I bought this, along with his newer book, at Book Fair Australia last year. I’m doing well at reading the books I bought there, but one day I’ll read my last and wonder what to do next… No, that’s wrong, I have plenty of other books on my TBR Pile, I’ll be fine.
Micallef was a guest at Book Fair Australia last year. I was able to pull myself away from the books for long enough to sit through his discussion with Annie McCann of Read3r’z Re-Vu. He was hilarious and insightful. He never lost a chance to throw a gag without humiliating anyone. And that’s what this book provides. An insight into the man that is and how he grew up to be that person. There are so many funny stories, some of the comments had me wondering if that’s what really happened or if he’s embroidering the truth for laughs. And laugh I did, all the way through.
If you’re looking for a serious memoir then I suggest you go find another subject, that’s not what Micallef does. Although he does cover some serious topics. Along with the favourit cardigan his Nanna made him were the words about how the 1960s were a different time. ‘Casual and Sunday-best racism were as much a part of our national character as drunkenness, swearing, bad teeth, polio and thinking cricket was interesting.’ I hope we’ve improved since then. What Micallef is doing is shining a light on the things we did in the past that are no longer acceptable such as denigrating a whole demographic of people because of their skin colour. He deals with other types of offensive behaviour pointing out that this is something he did, or was going to do, but we can’t do this nowadays.
I struggled with the footnotes. I do wonder if Micallef is a fan of Terry Pratchett because some of the footnotes extend the joke much like Pratchett’s did. The reason I struggled is entirely because I have a habit of skipping things such as chapter headings. They’re there, I see them, but I don’t read them. Occasionally Micallef would put an asterisk at the end of a chapter heading with the footnote at the base of the page…just where they belong. I’d get to the end of the page, read the footnote and have to search the entire page three times before I thought to look at the chapter heading. I was a good way into the book before I managed to remember to read the chapter headings first.
Roundabouts, arghgh. On page 89 Micallef is new to Melbourne, having been brought up in Adelaide. He’s driven off the West Gate Bridge using the wrong ramp and ended up on a roundabout. This particular roundabout is huge and horrible. It’s a little better now because they have installed traffic lights at every part of the intersection. Those traffic lights are horrible, but much better than without. It’s in Flemington and his description is apt ‘a multi-laned centifuge fed by five major arterial roads and a set of tram tracks’. I presume he managed to get off the roundabout because we have the book.
The part I’ve been waiting for, Micallef develops a hankering for collecting. He lands on S.J. Perelman who used to write for the Marx Brothers. He found old copies of magazines and copy the pieces by S.J. Perelman. He visited a second-hand bookshop in Hindley Street. Was it Imprints, was it O’Connell’s? I think neither because we’re told it’s the Third World bookshop. Sadness, I’ve been to the first two, but not the Third World.
Some of his shows have been funny because they’ve played everything straight. He’s spoken straight to the camera as if he’s a news reader and not reacted to anything, nor reacted to anything the other actors were saying. The comedy was not in the reactions, but in the words and the visual effects. This reminded me very much of Corporal Klinger on M*A*S*H. He wore some very stylish women’s clothing in order to prove he was crazy and be sent home. But most of the actors didn’t react. I believe it was actor, Jamie Farr’s, idea to play it straight and have no reaction from the rest of the characters.
This is really easy to read. Some of the content is not that palatable because it shines a light on society at that time, and societ has not been kind to minorities or anything not considered white. He talks about a white face as being ‘a blank canvas’. And hopes that in the future things will be different and people will be cast in shows as the ethinicity they are rather than putting on black face or yellow face or something else.
I have so many more notes that I made as I read through the book. I almost completed the back of the business card with my notes. I’ll show you when I do a video of my thoughts for my YouTube channel some time later this year. I loved this book, it was a nice, light read in comparison with some of the dystopian, or horror, fiction I’ve been reading recently. I look forward to reading his current book in due course when I need a break from the heavy books.