Walking On My Hands Because I Danced My Feet Off

Actually I danced my feet off vicariously, and much as I would like to be called Stumpy by all and sundry (gotta hand it to Sundry - he is quite the individual and while he is always with All, he does at least attempt to stand out from the crowd), the closest I got to dancing last Thursday night was sitting about ten metres from the actual dancers. My good extrovertive friend, Kerry (also known as Alice, as in Alice in Wonderland) from Brisbane is an avid, and that is desperately understating the depth of her devotion to all things salsa and tango, Latin Amercian dance enthusiast, and has accumulated a number of very good and talented friends who share her passion. One of them, Alex, entered the ABC TV programme (the ABC is Australia's national broadcaster run on an anorexic shoestring), "Strictly Dancing"'s dance competition along with a good friend of his, Adam, thus becoming the first same sex couple to compete, and have made it as far as a final, which was taped last Thursday at the studios at ABC HQ in Ultimo (which is very funky and modern, and hipper than a human body part). Since I rarely get to see Kerry, and she was in town for this one night only, I tagged along to the filming along with about 20 other family and friends of Adam and Alex, and sat ringside for the taping of what can only be described as "Not Your Nanna's Ballroom Dancing Show". With a very funny and irreverent host, Paul McDermott (if you could only see the bits that will never make it to TV such as his wooing of a gorgeous 87 year old grandmother, Joan, with hilarious sweet talk and even a song serenade - a lot of fun to watch!), music from the likes of Will Smith and Britney Spears, and more glitz and glam than Oxford Street (Sydney's main gay street, and the main parade route of the yearly Mardi Gras festival), it is a ballroom dancing show for Gen X, Y and all the other younger demagraphics they are still working on catchy and ultimately meaningless names for. Kerry added to the buzz by making up her very own "GO ADAM & ALEX" sign, and will no doubt be edited into the show being the only audience member to go to that much trouble. Paul remarked on the whole "Big Brother" feel of having a banner, and trust me this being an endeavour of Kerry (who is as loud, gregarious and full of fun as they come!) , in the audience, but he made sure Kerry got filmed, and being next to her, half of my head may just make it into the shot...or not. Anyway, I am to Kerry's right, behind a mass of frantically waved red and white so I am kinda, sorta on TV. At last! My 15 minutes of fame!! Woohoo! True you can't see me, but when has that stopped anyone these days parlaying their brief TV notoriety into lasting fame and fortune. I can see it now - I will be styled as "The Guy Behind the Banner" and I will.....ah forget it...lets face it, they'll probably offer hosting of that new reality TV series, "Fat Celebrities on a Desert Island with their Pet Baboons on Ice" to the banner......it really is very charimatic and lifelike.....and will no doubt marry another famous billboard like the Coke sign at Kings Cross before divorcing it for a meaningless fling with a roadside sign for McDonalds, 23 km from Coffs Harbour......

The best part of the whole night was that Adam and Alex, who combined brilliant dance technique and more X-Factor charisma than a thousand high octane extroverts in a telephone booth all smiling at once, WON! Yes indeed! Kerry only watched them all night but kept asking me as the impartial observer who didn't know Adam and Alex, if they really were better than the other two couples, since she couldn't really be objective. Happily I could truthfully say that they were dazzling, and an absolute pleasure to watch! As was the taping of the show, which took place over four very entertaining hours (they also film another episode so that while one set of dancers is changing for the next round, the other episode's are burning up the dancefloor). The only downside was the fact that we had to line up to get good seats from 5.30 p.m. and filming didn't stop till 10.30 p.m., which meant I was just a little hungry by taping's end...so I did the unforgiveable and ate KFC at 10.45 p.m. on the way to Town Hall train station. Jenny Craig forgive me but I WAS HUNGRY!!!! Clearly all that glitz and galmour went to my head and I was caught up in the moment. Besides I am now a (partially obscured by a banner) minor temporary celebrity and such lapses are part of my public persona.....now all I have to do is enter a rushed marriage of PR convenience (hello Tom and Katie), get some nasty sort of drug and alcohol habit (will check with Courtney Love I guess for that one), and have a bizarre nervous breakdown in public somewhere in country California (thank you Margot Kidder)...so little time...so much trivial superficial living to do......better get dancing...uh moving.......