| Argh! I be a sickly child! Someone at Uni has given me a bug (namely a vector at Uni called Garfield, who has been gloating all week... and coughing loudly without covering his mouth [he'll get his in the end!]). So here I sit, feverish and blue, with only memories of the past week and all of its glory. Being the lazy, flu-ridden student that I am, I have decided to condense everything into an eclectic, pseudo-po-po-mo list like so: 1. The Floating Masquerade Party Over the Brisvegas River: Nice people, nice alcohol, nice views... nice. I have discovered a funny revelation about male film students and their drinking habits. They drink often, plentiful and openly chat for hours about cameras, shot-types, narrative structures, etc. Now I took along my good friend T, so I had to apologise quite a bit for the conversational topics... even though we both acknowledged that the sight of a grown man dressed as Batman clutching a can of VB and raving about film stock was quite amusing. I also discovered the secret drinking personas of the Norwegian students. Mr A and Mr M both arrived on the South Bank pier promptly at 7pm, their pimp-wear swaying gently with the city breeze. They both carried bunches of flowers and concealed their faces beneath large, butterfly-shaped masks littered with thousands of eclectic feathers. They had already payed a visit to a local backpacker watering-hole. As the party wore on, many people consumed girly vodka drinkies and cans of man fuel, whilst struggling to stay alive. The first death trap was the set of 'stairs' that lead from the boat's bottom floor to the upper viewing deck. Being the girly girls that we are, the majority of the boat's occupants (including T and I), struggled up and down these stairs (which really looked more like a ladder), vodka drinky and corner of skirt/dress in one fist and railing (i.e. the only thing stopping us from plummeting head first below) in the other. The second death trap was the boat's toilet, which would have been ideal if the human body was kneeless/arseless/gutless/armless. Nevertheless, the line-up was long and people looked at the Brisvegas River longingly throughout the night. The highlight of the party was the highly prestigious Best Mask Competition. The finalists consisting of people who have way too much time on their hands... although there were some nice exceptions, including Mr A and Mr M, a guy with a KFC bucket on his head (which has a crazy coincidence later on) and a guy called Cobber. Cobber was a classy man, who spent all night prior to the judging milling around the boat and introducing himself like so: "Hey girls, Merry Christmas! (turning to a guy behind him) Buy these ladies a drink... Heeeeeyyyy... my name's Cobber and I'd just like to let youse know that I am competing to win the best mask. (he then takes off the mask, consisting off two Dominos Pizza student coupons stuck together) You see this, ladies? I cut these eye-holes out myself. I didn't use a hole-punch or anything! All free-hand... and I was drunk! So... remember, lovely laaaaadies... vote Cobber! Merry Christmas! Who are you going to vote for? (waits for us to respond "Cobber", then backs away with his thumbs up, ala 'Lath-Daddy' when he's 'getting down with the kids'). The finalists each had their chance to state their reasons for having the best mask. Everyone was pretty straight forward, until Mr M, our Norwegian friend, grabbed the mike off the MC and started screaming about how much he loves Skippy and Vegemite and Steve Irwin. He even managed a couple of Irwin impersonations, which resonated throughout the boat's shonky PA system at ear-piercing volumes. Unfortunately, this resulted in a record number of laughs, but few votes, so the crown went to our good friend and hero, Cobber. As Cobber departed, he stated something about hoping to win future competitions... perhaps with a new mask. But all wasn't lost for Mr A and Mr M, who wound down the festivities at the end of the cruise by being odd. Whilst Mr A went off to retrieve his vocal cords after losing them somewhere in the Vegas waters, Mr A turned his attention to Garfield, who cradled a single beer for the entire night (!). Leaning dangerously close to Garfield, Mr A slurred something incoherent in his ear and laughed mightily to the heavens. Garfield freaked and told Mr A to feck off a tad. Mr A then retaliated by cheerfully slinking up to Garfield, rubbing his crotch against his knee and biting him rather hard on the ski jacket. After this, I tried to convince T that Mr A and Mr M were not gay, but overt attention seekers... Later, when we exited the boat and were having our final chinwags, Mr A approached Cameraman for Hire (another party patron, who I regard highly), who was sitting on a wall. Mr A then raised a cold can of VB up against Cameraman for Hire's un-expecting crotch quickly and silently... And that's when I gave up trying to debate T in general. 2. TISM @ the Arena (7th Aug 2004): This show was completely GOLD. I implore you to go HERE for a complete gig review, because I have fragmented memories of the night and wouldn't do it justice at all. What I do remember however, was the fact that Nerb and I were up front for the entire night, so I was able to shake hands with Ron Hitler-Barassi and Humphrey B. Flaubert many times, as well as see Les Miserables dance naked for at least two songs (I think that is a record). They performed the majority of my favourites, including '40 Years - Then Death' and 'Root'. I particularly liked it when they played 'Root', because I danced along with them and did the actions like the little fan girl that I am. But the best moment of the concert occurred during the opening minutes of the show, when the band entered to 'Message From A Big Day Out Port-A-Loo'. Ron stepped off the stage and on to the barricade and proceeded to gyrate about three inches away from my face, resulting in many bouts of laughter. I awoke the next day with black knees, a sore throat, the knowledge that the crowd crush was worth it and memories of one of the best gigs I have ever been to. ...and the coincidence with the KFC bucket, you ask? Well, Coxy has taken a nice photo of Ron at the Troccadero TISM gig (as well as a bunch of other lovely pics). This gig was on the same night as the Masquerade Party... 3. I was going to waffle and bitch about the Olympics or something, but I'll leave that for another time. After all, who needs to blog about such topics when we have Roy and HG on the task?
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