My life has been a series of unexpected, sometimes unbelievable, right-hand turns. Any time I’ve even remotely attempted to plan or control any aspect of what happens, life laughs at me and flicks up a killer curve ball. I’ve learned to roll with it, as resisting was causing far too much heartache. I went from athletic child prodigy to party girl to motherhood to Australian Idol to radio to TV to stand-up comedy and now here I sit, writing these words for you, and to say that the last thirty-seven years have been a rollercoaster would be an understatement of gigantic proportions and kind of gross. Sorry for using such an overworked phrase, especially considering my reality-TV background. Hey, at least I didn’t whip out ‘the pointy end of the competition’ or God forbid go anywhere near using ‘surreal’ as an adjective. I’ve been working furiously hard since well, I could say since I was voted off Australian Idol, however it would be accurate to say that I’ve been working furiously hard since I came shooting out of my mother’s birth canal on 1 March 1979! I’m not in possession of a slow down or an off switch, I’m in constant motion and, as you can probably imagine, that produces a shitload of energy: positive and negative.
I didn’t set out to be a performer, although looking back, I suppose the signs that a life of professional showing-off awaited me were there. It only hit me very recently, twelve years after I started down this path, that this is what I do now, that being a comic, singer, writer and storyteller is my full-time adult job. The epiphany came when my manager Andrew called to let me know that I’d been invited to perform on the prestigious Oxfam comedy gala. I was absolutely beside myself. I’d grown up watching the gala and never once dared to dream that I would one day be on stage, at The Palais Theatre, doing stand-up comedy. The gala is – besides a way to raise much needed funds for the legends at Oxfam – a preview of some of the acts that will perform in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF). If you get to perform on it, and do well, it usually equates to a boost in ticket sales.
In comedy, there are generally two types of performances: you may do your whole solo show, which could run for sixty to ninety minutes, or you can do a spot. Spots are anywhere from two minutes to up to half an hour long, a megamix of your best gear usually performed in rapid fire in a line-up of other comics. Most comedians are brilliant at spots, it’s their bread and butter, they flit from room to room busting out their highlights reel without a care in the world. I am fucking terrible at spots. This is a known thing. I fall apart. It is a horrendous, sparkly trainwreck. I just can’t get my head around them. I need an hour to tell a story, to build to a finale – I need time to get to know my audience!
The Oxfam comedy gala required just seven minutes of my A game.
Oh. Boy.
On the day, I arrived six hours early, you know, because that is a completely sensible thing to do. Later I learned that the seasoned campaigners get there about an hour before they’re due to go on. I set myself up in the communal dressing room and went about slowly driving myself insane with self-doubt. I roamed the aisles of the Palais hoping to absorb excellence from the blood, sweat and tears left behind by performers past. You know: The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Eartha Kitt, Bob Hope, and Abbott and Costello.
Other comics were filtering in and out for their tech runs. I, of course, obsessively watched everyone’s dress rehearsal, comparing myself to the typically brilliant and well seasoned comics on stage. When I did my own soundcheck, I spent a great portion of it apologising for even being there. I kept looking over my shoulder expecting one of the producers to approach me, tap on their clipboard and say ‘Oh dear, there has been a mistake. You should not be here.’ Yes indeed, my imposter syndrome was off both its tits that day. After the soundcheck, my dad, Vincie, went out to move his car and realised that the battery was flat. Not wanting to be trapped in St Kilda when we were done at around 11pm, he decided that he would get a jump-start from someone, drive his car home, swap cars with Mum and then get back in time for our set.
Here is how that conversation between the two of us went down:
Dad: ‘Em, the car has a flat battery, I just tried to start it. I am going to get a jump and drive it back to Eltham, swap cars and then come back here.’
Em: ‘NO.’
Dad: ‘What do you mean no? We’ll be stuck here otherwise.’
Em: ‘NO.’
Dad: ‘I’ll be back in plenty of time. It’s three thirty now, it’ll take me an hour to get home, that’s four thirty, I’ll swap cars and be back on the road by four forty-five, then back here by no later than six! We’re not on until ten!’
Em: ‘NO!’
Are you sensing a theme yet? There was no way I was going to let my father out of my sight. He was also being completely unrealistic about the time it would take for him to get to and from the Palais. It was a Friday night, he had to cross town, battle the infamous Punt Road, get onto the Eastern Freeway and back again. There was also footy traffic to contend with. In perfect traffic conditions that would be a ninety-minute round trip. On a Friday night, you could get to Perth and back in less time! He was my guitarist for the evening and while I wasn’t sure I could tell the jokes, I knew I could sing the songs. If all else failed, I could sing, and Dad was integral to that so I didn’t want to be separated from him.
Dad: ‘See you in a few hours.’
Em: ‘DAD, NO!’
After Dad abandoned me, I was approached by one of the shows’ producers, who was keen to know what I’d planned on wearing for my performance. Wardrobe? I could do that! I showed her my ensemble of choice (a red-sequinned unitard with rainbow tail feathers and gold shoulder pads) and she told me I couldn’t wear it because ‘it wouldn’t translate well on television’.
What does that even mean?! I looked at her and confirmed we were looking at the same fabulous outfit. ‘Not translate well on television’? I think it would have translated fucking splendidly! She strongly discouraged me several times more and asked if I had another outfit. My only other option was a long red dress I happened to have in my suitcase. Just a boring old frock that I wore when I did corporate events. You see, I don’t like performing in my civilian clothes, I like there to be a very distinctive line between Stage Em and Real-life Em. Stage Em is fierce, confident and capable! My sequins are like my cape, my mask, my lightsaber. On show days I suit up and Stage Em takes over – it’s my ritual. I apply drag queen-level make-up, stick on my eyelashes, then step into the sequins. So my second mistake of the day was not sticking to my guns re: costume. I stupidly let them talk me out of my usual performance attire; I wanted them to like me, I didn’t want to be perceived as difficult, so I went along with it. Imagine someone saying to Elvis, ‘Sorry, babes, that white jumpsuit doesn’t work for us, here’s a nice black suit for you to pop on.’ Elvis would be all like, ‘I don’t think so, darlin’, eat a bag of dicks. I’m suiting up!’ Obviously I am no Elvis but you get the gist.
Note to reader: I wish I could promise you that my analogies will improve over the course of the book, I wish I could.
Finally the other comics began to arrive, along with my third mistake of the day.
I decided it would be a great idea to sit with them and listen to them talk shit, run gags, gossip and reminisce about the times they or other comedians had bombed at this event. As I sat there, my brain was screaming, ‘Abort! Abort! Leave this space immediately!’ however my body was transfixed. Hearing them bounce gags off each other with such ease was incredible/terrifying. All I could think was: I don’t do those type of jokes! I don’t deliver pithy one liners, nor do I make particularly witty observations and I certainly don’t have any political statements to make! I tell stories about my family and sing songs with my dad.
It was about that time that my fourth mistake showed up. I decided that I should probably have a drink to calm my nerves. The only alcohol available was beer because: Australian comedy scene. I never drink beer, it makes me gassy and bloated. Still, for some unknown reason, I sat with the dudes and chugged beer. Sure enough my stupid, corporate red dress was becoming increasingly tighter as my stomach filled with gas (see, if I’d stuck with my usual attire my stomach could’ve expanded as it saw fit – sequined lycra moves with you, not against!). Finally my body could take no more and I had an excuse to leave the pit of testosterone in which I was residing. The other thing you need to know is that I become a needy dickhead when I get around those guys. I’m so desperate for their approval. I also have the sneaking suspicion that they don’t take me seriously, that I’m considered a cabaret performer illegally infiltrating the world of comedy. That I hide behind my singing and costumes to cover the fact that I’m not very good at the stand-up game. I’ve no proof of this, of course, just an overall vibe. Yes, I know that’s completely irrational and not an effective way to substantiate a theory. It still doesn’t change the fact that when I’m around them, I over compensate, I go in too hard, I laugh a little too loudly, I also apparently drink beer, for fuck’s sake.
You should also know that the obsessive calls to my father to check his progress and whereabouts had begun. I would say I was on a ten-minute rotation. After about an hour, Dad obviously got sick of my harassment and TURNED HIS PHONE OFF, but in my mind, he’d definitely had a car accident and was lying in a gutter somewhere, bleeding internally, guitar smashed to pieces. I swear I worried about the guitar after first thinking about him, I can promise you that. Sort of. At worst they were simultaneous concerns!
Shall we recap where Em was mentally by 5pm?
1. Arrives six hours early.
2. Dad leaves to change cars over.
3. Gets talked into not wearing usual costume.
4. Sits in room with other comics who make her question her entire being.
5. Drinks beer, gets sick from drinking beer.
6. Dad’s phone is now off and Em is convinced he will not be returning.
GOOD TIMES, Y’ALL!
At 6pm I was called into make-up and as I sat in the chair and looked at myself in the mirror for the first time that day, I noticed that the top half of my mouth looked as though I’d been punched or aggressively injected with some lip fillers. Do you know what I’d gone and done? I’d managed to manifest a cold sore in one day with special thanks to my anxiety! Yes! Face herpes roughly the size of Saturn hours before I was due on the telly. The make-up lady recoiled when she saw the angry white pustules on my lip. I was afraid she was going to send me away, and she would obviously have to set fire to her entire kit once my face was painted. I completely understood her hesitation. She began working on my head and I tried to focus, to clear my mind of all doubt and prepare to kick arse when I hit that stage in four hours’ time.
When she was done I looked in the mirror and instantly felt better. I had my game face on, and slowly but surely small threads of confidence started seeping into my sweaty body. Sure I didn’t have my costume, the ability to perform a stand-up spot or my guitarist: but I had my war paint in place and that would have to do. By this time it was 6.45pm and just as I was about to call the police to locate my father, in he walked with food and non-alcoholic drinks! Bless that man, he knew I would be in a state and not eating or drinking anything sensible. So Dad and I sat quietly in a room making small talk and I began to feel a lot better. I told myself that I’d earned this spot. My entire MICF run had already sold out before it had even started! All twenty-three shows were completely full – I was the only comic out of five hundred who had managed to do that. I’d worked bloody hard on my show, The Motherload, and since there were no more tickets left this would be the only taste the rest of Melbourne would get of it, and the first time the rest of Australia would see it, so I’d better make my spot seven minutes of heaven.
One by one the other performers did their sets until finally, after six hours of waiting, it was my turn. Dad and I stood side of stage as a comic named Puddles the Clown sang a sad song. I took that time to do my pre-performance ritual. I closed my eyes and imagined my Nana sitting down in the front row, adjusting the brooch on her cardigan. I pictured my Uncle Haydn standing in a river fishing, giving me a thumbs up, and my Grandfather Ted seated at the head of the dinner table thumping it with his huge hands, which was what he did when he thought something was amusing. I pictured my Nono Luigi sitting on his porch, slowly waving at me, and my Nonna in her chair in front of the fan, smiling, peeling oranges. Why do I imagine all the people that I love who are now dead (spoiler alert) before I perform? Yeah, that’s a fair question. I do it because it reminds me of what’s important, it quietens the crap in my head and focuses me down to that one moment. It reminds me that this is just a job, that I have those people with and in me and that I can do anything.
Then my dear pal Joel Creasey, who was hosting the evening having just walked out of the jungle from his time on I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!, introduced me. I looked at Dad, and was momentarily struck by how far he and I had come. How just a few short years ago I was unemployed and living with him, how as a kid he and I had sat together and watched this very broadcast, never imagining that we would one day be on it. How so many things had contributed to that person about to walk out on stage and perform in front of three thousand people.
So here we are, here you are, about to discover the colours in the painting that make up the slightly blurred picture that I am. How did my spot go? Well, you’ll just have to wait until the end of the book to find out, or you know . . . skip ahead, but that would be a total dickhead move because I’ve put a lot of work into the chapters you are considering skipping, so don’t, ’kay?
PROMISE ME!
It’s time to take it back, all the way back.
Engage flashback montage music, possibly a harp or in the style of Wayne’s World: Doodleadoo doodleadoo doodleadoo doodleadoo doodleadoo doodleadoo doodleadoo doodleadoo . . .