Behind the Scenes

I meet up with Tim and Callan, the guys we're driving with out to the desert. They're performing at the Ekka as The Leaping Loonies.
We're meant to be going over plans for the upcoming adventure. But first, the boys vent about their performing conditions.
One of the stages they're scheduled on is too small for the tumbling in their act.
The tech dudes are dinks.
Especially the sound guy, who's not only a dink, but doesn't know what he's doing.

But what really has them in a tizzy is that they're sharing a dressing room with kids. They have been informed they can't get changed. In their dressing room. Because of the children.

Tim's solution: go outside on the grass and strip down.
In front of everyone's children.
Take that, the Ekka!

The Ekka: Day 1

I've finished my first day of work and am wandering the grounds of The Ekka. The smell of deep fried food, diesel, and horse manure mingle delightfully in the air. At one point, walking through the midway, assaulted by flashing lights and blaring sounds, I get a little misty-eyed with bliss.

Sally described the Ekka as "perfectly mediocre."
Perfectly mediocre.
Who would want it any other way?

***

Earlier that day, I inadvertently snuck into the Ekka.
I was to meet Tom at Gate 1 and he'd give me the necessary day pass to get in. I follow my Google route from West End through the centre of Brisbane, past The Valley and kinda-sorta around a barrier-type thing. No one bats an eye and I coast by what look very much like Exhibition-esque buildings and stands.
Almost as though I were inside the grounds. Huh.

After a few requests for directions, I'm at Gate 1, calling Tom to come get me. He finds me leaned up against my bike, shades on, looking all kinds of chill, on the Ekka side of the gate.
"You're inside already? How did you get in?"
"Oh... oh! Yeah, I thought maybe I was... I don't quite know how; I just sort of ended up here."
What's funny is that it's true on multiple levels.

***

The Show crowd -- Queensland country folk and bogans a-plenty -- don't know what to make of the organic doughnut concept.
I'm informed that it is essential to my Ekka experience to consume a Dagwood Dog with sauce -- essentially, a mega corndog smothered in ketchup, in all its beige-y glory.
I don't.

I do, however, visit The Showbag Pavilion to further my understanding of the Show Bag.
And try my hand at hustling some fellow carnies on Sideshow Alley.

And I love the Ekka, in all its perfect mediocrity.

The Ekka

August 10th

The Queensland Royal Show.
The Ekka.
It can only be good.

I'm working for my friend Tom's business, Divine Donuts, serving up organic coffee and doughnuts. Perhaps not your typical carny fare, but I'm claiming carny status nonetheless.

I have died and gone to heaven.
I don't know exactly what it says about me that my vision of a personal heaven is working at an Exhibition. But it can only be good.

What sparked this childhood dream? Could have been my dad's reading of Charlotte's Web a couple times when I was young. [There are no piglets at the Ekka this year for fear that they'll catch swine flu from the humans.] I have sparkling clear memories of my first Albert County Fair: the animals, candy apples, a ride on the Ferris Wheel at night.

Then there was the herald of summer: The Bill Lynch Show. The midway. We never knew exactly when it was coming to town -- The Blinch, as my brother and I called it -- and then one day, bam! it was there. The Coliseum parking lot transformed, full of rides and stands and trailers.
Just driving past, I could feel the stickiness of the ground under my feet, the hot sweet smell of fresh candy floss, the teenage screams from The Zipper, the unnatural scrawniness of the AC/DC lovin' operator of The Gravitron, sporting his Confederate flag sleeveless shirt.
And at night: the lights, oh the lights!

One summer, a carny at the Ex in Toronto showed me the trick to his particular game, having me practice over and over until I could get it right, explaining the importance of confidence and nonchalance in equal measures. I left instilled with a sense of innate carny-potential and spent the remainder of our family vacation working on my carny barking skills, no doubt to the delight of my parents. After all, what more could a mum and dad want for their 11 year old daughter?

***

"What are Show Bags?"
"How can you not know what Show Bags are?!"
"Um... "

Carlie and Sally are shocked -- shocked! -- my I-don't-think-we-have-them-in-Canada explanation hardly satisfactory. Clearly, I must be mistaken.

"They're the best part of the Ekka! When you're a kid, you spend ages going through the Show Bag list in the newspaper..."
"The newspaper?"
"Yeah! So you can decide exactly which ones you want and make a wish list. The Bertie Beetle ones are the best, especially since the stopped selling the Bertie Beetle candies in stores. Now you can only get them in the Bertie Beetle Show Bags."

I still don't get it. I do, however, enjoy how many times Sally has just said Bertie Beetle.
"I bet the list is up on the website!"
Sure enough, over a hundred different themed bags to choose from, with every imaginable kind of loot from candy to toys to lingerie to fishing gear.

We peruse the list, oo-ing and ah-ing over the endless options.
I still don't really get it.

Survival Skills

Operation: Prep for Desert Circus Training finds me on a run through the bush near Lucas's house.
Out on these tracks, it's hard to imagine that I'm so close to Sydney. To the end of the street, up the hill, a left turn, and the suburban trappings of Beacon Hill suddenly and completely disappear.

The dusty trails crisscross through dense growth, over craggy rocks, twist, turn, and occasionally open up into fields of mud-sculpted BMX jumps. It's bright and sunny, a warm Australian end-of-winter morning. Best to head back to the house before the sun gets too high.

"I don't remember coming this way."
"Sorry, what was that?"
"I didn't come past any of this stuff when I came up. None of this is familiar."
"... I see."
"How did I miss the turn-off?! There was no off to turn onto!"

I retrace my steps back to the last spot I most definitely recognize. Then forward again along the exact same path, apparently convinced that this time, things will turn out different. They do not.
"What?! No!"

The narrator pinches the bridge of their nose, rubs thumb and forefinger in small circles, while slowly shaking their head. "Now remember: the most important thing about being lost is not to panic."
"I know that."
"Thought it was worth mentioning."
"I'm not panicking."
"Fine."
"I'm not!"

"You seem slightly... agitated, that's all."
"I am agitated! It's hot, I'm thirsty, I don't have my phone, and I have no idea how I got here."
"Um, you ran...?"
"Shut up. Shutup shutupshutupshutupshutUP."

"Have you considered trying one of those three side trails?"
"I hate you."
"You think you hate me."
"..."
"But you don't."
"I think I hate you, then. Why are we even talking?? We don't do this."

The narrator shrugs their shoulders, accenting the gesture with an eyebrow raise and slight half-grimace. I hate the half-grimace. Apathetic bastard.

"Weren't you paying attention? You're always big into describing surroundings; I take it you don't bother remembering any of the shit you go on about."
"Remember?! When there's an endless array of details, textures, sounds, emotions, reactions, and so forth, desperately calling out to be captured?"
"Clearly an essential task."
"Indeed! You were so thoroughly consumed by the sunshine and your musical selection, you can't even recall which way you came. Forget about the rabbit-warren beauty of these tracks, the pungently sweet smell of the wattle trees, the sound of the rocks crunching under your sneakers..."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
"Other people notice things without being plagued by a narrator!"
"Of course they do."
"Arghh."

By this point I have backtracked yet again, and am no closer to my destination. I stand facing the second trail off the main path. I could always get myself back to this point easy enough if it came to that.
"Yes. Because we've been doing oh so well here."
"You are not helping. I wasn't even talking to you, anyway."
"Oh, I see. So you're talking to yourself now? That certainly isn't promising."
"What the...? Who do you... where do... and honestly! How can you even? Argh buu, bah!"

The trail is the correct choice. In fact, as soon as I clear the overgrown entrance (which you would assume I'd remember from the initial time through, but then, you'd be wrong), it comes back to me and I'm home, slurping down water in no time.