Concealed with Art SimoneThis is something out of your nightmares... Anonymous sits down with Art, not only must she uncover what she is concealing, but she almost must reveal the identity of the hooded figured sitting across from her.
Her only clue? Birds of a feather flock together. Who is Anonymous, and what are they concealing?
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Are you ready to meet someone weird?
We'll get to that bit soon, but now it's time to faught over me.
I'm the Gordo's at Simone, and being ridiculously good looking isn't the.
Only thing I'm good at.
I'm shockingly good at uncovering who people really are, whether it's a naughty little secret or something that they're into that's very strange. I will uncover what they're concealing. This is concealed. But met Simone. All right, let's not drag on any longer.
Rall that time?
Hello, Simone and someone you know. You know me very well, except there's one thing that I've been concealing from you. I have a skill that some people consider that I am the best in the world are So not only do you have to guess what I'm concealing, but you need to guess who I am.
This is cook, Oh my god, this is a horror film.
Okay, So I guess we're doing things differently here this week. My guest this week is anonymous. So far I don't know who they are. I can't see them. What I have in front of me is a hooded and masked figure scarily looking at me. Across from the studio. I only see two little eye holes, but I can't see beyond them. I see a little flash of a reflection from a pupil every now and then, but I'm very, very worried and confused, and I don't know what they sound like because we've got a voice changer on them as well. So that's what's sitting in front of me. But the way we do things that conceal it is I'm going to ask our guests three questions, and from the answers from the three questions, I need to work out not only what they're concealing, but.
Also how the hell they are.
So guest, anonymous figure, scary horror movie person, The first question I have for you is do I know you from this special skill?
You know me through one of my skills, but the one I'm concealing is much more unusual, and no one would believe the two can work together.
Okay, all right, so I know you from a different skill. Okay, two different skill. No one would believe the two could work together. Okay, so the one there, I know you from one skill, but this world's best skill is something else.
Okay.
Question number two, anonymous figure, how long have you been working on this best in the world skill.
I've been perfecting this skill for many years. In fact, when I was running around in nature working on it, you were busy listening to my chemical romance and learning the drums as an instant teenager.
This is getting creepy. I don't like this. Am I able to leave? Can I quit this episode? Can we end now? When I was a teenager, you were running around in nature perfecting whatever this skill is. Okay, nature? Oh I could be on on the Maybe you are a landscaper. Maybe you work for Jim's mowing and you've been doing it since I was fifteen. Okay, okay, all right, final question? Then, a final question I have for you? Is you say that I know you? Do we have a relationship you? Or are you someone I know of?
Birds of a feather flock together?
Yeah?
Okay, all right, okay, birds of it?
Okay, So you must be a drag queen or something related to that, because or you could be you have to be a drag queen. I don't know anyone else other than drag queens. I don't have many friends or acquaintances.
Oh, this is tough. Okay, let's look at our facts.
All right.
I know you from something and something that I do as well, So it has to be drag or performing or just being really sexy. Maybe it's that being sexy people. And all right, so you've been doing this your best skill, the best in the world's good, been working on since I was a teenager, so that was, oh, good luck. Over a decade, am I twenty eight? Yep, that's definitely me, all right. And Birds of a Feather okay, So I mean I've got nothing, so I'm just gonna do a wild guess. I'm going to say that birds of a Feather Okay, you are. It's the thirtieth anniversary of Priscilla. Okay, so let's go Priscilla. Oh my god, I'm going to say that you are Hugo Weaving and you know how to drive bus.
Hi.
My name is etcetera, etcetera, and I'm an internationally recognized drag artist. I know Aunt Simone from season one of Ruffle's Drag Race down Under. But what she might not know about me is as a teenager, I was an avid twitcher, which is the colloquial term for a bird watcher.
Ah.
Oh no, it's not a Hugo Weaving from the film Priscilla. It's my good friend, it't citra e cra How does she hide this from me? And she twitches? Well, I've always noticed a little twitch, but this is a big twitch.
But how does she do it?
Oh?
All right, so we're not here with Hugo Weaving.
In fact, it is my drag sister, miss et cetera, et cetera.
Hello, Dowling, how are you?
Ah?
Hi on?
I hope I'm a welcome surprise.
I hope.
I just thought you have a successful podcast, though I want to slice to the pie and I've come crawling in.
Well, look, I do have issue because you've done me up in look the looks department. You've done very well with the way you look. But luckily, for a lot of our listeners, they're just listening. So would you like to describe how beautiful you look right now?
Though?
Yeah, I look really beautiful and stunning and gorgeous. I'm wearing a large asparagus green vig Yes, I smell a little like asparagus too, really, And I'm wearing a beautiful multicolored Gingham velvet blazer set with a neon green bias binding. That matches my acrylic nails that I have perfectly applied.
And they are absolutely stunning. So so yeah, look, when they said drag queen, I was hoping it would be you because they could have, you know, paired me up with some dog that I don't actually like, and they thought I locked because I'm really good at faking everything. So it is a happy surprise to see you here today in front of me.
Oh, you could sound a bit more genuine. It is a happy surprise. Yeah, No, it's great to be here. I've been waiting for this day to jump scare you on your own podcast, and here we are.
Boom, here we are.
So you've been concealing a talent from me that I had no idea about. And I feel like I know a lot about you and I've not heard about this. And when you first said Twitcher, let's clarify that's nothing to do with the platform Twitch, in which people stream gaming on low on.
I'm not a nerd, so I don't know what that is. No, I'm joking because my special skill is actually potentially the most nerdy thing about me. It is the most the most uncool thing about me, and yet the most exciting.
I was going to say, are you comfortable to share this with the world, because I think it's really going to paint you in a different light.
Well, I was rather going to share this. I'm going to release my sex tape online, and I thought that this would be slightly better for myself and my mum probably won't get mad at me. No, my skill set is far more tame. It's actually something most people would not ever think about in their entire lives.
So tell us about twitching.
When we're not talking about involuntary convulsions, we're talking about what is that identifying bird sounds.
So twitching is the colloquial term for people in the know, for bird watchers and people who enjoy orthonology, which is the study of birds. Twitching is the informal name given to people that like to meet up on weekends, go out and spot a few birds in the wild, have a drummage for a few turkeys in the bush, if you pardon the expression. Yeah, So I was a twitter as a teenager. I'd go out to the bush with groups of men in their late early sixties and I'd just have a look through some binoculars for different kinds of bird. Species. I'd wander through the paths of wonder in my local botanical gardens, hoping to catch a wren or a robin or maybe even a rooster.
I feel like I've watched a documentary on this exact thing. So're you hanging out with old men in the forest.
Yeah, I mean they were young at heart, but you're an old soul. My grandfather used to accompany me to make it less weird, and I'd tag along with him, so he'd be like, he'd pretend he was more into birds, so I would go with him, but he's actually scared of birds. So, I mean, the things that people that you love do for you.
So what sparked this interest of bird watching and twitching.
I didn't have many friends growing up, so a lot of time outside just kind of wandering around in the forest. Now I'm not even joking, this is exactly how. And I used to see the birds flitting from tree to tree and just thought, Wow, they've got something going on that I'd like to have you know some knowledge about. And I remember I bought a little field guide of birds Australian native birds, and I was like, you know what. By the end of the year, I'm gonna I want to have seen every single one, and I set myself a goal and it kind of turned into a full blown obsession.
Did the birds take over your lof you know it was? Was it all about the birds for a bit?
It was so about the birds that would I was carrying around a fueld guide with me, like to and from school to and from like everything I did. My parents would have to take it away from me before I went to sleep. Like I would be up at night looking through my windows with binoculars hoping to catch a night jar or a powerful owl or some species of that nature. It was really affecting my life. Probably, Yeah, obsession is the right word.
Would you say this is almost like Pokemon, but in real life because you were going through your field book trying what happens when you find one? You just tick it off a list? Do you go and pluck a feather? Do you record the audio to prove that you heard it or saw it?
Well, people just have to kind of take your word for it. But I did have this big almost like a spreadsheet printed out onto paper with all of the species, and I'd write down the time of the sighting, the date of the siding and the location, and then I could go back and flick through and have a look and reminisce about all the good times I spent with all of my bird friends.
The bird sounds always the same? Or is there a differentiation from bird to bird but on the same species.
Would you say, oh, bird sounds are so different. You would not believe the variety of sounds that birds can make, and even within the species, from juveniles to adults, from male to female birds. And I used to be really good. I used to be so good that I used to be able to identify, like whether it was a young bird or an old bird, or whether it was a bird starting its migration or finishing its migration. These days, I've been in the concrete jungle for a while. Now, I reckon I can do species. That's what I've got under my belt.
Yet would you have to I don't know YouTube to know what sounds you listen for, or because they can't write in a field book, you know cocal like is there a different spelling on how to describe the sounds?
Or that's where you're so wrong art? And I wouldn't I wouldn't blame you as a as a novice in this field. But there there are phonetic spellings different joke, Yes, in the field, guy, there's phonetic spellings like a.
You know, like they.
Spell it t W I T with a little like little lats or anything, or it's just a wash with lauch. Oh way, Yeah, it's really They've almost built another language for me.
Top. And I didn't just listen. I spoke back. I would know you're not hearing me, I would I learned the language of the birds. Wow, so fluently?
Could you have conversations with them?
Well, he's actually a funny story. When I was in primary school, I was in year six and I had not many friends because I'd repeated year six, that boring story. Who cares? But I would spend all of my lunchtimes on the school oval and bird watching, of course, and there was this little pod of magpis that would gather every lunchtime and kind of scuttle around, and I started talking to them, you know, giving them at Oh.
That's actually very good.
Yeah. I used to be better before my voice broke. But you know, birds don't go through puberty apparently. Anyway. I would sing to the magpies and feed them little worms, and they used to come up to me and we'd have little conversations and hang out at lunchtime. It was all great until one day I was sitting in class and I heard a tapping on classroom window and all of the magpies were outside the window tapping. And then they one day they came into the school corridors and started tracking me down to find me in the classroom. And after that I was banned from speaking to the magpies. Oh yeah, because yeah, I really, I kind of like indoctrinated them a bit, and I think I made them dependent on me like some big mother bird.
Could you give me because I'm just so impressed by your magpie, could you give me a couple of other bird noises for me?
Yeah?
I could give you. Okay, let me give you a yellowtail black cockatook Okay wait wowow okay is that one? I've got an eastern whip bird Okay, okay, okay. Oh, I'll do a lie bird, but I'll do a liarbird that is copying me. Hi, my name's etcetera, etcetera. That's what a liarbird would say if it was around me.
And what would a libird sound like copying you doing an Eastern whip thing.
Probably that they actually make chainsaw noises and everything. It's kind of crazy. You can be in the bush and you just hear like a chainsaw running and you're like, well, they're coming to get me.
So has there been any moments in your life where your special skill has come in handy as a twitter?
No, except for this moment right here.
Well, actually, the only moments that I think it has been good is kind of like at a party, you do an ice breaker to get to know people and hopefully get them to like you. When I meet someone at a party and I want them to leave me alone immediately, I just start talking about it. Hey, do you know what I was a teen interested in birds? Do you want me to do some bird calls for you? Suddenly know what to be seen? It's perfect.
So I want to clarify something because in your introduction you did say you were the best at the world this. Now do you officially hold this title or are we just leaning into your own delusion?
I would say I would say out of those in the world who do it, there, I would be fairly good. If you put us all in a room together, I would be one of the one of the top hundreds.
What this sounds like, sounds like you've lied on your resime just to get on the podcast.
Is this true? Well, you did ask me to impersonate a liar bird, didn't you? And I'm a bird that lies.
So you haven't stayed in the field of bird watching and you know bird calls. You've moved into a different career, which I don't know if I'm outing you here, but is drag You are a drag queen?
Oh my god? How could you tell?
Do you.
Think there's any crossover there's been any crossover for you? Like, have you been able to identify drag queens squawking down Oxford Street? Or is there any kind of integration between the two industries.
I mean, to be honest, most drag queens are too broke to afford nice feathers, So normally I'm just seeing a chicken or a maraboo strutting around, which isn't the most exciting bird.
Look.
To be honest, it's all color and movement. It's all color and movement, And I think I've become the bird, like a magpie or a little bower bird collects little trinkets and things for their nest to increase the chances of being able to find a mate. I collect little things so I can increase my chances of maybe one day owning property in Sydney. Yeah, and that's that's my version. One day I will be a bird enough to buy a house.
I want to put your claims to the two because I still don't believe any of this. All right, So what I'm going to be doing is playing some bird noises for you, and you have to identify what bird is.
Can you do that? Oh?
Absolutely, Yeah, I'm fully prepared. I've got it. I've got it on lock.
Okay, all right, first bird sound effect?
Oh okay, now let me tell you what that is. You may not know it from my earlier impression, but that's an Eastern whipper.
That is an Eastern whip bird.
Okay, you've got that one one down, all right, Yeah, you can still have your claim to fame.
Sound number two.
Here we go. Yep. You'd think that was my knees when I stand up, but that's actually a ganggang cocka.
Okay, that is correct.
I also would have accepted one of the fung guy people from the last of us, the clickers would accepted that.
Yeah, it's good.
Okay. Bird three? What's that?
I believe that would be a magpie?
Wrong?
Was it currawong?
Wrong?
What is that?
That's a noisy fryer bird.
That's a noisy fryer bird.
Oh okay, you've got two out of three so far.
I've said that ain't bad. Bird number four okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I don't like that one.
What's that home? I think that might be? Is that a musk duck? No, this is going really well for me. Wait what is that?
It's a cassillary?
Oh see it.
Also sounded a bit like an e because the emos do that same.
Little never got near one of those.
Oh so you didn't collect them in your book?
Well, not many of them down in Canberra.
Well okay, okay, this is the break up.
This is what's going to define whether you are in the world's best or you're a cheap phony.
It's our final one.
Okay, are you ready?
Here we go me? What bird was that?
Is that? Road runner? I'm the best, I'm the best in the world.
Okay, et cetera. C keep your claim to fame as the best in the world.
At twitching. Oh well done.
How do you feel that actually stressed me out? I'm in that stressed ages. I can't believe it.
Wow, well you maybe I believe you a little bit now, maybe just a bit.
Well, you know what, Thank you, because but my childhood without friends to be able to correctly identify some birds and maybe one day we can go bird watching together.
That we'd lovely take me out into the forest with some old men.
I was trying so hard not to laugh under that, Mars, that was the hardest part not to laugh.
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