Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [42]
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Rrrrrrrr. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
… wimples of flowing brown hair straight out of a Clairol commercial rippling godlike in their slipstream, along with their baggy white shirttails.
Rrrrrrrrrrrr. Rrrrrrrrrrrrr. Rrrr. Rmrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
But, oddly, no lesbians.
Given its reputation, I expected the village to be teeming with them, strolling along, holding hands, openly enjoying the free expression of their love in an environment which, if not exactly endorsing of it, has yet to find a way to stop it. But so far we haven't seen a single one, and that's not good for the show. Maybe they have a herd mentality, I'm thinking. Find one, and you'll find a thousand of them. It's just a matter of time.
So I set off on a sort of minisafari, dropping in on butcher's shops and bakeries along the way to scrounge scraps of food, exactly the way someone who had just been stranded on this island with no money might—only in my case with significantly better results.
In fact, this is becoming a problem. There's a worrying inauthenticity that comes with having a camera with you. Something none of us foresaw when we started. It's virtually impossible, we now find, to be “all washed up” in any place in the world and not survive quite adequately, and probably in considerable comfort actually, when there's a TV crew and two producers following you around. Everyone you meet goes out of their way to make a good impression. Nobody wants to be the one to refuse hospitality and look like a total jackass when the program goes out. And although I'm very grateful, obviously, since it makes my job so much easier, their eagerness to please defeats the purpose of the show, removing any real element of challenge or struggle.
I mean, not to malign people's generosity or anything, but in real life it's nonexistent. Fact. They simply don't give stuff away to strangers. If you doubt me, try it. Try walking out of a Greek patisserie carrying four muffins and an onion pie you've not paid for, see how far you get. So to watch them being magnanimous on-screen is not only highly irregular, but it's bound to set alarm bells ringing in the viewer's mind.
Example: I step into a cheese shop and tell the man behind the counter that I have no money. Instantly, he wraps a large chunk of local sheep's cheese in paper and hands it to me. But of course he does, he's on television!
Another example: I saunter into one of many breezy bars lining the ocean's edge, and the waitress, straight out of the gate, volunteers to make me a free cocktail. Just like that! “It's a special promotion we're running today,” she announces.
Well, how lucky that I happened to stop by, then.
“We call it a Hula-Mula Wonder. Would you like to try one?”
A foaming pink vodka shake slides from the blender into a frosted glass big enough to hold a bunch of carnations, topped off by a quarter-moon of cantaloupe.
“Hula-Mula is a village in Australia,” she says, handing it to me.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the place she's really referring to is Woolloomooloo, but who cares where the drink comes from? I only know where it's going. And I chug down half of it and instantly order another, refusing to pay for that one too.
See what I mean? It's disturbingly easy.
Every bar and restaurant skirting the beach has its own little private cabana, sheltered from a harsh sun by some kind of tiki thatch, or else a colored tarp that puffs and heaves in the wind. Today, a noticeable air of desolation hangs over the place. Most of the bars are empty, the streets are quiet. It's the height of the tourist season, too.
“So how come everything has a chilly funfair-in-winter feel to it?” I ask Joanna.
We have three extra women working with us on this episode. Joanna's one of them. A brunette in her midthirties; runs a travel agency in town; helped set up our flights and hotel; knows everybody. A bit on the small side, a lot on the loud and bossy side, but a real pistol. Heaps of fun. She's also very overtly sexual, with pouting lips and ramekins