BEAT-en Down...
At 
needyneddy 's request I decided to do a proper post about last night...rather than merely summarising in her comments section.
Where to begin...? This is going to be long...sorry...but hopefully worth it...!
Yesterday afternoon I was summonsed to the powerhouse for a "staff meeting", even though about two weeks previously I sent an email requesting that I be taken off the roster and kinda be allowed to 'leave quietly'. Clearly due to my unparalleled bar service I was invited to attend the auspicious staff meeting yesterday afternoon. What they didn't tell me on the phone was that the meeting was also doubling as an "employee assessment" interview scenario, and tripling as a piss-up. So after the somewhat awkward process (for both of us) of being graded as an employee by someone I actually consider to be a personal friend, I hit the spark bar for a free Pinot Gris. Or as Clare and Tommo kept calling it...a "Deano Gris-io"...referring to my boss' love/addiction to said wine. Thinking I was about to go home, I then had a shot of this weird foreign vodka that I have never tasted before and wrote it off as 'research' or 'product knowledge'. Then came the part NO ONE had told me about....the compulsory staff outing (no pun intended) to brisbane's gay mega-club THE BEAT! I tried numerous times to convince Clare and Tommo that we should sneak away before the cabs came, but to no avail.
The next thing I remember is being handed a series of cards and vouchers at the door by a man who looked like he had just stepped out of an episode of the Sopranos...I am NOT kidding btw. Deano paid for us all (God bless him) and then explained that for our $10 entry fee we were entitled to 3 free glasses of champagne, and ten dollars of "COCKATOO CLUB MONEY"...or as I pointed out previously..."COCK-OR-TWO" club money. This seemed too good to be true...and it was. Please note children...cockatoo club money...although it may appear completely whimsical and harmless...almost like monopoly money...it comes with a hidden karmic price!!
I then proceeded to the bar where I was met by overtly gay bartenders wearing white waist coats whose primary function could only have been to humiliate the staff wearing them. I mean seriously these waist coasts would not have looked good on ANYONE. They should all have been burned! It was like someone had made them from leftover table cloth trimmings, but didn't actually measure the material properly. Anyway, so I cashed in one of my free champagne tix and after my first sip was taken on a magical mystery tour of my past - mainly featuring memories of passion pop and vomiting. This stuff seriously could have stripped paint off the walls...and infact the entire place SMELT like it had been cleaned with the very champagne I was drinking...or was that bleach/chlorine? Who could tell?
Then started the embarrassing part of the evening where the champagne started to send me slightly insane, and I was for some reason the happiest man in the world to realise that a Tooheys New was only $3 at the Beat on a sunday, and therefore I could get three with my $10 of "COCK-OR-TWO" money. What a BARGAIN! Anyhoo... so I started talking to a new powerhouse bar manager called Amity who I have only ever spoken to over the phone, and for some reason thought it would be really appropriate to tell her that I thought her girlfriend was REALLY hot. Then I proceeded to apparently 'take off' Amity directly to her face...without even knowing I was doing it. You see...I thought I was taking off the character of "Ja'mie" from the ABC mockumentary series 'we can be heroes'...but everyone else seemed to think I was doing a 'better impression of Amity than Amity herself'. Oh dear. All I remember from this point on is Deano laughing AT me a lot (this can't have been good) and me constantly saying "SERIOUSLY...FUGLY"...in the Ja'mie voice about 400 times. I thought I was the funniest person alive.
Then came...or perhaps just prior to some of this came the part where we were able to cash in our BBQ ticket and choose from the Beat Buffet...which in ANY context sounds confronting. I have never been served a buffet BBQ by a series of drag queens, but I must say, I think it was best described by Tommo as "Gay club meets David Lynch". One of the drag queens seriously sounded EXACTLY like the mafia guy on the front door as she asked if I wanted steak (insert gruffest robbo accent)..."Do ya want STEAK!?". At this point I'm beginning to understand why you are given so much free alcohol...just so you don't FREAK OUT or even worse, piece together that the scary old dude on the front door, was probably also a drag queen serving you beef! Help.
So who's up for next week? hahhaha
needyneddy 's request I decided to do a proper post about last night...rather than merely summarising in her comments section.
Where to begin...? This is going to be long...sorry...but hopefully worth it...!
Yesterday afternoon I was summonsed to the powerhouse for a "staff meeting", even though about two weeks previously I sent an email requesting that I be taken off the roster and kinda be allowed to 'leave quietly'. Clearly due to my unparalleled bar service I was invited to attend the auspicious staff meeting yesterday afternoon. What they didn't tell me on the phone was that the meeting was also doubling as an "employee assessment" interview scenario, and tripling as a piss-up. So after the somewhat awkward process (for both of us) of being graded as an employee by someone I actually consider to be a personal friend, I hit the spark bar for a free Pinot Gris. Or as Clare and Tommo kept calling it...a "Deano Gris-io"...referring to my boss' love/addiction to said wine. Thinking I was about to go home, I then had a shot of this weird foreign vodka that I have never tasted before and wrote it off as 'research' or 'product knowledge'. Then came the part NO ONE had told me about....the compulsory staff outing (no pun intended) to brisbane's gay mega-club THE BEAT! I tried numerous times to convince Clare and Tommo that we should sneak away before the cabs came, but to no avail.
The next thing I remember is being handed a series of cards and vouchers at the door by a man who looked like he had just stepped out of an episode of the Sopranos...I am NOT kidding btw. Deano paid for us all (God bless him) and then explained that for our $10 entry fee we were entitled to 3 free glasses of champagne, and ten dollars of "COCKATOO CLUB MONEY"...or as I pointed out previously..."COCK-OR-TWO" club money. This seemed too good to be true...and it was. Please note children...cockatoo club money...although it may appear completely whimsical and harmless...almost like monopoly money...it comes with a hidden karmic price!!
I then proceeded to the bar where I was met by overtly gay bartenders wearing white waist coats whose primary function could only have been to humiliate the staff wearing them. I mean seriously these waist coasts would not have looked good on ANYONE. They should all have been burned! It was like someone had made them from leftover table cloth trimmings, but didn't actually measure the material properly. Anyway, so I cashed in one of my free champagne tix and after my first sip was taken on a magical mystery tour of my past - mainly featuring memories of passion pop and vomiting. This stuff seriously could have stripped paint off the walls...and infact the entire place SMELT like it had been cleaned with the very champagne I was drinking...or was that bleach/chlorine? Who could tell?
Then started the embarrassing part of the evening where the champagne started to send me slightly insane, and I was for some reason the happiest man in the world to realise that a Tooheys New was only $3 at the Beat on a sunday, and therefore I could get three with my $10 of "COCK-OR-TWO" money. What a BARGAIN! Anyhoo... so I started talking to a new powerhouse bar manager called Amity who I have only ever spoken to over the phone, and for some reason thought it would be really appropriate to tell her that I thought her girlfriend was REALLY hot. Then I proceeded to apparently 'take off' Amity directly to her face...without even knowing I was doing it. You see...I thought I was taking off the character of "Ja'mie" from the ABC mockumentary series 'we can be heroes'...but everyone else seemed to think I was doing a 'better impression of Amity than Amity herself'. Oh dear. All I remember from this point on is Deano laughing AT me a lot (this can't have been good) and me constantly saying "SERIOUSLY...FUGLY"...in the Ja'mie voice about 400 times. I thought I was the funniest person alive.
Then came...or perhaps just prior to some of this came the part where we were able to cash in our BBQ ticket and choose from the Beat Buffet...which in ANY context sounds confronting. I have never been served a buffet BBQ by a series of drag queens, but I must say, I think it was best described by Tommo as "Gay club meets David Lynch". One of the drag queens seriously sounded EXACTLY like the mafia guy on the front door as she asked if I wanted steak (insert gruffest robbo accent)..."Do ya want STEAK!?". At this point I'm beginning to understand why you are given so much free alcohol...just so you don't FREAK OUT or even worse, piece together that the scary old dude on the front door, was probably also a drag queen serving you beef! Help.
So who's up for next week? hahhaha