Dodgy motor
Posted: March 17, 2023 Filed under: AUSTRALIA, Self improvement | Tags: actor's life, cars, gigs, good casting, inspirational jobs, inspo, Lou Pollard gigs, motor show, presenting, revheads 3 CommentsWhen my TV acting work dried up, I worked at corporate presenting even though I had the wrong wardrobe.
I landed a presenting gig and thought I was ready to become an expert. I’d been booked to pontificate on a raised platform at a huge car stand at the annual glitzy Sydney motor show. On the hour for 8 hours, I had to deliver a heavily scripted 20-minute talk on a new zippy car aimed at young singles. In the land of the non ironic mullet wearing petrolhead I had to make the car sound attractive to 20 somethings who were buying their first brand-new car. I was 36, my de facto was sending secret late night texts to a younger woman and I’d been up all night breastfeeding my second child. Did I mention I know nothing about cars? And I don’t want to? And I don’t care about engines.
My first attempt at the talk was for 30 car dealers from around the country. Experts in their field. I forgot the script, couldn’t remember the key selling points, and didn’t know how to use the wipers. I lacked enthusiasm. I don’t own a car, I couldn’t give a rats about a piece of machinery but I had an unemployed partner with a dope addiction and our kids to support. I needed the money. An entertainment agent was paying me $800 for an eight-hour day. I could inhale fumes for 10 days.
On a break, I met a nice dark-haired man in the dressing room. He smiled and said hello.
“What do you do?” he said.
“I’m talking about a new car. What do you do?”
“I drive cars.”
“You race them?” I said.
“Yes.”
“You get paid to drive? That’s cool. I love driving manual cars.” And I prattled on about being a secret rev head while he listened patiently. There was an awkward silence, then he handed me a bottle of water. We walked out together and I heard,
“Ladies and gentlemen the champion of motorsports. Marcus Ambrose.”
There were about 300 people waiting for him in a queue.
After six days, a younger guy who knew about cars replaced me on the podium. I’m surprised it took them that long.
Visions
Posted: December 31, 2020 Filed under: Self improvement | Tags: 2020, 2020 vision, 2021 here we come, banned words, cancelled, hindsight, New Years' Eve, pandemic, self helpless, Self improvement, single mother wisdoms, words to live by 2 CommentsI wrote this list of predictions for 2020 on the 31st of December, 2019:
The Pollard definitive guide to enjoying 2020:
Pat puppies and kiss kittens
Don’t vote for morons
Eat, drink and be merry
Don’t buy ‘beauty’ products
Stay off the internet
Help a refugee family
Read books
Unsubscribe
Stop buying plastic crap
Thank firies, ambos and nurses
Check your emotional baggage
Get fresh on the dance floor
Support the Uluru Statement
Be kind, even to dickheads
Don’t use the words onboarding, textural or disruptor
Buy the Big Issue
Sing every day
Bring home the facon (don’t harm piggies)
Love your friends
Swim in the ocean
These words are still accurate, but I’m adding:
Thank teachers, wear a mask, donate to your local food pantry, talk to a wise creature (preferably a furry one) stay home (if it’s safe), become a pirate and beware of deep, dark internet rabbit holes. Tell your people you love them. And please don’t use the words unprecedented, pivot or disrupt ever again.
Ay Corona
Posted: March 28, 2020 Filed under: AUSTRALIA, Politics, Self improvement, Thought For the Day | Tags: auspol, climate change, corona virus, covid 19, death to trickle down economics, human behaviour, pale stale male Australian politicians, pollution, single mother dreaming, single mother struggles, wake up call 6 CommentsCall me a bloody hippy, but much good will come out of this time of corona madness. A whole new world is waiting to be born
We have stopped buying plastic crap we don’t need that is shipped here from overseas
All children may get access to good schooling and new technology
We will stop working in jobs we hate to buy crap we think we want
People have stopped injecting their bodies with botulism toxin
Maybe we will finally close the gap and have good health outcomes for our first nations people
Kids who aren’t neurotypical and don’t fit into our one size fits all school system will have other options for learning
Neighbours are looking after lonely, elderly folk because they’re not at work all the time
Billionaires and foreign companies who make massive profits may actually have to pay some tax to put money back into society.
People have stopped adding plastic to their fingers and breathing in solvents painted on their toes
Foxtel may go bust with no live sport being played; good riddance Rupert
People will wake up and realise that housing is a human right, not an investment opportunity. We may get rid of over blown rents, negative gearing and have housing that is fair for all
Families will spend quality time together; eating, arguing and singing
The planet will breathe while we’re not stampeding through every river and canal throwing plastic bottles into the sea
We finally appreciate and give thanks to doctors, ambos, nurses, teachers, garbos, shelf stackers, child care workers, aged care lovelies, check out chicks and roosters and start to honour how they keep our society going with their hard work
We will stop buying too many clothes, and not prop up an industry that exploits too many underpaid workers in countries that have no labour laws.
We will grow our own food, share with our neighbours, distribute goods according to need
We will live according to the seasons and honour the ebb and flow of mother nature
We may start to fund our scientists and actually listen when they impart their knowledge
We will swap clothes with our friends, mend and repair broken bits and bobs and remember that compulsive shopping doesn’t fill our hearts
We will crave our connection to nature and appreciate every blade of grass once it is safe to be back in the world
Without organised religious gatherings, people will start to question their beliefs and maybe not hide the paedophiles
We may realise that we don’t need the latest technology to be happy
200,000 poker machines are now sitting idle
We will discover we don’t need to pollute the planet with balloons at gender reveal parties, we can actually live with surprises
We will wake up and stop listening to and voting for greedy mad men who can barely turn up to do their job and finally decide to elect visionary leaders
We can no longer queue and panic buy phones and shoes and other stuff that we really can live without
Huge floating Petri dishes have been stopped from polluting precious cities and oceans across the world
We will have time to dance and sing together (online) and tell our stories and have time with our babies without having to rush off to feed the planet destroying capitalist beast
People will find out the real value of a dollar or a euro and realise that the share market is a house of cards, favouring only the fortunate
And the dolphins and the fish and the worms and the birds will come out of hiding and say ‘what took you so long silly humans?’
This revolution will be televised
2020 vision
Posted: December 31, 2019 Filed under: LOVE, Self improvement, Thought For the Day | Tags: 2019 resolutions, 2020 hopes and dreams, 2020 vision, dancing, NYE 2019, singing, single mother advice, single mother dreaming, single mother tips, single mother truths 2 CommentsThe Pollard definitive guide to enjoying 2020:
Pat puppies and kiss kittens
Don’t vote for morons
Eat, drink and be merry
Don’t buy ‘beauty’ products
Stay off the internet
Help a refugee family
Read books
Unsubscribe
Stop buying plastic crap
Thank firies, ambos and nurses
Check your emotional baggage
Get fresh on the dance floor
Support the Uluru Statement
Be kind, even to dickheads
Don’t use the words onboarding, textural or disruptor
Buy the Big Issue
Sing every day
Bring home the facon (don’t harm piggies)
Love your friends
Swim in the ocean
Single mother To Do List
Posted: August 12, 2019 Filed under: Self improvement, Single Motherhood | Tags: Advice for single mothers, mental health of single mothers, single mom struggles, single moms, single mother advice, single mother delusions, single mother sanity savers, single mother self help, single mother truths, Single motherhood, single mothers with attitude Leave a commentFeed munchkins
Laugh with best girlfriends
Verify your identity
Be fabulous
Embrace single motherhood
Pay all the bills
Find all the thrills
Bring home the bacon
Find app to block people in real life not just social media
Eat fruity wine and fruity fruits
Rage against the pale stale males in government
Stand up for girls
Find someone to collect my emotional baggage
Dance like instagram is watching
Drink tap water
Pat the cat
Thank your knees
Eat all the cheese
Hunt and gather
Educate people on the difference between your and you’re and he is and his
Sing like I’ve got 45 million YouTube followers
Izzy go fund yourself
Posted: June 22, 2019 Filed under: AUSTRALIA, Self improvement, Uncategorized | Tags: Australian rugby, bigots in the belfry, crowd funding, fake christians, fundamentalist Christians, go and fund yourself, god botherers, hate speech, Israel Folau, Justin Bieber, liars, rugby, thieves in the temple, what would Jesus do Leave a commentAnd all the clubs you used to fund your own ends
You think rugby will be lost without you, oh Iz for goodness sake
You think we’re crying ’cause you stopped playin’ well we ain’t
And Izzy we’ve moved along and I think you should too
Aussies don’t like you and we like everyone
And you for-profit-Christians won’t admit when you are wrong
You get so caught up in your hate, you can’t see what’s going on
But now we know, you’re better playing on your own
Well Izzy you should go and fund yourself
And if you think that we’re still holding on to you
Tell me Kondo, Kondo, Kondo
Posted: January 27, 2019 Filed under: Self improvement | Tags: Advice for single mothers, charity donations, decluttering, folding, kon Mari, Marie Kondo, Salvos, Shinto, single mother advice, single mother self help, single mother struggles, spark joy, Vinnies, vote them out 2 CommentsMarie Kondo san
Vinnies and Salvos may not agree but I’d like to say,
Doomo arigatoo gozaimasu
I hugged my teenager and she didn’t give me joy so I sent her to live with her father
I spent Christmas with my relatives and they didn’t bring me happiness so I moved away
I laboured through a summer party with pill popping friends who became obnoxious, so this year I won’t be answering their calls
My daggy trackie dacks don’t spark joy but the fact that they still fit me after three kids does so I’m keeping them
Folding up Dutton, Morrison and Abbott at the next election will help my thoughts become clear
Parking cops don’t speak to my heart, out they go
Throwing out “joyless” items originally struck me as a first world problem. But the end result may be that the world is made better