“It was all good just a week ago/Bingle filled herself/To watch the bloat drop/Bingle shat herself/What’s Bingle gon’ do ho? This a new episode on a new show/I’m in the blog zone, true that/Bingle tellin’ me ‘Don’t write that’ – “ aaand that’s all I’ve got.* Sorry!
Hullo, and welcome back to Being Lara Bingle: The Live Blog Édition, Vol. 1, No. 7. Tonight on Ze Bing, it’s Lara’s 25th birthday! Celebrayshonz abound! Dress code: Cocktail Frankfurt.
From the previews leading up to tonight’s episode, I gather that we – Sharon Bingle, You, That Guy over there and This Moi – are going to finally/officially meet Girth Schmoody, Lara’s Gentleman Caller. If Hermione doesn’t break an urn filled with ashes for Josh to piss on, or Lara’s foreskin doesn’t end up in some fondue across the table from Babs Streisand I am going to be Seriously Pissed. Off. And relieved, because that will mean we’re not watching some awful Ben Stiller movie. Which might look a little somethin’ like this:
Not my best but anyways. Pass the cardonnay because we about to blog H•A•M, errbody!
8:13 – ERMAHGERD MERSTERCHERF.
8:17 – Just chillin’ in the kitchen with J and H, Lara reveals her diet is doing wonders – her boobs have shrunk half a size! Good job, gurl. This show, which is now something of a cross between Dr. Oz and Kendra Wilkinson’s reality show whatever that’s called – Kendra, apparently – is dispensing some sound dietary advice that I would caution you against heeding. Good sentence, Me.
8:20 – Cara, who we met last week, and Josh – who we have unfortunately known for seven weeks – are planning Lara’s 25th Birthday Extra-Va-Gan-Za. Cara is a total event planning pro. She’s even using words like ‘sommelier.’ I like Cara. Yo, Cara – are you on Twitter?
8:21 – Lara is on set at a Cosmopolitan shoot. I didn’t catch the name of the photographer, but she seems kewl. Some 14 year old girls – who are all named Maddy apparently – won a competition to meet Lara and get a mani/pedi afterward. Win/dream big, Maddy’s!
8:24 – Hermsy is writing a speech for Lereh, and says that Lara didn’t have a 21st because her dad passed away at the same time. So many #emotions. Lara’s 25th is going to act as a proxy 21st party for Lara, so expect shenanigans. Or Sharonigans. Good joke, me.
8:29 – So far, so snooze. Lara reveals she’s going to New Zealand the morning after her party for H2CoCo and to film an Air New Zealand Kiwi Sceptics webisode to encourage hesitant antipodes to visit the land of the long white cloud. Lara, I know you’re reading this: don’t do it! Take it from me, someone who has missed several flights, you will never make that plane. Actually, you will because you have a driver, a film crew, and are not on Schoolies.
8:31 – At Planet Cake, Cara and Josh are having a cake consultancy, which unfortunately is a real thing. Next, we venture to a SEX SHOP to set up Lara’s birthday gift registry. Josh reveals he isn’t so much into sex toys (THANK CHRIST) however, he did once visit Sexpo. Gasp. That is news to me. Because he does not seem like the type of person who visits Sexpo (he does). Brother Bingle is shopping for edible G-strings for his sister and her man friend, Gareth. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what you call a healthy relationship: observe and then go forth to buy abundant sex things for your siblings. I know I will (not) do that.
8:38 – The big day has arrived. Hermy1 and Jerkshua (see what I did there?) wake up Lara in her bed to gift her with said inappropriate birthday presents. There’s that genital/feather duster from Josh, and a ring (or something) from Herm. “Next?!” says Lara. Yay! Here’s Sharon – you know I’m excited because I would never write ‘Yay!’ ordinarily. Sharon is digging through The Bingle Archives, which is like the Australian Film and Sound Archive, but blonder. They’re going through photos of Lara through the ages and this is all very nice but also very boring. Lara reveals she left school at 15 to go to Milan. Double gasp. This is also news to me. I did not see that coming. Sharon wraps things up with some to-camera address that brushes over how Lara has grown in the past year, apparently. Could’ve fooled me! (See: colonic irrigation)
8:41 – The Air NZ film crew are in Lara’s kitchen filming the first part of the sceptics short. Lara says New Zealand reminds her of “sheep and cold,” and somewhere Air New Zealand marketing executives are seriously questioning this approach/ferociously gulping down some Canadian Club, Draper-style. MAX MAY ALERT. The feared and bearded one is doing Lara’s makeup before the big night. Josh is having some trouble accessorising and Lara offers to fix his bow tie. She takes the opposing ends of the tie and pulls with a force that betrays her slight stature; pulling with such intensity that Josh is having trouble breathing. Visibly choking now, Josh begs Lara to stop but insanity brought on from inhaling Max May’s potent odour has taken a firm hold over Lara. It’s like Batman Begins, but not. Josh – the carotid arteries in his neck pulsating visibly and his eye welling with tears that accompany the stark realisation of the cruel fate that has befallen him – crumbles to the cold hard kitchen floor, dead. Josh Bingle is dead. To me, anyway, and I have started inventing alternative narratives because tonight’s episode is so boring.
8:47 – We’re at le party at Carriageworks in the faux suburb that is Eveleigh. Everyone is dressed to the 8 1/2’s, and there’s some awkward interaction between Girth and Shirth but overall it’s very nice. Cara has done a great job party planning, which again (like cake consultancy) is a thing unfortunately. Hermione has come dressed in costume as an ancient Egyptian harem wench, wrapped in bed sheets and rimmed in kohl, Hatshepsut-style. Apparently she didn’t get the memo that this was a fancy soirée because she looks like an extra from a Brendan Fraser movie. Lara recites what I imagine is a very highly-rehearsed speech and, again, it’s just nice. Sharon is delivering some very #emotional words and is dressed like a leopard. MEOW MISSUS! Out comes the skull cake and blah blah blah. Nice job, Anthony. It looks delicious/inedible. You’ve all been to birthday parties. You know what happens.
8:50 – It’s over. I think this episode kind of exemplified the best and worst of Being Lara Bingle as we know it. It was fine. It fell squarely in the middle of the reality television plane; neither grossly offensive nor highly watchable. It was just – fine. Not like ‘fine china‘ fine but ‘take it or leave it‘ fine. In other words, neither here nor there (see also: ‘kinda boring‘). It lacked the same nauseating shock horror value of last week’s colonic episode, where Lara literally stuck a pipe up her rectum and flushed it out for all to see – an event I feared signalled the death of Australian culture – but was also strangely devoid of the detestable, absolutely abhorrent idiocy of last night’s episode of The Shire, which is the worst fucking show I have ever watched. Hey, The Shire! You are dreadful. Hey Being Lara Being! You’re okay, maybe, I guess?
Those are words I never thought I’d say. Excuse me, I have to go rifle through my own archives because I’ve lost sight of the person I thought I was all this time. In next week’s penultimate episode: New Zealund, sleeping in igloos and more radio appearances. To close with a quote from Paris, je t’aime, “if you fall asleep in the snow, you don’t feel death coming. Take care.“
*Kidding. I totally have more.
Update: Air New Zealand have unveiled Lara’s Kiwi Sciptucks Vudeo in sync with tonight’s episode. I wish Rhys Darby narrated every episode.
