This is an ACTUAL report from a punter who dropped $590 for VIP tickets to see neo-Nazi sympathiser and paedophile booster Milo Yiannopoulous and his ‘slightly un-athletic bottom’. Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.
When you work as a cadet in country journalism there really are only two rules.
- Don’t ever file a story on large vegetables, because you’ll unleash an avalanche of people approaching you for stories about large vegetables.
- Don’t ever run the local bowling club report as you receive it. At the very least, rejig the first par, which always (no matter which country town you find yourself in) begins with the following: ‘It was a warm day on Sunday… etc etc’
If only more journalists in Australian media served their time in the country. And if only more of them wrote up Milo Yiannopoulos’ Australian speaking tour like this, from a commenter on Catallaxy Files, a website which describes itself as “Australia’s leading libertarian and centre-right blog”.
The ‘reporter’ is ‘Jannie’, and despite what you may think, this is NOT a joke. It’s an actual first-person report from Yiannopoulos’ Perth event on Sunday night.
We don’t want to spoil any of the unintended one-liners, so here is the report, unedited (unlike a bowls report) in all it’s stunning, beautiful, journalistic glory.
You can view the original comment here. And a special thanks to blogger Andy Fleming for the heads up.
Milo in Perth – 2 December
“I went online and bought two tickets for the Milo event after I read that McGowan and the Labor government had banned him from all WA state govt venues. I then told my wife, who took the news well, especially since two VIP tickets cost $590 and she had never heard of Milo. Two days ago I still didn’t know where the secret venue was and I thought Penthouse Australia might have forgotten us. My wife was a little surprised that we were going to a Penthouse thing. But then yesterday we got the secret venue details.
We turned up at the convention centre expecting protests and were surprised by the sedate and respectable looking crowd. It reminded me of Honours presentation at UWA in the 1980s, all very polite and full of high achievers. Andrew Bolt later explained that there were 50 or so protestors who had gone to a different venue at Murray street, and had got caught up in the Christmas pageant, and they didn’t make it.
We got “meet and greet and photos”, about thirty seconds to shake hands with Milo and get a photo on some website, which I have to follow up. Milo was a bit like a manikin with a fixed smile as 100 or so VIPs queued to put their arms around him for a photo. My wife confirmed he is a gorgeous looking chap, bigger than I thought, but his bottom is slightly un-athletic, well fattish actually. He dressed in gay frilly stuff and had ridiculous red shiny shoes.
Strangers start talking to each other in these circumstances. We met a couple of middle age Spanish Australians desperately trying to get a ticket online because there were no ticket sales. Talking to the young man in front of us, an outback sort of guy, he mentioned he had got his ticket after Mark McGowan announced the ban on Milo. He had printed his own Milo T-shirt, and had made an artpiece on corrugated iron for Milo. Both young men said they did not read any blogs, only did Facebook.
There were about 100 VIP seats, closest to the stage, the venue was full, I would say about 1750 plus.
It was extremely hot today, and the crowd was mostly casually dressed, but a few suited up and the women were elegant, especially my wife. It was probably 55% male. Conservative beach casual and I didn’t see anybody wearing dreadlocks, tatts or metal piercing. The only obviously gay person there was Milo himself, but there were a lot of shy, well-groomed young men, quiet and confident, some in groups, some alone. A scattering of oldies, one lady was 87 in the VIPs, more under 20s than oldies, except the VIPs were thirty and older. The majority in the cheaper seats were in their 20s, the median age about late twenties overall. You would call it a youngish, maleish crowd, but the security were relaxed.
The show was MC’d by Andrew Bolt who was earnest and relaxed. Bolt said “Malcolm Turnbull” and the crowd groaned and hissed. He said “Tony Abbott” and he got a huge cheer. I guess the crowd was conservative. The guy from Penthouse, Mr Costa? gave a talk on free speech and caused much laughter when he read some of their hate male emails from lefties.
Milo was really good. He is basically a one man act and has you laughing and clapping at his repartee. He thanked Mark McGowan for banning him from Govt venues, said it caused a big increase in ticket sales and financed his $20K spa bath. Milo tells the ironic story in his basic admission; we pay him to say things we know are true but are afraid to say because of persecution. He mostly gets away with it because he is outrageously gay.
He put shit on various lefties, islamists and feminists, using huge powerpoint like overheads. There is something viscerally satisfying listening to him flaying ugly dyke feminists and challenging them to take him on. A fighter. Many funny gay comments, but mostly just common sense affirmations of his debt to our western cultural heritage which gave him his freedom. Lots of laughter but some TV names I don’t even know. He is writing his next book about the Hollywood exposures and the hypocrisy of the whole establishment. He did have a go at the ABC and Waleed Ali, to everybody’s delight. Quite a few shouts from individuals in the crowd, but all in jest and support. If there were any closet protestors in the crowd, they kept very quiet. It was 99% funny, but one joke failed about people dying in boats on the sea… shark food, nobody laughed, in the whole crowd. A really good crowd, you could take them home.
Bolt and Milo did a wrap up together, mentioned their individual experiences with being persecuted by the system for saying the wrong thing, and their commitment to free speech. How they managed to avoid extinction. Milo said he was born to be a conservative defender and loved doing it and he had sold 13000 tickets over a week, and would do a show for federal parliament with 100 takers. He is going to keep fighting for his cause because he has found a way to make money out of it. We sure cheered him.
It was pretty good, severely exercised the laughter muscles. and hand clapping with the wedding ring pain. My wife enjoyed it and so did I. It’s good to know that we are not alone. It was a pleasure being with normal polite and pleasant people, and just being in a crowd laughing without worrying about other people’s feelings. But next time I will get the cheap seats.
I recommend going to see Milo.”
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