I first heard that Kid Rock song on HOFM, and it made me stop and listen because HOFM (yes, make the Ho joke if you must) didn't really seem to be a Kid Rock kind of station - Kid Rock essentially being about having casual sex, drinking and taking drugs, and of course about rock and roll, and HOFM is about doing good work for charity, pointless phone ins and lists, and knitting in a comfortable armchair listening to Dave Dobbyn. Luckily, the new Kid Rock song is pretty much about curling in a comfortable armchair, as it's a nostalgia song about the summer of 89 when Kid Rock was, yes, drinking, having sex and taking drugs. My favourite line is that one about about "We didn't have no Internet, but man I never will forget" - HOFM held this line up as if it was some kind of great wisdom, but really it's just one of the laziest slack arsed songs with some of the laziest slack arsed lyrics around. However, it is stuck in my head - well it was until the new Pink single leaked - because Kid Rock at least, whatever you think of him, could probably back up that he did spend the summer of 89 down by a lake in Michigan having sex and smoking funny things. Even if it is pointless lazy nostalgia one step away from holding a copy of TV Week from 1977 up and pointing to it going "Oooh, funny haircuts", at least it's believable that he did these things. I, on the other hand, spent most of the summer of 89 reading the Daily Record wondering if St Mirren could hold on to Paul Chalmers, avoiding getting my head kicked in various shopping malls around Ayrshire, discussing whether Kylie and Jason where really an item, playing tennis in the street and then avoiding getting my head kicked in again in the street. It wasn't quite smoking funny things, but my head was just as sore in the morning...
Thinking about the summer of 89, or indeed any summer, I really don't think I've ever had a great summer romance. If I'd had sex down by the lake in Ayrshire, probably a dead body would have floated by. Actually, as much as anything, I forgot I spent a second summer having a miserable time back in Penguin. This was nothing to do with Penguin, which was great as always, but to do with me and my own miserable attitude. In fact, I could have had a holiday romance, if I'd got off my arse. There was an incredibly pretty blonde girl who I could have possibly had some pashes with at the school fort, but I was fighting with everyone I was staying with and so never made it to Burnie to see my old school friends, even though they were apparently keen. I certainly didn't get to stay down by a lake making love to my favourite song (it'd be hard to make love to Indecent Obsession in fairness), but I did sit in a room for a month eating Coco Pops by the bucket load and watching one day cricket and yelling at Craig McDermott to bowl some stock line and length deliveries, before heading down to Cut Price Sams to buy some Sara Lee ice cream. It's a little bit harder to write a song about that kind of experience, not much rhymes with McDermott.
As for the drugs in summer part, well, I've never done that either, short of the obvious experience of buying a bag of candy lollies or Tic Tacs that you think is E, and you buy it and then instantly realise you've been had like an eedjit. I was the one kid in the four hundred that they actually got to with those drugs are wack rap stay in school oh my God adverts that we saw every day in the 80s. I never fell for don't copy that floppy though. Although, in fairness, I was once in a house that was raided, but that wasn't in summer time. That was in the middle of winter, when I was staying overnight at a friends house. I didn't realise at the time quite how different he was from when he was at school, until the house was raided while I was watching an early morning episode of A Country Practice and calmly wondering whatever happened to Penny Cook, and I had to go and hide in the basement for a nice long while. This was actually not a new experience for me, as once when I was young, I had to go and hide in a cupboard because the friend (boy can I pick em) I was staying with had divorced parents, and when a Mummy and Daddy don't love each other very much, Daddy comes round with an axe to sort Mummy out and the kids all have to hide in the cupboard until Daddy gets talked down. Which in fairness is a bit of a trip in itself. It might not be getting off your head on drugs, but there's nothing like crouching in a cupboard listening to someone talking about swinging an axe to really sharpen the senses. I have of course spent many days drinking whisky from a bottle, that's common place. That doesn't make you cool though, no matter what Kid Rock and his whimsy might say - it makes you a hobo. And you'll end up rolling around Salamanca Square getting smacked in the head by the bouncers at Syrup. You know it, I know it...just say no to scotch, trust me, my people invented it...we're evil...
As for rock and roll...well, I don't like rock and roll. I like Pop, and my only big summer rock concert experience was seeing Wolfmother last year at the Southern Roots festival. And I was amazingly bored, to the point where I started counting the stars in the sky. Even worse was the big rock posturing of The Vines, who had a song called Fuck The World which had the worst lyrics this side of Wiggle Wiggle by Bob Dylan. However, I did have a bit of a rock experience - not as much as my friend, who apparently got to grab a handful of Wolfmother singer arse as he postured his Led Zepellin tribute act show around Hobart. As I was bored out of my brain watching someone in the inside bit of the concert, who wasn't Toni Collette, a girl out of nowhere grabbed me, gave me a big pash, and then wandered off. It was probably as good as I was going to get, all things considered at my age. I don't have any really interesting rock and roll stories from the summer of 1989 though...I think I'm supposed to mention that I was really into The Stone Roses or something cool, but in truth, the biggest concert I went to in the summer of 1989 was Trevor and Simon, the hilarious (for the day) comedians from the UK show Going Live. We had to sit through a magician to get to them, and he was really rubbish, but heart warmingly enthusiastic. And musically, the only thing I remember was getting into was Debbie Gibson, which isn't very rock. So while Kid Rock was singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long (he didn't put the second side of the tape on even once?), we were singing Turn It Into Love...Michigan obviously a very different world to Ayrshire...
Still, I don't know that I'd want to be Kid Rock...I like having the Internet...and I'm not championed by HOFM...it's really all over at that point...
Friday, August 8, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Gold medal no, free chicken yes
AMCdoingherthing
Originally uploaded by JungsPN
Since we all need something to look at during this difficult Olympic time when everything shuts down for Tae Kwon Do, I thought another picture of our hero, Anne Maree Cooksley, with Miss Poland no less, would be a treat for everyone. She even has her free glass of champagne - god she's brilliant. So, let me be perfectly clear on one thing - that Miley Cyrus live clip is the greatest thing in the world...um...oh yeah, the other thing is, I hate the Olympics. I hate the Olympics for many reasons. My Dad hates them because he never gets to see anyone Scottish competing, just Australians winning bronze. I'm pretty much annoyed that Garry Wilkinson, the Coogee Bear, never gets to front our coverage here. In one of those legendary moments everyone remembers but no one ever actually say, Garry was asleep at his desk during a morning shift at the 92 Barcelona Games, and had to be poked with a stick to wake him up. As you may have gathered, I'm also far more into the machinations and fascinating interplay of local pride, national pride is a little bit militant to me. All that flag waving and anthem singing, and the opening ceremony, what's all that about? Nothing will ever beat the AFL Grand Final the year the goal umpires all did a choreographed dance. Oh, you can put a whale in the top deck of the stands all you want China, but if you don't have streamers and balloons and kids in footy tops, what's the point? And that's before we get to how hard it is to see anyone hot for two weeks - I just struggle to see what's attractive about Amanda Beard (nowhere near as hot as Bronwyn Eagles), in fact the only funny thing was Ian Thorpe was dating a beard (funny gag) - shallow, but true, the best you can get is the really small womens weightlifters. Actually, that comment just came because I have a copy of FHM in the house, it's making me sexist...
My hatred of the Olympics though really stems from two seperate incidents - the first was back in 1984, when I was in Grade 1, and we sent our young hopeful athletes off to Los Angeles, and somewhat inevitably, my school decided everyone had to do a school project. I hated projects, due to my inherent laziness, and desire to do something far more enjoyable, like playing with my Ju Jitsu Heman figure or pretending to be Rod McCurdy in the back garden. In my school, projects were never judged on content, but on things like colours and presentation, my absolute weaknesses in life, especially with my pen licence defying bad handwriting. As you can imagine, there wasn't exactly a lot of information in Penguin on the small African country, and it's not like outside the US Army anyone had ever heard of the Internet, so I had to go to the library and do proper old fashioned research. Now, Penguin library was many things - a wonderful shelter for the homeless, a place for mummys and daddys who loved each other very much, and a place where you never quite sure if the librarians hated you or not, but what it wasn't was a rich source of research material on Botswana. Despite a frantic one night cram session with the parents, all we could find was one paragraph in the dictionary - and so, we did the only thing we could do, we made it up. We got about 6 paragraphs out of maize being the chief export alone, made up the presidents name, made up the anthem, every fact apart from a drawn by my Dad flag was completely made up. And of course, I got an A because it looked shiny. And so, that's the first reason I hate the Olympics - it taught me to lie, lie like a homeless man in the gutter. It's appropriate, given 1/2 the athletes are on drugs...wait, who let Tamsyn Lewis write that last bit?
I guess the second reason I hate the Olympics is because it's just a lot of pointless sports that you are supposed to care about when the rest of your life you wouldn't give a toss about them. Lauren Burns winning at Tae Kwon Do or that bush pig girl who won the shooting gold medal last time for Australia are suddenly national heroes because they won at sports that, be honest, if they were on TV you wouldn't watch except they are on at the Olympics. Do you watch the womens weightlifting normally? Of course you don't - but if we load some Aussie girl up with carbs and put her in the super heavyweight judo we all get the flags out and cheer her on. When the Sydney Olympic opening ceremony was on, we were watching the Royle Family on the ABC. In Scotland, I don't remember the Olympics meaning anything to anyone - except for Tom McKean in Seoul, that was the one person we all got behind - and then the stupid bloke got boxed in by 6 Kenyans in the heats and was stuffed. We lost interest after that, mostly because it's impossible to unite all of Scotland behind one person, given we tend to find out their religion before we decide if we like them or not. I love here in Australia we have elevated a modern pentathlete (meh, I liked ancient pentathletes way better) to a national hero because she's fighting some pesky Greeks just for a place in the team. Who cares about modern pentathlon? Anyone? And the inspirational montages set to Coldplay...bring back 1988s One Moment In Time by Whitney Houston...now that was an Olympics song...all of my dreams are a heartbeat awayyyyyyyyy...
Mind you, the Olympics did give me my one moment of true sporting glory - 1988s parade of nations at my school in Burnie. We all had to pick a country and benny around for a day representing a country in sport with the winner getting a trip to generic chip and chicken restaurant downtown (McDonalds was an Olympiad away) - a much better way to celebrate the Olympics than making the Tanzanian flag in glitter glue (I love glitter glue). It was also a wonderful way to legally play catch and kiss under the guise of Olympic spirit. Our bit of the school represented Germany, a country which at 10 years old we didn't know a lot about, other than Hogans Heroes and Allo Allo (oh Renee, you and your antics). However, I did want to win, as there was this other kid on the Greek team that I really didn't like. So I absolutely caned him in the most traditional of all Olympic events...the 100m egg and spoon race, beating him by about 20 metres after he tripped over his own big trendy shoes. As it turned out, my victory on that cold, grey Burnie afternoon won the event for our team, and I lapped up the attention and wore my little blue first place ribbon, not even noticing that the quality of chicken was slowly rotting my liver due to it's 1980s "treatment" via chemicals. I felt like a winner in a way that I just haven't managed to since. I guess I understood why people give their lives in dedication to sport, just for that kind of attention, to go back to their home town and know they are loved and that they never have to pay for chicken or chips again. I guess I should try and appreciate all the modern pentathletes and male synchronised swimmers, they are in it for the glory (and the chicken)...but I know I won't, I'll be yelling at the TV what happened to the good programmes...I know I will...
Still, if it stops Southern Cross showing Collingwood games...
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Tommy Hafey, he sleeps with the bogans
There's this book out at the moment that I saw in Angus and Robertson - not the one in town with the really grumpy woman who shuffles magazines next to anyone who browses, and not in a certain store where a certain girl with blue eye shadow works either - which is called Billys Book for Blokes by Billy Brownless. Just so you know if you are a furrener, Billy Brownless is a "colourful" ex football personality who makes a good living out of having gentle fun poked at his weight on television and travelling all over Australia visiting local football clubs spinning chocolate wheels and drinking bars dry. I think a lot of blokes would quite like to be Billy Brownless, since he played football, has a wife roughly 200 times hotter than him, and never has to pay for a beer. So it makes sense for him to write a book - much more sense than scumbag Andy Mahers "book of jokes" anyway - all about blokes. I haven't read it, but I'd imagine it's got chapters about drinking, fighting, mateship, cards, pool, cars, changing a tyre...all the usual things that real blokes are supposed to like. I'm sitting staring at a Hannah Montana poster and I spend most of my days wondering how anyone could possibly fancy Gabrielle Climi. Even knowing who she is probably DQs me from the real bloke category, although I do have a lot of opinions on what Mick Malthouse should do next. I've tried to look at a couple of times in a certain store, but I could probably guess the contents from here. If only the woman in that shop didn't keep walking past with her security intercom...
Anyway, thinking about Billy Brownless and the role he's played in local football (and by extension, local pride) got me thinking about two things important to any local community. And certainly I could write a very good post about being a bloke. In fact last nights news probably was something of an inspiration. Apparently Kevin Rudd stopped all the funding for community groups (such a sexy two word phrase, up there with smart casual and day off) until he had a review (get out, that doesn't sound like Kevin) of whether the funding model was viable, or summat. Anyway, the heads of the community groups got together to discuss this, and how to get their funding back, and they were all on the Tasmanian news, chatting about this over Tim Tams and weak tea. This is definitely going to be my future career path, helping out the local community in some way around a pot of tea. Mostly, I'm just going to sit in a room and pay out on everyone. Maybe it was just the community groups and CWA in Penguin, but I've always found that community groups are massive bitchfests. Between bitching about how little funding you get, bitching about respective governments, bitching about the quality of the cake that committee member X brought last week, and of course bitching about how here you are giving up your free time to plan a big event and damn punk kids/local council/senior citizens etc won't support it, you can pretty much spend your days just having massive sprays at everyone. Sounds like terrific fun, throw in my love of local pride, and it's amazing I never do it.
The first thing important to any small local community is the visit of a celebrity. In Penguin, it was always Kevin Sheedy or Tom Hafey. I think those two are pretty much who goes and visits the place now to be honest. Can't imagine Rihanna and her 3 different expressions popping in for tea and scones. The visit of a Kevin Sheedy, particularly in the 1980s, was a cause for celebration and an 8 page special in the Advocate. The format for their visit was pretty much set in stone - funny speech, bit of Q&A, help out with a bit of fundraising via raffling off a couple of footy jumpers, then a few drinks at the bar. The best bit about this visit (and it was always a footballer who visited Penguin for our celebrity quotient, we never quite got Jason Mraz - even Burnie got Slim Dusty every 6 weeks) was that in preparation, the local dickheads would pump themselves up that they were going to confront Sheeds on why he wasn't playing a particular player or how they could do a better job. And then, they would melt like starstruck 8 year olds when they actually had a chance to ask their question. Eddie McGuire a few years ago yelled at the crowd at the casino to just buy the fucking jumper that was raffled, so tedious were these stuttering questions. I felt the spirit of these important local visits a few years ago when I did work experience for a company that was in a very rah rah phase with it's employers. The company booked Tom Hafey, who if you don't know is a very motivational old football coach famous for yelling at people and keeping himself in such amazing physical shape he could still outrun you all at age 80. Everything was all set, except our ditzy secretary had mistakenly booked Mr Hafey into a caravan park, and not a good one - one in Warrane (Tassies equivalent of Beirut). Naturally, this was easily fixed, but I thought the company went a tad far in firing her for her error. I mean, Tommy would loved the place - he could have yelled at lazy bogan slackers to get up and do some push ups. Who knows, maybe one of those ugly Warrane ducklings could have become a beautiful Anne Maree Cooksley (one in every post) type swan through Tommys rantings?
However, as much as there is lots of local pride in showing a Billy Brownless your town, there is one group of people who don't enjoy the visit of a celebrity - the existing local identities. These people spend roughly 364 days a year in exalted local status. I'm obsessed with old fashioned local identities, people spoke in awe struck tones because they bake the best scones in the village or something. I loved that in Penguin when Kevin Sheedy was in town, how personally they would take being marginalised. If Mr Sheedy asked for a particular type of tea or biscuit, he copped it right in the neck for being a snob. If Mr Hafey made a remotely off colour joke, he was bitched about for a week. They would patiently wait at the back of the hall until the celebrity left town and then seized control and attention back as rapidly as they could. One family in Burnie of a certain standing used to shove their daughter into the face of any visiting singer or footballer, and bitch about them based entirely on their response. If they didn't hit on her, they were gay, if they did, they were sleazy. I used to love when we'd throw a BBQ in Penguin seeing the more known families bringing a particularly posh beer or a salad because they didn't want to be common and just have a pork sausage. Their kids were always with us in the rumpus room, and we'd get them drunk or get them to do something embarrassing, just to keep ourselves amused. Even the kids would bitch about the footballers speech, and how lame it was, and they weren't even allowed in. This one kid I went to school with, he hated Kevin Sheedy, hated Tom Hafey, thought David Parkin swore too much, and yet, went to Melbourne and got about 20 pictures with David Dixon. And they gave him social standing? I'd have taken it off him just for that...
Mind you, at our school, we were definitely bitching, the only celebrity speaker we ever got was Jane Fleming, a woman who never got over the first hurdle at the Olympics, telling us to work hard and never give in. I'd only have paid attention if we got the sexy early years Melinda Gainsford...whatever happened to Mel G?
Anyway, thinking about Billy Brownless and the role he's played in local football (and by extension, local pride) got me thinking about two things important to any local community. And certainly I could write a very good post about being a bloke. In fact last nights news probably was something of an inspiration. Apparently Kevin Rudd stopped all the funding for community groups (such a sexy two word phrase, up there with smart casual and day off) until he had a review (get out, that doesn't sound like Kevin) of whether the funding model was viable, or summat. Anyway, the heads of the community groups got together to discuss this, and how to get their funding back, and they were all on the Tasmanian news, chatting about this over Tim Tams and weak tea. This is definitely going to be my future career path, helping out the local community in some way around a pot of tea. Mostly, I'm just going to sit in a room and pay out on everyone. Maybe it was just the community groups and CWA in Penguin, but I've always found that community groups are massive bitchfests. Between bitching about how little funding you get, bitching about respective governments, bitching about the quality of the cake that committee member X brought last week, and of course bitching about how here you are giving up your free time to plan a big event and damn punk kids/local council/senior citizens etc won't support it, you can pretty much spend your days just having massive sprays at everyone. Sounds like terrific fun, throw in my love of local pride, and it's amazing I never do it.
The first thing important to any small local community is the visit of a celebrity. In Penguin, it was always Kevin Sheedy or Tom Hafey. I think those two are pretty much who goes and visits the place now to be honest. Can't imagine Rihanna and her 3 different expressions popping in for tea and scones. The visit of a Kevin Sheedy, particularly in the 1980s, was a cause for celebration and an 8 page special in the Advocate. The format for their visit was pretty much set in stone - funny speech, bit of Q&A, help out with a bit of fundraising via raffling off a couple of footy jumpers, then a few drinks at the bar. The best bit about this visit (and it was always a footballer who visited Penguin for our celebrity quotient, we never quite got Jason Mraz - even Burnie got Slim Dusty every 6 weeks) was that in preparation, the local dickheads would pump themselves up that they were going to confront Sheeds on why he wasn't playing a particular player or how they could do a better job. And then, they would melt like starstruck 8 year olds when they actually had a chance to ask their question. Eddie McGuire a few years ago yelled at the crowd at the casino to just buy the fucking jumper that was raffled, so tedious were these stuttering questions. I felt the spirit of these important local visits a few years ago when I did work experience for a company that was in a very rah rah phase with it's employers. The company booked Tom Hafey, who if you don't know is a very motivational old football coach famous for yelling at people and keeping himself in such amazing physical shape he could still outrun you all at age 80. Everything was all set, except our ditzy secretary had mistakenly booked Mr Hafey into a caravan park, and not a good one - one in Warrane (Tassies equivalent of Beirut). Naturally, this was easily fixed, but I thought the company went a tad far in firing her for her error. I mean, Tommy would loved the place - he could have yelled at lazy bogan slackers to get up and do some push ups. Who knows, maybe one of those ugly Warrane ducklings could have become a beautiful Anne Maree Cooksley (one in every post) type swan through Tommys rantings?
However, as much as there is lots of local pride in showing a Billy Brownless your town, there is one group of people who don't enjoy the visit of a celebrity - the existing local identities. These people spend roughly 364 days a year in exalted local status. I'm obsessed with old fashioned local identities, people spoke in awe struck tones because they bake the best scones in the village or something. I loved that in Penguin when Kevin Sheedy was in town, how personally they would take being marginalised. If Mr Sheedy asked for a particular type of tea or biscuit, he copped it right in the neck for being a snob. If Mr Hafey made a remotely off colour joke, he was bitched about for a week. They would patiently wait at the back of the hall until the celebrity left town and then seized control and attention back as rapidly as they could. One family in Burnie of a certain standing used to shove their daughter into the face of any visiting singer or footballer, and bitch about them based entirely on their response. If they didn't hit on her, they were gay, if they did, they were sleazy. I used to love when we'd throw a BBQ in Penguin seeing the more known families bringing a particularly posh beer or a salad because they didn't want to be common and just have a pork sausage. Their kids were always with us in the rumpus room, and we'd get them drunk or get them to do something embarrassing, just to keep ourselves amused. Even the kids would bitch about the footballers speech, and how lame it was, and they weren't even allowed in. This one kid I went to school with, he hated Kevin Sheedy, hated Tom Hafey, thought David Parkin swore too much, and yet, went to Melbourne and got about 20 pictures with David Dixon. And they gave him social standing? I'd have taken it off him just for that...
Mind you, at our school, we were definitely bitching, the only celebrity speaker we ever got was Jane Fleming, a woman who never got over the first hurdle at the Olympics, telling us to work hard and never give in. I'd only have paid attention if we got the sexy early years Melinda Gainsford...whatever happened to Mel G?
Monday, August 4, 2008
The Quarry
There's a lot of different ways to approach life - there are people who quite openly take their cash into Sanity and buy a Chris Brown CD. There are people who choose year in year out to pay for a membership of the Fremantle Dockers. There are people who do horrible things to people sleeping on buses. There are channels willing to put Caroline Wilson on TV, channels that are willing to make Jane Gazzo an authority on music. There are people who still pay for music, people who still watch Channel 9, people who cross four lanes in the rain just to try and get a green light, people who actually know what that American Boy song is actually about, people who enjoyed Gigli - and there are people who choose, with our admittedly limited choice of drinking venues, to walk through the doors of The Quarry, and enjoy a drink there. These are people I don't understand, for it is a strange, somewhat bizarre pub sitting awkwardly in Salamanca near more traditionally fun pubs like Irish Murphys (OK, maybe the good thing with the Quarry might me you can be gently sick and not evicted?) or Knopwoods. Hobart pubs are all generally a bit mental, the sheer lack of options tending to drive the clientele a little bit stir crazy, but the Quarry is the most mental of all our pubs. Maybe it's me, but I'm always genuinely uncomfortable there - now, the most uncomfortable I've ever been was my 10 minutes in Curleys Bar (I don't know if that place is still open, but I was way too white for that place, Hobart isn't the place to open Flo-Rida's underground disco), but this place...well, it's like it's got it's own mad set of rules that only become apparent after a few visits. If you are a tourist heading to our lovely isle of Tasmania, I like to think this might be some kind of guide to help you on your travels - I had two visitors from Scotland over last year, and I sent them into Salamanca on their own, and they came back defeated everything was shut. Never fear, the Quarry will always be a special place for you tourists to go and get accquainted with local customs. Not Customs the bar...local cust...never mind...
Firstly, if you can get past the bouncers with the short man syndrome, there's the bar staff. The bar staff hate you. This is patently clear, as they are Hobarts 2nd least friendly bar staff (the semi legendary comatose grump at the Welcome Stranger continues to hold his crown to the sun like a God) and they absolutely hate you. I admit, at my age I expect young bar staff to look past me and see who else is around, I'm not Sam Newman, I'm not sad or anything, but at Customs, they are well versed in friendliness and cheerfulness. Some of them even ask you what the football score is - they really don't care, but they at least make the effort. However, and no one else saw this so you'll have to take my word for it, the only person I've ever seen one of the bar staff even acknowledge was a guy who produced a membership card for the Young Liberal party, and to my knowledge, got a 50% discount. The two things might not have been connected, but it's no wonder that as someone who actually thought Kevin Rudd would fix the country (well, I tried) I felt uncomfortable being at a bar encouraging Young Liberals. Besides, why wasn't he at Bar-Cel-Ona with the rest of the party? Banned probably. The clientele hate everyone in there as well, creating a vague Gossip Girl feel. OK, now I can see why I don't fit in, in my Lisbon Lions top. That's not very Greenwich village.
However, that's all just tedious background to the real mystery. Sure, there's nothing but imported beer on the menu (ask for a Boags, see how you go), awkward trendy couches, people playing Gabrielle Climi like she's not just this generations Tina Arena (the Potbelleez being this generations Radio Freedom) but some kind of visionary, and the backyard courtyard is a nice touch, loving the concrete decor outside. The toilets have a window so when you pee, you can look out and see what's going on but no one can see in, which is incredibly dis-orientating, especially I'd imagine if you were drunk (although for me, it's like Central, one drink and out, that kind of place). However, this is what I've been wondering, but it's something everyone seemed to know before I did, and seems to know if I tell them - apparently the club is split into three, a bit for friends (that'd be where the couches are), a bit out the back for straight people (the courtyard) and, apparently, the corridor between the two is the gay bit? I didn't know this until someone told me, and I'm glad gay people in Hobart have a hangout, but I would hope if this isn't just akin to Paul Medhurst and Alan Didak had a fight over shampoo last week, and a pointless rumour, that Hobarts gay community could have a better place to hang out and meet each other than the corridor at the Quarry that's just outside the toilets. What about the bakery in Salamanca Square? Maybe that's more of a first date place. I just found it really weird...but apparently, everyone is happy with this arrangement. I guess it's better than meeting up with Forrest Gump at the Welcome Stranger.
Perhaps most bizarrely though, the first time I went in there, having absolutely no idea about the place, I learned all the rules very quickly. Gay middle corridor, got it. Toilets with a glass window, fine, bit freaky if I was drunk, no worries - bar staff are a bit grumpy, OK, they outright hate me, next time I'll go to the Welcome Stranger, that sounds like a fun place, maybe if I was a young liberal I'd be OK. At least the bouncer with the short man syndrome let me in, I might actually get used to all the quirks, but what's with the imported beer? 7 bucks a pop? For 7 bucks I'd at least expect you to look at me bar service provider. However, when I sat at the couch, for no reason at all, there was a Justin Davies Select 2006 card on the table, almost sat on the table like a place card. This might not mean anything to you, but I was captivated, being a card collecting afficionado, and I was bewildered as to how something as common as a football card (I'm sure there's no way I could chat up any of the clientele by asking them about Justin Davies and his unfulfilled potential at Carlton) came to be in the middle of the Quarry with the Gossip Girl clientele. I like to imagine it was the work of some kind of Hobart satirist, who then went on to put a copy of Vogue on a table at Customs and a Che Guevera poster on the wall at Bar-Cel-Ona. What was really weird about this was, I had all these expectations that this was some kind of oddity, and I swear to god, this girl walked past, looked at the card, and offered me ten bucks for it. What is it with cards of all kinds at The Quarry? Is using them some kind of sexual code? Maybe that's another mystery along with the gay corridor.
It's a strange place The Quarry...but don't be scared tourists...bring your cards...
Firstly, if you can get past the bouncers with the short man syndrome, there's the bar staff. The bar staff hate you. This is patently clear, as they are Hobarts 2nd least friendly bar staff (the semi legendary comatose grump at the Welcome Stranger continues to hold his crown to the sun like a God) and they absolutely hate you. I admit, at my age I expect young bar staff to look past me and see who else is around, I'm not Sam Newman, I'm not sad or anything, but at Customs, they are well versed in friendliness and cheerfulness. Some of them even ask you what the football score is - they really don't care, but they at least make the effort. However, and no one else saw this so you'll have to take my word for it, the only person I've ever seen one of the bar staff even acknowledge was a guy who produced a membership card for the Young Liberal party, and to my knowledge, got a 50% discount. The two things might not have been connected, but it's no wonder that as someone who actually thought Kevin Rudd would fix the country (well, I tried) I felt uncomfortable being at a bar encouraging Young Liberals. Besides, why wasn't he at Bar-Cel-Ona with the rest of the party? Banned probably. The clientele hate everyone in there as well, creating a vague Gossip Girl feel. OK, now I can see why I don't fit in, in my Lisbon Lions top. That's not very Greenwich village.
However, that's all just tedious background to the real mystery. Sure, there's nothing but imported beer on the menu (ask for a Boags, see how you go), awkward trendy couches, people playing Gabrielle Climi like she's not just this generations Tina Arena (the Potbelleez being this generations Radio Freedom) but some kind of visionary, and the backyard courtyard is a nice touch, loving the concrete decor outside. The toilets have a window so when you pee, you can look out and see what's going on but no one can see in, which is incredibly dis-orientating, especially I'd imagine if you were drunk (although for me, it's like Central, one drink and out, that kind of place). However, this is what I've been wondering, but it's something everyone seemed to know before I did, and seems to know if I tell them - apparently the club is split into three, a bit for friends (that'd be where the couches are), a bit out the back for straight people (the courtyard) and, apparently, the corridor between the two is the gay bit? I didn't know this until someone told me, and I'm glad gay people in Hobart have a hangout, but I would hope if this isn't just akin to Paul Medhurst and Alan Didak had a fight over shampoo last week, and a pointless rumour, that Hobarts gay community could have a better place to hang out and meet each other than the corridor at the Quarry that's just outside the toilets. What about the bakery in Salamanca Square? Maybe that's more of a first date place. I just found it really weird...but apparently, everyone is happy with this arrangement. I guess it's better than meeting up with Forrest Gump at the Welcome Stranger.
Perhaps most bizarrely though, the first time I went in there, having absolutely no idea about the place, I learned all the rules very quickly. Gay middle corridor, got it. Toilets with a glass window, fine, bit freaky if I was drunk, no worries - bar staff are a bit grumpy, OK, they outright hate me, next time I'll go to the Welcome Stranger, that sounds like a fun place, maybe if I was a young liberal I'd be OK. At least the bouncer with the short man syndrome let me in, I might actually get used to all the quirks, but what's with the imported beer? 7 bucks a pop? For 7 bucks I'd at least expect you to look at me bar service provider. However, when I sat at the couch, for no reason at all, there was a Justin Davies Select 2006 card on the table, almost sat on the table like a place card. This might not mean anything to you, but I was captivated, being a card collecting afficionado, and I was bewildered as to how something as common as a football card (I'm sure there's no way I could chat up any of the clientele by asking them about Justin Davies and his unfulfilled potential at Carlton) came to be in the middle of the Quarry with the Gossip Girl clientele. I like to imagine it was the work of some kind of Hobart satirist, who then went on to put a copy of Vogue on a table at Customs and a Che Guevera poster on the wall at Bar-Cel-Ona. What was really weird about this was, I had all these expectations that this was some kind of oddity, and I swear to god, this girl walked past, looked at the card, and offered me ten bucks for it. What is it with cards of all kinds at The Quarry? Is using them some kind of sexual code? Maybe that's another mystery along with the gay corridor.
It's a strange place The Quarry...but don't be scared tourists...bring your cards...
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Crime, I'll give you crime - Josh Fraser as a ruckman, that's a crime
So at the party yesterday crime came up, after the girl with the netball skirt had finally stopped talking about her boyfriends commitment to the Olympic movement. It seems everyone has a crime story at the moment, and for some reason it all seems to involve someone walking through Salamanca and then getting a punch in the face. Obviously after certain incidents on a bus and girls in suitcases, everyone feels completely on edge, but if you read the Mercury right now Hobart is in disarray and everyone is unsafe to walk the streets bar they'll get a punch in the shnoz and have their bike stolen. This was discussed at great length by the party goers yesterday, while I sat in the corner of wherever we were, staring longingly at the see-saw in the middle distance and lamenting that fact that if I ran over and had a go on it, I'm now too old to be considered charming for doing it and obviously would be considered a paedophile. However, I am, despite officially now adding having my head cut off on a bus to my 100 greatest fears, here to tell everyone that Hobart is perfectly and completely safe. Sure, there are dickheads here, but trust me, the biggest crime down here is the performance of the Devils in the VFL...am I right folks...am I right...
Being a victim of crime is obviously pretty horrendous - I've had 150 bucks stolen off me, and just recently a mobile phone. The money was stolen from me in the first few weeks I lived in my share house, and I was absolutely furious, to the point of over dramatic tears. I guess the frustrating thing was, that I had no idea who took the money, and I probably never will. Although we learned who it was later in the year when one of the housemates (can I say that? Is that too Big Brother?) started stealing pairs of jeans that were 28 times too small for her and Alanis Morrisette Cds (we never said thieves had taste). I've never been mugged though, and it seems if you believe anxious party goers who think rock music is a bad thing and damn punk kids are just out to cause trouble, the streets of Hobart are no place to walk at night. Which is clearly rubbish as, say, compared to late night Melbourne, we're a paradise on earth. Saying Hobart is a crime riddled gangster fest is like saying Josh Fraser is a ruckman - you could possibly get away with saying it if you twisted the facts and exagerrated them, but it's still a massive stretch. In fact, the story in the paper that a car was rammed all the way down Davey Street just seems to be absolutely implausible. Do you know, I've lived here for 11 years, and I've been awkwardly approached (apart from girls chatting me up...I'm sure that happened, oh, once?) by just one stranger, and far from trying to steal my wallet, he in fact gave me one of the greatest pieces of wisdom I've ever had from a park bench stranger - and if I was sober at the time, I'd remember what it was. And the last group of strangers I saw took me under their wing and took me drinking with them to some pub in North Hobart. They might have been about to drug me and take my wallet, but it's Hobart, it's highly unlikely. Come one, come all I say. Leave your guns at home. No need for them.
No, we're a friendly city down here, and while I'm sure there is at least some crime, I've never ever seen any, not a punch thrown (apart from bouncers at Syrup), not a kick, not a stabbing, nothing. Well, that's not strictly true, obviously the bouncer at Syrup punched me - but hey, that's like saying the sun comes up in the morning with those cheeky chaps. Other than that, there was a lovely Xmas moment, where a guy was trying to get into The Quarry (and believe me, that place will get it's own post) past a bouncer with short man syndrome. In fairness, I don't think anyone deserves to have their ears flicked. The drunk guy decided the best way to get into The Quarry was to engage the bouncer in a little friendly ear flicking, some air shadow boxing, and singing Kelly Clarkson songs to him really loudly. There was thick tension in the air, and it wasn't just that the thought that perhaps the Santa Claus in the Centrepoint Arcade might have been enjoying having kids sitting on his knee a bit too much. Eventually, Tom and Jerry style, the bouncer snapped and began chasing the man all over Salamanca, up and down, while the drunk guy yelled "YEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAWWWWWWW" in ecstatic fashion. Of course, were this a real Tom and Jerry situation, eventually the bouncer would ran headlong into a frying pan, but this was real life, and of course, the bouncer caught him and beat the living bejesus out of him. It's fair enough I suppose - who sings Kelly Clarkson songs in this day and age? At least get up to last year and sing a Rihanna song...
I think though, in fairness, we've all been on edge since THAT day at Port Arthur. Although, if you want to know more about my disbelief in the Catholic Church, the priest in charge of our school the day after Port Arthur thanked God at our mass for, quote, "giving us a punishment we deserve" - he just didn't have a press agent to claim he was misquoted, Sam Newman style. That was when I lived in Burnie, and I can remember far more crime in Burnie than I can in Hobart - the amount of money White Man Can't Reggae charged to book them for parties for one thing. I've written before about the park in Penguin where you could buy anything you wanted after 10pm, where as in Burnie, after 10pm you could lose anything you wanted from a loose assortment of muggers and young punk kids. However, thinking back on it, it was still alright, you just couldn't hang around the caterpillar late at night, or about West Park, that kind of area, but you could safely get a kebab or talk to the homeless at Roelf Vos, that kind of thing was fine. However, when I did live in Burnie, the real crime was the amount of pointless BBQs I had to go to (hey, like yesterday, that brings the post full circle). At one of these BBQs, a long, long time ago, crime had come up, a different generation of punk kids were being blamed for things (I suppose Silverchair were to blame back then, not The Ting Tings) and a man put down his steak, looked down the barrel of his imaginary camera, and said quite seriously "The trouble with the kids today...they don't get to go ferreting". At which point, point made, he went back to his steak, content that the world had been put to rights, leaving everyone quite utterly stunned.
I wonder what that guy would make of Parramore, or Josh Fraser, or the kid who tried to set someones hair on fire in the mall...probably take them hunting...top man.
Being a victim of crime is obviously pretty horrendous - I've had 150 bucks stolen off me, and just recently a mobile phone. The money was stolen from me in the first few weeks I lived in my share house, and I was absolutely furious, to the point of over dramatic tears. I guess the frustrating thing was, that I had no idea who took the money, and I probably never will. Although we learned who it was later in the year when one of the housemates (can I say that? Is that too Big Brother?) started stealing pairs of jeans that were 28 times too small for her and Alanis Morrisette Cds (we never said thieves had taste). I've never been mugged though, and it seems if you believe anxious party goers who think rock music is a bad thing and damn punk kids are just out to cause trouble, the streets of Hobart are no place to walk at night. Which is clearly rubbish as, say, compared to late night Melbourne, we're a paradise on earth. Saying Hobart is a crime riddled gangster fest is like saying Josh Fraser is a ruckman - you could possibly get away with saying it if you twisted the facts and exagerrated them, but it's still a massive stretch. In fact, the story in the paper that a car was rammed all the way down Davey Street just seems to be absolutely implausible. Do you know, I've lived here for 11 years, and I've been awkwardly approached (apart from girls chatting me up...I'm sure that happened, oh, once?) by just one stranger, and far from trying to steal my wallet, he in fact gave me one of the greatest pieces of wisdom I've ever had from a park bench stranger - and if I was sober at the time, I'd remember what it was. And the last group of strangers I saw took me under their wing and took me drinking with them to some pub in North Hobart. They might have been about to drug me and take my wallet, but it's Hobart, it's highly unlikely. Come one, come all I say. Leave your guns at home. No need for them.
No, we're a friendly city down here, and while I'm sure there is at least some crime, I've never ever seen any, not a punch thrown (apart from bouncers at Syrup), not a kick, not a stabbing, nothing. Well, that's not strictly true, obviously the bouncer at Syrup punched me - but hey, that's like saying the sun comes up in the morning with those cheeky chaps. Other than that, there was a lovely Xmas moment, where a guy was trying to get into The Quarry (and believe me, that place will get it's own post) past a bouncer with short man syndrome. In fairness, I don't think anyone deserves to have their ears flicked. The drunk guy decided the best way to get into The Quarry was to engage the bouncer in a little friendly ear flicking, some air shadow boxing, and singing Kelly Clarkson songs to him really loudly. There was thick tension in the air, and it wasn't just that the thought that perhaps the Santa Claus in the Centrepoint Arcade might have been enjoying having kids sitting on his knee a bit too much. Eventually, Tom and Jerry style, the bouncer snapped and began chasing the man all over Salamanca, up and down, while the drunk guy yelled "YEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAWWWWWWW" in ecstatic fashion. Of course, were this a real Tom and Jerry situation, eventually the bouncer would ran headlong into a frying pan, but this was real life, and of course, the bouncer caught him and beat the living bejesus out of him. It's fair enough I suppose - who sings Kelly Clarkson songs in this day and age? At least get up to last year and sing a Rihanna song...
I think though, in fairness, we've all been on edge since THAT day at Port Arthur. Although, if you want to know more about my disbelief in the Catholic Church, the priest in charge of our school the day after Port Arthur thanked God at our mass for, quote, "giving us a punishment we deserve" - he just didn't have a press agent to claim he was misquoted, Sam Newman style. That was when I lived in Burnie, and I can remember far more crime in Burnie than I can in Hobart - the amount of money White Man Can't Reggae charged to book them for parties for one thing. I've written before about the park in Penguin where you could buy anything you wanted after 10pm, where as in Burnie, after 10pm you could lose anything you wanted from a loose assortment of muggers and young punk kids. However, thinking back on it, it was still alright, you just couldn't hang around the caterpillar late at night, or about West Park, that kind of area, but you could safely get a kebab or talk to the homeless at Roelf Vos, that kind of thing was fine. However, when I did live in Burnie, the real crime was the amount of pointless BBQs I had to go to (hey, like yesterday, that brings the post full circle). At one of these BBQs, a long, long time ago, crime had come up, a different generation of punk kids were being blamed for things (I suppose Silverchair were to blame back then, not The Ting Tings) and a man put down his steak, looked down the barrel of his imaginary camera, and said quite seriously "The trouble with the kids today...they don't get to go ferreting". At which point, point made, he went back to his steak, content that the world had been put to rights, leaving everyone quite utterly stunned.
I wonder what that guy would make of Parramore, or Josh Fraser, or the kid who tried to set someones hair on fire in the mall...probably take them hunting...top man.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Netball, a beloved sport, a chronicle
So I'm at this party today - now when I say party, I mean a BBQ, which was enough to have me relapsing into childhood, especially at someone making the unmistakable mistake of brining coleslaw, reminding me of the offensive NW Coast mantra, meat for the blokes, coleslaw for the poofs - and I end up talking to a girl in a netball skirt. This wasn't her having the same quirky fashion sense that makes portly white gentlemen wear Thundercats T-shirts, but because she was on her way to play netball, which made sense. She was a great talker, however, she quickly brought her fascinating boyfriend up, with his fascinating career and his fascinating work on his fascinating bike. You'd have to say, as soon as a girl brings her boyfriend, the male in the conversation loses interest. Still, I was actually acutely sociable for me, which was weird. OK, so midway through when she was talking about her boyfriend putting episodes of Entourage onto a DVD for her, I was humming Santogold songs in my head to try and escape the seventh circle of social hell, but I was thinking in the car home, why was I talking to her? Why didn't I do my usual dismissive dis-interest? Why is Santogold on that horse? Oh yes...I know now, she was wearing a netball skirt, and it's a particular love of mine, girls in netball skirts. In fact, I composed this blog post in my head during the second part of her discussion of her boyfriend...
Netball was always one of my favourite sports, although very rarely did I say it out loud, it wouldn't have gone down well in Paul Keatings Burnie. I found from an early age that netballers seemed to have an alien power to them - Kathryn Harby for instance, had she been a check out chick, would still have been desirable, but in a netball skirt, she was the hottest woman on the planet, despite a voice that could grate carrots. I'm absolutely stoked that she has re-invented herself as a sort of New Zealand based Anne Maree Cooksley. However, my early interest in netball wasn't all just adolescent risible perving. I earned a reputation at my school as a netball supercoach - two of my good girlfriends were coaching a struggling team, and asked for my advice, more in jest than anything else, and I said it was incredibly simple, at every single opportunity no matter how slight, cheat and accentuate the contact, make it really noticable, especially in the centre. I don't know where this came from, but it worked, as they won their last game of the season easily, and their tactics sparked a crowd pleasing brawl. To the best of my knowledge, the opposing team didn't have the previously mentioned staple of North West netball teams, a girl built like Tony "Plugger" Lockett (who, oddly, was always the one the crowd secretly fancied) - if they did, she'd have cleaned up in the brawl, but still, it was win win as far as our team was concerned, and I applied my theory whenever I could to other netball teams.
I did, once upon a time, play netball, but I wasn't very good at it. I could never master the stepping rule. It did at least give me an appreciation for playing the sport rather than just making up rules and coaching ideas. I probably hoped that the courts would be filled with girls in netball skirts, but it wasn't the case. I still don't know why I decided to play the game, but it really was an important part of my life, it really helped me get close to my current friends. However, the best moment of the entire time was our post game chats (not least because I am a terrible loser, and once get sent off for fighting a girl, so the actual game was an unending nightmare) because they were a wonderful insight into the human condition as we chewed the fat before going home. One girl on our team though, she was always trying to impress with tales of her rootin, shootin, and bar fights. None of us took any notice of her, until one night, she invented her own swear word. Cunting. As in, I hate my usual cunting taxi driver. I've never heard this word before, and have never heard it again, but I remember it to this day far more than any game we played or any of our scores. She was the exception, a girl who played netball who wasn't sexy whether or not she had a netball skirt on. I guess even I had my limits.
I think the mecca of Tasmanian netball is the outdoor courts in Moonah, where girls of all ages gather on a Saturday morning and afternoon to compete in sporting contests. Moonah is one of my favourite places, since it always seems grey and miserable their, but there's a fair bit of local pride, because they always try and tidy what's essentially a town in one street into something special - where else could you get a Reggie Big Brother biscuit that won an award? I also like Moonah for the mini golf course where every single day, a fully grown male spits the dummy trying to putt up the hill on the 18th. One night from the netball centre I drunkenly stole a BP sign (sticking it to the man huh) and it was also where, one day, my life went in one direction when it could have gone in another. I was at the netball courts one day, luckily noting one of the teams had a Plugger, but also very happy to see the other staple of NW sport - old 50 year captains shouting at everyone to do better. When I was taking in the match, through a lot of circumstances too long to explain here, I ended up sitting between two people who had both invited me to parties that night. One, a slightly sleazy and dodgy sounding schoolgirls party in North Hobart, the other, a safer night out in town, and it was really awkward moment as I tried to decide where to g. I guess looking back, had I chosen the sleazy party, I wouldn't have one of my best friends in the world right now, so I took the girly option - friendship over depravity. It's just funny to me that somehow, this sport has played a big part in my life - far more than football. A sport that I harmlessly derided and adolescently perved on had become something around which I had built a relationship, picked a path in life in regards to friendships, and cemented those friendships. And it all started hoping to see Natalie Avellino in a pretty skirt...skirt...she's wearing a skirt...oh...right...better nod and look interested...
So, what were you saying? Oh, your boyfriend... fascinating...
Netball was always one of my favourite sports, although very rarely did I say it out loud, it wouldn't have gone down well in Paul Keatings Burnie. I found from an early age that netballers seemed to have an alien power to them - Kathryn Harby for instance, had she been a check out chick, would still have been desirable, but in a netball skirt, she was the hottest woman on the planet, despite a voice that could grate carrots. I'm absolutely stoked that she has re-invented herself as a sort of New Zealand based Anne Maree Cooksley. However, my early interest in netball wasn't all just adolescent risible perving. I earned a reputation at my school as a netball supercoach - two of my good girlfriends were coaching a struggling team, and asked for my advice, more in jest than anything else, and I said it was incredibly simple, at every single opportunity no matter how slight, cheat and accentuate the contact, make it really noticable, especially in the centre. I don't know where this came from, but it worked, as they won their last game of the season easily, and their tactics sparked a crowd pleasing brawl. To the best of my knowledge, the opposing team didn't have the previously mentioned staple of North West netball teams, a girl built like Tony "Plugger" Lockett (who, oddly, was always the one the crowd secretly fancied) - if they did, she'd have cleaned up in the brawl, but still, it was win win as far as our team was concerned, and I applied my theory whenever I could to other netball teams.
I did, once upon a time, play netball, but I wasn't very good at it. I could never master the stepping rule. It did at least give me an appreciation for playing the sport rather than just making up rules and coaching ideas. I probably hoped that the courts would be filled with girls in netball skirts, but it wasn't the case. I still don't know why I decided to play the game, but it really was an important part of my life, it really helped me get close to my current friends. However, the best moment of the entire time was our post game chats (not least because I am a terrible loser, and once get sent off for fighting a girl, so the actual game was an unending nightmare) because they were a wonderful insight into the human condition as we chewed the fat before going home. One girl on our team though, she was always trying to impress with tales of her rootin, shootin, and bar fights. None of us took any notice of her, until one night, she invented her own swear word. Cunting. As in, I hate my usual cunting taxi driver. I've never heard this word before, and have never heard it again, but I remember it to this day far more than any game we played or any of our scores. She was the exception, a girl who played netball who wasn't sexy whether or not she had a netball skirt on. I guess even I had my limits.
I think the mecca of Tasmanian netball is the outdoor courts in Moonah, where girls of all ages gather on a Saturday morning and afternoon to compete in sporting contests. Moonah is one of my favourite places, since it always seems grey and miserable their, but there's a fair bit of local pride, because they always try and tidy what's essentially a town in one street into something special - where else could you get a Reggie Big Brother biscuit that won an award? I also like Moonah for the mini golf course where every single day, a fully grown male spits the dummy trying to putt up the hill on the 18th. One night from the netball centre I drunkenly stole a BP sign (sticking it to the man huh) and it was also where, one day, my life went in one direction when it could have gone in another. I was at the netball courts one day, luckily noting one of the teams had a Plugger, but also very happy to see the other staple of NW sport - old 50 year captains shouting at everyone to do better. When I was taking in the match, through a lot of circumstances too long to explain here, I ended up sitting between two people who had both invited me to parties that night. One, a slightly sleazy and dodgy sounding schoolgirls party in North Hobart, the other, a safer night out in town, and it was really awkward moment as I tried to decide where to g. I guess looking back, had I chosen the sleazy party, I wouldn't have one of my best friends in the world right now, so I took the girly option - friendship over depravity. It's just funny to me that somehow, this sport has played a big part in my life - far more than football. A sport that I harmlessly derided and adolescently perved on had become something around which I had built a relationship, picked a path in life in regards to friendships, and cemented those friendships. And it all started hoping to see Natalie Avellino in a pretty skirt...skirt...she's wearing a skirt...oh...right...better nod and look interested...
So, what were you saying? Oh, your boyfriend... fascinating...
Friday, August 1, 2008
Tasmania believes, through the power of choc
I've spent most of the day absolutely on edge, mostly because firstly I had a really weird dream that I was drafted to the Gold Coast AFL team and ended up with Cheryl Haworth as a celebrity girlfriend (which was fine, the problem was the team was coached by Mick Malthouse), and then the first thing I saw on the news was a man had his head cut off on a bus (there but for the grace of Metro), then I found out Jess Veronica was involved in some kind of weird porn thing (I thought they were such nice girls) and then for some reason I read that there would never be another Mars Bar on sale ever again in Tasmania. I'd stopped eating Mars Bars about 15 years ago, but the thought that I wasn't allowed to eat another one was a bit harsh, it's like denying Anne Maree Cooksley a glass of champagne at a film premiere. However, salvation was at hand - you could still get Mars Bars, thank God for that, however, by Government decree, they wouldn't be called Mars Bars. The wrapper would look like a Mars Bar, the taste would be that of a Mars Bar, but in an L Ron Hubbard style twist, the product would be called the "Believe Bar" - straight out of Scientology, this mysterious chocolate product would now implore us to believe, to have faith, and in my case go back to sleep and think about my wedding to Cheryl Haworth...
Don't worry though Mars Bar fans, it's all part of a plan - to get a Tasmanian team into the AFL, Mars Bar are tipping 4 million bucks into our campaign and renaming the Mars Bar the Believe bar to make us all believe in the bid. There's an SMS code on the wapper, and you can SMS someone (not Andrew Demetriou, he hates us, he disrespects us, he loathes us etc) and somehow if kids eat a lot of chocolate, this will work and we'll get a football team in the AFL. I love the fact that fat kids can help us get an elite team of athletes down here. They've come up with a jumper, and we'll almost certainly at some point drag Alistair Lynch in to hold up a bunch of Believe Bars in the paper soon. I'd like to think that Tasmanians are too media savvy to think of this as anything but a nice gesture, albeit quite a lame one, but already I heard two girls in a certain shop where a certain girl with blue eye shadow works (she was looking fine today) talking excitedly about it. They certainly believed. I wonder if I ate one, if I would believe Josh Fraser could be a ruckman. I know if I was at my school, the commercial sell out hot bed that it was, we'd have not only been deluged by the Believe Bar push, someone would have given us a talk, we'd have had to do a project on football (and Mars) and the prize for winning would be...more Mars Bars. I can see it clear as day - but as I said, good to see fat kids getting involved, I would have thought knowing Paula Wriedt (yes, THAT one Sam Newman) she'd have spent 4 million bucks on a salad based sponsor.
The problem is, these things never work. I'm glad Mars are on board trying to talk to the arrogant wall that is Andrew Demetriou, but seriously, mascots, gestures, campaigns, slogans, logos - never ever work. No matter what mascot the school dentist tried to get to us with, to get us to clean our teeth, we ignored it. You can get a slogan like "Not happy Jan" into the everyday conversation of bogans, but buggered if they know what it's advertising. Said bogans will buy a Believe bar, and never in a million years SMS the wrapper code. A chocolate bar isn't going to help us get a team, it's just a nice dream. My favourite ever mascot without a doubt was the infamous Scotticus, the Daily Record mascot for Scotland at the 1990 World Cup. I say infamous because some poor bugger had to dress up as him, and as far as I can remember, it was some poor bugger standing in an Ayshire field in a toga and a tartan bunnet. You'd think at the very least they'd give him a shell suit or a nice warm jumper. Kids were kicking him up the arse and trying to steal his toga. He was created by a cartoonist, and he was meant to fire up a nation and lead us to glory - we lost to Costa Rica in the first game, and no one ever saw him again. I like to think someone stole his bunnet, and he went in a huff. I can imagine in a few years, when Tassie still doesn't have an AFL team, I'll see a Believe bar wrapper in the gutter and think, oh yeah, I remember that...what was all that about? And shouldn't it be Believe! The ! makes it more, er, believable...
I had a much better idea than renaming the Mars Bar - bring back DMCs. Younger people don't remember the DMC, and to be honest, there are times I think I made them up - however, they were a pre M&M Cadbury prototype, M&Ms the size of a dinner plate. I've just seen an advert for the Chocolate Lovers ball at the casino in a couple of weeks -a change of pace for the casino in not holding singles balls where Sea FM DJs get casual sex set up for them - and the only way you could get me to go would be to tell me that DMCs were available in the foyer. No doubt it will be a well attended event, and, again, a fair night out for the gentleman who likes the larger lady (tying us back to Cheryl Haworth again). I would think that the Believe bar will have a stall at the chocolate lovers ball, although I was talking to a girlfriend of mine today, and she says that we're wasting our time with all this chocolate nonsense, all we need is Jess Veronica to, in her next nude shoot, discreetly wear a Tassie logo tattoo, and we'll get all the publicity we need. And besides, anyone who has attended a local football game surely knows it's the Cherry Ripe that's the chocolate bar of choice. Especially at Penguin, where they bought a job lot of 2350 palettes of Cherry Ripes in the 80s, and have been selling them ever since. Local football is also the last bastion of the Wagon Wheel, but that's an entirely different story.
It's back to the drawing board then Paula...and back to the wedding reception for me, Cheryl hates it when I'm late...
Don't worry though Mars Bar fans, it's all part of a plan - to get a Tasmanian team into the AFL, Mars Bar are tipping 4 million bucks into our campaign and renaming the Mars Bar the Believe bar to make us all believe in the bid. There's an SMS code on the wapper, and you can SMS someone (not Andrew Demetriou, he hates us, he disrespects us, he loathes us etc) and somehow if kids eat a lot of chocolate, this will work and we'll get a football team in the AFL. I love the fact that fat kids can help us get an elite team of athletes down here. They've come up with a jumper, and we'll almost certainly at some point drag Alistair Lynch in to hold up a bunch of Believe Bars in the paper soon. I'd like to think that Tasmanians are too media savvy to think of this as anything but a nice gesture, albeit quite a lame one, but already I heard two girls in a certain shop where a certain girl with blue eye shadow works (she was looking fine today) talking excitedly about it. They certainly believed. I wonder if I ate one, if I would believe Josh Fraser could be a ruckman. I know if I was at my school, the commercial sell out hot bed that it was, we'd have not only been deluged by the Believe Bar push, someone would have given us a talk, we'd have had to do a project on football (and Mars) and the prize for winning would be...more Mars Bars. I can see it clear as day - but as I said, good to see fat kids getting involved, I would have thought knowing Paula Wriedt (yes, THAT one Sam Newman) she'd have spent 4 million bucks on a salad based sponsor.
The problem is, these things never work. I'm glad Mars are on board trying to talk to the arrogant wall that is Andrew Demetriou, but seriously, mascots, gestures, campaigns, slogans, logos - never ever work. No matter what mascot the school dentist tried to get to us with, to get us to clean our teeth, we ignored it. You can get a slogan like "Not happy Jan" into the everyday conversation of bogans, but buggered if they know what it's advertising. Said bogans will buy a Believe bar, and never in a million years SMS the wrapper code. A chocolate bar isn't going to help us get a team, it's just a nice dream. My favourite ever mascot without a doubt was the infamous Scotticus, the Daily Record mascot for Scotland at the 1990 World Cup. I say infamous because some poor bugger had to dress up as him, and as far as I can remember, it was some poor bugger standing in an Ayshire field in a toga and a tartan bunnet. You'd think at the very least they'd give him a shell suit or a nice warm jumper. Kids were kicking him up the arse and trying to steal his toga. He was created by a cartoonist, and he was meant to fire up a nation and lead us to glory - we lost to Costa Rica in the first game, and no one ever saw him again. I like to think someone stole his bunnet, and he went in a huff. I can imagine in a few years, when Tassie still doesn't have an AFL team, I'll see a Believe bar wrapper in the gutter and think, oh yeah, I remember that...what was all that about? And shouldn't it be Believe! The ! makes it more, er, believable...
I had a much better idea than renaming the Mars Bar - bring back DMCs. Younger people don't remember the DMC, and to be honest, there are times I think I made them up - however, they were a pre M&M Cadbury prototype, M&Ms the size of a dinner plate. I've just seen an advert for the Chocolate Lovers ball at the casino in a couple of weeks -a change of pace for the casino in not holding singles balls where Sea FM DJs get casual sex set up for them - and the only way you could get me to go would be to tell me that DMCs were available in the foyer. No doubt it will be a well attended event, and, again, a fair night out for the gentleman who likes the larger lady (tying us back to Cheryl Haworth again). I would think that the Believe bar will have a stall at the chocolate lovers ball, although I was talking to a girlfriend of mine today, and she says that we're wasting our time with all this chocolate nonsense, all we need is Jess Veronica to, in her next nude shoot, discreetly wear a Tassie logo tattoo, and we'll get all the publicity we need. And besides, anyone who has attended a local football game surely knows it's the Cherry Ripe that's the chocolate bar of choice. Especially at Penguin, where they bought a job lot of 2350 palettes of Cherry Ripes in the 80s, and have been selling them ever since. Local football is also the last bastion of the Wagon Wheel, but that's an entirely different story.
It's back to the drawing board then Paula...and back to the wedding reception for me, Cheryl hates it when I'm late...
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