so, what else is new and exciting? i've been witnessing a lot of creativity over the last week, and it's been great. last weekend was full of love. saturday held in store two wedding celebrations - a friend i used to work with got married at lunch time, and a pair of other dear friends (one of whom took my photos for the book cover) had their marriage celebration in the evening. talk about warm-fuzzies... i was floating on a cloud of hope and happiness all weekend (still am, actually - ain't love grand?) i would never have left the party on saturday night if it wasn't for my other half herding me back to the car close to midnight - but he had good reason. i had an early morning interview scheduled for sunday at abc 774 (hey, 10am is early for me on a sunday, okay?). i got to respond to talkback callers, which was fun - the topic, of course, was bollywood - and the first caller was a crack-up. she talked at a million miles an hour in her thick scottish accent, carrying on and on about her first 'bollywood' experience, gurinder chadha's bride and prejudice. which isn't pure bollywood, we know, but still... anyway, she was carrying on about the gorgeous women, the music, the colour, the gorgeous women... and the presenter interjected with something like 'yes, it was a bollywood version of pride and prejudice'. and caller says 'no, no, it was bride and prejudice i watched, bride i tell you.' so the presenter calmly responds 'yes, it was based on pride and prejudice... you know, jane austen?' and our scottish lass goes 'what? what are you talking about? no, i don't know what you're talking about, i haven't seen that one, i saw bride and prejudice...' i had to turn away to make sure i didn't laugh directly into the microphone.
then some indian guy calls and heckles me from a distance! he didn't even stay on to talk on-air - he just left a 'comment' which was read out by the presenter. his message was that 'bollywood is not representative of all india and its culture' or something along those lines. 'what do you think, shalini?', i was asked. i said bollywood was about as representative of the collective indian culture as hollywood is of american culture... anyhoo. it was fun. after that i met the crew at a pub in brunswick where a friend was shooting a short film she hopes to get in to tropfest. i can't wait to see it (not because i'm curious to see if i get into any of the shots... okay, not just for that reason!) because it has a great storyline and it'll be excellent to see it all come together. so all in all, a great weekend was had by all!
last night went down to the espy to watch the taping of a couple of episodes of rockwiz. (too many 'of's' in that last sentence, but i'm off grammar duty at the moment). jimmy barnes' daughter mahalia sure can sing... and even though i'm not a huge fan, i felt like i was in on a secret when jimmy barnes burst through the curtains and the crowd went bananas. he sang 'khe san', and i looked around the room - a lot of people were singing along, and all the men were grinning broadly, faces aglow. memories of being forced into a shuffling headlock-queue whenever that song played flashed in my head. i couldn't stand the song back then because if the people and situations i associated it with. i wouldn't exactly say it's a favourite now, but it was nice to be there last night and watch jimmy sing it.