LIVE

 By Jacob Harrison

Part Two – Now Hear This, 31 July 2013.

It had been a long day. Ugg wiped the sweat off his protruding, Neanderthal brow as he entered his cave, carrying the carcass of a Sabre-tooth tiger over his broad, hairy shoulders. He and the lads had been fighting the mighty cat since the early morning, and Ugg was relieved to be home with his kin. Cousin Err was visiting from a cave in a neighbouring valley, and once their bellies were full with tiger meat, Err regaled the cave with stories of high adventure. Ugg would be taken on a journey without leaving the cave, a journey across time and space that would sooth his sore feet, calm his nerves and lull him to sleep….

Skip ahead, sometime after the Epic of Gilgamesh. I climbed the final flight of stairs leading to The Attic of the Arthouse Hotel in Pitt Street, Sydney. It had been a long day, first week back at university after the mid-year break and I wasn’t used to the early 10AM starts. I wiped the sweat off my protruding, Neanderthal brow as I entered The Attic, then after taking my overcoat off my broad, hairy shoulders I accepted the piece of paper offered to me by Amanda, the friendly young woman on the door to Now Hear This. I made my way to the bar for a scandalously expensive but luckily delicious lemon, lime and bitters.

After waiting for the change that never came, I turned around and was met by a familiar face. We glared at each other for a few moments until it clicked where we knew each other from.

‘Hi, Belinda?’ I stated/asked.

‘Hi! We met at the Writer’s Centre last week didn’t we….?’

‘Jacob’

‘That’s right. Are you going to tell a story tonight?’

I thought about it, but no I said. I used this blog as an excuse – I wanted to get an idea of the range of different story telling experiences Sydney has to offer, and then commit to telling a story.

Belinda made her way back to her peeps as I surveyed the room for a seat. It was a full house, warm and cosy as only a pub can be in the wintertime. The Attic was a nice space for a storytelling night; about the size of a small-medium sized pub, with high lead-lined ceilings and soft light that illuminated the broad mix of characters that made up the audience. Hipsters and arty types mixed with suits and preppies of all ages, everyone very relaxed, very friendly. I could see myself telling a story to these gentle folk.

I found a seat and sipped my LLB, getting my pen and pad ready for notes. I had a look at the paper Amanda had given me. In between story tellers, the host reads out short, anonymous stories written on slips of paper that asked a question on the nights theme. Tonight’s question: “When were you completely, utterly, absolutely busted?” Jesus Christ where do I begin!? Busted doing what? How much detail do I give? And what is actually meant by busted? It could mean a million things! Is there a word limit? Luckily at that moment I got a tap on the shoulder – It was Sheila, another panelists from the talking writing event and a producer of Now Hear This.

‘So what do you do? Are you a writer? Are you telling a story tonight?’

‘Well I’m studying again, I try to write when I have the chance – I started up a blog recently…’

I told Sheila about this project, she introduced me to Mel Tait, producer and Host of Now Hear This and asked if I could use the photos of the night for my blog

‘Sure, Hi, I’m Mel, do you want to tell a story tonight?’

This was an ongoing theme of the night – who are you, what do you do, are you telling a story. It was good, I got to hone my bio with each introduction.

‘No not tonight, this is my first time.’

‘Next time?’ Mel Asked.

‘Next time.’ I replied.

‘Ting-a-ling-a-ling’ the noise of a pen in a wine glass cut through the soft pub banter. The Show was about to begin.

Mel introduced the night, and explained how it works, ‘Each story teller gets five minutes to tell a true story that happened to them relating to tonight’s theme which is?

‘Busted!’ the audience answered collectively.

‘Very good! Our esteemed judges will score our story tellers, then at the end of the night Sheila will add up the scores, first, second and third place get a prize!’ Mel introduced the three teams of judges, ‘The Passionfruits’, ‘The Fudges’ and ‘The Totes Lol’s’

Mel Called out the first story teller, ‘Christian Remo. Christian Remo?’ But there was no Christian Remo in the house. Mel moved on to the next name – Tiger Webb.

‘Metal handcuffs on cold skin.’ Tiger began.

Tiger told the story of being 18, shirtless and shitfaced in Vancouver, 2008. Tiger was representing Australia at the World Ultimate Frisbee Championships, which he described as ‘something rich, white people did before the GFC hit’. Being the last night before returning home it was time to party, but there was a problem. Although of legal age in Australia, in Vancouver the legal drinking age is 19 – such an odd number – Tiger found himself separated from his team mates and being arrested for underage drinking, but things soon got worse. Another interesting legal fact about Canada – Did you know that urinating in public is considered a sex crime in Canada? Well, neither did Tiger.

Tiger managed to get back to his hotel the next morning to find his team mates and his belongings had already checked out. Thankfully his team mates had got word of Tiger’s predicament, packed his bag, booked him a later flight and let the world know via Facebook that Tiger had been ‘BUSTED!’ by the Canadian Mounties.

A pretty great story to start on, and Tiger was met applause and three scores of 8.5 – what are the odds of that?

The next story came from Tom Hadley, a lad with a red beret and Welsh accent.

‘The swinging sixties never came to the Welsh valleys, because we were already promiscuous.’ Tom told us about the time his parents had gone away for the weekend when he was 17, leaving him home alone – well not quite alone. He and his girlfriend were upstairs in his parents’ bedroom when they heard a knock on the door. Tom thought, ‘Shit, I’m (with the crowd) Busted!’ It must have been his girlfriend’s Dad – who else could it be? Being an engineer, Tom had a cunning plan. His girlfriend slid down the wall outside the bedroom window, however this managed to rip her stocking and cut her leg quite badly. Tom made his way downstairs, let her in the back door so it didn’t look like they were coming down from upstairs together and answered the front door. It wasn’t his girlfriend’s Father at the door, but his Sister, in tears after leaving her husband. The couple showed her in, and consoled her over a cup of tea, everyone ignoring the elephant in the room – his girlfriends ripped stocking and cut leg, now bleeding profusely. Years Later, When Tom found himself consoling his sister again after leaving her second husband, he asked if she remembered it.

‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘it was quite obvious you two were busted!’ Tom returned to his seat, making his way through the applause. Mel announced, ‘Tom gets the Best Accent Award’, to which Tom yelled out ‘I put it on!’

During the first two stories, Christian Remo had been discovered and it was now his turn to take the mic. ‘This is a story about race relations in America.’ Christian told the story of being a young, white college kid in Connecticut. Christian’s roommate was an über stoner, but that was ok because his Dad was an über lawyer. One day Christian and his roommate were buying pot from two dealers in the street, they happened to be African-American. Suddenly the police show up, the boys move back and the police start questioning, and then arresting the dealers. The police finally turn to the boys, who knew Christian’s flatmate and they knew who his Father was. They accepted that the boys were ‘just passing by’, no further questions. Christian ended the story with ‘When you’re a white kid who’s friends with a stoner who’s dads a big time lawyer, you can get away with a lot.’, receiving a respectable 8, 8.5,and 8.25 from the judges.

The next story was from Kathrine McClellan, recounting a childhood visit to Sydney. After the journey from Bowral.

Kathrine’s family finally arrived at the hotel. The first thing Kathrine and her Mum did was change in to their swimmers and jump in the pool – a perfect way to relax after a long day. After her swim, Kathrine went looking for her Mum’s hair dryer, she started looking through her Mum’s bag when she found a little green box. Inside the little green box there was a collection of little, white, bullet looking things, with tiny little strings attached. On the outside of the box was a warning ‘use at own risk’. Straight away Kathrine knew what they were. ‘Mum’s on drugs! She exclaimed aloud; Kathrine’s Mum worked as a lab technician, so she was thinking it was a Breaking Bad situation. Kathrine gave her Mum the cold shoulder for the rest of the afternoon.

The next morning, Kathrine had a moment alone with her Brother, she told him the big secret, ‘Mum takes drugs!’ Kathrine proceeded to show her 11-year-old brother what she had discovered.

‘No, those are tampons!’

‘What are tampons?’

Kathrine’s eleven year old Brother with one sex education class under his belt realised at this point he was going to have to explain to his little Sister what tampons were.

After he explained what he knew about the menstrual cycle and what she had to look forward to, Kathrine wished they were drugs!

The crowd cheered, and Kathrine received the highest scores so far:

The Passionfruits – 9.5.

He Fudges – 9.25.

The Totes Lols – 9.

It was time for the intermission, the crowd was friendly and booze had made people all the more hospitable. I was newly single, I was sober, in a pub amongst smart people with similar tastes – I was intimidated. No, intimidated is the wrong word, but tonight I didn’t have the crutch that a partner or alcohol provides. I just didn’t know what to do, what people do, or what happens. Last time I was single in a pub I was a shit-faced ever-ready bunny and everything was so much easier. I guess I told stories back then, but they were one-on-one, highly exaggerated and no one clapped when I finished.

Anyway, I got talking to people. I talked to a guy, Roger (or Rashad, I’m not sure, it was a pub), a civil servant from Canberra who studied microbiology or molecular biology at uni. I talked to a few of Mel’s friends, including Kathrine McLellan, and congratulated her on a great story. It really was a warm, happy crowd, and everyone was eager to talk. It seemed split pretty evenly down the middle between people who had been to plenty of live, storytelling events before and people who had never been. Live story telling is trending, strange, that when people have access to more and more content on a variety of rectangles that perhaps the oldest form of content delivery is having a renaissance. But this wasn’t exactly like Ugg listening to stories in a cave, more like kids telling stories in a tree house. Up in the attic telling stories, it was adults at play.

The first story teller after the break was Marie McMillan, a bescarfed lady with a slight English accent, she reminded me of a very camp, theatrical Sir Ian McKellan – like when he plays himself on Extras. Marie recounted several occasions when her approach to parenting got her ‘Busted!’ For example, she thought that ‘heads, shoulders knees and toes’ was a little simple for her children, deciding to teach them the parts of the body in Latin instead, so when her Daughter fell over at school, and the teacher asked her why she was crying she was able to say precisely ‘I fell on my rectum!’ She was so entertaining, telling her story with such animation and delivery, it’s hard to do justice with just a picture.

Marie received some great scores from the judges, and as the night proceeded the scores became all the more unyielding,

‘9.25’ The Passionfuits called out.

’11!’  from The Fudges, much to Shelia’s anger.

’Nope, I’m making that a ten!’ Shiela snapped back.

‘7’ from the Totes Lols.

The next story teller was Peter Grzic, with a story that could have been out of a nightmare.

‘Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to sky dive.’ Not Only did Peter want to skydive, he wanted to do it solo. For his eighteenth birthday his family got him a skydiving course, and after learning the correct way to fall out of a plane, the big day of his first solo jump arrived. The instructor explained to Peter that when you pull the rip cord, you pull it all the way out of the harness, but make sure to hold on to the handle – not a safety issue, but they charge you for the rip cord if you loose it. Peter being an eighteen year old uni student was determined not to fork out money for a rip cord.

Peter jumped out of the back of the plane, and his instructor jumped right after. Peter was having the time of his life, floating around, making sure to keep his eye on the horizon, and then the time came to pull the cord. Peter Pulls the cord and waits for the parachute to deploy. And he waits. Little did Peter know, a small spring had become jammed in the parachute. At this point his instructor jumped on to Peter’s back, put his knee down on it and ripped open his parachute – Peter at this point completely unawares.

It wasn’t till Peter and the instructor got back to the centre that the instructor explained that his parachute was ‘busted’. Strangely enough Peter’s first reaction was ‘Cool!’. It wasn’t until he had packed up his gear and returned it to the counter and the lady asked, ‘Where’s your rip cord?’ He remembered having it at 3000 ft. after he had pulled it out, but he didn’t know what happened to it, so he begrudgingly handed over the fifty dollars for it. Later when he got home he replayed the incident in his head, trying to figure out what happened to his rip cord – he had dropped it when the instructor had shaken him!

Peter told a great story, and told it well earning him an outstanding 9.5, 9.5 and a 9.5.

Next, Helen Townsend told us a heartfelt story from her past. Helen was always called the fat kid in school. The cute uniform never fit properly, and from the age of thirteen she became a connoisseur of diets. By the age of 20 she had begun the ‘Ice-cream diet’ – essentially all she could eat during the day was apples or ice-cream.

It was 1967; one half of Helen’s mind was obsessed with sex and radical politics, the other half with food and dieting. She worked across the road from Woolworths, and outside Woolworths was an old jockey scale operated by a creepy man, a man that knew her well – she had herself weighed a few times a week there, ‘it was a special kind of public humiliation.’

On Thursdays, Hellen would creep past the jockey scale guy to get in to Woolworths to see the “Liquorice Lady”. ‘She was sex, with immaculate red lipstick and black beehive hairdo’. The Liquorice Lady extolled the virtues of her special organic, exotic liquorice, it would take the waste products from your system and improve your complexion. ‘The samples were free, it must have been partly my neurosis and partly my Scottish heritage, but I couldn’t walk away from that. ‘

One day though, as she took a piece of liquorice from the tray, the Liquorice Lady grabbed her arm and hissed ‘I KNOW you! You take, take, take, but you never buy!’

Helen quickly pulled away and made for the door, ‘As I made my way through the aisles of Woolworths all I could hear in my head was Fat Girl! Fat Girl! Fat Girl! I’ve never told that story to anyone. Not till tonight, forty-five years later.’

There was resounding applause, and the scores reflected the audience’s engagement, with 9.5 from The Passionfruits, a typically complicated 9.357 from The Fudges, and 8.75 from the Totes Lols

Tim Dennis told the penultimate story, about a road trip through country NSW. He was driving through a tiny town with his mates in the back of his ute. They passed some kids in the street, who started yelling and flipping the lads the finger, generally being brats. The lads laughed, turned around and went for another drag down the main street, more kids are there doing the same thing, and the lads were revving them up. They turn around again, and even more kids doing the same thing.

They drive on to the motel, but need to go out for grog. They jump back in the ute and find a drive through bottlo. After they enter the drive through, another ute enters the opposite end so he can’t drive on. Tim looks in his rear view mirror and sees legs kicking out of his ute as some guy tries to get in, another guy approaches Tim, leans through the window and CRACK, lands a punch on Tim’s jaw. This was the first time Tim has ever been really punched.

They managed to get back to the motel, but still needed to get some more supplies. They head back out, Tim’s driving and the lads are in the back. As they’re driving, a siren goes off, and Tim is pulled over by cops. It probably would have been fine, but Tim’s mates jumped out of the ute and ran off, leaving Tim ‘BUSTED!’

Tim was fine, he was taken to the station but he wasn’t over the limit or anything, still he had to walk back to the ute – 6 km or something. He got back to the motel, asked how many drinks his mates had, they said around nine or ten. Tim lined up eight shots – he remembers the first five. Next thing he remembered, he was being held by his pony tail vomiting on the toilet.

Tim received a 9, a 7.75, and a 8.25.

The final story of the night came from CJ. CJ approached the mic and spoke.

‘I can barely speak, but I can…. I like feet. Did you know there are 26 bones in the foot?. Breasts are boring!’ He made his pro feet, anti breast agenda very clear over the next minute or two, when he received a suggestion from the audience.

‘How about a story?’ someone asked.

I won’t get in to the fine details, but he essentially had a naughty dream about feet while he was on a plane. Then he walked off, receiving a 7, 7.25, 7.25.

‘That’s one of the great things about Now Hear this, we don’t know what kind of stories we’ll get – that’s also why we don’t go out live!’ Mel laughed as she returned to the microphone. Sheila tallied the scores and came up with the final verdict.

‘In third place, we have Helen Townsend (Liquorice Lady Story).

‘In Second place – Kathrine McLellan (Tampons Story)

‘And finally, in first place we have Peter Grzic!’ (Parachute Story, Listen to it here: ‘Busted’ PETER GRZIC (Slam Winner))

Mel thanked the story tellers, congratulated the winners and wished Sheila a fond farewell – it was her last Now Hear This before heading overseas. The audience, now exhausted after maintaining a state of perpetual applause, began to slowly clear the room. It was a school day tomorrow after all.

I did the rounds as The Attic cleared out. Again and again that night I was asked ‘What do you do?’ With each introduction the idea became more cemented into my head. ‘I’m a Writer and Screen Editor. Mostly creative non-fiction at the moment. At the moment? No, I’m studying again, full-time. When I finish? Well I’d like to get in to documentary film making. Yeah, I had a great night, next month? Yep I’ll be here, fingers crossed I’ll be telling a story…’

I saw Belinda on the way out and told her more about my blog idea, she recommended The Yarn, another story telling event in Gleebe. I’ll have to check that out too, but my next stop on this story telling adventure is The Story Club on the 7^th of August. It should be a good night; it’s going to be part of the Storyology Festival, with a collection of international guest invited to tell a story. Until next time, Stay Tuned!