Krump With A Cough
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday January 16, 2009
DAN KAUFMAN CLIMBS FROM HIS DEATHBED TO EXPLORE FESTIVAL FIRST NIGHT.
JUST as Wayne Manor has the Batphone, so VIP's sumptuous bachelor pad has the Metro-phone, a hotline to the office that now rings and wakes me while I'm on my deathbed.Coughing and stumbling to the phone in my monogrammed silk pyjamas, I pick it up and hear the editor's barking voice on the other end."You're going to Festival First Night. Write it up and make it snappy," he orders."But I can't," I whine, before dramatically coughing. "I'm on my deathbed and my doctor recommended plenty of rest, antibiotics and fluids, preferably of the embalming kind.""The after-party has an open bar, so get your precious fluids there . . . or else.""Or else what?" I ask, but the line ominously drops dead. I forlornly begin my tour of duty at Angel Plaza, where the huddled masses are doing a dance that simulates apple picking. It conjures memories of Romper Room even though a lot of the crowd seem to be over 45, except for a pregnant woman who's giving her foetus some serious exercise.I move on to Martin Place, past one guy urinating and another vomiting, where I then see a group of guys krumping. Unlike apple picking, krumping is a high-energy dance that makes the participants look like they're being electrocuted. The dancers are then followed by a group of indigenous men in tribal paint who dance to a disco tune. Next stop is Hyde Park, where the Gypsy Queens and Kings are playing. Since I have gypsy blood, I stay for a bit and get funky but duty calls so I cough my way past steaming piles of police horse manure to the College Street stage. Yet the music here seems composed entirely of a bass beat while a video monitor shows a reveller dancing like she's on . . . well, let's just say a lot of coffee, so I move on to the Domain, where the inimitable Grace Jones straddles the stage. Say what you will about Grace but there aren't many 60-year-old women who can pull off a G-string the way she can.The private after-party at the Beck's Festival Bar finally begins and so I head there to cruise for some VIP love action - but instead find trouble. Or, more exactly, two women who rejected me in the past: a mortal enemy - a lady who snubbed me professionally - and a friend of a friend who thinks I'm the devil because I may have had an affair with her ex-girlfriend in the past. Feeling dejected, I then spot a dazzling woman who radiates sheer poise and, utterly captivated, I intercept her as smoothly as I can. I make a joke, she smiles. I imagine the beautiful music we'll make together later, and then . . . the talking irritates my throat and a coughing fit begins. Not just a mild cough but a full-body paroxysm that makes me look like I'm krumping. When the seizure subsides and I wipe the tears from my eyes, I see an expression of unadulterated disgust that even my editor would envy. It's time, I suspect, to get back into my monogrammed pyjamas.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald