Joe and Carla have got married! It’s as simple as it sounds.
It was probably inevitable after Joe and Carla’s wedding that Dorothy and Al were the only show in town. Jane and Carla were talking to Dorothy, as indirectly as possible, about things, concentrating on talking about Carla’s wedding.
Carla had made a truly radiant bride, and it was the first time they’d ever seen Joe actually happy like that. The various parents had floated about blissfully on a sea of friends, and to both Joe and Carla’s surprise, had hit it off well. Joe was a far better ambassador for the Arthurson clan than he realized, and his first meeting with Carla’s parents had created some real goodwill. The irony of this was that they’d met during the plaster duck episode, and it was his obvious, stunned, reaction to Carla which had convinced them even then that he was someone they could trust with her. There are few things more obvious than a man in love surrounded by smashed plaster ducks. There was a tide of photos and things to discuss.
“There was a pre-nuptial agreement?” asked Dorothy, self consciously, since Carla had brought it up.
“Yeah, it was pretty odd, if you think that those sorts of agreements are always slanted to the one with the money. Ian, believe it or not, insisted that I be able to have some financial peace of mind of my own. The next thing I know I’m a millionaire, before the wedding. They did this like I was just being given a lift home, or something. Joe was embarrassed, severely, but they talked him round when they said this just evened things up a bit. It’s actually a mutual no-claim, on both sides, but I got all this as well.”
“So how do you feel about it?”
“Ah…. I was wondering for a while why the subject hadn’t come up. They’re so honest…. Sometimes it’s frightening. My worry was that they’d be suspicious of me on principle. It’s a bit hard to have money like that and not be pretty wary of the wannabe in-laws. Joe said that he was dreading the whole thing, and actually had an idea of his own to make me feel more comfortable. Seems he thought of something close to what Ian came up with, but not as generous or as thorough.”
Carla’s expression, usually closely guarded except under real stress, when she didn’t care, was that of a woman thinking about her next baby. It was so…. focused and relieved… that she seemed to have finished a decathlon and won it.
“Wow.” Dorothy was more than a little impressed. The Arthursons had obviously been thinking a lot about this, and for a while. A good idea, and a great way of making sure that money wasn’t the dominant factor in the relationship.
It was the very thing that had been a real bane of Dorothy’s love life for some time. Early boyfriends had had a strangely alien response to her family’s prosperity, and later versions, pre Al, had had a predatory air. It was very repulsive, eventually, and Al had really been a quantum jump, someone who was independently wealthy and personally at home in the larger numbers.
Dorothy, who was a romantic to her toenails, and a dedicated one, had been despairing of finding anyone in her income bracket who could prove that he was any more than a mindless collection of suburban values. Money isn’t class, and the tiresome parade of boyfriends regularly proved it. The only other male she’d ever met who really came close was Bill, who had always been a real person with real feelings, who she thought of as a virtual brother. Bill’s background was self made to a very large extent; they’d become close friends on personal grounds, not as a result of dipping in the same social thimble. She’d been overjoyed for him when he’d married Jane, another relative, unimpressed by anything or anyone who wasn’t as genuine as she. That had reassured her that it was possible to have a real working marriage without the hideous delineations of income and background which can be so poisonous.
Her money had been a real weight to carry, both professionally and personally. Professionally there was also no shortage of business people whose main aim seemed to be to attach themselves to money, in any way possible. That was a lesson her father had taught her well, although she hadn’t recognized it at the time. He’d just pointed out who the really useful people were, and who weren’t, and why. He’d started teaching her that when she was about ten. Her mother had also been a quiet conceptual construction site, with the timely reminiscences and bits of anecdote which make mothers so deadly. At puberty her mother had just had a few memories of old boyfriends, and little romantic interludes, and fun they’d had. Nothing dictatorial, not sermons or edicts, no implied disapproval, just insights from someone who knew what she was talking about.
The effect of two dedicated parents working tirelessly for years on their much adored daughter was all they could have hoped. From both, she received a supply of positive inputs, all useful. They both practically danced on the ceiling when she became a vet. Her mother, even now, was staying off Dorothy’s toes regarding Al. Her sole comment about one of Dorothy’s earlier efforts, to the effect that “if I’m going to be a grandmother I’d prefer the grandchildren to be vertebrates, and if that’s a problem why not try that nice horse”, had made the only point she’d thought needed making.
Dorothy giggled. The other two looked at her expecting a Dorothy-ism, and they got one.
“I was just thinking. Al and I have never even mentioned money to each other, even now.”
“Joe was like that. It was as if he was embarrassed. He actually apologized to me for buying me my watch. I eventually got it out of him that he liked it so much he couldn’t resist.”
“Bill never said a word. He’s also never said “we can’t afford it” to me, even when he lost his job.”
“Did either of you ever have a vision of the guy you would marry?”
“When I was a kid, and Joe is the exact opposite. Funny thing is he’s actually so much more masculine than that. I thought guys were all, sort of, “blokes around the keg”, and ever since I’ve been discovering that the ones that really do anything are totally different. The idiots around the keg are just that, and usually lousy all round in any sort of relationship.”
“Until I met Bill, and he wasn’t even in the categories. Somehow the idea of a really loving, happy, maniac wasn’t what I was thinking about.”
“I had a vision of this wonderful, blonde, Bohemian, who was mad about kids and of course politically active. I met him, and he was the most selfish, conceited, jerk I think I’ve ever set eyes on. We spent a whole day discussing his wardrobe and hairstyle. Very good looking, but nobody in there worth knowing,” mused Dorothy.
She explained her mother’s reaction.
“That was all I needed to know. I already felt like I was a matching handbag to something, and the horse was spoken for…..”
“You do know that they don’t allow kids to run in the Melbourne Cup any more…..?” asked Jane.
“Curses. Now we’ll have to let them in the house, not just let them run around the paddock,” said Dorothy, not noticing the large number of Freudian slips.
“How many kids do you want, Dorothy?” asked Carla.
Trash is in the mind of the beholder. Therefore, this chapter.
“…So reality is now something you see on TV,” said Al.
“Must say it’s better than the formula shows,” commented Jane.
“Well, that’s not too difficult. The formula shows are basically reworks of story lines. Someone does something, someone reacts, in the context of the characters. So character A smashes up character B’s car; A is a dummy and B is the smart guy. Then they rework it with A as the smart guy…”
“Or Boy meets Girl: gets girl, loses girl, gets dog, gets girl back, gets business partner, gets another girl, loses both girls, gets bitten by dog or business partner…or more likely both…,” added Joe.
“Don’t they ever do anything original?” asked Carla.
Al winced.
“Not if they can help it. Originality is dangerously close to a requirement for talent. TV’s a form of bureaucracy. Plot Line A was accepted before, so the producers have more or less pre-accepted the ideas and the story. Plot Line B contains something relevant, like poverty, and is controversial, and hasn’t been done before, so they’re less likely to accept it. Plot Line C is purely sexual, so they’ll want to do it for the ratings but might tone it down a lot. Which is more likely to get accepted, and easier to write, and not have to rewrite? Obviously, A.”
A pause for a beer and some more biscuits.
“Reality TV, however, doesn’t require scripts, can be edited easily, and there’s no expectation of anything much. Reality TV is just a soap opera by other means. Think about it; why else would so many people watch a group of nondescript subhuman suburbanites having sex, or pretending to have sex? You wouldn’t look at most of them twice if you could help it. (Stands, looking messianic)This, I say unto ye, is the future of mankind…. ”
“Vague, isn’t he? What are you trying to say?” asked Bill.
“Ah, don’t worry about it. TV’s going to be like the net before too long. Millions of channels, and nobody watching anything except porn.”
“Yeah, I must say those copulation camps really got the safe sex message across to the kiddies. The age demographic for those shows was about 8 to 24, I think,” agreed Dorothy.
“Hideous thought. Two hundred hours of mediocre sex. It’d probably put them off the idea of sex forever,” said Carla.
“Or give them the idea that you’re supposed to have sex with whoever you happen to be living with,” added Dorothy.
“They’ve got that idea already. Why do you think that there was so much emphasis given to the idea that Holmes and Watson were gay? It’s a sales pitch using a familiar couple. On that basis, any two people of the same sex living together must be gay,” said Joe.
“So what’s it selling?” asked Al, interested.
“An image of gay relationships, interpreted through those characters.”
“Is this yet another conspiracy theory? The Beige Peril Lurks Among Us?” asked Al, interested.
“No. Most of the gays I know are literate enough to know that Holmes and Watson had a typical 19th century relationship, and that Conan Doyle wasn’t professionally suicidal. That was Victorian England, remember, home of the sexual hypocrite. They even kept their kinkiest, sickest, brothels in France. Nothing that sexually honest, even by implication, would have had a hope of being published. I think the only reason they’d play along would be as a joke on the illiterate straights and a way of demythologizing their own relationships away from the straight perspective. I mean those two, gay, it’s a bit of a departure from the old drag queen routine, isn’t it?”
“Strange, isn’t it, the straight view of gays? If you speak like a human being, have any sort of education, and don’t dress like a corpse, and act like a diseased pig in public, you must be gay. I’ve always found that hilarious. All these stolid middle class types, conferring a sort of social superiority on gays, just because gays don’t act the way they do,” grinned Dorothy.
“Yeah, I used to get that a lot when I went to business college. It was truly pitiful. These guys, all from the fringe suburbs, all low income kids, all trying to be sophisticates, and of course they had no hope, because they had no exposure to any sort of culture that didn’t come from prime time. There were quite a few of them, and they couldn’t make any sort of time with the women, coming from the wrong planet and all, so they decided that all the other guys were gay, and used to sneer at us as we went around with our girlfriends,” said Joe.
“What happened?” asked Carla.
“Some of them formed a stock broking group. They had their own float in the parade a few years ago, Fags With Stags. I spoke to one of them and he said that he couldn’t imagine why he’d ever thought I was gay, I just didn’t have the sense of style.”
“Tends to take a lot of the sting out of the stereotypes, doesn’t it?” commented Jane
“Oh, yeah, I’d never have picked them for gay. Actually they were so macho at the time that I would’ve been more likely to think I was. Admittedly the guy wasn’t belching all the time like he used to, or waddling around like a belligerent chicken.”
“Does this mean, O Sage, that some people don’t know what sex they are?” asked Bill.
“Well, let’s face it, this society is really a one way street on most issues. There’s mainstream, be it whatever subject, … and everything else is “others”. Of all possible human things to oversimplify I think sexual behavior is probably the most ridiculous. People do have sexual preferences, whether anyone likes it or not. What’s normal for one person is actually abnormal to another. That’s not a theory, it’s a fact. Some people have sex lives that just don’t work, and that may well be because they’re the wrong sexual behavior for that person. That’s no revelation, but you can’t blame people if it takes a while to find their own style.”
“Which is a perfect justification for sex on reality TV; choice of partners,” said Al.
“Don’t mind twisting the argument around much, do you? How are you more likely to find your sexual preference on a TV show than anywhere else?”
“I think Al means that prolonged exposure to all the possibilities is more likely to find a niche,” said Dorothy.
“Yeah, a few thousand hours of some really interesting couples should give some sort of insight,” added Al.
“Might even make you appreciate what a really unhealthy person can do on camera,” said Bill.
“Or with an ironing board in the moonlight,” said Dorothy.
“Well, if you met an iron you really liked….,” said Al.
“Or a shirt in need of companionship…” said Bill.
“How would you market that, Al?” asked Carla.
“Needs a slogan… all shirts need slogans…that’s why we wear them….“More Than Just A Good Fit, It’s A Good…..”” He cracked up at the expression on Dorothy’s face.
“How about “Ironing, Your Passport To Wild….(wide eyed look) Frenzied… (grins maniacally) Building-Destroying… (brings hands together in praying motion) Goldfish-Annoying (bats eyelids fiercely)… Romance,”” said Dorothy.
Al had been doubled up laughing from “Frenzied”. The others had joined him on the floor soon after. It took a while to remember to breathe properly. He looked at her, then at the others.
“You know, it’s a lot safer to get things dry cleaned, nowadays.”
I’ve done it again. Left out the last part of Ads Part 42. I’ve fixed it, but sorry about that. Meanwhile, the risk of Australian standup comedy lingers. This chapter got sort of blurted out, don’t know what I think of it myself.
Buckley’s ads had done some good. He was working regularly and getting somewhere, which for a comedian is no small achievement. All of the agency and Dorothy had gone to Scorers, a restaurant nightclub in the Rocks which specialized in the offbeat. Sydney isn’t exactly short of entertainment, and the competition is tough. Buckley was an acquired taste as an act, because unlike most comedians, he tended to be topical. No exciting jokes about his underwear, or his deep sexual attraction to buses, none of the alternative comedy which has proven such a great alternative to comedy.
Some of his favorite targets were other comedians. This didn’t endear him to them much, but the sources of material were pretty impressive. Buckley got bored with standup, and would improvise whenever it occurred to him. He was currently dealing with a heckler.
“Would you mind masturbating somewhere else?” (points to middle table) “Don’t worry, it’ll come, just pull your ears a bit faster and think of yourself in a little black dress.”
The guy, naturally, ranted like a maniac and was thrown out. Buckley kept on with his monologue throwing in jibes as they dragged out the heckler:
“It’s always interested me that so many Australian comedians…..you go round the furniture, mate, you’re not supposed to have sex with it…. so many Australian comedians try to be Americans. Of course all Australians grew up in Watts in the 1990s, so there’s a real cultural heritage. We know what it means to be a pseudo American street kid in Australia in your late thirties. “Woo, yo, bro, and Ooh you ho’”, and the rest of the act’s usually as dead as that, too. It’s called lack of identity, you see it on TV every day. It’s contagious, too. You leave home as a person and come back as a market sample. MTV For Morons. Think about that for a minute…
Not that many comedians could be too funny as anything but themselves. “I’m an Australian comedian, I played Star Casino, Wynyard Station, and I dress like a bin liner with emotional problems….do I know you?” The line “Do I know you?” is an old showbiz snub, it usually comes from nobodies, trying to be somebodies. There’s one guy….he does have a name, it’s just that I can never be bothered to remember what it is…..the only funny thing about him is him. He’s the most tragic example of Everyone’s Little Pet. Easy to work with, too. He does nothing. People sign him up anyway. Terrified that someone will cap his jokes, too. I was on TV one night and he was on the panel, and all he did was laugh uproariously after everyone else started. I doubt if he knew what he was laughing at, but he was on for six months, and I got thrown off that same night after pointing out on camera to one of the panel members that a dead cockroach could deliver a line better than he could.
There’s always a subtle threat of entertainment on TV. Even on talk shows. Usually there’s a sort of pecking order, where everyone smiles ingratiatingly at whoever’s got the biggest set of genitals. That person generally dominates. Give you an example; the Dominant Alpha Moron starts off:
(Buckley can do voices. First character has a too deep, too-macho drooling sound)
“Well, there’s been a lot of talk about the hospitals lately. (Buckley comments in normal voice: “Pause for laughs and some antacids”, returns to first character) What do you think, Barry?”
(Second character squeaks)
“Aw, I think doctors and hospitals are too depressing. People should lighten up and get on with their lives.”
The last bit was this guy I was talking about….you see why I wasn’t too worried about not doing that show. I could have been out doing something exciting, like picking my nose, or waiting for a colostomy bag to fall out of the sky…. Bit like his act, really…. It’s not all fun and gravity-assisted bodily wastes in the entertainment industry, you know. Sometimes there are people……with names….usually incredibly ugly and certified no-talents, and you have to work with them. I was working with a woman on a sketch a few years ago. Try this for a conversation:
“Hullo, I’m Buckley.”
“Oh.”
That’s actually an understandable reaction to me by normal people… my mother said much the same thing. Of course, she didn’t mean it like that…Mum meant “Oh God!” This person meant “Oh….good…now I don’t have to have that hysterectomy.” Really enthusiastic listener. Obviously I was dealing with a superior idiot. I opened up the conversational floodgates a bit further:
“I’m working with you on this sketch.”
“Oh.”
Equally animated. I’ve seen bricks with more personality. Too bloody exciting for words, isn’t it? I thought my next comment was a masterpiece of understatement:
“Yeah, we’re having wild sex in the middle of George Street on top of that waiter when the police come and arrest you and I have to save you with only a salmon salad. Then we’re on the run and you get shot by a Pomeranian.”
“Oh.”
…Some people who have been on TV for a while are actually dead, it’s just that nobody cares. Anyway, it’s cheaper. I was at a bit of a loss for words by this time and was coincidentally looking for some fly spray, when her manager arrived.
“Come on….(better not say the name)….It’s time for your promo shoot.”
“Oh.”
So off she goes. The sketch just isn’t happening. I eventually manage to crash tackle the director and ask what’s happened to the sketch. Someone else is doing her bit. I naturally assumed that they’d dug up Lassie, and sure enough, in good time, along came another something-or-other, and I introduced myself. By now, you’d think I’d know better than to talk to anyone. I couldn’t get a word in:
“Oh, (girlishly) hi, Buckley. I love your work. I think you’re great. I really like your monologues. You’re so talented. I always try to catch your act whenever I’m home in Australia….”
Originally, it was so overdone I thought she was joking. She had to be, I thought. But no, she wasn’t, and she never shut up. It was excruciating. I could only put up with a few hours of it. I eventually escaped this smarmy sow by sneaking out a window while she was telling me that she wanted to name her kids after me…. when we had them. I mean…. Buckleyetta……really…….
Naturally, I insisted they bring the conversational corpse back to do the sketch…”
Al and Dorothy enter into a conversation about media, which thankfully becomes interesting despite being about media.
This is the book that wrote itself, and I had so much fun writing it. It’s a mystery/comedy, written originally for adaption to TV. Someone pitched it to a Bollywood company, and by the time the guy had finished talking to them, they thought it was too complicated.
In theory, watching the news is reasonably straightforward. In Australia, Al had discovered that it was also a sales medium of some note. The anchor started it this time:
“With Sydney’s rocketing home prices a local real estate agent, Sam Snow, of Older Rain Hooks, says that the smart thing to do is to go to a few auctions every weekend and look for an opportunity.”
Cuts to agent, in uniform, smiling.
Anchor: Well, Sam, nobody wants to miss out.
Sam: No, George, they all want to be part of the action I’ve been asking people at my auctions and they all say they want to buy now and maximize their exposure.
Dorothy walked in at this point, saw the TV, recognized the spiel, blinked and groaned. Al raised an eyebrow.
“Is this news, or am I watching a sort of free plug for these guys?”
“I doubt if it’s free. There’s quite a bit of cross fertilization between media and a lot of the big money industries. You see it in cars, real estate, snake oil sales, someone must be doing quite nicely out of it. The real estate thing, though, is in all the newspapers, particularly the weekend ones, and there’s usually some sort of auction results page every Monday. Result, the market went through the roof. The pity of it is that it’s cut a lot of peoples’ kids out of buying their own homes because it’s just too expensive now.”
“This is pretty crass, though, even by advertising’s very low standards. “Be Part Of It”, “Everyone Wants”; stuff like that is first year media studies stuff.”
“It’s not a very demanding market. It’s in the life script, “Thou shalt be a suburbanite”, and so nobody thinks twice about it……except you, of course.”
“Yeah, I was against the wheel, originally.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Nothing. I’m still against it. I’ve decided to be magnanimous about it.”
“I won’t get you that unicycle for your birthday now.”
“I’ll accept it if it’s triangular.”
TV interrupted.
Voiceover: Tonight on Tomorrow Yesterday: The real estate buying technique that’s blitzing the auctions. See how your buyer’s IQ stacks up with our quiz. Meet the real estate agent who’s helping his buyers. And the little boy who thinks he’s a franchiser.
(Cuts to host, manic looking 30 something-or-other.)
Host: Good evening, I’m Nola Vlost. Real estate agent Sam Snow……..
Al hit the remote and the TV subsided.
“That’s pretty bad. What, there’s no news? I must say even in the States you’d get pretty tired of that in a hurry.”
“Yeah, but the industry suffers from a sort of unavoidable proximity incest here. This is really just business. The free plugs aren’t free, everyone is convinced they’re geniuses, and they all know each other. It’s a small market. Actually, if it were real infomercials, it’d be a bit more efficient and a lot more honest. Advertising and broadcasting standards are largely self-serving, anyway, aren’t they? You create a support mechanism disguised as a self regulator.”
“Hm. Yeah…..to a degree. There’s a further angle, though, in that you don’t want the industry suddenly hit with regulation, so in theory your self regulators try to stay clear of any serious issues that might cause the censors or the police to get involved.”
“Idealism really becomes you.”
“It’s my liver. I still have one, so naturally I’m an idealist. Actually, the thing that annoys me most about media worldwide is that people still don’t seem to understand what it does, and what it can do. A lot of social situations are effectively media-induced. Crime, for example. What do people see all the time, every day, from every available source? Crime. You get the “gangsta” thing, a lot of kids trying to be like the people on TV and in the movies. It’s a case of the medium being the fact that makes the message. Soap operas. Criminal soap operas. A lot of criminals are melodramatics; everything has that sort of theatrical air to it. Sleaze is major media, too, so the society, having lapped up a lot of sleaze, thinks it’s normal…..masturbation is one of the biggest global industries, thanks to porn….. a lot of sleaze is a sort of social norm.”
“Internet porn’s pretty big. You’d have to be pretty far gone to make it the big social event of the decade, though.”
“Yeah, third party sex. Sex by proxy. Very constructive.”
“I accidentally stumbled onto some bloody thing, I am not kidding, that involved some farm girl and a cow…..one of those popups….not doing anything, just her and her udders, and the cow and its udders……her smiling, the cow not smiling….. took me a while to figure out which was which…honestly, the freckles! It was horrible!”
“They say a culture can be defined by its main themes. So ours is crime, sex, and freckles.”
She threw a tennis ball at him. Al, not an expert at dodging tennis balls, retreated precipitately behind the chair and peered around the side with a totally unbelievable look of terror.
“You’ll never win the Davis Cup like that.”
“ I might get the sympathy vote. Just trying to survive and scuttling back to the conversation before I get killed again, one of the most sickening uses of media is I’ve ever seen is the propaganda that people put out. Media is by definition suggestion. It introduces elements into people’s thinking. Nobody would have known that the West was trying to take over the world, if someone hadn’t seen a use for making that sort of statement. Half of America doesn’t know where the rest of the world is, and the rest of America, which is paying for it, would rather it never had known where it was.
Yet somebody found a way of making political capital out of the idea. An idea is planted, and someone grows a political movement out of it. Instant issues, just add media. Same thing as real estate ads, really. Conceptual territory. Never mind the facts, you can suggest an issue or a product without needing to do much more than say there’s an issue or a product. Subjects don’t matter.”
“A bit like some of those bloody alleged feminists. Actual atrocities, child abuse and slavery go utterly ignored, domestic violence never gets a mention, but if someone puts up a billboard, look out. Then it’s “Come to my seminar and get a pat on the head, girls, and buy a few books while you’re here”. Same methodology, anyway. The only issues they address are the ones that they can be safely outraged about on principle, in front of a camera. Real little cottage industry.”
“Just while we’re on the subject, do you ever run into boys’ clubs, or glass ceilings?”
“Very occasionally. They’re pretty insipid, though. Tends to be older men, or younger ones who can’t deal with women. Doesn’t matter to me, anyway, I’ve got my own show, and they can like it or lump it.”
“Ever hear Bill on this topic? “One pack of old women doesn’t like another pack of old women.” Sound right?”
“Spot on. The Old Girls Brigade isn’t very appealing, either. Not, admittedly, that there’s much of a difference. I’ve never met a more sexless pack of people, in either case. Honestly, to listen to them, you’d think being a multi millionaire was a form of martyrdom.”
“There’s also the Gay Packaging version of media. It’s gay, so you have to watch it, and buy the merchandising, and wear the T shirt.”
“Yeah, well, in Sydney they’re not quite as naïve as that. I think they’d be a tough market. I’ve had a few gay friends over the years, and none of them are wrist flapping clichés-in-waiting. It’s more like “So The Chromosome Has Spoken, what else is on?” I think gay media tries to avoid being quite so patronizing. Although, some of it is pretty obviously niche marketing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. The odd thing is that it produces the same sort of imagery. The couple, “us and them”, all the sort of demographic flag waving stuff. I must say, now that you’ve brought it up, that the gays I know aren’t necessarily impressed with that. Honey I’m Home Revisited, with techno music and some brand names…. No wonder they tend to be a bit choosy.”
“Well, same people and same thinking doing the production, same product.”
“Sickening thought. I’ve noticed that applies to a lot of things. Someone starts off with an important issue, then all the plodders and parasites get involved, and turn it into a circus. Everything gets dealt with the same way. Feminism, environmentalism, global warming, stem cells; the same sort of people monopolize the media, supposedly in the name of interest groups, but in practice it’s to make jobs for themselves. They tend to include themselves in everything. You see a lot of it with big names, famous people that have to hire six people so they can brush their teeth. Every press release, every ad, has one thing in common; it costs that much more because people don’t manage their own issues, they get these clowns to do it for them.”
“Cheerful bastard, aren’t you?”
“Well, would you handle any conflict they way they do? How about the market image of women? Do you like being told what you’re supposed to be, as a woman?”
“No I bloody well don’t. I don’t want to be a guy with boobs or a domestic servant or a sort of mindless baby-herd with no life, no aspirations and no opinions. I want to be who and what I am, and God help anyone that doesn’t like it.”
It occurred to Al that he’d always been sure there was a good reason he loved Dorothy.
“That came from the heart.”
“Blood oath it did. My ex-boyfriend, during the Cretaceous, before I met you, was one of those disgusting cavemen that simply didn’t realize that women were human. Did he go in a hurry. I’d never met one before, and I hope I never see one again.”
“Yet women keep having their children.”
“The idiots. Pure irresponsibility, disguised as a soap opera for apes.”
Meanwhile, back on the storyline, despite many requests, business happens.
This is the book that wrote itself, and I had so much fun writing it. It’s a mystery/comedy, written originally for adaption to TV. Someone pitched it to a Bollywood company, and by the time the guy had finished talking to them, they thought it was too complicated.
Scene: Two conspicuously fossilized women on a TV set. One is wearing a blue outfit, a dress with matching everything and shoes, the other a red version. Both are in the terminal stages of makeup overkill.
Blue: You’re looking great, Snuffles.
Red: So are you, Sniffles.
Blue: (to camera, with offensive smile) We’d like to thank our sponsors, Death and Company, for our outfits today. This is their street wear range, and we love it.
Red: (trying to figure out what camera she’s on, and failing utterly, looking over her shoulder) We’d also like to thank our makeup people and the wonderful people at Smarmy Little Closet Animals Cosmetics. I don’t know why I ever tried to live without it.
Voiceover: If this is your idea of a commercial, get lost. If you want real ads talk to HA Advertising, and don’t bring these turkeys with you. Try dying, it might help.
……….
Scene: Dried up allegedly male something in suit, in supermarket. Its hairstyle is about twenty years younger than it is, and appears to have encountered severe trauma in those decades. With it is a large semi anthropoid thing, possibly female, in a magenta cassock or perhaps the skin of some piece of furniture.
Desiccated Object: (voice similar to drain on last legs) We’re here to talk about mops. With me I have Ms. Neanderthal, an expert on domestic chores and common problems. Well, Ms. Neanderthal, we have a wide range here.
Ms. Neanderthal: (smiling, sadly enough, with voice resembling two cheese graters having an argument) Not really, Dildo. There’s only one real mop here. The Superior Filth Buster. That’s a mop you can take to your children’s weddings. You can save your marriage with one of these, believe me, (close up due to poor personal hygiene habits of director) I know.
Desiccated Object: (wildly enthusiastic, resembling sexually fulfilled carrot) Oh gosh, can you? I’ve been looking for one of those.
Ms. Neanderthal: (appearing to reconsider, if the gaping mouth and bulging eyes are anything to guide us to such an elusive and probably temporary condition as her state of mind) Oh, I wouldn’t want to overstate the case, matrimonially. Barry’s a bit kinky, you see…..
Voiceover: (sighing sympathetically) It’s anyone’s guess who or what this ad is aimed at apart from deformed sexual perverts and mop fanciers. That’s what happens when you use a fifty year old American market demographic; if that audience ever really existed, they’re dead by now and probably in a museum. We use humans that have actual personalities and don’t resemble dung. We’re HA Advertising. We care, because we have to watch the bloody things too.
…………….
Scene: Pure Australiana, with three attached flabby male idiots. Lighting is bravely provided despite the beer guts, the quadruple chins and the laws of physics. Beer bottles abound around a hideously ordinary garden furniture mausoleum. A female, who resembles a human being in some ways, wearing a cotton print that screams tat, with dear little kitchen appliances embroidered on it, arrives.
Female: (heavy accent, possibly used to open cisterns) Oh, hello, I’m from next door. I heard you had a party last night. (She bobs her head from side to side with each word helpfully as she speaks)
First male: (uncertain of how to react to this bobbing moron, and losing the fight with gravity) Oh.
Second male: (sticking up for his mate) Yeah.
Scene: This attack of testosterone inspired virility over, the two males subside back onto their seats. Their friend, fortunately face down, whom the lawn is rapidly overgrowing, belches inspirationally.
Female: (head bobbing reassuringly) I wanted to tell you about recycling. (Orchestra hit, with cornball piano cutting in for rest of her speech.) You can recycle all these bottles and save yourselves the trouble of cleaning it all up.
Scene: (Camera pans from above idyll to a picture of the female, in a swimsuit which howls for a nunnery to come and save it, or an asteroid strike. String section apparently survives severe constipation)
Female: (head/metronome utterly reliable) We can all help the environment. Recycle.
Voiceover: This isn’t an ad, it’s a sheltered workshop for archaeologists. Three boozers save the world. If any one of the three of them is capable of standing, let alone holding a conversation with words in it, they’re aliens. If that woman isn’t suffering from some serious disease of the nervous system, and is a normal person, the whole human race is in real danger. If this is the amount of talent and effort we use to sell something as important as recycling to the public, the whole country’s going to become a very large garbage dump, very soon. Try HA Advertising. At least we can recommend a good coroner.
………….
Scene: Picture of nose, evidently not in the best of health. Another charming vista for the discerning public. An adenoidal voice purrs over the enchanting nasal hairs.
Voice: Feeling bad? Feeling sick? Feeling like you’re drowning? Try Nostril Plunger, the hydraulically safe way of nasal irrigation without using a hose.
Second voice, (purring helpfully) Caution: plunger should not be used for other parts of the anatomy or as a birth control device.
Animation: Plunger, resembling an inhaler, but much more vicious, attached to a tap, is inserted into nose. A cartoon thumb presses daintily on a handle and liquid is shown flushing the nostril as a choir sings and a charming little live scene of nasal wastes being dredged out of the nostril. The revitalized nose now looks wonderful, the sort of nose that anyone would want to have its children.
Voiceover: Recent research indicates that if you use a hose to clear your nose, your chances of drowning are increased rather dramatically. For sinus, you need a doctor, not a hydrologist. If you didn’t need one before you saw the ad, you certainly will afterwards. First you’re told you’re sick. Then you get graphics to explain it all to you. People have to eat while watching this. It’s like one of those weight loss commercials, while eating ham and eggs. It’s hideous. Matter of fact, it also doesn’t sell too well. People tend to buy less when nauseated. Try HA Advertising, and get your message across without the need for a stomach pump. Or ring your lawyer, soon. You’re paying for this crap.
…………….
Scene: Still shot of logo, a garish horror of post-sanity-and-taste fluorescent colors with a foot-shredding dance number growling in the background as a set of pan pipes cavorts through the rhythm.
Voice: (helpfully) Hello, follicle fondlers? This is Bruce? We have great deals for you? Come and see us? Well, drop in anyway? If you’ve got it, we can do something about it?
Professional Voiceover: (slightly unnerved) This….?… Was an announcement… on behalf of the Free Nigel Association Of Bondi. Send your donations to FNAOB, care of Bruce’s Salon, PO Box…….
Joe and Carla were getting scared of each other. The next step was frightening. Forced to go to a party, there have been developments.
This is the book that wrote itself, and I had so much fun writing it. It’s a mystery/comedy, written originally for adaption to TV. Someone pitched it to a Bollywood company, and by the time the guy had finished talking to them, they thought it was too complicated.
“Got a minute?” asked Joe.
“I think so, “ said Carla, as Felicity tactfully waved and vanished back to the group.
Sitting on Joe’s car as they drank a tolerable champagne, Joe started.
“I don’t know why I bother coming to these things. I was talking to some models, and all they ever had to say was about money and clothes and my parents, and Al, and Bill, and any other names they could think of to drop, and how well dressed they all were…”
A small smile, the first of the night, sneaked onto Carla’s face while she wasn’t looking, as he talked.
“I’ve spent my whole life among these horrible brats. They’re monsters, really. They’re….deformed people. I used to go to school, the “best” school, of course, and they literally poisoned the place with their personalities. Selfish, shallow, stupid, ugly……I hate it.”
“Good character analysis of Tony. There’s a guy that would marry himself, given half a chance. I used to know so many guys who simply aren’t about anything but themselves. I dated that sort once too often, and that was him.”
“This is stupid, I know, but just out of curiosity, what about Fazzina? Was he ever an item, or a clearance sale, or something?’
“No, never. Loathed him. All I ever felt about him was he was wrecking our lives. Only spoke to him when I had no choice. I’m almost allergic to that kind these days….for some reason….”
“Which is why you destroyed all my plaster ducks.”
“Which is why I destroyed all your plaster ducks.”
“You’re not the sort of woman who does that just for thrills, are you?”
“Oh, yeah, that too.” (The small smile had promoted itself to a grin).
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
That was one use of the word “yes” that Joe didn’t think he could live without. They were still kissing four hours later when the others emerged. By mutual agreement no plaster ducks were invited to the wedding.
The egregious Nigel had left a gaping hole in Al’s understanding of the mess at the US end. Meanwhile, domestic bliss tries to navigate a few turns. Al is replying to the bemused Stan, who’s trying to figure out why a guy in custody is making such a disaster area out of himself.
This is the book that wrote itself, and I had so much fun writing it. It’s a mystery/comedy, written originally for adaption to TV. Someone pitched it to a Bollywood company, and by the time the guy had finished talking to them, they thought it was too complicated.
“Oh, I can answer that, said Al. “You see it a lot in celebrities. The self-image replaces the real person. Then they think they have to act like that to be themselves. Classic inferiority complex, but it only happens like this in people who really think they have to do something about it. They don’t measure up to their own image of themselves, so they try to compensate. Usually it’s people who are a long way below their own minimum level of self esteem. So Nigel, who is fundamentally an old boozer, has to be someone else, to compensate for being an old boozer.”
“His friends seemed pretty supportive. You mean he’s personally insecure, not socially?” asked Stan, interested.
“Probably too supportive. Both of them fuss over him like broody hens. You might not have seen; he didn’t get a word in while they were here. He’s a permanently repressed adolescent.”
“Be that as it might, there’s a bit more repressing to be done here. Some of that mountain of verbiage was highly incriminating to some people you know. See you later, Al; we’ve got to get some quotes from Britannica about an edit of this interview.”
Al left and walked back to the office through the city looking retrospectively at a world full of people who had flickered though his life. He thought it was interesting, if unnerving, that some of them, like Nigel, in whose company he’d spent a total of about 45 minutes, had that sort of impact. It occurred to him he’d spent a lot more time in Harvey White’s company.
REVELATIONS OF A GRAPHIC ARTIST
There were other things happening. Joe and Carla had a sudden awkwardness. This wasn’t because of some trivial fight, or even disagreement. It was because Joe’s terrible shyness had decided to stage an encore. They were seriously thinking about marriage at this point, and there was no lack of commitment from either. They were also both nervous about it, and Joe, who’d been in a sort of happy Nirvana suddenly saw a huge unidentifiable thing on the horizon. He loved Carla, and there was no question of his feelings, but all this had happened in six months.
It couldn’t have been any more complex, emotionally. Joe was an artist at heart, and anyone who’s ever known an artist can tell you that artists need both a shoulder to cry on and a regular kick in the backside, usually simultaneously. Fortunately for him, he reverted to his tongue-tied former self, which Carla recognized. She was more worried than anything else, and knew from experience that it would have to sort itself out, hopefully soon. The trouble was that he was actually speechless. At least it was in character. They drifted slightly apart, Carla waiting patiently, Joe finding excuses to be elsewhere. That went on for a month.
The others meticulously avoided taking sides. Al was more direct. Joe eventually angled his way on to the topic, saying that he was in love, but terrified. He didn’t know what he thought or what he was doing. It seemed such a huge step. For him, that was a degree of discretion. Al, who was now thinking very much about marrying Dorothy, if they ever got a chance, was almost sympathetic.
“Joe, people are people. They’re all different. There’s only one of anybody. You marry a person, not a demographic. This isn’t a raffle, either way.”
Joe gave him a wistful, but so deep, an expression that Al couldn’t quite read it.
“Anyway, I need both of you to be present at a party Hard Women are giving. You up to that?”
Joe nodded. Al felt a real surge of sympathy then, for both of them. Joe must be very much in love, he thought, if it’s that tough. He mentioned it to Dorothy, who agreed. She’d accidentally been drawn in to the issue by a conversation with Jane. They thought Carla hadn’t realized that men get as scared as women of marriage, and that even if they deal with it differently, the big jump is scary. She said that in almost total ignorance of Al’s musings on the subject, although she’d been thinking about it a lot herself.
“Yeah, well, it means a lot,” said Al, which was exactly what she wanted to hear, and was made better by the fact he didn’t know that.
“It does,” she agreed, returning the favor unknowingly. They decided to keep a covert eye on Joe and Carla at the party.
It was a very upmarket party, with far too many social pages photographers, and both Joe and Carla arrived alone. The noise was excruciating. Joe sidled through the herds to the drinks table and then found something edible, which was a surprise. Carla tried bravely to dodge the large number of people she knew and find Al and Dorothy or Bill and Jane. She never felt at home in this sort of gathering. Felicity grabbed her and shepherded her through. Felicity noticed that for a naturally-glamorous woman Carla looked about as socially awkward and inept as Joe normally did. That was a new benchmark. Having safely deposited Carla, she went for a refill to find Joe knee deep in very underdressed models, looking quite at home. Cleavage and thigh abounded, as did a dangerous amount of makeup. He was cracking jokes and generally looked like part of the upper crust.
Felicity hadn’t known Joe long enough to know how much Joe hated these parties, or how long he’d endured high society, and all that it isn’t. She was thinking that perhaps Joe was playing the field, and had escaped Carla, when he saw her. As it happened, Carla, slightly returned to normal by Dorothy and Jane, was approaching from another direction, and had been watching Joe with some interest. Joe called to Felicity to come over, please, and meet everyone, and have a drink, etc., like a good non-host.
For once in his life Joe was grateful for some noise. He had an excuse to speak directly into Felicity’s ear:
“For God’s sake, get me out of this! I feel sick! If I have to look at this lot another second I’ll throw up!”
Perhaps it was just as well that Felicity, no minor event herself, was getting a lot of very obvious attention from the residual supply of males that models usually have dangling about. Her presence wasn’t all that welcome, and Joe was apparently dragged off unwillingly on business without too much complaint. Felicity deposited him with the other four, and remembered she still hadn’t got her drink. Carla emerged like a shark.
“What was all that about?” she asked, looking at Felicity with an intensity which was actually frightening.
Felicity, rewinding, explained, verbatim. Carla returned to normal, and Felicity’s heart condition improved accordingly. Carla now looked relatively human. They headed back to the others, when Carla met an ex-boyfriend, a former male model, who unfortunately looked like it. They’d broken up largely because Carla didn’t think there was enough room in the relationship for both her and his ego. He was “working the room”, which from some women’s perspective is roughly on a par with picking car keys out of a punch bowl, and about as sanitary. Carla was one of those women, and he’d never realized it. He apparently still didn’t. Joe happened to see this meeting, and noticed that Carla was getting rather homicidal very quickly. He wandered a little closer. He was standing behind the guy, out of sight, and despite the noise could hear everything. It was a pretty banal conversation.
“Hello, Carla, you’re looking radiant.”
“Yes.”
The guy either thought that was a question, or just wasn’t aware of any other possible applications of the word “yes” in a conversation.
“Really. You’re one of the most attractive women I’ve ever dated. We really should get together again some time.”
Felicity watched in horror. Carla’s temper, never mild, and under stress, was obviously about to hit overdrive, and this fool clearly had no idea. Joe reached the same conclusion a bit quicker and dove in ahead of any possible bloodshed. Carla blinked, which was a good sign.
“Joe…. This is Tony Whitbread, an ex of mine. Tony, Joe Arthurson.”
“Not Ian Arthurson’s son? The Ian Arthurson?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Carla, who knew Joe’s frame of reference, and Felicity, who’d managed to guess, could hear in that statement that admitting his paternity wasn’t all Joe was saying. There was a degree of unmistakable disgust, and it was very obvious to them, if not his listener. Joe hated crawlers as much as his father did. A terse silence filled the space.
“I’ve always admired…..” said Tony.
Sickening, thought Carla. This time she really knew what Joe meant.
“I’m sorry, we really must go, we have some people waiting. Nice to meet you,” said Joe, dismissively.
They escaped and looked at each other.
Our Nigel is in deep. Too deep. It gets less impressive as it goes on.
Meanwhile, an apology: I missed the last two paragraphs of Ads Part 37 in the previous post. They were lurking on a short overrun page under the rest of the text in the original document. Carla, Bill, and Felicity are now partners in the agency. Now added.
This is the book that wrote itself, and I had so much fun writing it. It’s a mystery/comedy, written originally for adaption to TV. Someone pitched it to a Bollywood company, and by the time the guy had finished talking to them, they thought it was too complicated.
Alan, the private detective who was so unobtrusive that Al had to remind himself he was one, came into Al’s office early in the morning with an expression on his face that was entirely uninformative. Silently he handed Al a news clipping. It was a pretty big usage of paper, and Alan said he needed to talk to Al after he read it.
Most of it was pictures. In the corner was a large picture of Nigel, evidently while helping brewers sleep well. The headline said, “Huge Cosmetics Heist Arrests.” There was another picture of rows of boxes of perfumes, colognes, etc., and in the background a glimpse of a warehouse roof. The article was no triumph of recklessly informative zeal:
“Mr. Nigel Bottomley, of London, was today charged with the alleged theft of several million dollars’ worth of designer cosmetics and threatening behavior. Police said that Mr. Bottomley was discovered selling the stolen goods in Bondi, and that a search of his home had located several dozen boxes of various goods identified as those stolen from a distributor last year. Subsequent investigations located the warehouse (pictured) with the stolen goods, and Mr. Bottomley was then formally charged. Mr. Bottomley then allegedly threatened the arresting officers, saying that his contacts would “get them”.
Mr. Bottomley’s lawyer denied that his client had threatened police, and said that Mr. Bottomley had a perfectly legitimate business reason for being in possession of the cosmetics, and was unaware that they were stolen, and disputed that any of his merchandise was part of the stolen items. Police further noted that Mr. Bottomley was currently listed as a missing person, and said that they intended to question him regarding that matter. Mr. Bottomley, when asked, yelled to a reporter that he’d never been missing in the first place, and that he hadn’t reported himself as missing.
A friend of Mr. Bottomley’s, identifying himself only as Bruce, when informed of his arrest, said “I believe Nigel’s a decent person at heart? He’d only have all those perfumes if he really needed them? You know?”
A final picture showed Piranha Woman being restrained by police. With her malocclusion flashing in the sunlight.
“OK, Alan, I have no idea what to make of it. What’s the story? Obviously there’s more to it than that.”
“Thank God I know I don’t need to explain that to you. The cosmetics are the least of the matter. You’ll remember we were talking about money laundering, and that all those contacts Fazzina and Nigel made were likely to be set ups for a major scam? The police found a list of contacts in the States in Nigel’s place. I was wondering if you’d like to come down to the station and have a look.”
“Try and stop me.”
They arrived at a modern if maudlin building in Surrey Hills, and were directed to a somewhat sparse interview room. In walked Stan, their friendly local policeman, dressed as a very obviously very senior policeman. That threw Al, because the guy had been so informal in all the months he’d known him that it simply hadn’t occurred to him to ask what rank Stan was. It so happened that Stan, as an area commander, had been aware of a few irritants in his area, and in his spare time, with Alan’s assistance, had been doing a bit of creative digging of his own.
He must have looked surprised, because Stan grinned and said,
“Yeah, I dress up occasionally. Have a go at this little phone book of names here.”
There were no surprises, until he got to Harvey White and a long line of American names that Al knew by reputation. Of course, this didn’t actually pin anything at all on White: “So someone’s got my name and number; so what? I’m in the phone book,” about covered it. Al tried to imagine the combination of Nigel and Harvey, and understandably winced. The other two noticed the expression come and go.
Alan said that they were about to interview Nigel, and that they thought it might be useful if Al was present, because he knew the US contacts, and could explain who they were. Al was sited with Alan behind a one way mirror as the police began their interview. He noted that the recording of the interview was being done meticulously, and that few TV shows ever really captured the vibes. This was a real formal process. The police on duty obviously felt the presence of Stan, too, so the interview was done strictly by regulation.
That probably saved time, because Nigel certainly didn’t feel any need for brevity. Nothing was said that didn’t convey his sense of his own importance. Even his accent had gruesomely modified itself into the pseudo-theatrical voice used by people who normally speak like clogged drains. Positively fruity was this voice.[1] The only thing that did seem to unsettle him was Stan, in full regalia, saying nothing. Al, unlike Nigel, noticed that the Aussie cops were looking irritated, but doggedly sticking to the task, however nauseating. The material would have to be sorted out later. What Nigel really needed was an editor; each question was answered as below, the abuse has been left out. Most of it dealt with Nigel’s opinion of the police and their personal appearance. The interviewing officer kept his questions utilitarian.
Q. When did you come into possession of the cosmetics?
A. I don’t have to answer that. I am a legitimate businessman, and I know my rights. I think you’re trying to get at my clients. I won’t say anything that you can use against them.
Interviewing officer: (While Stan tried staring Nigel into the carpet) Mr. Bottomley, you have been formally charged with possession of stolen merchandise. It’s important that we establish whether you legally own that merchandise. If you can prove that you own the cosmetics, we can’t charge you.
A. I think you’re trying to set me up. You’re….what’s it called…..verballing me.
Q. (from Stan) Who’s Tony Fazzina?
A. A friend I used to work with.
Q. Who’s Harvey White?
A. A business associate of Mr. Fazzina’s.
The “who’s so and so” went on for a while. Stan then asked,
Q. Mr. Bottomley, some of these are very important people. So my next question is, who are you, to them?
A. (Confidently) I’m the person they want to do their business for them in Australia. I’m the one who arranges things for them. They’re my colleagues. Like I said, I’m a legitimate salesman.
Q. Do you have a wholesaler’s license?
A. A what?
Q. Do you have a retailer’s license?
A. Nah. I’m an importer.
Q. Do you have an importer’s license?
A. Not on me, no.
Q. Do you have a bill of sale or a receipt or any other kind of documentation for your purchase of the cosmetics?
A. It’s in my papers. If you’d bothered to check, you’d have found it by now. Typical incompetence……
Q. From whom were the cosmetics purchased?
A. From a distributor in the UK. He’s an old friend. He shipped them over here.
Q. From the UK?
A. Yes…….no, from the States.
Six hours of this established that Nigel was as unconvincing a liar as anyone there had ever seen. His touching belief in the idea of importing goods was fatal enough. Any import generates a paper trail leading back to Adam’s birth certificate. Stan finally pulled the plug on him.
Q. Mr. Bottomley; you are aware, I take it, that every statement you have made to this date, if true, can be verified by bills of lading, commercial sources, such as inventories, and the like, and that we can access this information easily?
A. I’m sure you can.
Q. You still maintain that you came into possession of these goods legally?
A. Silence. (Al thought Nigel was trying to look aloof, but he just looked like he had indigestion).
Stan: (finally speaking for the first time) I’ll give you until tomorrow to decide if you want to tell us anything a bit more specific, Mr. Bottomley. You’ll be seeing your lawyer in the morning, and I suggest you give him a full briefing on what you’ve said in this interview.
It was an intimidating train of thought, if Nigel got around to thinking about it, in Al’s opinion. Stan had turned Nigel around very systematically, without saying a word or doing anything except drink his glasses of water. Nigel obviously found that degree of silence intimidating. The abuse had long ago dried up, and the confidence had all but evaporated. Nigel now looked like a version of Al’s original bottomless opinion of him. Alan said, conversationally, “There’s a bloke who can keep a secret.” The police grinned.
Al had been thinking about the list. Those people were a selection of “players” in the States, not big time of themselves, but collectively they made quite a combination, in a lot of businesses. They were the sort of sleazy, bit part, people that always showed up when the money was getting spread about. They were often book entries, accounting entities, not real people, in the sense of going to work and doing a job. They had better things to do. They more or less fitted the Harvey White mould of anonymity. Generally speaking it didn’t pay to ask who they were, because no answers were ever going to be trustworthy and anything can be denied if you have no solid information. Nigel, viewed as a facilitator for them, made far more sense than Nigel doing anything in his own right being worth millions. However, this was clumsy stuff at best. Those people didn’t go in for stolen goods and such other mundane things. If they ever got arrested for anything it was all white collar and nothing serious. Nigel being that stupid was in character, though.
Al told Stan what he could about the people on the list, and apologized because it wasn’t much, beyond his awareness of their presence and some of the things that they were supposedly involved in. He could, and did, go into as much detail about White as he could. He wound up telling them the entire jagged, inconclusive, story of the Stone Gold White saga, and the various interactions that were going on in the States. Featherman wasn’t on the list, and was added, largely because of his association with Nigel, which struck Al later as like mentioning a dog because it was associated with a tail. He said it might be better if they asked Saul or David about them.
Nigel caved in at his lawyer’s insistence the following day. He didn’t just fold, he ironed himself as well. There was an epic of his doings over the last year or so, and the list was about three times longer when he finished. It seemed that Featherman had put him on to the person who gave him the cosmetics to sell. Featherman himself was now somewhere in Europe, according to his secretary. About all Nigel had going for him was that he really didn’t know they were stolen. That fact made him look a few unhealthy shades more ridiculous to the police, however, and his own importance had quietly shot itself in the process.
Perhaps fortunately, depending on your point of view, the first stanzas of Nigel’s denouement came while Bruce and Piranha Woman were present. It may have been Nigel’s deep boozer’s need to be visible, or just stupidity, but it was a revelation to Al, seated accidentally outside the interview room out of sight. He caught his first glimpse of Bruce, a short, fashionable 50-ish, dressed in something from a rather neurotic remake of Hair, looking concerned…..maybe. Piranha Woman, in contrast, looked very macho. They talked the legs off the furniture. Nigel was silent. Stan, again in full uniform, had just entered to get Nigel to make a statement one way or the other, and was clearly unprepared for the scene. Al didn’t think anyone could ever be prepared for Bruce in person. The conversation became quite sweet.
Bruce: Oh, you must be the policeman? Nice to meet you? Haven’t we met? I was at the 1987 Masked Spinsters’ Ball? Dressed as a lamington?
Piranha Woman: Oh Nige, Oh Nige…….(Violins might have helped at this point, but most violins are a bit picky about what sort of melodrama they accompany).
Nigel: (Far too Dickensian, even for Dickens, accent at full blast) Look, copper, I got sumthink ter say. I done it. It was ver bloke wot Featherman introduced me to, vat bloke Gary, who give me ver stuff and ver trucks. Me lawyer said he don’t want no part of it if I don’t tell yer. I wanted ter be someone, yer know wot I mean? I had ter be one uv ver big boys. I…….(breaks off in coughing fit, about as glamorous as he sounded).
Stan was evidently finding the departure from “legitimate businessman” to Cockney idiot a bit hard to take. Bravely he turned to Bruce as his officers walked in. They stared disbelievingly at Stan as he said,
Stan: Oh, you’re Bruce? No, I don’t think we’ve met? I must dash? We have Nigel here to attend to?
Nigel was taken into the interview room in which Al gathered that everything but the St. Valentines Day Massacre was something to do with Nigel. Even when telling the truth he was unconvincing. Alan, sitting with him, said that with some witnesses the problem was largely shutting them up, and keeping to the point. Outside, he heard Bruce and Piranha Woman leaving, Bruce saying,
“There, there, dear? What a well-spoken policeman? Our Nigel will do the right thing?”
A policewoman on the reception desk was heard laughing like a hyena as the door closed. Inside, Nigel was finally drained of his anecdotes and sent back to his cell. Al heard Nigel telling one of the cops that “Me piles are hurting something awful,” which seemed a pretty strange choice of audience for the subject. It was also Al’s last glimpse of Nigel, an apt postscript to a very forgettable person.
Stan entered looking bemused. Alan looked sympathetic.
“How much of that did you believe?” he asked, grinning.
“I think the bit about the Cities of the Plain was perhaps a little overdone. Other than that, he’s been a great help in telling us what parts of his story he couldn’t possibly know anything about.”
“What I don’t understand is why he insisted on incriminating himself, so badly, and so often.”
[1] Those interested in the ramifications of that description are advised that a look at the Dried Fruit Act will be enlightening. It always is.
Advertising fundamentals with a happy outcome. About time, you’d think, particularly if you work in the sector.
This is the book that wrote itself, and I had so much fun writing it. It’s a mystery/comedy, written originally for adaption to TV. Someone pitched it to a Bollywood company, and by the time the guy had finished talking to them, they thought it was too complicated.
“You never allow a bad shot, ever, of your product. You never allow your client to be seen in public looking or sounding anything less than great when on the job. This is career suicide…. All your endorsements will go straight down the tube if that gets out,” said Al, to the champion athlete Henrietta Thorpe and her young but rather rustic looking agent/publicist, a guy called Jack Weiss.
They’d been looking at a commercial which the agency had had made for Lotta Crust Bread. The athlete, in full gear, of course, had been extolling the virtues of the product, sounding like a two year old child reading from a primer….. “It-is-a-won-derful-source-of-fi-bre-and-protein…” Woeful. Al had discovered that she’d been doing elocution courses and a public speaking course and was therefore saturated with information on how to speak normally. This was rather sad, because the selling point was her speaking as herself.
Al, who’d seen this before, was unimpressed to an unusual degree. He was also unimpressed that Mastermind Productions, who’d done some other good ads, were responsible for the result. He smelt a lifetime supply of stenches. They knew a lot better than this. He looked slightly more sympathetically at his guests. He’d asked them in, to warn them about this terrible self mutilation. They were sitting there like a couple of school kids. He had Carla take them in hand while Felicity fumed prettily about how her copy, admittedly sponsor-dictated, had turned into the horror it now was. Al smiled briefly and rang Jane Wright, CEO at Mastermind.
“Jane, I just saw the Lotta Crust thing. You have to be kidding. It gets redone, and we aren’t going to pay for it until it is……”
“Al, I haven’t seen it. I just got back from Perth. What’s wrong with it?”
Al explained, getting a wry few laughs out of Jane in the process. She also had a listen over the phone and was perhaps more horrified than Al had been. Some people in media do take their firm’s work personally, and that was one of the reasons Al had made a point of contacting her. Jane, having understood, was almost unable to speak.
“That …whatever it was….is horrendous. No wonder you’re upset. Give me half an hour.”
Carla had meanwhile settled the two victims into the reception area and started filling them up with some food. As they ate, she steered the conversation around to their debacle in a way that it was bearable to speak about it. Weiss was almost in shock. Al had penetrated with his comments, and he was terrifyingly aware that he might have done Henrietta some real damage. Henrietta, for her part, was a typical athlete, needing support from those she could trust who knew how to manage her business. She also liked Jack personally, more than she wanted to admit. She was therefore trying to calm him. Carla noted that the elocution lessons had produced a surreal usage that was somewhere between extreme self-consciousness and genuine concern. Each word was a lottery.
“O Jack…yer do try so hard……Ay don’t hold it a-gainst you…..Yer always been a good friend….”
“I should have said something……”
“How were you to know? Oi fing you did ay good job in your part. Ay also think Oi shoulda been payin’ more attention.”
It was an interesting tableau; the quite pretty athlete, very trim, and her large but utterly shocked friend, it could have made an ad for something in its own right, in Carla’s opinion. At this point, Joe, who’d been staring at a loaf of Lotta Crust for far too long while arranging the shots for the print ad, walked in holding the thing and asked Carla if there were any pigeons she felt deeply about that that she wanted to feed it to and kill them. This generated some desperately needed laughter from Henrietta and Jack. Felicity, Al and Bill, who’d by now separately decided that they wanted to personally remove certain anatomical necessities from whoever had produced the ad, were in the mood for a change of temperament, heard the laughter, and went to see what was happening.
Joe, Al and Bill instantly found themselves in unknowing agreement with Carla. Henrietta and Jack, together, were quite a visual presence. Just putting good looking people together isn’t a guarantee of a worthwhile image. There has to be some chemistry that translates to the viewer. They really did look like a mutually supportive couple.
Despite the tendency of the media to incessantly manufacture couples hating each other, betraying each other and generally making life a misery, it should be understood that the public don’t want to think about things like that when they’re shopping. Family images are supposed to be reassuring, and promoting, ironically, the domestic ethos. The most successful TV shows create an environment like that, largely for that reason. Sitcoms are usually domestically oriented. The perpetual “dysfunctional” family usually isn’t, on that level.
So the family image does matter. Advertising people register images like that the way fish swim. Joe had instantly grabbed the image of Henrietta and Jack, but wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Bill, who was a quick study and had absorbed every word from Joe and Al, translated the couple into almost any conceivable setting. Felicity was thinking that as a scene the copy wrote itself. Al, clicking faster than them, was mapping out a few other gigs for them. The three of them almost burst into applause when Carla said,
“Don’t they look right together, like that? Why didn’t we do the ad with the two of them?”
Carla’s “secret” agenda was actually to reassure Henrietta and Jack, although professionally she meant what she said, and meant it as a person whose views were respected. Al, realizing that the couple were a few light years behind in the logic, and noting how pleased Henrietta looked and how surprised Jack seemed, followed up immediately.
“Carla, you’re a genius. If we paid you in kisses we’d go broke. Bill, get Michael from Lotta Crust over here. Felicity, that setting, with product, how long?”
“Already written, just needs to get on the computer. Thirty seconds, right?”
“Yeah. Joe, the set? “
“Right there. We’ll just throw in some domestic stuff.”
They sprinted to work, literally. Jane rang back with some irritating but not entirely unexpected news. The producer, or ex-producer, as Jane pointedly said, had a friend who had a model as a client. The director was also fired, for being an invertebrate. The lousy ad was to sabotage Henrietta and get the sponsor primed for an alternative presenter, meaning the model-friend. Jane was furious. She apologized sincerely and profusely, and was very relieved when Al outlined the new idea. Jane had the production crew moving before Al got off the phone.
The new ad won several awards, which Al attributed to getting the right people on set. It was a straight domestic piece, husband Jack expressing concern over Henrietta’s constant training and need to eat properly, because they were hoping for a baby. Henrietta, whose diction had been returned to the forgivable by Carla, explained that she could always rely on a good meal with Lotta Crust. Sales were impressive.
Al took the couple under his wing and kept a friendly eye on things while Jack learned the ropes. Henrietta and Jack went on to become one of the most sought-after couples in advertising and TV history, even having a long running sitcom of their own. They also married, with Carla as bridesmaid and the others in attendance as honored guests.
A little talk after the ad-event:
“Carla, as of today you’re an equity partner with a split of the profits in your contract. Joe and I have agreed, and we insist[1]. No arguments. You too, Bill and Felicity. That was excellent work; I’ve never seen anyone take up an idea off their own bats so fast. You’ve earned it. Thank God I didn’t waste my time sticking around in the States.”
When asked later about his role in Henrietta and Jack’s success, Al said Nature did most of the work, he just handled the phones. He meant it.
[1] Joe’s parents, hearing about this arrangement, were overjoyed. Joe said it was like he’d told them he’d won a Nobel Prize. According to Ian, the only managers worth paying are the ones that appreciate the work their staff does.
The ugly side of the Australian media manosphere gets a long-overdue comeuppance. The tiresome “celebrity” Donaldson makes a fool of himself and pays for it.
This is the book that wrote itself, and I had so much fun writing it. It’s a mystery/comedy, written originally for adaptation to TV. Someone pitched it to a Bollywood company, and by the time the guy had finished talking to them, they thought it was too complicated.
“You like Australia, Mr. Chin?” asked Donaldson, smiling obscenely.
“For the last five generations, yes…..Yes, I do,” said Chin, thoughtfully.
Al heard a not very muted groan from most of those present. The words “Fat fool” wafted serenely past in the following silence.
“You sell Spring Rolls?” asked Donaldson, to whom all comment was apparently praise.
“Not personally. I can get them, though. Would you like a few tons?” asked Chin, now smiling.
That got a laugh, entirely appreciative, from everyone, including Donaldson’s own table. A peal of laughter was also to be heard from Belinda, who was actually holding her sides. Before Donaldson could react, she giggled,
“I think you’ve just made a lot of new clients, particularly me, Mr. Chin. David, we really should move on before the food arrives, if you would?”
Donaldson was sure he’d missed something; at least he looked like he thought he had. Carefully he said nothing much else apart from inviting the remaining CEOs to speak. He returned to his table, demanding in a stage-belch to know why everyone had been laughing at him. Al was rather sorry he couldn’t hear the replies. However, it was a very good dinner, and he had better things to do.
Mingling Time arrived, in which everyone scuttled into the bar and settled in. Joe and Carla had arranged themselves together in a corner where they were inseparable. Sally and Aaron were chatting happily to Al and Dorothy, and Belinda had parked herself and companion between them and Mr. Chin and his very attractive wife. Belinda recognized most of the people Al knew from the States, and was very knowledgeable about some of the markets there. Mr. Chin was openly intrigued, and clearly wanted to know more. Conversation was getting productive, and thoroughly enjoyable, when an altercation broke out.
Al looked up horrified to see that Sally was one of the parties. The other was Donaldson, a lot drunker, with a couple of equally lively stooges.
“What d’yer call that getup, girlie? A slut frock?”
He was very loud now, and drowned out the whole bar. Carla rocketed out of the corner, followed by Aaron, Joe and Al. Sally sneered enough even to get through the dense inert material comprising Donaldson’s brain.
“No, I don’t think you’d fit in one of these. Big fat tart like you needs a few tarps.”
General, truly irritated, agreement was heard from the audience. Repartee wasn’t Donaldson’s strong suit. Self appreciation was, however, and the insult did eventually register. His two paid friends looked menacing, until Al and Joe, who were a little faster than Aaron, arrived. Carla, who’d beaten them by several metres, didn’t wait for an opening.
“Who do you think you are, you bloody fat faggot maggot, abusing anyone about how they look? You look like your butt’s pregnant….”
Joe had caught up with Carla by now, and had been looking at Donaldson like anyone with any sense of hygiene would. Donaldson gave both of them a threatening look, like so many big guys do, with no thought of any reaction. Joe, whose total fighting experience had ended in high school, reacted like any male with a woman usually does; fury. Men tend to dwell on physical situations with other men when a woman is present. Unless they do something about them. Even the mildest man will react.
Several things happened while Joe was undergoing this metamorphosis. Dorothy, who was a little further away, saw Donaldson, now red faced like a clown, raise his fist. Al, closer, saw Donaldson reel back. Aaron felt the two lapdogs stagger as Donaldson sailed back into them, at high speed. Carla saw the large, fat, severely broken, nose. Joe, who was about 50 kg lighter than Donaldson, followed up his head butt with a roar of very creative and very loud abuse. Most of this tirade dealt with the strong possibility of Donaldson returning involuntarily to his grandmother’s womb by whence he came, in the immediate future. (He rarely if ever swore even when alone). The two gremlins promptly dealt themselves out of the confrontation. Into this scene wandered in due course Belinda Greenberg. Donaldson, who had wisely stayed on the floor, looked up at her. She smiled.
“You know, Donaldson, you don’t deserve to be described as anything that ever came out of an animal. I’d heard a lot about you, and I didn’t really quite believe it until now. I think we’ve all seen enough of you. Get out, and take your traveling pigsty with you.”
That happened, and while they were talking afterwards, Aaron said to Belinda,
“That was a bit easy.”
“People like that are pretty predictable.”
Matters were made much more enjoyable when Al discovered that Belinda was Saul’s brother’s goddaughter. It was exactly the sort of thing Saul had been known to do to people he wanted to destroy; set them up and let them do it themselves. The papers and TV news had a lot of fun with the story. Sally’s dress got more publicity than a full scale campaign could have dared to attempt, and the dresses became a sort of female icon, something to wear to annoy men you don’t like. Al called it fate, and got Sally to model her own designs for this line to capitalize on the publicity. Sales were extraordinary.
Donaldson had been clever enough to invite his three biggest clients to the dinner, who now said publicly that they refused to be associated with him. Interestingly, all of them were retailers, and they all sold Sally’s stuff. The idiot didn’t even know whose lines they were running. Al got one of them, Belinda got the other two. Belinda did also become a client of Mr. Chin’s, using his contacts in China to promote her clients.
