Timing is everything

As a tyro Publicist, I used to angst over my media releases ... I mean, journos are a really tough crowd. I used to wonder if there was ever anything written, at any time, for anyone that had either: as much riding on it (media coverage); or that could be passed over with the same snide, know-it-all, super-critical (these people write for a living after all) glance before illiciting a Publicist-hating, now-you've-fucked-up-my-deadline, fuelled cry: 'What a crock of boring, verbose shit! Who do they think gives a fuck!? Fuck these fucking time-wasting, uneducated, moron fucking Publicists! Jesus!' Sound of media release being violently destroyed and chucked in the bin.

I remember a time I was having a few beers with a journalist in Melbourne. (I actually remember more than a few beers with more than a few journalists ... but that's not the point.) This particular journo told me that most journalists actually like to receive media releases ... and that they find them very useful. But, he cautioned, it's all about when we receive them. Good publicists know media schedules. They also learn when to make that 'follow-up' call ... and trust me, it's really not good when you fuck the timing of those up:

PUBLICIST: "What's that sound I can hear in the background, darl?"
JOURNALIST: "That? Oh, that's just our final copy call deadline bell."
PUBLICIST: "Gorgeous! Now, about that media release ..."
JOURNALIST: "I'm going to hang up the phone now."

(Clunk.)

These days, there's also a fantastic online media release dissemination service called PRWeb. You register, you tick your field(s) of interest, and every day, without fail, they send you lots of media releases. I am registered on PRWeb from the days when I was editing, writing, designing and formatting The Pink Broad), and I receive about 30 media releases every day. Right about now. Some of them are actually very interesting and, yes, very useful. Others - after my interpretation of the infamous 'know-it-all, super-critical glance' - go straight into the trash.

Of the dozen or so that arrived today (Good Friday), there was one which absolutely compelled me to reward such a delightful display of initiative ... and it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to their website.

Which just goes to prove that timing is, in fact, everything. And you've really got to admire theirs.

Bless.

The sound we just heard ...

... was a hand grenade landing at the feet of our Prime Minister John Howard and our Treasurer Peter Costello. Call me a 'Conspiracy Theorist' ... call me an 'Old Pinko' ... accuse me of being so socio-politically blinkered that I am only capable of using the 'left' hand side of the stove ... categorise me, for your convenience, as you will - but I am tipping that the undeniable thud we heard last night has marked the beginning of the end of John Howard's Prime Ministership.

Here's why.

As reported on ABC News last night, the Commonwealth Government's Treasury Secretary Ken Henry (whose boss is Peter Costello) took it upon himself to fearlessly announce that 'good policy can often fall victim to political opportunity when an election beckons'. The Australian encapsulates it all rather neatly in their Editorial here.

Howard and Costello were, quite obviously, both caught horribly off-guard. It was easy to recognise because they rarely are. As media performers, Howard is especially hard to beat. Costello's hastily convened media call following Ken Henry's announcement was a brief and jittery appearance - with our Crown Prince of the Facetious Smirk looking and sounding noticeably ruffled. Costello is such a veteran of these sorts of pit-stops that it is rare to see him looking off into the middle distance, even for a second or two, trying to ignore the fact that an elephant has just trampled across the garden behind him. By Costello's impervious standards, it was a wholly unconvincing performance.

Then there was Prime Minister Howard's positively sullen interview last night with Kerry O'Brien on ABC TV's 7.30 Report. Was I the only one to notice Howard's nervous tick - the apparently uncontrollable little twitch courtesy of his right shoulder?

But 'the devil' is in the detail, as it were: the "policy" in question. And what was that? Ah, yes. Water. And who is the Parliamentary Secretary for water?

It would appear that someone, somewhere, has decided that the Government stand little chance of winning the Federal election to be held sometime this year with either Howard or Costello as leader of the Liberal Party. Ladies and gentlemen ... start your engines.

Stopping All Stations

Easter is such a problem. For the small business operator, it's long enough to be a 'shut down' and short enough to be a real nuisance. "We'll be 'looking at', 'thinking about', 'responding to that' after Easter" ... "That invoice won't be paid until after Easter" ... . As a child growing up in an unforgivably Christian household, Easter was a real mind-fuck. It was impossibly bleak. Shops would shut ... and gloom and doom would descend on our, otherwise, perfectly happy household. It was a veritable tsunami of interminable guilt and suffering (Friday), reverent anticipation (Saturday) and strident rejoicing (Sunday). For the Recovering Christian, Easter remains a heady mix of ingrained duty and obligation ... and like many of the rituals I still associate with the practice of Christianity, essentially one of messy contradictions. Well might the rock have been rolled away, but the Easter Eggs were (and still are) always scarce.

My father was, and still is, a preacher in the High Methodist tradition. He was also responsible for the Easter Candlelight Prayer Vigil at our local church ... and every year, my faith-full Dad would draw up a roster of believers who would take it in turns to sit at the altar of our little church to ensure the single candle (symbolising our spiritual accompaniment of Jesus on the journey to his crucifixion - 'The (fourteen) Stations of The Cross') never went out. The vigil would start at 8pm on Thursday evening and end at about 9am on Friday morning when the Minister leading the Good Friday Service would extinguish the candle to symbolise Christ's death ... murder ... passing ... homecoming ... betrayal ... what you will.

My father would spend hours on the phone tending his blueprint. 'So and so' were going away ... 'so and so' were interstate ... 'so and so' would love to, but ... 'so and so' were sorry, but ... and so and so on. One year, he ended up doing four separate shifts at times of the morning that were, for the rest of the congregation, decidedly un-Godly. And while our home was always stressful, tense and complicated for the duration of this thankless task, I envied his devotion.

A short time after I had moved out of home, my mother called to tell me that my father was having great difficulty filling his Candlelight Vigil roster. I was in the thick of therapy and, possibly even writhing around on my bed like Linda Blair's 'Regan', I think I snarled something typically badly-intentioned, blasphemous and entirely lacking in irony like: "Jesus Christ! Is he still peddling that shit?" down the phone. My mother, knowing - as mothers infuriatingly do - that I treated sleeping at night with the same level of contempt as I treated my health generally, thought I may like to offer to help him out by taking the early morning slots ... those times when it was apparently inconvenient for the rest of the congregation to be up. Even though I was in the midst of fanatically despising both of my parents for the dazzling array of sins they had (not, as it turned out) commited throughout my entire childhood, I agreed to call him. After all, 3am was easy for me ... and yes mum, I'll try not to be pissed. Christ!

I rang my Candlelight Prayer Vigil Roster-fatigued father who gratefully accepted my offer to fill in the gaps. I would take over from Him, sorry, him, at 3am and 'accompany Jesus to the cross' until 9am when people would start to arrive for the Good Friday service.

The fourteen 'Stations of the Cross', as documented both in the Christian faith and my father's Easter Candlelight Prayer Vigil Roster, are: 1. Jesus is condemned to death; 2. Jesus receives the cross; 3. Jesus falls the first time; 4. Jesus meets His Mother; 5. Simon of Cyrene carries the cross; 6. Veronica wipes Jesus' face with her veil; 7. Jesus falls the second time; 8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem; 9. Jesus falls the third time; 10. Jesus is stripped of His garments; 11. Crucifixion - Jesus is nailed to the cross; 12. Jesus dies on the cross; 13. Jesus' body removed from the cross; and 14. Jesus is laid in the tomb. I was to take over from my father as Jesus fell for the third time and be there in faithful observation until Jesus was laid in the tomb, and the congregation had arrived to worship.

Acts of faith are decidedly loaded undertakings - where that part of the brain that qualifies our actions as meaningful and appropriate to the given circumstances, proves simply incapable of resolving the inverted equations (of which the World Trade Center 2 + 2 = 0 is the quintessential example of our age). But I was acting out my faith for the benefit of my father ... in spite of the fact that the philosophy of John Wesley's Methodism contains more than a generous strain of emotional, psychological and physical child abuse. (Years later, I would include faithfully transcribed details of Wesley's teachings relating to The Child(ren) as material evidence in a submission I was commissioned to write for the Australian Senate Enquiry into the Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse). And while I certainly do not consider myself an abused child, Mind Fuck Methodism certainly defined the physicalisation and the fractures that will forever mark the complex and demanding relationship I share(d) with the Christian faith in general, and my father specifically.

Arriving at the church remains a striking memory. It was cold. I was early. I was sober. I was drug-free ... and I was rugged up and ready to draw on all of my theatrical reserves and 'do this thing'. It would be easier than television. I thought. My father was very happy to see me ... and for the briefest of moments, as we met at the altar in the flickering candlelight, his faith and my acceptance and understanding of it, was an undeniable reality. The peace and resolve was quite profound. He showed me The Prayer Book, where people had written their requests for prayer. There was the little old lady down the road who was expected to die come the resurrection. And there were others. I was to pray these collective requests ... but more than anything else, I was to be here as keeper of the candle. If it went out, I was to re-light it with a match from the box beside it. I was to be beside Jesus in his hour of need. And with that, my father left ... shortly after which I, of course, immediately fell asleep.

And on this occasion anyway, Christ died on my watch.

I woke only when the lady who had arrived with the floral arrangements was fastidiously (and perhaps intentionally a little too noisly, thank God) attending to her task. Those who know me well will understand how soundly I sleep ... and for how long ... and how hilarious it might have been watching this particular Good Friday service delivered over the prostrate, paralysed, dribbling, snoring and talking body of Geoffrey sprawled - immovable, stranded, inert and unconscious - across the altar. I didn't know where I was and, the momentary disassociation was impacted (with the velocity of an incredibly high speed head on collision between a semi-trailer and a tiny hatchback on a stretch of desolate rural single-lane highway) with fear that I could, for the first time in my life, taste. The candle had gone out.

Pulverised with fear, I very reluctantly looked up. A scattering of people were arriving and there were some already seated. I witnessed this by, not only the almost surgical quality of fluorescent light, but also by the now barely discernible but instantly recognisable flickering light of 'my' candle. Well might I have abandoned Christ in his hour(s) of need, but it would seem that He had chosen not to provide any evidence of it.

In the good Methodist tradition, I expected to be punished when I least expected it. Instead, it would later be confirmed, that the true measure of significance was that I was physically 'there'. 'Popping out to the 7-11 for a late night snack' would have been an indisputable error of Judgement - and consequently impossible to either accept or forgive. Christ's death, on the other hand, was unpreventable - and whether I was asleep or awake, it was the presence of a living (albeit snoring) soul beside the candle that was the quintessential and undeniable truth of this particular ritual. It took me years, however, to get over the embarrassment ... and to be honest, especially writing about it now, I'm not entirely convinced that I have.

In the years since I rejected Christianity and have chosen to live my life, instead, worshipping at the altar of The Almighty Haphazard, there have been moments when it has been impossible to deny the presence of something beyond even the clockwork curiosity of my imagination. There has been more than one occasion when a gentle but determined hand on my shoulder has prevented me from stepping from the footpath into the path of an oncoming car. I have suddenly been inspired to call a friend at the perfect time, and I have spent time on stage buried under dirt in a shallow and very crowded grave.

But my lasting memory of the Easter Candlelight Prayer Vigil is also crowded ... crowded by acceptance, forgiveness, company and precious solitude. And the point at where, while in the tranquil company of Jesus, I was powerless to prevent the most all-consuming, blissfully ignorant and unintentional sleep I have ever had.

Image: Barry Moser's The Crucifixion.

The Patron Saint(s) of Distraction

The Footy Season has started! And yes, I know I'm supposed to be trying to find Another Client, but - clearly - I didn't name this blog The Art of Distraction for nothing!

Last night I had my gorgeous friends Richard and Julia over for dinner. I first met Richard when he auditioned (successfully) for a role in the Melbourne production of Maestro - my play about Piotr Tchaikovsky. Julia is a wonderful writer, and I have directed two of her plays for the short play festival 'Short and Sweet'. I cooked potato and leek soup, chicken with sage and lemon accompanied by mashed potato and lightly steamed broccoli, carrots and beans ... and for dessert we had poached (in mint and cloves) apple topped with blueberries, raspberries and King Island cream. The fresh fruit platter didn't make it to the table because we were all too full.

Anyway, the cute boy holding the footy is Nick dal Santo .... and after the first round, I'm equal fifth in gayfooty.com.au's Tipping Competition!

A Complicated Business

My little creative agency lost A Client today. So now we have one ... well actually half of one - given that they're not really what I would call A Client. Sure, they bring in reasonable chunks of work - but not nearly frequently enough. They're lovely people and the work they do makes a real difference in the world (admittedly in small but meaningful ways) ... but they're still not what I'd call A Client. So, "Did Geoffrey have his head buried so far up his own Art Of Distraction he failed to see this coming?" you may well ponder.

Well, I'm afraid it's a great deal more complicated than that. You see there are people who 'do' running a small business well and there are people who don't. There are people who plough through their various and seemingly unending financial reporting tasks in MYOB or Quicken (or both) and there are those who, instead, prefer to plough through a bowl of vanilla ice-cream and Cottee's chocolate topping. There are those people who Excel at spreadsheets, cashflow forecasts and summaries, and there those who purposefully ridicule these concepts by using excel as a proper noun, not a verb. There are people who are masters in the concept of New Business Development and there are those who wonder why the phone's not ringing more often. There are people who grasp the basic value of a 'network' and there are those who loved Peter Finch and, especially, Faye Dunaway in it.

There are those people who use tried and trusted marketing and advertising strategies to prompt business enquiries and there are those who write them for everyone else but who refuse to believe they need one of their own. There are people who are incredibly motivated toward success and there are those who are cynical about the whole 'success' thing ... not to mention more than a little too keenly devoted to anonymity. There are those people who are determined to break out of 'The Poverty Cycle' and those who are not altogether convinced that there is anything even remotely 'cyclic' about it. There are those people who invest in state-of-the-art technology to enhance their business's productivity and competitive edge and there are those who don't even own a cordless telephone ... or an iPod. There are those who master the efficiency and ease of PDAs and Blueberries and there are those who don't know what 'PDA' stands for and who prefer their 'Blueberries' spelled with a lowercase 'b' and in a bowl, preferably served with lots of King Island cream.

There are people who can put those extra little business expenses onto their Credit Cards and there are those for whom the tireless exposure to the word 'Declined' is a source of constant public humiliation - even at the bottle shop. Especially at the bottle shop. There are people who create and monitor budgets and there are those who think they're simply too expensive when compared to Bayswater, even if you factor in their 'unlimited kilometres' deal. There are people who implement strategies to protect their business's 'bottom line' and there are those who think a 'bottom line' is that mark you get on your bum when you've been sitting on a toilet seat reading for too long. There are those people who develop targeted Direct Email Marketing Campaigns and there are those who instantly trash emails from people they don't know. There are people who actively source 'new business leads' and there are those who try and beat their computer at chess ... or themselves at Tetris. Or Solitaire.

There are people who are really good at doing one thing and those who are really good at doing many. Too many. There are people who prefer coffees to complication, eating to equations, fucking to follow-ups, walking to wireless, movies to meetings, laughing to leasing, simplicity to strategising, partying to planning, butterflies to break-evens and practically anything to the curse of ambition.

I hope I'm writing metaphorically when I write that 'the jury is still out' where my little enterprise is concerned ... but just in case I'm not, I'll be re-engaging in the art of distraction when I'm sure I can continue to pay for my internet connection. And that, my friends, is about as close to the 'bottom line' as I'm prepared to go.

Image: The Scream

The Ego Has Landed*

My housemate had sage words of advice for me about The Art of Distraction yesterday: "Don't disappear too far up your own arse, Doll". Bless him. And fair enough too. The poor boy has to put up with my smelly socks, seemingly endless 'Where's Geoffrey's Rent This Fortnight?' crises, a shoddy time-and-body-clock that malfunctions with a creative irregularity all of its very own, a veritable mushroom cloud of constant cigarette smoke, and my life-threatening allergy to housework.

The issue, you see, is that I am captivated by my humble little blog (which my housemate also suggested I might re-title The Danger of Distraction).

The simple truth of the matter is that many years ago I fancied myself as a bit of a writer. When I sold my (slightly less than majority) shares in Brother Sister, the Melbourne gay newspaper I started with my friend Jeffrey Grad, I spent six months writing a play called The World ... According to Timothy Cross while living off the proceeds. And then the money ran out. The money always runs out ... which is why, ten years ago, I started my little graphic design business - to keep regular money coming in while I kept writing.

It remains the single greatest miscalculation of my life.

Developing as a writer is like breathing. To stop is death. To rush is to create chaos ... a kind of word-weary lightheadedness that gradually severs the connection between the writing and the reason. Words present so many possibilities ... not only which ones and where, but which ones next, and why? Words have an incredible impact on me. There are books I have read that I have not wanted to end ... so much so that I have avoided finishing them - sometimes for days. Words - and the time and space before, after and even during them - harbour potential for unimaginable power. There have been moments in the theatre where words have had the power to literally alter my physical and emotional state. The final line of Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa - impossible to quote here out of its dramatic context - resulted, for me, in a sudden gasp, an equally memorable exhale, and unexpected tears. The best kind. My body changed shape. My hands covered my mouth. Such is the power of words.

I respect words enormously, and for too long now I have used them almost exclusively as weapons to fend off penury ... and intimacy ... and often in trite, meaningless and idle chat of little or no consequence. I have sometimes found the courage to use the right ones at the right time, and occasionally the wrong ones at the wrong time. I am more grateful than I think you know for the comments that have encouraged me to write. It has made me realise that, if we do nothing else once a day, we should say something encouraging, generous, kind, positive and supportive to ourselves ... and possibly to someone else as well. It musn't be that hard.

I have been living here in Randwick for a little over a year now. Immediately prior to moving in here, I had managed to use the wrong words but, incredibly fortuitously as it turned out, at the right time.

But that's another story.

*With apologies to Jack Higgins

Meeting Deborah Kerr: Part Two

I am still wiping the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand as I am ushered through the Stage Door into another world. My arrival backstage has caused great consternation, and my father is refusing to trust any of these suspect theatrical types ... or to let anyone within five feet of me. Only after profuse apologies for having caused my distress and embarassment, does he let me into the care of a woman who assures him that Geoffrey is definitely being taken to meet Deborah Kerr.

I am quickly escorted down a very cramped and narrow passageway to a closed door. A rapid knock ... and the door is opened by a kind and attentive woman who, I will come to learn, is Miss Kerr's personal assistant. Understanding a little about protocol, I offer her the flowers and the chocolates, expecting that she will want to do something with them. By now my carnations are desperately in need of some water. "No, no ... it will be much nicer if you give them to Miss Kerr." Her instinctively maternal smile practically sedates me - and a tissue magically appears in her hand for me to use to wipe my cheeks. I explain that I hadn't been expecting to cry tonight so I didn't have a hankie. With great warmth, I am assured that there will not be a need for any more tears ... that there had been a terrible misunderstanding ... and that if I would like to sit down, Miss Kerr will not be too much longer.

I try to be inconspicuous as I glance around the small room. There are two lovely, big Louis XIV chairs - one of which I am sitting on - and a writing desk with a chair of its own against the wall to my left. To my right, next to the now closed door, is a tallboy, made, I imagine, from some kind of exotic timber, and finished in a dark chocolate lacquer. I recall a red, patterned curtain hanging from the ceiling to the floor, behind which I imagine an area where someone could relax in complete privacy ... away, even, from expected and welcome visitors.

And it is from behind this curtain that Deborah Kerr finally appears.

As soon as I see her, my heart feels as though it is going to break free from my chest. I sit glued to my chair in awe, fear, admiration and adoration. Deborah Kerr! - who had first undone me in the final scene of An Affair To Remember ... the Mrs Anna Leonowens who, among other things, had defined the role of dance on film for me in her polka with Yul Brynner in The King and I ... the actress who had more than matched wits with Robert Mitchum in Heaven Knows, Mr Allison and the actress who was in that scene with Burt Lancaster in From Here To Eternity! My mind unexpectedly assails me with stills, scenes, music, titles, costumes, famous faces, famous names - Mitchum, Brynner, Grant, Clift ... directors - Korda, Huston, Zinnemann ... and I think I am going to be sick. Or pass out.

The Deborah Kerr that is actually standing barely three feet from me, instantly comes back into stark relief. She is wearing an elegant pale blue robe and her magnificent red hair is casually bunched up on top of her head. The greasepaint is gone, and her skin is radiant ... positively luminous. How simply, sublimely beautiful she is ... and even though hers is a face I have seen in literally hundreds of thousands of celluloid frames - nothing could ever have prepared me for how magnificent it is to see her in person. She has, quite literally, taken my breath away.

I find myself on my feet, holding out my bunch of flowers and the box of chocolates ... and she melts. "They're blue!" I exclaim, slightly perplexed that, as much as she has made such an impression on me, this wide-eyed young man with blue flowers and chocolates has apparently made something of an impression on her. "Yes, yes they are!" she replies. "I didn't know you could get blue carnations." "You can't," I declare proudly. "They're actually white, but because blue is your favourite colour, the florist sprayed them with a can of blue dye!" She offers me her left cheek, which I nervously kiss - as though it were made of the rarest and most precious porcelain. She hands the chocolates and flowers to her assistant who has appeared from behind the curtain - only to vanish again and return a minute later with my flowers in a vase. They are placed on top of the tallboy ... and as her assistant disappears again, Deborah Kerr and I sit down to talk.

I hadn't expected to be speechless. My mind fights itself for a question ... and I feel sick about the fact that I have no idea what to say. She begins by apologising for what had happened to me outside, and I tell her that it didn't really matter. "But it does matter Geoff. It matters to me ... and I am very sorry that you were treated so very, very badly." The phrasing, timbre and accent is unmistakable. "What", my frantic mind taunts me, "do you think you are doing thinking you have something to say to Deborah Kerr?"

We talked about so many people and so many things. She spoke with great fondness, and with more than a hint of a wry smile or two, about the truly great men she had worked with and how there had never really been anyone like them since. She told me how she didn't really like the kinds of movies that were being made 'these days' - or, more generally, the calibre of storytelling on film. Yes, she tells me, the films she and her peers made were not only from different, complex and challenging times - but they explored and encompassed grand themes and difficult details. Audiences came to the movies to most certainly be entertained ... but also to immerse themselves in the world of storytelling - a world in which intimacy and interpersonal relationships were based on something other than the cheap jokes, shallow themes, sex and titillation. Her world of story, and that of her peers, was a vastly different world compared to the one we were living in 'today'.

We talked about how, when she died, she wanted to be buried in Wales ... and how, because of the IRA, she had been prevented from spending as much time as she would have liked in her beloved Ireland. I told her I was going to be an actor and she gave me some valuable tips - an impromptu acting lesson from Deborah Kerr! I have never forgotten the many little details she told me - and as she stood to offer clues to her technique - I was sure that acting classes would never be the same again.

And, like dropping unexpectedly from a great altitude, my time is up. Miss Kerr holds out her right hand, which I take in mine. She offers me her right cheek again, which I kiss - this time with a great deal more enthusiasm than I had managed the first time. Her personal assistant appears again and walks purposefully toward the door. Deborah Kerr looks at the theatre program and record cover I am clutching in my hands and asks me if I would like her to sign them for me. I had forgotten about them entirely. "Yes please!", I reply.

Miss Kerr moves gracefully to the desk and sits down. Her assistant takes the program and record cover from me, and moves to stand beside Miss Kerr at the desk. The record cover is placed on the desk first and Miss Kerr holds up her right hand, into which her assistant places, more precisely than I ever imagined possible, a dark blue felt tip marker. I am transfixed by the expert efficiency of it all. Miss Kerr doesn't need to adjust the position of the marker in her hand before she autographs the record cover - which is then replaced by the theatre program, opened to the full page portrait of her. This too, is signed ... and Deborah Kerr stands up again and faces me. To this day I still have no idea where the marker disappeared to, but her assistant hands me both the theatre program and record cover with a generous smile.

And then she opens the door.

I sneak one last look at Deborah Kerr ... but this time, all and everything I had earlier associated with her is not rampaging through my mind. I see a great woman ... who had taken twenty minutes of her precious time to make this young man's dream come true. Her assistant directs me back up the passageway, and gently closes the door on my adventure.

I find myself back where I came in. There is no-one else but the security guard, who nonchalantly opens the Stage Door and lets me out into reality. It's a heady collision. I float to the car where my father is patiently waiting. He asks me how I had gone and I tell him everything in breath-draining detail. I show him my record cover and I open my theatre program.

There, in simple, unaffected script - with a hint of flourish, is my message to treasure forever: For Geoff, With Affection, Deborah Kerr.