apeeling incidents in Amsterdam

I envisioned a quiet room with a small stage and two people having sex on it. I figured most of the audience would be old perverted creeps fidgeting at their khaki pants and was eager to see if my assumptions were correct...

Much to my surprise - I was wrong! Picture a normal bar and then church pews around it with music and lights and all the things you would usually find in a bar. That was the sex show setting we would be immersed in for the next 20 minutes during a recent trip to Amsterdam.

They even had audience participation! I was one of the only girls in the audience so was called up twice to get involved- lucky me! Not for sex of course (don't worry Mom) but to assist with their props. Imagine my surprise when I am one of four to get called up on stage. What prop could this woman have that she needs four people to help her with?

A lovely older Latino looking lady called us to the stage and lined us up against the wall. She danced around for a bit bringing each of us forward one by one to do a little dance of our own. Guy number one: Aussie bloke with rosy cheeks and an awkward stance. Stripper pulls him over does a jig with him and then sends him back to the line. Guy number two: Asian guy who looked like he was just going to drop down dead when the stripper yanked him forward and gyrated against him. His glasses even steamed up and he just looked like he wanted to be sick. He looked relieved when it was over. Girl number one: Croatian. Beautiful girl who sure knew her way around the pole! The stripper almost had to usher her off for stealing the spotlight. And finally girl number four - ME...

I do the best I can under the circumstances (that being, on a stage in a sex club in Amsterdam at 2 PM on a Sunday) do a little dance and shuffle back to my position in the line. But it wasn't over. After we all had our two minutes on stage to strut our stuff, the stripper brings a box onto the stage and suddenly I feel panicked. My mind flashed back to a sign I'd seen earlier that day that read "Sex shows! Pen, candle and banana show!" My throat closed as I knew that the contents of that box would be the one thing I am petrified of... bananas.

She picks up the fruit and seductively peels off the skin (EW!) and then lays down... She breaks off a small piece of the banana and places it on her chest. She signals for the Aussie guy to come forward to 'body shot' it off her. He uncomfortably shimmies forward, leans over and grabs the piece of banana with his teeth. Can you imagine my absolute horror when I realise there are only so many more places between her chest and her inner thighs and I'm last in line! She breaks off another piece and places it on her breast. She calls over the Croatian girl who quite happily nips the piece off her breast like a seagull. She then breaks off another piece and places it in between her legs! Right in there! And of course, calls me over. The room is filled with people and I have to be the party pooper to tell them I am scared of bananas and cannot participate. I stood in front of her shocked and then finally made a move forward (not too close because I don't like the banana stench and shouted over the music "I'm sorry - you are lovely - but I am allergic to bananas!" She took it well, kissed my cheek and then beckoned for the Asian guy to take over. Poor guy... He lent forward to grab the piece and then got wrestle cradled to the ground. He got out alive and finally Mrs banana stripper was done with her act.

If you get to Amsterdam a sex show has to be on your to do list, but if you are scared of candles, pens or bananas perhaps hang in the back pews...

lights, camera, awkward!

I recently auditioned for a theater production in London where I quickly learned that perhaps my talent is acting the fool rather than acting. I love to be on the stage and have had many lead roles in my day, but have never quite been able to get on board with the dramatic throw yourself across the stage acting.   

The workshop based audition first had us stand in a circle to do the usual warm up of rubbing ourselves and making wooing and cooing noises. This was followed by an exercise where we had to walk around the room making intimate eye contact with everyone we walked passed. The flyer invited all kinds of people - experienced or inexperienced and I’m pretty sure there were some perverts who were just there for the intimate eye contact, it just felt like we were all coming on to each other. “Tell a story with your eyes?” they said. Uhm, unless my eyes can do this...

I’m not sure I can do what you’re asking. It got worse when they told us to hold the eye contact for as long as we felt necessary. Awkward! You walk past a perfect stranger, stop them (without speaking), stare at them and then have to continue to stare at them until you or they walk away. "This is uncomfortable..."

    
A part of me felt like I was getting it but another part of me felt like I was trying to apologize with my eyes saying “Sorry we’ve never met and have to do this - I feel really silly about it.”  

The activities went on and they were never really clear. Did they want us to take their direction or take the minimal instruction they had given us and make it our own? It was all very cryptic and I felt like I was in that scene from Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

“Don’t do anything. Don’t try to surf, don’t do it! The less you do, the more you do. Pop it up! That’s not it at all. Do less. Try less. Do it again  - pop up. Nope, too slow. Do less, pop up. You’re doing too much. Remember don't do anything. Nothing. Pop up.”  

We did some improvisation and they got really excited and said “I feel like you are all developing into a character, am I right?!"

Everyone was like “Uhmm, yeaaaahhh, sure” (in a not really kind of way.)
Once these ‘characters’ developed it turned out mine was nervous and erratic. Most people chose happy (easy!) Using these ‘characters’ we had to read lines from songs. No lies, I got Lionel Richie Hello and had to read out “Tell me how to win your heart, for I haven't got a clue”. I forgot the second line so ended up just saying “Tell me how to win your heart” which came out sounding like Smeagol.   

At one point, they told us to get into groups and in one minute come up with one thing we had in common and then act that out with no words or sounds. That one thing would be our team name. Coming up with something we all have in common in one minute is not an easy task. The only thing we really had in common (which I’ve only realised now) is that we were all girls but ‘team vagina’ isn’t exactly optimal. We figured out that we all worked at desks so we became ‘the desks’, which is just a rubbish team name. 

The improv was intense. I've never been a fan of group work and it's about 10 times worse with actors. It is always a very bossy and dramatic discussion. By the time you do the scene you're so annoyed with each other you couldn't possibly relate to one another on stage (or maybe you could if you're a good actor?)

All in all it was an interesting experience. Whether or not all the cryptic mumbo jumbo makes an actor I'm yet to confirm. I'll leave you with this - a classic improvisational scene by Chris Lilley poking fun at the flamboyancy of drama.

 

confessions of a fussy eater

It's taken me 24 years to admit I'm a fussy eater. The ongoing debate between me and my boyfriend was that there is a difference between fussy and picky. I refer to Sally Albright's order from the epic When Harry met Sally film.

"I'd like the chef salad, please, with the oil and vinegar on the side. And the apple pie a la mode....But I'd like the pie heated, and I don't want the ice cream on top. I want it on the side. And I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream, but only if it's real. If it's out of a can, then nothing."

To me, that is fussy. Not saying you don't like a food but you like your food a certain way.

I don't eat meat, fish or fruit. To me - that is picky. Well I don't know if you can call excluding 3 whole good groups from your diet picky. It might be more odd than picky. Anyway. I don't eat any of those. I don't eat meat because red meat gives me the trots and makes my gas smell like a morgue with a broken thermostat and also because I watched too many documentaries on how they actually made meat which put me off, so it's partly a moral decision.

I don't eat fish because it is a food that has NEVER smelled good to me. I can't understand why someone would want to eat something that smells bad? When I go to the harbor and smell the fish it makes me feel ill and I couldn't imagine something that is often eaten with it's head in tact and smells the way it does.

I wish I could eat fish, I really do, but I have tried and I just can't. I won't even start on prawns. Barbaric it is - to break off a head of a wirery  crustacean before eating its insides. 

"You're a good person."

Now this is where things get weird. The fruit part comes in and coincidences with  more of an OCD issue rather than a fussy eater issue. I'll eat apples in a pie or strawberries in a daiquiri, or have lemon with a tequila or lime with a gin  or a humiliated grape in the form of a raisin, but I won't eat any raw fruit, off the tree or out the bowl. I'll eat an apple but only if it is peeled and ridded of any imperfection including bruising, marks or insects. I do eat and love watermelon, avocado and tomatoes but it was only recently that I was able to prepare my own avo without being scared I'd find something in there I didn't like that would put me off the food forever. Last but not least, I have a morbid fear of bananas where even if I am in close proximity to one I feel uncomfortable.

Now, I bet you're all wondering why on earth I've got such an aversion to fruit? Well, physiologists have said (strangely enough I've never been to one, but maybe I should?) that most of our fears and dislikes as adults develop when we're children and can't understand or process something we've seen. It gets stored in a folder somewhere in our mind and more often than not we can never unsee what we saw that made us feel a certain way about something. I remember going to a friends house when I was younger and they always had a bowl of fruit on the table. The fruit was always slightly off, had that musty fruity smell and was often bruised or had 'miggies' around it. From that point on I just couldn't understand how people could eat something that didn't look nice to eat and unfortunately I've never been able to move forward. 

Good news is there is no vegetable I don't eat (excuse the double negative) so nutritionally I am in the clear! The other good news is that my odd dislikes or fears don't come up on the top 13 most unusual phobias list. In fact, I have a great like for all the things on that list including cheese, navels, sleeping, trees and rain so maybe not so weird after all.