Seb Sharp

My cat has it in for me at the moment. She’s turned evil. When I returned home from my gig tonight I half expected to catch her sitting in a big black leather chair, stroking a small mouse and planning world domination whilst instructing her henchmen to do her evil bidding via satellite link.

Tonight I played the annual ‘Sleaze Ball’, a gig at a straight venue organized by the students at the W.A Academy Of Performing Arts. Most of them have names like Jeremiah, Briony and Aria-Jane, and they spend a lot of their time talking very loudly about the theatre whilst wearing a lot of knitted things and generally flouncing about. Having been a performing arts student for eight months (many moons ago) and having spent most of my time doing all of the above, I relate completely to these guys and have a huge soft spot for them.

My set started at half past twelve, so I packed all of my records at eleven, had a shower, and got dressed. When I got to the club it was packed. The theme for the night was ‘Jungle’ so the dancefloor was filled with half naked Zacharys and scantily clad Clairette-Portias, all smeared with paint, glitter and what I assumed were feathers, but may have been small pets that didn’t get out of the way in time. After the next song it was time for some shows, which generally involved lots of Melody-Anastacias and Zane-Tobias’ gyrating about to tribal techno whilst pretending to lick each others privates. I put it all down to it being a powerful statement against monolithic oppression in today’s totalitarian, consumerist society, and applauded politely.

With the shows over, it was my turn to play, and I launched into the album version of ‘Theme From S’express’ which received a great response (thanks Mark, you never fail me!) and we were away. Over the next hour I played a mixture of breaks, tribal and electro, and had a great time with the crowd, who were so fantastically responsive it made me want to run out there and hug all of them individually. Well, the attractive ones, anyway.

But then I noticed it. You couldn’t help BUT notice it.

It was really quite warm in there, and I usually sweat a lot. Being that I was quite nervous and excited, I was really beginning to heat up. I was sweating like a pig. Well to be honest several pigs. In jumpers. Laying on sunbeds. In the desert. Eating chillies. You get the picture. So with me getting so warm, my t-shirt and vest had heated up too, and they suddenly began to release an unmistakable smell. Cat pee. Lots of cat pee. It was as if my cat had saved up a weeks worth in a bucket, and poured it over my clothes while I wasn’t looking. And now my heated-upness had released it. In giant clouds.

I was suddenly the smelly kid. The one that reeked and had meatball and gravy sandwiches at recess. Oh the shame. Luckily no-one had come anywhere near me while I was playing, and the dj box was raised enough so the crowd were unaware of my sudden change in stature from superstar dj to musically inclined cat tray. The only problem was that at some stage someone was going to turn up to play after me, and they would have to stand in the confines of the dj box with me, and my newly discovered flair for fragrance.

I wasn’t sure who was next, and being such a huge event it could have been anyone, but of course, this being my life, who should turn up but the one guy I have a really hard time talking to. There’s no problem between us, he’s just hard work, and despite several gentle attempts on my part has yet to bother giving me any acknowledgement beyond a slightly annoyed look every time I open my mouth. So there he is, and there I smell. There couldn’t be a worse person for me to have to do changeover with.

The best way for me to deal with this was to keep him on one side of the box and me on the other, so I immediately feigned interest in an empty shelf to my far left and shuffled over there, nearly choking on my headphone cord in the process. He stepped towards me and asked what I had played. I stayed rooted to the spot and stretched to pick up the pile of records he needed to see. Then without moving my feet, I leaned as far back as I could whilst stretching my arms toward him and handed them over, giving myself a rather lovely looking double chin in the process. He stood in the spot I needed to occupy to play the next record and started flicking through them. “Scuse me dude!” I yelled, with a big grin on my face. He looked up to see me gesturing wildly at him, my arms flailing like the Wicked Witch of the East releasing the winged monkeys, teeth flashing and feet rooted to the spot. God knows what he thought, but it scared him enough to back away. I shuffled back over, still leaning as much as I could away from his direction and played my final record.

As soon as I had mixed it in, I unplugged my headphones and leapt back to my side of the dj box, where I packed up everything in record time, ran behind him with my cases and jumped out. Sure, he probably thought I was a total freak, but I was pretty sure that he’d entertained that concept before tonight. At least he hadn’t smelt me. I don’t mind being regarded as weird, as long as no-one refers to me as “…You know, the tall one. Gay. Reeks of piss.”

So, tragedy averted, I carefully ran around the edge of the club, away from the people, and headed straight for the front door. But of course, halfway to freedom a gorgeous muscle boy in a loincloth lunged at me, threw his arms around my waist and yelled ‘Awesome set!’ in my ear. I tried to wriggle free but I had a record case in each hand and he just grabbed me tighter. “I hear you at the Leederville all the time! Great Tunes!!” he continued, before suddenly letting go of me. He had a puzzled expression on his face.
“Um, have you..”
“I know!! I spluttered. “It’s Giorgio Armani! I can never wear it, it changes on my skin. Smells like cat piss!!”
Then I scuttled straight past him, down the stairs and out to my car.
I sped all the way home, where I’ve spent the last half hour giving myself a ‘Silkwood’ style shower scub while soaking my clothes in boiling water. Strangely enough, Pussycat is nowhere to be found..

I’m trying to look on the bright side. Out of all of the people there, only one totally hot sexy shirtless man that rubbed up against me knows that I reek of cat pee.

Being a dj is fun, and I love it. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s not all mirrorballs and celebrities and waking up in other people’s underpants. No. Sometimes you have to work for it. Take last night’s gig for example.

I turned up to play a two hour set at my regular Wednesday night venue. I was freshly scrubbed, my record box was filled with good tunes, and I was all ready to get the disco loving masses a heavin’ and a stompin’.

All well and good, except none of them wanted to stomp or heave.. I played, and they stood there, bobbing up and down on the edge of the dancefloor. .

Okay, said my inner dj voice, sometimes it just requires something a little more. They just need a little push. So I played a great big hugely popular floor filling ‘get-up-and-shake-it-now-before-the-boss-notices-and-sacks-me-for-the-love-of-god’ kinda tune, followed by a ‘scream-cos-ya-love-it-this-never-fails-me-did-I-mention-I’m-prepared-to-offer-monetary-incentives’ all time favourite. Three guys immediately leapt onto the dancefloor. I sighed with relief.

The three guys then proceeded to walk directly across the dancefloor and vanished into the crowd. Evidently it was a desperate need to cross the room to get more beer, rather than a desire to gyrate lewdly in front of their fellow bobbing punters on a dancefloor that had previously only been graced by the occasional tumbleweed. Dammit.

By this stage of the night, the venue was getting quite full, and I was beginning to look somewhat, shall we say, not very good. This was when I met helpful girl.

Helpful girl walked up to the front of the dj box and yelled “Drahhkikkyppglflug!” at me, then gave me the ‘thumbs up’ sign. I quickly flicked through my record box for a record of that title, remembered that I didn’t have any Albanaian Fluglehorn classics, and turned back to her, giving the universal sign for ‘confusion mixed with mild indifference’. She rolled her eyes, then walked round and clambered up beside me.
“DIRRTY!! BY CHRISTINA AQUANERIL!” she bellowed at close range, rupturing my ear drum.
“I’ll try..” I lied back.
“NOW!!” yelled helpful girl. “AND HEAPS MORE R N B!! EVERYONE WILL GO OFF!!”
“The front room plays RnB all night..” I offered, helpfully.
“I CAN’T BE F**KED GOING OUT THERE!” she screeched, obviously shocked at my suggestion that she walk ten metres. I nodded sympathetically.
“Well, I only play house out here. Sorry babe.”

She gave me her very best glare (the one, I suspect, she reserves specifically for insincere dj’s), then turned and disappeared into the bobbing masses. The positive thing about this, was while she was distracting me, the dancefloor had acquired a few people. Not people in search of beer on the other side of the room, but people dancing. I nearly wept academy award acceptance speech tears right then and there.

My faith in disco humanity renewed, I did what any self respecting, progressive, forward thinking dj would do to in this situation. I played Kylie’s ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’. As soon as the first ‘La la la’ came out, a trio of Japanese girls pogoed into the middle of the floor and punched their fists in the air, carrying on in a manner usually reserved for the discovery of new Hello Kitty merchandise. This was all the encouragement the rest of the crowd needed and they piled onto the floor, all pretending that they too were big Hello Kitty fans, discovering a new range of faux-fur lunchboxes. Two tracks later the Japanese girls had pushed their way to the front of the box and were moshing and grinning with all their might. Thank god for Red Bull.

So another tragedy averted, a floor slowly filled and a night well done.

The moral of the story… we’re nothing without Kylie.

Sigh.

Thanks to Miss B for filling in a little blank spot from a few saturdays back (see the last post…). Apparently someone stole one of my shoes while I sat dribbling in the corner. Miss B very kindly retrieved it for me and replaced it on my foot in a Cinderella/Prince charming moment. For this I am forever in her debt. It’s just that I think that she grabbed the nearest shoe, rather than tracking down the one I’d lost, so I now have one chocolate brown trainer (mine) and one gold stilletto.  Somewhere out there a tranny is step-lurching her way through a Whitney Houston number to rapturous applause…

I’ve done it again. Oh the shame.

On Friday nights I manage the bar of the club I dj at. It’s all part of my new duties as assistant to the assistant manager. Therefore, rather than being safely tucked away in the safety of the dj box – which is upstairs – I’m down on the floor, or behind the bar. Now I normally enjoy working the bar, it makes the night fly past, and of course there’s always the added bonus of guys trying to pick you up. No matter that some of them have a head like a microwaved hog’s ass, it’s the fact that they pay you some form of attention that’s important.

The Friday night crowd are normally a fantastic bunch of people. They spend most of the night at the pub down the street, then stagger up the road to visit us. Usually by this stage of the evening they’re all slightly inebriated and up for some fun, resulting in lots of (interpretive) podium dancing, outrageous flirting, water fights with the bar staff ( I swear I never start them) and sometimes if we’re really lucky, they pass out in their own drool – a personal favourite of mine.

Well this Friday was a little different. As soon as I walked in and saw the bar staff with fear in their eyes I knew it was not going to be the best of nights. After serving a couple of patrons, I realised that “Get me a Bourbon and Coke, and don’t think I’m going to say please…” followed by “…I said Bourbon and Dry!!! What the f**k is this???” would be the order of the evening.

I managed to restrain myself, and smiled happily at the lovely people intent on seeing me cry, until the age old argument of water came up. Being a nightclub, we sell bottled water, at a reasonable price. We have overheads, and we’re there to make money. We don’t serve, sell or give away glasses of water, unless someone is unwell, or in desperate need. It’s one of the rules, and ten or so people a night try to get around it. It’s shocking I know. A nightclub punter that tries to get something for nothing. You wouldn’t read about it……

So, the man in question staggers up to the the bar, and demands a glass of water.

“I’m sorry, we only sell bottled water.” I replied, helpfully

“Well that’s rubbish, I’ve had glasses of water all night.” He snorted.

“We don’t serve glasses of water, I’m afraid. It’s against policy…”

“Well you did, and you will!!”

“I’m actually not allowed to.”

“Well she gave me one!!” he said, pointing to one of the bar staff who is the singlemost biggest nazi when it comes to the water rule. Using the old ‘they did’ trick is a favourite amongst water blaggers.

“I’m sure she didn’t.” I scoffed, now completely confident that he was trying it on.

“She did! And HE did too!” he continued pathetically, not realising he was pointing at the owner. Now I had definate proof he was lying.

“Mate, just give it up….. That’s the owner, and he instigated the rule about glasses of water. If someone gave you one out of kindness earlier then fine, but don’t embarrass yourself by trying to blindside me. I’ve heard every excuse in the book.”

Sensing that he had been caught out, he made one last desperate attempt.
“Yeah, well if you’re not supposed to give it to me then fine, but all of the staff here have charged me $1.50 for a glass of water, and I’ve had three, so give me a refund then.”

I was impressed. The guy had guts.
“Mate, there’s no way that would ever happen. Just give it up. We never have, and never will sell glasses of water. Not her, not him, not me, not any of the other bar staff, not any other night of the week. Not during International Water Week. Not ever. There’s not even a button on the till for it.”

He sighed and ordered a bottle. I took his money, thanked him, and gave him a big cheesy ‘I win!’ grin. Another victory for the Seb and his amazing powers of perception.

Five minutes later I picked up a piece of paper that had fallen off the bench behind me.
It read :
ALL BAR STAFF. AS OF TONIGHT WE WILL BE OFFERING GLASSES OF WATER FOR $1.50 TO PATRONS. RING UP UNDER ‘SUNDRIES’ IN THE TILL.

The water nazi grinned at me cheekily and said “Didn’t see that coming, did ya?”

Surprisingly enough, before committing to making myself go slowly deaf as a turntablist, I had another burning ambition. I wanted to be a popstar. Like Madonna, but hairier.

In my formative years I was a soprano, and travelled extensively around the wheatbelt area of Western Australia, bringing shrill delights to the locals. My voice was so clear and strong the music teacher, Mrs Smith said I was one young lady who would go far. I did, in fact go quite far at that precise moment, as I ran out of the classroom completely humiliated. Hadn’t she seen my Captain America t-shirt and butch sandals? I even had a football!

As revenge I called her Mr Smith until three weeks later I got sent home with a note requesting a parent-teacher meeting.

Gender crisis over, I worked on learning all the words to the ‘Xanadu’ soundtrack, and dreamed of a future career that didn’t involve sitting in the carriage of a combine harvester. Later, I wanted to be Simon Le Bon, then Tom Bailey from the Thompson Twins.

My Thompson Twins obsession lasted until high school, when a cover band from the city came to play an all-ages event at the local football club. Halfway through the gig, the lead singer, a girl in white spandex with a gravity defying backcombed hairdo, called for ‘aspiring stars’ to come backstage during the break. She offered us the chance to sing live with the band. The best performer would win the new A-ha album. Myself and a couple of mates scrambled backstage and signed up for public humiliation.

For a cover band, they had a fairly limited repertoire. A friend of mine decided to perform Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’. They wanted me to attempt ‘Take On Me’ by A-ha, but I protested, explaining that my outfit just wouldn’t go with an A-ha number (secretly I didn’t know the words, but I wasn’t going to tell them that).  I asked if I could do ‘King For A Day’ by the Thompson Twins. They stared blankly at me. I should have known to give up then, but I took them up on their offer to listen to me sing it, then play their own version of the music. No problem!

The three kids before me were incredibly off key, and didn’t know all the words to the songs, so I was quietly confident in my abilities. When my turn came, I walked straight out and grabbed the mic. The guitarist winked at me encouragingly. My moment had arrived. I stared out into the sea of familiar faces, most of them from school, trying to look as if I wasn’t about to swallow my tongue in fear.

Seconds later, the keyboardist struck up the opening riff of A-ha’s ‘Take On Me’. Oh Shit. I stood paralysed for a moment, before realising there was only one thing I could do. I sang ‘King For A Day’ – to the tune of ‘Take on Me’. No matter that one was twice the speed of the other, and was phrased completely differently. I belted it out with all my might, to a very perplexed looking audience. There was even a catchy little moment when I fell behind the band, and had to sing “If I was king for just one day, I would give it all away, Iwouldgiveitallawaytobewithyouuuuuuuuuuuuuu” which drove the crowd wild. I believe that some of them actually peed themselves as they tried not to bust an intestine laughing.

Needless to say, when I finished, there was dead silence, before the big haired singer came on gently dragged my sorry ass offstage.

She actually laughed when I asked for my album.

Bet she’s scrubbing toilets with a brush fashioned in her likeness now. She couldn’t even hit the high part in ‘Love is a Battlefield’.

Bitch.