I've moved my blog to this site for a number of reasons. Hopefully it will improve useability, and allow me to focus more on results-based performance of primary and secondary tasks without process inconsistencies affecting output.
Thank you for understanding.
Stephen
Stone cold Circumstances
Thursday, June 28, 2007
It's the little things that say so much...
"You don't even know what music you're going to play, do you?"
"No, I thought I'd hit shuffle on the old iPod and plug it into the stereo."
"Your iPod? Do you even realise what's on there? The music you play tonight will tell her a lot about you. Do you want to leave your character reference up to a random number generator? What if it starts playing those "teach yourself French in the car" lessons you downloaded but are yet to listen to? You'll look like a wanker."
"Maybe I'll crack out a few of my CDs. She has a picture of Peter Doherty on her desktop at work, maybe I'll play some Babyshambles."
"She'll see right through that. A) you called him 'Peter'. B) The last time you were offered speed, you turned it down on the grounds 'I've already lost too many points off my licence'. Granted, it's the only moderately "cool" CD you own, but even then it's only cool in a try-hard "look how many drugs I'm on YOU'RE NOT LOOKING!" kind of way. You'll hit play, she'll start talking about the Libertines and you'll end up looking like a retard."
"Ok, well what about something fun? I've got that old 2pac album in my room…"
"2pac? Are you serious? Remember what happened last time you listened to hip hop? 'How'm I doin? I'm ballin', biatch!' Bloody hell. Irony requires confidence. You're currently having a conversation with yourself and losing. You can't have rap, you know it just makes you all faux-cocky and you'll drop another clanger like the "I'm ballin'" atrocity you unleashed on that poor girl at The Orient."
"We could have a laugh at my Top Gun sound track? That could be a good conversation starter."
"Conversation starter? It'll start a text conversation with her friends under the table teeing up somewhere to go after she leaves your place before you can even plate-up dessert. You haven't had a girl inside these walls for eight months, and you want to point that out to her by playing the soundtrack to the most testosterone-fuelled, cock-rockin' movie ever filmed? Genius. Why don't you just run a Powerpoint of those pictures you took of yourself flexing?"
"Well… maybe something innocuous, you know? Just some background noise. I've got that Forrest Gump soundtrack…"
"How many soundtracks you planning on spinning tonight? Don't associate yourself with a slow-talkin', slow-witted non-threat. You need something that will paper over your glaring personality problems, not provide her with a cue to say: 'that's who he reminds me of.'
"Maybe I could play the radio, but what if one of those erectile dysfunction ads comes on? You know I get awkward around that kind of thing."
"How do you know? Tonight's the closest you've been since to that kind of thing since your 35-year-old cousin sat in your lap at that wedding last year."
"Maybe I won't play anything. It's too difficult."
"And let her listen to the sound of flop-sweat spewing out of your pores? No chance. Play that Crowded House album. Nothing says 'you' like adult contemporary."
"Good idea. Thanks."
"Who are you thanking? I am you, just the part of you that hates you. You probably shouldn't even be talking to me."
"I like the company."
"And that's why we're sleeping alone tonight."
"No, I thought I'd hit shuffle on the old iPod and plug it into the stereo."
"Your iPod? Do you even realise what's on there? The music you play tonight will tell her a lot about you. Do you want to leave your character reference up to a random number generator? What if it starts playing those "teach yourself French in the car" lessons you downloaded but are yet to listen to? You'll look like a wanker."
"Maybe I'll crack out a few of my CDs. She has a picture of Peter Doherty on her desktop at work, maybe I'll play some Babyshambles."
"She'll see right through that. A) you called him 'Peter'. B) The last time you were offered speed, you turned it down on the grounds 'I've already lost too many points off my licence'. Granted, it's the only moderately "cool" CD you own, but even then it's only cool in a try-hard "look how many drugs I'm on YOU'RE NOT LOOKING!" kind of way. You'll hit play, she'll start talking about the Libertines and you'll end up looking like a retard."
"Ok, well what about something fun? I've got that old 2pac album in my room…"
"2pac? Are you serious? Remember what happened last time you listened to hip hop? 'How'm I doin? I'm ballin', biatch!' Bloody hell. Irony requires confidence. You're currently having a conversation with yourself and losing. You can't have rap, you know it just makes you all faux-cocky and you'll drop another clanger like the "I'm ballin'" atrocity you unleashed on that poor girl at The Orient."
"We could have a laugh at my Top Gun sound track? That could be a good conversation starter."
"Conversation starter? It'll start a text conversation with her friends under the table teeing up somewhere to go after she leaves your place before you can even plate-up dessert. You haven't had a girl inside these walls for eight months, and you want to point that out to her by playing the soundtrack to the most testosterone-fuelled, cock-rockin' movie ever filmed? Genius. Why don't you just run a Powerpoint of those pictures you took of yourself flexing?"
"Well… maybe something innocuous, you know? Just some background noise. I've got that Forrest Gump soundtrack…"
"How many soundtracks you planning on spinning tonight? Don't associate yourself with a slow-talkin', slow-witted non-threat. You need something that will paper over your glaring personality problems, not provide her with a cue to say: 'that's who he reminds me of.'
"Maybe I could play the radio, but what if one of those erectile dysfunction ads comes on? You know I get awkward around that kind of thing."
"How do you know? Tonight's the closest you've been since to that kind of thing since your 35-year-old cousin sat in your lap at that wedding last year."
"Maybe I won't play anything. It's too difficult."
"And let her listen to the sound of flop-sweat spewing out of your pores? No chance. Play that Crowded House album. Nothing says 'you' like adult contemporary."
"Good idea. Thanks."
"Who are you thanking? I am you, just the part of you that hates you. You probably shouldn't even be talking to me."
"I like the company."
"And that's why we're sleeping alone tonight."
A bear by any other name...
Byron laughed. He had to. If the laugh had sounded like it should, it would have sounded like compressed air rushing out of the valve of a BMX tyre, probably a Mongoose. There was a lot of pressure inside Byron.
"Yeah, I know they're not really bears, but they make 'em in China, and obviously they don't know that there," Byron said, trying not to scream at the man in his fifties who was currently waving a small stuffed toy koala in his face. The man was wearing a tweed sportscoat over a black t-shirt that had been aggressively tucked into his jeans. The jeans were trying hard, but couldn't quite cover the man's bright white joggers, which were the only part of his outfit more striking than his prematurely silver hair.
"Well, I think it's terrible that you guys misspell the names of these things. I notice one of the erasers over by the Crocodile Dundee hats was also wrong. Where is "News South Wales", I wonder?"
"I'm sorry you're not happy, perhaps there's something..." Byron didn't have time to finish, the man slammed the by now probably perplexed stuffed marsupial (definitely not bear) down on the counter.
"If I wanted to throw money away on rubbish souvenirs I'd buy match programs at football games. All I wanted was a small gift for an international visitor I'm receiving ("That sounds about right" Byron thought, but didn't say- those kind of comments are best said around friends with gay joke clearance) and I come in here and find koala BEARS. Look, it even has "BEAR" embroidered on its little yellow surf lifesaving outfit!" the man said unnecessarily loudly. His shouting pushed Byron over the edge.
"Look mate, I don't make the f---ing souvenirs, I just sell them and try to explain to Chinese people that there isn't a bus from Circular Quay to Uluru, and get patronised by people who forget that I also shop, and am thus not a lesser person than they are. Patronised by people who think that their position on the shop floor relative to mine grants them the right to be complete dickheads. If you wanted a Louis Vuitton embossed leather koala, you should have gone to the QVB. Perhaps G'day Cobber Australian Souvenirs Surry Hills is not the place for you. Perhaps you should get home and run the toothpaste over those runners again mate, seeing as they're clearly your "going out" footwear. It might rain later, so maybe I could lend you some plastic bags to put over them, but you probably wouldn't want them because there's a misplaced apostrophe in the safety warning. Now, unless you're going to buy the koala bear, piss off and go get the wine spritzer you're so clearly desperate to drink before you go home to- I'm going to guess and say the Woolloomoollo wharf, but not the expensive part- and settle down to write a submission to Column 8 aking "what are they thinking down at the souvenir place" that will never be published. The guy who checks the emails will probably just mutter "wanker" under his breath before he double-clicks your night's work out of existence."
Byron slumped back, exhausted, against a display cabinet full of postcards of women in 1995's hottest bikinis saying "G'day from Down Under". The man turned and stormed out of the store. Byron was disappointed because he realised this was probably the only time in his life he'd abuse a customer, and he still had five years of bilious frustration ready to rush out of him like the aforementioned compressed air. Fortunately the man came back later to buy the koala, and Byron abused him again, having spent the intervening two hours coming up with fresh material.
"Yeah, I know they're not really bears, but they make 'em in China, and obviously they don't know that there," Byron said, trying not to scream at the man in his fifties who was currently waving a small stuffed toy koala in his face. The man was wearing a tweed sportscoat over a black t-shirt that had been aggressively tucked into his jeans. The jeans were trying hard, but couldn't quite cover the man's bright white joggers, which were the only part of his outfit more striking than his prematurely silver hair.
"Well, I think it's terrible that you guys misspell the names of these things. I notice one of the erasers over by the Crocodile Dundee hats was also wrong. Where is "News South Wales", I wonder?"
"I'm sorry you're not happy, perhaps there's something..." Byron didn't have time to finish, the man slammed the by now probably perplexed stuffed marsupial (definitely not bear) down on the counter.
"If I wanted to throw money away on rubbish souvenirs I'd buy match programs at football games. All I wanted was a small gift for an international visitor I'm receiving ("That sounds about right" Byron thought, but didn't say- those kind of comments are best said around friends with gay joke clearance) and I come in here and find koala BEARS. Look, it even has "BEAR" embroidered on its little yellow surf lifesaving outfit!" the man said unnecessarily loudly. His shouting pushed Byron over the edge.
"Look mate, I don't make the f---ing souvenirs, I just sell them and try to explain to Chinese people that there isn't a bus from Circular Quay to Uluru, and get patronised by people who forget that I also shop, and am thus not a lesser person than they are. Patronised by people who think that their position on the shop floor relative to mine grants them the right to be complete dickheads. If you wanted a Louis Vuitton embossed leather koala, you should have gone to the QVB. Perhaps G'day Cobber Australian Souvenirs Surry Hills is not the place for you. Perhaps you should get home and run the toothpaste over those runners again mate, seeing as they're clearly your "going out" footwear. It might rain later, so maybe I could lend you some plastic bags to put over them, but you probably wouldn't want them because there's a misplaced apostrophe in the safety warning. Now, unless you're going to buy the koala bear, piss off and go get the wine spritzer you're so clearly desperate to drink before you go home to- I'm going to guess and say the Woolloomoollo wharf, but not the expensive part- and settle down to write a submission to Column 8 aking "what are they thinking down at the souvenir place" that will never be published. The guy who checks the emails will probably just mutter "wanker" under his breath before he double-clicks your night's work out of existence."
Byron slumped back, exhausted, against a display cabinet full of postcards of women in 1995's hottest bikinis saying "G'day from Down Under". The man turned and stormed out of the store. Byron was disappointed because he realised this was probably the only time in his life he'd abuse a customer, and he still had five years of bilious frustration ready to rush out of him like the aforementioned compressed air. Fortunately the man came back later to buy the koala, and Byron abused him again, having spent the intervening two hours coming up with fresh material.
Real living is having shoes that match your couch...
Leah (pronounced 'Lay' for no other reason than her mother didn't want her to have a boring name) was at a loss. Yesterday she had been the world's foremost fashion critic. Today she was on medication and she was a nobody.
"Got to get some smokes and sort this out," she thought to herself as she walked down the street away from the hospital. At least, she thought she had said it to herself. She was in reality talking in a loud and expressionless voice. The startled look of the private school boy walking past should have alerted her to this fact, but it didn't. She walked into a 7-11 and asked the sullen looking teenager behind the counter for a packet of Winfield Charcoals. As the boy turned to the perspex-fronted display case, Leah cast a disapproving eye across his clothes.
"Sorry, I don't want to be a bitch, but you are dressed sooooo badly," she said, having by now lowered her voice and forced a small amount of expression into it, hence the extended 'o' in 'so'. "I mean, you're making three statements at once, and they're all pathetic. Is it emo, scenester, or indie rock that you're after? I certainly can't tell."
7-11 Guy turned from the cigarette stand and gave Leah the most withering look his 16-year-old angst could muster.
"Look, I'm sorry if you don't want to hear it, but if you're going to wear a The Smiths shirt you need to pair it with something better than black slacks and some loafers. I'd suggest perhaps a pair of black skinny leg J. Lindebergs and some '92 Air Jordans, or possibly the '90 Air Max, laces out of course."
7-11 Guy, realising that his intensely emotional gaze was having no effect on the strange woman in the Macquarie University hoodie and grey fleecy tracksuit pants, changed tack.
"Do you want these smokes or not?" he asked, holding the cigarette packet on the palm of his limply held hand in a way that said "I don't care if you die, but if you do, please move out of my direct line of sight."
"Not as much as I want to spend 10 minutes inside your wardrobe planning you some outfits... but yes."
"They're 12 bucks," 7-11 Guy said, now looking past Leah at the drinks fridges.
Leah realised she had no idea what was in her pockets. She had been in hospital for two weeks, and had no idea whose clothes she was wearing. Certainly not hers. (They were hers, but two weeks ago the hoodie was a Hugo Boss short jacket and the trackpants were a D&G shift.) She checked her pockets and found an American Express with her name on it and a $20 note that smelled like someone had vomited Sambuca onto it. She handed over the $20.
"Just promise to think about what I said," she told the guy who liked The Smiths, or at least liked shirts with their visage on it.
"Piss off." he said.
"Idiot" Leah thought as she left the 7-11. "Who turns down fashion advice from..." Leah remembered she wasn't actually a fashion writer, particularly not a famous one. She had quite enjoyed it- the trips to Milan, Paris, New York, cocktails with designers and models. Leah wondered where she had really been during her "trips". (She'd mostly been in the sun room of a heroin addict's two-bedroom terrace tearing pictures of celebrities out of magazines. On her few ventures outside the sunroom she'd thrust the pictures into the faces of passers-by asking "What was she thinking when she left home in that!?!" Very few gave their honest opinion.)
"Well, I was pretty good at fashion writing then, I don't see why I couldn't do it again," she thought to herself, by this time having realised that if she consciously clamped her jaw down she wouldn't say everything she thought. "I'll give Fernando a call, see if he knows anyone." It occurred to Leah that Fernando was probably not real. In fact, very few of her fashion clique probably actually existed. What had the doctor said? Something about the power of the imagination creating pretend worlds blah blah blah. She'd stopped listening by that stage, distracted by his mismatched belt and shoes. "Bugger it then. I'll do it on my own. I've got an Amex and $6. I'll buy a pen and some paper and start writing."
Later that day, having purchased a black pen and a spiral bound notebook, Leah discovered that although her friends and career were imaginary, her credit card debts were all too real. She sat outside the heroin addict's house wondering how she was going to pay off $10,000 in credit without even a fictional salary. The junkie had refused to let her in, but had given her a milk crate to sit on, and maybe later to collect garbage in. She was now down to her last $1.85, and had just three cigarettes left. A passing homeless man aggressively mooched two of those from her, and she was left with a single cigarette. She opened her notebook and decided to write a review of his outfit. After about half an hour she had written "unoriginal and smelly" 17 times and produced a crude drawing of a small hairy dog. "I don't think I could sell this for much," she thought glumly. For the first time in two years the full reality of her situation was sinking in. Leah let her head drop down, her chin resting on her chest. The hard plastic webbing of the milk crate was digging into her buttocks.
A large delivery truck drove up the small lane and stopped oustide the junkie's home. Two large Eastern European men hopped out, with one running around the back to open the truck's the rear roller door. The second man sauntered up to Leah. "With the exception of the French Riviera, men should never be seen in shorts," Leah thought, having not yet totally given up on her fashion career.
"You Leah St John?" the big man asked.
"It's actually pronounced 'Lay'".
"I got couch here for you. You take?"
Leah nodded, slightly confused but feeling like this might be the first piece of good news she received that day. The two men unloaded what was clearly a $10,000 couch off the back of the truck and placed it on the footpath. Signature received, they hopped back into the truck and disappeared down the lane. Leah cast her eye over the couch. She wanted to describe it, but she was still fixated on "smelly and unoriginal", and neither of those adjectives seemed appropriate. The couch was a bold but elegant shade of red, and was so soft Leah wondered if its manufacturers had C-sectioned calves to get such fine leather. The couch's modern lines matched the boldness of its colour. "Sit on me," it seemed to say, "but always remember I'm better than you." Leah sat down on the couch and gathered her feet up under her. Yesterday she had been a famous fashion writer. This morning she was on medication and was a nobody. This afternoon she was a nobody sitting on a credit-bought couch in the late afternoon sun. She pulled out her notebook again and made a small entry:
"Things to do: Buy red handbag and shoes."
"Got to get some smokes and sort this out," she thought to herself as she walked down the street away from the hospital. At least, she thought she had said it to herself. She was in reality talking in a loud and expressionless voice. The startled look of the private school boy walking past should have alerted her to this fact, but it didn't. She walked into a 7-11 and asked the sullen looking teenager behind the counter for a packet of Winfield Charcoals. As the boy turned to the perspex-fronted display case, Leah cast a disapproving eye across his clothes.
"Sorry, I don't want to be a bitch, but you are dressed sooooo badly," she said, having by now lowered her voice and forced a small amount of expression into it, hence the extended 'o' in 'so'. "I mean, you're making three statements at once, and they're all pathetic. Is it emo, scenester, or indie rock that you're after? I certainly can't tell."
7-11 Guy turned from the cigarette stand and gave Leah the most withering look his 16-year-old angst could muster.
"Look, I'm sorry if you don't want to hear it, but if you're going to wear a The Smiths shirt you need to pair it with something better than black slacks and some loafers. I'd suggest perhaps a pair of black skinny leg J. Lindebergs and some '92 Air Jordans, or possibly the '90 Air Max, laces out of course."
7-11 Guy, realising that his intensely emotional gaze was having no effect on the strange woman in the Macquarie University hoodie and grey fleecy tracksuit pants, changed tack.
"Do you want these smokes or not?" he asked, holding the cigarette packet on the palm of his limply held hand in a way that said "I don't care if you die, but if you do, please move out of my direct line of sight."
"Not as much as I want to spend 10 minutes inside your wardrobe planning you some outfits... but yes."
"They're 12 bucks," 7-11 Guy said, now looking past Leah at the drinks fridges.
Leah realised she had no idea what was in her pockets. She had been in hospital for two weeks, and had no idea whose clothes she was wearing. Certainly not hers. (They were hers, but two weeks ago the hoodie was a Hugo Boss short jacket and the trackpants were a D&G shift.) She checked her pockets and found an American Express with her name on it and a $20 note that smelled like someone had vomited Sambuca onto it. She handed over the $20.
"Just promise to think about what I said," she told the guy who liked The Smiths, or at least liked shirts with their visage on it.
"Piss off." he said.
"Idiot" Leah thought as she left the 7-11. "Who turns down fashion advice from..." Leah remembered she wasn't actually a fashion writer, particularly not a famous one. She had quite enjoyed it- the trips to Milan, Paris, New York, cocktails with designers and models. Leah wondered where she had really been during her "trips". (She'd mostly been in the sun room of a heroin addict's two-bedroom terrace tearing pictures of celebrities out of magazines. On her few ventures outside the sunroom she'd thrust the pictures into the faces of passers-by asking "What was she thinking when she left home in that!?!" Very few gave their honest opinion.)
"Well, I was pretty good at fashion writing then, I don't see why I couldn't do it again," she thought to herself, by this time having realised that if she consciously clamped her jaw down she wouldn't say everything she thought. "I'll give Fernando a call, see if he knows anyone." It occurred to Leah that Fernando was probably not real. In fact, very few of her fashion clique probably actually existed. What had the doctor said? Something about the power of the imagination creating pretend worlds blah blah blah. She'd stopped listening by that stage, distracted by his mismatched belt and shoes. "Bugger it then. I'll do it on my own. I've got an Amex and $6. I'll buy a pen and some paper and start writing."
Later that day, having purchased a black pen and a spiral bound notebook, Leah discovered that although her friends and career were imaginary, her credit card debts were all too real. She sat outside the heroin addict's house wondering how she was going to pay off $10,000 in credit without even a fictional salary. The junkie had refused to let her in, but had given her a milk crate to sit on, and maybe later to collect garbage in. She was now down to her last $1.85, and had just three cigarettes left. A passing homeless man aggressively mooched two of those from her, and she was left with a single cigarette. She opened her notebook and decided to write a review of his outfit. After about half an hour she had written "unoriginal and smelly" 17 times and produced a crude drawing of a small hairy dog. "I don't think I could sell this for much," she thought glumly. For the first time in two years the full reality of her situation was sinking in. Leah let her head drop down, her chin resting on her chest. The hard plastic webbing of the milk crate was digging into her buttocks.
A large delivery truck drove up the small lane and stopped oustide the junkie's home. Two large Eastern European men hopped out, with one running around the back to open the truck's the rear roller door. The second man sauntered up to Leah. "With the exception of the French Riviera, men should never be seen in shorts," Leah thought, having not yet totally given up on her fashion career.
"You Leah St John?" the big man asked.
"It's actually pronounced 'Lay'".
"I got couch here for you. You take?"
Leah nodded, slightly confused but feeling like this might be the first piece of good news she received that day. The two men unloaded what was clearly a $10,000 couch off the back of the truck and placed it on the footpath. Signature received, they hopped back into the truck and disappeared down the lane. Leah cast her eye over the couch. She wanted to describe it, but she was still fixated on "smelly and unoriginal", and neither of those adjectives seemed appropriate. The couch was a bold but elegant shade of red, and was so soft Leah wondered if its manufacturers had C-sectioned calves to get such fine leather. The couch's modern lines matched the boldness of its colour. "Sit on me," it seemed to say, "but always remember I'm better than you." Leah sat down on the couch and gathered her feet up under her. Yesterday she had been a famous fashion writer. This morning she was on medication and was a nobody. This afternoon she was a nobody sitting on a credit-bought couch in the late afternoon sun. She pulled out her notebook again and made a small entry:
"Things to do: Buy red handbag and shoes."
And the NRL think they have a problem...
Australia's football stars are out of control!
Headline from smh.com.au 7/6/07 7.20pm
"Bombers kill eight Iraqi police"
Expect heads to roll down at Windy Hill. Sheeds is gonna explode!
Headline from smh.com.au 7/6/07 7.20pm
"Bombers kill eight Iraqi police"
Expect heads to roll down at Windy Hill. Sheeds is gonna explode!
Nothing matters in our private universe...
John took solace in the knowledge that somewhere out there an alternate universe had been created in which he hadn't just said what he had, in fact, just said. He was the science equivalent of a chardonnay socialist, just taking the bits he liked when it suited him- and Tegmark's theory of alternate universes suited him now as he sat at the silent dinner table like a man who had just soiled himself on the train long before he was due to get off. He imagined the informed, impassioned but unmistakably jovial conversation continuing in this parallel world, unhindered by the sheer, blunt stupidity of what he had just blurted out in the heat of the moment. He imagined the evening progressing, and the conversation performing wilder loops and even more thrilling twists as the wine flowed and people relaxed. He imagined the knowing looks his partner would send his way each time he made a brilliant point, or deftly summarised someone's argument in a way that satisfied both parties. His mind conjured up the intensely sensual sights, smells and sounds of the passionate lovemaking that would inevitably follow such a wonderful evening- an evening in which he would have forever won over his partner's friends, leaving them no option but to quietly encourage her to marry him.
The silence continued as John sat at the table, his eyes staring across countless light years at this alternate paradise. Only the tastefully subdued strains of John Mayer's latest offering penetrated the suffocatingly silent stillness that had enveloped the party. Slowly John's gaze drew back across the infinite ripples and swells of spacetime into the tastefully appointed semi-formal dining room. Aware that he had not only pulled the emergency brake on the night's conversation, but had followed it up with roughly two full minutes of starry-eyed silence, he felt it was time to act.
"I'm not saying that all gays are paedoph..."
Somewhere, billions of light years away, in a separate stream of space and time, an alternate version of John shivered as goosebumps ran from the base of his skull to the soles of his feet.
The silence continued as John sat at the table, his eyes staring across countless light years at this alternate paradise. Only the tastefully subdued strains of John Mayer's latest offering penetrated the suffocatingly silent stillness that had enveloped the party. Slowly John's gaze drew back across the infinite ripples and swells of spacetime into the tastefully appointed semi-formal dining room. Aware that he had not only pulled the emergency brake on the night's conversation, but had followed it up with roughly two full minutes of starry-eyed silence, he felt it was time to act.
"I'm not saying that all gays are paedoph..."
Somewhere, billions of light years away, in a separate stream of space and time, an alternate version of John shivered as goosebumps ran from the base of his skull to the soles of his feet.
Murder was da case he lost...
As I entered the office I strode up to the metal pole in the middle of our open-plan workspace to read the roster for the next fortnight. I knew before I even looked that I would have been, without fail, rostered on for both Sundays, taking my unbroken Sunday run to nine.
"It's meant to be one in two, Mahoney," I shouted across the office at the Deputy Editor.
"Swings and roundabouts, Steve, swings and roundabouts," he called as he leant back in his reclining leather office chair, picking at the gold bar securing his tie to his "yes, I am doing well, thanks" blue shirt with white cuffs and collar.
The Sunday rostering system was my chief annoyance at the Advertiser. When I was hired Mahoney told me I would have to work roughly every second Sunday. What he meant was that he would ask the senior staff on Thursdays, then roster the youngest people on after the established journos told him to piss off. He would then restore "balance" to the system by vocally pointing out every time you weren't rostered on for Sunday, as if one weekend off a quarter was an industrial relations breakthrough on par with the 40-hour week.
As I stood quietly fuming in front of the roster, something else caught my eye. In the photographers' section of the new roster, one row consisted almost entirely of question marks. I pondered this irregularity for a second, recalling for some reason Jim Carrey's subtly-nuanced portrayal of The Riddler in the classic Batman Forever, before I realised why there was confusion surrounding this particular photographer and his work availability.
"So Stu fronts the court this week," I asked Dane in a way that made placing a question mark at the end of the sentence almost impossible. I mean, it was definitely a question, but it was very well disguised as a statement- no upward inflexion etc- if you were there there'd be no mistaking it, but on paper it doesn't look right, so that's why I'm telling you. It was a question.
"Yep, he's there on Monday," Dane answered (see?).
"What do you reckon?"
"After all this time, to be honest I'd feel a bit cheated if he didn't go to jail. It'd be like someone telling a joke for two years and then walking away before telling you the punchline," Dane said.
"You blokes talking about Stu?" Les had overheard our conversation and the cruel glint in his eye suggested he had something to say on the topic. He rolled himself across the linoleum floor on his chair to where we were standing. "If that bloke isn't as guilty as sin I'll sit in Rossco's lap for the next week."***
In fact, Stu's guilt was not in doubt. He'd already pleaded guilty to "Inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm With The Intent To Kill" some months earlier, and had been awaiting sentence since then. In fact, ever since I joined the esteemed ranks of the Advertiser, Stu had been awaiting something or other. The Stu Saga had been going for years now, with seemingly interminable delays between each step of the legal process- from the charge, to the committal, to the plea, to the plea bargain, to the sentencing had taken three-and-a-half years.
I first stumbled across the story on my second day in the job, when Dane had asked me which photographer I was going out on a job with. When he heard it was Stu, he just said: "Ask him about when he tried to kill his wife." Needless to say I didn't. Instead we made small talk. I was about to write "the usual small talk", but with Stu, no conversation could be covered by an adjective like "usual". Just 10 minutes into our 70 minute journey, Stu turned to me with a knowing grin and asked:
"A young guy like you must do pretty well with the girls."
"Not really", I said, as I was still only fresh out of boarding school, and thus still wore terror of the opposite sex as cologne.
Stu then fixed me with an altogether different type of grin, one I would become too familiar with over time. With his eyes leering left at me as he drove, his tongue peeked out the right side of his mouth. This was a bad look, not only because it meant you were about to hear a perverted story, but because it highlighted Stu's mole-like looks. He was short, fat and balding, in his mid-30s and wore small round glasses. He would invariably wear a blue felt Akubra to work, in winter accompanied by a long grey trenchcoat, apparently in an attempt to clear up any confusion as to whether you would let your children near him or not.
"Tell you what you should do, mate," he said, his fat little face lighting up, "get on the internet. There are so many sluts around Wagga, you wouldn't believe it. They just sit around their houses on the computer waiting for someone, then they jump on it. Take last night, for example..."
"You can keep it," I thought, but I was well and truly a rabbit in the headlights by this time.
"I had just put the boys to bed, and was on the computer, and I found this skank out at Glenfield (a very young family dominated area of town) and started talking to her. Half an hour later mate, she's at my place going down on me, and before you know it we're doing it. She was an animal, she loved it. Unbelievable."
"Really?" I asked, trying to make my internal horror appear on my face as a look of ice-cool interest.
"Yeah mate, a young bloke like you would kill it," he said in his soft, weaselly voice, followed by a high-pitched giggle.
"What was she like?"
"Like I said mate, an animal..."
"No, I meant, what did she look like."
"Oh, she was a bit heavy mate, but I don't care, you gotta take what you can get, and baby, was I gettin' it."
From there on the rest of the trip consisted of Stu recounting every internet encounter he'd ever had, including a few he would have liked to have had, while I contemplated leaping from a car going 110kmh and whether the likely consequences of such an action would outweigh the costs of hearing stories that included phrases like "her finger up my date". On the ride home Stu put the sex stories away and told me his life story, which mostly dealt with his two young sons, one of whom had Muscular Dystrophy. (This will be the last mention of them, because they make it too depressing. Let's pretend they're not there.) There was no mention of his court case. I had to wait until Car Trip Number Two for that one.
I returned to the office after the first trip a trifle shaken, and reeking of meatballs. The meatball scent was due to the foot-long Subway meatball sub that had been festering in the sun in the back of the car during our two-and-a-bit-hour trip. Stu printed off the photo for the story we had covered and I took it to Juz the chief sub-editor, who wanted to see it.
"Is this it?" she shouted, looking horrified. I hadn't looked at it yet. "Didn't you tell him it was for the front page?" I had. "It's almost kiddie porn!"
The photo was an unnerving close up of a young girl shoving a sauce-covered sausage into her mouth.
"We can't run this on the front page. We'll have to shuffle the stories around. F--- he's useless. He's a f---in' sicko." As you can see, bad language in the workplace transcends gender lines in the news business. I walked back to my desk, feeling a bit annoyed that my story wasn't going to be on the front anymore, just because Stu took a sexually suggestive photo of a young girl.
"How was it?" Dane asked me.
"Interesting," I said, already repressing the memory of Stu telling me how much a certain woman liked a certain thing in a certain place. "What's with the sub in the car?" I asked.
Dane filled me in. Apparently Stu was, like Bake******, a tightarse of Bradmanesque proportions. Caltex was constantly running a "get a free sub with your petrol" deal, and Stu, eyeing off the company's car fleet, insisted on refilling all the cars each day, thereby pocketing up to six feet of free salad roll. He would then take the free rolls home and freeze them as dinner for his kids. I later experienced countless examples of Stu's thriftiness firsthand. Often Stu would arrive to take pictures of an event, say for example a Country Women's Association bake sale, and help himself to scones, pies, slices that had been set aside for judging, or for a lunch that was still hours away. If the aforementioned scones/pies/slices were not out in the open, Stu would just approach the nearest organiser and say something like "I'm from the paper, can I just have some of the food." It could be embarrassing at official functions, when you (as a diligent professional) had organised and set up a photo only to turn around and see that Stu had left to find the free food. "You've got to take what you can get, mate. If they offer it, take as much as you can, and if they don't, take even more," was his mantra, he explained to me on a ride back from a house where Stu had walked up to the family's fridge, opened it, and helped himself. Stu had once taken his stinginess too far and been convicted of insurance fraud, after he pushed his old car into the Murrumbidgee River. Apparently the insurance company sensed something was wrong when the car contained absolutely no personal possessions.
Speaking of convictions, the first time Stu mentioned his ongoing legal troubles was on our second ever car trip together.
"I suppose you've heard about the court case," he asked me.
"Yeah, I've heard a bit," I said, casually trying to sound like I hadn't been asking everyone except him about it all morning.
"It's all bullshit mate. The ex-wife reckons I tried to kill her, but I don't even remember it happening. It's the only time I've ever drunk, and I don't remember any of it, so she's just telling everyone whatever she wants. Reckons I drugged her and locked us in the garage with the car running. So now I've been charged with attempted murder. Bullshit. She's a psycho."
"Really?" I asked.
"Yeah mate, she's a nutcase. If I'd known that I wouldn't have stolen her off my mate."
"What?"
"Yeah, he was hitting her, and I started looking after her, and one thing led to another. She was a maniac mate, but had the best body. A little gymnast. So tidy, you wouldn't believe it. And the sex... Oh, mate, she was a maniac there as well. Get this, I'd wake up in the morning and she'd set the alarm early so we could do it, then on my lunch break we'd do it twice, then at least twice that night, that's about 35-40 times a week mate. She wore me out mate, you see me now, I used to be about 10 kilos lighter, just from all the sex, she was so..." At this point I zoned out, because I could tell, now that his tongue was poking through the corner of his mouth, that I was about to get details I didn't want or need. I zoned back in again at... "so she started telling people I was hitting her, which no one believed, and then she legged it to Tasmania with some bloke and she doesn't want anything to do with the kids, but every now and then she turns up and tries to take them."
About 12 months and 140 sickening internet dalliances after this conversation took place, Stu told us all that he'd pleaded guilty to the lesser charge mentioned at the start of the story, but "only because it means I won't go to jail." At this statement, there were a few disappointed sighs. In the relatively white bread world of journalism, I think quite a few people were looking forward to telling people they knew someone who was in jail. However, Chief Photographer Les made a prediction that day that he would spend the rest of his career reminding people of at the pub.
"He's a f---in' idiot. They've got him. I bet when it's actually sorted out, the fact that he's admitted to doing something will mean they'll jack the charge up on him at the last minute, and he'll be touching his toes in the shower in no time."
I was still arguing with Mahoney about the Sunday roster when we got the call from Stu's mum.
"Five years, 18 months good behaviour. They jacked the charge up on him at the last minute. He'll be touching his toes in the shower in no time."
Dane picked up a permanent marker, walked up to the roster and replaced the question marks with thick black bars.
Sports Editor Les broke the silence.
"Toodle pip, Stu, don't come back."
Epilogue: Two weeks after Stu went to jail, Fred the maintenance guy was cleaning out one of the cars. He popped the glove box open and discovered a three-week old turkey foot-long jammed in it, accompanied by a Caltex fuel voucher.
*** To understand this reference, read the entry titled "I hate the smell of Rossco in the morning...". I've started making these entries intertextual in an attempt to force people into reading them all.
****** See "Can I have another piece of chocolate cake..."
"It's meant to be one in two, Mahoney," I shouted across the office at the Deputy Editor.
"Swings and roundabouts, Steve, swings and roundabouts," he called as he leant back in his reclining leather office chair, picking at the gold bar securing his tie to his "yes, I am doing well, thanks" blue shirt with white cuffs and collar.
The Sunday rostering system was my chief annoyance at the Advertiser. When I was hired Mahoney told me I would have to work roughly every second Sunday. What he meant was that he would ask the senior staff on Thursdays, then roster the youngest people on after the established journos told him to piss off. He would then restore "balance" to the system by vocally pointing out every time you weren't rostered on for Sunday, as if one weekend off a quarter was an industrial relations breakthrough on par with the 40-hour week.
As I stood quietly fuming in front of the roster, something else caught my eye. In the photographers' section of the new roster, one row consisted almost entirely of question marks. I pondered this irregularity for a second, recalling for some reason Jim Carrey's subtly-nuanced portrayal of The Riddler in the classic Batman Forever, before I realised why there was confusion surrounding this particular photographer and his work availability.
"So Stu fronts the court this week," I asked Dane in a way that made placing a question mark at the end of the sentence almost impossible. I mean, it was definitely a question, but it was very well disguised as a statement- no upward inflexion etc- if you were there there'd be no mistaking it, but on paper it doesn't look right, so that's why I'm telling you. It was a question.
"Yep, he's there on Monday," Dane answered (see?).
"What do you reckon?"
"After all this time, to be honest I'd feel a bit cheated if he didn't go to jail. It'd be like someone telling a joke for two years and then walking away before telling you the punchline," Dane said.
"You blokes talking about Stu?" Les had overheard our conversation and the cruel glint in his eye suggested he had something to say on the topic. He rolled himself across the linoleum floor on his chair to where we were standing. "If that bloke isn't as guilty as sin I'll sit in Rossco's lap for the next week."***
In fact, Stu's guilt was not in doubt. He'd already pleaded guilty to "Inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm With The Intent To Kill" some months earlier, and had been awaiting sentence since then. In fact, ever since I joined the esteemed ranks of the Advertiser, Stu had been awaiting something or other. The Stu Saga had been going for years now, with seemingly interminable delays between each step of the legal process- from the charge, to the committal, to the plea, to the plea bargain, to the sentencing had taken three-and-a-half years.
I first stumbled across the story on my second day in the job, when Dane had asked me which photographer I was going out on a job with. When he heard it was Stu, he just said: "Ask him about when he tried to kill his wife." Needless to say I didn't. Instead we made small talk. I was about to write "the usual small talk", but with Stu, no conversation could be covered by an adjective like "usual". Just 10 minutes into our 70 minute journey, Stu turned to me with a knowing grin and asked:
"A young guy like you must do pretty well with the girls."
"Not really", I said, as I was still only fresh out of boarding school, and thus still wore terror of the opposite sex as cologne.
Stu then fixed me with an altogether different type of grin, one I would become too familiar with over time. With his eyes leering left at me as he drove, his tongue peeked out the right side of his mouth. This was a bad look, not only because it meant you were about to hear a perverted story, but because it highlighted Stu's mole-like looks. He was short, fat and balding, in his mid-30s and wore small round glasses. He would invariably wear a blue felt Akubra to work, in winter accompanied by a long grey trenchcoat, apparently in an attempt to clear up any confusion as to whether you would let your children near him or not.
"Tell you what you should do, mate," he said, his fat little face lighting up, "get on the internet. There are so many sluts around Wagga, you wouldn't believe it. They just sit around their houses on the computer waiting for someone, then they jump on it. Take last night, for example..."
"You can keep it," I thought, but I was well and truly a rabbit in the headlights by this time.
"I had just put the boys to bed, and was on the computer, and I found this skank out at Glenfield (a very young family dominated area of town) and started talking to her. Half an hour later mate, she's at my place going down on me, and before you know it we're doing it. She was an animal, she loved it. Unbelievable."
"Really?" I asked, trying to make my internal horror appear on my face as a look of ice-cool interest.
"Yeah mate, a young bloke like you would kill it," he said in his soft, weaselly voice, followed by a high-pitched giggle.
"What was she like?"
"Like I said mate, an animal..."
"No, I meant, what did she look like."
"Oh, she was a bit heavy mate, but I don't care, you gotta take what you can get, and baby, was I gettin' it."
From there on the rest of the trip consisted of Stu recounting every internet encounter he'd ever had, including a few he would have liked to have had, while I contemplated leaping from a car going 110kmh and whether the likely consequences of such an action would outweigh the costs of hearing stories that included phrases like "her finger up my date". On the ride home Stu put the sex stories away and told me his life story, which mostly dealt with his two young sons, one of whom had Muscular Dystrophy. (This will be the last mention of them, because they make it too depressing. Let's pretend they're not there.) There was no mention of his court case. I had to wait until Car Trip Number Two for that one.
I returned to the office after the first trip a trifle shaken, and reeking of meatballs. The meatball scent was due to the foot-long Subway meatball sub that had been festering in the sun in the back of the car during our two-and-a-bit-hour trip. Stu printed off the photo for the story we had covered and I took it to Juz the chief sub-editor, who wanted to see it.
"Is this it?" she shouted, looking horrified. I hadn't looked at it yet. "Didn't you tell him it was for the front page?" I had. "It's almost kiddie porn!"
The photo was an unnerving close up of a young girl shoving a sauce-covered sausage into her mouth.
"We can't run this on the front page. We'll have to shuffle the stories around. F--- he's useless. He's a f---in' sicko." As you can see, bad language in the workplace transcends gender lines in the news business. I walked back to my desk, feeling a bit annoyed that my story wasn't going to be on the front anymore, just because Stu took a sexually suggestive photo of a young girl.
"How was it?" Dane asked me.
"Interesting," I said, already repressing the memory of Stu telling me how much a certain woman liked a certain thing in a certain place. "What's with the sub in the car?" I asked.
Dane filled me in. Apparently Stu was, like Bake******, a tightarse of Bradmanesque proportions. Caltex was constantly running a "get a free sub with your petrol" deal, and Stu, eyeing off the company's car fleet, insisted on refilling all the cars each day, thereby pocketing up to six feet of free salad roll. He would then take the free rolls home and freeze them as dinner for his kids. I later experienced countless examples of Stu's thriftiness firsthand. Often Stu would arrive to take pictures of an event, say for example a Country Women's Association bake sale, and help himself to scones, pies, slices that had been set aside for judging, or for a lunch that was still hours away. If the aforementioned scones/pies/slices were not out in the open, Stu would just approach the nearest organiser and say something like "I'm from the paper, can I just have some of the food." It could be embarrassing at official functions, when you (as a diligent professional) had organised and set up a photo only to turn around and see that Stu had left to find the free food. "You've got to take what you can get, mate. If they offer it, take as much as you can, and if they don't, take even more," was his mantra, he explained to me on a ride back from a house where Stu had walked up to the family's fridge, opened it, and helped himself. Stu had once taken his stinginess too far and been convicted of insurance fraud, after he pushed his old car into the Murrumbidgee River. Apparently the insurance company sensed something was wrong when the car contained absolutely no personal possessions.
Speaking of convictions, the first time Stu mentioned his ongoing legal troubles was on our second ever car trip together.
"I suppose you've heard about the court case," he asked me.
"Yeah, I've heard a bit," I said, casually trying to sound like I hadn't been asking everyone except him about it all morning.
"It's all bullshit mate. The ex-wife reckons I tried to kill her, but I don't even remember it happening. It's the only time I've ever drunk, and I don't remember any of it, so she's just telling everyone whatever she wants. Reckons I drugged her and locked us in the garage with the car running. So now I've been charged with attempted murder. Bullshit. She's a psycho."
"Really?" I asked.
"Yeah mate, she's a nutcase. If I'd known that I wouldn't have stolen her off my mate."
"What?"
"Yeah, he was hitting her, and I started looking after her, and one thing led to another. She was a maniac mate, but had the best body. A little gymnast. So tidy, you wouldn't believe it. And the sex... Oh, mate, she was a maniac there as well. Get this, I'd wake up in the morning and she'd set the alarm early so we could do it, then on my lunch break we'd do it twice, then at least twice that night, that's about 35-40 times a week mate. She wore me out mate, you see me now, I used to be about 10 kilos lighter, just from all the sex, she was so..." At this point I zoned out, because I could tell, now that his tongue was poking through the corner of his mouth, that I was about to get details I didn't want or need. I zoned back in again at... "so she started telling people I was hitting her, which no one believed, and then she legged it to Tasmania with some bloke and she doesn't want anything to do with the kids, but every now and then she turns up and tries to take them."
About 12 months and 140 sickening internet dalliances after this conversation took place, Stu told us all that he'd pleaded guilty to the lesser charge mentioned at the start of the story, but "only because it means I won't go to jail." At this statement, there were a few disappointed sighs. In the relatively white bread world of journalism, I think quite a few people were looking forward to telling people they knew someone who was in jail. However, Chief Photographer Les made a prediction that day that he would spend the rest of his career reminding people of at the pub.
"He's a f---in' idiot. They've got him. I bet when it's actually sorted out, the fact that he's admitted to doing something will mean they'll jack the charge up on him at the last minute, and he'll be touching his toes in the shower in no time."
I was still arguing with Mahoney about the Sunday roster when we got the call from Stu's mum.
"Five years, 18 months good behaviour. They jacked the charge up on him at the last minute. He'll be touching his toes in the shower in no time."
Dane picked up a permanent marker, walked up to the roster and replaced the question marks with thick black bars.
Sports Editor Les broke the silence.
"Toodle pip, Stu, don't come back."
Epilogue: Two weeks after Stu went to jail, Fred the maintenance guy was cleaning out one of the cars. He popped the glove box open and discovered a three-week old turkey foot-long jammed in it, accompanied by a Caltex fuel voucher.
*** To understand this reference, read the entry titled "I hate the smell of Rossco in the morning...". I've started making these entries intertextual in an attempt to force people into reading them all.
****** See "Can I have another piece of chocolate cake..."
Check shirt, check one two...
"Gentlemen, I think you're playing a very dangerous game here," The Group Editor said, peering over his glasses at Dane and I. It was a scene straight out of a bad high school teen romp, with Dane and I playing the jocks getting a rap on the knuckles for a prank we were clearly proud of, and would never feel sorry for. The Group Editor was playing the role of the stern-yet-understanding year advisor. Dane and I were dressed almost identically in blue, short sleeved check shirts, mismatched ties, tan cinos and black shoes. Both of us also had mobile phones clipped to our belts, and Dane had added a gold tie clip to his ensemble, attempting, as always, to outdo me. (It wasn't the first time we had come to work dressed the same. After walking past Lowes one afternoon, we both bought matching $4.95 aqua shirt and tie combos and wore them to work the next day. Dane outdid me then, too, by gelling his hair to his head like a helmet.) The Group Editor smiled at us, highlighting his resemblance to a much paler, much less "thinking woman's sex object" David Koch.
"Don't you worry that he'll notice what's going on?"
"He" was the reason Dane and I were dressed alike. He was the reason the two of us, usually proud of our status as The Young Trendy Ones From Editorial, had turned our backs on bespoke elegance for the day in favour of shirts better suited to lining a picnic basket than wearing to the office.
"Get out of here and just be careful about how far you take this" was TGE's final warning to us, dismissing us back towards the newsroom and the world-changing events we were covering that day.
"Check Shirt Day" had been months in the planning, originating over a few sly lunchtime beers at The Tourist Hotel. It stemmed from a desire to escalate our ongoing, yet covert, war against our office nemesis Paul. Over the last two years, Paul had slowly climbed his way from the level of "you are a minor nuisance to me" to the vertigo-inducing "everything you do, from the way you look to the way you talk to the way you comb your hair makes me want to vomit my internal organs out onto my keyboard" level of annoyingness. It had now reached the point of ridiculousness, probably exactly at the moment Dane and I entered the office wearing check shirts.
I felt I had the most reason to be annoyed by Paul, as he sat directly to my left in our open-plan office. Dane used to sit in my place, but moved the moment another desk became available, and now had the luxury of being outside the "I can hear all Paul's phone conversations" zone. About six months after Check Shirt Day Dane left, and I literally (ie, in the literal sense) leapt over Rosie's desk in my haste to secure his now vacant seat.
"Moving desks mate?" Paul asked.
"Yeah, umm, sitting under the police scanner is getting to me, and I need more room now that I'm Junior Advertiser editor," I answered, semi-truthfully- after all, taking on the Junior meant being entrusted with Dane's manilla folder full of clippings. I genuinely needed more room.
"That's exactly what Dane said when he moved, I don't mind the scanner. It makes me excited you know, like I'm part of the action," he said, little realising that out of everyone in the office, including Rossco, he was the least close to any form of action.
Paul was roughly 24 years old, and began working as a journalist after dropping out of the local Catholic seminary. During his training for the priesthood, he had spent a year in the Vatican. It was this experience that made him decide to leave, claiming he "saw a Cardinal stabbed to death in the street". I was reluctant to believe this claim, perhaps naively assuming that the brutal murder of a Cardinal was likely to be mentioned in at least one newspaper or church bulletin. He was hired by the old editor, another staunch Catholic, under the old hiring system which was based on knowledge of the rosary as opposed to writing ability.
He was a tall, stringy man, still gawky and awkward like a teenager. His resemblance to a teenager was perhaps appropriate, given his situation. Paul still lived with his parents. "So what?" I hear readers cry. Let me respond by saying what made this case particularly pathetic was that he still shared a room with his brother, currently studying Year 9 at one of Wagga's three public high schools. On learning this from Sara, the most attractive woman at the paper, who had recently had to warn Paul to stop telling people she was about to leave her boyfriend to start dating him, a few of Paul's other quirks began to make sense. For example, Paul arrived at work every day with a blue lunch box in a plastic bag. After some aggressive questioning from a belligerent post-four-beer-lunch Whitey, it emerged that yes, Paul's mum did pack him his lunch every day.
"Whitey, my mum packs me a lunch every day," I responded, at that time I was still living with my parents.
"Yeah, but you don't have to have it. If this big girl's blouse didn't get a packed lunch every morning, he'd just sit there and bloody starve to death, wouldn't you Paul?" Whitey shouted, lurching back to his own desk to write some lurid emails to the girls in classifieds.
Paul said nothing in response to Whitey's half-drunk verbal attack. It was obvious he wasn't comfortable dealing with confrontation, an attribute that made him almost useless as a serious journalist, and made Dane suspect he had been bullied constantly during school. Paul was a classic case of someone who desperately wanted to be "one of the boys", but didn't know how. He compensated by often engaging in hyper-macho talk, during which his obvious fear of women would come to the fore. Frequently Paul would finish a conversation with a woman over the phone, during which he would use a sickeningly sweet voice and obsequiously agree with everything they said, only to later slam the phone down, affecting a butch, gravelly voice and saying something along the lines of "what she needs is a good shag to calm her down, hey Lloydy?"
"I think she's about 50 mate, so I don't know if that's really an option," I replied.
"They all love it mate, even at that age, and you can imagine what it'd be like," he said, slapping the back of his right hand onto the palm of his left- a gesture that I'm sure had Freud clawing at the lid of his coffin to analyse.
I let my imagination run wild at the prospect of Paul, who was so obviously a virgin, having sex with a 50 year old woman. For days I couldn't shake the image of Paul standing, dressed in one piece neck-to-toe underclothes, sucking his thumb while a naked Camilla Parker-Bowles smoked a cigarette in a single bed next to another bed containing his sleeping 14 year old brother.
Misogyny aside, Paul's phone calls were a constant souce of irritation. Usually conducted at 1500 decibels, Paul would make most of his calls standing up, pacing aroud his desk, pausing every few paces to look around and make sure at least one person was listening in on how important his call, and consequently he, was. These looks were invariably accompanied by a large flourish and a removal of his glasses, which he would then wave around like Churchill's cigar for the rest of the conversation. The call was usually wrapped up with Paul promising to give the person "a tinkle" (that's right, he'd give them a piss) in the next few days. This process was the same whether the call was conducted on his desk phone or his mobile, the only difference being that he would stand for the whole mobile conversation, because he'd have to get up to unclip it from his belt.
But time to return to Check Shirt Day.
Dane and I both started work at 9am on Check Shirt Day, with Paul rostered on to start at ten. The tension was as palpable as Rossco's stench as the big hand moved towards 12. At 9.55am, Paul strode into the office with his lolling, almost John Cleese silly-walk style gait, wearing a blue check shirt carefully matched to a jet black skinny tie (secured by a gold tie clip [damn]) on a platform of baggy tan cinos held up with a brown belt carefully selected to match what were quite obviously his old chunky-soled black Bata school shoes. Completing the ensemble, Paul had carefully parted his thin brown hair on the left, presumably with the comb that was peeking out over the top of his shirt pocket. He approached his desk with a stern seriousness, removing his round rim glasses to look me directly in the eye and ask his usual "any messages?" I answered, as always, in the negative.
"That's funny, I was expecting a whole pile of angry messages after yesterday's shitfight," he said, grinning and wobbling his head from side to side in what was clearly a calculated attempt to make me crash tackle him. The "shitfight" he was referring to was a local council story of little to no importance that he had spent the whole day beating up before writing his usual insipid "impartiality is a synonym for boring" style. Paul hated women, but loved his stories. I would spend most working days with my hand clasped over my left ear trying to drown out the sound of Paul bragging over the phone to people about how big a "shitfight" he was involved in that particular day. Quite often this bragging would involve him spruiking his opinion on the story to the people actually involved in it, a habit he seemed to think fit perfectly well with the impartial stance we were theoretically trying to maintain. One classic example was a high-profile case in Wagga where a well-known criminal was beaten to "within an inch of his life" (the magistrate's words) by local police who later destroyed evidence to conceal the bashing. The case took about two years to unravel- two years Paul spent on the phone to various local councillors, police and the victim's family explaining how the police could never have done it and how the victim was a scumbag and deserved even if he did get bashed. You'll notice how I mentioned above that he was saying this to the victim's family as well. (As an aside, two police were eventually sacked and faced criminal charges over the bashing, while another was demoted for having the crime scene professionally cleaned.)
Paul's take on this story reflected another of his quirks. He was convinced that because he spoke to the police and the court staff at least twice a week, that meant they were friends. The rest of us were aware that we at the Advertiser enjoyed, at best, a frosty relationship with the local police. Paul, on the other hand, could often be heard speaking in outrageously familiar terms with senior officers (everything from "how's that wife of yours", to "spent the weekend in Canberra, myself", and "we should get together and have a beer and sort this all out") and frequently referred to the top ranking officers in the regions as My Mate (insert first name of officer here). This was a great source of amusement to Dane and I, who often fielded calls from members of the My Mate club who were "returning a call from that Paul dickhead".
We spent the whole of the morning waiting for Paul to notice we were deliberately mocking him using the medium of fashion. At about 1.45pm, Paul looked up, cracked a big grin and said:
"Hang on, we should start a blue shirt club today, we're all wearing them."
That was it. One sentence. Instead of being an outlet, Check Shirt Day had developed into another reason to despise Paul. Dane and I looked at each other in disgust, both realising that we'd already had our lunch break and would have to spend the rest of the day being silently ridiculed by our check shirts and our ridiculous ties.
Epilogue: Shortly before I left the Advertiser, Paul went on a holiday to the Gold Coast. Rumours circulated following his return that he had met a girl up there. I quizzed him about it, and he had in fact met a young lady, a registered nurse, who on the strength of their week together, was now moving to Wagga to live closer to him. This precipitated Paul making three or four calls a day to the girl, who he exclusively referred to as (I kid you not) My Little Nursie (the one-piece underwear is back in my mind). About six months after I left the paper, I received word that Paul and MLN had married, and Paul had moved on to a regional weekly in Queensland, to continue his unique brand of infuriating good humour mixed with mysogyny.
"Don't you worry that he'll notice what's going on?"
"He" was the reason Dane and I were dressed alike. He was the reason the two of us, usually proud of our status as The Young Trendy Ones From Editorial, had turned our backs on bespoke elegance for the day in favour of shirts better suited to lining a picnic basket than wearing to the office.
"Get out of here and just be careful about how far you take this" was TGE's final warning to us, dismissing us back towards the newsroom and the world-changing events we were covering that day.
"Check Shirt Day" had been months in the planning, originating over a few sly lunchtime beers at The Tourist Hotel. It stemmed from a desire to escalate our ongoing, yet covert, war against our office nemesis Paul. Over the last two years, Paul had slowly climbed his way from the level of "you are a minor nuisance to me" to the vertigo-inducing "everything you do, from the way you look to the way you talk to the way you comb your hair makes me want to vomit my internal organs out onto my keyboard" level of annoyingness. It had now reached the point of ridiculousness, probably exactly at the moment Dane and I entered the office wearing check shirts.
I felt I had the most reason to be annoyed by Paul, as he sat directly to my left in our open-plan office. Dane used to sit in my place, but moved the moment another desk became available, and now had the luxury of being outside the "I can hear all Paul's phone conversations" zone. About six months after Check Shirt Day Dane left, and I literally (ie, in the literal sense) leapt over Rosie's desk in my haste to secure his now vacant seat.
"Moving desks mate?" Paul asked.
"Yeah, umm, sitting under the police scanner is getting to me, and I need more room now that I'm Junior Advertiser editor," I answered, semi-truthfully- after all, taking on the Junior meant being entrusted with Dane's manilla folder full of clippings. I genuinely needed more room.
"That's exactly what Dane said when he moved, I don't mind the scanner. It makes me excited you know, like I'm part of the action," he said, little realising that out of everyone in the office, including Rossco, he was the least close to any form of action.
Paul was roughly 24 years old, and began working as a journalist after dropping out of the local Catholic seminary. During his training for the priesthood, he had spent a year in the Vatican. It was this experience that made him decide to leave, claiming he "saw a Cardinal stabbed to death in the street". I was reluctant to believe this claim, perhaps naively assuming that the brutal murder of a Cardinal was likely to be mentioned in at least one newspaper or church bulletin. He was hired by the old editor, another staunch Catholic, under the old hiring system which was based on knowledge of the rosary as opposed to writing ability.
He was a tall, stringy man, still gawky and awkward like a teenager. His resemblance to a teenager was perhaps appropriate, given his situation. Paul still lived with his parents. "So what?" I hear readers cry. Let me respond by saying what made this case particularly pathetic was that he still shared a room with his brother, currently studying Year 9 at one of Wagga's three public high schools. On learning this from Sara, the most attractive woman at the paper, who had recently had to warn Paul to stop telling people she was about to leave her boyfriend to start dating him, a few of Paul's other quirks began to make sense. For example, Paul arrived at work every day with a blue lunch box in a plastic bag. After some aggressive questioning from a belligerent post-four-beer-lunch Whitey, it emerged that yes, Paul's mum did pack him his lunch every day.
"Whitey, my mum packs me a lunch every day," I responded, at that time I was still living with my parents.
"Yeah, but you don't have to have it. If this big girl's blouse didn't get a packed lunch every morning, he'd just sit there and bloody starve to death, wouldn't you Paul?" Whitey shouted, lurching back to his own desk to write some lurid emails to the girls in classifieds.
Paul said nothing in response to Whitey's half-drunk verbal attack. It was obvious he wasn't comfortable dealing with confrontation, an attribute that made him almost useless as a serious journalist, and made Dane suspect he had been bullied constantly during school. Paul was a classic case of someone who desperately wanted to be "one of the boys", but didn't know how. He compensated by often engaging in hyper-macho talk, during which his obvious fear of women would come to the fore. Frequently Paul would finish a conversation with a woman over the phone, during which he would use a sickeningly sweet voice and obsequiously agree with everything they said, only to later slam the phone down, affecting a butch, gravelly voice and saying something along the lines of "what she needs is a good shag to calm her down, hey Lloydy?"
"I think she's about 50 mate, so I don't know if that's really an option," I replied.
"They all love it mate, even at that age, and you can imagine what it'd be like," he said, slapping the back of his right hand onto the palm of his left- a gesture that I'm sure had Freud clawing at the lid of his coffin to analyse.
I let my imagination run wild at the prospect of Paul, who was so obviously a virgin, having sex with a 50 year old woman. For days I couldn't shake the image of Paul standing, dressed in one piece neck-to-toe underclothes, sucking his thumb while a naked Camilla Parker-Bowles smoked a cigarette in a single bed next to another bed containing his sleeping 14 year old brother.
Misogyny aside, Paul's phone calls were a constant souce of irritation. Usually conducted at 1500 decibels, Paul would make most of his calls standing up, pacing aroud his desk, pausing every few paces to look around and make sure at least one person was listening in on how important his call, and consequently he, was. These looks were invariably accompanied by a large flourish and a removal of his glasses, which he would then wave around like Churchill's cigar for the rest of the conversation. The call was usually wrapped up with Paul promising to give the person "a tinkle" (that's right, he'd give them a piss) in the next few days. This process was the same whether the call was conducted on his desk phone or his mobile, the only difference being that he would stand for the whole mobile conversation, because he'd have to get up to unclip it from his belt.
But time to return to Check Shirt Day.
Dane and I both started work at 9am on Check Shirt Day, with Paul rostered on to start at ten. The tension was as palpable as Rossco's stench as the big hand moved towards 12. At 9.55am, Paul strode into the office with his lolling, almost John Cleese silly-walk style gait, wearing a blue check shirt carefully matched to a jet black skinny tie (secured by a gold tie clip [damn]) on a platform of baggy tan cinos held up with a brown belt carefully selected to match what were quite obviously his old chunky-soled black Bata school shoes. Completing the ensemble, Paul had carefully parted his thin brown hair on the left, presumably with the comb that was peeking out over the top of his shirt pocket. He approached his desk with a stern seriousness, removing his round rim glasses to look me directly in the eye and ask his usual "any messages?" I answered, as always, in the negative.
"That's funny, I was expecting a whole pile of angry messages after yesterday's shitfight," he said, grinning and wobbling his head from side to side in what was clearly a calculated attempt to make me crash tackle him. The "shitfight" he was referring to was a local council story of little to no importance that he had spent the whole day beating up before writing his usual insipid "impartiality is a synonym for boring" style. Paul hated women, but loved his stories. I would spend most working days with my hand clasped over my left ear trying to drown out the sound of Paul bragging over the phone to people about how big a "shitfight" he was involved in that particular day. Quite often this bragging would involve him spruiking his opinion on the story to the people actually involved in it, a habit he seemed to think fit perfectly well with the impartial stance we were theoretically trying to maintain. One classic example was a high-profile case in Wagga where a well-known criminal was beaten to "within an inch of his life" (the magistrate's words) by local police who later destroyed evidence to conceal the bashing. The case took about two years to unravel- two years Paul spent on the phone to various local councillors, police and the victim's family explaining how the police could never have done it and how the victim was a scumbag and deserved even if he did get bashed. You'll notice how I mentioned above that he was saying this to the victim's family as well. (As an aside, two police were eventually sacked and faced criminal charges over the bashing, while another was demoted for having the crime scene professionally cleaned.)
Paul's take on this story reflected another of his quirks. He was convinced that because he spoke to the police and the court staff at least twice a week, that meant they were friends. The rest of us were aware that we at the Advertiser enjoyed, at best, a frosty relationship with the local police. Paul, on the other hand, could often be heard speaking in outrageously familiar terms with senior officers (everything from "how's that wife of yours", to "spent the weekend in Canberra, myself", and "we should get together and have a beer and sort this all out") and frequently referred to the top ranking officers in the regions as My Mate (insert first name of officer here). This was a great source of amusement to Dane and I, who often fielded calls from members of the My Mate club who were "returning a call from that Paul dickhead".
We spent the whole of the morning waiting for Paul to notice we were deliberately mocking him using the medium of fashion. At about 1.45pm, Paul looked up, cracked a big grin and said:
"Hang on, we should start a blue shirt club today, we're all wearing them."
That was it. One sentence. Instead of being an outlet, Check Shirt Day had developed into another reason to despise Paul. Dane and I looked at each other in disgust, both realising that we'd already had our lunch break and would have to spend the rest of the day being silently ridiculed by our check shirts and our ridiculous ties.
Epilogue: Shortly before I left the Advertiser, Paul went on a holiday to the Gold Coast. Rumours circulated following his return that he had met a girl up there. I quizzed him about it, and he had in fact met a young lady, a registered nurse, who on the strength of their week together, was now moving to Wagga to live closer to him. This precipitated Paul making three or four calls a day to the girl, who he exclusively referred to as (I kid you not) My Little Nursie (the one-piece underwear is back in my mind). About six months after I left the paper, I received word that Paul and MLN had married, and Paul had moved on to a regional weekly in Queensland, to continue his unique brand of infuriating good humour mixed with mysogyny.
I hate the smell of Rossco in the morning...
I saw him at the top of the stairs, and realised there was one thing I hadn't told the new work experience girl about the office. She was an old school friend of mine studying journalism who was visiting the Daily Advertiser for a short internship I had organised. She was staying at my house during her fortnight at the paper, so the night before I had talked her through all the quirks and characters of the office and the job, but with one glaring omission. The Glaring Omission was now hovering at the top of the stairs, obviously bewildered by the sight of an attractive 21 year old woman in what I considered an "asset maximising" (I overheard a group of the more unattractive women in the office later calling it "slutty") skirt.
"Haugch, Haugch!" the Glaring Omission said, by way of introducing himself to the new face in the office. The noise was halfway between a cough and a moan of ecstasy.
"You- you could say beauty and the beast, haugch haugch," it said.
"Thanks Rossco, this is Karina, the new work experience girl. Karina, this is Rossco," I said, hurriedly trying to move past Rossco into the safety of the corridor.
"Hello, Rossco," Karina said in a voice that she obviously reserved for toddlers and crazy old men. "Nice to meet you."
"I say, I say, there's a horse racing in Werribee this afternoon named after you, you know. Race four, number seven, Elegant Lines."
"Thanks Rossco," I said, seconds too late to stop him saying that but hopefully early enough to stop him saying...
"I didn't realise it was my birthday today, but here's my present coming right up the stairs, beautifully wrapped"... saying that. Bugger.
"That's nice, you're very sweet," Karina said, still using her "here's a sticker for being such a good little boy" voice.
"Not as sweet as some around here. Did you know that this strapping gentleman plays ruck for Collingullie first grade? Best in the Farrer League they're saying (I actually played second grade, so it was unlikely they were saying this at all)."
"Thanks Rossco, I've got to get Karina to the editor's office if she's going to get started doing all my work for me. See you later mate."
I hurried Karina down the corridor towards the editorial department, silently cursing myself for not warning her about Ross.
Ross stank. That's the only polite way I can put it. He haunted the editorial department of the DA like that really smelly ghost from Ghostbusters, I can't remember what its name was or whether it was from GBI or GBII, it's probably not important. He was a shambolic planet surrounded by a gaseous atmosphere made up mostly of BO and methane. The source of this special atmosphere, under which no life flourished, was his once-blue business shirt, which was now badly faded and streaked with yellow stains usually reserved for underarm areas but which had now spread to encompass the collar, back and cuffs. Rossco wore this shirt every single day of the year. How do I know that? Because Rossco came to work every single day of the year (excepting December 26 and 27 as his "mate on the gate" let him in to the Boxing Day Test every year, but he'd pop in to make sure the office was ok on the afternoon of the 27th). He checked in every morning at around 7.30 (8am on Sundays) and pulled his computer's power cord out of the wall at 6pm (except Thursdays, when he left at 2pm to do his banking). For this reason I, and everyone else in the office, had become intimately acquainted with Rossco's blue shirt and the eye-watering funk it produced. The sports journos, who had the misfortune of sharing their cluster of desks with Rossco, would argue each morning about where the smell fit on a scale of one to ten. It was common to be greeted with a quick "smell factor eight today" from Les the sports editor as you walked to your desk in the morning.
But to describe Rossco just in terms of his smell would be like describing the Mona Lisa by talking about how it felt to the touch. Rossco's appearance was just as striking as his unique musk. Of indeterminate age, probably somewhere between 55 and 85, Rossco was a model of poor health. Thick, sagging lumps of skin hung under his eyes and around his mouth, framing his yellow decaying teeth and equally yellow dim eyes. He was well over six feet tall, with a mop of wavy, ash white hair. Rossco wore his hair unusually long for a man of his age, and for good reason. By far his most prominent feature was a fleshy protrusion from the centre of his forehead known in the office as "the knob". Usually Rossco's fringe would be brushed down over it, but by mid-to-late afternoon, "the knob" could usually be seen poking through its hairy curtain. When deep in thought, Rossco could be found slumped low in his office chair, chin resting on his chest, one hand resting on his stomach while he absent-mindedly stroked "the knob" with a long, bony finger.
As Karina and I walked down the corridor I, for the millionth time, explained Rossco's history and his position in the company. This story had originally been told to me by Les- the chief photographer not the sports editor- when I was still a fresh-faced cadet of 17. I'll recount it in his words, because he knew more about it than I did:
"Rossco? What a f---in' character. They talk about bringing this paper up to an international standard, but then you walk through the door and that bastard's there, reading the international news wire and talking endlessly about share prices. You know he lives in a motel? Has done for at least 10 years. Room One, the Park Motel, opposite Bolton Park. A f---in' motel. Obviously they don't have a laundry service, have you smelled him? Course you have, otherwise you wouldn't be askin'. Anyway, he's worked here for 30-odd years, but he just got more and more crazy over the years, started making stories up totally, printing confidential minutes to meetings no one cares about, s--- like that. So anyway, they sacked him about seven years ago, but he just kept showing up. They sacked him on the Friday, and he was there on Saturday, and Sunday... just kept turning up. Can you believe that? Course you can, you've met him. Eventually they had him barred from the premises, and he started just sitting in his car in the car park. 24- hours-a-f---in'-day. Just sat there. Not eating, not drinking, not causing a scene, just sittin' there. So eventually they took pity on him and hired him back on just enough cash to keep him alive. He'd be on less than you [ie, <$9.80 an hour], I reckon."
"What's his story? Why does he live in a hotel?"
"Well, he used to be a bit of a drinker I think. He was the president of the Riverina Australian Rules Football Club for a while- don't ever call it the Rules Club in front of him either, unless you want an hour long lecture about how he would never have let that happen under his presidency- but it went s---house when he was running it, and eventually there was a boardroom spill and he got axed. He's never forgiven them for it, particularly because they've been so successful recently. He drank pretty hard after that I think. He's got two daughters, but I don't think he ever sees them. Just a bit of a lonely case, mate. You know he's technically on holidays at the moment?"
It was true. Because Rossco came to work every day, and filled out his timesheets to that effect, he had over the course of 30 years acquired some 135 weeks of annual leave, earning him the distinction of being the only employee singled out by name in the company's annual report. To protect themselves against a potential six-figure payout should Rossco decide to leave, the number-crunchers decided to enforce some compulsory holiday time. Despite this, Rossco turned up to work without fail, and took a year's holiday sitting at his desk. When questioned, Ross would get slightly cranky and mutter "I'll take my holidays when I'm good and ready, not like the rest of you bloody bludgers."
I finished the explanation just as Karina and I reached the editorial department.
"Smell factor nine today, Steve," Les said, standing on Rossco's chair, furiously wiping his feet on it. It was a sports department tradition.
"Yeah, I know. He threw himself at Karina as we came up the stairs."
"Really. I'm sorry to hear that. What do you think of the great man, Karina?," Les asked, hopping down from Rossco's chair, kicking it over in the process.
"He seems lovely. I like older men."
"Bloody hell, you'll soon change your mind on that."
I sat down at my desk and found a handwritten note with a story clipping stapled to it. As I read the note, long tendrils of foul air wrapped around my throat, threatening to choke me.
"Acgghh, I see you've got my note, I thought that story might interest you," Rossco said. "I think Brian's about to tip a bucket on the lot of them, and let me tell you I think after it's all over there won't be too many left standing, ho-ho, my word no."
"It interested me yesterday when I wrote the story Rossco."
I was in the middle of covering a protracted battle over the future of the Wagga Leagues Club, which was busy going tits-up while the board pretended everything was ok. Being a story about a registered club, Rossco was all over it like Schapelle Corby's fingerprints on a Glad bag. I constantly had to intercept Rossco's blathering, stream of consciousness articles before they reached the sub-editors' desk to prevent the robot-like subs from placing them in the paper as if they weren't fiction. Rossco's love of the club circuit (he referred to himself as "clubs reporter", as if that was a category that required a full-time, dedicated journalist) meant I was subjected to daily conversations mostly consisting of veiled statements about his mate Brian (club president) "tipping a bucket" on unspecified parties.
"I wish you'd tip a bucket on yourself, Rossco, you f---in' stink mate," Whitey said from across the office.
"Don't you start with me, you bloody bludger, or I'll be straight in to Mr Gorrell's (former Advertiser general manager, 10 years retired) office to let him know about a certain person's work habits."
"Me? You f---ckin' do nothing you stupid old c---. You walk around here talking s--- all day, then you go home to your hotel room and the little boys."
"Don't you bring the little boys into this," Rossco said cheekily, picking up a strand of a long running "joke" with Whitey in which Rossco alluded to being a paedophile.
At that moment Rossco's phone rang, and he staggered across the office to his desk.
"Hello? Hello? (loudly) Oh there's no one bloody there. Bloody mobile phones," he said, while Les turned purple at his desk, having played Round 458 of his favourite game- The Calling Rossco's Phone While He's Away From His Desk And Then Hanging Up So He Starts Talking About Mobile Phones Extravaganza.
"They should be banned, shouldn't they Rossco? Mobile phones?" he said, through the tears.
"Too right they should," Rossco said, interspersing his comments with a huge phlegmy snort.
"Bloody things never bloody work, leaving a man sitting like a dill on the end of a bloody dead line," he said as Les fell off his chair laughing.
Later in the working day, Karina and I were having lunch at the pub with most of the sports journos and a few of the general news team. Whitey decided to play one of his favourite Rossco games. Placing his mobile on loudspeaker, he called the sportsdesk.
"Ross Ingram."
"Yes hello, I wanted to speak to Whitey."
"He's not here, he's never here, he's a bloody bludger."
"What about Les?"
"No. He's bludging too."
"Steve Lloyd?"
"No, I keep telling you. They're a pack of bloody bludgers. Useless."
"It's Whitey here Rossco, who the f--- do you think you are?"
"Don't you swear at me, you bloody bludger, or Mr Gorrell will hear about it."
"Mr Gorrell's been gone for a decade Rossco. A fuckin' decade. He's not the f---in' boss any more."
"Well it's bloody news to me... beep.... beep... beep... beep."
I couldn't help but laugh later when I returned to the office to find a postcard on my desk, in Les's handwriting. One side had a crude drawing of the office floorplan, with a big X over Rossco's desk. The reverse side read:
"Dear Bloody Bludger,
Holiday's going good as gold. Wish you were here,
Rossco."
Epilogue: At one point one of the sports journos ran a sweep on how or when Rossco would die. Most money was put down on him being found, slumped over the international news wire, one finger on "the knob". For a further outlay you could bet on how long it took before anyone noticed he was dead. 24 hours was the most popular choice.
"Haugch, Haugch!" the Glaring Omission said, by way of introducing himself to the new face in the office. The noise was halfway between a cough and a moan of ecstasy.
"You- you could say beauty and the beast, haugch haugch," it said.
"Thanks Rossco, this is Karina, the new work experience girl. Karina, this is Rossco," I said, hurriedly trying to move past Rossco into the safety of the corridor.
"Hello, Rossco," Karina said in a voice that she obviously reserved for toddlers and crazy old men. "Nice to meet you."
"I say, I say, there's a horse racing in Werribee this afternoon named after you, you know. Race four, number seven, Elegant Lines."
"Thanks Rossco," I said, seconds too late to stop him saying that but hopefully early enough to stop him saying...
"I didn't realise it was my birthday today, but here's my present coming right up the stairs, beautifully wrapped"... saying that. Bugger.
"That's nice, you're very sweet," Karina said, still using her "here's a sticker for being such a good little boy" voice.
"Not as sweet as some around here. Did you know that this strapping gentleman plays ruck for Collingullie first grade? Best in the Farrer League they're saying (I actually played second grade, so it was unlikely they were saying this at all)."
"Thanks Rossco, I've got to get Karina to the editor's office if she's going to get started doing all my work for me. See you later mate."
I hurried Karina down the corridor towards the editorial department, silently cursing myself for not warning her about Ross.
Ross stank. That's the only polite way I can put it. He haunted the editorial department of the DA like that really smelly ghost from Ghostbusters, I can't remember what its name was or whether it was from GBI or GBII, it's probably not important. He was a shambolic planet surrounded by a gaseous atmosphere made up mostly of BO and methane. The source of this special atmosphere, under which no life flourished, was his once-blue business shirt, which was now badly faded and streaked with yellow stains usually reserved for underarm areas but which had now spread to encompass the collar, back and cuffs. Rossco wore this shirt every single day of the year. How do I know that? Because Rossco came to work every single day of the year (excepting December 26 and 27 as his "mate on the gate" let him in to the Boxing Day Test every year, but he'd pop in to make sure the office was ok on the afternoon of the 27th). He checked in every morning at around 7.30 (8am on Sundays) and pulled his computer's power cord out of the wall at 6pm (except Thursdays, when he left at 2pm to do his banking). For this reason I, and everyone else in the office, had become intimately acquainted with Rossco's blue shirt and the eye-watering funk it produced. The sports journos, who had the misfortune of sharing their cluster of desks with Rossco, would argue each morning about where the smell fit on a scale of one to ten. It was common to be greeted with a quick "smell factor eight today" from Les the sports editor as you walked to your desk in the morning.
But to describe Rossco just in terms of his smell would be like describing the Mona Lisa by talking about how it felt to the touch. Rossco's appearance was just as striking as his unique musk. Of indeterminate age, probably somewhere between 55 and 85, Rossco was a model of poor health. Thick, sagging lumps of skin hung under his eyes and around his mouth, framing his yellow decaying teeth and equally yellow dim eyes. He was well over six feet tall, with a mop of wavy, ash white hair. Rossco wore his hair unusually long for a man of his age, and for good reason. By far his most prominent feature was a fleshy protrusion from the centre of his forehead known in the office as "the knob". Usually Rossco's fringe would be brushed down over it, but by mid-to-late afternoon, "the knob" could usually be seen poking through its hairy curtain. When deep in thought, Rossco could be found slumped low in his office chair, chin resting on his chest, one hand resting on his stomach while he absent-mindedly stroked "the knob" with a long, bony finger.
As Karina and I walked down the corridor I, for the millionth time, explained Rossco's history and his position in the company. This story had originally been told to me by Les- the chief photographer not the sports editor- when I was still a fresh-faced cadet of 17. I'll recount it in his words, because he knew more about it than I did:
"Rossco? What a f---in' character. They talk about bringing this paper up to an international standard, but then you walk through the door and that bastard's there, reading the international news wire and talking endlessly about share prices. You know he lives in a motel? Has done for at least 10 years. Room One, the Park Motel, opposite Bolton Park. A f---in' motel. Obviously they don't have a laundry service, have you smelled him? Course you have, otherwise you wouldn't be askin'. Anyway, he's worked here for 30-odd years, but he just got more and more crazy over the years, started making stories up totally, printing confidential minutes to meetings no one cares about, s--- like that. So anyway, they sacked him about seven years ago, but he just kept showing up. They sacked him on the Friday, and he was there on Saturday, and Sunday... just kept turning up. Can you believe that? Course you can, you've met him. Eventually they had him barred from the premises, and he started just sitting in his car in the car park. 24- hours-a-f---in'-day. Just sat there. Not eating, not drinking, not causing a scene, just sittin' there. So eventually they took pity on him and hired him back on just enough cash to keep him alive. He'd be on less than you [ie, <$9.80 an hour], I reckon."
"What's his story? Why does he live in a hotel?"
"Well, he used to be a bit of a drinker I think. He was the president of the Riverina Australian Rules Football Club for a while- don't ever call it the Rules Club in front of him either, unless you want an hour long lecture about how he would never have let that happen under his presidency- but it went s---house when he was running it, and eventually there was a boardroom spill and he got axed. He's never forgiven them for it, particularly because they've been so successful recently. He drank pretty hard after that I think. He's got two daughters, but I don't think he ever sees them. Just a bit of a lonely case, mate. You know he's technically on holidays at the moment?"
It was true. Because Rossco came to work every day, and filled out his timesheets to that effect, he had over the course of 30 years acquired some 135 weeks of annual leave, earning him the distinction of being the only employee singled out by name in the company's annual report. To protect themselves against a potential six-figure payout should Rossco decide to leave, the number-crunchers decided to enforce some compulsory holiday time. Despite this, Rossco turned up to work without fail, and took a year's holiday sitting at his desk. When questioned, Ross would get slightly cranky and mutter "I'll take my holidays when I'm good and ready, not like the rest of you bloody bludgers."
I finished the explanation just as Karina and I reached the editorial department.
"Smell factor nine today, Steve," Les said, standing on Rossco's chair, furiously wiping his feet on it. It was a sports department tradition.
"Yeah, I know. He threw himself at Karina as we came up the stairs."
"Really. I'm sorry to hear that. What do you think of the great man, Karina?," Les asked, hopping down from Rossco's chair, kicking it over in the process.
"He seems lovely. I like older men."
"Bloody hell, you'll soon change your mind on that."
I sat down at my desk and found a handwritten note with a story clipping stapled to it. As I read the note, long tendrils of foul air wrapped around my throat, threatening to choke me.
"Acgghh, I see you've got my note, I thought that story might interest you," Rossco said. "I think Brian's about to tip a bucket on the lot of them, and let me tell you I think after it's all over there won't be too many left standing, ho-ho, my word no."
"It interested me yesterday when I wrote the story Rossco."
I was in the middle of covering a protracted battle over the future of the Wagga Leagues Club, which was busy going tits-up while the board pretended everything was ok. Being a story about a registered club, Rossco was all over it like Schapelle Corby's fingerprints on a Glad bag. I constantly had to intercept Rossco's blathering, stream of consciousness articles before they reached the sub-editors' desk to prevent the robot-like subs from placing them in the paper as if they weren't fiction. Rossco's love of the club circuit (he referred to himself as "clubs reporter", as if that was a category that required a full-time, dedicated journalist) meant I was subjected to daily conversations mostly consisting of veiled statements about his mate Brian (club president) "tipping a bucket" on unspecified parties.
"I wish you'd tip a bucket on yourself, Rossco, you f---in' stink mate," Whitey said from across the office.
"Don't you start with me, you bloody bludger, or I'll be straight in to Mr Gorrell's (former Advertiser general manager, 10 years retired) office to let him know about a certain person's work habits."
"Me? You f---ckin' do nothing you stupid old c---. You walk around here talking s--- all day, then you go home to your hotel room and the little boys."
"Don't you bring the little boys into this," Rossco said cheekily, picking up a strand of a long running "joke" with Whitey in which Rossco alluded to being a paedophile.
At that moment Rossco's phone rang, and he staggered across the office to his desk.
"Hello? Hello? (loudly) Oh there's no one bloody there. Bloody mobile phones," he said, while Les turned purple at his desk, having played Round 458 of his favourite game- The Calling Rossco's Phone While He's Away From His Desk And Then Hanging Up So He Starts Talking About Mobile Phones Extravaganza.
"They should be banned, shouldn't they Rossco? Mobile phones?" he said, through the tears.
"Too right they should," Rossco said, interspersing his comments with a huge phlegmy snort.
"Bloody things never bloody work, leaving a man sitting like a dill on the end of a bloody dead line," he said as Les fell off his chair laughing.
Later in the working day, Karina and I were having lunch at the pub with most of the sports journos and a few of the general news team. Whitey decided to play one of his favourite Rossco games. Placing his mobile on loudspeaker, he called the sportsdesk.
"Ross Ingram."
"Yes hello, I wanted to speak to Whitey."
"He's not here, he's never here, he's a bloody bludger."
"What about Les?"
"No. He's bludging too."
"Steve Lloyd?"
"No, I keep telling you. They're a pack of bloody bludgers. Useless."
"It's Whitey here Rossco, who the f--- do you think you are?"
"Don't you swear at me, you bloody bludger, or Mr Gorrell will hear about it."
"Mr Gorrell's been gone for a decade Rossco. A fuckin' decade. He's not the f---in' boss any more."
"Well it's bloody news to me... beep.... beep... beep... beep."
I couldn't help but laugh later when I returned to the office to find a postcard on my desk, in Les's handwriting. One side had a crude drawing of the office floorplan, with a big X over Rossco's desk. The reverse side read:
"Dear Bloody Bludger,
Holiday's going good as gold. Wish you were here,
Rossco."
Epilogue: At one point one of the sports journos ran a sweep on how or when Rossco would die. Most money was put down on him being found, slumped over the international news wire, one finger on "the knob". For a further outlay you could bet on how long it took before anyone noticed he was dead. 24 hours was the most popular choice.
Can I have another piece of chocolate cake...
After roughly six months working in the general news desk at the Wagga Daily Advertiser, it was decided I would trade places with the other first year cadet and try my hand in the sports department. This involved packing up all my things (Inventory: one (1) notepad and two (2) black Bic (tm) biros) and moving across a walkway into the corner of what would be described in an American sitcom as "the bullpen". We called it a room. I was reasonably excited to get away from general news for a while, as I had grown tired of police rounds and "pic stories" and was keen to tear into regional lawn bowls reports and Leeton 3rd grade cricket results.
I was given a desk in the darkest corner of the sports section, facing the back wall of the office. The desk backed directly onto another, which meant my view of the bare red brick wall was obstructed by the balding head of 30-year Advertiser veteran Peter Baker.
"Why you sitting there, Lloydy?" Bake asked me, two days after I'd begun sitting directly in his line of sight.
"I've swapped places with the Goonman, Bake."
Bake had been working at the Advertiser for 33 years. He was a short, washed out man with completely white hair and a resigned look that indicated his favourite radio band was AM (My frst impression turned out to be right. I later learned he had asked to have the CD player removed from a new car he was buying because he only listened to the ABC). He spoke with an upward inflexion, turning every phrase into a question. His absent minded mumbling form of delivery also made it difficult to ascertain when he was speaking to you, or someone twenty metres behind you, because the volume of his voice never rose above a level that would be considered appropriate in a courtroom during a particularly tense sexual assault trial. Fifteen years ago Bake had been the sports editor, but was shunted in favour of Les, a journalist from the recently defunct Sydney Daily Mirror. It was on that day, as a thirty-something former sports editor with a potentially big future ahead of him, that people said Bake's will to live left him. This set a precedent, and his wife also left him shortly after and Bake began wandering the corridors of the Daily Advertiser like a ghost.
This backstory was told to me by Whitey, the racing reporter, a devil-may-care twenty-something bachelor being played by a man with artificially chestnut hair in his late-thirties.
"He's not there, mate," he said, tapping himself on the temple and pulling away a slightly dye-stained finger, "he's a f---ing moron."
Whitey didn't lower his voice to deliver this assessment, clearly unconcerned as to whether Bake heard him or not. On cue, Bake's head popped out from behind his computer monitor, his eyes framed in a pair of thick brown rimmed spectacles of the kind you see Indian government officials wearing in news reports.
"What was that Whitey?" he asked, apparently being roused out of his catatonic state by the mention of his name.
"I was just telling Lloydy that you're a f---ing moron. Dead wood. A waste of space. You sit there and you do nothing all day, mate. You look like you're just waiting to die. In fact, why don't you Bake, have you thought about it?"
"Not really," Bake answered, without a hint of irony. Rather than weathering the storm of abuse, or ignoring it, he seemed to exist in a parallel dimension where he could occasionally hear other people talking, and see them move, but only as one would observe actors on a television screen. For Bake, the rest of the world and the people in it were just a television playing in the background for company.
This imperviousness to abuse only riled Whitey more. Whitey (essentially a class bully except much older and much shouldknowbetterer) wanted a reaction, and failing to get it continued to bait Bake until he himself was so furious he left the office and didn't return for the rest of the day. Not long after he left, Bake approached the sports editor Les and mumbled something about going home and finishing his stories tomorrow.
"You can't Bake, it's a daily newspaper. Write the f---ing stories," Les responded, removing his glasses in order to let nothing obstruct the flow of contempt from his eyes.
"Oh, righto," mumbled, shuffling off in the direction of the kitchen. Four hours later, it was clear Bake wasn't coming back, and we finished his stories for him.
"That's why I f---in' hate this f---in' job Lloydy," Les said to me as we wrote Bake's stories for him, "I've got a bloke here for 33 years who was sports editor for 10 years and when it's my days off I have to make a second year cadet the editor because he's f---in' useless, and so's that Whitey dickhead."
Over the next few weeks I spent less time learning the art of sports writing (essentially an exercise in creating stories almost infinitely dense with cliches) and more time observing Bake. He was interesting material, particularly as I could only ever observe what he was like at work. Because Bake's time at work mostly consisted of lunch breaks and trips to watch entire games of cricket in far off towns, this only presented me with small vignettes of what I was sure was an almost heroically dull and desperately meaningless story punctuated with deep thoughts like: "Terrorists could bomb the Marketplace (Wagga's main shopping centre). What if that happened? Where would I do my shopping?".
I often noticed that Bake had wet hair on the mornings he actually came into the office. After asking around I discovered that in the deep dark recesses of the print hall there was a shower Bake used after his morning bike ride to work. Les told me that one day Linda from printing walked into the shower room to find Bake standing completely naked outside the shower.
"I suppose you're wondering what I'm doing," he said to Linda.
"No. Not really." was her response.
Eventually he told me himself, in an almost-conspiratorial manner, where to find the shower if I wanted to save myself some money on my water bill. This was symptomatic of something else I'd noticed about Bake. He was a massive tightarse. Whitey told me on good authority (he should know, his work output was only marginally higher than Bake's and others told me he was benefitting in almost exactly the same way) that despite being benched as sports editor 15 years ago, Bake never got a pay cut. Factoring in (sadly no longer) regular pay increases, Whitey estimated Bake was on "about $85,000 a year, can you f---in' believe that c--- gets paid that much to sit on his arse?" Despite That C---'s apparently large pay packet, Bake was obsessed with money. One afternoon I sat down at my desk with a sandwich.
"What's that, Lloydy?"
"It's a sandwich, Bake."
"How much did it cost?"
"I dunno, about four bucks..."
"Where'd you get it?"
"Down the road, Bake."
"Is it good? That's pretty good for four bucks. Where'd you get it?"
"Down th..." etc etc etc.
The only times I saw Bake truly animated was when a communal cake was cracked out for someone's birthday. As "Happy Birthday To You" began echoing around the office, cries of "whose cake's that?" and "whose birthday is it?", and "where'd they get the cake?" would emanate from Bake's corner of the office. Any leftovers would be wrapped in tissues and taken home.
My time in the sports department coincided with a momentous upheaval in Bake's otherwise comfortable rut. It all happened one morning when I was doing a "special report" (code for "tie the cadet up for a day while we do the important stories") on local sporting clubs and needed a contact for the Ganmain Bowling Club. Les told me Bake would know someone to talk to. Bake gave me a contact name, and I placed the following call:
"Hello Mrs Jones, my name's Stephen Lloyd, I'm calling from the Daily Advertiser. I'm doing a story on the bowling club and I was wondering if your husband George was still club president."
"George died about 10 years ago. I'm sorry. I don't know who would have told you he was still club president."
"Oh...ok. Sorry to bother you."
I looked around my computer monitor at Bake, who was sitting with his hands in his lap, staring blankly at the screen.
"Bake, George Jones is dead."
"What? What did he die of? Did we run anything in the paper? I didn't see it."
"It was 10 years ago Bake."
"Oh."
After hearing this news, Bake reverted to his reverie, appearing lost in his thoughts. After a while he stood up, looking at no one in particular and said:
"I don't want to work today. I'm going home. I'm retiring."
Les, without looking up from his desk was the only one to respond, saying "righto".
Bake walked into the editor's office, then shuffled out of the building.
Les swivelled around on his chair to face me and said "he hasn't written any stories today, has he? Just like that c--- to walk out without doing anything. See ya later Bake. It hasn't been a pleasure working with you, don't come back."
The next day as I walked down the long corridor towards the editorial department I was stopped by Les, who was grinning cheekily.
"Guess who's here."
"I dunno, Les."
"George F---in' Costanza," he said, making reference to a Seinfeld episode where George resigned, changed his mind and kept coming to work. "Bake's just sitting at his desk, hasn't said a f---in' word to anyone. He's just carrying on as normal."
This arrangement continued for two weeks before Whitey asked: "What the f--- are you still doing here, Bake?"
"I changed my mind," Bake answered, as if saying that would completely end the discussion.
"Well, you are a f---in' idiot aren't you," Whitey said, only half under his breath as he turned back towards the softcore porn film he was playing on his computer.
Unfortunately, two months after his phony retirement, Bake really retired. Our times in the sports department ended on the same day. I went back to general news, and Bake went to an afternoon tea held in his honour. Everyone stuffed as much food into their mouths as possible (after all, journalism is a low-paid game, unless you're Bake or Whitey), and stood in silence as Bake, previously the most expressionless man outside of Easter Island, broke down and cried all through his farewell speech. The awkward silence was eventually destroyed by a comment from the back corner of the room, which could only have come from Whitey's lips: "Jesus F---in' Christ, what a f---in' carry on. Just piss off."
Epilogue: I later bumped into Bake at the local shops, dressed in what looked like his old work clothes, topped off with a filthy Greg Chappell cricket hat. When I asked him what he'd been doing, he replied: "Nothing."
I was given a desk in the darkest corner of the sports section, facing the back wall of the office. The desk backed directly onto another, which meant my view of the bare red brick wall was obstructed by the balding head of 30-year Advertiser veteran Peter Baker.
"Why you sitting there, Lloydy?" Bake asked me, two days after I'd begun sitting directly in his line of sight.
"I've swapped places with the Goonman, Bake."
Bake had been working at the Advertiser for 33 years. He was a short, washed out man with completely white hair and a resigned look that indicated his favourite radio band was AM (My frst impression turned out to be right. I later learned he had asked to have the CD player removed from a new car he was buying because he only listened to the ABC). He spoke with an upward inflexion, turning every phrase into a question. His absent minded mumbling form of delivery also made it difficult to ascertain when he was speaking to you, or someone twenty metres behind you, because the volume of his voice never rose above a level that would be considered appropriate in a courtroom during a particularly tense sexual assault trial. Fifteen years ago Bake had been the sports editor, but was shunted in favour of Les, a journalist from the recently defunct Sydney Daily Mirror. It was on that day, as a thirty-something former sports editor with a potentially big future ahead of him, that people said Bake's will to live left him. This set a precedent, and his wife also left him shortly after and Bake began wandering the corridors of the Daily Advertiser like a ghost.
This backstory was told to me by Whitey, the racing reporter, a devil-may-care twenty-something bachelor being played by a man with artificially chestnut hair in his late-thirties.
"He's not there, mate," he said, tapping himself on the temple and pulling away a slightly dye-stained finger, "he's a f---ing moron."
Whitey didn't lower his voice to deliver this assessment, clearly unconcerned as to whether Bake heard him or not. On cue, Bake's head popped out from behind his computer monitor, his eyes framed in a pair of thick brown rimmed spectacles of the kind you see Indian government officials wearing in news reports.
"What was that Whitey?" he asked, apparently being roused out of his catatonic state by the mention of his name.
"I was just telling Lloydy that you're a f---ing moron. Dead wood. A waste of space. You sit there and you do nothing all day, mate. You look like you're just waiting to die. In fact, why don't you Bake, have you thought about it?"
"Not really," Bake answered, without a hint of irony. Rather than weathering the storm of abuse, or ignoring it, he seemed to exist in a parallel dimension where he could occasionally hear other people talking, and see them move, but only as one would observe actors on a television screen. For Bake, the rest of the world and the people in it were just a television playing in the background for company.
This imperviousness to abuse only riled Whitey more. Whitey (essentially a class bully except much older and much shouldknowbetterer) wanted a reaction, and failing to get it continued to bait Bake until he himself was so furious he left the office and didn't return for the rest of the day. Not long after he left, Bake approached the sports editor Les and mumbled something about going home and finishing his stories tomorrow.
"You can't Bake, it's a daily newspaper. Write the f---ing stories," Les responded, removing his glasses in order to let nothing obstruct the flow of contempt from his eyes.
"Oh, righto," mumbled, shuffling off in the direction of the kitchen. Four hours later, it was clear Bake wasn't coming back, and we finished his stories for him.
"That's why I f---in' hate this f---in' job Lloydy," Les said to me as we wrote Bake's stories for him, "I've got a bloke here for 33 years who was sports editor for 10 years and when it's my days off I have to make a second year cadet the editor because he's f---in' useless, and so's that Whitey dickhead."
Over the next few weeks I spent less time learning the art of sports writing (essentially an exercise in creating stories almost infinitely dense with cliches) and more time observing Bake. He was interesting material, particularly as I could only ever observe what he was like at work. Because Bake's time at work mostly consisted of lunch breaks and trips to watch entire games of cricket in far off towns, this only presented me with small vignettes of what I was sure was an almost heroically dull and desperately meaningless story punctuated with deep thoughts like: "Terrorists could bomb the Marketplace (Wagga's main shopping centre). What if that happened? Where would I do my shopping?".
I often noticed that Bake had wet hair on the mornings he actually came into the office. After asking around I discovered that in the deep dark recesses of the print hall there was a shower Bake used after his morning bike ride to work. Les told me that one day Linda from printing walked into the shower room to find Bake standing completely naked outside the shower.
"I suppose you're wondering what I'm doing," he said to Linda.
"No. Not really." was her response.
Eventually he told me himself, in an almost-conspiratorial manner, where to find the shower if I wanted to save myself some money on my water bill. This was symptomatic of something else I'd noticed about Bake. He was a massive tightarse. Whitey told me on good authority (he should know, his work output was only marginally higher than Bake's and others told me he was benefitting in almost exactly the same way) that despite being benched as sports editor 15 years ago, Bake never got a pay cut. Factoring in (sadly no longer) regular pay increases, Whitey estimated Bake was on "about $85,000 a year, can you f---in' believe that c--- gets paid that much to sit on his arse?" Despite That C---'s apparently large pay packet, Bake was obsessed with money. One afternoon I sat down at my desk with a sandwich.
"What's that, Lloydy?"
"It's a sandwich, Bake."
"How much did it cost?"
"I dunno, about four bucks..."
"Where'd you get it?"
"Down the road, Bake."
"Is it good? That's pretty good for four bucks. Where'd you get it?"
"Down th..." etc etc etc.
The only times I saw Bake truly animated was when a communal cake was cracked out for someone's birthday. As "Happy Birthday To You" began echoing around the office, cries of "whose cake's that?" and "whose birthday is it?", and "where'd they get the cake?" would emanate from Bake's corner of the office. Any leftovers would be wrapped in tissues and taken home.
My time in the sports department coincided with a momentous upheaval in Bake's otherwise comfortable rut. It all happened one morning when I was doing a "special report" (code for "tie the cadet up for a day while we do the important stories") on local sporting clubs and needed a contact for the Ganmain Bowling Club. Les told me Bake would know someone to talk to. Bake gave me a contact name, and I placed the following call:
"Hello Mrs Jones, my name's Stephen Lloyd, I'm calling from the Daily Advertiser. I'm doing a story on the bowling club and I was wondering if your husband George was still club president."
"George died about 10 years ago. I'm sorry. I don't know who would have told you he was still club president."
"Oh...ok. Sorry to bother you."
I looked around my computer monitor at Bake, who was sitting with his hands in his lap, staring blankly at the screen.
"Bake, George Jones is dead."
"What? What did he die of? Did we run anything in the paper? I didn't see it."
"It was 10 years ago Bake."
"Oh."
After hearing this news, Bake reverted to his reverie, appearing lost in his thoughts. After a while he stood up, looking at no one in particular and said:
"I don't want to work today. I'm going home. I'm retiring."
Les, without looking up from his desk was the only one to respond, saying "righto".
Bake walked into the editor's office, then shuffled out of the building.
Les swivelled around on his chair to face me and said "he hasn't written any stories today, has he? Just like that c--- to walk out without doing anything. See ya later Bake. It hasn't been a pleasure working with you, don't come back."
The next day as I walked down the long corridor towards the editorial department I was stopped by Les, who was grinning cheekily.
"Guess who's here."
"I dunno, Les."
"George F---in' Costanza," he said, making reference to a Seinfeld episode where George resigned, changed his mind and kept coming to work. "Bake's just sitting at his desk, hasn't said a f---in' word to anyone. He's just carrying on as normal."
This arrangement continued for two weeks before Whitey asked: "What the f--- are you still doing here, Bake?"
"I changed my mind," Bake answered, as if saying that would completely end the discussion.
"Well, you are a f---in' idiot aren't you," Whitey said, only half under his breath as he turned back towards the softcore porn film he was playing on his computer.
Unfortunately, two months after his phony retirement, Bake really retired. Our times in the sports department ended on the same day. I went back to general news, and Bake went to an afternoon tea held in his honour. Everyone stuffed as much food into their mouths as possible (after all, journalism is a low-paid game, unless you're Bake or Whitey), and stood in silence as Bake, previously the most expressionless man outside of Easter Island, broke down and cried all through his farewell speech. The awkward silence was eventually destroyed by a comment from the back corner of the room, which could only have come from Whitey's lips: "Jesus F---in' Christ, what a f---in' carry on. Just piss off."
Epilogue: I later bumped into Bake at the local shops, dressed in what looked like his old work clothes, topped off with a filthy Greg Chappell cricket hat. When I asked him what he'd been doing, he replied: "Nothing."
Surely "boutique" is a euphemism...
I've been put off blogging for a while, after I re-read my last post [This post was considered too lame to be worthy of transfer to this new blog. See it now at www.myspace.com/petersbrother] in the cold light of day, and with a few hours of sleep under my belt. Very ordinary and just a little bit "wtf?". I believe I described Nina as a girl with auburn hair and sun dresses, as well as at times making reference to breastfeeding, flotsam and jetsam and other hideously pretentious things of that nature. As an interesting sidenote, Jason Newsted (second bass player from Metallica) played in a band called Flotsam, which later eveolved into a band called Jetsam. Anyway, moral of the story is, I'm sorry. I will try to make amends now.
To fill you in, dear blog consumer, about my recent activities: I have recently started working at the Castlereagh Boutique Hotel, doing two 3.30-11.30pm shifts and two 11.30pm-7.30am shifts per week. This has taught me two things. 1- Hotels are creepy at night. 2-It's hard to stay awake 'til 7.30am after a big Sunday lunch and a couple of sly beers.
I am currently living at the Ross-Edwards family estate in Pymble, rocking out to the sounds of 15yo Pymble Ladies College gossip (gozzip?) emanating from James' little sister Annie (hi Annie!). Also spend much of my time there marvelling at the pure lethargy of Pubes' lifestyle, shaking my head at Peach's colossal WoW (World of Warcraft) intake, and trying to stop Mrs R-E from ironing my shirts. Good times. Some days I come home and my bed has been made. This afternoon it appeared that my room had been cleaned as well. Awesome.
I went to my second live show for the year the other night (two already with one on the way!) at the Mean Fiddler. Took in the Violent Femmes in Kellyville/Rouse Hill's finest venue. I'm a little bit ashamed to admit that the highlight of the evening came after the Femmes finished when the DJ played a set that went as follows: Holy Grail/Blaze of Glory/Land Down Under/Thriller/etc etc etc. Freaked in a totally non-ironic way with O'Doyle sweating the place up next to me. For the record, the Femmes were ok, but their lead singer appeared to be none too thrilled about playing a one-thirds full barnhouse in Kellyville. Blister in the Sun was ok, in case you were wondering.
Well, it's 3.30am, so just another four hours 'til I can go sleep on Rossy's couch. Can't wait.
To fill you in, dear blog consumer, about my recent activities: I have recently started working at the Castlereagh Boutique Hotel, doing two 3.30-11.30pm shifts and two 11.30pm-7.30am shifts per week. This has taught me two things. 1- Hotels are creepy at night. 2-It's hard to stay awake 'til 7.30am after a big Sunday lunch and a couple of sly beers.
I am currently living at the Ross-Edwards family estate in Pymble, rocking out to the sounds of 15yo Pymble Ladies College gossip (gozzip?) emanating from James' little sister Annie (hi Annie!). Also spend much of my time there marvelling at the pure lethargy of Pubes' lifestyle, shaking my head at Peach's colossal WoW (World of Warcraft) intake, and trying to stop Mrs R-E from ironing my shirts. Good times. Some days I come home and my bed has been made. This afternoon it appeared that my room had been cleaned as well. Awesome.
I went to my second live show for the year the other night (two already with one on the way!) at the Mean Fiddler. Took in the Violent Femmes in Kellyville/Rouse Hill's finest venue. I'm a little bit ashamed to admit that the highlight of the evening came after the Femmes finished when the DJ played a set that went as follows: Holy Grail/Blaze of Glory/Land Down Under/Thriller/etc etc etc. Freaked in a totally non-ironic way with O'Doyle sweating the place up next to me. For the record, the Femmes were ok, but their lead singer appeared to be none too thrilled about playing a one-thirds full barnhouse in Kellyville. Blister in the Sun was ok, in case you were wondering.
Well, it's 3.30am, so just another four hours 'til I can go sleep on Rossy's couch. Can't wait.
Allnighter and nowhere to go...
Busily kicking arse (broadcast style) across Sydney. Doing my debut solo Allnighter at FBi94.5... sorry just had to do a mike break. Talked about Rossy for two minutes, think it went well. Safe to say that sitting alone in a (brand new since I was here 6 months ago, couldn't even find my way in, could see the other presenter but couldn't get to her, like a great pair of jeans behind a store window you know you could never afford) studio is not the most stimulating way to spend a Wednesday night/Thursday morning. But whatever, I'm unemployed and soon to be homeless, so any gainful activity has to be welcome. Can't really think of what to say on the next one, maybe I'll mention that I rode my motorbike right into the FBi office, because I'm (apparently not so) secretly impressed with it. I think it looks quite good in here, I imagine quite a few people will just assume it's another post modernly ironic "installation" in keeping with the tongue-in-cheek pinball machine and old-school posters on the wall. Either way, at least my only financial asset is protected from the scum that roams Regent Street at 4am on a Thursday morning. Next track: something you're not cool enough to have heard by a band you're too lame to be familiar with. Know music? Shit yeah (!) I do ! (!).
Grand finals, suit shopping and more...
Before I start, I just want to say I wrote this whole blog 10 minutes ago and accidentally deleted it. If you don't like it, rest easy knowing it was better the first time around. I swear...
Bought a suit today. (Has it come to this? Am I really just going to start discussing the minutiae of my daily life? Yes. Yes I am.) Quite chuffed. Couldn't believe how good looking the man in the mirror was. I asked Brad to move out of the way, and was still pleased with the effect. It was difficult to find a suit conservative-yet-snappy enough to match my "scissors only thanks, I haven't had number three on the sides for years" haircut. It's a vision in lightly-pinstriped charcoal, and makes me look 20kgs lighter, although that could have more to do with the handful of $10 and $20 notes I offloaded onto the slightly bemused saleslady. It's $525 of legal tender isn't it? Not all of us make the trip to The Big Pineapple as often as high flying Chatswood Chase retail assistants. Suit party anyone?
On another note: lost my rugby grand final on the weekend. Didn't cut me up too much, but it'll probably sink in later this week when someone asks me for the Robertson Cup and I have to say "nah mate, sorry, lost it on the weekend". Damn. I felt like my life had come a long way as I lined up for Barker Old Boys against the King's Old Boys in an epic "silver spoons at twenty paces" battle. It pissed down rain and we lost. Awesome times. It was good to hear the crowds cheering on "anyone but Barker" too. Just because we serve champagne and wine at our nice oval at Turramurra and use custom made balls with our club logo on them doesn't mean we're wankers or "privileged". It just means we love rubbing our higher SES into people's faces. Does that make us bad people?
Finally: after the deaths of Steve Irwin and Peter Brock, I felt I had no emotion left to give, until Michael "Micky" Schumacher announced his retirement from Formula One last night. Without you in Formula One Michael, who will crash into a wall before steering their car back onto the track to hit title rival Damon Hill, or throw their car into Jacques Villeneuve at 150mph even though it won't help them win the title, or make their team mate pull over within metres of the finish line to let them past, or stop their car in the middle of a 40kmh corner to disrupt their rivals' qualifying lap and later claim they "made a mistake"? Most importantly, who will celebrate joyfully on the podium as Ayrton Senna is pronounced dead following a fatal crash in the same race? Who will fill the gap you leave in the sport? Who will turn winning-at-all-costs into an art? WHO?
Bought a suit today. (Has it come to this? Am I really just going to start discussing the minutiae of my daily life? Yes. Yes I am.) Quite chuffed. Couldn't believe how good looking the man in the mirror was. I asked Brad to move out of the way, and was still pleased with the effect. It was difficult to find a suit conservative-yet-snappy enough to match my "scissors only thanks, I haven't had number three on the sides for years" haircut. It's a vision in lightly-pinstriped charcoal, and makes me look 20kgs lighter, although that could have more to do with the handful of $10 and $20 notes I offloaded onto the slightly bemused saleslady. It's $525 of legal tender isn't it? Not all of us make the trip to The Big Pineapple as often as high flying Chatswood Chase retail assistants. Suit party anyone?
On another note: lost my rugby grand final on the weekend. Didn't cut me up too much, but it'll probably sink in later this week when someone asks me for the Robertson Cup and I have to say "nah mate, sorry, lost it on the weekend". Damn. I felt like my life had come a long way as I lined up for Barker Old Boys against the King's Old Boys in an epic "silver spoons at twenty paces" battle. It pissed down rain and we lost. Awesome times. It was good to hear the crowds cheering on "anyone but Barker" too. Just because we serve champagne and wine at our nice oval at Turramurra and use custom made balls with our club logo on them doesn't mean we're wankers or "privileged". It just means we love rubbing our higher SES into people's faces. Does that make us bad people?
Finally: after the deaths of Steve Irwin and Peter Brock, I felt I had no emotion left to give, until Michael "Micky" Schumacher announced his retirement from Formula One last night. Without you in Formula One Michael, who will crash into a wall before steering their car back onto the track to hit title rival Damon Hill, or throw their car into Jacques Villeneuve at 150mph even though it won't help them win the title, or make their team mate pull over within metres of the finish line to let them past, or stop their car in the middle of a 40kmh corner to disrupt their rivals' qualifying lap and later claim they "made a mistake"? Most importantly, who will celebrate joyfully on the podium as Ayrton Senna is pronounced dead following a fatal crash in the same race? Who will fill the gap you leave in the sport? Who will turn winning-at-all-costs into an art? WHO?
Just a sweet transvestite girl...
Today I had the pleasure of sitting through a lecture on "Social Class in Education" delivered by an elderly transvestite, roughly 195 centimetres in height. Last year the same lecturer, appearing as a man, lectured us on adolescent development. This year said lecturer bored us to tears wearing a delightful purple jacket, beige skirt, enormous tan dolly-style shoes and shoulder length salt and pepper hair.
Classic Lecture Line #1: "I have a virus this week, so my voice is a bit croaky. Let me know if it gets too low." Too low for what? Too low for us to believe you're not a tall drink of water in a dress?
Classic Lecture Moment #1: The row of 15 Muslim girls in traditional dress standing in unison and walking out after five minutes.
Classic Lecture Moment #2: A guy walking out of the theatre behind the lecturer, shaking his head and mouthing "freak" to his friend in the front row.
Hypocrisy of Education Faculty #1: After lecturing us in cultural sensitivity last year, surely assigning a transvestite to lecture a group containing a fairly high number of traditional Muslims is a bit rich?
Anyway, that was my day. To cap it off there was a Japanese high school student wearing a baseball-style jacket on the train, the back of which read: Exciting Sports: Litmus Team. Litmus Team?
Classic Lecture Line #1: "I have a virus this week, so my voice is a bit croaky. Let me know if it gets too low." Too low for what? Too low for us to believe you're not a tall drink of water in a dress?
Classic Lecture Moment #1: The row of 15 Muslim girls in traditional dress standing in unison and walking out after five minutes.
Classic Lecture Moment #2: A guy walking out of the theatre behind the lecturer, shaking his head and mouthing "freak" to his friend in the front row.
Hypocrisy of Education Faculty #1: After lecturing us in cultural sensitivity last year, surely assigning a transvestite to lecture a group containing a fairly high number of traditional Muslims is a bit rich?
Anyway, that was my day. To cap it off there was a Japanese high school student wearing a baseball-style jacket on the train, the back of which read: Exciting Sports: Litmus Team. Litmus Team?
Speed dating anyone? Yasmin gets the chop...
Has Channel 10 no heart? Forget ratings... what about Yasmin's future? After the lowest rating premiere of any prime-time program in the last DECADE [!] (props to JR-E for allowing me to borrow the square parentheses) on ANY channel, they've axed not only her show but her chances of happiness. The plucky 29-year-old recruitment manager barely had time to reject her first suitor before the pin was pulled. The question remains: Is Channel Ten still contractually obliged to find her a husband? Or does it work the other way? Will Yasmin find herself in court if she remains single? Will Ten try and recoup their embarassing loss with a "Jess and Marty"-style wedding special? I just wonder what made the Ten executives decide to put away their Cupid bows and arrows and reach for the calculator and a hatchet. Perhaps they realised that a live show based almost entirely around a panel of experts (pronounced "wankers") gobbing off about their own pathetic relationship histories and spouting pseudo-psychological maxims was always doomed to be put in the "maybe I'll watch Home and Away" bin. Perhaps they felt poor old Yasmin was unloveable, or maybe even (heaven forbid) that the entire concept was at best a freakshow and at worst shithouse. I was intrigued though at Yasmin's comment in the debut episode (yes, I was one of the few Australians "edgy" enough to be interested in what Ten described as a "bold new initiative") that she was "ready to get married", as if getting married was like changing hair colour or buying a labradoodle. Although to be fair, Yasmin had set aside nine weeks to be introduced to a man, then go on a date accompanied by a production crew, then marry him, whereas buying a dog can usually be wrapped up on Thursday night at Castle Towers or the Marrickville Metro. Perhaps viewers thought that a network treating marriage on a par with other decisions like buying a house or getting a Brazilian was a bit crass. Perhaps Ten will realise that just because a show falls within the "reality" genre (remember, YGM slotted right in to Big Bro's timeslot), that doesn't mean it won't suck.
But what does the future hold for Yasmin? Will many men be keen to hook up with the girl who couldn't find a partner, even with the aid of a nationwide television campaign? Would he (if he's out there) find it too awkward introducing her to his mates? Or would men be scared off now that it's public record that she's desperate to get her hooks into a man, and thinks a touch over two months is an appropriate timeframe in which to achieve that goal?
Beware speed daters, things could get ugly at a moodily-lit corner table near you....
FOOTNOTE: I always liked Ryan Phelan as the occasional "Tim Webster's drunk and not here" fill-in Sports Tonight host, but having seen him on the panel of YGM, it has become apparent that he is a knob jockey of Darren Beadman proportions
But what does the future hold for Yasmin? Will many men be keen to hook up with the girl who couldn't find a partner, even with the aid of a nationwide television campaign? Would he (if he's out there) find it too awkward introducing her to his mates? Or would men be scared off now that it's public record that she's desperate to get her hooks into a man, and thinks a touch over two months is an appropriate timeframe in which to achieve that goal?
Beware speed daters, things could get ugly at a moodily-lit corner table near you....
FOOTNOTE: I always liked Ryan Phelan as the occasional "Tim Webster's drunk and not here" fill-in Sports Tonight host, but having seen him on the panel of YGM, it has become apparent that he is a knob jockey of Darren Beadman proportions
I'm gonna love this band forever...
Late night listening to Alanis Morrisette- The Collection on my girlfriend's iPod. Reminds me of a friend back home who, in early high school, was a card carrying member of the Alanis Morrisette Fan Club. No Year 7 or 8 music class could be considered whole without Jules giving us a small explanation of the meaning behind Ms Morrisette's lyrics or more generally, why he loved her particular style of neo-feminist independent female pop/rock. These reminisces, coupled with a conversation with JR-E Pty Ltd today in which he stated he was re-entering his gangsta-rap phase (hoefully not a Challenger or Discovery type re-entry) after spending a few years orbiting Planet Tight Jeans Guitar Rock, set me on a path through time back into my various band/genre/artist phases/fads/obsessions.
Phase One: Beatles. Era: Late Primary School. Who could resist my a cappella renditions of my favourite Beatles tracks during classes at Lake Albert Primary School? No one. That's who. I fell in love with the clean cut Beatles, and descended into deep denial when I discovered they evolved into long haired liberals.
Phase Two: Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Era: Early High School, shortly after the release of Blood/Sugar/Sex/Magik.
Mrs Harbon: "So Steve, what are those tapes you have there?"
Myself: "Red Hot Chilli Peppers. They are the greatest band in the world."
Mrs Harbon: "Oh yes, Laurie (her eldest, three years older than I) used to really love those guys. It's funny how you kids all go through these little phases."
Myself: (angrily) "This isn't a phase. I'll never get sick of hearing them."
6-8 months later, we reached the third phase, which was....
Phase Three: Heavy Metal. Era: Middle School. Metallica, Sepultura, Biohazard were all there, but one band reigned supreme: Pantera. Most afternoons you could find me sitting in a room with fellow afficionados nodding our heads in time to Phil Anselmo's (in hindsight) ultra-try-hard-insecure-male lyrics, which are more appealing than chocolate-covered pornographic magazines when you're a hormonal adolescent convinced you're misunderstood. When Mum and Dad took us up to Sydney in 1999 to buy my new school uniform I made a beeline for Utopia and splashed out on my first ever band shirt- a black (of course) Pantera t-shirt with the faces of all four members next to a rusty band logo. How often did I wear it? Almost every day. Dress it up, or dress it down, a Pantera t-shirt will take you anywhere.
Phase Four: Soft Adult Contemporary Rock. Era: Senior High School to 2005. It started with Eric Clapton and exponentially increased in inoffensiveness to incorporate Simon and Garfunkel, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Eric Bibb, Split Enz, Crowded House etc. When all your favourite CDs are ones you borrowed from your dad and your mates refuse to let you play them in your own car, that says something about you. I'm just not quite sure yet... I'm thinking of something funny... maybe haircut or conservative voting related, I'm not sure.
Phase Five: Mountain Goats. Era: Present.
Dear John Darnielle,
I like the wallpaper in your kitchen. How were your pancakes this morning?
Love,
your BIGGEST FAN IN THE WHOLE WORLD,
Stephen
PS We should be friends
Phase One: Beatles. Era: Late Primary School. Who could resist my a cappella renditions of my favourite Beatles tracks during classes at Lake Albert Primary School? No one. That's who. I fell in love with the clean cut Beatles, and descended into deep denial when I discovered they evolved into long haired liberals.
Phase Two: Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Era: Early High School, shortly after the release of Blood/Sugar/Sex/Magik.
Mrs Harbon: "So Steve, what are those tapes you have there?"
Myself: "Red Hot Chilli Peppers. They are the greatest band in the world."
Mrs Harbon: "Oh yes, Laurie (her eldest, three years older than I) used to really love those guys. It's funny how you kids all go through these little phases."
Myself: (angrily) "This isn't a phase. I'll never get sick of hearing them."
6-8 months later, we reached the third phase, which was....
Phase Three: Heavy Metal. Era: Middle School. Metallica, Sepultura, Biohazard were all there, but one band reigned supreme: Pantera. Most afternoons you could find me sitting in a room with fellow afficionados nodding our heads in time to Phil Anselmo's (in hindsight) ultra-try-hard-insecure-male lyrics, which are more appealing than chocolate-covered pornographic magazines when you're a hormonal adolescent convinced you're misunderstood. When Mum and Dad took us up to Sydney in 1999 to buy my new school uniform I made a beeline for Utopia and splashed out on my first ever band shirt- a black (of course) Pantera t-shirt with the faces of all four members next to a rusty band logo. How often did I wear it? Almost every day. Dress it up, or dress it down, a Pantera t-shirt will take you anywhere.
Phase Four: Soft Adult Contemporary Rock. Era: Senior High School to 2005. It started with Eric Clapton and exponentially increased in inoffensiveness to incorporate Simon and Garfunkel, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Eric Bibb, Split Enz, Crowded House etc. When all your favourite CDs are ones you borrowed from your dad and your mates refuse to let you play them in your own car, that says something about you. I'm just not quite sure yet... I'm thinking of something funny... maybe haircut or conservative voting related, I'm not sure.
Phase Five: Mountain Goats. Era: Present.
Dear John Darnielle,
I like the wallpaper in your kitchen. How were your pancakes this morning?
Love,
your BIGGEST FAN IN THE WHOLE WORLD,
Stephen
PS We should be friends
New blog
Welcome to the new blog. I got sick of the Myspace format, so I've just shifted most of it over to here. Please feel free to read, or not read, it.
-Stephen
-Stephen
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