Tammy's Turns

Just as I predicted (again). Donny will walk away from this impeachment aquittal with a minor skid mark of scandal, which I think is of little consequence to him personally.

So, screaming for blood, kicking out at him, pointing fingers has not worked (as I foretold). In fact, what it’s done is (as I foretold) emboldened and empowered him, and more importantly, his supporters, and even more importantly, people who were on the fence about him, will now see him as a victim, and err to his side.

It’s a really simple lesson I learned when training as a union delegate, and it’s shown itself to be just as true in politics, as it is in the workplace. ‘Do you want to get rid of your frustrations, get it off your chest, lash out at the boss, tell him what you really think of him?, or, do you want to get what you want’.

It’s almost as simple as that.

The world needs to think smart, and stop being reactionary. So, America, you yelled and screamed, but did you get what you wanted? Nope. In fact, you’ve just made things a WHOLE lot worse for yourselves, somewhat like a child having a tantrum instead of thinking smart. Manipulating and outsmarting the parent is how the child gets what its after. Instead, it chose to lash out, and now the parent is coming for them.

This phenomenon isn’t reserved just for the U.S, it’s playing out here in Australia. Barnaby Joyce was returned with an increased majority, probably because he’d been under personal attack. Passing around online petitions to ‘Sack Scott Morrison’? give me a break.

This is a different world, a different playing field. Stop wasting your time stamping your feet. Think smart, think strategic. Poking the bee hive doesn’t work anymore. Your tantrum has just now delivered another four years in the White House for Donnie.

Oh, by the way, I don’t know the answer, and I think Govt’s know we don’t yet know how to tackle this new reality. So, they run wild, and all we do is click on-line petitions and make memes (tho, fair play, my piss spot Barnaby meme IS gold).

We can’t ‘really’ march anymore, and we can’t ‘really’ strike, because unfortunately greed and cowardice of far too many came into play, the, ‘I’m alright Jack, fuck you’ brigade. So many of our hard fought for civil and workplace rights have been given away. Now the effective gains we made, have all mostly been lost, and, again, with the level of apathy and distraction permeating every aspect of life, the Govt’s know they hardly have to lift a finger before the populace rolls over.

I see this in the GLBTIQ community too. So many battles were fought by our Queer forebears. Once a ‘semblance’ of equality and safety was won, many in the current generation were happy with ‘well enough’. Barely casting an eye over their shoulders to be educated by very recent history, at how all those gains that were won with blood on the streets, could all be lost in the snap of a finger. The religious discrimination bill anyone?

Get out of the suburbs, and out of the cafes, and get active! Us older soldiers have served our tour of duty and are scarred and spent. You’re not alright Jack, powerful forces will fuck you over as soon as look at you.

This is such an honour for me. When you type into Google search ‘Pollywaffle pool party’ (code for shitting in someones pool) on the first page, a photo of me pops up.

It’s the same when you search ‘Dexter Fishpaw foot painting’. No fewer than three images related to me show up. Some people get to brag about their kids, I get to brag about this, and I’m fine with that.

Thanks Tony for pointing out this most auspicious honour to me.

Somewhere, out there, is ‘the one’ for me, and tonight I think I came a little closer to finding them.

Second only to my pathological loathing of politicians, is my psychotic reviling of inconsiderate car parkers. Space in Nth Gong is a premium, there is no room for assholism when it comes to parking.

One little entitled upstart has moved in to the units across the road, she parks wherever she pulls up, mastering the art of taking up even three spots in one parking manoeuvre!. I’ve been circling like a shark, round and round, looking for a park, all to no avail, and tonight was the straw that broke the camels toe!

I ended up having to park streets away, I grabbed a pen and paper and STORMED up to her car, but hello, what’s this?, there is already a piece of paper under the windscreen wiper!.

There it was, a missive that was positively scratched into the paper, spelling out concise instructions from another pissed off neighbour on how to park a little more ‘considerately’.

It looked like a guy’s handwriting, at least that’s what I’ve convinced myself. But how do I find this kindred, unhinged spirit?.

Sometimes I really freak myself out. In the middle of last night I got up, kind of walked/staggered around, there was a word in my head, and I had to write it down because I knew it would bug me if I woke in the morning and had forgotten it. I just found the piece of paper, on it I’d written the word ‘Somnambulant’.

somnambulant
/sɒmˈnambjʊlənt/
adjective
resembling or characteristic of a sleepwalker; sluggish.
“a somnambulant stroll”

Many moons ago I was in a choir. In the year 2000 we performed a concert at Wollongong Town Hall, ‘In bed with the Wollongong Gay and Lesbian Solidarity Quior’. This is a recording from that show, Sweet Dreams.

I post this with love and respect to Ros and Cecily. x x

You can hear the song by clicking below.

With thanks to Vanessa Webb who sent along this photo, and who is, in her own words, “Second from the left – completely star struck!”

I was one of those lucky kids whose parents were fine with me watching Number 96.

To me it was high camp, absurdist, drama, vaudeville, and I loved it. The next day my best girlfriend and I would sit in class and relive the previous nights episode. We would pass back and forth our text books, and where onto historical photographs we had drawn speech bubbles with quotes from Dorrie, so you would have a dinosaur saying, ‘Herbert, it’s all too much, I’m at the point of going Beresk!!’.

Yes it’s true I’m not very good at maths, but as a ten year old, Number 96 shaped me far more into the man I would become, than endless repetitions of times tables. Little did my ten year old self know that when I was proclaiming everything to be ‘Bona’, I was actually speaking my future heritage of Polari.

For more on Number 96 please visit the fantastic Facebook group HERE