“Hello. I am Australian musician grayson. … I will have another Australian who will open my shows for me. I would love to launch my new cd in your beautiful part of the world. Late july would be great. I noticed that you have attended cafe kafka. The venue looks perfect as i will just be voice and guitar.If you could help me orgainse something I would be very greatful and happy to pay you for your help. …”
“… Kafka looks cool- if you could organise it and help me promote it i will be more than happy to pay you a cut of what ever i make …”
“Thankyou so much for your hard work and efforts- it wont be forgotten!!!”
“… you will get amazing karma!!!”
Remember this, Mick? So this silly old duck booked you in at Kafka – I did say that it wasn’t really a place for a music gig, but you were adamant. Then I had to dash back to Oz and so asked an Aussie mate in Vienna to look after getting things ready for you. And he asked an Austrian mate to organise speakers, etc. I’d said that there was no need to pay me, but that you should pay those helping you out. You sent me Karma. I’d never received any of that so was ill prepared for the effects of your brand.
When I got back from Oz, your gig was over. I emailed you to ask how it went. Radio silence. So I asked around. Seems you never paid the 30 Euros for the cards and posters you asked to have printed in Vienna; seems you didn’t want to pay anything for the loan of the speakers and my friends had to insist before you coughed up. Seems you asked if they didn’t know that Australians never pay. Did you really say that? Seems you thought Cafe Kafka was not good for your gig. You’d been warned. Cafe Kafka is a wonderful intimate place used by poets and anyone else who enjoys the aura of generosity that reigns there. Maybe that aura put you off. Didn’t fit with your brand of karma?
So now this old duck would like to apologise – to Hamid at Cafe Kafka for the cuckoo I dropped in his nest; to Jake and his Austrian mate who spontaneously jumped in to help with posters and speakers, to help not you Mick, but me; to the audience on the night – but they did like the “other Australian”, Tyler Gibbs. And I have learned my lesson – really check out anyone who asks for help – something I usually do. Guess I went soft on the Aussie card.
Grayson, you have to be really good to get away with being a bludger and treating badly strangers who help you, and even then it’s not the way to go. Oh, and go easy on the karma, that stuff has a way of biting you in the tail.
That being said, let’s move forward now with a ps in honour of a rabbit-0h – Grayson reviewed at Ether Magazine, July issue.
Yeah. And he also got a lot of beer on the house. Took such a lot for granted. Sad, really.
Oh my God, how embarrassing. For him. What a twit.