With modern eyes we now see them as ugly, primitive-looking things affiliated with old plastic cassette tapes and perhaps somewhat related to those equally-redundant computer floppy discs. How quickly technology has progressed from the days when having variable fast-forward and rewind speeds (fast, double fast, Triple Fast!) on VCRs warranted praise and worship, and how stubborn I was when DVDs first came out, adamantly insisting that I would never (ever) convert, clinging desperately onto my collection of VHS movies with their inconsistently-sized and ripped cardboard covers and maintaining passionately that being able to record from TV was basic a human right. And indeed, by not making recording a standard feature on DVD players haven’t we all turned into JB Hi-Fi bargain pile-raiding uber-consumers, needing to own entire series of shows and collector’s editions of movies when we could have easily taped them for free?

Well anyway, before I allow the nostalgia to forever be replaced by the progress of DVD and Blu-Ray user-friendliness, here are several of my fondest childhood and adolescent memories of VHS.

- Frequently getting the tape – the actual black/brown physical tape – caught inside the VCR and needing to manually wind it back in with a kitchen utensil that would fit (usually the handle end of an egg beater) after pressing that little square button to open up the latch to straighten out the crumples.

- Memorising the times of certain favourite scenes of movies, e.g. 1:10:05, and playing a game where I’d rewind or fast-forward to as close as possible to that exact timepoint, taking into account the slow-down speed of my fast-running VCR and trying to estimate how long before or after that point I would have to press Stop.

- Pressing Pause and seeing the image stretch and struggle on old CRT TVs, hoping the tape wouldn’t burn or melt on the hot metal VCR heads after leaving it for too long.

- Getting fined at the video store for not rewinding movies upon their return and watching the staff at Video Ezy and Civic Video utilise those sports car VHS rewinder machines, objects made specifically for rewinding purposes. Oh, how those rewinder manufacturing companies would have shaken their fists in anger during the DVD takeover.

- VCR head cleaner solution and the awful smell of alcohol, needing to wait an hour for it to dry in order for your video to be watchable. Hiring ‘The Specialist’, starring Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas and Sharon Stone (which constituted an all-star-cast back in the 90s) and having the tape snap inside the player when I was too eager to watch it after cleaning, and then making up a story at the Video Ezy saying that the tape itself had screwed up my player and getting a Free Hire voucher in return. I still feel guilty about that (but hey, free movie), and apologise for the bad taste in films.

- Those useless, generic stickers that came on a strip with every blank tape, with the little letters of the alphabet, the ones displaying the length of the tape, 90, 180, 240, 300 minutes, whether the mode was LP or SP, and various label stickers of different sizes and shapes for placement all over every edge of the tape. These stickers were all so very pointless, but I enjoyed making patterns out of them before realising that some of them peeled off inside the VCR upon pressing Eject, no doubt further contributing to the potential fire hazard of the device.

- SP vs LP recording. Taping football matches, including the football World Cups of 1998 and 2002 in their entirety on LP 300-minute videos (which meant a massive 10+ hours of terrible quality), with a gigantic stack of videos. All labeled and covered garishly with those aforementioned useless stickers.

- Taping over previous recordings and seeing their long-forgotten remnants lingering around either behind the image of the  most current recording – etched into the tape like an image burnt into one’s retinas, my favourite being old Disney cartoons hanging about as the background to a Schwarzenegger movie – or watching them reappear after a short period of static at the very end of the tape, usually consisting of old TV shows and ads with antiquated channel logos and bad hairstyles and fashion.

- Having tapes get stuck in an old, malfunctioning VCR, and needing to ‘trick it’ into allowing the ejection to take place by unplugging the power cable, plugging it back in, turning the VCR on and quickly pushing against the stuck tape to force the annoying thing out. Luckily no electrocutions ever occurred during this process.

- Eventually upgrading to a good quality VCR with a dial that allowed you to watch scenes frame-by-frame, especially useful for bone-crunching football tackle analysis in slow-mo and reviewing in awe the shattering of the T-1000 in Terminator 2. There really was something special about watching those paused, overworked images covered in tape static on the TV screen and hearing the groans of the VCR motors with each and every frame advancement and reversal.

- Before the advent of subtitles in DVDs, incorrectly guessing movie quotes due to bad accents/acting commonly found in Jean Claude Van-Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Sylvester Stallone movies. Having never had the desire to repurchase Universal Soldier on DVD, I still to this day do not know what JCVD was saying at the end after the fight with Dolph Lundgren – “Ironed?” “I wronged?” “I ronned [sic]?” “Eire rammed?” None of my guesses ever made any sense in the context of that scene, but then again, what was I thinking watching that rubbish in the first place anyway?

~

Got any other stories? I’d love to hear about your own personal favourite VHS memories =)

~

The winner will receive a Will Ooi-autographed copy of a picture of Jack Nicholson holding a picture of Heath Ledger, being asked for an autograph

Just as an observation, Foreshore, much like the current Australian Music Festival scene in general, presented itself through its participants in that very particular, very peculiar nationalistic Australian form which has somehow evolved from, arguably, the events of the Cronulla riots: muscular, shirtless men with Southern Cross tattoos wearing fluorescent tight board shorts and short skirted/hot-panted made-up girls with alternately good or bad tans, the fashions for both sexes topped off with large-rimmed sunglasses and no shortage of superficial self-confidence. By comparison the three of us who went and saw Empire together, Garry, Pep and I, were dressed tamely as far as animal instinct courtship standards went, but certainly by anyone’s everyday standards Garry looked awesome and Pep was, as only she can be, beautiful. We were there simply for the music – keen to see the headliners as well as the up and comers Deadmau5, the Bloody Beetroots, Zombie Nation, et al – in addition to having a good time with our friends, much like what the music festival of yesteryear was like and stood for, as opposed to this seemingly new “other” reason to go; namely, to make a statement on image and primal sexuality, as demonstrated by this specific subculture of people at these festivals nowadays. Regardless though, the common interests amongst the crowd were undoubtedly the bands and the DJs, with the main concern amongst most of us being who to choose from out of Empire of the Sun and Bloody Beetroots, whose sets who were playing at the same time. Garry, Pep and I had made our choice and stuck with it, our joy gleaned from the day’s fun ready to burst out once more when Empire finally arrived after all the hype and the eagerness.

The initial signs were great; fantastic visuals and lighting, an almost operatic attention to detail in design and set-piece, costumed dancers in ever-changing masks, Luke Steele wearing an equally ostentatious crown on his head, but sadly how ominous this prop in particular would turn out to be. Many of the right ingredients were there for a thrilling show: the band’s familiar, popular songs being played out to an admiring and appreciative crowd. Those large muscled men in shorts and suspenders with no shirts propped up joyfully on the shoulders of other beefcake guys, plenty of happy hand movements being waved, a mass of excited screams and shouts and dancing and jumping up and down. But, tellingly, something was just… off. A few songs in, Pep’s action movie reference seemed to come to fruition – and not just because of the abundance of alpha-male Schwarzenegger-physique on display – Empire of the Sun was worryingly starting to resemble the latest Indiana Jones: expensive to produce, arriving with much hype, and ending utterly and devastatingly in frustration and anger.

Garry made mention of Empire’s lack of interaction with the crowd. Pep’s Parklife warning again came back into our consciousness. These doubts permeating the mind despite how much we all wanted Empire to be awesome, and sure enough, a few more songs later with the non-engagement continuing and the dancers and Steele himself constantly leaving the stage and coming back with pretty outfits but with still no sign of an actual live performance or even a hint of personality to separate what we were seeing from the experience of watching a music video, the performers managed to achieve that dreaded cliche: all the songs started to sound the same, accompanying the disappointing realisation that, all things considered, maybe Empire are simply Just Plain Awful.

As pleased as we were to be able to push our way all the way up to the front of the stage by around the half-way stage of the act, we couldn’t help but also acknowledge that the only reason we were able to fill in those empty pockets of space in the crowd was due to the fact that people were leaving, with anger written on their faces – those same Indiana Jones 4 faces I’d seen in the cinema – in their masses. Yet as disappointing as the performance had been thus far there was still that hope we clung onto that it would improve but, unfortunately due to that very close-up view of the stage we had managed to attain, the finale of the act just so happened to somehow simultaneously destroy that hope, shock us into disgust, and also explain exactly why the exodus had begun as early as one song into the gig, which was quite an achievement really.

It wasn’t so much when Luke Steele acted out a scene of mock falling-over before being helped up by the two other insignificant band members (or “his bitches”, as Pep described them), but rather the awful hand-squeeze by the frontman to his subordinates to activate a ridiculously (and again in Pep’s words) “controlled, contrived, and insulting bow to the audience,” which even managed to channel Michael Jackson’s infamous ‘Jesus Christ’ performance a decade ago at the Brit Music Awards in sheer shocking audacity and self-indulgence. Sadly this time round, there was no Jarvis Cocker to invade the performance; just a mere solitary shoe thrown onstage which was, as awful as it sounds, nowhere near close enough to hitting Steele in the face for him to get it.

To get how fans and curious members who’d never seen them live before, many of whom had waited a whole day and attended specifically for them, would have appreciated a mere little hello, maybe even a goodbye too, or even just any form of acknowledgment and/or thanks for coming. Not the imperiously regal, awfully elitist bow in front of all of us inferior proles, whose duty and purpose in existence was to simply lap it all up without question along with a touch of Dickensian “Please, Sir, may I have some more?” enthusiasm thrown in for good measure. A bit of banter or a little joke in between songs goes a long way to help break that barrier between the common man and the famous, or at the very least appear to do so, particularly in this Twitter age of ours. But that performance simply reeked of “I’m better than you” and, with some admitted hyperbole, “Worship me for I AM God,” even.

Overall I would say that I had more interaction and experienced more insight with “Flex”, a random shirtless muscled-up and permanently flexing guy in a queue for the toilets, as he proudly boast of how he had just run 200 metres away from the cops, had studied MMA for 5 years, and promptly explained through demonstration the somewhat loose connection between these two topics via the use of his “left and right” (along with a reenactment of the corresponding, context-appropriate arm movements) and how they had assisted him in “dropping those cunts” as we awkwardly waited for those Porta-loo doors to open, than I had with Empire of the Sun. A.K.A Empire of Luke Steele. In fact a part of me even wonders whether Flex was there to see them, not to mention the sheer range of Looney Tunes-like situations possible had an Angry Flex decided to invade the stage to discuss with Steele what he felt about that performance. Maybe these festivals are just having an alpha-male effect on me.

By the end, Garry, Pep and I, along with the rest of the now withered-away crowd were left to ponder what we had just seen, all of us dispersing bemusedly amidst a hive-mind-like collective thought of “Is that it?” as we navigated our way past piles of feet-trampled cans of beer and water bottles; a performance of Godly proportions, apparently, and tendencies of “we should’ve seen Bloody Beetroots instead,” definitely. The same Bloody Beetroots who were, incidentally, still going off in the distance on one of the other stages. And just as well really, as upon hearing the boom of bass and rumble of dancing steps soaking their way through the lush and moist grass as we were on our way to the exit, the disappointed Foreshore crowd seemed to regain a bit of that day-long excitement which Empire had dreadfully managed to suck away.  Those slouched shoulders of no longer flexing muscle men buoyed themselves up once more for just a little bit more dancing, rejoining the infinite patience and joy possessed by Garry and Pep and reacting to a moment where music, in the thick of all the sinew and the flesh and the meaningless superficiality and the fancy unsubstantial lights and the overrated disappointment of Luke Steele, truly saved the day.

Here’s the resulting fallout on the Empire of the Sun official site forum =)

I wake up early on a Sunday morning, lying on an all-enveloping yellow couch of grand comfort and am greeted by a family silhouette of bottles of Coopers Pale Ale positioned directly in front of a bright white window, wondering where I am. A surge of initial trepidation runs through me as I furiously try to make out my surroundings: rainbow-washed paintings of ancient Greek goddesses, black and white posters from the 80s of pilot-shade-wearing models with baggy pants and singlets, a Frank Zappa DVD and, the giveaway, the case of GTA San Andreas sitting on a PS2, its controllers dangling over the beer covered living room table. “Ah” I let out in a sigh of relief, the worry replaced with cheerfulness. “Steve’s place”. 

Steve is a muso, you see. He looks like a muso, he drinks like a muso, and he most certainly lives like a muso: he even speaks in lyrics. If one were to try to conjure up a single sentence to sum up Steve’s place, the very first thing that comes to mind is “A kaleidoscopic trip directly into a Crowded House album cover or, depending on what flavour of incense was burning at the time, an LSD-period Beatles video“. And even then, a mere sentence hardly does the place justice.

Located on a large, accessible and very conveniently bus-serviced road considering the drunken nights out he is famous/legendary for, Steve’s home couldn’t be any better placed: just off a ”Flower Street” and next to a balloon store. Think about that for a second. A Balloon Store. That in itself counts as fairytale-level street cred in my book, but then there’s the sheer colour of the place itself.

Steve’s musical and pop culture sensibilities shine through the decorations of his home; a wondrous collection of artwork hangs off the walls alongside posters of Jeff Buckley, Gollum, The Young ‘Uns, John Lennon, PJ Harvey, and Grand Theft Auto. Wall-sized Ken Done-style paintings provide the backdrop to his computer. And the best piece(s) of antiquity to be found? Possibly this, but definitely this:

The lucky bastard

What better way to know someone than to take a look at their room; to see what makes them so. Thus I’ve taken that long hard look at Steve’s room and have come to several conclusions:

Steve is what Kurt Cobain would’ve been like if Kurt Cobain lived in Australia and played video games and appreciated Brian De Palma and Quentin Tarantino and didn’t own a shotgun and/or date some possessive junkie of a girlfriend, the latter of which may differ depending on your theory of the final events of the life of Kurt Cobain. Otherwise, Steve is what Jeff Buckley/Billy Corgan would’ve been like if Jeff Buckley/Billy Corgan lived next to a balloon store and quoted Lord of the Rings, just without the drunken ocean swimming/adolescence full of angst, respectively, and with a beard. Failing that and taking that beard into account, Steve is John Lennon, on drugs and staging a Bed-In for Peace with an admiration of Japan that included sushi, Ninjas, and Samurais and not eccentric bohemian artists, even though Steve does appreciate that from time to time as well. Shit. Which naturally brings me to another, this time final, definitive conclusion: Steve is John Lennon. So the rumours are true! Oh wait… that was “Paul is dead“… but Steve knew that all along anyway.

And I have only one space left on the port.

I wish to fit the power adaptor into that remaining space: the one untouched. 

But because of the shape of it, I cannot. There is conflict. Could you not be shaped vertically, I retort? 

~

But “NO” it shouts, “I wish to be here“

So I am forced to rearrange every other plug, just to accommodate this one. Inconsiderate prick. 

“This is needlessly annoying,” I say, shaking my head. “Why are you so greedy, oh dear me, oh dear.”

Succumbing to its greed, half of it still sticking out anyway, I am exposed to an imminent explosion at the mercy of my next switch flick. 

They say you should never judge a book by its cover; but what about those particularly obscure macho sporting DVDs usually found in the ‘Specialist’ section of a DVD store right next to the awkward softcore pornography section (rather ingenius target demographic product placement if I do say so myself) or deep down within the ‘Under $10′ Bargain Bins beneath never-ending piles of Steven Seagal’s latest works and other miscellaneous rubbish? Surely these DVDs are, unlike books, with their terrible covers perfectly summing up their equally terrible content, just begging to be judged? Well the moment I got my hands on a copy of this beauty at a friend’s house over the weekend, graciously saving me from the need to purchase it myself, I knew I had hit the jackpot as far as potential gold for a cynical review goes.

And before you ask, no, I did not watch it; does one even need to with a cover and title as good as this? Plaudits must go to the great choice of colour scheme, harking back to the years of old when Hypercolour t-shirts were ‘in’ with an outrageous splash of yellow-purple spectrum with all the colours in between masking what is, most probably, an eruption of blood and sweat gushing out of the head of the guy copping the punch. Note how the punch has been photoshopped in complete with speed lines just to further emphasise the impact on the best photo the designers could find matching the criteria of ‘a picture of some poor bastard with jelly lips and mouthguard about to fall out’ as a Google image search of that last line yields unsatisfactory results, otherwise.

As for the title itself, if you didn’t know this was about boxing one could easily imagine it being a compilation of amateur footage from an adults-only version of Funniest Home Videos lasting just under two hours (two hours!), but for it to be most definitely about boxing, and the naively rudimentary image I have in my mind of any boxer not seeing a punch coming in a sport based solely on punches and the strange satisfaction my brethren derive from wild hits to the head, well. It just makes me chuckle a bit on the inside, which is perhaps the appeal of boxing in the first place. Now onto the back cover:

Probably the best back cover out of any DVD I have ever seen:

Who needs 10 stars when you can have two rows of nine? I’m also pretty sure that a ‘full frame 4×3′ picture ratio translates roughly to ‘Eighties footage for old television sets before remote controls were around where you had to change channels and adjust the volume with dials, and if the picture was still fuzzy then a few hits to the top of it would make those wrongs right, boy’. Man, I miss those old TVs. It’s also nice that we are told next to the approximate running time that this DVD will, indeed, be shown in colour, and in addition I’m absolutely a hundred percent certain that ‘All Region NTSC’ is a complete contradiction in terms, but hey, let’s not get too pedantic here.

What also really gets me is the start of the second paragraph:

“To enhance the experience, you will get a slow-motion replay followed by multi-angle views and finally, experts will dissect the punch in detail”. In other words, the footage you are about to see is, veritably, a rehashed recording of the match when it was previously broadcast anyway.

Something that’s always amused me with boxing matches has been that, should your gaze ever wander from the carnage on show to focus on the crowd behind the fighters, right down low between the ring and the rope closest to it, you will see the audience’s heads and there will always, always, be someone laughing (and/or mouthing an F word). Behaviour that sums boxing up perfectly. Specifically, this guy:

And that is why Punches They Didn’t See Coming: 70 Classic KOs is the best DVD cover ever made. Actually, in talking it up throughout this review, I am now left with an overwhelming urge to watch it; all I need is an old school DVD-compatible wooden television set to maximise the enjoyment in glorious, full-colour 4×3.

Got any other bad DVD covers that need reviewing? Send them in!

A spiritual sequel to a previous blog: Paranoia in Bullet Point Form.

Disclaimer: Once again, all of this really happened and names, nationalities, suburbs and countries have been changed to protect the innocent.

So you have a really close cousin who lives in England. Now because your extended family is all split up and living in multiple countries around the world, consisting of a plethora of many unknown cousins in often non-English speaking lands, you were really happy to meet Mark when he came to visit you in Australia in 1999. Considering it was the very first time you guys had met since years ago when he was 9 and you were 1, it was a welcome introduction to family previously unfamiliar and anonymous, regardless of the age difference. There was a real connection, not just in the common language being spoken, but also in personalities and motivations; in other words, cousin Mark was a good guy.

You found each other on Facebook years later, a happy reunion full of well-wishes and life updates and sending each other photos of your parents and pets and friends. Writing on each other’s walls. Commenting on each other’s holiday photos. It was all so very cousin-ish; albeit so social network-gimmicky as well, but it was certainly better than a return to zero contact and for that you remained grateful: the contact has not been very constant since that initial surge, which surprises you somewhat, but at least the option is there.

Having not heard from him for a while, you then get an email notification: ‘Mark Ooi sent you a message on Facebook’.

You excitedly click on that email, a hundred possibilities twirling through your mind as to what it could possibly contain. Important news? Good or bad? I hope nothing serious has happened. No no, I’m sure it’s okay. Maybe he’s getting married? Maybe he’s coming back to Sydney? It’s about time I went to visit him in England, I’ve always wanted to go…

You willingly stop yourself from over-thinking, deciding to just read the damned thing.

It is yet another miscellaneous, mundane, midweek work day. While sitting at your desk in front of your computer monitor, you find out via Google news that the Zombie Apocalypse has actually, finally, arrived. Initial panic sets in as the realisation hits that the world, as you know it, will never be the same again. You sit there stunned for a few moments, before thinking to yourself “Fuck Yeah.”

Scouring through your desk drawers for weapon options, you find scissors, thumbtacks, a stapler, and the cutting edge of the sticky-tape dispenser. These might be good as last-ditch weapons but they just won’t cut it otherwise, pun very much intended.

Scouting out the kitchen is also a disappointment; instead of any decent knives you only find an over-supply of sporks, and the largest sharp object available is a cake cutter. “Utterly useless!” you shout in frustration before calmly waiting out the remaining 1 minute and 42 seconds for your lunch to heat up in the microwave. One hand placed firmly on your chin, your mind ticks away. ”I need solid metal shapes. Knives and stabbing weapons”.

“I need to go outside”.

You know full well that you could be safe on the sixth floor of your building. That there are only two ways in which the zombies could get to you: via the two elevators, one of which is regularly unreliable, and via the fire escape stairwell which, if we are talking about the standard unintelligent species of zombie, makes you virtually untouchable. But what about food? Supplies? WEAPONS?! The fact that firearms are not publicly available concerns you as, unlike in America, you will be in uncharted territory, fighting off the horde with melee weapons only.

Something must be done. You need to get your hands on some serious arsenal sooner rather than later. If you get lucky you might run into a zombie police officer, and once you’re done bludgeoning it to death with the corners of a pack of Reflex photocopying paper, you can take his pistol, but until then there needs to be an alternative strategy.

Right beside your workplace is a motorcycle shop. Perfect. They must have guns in there, right?

Wrong.

The only objects immediately available for use as weapons are engine parts, bicycle pumps, and clothes hangers from the boutique store. How disappointing. That image you had of riding a Harley through swarms of zombies, unleashing a barrage of lever-action shotgun-fire deteriorates, as does the image of the ultimate bike made entirely out of chainsaws:

Having the option of fleeing on a motorbike if need be is promising, though, even without the weapons. As is the promise of an adequate amount of fuel: there is a petrol station directly across the road. Not only is it a good source of food, cigarettes, DVDs, even firewood, it can also be blown up as a last resort. Of course you won’t be able to shoot the pumps but you can set off the detonation with a cigarette lighter or, for the action movie fans, via a fuel trail like at the end of Die Hard 2.

Lure the horde in through the centre lane, then light the fuse.

Place these strategically around the complex in anticipation of those Left 4 Dead-style crescendo events.

Can be used for warmth or to set up barricades.

Whilst contemplating these possibilities, you hear that roar. That unmistakeable chorus of the marching undead, awakened from their Godless slumber as droplets of rain begin to fall. Readying your cigarette lighter and freshly-purchased deodorant can as a makeshift flamethrower, you have your next stop in mind: the hospital – for medical supplies, home defibrillator kits and scalpels.

• So there’s a girl you like from Language Class. An Italian girl.

• You’ve met a couple of times, and even attended the same Language Class group dinner a few weeks ago. Since then there have been emails sent, promptly replied and responded to.

• You know she lives in Stanmore. It is pointed out to you by a friend that it is odd for a girl like her, a travelling student, to be living in Stanmore, as that’s more of a French area. You agree. You’re pretty sure she’s got a boyfriend. A French boyfriend.

• Indeed, he even picked her up from the dinner, you think. You didn’t get a very good look at him though as everyone was drunk that night.

• Despite all this, you’ve never really, properly, had a chat with this Italian girl. You just have a ‘feeling’. And her email and Facebook.

• But the last time you saw her in class, she seemed strange. ‘Keen’, even. It’s a surprise.

• She proposes that the two of you meet up – she even gives you the times she is free during the week, and the fact that she tends to be free on weekends.

• She states these facts nonchalantly.

• So…

• The next day you send an email to her containing your phone number.

• A day later, and still no reply. Strange. She usually replies quickly to emails.

• Then you get a strange mobile call early the next morning. You do not recognise the number. You say “Hello?” with a fleeting sense of hope in your heart that you will hear the Italian girl’s voice, but there is no response. “Hello?!” After a few nervous seconds, the person on the other end hangs up.

• Then you’re thinking thoughts such as “The email has been intercepted” and “The boyfriend’s trying to sabotage me.” The fact that if he is indeed intercepting the email and sabotaging your attempts of communication then his actions are somewhat justified given that he is the boyfriend seems irrelevant right now.

• You think to yourself “Ah ha! But the joke’s on you…I’ve got your number now,” which brings a mischievous, slightly evil smile to your face.

• So a few hours later, you call the number back, asking what it was about. The person who answers tells you he rang the wrong number before quickly hanging up.

• Accent: French.

• You store the number on your phone. It could come in handy later. Today.

• The first thing you do is go to her Facebook page, scouring through her photos like a bargain-hunter ravaging a box of used clothing knowing precisely what it is you are after and knowing that you will spot it as soon as you see it. And sure enough, there he is. The fucker. Posing in photos together with her. Who else could it be? You now know his name. Marco.

• You look for and find the guy on her friends list.

• You join the France Network so that you can access his page.

• Inadequate information. You leave the France network.

• You start thinking of asking for a favour from your old market research call centre friends. To call up that mobile number. To try and fit in the question “Am I speaking to Mr Marco”. To confirm it in your head. Or rather, to confirm the voices in your head telling you it is him.

• You look up his name on the online White Pages like the Terminator looking up Sarah Connor in the phonebook, finding someone that fits the information gathered thus far. Stanmore. Marco. French surname. It has to be him!

• You call up the home phone (while masking your mobile number), and someone picks up.

• You don’t say anything. You just listen. “Hello? Hello?!” You hear an accent. French. You put the phone down, calmly. You smile that evil smile.

• Then you get another idea: call the home number again and, with your mobile ready in hand with his number already entered (complete with masking prefix), have your thumb ready to press Call. Then, when he picks up the home phone, call through on the mobile and see if you hear another, separate ring in the background. That will confirm it once and for all.

• The person on the home phone picks up. “Hello?”. “Hello?!?” He is angry. You say nothing.

• You call on the mobile. You do not hear a ring in the background. Disappointed, and with the man on the home phone shouting “Hello?!” with venom, you hang up both phones. You assure yourself this could mean anything. His mobile could have been on Silent. Or in another room. The fucker. I know it’s him.

• So you have another idea. Call up again tomorrow and say, “Marco … 7 days”.

• Then the day after, call up and say, “Marco … 6 days”. And so on.

• A different voice in your head starts speaking now. It’s the voice of reason. It asks you “But what if the cops get involved?” You start thinking of the worst case scenario: he could report it to the police as a death threat.

• You formulate your alibis. “But it could mean anything. It could even mean he’s about to receive a prize when the countdown’s over.”

• You even prepare that prize.

• And then you realise that the tenuous grasp you have on being the person in control of this situation is now threadbare.

• And that this is all in your head, and nothing at all has been confirmed yet.

• But then you receive a call on your phone. Unknown number.

• This shit just got real.

I am ushered into a conference room full of men and women, all in suits of course, their eyes facing in the one common direction. A lone speaker standing out in front, microphone in hand; an old-ish woman with big shiny grey hair and a red suit jacket worn over a black inner top and black pants, reminding me instantly of those late night TV evangelists. It is immediately evident that whatever it is she is selling is something along the same lines as such misplaced faith: “Are you missing something in your life?”

A bald man four rows in front looks to his side, probably feeling as confused as I am. The woman with her big shiny silver hoop earrings keeps on talking, this time about people wasting money; that you don’t need to be rich or poor to succeed; that you can make your money Work For You. Which is hard to argue with given that the entry fee to come in to see her was ten dollars. Even by this stage, two minutes in, she’s already lost me. At least there’s a pub downstairs; now that might be what’s missing in my life right this minute.

“Do you want to make a difference in your lives, do you want to help people?” The hundred or so people here, all of them, seem transfixed by these seemingly Scientologist slogans. I’m sure it won’t be long before the E-meter makes an appearance. Jesus, this woman is a doctor. At this point I don’t know what to think. “Passive Income,” she says. Maybe I’m being overly critical here, but something tells me she’s not from Medecins Sans Frontiers. The bald man glances a look to his right once again.

I’m beginning to feel kind of bad for Nichole. I ran into her on a couple of occasions at work until it came round to contract renewal time and hers wasn’t renewed, prompting us to have a discussion about work, life, ambition, that sort of thing. We managed to keep in touch via Facebook and the whole premise for this visit in the first place was to “meet a couple of people who are open to the possibilities available to them in life.” It sounded fair enough. But there I was thinking it’d be a small get-together over a couple of beers, confessing to each other our own work dissatisfactions and goals in life, cheering each other up, words of encouragement and positive thinking, pats on backs, that sort of thing. Not that I blame Nichole, not at all. But I definitely feel pretty bad right now, jotting down all of this on a piece of pad paper she has kindly given me, along with her heavy metal pen with the word ‘Hope’ on it. My only hope is that, by the end of this seminar, I haven’t been exorcised and/or accumulated tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt. As Dr Scary Woman goes through a Powerpoint slide entitled “Our Business Provides The Opportunity To Develop Multiple Incomes,” I am thankful that I didn’t jokingly whisper to her, as much as I wanted to, the question “so when are Tom and Kate coming in?”

“We are not looking for investors…” I’ve heard this sort of line before, and it usually ends with a mass book and DVD sell-a-thon in about 45 minutes time. The slide ‘Products’ is now being displayed on the big projector screen. “Who’s got a loyalty card?” the woman asks, upon which around half the people in the room gleefully raise their hands, including Nichole. There are plenty of big numbers on the next slide, situated directly after lots of dollar signs, but I am only paying attention to all those naughts equating to, roughly, a whole lotta nothing.

I just don’t know. Any seminar claiming to be about self-fulfilment but consisting of a red power-suited lady using the words “21% Bonus” and “Monthly Performance Bonuses” just makes that little something click inside my head. Perhaps it’s a difference in personal values. Or maybe it’s to do with how it is now almost 8:30pm and I’ve spent my evening hearing about “successful people” in a conference room full of lost and empty shells of humanity convincing themselves of this ‘truth’ and nervously laughing at unfunny jokes whilst the brainwashing machine is, quite obviously, roaring in full gear. The bald man nods approvingly at the “Platinum Income” slide.

Uh oh. She’s gone and done it. She’s given away her scam! “You can help these people,” she repeats with, in a strangely commendable way, such faux-altruistic verve and passion that I begin worrying that she is, indeed, completely mad. “You can help these people make money and they will help you make money.” Ah So. The Pyramid Scheme. She keeps referring to this whole thing as a “business”, but has not mentioned in the slightest detail what this business involves or what it is actually selling. The last time I encountered something similar was when I was in my first year of uni exchanging Hotmail emails back and forth with some Indian dude’s copied-and-pasted schematics promising an income of up to “20K a Week!” I bloody hate it when people write, or even worse, say the letter ‘K’ to denote monetary value; I hate it when people talk only about money, actually, so clearly I’m fitting in well amongst this crowd.

“Diamond Income.” Who speaks like that? “100% Satisfaction Guarantee.” “Network 21…AMWAY…Network 21 is the education and support, and AMWAY is the product and distribution.” Man. And we still don’t know exactly what this education is about, or what these products we are supposed to be selling are. “Come along this Sunday to the Darling Harbour Convention Centre, and for just $25 find out how the sheep shearer made his fortune!!”

That last line isn’t even an exaggeration.

Crazy Greedy Dr Woman has now used the phrase “in and of themselves…” several times now. And, uh oh, yet again. She’s now offering people the “opportunity” to take out their mortgages with her own, unnamed, “franchise.” I’m starting to get sick of this patent overuse of quotation marks as she moves onto the next slide:  a truly disgusting picture of a man with his wife and two kids, all of them dressed from head to toe in white Ralph Lauren, posing on a glittering white houseboat named “Dreamer.” What is it that this family does? “They build their business in different countries around the world in order to build their communities.” (!!) Righto. The audience has even been given a link to a website, along with log-in details: www.pdcox.com, username is ‘global’ and the password is ‘dreamer.’ I encourage everyone who reads this to abuse this site.

So it turns out that tonight isn’t going to involve chatting with new, friendly people with beers in hand. Okay. Fair enough. And yes, if this was a seminar about life fulfilment without all the ridiculous peddling of fake financial fantasies then I might well have been interested. But my issue with all of this is how the hell I’m going to do my polite routine afterwards and tell Nichole “Yeah yeah it was interesting…very informative…but no I won’t be coming again next week.” And right when I think it’s all over, aiming stealthy little peeks towards the doors and planning my exit strategy – Dr StrangeWoman has finally concluded her presentation and, sure enough, she went ahead and did it…”Starting Point – 12 Steps To Get You Started.” It’s the book! And the accompanying CD! – it just gets even better: random people from the audience (who hopefully haven’t glimpsed over at what I’ve been writing so furiously), all taking turns with the microphone and giving their own prerehearsed speeches complete with the over-enthusiastic used car salesman speech inflexions on why they love running “their business”. Even the bald man gets up, and everyone applauds after these little power pep talks. “I just spent the last twenty minutes out there talking about golf. I don’t know whether that’s what you want out of life, but for me…” When they are done these people pass on the microphone to the next success story and move over to block the exit. I immediately think back to high school and of how ‘Alvin’ who was two years above us used to go round asking everyone for a two dollar coin in the lunchtime canteen queue. Alvin didn’t have a fake smile on his face, though.

Disconcertingly, everyone here knows each other by their first and last names. It turns out the good doctor’s name is Erica, as we are informed by a hideous-looking woman with a short skirt and heels on and, with all honesty, the nastiest and most heinous face I have ever seen. “We need to buy a chauffeur! Who wants a chaffeur?” They sure encourage a lot of hand-raising, these folk, as everyone obliges. I refuse to believe that this is the answer to our problems in life, and if it was and that’s how you turn out, then aren’t we royally screwed? I might not place much theoretical faith in the capitalist system, but this whole Pyramid Scheme thing is just taking advantage of it and making victims of the insecure who were promised a better life as, apparently, financial wealth and self-fulfilment are interconnected. “Who wants to shoots themselves right now?” – Me, Me!!

As they wrap up their ‘Join Us’ speeches, I notice that they’ve all somehow managed to mention that they love to travel, and that by being a part of this “joint venture” their wealth has allowed them to do so. “How many people like to travel?” they ask encouragingly, over and over. I raise my hand, along with everybody else, a knowing smile sneaking it’s way across my lips. I sure would indeed like to travel…straight the fuck out of here!