During my teenage years, the Australian and New Zealand comedy scene pretty much helped raise me. I especially adored Good News Week with all my teenage heart. It was already off air by the time I came to it but I fell in love with all of these colourful personalities who showed me who I could be. This Tumblr of mine used to be dedicated to Good News Week many years ago.
Cal Wilson was one of those extraordinary creative souls who inspired me. Her colour, her sweetness, her cheekiness and her energy took my heart and I have been eagerly checking her career out since 2014. I reckon I am now the eclectic soul I am today because of her influence (and Claire Hooper's too). I remember being enamoured with both ladies' wardrobes and their sparkly joy and fun insights and I wished that I could be more like them. They were so super duper cool to me.
It was my birthday on Wednesday 11th October this year (2023), and I opened my Facebook to respond to a birthday message, only to be greeted with the announcement of her death. My heart sunk in a way it has never for any celebrity death, and every time I see her face I feel both so much warmth and simultaneously want to scream that this is entirely unfair. She was only 53, my parents' exact age right now. How can such a vibrant beautiful soul be gone?
This should demonstrate how this lady's vibrance has touched so many lives, even ones that never got to physically meet her like myself. I know I am how I am today because of having had her art in my life. It is so hard to believe she is gone, and my heart goes out to her little boy and husband and all her friends and extended family. To quote her affirmative argument at the end of a Melbourne International Comedy Festival Great Debate, she had to go, there's a kangaroo doing a drum solo waiting.
Rest In Peace to the beautiful Queen of Caicos 💖🌟💐
5th October 1970 - 11th October 2023
