Some years after the Mexican food franchise fiasco, my manager asked me if I wanted to do a couple of regional gigs over the course of a week or so, starting in Longreach, Queensland, for an initiative being run by the local council. I said yes, because the money was good and, like all things I say yes to that I end up regretting, I reasoned that it couldn’t possibly be that bad.
The gigs were a comedy competition, which was supposed to be a way of getting the community involved in the performing arts. The way it worked was that each night we’d travel to different towns where anyone could get up and do five minutes of stand-up comedy, then Luke Heggie, another comedian friend, and I would decide who was best on the night and they’d be invited to compete in the grand final. After the competition bit of the night, Luke and I were then required to perform twenty minutes of our own acts. Though I was nervous about performing for a mainly older, conservative crowd who’d grown up on cattle country for the majority of their lives, I thought it could be a good chance to get away. It was only when I was handed a box of Vegemite, which was to be the prize for the winner, that I realised what I might be in for.
When we arrived in Longreach, we were picked up by a disgruntled council worker called Kevin, who, upon meeting us, started bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t get any comedians ‘from the television’ so he ended up having to book us. In complete silence, he drove us to the place where we would be performing on the first night, already angry at us for being, in his mind, not up to the task. The venue was essentially a large shed masquerading as an RSL, but really it just seemed like a place where people could bash each other undercover if the rums didn’t sit well with them.
There was a woman in thongs who managed the bar. She could have been anywhere between twenty or ninety-eight years old – with her diet of beef and Winfield Blues, it was pretty hard to tell. She showed us the performance area they’d set up for us, which was complete with a tinny microphone that didn’t so much amplify our voices as warp them so we sounded as nasal as the locals did.
The only entrant on the first night of the competition was a woman called Big Jules, who for some reason lunged at me as soon as we walked into the building, then apologised immediately. She then began lurching around and bobbing her head up and down, while screaming at her beer. Then she stopped, looked at the bar fridge and called it a cunt.
Everyone seemed to know her and, as most small communities do, they’d accepted her as one of their own and treated her with more care and consideration than you would ever see in a more urban area, which tend to be populated with culturally bereft inner-city professionals who share posts online about the need to de-stigmatise mental health while calling the cops on homeless people.
Big Jules got on stage, wearing speed-dealer sunglasses and her hat to the side. Her ‘routine’ consisted of her muttering some incomprehensible nonsense into the microphone. This got a few people more confident, and a big man called Cocky took to the stage and told a joke-book joke, which absolutely destroyed.
It was then my turn as the so-called professional comedian to get up and show them how it was done. Unfortunately, country people have limited tolerance for jokes about what it’s like being a single girl living in a city that provides literally every creature comfort you could ever want. It was made clear to me early on in my set that I was neither likeable nor relatable, and a table of middle-aged women made sure I knew how they felt. After every joke, they would roll their eyes, take big sips of their white wines, and then one of them would say something snide to the others, which would set them off into giggling fits. I could at least say that I made them laugh through the act of bonding together in their hatred of me and, to be honest, sometimes that’s all you can do. I’ve often finished a show by claiming that even if you hated what I did, at least I’ve provided you some fodder for discussion in the car ride home.
After struggling through my time, it was Luke’s turn. As he delivered his first punchline, someone struck it big on one of the pokie machines, and the sound of coins falling into the metal tray reverberated throughout the otherwise silent room. Kevin just watched on with his head in his hands.
After finishing up the show and declaring Cocky with his joke-book joke the winner, we bashfully packed up. Kevin dropped us at our motel, where he informed us that there would be a tour manager called Lorenzo coming to meet us, and Lorenzo would be driving us to the more regional gigs over the next week.
Lorenzo arrived the next morning, wearing diamante-encrusted sunglasses and a gold chain necklace. He proclaimed himself to be a traditional European boy who was a wedding DJ, owned his own photo-booth hire company and had just recently moved out of home at the ripe age of thirty-four. I knew then that we were in for a week of gritted teeth and derisive comments said under our breaths.
He couldn’t have encountered two people who were less up for wanting to get to know him. Luke is a no-nonsense married dad of two and I was in one of my more depressive states, and this, combined with the sinking realisation of what we’d signed up for, meant that neither of us were up for any of the conversation Lorenzo slung our way.
That didn’t stop Lorenzo from trying though. After hours of driving in silence, both Luke and I preferring to keep our eyes on the desert road rather than engage with him, Lorenzo piped up about how good of a DJ he was. Then he ran us through all of his Spotify playlists and insisted we follow them. We both declined in unison. Unfazed, he barrelled ahead, telling us that his favourite song was ‘Smooth’ by Santana featuring Rob Thomas.
Perhaps the most annoying thing about Lorenzo was that, no matter what you said to him to attempt to break his spirit, he never let it get to him. His ego and self-esteem were seemingly made of steel, impervious to the flames I kept trying to light. Luke and I would try to sneak off for breakfast in the mornings, but Lorenzo would always find us. I eventually gave him the nickname ‘Weed’ and when he asked why, I told him it was because he kept popping up in places he wasn’t wanted. He thought this was hilarious and referred to himself as Weed for the rest of the trip.
Luke and I performed in different towns every night, never to more than fourteen people. As the days wore on, and we had to endure long car rides with Lorenzo, I began thinking more and more about opening the car door and jumping out.
One trip, Lorenzo interrupted my suicidal ideations. ‘Do you think you’ll talk about these shows in your act when you get home?’ he asked.
I shrugged in a noncommittal way and continued staring out the car window, knowing full well that I was definitely going to talk about him in my act.
There is no reason I should receive the amount of praise I do simply for standing up onstage and insisting that people listen to me. So thank you to the worst gigs of my life for forever keeping me humble.