Generally on a Thursday or Friday, our skateboarding boss Ryan would inform Tim and I who we would have the pleasure of working with the following week. Every now and then, he managed to shock us. One time, he did so by saying that Mick Molloy had agreed to come up for a week. I can only imagine they paid him an absolute fortune, but there was obviously no way in the world he’d take the job. It was a big morale booster though. Just having Mick strutting around the station for a week put everyone in a heightened state. It was fantastic.
The next time Ryan managed to shock us was when he said Marty Sheargold had agreed to come up for a fortnight. I hadn’t spoken to Marty in about three years by that stage. Everyone I knew in radio had loved the drive show he did on Triple M with Fifi Box, called The Shebang. It was the show we all dreamt of doing. Its pace was really gentle and deliberate, and they did stuff that just shouldn’t have worked, but somehow was kind of magical—like Marty reading excerpts from Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet, for example. It was kind of subversive in a warm and whimsical way. There was nothing cheesy about that show, and fighting the endemic cheese factor is the biggest battle for comedians in commercial radio.
I ran into Marty at the Comedy Festival Club in Melbourne when The Shebang was at its peak, and he and I chatted about radio. I told him how unhappy I was and how tempted to chuck it all in and come back home to Melbourne. He encouraged me to stick with it, and I remember feeling really comforted afterwards. I felt like half of my old friends were in much better TV or radio jobs, and the other half were really dismissive of them. In both cases their company made me feel inadequate, but Marty with his pragmatism and self-deprecation made me feel a lot better about it all that night. I was thrilled Ryan was giving me the chance to see and chat with him again, but assumed he’d do his fortnight, grab his cash and vacate the stool for the next guy.
By 7 a.m. on the first Monday morning it felt so great I asked Marty the burning question: ‘Would you take this job?’
‘Yeah,’ he said without hesitation. Tim and I looked at each other like a couple of freed slaves. I couldn’t believe that Marty Sheargold, of New Joke City and The Shebang, would want to work with me, but within a month of that first day, he’d accepted the job and was moving his family to Brisbane.
We were now Meshel, Tim and Marty—known as MTM in inter-office emails—and I had a feeling in my waters that after all those years at sea, I was finally heading for dry land.
That was June 2011, a month in which Marty Sheargold was not the only auspicious visitor to Brisbane. His Holiness the Dalai Lama also came to town, and I ended up with the best seat in the house as bestowed upon me by the people at the Karuna Hospice, for whom I’d done some bits and pieces over the preceding year.
I don’t think in my entire life I’ve ever been so highly and unexpectedly rewarded for so little effort. I always feel like I have to push and pull every situation into a positive shape for myself—but not this one, the most wonderful situation of all.
Priscilla Maxwell from the hospice asked me to come in and meet with her one day, which I assumed meant she was in need of another lesson in the finer points of Twitter. When I got there she invited me in for tea, and we were joined by Yeshe Khandro, known universally as YK, who left Australia as a 22-year-old hippie in 1972 and came back a Buddhist nun, and who’d run the hospice since the early ’90s. YK is a very focused, busy person, so I knew something was up—although typically, I assumed I was in trouble.
They began talking about HH’s upcoming visit to Brisbane, and in particular about a youth forum at which he would speak. Suddenly, and without warning, they asked if I would sit on stage with HH and assist him in understanding the questions from the young people.
Can you believe it? There are no words.
So the day finally dawned, and there I was at Brisbane’s Suncorp Piazza with His Holiness. He made his way to the stage by walking right through the middle of the crowd. He stopped many times, clasped faces in his hands and mumbled prayers where he thought it necessary. Finally he made it to me, side stage. I was almost bent in half I was bowing so low. He clasped my face, and insisted upon my making eye contact with him, which is traditionally forbidden, but which he demands from everyone. He mumbled in Tibetan while holding my hands and my gaze, then swept up the stairs ahead of me onto the stage where he spoke for two hours about things like bullying and social media, compassion for work- and schoolmates, and praised Queenslanders for the way they’d worked together during the recent floods. As usual, he spoke simply and succinctly about how the dharma could continue to be applied to our contemporary problems.
It was amazeballs.
The floods of 2010–2011 were obviously a nightmare—and a weird one for my home town Toowoomba. I remember Mum saying when we were kids that Toowoomba could never flood because it was on top of a mountain—but flood it did, and with a vengeance.
I don’t know what to say about it all really. Whenever I think about it I see the images of people sitting on cars being washed away, and of finding out days later that some were lost when out of the camera’s view. I remember traumatised people, standing shivering and bedraggled, telling their stories of unspeakable horror on the news. I remember desperate Tweets from people trying to rescue animals from the water.
It was very much like the feeling of the Black Saturday bush fires in Victoria two years before. That was a hellish scene in which different-coloured ribbons on front gates meant different kinds of horrors had taken place beyond, and white chalk on blistered roads sent shivers down spines. Every interaction down at the relief centre, or at the chemist in Whittlesea, brought with it new stories of tragedy, loss and terrifying helplessness.
The floods of Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley were like that too. You couldn’t turn around without hearing another awful story, and it made everyone feel anxious and small, as natural disasters do.
I’m sure that had a lot to do with the incredible outpouring of compassion and cooperation that erupted in Brisbane when the water came our way. We knew there would be a lot of property damage; amazingly though, there was a pervading sense that buildings can be rebuilt, things can be replaced, but people are breakable too and must be our top priority. HH described it in the Piazza six months later as an example to the world of compassion in the community. The stories of helplessness and sadness were replaced in our shared consciousness by stories of selflessness, sharing and support. It was very moving.
Tim, Marty and I returned from our Christmas break in the middle of it all, and so spent most of our shifts talking to people on the phones about what was going on around town. Typically, a lot of people called in to make us laugh. One guy told us about a rather awkward moment that occurred while he and a handful of other young men were wading around a mate’s parents’ house just trying to be helpful. They were lifting furniture ever higher and trying to salvage whatever they could for the oldies when they noticed some photos floating around in the filthy brown mess. Suddenly, they realised that not only were the photos of a naked woman, but that the woman in question was the now substantially older lady of the house—their mate’s mum! It turned out the snaps, long forgotten in the bottom of a wardrobe, had been dislodged by the water and were now in danger of making their way out the front door and down the street. Apparently the boys did their best to scoop them all up without looking too closely and disposed of them without the model ever finding out.
As a consequence of the social media flurry taking place throughout the floods, I became acquainted with a lovely lady named Rebecca Sparrow. I later discovered that she was a writer of some repute; in fact her novel, The Girl Most Likely, had just been optioned to be made into a feature film. I’d wanted to do more writing for a long time, and secretly harboured a dream of writing books some day, so I asked Bec for some advice. She suggested I contact Mia Freedman, who had started a website called ‘Mamamia’ and was on the lookout for some ‘other voices’ to contribute to it. I’d never met Mia, but emailed her asking
her to mentor me, and she began immediately, offering lengthy feedback on my work, and then publishing it on her website. She also encouraged me to stretch myself beyond comedy and to start writing about more serious, topical issues.
Writing for Mamamia put me in front of an entirely new audience, doing an entirely new thing. It was exhilarating. ‘Everyone in the industry reads Mamamia!’ someone told me at the time, and boy, they weren’t kidding. As a direct consequence of my writing, I received one of those calls you dream about from my agent. I was leaving work, walking to my car on another boring old day in Brisbane, when Jacinta asked the question: ‘Would you be interested in flying to Sydney to talk to Andrew Denton about a project he’s working on?’
She and I both squealed, and flights were booked for my meeting about a show called Can of Worms.
THE ROAD HOME
So I got the job on Can of Worms. So many times before I thought I’d landed the game-changing job that would set me on the path to bigger and better things, but I’d always ended up more or less back where I’d started. This time, however, I was content to experience it for its own sake, and not think too much about what else might come out of it. I’d found a new favourite Buddhist saying: When I’m anxious it’s because I’m living in the future and when I’m depressed it’s because I’m living in the past. One I can’t change, and the other I can’t know.
I wanted to enjoy Can of Worms for its own sake, but I also wanted to learn as much as I could from Andrew Denton. I mean, how many opportunities like that come along in life?
The team behind the show was of a calibre one would expect when working with Andrew Denton. Working with Andrew Denton is, also as one would expect, wildly intimidating.
I’ve noticed some things about intimidating people over the years.
One: No matter what they say, they know they’re intimidating.
Two: Some of them use it to create a distance between them and others.
Three: The rest of them develop ways to make it disappear.
Andrew Denton is a sort of hypnotist. His eye contact is unwavering, but sparkling, and he uses it to engage others, to bring them in, and to encourage them to reach. He’s a Number Three.
As I sat around a big table with Andrew and his team, I saw a lot of young people who’d been empowered by him. They felt confident to speak up, to offer ideas, and to gently challenge those of their great leader. It was a truly impressive display, and I expect great things will come from the people who sat at that table. Monique Schafter, who worked as social media coordinator on Can of Worms, has already won a Walkley for her work on another Denton production, Hungry Beast, and is a great example of the kind of new talent Andrew thrives on mentoring.
I was also working with Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson, of Australian Idol fame, who is in so many ways the complete opposite of Andrew, but from whom I also learnt a great deal.
Dicko is full of surprises. I didn’t expect him to be madly in love with his wife of 25 years, Mel. I didn’t expect them to have an aviary in their backyard in which they house rescued wildlife, including a blind possum, who is a permanent resident. I didn’t expect him to be a nervous performer, or for him to be a truly lovely man, but he is and I looked forward to seeing him every week.
All that said, Can of Worms was not an easy ride for me.
I was living and doing breakfast radio five days a week in Brisbane. Twice a week I’d fly to Sydney to either attend a meeting or film an episode of Can of Worms. My twins were a year old and just walking. Presenting a brave face at all times around the Can of Worms studio took a lot of emotional energy, too.
My physical appearance became an issue, and I didn’t see it coming, so much so that it sent me into a real spin. I suppose I should have realised that what I wore and the way my hair was styled would be of interest to commercial television producers, but as much as I tried to be really grown-up and helpful about it, I was sometimes absolutely devastated by the attention. There were tears in the dressing room, and also there were about thirty pairs of sky-high designer stilettos that were beautiful to look at, but that I would never in my life choose to wear. Those shoes really got me down after a while. They haunted me in that one little space I had in which to regroup.
The shoes were lovingly chosen by a stylist. I know that sounds really glamorous and exciting, but in my experience it’s a complete nightmare and I hope it never happens to me again.
I’d worked with one before when I was hosting Stand Up on the ABC. She and her assistant took me shopping in boutiques in Melbourne, which rarely, if ever, had anything in my size, but of course, she’d never dressed anyone of my size, as she pointed out more than once.
Once inside the shops, she’d pull a couple of things from the racks and send me into the change room to try them on. When I had them on I’d be instructed to come back out into the shop so that she, her assistant and the shop girl could all look at me. On many occasions they looked at me as though they were horrified and all said in unison, ‘Oh no!’
Well this time the stylist brought clothes to me at the studio, which was worse, because none of them fitted me, although they made me try them on in front of them all anyway. In the end it was generally a case of wearing something I felt fugly in, and doing my best to forget about it during the taping of the show.
They were all good people, trying to help me, but I just felt more and more uncomfortable with the ‘costuming’ that was going on. After a lifetime of trying to be someone else, I actually just wanted to be myself, and to look like myself, and the ongoing wardrobe sessions were really getting me down.
Hair and make-up was a nightmare too. It took hours because ‘they’ (and I never really knew who ‘they’ were) never seemed happy with it, so the hair got higher and curlier and more elaborate each week. Suddenly another make-up artist was hired to cover my tattoo as well. I wondered why on earth I was there if everything about me was so wrong. I decided to shave my head for the World’s Greatest Shave during one of those marathon curling sessions, which I did the following February.
After the first episode, Andrew approached me in the office to tell me that there’d been a lot of feedback on social media about my ‘appearance’, specifically my weight. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me, but outwardly I tried to mirror Andrew’s logical, unemotional attitude to it all. Andrew wanted to know how I’d feel about devoting a portion of an upcoming episode to the matter. I wanted the building to collapse, but I agreed it was a splendid idea, and jumped in a cab to the airport, hoping like hell he’d forget about it.
Andrew was no more malicious than the tuk-tuk driver in Phnom Penh, but the tuk-tuk driver didn’t have the wherewithal to take our conversation onto national television, which is exactly where I found myself some weeks later, enduring a spirited debate around the question ‘Is it wrong to tell a fat person to lose weight?’
For me, that scenario was like an apocalyptic nightmare come true. I sat there in tight pants and shiny high heels with hair like cotton wool piled up on my head, positive I looked like a cross between Miss Piggy and Homer Simpson in drag, trying to portray some semblance of dignity while defending my right to be fat.
It was facing-your-greatest-fear stuff, sort of like diving with sharks or base-jumping, both of which I’d rather have done than debate about my weight on television.
In so many ways, Can of Worms was indeed a game-changing job. I said ‘yes’ when I wanted to say ‘no’ so many times while working on that show because I wanted to be easy to get along with, I wanted people to be happy with me, and I didn’t want to mess up another opportunity. Above all, I wanted to keep working and I believed that the only way to do that was to agree to anything that was asked of me. If only I’d had the integrity of those young people around the table in the production meetings.
As I meditated on the experience when it was all over, I resolved to find the ‘middle path’, as it were, between saying ‘yes’ to everything and saying ‘no’ in a way tha
t would make me unemployed. It’s an ongoing process, and some difficult ‘no’s have been said, but none that I’ve lived to regret (yet!).
As Can of Worms was winding up after a respectably successful first series, I was reaching the end of another radio contract. I’d resolved months earlier that I was leaving Brisbane at the end of 2011, come what may.
I’d missed another funeral in January 2010. My old friend and comedy mentor Dave Grant had succumbed to cancer. I so wanted to visit Dave before the end, but I was heavily pregnant and advised against flying, and then the twins arrived early. I owed him so much, and sent messages to that effect through his partner Karen in the days before he died. She relayed messages back to me, but I was heartbroken at not being able to see him and thank him myself.
It had played heavily on my mind ever since. I was so lonely for my community, I was sick of sending heartfelt messages instead of sharing hugs and I was tired of living through Facebook photos. I was going home.
I said ‘no’ to staying on in Brisbane and, lo and behold, Tim, Marty and I were offered the plum job of National Drive on Nova. It was a job I’d wanted and lobbied for for years, and finally, it was mine.
In September 2011, Adrian and I packed up our house, our babies, our dogs and cats and headed home to Melbourne. We landed in what is arguably the most Melbourne of all suburbs: manic, multicultural Brunswick, and I was in heaven. I was literally moved to tears on a daily basis by the energy and the sheer Melbourneness of Brunswick. I sat happily in the interminable traffic of Sydney Road, where road rules bend and flex around drivers from all over the globe, where the smell of coffee and the sound of tram bells fill the air. My heart swelled with happiness. Within six months, though, we’d moved to a quiet beachside suburb in Melbourne’s inner west. I guess you can’t take the Queenslander out of the girl.
The Fence-Painting Fortnight of Destiny: A memoir Page 21