Saturday, August 27, 2011

The picnic birthday thing. A story by Odette (Em's 4yr old)

My 4 yr old daughter asked me "Can you type a story on your Puter that I have in my brained?"
"Of course I can!" I exclaimed, so I grabbed my laptop and the following is EXACTLY what she said. Word for glorious word..

Once upon a time there was a dog named Toby.
He lived in a family and Odette wasn't strangling Toby.

One day Mummy comed along and she said we can have a picnic outside and then Daddy comed along and he wanted to come to the picnic too and then Sienna comed along and then Paige camed. They started the picnic together then Toby comed along..

Well, then this um... Big sparkly unicorn called Harry Potter comed along and he was a very nice horse he wanted to share the picnic with us.

At the picnic there was fireworks, then an owl camed along and took Mum's apple because he didn't have any food at his house. The apple he took was poisoned like in Snow White. A werewolf had poisoned Mum's apple but lucky the owl tooked it so Mummy couldn't get dead.


The owl got dead. Then his brothers and sisters and his Mum comed along and took him to the doctors and then the doctors fixed him so he is all better and not dead anymore.


Back at the picnic we were playing hide and seek, tiggy and Hyackie home. We saw lots of flowers in the land and then the Daddy unicorn comed along with the brother and sister unicorns. Then it started to rain so we went inside the end.














Monday, August 22, 2011

Up coming gigs!

I'd very much like to see some of you at a couple gigs I have coming up.

I don't do them all that often due to the children and my other work so it's always a treat to get out of the house, don a leotard and sing my heart out. I also throw in a few interesting stories along the way.

The first one is on the 11th of September at The Toff in the city. It's a preview show of my "The Saintly Bitch Sings" show (info below). I am there to support a friend of mine, the fabulous Hans and his backing dancers the "lucky bitches". Here is the link for the ticket info..

Em's Toff gig info


The second gig is the big one. I'm doing my own show for a whole hour for "Butterfly at trades."
It is a 150 seat venue so first in best dressed I'm afraid. I shall have glitter cannons a wind machine and the worlds most temperamental fog machine. I would love to have you all there, well 150 of you at the very least! Trades hall is in Carlton and I am playing in the new ball room.
show and ticket info here:

Em's Butterfly at Trades gig info

Thanks very much you wonderful people.

E x

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Taylor Lautner and the screaming girls.

Two security guards, thousands of screaming fans, waving, smiling, witty banter, a chat with a world class celebrity and NOW LOOK AT ME! Home, surrounded by bloody washing and school lunches to make with no bread in sight.

Tonight, briefly I lived both sides of the coin and I have to admit I don't mind my side so much now.

Let me take you back a few steps.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Taylor Lautner:



For the uninitiated, ugh. I can't believe I have to explain this to you. Taylor Lautner plays Jacob Black in the HUGELY successful Twilight Saga. He is a Werewolf, who am I kidding?! He is THE Werewolf. If you haven't heard of him chances are you are a straight male or too highbrow. 

Basically, Twilight fans are either team Jacob or team Edward (who is a vampire). That's all I'm giving you, go and google it if you're desperate to know more. You get the gist, he's hot. The late Gen Y/ early Gen Z's Tom Cruise (pre-couch jumping days.)

I am a huge fan of the Twilight series, so when offered the gig to host the red carpet for Taylor's new movie "Abduction" I obviously fell over myself at the chance. Then let me take you to the moment I found out I was going to interview him on the red carpet - more falling over followed by a lot of sweating, gushing, phone calls to my gays and so on and so forth. 

Tonight was the night. I was worried on a few levels. First of all big hollywood stars usually go one of two ways. They're either super dooper nice, generous and friendly or massive wankers. Usually the really established actors are the most delightful and the young up and comers give you grief. I know right? It should be the other way around. Taylor is a young up and comer so I was worried. 

Secondly "Twilight" offers me intense, free, escapist therapy. I was concerned that if he disappointed me in any way I would no longer be able to loose myself in "Forks" and hang out at the "Res" with the "pack." (None of that will make sense if you haven't read Twilight, if you have you are right there with me aren't you?!)

When I arrived at the Cinema where the event was to be held there were already hundreds of tween and teenage girls milling around. Supre must have been cleaned out this week 'cause all the girls looked shiny and new. As I walked up the red carpet wafts of impulse body spray assaulted my nostrils."Merry musk" and "Honey due" mixed incompatibly together. Their mouths full of hardware and their eyes full of hope that maybe, just maybe, Taylor will pick them out of the crowd and want to marry them. 

Any time anyone remotely resembling the male species went within a one meter radius of the red carpet the screaming began. Oh the screaming, let us talk about the screaming. If a hundred monkeys rang a hundred bells and inside each of those hundred bells were a thousand tiny microphones - so we're talking 100,000 microphones amplifying the hundred monkeys ringing those bells ( I chose Monkeys because they too screech like teenage girls. So whack that into the symphony of terrror that was going on.) You wouldn't even come close to the high pitched ear bombs being dropped. Jesus H Christ I thought I may die from it. 

I had to entertain these ladies, odd gay man and supportive Father for an hour; it was like being sent into battle. The enemy wore shit loads of lip smackers and were wielding "Australis" painted talons and rainbow coloured sharpies. I've had some tough gigs in my time but this had to be up there with the time I sung the national anthem at a Danny Green fight after half the crowd had been evicted by the riot police for wearing their gang colours.

I took it head on. I skipped up and down that carpet like I'd never skipped before friends. I gave them jelly beans, movie passes, impersonations and unconditional love. I dare not judge the Mothers grasping their daughters crying and the prospect of meeting someone 20 yrs their junior. No! I celebrated those creepy Mums because I too am a creepy Mum!

Finally after I could pad no more, he arrived! I braced myself for the screaming, I knew it would come like a tidal wave. I held on to my security man and waited.. Then, ABSOLUTE SILENCE! The girls were so beside themselves they forgot to scream. I couldn't believe it, they were so well behaved bless them all.

To his credit Taylor posed with pretty much everyone. It took him 35mins to walk the 80m red carpet. He signed autographs. he embraced Mothers and daughters alike, he behaved in such an impressive manor I was able to relax and take in the fact that I WAS ABOUT TO MEET HIM!

His publicist lead him over to me and I introduced myself: "Hi I'm Em" (brilliant huh?).  He took my hand and said "Hi, it's really nice to meet you." I then said "Are you alright, you must be tired and perhaps a little deaf by now?!" (Good Em, really slay him with your wit..) "I'm great, I'm so glad they're all here."




Then we took to the stage. 

It was a blur of screaming, laughing, sweating and shouting and that was just me... He was gracious, generous and very giving. We'd call him "good talent" in the biz.

It was all over very quickly and then I was escorted back up to the green room to gather my things. 

I saw him again on my way out and he put his hand on my arm, rubbed my back and said "That was awesome, you were awesome, thank you so much. It was really easy." With that he was whisked out a back entrance into a waiting limo and I walked myself to the train station... 

So here I sit in my PJ's, make-up scrubbed off eating a block of pecorino cheese on its own and I feel happy. I don't know how he copes with all that SCREAMING and the publicists and the constant scheduling of his young life. He can have it,  I'm happy just to dip in and out and then walk to the train station after.

My Twilight fantasies are well intact as he is ridiculously good looking, kind, open and taller than I expected. Well played Taylor, well played.