In Retrospect: Things I Did in 2012

"People think life is short. It isn't, life is long. The next right thing will come to you. Let it. Just be ready.”

This year, I: 

Got drunk in New Orleans
Got drunk in Vegas. 
Got drunk at home. Alone.
Got drunk on a party bus destined for Calgary.
Was administered morphine in the emergency room of my local hospital. 

So far, it’s shaping up as quite a wild year, right? 

Sought help from a mental health professional.
Sought help from a general surgeon. 
Sought help from a dental surgeon.
Had my gallbladder removed. 
Had my wisdom tooth removed. 
Had substantial amounts of money removed from my bank account to pay aforementioned professionals. 

Travelled to Canada. 
White-water rafted on the Kananaskis River.
Rock climbed in the Rocky Mountains. 
Hiked in the Rocky Mountains.
Fell off a horse named Irish. 
Watched eight ten-year-old girls be thrown from their horses.
Visited Calgary, Banff, Vancouver, Canmore, Powell River, Medicine Hat, Cold Lake. 
Got lost coming home from Calgary. 
Was scarred for life travelling home from Vancouver. 
Worked in a spa in a mountain resort. 
Read a lot of books. Some better than others. 

Met some truly horrid people and realised some I already knew are also horrid. Number of dickheads per capita is consistent the world over. 
Made numerous new friends, some of them life-long. Keepers. 
Missed my friends in Australia.
Missed my family. 

Still don’t know what to do with the rest of my life, but I’m ready. 

50 Shades of Foil Packets

Some of you have already been lucky enough to have heard my verbal take on what can loosely be described as a ‘book’, but I've decided to dedicate it to writing for everyone to share and enjoy. A few weeks ago, I lost several precious hours of my life to reading 50 Shades of Grey. I picked it up mainly to see what the hype was about, already knowing I probably wouldn't enjoy it. Lesson number one: trust your instincts. Not only did I not enjoy it, it’s probably one of the worst ‘books’ I've ever turned the pages of.

We are supposed to believe Christian Grey is the most handsome man on the planet, even though he sounds like as much fun as a colonoscopy. By simply looking at him, you will orgasm. All in all, a very realistic premise. He has such an effect on the virgin Anastasia Steele, she stumbles into his office and falls to the floor. Just how he likes it, evidently. From here, Mr Grey becomes a stalker, and goes to Anastasia’s workplace to buy bondage equipment. She thinks he is simply buying hardware supplies. He plays the hero by ‘rescuing’ her from the advances of her best friend when she is drunk, after she drunk dials him. He immediately kicks into stalker mode and tracks her mobile phone with his sophisticated stalker equipment and swoops in to save the day and take her back to his apartment where she wakes the next morning wondering if they ‘did it’. No, he tells her, necrophilia is not his thing. What is his thing is being a dominant and preying on unsuspecting young women to be his submissive.

Of course, as has become the norm in massively popular fiction of late, we are subjected to yet another female protagonist who is emotionally insecure and reliant on the love of a man to make her feel any sort of self worth. What a role model. I hope all young women from now on strive to be taken advantage of by a wealthy, physically attractive, emotionally-inept man and live happily ever after.

The main issues

• Half of the book is emails between Ana and Christian, after he attempts to buy her affections with a laptop and a new car. The emails lack any sort of witty repartee, and made me want to write them both an email telling them to fucking sort themselves out.
• Christian tells Ana early on that he doesn't ‘make love’, he ‘fucks’. He then proceeds to have ‘vanilla’ sex with her when he learns she is a virgin. They also appear to ‘make love’ more often than they ‘fuck’, inconsistent with his alleged dominant personality and the whole point of the ‘book’.
• ‘Foil packets’ is the term used to try and make condoms sexy. Eg. “He rips the foil while I am breathing hard”, “I am panting and vaguely hear the rip of foil.” and “I fish out both foil packets that I find and lay them on the bed by his hips.”
• It doesn't work, and by the 50^th time the foil packets are referred to, we get the point, they are having safe sex. Do you want a fucking prize Mr Grey?
• It is somewhat creepy that Grey pays a gynaecologist to visit his home and consult with Ana about birth control methods.
• What is even creepier is that this entire exchange takes up the better part of a chapter until it’s decided she will go on the pill. You would have thought this would be the end of the narrative concerning safe sex. But no, even after the need for foil packets has been eliminated, we are constantly reminded Ana needs to take her pill by the alarm going off on her phone. Grey even calls her from time to time to check she has remembered to take it. Normal.
• Grey was sexually abused as a teenager, taken advantage of by a friend of his mother. Rather than seeking professional help or attempting some kind of normalcy in his life, he continues to catch up with ‘Mrs Robinson’ and swap notes on the dominant/submissive lifestyle.
• This is a New York Times best-seller. I've not read the other two books in the trilogy, but about 60 million copies have been sold thus far. Imagine for a moment, if all the money that went towards purchasing the books was instead given to a charity of some kind or to an agency that promoted positive change in the world. IMAGINE.
• As far as I can tell, Christian Grey does not comprise of fifty shades. He is beige at best, and all shades of mentally affected.

Have you read 50 Shades? Tell me what you liked or didn't like about it, and remember kids, it’s all about the foil packets. 

The Greyhound Bus - Chapter 2

Vancouver - where we should have stayed.

“Greyhound bus drivers are such pleasant people, I wish I could take one home to meet my mother,” said nobody, ever. During the 16 hour voyage from Vancouver to Calgary, we got to meet three bus drivers, each giving off vibes of joy and happiness. And by joy and happiness, I mean hostility, aggression and misplaced self importance. In Kelowna, we stopped for breakfast and a change of driver. There was a half hour delay getting back on the road, as our new driver had to have his required eight hour break between shifts before taking us onward.  This gave us time to sit and look around at one of the ugliest collections of individuals ever seen in one place at the same time. 

We were sharing a terminal with a Jake Gyllenhaal look-alike, an old man who looked like E.T. and a wannabe Eminem, with his cap on backwards and headphones in listening to a beat. Of course, these look-alikes were a stretch, but eased the boredom of the morning to a certain extent. Once we had gotten on the bus again and started driving, the opportunity to eavesdrop* on others’ conversations presented itself. One lovely gentlemen decided to strike up a conversation with the stranger next to him, much to the strangers’ delight I am sure. He was travelling back to his girlfriend’s house after visiting his family. From what I remember (and the details are somewhat hazy) he was unemployed, and had been with his girlfriend for three months. Perfect timing, then, to propose to her! Oh he was excited about putting a ring on it, and with him at such a good place in his life, why the fuck not get hitched? 

Now somewhere in the next four to six hours we stopped in several small-town bus terminals, which all looked like perfect places to murder someone in the dark of night. We got our third and most pleasant bus driver, and journeyed on, stopping what seemed like every half an hour for all the smokers to file off the bus and light up a cigarette. Another added bonus of catching the bus - passive smoking! 

It was during this leg of the journey we decided to be picked up in Canmore rather than Calgary. In Banff, we decided to let the bus driver know what we wanted to do. Well, I think we’d have had better luck asking him cut off his arm and drive one-handed the rest of the way. Apparently, we could only get off in Canmore if our bags were in the right place. Because heaven forbid a bus driver might actually have to do his job and LOOK AFTER THE PASSENGERS by finding their bags. As it happened, our bags were on top of the pile and easily accessible, so it was determined we would be allowed to alight earlier than anticipated. What a stroke of luck. 

So off we got in Canmore, and not a minute too soon, having learned the lesson that saving money is not always in our best interest, and bus wankers are the worst kind of wanker.

*Perhaps the only redeeming feature of travelling on public transport.

The Greyhound Bus - Chapter 1

This adventure is known as the time we wanted to save money and take a 16-hour bus ride from Vancouver to Calgary. Also known as the time we lost all ability to think rationally as human beings and thought this was a good idea. (Trust me, it isn’t. Fork out the extra couple of hundred dollars it takes to buy the plane ticket and thank me later.)

Let me tell you right now, there is nothing romantic or poetic about catching a midnight bus out of town. Whoever it is writing songs with this notion in mind has clearly never travelled this particular route. I think the realisation it was to be a hellish journey occurred inside the terminal as myself and my good friend Gilfred sat weary after a spectacular four days in Vancouver with Loqui. The screening process to get on such a shitty bus was incomparable to anything I’ve ever witnessed. So many rules and regulations just to travel on what I believe was the prototype of buses.

Firstly, my main bag was too heavy, so I had to take some things out (very convenient in the middle of a bus terminal) so it met the criteria. After getting it down to an acceptable weight, I then immediately packed everything back to where it was before, my bag once again overweight. But, it already had it’s tag on so it made it on to the bus without any issues. Suck on that, Greyhound! After the strenuous checking-in process, we sat waiting for our steed to arrive. It was around this time we observed some of the other people who would also be making the journey to Calgary.

You know when you’re in a line of some sort, either waiting for public transport or in an airport terminal, and you keep seeing the same person or having to listen to their inane dribble about how many split ends they have, or you’re in the vicinity of someone who is quite clearly mentally deranged? And you think to yourself, “I really hope I'm not sitting anywhere near that person when I get on the bus/plane/train.” And you know then of course, because you've thought that thought, you will definitely end up sitting next to or close to that person? This is what I refer to as the Cosmic Joke.

So picture, if you will, the Vancouver version of the Shegogs*, a brother and sister combo probably in their mid to late 50s. The man was wearing high pants, a woollen jumper, one of those hats with a brim that is straight across, no curve at all, and I'm fairly sure he also had on a bum-bag or money belt of some sort, probably both. He had also made a trip to McDonald's  and in between his sister yelling at him in her long, button-down chambray dress, he had started to eat his chocolate sundae. This bearded bastard was hoeing into that sundae like there was no tomorrow, and just by watching him I was hoping there wouldn't be a tomorrow and that I would wake in heaven surrounded by sunshine, puppies and angels serenading me while I eat strawberries hand-picked from the fields by strong, strapping gentlemen.

Instead, I got to look on in horror, as he ate his sundae without a spoon, and ended up with half of it dripping from his chin, soaking into his beard as if he had been part of a food fight. Never has there been a better advertisement for celibacy.

So naturally, we get on the bus, and these two, smelling like piss and bickering at the top of their lungs are seated quite near us. Hooray! The bus driver we had for the first leg of the tour was anything but pleasant, but in his defence he did ask these clowns to quiet down as other passengers were trying to sleep. Because, you know, we caught the bus IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

So we are on the bus, I have my pillow, Gilfred has my pillow pet, for comfort. We endure a fitful night of rest and stop in Kelowna for breakfast and a change of drivers, and hopefully a change in luck as the Canadian Shegogs have reached their destination. You would think the only way was up.

TO BE CONTINUED…

*Those playing along at home will only understand this reference if they are from Victor Harbor. If you don’t understand it, consider yourselves lucky.

Junk About A Trunk

Ever since I have known her, and it hasn't been very long though it feels like a lifetime (in a good way), Giggles has had a trunk issue. Not a trunk issue of the Black Eyed Peas variety, wherein if the problem was too much junk inside her trunk, all she’d have to do would be get you drunk, love drunk off her hump and it would be fixed. No, this was more of an issue where the trunk of her car would close, but not the entire way so it would appear to be open. The latch was rusting away and it meant everyone who had ever ridden in her car would ask if it was closed properly, forcing Giggles to explain the entire situation nearly every time she drove her car.

Recently, things came to a head, when we set out on an adventure to get an oil change for her beloved Alero. We dropped the car off in Canmore and while we waited, went to find food. We stopped in at a bakery where we were fortunate enough to receive a microwaved sausage roll and spinach triangle. There’s just something so delectable about soggy pastry, isn't there? And when we went to pick the car up, the elderly gentlemen at the counter pointed out what Gigs and I already knew – her trunk doesn't shut properly.

The conversation went a little something like this:

Oil man: “Your trunk isn't closing properly on your car, you know.”

Gigs: “I know, it has been like that for a while now.”

Oil man: “You wanna get that fixed, because the thing is, when you’re driving on the highway the gas that comes out of your exhaust swirls around and with your trunk open like that it will get into your car.”

Gigs: “Oh, right.”

Oil man: “So one of two things will happen, you’ll get a headache, or you won’t know what’s happening.

“Because you’ll be dead.

“You don’t want to commit suicide, do you?”

And the Oscar for overreacting in a mechanic shop drama goes to…

This conversation got Giggles thinking. It was time to try and repair the trunk and make it close properly once and for all. As she dropped me home after our day out, we retrieved some items from the trunk and then attempted to close it. But it was then the mechanism that latches the trunk closed decided to rust out and fall off, leaving Gigs with 20 kilometres to drive with an open trunk.

“Wait, I've got my emergency string!” Giggles cried. So, in the dark and bitter cold, she lay on her stomach and reached through from the back seat with a flash-light in her mouth, and tied that bastard trunk down. But emergency string can only hold for so long.

PJ pimping. 

Enter PJ, and his faux reality program ‘PJ Pimp My Trunk’. On a cold Thanksgiving weekend afternoon, the trunk was finally to be fixed. Sparks were flying, from the handheld circular saw, as PJ worked his magic. Giggles was stressed out and wondering if this was going to work out. Would the trunk be fixed or would there be something in the way to stop this goal being reached? A hole was drilled and a bolt put in place – but would the trunk finally close? Clunk. Obviously not. Returning to the drawing board, another hole was drilled and another bolt put in place. Success! The trunk closed, and even better than before, you could barely tell there was anything wrong with it. It was like a brand new car, until we tried to put something in the trunk and close it again. Much like a carefree vagabond, the newly bolted latch hook would not stay in place.

The story is not complete without a final stroke of genius. Gigs remembered the cable ties she had been hoarding in her room. Perhaps it’s to do with her crafting addiction, but you have to admit the woman is very resourceful. She used the cable ties to secure the newly bolted hook down, and just like that, the trunk would open and close, open and close as if it had just rolled off the showroom floor. 

Now if only the interior light would stop falling out of the roof and the rear-view mirror wouldn't fall from the windscreen... 

Sample Dialogue

Me, jokingly, to a Hooters waitress in Calgary: “Do you take Australian money?” (I had a solitary $2 coin left in my purse coming to Canada.)

Hooters waitress: “This brown guy tried to give me rupees last week.”

Hooters - Delightfully tacky and uneducated. 

That Time It Took Us Four Hours To Get Home From Calgary

We had gone to Calgary to have dinner at a mall. (Please refrain from questioning me about my life choices at this point. As this story unfolds it will become more than evident that my life on this day followed a path that can only be described as ‘seedy’.)

After dinner with a most eclectic group of people, we set off on our journey home (‘we’ being me, Granger and Crayola). A journey that should have taken about an hour ended up taking more than four hours. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Getting out of the city shouldn’t have been hard, but with two Australians and Cray, an Ontarian, in the car, there was always the potential we would get lost. I’d like to say we were intrepid explorers discovering the final frontier, but sadly, we were more like a teenage boy during his first sexual encounter. Trying really hard but not having a clue what we were doing. There’s no point trying to jazz it up by saying we were exploring the greater Calgary region to get the most out of our experience abroad. We just got really fucking lost.

After we had been driving for about an hour, we found ourselves in what could have been a scene from Desperate Housewives, if Desperate Housewives consisted of many Indian families cavorting on the side walks of suburbia enjoying a balmy summers eve. As we wound our way through the maze of sub-divisions trying to find an exit, it became clear we were out of our depth. What made the experience all the more frustrating was the fact we could see the Trans Canada Highway, our ticket to freedom and the path home, off in the distance. But how to get there? If only it were that simple.

With light, and spirits, fading fast, things weren't helped by me laughing in the back seat about how completely and utterly lost we were, despite being able to see where we needed to go. Funny, right? Wrong, according to our driver Granger who only wanted to get home and wasn't having a bar of it.

As darkness fell, we pulled into a service station to ask for directions. The freshly emigrated young man behind the counter was no help. Another lady in line was more than happy to help our plight, however, and soon we had found the Trans Canada and taken a right turn on the voyage back to Kananaskis.

It was shortly after getting onto the highway that I asked if we had turned in the right direction. I believe my exact words were, “Are you sure we are going the right way?”

This was the way the lady had said to turn, so still trusting a complete stranger we continued along the highway. Now, this went on for close to an hour, until we all realized we didn't recognise any of the signs that would usually be there on the way home. “Well, why didn’t you just look for directions on your smart phones?” I hear you asking. Well Cray, in a state of what can only be described as madness, had left her phone at home in Ontario as she thought no technology was allowed in Alberta. Granger hadn’t paid her bill and had been cut off and I was only using my phone with WiFi, which we weren’t anywhere near whilst driving around in circles.

We saw on some signage we were approaching a town named Strathmore, and I suggested pulling over somewhere to access some free WiFi to find a map and, once and for all, the way home. This proved to be a most fortunate decision, because had we not stopped in Strathmore, we wouldn’t have seen the thunder-thighed, cellulite-ridden hooker in her short denim cut-offs providing her services to a tired and lonely trucker on the side of the highway.

With that mental image in your heads (you’re welcome), you’ll be happy to know we then discovered we were now about two hours from home. We had turned right (which turned out to be wrong) instead of left onto the Trans Canada and had been driving away from our destination for hours. Granger was still not seeing the funny side of things, but then our old mate Gotye popped up on the iPod which managed to lighten the mood somewhat. Mainly because we changed the words to his understated and never-played-on-the-radio-ever-before hit Somebody That I Used To Know to suit our evening. The reprised version (not featuring Kimbra, although the three of us did quite a good job) featured witty lyrics such as “Calgary, Calgary, Calgary, now you’re just a city where I’ll never go”. Sing it with feeling and it will be as though you were in the car with us.

The best thing about this night, though, is now we can all say, “Remember that time we went to Calgary and it took us four hours to get home? Wasn’t that a laugh?”

Well, it was for me at least.

Getting Into The Spirit

My journey to Canada began with the safety demonstration on board a Qantas flight to Sydney. The flying kangaroo, in all its ingenuity, has capitalized on the fact this is an Olympic year by roping in some of our favourite Aussie Olympians to be in their safety video. Perhaps the most inspirational part of the video was pole vaulting hero Steve Hooker demonstrating the use of the plane seatbelt. It went a little something like this: “In the lead up to the Olympics I always like to get excited by getting into the team spirit. You can get into the team spirit too, by always having your seatbelt fastened when you are sitting down.”

That’s all it takes to get into the team spirit? Shit, Steve, where can I sign up?! The video did get me thinking, though, about how pole vaulting is perhaps one of the sports with a higher level of risk attached to it, and although Hooker is probably classed as a national treasure, it might be better to have a lawn bowler in an air safety video. And nothing says ‘team spirit’ more than an individual sport like pole vaulting. You know what I’d like to see next Olympics? Synchronized pole vaulting. That would require not only team spirit, but it would also put a firecracker underneath those synchronized swimmers. They’ve been resting on their laurels for far too long. I mean, can’t they do it without the nose clips by now? Hasn’t technology progressed far enough that we should somehow be able to swim without shoving a piece of wire covered in rubber fair up our nostrils?

From Sydney, the delightful staff of United Airlines (no hot towels) ensured our arrival into LA was delayed by 2.5 hours, meaning I was left with one hour to get off the plane, go through immigration, customs, baggage re-check, transfer terminals and go through security again to board my connecting flight to Calgary. I had managed to make it this far into my journey without having to talk to anyone I didn’t want to, except a lovely Indian gentleman who part-way through the Sydney-LA flight decided he wanted to relieve me of the three seats I had to myself, and promptly sat down and fell asleep at the end of my row. It made what was already such a pleasant journey all the more cramped and enjoyable.

The adventure across the barren LAX landscape had set my heart racing, but I can assure you it was not in a good way. The good news is I made it to my connecting flight with minutes to spare, and happily, I was able to relive my last visit to Terminal 2 at LAX where previously I had the privilege of waiting six hours to board a delayed flight to Hawaii. These warm and fuzzy memories were short lived, however, and I was soon on my way to The Big C, also known as Calgary.

The Lap Chole

With the weight of the world on my shoulders, I recently found myself thinking, which organ can my body do without? And before you ask, no, I’m not going to start selling my kidneys on eBay or get caught up in some kind of illegal organ farming operation. Now obviously the heart and lungs are keepers and somewhat essential to survival, so they were out (or in, as it were). But making it to the shortlist was the appendix, my nose (thanks Dad) or my gallbladder. 

I’ve been told the pain that comes from having gallstones is worse than child birth. If this is the case, when the time comes for me to procreate I’ll be able to give birth like a champion. I can’t really describe just how painful gallstone attacks are, all I can say is that morphine is your friend. As are surgeons, anaesthetic drugs and nurses with pain relieving medications. And, when you’re in the public ward of the hospital, after having your gallbladder removed, don’t underestimate the power of earplugs. Those two tiny foam buds were my saviour from a room mate who had had an eye operation but should have technically been admitted to the psych ward. 

I don’t remember a lot about the operation, but I do know I got to wear the loveliest of gowns, I had my abdomen painted with betadine (cheaper than a spray tan ladies), and woke up in recovery to a nurse holding up my gallstones in a specimen jar.  As I was in a drug-induced mind fog at the time, I can’t be 100 per cent certain this ever happened, but to me they looked like cookie crumbs floating in balsamic vinegar. And as tempting as it was, I didn’t keep them. 

After a peaceful night on my own, the real fun began the following day at lunch time when Julie, the heavy breathing old bat, arrived, allegedly bringing with her $8000 worth of cochlear implants and 500 padlocks. Jules had a patch on her eye which would have been better placed over her mouth, and kept harassing the nurses to help her lock up her valuable equipment. The only problem was that despite bringing 500 padlocks, Jules forgot to bring a key to be able to unlock them. Rookie mistake. Already breathing like Darth Vader and talking to herself, Jules really hit peak form about 6pm when the hearing aids were taken off, rendering her completely deaf and half blind. Following this, her conversations with the nurses went something like this: 

“EXCUSE ME! NURSE. NURSE, CAN YOU LEAVE THAT LIGHT ON DOWN THERE?”

Nurse: Only if it doesn’t disturb the other patient in the room.

“WHAT?” 

Nurse: I’ll have to make sure it’s okay with the lady in the other bed. 

“CAN YOU ASK THAT LADY IF THAT LIGHT CAN BE LEFT ON?”

Nurse: Yes it’s okay to leave it on.

“WHAT?”

Capitals don’t really do the decibel levels justice, but you get the picture. The next morning, Jules bailed me up after walking the corridors to tell me about how the bathroom flooded during the night and her socks got wet. She wears two pairs at all times otherwise her foot will have to be amputated (not sure of the medical evidence behind that theory but hey, if you‘re fearful of amputation just whack on another pair of socks and you‘ll be right), but they had to be taken off so they could dry out. She wasn’t sure if what had flooded the bathroom was water or urine, and she hoped her socks weren’t soaked in piss. In my opinion, that really would have been the least of her problems. 

CAN SOMEONE AMPUTATE HER TONGUE PLEASE? 

Lesson from all of this? Don’t be admitted to hospital when there’s a full moon. 

What happens on Contiki...

I was looking forward to joining our Contiki tour in New Orleans, and from the moment we stepped off the plane I fell in love with the Big Easy. Here, you can call people ‘baby’ without fear of being accused of sexual harassment, and it’s actually quite charming really. Less charming was the smell of Bourbon Street, but when you think about it who doesn’t love the smell of alcohol intermingled with weed and stale vomit? 

As with any tour group, it’s a great study in human behaviour, but I use the term human loosely. We were lucky enough to hear about one guy’s sexual exploits with a goth chick in graphic detail before we even knew his name, and that if one girl could sleep with someone famous she would choose Mick Molloy. Let’s just ponder this for a moment. Out of EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, the one person she would choose to get it on with is MICK MOLLOY. It’s a lovely compliment to Mick that a woman in her mid-twenties finds him desirable enough to pay him a visit between the sheets, but really? I’d have preferred to have heard the conventional/boring yet understandable George Clooney or Brad Pitt as an answer, but then we wouldn’t have been a group of bogan Australians travelling overseas. 

The fact that we were a group of bogan Australians was never more evident than on one of our driving days, the group played a game called ‘questions in the hat’. The rules were simple, write down any question and put it in the hat. Questions were drawn at random and someone would be called up to answer it. Some of the questions were quite pleasant, such as ‘why is the sky blue?’ or ‘if you could be someone famous for a day who would you choose?’. I’m afraid to say the majority of the questions, however, were more along the lines of, ‘if you could have two guys cum in your eyes or ears, which would you choose?’ or ‘Would you rather be fudge-packed by Andy while Shannon blows you or drink a bottle of Ed’s semen?’, ‘demonstrate your oral sex technique’ and ‘if you had to choose a person of the opposite sex on this bus to pee on you, who would you choose?’. Astounding that this kind of creativity is going to waste and not being channelled to influence our future generations. Wait a minute, most of them were school teachers. 

While the tour provided many memorable moments, one of the most bizarre highlights occurred when we stopped to watch the ducks march at the Peabody Hotel, Memphis, Tennessee. You can read about the Peabody Ducks and their history here. 

Anyway, after an action packed day at Graceland, Sun Studio and meeting die-hard Elvis fans Cindy and Randy from Nebraska, Biz and I decided to stop in at the Peabody on our way back to our accommodation to catch the ducks in their afternoon journey. At 5pm the ’duck master’ signals it is time for the ducks to march out of the Peabody fountain, down a red carpet and into the elevator which takes them to wherever they are kept when they are not in the fountain. We arrived about fifteen minutes before the ducks were to march, and by that time there was already a sizeable crowd forming. To watch DUCKS walk down a RED CARPET. Isn’t the USA adorable? But it gets better. Everyone was enjoying the ducks swimming in the fountain, and then the Duck Master adjusted his top hat and tails and turned on his mic. It was show time. (Just before the DM started his incredibly challenging job of getting the ducks out of the fountain, he locked eyes with Biz and they shared what can only be described as a ‘moment’. A feat in itself given the thousands of other people in the room. Just saying, it was very special and perhaps if the DM is reading he can get in touch and I’ll pass on Biz’s details.)

The Duck Master, and perhaps Biz's one true love.

As the DM began to speak, the ducks got out of the water and marched around the edge of the fountain in preparation for their journey home. It was about this point that I thought Justin Bieber had walked into the room. The camera flashes were blinding, and the hubbub of the crowd was reaching a climax. I think the Peabody should invest in some tiny little duck sunglasses to protect the eyes of their famous residents. And then the ducks stepped out of the fountain and onto the red carpet, waddling behind their master for about thirty seconds and getting into the lift and disappearing for another day. The show was over, and I was wondering where on earth, and in which universe, I was now living. These ducks pull more of a crowd than some football teams (I’m looking at you Port Adelaide), for simply swimming and walking. Two things they were designed to do, and have been doing without red carpets for centuries. God bless America!

Sing like you're winning

So you’re an aspiring singer and you’ve decided it’s your life-long dream to make it in the music business, or ‘the biz’ as it is sometimes referred to by either Richard Wilkins or some other two-bit Hollywood reporter who tried to make it in ‘the biz’ but failed and has now found themselves reporting on other more successful and attractive people for an Australian breakfast TV show. 

But how are you going to break into the market when you’re not eighteen years old and willing to sing about how girls flipping their hair gets you overwhelmed? (By the way One Direction, if that’s all it takes to get you overwhelmed then a) what are you on and can I have some please?, and b) I’m just warning you once real life and puberty sets in it might not be rainbows and kittens and sunshine all the time as may have been promised to you by Simon Cowell’s fitted black t-shirt.) 

Luckily for a ‘real talent’ such as yourself, there’s no shortage of reality television shows to ‘discover’ you or humiliate you to the point of quitting music altogether. But which reality show do you choose? And what song do you sing to impress the judges disguised as successful recording artists? 

To give yourself an advantage before even choosing which program to audition for, why not be related to someone who is already in the music business? 

Or perhaps you could be someone who has already had a record label and some degree of success, but pissed it all away after your hit song sold a hundred thousand copies and someone you know got cancer or died or both and it changed your life forever until now, because you’ve just hit 40 and realised your life is going nowhere and perhaps you should get your shit together. 

Although your famous and more successful relative may already have the contacts you need in order to pass on demos or meet with record label executives, there’s nothing quite like being reminded you are so-and-so’s brother, daughter, sister or fifth cousin twice removed, and that’s all you’re likely to stay, on national television. 

And while this method will do little to propel you out of the shadows of your famous father or brother, it will guarantee you get through your first audition, because isn’t Kyle already enough of an arsehole without prematurely squashing the dreams of one of the offspring of Australian Rock Royalty™? 

Do you have the X Factor? I’ll give you the hot tip - if you answered yes, you probably don’t. You see, the beauty of someone actually having the x-factor is that they don’t realise they have it. 

And we don’t really know what they’ve got either, that’s why we call it the ‘x-factor’ and not ‘talent’, ‘a great voice’ or ‘a ripping six-pack’. The irony of this program is that practically no one who is on it actually has the x-factor (judges included), and if they do happen to be crowned the winner they end up living in a cave or performing at Westfield shopping centres. So if that’s where my x-factor takes me I think I’ll keep it to myself thank you very much. 

Are you Australian and do you have talent? Why not go and get judged by an Irishman, a Minogue and a Kyle? I can think of plenty of good reasons not to, but if you have shit-for-brains and can stick knives down your throat while singing a Whitney Houston song then all the power to you. 

I’m sure the people behind this show had Jack Vidgen specially made and kept waiting in some sort of cryogenic coffin until the day came for the world to be exposed to be a small blonde male with helmet hair, frighteningly white teeth and the voice of a woman. And that’s just the host of the program. 

So if you still haven’t been given the ‘opportunity of a lifetime’, consider this. When you sing, do people listen, or do they turn their backs and pretend you aren’t there? Do you have the voice of an angel but look like Shrek’s love child? If so, you should audition for The Voice, and when those judges turn around to say they want you but are simultaneously repulsed by your oily skin, missing teeth and rat’s tail, you can have the last laugh my friend. But please don’t because we viewers at home don’t want to be put off our dinner. 

If you still haven’t made it by now, just look into the camera and tell us your journey doesn't end here, and this isn’t the last we’ve seen of you. Even though we know it is. Until they resurrect Australian Idol where Marcia Hines can sit on the fence and give you a glimmer of hope that you still have a chance of making it in the biz.  

Orlando Magic

Those who know me well, and even those merely acquainted with me, know my tolerance level for fuckwits is quite low to non existent. With this in mind and now with the benefit of hindsight, it was likely a poor choice to stay at a two star establishment in our first port of call in Florida. 


Having not slept for two nights in a row, Orlando was on my shitlist before we even got there. Our flight from New York to Orlando was overbooked, so we had to wait until the rest of the plane had boarded to find out if we were to be one of the chosen ones to be given a seat. When we eventually boarded the plane, we were told our pilot was running late because he was, “stuck in traffic”. Now I’m not the most worldly person, but I would have thought the words ‘New York city’ and ‘traffic’ went hand in hand. But obviously some pilots get too cushy having the airways all to themselves, and fail to plan ahead when they once again set foot on solid ground. 


Add to this the longest wait in history for our bags to arrive at baggage claim, then an insufferable transfer in which we had the displeasure of sharing oxygen with six of the most obnoxious New Zealanders ever to roam the planet, and I was about ready to head home. But then I would have missed out on the gem that is the Champion’s World Resort. Its biggest claim to fame was a contemporary shower rod in each room, which was lovely but I’d have preferred a stock standard shower rod in exchange for a toilet that worked and windows that opened. I’d trade all of it for the ‘resort’ to have been staffed with people who knew what they were doing and could do more than one thing at a time without going into meltdown. The $8.99 steak on the resort’s dining room menu should have been a suitable warning of the alternate universe we had unknowingly entered into.


Here’s an actual exchange with one of the staff at the reception desk, who looked like a heavy-set Sonic the Hedgehog with glasses.


Me: “I’d like to book a taxi to take us to meet our bus to go to Kennedy Space Center.”
Sonic: “When do you want it?”
Me: “In about ten minutes if that’s possible.” (The night before we’d asked the lady at the activities desk about taxis etc, and she had said to ring for one ten minutes before we were ready to leave.)
Sonic: “You’re not going to get one in ten minutes.” 
Me: “Well as soon as possible is fine.”


Sonic, huffing and puffing as if it was so implausible someone might want a taxi to take them somewhere, reluctantly rang us a taxi and had great pleasure in telling me it would be at least 20 to 25 minutes before it picked us up. We waited in the lobby for about 15 minutes, when a shuttle bus pulled up, and the driver, who looked and sounded like Cee Lo Green, waddled in. 


Cee Lo: “Transfer for MARTIN, four people!” 


No Martins were coming to claim their ride, so Cee Lo went to ask Sonic where they were. Sonic then proceeded to scream at me: “MISS! IT’S YOUR TAXI. GO WITH YOUR DRIVER.”
Me: “He just yelled out Martin, I didn’t even give you my name.”
Sonic: “IT’S YOUR TAXI. GO AND GET IN YOUR TAXI.” 


Me to Cee Lo: “We aren’t who you’re looking for.” 
Cee Lo: “Yeah, I’m sorry I can’t afford a Ferrari, but that don’t mean I can’t get you there.” 



So in we got with Cee Lo who made a bit of cash on the side taking us where we needed to go. The real Martins eventually showed up too. 

Best Of NYC

“The unique thing about New York is that it is unique.” 

- NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, Times Square, December 20. 

If I had to describe New York city in one word? Exhausting. Amazing. Inspiring. Busy. Fucking busy. People. People. And more people. One person in particular was Seema, by day working in her dream industry and by night, playing tour guide in her dream city so that we, her dearest friends and probably most favourite people in the world* could soak up as much of the big apple as possible. And soak it up we did. Like the city, I basically didn’t sleep for the entire time we were there. This was in part due to our hotel room being  furnished with what appeared to be the first heater ever installed anywhere on planet earth. It looked old and crusty, but boy did it keep us warm. *Cough* first world problem *cough*. 

The sights

Including but not limited to, visiting the top of the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Christmas tree, the Seinfeld diner, Columbia University, New York Public Library, Times Square, Staten Island, Statue of Liberty, 5th Avenue, Union Square, 9-11 Memorial, Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Meatpacking District, Central Park (including ice skating there on Christmas day),  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Subway (the transport system not the place that employs sandwich artists. Although as an aside, American Subway’s don’t sell chicken fillet subs. Leaders of the free world I THINK NOT!). 

The food

Was obtained from the Hard Rock Café, a Japanese restaurant and Southern Hospitality (owned by Justin Timberlake) in Hell’s Kitchen, Juniors, Cafeteria in Chelsea, the Brooklyn Diner in Times Square, the Penny Farthing, an awesome Mexican place which sells the best drink ever invented, the Mexican Bulldog, bagels with cream cheese on the upper west side, a home made Christmas feast complete with pumpkin pie, street hot dogs, Magnolia Bakery, Insomnia Cookie, Shake Shack… you get the idea. We ate a lot of food. And it was worth every mouthful. 

Broadway

Million Dollar Quartet - The guy who played Jerry Lee Lewis was a devil on the keys. The music was sensational and all based on a night at Sun Studio where Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash got together for a jam session.  Ah-mazing. 

How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying - This starred Daniel Radcliffe aka Harry Potter, who did a fine job in the lead role. The musical itself was a bit weak, and even weaker was the sight of half the audience leaving before the show finished to wait at the stage door in the hopes of getting a glimpse of or a lock of hair from Dan Rad. Have some self respect ladies, let the boy do the chasing! 

The Lion King - This was beautiful from start to finish. Amazing sets, costumes and music and I got to enjoy it all from the second row. Oh yeah, and Simba grows up to be a bit of alright. 

Other highlights

- Watching NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg give a press conference in Times Square to mark the fact that New York had attracted 50 million tourists in 2011. One thing the mayor is not short of is tickets on himself. And good on him I say. Any man who stops mid-sentence to blow his nose loudly into the microphone when surrounded by about 50 cameras and recording devices will get my vote.** Props also go to the girl dressed as the elf, the silver fox holding the Travelocity gnome and the Rockettes who all stood in the blistering cold waiting for Mr Bloomberg, who was of course, fashionably late. 

- The Staten Island Ferry singer, who was a bit like a New York version of a Shegog. Her iPod was in, and at the top of her lungs she was belting out Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now. 

Lizzy: “That guy singing was interesting.”

Me: “That was a woman.” 

Mayor Bloomberg is right, NYC is unique in many ways, one being that it is unique. And as ridiculous as that sounds there really isn’t any other way to put it. It is a great place to visit and there is never a dull moment. And while I would never be able to live there as I need the occasional rolling hill or rugged coastline in my life, I’d definitely go back for a week here or there to live it up in the big city where dreams are made. 

*She’s never actually specified but I thought in this case I would assume correctly. 

**Australian politicians take note. 

Aloha Hawaii

It all began with a 10 hour plane ride from Sydney to Honolulu. Although if we were to get technical, it actually all began with a one hour drive to Adelaide and a two hour flight from Adelaide to Sydney. Flying with Hawaiian Air was an interesting experience, and let’s face it, anything is better than flying with Tiger, an airline on which my travel companion Lizzy experienced an aircraft fault and has since developed a fear of flying. What better way to cure it, then, than with a five week tour of the United States and ten plane flights varying in length from 35 minutes to ten hours? But I’m getting ahead of myself… 

The flight to Honolulu left Sydney at 9.20pm, which meant we had the pleasure of a ten hour overnight flight on what appeared to be the prototype of the Boeing 767. Unfortunately, we were without the help of our old mate Valium, and therefore had to endure a restless night with only an ill-conceived movie screen/projector system, that produced a shaky picture in the centre of the aircraft even when there was no turbulence, for entertainment. The Hawaiian Airlines staff were extremely pleasant and helpful, and even doled out a hot towel or two to refresh a weary traveller. 

Upon arrival in Hawaii we had the pleasure of being leid, and while waiting for a shuttle to our hotel we met the Kiwi from Karratha. A pleasant fellow, but on hearing that he’d been to Bali 34 times we thought it wise to retreat back into our shells of normality. Perhaps he is a Schapelle groupie. Or Mercedes’ dentist? Either way, it did nothing to dispel the notion that quite a number of Western Australians are marching to their own little tune out there in the desert, all power to them. 

Wandering around near our hotel we stumbled on some markets, and ran into a lovely racist gentleman named Donny. It’s Donny’s job to ride around Waikiki on a bicycle, preying on tourists in an effort to entice them to join his pub crawl and his ‘booze cruise’. When I told him I hadn’t brought my sea sickness tablets and politely declined to jump on a boat with him, he told me not to worry as he would supply the sea sickness tablets, they’d be in the shots of tequila. Well gee Donny, sounds to me like you’ve got yourself the perfect little date rape scenario. 

“Here, have a tequila shot! Don’t worry about that tablet at the bottom of the glass, it’s just a Kwell, not a roofy or anything like that, by the way, are you single?” 

So having potentially dodged a night in accident and emergency, we headed to Pearl Harbor in a shuttle bus so full I was beginning to envy the spaciousness of a sardine tin. Here we encountered many a character, including John, wearer of toe shoes, and his mother and father from Iowa. Mother Iowa had a special interest in our recycling habits in Australia, and on finding out that we do in fact recycle plastic and cardboard etc, she exclaimed, “We’re all interconnected!” several times, before telling us about her “dear friends” in Sweden who also recycle, so, “we’re all interconnected!”. There were some Canadians on our shuttle bus too, and as fate would have it, Mother Iowa’s compost bin was made in… CANADA! “We’re all interconnected!!!!!!”. 

Our hotel was right on Waikiki Beach, which was pretty hard to handle, and the weather was perfect. After two nights here I was so relaxed and refreshed I was ready to go home, but the holiday had to go on. From Honolulu we flew to LA, where on the flight I had the pleasure of sitting next to Brian the marine-biologist-in-training, who after speaking to me is going to investigate the presence of a wholphin (whale/dolphin hybrid) in Hawaii. A few hours in a hotel room and it was onwards to New York city. 

To be continued.