Thunder Down Under

Australia is a great place. It’s like the US in a lot of ways—they drive cars (though on the opposite side of the road), they have McDonalds (though it’s considered a lot nicer of a restaurant there than here), they cuss (though damn and hell aren’t considered bad words, whereas bugger and bloody are).

It’s also very different in a lot of ways—all the animals are weird and freaky as hell, they don’t suffer from million-mile-an-hour syndrome in every aspect of life like we do here, and almost everybody drives around with ladders on top of their cars (not really sure why). I’m not kidding about that. You go anywhere, and tons of cars and trucks (they call trucks “utes,” and don’t have huge Fords and Chevys like we do here) have ladders strapped on top of them. It’s weird, man.

I went down one summer to live with the fam, who had moved to Brisbane a couple of years previous. My folks and I, and a couple of the old step-siblings all went through a scuba certification class so we could enjoy the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef below the surface of the water.

Part of the certification process involved passing a physical examination by a doctor. I set up an appointment, got work off, and showed up to the doctor’s office ready to cover my eye and read the chart that has a huge E at the top, and a bunch of other letters trickling down below it.

Explanation: As most of you know, English is the official language of Australia. They speak it, we speak it, everyone pretty much understands each other. There are, however, a few words they use down there that the average American bloke might not be familiar with. Like bloke, for instance, which means guy. Also, tucka means food, prawn means shrimp, avo means afternoon, bite your bum means be quiet, etc.

The receptionist called my name and I went in for my check-up. The doctor went through the routine stuff—open up and say ah, sit down while I bang your knee with this hammer, you know—the usual.

Then it came. “Take off your joggers,” politely commanded the Doctor from Down Under. In my head I quickly did a guessing mental translation of what he meant by joggers. I was wearing some sweat shorts (don’t judge me), and quickly deduced that he was referring to them. I stood up and dropped my drawers, undies included, trying to act as normal as possible while knowingly and intentionally showing some old dude my Yankee parts.

The doctor just kind of sat there for a moment, not doing much. I wondered when he was going to get down to business. Then he said five words that I’ll never forget. Ever.

“I meant your tennis shoes.”

Fish in the Pants

So there we were, surfing the Puerto Rican Pipeline, rocking as we rolled and vice versa. The waves had to be double overhead and faster than a Utahn at a KFC 2-for-1 coupon give away. We rode, we got pummeled, we paddled, we swam. The sun bronzed our perfect bodies, bleached our Aryan hair, and freckled our Irish faces.

When we got back to the guest house we were staying at, Phil went into the hallway shower and I hopped in the shower that was in our room. As Phil took off his shorts (don’t worry, it doesn’t turn dirty at this point…if you want dirty, try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpdBMRlf2gI), two little fish fell out onto the floor. The fish were in his shorts, repeat, the fish were in his shorts. He says he felt a school of fish run into his legs as he was out in the water, but was unaware that they had set up shop in his trunks.

Young Chap, part 2: Rear entry at the Trapp Door

I know what you're thinking: Not another "Hasen's gay bar adventures" post. Well, what did you expect? Huh? Another boring lecture about air pollution? Or maybe more b-ball action? Well, too bad. It's gay bar story time. If you don't like it, go read this blog instead: http://katielovie.blogspot.com. Still here? Ok, let's get started. Once again I was invited to the gay bar. This time it was to the Trapp Door to watch Miss Gay Utah relinquish her crown. The night consisted of different drag queens going up on stage, dressed like the girl from katielovie.blogspot.com, and lip-syncing to songs like Strangers in the Night and some gay-oriented parody of Barbie Girl. The set ended with Miss Gay Utah getting up and knocking the crowd out with some well-choreographed dance to a european-sounding song with a beat that would make Dick Cheney want to dance. If he wasn't a robot. An evil robot dressed in the skin of some poor human farmer that he murdered just to "get in his pants" (that isn't a sex joke, it's a robot crawling into a dead human's skin joke).

After the show, staff cleared the tables and chairs and an enjoyable night at the theater soon became a thrashing throbbing dance-a-thonic supersonic beat-bustin' melee of night children dancing to survive. Bodies spun and leapt, sweat rained from every direction, people yelped as they thrust their bodies into Michael Jackson moves that would have impressed even the King of Pop himself (for those of you born after 1991, MJ is the King of Pop, not Bono--while I'm in parenthesis, if any of you have had enough, you are welcome to visit this blog instead: http://luhmanfamily.blogspot.com, or this one: http://hardwaredelpc.blogspot.com/). I must say, it's been years since I was so infected with the dance dengue fever. I lost myself. Soul left body and I became the music, the energy, the sweat. Gender took a back seat to passion and everyone was immediately beautiful--dancing because they didn't know what else to do, didn't know if there was anything else. In that moment, dancing became breathing became life.

That's when my pants split. Yup, wiiiiiiide open. My legs were spread wide--someone had just finished diving under them and disappearing into the pulsating crowd--and I lunged down to slap the ground with both hands. As I came up, I thrust my derriere straight back, intending to follow with my upper body in a slithery motion. In that instant of perfect fluid motion--I'm telling you, I was like hot water--I felt, and heard, the seat of my pants totally tear from tippety top to buttocksy bottom. It felt as if the record player came to a screeching halt. I stood straight up, wide-eyed, drop-jawed, no longer a mass of flowing liquid energy twisting through the crowd like a ribbon, but now a rigid tinman with unbending knees or elbows, terrified and confused, reeling in shock. As I froze, the room spun around me. Eternities passed in a second. And then, from somewhere deep within my unmoving corpse, came a voice. I could barely hear it the first time, didn't understand what it said. But then it got louder: "Dance" it told me. I couldn't move. "Dance" it said again, this time bolder. I was still frozen. But then something happened. Deep in my stomach I felt something churning--like an ocean in turmoil. Its intense warmth began to spread up into my chest, and down into my loins. Then it filled my throat, my shoulders, my thighs. In one final surge the ocean of energy filled my entire body and the voice screamed a third time: "DANCE!" I instantly exploded into a hurricane of flame and ecstacy, shaking it like it has never been shook before. I became a sudden Lord of the Dance, a moving work of art, a celestial body unconfined by lesser laws of physics. And I danced.