Just Ponderin'

Some months ago I posted about the kerfuffle that has lit up this fair (well, fair insomuch as a hanging cloud of coal dust will allow) town about the successful DA for a brothel in the main street.  I've been vocal in my support because from what I saw, the application complied with all the regulations and the objections were just spurious, to say the least.  I discussed it with my husband, and we even looked at Council's minutes online about their initial rejection (which was overturned by the Land & Environment Court).  My husband agreed the reasons for rejection were fatuous crap, blah-blah-blahdy-blah, and you get the picture.  Tonight I was wondering had I been too vociferous in my support of a perfectly legal business involving consenting adults.  Y'see, I had to nag at my 10yo to do his homework, part of which was to write suggestions for names of the groups the children are to be divided into when he goes on his Year 4 Camp in a few months.  He's imaginative, my son.  Some of his names were out there: 'The Yellow Ostriches' I thought was particularly interesting.  Then I read 'The Brothels'.  Now, I am an accepting person and like to think I'm reasonably broad-minded, but there are things a just-turned-ten need not be concerned with.  I challenged him, and said, 'What does this say?'  He looked at me as though I was completely demented, and replied, 'Mum, it's 'The Brothers'.   Why?'  Well, phew to the max!  And I suggested he tidy his handwriting a little so the 'r' in 'Brothers' looks like an 'r' and not an 'l'.  

As much as I enjoy being his mum, it can be monstrously frustrating when it's homework time with him.  I was rousing and crabbing, and he was just giggling, and said he could not understand why he was giggling so much.  'Do your homework!' I snapped.  'You're acting like you're on drugs!'

The fruit of my womb then pointed out, 'Mum, I AM on drugs!'  He takes epilepsy medication.  Eventually got homework done.  Eventually.  Then sent him off for a bath and his dad and I spent ages shouting for him to get out.  He climbs out nonchalant and regards us with a 'What?' expression, and rolls his eyes, saying, 'I'm out!  Geez-Louise, you don't have to yell.'  Why did I breed such a smart-arse?  Oh, that's right.  Karmic retribution.

I read somewhere tonight Kyle Sandilands is under fire (it's always 'under fire',  isn't it?  Anyone would think these controversial figures lived in an active volcano) because he has 'fat-shamed' new mums in maternity wards, saying they just have to get on the treadmill for three years and get the pre-pregnancy figure back.  What can you say to this but, 'Dude, get a fucking mirror, would you?'

Do I Look Like Isaac Newton?

Is it possible to cheat in a coin toss?  Oh, I don't mind the time-(un)honoured way of using a double-sided coin.  I mean is it possible to influence the trajectory of a tossed coin, maybe with sleight of hand, or sleight of thumb as you flick the thing into the air.  Some kid at my son's birthday party yesterday seemed to think so.  Two kids were debating which of them should have the privilege of riding in the front of the vehicle with me on the way home from the bowling alley in the next town, where my youngest celebrated the momentous occasion that is turning ten.  Double figures and all that.  I said I would toss a coin and we would leave it to Fate.  A rather full-on chap called 'heads', and the other contender called 'tails'.  And I flicked the coin good and true, with honesty.  It spun into the air, and turned a couple of times like an Olympic diver before landing on the chewing-gummed floor.  I snatched it up and turned it over on my wrist with a slap, pronouncing, 'Tails!', and that the quieter of the two would be in the front.  The 'heads' kid seemed to want to challenge the laws of physics and Fate, and asked how the coin fell.  Although completely exasperated, I did manage to hang on to my shit, and told the kid I have no idea of the physiology of a falling coin, nor how the trajectory is patterned post-launch.  Strewth, do I look like Isaac Newton?  I've been told I look like Kate Bush, but never Isaac Newton.  Call me shallow, but I'm glad of this.

Anyway, the more pushy of the kids ended up in the front of the car with me, possibly through strong-arm tactics, or possibly because the other kids decided they didn't want to listen to him challenging and debating the logistics of a coin toss over the thirty minute drive.  Or maybe the quieter of the two realised it would be a more comfortable journey to sit in the back of the car, when said car is travelling west at 3.30pm, and only the driver possesses sunglasses.  If this is the case, well done on your clever thinking, young man.

I am still to get my radio interview on the You Tube channel.  I will do this when my furniture is replaced.  I am at present sitting at a desk with our new computer, but it's not a proper computer desk and chair (which has been ordered), and it's very ergonomically rooted, and I'm starting to ache.

Ciao for now.

A Lambie To The Slaughter

I'm not sure if I am actually all that outraged at all over Jacqui Lambie's comments about her requirements in a male companion.  Her comments have definitely done her no favours, and I'm sure they won't help her land an intelligent, sensitive and caring man, but those criteria weren't on her list, anyway.  The opinions have definitely been interesting, most comments seem to be one step removed from calling for her head.  It is true to say that had she been a male senator, there would have been multitudinous calls for her apology and resignation. Just look at the fall-out from Tony Abbott's grotesque wink that time (although it COULD have been a silent signal of assent to the radio presenter, because he was unable to communicate verbally at the time).  And the radio station interviewing Lambie, what's their demographic?  If it's bogans aged 18-35, then she probably scored a few brownie points.  And I'm not entirely sure about the party with which she is affiliated, and if you've perchance been under a rock, it's the Palmer United Party.  My main issue is when a party is named after its founder, which sets my alarm-o-meter needle twitching a little. 

I've had a crappy few days.  I've been snowed under with work, and yesterday I was invited to a nearby town to lecture to the University of the Third Age.  I arrived, and was told there had been a few bookings.  Great, I thought, as I set up my notes and props at the lectern.  Come ten o'clock, and only one grey student arrived.  The others didn't bother, so my talk got cancelled.  I felt glum and cheated.  On the plus side, the library bought two of my books, but I have to issue a tax invoice with my bank account details before I get paid.

After work today, I took my about-to-turn-10yo to the library to do his homework.  He didn't get his sheet on Monday because I had to take him home from school after he complained of dizziness (epilepsy can be a bitch).  I found his homework sheet in his bag yesterday, and hit the roof.  Even though his teacher said he only had to write out yesterday's and the day before's  spelling words, and write a short story, I knew I had better get him to the library because whilst my house is this horrific scene of mess and clutter until or wardrobes and drawers arrive, he will get nothing done as the energy flow is just conducive to homework for an over-imaginative kid.  The other day, I actually lost my shit and announced I was going to stand on the pile of crap in the lounge room and sing the battle scene from 'Les Mis' because that's what the room looks like: the barricades of Paris during the student insurrection in the wake of Lemarc's death.  So, we were at the library and I was hissing furiously at him to just hurry and finish writing his damn spelling words.  That's why he doesn't mind the library; I'm not inclined to yell there.

Have you ever read an opinion piece that just makes you shout, 'What a load of bilious, misinformed and fatuous dung!'? Well, that wasn't exactly what I shouted last Sunday.  It was more like, 'What a load of fucking shit!' It was an opinion piece by a local identity, and it was a combination of both those examples I have given.  It was spurious rhetoric about what is perceived to be the failings of the judiciary, and how they think they're better than us, and how they're not concerned with protecting us, and how the powers of government and the courts should not be separate, and anybody who has ever been involved in criminal law will know this is, well, fucking shit.  Some of my new followers might not know this, but I have had over twenty years working in the legal industry, most of it in criminal defence.  My family and circle of friends are stuffed with lawyers.  I know what I'm talking about, and I have commented to the article which was published online, and I have written to the local paper pointing out the nonsense in the article.  The paper's due out tomorrow, and if my letter does not appear, I will be hitting social media.  If my letter has been significantly edited, again I will be going to social media.  Oh hell, I'll no doubt comment in greater detail about what I put in the letter.  It really grinds my gears that the paper declined my offer to write articles for free (with the proviso I can advertise my books), yet will publish utterly flawed rubbish.  Hey, don't get me wrong: opinions are good, but informed opinions are much better.  Oh, man, did I fume the other day.  My poor husband, 'yes, dear'-ing and nodding.  But when I commented online that surely the author, if such an event arose, would prefer his trial to be heard and sentence (if relevant) imposed by somebody separate from government who does not have anything to lose or gain, my husband clicked 'like'.  Bless him.  He said, 'I know I've been teasing you, but I agree with what you've said.' Anyway, let's see what tomorrow brings.  I'm going to bed, now.

Mental!

I had a rude awakening on Saturday night: I am no longer twenty-one and it is far more difficult to stand around listening to bands.  But I really did enjoy myself at the Mental as Anything concert.  Stood right at the front, I did, with two friends and danced to ''Romeo and Juliet", and "Come Around", and "Mr Natural", and, oh lots and lots, really.  When I dance, I am respectful.  Unlike the drunken slattern who lurched and elbowed and staggered her way next to me, and if you're reading this, you dipshit, waving your arms and reeling about like a sailor fresh from the boat on shore leave does not constitute dancing, okay?  I had a flashback to the time when I was twenty-three at a Hoodoo Gurus concert, and was standing in front of three brain-dead retards who thought they'd partake in the dance craze of the time, slam-dancing.   For those of you old enough, and  unfortunate enough to remember, you will no doubt be gnashing your teeth as you remember.  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, this ludicrous practice entailed launching yourself at an angle and 'slamming' into the next person.  Some nuggety fuckhead behind me almost knocked me clean out of my shoes.  I turned, and shoved him really hard.  I'm not a bulky person, and at twenty-three was quite slim, but anger and adrenaline are powerful accelerants.  I shoved that guy even further than he had knocked me.  And he was oblivious!  I think he thought I was joining in the act.  My cousin, with whom I had been trying to watch the show, complained of feeling faint, so I took her outside.  On the way, I spoke to a bouncer and pointed to the fuckhead, and complained and demanded the bouncer do his job and remove the carbuncle of humanity, but he didn't. 

But back to attending the Mentals as a forty-eight year old.  Yes.  I had this complete she-fool swaying, and doing some kind of interpretive dance (interpreting the pattern of the spastic emu and acting like she was fighting an anaconda), and getting in my personal space.  Memo to all lunatic dancers: your right to extend your fist ends where someone else's nose begins.  Understand that concept?  She was sitting on the speaker boxes, and almost knocked my drink over.  Now, I don't drink much, but given the price of alcohol at this venue, I would have been exceedingly angry had she wasted my vodka/lime/soda.  Whilst having her fat arse parked on the boxes, she leaned over stage-wards with her camera/phone, shrieking and squawking like a scalded parrot, screaming at Martin Plaza.  I'm pretty sure Martin had a 'Piss off, you imbecile' expression on his face.  As she leaned precariously towards the band, I did toy with the idea of hooking my boot under her ankles, and giving a quick manoeuvre that would have seen her topple over and onto the stage in an even more ungraceful heap.  But why disrupt the show, and give the idiotic skank even more attention?

But lots of fun was had, and after the lights came up my friends and I were lucky enough to meet Greedy Smith in the bar.  My friend has met him on several occasions, and introduced me, 'This is my friend, Simone', and the Greed-ster shook hands with me.  I told him something many fans probably do not tell him.  Most people say, 'I bought your first album', or 'I danced and had my first pash at the school dance to youse guys', but not I.  I said, 'I went to Nepal just after you did.'  I then explained my friend and I had done the same trek he had, and the Nepalese guide was very interested in contemporary Australian music, having just taken Greedy on a trek.  Greedy was quite stoked with this anecdote, I believe.  My friend took a photo of us, and it's a good one, too (notwithstanding the gurning imbecile photo-bombing behind us).

Well, it's off to bed for this blogger.  In two days, I am to give a lecture in a nearby town.  I'm pretty much prepared, and only have to speak for an hour.  I'll get though it fine, I daresay.

A Mental One-Armed Fan Dancer

There's an old Aussie say to which I've always been partial: flat out like a one-armed fan dancer.  And that is precisely how I have felt this past week.  I feel like I have only one feathered fan with which to hide my modesty, and trust me I need two because although of mature years, I still pass the pencil test and don't need just the one fan to hold over BOTH erogenous zones that the fans are meant to cover.  The upper zone has not yet moved south to share space with the lower.  I have this image of myself stumbling about like Simon Smith's Dancing Bear holding a fan to my chest and trying to curl one leg around myself like a yogi-ing flamingo trying to hide my Mound of Venus.  Okay, now that I have burned your brain with a bizarre, but unerotic, image, I shall explain why I have been away from this 'pute and hopping and flapping like a one-armed fan dancer of late.

First of all, I've been incredibly busy with work.  Second of all, we have had the painters in to repair damage caused by the Anzac Day flood.  This has entailed moving the few bits of furniture that won't destroyed around, and now we've got to move it all back.  We have friends staying tonight who have travelled up from Penrith, or the 'Riff as they like to call it, and we are going to a local pub and watching Mental as Anything.  You know what?  I have never seen the Mentals live.  For a woman who did the bulk of her partying in the Eighties, this might seem strange.  After all, I have seen The Models, Boom Crash Opera, Icehouse, and Wa Wa Nee.  Um, yes, I am cringing into a vulture-like crouch as I type that last one.  Oh, don't get me wrong.  I love Paul Gray as a musician and think he is very talented, and he did fantastic work as the musical director to the Countdown Spectacular 2 concert, but I was not a fan of Wa Wa Nee.  I went to a concert in North Sydney with a cousin of mine in 1986.  The venue was a known pick-up joint, and another relative tried to talk us out of attending on this basis.  I stood there in disbelief, but did not point out that as a red-blooded twenty-year-old, a pick-up joint was somewhat appealing.  I merely said, 'Yeah?' with the unspoken subtext of 'What's your point?' loud and clear.  So we got off the bus, and I wasn't sure what street number this alleged libidinous grotto had on the strata title.  So I suggested we ask some other people in the street.  My cousin was mortified that complete strangers would know it was our attention to attend this venue.  I was more mortified that people would think I was happy to be watching Wa Wa Nee.  I pointed out that these complete strangers would not really care where we spent our evening, and acquiesced by going to a phone booth and checking out the address in the White Pages, which thankfully had not been torn to bits by vandals.  So we went to this venue, and watched Wa Wa Nee.  My cousin danced and said, 'C'mon, Bing!  Dance!  It's awesome!'  As a lifelong lover of glam rock and metal, I stood there drinking my West Coast Cooler and watched in bemusement at the guys in the puffy shirts, gelled and moussed hair playing key-tars and/or strap-on synths, whatever the damn things are called.  Also met a guy that night who I thought was the love of my life, and he turned out to be a colossal horse's arse.

So I'm going to the Mentals tonight.  Can't wait, actually.

As I said, I've been busy with work, but sometimes at work when I've finished showering and preparing breakfast for one of the elderly women, we watch a little breakfast television together.  So it happened I got to have a look at Geoffrey Edelsten's interview alongside his freshly affianced twenty-something from the US.  And shuddered.  As did the old lady I was minding, who proclaimed him a 'silly old fool'.  Oh, it was horrible, my friends!  She had a low cut dress that made me think there were two bald men fighting down the front of her top (but it was an improvement on that beyond-gauche outfit she wore to that funeral), and the former medico was wearing what appeared to be a cast-off from Gary Glitter's wardrobe.  'She's after his money,' proclaimed the octagenarian wisely.  I said I thought his money was not grabbable due to bankruptcy.  I could be wrong on this.  But together we shuddered: a woman in her eighties and a woman in her forties; a generation apart but in total sympatico with the utter vulgarity and horror with which we were faced.

Oh, and I found some ratings for my first novel 'Calumny while reading Irvine Welsh' on Good Reads.  4.5 and 5 out of 5 respectively.  To those that rated: thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!  One of the mums at soccer this morning told me how she is enjoying 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth', and felt she was being taken along on the journey, and was almost tempted to go and light up herself after reading the scene where my protagonist is choofin' on a Jay in a car with a young woman who's picked him up at the pub.

Drag-Slash, My DNA, Thorpie, Playing Kiss in The Ford Falcon 500

I have a niggle.  This niggle, my friends, is the practise of the organisers of charity trivia matches of giving the tablese the option to 'buy' answers.  Professional athletes cannot use steroids.  Singers should not use auto-tune.  So why should trivia players be allowed to do this?  And my moaning does not stem from the fact that my team came in fourth at the charity trivia music night on Saturday.  Even though my team should have come in first, because after all, I was on the table.  Our 'Woodstock' table was an esteemed one.  Not only did it have me, the local music trivia gun, but it also featured the director of our local conservatorium and the town mayor.  Neither of these worthy gentlemen could hold a candle to me.  My jaw dropped at the end of the evening when it was revealed we had come fourth, but it became clear that other teams had used the 'option'.  Damn!  One of the organisers asked me to be a secret costume judge, and I carried out my duty as honourably as I could.  I awarded the best diva to a woman dressed as Slash, and gave by way of explanation for the MC to read that it was due to the novelty of a man who has been clinically dead on at least two occasions being portrayed by a drag act.  The table dressed as the Grease Pink Ladies got my vote for best group effort because they seriously had put in the effort.  It's not because I am a fan of the show 'Grease'; nay, I detest it, to be honest.  Best male costume was to a local GP done up as Elvis, but he didn't do a number which was what I stipulated he must do.  My choices caused disgruntlement among others who felt they should have won.  The Rolling Stones table actually booed a little.  Now, dudes and dudettes, wearing white T-shirts with the famous lips-and-tongue logo won't earn you an award.  Not from me, anyway.  You no more resembled the Rolling Stones than I do.  I was tempted to challenge them, but my identity had to remain secret, much like the hangman in his black hood.  Also, I didn't wish to be torn limb from limb by the sore losers.

But without buying answers, we did well.  I had to take my 13yo with me because his dad was at a presentation for pool comp, and his brother was having a sleepover somewhere.  My son behaved beautifully, and even gave a few answers on the questions geared toward the younger crowd.  My team were amazed at his ability and brilliance.  I crowed, 'It's my DNA!'

Okay, now for the other big 'news'.  Ian Thorpe has confirmed he is gay.  Well, I'm glad he has confirmed it in a way: it might be of assistance to young people struggling with sexual identity.  A friend of mine from school days came out last year, at the grand old age of 47.  He told me yesterday he actually realised at 14 he was gay, and lived a lie, married and had children, and made the decision last year to come out because he could no longer stand the stress.   He had even contemplated taking his own life at one stage.  This broke my heart when he told me.  But back to Thorpie, and in particular, the media.  Please stop milking this story like a cow that's bursting at the udders.  I was annoyed that he was pressured to tell of his sexuality.  It's nobody's business.  He does not owe anybody the information.  But if his interview helps others, then that can only be a good thing.  And to the people who moaned about the sum he had been paid: would YOU knock back the money? Geez Louise, if someone wants to pay several hundred thousand to hear my boring tale, I'd be there going, 'Well, I was born two score and eight years ago, the youngest and by far most adorable of four children....'

Okay, got the writers' group meeting tomorrow night, and as it turns out, our 500-word challenge was 'tomorrow'.  I didn't write anything deep and speculative about what 'tomorrow' might bring.  I wrote about the Kiss song 'Tomorrow' on the album 'Unmasked'.  It always makes me think of travelling with my cousins in my uncle's Ford Falcon 500, and we'd bung this in the cassette deck, and turn it up loud as my cousin's old brother whined at us to turn it down.  My cousin and I became close when we discovered our mutual love of Kiss.  He even forgave me for the time I whacked the Tether Tennis ball so hard, it came loose from its string and flew in a hyperbolic trajectory through the air before bouncing off his cranium.  He wouldn't believe my action had not been deliberate (Hell, that I had managed to even hit the ball was a one-in-one-hundred fluke), and stormed off to the grown-ups, crying that I had done it on purpose and he was telling on me. 

More on the oeuvre of Kiss in a forthcoming post.

Life Hectic

As an amateur actor, I don't hold much sway with this business of method acting and living your character.  I don't believe for five minutes Anthony Hopkins actually killed someone and ate their liver, mainly because to my understanding Sir Anthony is vegetarian.    So I'm not going to set up a clandestine laboratory in my husband's shed and cook up amphetamines as I prepare for this fancy dress party tonight.  Even if I did want to do that, there's so much crap in my husband's shed I would be unable to do my cook. So what I've done is cut out some brown cardboard, googled some skull-and-crossbones images, and sketched them onto the cardboard.  I am pretty handy with a sketchpad and pencil, so this is of an advantage.  Just got to colour them in.  Or colour the eye sockets, anyway.  And then, above this ghoulish image, I'm going to have in psychadelic lettering the word 'acid'.  This is to be my representation of the infamous Brown Acid from the Woodstock festival, as is the theme for the table with which I have been placed.  Clever, hey?  Well, I think so.

So, I'd best get colouring.  Tomorrow, I have to write a piece themed 'tomorrow', and start sorting out the entries for the creative writing division in the local esteiddfod.  And I simply must get my radio interview posted online.  I am not liking that paragraph I've just typed; it sounds like one of those OMG Humblebrag status updates on Facebook.  If you, reader, have interpreted it thus, then I apologise.  Just me whingeing about life being a bit hectic at the mo.  Still, I'd rather have a hectic life than none at all, so excuse me while I go about colouring my acid.