Coming soon: screenplays!
Author Archives: Dr. Brainy
Truth
Lying comfortably in the armchair,
telling you on the telephone
of all the good times,
of all my brief moments of glory
(exaggerated for affect).
Lying comfortably in the armchair
not mentioning the bad times;
the faults, the inadequacies,
the sweat, the shame,
the lying…
Telling you on the telephone
the truth, but not the whole truth,
the outline, but not the detail.
Lying comfortably in the armchair,
scared that you wouldn’t be impressed
with the reality,
convinced that you would find
my dark link with humanity unacceptable,
I lie, in the armchair.
Michael Jackson
Sometimes when remarkable, special things happen in life, some irony and incongruity come along for the ride. I was reflecting on this when I remembered the time I met Michael Jackson.
It was remarkable because it was Michael Jackson, and ironic because I never set out to meet him, and wasn’t really even a fan.
MJ was touring Bad in the late 80’s, and my friend Tim played the album quite a lot, although I think he preferred older collections. I put up with Bad, liked some of Off The Wall and respected MJ as one of the great stage performers of our time. So when Tim suggested getting tickets I agreed. We bought them two days before the concert, which was at Parramatta Stadium in western Sydney. We arrived late for the concert, I forget why, maybe because we were surprised how far away Parramatta was from central Sydney. Anyway, it was our good fortune to be late.
Oddly, the entrance to the stadium was from near the side of the stage, which meant that those arriving entered right in front of the stage. While we were in a disorderly queue, waiting to get into the stadium, we were standing next to the gate that led to the backstage area. The huge security guards lording it over that gate must have thought we were waiting to get backstage, and they asked us for our passes. We told them we didn’t have passes and were waiting to get into the main concert. Perhaps we didn’t look like average MJ concert-goers – we certainly weren’t attempting to imitate his style – or maybe the conversation just got lost in the loud, thumping music of the warm-up act, but the guards were convinced we were backstage patrons who had lost their tags… and gave us new passes. “See you after the show!” Tim and I were thankful, but didn’t celebrate our luck until we were in the stadium. We had a closer look at the passes, and laughed.
The concert was spectacular. MJ did some magic tricks, which seemed to be a theme, danced for hours, and sang perfectly. The crowd was good natured and appreciative. A great concert by a performer at his peak.
We felt like fakes as we went through the gate to the backstage area. We had to wait outside a wooden door for a few minutes with four or five others. I recognised one of them from TV. The host of a pop music show. After a couple of minutes I proposed to Tim that we leave – it’d been a great concert and I didn’t want to spoil the experience waiting around for a meeting that might not eventuate. Tim suggested we wait a while longer.
Inside was actually pretty tacky. We were underneath a temporary wooden and steel stage, I suppose, but the walls were large sheets of white plastic and the seats were cheap and wobbly. There were copious amounts of wine, fruit, donuts and chocolate on a trestle-table at one end. When we walked in there was no MJ. There were about ten people sitting and standing near the table. I was surprised the room wasn’t full. We got a drink, sat down the other end, and observed. The women were gorgeous and the men were golden. I recognised about half of them from TV. I knew one was a semi-famous musician. They were quite loud. Laughter.
Tim and I chatted.
The wooden door opened and three huge guys in bandanas and muscle shirts came in. They were a spectacle – those muscles were genuinely enormous, and the men had a swagger, a special walk. They glanced around the room. One looked at me and nodded. I nodded back. Now this was interesting. What had been like afternoon tea time at a school reunion just became intriguing.
And suddenly Michael Jackson was sitting next to me. Looking at me. Sitting on the edge of his seat turned toward me.
He must have popped out from behind the muscles. I was taken aback. He was smiling. I rallied. I stuck out my hand. “Hi Michael”.
That voice you associate with MJ, that breathy, high voice. That voice asked me if I enjoyed the concert. Asked me if I lived in Sydney. Asked me what I like to do. I answered nervously, short sentences, honestly but almost without thought, preoccupied with the fame before me. I rallied again. I wanted to make the most of this. I wanted to be memorable. Make a statement. But what? I didn’t want to be a dick – whatever happens in Neverland and whatever insanity surrounds my host, all the reportage and reputation – but MJ was, at this personal level, being genuine, interested and caring. I wasn’t about to ask him about monkeys or his relationship with his father.
“Are you happy? Are you where you want to be in your life?” I asked, quietly and simply. Michael Jackson just stared at me. I thought he was probably trying to work me out. Was I a religious nutter? A new age evangelist? But it wasn’t that. He was truly engaged with the questions. He was reaching for an answer – not the polite small talk, but the actual truth. Another second or two passed in silence. One of the big guys swiveled around to see if MJ was alright. He saw his boss tearing up, just a little, before smiling, laughing briefly, and telling me I caught him off guard. Then he said “I know I have no reason to be unhappy. And yes, when I’m on stage I’m exactly where I want to be”. I didn’t want to let him get away with those half-evasions, so I pressed “And offstage, in your hotel room or in your home?” He smiled at me, back in control. Quieter now: “Thank you so much. But I hardly know you!”
He was right. I was being provocative. And a dick.
Wimbledon
When I visited Wimbledon in 1984 it was a dream come true. I had been following what is now known as a golden era in tennis for a few years, and particularly enjoyed the drama and passion of John McEnroe. My anticipation was in hyper-drive when the game I had procured a ticket for, the men’s final, turned out to be another in a line of clashes between McEnroe and Jimmy Connors. I couldn’t wait.
In a long list of things that went wrong for me in the day or two prior to the final, the one that irked me the most was that somehow I had lost my ticket. These were pre-digital days, and one couldn’t just show the officials an email copy on one’s mobile phone. But still, I didn’t expect any great drama; just an annoying hold-up. My angst was soothed by the fact that I was accompanying Charles H. Price II, the US Ambassador to the UK, and I anticipated an ambassadorial intervention if there were problems, even though I was not a US subject.
Charley and I met a couple of years earlier when he was Ambassador to Belgium and I was a lowly bureaucrat at the United Nations. My first game of tennis in a decade was embarrassing but Charley was shouting drinks at the clubhouse that afternoon, and we spoke at length about the First World War. We would bump into each other from time to time after that – we were both moved to London by our governments – and he always believed I was keen on tennis, even though I never returned to the tennis club. Thus the ticket to Wimbledon enclosed in a US embassy envelope.
As it turned out we went straight through the assembled, and jovial, forces of security, and took up our seats a quarter hour before the match was due to begin. Also in our party was a Hungarian diplomat of some note, and his gorgeous girlfriend of the time – a Pole, I believe.
Just as the match was to begin, after the warm-ups and the introductions, the Polish girlfriend developed an unfortunate cough. It seemed obvious to me that she had something stuck in her throat. However, given the profound tension of that exact moment – the most anticipated game of the year between tennis’s two biggest stars – she tried to suppress it. That never works for long, of course, and just as McEnroe was lining up the ball to smash the opening serve of the match she launched into the loudest and most earnest expulsion of the depths of one’s being that I have ever experienced. Mucous, wrestled off the extremities of her unfortunate lungs, began flying across the heads of the well-to-do in the few rows in front of us and on to the court.
I immediately turned in my seat to administer hearty thumps on the back of the choker, but was beaten to it by the Hungarian. I was completely oblivious to it at the time, but on the tennis court McEnroe had missed the ball completely, and had turned to face our party. He knew Charley, but displayed what can only be described as a fierce glare at the Magyar-Polish activity that was now dominating the arena and worldwide television coverage. By the time I looked around, however, I saw McEnroe, serial blasphemer and tantrum expert, soften his look. As the involuntary guttural utterances continued, and the condition became dangerous, McEnroe seemed concerned.
I became more panicked with the seriousness of the Polish situation and I looked around for help in time to see McEnroe, in what seemed to be one bound, jump up over the boundary fence, up over the rows of astonished fans, and in to our row. He immediately picked the now-purple Pole up, turned her around, and administered the Heimlich manoeuvre – great abdominal thrusts under her rib cage. She was facing me, so my view of this couldn’t have been better, and, as many a front rower at a comedy festival will know, one invariably gets drawn in to the act. For me this meant my forehead became the target for the offending choke-causer: a small hard candied sweet. It hit me hard but clung to my head for a few seconds before dropping to the ground. The Pole went limp, and McEnroe let her collapse into her seat. He looked at my host with a twinkle in his eye and said “Charley, will you let me get on now and beat this bastard?”
I was transferred to the Canberra office a few weeks later and never saw Charley again. Or McEnroe, in person. I’ve always been suspicious of hard candies. And I never took a Polish girlfriend.
Disgusting
Disgusting how sunken the cheeks of the ghostly ghouls are.
Even when they take a huge breath
their cheeks hardly move.
It makes them look sullen and disinterested.
I’ve seen them sucking it up on the rugby field
But they don’t look puffed
and their faces don’t go pink.
They put us to shame one day
with their narrow arms and their wheezing
when they beat us 42-3.
I could see they were going easy on us,
sorry for the real people – fatty and prone to tire.
OK, it was only rugby. But just wait ‘til the ghouls
get into politics and fashion design.
Then we’ll be sorry.
Blossoms
Of them all
this is the best
memory –
walking with my arm
around her
chirping & laughing
& animated
like the sound of
a whole orchard
at twilight
or something like that
explaining about
how work was
and happy as a
single tree
with blossoms
Muldoon
Muldoon invited me to his office after he heard I’d had a drink with Nixon. He flew me to Wellington and put me up in a small hotel near the government buildings. There was no press, and I wondered what he was trying to achieve by meeting me.
We met at 3 o’clock on a Wednesday. I was shown in to his office and he greeted me warmly, with that warped smile and cackle. He informed his secretary that we would require drinks.
He didn’t mention Nixon. I guessed he’d ask me about it so I’d been over it a few times in my mind. But nothing. He asked me about myself and was extremely polite and gracious. He sat across a small coffee table from me and appeared to have all the time in the world.
It took me a few minutes to get myself together after I realised Nixon was off the agenda, but I found all my curiosities about him return after the overly percolated coffee arrived. I enquired after his health and asked how Thea was (both were well).
Suddenly Muldoon asked me if I thought he’d handled the Springbok tour well. This was December 1983 and the Springbok tour of 1981 was evidently still on his mind. I was very surprised by the question, and wondered what he was trying to gain by asking it. What would my opinion matter to him? Pick a citizen at random… Anyway, I told him I thought he’d made a mistake, for what it was worth. He looked genuinely sad. “Oh well” he said, “Next time we might do it differently.”
“Why did you ask me to visit you?” I blurted out.
“Oh.” He looked confused. “Right.” He patted his pockets. “Where is it?” He looked around towards his desk. “Right. I can’t find it now, but I got a note from Nixon to say you’d visited him, and that for a good week after he felt rested and at peace. That’s what I want.”
“I think you’ll be disappointed” I said, almost mumbling. “I didn’t actually do anything with Nixon. I didn’t say much – nothing of any consequence.”
Muldoon looked out a window and burped very loudly. Seriously loudly. I was shocked because of the suddenness and the volume of it, and, after the shock has died, because of its inappropriateness. Muldoon said nothing.
As if it was a signal – there is no doubt she would have heard it – his secretary came in and informed us that it was time for the meeting to end.
I received a note in the mail a few days later thanking me for attending.
The Odour
The odour coming from the young man sitting along from me on the park bench was unpleasant and penetrating. It was clear he’d been playing football, and his socks were the prime mover in this nasal assault. It jolted a memory into my consciousness: I’ve been in the presence of industrial-scale B.O. before – on a bus in Sydney on a hot afternoon commute. I wouldn’t have believed the stench that day if I hadn’t smelt it with my own nose…
An obviously homeless man got on the bus and sat in the front seat. Within seconds people scattered almost as if the man had a bomb strapped to his chest. I was sitting about half way down the bus, and the smell reached me just before the first of the refugees did. I had an automatic reaction – I stopped breathing in and quickly identified the source of danger. My body was taking over – fight or flight. It was curious in its strength and intensity. Remember, I was half way down the bus, so my body didn’t actually, literally take flight as those closer had done. I was familiar with the tone of the smell from passing homeless people in the street, but the force of this was like comparing an atomic bomb with a firecracker. It was extremely unpleasant, but I could manage the smell with a combination of controlled breathing and brute will. So I stayed where I was.
What happened next was interesting: a stand-off. First, the people who were revolted, revolted. They demanded, shouting from the back of the bus, that the bus driver eject the man. The driver, who was much closer to the man than anyone else, agreed and demanded that the man get off the bus. The smeller, however, was having none of it. “I’ve paid my fare” he said loudly, in a
deep voice that didn’t sound used to talking, and sat still.
The bus driver picked out the coins, got up, gave the money to the man, and demanded he vacate the bus. The man huffed and puffed, then got up and got off.
I was conflicted: he had paid, and I did feel sympathy for his situation and his embarrassment. I was also relieved, although it was some time after the bus had moved on, windows open, that I dared take a breath. I remember the stench stayed with me, in my imagination perhaps, for days.
Nixon
In 1983 I drank wine with Richard Nixon. A full-bodied, heavy red that perfectly matched the cheese it accompanied. I never found out what the cheese was, but it was delicious. Nixon smelt slightly of hair product, which wasn’t unpleasant, but I kept my nose in the wine glass as much as I could.
He spoke of China and of “that prick” Frost, but what surprised me was that he was very interested in me, and kept asking questions about my life and wellbeing. The questions were genuine and somewhat intense – I left feeling the shallowness and smallness of my life and thought.
When we talked about life’s ultimate meaning he was well versed in both philosophy and religion, but didn’t get personal at all, and in the whole conversation I don’t know that he spoke from the heart. All those years in the public eye had taught him to be cautious.
The most astonishing thing that happened in the whole hour-long conversation, and this is why I write, was a string of predictions Nixon made about all sorts of things. We had been talking about technological advances and professional wrestling, and he suddenly started making short predictions about life in the next 50 years. He didn’t explain them or justify them, he just listed them off, one after the other, almost as if he was in a trance. This is where I started to question his sanity, and I found myself taking cheese at more regular intervals.
Most of these prophesies have proved to be wrong, in content and in timing, but a few have been borne out, and others may yet come true. I’ll mention a few of the more interesting predictions here:
- The Democratic Party would change its name to The Party of Democratic Capitalism.
- Chile would become the preeminent world power on the back of scientific advances in harnessing earthquakes for energy production.
- The Muppets would become so popular that they would take over TV. That is, all newsreaders, sports and political commentators, and interviewers etc would be Muppets.
- He, Richard Nixon, would write a series of best-selling crime novels, based around a character called RubisTreemonkey, which would also be critically acclaimed.
- A woman would be elected President of the United States but would be assassinated within 30 days of taking office. After her death it would be revealed that she was actually a man posing as a woman.
- Terrorist groups would become the new enemy, and would engage in full-scale war.
- Within 50 years, some types of trees would naturally evolve into lamp-posts, but, upon reaching full-growth, would need humans to insert a lightbulb and hook them up to the electricity grid.
- A new team, the Sacramento Chumps, would win the Superbowl in their first year of competition, largely due to a teenage prodigy and a compulsory team diet that consists solely of olive oil, corned beef, and beer.
Music in context
We all wandered around, lost amongst the many, at a loss in grief and in support of the grieving. We had just seen Angus driven off for that last ride, boxed up in the back of the car. The whole scene strange. During the ceremony ‘Degenerate’ by Blink 182 and ‘Why Don’t You’ by Gramophonedzie helped us understand who he was and underscored the tragedy.
It was 35 degrees, stupid hot, but the trees provided a kind of relief. Not the kind we wanted, nothing substantial. The mourners greeted each other, hugs and handshakes. Nothing to say. Lost for words.
‘The Kids Aren’t Alright’, by The Offspring, on loop, still playing, still vital, still connecting us to the formality of what had just played out, became a backdrop, a context. “The kids are grown up but their lives are worn”.
I’d probably heard it before but didn’t remember it. Not my kind of music. But here I liked it. Actually, here I loved it. It worked. Context is important.
I experience that every so often: being surprised by a genre or a song that I previously spurned. Finding enjoyment where I least expected it.
My taste in music changes all the time, but not much. Not so much that I notice it on a daily or even monthly basis. But my favourite bands in 2000 are not my favourites now. The change is glacial though. I loved REM. All of REM. Now, I cherish a couple of their albums, hardly ever play them, and respect their legacy immensely. I hadn’t rushed to hear their new releases for a decade.
It’s easy to stick with what you know. Mostly I get to choose the music I listen to, although teenage daughters increasingly challenge that. Sometimes, in a very controlled manner, I explore new sounds. Usually music that relates to sounds I like. But sometimes context sweeps all of my preconceptions away.
Context shreds our status quo, laughs at our taste-limitations, and overrides our crafted reputations. That country song playing in a café – magic! What was that drum & bass track playing in my friend’s car? These surprises sometimes get through our defences because the context finds us with our deflector shields down. And they’re not always, perhaps not often, pleasant, but when they are it’s glorious. It’s pleasing. It at least makes the next 3 or 4 minutes bearable, but at best it may open a whole new realm of music for us.
The Cinematic Orchestra used in a goofy dog video on You Tube? Thanks spiro1098, I’ve bought every recorded minute and had hours of enjoyment from their music. And I really didn’t expect it.
Sniggly Sny 