kinda interesting musings...

Complaining about how much you hate small talk isn’t exactly an original idea. In fact, it’s one of the most obvious sources of material for even the laziest of hacks. I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves cornered by a coworker amid questions about the weather, the weekend and the footy. Many of us will — between the neighbourly sentences of “how’s it goin’” and “not too bad” — reflect on the banality of the situation with a smirk and think about how such an exchange seems simultaneously pointless and necessary. Most people, however, will keep these observations to themselves alongside their knowledge that a million people before them have cracked jokes at small talk’s expense. I however feel an obligation as the laziest of hacks to share my discomfort about small talk.

So there, that’s me making a declaration that my ensuing observations, though identifiable, are far too ingrained as an object of social ridicule to be considered astute.

What I would like to share is how engaging in chit-chat doesn’t just make me feel awkward, but makes me want to turn and sprint to the farthest point from the conversation on Earth. Presumably to find myself in Newfoundland, eyes glazed, nodding in agreement to a Canadian’s observations about the unseasonal weather, while holding my breath hoping to pass out and wake up to a paramedic who is too pressed for time to ask me how my day’s been.

I’d like to be able to share something that happened to me as a child that contributed to my ineptitude with inconsequential conversing, but some of my earliest recollections involve me thinking up ways to avoid answering pointless questions. The question: “how’s school” was the most irksome, being the childhood equivalent of “how was your weekend?”. At one of the few adult parties that I had the misfortune of attending, I put myself to bed — before cake was served — with complaints of “crippling stomach pains”. I was physically fine of course, making it that much harder for the paediatricians to diagnose me. “I’m afraid your son shows all the archetypal symptoms of Acute Social Awkwardness, or ASA. I’m going to have to ask you to keep him away from any distant relatives, shop attendants or taxi drivers”, was not a diagnosis forthcoming from an array of doctors called in to see me on the days following family parties.

Hairdressers to me are among the worst offenders when it comes to tedious chats. I deplore that role of friend that some hairdressers wish to assume. This is a view of mine that baffles my ever-friendly girlfriend, her hairdresser presumably keeping a file of her affairs longer than her GP’s. My evasion of hairdressers is chronicled in any photo album featuring me. My hair will frequently switch in photos between Jon English in All Together Now and Jerry Seinfeld after a visit to Enzo. I’ve only recently found a hairdresser who asks only pertinent questions: those regarding my haircut, and for this he has earned my lifelong business.

My neighbour is worse still. As the only person I know to be less employed than me, he seems to make a living from milling about the front of my house observing the neighbourhood. He’s inescapable and always present whenever I’ve got somewhere to be. In most cases, I can get away with a friendly wave as I drive into the garage, closing the automatic roller door (with the car still partly beneath it) on any chance of discussing the admittedly frustrating parking situation on our narrow street. My neighbour’s particular brand of small talk jumps straight from a 1980’s beer commercial, calling on my knowledge of all things blokey. The fact that my blokey knowledge begins and ends with the 1998 AFL Grand Final, these conversations are hard for me to bluff my way through.

On one occasion, faced with the prospect of a chatty-looking neighbour in the front yard, and a fast-approaching uni tutorial, I made a decision to jump my backyard’s six foot fence almost impaling perineum in the process. The absurdity of my actions still not apparent to me to this day.

Simply put, when it comes to small talk, I think that I’m above the implied social law. I’m granting myself a pardon on the grounds that I fear the repercussions of me reciprocating small talk. I know that questioning me about my weekend will result, at best, in a prolonged silence as I rack my brain for an appropriate follow-up question; at worst, in me making a citizens’ arrest handcuffing a co-worker over a desk while shouting at him “ask me something interesting, something interesting!”.

If refusing to engage in small talk by avoidance is a social misdemeanour, then over-engaging in small talk is an offence on par with treason, murder and failing to bow correctly to the Queen. On occasion I’ll feel inclined to make a concerted effort to be friendly and enthusiastic when a shop assistant asks me about my day. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm is often misconstrued as sarcasm, and my broad smile and use of adjectives like “wonderful” are greeted with looks that read “I’m just trying to do my job, you creep”. Putting me back in my expected place, that being nodding politely after being asked whether I’m “just doing some shopping today?”.

I’ve also fallen into the trap of overreaching in small talk with attempted humour at the Post Office. Posting a parcel, the girl behind the counter, scales and plethora of lollies, calendars and USB sticks — which seem to cover the Post Office — broke the monotony of the post with a bout of the hiccups. I offered to scare her, ridding of the hiccups, a request she obliged. I joked “sometimes when I post letters, I write the postcode outside of the four orange boxes, just to see what happens.* Did that scare you?”. I received nothing more than a look of befuddlement and my change.

I think I’m just beset with a group of bad social skills. I can’t seem to grasp the art of inane chit-chat for the sake of being friendly like everyone else. I can’t understand what inspires us to spend so much time each day talking about so little. Conversation and rhetoric serve a functional place to communicate, sympathize and entertain, and sometimes all three (Dr. Phil). Can’t we all just be a little bit more pragmatic when it comes to conversations, like, say, the Germans. They’re friendly, but pertinent, and they get shit done.

*I was of course kidding about the postcode thing. Those boxes are there for a reason, and if we don’t respect the post and its protocols, we’re left with chaos and undelivered mail.

Whenever I hear Nelson Aspen refer to the Oscars as the most important date on the awards calendar, I question how he got his job as a ‘showbiz reporter’. Producers of the Seven Network’s preeminent breakfast programme ‘Sunrise’ would be apt to have his career relegated to the depths of a ‘20 to 1 contributor’ for such idiotic assertions. Leave him to quip about the twenty best Australian pash scenes alongside Tara Moss and Ed Phillips, at least until he learns which event is truly at the business end of the awards season. I am talking of course, about The Logies.

Few other awards shows so reliably deliver on the critical fields of: audience indifference, presenter awkwardness and drunken B-grade celebrities trying to raise their profile. It’s the dependable and unintentional hilarity that has me tuning in year after year. That being said, it’s come to my attention that even after fifty glorious years some people still aren’t watching. Perhaps they presume that all awards ceremonies can be judged from the stiff interaction between Anne Hathaway and James Franco at this year’s Oscars. They’re wrong. For the uninitiated, here’s just a taste of what you can expect from the 2011 TV Week Logie Awards.

Perhaps the best part of the whole Logie process comes right at the front of the broadcast. Five minutes of watching Richard Wilkins interrogate Packed to the Rafters actresses about “who they’re wearing” while luckier, more sensible stars sneak past Wilkins when his back is turned just to avoid his assault is enough to have me smiling for days.

Do you remember the dark ages of Australian television? They were only a few years ago. How do you classify a dark age you ask? The disappearance of Daryl Somers from our screens of course. We somehow lived through this from 2000-2004. Thankfully, the good people at both the Seven and Nine Networks put Daryl back in his rightful place, talking to lifeless sidekicks. Daryl’s return to TV brings with it the return of some reliable fun on Logies night. Look out for Daryl’s range of reactions when he realises that his show hasn’t won a single award. Expect his entire range, shock, faux-congratulations, anger and disgust when Chrissie and Yumi accept the award for ‘best light entertainment’ instead of the Hey Hey gang.

The Logies is a celebration of the best of what goes to the airwaves in this country. Given that a majority of what airs in this country is made in Los Angeles, it seems only logical that at least one American attends. Cue the third Logies constant, the ‘American actor from a poor-rating TV show flown in to boost awareness of a franchise that cost an Australian network a bundle to purchase the rights to’. He’ll no doubt be roped in to present an award of course, cracking autocued jokes about the Packers that he doesn’t understand to an audience too scared to laugh. Always great entertainment, especially if someone of the ilk of Joan Rivers is involved.

Two of the few award categories that garner any genuine enthusiasm from me are those for most outstanding news coverage and current affair reports. Most of this enthusiasm comes from the desire to see Tracy Grimshaw et al pretend that their programmes are worthy of the same respect as Four Corners or Dateline. Of more interest is the way in which the nominees are listed, that is, as individual stories instead of their respective programme titles. This year we could see a Silver Logie go to Afghanistan Rocket Attacks, Pakistan Floods or the New Zealand Mine Disaster. Cue Rebecca Gibney on the Crown Palladium’s stage announcing that “the winner is Iraq’s Deadly Legacy!”, to rapturous applause. The best argument for the re-wording of this categories’ nominations came when ‘sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities’ was awarded a gong to much celebration.

If you were doubting whether you’d be sitting through International Television’s Night of Nights I guarantee that you’re now re-thinking. I challenge you to find a more fitting tribute to Australian television than a dull, rigid, antiquated and at times hilariously awful awards ceremony.

In the story book of my high school life there are a few adjectives that seem to be applied far more than any other. Awkward. Unfashionable. Social suicide (that’s more a verb than an adjective, although it does aptly describe the notion of choosing to hang out with my group of friends). Confusing. That final word seems to pop up more than any other when I reflect on my high school days. Everything that happened for those four years was confusing. Whether it be something happening that was confusing to me then, or more commonly, something which felt completely normal at the time being completely baffling to me now.

The most befitting example of this four year run of mystification popped up in year eleven.

The school’s annual sports day was approaching and everyone was excited that the event would be returning to its traditional format of house-based competition between students. There had for a short period been an outbreak of ultra-political-correctness wherein the school’s sports day consisted of no actual competition. No tallying of scores, no segregating pupils by colour (that is, team colours, I wasn’t yearning for a returned apartheid to suburban Adelaide public schools), medals were being awarded left, right and centre for simply participating. This kind of “everbody’s a winner” mentality did not bode well with me. It offered too much encouragement to participate, no matter how un-coordinated the participant, and this scared me. Did we really want to encourage the school’s resident mental kid to compete in archery, or javelin?

So the return to competition was welcomed with open arms. It would, at the very least, weed out the kids that shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near disfigurement-inducing sport equipment. In preparation for sports day it’s customary that students separate into respective houses (teams) to engage in very serious debate about team mascots, make blatantly inappropriate comments about our woodwork teacher Ms. Pullman (somehow it never occurred to us that her name was ‘Pull-Man’) and most importantly, choose our team captain. 

It was at this point of vote-casting that my eyes would glaze over. My knowledge of sport was limited to Roy & HG’s coverage of Greco-Roman Wrestling while my enthusiasm for a popularity contest was on par with my enthusiasm for listening to stories about what happened on last year’s footy trip. The team coach (read: science teacher) gave students the floor to nominate themselves for potential captaincy. The room fell silent, it seemed that over the past few years with no competition, students had forgotten how to be self-important. So Coach decided to allow people to nominate others to get the voting underway. This is where it got confusing. “I’d like to nominate Trent, Miss” came a voice that sounded suspiciously like the class jock’s. I’d surely misheard. Somewhere amongst the thoughts about how great my $90 guitar sounded I’d concocted the sound of someone casting a vote in my name. Before I knew it, my name was written in chalk next to the soccer captain’s, the pretty, athletic girl’s and the footy jock’s.

I was visibly baffled. It’s not that I was incredibly unpopular at school but I certainly wasn’t popular enough to warrant being elected in a popularity contest. Thoughts whizzed around my head, were they sympathy votes? Was I dying? It was surely a dream. Suddenly, the segment of the meeting that had garnered nothing but apathy from me had my full attention. What would be my electoral platform? I couldn’t bring sporting prowess to the proverbial table. I’d only played in organised sport once before, that was in our inter-school soccer program. Being an inter-school sport it meant that the games would take place during class time, therefore skipping class with no repercussions. Being soccer it meant I would be playing against players who were actually girlier than me, therefore no chance of getting injured. Unfortunately, the rest of the team was populated with people of a similar mindset and we were routinely destroyed on the field.

I definitely couldn’t bring enthusiasm for sports day to the table. My friends and I spent most sports day hanging around the edge of the oval perfecting our Bob Fossil impressions and taking advantage of the canteen’s extended opening hours. We were the school’s resident stoners, we just didn’t happen to smoke weed.

Before I’d even been given a chance to outline my policies on temporary tattoos and coloured hairspray, the votes were in. I was just about to declare shenanigans on the whole process when the announcement was made, “the Year Eleven captain for the Draco house is Trent”. Excuse me? I was beyond surprised at this point, I started thinking of the opportunities, from populating my CV to competing at the Athens Games, this was a coup.

Sports day rolled around, and it was much the same as any other. My friends and I sat suspiciously at the edge of the oval and I frequented the canteen for four consecutive grape Slush Puppies and a one-way ticket to type-2 diabetes. I could, however, feel the respect radiating toward the green text on my badge that read “House Captain”. Out of a feeling of obligation to my minions, I entered two events. The first was long jump. The long jump sandpit was located at the edge of the school’s perimeter, this meant two things for me: 1. Not many other people would compete, and 2. I wouldn’t have to walk very far. Given the shortage of other entrants I was in the lead and on my way to representing the school at the State Finals (a fitting result for a Captain) when the jack-of-all-trades soccer captain caught wind of the lack of competition in long jump. He jumped one sarcastic, yet winning jump and was on his way to compete at Santos Stadium in yet another event.

I try not to talk about my day’s other event. But let’s just say that running three-fifths of a 1500 metre race probably shouldn’t end with a spate of hallucinations featuring dancing bottles of Gatorade. Before I knew it, my tenure concluded. Admittedly, I could have done more with my time at the top. The series of planned reforms included disallowing the mental kid to be near dangerous equipment and a mandatory grape Slush Puppy hour. But I got distracted by my celebrity.

Looking back now, I realise this is one of those situations that was confusing then, but very clear to me now. I hadn’t been swept up by a changing tide of desire for music nerds. I’d been on the receiving end of a masterful joke that involved the most popular kid in class voting for one of the most unremarkable kids in class. It was brilliant in its subtlety. The jock didn’t vote for the most unpopular kid, this would have been too obvious, and not once did he make fun of the situation, instead treating me with the typical respect you’d give a sporting captain. He played it with a completely straight face without once giving the audience a cheeky wink, and it’s this genius that made this joke baffling at the time, but hilarious now, if a little painful.

                                                  (Click through to high res image)

Fifteen years ago saw the very early beginnings of a relationship that would carry me through some of the best and worst times of my life. Fifteen years ago entered a rock into my life that has remained unmovable and unshakeable. A partner that has watched me grow, and grown with me. It never gets jealous, argumentative and best of all, it never talks me out of stretching even the flimsiest of analogies to its breaking point. I’ll stop now. Fifteen years ago, pay tv entered my life.

This story of love at first sight began with the beloved but ill-fated Galaxy TV. I was at my auntie’s house, they’d recently had the hideous microwave dish bolted to their roof, and my dad and I had cobbled together an excuse for a visit. He was secretly just as excited as me about welcoming into Australia what was promised by several newspapers as “the future”.  What the future contained was a mystery to most, although according to journalists of the time it contained a lot of golf, too many remote controls and a frustrating setup for VCR users. He was not, as he claimed to mum, feverish at the thought of “finally getting to see the new granny flat on his sister-in-law’s”.

My dad and I had, without once speaking of it, devised a strategy that would result in maximum Galaxy time. We carried our plan out often, and we did it damn well. We would time our visits so as to not clash with any Crows or Tottenham games, my uncle being a rabid fan of both teams, never, never missing a televised game. Our impeccable foresight into timing meant the TV would be kept well clear of those symbols of inferiority, the free-to-air channels. We also paid attention to our Family:Galaxy ratio. We had to play this finely, if we were to burst through the front door, throw the dog from the lounge and disregard my grandma waiting for a hug they’d see straight through us. Though this is what our hearts wanted us to do, if we did, our cover would have been blown. We would engage in superficial, grueling conversation for an hour or so and at this point we’d lead the conversation seamlessly towards the new addition to the family. The new family member with eight channels of pure entertainment. The cleverest part of our plan though, was how we’d always make my uncle think that exhibiting the set top box and its exploits was his idea.

My uncle was obviously very obliging to show us his $50 per month investment, with one subscription he’d become far cooler than that kid at school with an actual pinball machine in his house. My dad and I would take turns between flicking through the channels and thumbing through the Galaxy magazine. As dad became increasingly dumbfounded at how the Federal government had locked us in the televisual 1960s for so long, I pointed out that if you missed Welcome Back Kotter on TV1 at 8:30pm you could watch it the next morning at 7:30am! I saw into the future on those days at my auntie’s house, it contained a lovable VJ named Jabba, heaps of WCW wrestling, a home shopping network and the tantalizing idea of a SEGA channel.

After our first experience with pay tv, it was settled, the Bartletts were going to be the first subscribers on Taylor street. We called Galaxy to book in a time for installation. They advised us that for the microwave dish to receive the satellite feed, you’d need to have an uninterrupted view of the State Bank Building from the roof of your house. Galaxy’s repeater sat atop Adelaide’s tallest building, and a clear view suggested good reception. Seemingly before hanging the phone up dad had the ladder out and was on his tiptoes standing on the roof’s ridge capping. “I can see the logo, we might need to chop down that tree, but I can see the logo!”. The tree was a century old gum tree, and belonged to our neighbour. However, I’m sure he’d have seen the logic of our thought, sure the gum tree may have added value to his home, but the value added by living next to the neighbourhood’s first pay tv subscriber was limitless. 

We quickly got back on the phone and confirmed that yes, we’re good candidates for the surgery. Within two weeks (felt like two months) the installer was tracking mud through our house and stomping on our terra-cotta tiles. After some poking around in the roof, and some mysterious testing, he somehow climbed down the ladder with a Farmer’s Union and a fag in mouth. His expression was transparent, even through the gruff exterior. He had bad news. We sat down. I was optimistic right up until the point that he delivered the words they don’t teach you in pay tv installers school: “you’ll have to wait for cable to be laid in your area”.

I spent the next year wandering around like a zombie. I tried to find friends to somehow fill my time spent waiting, but too few met my criteria. Needless to say I wasn’t making many friends when my first question of other eleven-year-olds on the monkey bars was “do you have an uninterrupted view of the State Bank building from your roof?”.