What an event! My friend Steve said he laughed till his face hurt. My wife enjoyed every minute of it, even though she sat through the whole thing without me (Miyagi and I were backstage most of the time).
Old Parliament Chambers was filled with people, I heard they even had to turn some people away. And the air was electric. You could feel the buzz and energy in there. And no, no one slept through this sitting of Parliament.
Just an hour before the event, Miyagi and I rushed out to get ourselves some floral shirts, but could not find the long-sleeved orchid print ones we wanted. Hence these XXL short-sleeved shirts which cost us $5 from a shop near Parkway Parade. We almost bought another floral shirt but the auntie told us that that was a blouse, and the men's shirts "are over there". She looked at us real strangely the whole time we were in the shop after that.
One by one, we took the stage, using the five minutes we were given to share a word or a song, about what being Singaporean meant to us, each story melting into the next, weaving a collection of vignettes into a tapestry telling the Singapore Story.
There were outstanding performances from writer/professor Dr Kirpal Singh (he last time got teach me English Literature one), pugilist/editor Imran Johri, teacher/performer Ruby Pan (wah lau eh, the way she can switch accents!) and businessman/noted gay activist Alex "Yawning Bread" Au dressed in a familiar red jacket and hair whitened, delivering excerpts of MP speeches from the past, with his own crew of actors. Here are some photos of the above performers taken by t3htarik (who also took that lovely shot of me above, doing my ministerial best):
In fact, everyone who got up on stage was good. There were funny moments galore (Hossan sang a hilarious updated version of We Live in Singapura, to the tune of We Didn't Start the Fire), and many touching ones too. Yen Yen's piece was particularly poignant.
Next door to the TalkingCock event, was the Law Society Dinner. So convenient, if anyone broke the law in the TalkingCock event, next door got so many lawyers can help to sue. Haha!
On the way home around 10.30pm, I realised that it was the first time my wife had ever seen me on performing my antics on stage. That made it all the more special, and I am glad she decided to come along on such short notice.
I dropped her off at home, and then drove off to the office, to finish post-production for next morning's mrbrown show, strangely energised despite the full day.
You can also see more links to more Flickr sets and photos, and blog reviews at mrbrownshow.com.
Big thanks to the organisers TalkingCock.com and InDigNation, for making this great event possible.
Forummer locke, who was in the audience, wrote in Sammyboy's kopitiam:
I have not laughed so hard for so long :_))). It was such a brilliant carthasis and to Colin and his wife. Thank you Thank You for a great great show, and most of all Thank you for reminding us WHAT IT means to be United and a Singaporean. ( Not the Canned National Day and National Day Rally version.)The memories were real, and the memories were Singaporean presented by a distinguished group of actors, poets, do gooders, podcasters etc etc etc. More real I dare say then " Mee Siam Gate".
Each and every speaker within their little five minutes vignette reminded me more abt being Singaporean then a Prime Minister who confuses Laksa and Mee Siam in One and a half hours. The tears of laughther never ending, the smiles were genuine, the people warm and sincere.
Alex Au with his mish mash of quotes. Hossan Leong with the Singapore version of "we didn't start the fire." That poet from Columbia, Professor Singh, The ever talented multi accented multi lingual Ruth, Mr Li (sic) Kin Mun. That was just for starters. All in all a great show and a great reminder that we are all Singaporeans gay, straight , bi, whatever political affiliation... So say we all
