The traumatised Space Hopper

In which the phallic nature of bananas

are fully and shamelessly exploited.

This class was held at a private residence in Perth.  It took me a little while to find it, but a couple of the locals in a small town in Meigle assured me it was just ten minutes out of town.  I was going to get a taxi, for the last little bit of distance, but they were scathing about that plan.  It wasn't worth the price of a taxi.

So I set out walking, instead.  And half an hour later, I arrived - tired and straining from the effort of dragging the case with all the sketchpads.  Thankfully, it was on wheels, but when some of the journey is through gravel, the wheels are only minimally effective.

Once I got there, the mood - as usual - completely changed, though.  I was shown to the room and I set down the bags.  Then it was suggested that we might do the class outside.  I've always wanted to do that, so was pretty eager.  Some gathering clouds made me wonder whether it was a good idea, but I was certainly up for trying.  So we agreed that if it started raining, then every girl would get her sketchpad inside quickly and I could collect the rest of the supplies and take them inside.

We managed to get two full poses done, before I felt a couple of stray drops - and then a few more.  To be honest, we could have probably persevered and carried on with the class, but I was pretty concerned about the pages in the sketchpads and how drops of rain could ruin some of the pictures.  So I was pretty conscious of the fact that a few drops could quickly turn into full rain, and we abandoned the outdoor element.

The first of my favourite pictures was done outside.  The "zombie" picture.  The jaw and the cold, dead eyes looked really cool and I couldn't help falling in love with it right away.

While we were outside, I spotted a couple of Space Hoppers off to the side and immediately pegged them as potential props for a later drawing challenge.  Then I forgot all about them.  One of the girls had the same thought as me, though, and brought one of them inside for one of the last drawings.

One of the girls quickly endeared herself to me.  Her constant, shameless stream of innuendo was absolutely terrible - and completely relentless.  I told her that her comments didn't even qualify as double entendres, because that implied that the suggestive nature of them was a secondary interpretation.  These were barely even single entendres.  These lines would have been rejected by the writers of the Carry On films for their lack of subtlety.

We relaxed a lot into this class and a couple of times, I probably allowed it to stray just a little too far from the central concept.  The poses became so laid back and the conversations so rambling, that I think there was more than once where I almost forgot what I was supposed to be doing and relaxed into it just a bit too much.  I had to occasionally remind myself that there was a job to be done, then forcibly return to the basic concept and start judging pictures, or winding up drawing challenges.

I was asked to guess everybody's careers.  So I looked round the room - from left to right - and start assigning jobs to everyone.  I can't remember all of them, but lollipop lady and traffic warden were among them.  One of the girls had tried to argue that my logic was flawed (or simply wrong) when I judged one picture as the winner of a competition, rather than a different one.  I announced that she was a lawyer.  But not a very good one, since she failed to persuade me.

In fact, I think that was the point where I was trying to decide between three separate pictures - all of which had different merits and all of which had various girls picking their own favourites from the nominations and getting a bit animated with their reasoning.  After a few minutes of that, I pointed at a fourth picture - one I hadn't even seen yet - and randomly announced that one to be the winner, instead.  Not exactly fair.  Not even particularly sound logic.  But definitely fun.  Especially considering that the ultimate winner was a pretty good picture, anyway.

One of the winning pictures was a bit suggestive.  I was standing in a dramatic pose, holding my hat out ahead of me.  I think the theme was meant to be "Singing in the rain".  I had to modify it slightly, because there was no way I could keep my balance with - as was requested - one leg wound round the other.

My co-model had to get down on her knees, next to me.  There was a bit of a modest distance, but the winning picture suggested that the results were a lot more intimate than that.  It wasn't deliberate (I think), but it was enough to make me announce it as the winner of that challenge.

The Space Hopper - when it was finally brought in - was a great prop.  I couldn't resist it and made a comment about using it to develop my core muscles.  It was round about then that one of the girls asked me if I'd ever considered doing stand-up comedy.  I admitted that it had crossed my mind a couple of times.  She told me that it probably wasn't an idea I should take too seriously.  And considering that some of my jokes that weekend were exceptionally lame, there was nothing I could do but hang my head in shame and agree.

The girls got surprisingly co-ordinated during the Make-A-Giant-Man pose.  Suddenly, they started allocating body parts to each other, so the results were pretty consistent.  This meant that in the end, I only had one opportunity to indulge my usual trademark move of posing with a strategically positioned penis picture.

Finally - an extra challenge was introduced and I was invited to participate.  Some bananas were produced and we were all invited to shape them into a replica of my penis, using only our teeth.  Surprisingly difficult.  It's fair to say that I'm more familiar with it than any of the girls there - intimately familiar, in fact - but I still made the glans far too small.

My memory must be slightly flawed here, by the way.  Because although I feel sure that this banana challenge was the very last one before I got dressed, I can see that there's a banana theme to the penis part of one of the Space Hopper pictures.  So unless that's a huge coincidence, it must have happened afterward.

After the class, I got dressed and was given a sandwich and a beer, so I sat down with a couple of the girls for a little while.  I've been asked a couple of times, whether there's a different personality in charge when I'm doing the classes.  It's a good question, but I don't think that's the case.  It's more like an extension of the more outgoing and confident parts of me.  Still completely natural, but some elements are brought forward. After the class ends, if I'm still talking to people, I can be a bit less confident and a bit more shy.  I'm not performing so much, which means I'm aware that it's more realistically "me" that's present at those points.

At the same time, I'm still a bit high from the show.  Which means I can be pretty animated.  And I know from experience that when I'm animated like that, I can also be a bit irritating to be around.  And that - in turn - makes me slightly self-conscious.  Combine all that with the fact that, when I'm not performing, I'm not sure if there's a reason for me to be around any more and perhaps I'm just getting in the way a bit.

A week earlier, I'd done another class in a private venue and I'd been welcomed to sit and talk with some of the girls while I'd waited for my taxi.  So all of this had been going through my mind since then.  I'd enjoyed the irony of it all - the fact that I can suddenly feel a little shy, after spending an hour naked.

It was still fun, though.  We spoke about a few things and I found out that one of the girls had applied for a job with Fixers.  It's still a bit early to discuss that here, but if all goes well, there will be a future blog posting all about that.

Beer finished, sandwich eaten, bags packed and I headed back to Meigle.  I thought about taking a taxi, but preferred to walk back because it was a nice day and I felt like slowing down a bit.  The girls had a murder/mystery theme planned for the rest of the night.  That sounded cool, too.  I bet they've got a lot more props and a lot more stuff to co-ordinate than I have.

Makes me glad that my own job is so flexible on the details.