The Chutney Man arrives. The Ads crowd are carrying on their conversation.
“That silly Isaac Newton.”
Joe and Carla had donned raincoats. At this point into the foyer outside walked a much-too-deliberately youthful man of about 60, roaring into a cell phone.
“I don’t give a damn. Get it done, today!”
“I preferred it when they were real raving maniacs,” said Al to Bill, who was looking slightly revolted.
Another person, a younger version of too-youthful, appeared from the lift, lugging a briefcase. Both were wearing dark suits, ties, and a look of Businessman Mannequin Of The Month. This was definitely The Man With The Chutney. The miracle was that his tailor was probably still alive somewhere in Asia. The two entered to be greeted by The Symphony Of The Ugg Boot. Joe and Carla hared out, grinning behind their backs.
“Mr. Hickey, I presume?” asked too-youthful. “This is my partner and my son, Kevin.”
The accent was Transatlantic By Way Of The Cahill Expressway[1], as Bill later described it. As awkward moments went, it was well up there with Al’s Senior Prom and the day Bill met his wife. The menagerie entered Al’s office. The guy’s name was Whitforth, which didn’t help at all, in Al and Bill’s current states of mind. An added blow was that Kevin was now doing all the talking.
“Well, we want to appeal to the younger market, so we’re trying to make our product ……..funkier……” he said, looking straight at Al, who managed a degree of passivity which could have got him arrested if it had been under oath.
“We want to use real street jive to rap to the kids,” added too-youthful, who did have a first name but Al by now didn’t want to remember it.
“To get through to the homeys, you see,” said Kevin, looking earnestly at Bill, who appeared from his expression to have recently swallowed something unlamented. “It has to be really upbeat. Something that says: This Is A Chutney You Can Dance To, something like that. I’ve taken the liberty of doing a bit of a mock up, with a sound track and a story board, and a few ideas for the copy……. This is a copy of the label……” Kevin smiled as only a true idiot can smile, the visible proof of an unfortunate ancestry trying to discharge its Karmic debts all at once. Something of a murderous yellowish orange color wafted into view. Bill thought he saw a vision of a bargain shop in saffron. Al was under the impression that every curry on Earth was out for revenge. In the haze he saw a CD with The Whitforth Chutney Rap on the label and piles of graphics. Bill schlepped the conversation through the business details, Al wasn’t sure how. Eventually it ended.
From great depths he managed to say, “We’ll look into it all immediately……forthwith, Mr. Whitforth, today, in fact.”
As Bill had what appeared to be a serious coughing fit in the background, he ushered out the two wooden objects, listening to Kevin saying enthusiastically, “It’s just that we want something with some street cred, you know, super cool…old school….real gangsta chutney…….”
“I wouldn’t want to think of it any other way,” said Al, sincerely, as they vanished into the lift.
Bill muttered as they went back into the office, “Well, he sounded normal on the phone.”
“They always do. In this game, the more normal they seem, the more likely they are to be deviates.”
“So we’re OK?”
“Nah.”
Joe and Carla trooped in an hour or so later with bags of stuff from the Rocks Market. After due appreciation they were given a history of Chutney as a social engineering tool, and were asked to listen to the rap. A thundering thudding sound proclaimed that someone had turned the bass up. A drum program rattled. Then the rap began, a multitracked, Australian-accented mass yell. Kevin had obviously re-recorded his vocals.
Yo! We gotta have Chutney chutney chutney chutney
Down where the homeys look so cool
Gotta have Whitforth Chutney chutney chutney chutney
It blurred into cliché, like most mediocre media. There was about ten minutes of it, but they could only listen to two.
“I know places you’d get shot for that,” said Al.
“Should we send invitations?” asked Carla.
“One listen to that, and you wouldn’t need to. They’d swim here.”
“Interesting, though. You can actually hear the stupidity,” commented Joe.
“You are saying, Professor Arthurson, that stupidity can now be quantified digitally?” asked Bill, interested.
“Indeed I am, Doctor Mackenzie. We may even be able to synthesize it and sell it as a drug.”
“And stamp out taste forever?” asked Carla, wide eyed, hands clasped. The nunnery was so close….
“You’d never need to have another disease.”
“You think that’s rough. Have a look at the label.” Al produced it using a bulldog clip as a pair of tongs.
“Ah! Cast away from mine eyes such brazen foulness, ye callous beast!” said Joe, dazzled.
“To think people bother to have vasectomies,” said Bill.
Al’s phone rang. It was the elder Whitforth. Al listened, winced, and said, “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Whitforth. Well, if you’re not going to go ahead…….OK, I hope it all clears up for you, goodbye.”
They looked at him.
“It appears that we won’t be proceeding with the campaign. Apparently Kevin saw a crowd of gang-bangers in the street and went to try to sell chutney to them…from his Mercedes….. Mr. Whitforth was calling from the Water Board. Kevin has now been removed from the storm drain, and both he and it are expected to make a full recovery. However, the Mercedes has been chutnified to the point that Mr. Whitforth is leaving the industry. It seems that they had a few hundred samples in the boot, which were smeared liberally over all concerned, before the vehicle was set alight, greatly improving the smell and texture of Regent Street.”
“So it was that the sellers of fearsome condiments were laid low by their ghastly passions,” said Carla.
“And that a dear little storm drain achieved salvation,” added Joe.
“And an innocent Mercedes was smitten by Fate and chutney,” said Bill.
“And we came into possession of a rap to rule the world,” whispered Al, leering.
[1] That overpass that looks like someone’s given Circular Quay a set of braces.