Showtime

Where's my assistant?

You. Kid. New guy. Intern. Where you from? Work experience? The label? Forget it, doesn't matter. You want a job? Make yourself useful and get that loud mouth Australian the flick outta my sight. I'm gonna show you how this whole showbiz thing works. Speaking of which. Where's my other guy? Where's the Doctor? Someone get him in here. You don't know the doctor? I don't know how else to describe him. The ethnically ambiguous fellow. Is he Chinese? Maybe. Can someone get him in here? I need to do my meditations. Get the warm and fuzzies down my neck. Get the mindfulness happening. Get back on the level. The three Ems. Meditation. Medication. And? The Doctor's not here? Back at his practice. Back in Sydney. Makes sense. What a beautiful place. Nice little psychiatric practice. Got the ELO on the radio. 1170 on the AM frequency. When I was a kid I thought AM meant morning cause my old man would listen to it first thing in the AM. The news reporter's baritone used to rumble through our house like a bass line. John Logan had the deepest voice on radio. Australia's Barry White. Barry White.

Now I'm all stressed out thinking about Barry White. And this fucken guy in here just now. Loud mouth on him. Wish I was back at my other guy's practice. New guy, you would love this place. It's got the horse paintings in the waiting room. Got the poem the Doctor wrote about sunsets pinned to the wall of his consultation room. Got the 'prams and the 'iums and the beater blockers. Yeah that's my kinda place. The Doc knows how to get me at peak performance. Bring out my butterfly. Who's the butterfly? I'm the butterfly. I'm the beautiful butterfly.

I gotta leak. Someone come with me to the toilet. New guy, that's you. Why? Cause it's the same one as the punters is why. The audience. We gotta share toilets. The venue only has one toilet. So come with me and stand outside the cubicle while I leak. Cause I don't want anyone walking in on me. Like in Brussels. The guy saw me sitting on the toilet. 5 minutes before showtime. Just barged right in. You try going on stage when a whole line of Belgians just seen you in the nude on the can. I gotta sing for these people they want me to void my bowels with them too? Lock the door? There is no lock on the door. Cause of junkies. Cause of rapes. You believe this Roy? I gotta explain everything to this guy. These are small venues we're working here. Just come with me and stand outside the door while I leak. Do that and you won't end up like our last intern. They caught him red handed in a stolen Daewoo with a lap full of dead tropical fish. You like tropical fish? Roy loves tropical fish. Walk with me.

See that's where you're wrong. You don't smell the mic. Kid, you don't even breathe in through your nose. Now, a lotta people are gonna tell you to breathe in through the nose - somethin' to do with avoiding the cold air from agitating your vocal chords. I don't go in for that. On account of what? Come on new guy, think with your nose. On account of the smell. These microphones reek. Like the underbelly of a poultryman. Like your dad's rotten feelings. Like the dormant tonsillitis hiding in the gullet of some support act pigeon. Rule number one: you don't ever smell the mic. The venue's gonna spray it with Febreze but that's about as good as spraying Lynx Phoenix under your arms cause you just ate a kebab. Doesn't stop your date from offering you gum. Matter of fact I bring my own microphone. Every night. No one ever even blew the thing a kiss. That's my mic. Gold too. Or brass, sure. Whatever you wanna call it. I call it good lookin'.

You keeping that guy outta here? That Australian guy. Just walked in here like he owned the shop. I want him gone. Like gone. Like outta the venue. Outta the building. On the bus home. On his smart phone. Refreshing his feed. I don't want him seeing this show. This one's not for him.

How long til show time?

Somebody's gotta do my hips. I gotta align my hips. For my lower back. Where's my guy? My back guy. The chiropractor. Is he Greek? How should I know? What's his ethnicity got to do with it? I don't know where he's from. But he's got soft hands like ones that never picked up a brick. He says I gotta align my hips on account of some trauma I got from when I was fifteen. These things stick like water. The traumas. Stop me from achieving my potential. Give me unproductive and selfish thoughts. Kid, you got a lot to learn. I got ambitions and Dr Bablis doesn't want my traumas stopping me from achieving my goals. So stop thinking about ethnicity and your own small problems and go do a guy a favour. Where is he? He's not here? Back in Sydney. Back in his beautiful Chiropractice. Nice big house in Suburbia. Very homely place. Got the gossip magazines. Acupuncture too. He fixed my premature ejaculation with little needles in my wrists and studs in my ear. So help me align my hips. Just push my legs together and wait for the cracking sound.

New guy. Look sharp. What is this? This a sandwich? Get that thing outta here. I said no sandwiches. No subs. No baguettes. Remember what I said? I said 'baguette about it.' Get this gluten riddled poison platter outta my face before I lose the plot. God damn son of Mitch I said Gluten Free. The whole show is Gluten Free. Free of Gluten. I look like I'm joking? Sit down. I'm gonna give you a science lesson. Believe me, this is probably the most important thing I'm gonna talk to you about today. It's the single top priority I got in this here back stage area. It's to do with the lining of my stomach. The stomach lining. See those hairs on your arm? And your leg? You think that's where the story ends with all that? Hell no. You also got the hairs on the inside of your stomach.

Where's my girl? My sweet beautiful Girl? My dietitian. What skin colour she got? What the hell has that got to do with anything? What am I a racial? All I know is she's got an exotic way of speaking and burns incense. One time she had a painted red dot on her forehead but another time she didn't. She's knowledgable. Get her in here. She knows what I'm talking about. She told me about the stomach hairs. About my energy levels. About my moods. About my gluten allergy. I got it from eating too much Dominos and smoking too many bong pipes when I had the summer of '06 all to myself. Where is she? Roy? I'm starting to think this new guy's got a problem with his world view. Kid, you gotta see past the skin tones. This is the 21st century we're talking about here. Next thing you know you're linking a feller's way of walking with the whole subcontinent.

Let me introduce you to my dietician.

Where's Dr Barri? Back in Sydney? Back at the private health clinic? Makes sense. I know all about the hustle. Gotta gurn to earn. I like that clinic of hers. All the blood tests and stool samples and the 'everything's gonna be just fine.'

Tell this new guy about the hair's Roy. They call em Villi. These little guys number in the bazillions and they digest all the good action that gets you up in the morning. For me they bring me the goodness I need to get up on stage and make a crowd hard and wet. But here's where you and I change trams. My guys don't take to the gluten. Matter of fact, you send a cheeseburger in here and I send it down to my guys? My stomach hairs? You may as well be phoning in some kinda bomb threat to the venue. That's a B-line route to giving my arse the blues. The bubbles. I can't sell tickets with the bubbles. Can't be done. So you take this plate of gluten and you put it in some kinda bin or computer food box or give it to the first on. First ons don't get to have food allergies. I earned this one. I'll take a bowl of special fried rice and an iced-cold coke cut with soda water 50/50.

Who they got out there? I can't see shit. Anyone there? The crowd in yet? New guy, tell Bob the Moose to get my backlight on. Come down shining real nice on me when I hit the stage. Like pow. Some sort of magic act. Make me look like an angel. Like I appeared through the fabric of time. Get my silver suit shining right through to the bar. Everyone's gotta know I'm wearing velvet. Make sure I look like a space cowboy.

And if my hair starts floppin down on the sides you make the signal. Remember the secret signal? It's like the queen's wave but with a little bit of Latin flare. It's for my hair. Cause my hair's gotta stay lookin good. I don't want everyone sayin hey here comes the space cowboy with the floppy hair. That ain't my scene. I take a look in the paper tomorrow and the headline is about my hairs flopping down I'm gonna flip my lid. 'Space cowboy impresses through lacklustre hair situation.' Three and half stars? No sir. We're given em the whole hog tonight. Hair and all.

Matter fact where's my hair guy? The beautiful man. With the beautiful adoptive son. He got a wife? I never asked. None of my business. None of your business either. Maybe he doesn't have a wife. Maybe he's got a husband. You got a problem with that, kid? This guy is the premiere hair guy in all of Oceania and you're asking me about his domestic inclinations? Hell I care? Roy you hearing this? You getting a load of this guy? This guy asking me about people's ethnicities and sexual tendencies? I know right? Friggen racial.

Are kids these days really still walking around wondering about the differences between the races? Get real. We've had multiculturalism for decades now. We all desperately wanna know what happens when you die, and we cook different. There are your differences. Get a grip. Roy, am I gonna have to teach this kid how to see through time or what?

Listen, just leave your traumas at the door and get my hair guy in here pronto. He'll understand. It's me. Al Cam. I'm the next big thing. People gonna wanna get on this float ride it all the way to the front of the Mardi Gras. He'll take care of this hair situation I got here. Put that special organic clay on my dome make the hair stick to it like the hair Legos got. He made up the signal. Gave it that nice flare catches my eye as soon as the mop flops. He's not here? Back at the salon? That makes sense. Work is work. Money is money. What a lovely salon. Nice uninvasive dance music playing. Glass of natural white wine and a plate of olives. Get your hair cut by a wonderful soft man. That's majorly my shit.

Still, a shame though. None of my guys are here. Just me n Roy n Capon. And you. The new guy. You got a whole lotta learning to do pal. About life. About not bringing your traumas into your perspective make everyone around seem smaller than you are. About eating right and staying fit in your body and your mind. About rocking a stage make the ceiling launch sky high. Look at this situation we got. Whole stack load of fans. All walks of life. Generation of kids never even gave a shit if they were a feller or a dame. Backstage security guards practising UFC. Shadow boxing. Seems right to me. Roy doin his calisthenics. Capon on the smart phone conducting business on my behalf. And that friggen useless Australian drinking my whole rider.

Pass me my jacket.

I'm serious kid you got a bent mind. It's all outta shape like you been watching the news too much. You're still seeing what they want you to see. You gotta see the zeros and ones. You're still cheering for your favourite sports team. You gotta see the maths in the system. Come on I'm gonna show you a thing. Come on. On stage.

It's showtime.

And then memories stop forming so well.

I'm sweating already. You can't stop the sweating, and you can't stop the heart rate from increasing. You gotta live with those two things if you want to get on stage. The lights are a low red. The room is full of people but quiet enough for me to hear my own footsteps on the stage as I make my way towards the microphone. Yeah. I sold this whole entire concert hall out. I am the man. Roy is waiting for me, sitting on his stool, holding his saxophone. He smiles. Real ugly crowd tonight, he says. We chuckle together. Knowing that it's a joke. There is no ugly. My small minded, bigoted intern is watching from side of stage. Focussed. He's ambitious and obedient, but really quite racist. I form a mental note to vet any future applications with a tighter net. A racist kid? I say to Roy, off-mic, doesn't make any sense.

I am reminded of the crowd's presence by the collective sound of many people trying to be quiet.

I decide to start with an older number. I use my training in the art of movement to invent a downward spiralling staircase in front of the crowd. Whether or not it is a figment of their imaginations is not a thought I've permitted the audience to have. Some see it in its entirety, as a neon light, hovering above them. Others are within the spiral already. A dullard is looking at his phone and has not witnessed the conjuring. Intrigue suggests that as far as the attentive members of the audience are concerned the staircase I have created is real.

I invite them to follow me as I walk down the stone steps. It is dark but not frighteningly so. Just a staircase. Like an old museum might have, or a lighthouse. There are images that I have created hanging on the wall. Little photos and feeble paintings that I have completed in my spare time and at community arts & crafts workshops. People are warmed by the simplicity of it all. The works are quite charming. I clearly have a natural gift for the visual, and my outlook is portrayed distinctly. The subjects in my photos are basic but the framing is without fault. Fences that glow white across grey fields. Silver huts that burst out of black trees captured in perfect dark. My photos are framed humbly and hang on taught string bound to the wall above.

My sketches are unique. The crowd stop to gather around one work in particular. An older gentlemen bent over a bathtub with his arse hole exposed unwittingly. He is turning back at the viewer with a speech bubble that says 'What the fuck are you looking at you ponce?' He is from another time and the audience understand the piece's value as an artefact.

We travel further down the staircase. The walls are cool and wet now. The light is soft from lamps that have appeared somewhere along the way.

And there are oil paintings. Portraits that I am proud of. One of an esteemed gentlemen in a fashionable suit riding a great horse. He is looking through a pair of binoculars across a wide and barren ridge. The painting is called 'My head shrink, get him in here.'

There is a pale painting of a pudgy man in a lab coat. He is being followed by TV cameras as he rushes into a black luxury SUV. A TV reporter is pointing a microphone at him. She is asking him if there is any scientific evidence that proves that his methods are effective in mental health management. The painting is entitled 'My back guy, the Chiropractor, where is he?'

Then there is a great colourful piece. Its subject is a large woman with proud eyes. She is preparing a large banquet of organic fruits and vegetables. She is focussed on her work. It is of ancient significance. In the background we see a household rubbish bin rammed to the brim. The word gluten is written across it in wet paint. The piece is titled, 'Get this sandwich outta here, and get me the dietician.'

Next, the audience are presented with a large, action scene of an all male daytime orgy. Flexing muscles and sharp elbows mashed together in some great physical celebration. I hear a university aged male say 'hey look there's some cum.' He and his friend laugh a little. The painting is called 'The premiere hair dresser in all of Oceania.'

And, finally, there is a small photo, in portrait, of a petite, but adult, young woman. She is beautiful. She has dyed blonde hair that would roll on forever had she not trimmed it herself to stop at her neck. She has gapped teeth uninhibited by modern orthodontics. She has blue eyes. The audience understand that I love her very deeply. It is a fresh love that feels as though it will extend for some time. I care about her and have not been rendered jealous or tired by other men and time.

The feeling down here is soft. Do you feel it, new guy? I am using my training in the arts of emotive performance to elicit a feeling in the audience.

It is as though a blue, yellow light, natural, breaking the flow of a long conversation between future lovers, is pressing against the window of a small apartment. Un-kissed. Un-fucked. Both comprehending the peaceful control they are somehow exerting. A miracle. A display of what they want to be. A confusing, familiar thing. Conversation. A feeling as though the hairs on our arms and legs and in our lower intestines are swaying gently together in some catastrophic ocean of love.

Let's stay connected like this forever. Flow into my eyes. Past the images reflected off glowing screens. Of flesh toned pistons cranking, wet, into each other. Past the small video of a blade running stilted across a dying lamb. Keep flowing into my eyes. Beyond the shovel slamming hard and fast down onto the piss coated rabbit. Past my blood covered mother crying with me over her shoulder, yelling for an ambulance. Past your mother, divorced. Past your father, dead. You funny small thing. Flow into me forever.