This week Pedestrian has the pleasure of publishing an entire chapter from Marieke Hardy’s new book, “You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead”. The first installment of said chapter can be read here (along with an amazing interview conducted by Elmo Keep) while part two is now available below. Parts three, four and five to follow…
In 1987 Susan was a lanky streak of bacon, with a neat bob she did up in a spiky, Pat Benatar-inspired ponytail, and awesome big round spectacles like that secretary character Janine used to wear in Ghostbusters. She was Greek, which meant when I was eleven I wanted to be Greek too. I craved the exotic oiliness of the culture, the salt and the religious icons and the shouty father figures who emitted comforting aromas of tobacco and ouzo. I even insisted my parents let me temporarily attend Susan’s weekend Greek school, where I spent a few entirely happy afternoons sitting in a corner smiling like an idiot and not knowing what the fuck anybody else was talking about. They eventually banned me from attending after I came home using the word malaka in its correct context but I was still allowed to spend many contented afternoons at Susan’s house listening to her parents arguing in their dense, prickly language. I fell in love with Susan because she was bright and funny and she didn’t find it weird that I thought Harriet the Spy was a real person.
Together we posed awkwardly for home-made Dolly magazine modelling shots and told ourselves we were definitely prettier than Kate Fischer or Anneliese Seubert, not realising that we weren’t and never would be and it didn’t matter. We re-enacted the moody, soft-focus photographs we’d pored over around her parents’ swimming pool, wearing elastic headbands and Esprit leather jackets and high-waisted snow-wash denim.
‘You could be the next Alison Brahe . . . but, you know, a Greek version,’ I told Susan, privately hoping that this clearly overblown compliment would lead to equally lavish praise for me.
It was around this time we discovered a television program called Young Talent Time, a music-driven Channel Ten series that would these days probably be pulled unceremoniously from air for promoting child rape or slave labour or something equally sinister. Each episode consisted of eight or nine milk-fed little poplettes dressed in lycra halternecks and ra-ra skirts butchering chart hits of the day (‘Celebrate’ by Kool & the Gang was a well-abused favourite) before gathering around ageing ’70s disc jockey John ‘call me Johnny, it’s not creepy in any way whatsoever’ Young and singing the Beatles song ‘All My Loving’ in what I suppose in some lesser-evolved countries would consider unison. The night ended when a random petrified child chosen from the audience looked down the barrel of a camera and shrieked ‘GOODNIGHT AUSTRALIA’ and the producers cut to a plastic model of a McDonald’s restaurant with a toy car parked out the front.
I recently sat through an entire episode on YouTube and was appalled by how truly awful it all was. There was even someone on the show named ‘Bevan’. Yet in 1987 Susan and I saw none of YTT’s garish, plasticky hideousness, its shrill posturing or borderline uncomfortable song choices (‘When I Kissed The Teacher’?, ‘Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car’?). We were completely bewitched. Every Saturday night at 6 pm we would go into lockdown, sitting breathless and cross-legged in front of the television. Dutifully we would videotape each episode and then dissect it at length during the week (‘Why do you think Johnny introduced Juanita’s song but not Greg’s? Do you think maybe Greg is going to get sacked because he’s an albino with buck teeth?’) before applying ourselves to learning the dance routines by heart and performing them in the backyard with barefoot gusto, undeterred by the threat of bindies.
This, in itself, is not an unusual experience for a young lady of my years. It’s fairly common these days to be at a party with peers and mention the words Young Talent Time only to find yourself three hours later in a heated group debate about whether Vince Del Tito was fucking Dannii ‘two I’s are better to see you with!’ Minogue or Natalie Miller. YTT was a Saturday night ritual for most Australian children and in that, I suppose, Susan and I were no different from anybody else. We did, however, take things a step further by starting an official fan club for one of the members.
This is part two of an edited five-part extract from “You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead” by Marieke Hardy (Allen & Unwin, $29.99, available at all good bookstores from August 29).
http://www.mariekehardy.com
http://www.allenandunwin.com
Lead image by Cybele Malinowski
