saved by Stacy Gougoulis

Danny Glover was forty years old when he muttered that he was “too old for this shit” – an  affirmation for the afflicted of life experience. 

It’s the same way that I feel as I wait for the train on another Saturday morning. I’m going to work. 

I don’t work in hospitality, I don’t work in retail. No, I work in an office. A Monday to Friday, nine to five, paper shuffling specialist. Except for the three and a half years since the first lockdown, the Monday to Friday has consistently spilled into Saturday too. Forty-three of fifty-two available Saturdays last year. 

When you’re a teenager, working the weekend is nothing. The work might be monotonous, but odds are you’re doing it with people who are becoming your friends. You’re all in this together. 

When you’re forty, it is lonely. 

I’ve left a family still sleeping in our home just to get here. They will live another day while I am gone. 

Yet I also have company on these trips.  

His name is Stacy Gougoulis and he’s been hosting Weekend Breakfast on triple j for at least as long as I’ve been doing this. 

... 

I’ve tried to explain Stacy to my friends in the past. It never quite lands. 

Maybe you are reading this on your own solitary odyssey, in the right frame of mind to understand. 

The way that Stacy brings light to his work. He starts his shift at six in the morning on a Saturday, backs it up on Sunday. There is no co-host for Stacy, no Hing to his Hobba. Stacy sets sail solo. He is ballast for the rest of us who might otherwise drift. 

It feels safe. You would call it a bond if it weren’t for the one-way broadcast of radio. The connection is real but unrequited. 

I had a confidence that needed to be exchanged. The train bore no takers, so I put it into my phone and out into the world via +61 439 75 7555. 

Sixty seconds into the next song I received a message from an unknown number. 

This is my personal phone. Your secret is safe with me – SG. 

... 

This Saturday I’m greeted with track work. The train has now become a bus, battling the rest of the traffic on the roads. 

If going in to work on the weekend isn’t exciting (it’s not), the extra twenty minutes each way on the bus is a further let down. 

It’s a week since I texted my secret to Stacy Gougoulis. I don’t usually tune in on a Sunday, but I had last weekend to make sure he was still there. I guess when you share a secret there's a terror involved. Have I done the right thing? What does the other person think of what they know? About me. 

Begrudgingly boarding the bus, I plug in my headphones. I’m nervous when I open the app. 

Deep breath. 

Seventeen Going Under is being covered by Camp Cope. Seventeen doesn't feel all that long ago, even though the date says otherwise. I may still be going under. Coping is a veneer that is thinner by the day.  

The song finishes and I hear Stacy is there in the studio. That breath can be released now. I can feel it in the back of my teeth, the veneer is buffeted at least another day by the sense of relief.  

TrainLink will let you down. Stacy is ever reliable. 

... 

It’s Tuesday evening and I’m back at Dulwich Hill station. Thankfully this time it’s the return journey. 

It takes an appreciation for a certain kind of Sydney beauty to treasure this place. The station’s nestled amongst a mix of those old brick apartments they built in the 1970s, and houses that no longer sell for a million dollars. They haven’t fallen, they just inexplicably start at two million(!) now. 

There are some newer apartments too. There’s a bit of a renaissance on foot, they’ve brought new ground floor retail that can cure or create your ails as you please. A pharmacy, physio and a psychologist to put your body and mind right.  

The Loose Dozen – I've wondered if it’s named for a selection of its products, or a selection of its frequent customers. You can drive through, or they’ll deliver the drinks to your door if you’re not quite up to it.  

I feel the light buzz on my wrist that signals a new message. 

Hey – I've been thinking about your message, and you. What's news today?  

I wasn’t expecting to hear from Stacy again. 

I guess I’d tempered my expectations. The first time I found myself depending on radio hosts to lift my spirits was the breakfast shift when I was only trudging to work on weekdays. 

But then the duo came to an end. Alex was around lunch shifts for a cameo or two, then ended up running for Wannan in an election. Matt deserted the radio to pursue the oasis of writing and acting. 

Still – this seems an invitation to knock about with what feels like an old friend, even though I know we're strangers. I never believed that you shouldn’t meet (text) your heroes. 

Just got off the train. Fighting the battle between the good (walk straight home, have dinner and read a book) and the maybe better, maybe worse (stop in and buy some drinks first). 

... 

I’d ended up posing the question about what was behind the naming of The Loose Dozen to Stacy while I walked back to the train station the next morning.  

I did stop in to pick up some drinks last night. It was the most relaxed and care-free dinner I’d had with my family in a long time. Maybe it was the wine, but I think it was also the buzz fizz of a new friendship. 

When did it flip that most of our new friendships and relationships started with messaging? I remember when it was going out with a friend who brought along another friend you’d never met before, or you just started talking to somebody at a gig. 

In person often came with rejection, but at least when the hammer fell it was quick. Messaging is all anticipation and fear. You can’t read if the other person really wants to keep going, or if they’re just trying not to be rude. You just wait for those bouncing dots. 

Making a new friend takes mettle, nerves of steel, or just the willingness to fall flat on your face. 

Snow White and the seven dwarves, but they went pro so needed to add roadies, a social media manager and an agent? 

The thirteen dwarves from Lord of the Rings, minus one after a raucous night with the Hobbit? 

I can’t tell you what part of my brain took me straight from dozen to dwarves, but here we are. 

He replied, so I haven’t hit pavement with nose this time. Hooked on the thrill that my radio friend might become my real friend, I’m all in. I reply: 

Oh god, you have to stop. I'm so far down this rabbit hole and if I don’t come up for air I’m going to be on the train crying with laughter. People will think I’m weird. 

... 

My heart had stopped. 

Stacy Gougoulis is leaving Weekend Breakfasts. When I’d seen it announced, I felt a little lost, and maybe even a little betrayed. 

I knew it was irrational, that I wasn’t being fair. Still – I messaged Stacy with a screen cap overlayed with no message other than exclamation and question marks. 

Exciting news right? I can’t wait! 

Before I knew it, I was back at the confessional. I spilt it all in my reply – the grieving for a ritual lost, the fear that I would never again have his show pick me up from the doldrums. Pavement, meet face. 

Heavy!!! 

Fear not, you need to read it all! 

Eight and a half years of Weekend Breakfast is done. 

Four afternoons a week on Double J Arvos is why! 

There are no goodbyes here – it's hello at a different time.  

I had to go and make it weird, didn’t I. 

Even though the relief was palpable, I could still feel the metaphorical pavement on my face. 

Another message came in: 

One last weekend shift before I sign off for weekday hours. 

Might skirt the rules a little on the way out. Think about it for a while and send me a song request. Tick, tick, tune may not be a fair contest this week. 

I knew right away that there was only one song for my request, but I wanted to let it sit a while before replying. 

... 

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). I sent it through late Friday. 

I hadn’t felt nervous at all when I first confessed my secret to Stacy – on the station text line no less. It had seemed so disconnected from anything real.  

Now I held dread. I anticipated the hurt if the promise of playing my request had been empty. 

Saturday morning had come and gone, and now it was Sunday. 

There had been tributes from a series of newsreaders. I'd heard them across the station, nearly all had started with Stacy.  

I’ve already decided that I’m not going to message next week. 

A few days of messaging have altered the way that I look at the world. The joy has spilt over and my loved ones have felt it too. 

Maybe we will have a lasting friendship, but just what it has been already, is rich. 

I’d momentarily forgotten the dread that I was holding onto, and was lost in my own head. 

A stuttering acoustic riff and a faint expletive brought me back to the real world and the radio world. 

Under the guise of one last Tick, tick, tune Stacy had played my request. 9.57am on Sunday 30 June 2024. 

... 

It started with a confidence shared. 

I’m not going to tell you what it is, that’s between me and him. 

Holding it on my own had caused a strain in my neck, and the distension was spreading to my relationships. 

Stacy may not know it, but at the toughest time of my life, he helped me to roll with the punches. 

Thank you.