Many of you know I have been depressed and withdrawn of late.
A large part of my problem is work and the unwillingness of work to make the changes I've asked for in order to make work less of a problem.
But there is now hope.
I have a BIG interview on Wednesday.
Fingers-crossed, please, ladies and gentlemen. I might be about to leave the building.
Meanwhile, this is great...
Poland to probe if Teletubbies are gay
From thewest.com.au
Poland’s conservative government has taken its drive to curb what it sees as homosexual propaganda to the small screen, taking aim at Tinky Winky and the other Teletubbies.
Ewa Sowinska, government-appointed children rights watchdog, told a local magazine she was concerned the popular BBC children’s show promoted homosexuality.
She said she would ask psychologists to advise if this was the case.
In comments reminiscent of criticism by the late US evangelist Jerry Falwell, she was quoted as saying: “I noticed (Tinky Winky) has a lady’s purse, but I didn’t realise he’s a boy.
“At first I thought the purse would be a burden for this Teletubby ... Later I learned that this may have a homosexual undertone.”
Poland’s rightist government has upset human rights groups and drawn criticism within the European Union by apparent discrimination against homosexuals.
Polish Education Minister Roman Giertych has proposed laws sacking teachers who promote “homosexual lifestyle” and banning “homo-agitation” in schools.
But in a sign that the government wants to distance itself from Sowinska’s comments, Parliamentary Speaker Ludwig Dorn said he had warned her against making public comments “that may turn her department into a laughing stock”.
The 10-year-old Teletubbies, which features four rotund, brightly coloured characters loved by children around the world, became a target of religious conservatives after Falwell suggested Tinky Winky could be homosexual.
What has come of the world? Specifically Russia, actually.
I've been off the old Cold War enemy since they managed to bop-off a journalist and her source last year. But at least that is the regime and the old KGB.
The stuff that has been happening with gay rights there is a freaking disgrace.
Russian gays tried this weekend to hold the country's second ever Gay Pride March. They had been refused permission but vowed to march anyway. According to news.com.au they were trying to march on Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov's office to hand over a memorandum signed by more than 40 members of the European Parliament requesting permission to hold a march in central Moscow. Mr Luzhkov had earlier described the Gay Pride marches as a "work of Satan".
The gay rights activists were assaulted by ultra-nationalists and Orthodox Church hardliners. Look at this babushka go, for crying out loud. Flicking some sort of holy-water-for-nannas over Aussie campaigner Peter Tatchell.
Tatchell was punched to the ground and then arrested shortl after.
Again, according to news Mr Tatchell said Russian authorities had overreacted to the march.
"... We were absolutely right to stage a short peaceful protest, that's all we intended to do. The Russian authorities knew this yet they were treating us as though we were some major criminal threat or terrorist threat to the security of the city," he said.
"There were only about 30 of us. The Russian authorities have acted completely disproportionately."
Now in America there was a famous event known as the Stonewall Riots which paved the way for the rights movement in the same way Rosa Parkes refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person started the black rights movement.
In Australia we had our first march in 78.
It's bullshit that in both these countries, equality is still not a given.
What is absolutely unforgiveable bullshit is that Russian gays have to put up with this kind of hatred. Yes there were some hardliner right-wing fucksticks there... but that picture is a freaking grandmother!
I'm going out in solidarity with my Russian comrades.
A MELBOURNE pub catering for gay men has won the right to refuse entry to heterosexuals in a landmark ruling at the state planning tribunal.
The owners of Collingwood's Peel Hotel applied to ban straight men and women to try to prevent "sexually based insults and violence" towards its gay patrons.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal last week granted the pub an exemption to the Equal Opportunity Act, effectively prohibiting entry to non-homosexuals.
VCAT deputy president Cate McKenzie said if heterosexual men and women came into the venue in large groups, their number might be enough to swamp the gay male patrons.
"This would undermine or destroy the atmosphere which the company wishes to create," Ms McKenzie said in her findings.
"Sometimes heterosexual groups and lesbian groups insult and deride and are even physically violent towards the gay male patrons."
Some women even booked hens' nights at the venue using the gay patrons as entertainment, Ms McKenzie said.
"To regard the gay male patrons of the venue as providing an entertainment or spectacle to be stared at, as one would at an animal at a zoo, devalues and dehumanises them," she said.
"(This exemption) seeks to give gay men a space in which they may, without inhibition, meet, socialise and express physical attraction to each other in a non-threatening atmosphere."
Thanks news.com.au.
Ultimately, I will constantly disappoint you.
I cannot possibly live up to the expectations you have built-up for me. I must have a look on my face that says "this boy will solve your problems", or something. I can't. And after so many weeks/months/years of listening and caring I'm throwing my hands-up. I'm exhausted from doing what I think is expected of me.
If you expect me to be anything other than a selfish and flawed individual then I will disappoint you.
I've not invited the expectations you put on me and I've never given any commitment to live up to them.
I can't and I don't want to in any case.
Sometimes you need to sort out your own shit on your own, without me there. Sometimes you need to take responsibility, rather than blame other people for not always being around to solve your shit.
In the past I have been there for you when you have needed it. I've tried to be there for a lot of people when they've needed it. I hold an honourary degree in pop-psychology
If I seem aloof and don't always answer the phone or forget something important, it is because I'm thinking about other stuff. Possibly myself. It's not that I don't love you, it's just that I'm spread rather thin and I'm engaged either with someone else or myself at that time.
And ultimately, while I'm busy not living up to your expectations, I will probably also not be living up to their's, either.
I'm giving up on being there for people. If people don't expect you to always be there for them, then they can't be disappointed in you. Instead of being let down because you're not there, they are thrilled when you actually turn-up. The prodigal son theory.
So this is a general notice. If you expect anything else from me, I will disappoint you.
I am cocooning. Turning my home into a hermitage. I'm retiring from society. I vont to be alone. Whatever. Gone fishing.
I am fucking sick to death of this. Sick to fucking death of the way this company operates. Our management is bullshit.
Okay, so I'm only a relief editor. I'm not the full-blown box and dice. It matters naught - I'm more than capable of editing and have been doing it regularly for the last two years.
The thing that shits me is what a pointless fucking job it is to have. I don't know what people imagine when they hear the word "editor". "I'll put you through to my editor," the journo's say. Sounds important, doesn't it?
Well it's not. We're fucking totally castrated, hamstrung, copy-providers. NOTHING MORE.
We. Are. Providers. Of. Copy.
Which is all journalists are. The only difference with being an editor at this company is that you cop all the abusive phone calls and delete the porn out of the spam/email queue.
You're entrusted with the task of deciding which story goes on which page of the paper, but if the sub-editors disagree with you, then consider yourself over-ruled. It makes no difference how well you put your case.
I am sick to death of late-night and weekend calls from subs asking me if a sentence means what it says. So if and when a vacancy for an editorship comes up, should I be offered it, I will have to say no. And I'll tell them the fucking reasons too.
Take that. Cnuts.
Thom and I saw the preview of The Crucible at the Playhouse last night and I can tell you it is brilliant.
Perhaps one or two actors take the volume of righteous outrage too high too early, making it tedious every time they open their mouths, but that's all I could say to fault it. And that's really only because the play is so long.
I sat there getting more and more furious with the situation. As I often do when I see injustice before me. The fact Arthur Miller set it in the times of the Salem witch trials, the fact it was a parable for McCarthyism, makes it even more scary that it is EVERY BIT AS RELEVANT today.
Australians, westerners, are so bred and wedded to the idea of the politics of fear, that I fear we shall always fall back into this trap.
And the self-righteous, religious, smug, pious, and powerful, are likely to always win out.
Fear is easier to sell than reason.
So THIS is on the ABC TV website today:
PROGRAMME SUMMARY
Outback House
11:00am Thursday, 31 May 2007
Follows a group of intrepid Australians who travel back in time to spend three months testing themselves and taking on the challenge of running a sheep station, just as their pioneering forebears would have done in 1861.
Oh fuck. And so it begins again.
I have to say my attitude to this particular part of my history has changed over time. The experience was fundamentally ruined for me because I was not allowed to enjoy the fact that I had completed it and achieved something, because it had caused someone else so much grief.
It wasn't until more recently that I realised that it actually was an amazing thing to do and full credit to me, I did something not many people have done and it was special. I made some amazing friends and, no, I don't regret it.
Yes there is still a little embarrassment because I'm seen crying in the first episode. There was a lot of conjecture about this at the time but the actual show that went to air didn't in anyway explain my tears. Truth be known, at 3 o'clock that morning, just before we were dumped in Outback House, I had been on the phone to someone who was even then still begging me not to do it. So I was set-up to be an emotional-wreck going in. It had nothing to do with sheep. Though I will say, overwhelmingly, people say they liked me on the show and I'm more remembered for the testicles gag then the crying.
When I returned home and when the show was going to air, this other person had caused such a fuss for the producers that the whole experience and post-publicity was made very uncomfortable for me. I wasn't allowed to enjoy it at all because it had made him so miserable. I realise now it was about his ego and had nothing to do with me. That's helped me move on from my chagrin when Outback House is mentioned in conversation. I refuse to be embarrassed about it now. Why should I be? I toughed it out like a pioneer and made some brilliant friends who I love dearly.
This year I will return to Oxley Downs for the first time since the show went to air. That will be me 'facing my demons' I suppose and putting the matter to rest. And I cannot wait to get back to the old homestead, to see the Tourles, and to breath-in that fresh Dubbo air. With any luck there will be the hint of woodsmoke on the breeze. That smell IS Outback House for me.
I've never really vented about this before. Sorry for the indulgence of this post. I'm feeling a bit wistful.
How is everyone going? Are you well? What's happening for you?
Been dancing with any bears lately?
If you're bored, go play on YouTube and watch any videoclips you can find featuring Verka Seduchka (or however you spell his surname), the Ukrainian Eurovision entry.
His stuff is pure gold.
Everyone needs a drag queen in their iPod.
I'm an even bigger fan of the English entry, Scooch. I highly recommend their camper-than-camp entry. Can't believe it didn't get more votes.
If it isn't your style, can I recommend downloading some of The Cinematic Orchestra. It's great music. I mean you'll kill yourself if you're depressed already, but I fucking love it. 
That's why I have Thom... he introduces me to this stuff. Bless him.
Chest and biceps. We did chest and biceps. I don't hurt yet, but I can tell I'm going to. There are things my arms just won't do any more. Lift things, for instance. Not even just heavy things. Frankly my gym bag was a struggle.
Paris, the instructor, seems great. He has a sense of humour, sticks to the task, encourages me just enough, reassures me of where I'm at and keeps me in the loop on the game plan. I like that. He sorta is nurturing, although he scoffs at the idea. Whatever the style is, I think he's read me well because I feel comfortable.
The first exercise was on the chest press. I had to do 12 reps (listen to me, getting down with the jargon) on that before jumping down and doing push-ups. He had me on 20kgs and I boldly suggested that I had been doing 35kgs, so he said, "let's try it". Well I was fucked before I got to the push-ups but I did about 8 I think. The weight dropped to 30kg for the next lot of reps and I managed one push-up. Then the weight went down to 20kg and I didn't even manage one push-up. A lesson learned. We did a few other chest and arm exercises and I learned that, at some point, your body actually STOPS moving. I was willing my arms to lift the weight, the weight wasn't hurting me, but I couldn't shift it if you paid me.
Paris was happy with my first results. He said he was a bit surprised as he didn't expect me to do so well. Frankly nor did I. But I kinda hoped I'd be naturally brilliant and that after one session I'd have one of those Tobey-Maguire-in-the-mirror-in-the-first-Spiderman-film moments.
Alas no. More hard work for me. Good news is, I'm enjoying it. Which is half the battle.
These yarns are on News.com.au today:
A TEENAGER has reportedly shown up at a police station in Japan carrying a severed head and saying he killed his mother
A HOUSTON woman who claimed her baby son's genitals were severed in an attack by the family dog appeared in court today charged with injuring her child.
I mean sweet Jesus. This stuff is nuts. Who goes around severing bits of their relatives? And while it is clear what happens now to the Japanese mother, what happens to the American boy who has had his life ruined? I can't even begin to imagine what happens from here. Or how he will grow up. What he will feel. It's awful. Too terrible.
Reading: Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. So far it is hilarious, but I haven't had a chance to really sitdown and read it. Paul Allcorn recommended this to me three years ago... so it's time I read it.
Watching: Media Watch. God I missed you Monica. Wednesday nights on the ABC have also been fantastic but I'm sad now the Catherine Tate Show has finished.
Listening: to The Cinematic Orchestra. It's weird shit and somehow depressing... but I can't turn it off.
Downloading: pics of buff boys, of course.
Website du jour: the CNG Lending Library
Café: Haven't been doing much of that. Il Mondo gives me breakfast every day... so I guess there.
Pub: Scotto.
Club: I will go to Geisha on Saturday to hear DJ Lara H work into her set the Pinball Countdown from Sesame Street I downloaded for her.
Eating: Pasta with pesto. Official addict.
Drinking: Lots of tea. God bless the cold weather.
Wearing: Thom's Grandpa jacket. And an assortment of treasures I found while having a good wardrobe cleanout on the weekend.
Last show: Coppelia on Friday night. Didn't think much of the ballet, to be honest, but the after party and hanging out with all the crew was great fun. Also had a very helpful conversation with a woman of some importance.
Next show: Going to The Crucible on Monday night. Looking very much forward to a bit of Arthur Miller.
Can’t wait ‘til: Saturday night: Regan's going away party and Jack Tandy's housewarming.
Lately I have been: getting into the gym in order to get buff. So far so good.
Most recent scoop: Nothing too exciting. Though some people got worked-up over my "let's demolish all the town halls" story.
Most recent purchase: A couple of T-shirts for Thom. Pressies. Surprise!
Want but can’t afford: This blinky laptop. I've spent the money on personal training instead.
Need but can’t afford: To fit my new aerial on the car. I bought the aerial six months ago thinking I would fit it myself. LOL.
Last nice act: Treated Regan and Ming to tickets to Swan Lake.
Last bad act: I've been snearing and hissing at Thom's lil brother's skanky girlfriend who treats him like shit. "I need space/buy me trinkets".
Bad news: My tenant is moving out, which puts me in an odd spot with the flat.
Good news: Matty P is going to be Midland's new permanent photog. A woman of some importance spoke to me on Friday night. And someone is bracing themselves for new-found independence.
Goal: It involves this gym-ifying I'm doing.
Yesterday I: Went to the gym.
Right now I should be: Getting some lunch into me.
Later today I’m: Going to the gym for an appraisal. My personal trainer said he was going to measure every bit of me. I'm titilated. LOL
I was so exhausted when I blogged the post below. What has me fuming is that I put in a meal allowance claim because I worked for more than 12 hours... and apparently under our EBA I won't get paid it because I didn't work after 8.30pm. Bugger the fact I didn't have a lunch break. That's not enough.
I'm not very impressed, let me say.
So we don't get overtime. We work for shit pay. And NOW you can technically work more than 12hours and get NO kind of compensation at all.
I won't be doing that again and I don't care what the flow-on affects are.
POST SCRIPT:
Fuck me with a chainsaw. It has been sorted.
I started at 7.30 this morning and it is now 7.15pm.
Neither today nor yesterday have I had a lunch break.
I've had a journo off sick for two days, a budget delivery right on deadline and two ripper-thank-god-you're-keen-to-work journos who have worked so hard this week they didn't get to fill in their header fields... resulting in hanging the two papers taking several hours.
I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die I just thought I'd mention this as I try to rouse myself enough to be safe to drive home. I'm not drunk you understand. Just impossibly tired and bleary eyed.
I reiterate my long-standing catch-cry: I hate editing.
A good hour of this film should have stayed on the cutting room floor. An hour and a half into it I said to Thom, "Can this please be over". There was an hour to go.
While the visual effects are impressive, the love troubles between MJ and Peter make Peter less loveable and MJ slappable. There's soooo much set-up in order to introduce two new villains that my mind drifted back to some darning that I had to do at home.
Oh, and they scarred that beautiful James Franco, who I would consider marrying rather than just lusting after, if only he would join the dark side.
But the thing that shat me the most, was the ludicrous nepotism in the editing suite.
During the main action sequence there is an annoying bit with a little girl WHO CANNOT ACT. The editor of the Daily Bugle is hurriedly buying her camera off her. I said to Thom: "Why is this shit interrupting the action? It's shit. She must be on the director's daughter".
Fuck me with a chainsaw, but as the credits went up, there it was in black and white. Director's surname? Raimi. "Girl with camera"'s surname? Raimi. Well listen here Mr Raimi. Your blatant nepotism has affected the credibility of your filmmaking and badly interrupts the main action. Your judgement is coloured. Blurred. I hope to Christ you aren't asked to make any more films. That Spidey 3 will be badly received and your career will disappear up your arse enthusiastically.
But at very least, I must surely thank you for putting Tobey Maguire, James Franco and Topher Grace in the same strip of celluloid. That was cool.
I was already a big fan of Howard's End and Room With a View, so I fell easily into the style of Forster's writing in Maurice.
It is one of those books I've always wanted to read, even before I was openly gay, and possibly would have made a difference to my process of self-realisation if I had. Never could find it amongst the Wordsworth Classics at Dymocks though. Thanks be to Kate for the loan.
She asked me if I liked it and I said yes. She professed a love of the soppy ending, and I agreed. But last night Mr Kate, Andy, said he couldn't see how Maurice ended-up with Scudder. Which I hadn't really considered to closely but it puzzled me thereafter so this afternoon I scowered the terminal note for Forster's explanation. There really wasn't one. I guess, knowing Forster, I put it down to his life-long exploration of the class system.
All I can come up with is this: Clive was too considered and to aware of his place in the world and the reality of the world to follow through with homosexual love in the way Maurice wanted/needed/does. He wouldn't even explore beyond the platonic, for example. Anyone of Maurice's class, education, would probably be the same. Perhaps introducing Scudder as someone from a lower class, (albeit slightly blurred: Forster makes him a servant who chooses to be servant but comes from a respectable family of trade and stresses the point) allows Forster to excuse the character's openess? Scudder's class somehow affords him more honesty in expression of emotion?
I'm not sure. Perhaps I'm clutching at straws. The question remains, whether or not if Scudder's class is a devise, is it believable that these two characters should end up together? I think it probably is. The two characters are romantics (climbing in the window, the boatshed, racing to Southampton to watch the other leave without actually talking to them) and could easily get wrapped-up in the idea of one another and the Chatterley-style romance of their situation.
Overall, in 2007 this book would not set the world alight. The situation would have been utterly different when it was written in 1913, and possibly still quite different when it was published in 1970. Glad to have consumed the volume though.
I've often been heard to cry in the newsroom: "I hate residents".
It's true. They're annoying. Today, I hate voters.
I have just become exceedingly angry after reading a blog from news.com.au about the
Heffernan-calling-Gillard-deliberately-barren-and-unfit-to-govern issue.
I'm fine with what the blog said. But I CANNOT believe the responses of some of my fellow Australians. Some claimed it was fair comment because she probably had an "anti-family bias", one championed that it was Senator Heffernan's "perfect right" to hold and express such an opinion, another said those who had made the sacrifice to have children would see her as "fundamentally selfish and therefore unqualified to lead".
I am as astounded as I am appalled.
So what? Your decision to whelp, claim the baby bonus, the parenting allowance and two kinds of family tax benefit, THAT makes you more fit to govern? You, you stupid fucking Galleria-shopping-bog-standard-fanny-like-a-bucket-baby-machine, YOU reckon you know what is best for the country do you? Disapprove do you?
You couldn't even run a fucking kindergarten. You would caterwaul and complain if asked to run a lamington drive to fundraise for the kindergarten. You're the kind of toothless-inbred-welcome-to-huntingdale-primary-mole-woman who gets on day care clinic committees and then bankrupts them. The kind of person who lets their kids run through the house towards you dripping sloppy shit from their nappies and says nothing but picks them up, pops them on your knee, tokes on your Winnie Blue, and keeps on reading your New Idea.
Well fuck you. FUCK you and your safe-within-the-system-the-rules-and-the-white-picket-fence-suit-me-very-much-thank-you lifestyle. Fuck you. There is a very talented and successful woman who has forgone that pleasure, and very soon she will be deputy Prime Minister. And you can be damned bloody sure your chromosome-deficient-bat-children will be better off under her watch then they are or have been while Mr Heffernan's party has been in power.
Almost any woman can open her fucking fanny, cop a gobbing, and pump out a litter. Not every woman can rise through the ranks to become Deputy PM.
And I hope your daughters turn out to be dykes.
The End.
I actually think that this represents a fair analysis of the industrial relations landscape, on a two-party preferred basis.
I won't put it all here, it's far too long, but Mike Steketee of The Oz is, for once, I think, on the ball.
"OPPOSITION Deputy Leader Julia Gillard’s mishandling of the politics of industrial relations, together with an orchestrated campaign by business, has turned a policy that should be a winner for Labor into a threat to the economy," it starts.
It points out (with the backing of Freehills, the law firm that helped create Work Choices) that while it pares back some of the "freedoms" Work Choices introduced (for employers) "significant aspects of the infrastructure remain... and many of the changes do not go further back than the Howard Government’s 1996 reforms".
(And this cheap shot I enjoyed: Finland, Sweden and Norway consistently rate as more competitive, even though their workforces are highly unionised and their wage fixing systems more centralised.)
The mining industry and AWAs
The problem with AWAs isn't evident in the mining industry right now because it is booming. Steketee points out: With labour in short supply in mining industries, most AWAs are more generous than the minimum standards. The (mining companies) do not want to use them to cut pay and conditions - at least not at the moment - but because they are better suited to the way the industry works, such as 12-hour shifts or nine or 10-day fortnights.
The main problem with AWA's is that in most OTHER industries they are used to undercut the pay and conditions provided in awards.
Abolishing AWAs
The article also talks about the fact the ALP's commitment to abolishing AWA's has resulted in a brawl with the mining industry Labor didn't need.
For Labor, the debate over miners’ AWAs is a distraction from their use in other areas, particularly retail and hospitality, where they are being used to cut pay and conditions. Here, workers typically are low paid and in no position to bargain equally with employers, Steketee says. This is where Labor is on much firmer political ground.
Anyway, it is an interesting article. Go read.
Tobey Maguire. I'm not sure what it is. Perhaps it is the nerdy-yet-buff Peter Parker inside all us scrawny boys screaming for a hero/idol/posterboy? Whatever it is, he's adorable. Rather looking forward to seeing the new Spiderman film.
Wide-Eyed Riccardo is my new creation. The genesis of this little Italianate gentleman came after a particularly mince-ridden tour of Pisa, Tuscany. Our tour guide was the gayest and most enthusiastic scholar of Pisantian history available. I called him Wide-Eyed Riccardo and he is now taking form in my mind as a comic creation I may take to the stage with.
He will take audiences on tours of the world, entreating them to follow his erect umbrella and experience history first hand...
Follow me please!
Ladies and Gentleman welcome to 'istoric York, capital of the North and home of the magnificent mincer!
There has been a church on this site since the Seventh Century AD. The first of wood got up very fast but what you see here is Norman's erection.
York is the second most important seat in the Anglican Church, after Canterbury. Is not a comfortable seat for him, especially in his condition.
This cathedral is famous for oldest stained glass in the world, we know. Is known as the Five Sisters. In Second World War Winston Churchill took the sisters out and had them in a ditch in a field for their own protection.
And so on and so forth. Essentially it is how I plan to get away with peddling smut.
This from an online news service:
Gentlemen please, rate yourselves: are you a cucumber or a banana in bed?
Singapore's Society for Men's Health and a pharmaceutical firm are proposing a four-point scale for erectile dysfunction, allowing men to rate their own hardness with four categories: cucumber, unpeeled banana, peeled banana and tofu.
"Men should aim for this," UK sex therapist Victoria Lehmann told a news conference, holding a cucumber.
The scale does not involve any scientific measurement - patients would merely be asked to assess their own levels of hardness - and has not been accepted by any medical authorities.
If you ARE a banana, it is always best to use protection. Would you believe this product, cleverly known as a Banana Guard, actually exists?
Cucumbers come already wrapped.
"I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars."
EM Forster, through Margaret Schlegel, in Howard's End.
