What would happen if we could see our favorite cartoon characters as real people instead of ‘Toon’s’, scarey eh?
Once more Woman’s Day delivers gold, if it’s not there exclusive interview with Matt Newtown bleating about how great he’d done in rehab, it’s wheel out some Aussie soap icons. In a cross promotion stiffy inducing moment, the same time this article hit the stands Newton jr was trundled back into rehab .. which seems to be the preferred method of treatment these days for violent assholes.
With bad comes good, and in a recent issue of Womans Day we had a double page spread on a Number 96 reunion for Johnny Lockwoods 90th birthday. I was watching old episodes last night and was rolling on the floor laughing, so many shows don’t live up to your childhood memories, but Number 96 does, my favorite ‘Dorrie-ism’ from last night was ‘I blame you for this Herbert, i’m at the point of having a cerebral haemoroid’ .. Gold’, Gold!!, Gold!.
For all things Number 96 click “Here“.
After the news of the AFL player saying players who are gay should not come out, and the backlash from that, and now recently seeing our local member of parliament outed by a tabloid news show, i think it’s safe to say homophobia is alive and well and living in a person near you.
The outing of Dave Campbell was an attack of pure homophobia, it cannot be excused or explained away as anything else.
Using the excuse that he had used a ‘ministerial car’?, so what?, the man has done nothing illegal, visiting a gay sex on premises venue is not illegal, it is not a crime, it may be morally questionable in some peoples minds, but if he’d used the car to go purchase a carton of cigarettes, a carton of beer or to go place a bet, it wouldn’t matter a jot, all those things to some are of questionable morality, but not illegal, and in this insane world what isn’t questionable and morally offensive to some, what is morally offensive to me is that gay men of every age are committing suicide at up to four times the average for males, that people of the GLBTI community are being bashed and maimed and killed, and that isolation and loneliness is a wretched problem in the GLBTI community.
Mostly I feel for the guy, and a sense of great sadness that our very recent, and current history, that made it impossible for a man of his generation to come out, to be supported and to be nurtured in his true self, even when I was young, and Dave is an alma mater of my own Corrimal High School, it was absolutely not an option to come out and be open about your sexuality, just being in the music class got you bashed, I may be staring down the barrel of a total prolapse and fast approaching a state decrepitude, but I didn’t go to school ‘that’ long ago, and guys and girls, I hate to say this again but it still isn’t that good for us, recently in Surry Hills a man was gay bashed, did I mention this happened on the international day against homophobia?.
Some will say ‘It’s their personal business if they come out or not’, and that’s true, but I’m also calling it that that defence has a wider impact on our community, our safety and our well being and acceptance, and we can’t dance around that or deny it, being visible and normalising (for want of a better word) our part in the world community is all our responsibility, from a Storeperson right through to, well lets say, an Olympic world record holder, you know the old clichés, ‘every grain of sand’ ‘Every drop of water’ well, they’re true.
How much are we to blame as a community? If we don’t want the shame, the scandal, the getting caught out, the getting comfortable having different levels of openness, or lies, for different sets of people around us, then we have to be brave and step up to the plate and take whatever is flung at us, whatever pain we have to endure and whatever the consequence may be, but something to remember is that it will be ‘their’ issue and problem, but we’ll have our dignity. Not for a second do I suggest it will be, or is easy, when I came out I lost 25 kilo’s with the stress (see, their can be a silver lining) we risk losing family, friends, being ridiculed, anger and hatred, but how much energy and distraction do we expend by jumping, and hopping around juggling comfort levels for others, when we’re not comfortable ourselves?, who are we living for here?, I think the perfect example of what happens when you juggle for others, we are seeing in the story of David Campbell, to quote Keith Richards ‘You can’t accuse me of something I’ve admitted to’, sooner or later it comes crumbling down, and we lose the control of the situation, the trying to solve and cover many problems, when as painful as it may be, the truth would have been the only way for him to remain empowered.
Complacency is a very dangerous thing, how many times in history have groups of people said ‘It’s not too bad, they just dislike us’ Then ‘It’s not too bad, they aren’t kicking us out of our homes’ Next ‘It’s not too bad, they aren’t killing us’ Till finally ..
I feel for us, and all we risk, all we have risked and everything that has been lost by being truthful to ourselves, and those around us, but again quite often it is only thus as we try and satisfy the morals, the intolerances, the prejudices and the narrow mindedness and the uneducated around us.
I guess we’re all complicit in this to one extent or another, I’ve long believed that ‘well enough’ isn’t good enough, being ‘relatively’ comfortable behind our locked doors, and SOME streets, if we alter and compromise our usual behaviour, is just not good enough for me, as long as we can’t marry, can’t adopt, have to lie, can’t be totally open, have to change our behaviour any time we step outside our front door, can’t hold hands walking down Crown st, have to alter our movements, activities, the way we speak, and act, and a million other things (and tell me that we don’t all do those things to some extent) then I think we all have a duty to do more, have a sense of pride and ownership in our true selves.
I don’t think I need to spell out in point form all the positives that could also come out of choosing to ‘live the truth’, for every negative there has to be an equal and opposite positive.
These are just my thoughts, what are the answers?, I don’t really know, what do we do about it?, that’s up to you.
I’ll finish off with my favourite quote by Benjamin Franklin ..
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”.
Greg xoxo
Just the thought of nits makes my flesh crawl, how very common they are, Nits .. aka Head Lice, it really sounds suburban, if i ever get them i’ll be telling everyone i have Cranial Scabies, or Mutated Ringworm Bitey Monsters, but not nits, far, far too common for me.
You have to wonder about this salon, do the people also get a Toni perm whilst they’re waiting for the tight toothed, metalic comb to draw through there greasy infested hair?, do they dip the combs into glass jars of battery acid instead of the equally mysterious, but more standard, white fluid in a jar you see on every barbers bench?. Do they sit around under hair driers gossiping, and supping tea, while waiting for the nest behind there earlobe to expell it’s payload of scampering crusteacia?. I’ve long felt hairdressers should be able to swipe your medicare card for all the counselling they do during the course of a normal visit for a ‘Cut, colour, curl, condition’, however anyone at this salon listening to the problems of people trying to expell an invasive eco system out of there hair, i think deserves a little more than a swipe of a medicare card.
I’m loving these new sealed milk shake thingys with jelly in the bottom, they’re some Asian fad which has taken off here, it’s a total challenge, but i rise to the occasion, and do not leave the cup until i have sucked up every last bit of cubed jelly from the bottom. My temples fold in, my nostrils pinch shut, my eyes cross and my blurter is pursed tighter than a .. well, tighter than something or other, no matter .. but through that straw it is possible to draw up every last coagulated drop.
Jerry Lee Lewis.
Probably not Jerry Lee Lewis.
Definately not Jerry Lee Lewis.
Oh Pollys, let me count the ways how i love you. As someone past my ‘Clubbing’ phase, i still enjoy a healthy dose of social intercourse and busting a worm move on the dance floor, and every time a Pollys dance is on, i lay back and think of England .. i also think of a few other things, like .. “I wonder how long i’m going to have to wait till i hear Amarilo?”. I was not disapointed at the August dace, i was ‘Sha la la la lah lah lah lah-ing’ before i knew it.
It truely is the last bastion of frameless queer community in Sydney, a little oasis of a time and era that ddin’t need to end with so much collateral damage. Polly’s maintains that little island where attitude is left at the door, or slapped out of your bottom on the dance floor, imagine a high school formal where someone laced the cordial with LSD, and there was an explosion in an op shop, and make up factory from the 70’s .. that’s the look and feel of Pollys, and i feel perfectly at home.
One last thing, everyone should go just for the drag terrorism, again drag without attitude (Fuck you uppity cruel drag queens, you insult me with your base humour), but a sense of freedom and fun, which is what i thought drag was supposed to be. I was watching the shows from the side of the stage, at one point i could see the audiences eyes widen, smiles plastered across the punters faces, at Pollys that can only mean one thing ‘Drag Malfunction’. Of course we weren’t let down as i looked upon the stage to see a queen cupping her nuts in one hand, whilst ‘Spirit fingering’ with the other. Her gaffer had given way, and she had popped a tossel, all without missing a beat or a spirit finger, now THAT’S a professional.
Lovely Rowena Wallace, ever the staple of Womans Day and New Idea, with her latest brushes with the law, the most up to date movements of her moves to housing commission estates, and now .. plastic surgery. The latest spread details Rowena’s (or Pat The Rat as she’ll forever be known) adventure under the knife, all in the name of glamour, and to give hope to women everywhere in housing commission estates. All they need to do is be contacted by a fan who is a plastic surgeon, and they too can have there upper lids and ‘chooky’ jowls hacked away. It was stressed that the Dr done this for free, however Rowena did appear in magazines and a classic episode of Today Tonight, where in a touching moment she wheeled out her tarnished and dusty gold Logies, which i’m amazed she still has. Hats off to her, you all know my policy on plastic surgery, too much is never ever enough. I cant help but think in the last photo Rowena looks like she’s been squirted in the left eye with a lemon, and she has a semi Elvis snear going on. I don’t know why people do this, i find women so much more attractive and sexy with a bit of life showing on there faces, i can think of two women right off the top of my head who are in their sixties, never been under the knife, and are insanely attractive. They glow when they enter a room, they carry themselves with such kindness and comfort, you don’t even notice or really look at there faces, you just know you’re drawn to them, and you feel better for having spent time with that person.
I remember just before Diana was killed i was sitting in a doctors surgery, and a lady was looking at a ‘New Idea’ magazine and commented out loud ‘Ooh, Diana’s looking old’, i couldn’t help but challenge this old chook, that i thought Diana was so much more attractive at that moment, with life and experience on her face, than she was as a twenty year old bride. Wow .. if only Diana got a chance to live beyond thirty six years old, so young. If you do have to go the knife, then go hard, go full on, because it’s all for “Glory, glamour and gold”.
Ahhhh, upgrades from my youtube captures, i wanted ‘Angry’s’ splendour in full digital quality, thanks to Aunty Viv’s dvd i am sated.
For Ves who taught me that Gas masks can be taken out of the bunker and onto the runway, and sometimes into the bodoir.
Recently ‘RAGE’ played some old episodes of Countdown, and i was cock o’ hoop to see that they played ‘Product of your mind’ by ‘Jimmy and the boys’, if for no other reason than it features Joylene Hairmouth’s greatest ever filmed performance.
This is the Citizen Kane of Joylene, a veritable Hairmouth cinema verite.
I love this clip soooo fucking much, Joylene is treating the keyboard with such contemp, but it’s trained contemp, she’s going at it like Shirley in the Partridge family, after Ruben Kinkade accidently drugged her, instead of Danny.
Think Marta Hari from Lancelot Linc’s Evolution Revolution .. that style of playing, where the hands look like they are frantically trying to fan someone back into conciousness after a bad, or really good pill.
We all know what was done to those poor bastard monkey’s to get them ramped up and hopping about, simian electro play was the order of the day, and Joylene looks, and performs in this clip like she’s had a car battery freshly clipped to her nipples.
To this very day, each time i enter the Opera House’s grand hall i have a knot in my stomach, knowing that Dame Joan Sutherland and Olivia Newton John opened that place, when all along the first person on the stage should have been the real La Stupenda Joylene.
Let me tell you, i bet Joylene would have had a better camel toe than Olivia did in her black lycra pants in Grease (another starring roll Joylene was jyped out of).
I do my bit, every morning i lay a fresh lilly before the framed photo i have in my lounge room, that was taken last year of Joylene, myself and my filthy bitch bestie ‘Beryl’.
Both Beryl and i agree that besides the night we came across a leather clad, and Rose free Willie Porteous at Sleaze ball, in the downstairs shitters in the Hordern Pavillion, our evening with Joylene was the pinacle of our very existence.
Below are some screen captures i took from the clip. I’ve posted some before, but they were from a lame ass Youtube clip, these are better quality, and it’s all about preserving art in the best possible quality .. and taste.
Nico, me and Adam.
