Australia & Fiji Book Tour
Australian Culture
My first taste of the playful Aussie sensibility: a commercial I saw
that advertised toilet paper with a singing chorus of ‘Comfort
made for Down Under.’ The Aussies seek comfort in all aspects of
their lives and have a great time doing so. It goes to show how relaxed
the English can be if you put them in the sun. I started out my MODEL
Book Tour in Sydney, a breath-takingly-gorgeous city with blue water
and green peninsulas jutting out everywhere you look.
An Auspicious Start
Before I actually got to Sydney proper, however, I had to first deal
with my smushed baggage in the airport. It showed up flattened and wrapped
in Korean Air baggage tape (although I flew Air Pacific) and missing
most of its contents, including my book tour materials. My boyfriend
claimed there must have been a book critic behind it. I promptly got
stressed out, made myself physically sick with worry, and called my
mom back in NY. My Mom, possessing that unique mother ability to perform
miracles, contacted the airline, somehow found the materials in L.A.,
and had them sent to me in Sydney.
The Initiation
So, the next day I was off to my first big event, a book-signing at
the Tuggerah Dymocks Bookshop (okay so Tuggerah is not exactly a huge
place, and well, maybe it is so tiny that it isn’t even listed
on the map, but hey you gotta start somewhere.) Although the sickness
I had contracted had taken my voice hostage, I was able to squeak a
bit and also lessen the mucous flow with some Aussie nose drops. I was
ready!
I soon found out that a book-signing, as a completely unknown author
in Australia, was an exercise in humiliation. There I stood, at the
front of the bookshop, all gussied up, in a mini-skirt, breast-enhancing
wonderbra, pen in hand, ready to accommodate the hordes of excited book
fans. And I waited, and waited, and waited. Once in a while, a few giggly
young girls or boys would come over to chat, and I actually had a great
conversation with a boy in a legcast. I hid his crutches - at last a
captive audience! It gave me a great idea for my next book tour –
rehabilitation units in hospitals. My Aussie book agent, Luigi, had
conveniently gone off for coffee, as had my boyfriend, so I was there
alone in my mortification. I soon realized I either had to start hawking
my book or just continue staring off into space. So I basically became
a telemarketer, a door-to-door saleswoman, a person to avoid at all
costs, holding up my book and pleading passers-by to come take a look.
Anytime someone actually touched the book, my heart leapt, and if they
walked away empty-handed, my stomach churned. This business wasn’t
easy. I could only be thankful that at least being in Australia, I wouldn’t
run into any people I knew. This experience wasn’t quite matching
up to my glamorous fantasies of my book tour.
The Mall
Fast forward through several more signings and talks in Sydney and
Canberra (the capital of Australia and a really dull city - I wasn’t
sure if we were in Australia or Cleveland) to my first big mall appearance
in Melbourne. Luigi had gotten in touch with an Aussie modeling agency,
and the plan was that we would have a big MODEL night with a fashion
show and a talk given by an international model (me.) Okay, sounded
like a decent plan. I innocently assumed that the audience would be
seated and relatively captive. This would turn out to be an all-too-incorrect
assumption.
So lights, camera, action, we were ready: the models hit the stage
and did their catwalk thing. Then, Luigi’s partner, Tom, a very
sweet, but very shy, exceedingly soft-spoken bloke came on to give me
my big introduction and get the crowd salivating for my appearance.
Tom mumbled my name inaudibly, which was quite unfortunate as I was
not exactly a household name in Australia and there hadn’t been
any advertising. Then I was thrust on stage.
I immediately saw that there really was no audience - I was just standing
in the middle of a mall with people milling about. Where were the doors?
The handcuffs? As I had been expecting a totally different venue (i.e.
a captive audience), I had prepared a speech of about 30 minutes. Oops
– a bit long for the mom who came to the mall to pick up her kids.
So I did major speech chopping. My main goal was to somehow maintain
an audience. Not an easy task. Every time a person wandered off, anxiety
would flood my brain: ‘What if everyone leaves? What if I am left
here talking just to my book agent and boyfriend smiling wanly at me?"
At one point, an entire group of people left – that was excruciating.
But I hit the jackpot when a mother arrived with some crying children
to fill the space! I somehow muddled through and survived.
The next day, we had the same sort of event at another Melbourne mall.
I put my ‘thinking cap’ on for this one and had the brilliant
idea that the lovely models should stay onstage behind me during my
talk. This worked like a dream. And I had also taken an axe to my speech
and trimmed it down to a bearable 10-12 minutes. The models beamed,
I was quick, the audience stayed. It was a beautiful thing.
"The Big Time"
Earlier in the tour, I had done a talk at the Fox Studios Bookshop
in Sydney. Apparently, a Fox exec had spotted me and contacted Luigi
to invite me to be a ‘celebrity judge’ for a national model
search at Fox Studios. Well, this certainly sounded fun. And Luigi assured
me that the search would be broadcast nationally. As my sales figures
hadn’t been exactly stellar, this could really save the whole tour
to have that national exposure. Just one little problem: we had a flight
out of Sydney before the date of the search and had bought the tickets
as cheaply as possible (i.e. no changes mate!) Luigi assured me, "This
is Australia, we are so laid back here, it should be no problem to change
your ticket." How could I say ‘no’ to my big shot for
publicity.
So I agreed to be a judge and innocently contacted Air Pacific regarding
changing the tickets. Big problem mate. How about there were no seats
available for several weeks and even if there had been, we couldn’t
get them unless we wanted to buy whole new tickets! Oh my. But I was
assured that whatever trouble we were facing with the airline, it would
be worth it for the national exposure I would receive with the model
search. Okay, so I bit the bullet and spent the next several days pleading
with Air Pacific.
The night of the national model search arrived. I was primped up to
the max. After all, I was going to be on national television with the
opportunity to promote my book to all of Australia. We arrived at Fox
Studios, and I mean really, wouldn’t the name alone suggest ‘televised.’
Wrong-o. This was a tiny, rinky-dink ‘model search’ (I mean
some of the girls’ dads were in it for heaven’s sakes). My
boyfriend thought we had ended up at a bar mitzvah. No national tv,
no local tv, although there were a few parents with a camcorder. My
boyfriend was gravely irritated, and as he thought the organizer had
duped us, he started barking at him and demanding champagne. It was
kind of embarrassing.
But in the end, I actually had a really great time – it is hard
not to when you are hanging out with Australians. I carefully voted
for the top models, ate my complimentary dinner, and even received flowers
at the end for my fabulous judging participation. And strangely enough,
two of the other ‘celebrity judges’ were Australian tv celebrities.
Who says I wasn’t hobnobbing with the stars?!
As they say in Australia, ‘No worries mate!’
Aussie Slang
(These are all words that I actually heard)
Banana Bender – Queenslander
Barbie - barbecue
Bloke – Aussie male
Brekkie – breakfast
Dry as a dead dingo’s donger – very dry
Dunny – toilet
Good-on-ya Mate! – congratulatory or sarcastic phrase
How-are-ya? – Greeting, sounds like Howya?
Kiwi – New Zealander
Jumper – sweater
Mozzies - mosquitos
No Worries – no problem, you’re welcome
Sheila – Aussie female
The Bush – rural Australia
Uni – university
Vegemite – an Aussie spread, similar to Marmite
Wanker – someone with an ego problem
Look for more stories about Australia in Jillian’s next book.