My life as a freak

So, I finally got to get my shot. Last night we went to a taping of RockWiz as part of the Comedy Festival, and I managed to be one of the 4 people out of 800 in the audience to actually take part. Here's how it played out:

• We had gone along to the previous night's show and not gotten anywhere near it. Because of the increased number of people in the audience they couldn't get one person from each table into the initial group that they select the real contestants from so they implemented a WillyWonka-style system where randomly selected seats in the audience had lucky tickets under them, and the people with those tickets got to either go up or choose someone else who would. Unfortunately no one on our table had one and even though Claudette had a red hot go at trying to convince someone from another table to let me go up it wasn't to be. Luckily Kerrie met some people she knew who had tickets to the next night's show that they couldn't use, so they gave them to her.
  
  
• The next night we went along and sat down and Darren found the golden ticket under his seat. As per previous instructions from Kerrie he gave it straight to me, which made the other people on our table look a bit peeved but Kerrie was not to be denied in her determination to get me up there.
  
  
• So up I went with the other 17 people (which somehow became 18 when we all got up there). I had to wait until the last round of qualifiers, which was pretty nerve wracking but finally I got my chance and acquitted myself pretty well, if I can be allowed a small pat on my own back. I was particularly proud of my singing efforts, busting out 'Rocket Man' (even though I did mistakenly say that it was sung by David Bowie instead of Elton John) and 'The Gambler' (although to be honest if I was going to do a Kenny Rogers number I would have preferred 'Ruby' to get the chance to sing the classic line "It's hard to love a man whose legs are bent and paralysed"). Brian Nankervis told me not to go too far away which made me fairly confident that I was going to get a guernsey in the real show.
  
  
• When the names were announced I was one of the lucky four (hooray !), and we made our way backstage to get fitted for Madonna/Janet Jackson style headphone microphones, sign waiver forms and meet Brian and Julia. Julia was very friendly and touchy (Julia Zemiro touched me !) and ran us through what we were meant to do, making sure that we had our answers to the contestants' questions worked out, telling us not to jump in too quickly on the Who Can it Be Now questions and generally making with the friendly and the putting us at ease.
  

• After waiting backstage for what seemed like ages we finally made it on. Everyone was extremely nervous and the girl on my team (Anita) gave my hand a little squeeze before things got started, which I thought was quite cute. Julia asked us all the traditional questions, and then we were into it.
  
  
• I knew the first Who Can it Be Now before anybody else but decided to hang back as per instructions, so I was pissed off when the girl on the other team jumped in with Katie Noonan. Katie came out and did a very nice version of Cold Chisel's Choir Girl but unfortunately she went to the other team. When the second Who Can it Be Now came I was determined not to get caught again and jumped straight in as soon as Julia said that the person was in the Twilights. She looked a little irritated but I blurted out Glen Shorrock and on he came.
  
  
• Glen Shorrock turned out to be a little like the pervy old uncle at the family functions who tells all the inappropriate dirty jokes. When he sat down on our side he immediately started to jokily come on to Anita, which she didn't actually look that pleased about. The pearler though was later on when he said that The Nips Are Getting Bigger was actually a triple entendre - going on to explain that Nips could be nips of spirits, girls' nipples or, wait for it, Asian people, inspiring a "moving right along" moment from our hostess.
  
  
• At one stage I did get the ultimate accolade - being called a freak by Julia Zemiro. Be still my beating heart ! (Although I can't remember what I actually did to deserve it.)
  
  
• Unfortunately my team wasn't actually able to make the night perfect by coming up with a win. The other team was too consistent, with three members of mostly equal trivia skill, and too fast on the buzzers (although I was hampered by a dodgy buzzer that didn't seem to go off half the time I pressed it). I believe the final scores were 165 to 195 so it wasn't even close, which was a bit disappointing.
  
  
• At the end of the night we were herded back out into the audience, while the celebrities were escorted to another backstage area for drinks and nibbles - so much for hanging out and chilling with our new friends, although even if we had have gotten to mingle with them I would most likely have gotten stuck talking to Glen Shorrock the whole time.

And that was pretty much that. Not as exciting as the night that Chrissie Amphlett pretended to fellate one of the contestants, but my moment in the sun nonetheless. My main worry when going up there was not making a fool of myself, and although I will no doubt be cringing when I actually watch the show on TV, I don't think there were any really embarassing moments (with the exception of some perhaps excessive gushing to Brian and Julia backstage after the event). At this stage the episode is due to go to air on May 5th, so we'll probably have a few people around and relive the moments of glory.