Excerpts from televised interviews, presentations and speeches regarding The Umbrella Man:
“Bro, did you see that? Please tell me you caught that on camera, please. Dude just came out'a nowhere, waved that brolly ‘round, then: boom, gone, problem solved. This one time I helped an old lady onto the bus, but that was like nothing compared to this. Absolute ledge. Oh, and shout out to my boys Ado and Stax, should’a been here, lads, shit was real.”
“The girls and I were just coming back from Sunday lunch at the bowlo, weren’t we, Debora?” … “That’s right, that’s right, they do do excellent food, great garden salad, very modern pizzas, though I’m not into that international stuff too much. Sandy had the spaghetti though, Louise the fish of the day.” … “Oh, you’re right, Debora, you’re right. It was just the regular fish. Anyway, I had this massive salad, so we were all loaded up like little buddhas when it happened, especially Sandy, all those bloaty carbs and mince meat swelling up inside her. I warned her against it, I did, but she does it every week, you know how it is: can’t teach an old bitch new tricks. Mr Ling was behind the wheel as usual. Should I use his professional name here? He lets us old birds call him James, but that’s because we’ve known him for three, maybe four years now. He’s a good driver for his kind, very safe, very aware. That’s why it caught us all off guard when he stomped his bloody foot down on the brake. One moment we were humming along to Sinatra, and the next there was only screeching, and this slashing pain across my chest. I cursed Mr Ling, I did. Louise fainted. Sandy, who likes to sit middle-back so she can look down the isle of the bus and out the front windscreen, was panting like a pitch on heat, stertorous, raspy; she used to smoke a pack a day, you know. We’d halted a full bus length over the line of the intersection. The traffic light was green our way, but flashing. And that’s when we saw him, didn’t we, Debora?” … “That’s right, he was, rather handsome gentleman out there in the middle of the road waving this colourful stick like a madman. We’re not sure if it was the sight of him or the seatbelt pressure on Sandy’s stomach, but then, she yacked, a fountain in the style of Lake Burley Griffen full-way up the isle of the bloody bus.”
“Always I am walking from station to shop, every day, always, no problem. Easy walk. I buy cigarettes, ten pack, and smoke in park where nobody is close; they do not like my smell. Then I walk back and it is easy, no problem, always clean, but today—wow, wow, wow—big problem. I crossing the road at Chalmers Street, nicotine in my head going crazy. The green-man light is shining and the pole button is going click, click, click like my crazy head. Then, ooh, when I half the way crossing, the green man disappear. But it is a strange one because not all of him go, just those arms and the body. He keeps his green head and legs. And the pole still click, but click like jazz music: dit, dit, duum—dit, duum. Then the green man’s arms and his body come back, but this time red, not green. And oh no, oh wow, my head is spinning and I don’t know what to do. I freeze position, like a beautiful lady in the shop window, half the way through my step, half the way across the road, very dangerous because I am small and cars do not see me, but what can I do? The green head and legs telling me to walk, the red arms and body telling me to stop. I squeeze every muscle so much that I shaking; I hope that I might jiggle my way across the road, but no success. I look my left and see truck is coming, roaring, angry, and of course the driver can’t see me. I squeezing and squeezing and only a little jiggle, only moving four, maybe five centimetres, not enough. I am not going to make it, I think. I wish I would have said sorry to my old girlfriend, wish I would have tried a beauty spa just once, wish I would have crocheted a scarf like I always dreamed, but I thinking I never get to do it now. Headlights flash. Horn honking. Then—wow, wow, wow—Umbrella Man swooping in. He opening his pretty umbrella in front of me like Captain America shield. And truck is screeching to stop. Umbrella Man, he look at me, our eyes zap. A gracious smile. A friendly wink. Wow, wow, wow. Safe to say, I am going to beauty spa soon.”
“Good evening, I’m Jasmine Stolk, and welcome to five o’clock. An unidentified civilian has occupied a Sydney intersection for a fourth time this month after a set of Oxford Street traffic lights malfunctioned. The individual, uniformed in a high-visibility trench coat and bowler hat, was spotted using an umbrella and sports whistle to direct traffic until authorities arrived on scene. Police were yet again unable to detain the man, who seemed to have foreknowledge of their arrival. Oliver Golding reports:” … “Circles on the internet have taken to calling the umbrella’d individual U-Man, praising his courageous actions. While others, in line with police opinion, suspect an ulterior motive, even criminality. David Johnson tweets, ‘How can U-Man know of the malfunction before authorities? It’s a sham, a setup #LockUManUp.’ Kevin Spencer says, ‘Roads are for cars! I hope U-Man pays rego for his feet!!’ It remains unclear exactly how this mysterious individual arrives on scene so swiftly, and it remains unclear as to why.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen him, kaleidoscopic, attention-seeking bastard. I’ll tell ya, he’s nothing special. Look here, look, in my wallet, right now, I’ve got six hundred and eighty-ish dollars, enough to buy that guy’s uniform—umbrella, bowler and all—five times over. You think I couldn’t just wear the exact same get-up, go out to some intersection and direct a bit of traffic? Look, I’m a cardiologist. Do you know what that means? Cardiologist? It means I route and re-route people’s blood for a living. What’s a bit of traffic for a few minutes compared to years of redirected blood? I could be U-Man if I wanted; piece of cake.” … “Sorry, what’s that?” … “Would I? Ahh, I dunno. I don’t have time for that shit; probably not.”
“Woooh! We love U-Man! We love you! Oh, oh, ok, hi.” … “Yeah, sure.” … “Chloe, Shhh. Why are we wearing Bowlers? Because they’re cool.” … “Because U-Man wears one. Have you seen him? *giggles* We’ve seen him twice now.” … Mum’s on the radio scanner and drives us around.” … “Um, maybe it’s because he’s hot. *giggles* No, but seriously, it’s because he’s a local hero, keeps roads safe and traffic flowing. Chloe, Shhh. *giggles* And it’s because he’s hot.”
“Keep going, keep going, annnd—freeze frame! See that, Kochie? See how smoothly he transitions from a northbound-right-turn gesture to full north–south flow? People out there might not understand how difficult that manoeuvre is, how tricky it is to deliver several complex commands to multi-directional traffic, all within a few frames of a recording. Look, he’s saying to these specific cars, ‘prepare to stop,’ and to these, ‘hold your position,’ and to the truck all the way at the other side of the intersection he says, ‘steadily accelerate, but stay wary, please.’ And this is all done with a few specific whistle blows and a möbioid swiping gesture of his infamous rainbow umbrella. At Macquarie Traffic School, it can take students months to wrap their heads around this pairing of commands. Most will never quite achieve the finesse and comfortability that U-Man displays. Now look, I know, I know he’s unconventional. Some of the gestures he uses—that side-scanning one we saw before, and the bowler hat oscillation, even that full straight-arm windmill he does—they don’t exist in our learner’s manual, they have no empirical backing to effectiveness and clarity, but when we watch U-Man, obviously a complete autodidact, it’s impossible to accuse him of negligence. I’ve been a professor in this industry for twenty years now. The research is sluggish. But this U-Man, well, he’s opened up a whole other realm to explore. Mr Kosh, I think we should have some faith.”
“Good evening. Now, this’ll just be a short statement, and unfortunately we uh won’t have time for follow-up questions. Chief Suzak, myself and the uh Commissioner have been in deep discussion these past few days, and we’ve decided to transfer the uh U-Man case over to the Terrorism Intelligence Unit, who we feel have the appropriate knowledge and expertise for the uh guerilla attacks which are consistent in the U-Man case. The New South Wales Police will continue to offer compensation for uh any information that leads to the arrest of the U-Man individual, so please, if you have anything in that regard, uh please come forward. Uh, secondary to this, it is uh to my great dismay to inform you that after this morning’s incident at the uh Harbour–Bathurst Street intersection, I will uh uh uh be stepping down from my role for an indeterminate amount of time the details of which we will release at a future date thank you.”
“Oh, no, sure, I think U-Man great, going out there, doing someone else’s job for nothing, putting yet another low-income earner out of work, normalising free labour, propelling us deeper into exploitative capitalism. Absolute champ of a fella, aren’t you U-Man? I hear your ego gets fed pretty well these days, ya dick.”
“Sorry, darling, I try not to have opinions on such divisive matters. But if I did have an opinion, well, that opinion would probably be in favour of U-Man. See, I volunteer to help run a Sunday school over in Mosan, so I have a sort of affinity for other volunteers, I guess. But that’s not an opinion, just a predilection. Please don’t televise this.”
“Me and my best friend Oscar are going to be U-Men too one day. We made a pact. I’ll be R-Man and he’ll be O-Man and there won’t ever be traffic congestion again. And, and, and, Dad’s buying me an umbrella for Christmas this year too.”
“Who dem talking ‘bout? U-Man? Him duppy, me say.”
“Oh, he’s a total spunk.”
“A bloody idealist idiot.”
“Yeah, I’d shout him a beer.”
“Twat.”
“Good afternoon Madam Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, teachers and students, distinguished guests. There’s been quite a riotous discussion today over our topic: Should The Umbrella Man be jailed? And we, the negative team, have pretty much already convinced you, he should not. But, for tradition’s sake, I’m going to bring it home. The first speaker of the affirmative team raised no valid points. Traffic control credentials, really? U-Man commands traffic with extreme competence. The second speaker of the affirmative spoke with an ineloquence that bordered on imbecilic, and my second teammate absolutely tore him to shreds. It feels as if we’re dealing with schoolchildren here. Finally, their third speaker got so close to constructing an argument (police requested he stop, he didn’t stop, blah, blah, blah), but undermined her own credibility when she said, ‘For police to detain, and a jury to decide.’ I mean, what kind of fluff is that? It says nothing. I mean, hello, we in this debate are effectively the jury in a mock scenario, and you’ve just said, 'It’s for another jury to decide.’ Meanwhile, my teammates hammered home with impenetrable rhetoric. Our first speaker, Gisse, said, ‘Who else besides U-Man would step up in these urban crisis?’ Our second speaker, Fahmi, noted U-Man’s contribution to the traffic control field. And this intersection between courage and progress is why U-Man cannot be jailed. Notice how I say, cannot. Because here I speak to the sheer impossibility of his confinement. The Umbrella Man has transcended mortality. Sure, at one point he was just a guy at a broken intersection directing traffic, but has now become a concept, a figure, an idea which cannot be boxed or put behind bars. Even if the man of flesh were to be tasered into oblivion like that poor impersonator on Sunday, or were to be cuffed and stuffed in the back of a station wagon, or were to be put to rest, the courage he showed, the lessons he taught, his story and associated free-flowing traffic will live on. Mohammed is still in our hearts, is he not? Robin Hood, King Arthur, Buddah, Jesus, Plato and Hercules live on. The Umbrella Man’s courage will forever exist in me, and so too will it exist in You-Man.”
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