Time to go to work. We followed them into a large cold studio where a cheap double bed was surrounded by half a dozen lights, a small 16-mm film camera on a tripod and half a dozen men all looking like a bunch of accountants who couldn’t wait to get through another boring day at the office.
The stars, with towels still diplomatically wrapped around them, sat on the bed. The director told them their motivation, and the men removed their towels. We knew what our motivation was. Leave. We didn’t want to hang around long enough to embarrass anybody, namely us. Plus, not only could we not show any of the action in our 7.30 p.m. timeslot, we couldn’t have shown any of it, ever, anywhere in Australia.
We left the studio for our many interviews with pro-porn politicians and anti-porn advocates and finished the night interviewing the owner of a porn shop. It was midnight, it had been a very long day and we were all exhausted. We did the interview inside the porn shop, then went back to the hotel for a well-earned rest.
With the story finished and packed off to Sydney, we moved on to our next assignment during which I got an irate phone call from the studio. ‘What the fuck is going on!?’ yelled the executive producer. ‘The interview with the porn shop owner’s got a TV screen right behind his head showing hard-core porn, clear as a bell. Is this some kind of joke?’
It was no joke, I just hadn’t noticed. Today it’d all be instantly pixellated at the touch of a button, but as it was the editors spent weeks trying to blur out the background image. Shame. It might have increased the ratings.
•
Sometimes the shit happening is of my own creation. We were staying in Brighton, England, doing a profile on the Pommie cricketer Ian Botham, who was about to tear the Aussies apart, so he said. There was no love lost between Botham and the Aussies, particularly him and Ian Chappell. There’d been rumours that the two had a pub brawl at some stage and that Botham had gone at Chappell with a glass. When we mentioned this, he told us he wouldn’t need a glass to take care of Chappell. All great stuff for our story, and we knew it’d be even better when we got Chappell’s response.
Our hotel in Brighton was not five star. It was more like Fawlty Towers, but sometimes that can be fun, depending on your mood.
Before we left on the trip, Geoff Cameron, the unit manager, told us all, ‘Please be careful and lock away all your valuables.’ There’d been a few thefts on trips and a few blokes, me being one of them, had been done over. Normally I would have let Geoff ’s plea go in one ear and out the other, except it hadn’t been long since I’d had my room done over beautifully. They got away with $5000 in travellers cheques, a still camera and my passport, which didn’t go down well with the bosses, because after Belfast I’d given them my word it’d never happen again. Two passports lost. I was obviously a risk.
Some classy hotels have small safes with a combination lock in the room, but I was scared I’d forget the combination or I’d forget I’d even put the stuff inside. I’d taken to putting all my valuables inside my over-packed suitcase and locking it with my own combination lock. Any light-fingered burglar would have a difficult time lifting my stuff. Though even my own locks can be tricky for me. If you don’t check the combination as you lock the thing, it might have accidently spun around a notch or two and cunningly changed the combination right before your eyes.
Which happened to me in New York in a five-star pub that had safes in the room, so it was a little embarrassing when I had to ring the concierge to bring up a hacksaw to cut off the lock on my suitcase to get to the credit card I needed to pay my hotel bill. It was such a classy joint that the concierge very kindly did the sawing for me. He probably thought I was so dumb I wouldn’t be capable because he did enquire as to why I hadn’t used the safe they provided.
Back in Brighton’s Fawlty Towers, still a bit nervous from all of the above, I’d decided to hand over all my stuff to the front desk. They had a huge safe where they kept everyone’s valuables, and now I wouldn’t have to memorise a string of numbers. And safely it was kept for five days, and each of those days the place got more and more like Fawlty Towers. I was getting madder and madder. When you live in hotels for seven months a year, you expect certain things to be done, poncy as that might sound. And this place was crap. Nothing worked and the service was terrible. So when we checked out, I gave them an earful. I told the front desk what I thought, and seeing as I was on a roll, I demanded to see the manager, then told him exactly what I thought of him, his staff and his hotel. I told him I was a seasoned traveller who lived in hotels for half the year and this was one of the worst I had ever seen, and if I was as bad at my job as he was at his, I’d have been sacked years ago. I turned and stormed out, happy with the thought that I would never need to see him or his dreadful hotel again.
By the end of the drive back to London, my blood pressure had returned to normal and when I saw the front desk of our extremely classy five-star London hotel, I just knew all my stuff would be extremely safe and sound here, until I realised it was already safe and sound ... back in Brighton. When I mentioned my dilemma to my colleagues who had witnessed my tirade back at Fawlty Towers, it goes without saying I was on my own. I pleaded with them to drive back with me and for one of them to please go inside to get my stuff and save my embarrassment. They were, of course, all loving this and they all declined.
I started thinking of ways I could tell the bosses how I’d been mugged, and even though I’d managed to put up a good fight, I still had all my stuff taken. But sooner or later Mr Fawlty would clean out his safe and find Mr Perfect World Traveller’s travelling documents. There was no mention of Channel 9 on them so I considered ringing my wife and telling her to sell the house so we could move to another country, but that wouldn’t work because the house was in both our names. Plus I couldn’t get home to sign anything because I didn’t have a passport. All these thoughts swirled round my head as I sat alone on the train back to Brighton.
When I arrived at the hotel I was hesitant to go in. Should I say it was all a misunderstanding? I really love the hotel and I was being ironic? Or ... ‘Oh you thought I was talking about your hotel?’ No, no, no.
It was now 6 p.m., maybe there’d been a change of shift and I’d be in and out without anyone recognising me. I took a quick glance from behind a pot plant and who should be behind the front desk but my old mate the manager. There was no way round it. I raised myself up to my full 5 feet 7 inches and sauntered in. He knew exactly who I was and why I was there. With a gigantically self-righteous look on his face, far bigger than the one on my face earlier in the day, he said, ‘Can I help you, Sir?’
I really wanted to say, ‘Sir demands his documents immediately before Sir sues for theft.’ But unfortunately Sir was now shrinking fast. I told him, ahem, it appeared I may have inadvertently left some personal items in the hotel safe and may I retrieve them, please.
‘Certainly, Sir. And will that be all?’ His smile grew in direct proportion to my shrinkage.
‘No. That is all, thank you.’
‘If there’s any more I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to call, it’s been a pleasure having you, Sir.’
All 4 feet 6 inches of me felt the daggers as I traipsed out clutching passport, money, credit cards but no dignity.
•
Sometimes shit happens to other people too. Mind you, I get a bit embarrassed for them and try to do the diplomatic thing and hold back any laughter. We’ve all felt that sense of relief that ‘this time at least it’s not me’.
We were shooting a profile on Rex Pilbeam, Mayor of Rockhampton. Rex was a great story for us, outspoken, out of date, a true dinosaur. Most of his ideas belonged in the 19th century, but he must have been doing something right, he’d been mayor for 30 years, an independent in a very Labor town. He’d been a chartered accountant, a fight promoter and rodeo organiser. He was a very large 73-year-old with a thin grey moustache, a million chins and a laugh for each chin. His dog, a female border collie called Nicky, was with him
every minute of the day. And he was tough as nails. He told us his biggest problem was married women in the workforce. He blamed them for divorce, delinquency and the dole queue.
‘The finest role a woman can have in this world is as wife and mother.’
Any woman working in his office had to leave within twelve months of being married. Surprisingly, the women in his office agreed. ‘I don’t believe in married women working. If you can’t afford to get married, you don’t get married,’ one of them told us.
Maybe the whole town was 19th century, and Rex was the perfect man for the top job. He had a huge painting of a reclining naked woman above his desk. The view was from behind to give it taste. The type of painting that was everywhere in the 1960s before people (women) began to object to these images in the workplace.
Ray Martin was the reporter. ‘Modern women would call you a male chauvinist pig,’ he said.
To which Rex responded, ‘I think it’s a wonderful epitaph, cos I think a pig is a long way preference to a cold-hearted indifferent bitch. If women were meant to grow certain organs, God would have put them on ’em.’
That might have been what the married Mayor Pilbeam said to his mistress back during his first year in office, because something had obviously upset her, right before she shot him. He almost died. Next election he romped in.
Rex made no attempt to be tactful even while we were filming him. When a Japanese delegation was a few minutes late to discuss investing in his town, he joked, ‘They weren’t bloody late for Pearl Harbor, eh?’
For all his faults he was fun to be with, and only too willing to do whatever we wanted. We needed a few more shots to end the story, so we decided we’d get some footage of him in his car as if he was driving to work. With Nicky his faithful border collie in the passenger seat, I sat in the back seat and filmed Rex driving. I commented on what a nice car he had. ‘Is it new?’ I asked.
‘No, this beautiful Volvo is seven years old. I get it washed every day and polished once a week. I love this car. I always keep it looking like new,’ he said.
We pulled up at the Town Hall and I told him we only needed one more shot and we’d be out of his hair. I asked if he would mind driving into the driveway, stopping the Volvo a few metres in front of me, walking between me and the car, and then up the Town Hall’s ornate stairs and through the front doors. Of course he obliged.
‘And Rex, put a little oomph into your walk. This’ll be our final shot for the story.’
I set up the tripod in the middle of the driveway and waved him on. When he pulled up, Nicky jumped out the passenger window. Great shot. Rex then got out of the car and headed for the steps, oomph and all. Just as he reached the bottom step, I noticed his car slowly heading towards me, and I could hear the motor still running. I grabbed the camera and tripod and yelled to Rex that his car was moving. The 73-year-old ran back, shoved his left leg inside and slammed his foot on the brake.
Unfortunately he hit the accelerator. The looks-like-new seven-year-old Volvo took off at 80 kilometres an hour, with Rex’s foot trapped inside hard against the accelerator, his large mayoral body hanging outside the car with his head dribbling like a basketball along the ground. I watched as the car rocketed over the gutter, over the road, over the opposite gutter, and into a park. The beautiful clean Volvo then came to a sudden stop. It had slammed into a coconut tree.
Shit, I’ve just killed the Mayor of Rockhampton! I ran to the car, still angrily revving against the tree, leant in, turned off the ignition and looked down at the unconscious mayor. Newspaper headlines whizzed through my mind, ‘60 Minutes Crew Kills Mayor’, ‘He survived being shot by a lover but not by a camera’, or ‘City of Rockhampton Sues Cameraman’.
As I stared in shock at him, wondering what to do next, he started to move. He opened his eyes and looked at me.
‘Now what did you want me to do?’ he said. ‘Walk up the stairs. Is that right?’
•
Being away so often meant it was always a pleasant surprise to score a job in Sydney. It was like being back in the old news days. I found myself shooting a routine story on a notorious criminal. I’d just scored some sneaky footage of him in a cafe with other undesirables. Being the brave bloke I am I decided to forgo my cover and get some shots of him walking along the footpath—all very long lens of course. I’m not that brave, but I recall thinking that I was safe because I was on the footpath surrounded by the general public. As he got closer I turned away, pretending to be shooting something else. But he knew what I was doing. I felt him grab me. On the long end of the lens he looked like a big man, but now he was upon me he bore a remarkable resemblance to a fridge. And he was very, very angry. Suddenly, in a giant bear hug he lifted me off the ground. I wrapped my arms tightly around the camera to protect it and put my head down to protect my disbelieving face. Holding me high in the air he said, ‘Give me the tape or someone will get hurt.’ I figured it wasn’t going to be him. I was hoping it was going to be the bloke watching from the other side of the street, but it was obvious who it was going to be. I felt like asking him for the literal interpretation of ‘hurt’, but with my head still buried in my arms and camera, I said rather foolishly, ‘You’re not getting the tape.’
‘Then someone is going to get hurt.’
He slammed me against a brick wall and tried wrestling the camera from my arms. My head hit the wall and the camera slammed into my face. With my head spinning I told him to fuck off. Not smart. The fridge turned purple and everything else turned into slow motion. Once again he spat out the words ‘Give me the tape!’
I heard a loud crack and thought there goes my neck. Remarkably little pain considering, but then I realised the noise was the viewfinder being ripped off the camera. His next lunge at the camera was even more ferocious. I was a dead man, but I had nothing to lose so I told him to fuck off again. I wasn’t really keen to open my eyes to witness my final punishment, but I did and saw a huge hairy hand coming my way and resting on the fridge’s shoulder.
‘Wayne, let it go,’ a voice said. ‘He’s not worth it.’
And with that, my saviour and Wayne the fridge, still clutching my shattered viewfinder, wandered off down the street.
Get me out of Sydney.
•
Now this story probably shouldn’t be in the shit happens chapter but it did happen.
In the mid-1980s the world, and specifically the US, was having a small financial crisis, and no one was too sure if ‘Reaganomics’ was to blame or if US President Reagan and his treasury would be the saviour. Part of our story was to interview a top-ranking financial advisor to the US government who lived in a very expensive and very beautiful part of Boston. When we reached the top step to his massive front door, it opened and we were met with the perfect caricature of a nerdy accountant. Short, balding, pasty—and wearing a cardigan. It was all we could do not to laugh. In his high-pitched voice he invited us in and after a bit of small talk he asked if we’d like a cup of tea. We felt sorry for the poor little man and thought it would be the highlight of his day, so we accepted, to make him feel good. Then I looked round the room for a suitable place to shoot the interview, and suddenly, before my very eyes, appeared the two largest breasts I’d ever seen.
‘This is my wife,’ said the very proud finance guru. Again laughter was held in the back of the throat but struggling hard against the gravitational pull of the two large planets before us.
I know it was the 80s, but her hair was the size of a haystack, probably to give some vertical compensation for her poor load-bearing shoulders. She was overly made up, wearing a minuscule skirt and a blouse that looked four sizes too small, and every ounce of her body was crying out, ‘Look at these.’ Trying desperately hard not to look at those, we all said something like ‘Nice to meet you’, but it was inaudible. It’s hard to speak with your mouth wide open.
As we drank our tea, I set up lights around two chairs diagonally across the room with a hallway leading away to
my left. The reporter Jennifer Byrne and the economic guru sat in the chairs, nattering away with small talk until I was ready, then Jennifer went into heavy-duty questioning about fiscal policy, accrual accounting, active markets and anticipatory hedging, all of which went right over my head.
All good cameramen with their right eye to the lens learn to keep their left eye open to check out what’s going on around them. There could be a better shot, or some danger. The image in the right eye through the lens might be an extra close-up of someone’s face, or zoomed into an image hundreds of metres away, while the left eye is taking in its normal wide vision. After years of experience you can actually switch your brain to see only the image in one eye, even though both eyes are open. It doesn’t sound too difficult, but some cameramen never acquire the skill.
As my left eye roamed the room, I saw some movement in the hallway. My brain switched from the right-eye image of the round-faced guru to the image in my left eye and all I could see were those breasts. And above them a big smile. Then a wink.
With my left eye totally in control of my brain, I watched as two hands slowly and seductively unbuttoned the blouse. I’d been having trouble understanding any of the fiscal chat but now I was having trouble hearing it due to the sound of my pulse thumping in my head. Slowly but surely all the buttons were undone and there they were, braless and enormous. Appearing to defy gravity they hovered for a few seconds before being shaken wildly from side to side. Meanwhile, hubby was rambling on about the principle of supply-side economics and the trickledown theory to stir growth. I stared at the jiggling breasts then up to her face. Another wink, another smile. She then did up her buttons, turned and sauntered back down the hall.
After the interview we all said our thankyous and goodbyes, including my breast friend who knew full well I wouldn’t mention it. After all, who would believe me?
All This in 60 Minutes Page 19
