A healthy pastime

Being a passionate and attentive person can be an endearing quality in so far as I look out for my friends, help them in all I can and do everything in life with vigour and enthusiasm. There’s no point giving any less of yourself as life is meant to be lived to its fullest. So when I meet someone new (and meet is a term very loosely interpreted here) I like to let them know I’m around and make them feel like they have a new friend in their lives. Sharing is caring after all.

Melbourne has a lot to offer in terms of culture and lifestyle, which I like to make the most of. Theatre is alive and well in our fair city, so I started out by seeing a couple of musicals. My first was “Buddy” – the entertaining story of Buddy Holly’s life. The whole show is a feel good extravaganza, which leaves you with the desire to go out and put on your dancing shoes. It certainly helped that the lead actor was absolutely divinely gorgeous. I leave these shows on cloud nine and am momentarily saddened that it’s over. But why let that put me down when I can just go back another night and enjoy the spectacle and feel the adrenalin rush all over again? So my credit card got a good workout while the show was in town. As I said earlier the lead was a large motivation for seeing the show. So right up until closing night, I was a regular visitor at the Buddy show.

Many a time I also happened to - I don’t know how - end up in the same restaurant or bar as the lead. Heidi was also obsessed by the hunky man, so we decided to go to the bar outside the theatre entrance. It was empty as the show wasn’t beginning for another couple of hours. Who should walk into this vast empty space? The lead of course! The very man who knew our faces as we were constantly in his. Heidi’s first reaction was to dart quickly behind a pole…..which only a stick insect could have successfully hidden behind. Could it be any more embarrassing? Yes, because he didn’t even acknowledge us. We were keeping the show afloat, we were paying his wages, and we kept him in the lavish lifestyle he was accustomed to. And what do we get, nothing, nada, nix!!!!

It seems all leads, no matter where in the world, have no appreciation for their financial backers. Another example of us sharing the love happened in London with the extraordinary spectacular that was “We Will Rock You”. Unfortunately you have to register at immigration when arriving in the UK, so we had to lie low. So keeping a low profile was the key in order to execute our brilliant plan – of which we knew nothing about until we attended the Queen musical. I wasn’t even supposed to get hooked into this mess, but since Heidi was going to see it with her friend Siggi, I felt a bit left out and found out that scalpers can come in handy. In fact, so much so, that I got better seats than Heidi who had booked it months earlier. Yep, there was a wide grin on my face. This is why I have no appreciation for paying in advance….planning is so overrated. I occasionally turned around from my Row B seat to make sure they could see me from their vantage point way up the back. It didn’t matter to me that I was sitting amongst strangers; I was in Row B. I could even read the words on Tony Vincent’s tattoo, which brings us to the sole reason of our stalking. Stalking is such an ugly word, from now on we shall refer to it as “maximum appreciation”, which has no price. Heidi and I had to get part time jobs to supplement this extra-curricular activity.

To say that Tony Vincent is the most gorgeous man on the planet, is by no means an understatement. He is light years ahead of the poor excuse of an actor that “acted” (I use the term loosely) in the Australian production. I’m sure I saw a prompt cue in the audience. In fact if the Jedi masters were here, they would have seen that the force is definitely not strong in this one.

We had to ensure that Tony knew of our presence at all times, by this we mean during the show and after hours. We wanted him to appreciate us as much as we appreciated him…..and there was a lot of appreciation coming from Heidi and me. The plan began slowly with the befriending of those who had technology at their disposal, i.e. a camera, as we neglected to bring our photographic equipment. Once we found out all her vital statistics and that she was reliable enough to send us copies of the photos phase 2 was ready to be executed. Phase 2 was brilliant, we couldn’t have planned it better if we tried……namely because we didn’t actually have a Plan B really but when we met his college buddy we knew he had to be involved and thus he became our Plan B!!!! B for brilliant!!! George Costanza couldn’t have thought of a better scheme.

So Plan B was into full swing… we had infiltrated our way into his past… calculating? No….brilliant! Plan B was brilliant remember that …Plan C can be referred to as calculating….C for Calculating. Anyway we began chatting to this random stranger at the stage exit door around the back…Heidi and I immediately noticed the lack of security around the back of the theatre…. clearly they didn’t know we were in town….anyway I digress. This random stranger who shall remain nameless..(I believe I’ve reached my quota of potential lawsuits when this book eventually gets published) we will refer to him as ‘Chip’. Chip was a lovely fellow, he was a college buddy of Tony’s in Mexico, New Mexico that is. He was happy to answer all of our questions on the hunky lead.

We used all our charm to befriend him and suck out every bit of information we could. The girl with the camera also chatted to him and seemed to have the same idea as us. We weren’t too happy about someone muscling in on our great idea but we needed those photos. By the time the stars came out to head home, we looked like a cool little group waiting for our mate.

Thankfully Tony Vincent thought the same thing. He recognised Chip straight away and gave him a big hug. We stood right by Chip and Tony bought it. He thought we were all together, so their conversation included us. Heidi wasn’t quite as cool as I’d hoped, as she got a bit start struck and acted like a 5 year old seeing the Wiggles live for the first time. But I played it cool and tried to include myself in the conversation. They lost me a little when Tony actually asked if I knew Chip from College. And not being a quick thinker, as the British Tax Department can attest to, when I pretended to be Heidi (on her behest) and as soon as they asked for information other than her name, I broke down and confessed, pleading with them not to send me to jail.
So my ruse both with the Tax Department and with Tony Vincent was up. Thankfully he didn’t hold this against us and was quite happy to pose for photos with us. Little did he know how determined we were to know more about him. Once the “shoot” was over, we said our farewells and then once he’d walked a few meters we pretended to be going in the same direction. Unfortunately Tottenham Court Road was packed even this late in the evening and we lost him in the crowd waiting for the bus. I thought the Brits like to queue up for the bus. Why was this the first time they milled about in a crowd?

Thankfully we have outgrown our stalking personalities or is it more that we haven’t found someone new to follow?