LeishBlog

Well I have had enough recovery time to finally put fingers to keys and document my night at the ARIAS but I must say that yesterday was rough and I did have a sleep at work in the board room behind the big table. That sounds like a joke but by about 12 o’clock my head was lolling around like a bladder on a stick and I thought I was going to keel over if I didn’t do a George Costanza and lie down somewhere. One of the ladies from the office came in and I think I gave her a bit of a scare getting up from behind the table. I wanted to be witty and say ‘ah that’s were the pen was!’ but I was too exhausted and I just nodded at her, like a zombie woman and went back to my desk. We had a big production meeting after that in which we were expected to contribute, which sucked and my performance was mediocre.

For me one of the most interesting observational aspects of my evening at the ARIAS was being surrounded by fame and notoriety and watching how people dealt with it. The red carpet can only be described as surreal. I just kept internalising,

‘Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t draw attention to yourself, look cool, must get to the end,’

I have been really lucky to meet a lot of cool people this year with my old job at the radio and the one thing I was always aware of was not being too much of a fan when we had guests in the studio so as not to appear as a stalker. I am also of the belief that celebrities are just people and you should talk to them like you would talk to everyone else. Saying that, there have been occasions were I have been in awe of people and acted like a bit of a dick. One instance which will probably mean nothing to most readers, but was huge for me, was when I met Jon Plowman, the Head of Comedy at the BBC and Executive producer of some of the best comedy shows around such as The Office and Absolutely Fabulous. So I met him and babbled on like a child, couldn’t look him in the eye and generally came off like a bit of twat rather than a composed aficionado who knew everything about his career and deeply respected what he does. That experience is defiantly in the top five most irritating memories for me that still make heart race and I blush when I think about it. One day I will meet him again and I will be uber confident and share a proper adult conversation about the television industry and the pros and cons of sitcoms.

Me & my BIG hair!

Jono & Julia

Leish, JC from Powderfinger, Andrew & Jess

Anyway at the ARIAS I found it absolutely fascinating watching random people come up to my fellow table members and approach them for a photograph and a chat. I must say everyone was very polite and obliging but I was intrigued with the confidence of some people when approaching celebrities. I watched a girl approach Megan Gale, sort of hug her and then lean in and talk right into her ear for a while. She then got up and had her photo taken with Megan and then took off. I asked if she knew the girl because the way she was acting just seemed far too personal for a total stranger but she just replied that you’ve just got to be obliging, with the photos etc and people are happy, which I thought was pretty good of her because she was forever getting up to have photographs taken with fans, which must get irritating after a while. Also on our table was Hamish and Andy, Andrew Hansen and Chris Taylor from the Chaser, their partners, Jono Coleman and Julia Zemiro. It was a fun table and I felt totally comfortable taking to everyone. Jono was particularly funny as he asked all of us at one time or another, who the artists were and was searching the room for golden oldies of the record industry to mingle with, which was endearing in a Jono way!

Some of our table peeps

We were sitting a couple of tables away from Nicole and Keith and I became semi fixated with them throughout the evening (as I think most people did). I really don’t know what to say about them except they appeared to like each other and again I can’t imagine what it must be like to be aware of everyone looking at you all of the time. Surely they must be used to it but fuck oath, it would be irritating.

Nicole and Keith

The conversation around our table got on to facebook and how much time we all spend on it, but I was mildly disturbed in hearing from Andrew Hansen about some of the identity theft idiots that are out there are who use his name and his lovely girlfriends Jess name to create fake profiles. Cyber people you really need to get a life.

Jess and I had a lot of fun towards the end of the evening scanning the room for people to be photographed with. We made a beeline to Richard Wilkins (who is even more leathery in real life) and giggled along like his biggest fans. We missed out on the elusive Daniel Johns photo, which was a shame because I would have liked to highlight in LeishBlog just how teeny and tight his jeans really were. Dessert was served while everyone was mingling and our table has a fun moment when Chris, Jess, Andrew, Julia and I sat scoffing while it people networked around us. It seemed to be the busiest spot in the whole room and we sat there and fed our faces. Lovely stuff.

Richard Wilkins, Leish & Jess

Our table had a killer view of the stage. My highlight was Silverchair and those pocket rocket kids, Operator Please who went off and were genuinely stoked to be there. After the show we headed to the after party and met up with Colin Lane (Lano and Woodley).

Colin Lane
And also Scod from Tripod who was a legend and listened to me shitting on about comedy an awful lot. Check out his other band here! After we went to the normal party we went to the Sony Bmg party and had some lovely chats with interesting people.

Damien Leith was a lovely bloke and his wife Eileen, again was very interesting to talk to about fame and how they dealt with it in such a surreal way. We also discussed the similarity in our childhoods, having both shifted a gizillion times and gone to many, many primary schools (for me it was 16!) I talked for a while to a spunky guy in a sharp suit and it wasn’t until last night when I sat down to de-hangover and veg, that I realised that he was one of this years Idol boys. Go suit guy (he might be called Carl….).

So that was pretty much it in a condensed sort of way.

L