THE CITYMART DERBY

A Burlesque


G’day, this is yours truly, Captain De’ath, welcoming you to the eighteenth Citymart Derby. The sensurroundings here at Citymart 3 are swathed in the glittering razzamatadmass of technicolourful bunting, tickertape tosh and teleleads. Price war slogans shouldn’t be discounted either.

Excitement is electrifying, sexy, with all thirteen City channels relaying live this sudden- death play-off. Banks of cameras are crows-nested in the eight quoins of the fountain in this voluptuous emporium, but cross-fertilisation of adapters and cables may hatch skullduggery. Already wired-up cameramen are casting their evil eye – only joking, folks – and homing in on rival antennae.

I’m sorry to report that since last year’s bloodbath, our great nation’s most popular sport has been cleaned up. The mosaic floors have been sanitized and all nine-ply shelves sterilised. The human element has been scrubbed as far as humanly possible, but Greed is Good remains our brand, philosophy and mantra.

The six guestrants for this Invitation Elimination Classic over 400 metres are escorting their trolleys at a brisk trot down alongside the meat counter and taxiing round by the Exotic Luxuries: the Khmer heady-red potatoes, rice-paper puddings and hallucinogenic caraway scones.

Let’s paint the picture of how they line up in their silk glad-wraps.

In pole position, looking decidedly sleepy, will be Ivor Cellule, who clawed his way up from studio grip to the nation’s number one hypnotist. He is the title-holder of the Independent Cinemas’ Most Addicted, having consumed forty-three bags of popcorn in crinkling out the highest decibels during a one-off resurrection of Death In Venice.

In lane 2 Ossie Bluebone, Studfield’s blond bombshell, the MCG’s resident fairest and barest, untouched by the arm of the law or Chappell blade, yet handled with kid gloves by media adminmen. He may suffer a rude shock if he rests on his laurels, but if he were to streak away with the big one it would be a revelation – no doubt climaxing in an inflatable centrefold for Metropol Dol or a race-off contract with the N.E. Ozflik Porncorp. He’s barely recognizable in his vermilion loincloth and herringbone codpiece. Yet he’s in good form. Last Saturday night not only did he clock Nesta Flak but also 7 seconds dead for his 60 metre streak across the hallowed turf of the MCG with a policeman’s riot helmet and Taser gun.

Channel 070’s own Ms, Melanie Bipod, shapes up in lane 3. She’s wearing her fallible weatherboard smile and is fairly rippling in a Fortune coffee T-shirt – there’s no depression occluding her front today, fellers. Melanie knocked over the Ms Most Likely To at the All-Comers Joint Congress of the Bureau of Stats and Other Voyeurs. If we zoom in on her biceps – this meet was screened at peak viewing time, remember – you can appreciate why this frilly filly stands out in a point-to-point. A filthy evening is what she forecasts and let’s hope she’s right.

On grid 4, sporting the dapper, pin-stripe silks, the boyish, outspoken, get-up-and-go Minister of Sport and Recreation, whose national aircast on the gravity of this frictional match warmed the seats of millions of armchair fanatics. He is easily distinguishable by his elegantly greying hair, sallow but prominent jowls, and an eminent paunch a la mode de Canterbury. Still only twenty-five, he manifests all those qualities of a prime minister on the make. His achievements to date include the Caulfield Golden Handshake for Economists Manque, moulded in high-powered plastic, and he walked away with the Triple Lame Ducks Award in pluralistic Taswegian wood and bloodshot silk at the reputable House of Reps.

Stomping in lane 5, that notorious Women’s Freedom Fighter, consummate union-basher, pressgang baiter, ocker personality and X-Peace Corps isolate, Nesta Flak. On her last outing at Randywick Supermart she got up by a twisted neck to snatch the Celebrity Gold Plate. She’s heavily backed in by Toorak denturologists. There’ll be no holding her back or any other part of her anatomy, specially since she’s sporting her candytuft hair a shocking pink.

Finally, least and last, and at last unleashed, is X-punk rockster, X-droog, Slasher ‘The Citizen’ Kane, solitary survivalist from that malvaceous sixties sub-culture. Programmed to win the big one by systems analyst, Pommy Smith, he was fed a predictable thruput this morning. Pug-ugly Slasher is identikitted in striped silks and syndicated by an anonymous Think Tank in Russell Street. X-Haight-Ashbury, he is a flower-arrangement consultant when not transplanted by supermart fever.

Now they’re under starter’s orders. Tension is mounting to an excruciating fever-pitch, so we’ll take a break there. Don’t go away.

Back live, this disaster epic is brought to you by courtesy of Channel 070 in collusion with Sir Selwyn Fortune’s glitzy Entertainment Circus. Porky packers are procured by Citymart 3; the Minister’s make-up is laid on by Rolla-face; jingles muzak s out of the Pete Tchaikovsky stable, for which we are greatly indebted to the estate of his great mate, Paul Hogan; audience-dubbing and sonic seismology are manipulated by our guest technology aides, doubling as jeer squad, from the People’s Soviet, liberally loaned by the Politburo for an in indeterminate era.

The Citymart Derby is being telecast by satellite to the far-flung extremities of Terra, from tribal hook-ups in Papua New Guinea, where it is likely to be swallowed with distaste, to Ulster, where topmost ratings are guaranteed, specially among the kneecap brigade.

The governments of the U.K. and Greece have declared today a day of national mourning. Blubbering Evel Knievel Memorial Fundraisers have donated a shark-tooth talisman to charm the Fortune obelisk. In schools all over the nation rioting, lock-outs and sit-ins will grate to a standstill, as countless Heads will plead for attention over their intercoms. Even as I chunder on, operations are being suspended in our hospitals and panel-beaters.

Our six celebrities are champing with frenzy, chafing to dig their grasping mitts into something worth chomping. They’re really doing their blocks, but we’ll clamp them down a mite longer.

Let me remind you of the funfeast rules of this arvo’s trolleython. Celebrants must pig into three colonic circuits of the emporium, indulgently scaped by the Citymart Steering Committee.

Lap 1 is monotonously anaemic. Consumers grab as many consumeables as they can cram onto their trolleys. This is just a dummy run, a death-warmer, to soft-sell them self-esteem as well as a sense of purpose and social security. They have plenty of time to genuflect before the Monitor and test the reality of their experience.

Squads of servile packers will check them out and free-offer a Citymart frozen smile in addition to a Lucky Dip into the Pirates’ treasure trove – compliments of Sir Selwyn Fortune – to pull out a Free Crack-The-Jackpot Coupon and Carsticker, whose individualized Sacred Number may entitle the beneficiary to enter the Gamest & Sincerest Xmas – Be In It! January draw – provided that all nine digits add up to the number of millions Sir Selwyn has racked off from his Underhand-Overfist Autocorp in the last financial year. Sir Selwyn Himself hasn’t yet taxed his brain about how much profit to declare.

So that’s where the hullaballooning excitement’s at in Round 1. While they’re being checked out, then frisked, I just have time to mention lap 2, the Time Trial. Competitors must not offend the commandments of the Geneva Law Reform Convention on Supermarket Etiquette (1968), the first of which (ref. Act 1, Clause 9, Subsection 404a) decrees: ‘Thou shalt not rough one another up before lap 3! Nor shall you poke the spokes of others!’

Consequently, a blind eye may be turned to knee-knouting, ankle-tapping, and ear-/nose-/nipple-tweaking, but eye-gouging, fibula-chopping and rib-crunching are frowned upon. There is to be no itching for erogenous slap & tickle, smash & grab, jerk & snatch rapacity, while biochemical engineering through forced feeding is unpalatable, strictly for the vultures. Thus it’s basic Sales Etiquette, folks – Boxing Day rules – ok?

Our consumptives must orienteer the course within five metro minutes, accumulating only Special Offal tonnage in the following fields: Wholesome Earth chewing gum; polyfibrous chico rolls (all flavours in oil); vinyl cheese flapjacks; soya ice-cubes polysaturated in syrup; boxes of Pandora malted wheat germs; assorted sandwich steak tablets and liver pills; whalebone meringue and citrus preservative; ultramarine mercury balls in plumb concentrate; and spare-part pavlova with throwaway silicone ice-cap.

                  WE INTERRUPT THIS GLOBAL HOOK-UP TO SMEAR A NOOSFLASH

In Peking today a fresh trade agreement between Australia and China has been signed. After some tough bargaining, all the chinks have been ironed out. China is to bulk-export authentic frozen rice and bamboo shoot dumplings on behalf of the Meals On Wheels TV Snack Suppliers. The Prime Minister reassured bellyaching pie manufacturers that this move was a positive step in the right direction, though a gestation period might be necessary. ACTU leaders griped that our chances of victory would be stymied in the annual checkers fixture for nonagenarians in the Old People’s Palace.

A limping Vietnamese Defence delegation belly-flopped onto Canberra this afternoon with the Exhibition of American War Relics. It is expected that Entertainment Entrepreneur and Antique Dealer, Sir Selwyn Fortune, will bid for the display to launch his War Games subsidiary.

Funster, playboy and knuckleduster king-hit, Jet Flashlag, is dying in St Valentine’s. He is nineteen. His opting out is attributed to natural causes. Death-probe cameras are endeavouring to muscle into the heavily screened hospital.

Back now to the real live hyperaction where it’s all at – your very own dial-a-slick-chick Citymart 3 for the family tee-hee glee spree. And here’s your effusive, ebullient, eloquent anchorman, Captain Dea’th. Take it away, skipper!

Well, well, that was the most heart-stopping lap 2 I’ve ever called. Ab-so-lute-ly sennn-sational! Now here’s Margo Fargo in an in-depth, all-action, no-nonsense, on-the-spot, person-to-person, exclusive psyche-probe with Sir Selwyn Fortune. Let’s go, Margo.

Sir S.F:  Don’t inquire about my uranium shares or my takeover bid for The Age. Just ask me about my dedicated promotion of professional sport.

M.F:  Er, I think we’re on the air already.

Sir S.F:  Oh, right. Surely you don’t imagine that I’m in this racket for money, do you? I confess I do enjoy the odd blood sport, but I’m old-fashioned enough to believe quite categorically that you have to pay for catharsis, even a modest trepanning.

M.F:  And would you subscribe to leeching in the community?

Sir S.F:  I’m not prepared to answer such sly innuendoes.

M.F:  Thank you, Sir Selwyn, for being frank and candid as ever. Margo Fargo, 070, Citymart 3.

Great, Margo! What a gasser! Now the wanna-be assassins are going to their marks. We’ve just heard that a side wager of twenty million bucks was staked by an anonymous Arab camel-trainer - code name Humphrey - now speculating in Surfers Paradise against elderly statesman, Lord Goshawke. The unflappable Lord apparently didn’t even raise an eyebrow, and declined on the grounds that he is more at home in the political wings than spotlighted in a national circus.

Now let’s quiz Jumpin’ Jack Blood on his predictions.

C.D:  Out on the tiles again last night, Jack?

J.B:  Yeah, mate, but looking up at the stars.

C.D:  Who do you fancy this evening?

J.B:  Dangerous.question, CD.

C.D:  O, get orf the fence, Jack. You’re the expert. What can you divine?

J.B:  Well, I’ve got a pretty good feeling in me water that one of ‘em’s gonna do the job.

C.D:  Terrific, Jack.

And now the sickening sensation you’ve all been waiting for. The coffee-grinding switch blades have been linch-pinned to the axles. I say, Jack, hasn’t supermarket technology come a long way in the last decade?

J.B:  Ah, yes, mate, I remember when . . .

So we’re all set for this prang-banging, knockout-to-the death, free-for-all carnal carnival.

And there’s the ringa-singa-dinga-linga of electronic cash-registers . . . and they’re racing! Baying spectators hit the roof. Thank heaven, martial law insisted on a ceiling to constrain numbers. Ossie exposes a clean pair of heels and cracks the meat deck in front pozzie. The grid’s down, though, as we’re a little retarded in starting. The galvanized Kane gives it a battery of forearm slashes. Nesta, made of finer mettle, takes the bit between her dentures, but she’s bitten off more than she can spew.

The Minister sagaciously tolerates the others to do the hack work, and Ivor too is affecting an armchair aloofness. Now Melanie has broken from the pack and, flowing eloquently, mellifluously, takes them through the first 100 in 59.99 seconds. Zipping off the bend, they scoot between the big Tasty Cheese Dipper and Grind Your Own Yellowcake Carbolic. It is at this stretch of chicanery that the Minister is expected to excel. Chasseing around the garden-fresh gnomes, he pings his retractable, motorized bumper. It snakes out and . . . oops! There’s a pile-up at the all-bran.

Now the Min is leading Melanie down the aisle, Slasher in her train. There’s just a foot between them. Min is wheeling and dealing, then sideswipes. Oh, bravo! Melanie’s left peg is neatly taken out of the action. What sound lateral thinking from the Minister! Hell, it’s pell-mell out there! The crowd go beserk, hurling their jex cushions like head-clattering cocoanuts!

Anyway, let’s talk you through that footage on action replay to verify whether he really did bury the boots in. Wow, no complaints! A fair groin tackle, beautifully executed with the full weight of the instep.

J.B:  I don’t think Millicent enjoyed the trip, though.

Thanks, Jack, for the erudition. The legendary Jack Blood, folks. It was Melanie, by the by, Jack. Meanwhile Min’s shooting away, leaving Mel for dead, fast stealing up on Shoplifters’ Corner.

And way, way back Ivor seems out of it already. He’s transfixed by the Monitor, his bifocals riveted, quite unable to project himself into the live action. He certainly fooled you, Jack. Didn’t you predict that he could run all night if necessary? Nuh, he wasn’t reborn at Trash ‘n Treasure City’s Contact Awareness Centre, after all. A good feelie at 070’s massage workshop might produce another revival, notwithstanding.

Now Nesta’s hot on Melanie’s hammer at the Deodorama Ramp. The big women fly, and . . . whoops! Melanie, hopping mad, copped another packet there. It’s stacks on the mill, but Nesta’s acupunctured Melanie’s falsies with a laser-beamed percolator skewer. Mastectomised Mellie, off balance, runs to water, but retaliates with a withering, weather-beaten smile. Now Nesta’s on the rampage with a vegie-synthesiser, oodles of noodles, and a prioll of boomeranging cucumbers. She appreciates the dollar value of every strike. Why settle for less, eh Ness?

Melanie’s image looks too groggy for News at 070 but sufficiently weak-kneed for her talk-back, Brekkie Speckie. With Mello couchant and liquidized right out of sight, the supercharged Nesta the Vesta is running rampant, the sniff of ketchup flaring her nostrils. Now she’s out to mug Ossie – not the most mission impossible in the New World.

Os is refueling with dehydrated ice cream and tub-thumping the virtues of vanilla. Which sponsor has branded him, I wonder. As he stoops for a super-scoop, Nesta snaps off an ever-ready stalagmite for an upper-thrust for an artesian bore.

Skymarshal Matt Million, a skywriting Jesus freak in his pleasure time, is jet-packing overhead. Instant enema! Could be diagnosed as foul play. Matt might be carpeted by Arbitration (cARB) if the strike be judged illegally lethal.

Oh very cool, darl. Nesta cleaves the air with a cheeky, infra-dig posterior probe. And there’s no rearguard action. Ripper! A piercing shriek buckles the sardine tins, as Ossie has lift-off. He can hardly contain himself. He caught a real bewdie, which must have knocked the stuffing right out of him. He’s orbiting over the detergent skyscrapers, which are still up for grabs . . . and whoops! What a retch! Ossie’s left quite an impression – splattered all over the KopyKat absorbent and dog chow mein. Mondo Cane. Dinki-di Blue-bone soup tomorrow, folks.

Jeez, Nessie’s a goner too – it was either a blow-out at the laxatives or her epidermal layers were cauterized by reversible Aerosol microwave oven-scourer.

Now Slasher and the Min are deadlocked at the ultimate, the multi-tiered Chocotease Distractor Display. Oh get orf, ref, that was surely a blow below the belt! Min vasectomised Slasher with his price gun.

Watch it, Min! Wrong Way – Go back! The Minister can’t interpret the signs, he’s so stupefied by his own waffle trifles recycled by Slasher’s macaroni pipeline. Instant feedback for mealy-mouthed Min. What a corker!

Yer know, listeners, it’s a capital offence not to be tempted by any poly-saccharinated goodies. This oversight warrants a fifteen metre penalty before fronting the Hiring & Firing Squad. An instant scenario is set up by the umpies, comprising Citymart’s Personnel Manager, a Securicorporal and the Receiver-General. Min’s fate is signed, sealed and sartorially gift-wrapped - guillotining by bacon-slicer! Ministerial ham tomorrow, folks, if you can stomach the fat. Caio, Min! What a surefire way to bow out of the public graze! Megadeath on trillions of trannies and teles. Wow!

Howzabout that for a testament to man’s will and creative genius? A creature with a plastic pea of a brain can outwit, outgross such a public performer as the Minister of Recs. Mind you, it was a damned close run thing, same as Wellington’s beef after Waterloo.

And so Slasher springs onto the Winner’s Soapbox with clockwork precision, policed by his beaming radiologist in the see-thru smock.

It’s a miracle that we have with us here in Super Wonder Duper Aussieland, paradise of the free punter, Uganda’s controversial Acting Deputy Minister of Justice, affectionately known on Terra as Big Daddy, himself a glutton for punishment, who made an unheralded stopover on his flight to Switzerland with his cabinet heads to take a butchers at our celebratious sporting pastime. Aw, shucks! From our half-plastered commentary box I can discern a litter of presspersons already smooging up to this Acting Depo.

The honourable gentleman is now presenting the uranium grail and matching mineral-water glasses to the knee-jerking Slasher, Para-Sports Personality of 1977. Just quietly, folks, I trust they weren’t smuggled in. Consolation for Ivor, the secondary winner, comprises publicity as surprise package on next Sunday’s This is your Life, now in its thirteenth 070 denim jubilee year. Let’s hope he’s not caught napping again.

                   WE INTERRUPT THIS GLOBAL HOOK-UP TO SMEAR A NOOSFLASH

Rumours have just infiltrated of a national disaster of supra-epic proportions. The Socceroos have crashed 5-0 to Easter Island in the 17th preliminary qualifying round of the World Cup. Heartbroken coach, Mustafa Scusi, opined, ‘We wuz robbed. We come in for some stick from a spineless, one-eyed, anti-imperial ref, but I swear to Aussie goggle-boxers, we’ll clobber ’em in Sydney.'

Wowee, that’ll really be some easy-access battle to relish. Phew! This is Captain De’ath signing off, dead beat at this quasi dead heat, just marvelling at such a stirring spectacle that legions of Romans would have envied. So for a last-gasp autopsy on the goriest race of the day, the Citymart 3 Derby, let’s drop down to the basement with that vivacious old evergreen, Jack Blood, who has mortgaged the deep freeze ‘n’ bone-yard for your 070 delectation tonight. Over to you, Jacko boyo.
                                                                                                               Michael Small
                                                                                                                          
1978; revised March 13-15, 2013

published in Nation Review, 1978