#bridgetbythebridge

#destinyschild

 

Not Marvel. Not DC. Real SuperHeroes.

 

 

There is a brilliant programme we get to watch in the UK, 24 Hours in A&E.

Actually, thanks to the queer folk in the Channel 4 documentary team, we get to watch some really weird shit, some curiously odd shit, and then some really gross shit. If Body Shockers leads in the first category, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings owns the second, and 24 Hours in A&E rocks the last. One Born Every Minute and The Supervet are equally gross, equally bloody and gory and pus-y and equally “this programme contains graphic surgery”, but babies and puppies are cute and make even the grossest things Hallmark-y. 24 Hours in A&E is barely alive blood-drenched bodies trying to survive. I cry. I wince. I turn away. Nevertheless, the nerve, the calm and the dextrous skill of the people who string together three threads of human tissue to keep us alive astound me. #doctorsandnurses

 

During a recent episode, taking a short break from dry retching, I was struck by the comments of a young-ish Indian Medic; “I knew it was my calling, I always wanted to be a doctor”. He went on to explain that his parents had sacrificed all but their organs to educate their eldest son, that he had studied for as long as he could remember, and that their parental cup spilleth over the day their Hippocratic son announced that he’d been accepted to a position at a hospital in London. He specialises in plastics, the kind that helps burn victims live rather than the kind that petrifies the expressionless brows of the KardashJennWests. His variety of plastic puts skin back onto people who have lost theirs in fires, acid attacks or 50 car pile-ups. He doesn’t just save lives; he makes a tangible improvement, bettering the odds for those who have little left to live for.  

It got me thinking about having a calling.

  

The nuns of Nonnatus House on Call The Midwife oft reference their calling. On a random day they randomly woke up and knew that they would marry an ethereal being, eat cold porridge and pray on their knees for time eternal. I know teachers who always knew that they would be teachers; that shaping the fragile, nubile minds of the future was the greatest duty to which one could be soi-disant called. Madonna claims she always knew she would be a star, Beyonce and Gaga too; I guess their unbridled ambition and single-minded purpose propelled them ever towards their goal despite the bad hairdos, questionable lovers and rancid meat-dresses. I doubt anyone, ever, ever, not in this century or the precedent, woke up and just knew they’d be a Human Resources Professional.  

I grew up wanting to be an actress.

 

Poor MakeUp Choices wouldn't end here

The most mundane of life’s acts was an opportunity for Baby Bridget to shine. A mini mop of ringlets, reminiscent of Shirley Temple, further encouraged me. I mean, I actually looked like a Child Star. Family get-togethers, friends’ parties, the café I ran for a time, school classrooms, anytime there was a captive (read, imprisoned) audience, I’d take the opportunity to crack out a song and a dance, some jazz hands and a ballsy ballet. 5,6,7,8 and I was off like Minelli on her heady cocktail of Valium and vodka. The fact that most people thought I was a precocious, loud, stagey little-so-and-so never stopped me from cracking out a perfect rendition of I’m a Little Teapot, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Hanky Panky+ or the entire routine (minus white slashed robe) of Can’t Get You Outta My Head.

It was at it’s worst when I worked at Planet Hollywood. Here was a place, an entire halogen-lit temple dedicated to showing off, singing, dancing, snorting and cavorting. I was a waitress in a venue owned by egomaniacal, self-obsessed megalomaniacs; I was home. For an entire year I spontaneously broke out the dance to Will Smith’s Men in Black. #thetipsmadeitworthwhile At Planet, I worked with Timothy Spall’s daughter, The current Fashion Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, a very famous Dolly Parton impersonator and The Serial killer in Wollongong. I once served drinks to the Spice Girls and that is about as close as I ever got to actual stardom.

 

My calling, and my fragile self-esteem could never be fast friends. At 21, I was still recovering from being cast as First Murderer, not Lady Macbeth, in our final year high school play. #outdamnspot It wasn’t likely I’d ever survive making a living where rejection is par for the course, where being scrutinised for every bump and groove on your body is a daily occurrence or where discrimination based on your looks is not only encouraged, its requisite. I’d have died in a ditch in a heroin haze like so many have before and so many more will. #heathledger #riverphoenix #corymonteith

Instead, I discovered a different way to leverage* my talent for putting on a show, my love of laughter and my passion for punch lines. I discovered Learning and Development!

If you want someone to remember something, put it to music, tell a story, make it dramatic and do whatever you must to make it impactful. I crafted raps that listed the ingredients of cocktails, I dressed as an Ethiopian woman (blackface and all^) to demonstrate the indigenous methods of roasting coffee; I’ve made a prodigious fool of myself more times than I care to remember.

My calling is being a doofus, a dickhead, a goon and a fool. If only there had been a fool in Macbeth, I might have found my name up in lights and still be treading the boards today.

  

This century, life (or rather Death) happened and I found myself in Europe. I was alone, I was far, far away and I needed to keep the world Down Under abreast of my whereabouts. I wrote a diary. I shared my adventures so Motherbear wouldn’t worry, always crafting my words to make the tale read as far more daring and dramatic than it ever was, partly so she’d read it, partly so she would never know how sad I often was. One day the diary became a blog. One day the failed-actress-HR-professional became a better-than-average-part-time-writer.

 

I never woke up one day and just knew.

But I’ll keep having a go until I do.

 

 

 

+A rewritten version, sung live on radio, won me a Wheels and Dollbaby Leather Jacket that I still own…

*Anyone who works with me today will know to what point I despise this word, used here only for dramatic affect (of course)

^It was 2003, it was Australia, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times #seewhatIdidthere

 

 

#luckbesoshady

 

Fabulous. Fake. False.

 

I’m quite a lucky lady.

I’m lucky because I have all my skin and all my bones and all my organs in their rightful places. I’m lucky because I have the love of a Few Good Men, a Gorgeous Girl Squad and a Glitter of Gays; all fabulous people that I am lucky to know and with whom I share a bottle Pinot Grigio… or seven. I’m lucky because I live in London, I have a little home, I have good food, I have fresh air and I have Bear. I’m lucky because I work very hard and sometimes am rewarded with little jaunts here and there to learn a little bit more about this comical world in which we play our part. I’m lucky because usually, the places I am fortunate enough to visit are places of architectural artistry, places of cultural curiosity or places of sociological surprise. But luck is always spun on the edge of a coin, so sometimes they are not. #youwinsomeyoulosesome

Las Vegas is a spot in the centre of Nevada that was built from the ground up for one sole purpose, testing the nethermost limits of human excess. I had never been to Las Vegas, nor was I especially desperate to tick Clark County off my Bucket List. I’m more of a museum and Malbec kind of traveller. I’d rather meander in the Met than eyeball an eyesore. I despise all beverages that are blue or hidden under paper umbrellas and I don’t like hotdogs. Armed only with the memory of The Hangover, I had relatively low expectations. Even my blinding talent for childlike optimism was challenged by the glut of gaudy that is on show, 6 nights a week and twice on Saturday in Viva Las Vegas.

End Hunger Now with Auto Title and Payday Loans #theirony

  

Arriving at our hotel, we sped up a four lane driveway into a glass and steel mega-structure built with a fraction of the money that Ma & Pa Kettle have pumped into the One Armed Bandits since the 50’s. The sheer scale of the thing, 4000 rooms, 370,000 square metres and 8.6B dollars to build it, is only the initial horror. Entering into the bubonic bubble, one is overwhelmed by a heady mixture of cigarette smoke and lemon-fresh toilet freshener. Yes, in Las Vegas, you can smoke indoors. #wellsortof

Smoking is permitted indoors, on the gambling floors but you can’t smoke outdoors at a table in a restaurant. But, if said restaurant has machines indoors, you may go indoors to have your cigarette, even if you were previously sitting outdoors. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Las Vegas, where you have to go inside to smoke a cigarette. #murica

Children are also permitted to wander through the gaming floor, when accompanied by a parent, regardless of whether that parent is smoking or not. The kids, the middle-aged and the scooter-bound elderly are forced to walk through the gambling floor that is always strategically placed between reception and the lifts, or betwixt the front door and everything else. Like Daleks, the maniacal machines are ominously omnipresent. They block your path wherever you attempt to go and there are no straight paths from A to B so you can’t avoid them. You are forced, whatever you want to do, to walk through the smoky, flashy, noisy hot mess of the casino, and all the Hot Messes within. So what about the Toilet Freshener?

Naturally, the whole place reeks of cigarettes and stale beer, so they pump it full of synthetic scent to cover the fact that you are basically living in a pub. #notinagoodway

Donny & Marie. Mormons in a Casino. #theirony

 

The fact that on one day, I woke, went about my busy day, went to bed, and then woke the following day before realising I hadn’t actually been outdoors in over 24 hours is an indicator of how vast the places are, how every single need can be met within its walls, how the whole place is devised and constructed specifically to keep you as close to those villainous machines as humanly possible. You couldn’t even walk from your room to breakfast without traversing the smoky, dim lit, klaxoning, blinking gambling floor.

The lack of air messes with your skin as well as your brain; but the atmosphere is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The all-pervasive pollution comes in multiple, seditious non-olfactory forms.

If the air is polluted with smoke and scent and the fuel dust of a thousand Humvee Limousines, then the space reflected into your eyes is polluted with the constant flickering of tiny lights. It is always either too dark or too bright. There is no natural sunshine reflected indoors, there is only false sunrises and fabricated sunsets. Nowhere was this more irritating than within Caesar’s Palace.

 

Eat a 4000 calorie salad in your activewear #theirony

 

After your brain wrangles the fact that you are in a fake Ancient Rome, you push past giant columns and statues and a fucking chariot and you get to the Forum. Yes, they rebuilt the Forum, presumably just because they could, not because anyone here has any fucking interest in democracy or justice. So there you are, in the middle of a desert, in the False Forum, which now houses a Gap and an H&M and you bend your neck and the sky above you is azure blue. It is dotted with little clouds and emits a sort of half-light, and the whole thing is man-made. You never know if it is daytime or nighttime or if you’ve in fact slipped into a Tardis and are now in Ancient Fucking Rome. Even so, no one minds, because around the corner there are fifty trillion Poker Machines and the buck stops there.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your hard earned cash..

 

But wait, there’s more.

Not only can you visit a fake ancient Rome, you can also learn about it, the culture and history of the gods and their adventures. You can sit under the pretend sky, in the pretend ancient temple, with the pretend columns rising behind you and watch a pretend show featuring animatronic puppets that will jerkily narrate the story of Atlantis. Yes you can, because when you’ve given up all of your money to the gambling Gods, maybe the fake, marionette-told story of a different God will change your luck. #probablyfuckingnot

Palms. Paris. Planet Hollywood. #theirony

  

If you have mistakenly come here for a cultural non-animatronic revelation, fear not, you will be able to enjoy one of EIGHT DIFFERENT Cirque de Soleil shows permanently housed in the hotels of Sin City. Presumably the best way to take an extra dollar from your poor unfortunate gambling guest is to coerce them into watching an acrobatic air show. There is even an adult rated naked version, Zumanity. I expect that as the performers bend their lithe bodies in half you may actually see from whence the eponymous soleil shines. #circusstarfish If naked acrobatics weren’t on your cultural agenda, how about a quick trip around the world?

You could visit Paris, replete with a dwarf Eiffel Tower, a half a Palais du Louvre and a mini Opera Garnier. You could cross the Not Really Brooklyn Bridge, wander through the streets of The Not Really Village and stay in a replica Chrysler Building. You could take in the sites of Venice on a gondola tour of the Grand Canal Shoppes. They are kind of like the original Italian waterway, but with views over Dolce and Gabbana rather than Murano or Burano. In a few years there will even be a little London and an economically essential baby Beijing. All of this created by man to ensure that the 50% of Americans without passports need never actually visit the actual places, especially as gambling is annoyingly regulated in such exotic locales. And even in France, where smoking is still very much au fait, you still cannot smoke indoors. #sacrebleu

And then it was gone..

  

The Vegas I wanted to see, the Vegas of Sammy and Dean and Frank, the Vegas of yesteryear, it does still exist. It is far away from Circus Circus and Flamingo and the Mirage. The Golden Nugget and her ilk sit anachronistically 20 minutes (and 20 years) down the strip in the Old Town. The Rat Pack is gone, only sewer Rats and fanny Packs remain. What was once a town of singing sensations now houses the geriatric gyrations of Britney and Celine and Elton.

Las Vegas, only those very down on their luck need apply.

Kung Hei Fat Choi ... A whole new year and a whole new economy to drain