'Mamaaaaa, I Just Killed A Song!'

Some things really are blood-chillingly, teeth-on-edge, labia-shrivellingly embarrassing.  I don't mean walking around with the back zipper on your skirt undone, which has happened to me.  I don't mean discovering the offensive dog shit pong is coming from the sole of YOUR shoe, which again has happened to  me.  I mean elephant in the room.  I'm talking being so delusional you're pissing in your own pants and don't know it yet.  I'm talking about that stage where the emperor is not only wearing no clothes, he's also wearing no skin.

Right now is probably  not a good day to be the organisers of the Glastonbury Festival.  In particular, I refer to whoever thought it was a good idea to let Kanye West come out and totally sodomise and defile 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.  I saw the footage.  It's all smoke machines and electric atmosphere, like the start of most concerts.  A backing tape of Queen plays, and the audience hears the familiar 'Is this the real life....' etc etc yada, yada, yada.  Then on comes Kanye West, hot contender for World's Biggest & Most Deluded Tosser, and he croaks in the most non-tonal dry-heave of a sound ever, 'Mamaaaaa, I just killed a maaaaaan....'.  Like me outside the house frenziedly rifling in my handbag when the phone is ringing inside, the guy is desperately trying to find a key.  No, he's not.  He's not bothering to find the key, he's trying to break in with a brick through the window, such is the savage butchery and vandalism of this song.  I just sat there, stunned and debilitated, thinking, 'No, you didn't kill a man.  You totally slaughtered this poor song.  That's what you've killed.' 

Then he got the audience to sing along.  Usually, if I go to a concert, the singer leading audience sing-alongs actually annoys me because I have paid good  money to hear the band, not the slob next to me.  But in this case I would make an exception. 

Truly, the guy takes the words 'Kim Kardashian's ass' to a whole new level.  He's an arrogant knob-end, what with interrupting people going about their lawful business making speeches, and then he comes out and butchers a great song with a frightening nonchalance that leaves everyone speechless.  And bleeding from the ears.

I wanted someone to say, 'Sorry, Kanye, Imma let you finish, but - no, just get the fuck off the stage!'

Today's list of things to do includes finalising the first edit on my manuscript.  I took my almost 11yo to the park the other day to do this, and sat enjoying the winter sunshine.  What I did not enjoy was the feral fishwife on the next bench effing and blinding.  Hey,  I know I have used swear words in this post.  It is a judicial use of a word to make a point and emphasise in the creative writing process.  I very rarely swear in conversation, and would make a concerted effort not to do so in public, especially when there are children around.

The other thing I plan to do is take my older son to see 'Ted 2'.  I hope there's nothing TOO embarrassing for a  mother to see alongside her son.  Oh, who am I kidding?  It's Seth MacFarlane!  There's bound to be something.

The Suspicious Sound Of Pollywaffle

Captain Ahab had his men search for Moby Dick, when he might have been better off accepting an aquatic beast was likely to chomp off his leg when he was in the territory of said aquatic beast, and joining a support group for amputees.  Instead, he went out for revenge, and to eradicate the whale.  He might consider a job as Premier of Western Australia if Colin Barnett gets fed up, or voted out.  I'm putting money on the latter option. 

Johnny Lee was looking for love in all the wrong places.

I have looked for my t.v. remote it in all the places where my kids have said they've already looked, and usually found it.

I have looked for my iPod in all the logical places, and found it in a box of tissues.  My younger son was to blame, and subsequently banned from playing with my iPod.

But yesterday, I went on a fruitless search for a piece of confectionery.  I took a pensioner shopping, and she said, 'Simone, can you get me a Pollywaffle?  And if you can't find one, get me some Cherry Ripes.'  Now, Pollywaffle I can understand, but Cherry Ripes?  They are gruesome, and only marginally less nauseating than Bounties, which are possibly the bastard child of the foulest of all confectionery: coconut ice.   Reader, you've probably connected the dots and realised I do not like coconut flavoured confectionery.  Fresh coconut, yes.  I recall having a lovely refreshing drink fresh from the fruit itself at a stall in Singapore many years ago.  But in lollies and chocolates?  Fuggedaboutit!!!  But as I was saying, I searched high and low on those supermarket shelves for Pollywaffles.  Do 'they' still make them?  I had to furrow my unbotoxed brow and really think: when was the last time I had seen a Pollywaffle?  I think it was on a hen's night, many years ago - over twenty, to be precise.  It was being held at a 45 degree angle from the groin of a shirtless man, who was wearing skin tight black pants.  The 'hen' whose pending nuptials I was helping celebrate was a former work colleague, and her bridesmaids had organised a night out on a boat, and it was called 'Studs Afloat'.  Anyway, toward the end of the evening every 'hen' had to go to the middle of the dance floor and kneel before a 'stud', who was holding a Pollywaffle in simulation of an erection, and fellate the chocolate bar for a certain amount of time, and a winner would be declared.  I was watching this display more bemused than amused, and some middle-aged woman exclaimed to me, 'That's my daughter out there!'  I patted her on the shoulder and said reassuringly, 'You should be proud.'  The other thing I remember is having a chat with one of the 'studs', who according to the younger soapie-watching crowd I was with, was a dead ringer for one of the actors in 'Neighbours'.  I returned from the buffet and someone gave my upper arm a friendly punch, a punch so friendly it almost caused me to spill my potato salad over the floor of the boat, and cawed, 'I saw ya chatting him up, ya lucky bitch!' 

But since then, I'm not sure I have actually seen a Pollywaffle.  And I wasted a good five minutes trying to locate one yesterday.  Do the manufacturers no longer produce these because of the negative associations of having them fellated by drunken women wearing tatty tulle veils on their heads, and  necklaces made of blown up condoms?  It just occurs to me, the very name of the chocolate bar sounds like someone talking with a mouthful of cock.  Say it aloud, peeps; you'll see I'm right.

Review of my novel 'Abernethy'

Hello, all. I will continue my usual ranting maybe later, or tomorrow, but in the meantime I just wanted to share a review of my novel 'Abernethy', which was prepared by US author Nick Tory.  Here's a link to the first chapter of 'Abernethy', which is available from Zeus Publications:  http://www.zeus-publications.com/abernethy.htm

Life is pissing me off big time today because my computer is as slow as a haemorrhoid-ridden slug that's swallowed a box of Mogadon.  I'm blaming the kids for being on You Tube on their iPads.  Yes, they're both home from school - sick.  Mister 14 is on his third day in a row home from school, and is going to the doctor this afternoon.  Anyway, check out this review, and I'd like to thank Nick Tory.  Nick writes sassy novellas about a ne'er do well named Johnny, so check him out on Amazon.

Review: Abernethy
Abernethy is the story of a boy and his dog. That sounds like a cliche but this book is far from your run of the mill coming of age story. In fact it is a very delightful story and was a wonderful surprise to come across. It's noteworthy that I am both a teacher and a father of young children.  Both positions put me in regular contact with children and adolescents and therefore I am exposed to a lot of work in this genre. That said, I would recommend this book to both teachers and parents.  It is not only a very cute well told story that can be enjoyed by any member of the family, but it has is filled with a lot of good lessons and morals that we would all like our children to learn.
Billy Alexander is boy who is somewhat typical to what we might expect to find in this type of story. He is bullied and has a number of family problems such as his father's legal issues.  Our title character though is very much not typical of what we might normally find in these stories.   He speaks to Billy and quickly becomes a true companion.  I think the book really benefited from not spending too much time trying to delve into why or how Abernethy is how he is, and rather gets really into the meat of the story.  It makes the world one that is much more powerful the author is not trying to win you over with being clever but by telling a strong story.
In some ways the plot takes you places that you would expect, and at other times there are some nice twists.  Either way, there is more than enough here to keep you and your family entertained and turning pages.  You should definitely give this book a chance. You will not be disappointed.

Grin & 'Bear' It

Does anyone care to remember those days in Year 7 when you had to draw the female reproductive system?  It was the uterus, with fallopian tubes to the sides, and a channel to represent the vagina that led OUTSIDE to the vulvae.  Remember, folks?  I can draw, and my representation was always passable.  It  might not have passed muster in a medical textbook, but it looked like what it was meant to be.  Other less artistic kids usually drew something that looked like a head-on view of a bovine animal skull found in the desert, bleached white by the sun and elements (I suppose I would come up with that imagery because I like skulls).  This would have been great if they were designing an album cover for Iron Maiden, but unfortunately they were meant to draw the female reproductive system.  The male reproductive system sketches usually looked like a lateral silhouette of a tapir.  But the point to my reminiscences about the silly drawings we did in Year 7, as the more infantile kids giggled as they sketched (honestly, one particular girl nearly laughed herself into a hernia when the teacher showed us the male chart from which we had to copy), is you might notice I referred to the vagina as a channel leading outside, which would indicate it is an internal organ.  And it is an internal organ.  So can the media please stop referring to the external parts of the female genitalia as the vagina?  That would be great.  The latest article I've read about spouting this insidious and fallacious rubbish, and in fairness the journalist could have been quoting the outraged member of the public, dealt with the mother in the UK who was infuriated about the marzipan teddy bears atop her three-year-old daughter's christening cake.  The bears had a line drawn between their legs, and she said they 'looked like they have vaginas'.  According to the patisserie, the line is meant to represent the seam sewn into 'real' teddy bears.  But this line doesn't look like a vagina, unless someone took the nozzle of the piping bag and drilled a hole between the front of the bears' legs, and where the hypothetical anus on the bear would be.  And nobody would see it because the bears were sitting down.  I seriously took umbrage at the misuse of 'vagina' yet again, and when I looked at the bears took fits of laughter because they actually - shhhhh! - did look like the female pudenda, now that it had been brought to my attention.  There's been outrage and hue and cry, all over marzipan bears with lines betwixt their marzipan legs.  Again, the world is going 'Bonfire of the Vanities'.  Yeah, the markings on the bears kind of did look a bit like female genitalia, but I don't think I'd be going into battle over it.  After I'd stopped sniggering I'd probably have put a decoration in front of the bears if thought everyone was going to have as dirty a mind as I can (yes, I KNOW I've complained about how childish some of my former classmates were).  I wouldn't cry.  I wouldn't fuss.  I wouldn't be chomping on these cute bears because I really, really detest marzipan.  How can anyone eat that stuff?  It's a white gooey mass of sweetly medicinal yuckiness.

Today's guilty pleasures:

1.  'Lady Rose' by Mungo Jerry
2. 'Don't Pull Your Love' by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds
3. 'Marshall's Portable  Music Machine' by Robin Jolley

Today's chore: edit my manuscript. 

How I Might Kill Braincells Today

There are things I MUST do this fine Saturday such as sweep my front veranda, and do the laundry.  There are also things I MIGHT do this weekend, such as kill off a few brain cells.  These are the boring ways in which I might do this:

1. Have a glass of wine.  To be honest, I probably won't.  I am doing an evening medication run and won't be home until after 7.00pm, and I like my glass of wine at about 5.00pm. As mentioned, I will be administering medication at that time, and it is not a good look to be drinking wine whilst giving an aged person their meds.  I'm guessing it is also sackable on my part.

2.  Read the news 'Fifty Shades' book, which is apparently from the perspective of Grey.  Hey, I like to look at well known stories from another character's point of view; as a writer it is very interesting to see what develops.  This technique was employed to masterful effect in 'Trainspotting', with different chapters presented from different characters' view points.  When I'm teaching creative writing, as I have done occasionally, one of the exercises I give my fledgling Hemingways is to take a well known fairy tale and rewrite it from another character's point of view.  I am dreading what the knot-tying fuck-up is going to be saying in what I understand will again be first person narrative.  Perhaps it will be something like 'I am going to go to Bunnings to buy rope, so I can tie up this boring whiny prat who's always biting her lip, before I fuck her. Thank God my controlling parents insisted I go to Boy Scouts where I was taught to tie unloosenable knots by the scout master who also buggered me one night at camp'.  Goddamn, I swear I killed off a few brain cells just writing that.

3.  Watch the film clip of the 1980 Gibson Brothers song 'Que Sera Mi Vida (If You Should Go)'.  Actually, I already have.  I only got through about two minutes of it.  It's one of those things I shouldn't like, and I'm not sure I really do, but it drew me in with its tractor beam of sheer kitsch godawfulness.  It's just too grotesque, yet so compelling.  They are an African-Amercan band dressed in glittering space-age all-in-one lurex jumpsuits; they look like a cross between the Commodores and the Jetsons.  I was viewing the clip with my hands over my eyes, and then I'd slowly part my fingers like the opening of a Venetian blind, and peep through.  And shudder.  And keep watching.  And then my shoulders would twitch and my feet would want to dance.  So I turned it off before I could be sucked into this vortex of Musical Malevolence and be brainwashed.

But as mentioned, I must do the washing and sweep my front veranda.  Oh, and continue the edit of my manuscript, which will hopefully by next year be available as my fourth novel.  Editing will not be fun today, since both my boys will have friends around for play date (my youngest), and to hang out (my oldest).

Ciao for now.

Watching Bad Clips

Some people feel a bit soiled and embarrassed if they look at porn on the Internet.  I just did something worse, and You Tube'd 'I'm Alive' by ELO.  Hey, nothing wrong with a bit of the old Electric Light Orchestra.  They do have something of a unique sound, and I love them.  'Rockaria' is probably my favourite of theirs.  It just drives with passion, tells of a unique juxtaposition of a rocker and an opera singer, and of a party between their friends where at the end 'everybody was as one', with a fantastic build up to that final note.  I have always liked it, anyway.

But the reason I feel a bit cacky for looking at a clip of 'I'm Alive' is that it accompanied the opening of that execrable flick from the early Eighties, 'Xanadu'.  Even as the fourteen-year-old I then was, I saw straight through the producers' intent, which was to cash in on the Olivia Newton-John craze and combine it with the roller skating craze, and in doing so produced a steaming shitball of a movie.  Surprisingly, the guy in the lead (not Gene Kelly, the other one) is still acting, I would have thought that monstrosity would have killed his career dead as a stone.   If you haven't seen the opening, it appears to tell of the nine granddaughters of Zeus, to wit, muses, coming to life.  They're on a mural somewhere, and each start doing some dance.  When Livvy comes to life, her overacting is embarrassing.  But most of the girls with whom I was at school really loved that flick.  Except me.  I was a snotty cerebral nark of a kid whose heart belonged to Luke Skywalker.  The only thing that I could really cope with from that flick was 'I'm Alive' by ELO.

Didn't mind roller skating.  Wasn't very good at it.  My most vivid memory of it entails me careering toward a wall with my arms crossed in front of my face - it is my plan to retire on my good looks if the writing doesn't work out - as 'Fade to Grey' by Visage was being spun by the resident DJ.  I think I might have used that imagery in the manuscript I'm currently editing.  I will no doubt chance upon it as I go through with the editor's dreaded blue pencil, trying to be honest and admitting that line I thought was brilliant, is not so brilliant there.  Perhaps in another work?  One thing I hate about being a writer is the adage, 'you have to kill your darlings'.

Best get back to the editing, and get ready for trivia tonight.  It is starting early to accommodate the State of Origin match.  Who will win, NSW or Qld?  Hands up if you don't give a fuck.  Clue: I'm typing this with one hand whilst the other's in the air.

My interview

This is a link to an interview regarding my latest release, 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth'.  Read, and enjoy.

http://sharafoley.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/meet-simone-baily-and-silver-studs-and.html?zx=80628d083b000729

Clap-Trap-CRAP

Every day it would appear someone plunges deep into the pool of dingbattery.  The object of my derision at the time of typing is Greens Senator Larissa Waters, who has accused Immigration Minister Peter Dutton and Shock Jock (seriously, what a moronic job) Ray Hadley of 'sexist claptrap' after they played a clip of a song parody directed at Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.  The parody is set to Youth Group's 'Forever Young', and I guess as far as parodies go, it's not bad.  It scans musically, as far as I can tell, anyway.  Well, I've had a listen, and could not find one skerrick of sexism in the song.  I think it would be easier to find rocking horse crap than sexism in that song.  Certainly it is a bit infantile of Hadley and Dutton to play it, but sexist?  C'mon, gimme a break!  It really makes the enamel peel from my teeth when people play a minority card, when that card is not even in the deck.  It doesn't help the cause.  Ms Waters should stop and realise that being parodied goes with the territory when you're a politician, and when you utter a gaffe or commit a faux pas, you are going to be parodied.  And in the world of show biz, of which politics is the darker black sheep cousin, you are NOBODY until you have been lampooned.  Ms Hanson-Young made a silly mistake about the television series 'Sea Patrol', in which she forgot it was actually fiction.  And that's largely what the song dealt with.  If a male politician made the same error, and was lampooned thus, would everyone be crying sexism?  You can bet your lungs they wouldn't.

I don't care that much SHY slipped up on blurring lines between fiction and reality in choosing her television shows.  There but for the grace of God goes anybody, when you think about it.  I am pleased for her she won her defamation case against Zoo Weekly, in which a photograph of her head was superimposed upon the body of a lingerie model.  I can understand her annoyance, and I would not be overly happy if somebody did this to me, either.  No, true.  I wouldn't be.  I am not happy that she explained she was not happy to see her head on the body of a 'trashy lingerie model', and didn't want to be seen looking like a 'prostitute'.  Why does she assume the original posing model is trashy, and why does she want to denigrate sex workers?  This has annoyed me. 

But her minion Larissa Waters has annoyed me even more.  Darls, that song ain't sexist.  But your comments referring to Dutton and Hadley as 'old white men' can be construed as ageist, racist and sexist if you want to split hairs. 

Guess I shouldn't be too surprised.  After all, Ms Waters was the same one urging parents to buy non-gender specific toys last Christmas.  Hey listen, my kids like what they like, okay?  They like Nerf guns, and anything with a screen.  I played with dolls as a little girl.  I also played with cars.  My husband played with action figures (boy dolls) and loved his Evil Kneivel stunt motorcycle.  To my knowledge, we're normal.  My younger boy attended a Nerf gun battle-themed birthday party yesterday, and I had to take him shopping for bullets.  I am standing by waiting for the barrage of criticism for being a part of what some would construe as violent gun culture.  My local Big W had Sweet FA by way of what I was looking for (it's my guess the mothers of the other kids attending bought the shop out), but there were some from the Nerf Belle range, which is Nerf for girls.  Yes, girls like Nerf, too.  The bullets were all pretty pastels, and some looked like they had been painted by Ken Done.  My son took a packet off the shelf, and said, 'If I'm going to shoot someone, I may as well do it with style.'  If they had Nerf when I was a kid, I don't know if I would have liked it, but as a Mum who finds herself doing most of the tidying here, I do not like those bullets.  They are as bad as tiny bits of Lego and dried Play Doh when it comes to aggravating stressors. 

But can pollies please stop finding discrimination when there is none?  We are running the risk of having another Gillard fiasco, after she totally mutated the word 'misogyny'.  Listen, not everyone is going to like you.  It's got nothing to do with your gender.  If someone doesn't like me, it's because I'm an opinionated smart-arse, not because I was bought with a uterus and ovaries.

Eyeing Off Dracula

Christopher Lee has died.  He was a fantastic character actor. To his dismay, some will always associate him with 'The Sound of Music' (a film he apparently detested).  To me, I will always think of Friday nights in front of the telly watching the Hammer Horror flicks that were a staple of Friday night viewing when I was about sixteen.  He was Dracula  He totally owned Dracula.  I forget all the titles, they were along the lines of 'Dracula AD72', 'Blacula' (no, I didn't make that up), 'Son of Dracula' (I think), 'Dracula Returns' (I'm sure there was one thus titled), 'Dracula Plays Ceasar's Palace' (okay, I will admit to some poetic licence on that title).  I recall watching one night in the living room (at the age of about sixteen), along with my mother and brother, and in this Hammer Horror offering the Romanian Haemoglobin Fiend had been frozen in ice.  I'm not sure why, but I'm surmising Van Helsing was unavailable, and Clarence Birdseye had to do the honours.  Some poor sap fell over and sustained a cut.  Blood trickled from the cut onto the ice, where it seeped through and got into Dracula's mouth, thus reanimating the undead incubus.  The person who had fallen woke up, and was confronted with the sight of Dracula, standing upright, arms outstretched with cape swirling.  The film's editor, for dramatic effect, decided on a close up of Dracula's face, and then to really hit home had the eyes in full frame.  Oh, those eyes glowed with a frightening and feral fierceness.  They could have stopped a charging elephant at fifty paces.  The evilness was too awful to behold.  They were red-rimmed and bloodshot.  Our lounge room was as silently charged as the ions in the atmosphere before an electrical storm as we were held in the hypnotic thrall of those eerie eyes.  Then my brother said, 'Bastard's probably been on the piss for a week.'  Well, it was a little hard to take old Drac seriously after that, and I stopped watching.  My brother was good for ruining horror movies.  I still recall clutching a cushion, my feet tucked under me on the lounge for protection from any possible monsters underneath, as I watched a terrifying scene play on the screen, when my brother let one rip.  I nearly went through the ceiling.

Anyway, RIP Sir Christopher Lee, ex-RAF WWII vet, actor, author, heavy metal muso, and particularly creepy-eyed Dracula.

Dumb-Arses of the Day

'Well, the moonlight kind of threw me/And the red wine's getting to me...'  Those a lyrics from a 1981 song by Keith Marshall called 'Only Crying'.  I've always liked it.  There's a kind of pathos in this delivery that always spoke to me, and it's how I feel sometimes.   I don't know if there is a moon tonight; I haven't actually looked.  I do know I've had some red wine.  I was feeling all kind of chipper earlier: got some editing done on my manuscript, bought a new shower curtain (look, I know that's not a sphincter loosener in the excitement stakes, but I live a life of rural domesticity, and my shower curtain was manky, and I needed a new one, and I like my new one, and it's exciting to me, okay?), and other things.  Prepared dinner and listened to my iPod, got the school lunches done for tomorrow, and felt virtuous.  Still haven't stacked the dishwasher, but I'm tired and beyond giving much of a crap about it.  The scungy plates will still be there in the morrow, of this I am sure.  They're not getting stacked tonight.  Everyone else is in bed, and I shall be too.  Soon.

I think the red wine's getting to me, as Mr Marshall sang when I was a skinny young lass of fifteen, because there are just too many dumb-arses walking the planet, and stealing perfectly good oxygen.  A perfect example is that pair (I won't name them here, but by all means Google if you're curious, peeps) who have announced that should same-sex marriage laws be passed in Australia, they are going to divorce as a protest.  Like many of my colleagues and countrymen, I read this and wanted to grab them both, shake them, and ask, 'What are you people, fucking stupid?'  This offends some religious sensibilities, so it seems.  The male of the pair was once employed by the Australian Christian Lobby.  Hey listen, you people want to believe in some invisible wizard who lives in the sky, then go right the fuck ahead.  I believe one day Hugh Jackman is going to appear at my front door, dressed in a white naval uniform, and brandishing a wicked spanking paddle, and he's going to say, 'Simone, I hear you've been a naughty girl.'  Hey, it might happen, okay?  And the odds of the delicious Mr Jackman (and if he's unavailable I'll settle for Colin Firth) materialising as aforementioned far outweigh the odds of the some supernatural being having the final say over everything.  There are political parties I find worrisome: ones named after their founder (think Palmer United Party, or Pauline Hanson's One Nation), and ones with a religious bent (this just in: Australia's not a theocracy).  But yeah, if you pair are ludicrous and brain-dead enough to spend money in the Family Court (which when I was still working in law amounted to $500.00, so it's probably much more than that now) to get a divorce to protest the marriage of someone who doesn't concern you, all for some theistic myth that marriage is a religious institution (it didn't start that way), then I guess you should, as I said before, go right the fuck ahead.  The people who support same sex marriage, which is apparently the majority of the country, will not have their views swayed by idiotic protests.  Seriously, talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Now, while we're on the subject of same-sex marriage, and I need to segue to my most recently released novel, there is such a topic addressed in my - ahem! - most recently released novel Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth.  There is also a Marc Bolan impersonator.  Same-sex marriage and Marc Bolan impersonators should make for an interesting read.  I will put the link to the first chapter here, so you can click on it and have a read.  It is my hope that reading will have you so enthralled, you will be compelled to click on the shopping cart icon of the website of the publisher, in this case Zeus Publications.  You could also got to Amazon.com, and also to your local bookstore and have them order one in for you.  The bookstore option is a good one; let's support our businesses.  Well, here's the link, and thanks for calling by to read my piece: http://www.zeus-publications.com/silver_studs_and_sabre_teeth.htm

An Invitation To Learn The Difference Between Noun & Verb

At the time of typing (4.21pm AEST), I am counting down the minutes before I start work today (I've been rostered on the local evening medication run).  Today I've been listening to music, as is my wont, but the music to which I have been listening is from the year 1973, ie, the year I turned seven years of age as it's a theme I'm following today with my Facebook friends.  It was an interesting year, musically.  I posted:

1.  'Duelling Banjos'.  The clip I posted is from the movie and it's the scene between the characters Drew, and the horrible looking little inbred who makes ET look positively cute.  (Call me a bitch, but I did not find that wizened ugly monster ET charming.  Nay, I found him nauseating).  Come to think of it, there was a kid on my school bus that looked like ET.  But yes, the banjo player vs the guitar player scene is very atmospheric.  Actually, the whole film is atmospheric.  And it must be said, the kid's musical talent matches his superficial ugliness.  This is seriously one of cinema's all time creepy kids.  He even out-creeps Damien in 'The Omen'.  That being said, great music.

2. 'See My Baby Jive' by Wizzard, with the prolific front man Roy Wood.  Loved it when I was little, even though I thought he was singing 'See My Baby Die', and thought this a ghoulish subject, particularly with 'everyone you meet, coming down the street, just to see my baby DIE'.  So incongruously upbeat a tune for such a maudlin topic.  I'm glad I realised what the actual song is called.

3.  'We're An American Band' by Grand Funk.  I posted a film clip of them performing live, because the guitarist is topless and, as I'm fond of pointing out, has a body that could have been carved by Michelangelo.  Fuck me, he's a hottie. 

Sometimes I wish I had turned, say, sixteen the year of 1973, so I could really claim this music as my own.  However, I have older brothers and sisters, and got to hear this a lot when I was little.  The music from when I turned sixteen just totally sucks the balls of a bull elephant dry.  It's stuff like 'Tainted Love' by Soft Cell (shudder), and 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' by Tight Fit (double-shudder).  So much suckeroo then.

Been a bit of a stink in the news about the leaders of Hillsong inviting some knob to speak.  Apparently their invitation was issued prior to his rather silly comments being made public knowledge.  It doesn't mean the local leaders of Hillsong endorse his views, which seem to be along the line of a woman is made to fit a man's penis, or something.  (Actually, I thought something similar was taught in biology and sex education).  I think there's been a petition to ban him speaking in England, and I'm just waiting for some such petition to appear in my in-box seeking revocation or refusal of his visa to Australia.  And again, I will lose my shit because there is no reason (to my knowledge), he should be refused entry to our country.  Is what he's saying likely to promote possible harm to people?  I think what he's credited with saying is absurd, nonsensical, and to be honest, I find it offensive.  But if you don't like what he's got to say, either don't listen to him; or else go along with some refuting counter arguments.  But please stop circulating online petitions.  Hey, the band Cold Play set my teeth on edge at times, but I'm not starting a petition to stop them, as tempting as it gets.

By the way, you will note in the above paragraphed I said this pastor was issued an 'invitation'.  I did not say he was given an 'invite'.  You know why?  'Invite' is a VERB, not a noun, people  Yet, more and more I read articles where the word is used as a verb, and it ensues that more and more I have to fight an almost insurmountable urge to find a cat and kick it.  Stop using it as a noun, people.  Stop it at once.  It's evil.

Letter to Parishioners of Port Pirie, and A Mother's Musings

"Dear Port Pirie Diocese Parishioners,

I write to express grave concerns for the mental health of your Bishop.  Perhaps he has been guzzling the altar wine when nobody's looking.  Possibly he sustained a self-inflicted concussion when swinging the thurible with excessive vigour, and sconed himself with it.  Maybe someone's replaced in the incense therein with some prime Buddha heads, and he's totally stoned out of his gourd.  My hypotheses stem from the absurd assertion he has offered that children of same sex parents will possibly feel like a 'stolen generation'.  I cannot see how His Excellency can correlate a shameful period in Australia's history with children being raised in a loving home by two people who happen to be of the same gender.  He apparently is concerned that children will feel denied the love of a parent of whatever gender is NOT the parenting set.  His views on children raised by single parents, and therefore also bereft of a particular gendered parent, have not yet been ascertained by the author hereof.  But she guesses because they're presumably not homosexual, it doesn't matter.  The author is a tad perplexed at why His Excellency is so concerned about the well-being of children who are being raised by same-sex couples, when there are calls for his superior Cardinal Pell to rattle his dags out of Vatican City and get out here to answer questions before the Royal Commission investigating the vicious and systemic abuse of children left in the care of the Catholic Church.  Surely the foul treatment of these children by Catholic priests and nuns is just a tad more important than kids being brought up by a couple who happen to be the same gender."

How does that sound, blog-browers?

Things To This Weekend: Well, it's the long weekend, and I've actually been rostered to work both Saturday and Sunday evenings, but I must find a way to keep the children amused for a while.  It is difficult to keep a sulky teenager amused, but I think I know what I can do.  I will track down the episode of 'The Brady Bunch' where they went to 'cut a record' (only being Yanks they pronounced it 'rekkid', and not 'rec-cord' like I would), and Peter's voice started to break.  This meant Greg wrote a sappy thing called 'When It's Time To Change'.  What has brought about this rather tangential line of thinking is whilst I drove my 14yo to soccer training yesterday, he told me he could no longer hit high notes. Oh, I know his voice is deepening; I have heard it for myself.  I told him this, and mentioned I haven't heard him do a squeak yet, and asked had he experienced this phenomenon.  He said he had, at roll call the other week.  When his name had been called, he had answered 'Present!' like a castrato singing Handel's 'Hallelujah', so it seems.  Wish I could have heard that.  It got me thinking: when a boy's voice breaks, does his mother's heart also break at the loss of what was once her sweet little boy?  He had such a pleasing, piping little voice.  He would say, 'Mummy, I love you' with a sincerity,y and a vibrato, and an innocence resonant of a choir of seraphim.  Now all I seem to get is a rather guttural sounding, 'What's to eat?'

Will my boy thank me for making him watch an episode of 'The Brady Bunch'?  I'm guessing not, but he might enjoy looking at Marcia.

Questions & Answers

I'm in the process of promoting my work via a new Facebook group I've joined, and I'm going to be featured on someone's site in early July, and in preparation I've been emailed a list of questions from which to pick 5 to 10 to answer, either about myself or the work I'm promoting.  The work I promote is 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth', and click on my links and read the first chapter.  One of the subplots involves same sex marriage, and that's quite topical at the moment.  Bill Shorten's presented something in Parliament, and it's high time we as a nation recognised we can't treat one sector of the community as second class citizens in not giving them the right to legally marry. 

But in the meantime, I'm checking out this list of questions, and I don't know whether to answer as myself, or a character in my work.  I will probably answer as myself, because it's easy.  Some of the questions, along with my proposed answers,  are:

Q. Your most embarrassing moment in three words.
A. Skinny dipping, spotlight.

Q. What secret talents do you have?
A. Not telling!  They're secret for a good reason! (and then I'll insert a 'wink' emoticon).

Q.  What is the biggest lie you've ever told?
A.  Mmmm, this spaghetti bolognaise is delicious!  (I know that's boring, but I'm not much of a liar, and the person who cooked this meal is a dire wreck in the kitchen).

Q.  Most hated chore on the household chore list?
A.  All of them.  Why discriminate?  (although I detest ironing, and approach the iron with all the anticipatory cheer and hope of someone approaching a festered camel dick).

Q. What's your favourite line from any movie?
A. I can't pick. 'Juicy fruit, my favourite' from 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest', maybe.  Perhaps 'You're fucken head's coming right off, buddy!' from 'M*A*S*H' - totally unscripted - the actor adlibbed, and the producers fought to keep that line in the movie.  The 1970 flick 'M*A*S*H' is the first non R-rated movie to actually use the F-word.  It's during the scene where the 4077th are playing gridiron against an Evac unit.  Check it out.  And I have the strangest crush on Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye Pierce in this movie, too.  Don't know why.

Mmmm, whaddyas reckon?