last week sometime i wrote a huge post for this blog - a post which i am sure i have put up in lights and decided was a lot better than it actually was - and when i went to publish it, it disappeared. it took me ages to write - and i think that was the problem. the wandering around, the grazing. then you hit 'publish' and blogger goes 'publish what?!', and it's all over. so here we go, once more with probably less enthusiasm than the first time - to rephrase what blogger asked me, excatly what was there to publish the last time?
last week was the most 'indian' of times for me for a long time. i had three different indian things going on late in the week. on wednesday afternoon, i shot a tiny segment for rocKwiz on sbs. they got several people of different effnick backgrounds to do short pieces-to-camera about a song that the rocKwiz band had just 'played'. i say 'played', because when i taped my bit, there was no rocKwiz band - just the set. they'll splie them in during the edit if they decide to use them. so if you're a rocKwiz viewer, look out for someone called 'bunty kapadia', who is the president of the 'booker t and the mg's fanclub', jaipur branch - and who also looks remarkably like me. anyhoo, it was shot at the espy (in the gershwin room , where rocKwiz is generally shot on selected tuesday evenings), and as i was making my way out of there around four-ish, i bumped into a couple of mates and had a beer or three with them, cause who in their right mind would say no to a balcony seat at the espy on a pleasant afternoon? what i wilfully pushed to the back of my brain was, however, that i later that evening, i would be going to the melbourne premiere of the merchants of bollywood. and that i would need to dress in a sari.
so, after gas-bagging and swilling till way past when i should have, we managed to get me home, freshened up and sufficiently wrapped in a sari in time to get to the premiere just before the show started. and what a show it was. the emotional journey it took me on went a little like this - oh, happy! look at the dancers. they are so energetic. they are so coordinated... i hope there's more dialogue. ooh, cringe, i hate these new songs. oooh that boy loves taking his shirt off a lot, doesn't he? and why not, his abs are be-glittered. old songs, i like old songs. i like the way the girl's costumes have gone from multi-coloured to balck and silver, it really works. but why are the girls dressed in body stockings under their costumes? it looks like sausage-casing, and its a little freaky cause it seems they have no belly buttons. oh! intermission.
neck champers.
dhol! wow! they really can play that thing, and it's got flashing lights inside it! cute, audience participation - thank goodness i'm not sitting at the end of a row. audience is clapping along. back to the 'story' - and what do you know. more dancing. they should have had subtitles for the song lyrics so the audience can get the links. or maybe they should have had more of a narrative... i wonder what it would feel like if i were sitting through an hour of someone singing and dancing in a language i didn't understand... no one's clapping now. the whooping and woo-hooing is coming from the dancers. they dance to 'just chill', and end the production with a mega-remix version of 'it's the time to disco'. after the show we went to have a drink with the cast, and i got used to male dancers running away every time i tried to have a conversation with them. it was an odd evening.
then saturday i mc'd at a diwali function at the hungarian hall in boronia (that's right - the venue where the infamous 'dinner dance' scene in my book was set). it was an interesting experience - i made the decision not to speak in hindi (cause i'm kinda crap at it), and it was the first time many people there saw me dressed in a sari. the diwali function was pretty much what i was expecting it to be - not too organised, they over sold tickets, it ran over time. but it's all this and more we've come to expect from a diwali function, right? or what else would there be to talk about till the next semi-organised 'do'?

i know i probably should have posted sooner with a re-cap of the standup gig i did last week, but all sorts of things have a way of happening to get in the way. i also found that everytime i sat at the computer and contemplated writing anything, nothing would come out (except grany noises from my mouth, and that's not exactly inspirational). so here i am now, tapping away, and hopefully someone somewhere will get something out of this.
going on stage again was interesting; actually, let me rewind and talk about the preparation. i didn't have much time to think about what i was going to say, so stressed out on monday night trying to work out which bits out of all my standup stuff worked the best, and what i'd do to try and weave it all together. agonising. then i spent a couple of hours the night before collating the bits and re-arranging them into a routine, set it out in bullet point form, printed it off and cut and uhu-ed it into my notebook. so far, so good.
the day of the gig i came home straight after work (instead of loitering in the city library for a couple of hours, something i've taken to doing quite often), had a shower and did three practice runs in front of the mirror. i was nervous, but the material seemed to flow and i remembered the links, so i didn't panic too much - until i got to the venue. i don't think it was my fellow performers (who were all excellent, and very friendly) or the crowd (again, excellent) that affected me - just before going on i had a 'what if i forget my order' thought and then went out and promptly did just that. i managed to cover, but was a little disappointed in myself for fudging it - and as a result i think the general tone of my set was a little more subdued than it usually is. and when you're feeling subdued, the only people you notice are the ones who look bored, and the only thing you remember whan you get off stage are the parts where no one was laughing. having said that, it wasn't my worse gig, and in the grand scheme of things i think i did okay. long story short - i am aware that i am the worse judge of my own performances. i am thankful that i was asked, and happy to have broken the drought!
apart from all that, i am slowly easing into a new work week after coming out of a particularly excellent weekend - full of good food, good company and good music. hope your week started off alright?

as you might have gathered from the lack of activity on the gig guide page, i haven't been doing the stand-up thing for quite a while... actually my last stand-up gig was at the local on janusry 31 this year. well, i'm breaking the drought - tomorrow night. i know, not much advance notice, but reasons i won't go in to just yet, things with this gig happened kinda fast. i will be re-jigging some old stuff (cause honestly i haven't actually written any new comedy stuff since... well, for ages). initially i was a bit stressed about getting up there again, but now i'm looking forward to it. it's at a venue called 'viva cabaret' - a place on smith street that used to be called 'the stage bar', and from where i have several happy memories. the drumming gigs we used to go to there were quite insane, but now it looks quite different to the laid-back, no-shoes feel of the stage bar. it's all hot pink and yellow and vegas-like (which is good, too - just different). i will post here again after the gig to let you know what it was like to be up there again.
i am toying with the idea of combining both my blogs and using categories to file entries under, like i've seen other people do with their blogs, but i have no idea how to do it. hmm, i seem to have blog-envy... such a nerd. anyway, if anyone knows about blogger add-ons that can make this poissible, leave me a comment!

alarming fact 1 - i think i have gone off australian idol.
i tried, i tried - and i still wish that lee wins - but i just don't think i can do it anymore. this year everyone (apart from lee) sounds mediocre to me. people are out of tune, and they're how many rounds in now? i shudder to think what it will be like for future rounds of the comp. having said that, we all know i'll be watching...
where the hell have i been lately? i have not been doing uni this semester, yet i have been busier than i ever have been before. work is taking up a lot off my time, and running around chasing new projects (i will share more about these alleged 'new projects' when there is more to share, but at the moment it's all in the discussion phase, which [let's face it] could last years) and doing stuff for ther book also have claimed their fair chunk. i haven't even gone to see any fringe festival shows, and i am really keen to do that - v. curious about a couple of them.
i'll leave you with a random tv question - did anyone else see nicki hilton and kimberley stewart [ooh, i can almost feel the site-traffic spike already] on rove the other week? being the avid hooverer of crap 'culture' that i am, i must admit that even i wasa surprised to find they were both so, so dull...
and just quietly - when underwear companies are looking for new 'it' girls, shouldn't they consider tits an asset? just a thought...