the best heckle you’ve ever heard? Just to be clear, I wasn’t literally ‘run’ out, I was chased and then I got into a car and drove away. Running wasn’t an option – I’m not a savage – plus I was in the wrong shoes.

  I was once again on the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow. This was the 2011 tour, I was twenty and had been on road for about six weeks. I was feeling pretty good. I was learning that stand-up was a bit like tennis – you’ve got to be match fit and it’s always better if you’re wearing all white. After six weeks of touring and gigging every night with the roadshow or a month of gigs at the comedy festival, you feel pretty indestructible on stage. Your timing is a lot more in tune and you can catalogue your material in your head faster.

  We had ended up in regional Victoria. We’d done Warrnambool, Aireys Inlet and Bendigo, you know, all of the rock and roll comedy capitals of regional Victoria, and we eventually arrived in the town of Colac.

  Aaah, Colac, Colac, Colac . . .

  First of all, ‘Colac’ isn’t a particularly enticing name for a town – sounds like a throat infection, or an STD. In fact, I’m fairly sure I got a pretty bad case of Colac after sleeping with a closeted engineer at an airport hotel recently. The town is about a two-hour drive west of Melbourne. And it’s built on a lake called . . . wait for it . . . Lake Colac. The lake itself is, sorry to be blunt, a total shithole. I think it’s completely fine to call it that because I’m fairly sure the promotional pamphlet at the local visitors’ centre calls it that too. Well, it was either that or ‘gorgeous tourist attraction, great for couples and families’. Look, it was a few years ago, I can’t remember everything.

  We discovered, upon arriving in Colac, that we were performing in a cinema because the theatre in Colac was being renovated. It seemed that everywhere we went on that particular tour we were never playing in the actual theatre because apparently most of the old theatres in these country towns have quite severe asbestos problems, which is fun. Gives it a bit of character, right? Plus nothing makes your audience enjoy the thrill of live performance more than the threat of asbestosis! This could be your last laugh guys . . . so make it count!

  Actually, in Warrnambool we played the local high school and nobody thought to warn us that half the crowd was deaf. When I saw the interpreter on stage I just thought it was a wildly gesticulating woman who’d gotten lost on the way to the bathroom.

  Physically finding the exact cinema we were performing at in Colac was quite tricky as there were about six in the complex. I found that out the hard way when I walked in the wrong door and ended up blocking the projector that was showing Mr Popper’s Penguins. You better believe my CV has me listed as starring in that film. It’s technically not lying. I did. It was just in one very specific screening of it.

  On this particular leg of the tour I was third in the line-up. In stand-up, third is always considered a pretty prime position. It means you’re on after the interval, so the audience have had time to get in the groove, then have a little break and now they’re refreshed and ready for you. They’re well lubricated, if you will. But you also don’t have the pressure of closing the show.

  I went on stage and had quite a good gig, although I did accidentally refer to Colac as Warrnambool. As I said, I’d been on the road for about six weeks and it was my total Britney Spears moment. Do you know that Britney Spears famously gets the town she’s performing in wrong, like, nine times out of ten? I remember going to see her Circus tour in Perth, which was a complete atrocity, but I feel like that’s what you’re paying for when you go to see Britney. No one wants to see lucid, coherent Britney – I want to see 2007-style, broken down, bald, infant-behind-the-wheel, fanny-flashing, nutso Britney. Anyway, she walked out on stage and said, ‘Hello, Sacramento! How’s it going?’ And I remember leaping to my feet elated thinking, This is going to be a good night!

  My Britney moment didn’t go down as well in Colac. But I managed to win them back and it was a very pleasant gig.

  Every night after the roadshow gigs we’d stand in the foyer and pose for photos and sign merchandise, which I actually quite enjoyed doing. As I’m sure you’ve ascertained already, I’ve been practising my autograph since I was old enough to hold a pen. If I ever get to sign this book for you – let me assure you the pleasure is all mine, and don’t worry, I’ll be carrying a Sharpie. Actually, only very recently, at a fan’s request I signed someone’s arm, not knowing she would return to my show the following night having had my messy scrawl tattooed forever onto her skin. If I’d known she was going to do that I would have taken a bit more care. The tattoo looked like the signature of a serial killer . . . or a doctor. Or a serial killer doctor. Embarrassing.

  On that particular tour I was with musical comedy duo Die Roten Punkte, Daniel Townes, Greg Fleet and Anne Edmonds. Greg, Anne and I would normally group together and make each other laugh while we said hello to people and thanked them for coming. The foyer in Colac wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t a huge show, probably only a couple of hundred seats. As I was standing there, a young guy in his mid-twenties approached me with his girlfriend. His opening gambit was, ‘Hey, mate, I think you’re really funny . . .’ which I thought was nice (because it is – duh). I was about to say thank you, but before I could, he continued with, ‘But I just want to let you know . . . I still hate faggots.’ And with that he turned on his faggot-hating heel and walked out.

  I was really thrown by the whole thing – on one hand he was telling me that he thought I was really funny. On the other hand – well, he hated me. Do they cancel each other out? I was as confused a chameleon on tartan.

  I didn’t quite know what to make of it. To be honest, I wasn’t overly fazed and I kind of shrugged it off. But I do remember Greg and Anne got quite worked up and upset about it, far more than I did. Their reaction was really sweet and endearing. I felt super special and safe having my comedy family around me, knowing they had my back.

  I didn’t really think much about what happened until I found out the story had been published in the local newspaper, the Colac Herald, a few days later. Just by the by, I have definitely caught a bad case of Colac Herald before. I think that was on a business trip to Spain.

  So! As it turned out, a reporter had been standing in line behind the guy who loves my stand-up/hates my sexuality (hot combo) and had heard the whole thing. The reporter then wrote that I’d been abused and put it in the paper. Which is nice, I guess? And it must have become a bit of a talking point in the town, with people trying to work out who the guy was.

  Flash forward a few months later and I had completely forgotten about the whole thing, but a community group called DYNAMIC (a local group for young LGBTIQ teens) called and asked if I’d like to go back to Colac and host an anti-homophobia event. I said of course, I’d love to, and also I was thinking of the boxes of T-shirts I had left over from my days as managing director of PsychYAdelic in Grade 12 going mouldy in Mum and Dad’s garage that I might finally be able to pawn off. This group would be teaming up with a similar bunch from Warrnambool who were driving up for the day. These groups are so important for LGBTIQ youths to be able to interact and feel safe with other like-minded people, particularly in regional towns where homophobia is rife – I really thought it was a brilliant cause.

  I am always impressed by how brave the kids in those groups are to organise and attend events like that in these towns where there really aren’t any gay people hanging out, it’s just not the norm. It must be so tough and my heart real
ly goes out to them. There were about twenty other gay guys in my year alone at my school. Imagine being the only gay guy in an entire town. Your Grindr options would certainly be limited.

  So off I went back to Colac. I decided to make a bit of an afternoon of it, taking Ashleigh along (I needed someone with a car) and our friends Kate and Andy. The drive there was really fun, listening to musical soundtracks and stopping for lunch in Geelong. I know! My life is so glamorous!

  Around early afternoon we arrived in Colac for the event. The function was being held in a local bar called Straight Shooters (Christ, the irony, I cannot begin to tell you!). I think it was a bar – but who knows? It had a bit of a saloon-type vibe. The actual bar itself wasn’t open, so that was a bit of a bummer. I mean what’s a trip to Colac without a cocktail, I always say.

  There was quite a big turnout there, and I thought, surely all these people can’t be the local gay kids? Turns out they weren’t. There were also a lot of . . . what would you call them? Hoodlums, thugs, ruffians? Little fucking shits? They were walking around the event giving the LGBTIQ kids a really hard time. They were easy to spot too, in their hoodies and Globe shoes, reeking of Lynx Africa and broken homes.

  I aired what I had seen with one of the people running the event, but they were a bit snowed under themselves – there were only two organisers, and it was such a tough job, their hands were already full. So I took it upon myself to have a bit of a word with some of these little arseholes. What was going on at that stage wasn’t too major and the event was still in full swing, it was just the odd comment made here and there and nobody really standing up for themselves. And look, fair enough. Why would they want to? They probably had to go to school with these bullies.

  But I did my bit and MCed the event and it all went well. Besides, by the time I got on stage most of the bullies had left, it seemed. I was there for a couple of hours and then it was time for me and my mates to leave. We had ice-creams to purchase in Geelong! We said goodbye to everyone and left the venue.