RACHEL'S COLUMNS

These articles appeared in Rachel's column every Friday in the A3 section of The Age

Comedy flight of fancy get the heave-ho
2nd April 2004

Melburnians are hogging out on comedy this month.  We're trapped in a vortex of laughter and stupidity that leaves us feeling lighter without having to reduce calories.  During this festival of comedy you'll see and hear a host of comedians cleverly delivering their jokes with more moving parts than conjoined quintuplets.  But think on this comedy punters – life on the road for a comedian is not the stuff of Britney, Brad or Justin.  In my experience it's more like travelling down a dark highway in the back of a Tarrago with headlights coming straight at you and Homer Simpson at the wheel.

On a tour of Queensland a few years back, I experienced the comedy joy that is performing at a late night venue in Bundaberg.  Worried that I'd have to go on at 11.30pm I pleaded, "But won’t they be totally legless by then?"

"No way," replied the venue manager.  "They don't get pissed till around 1.00am, takes longer for the alcohol to find their brains around here!"

The highlight of the tour was indeed the flight to Bundaberg-on a vacuum cleaner!  That's what it felt like, a vacuum cleaner with wings.  Twelve of us climbed up the rickety steps that day, I sat next to the woman who shall remain nameless but let's call her the tour manager.  Her mission in life was to eat anything that fitted into her mouth and if it didn't fit, she'd stand on it and crush it until it did.  Ignoring my advice, this half-woman, half-insinkerator pushed three asparagus sandwiches between her lips (I'm not even sure she swallowed them) minutes before we boarded the vacuum cleaner.

Predictably, about fifteen minutes into the flight we hit some mild turbulence and Deborah (not her real name) looked at me as though an insect had crawled into her gusset.  Suddenly her mouth erupted like Vesuvius and stuff jettisoned around the aircraft.  It was like her mouth had been abducted by aliens and there was no controlling the foreign matter or strangling sounds coming out of it.  And because we were on such a tiny aircraft, everyone could see and smell what was happening.  The passengers across the aisle from us all looked out their windows at exactly the same time, which made the plane tilt and drag to one side.

I couldn't stop laughing.  All I could see were the two pieces of asparagus, placed like garnish, in the hair of the shifty-looking local councilor type sitting in front if us – but he didn't know!  I'd said to Deb as we boarded, that I thought this guy's nose looked like a lump of eye-fillet.  So I kept trying to tell her that the asparagus presented perfectly with the steak on his face, but I was laughing so hard I couldn't get the sentence out.  As we hit more turbulence not even my head being thumped against the back of the headrest could stop me from pointing at him and blurting out, "Look Deb, steak and two veg."

The Flight Attendant appeared, took one look at Deb, covered her mouth and ran to the other end of the plane.  She returned five minutes later, head turned away from us, talking to an imaginary person sitting in mid air.  "Sorry but I'm four months pregnant, if I come any closer I'll spew everywhere."  Carefully stepping backwards, so as not to land in any debris, she handed me a sachet of powder and indicated with her free hand that I should sprinkle it over Deb.

As if things weren't already bad enough, the woman just threw up all over herself.  Now I was supposed to cover her with kitty litter!  While ripping the top off the sachet I noticed the product name-"Barf Clean".  Naturally, it was important to be clear about the contents in case we're all stupid and mistake it for a packet of rolled oats!  I've never seen a bunch of people scurry off a plane so quickly.  Deb was in a post-barf coma, smelling like a fridge that hadn't been opened for six weeks and looking like a muesli factory had exploded in her lap.  Comedy is a dirty business.