Thursday, February 18, 2010

Musings From A Washed Up Rockstar #2

I really need to stop updating this blog so much, at least until I get a new pair of glasses. My old ones disappeared mysteriously, and I am getting so many headaches from squinting at a tiny laptop screen all the live long day. However, every now and then, I like to take the opportunity to publicly reminisce about when I was a total rockstar.

The band I was in was never particularly famous. We did a few interviews, got on the radio a bit, and played a bunch of festivals and support slots for significantly more famous bands. Apart from die-hard aficionados of the genre, not many people would have had the slightest clue who we were, apart from maybe a fond recollection of giggling at the pun in our band name, or being hit on by the bass player.

But there was a brief, shining moment when I at least felt totally famous. There was a new year's eve festival one year. Because a bunch of the other bands playing had to leave early to drive to the Peat's Ridge festival (which we had played the previous night), we ended up headlining.

It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The crowd estimates we got from the venue guys were that there was around 1000 people in the audience. When I got on stage, I swear, I nearly wet myself. Literally one thousand screaming music fans were in front of me. We did the midnight countdown live on stage, and then started our set with fireworks going off behind us. It was insane.

"Are you ready for some NOVELTY SKA POP?" 

That should never be a question that gets more than a polite spattering of clapping, but yeah. Cacophonous, tumultuous applause, with a garnish of screaming teens. For a moment I thought I had slipped into an alternate dimension and I was actually onstage with My Chemical Romance, but looking around, it was still the same band with whom I normally played at dive bars to disinterested audiences. Admittedly the audience were all probably very drunk at this stage.

It got considerably more insane when I realised, towards the end of the set, there was a teenage boy in the front row yelling my name. My real name, my actual real first name. I freaked out a little bit, because I couldn't possibly comprehend how anyone in the audience would even know that name.

Now, it turned out that this kid was the younger brother of a girl I knew in highschool, but still, I didn't know HIS name. I got him backstage after the gig, and received the biggest ego trip of my life as this star struck youth ranted about how I was, like, famous now.

And yet, here I am, some years later, back in obscurity. I mean, even deeper obscurity. I am still battling with my parents to get some of my intruments sent over. In the meantime, I will fiddle with an out of tune guitar and write silly songs about the futuristic heartbreak of being dumped for your own clone.

-Smackie Onassis

It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career

Ok, when I was still at uni (before I spectacularly dropped out in the final year of my degree), I was somewhat interested in a career in radio. I ended up not following through with it, due to the fact that I would probably end up a faceless disk jockey in a local commercial station, introducing awful tune after awful tune and probably ultimately hanging myself in a supply closet.

However, I did come very close to doing at least some work at Triple J, which would probably have been pretty excellent. Here is how it happened:

I was at a local bar one night when I spotted a particularly well known personality, who had his own show on 'The J's' at the time. I will give him the code name of 'Chris Taylor from the Chaser'. Admittedly, this is probably the least subtle of my code names so far, being his actual name, but who doesn't love a good name drop.

It was extremely unusual that we would get any even remotely famous people in the pub known as 'The Cambo', famous for its Wednesday night drink specials and propensity towards unbearable screamo bands. After a while of figuring out how I was going to deal with this situation, I approached him.

"Hey, I love your show," I started.

"Thanks very much," he replied, flashing me a grin.

"I'm actually doing some radio journalism courses at uni," I put forward, "I'd love if you could give me some pointers."

So, we started talking. He told me that he could probably get me work experience at Triple J, explaining that they get a lot of applications but that he would make sure to "bump mine through" (to this day I am not sure if he was doing an innuendo. I am absurdly bad at picking up on these things). To make sure this happened, he gave me his home phone number, and later, his mobile number.

I did actually end up speaking to him on the phone a few times, but, sadly, I lost the phone that had his number in it. This was a few years ago, and I never ended up doing that work experience. I am convinced that Scott 'Dools' Dooley has my career, that confusingly attractive bastard*.

I have been considering doing my own show on local community radio, but that depends pretty heavily on me getting my shit together and actually doing something that might benefit my career. We will see what eventuates, I guess.

-Smackie Onassis



*Through questionable science, I have figured out that there are about four categories of people that I sort of automatically develop a crush on. I am not sure if I find Dools attractive because he is actually attractive or because he fits into both the "kinda geeky indie boy" category and the "comedian" category. It's immensely confusing.

Why Is Everyone So Down On Public Transport?

In the course of all my recent (unsolicited) debates, I have found myself arguing quite frequently in favour of the local public transport system. Coming from regional NSW, where the trains are running slower than they were thirty years ago (I am not even making that up) I was surprised that a larger city with a totally decent public transport system would have so many people whining about it.

Meattrain in particular hates buses. He hates them. When he feels like catching public transport to work, he will drive to the tram station and leave his car then, despite the fact that there is a bus that comes to a stop a few blocks away from our house, goes directly to the city, and because it's so close you can get a ticket for half price. We have told him this a few times, I even offered to lend him my multi-trip, but he flat out refuses. Because he hates buses. And, you know it's not impossible that he had some kind of childhood bus trauma. When I was a lass, I lived right next to an ambulance station, and lived in constant fear that I was going to get hit by an ambulance. I think it was mainly the irony I was afraid of.

But, as someone who has at some point in their life been reliant of almost every form of transport (car, motorised scooter, non-motorised scooter*, bicycle, public transport), I have to say, I am a fan of public transport. I mean, it can be a pain in the arse, but so can pretty much everything. Public transport, however, has one particularly fantastic advantage. In a car, you pretty much have to concentrate on the road if you want to avoid Drastic Consequences. But on a bus, your attention is free to wander. I have seen some of the most fantastic things on buses.

On one particular trip, I was gazing out the window and saw just, the best thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Two teenage identical twins with their mother. One was a hipster (indie glasses, messenger bag and all that jazz), the other was a jock (the phrase "popped collar" sums it up for me). I am desperate to make this into a sitcom, or at least a series of sketches. Can you imagine? It would come to a dramatic conclusion when the jock is encouraged to beat up his twin brother for being "a fag", but then he can't do it because of brotherly love. Sensational.

I'm also a particular fan of the ads on public transport. I saw one recently, clearly from at least a decade or so ago, that I thought was great. It featured a line-up of people from various walks of life ("diversity") all putting their handbags, shopping etc on their head. The slogan was "Use your head when taking care of your belongings!" or something along those lines. The problem was, putting your valuables on your head is probably the WORST thing you could do with them. It's going to be uncomfortable, things are going to fall and spill everywhere, people can steal them much more easily, it's generally not a good idea. It made for a very confusing advertisement, but at least I got a chuckle out of it.

There was actually a kid in my high school, let's just call him 'The Busboy', who freakin loved buses. In a very weird way. He spent his free time drawing up proposed changes to current bus routes. He collected time-tables. I seem to remember him celebrating one of his birthdays at the local depot. I haven't seen this guy in a long time, but I can only imagine he is currently enjoying a lucrative career in the public transport industry. All power to you, Busboy.

-Smackie Onassis



*I used to scoot along to the bus stop, go to uni, then scoot from class to class. It was great, and also fulfilled my long-time hobby of being a walking sight gag. Or, scooting sight gag in this case. When I was bored at work, I used to scoot around the shop, casually dismounting when a customer came in and got confused. My boss didn't care because he thought I was great. Also he wasn't there at the time.