The Monolith tells Dave Bowman he isn't getting his Rudd Dollars.The 2001 Monolith
I meet the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Boathouse Café on Mends Street, South Perth. The Monolith is in Perth briefly to speak at a rally promoting World Hunger at the Applecross MacDonald’s on the corner of Sleat Road and Canning Highway.
I arrive at the Boathouse 10 minutes early, yet the Monolith is already there. Awe-inspiring. Charismatic. Monolithic. It is dressed in a Tom Wolf-esque white linen suit that would seem dated and pretentious on anyone else. But the Monolith is making it work. As I sit down, a young fan leaves the table with an autographed napkin. The Monolith has no evidence of hands or even a Sharpie to write with. Just another example of the mystical power of this dark secret entity that we first came to know in Stanley Kubrick’s ground-breaking 1968 sci-fi film.
Von Disco: So Kubrick was known for liking multiple takes. There are reports of 80-90 takes on many scenes in his various movies. How was it for you guys on 2001?
Monolith: Of course, I was in Full Metal Jacket, too.
Von Disco: I didn’t see that on IMdB.
Monolith: Yeah, I gotta get onto that. I was in the scene where D’Onofrio cuts sick.
Von Disco: Do you play a wall?
Monolith: The ceiling. Good, production design. You really have to look.
Von Disco: How many takes for the famous bathroom scene?
Monolith: Interestingly everything on that day was done in two or three takes. Stanley was a huge Man U fan and he wanted to get home that evening and see the match.
Von Disco: That seems at odds with his perfectionist reputation.
Monolith: Don’t get me wrong, most of the time he was a hard-taskmaster, but when it came to his football, Stanley would occasionally let things slide. You don’t want to believe everything you read…
Von Disco: Like the rumours about you and Lindsay Lohan.
Monolith: That one is actually correct. We are totally into each other.
Von Disco: You met a Louis Vuitton Baggage Handlers Convention?
Monolith: Yep. It’s a pretty funny story actually, but it’s off the record.
Von Disco: Fine.
Monolith: Okay, okay, Phew! Andrew Denton hasn’t got anything on you. I went up to Lindsay and said, “I see you’re drinking water.” And she said, “What are you, my mother? Step off, bitch.” Just like that, like it was 1995 again. That broke the ice and we’ve been hanging out ever since.
Von Disco: If you don’t mind me saying…it’s a bit of a May-December romance isn’t it?
Monolith: I’m older than the Universe, dude.
Von Disco: So I guess even Cher would be jailbait from your point of view?
Monolith: Tasteless, much?
Von Disco: Yeah. I hear tell that there was talk after the making 2001 of spinning you off into a comedy series. This was around 1969,1970.
Monolith: More than talk, lots of planning went on. The concept was that I was a newly elected government minister and that I would constantly come up against a wily civil servant. Obviously this became Yes, Minister about a decade later. But when we were in development it was Yes, Monolith.
Von Disco: In fact you were somewhat of a fixture on British telly in the early 1970s.
Monolith: Yep, mostly comedy and light entertainment. The Two Ronnies, Benny Hill, I was even in an episode of Doctor Who back when old Jon Pertwee was getting around in the Austin Powers gear.
Von Disco: And you were on Top of the Pops with your ill-fated corrective to Abba’s song Waterloo?
Monolith: I’ve had a bit of a bad press over this one. But I’m a history buff and I get annoyed with Abba’s interpretation of the Battle of Waterloo.
Von Disco: Understandably. They didn’t do the research like Boney M did when they did their historically accurate and startling rendition of Rasputin.
Monolith: Exactly.
Von Disco: So you’re in Perth to speak out against World Hunger.
Monolith: No, I’m speaking for it.
Von Disco: That’s rather a controversial position to take isn’t it?
Monolith: Listen, if the First World gave a shit about World Hunger we’d solve it.
Von Disco: Wow, moralistic, much?
Monolith: What is hunger except for a moral issue? I decided to get on the winning side of the whole debate.
Von Disco: So you’re mounting an attack on hunger by pretending to be for it in a Swiftian culture jamming satire that takes place at a MacDonald’s in Applecross?
Monolith: Yeah.
Von Disco: Isn’t there a danger that the story might turn into “Clueless 1970s Celebrity Pro Hunger: Scoffs Down Big Macs While Third World Starves"?
Monolith: I’ve never been misquoted by the media. They’ve always been good to me. They do everything they can to get the story right.
Von Disco: Are you being sarcastic?
Monolith: I prefer the term ironic, but yes.
Von Disco: Who do you like in the IPL?
Monolith: Go Knight Riders! Woohoo!
Von Disco: Thanks for your time, Monolith.
Monolith: It’s been an absolute pleasure, Esteban. This would have to be the best interview I’ve ever had.
Von Disco: Are you being ironic?
Monolith: No, that was sarcasm.
Thanks to the Monolith for agreeing to the interview. As I've found again and again, the Big Ones are the nicest because they have nothing left to prove.
See you down at the nets!
Esteban
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