So I saw some stand up comedy last night, which basically revolved about taking the surname of Gabrielle Climi and turning it into a an STD. "Imagine," he pondered, "if you found out your girlfriend suffered from Climi" - you can supply your own "what is the deal with..." or laugh track if you want, we just went home.
This blog, initially, was going to be about what was found in soccer programmes and what it told me about local pride. I kind of went off that idea and wrote about other areas of local pride, but I'm still very conscious of the role sport plays in a community. Every so often when they aren't telling everyone how useless Kevin Rudd is you see some bewildered and blinking old duck or crusty old farmer standing in the middle of a football ground bemoaning the death or merger of a country football or netball team. These articles are easy to write, old duck, club won 6 Premierships in the 30s, VFL superstar grew up in the town, town migration, why aren't the AFL doing anything, didn't see the drought coming and so on. Kingstons team for instance, the Kingborough Tigers, mean nothing to me, which is a shame. They are my local team, so I should be on board, but AFL is everywhere now, I've got enough to worry about with Paul Medhurst. At some time in the next 50 years, I know there will be no more Penguin, but I don't think there's much anyone can do about.
In the early part of the 90s, there was a massive push in Australia to make womens basketball sexy (like they are doing with netball now, dispersing the talent so every team has a hot girl - don't think we haven't noticed). This comprised of two things - first, putting every single woman in the WNBL (our local basketball league) regardless of shape into figure hugging lycra bodysuits and secondly, focusing all the leagues marketing muscle behind Trish Fallon, a sort of poor womans Emma George. It says a lot about how successful this was that while I can't name you a single team or player from that era other than Trish Fallon, I know she was married to a black American DJ called Rodney O who later beat her up. She was everywhere for a while, especially after we hosted the womens world championships. I think there was a brief Michelle Griffiths era, but that was about a week long. My mate (I promise this isn't a "my mate" story meaning it was really me) was stalking this womens basketballer called Mary Anne Di Francesco to the point that when it was announced on TV she was manning a phone line taking charity donations, he kept ringing it in different voices just to talk to her. Wonder what happened to him. Anyway, the point is, eventually they gave up when they realised it was hard to make Lauren Jackson hot, and the phase passed quietly and without comment.
This was a big, big awkward shock to me, because when I was living in Penguin, womens basketball was anything but sexy. It was violent and gang warfare, a complete expression of local pride which essentially became the towns focus. Penguin vs Ulverstone wasn't somewhere where you would expect to find a Trish Fallon or Michelle Griffiths model type, it was two teams of girls who looked like Peggy Lee Leather or Reggie Bennett. They were stocky, big, strong, and every possession was a contest. Every single team had a "Plugger", a reference to the girl who looked most like Tony Lockett. Anyone attempting a three pointer could expect to be absolutely flattened as she took the shot, and one game I went to, I think Penguin vs Wynyard, had the best crowd fight I've seen at any sporting event, which started because someone in the Wynyard crowd ordered a hot dog, someone in the Penguin crowd said only gay people (I didn't say it was a PC crowd fight) ate hot dogs, and two families of hillbillies just punched on for ages, to the point even security didn't want to break it up, it was so compelling. Now, these girls deserve everyones respect. Some people would tell you oh they were so ugly, and let's all laugh at them - they weren't ugly, they were beautiful local legends. If you were short, sweet and petite, you entered the Queens Quest competition, married a footballer and raised funds for the football club, and if you were stocky, big, could throw a punch or were just fat, you did your bit by playing womens basketball. It was sort of the same in the mens basketball, but to be honest, it just wasn't the same. There was a place for everyone in Penguin, the last fully functioning local community I'll ever live in.
And I hope it's always that way, forever and ever. There's still no place for you though Fallon, it's not your type of game...
Saturday, July 12, 2008
90s Retro is Rubbish
TheDevineMsKai
Originally uploaded by JungsPN
I figured since we had a photo of Ms Low, a photo of Ms Kai was in order. It really is a wrestling thing. She's just...Leilani Kai. The best.
I had a really strange night last night - I was thrown out of a pub called Irish Murphys for being sick in the toilet (I had some pineapple stuck in my throat and a pain in the guts, but I didn't know it was summat that got you thrown out) and ended up, after a long sulk, at a place called The Telegraph. Now, I can generally define a pubs demographic in seconds, but this place really should be more popular - it seemed really nice and comfortable, a bit cramped, but that's OK. I'd imagine they'd let you be sick in peace at least. There's a pool table, a big TV, and no faux house music. I approved, but that's not the point of this post. The point is, the only drawback was it was very very young and trendy, and I'm old and a bit washed up. I can remember most of the best experiments on the Curiousity Show, when people had to write a letter, and when phones were plugged into the wall. That makes me seem a hundred to people who aren't old enough to remember the day before the Iphone. But don't worry, I've already come up with a plan - I'm going to make myself a 90s retro throwback, and start going out in British Knights, Joe Bloggs and FILA boots. My favourite footballer will be James Manson, and I'll write on Spicers Paper. It's all set, I've got the clothes ready to order on Ebay. I also had one of the truly worst fashion items of all the 90s, a war style leather jacket with a furry collar that, when you turned it inside out, had a map stitched onto it. A map of wartime Germany. Never mind bringing Sexy Back, if someone brings that back, they are definitely in my good books.
There is certainly a rationale behind this - I found out today that Claudia Schiffer is apparently in hot demand again. Clawdja, as her support group in Burnie used to call her, is now 38, but getting heaps of work due to "women wanting mature models", but it's probably more to do with 90s retro suddenly coming in, almost without me noticing. I was just getting over the 80s retro. Clawdja was my idol when I was much younger, althought I knew someone more obsessed than me, someone with a scrap book of great Clawdja photos. I read online (and I can't find it again sadly) that mid 90s Cindy Crawford potboiler Fair Game is now considered a "cult classic" akin to Showgirls in some circles. Beverley Hills 90210 is coming back with Jennie Garth as a councillor. Peter Combe, late 80s and early 90s Wiggles Prototype, is now considered really trendy, and is singing Toffee Apple to bored uni students. It won't be long until I end up at Syrup (pending getting a punch in the head) and the DJ spins some Indecent Obsession in a fit of 90s retro panic. And Sea FM, our lovely local pimp my DJ radio station, play not only 9 minutes of the 90s, but a 3pm 90s pick me up. So you can see with all this going, I'm hoping that my popularity with the ladies will increase when I become a genuine 90s throwback. I might even wear some vintage era AFL Vivid jackets. Those things were golden.
To think, I remember when the Late Show used to mock Countdown and Hall and Oates for being date, and now, that was 16 years ago, and people could mock The Late Show for being dated. Or the Hollowmen, man, that show is awful...
However, if 80s retro taught me anything, it really is that the wrong things are remembered - mostly either the rubbish bits (mullets, Billy Idol, rubbish old Hall and Oates clips, stupid Live Aid) , while no one remembers the good bits, like the Curiousity Show, My Secret Valley, Taurus Rising, the brilliant local version of World Of Sport where Peter Gilligan gave out cartons of orange juic and the last golden era of local football. You can get Full Frontal on DVD, but where's Ron Barassi's world? No one champions the last era when kids could run around and hurt themselves without an entire park being shut down. I'd love to open an 80s playground/park with flimsy unsafe rides and monkey bars 20 feet off the ground. I have this awful fear that if full on 90s retro comes back, it'll be the really rubbish stuff everyone in the AGE champions - Dinosaurs, Jewel, Jennifer Lopez, Talking Footy and that Eric Bana sketch show with Poida. No one will champion, say, the great work of Nikki Buckley, blog favourite Jodie Low, the news reading skills of local legend Diane Massey, 4 Quarters with John Barnes and Sandy Roberts sitting by the fire, and of course, a time when the best looking tennis player in the world was soccer mom Amanda Coetzer. I can promise you somehow Conchita Martinez will get a mention, but that show where Bruce Macavenay tried to make 8 sports documentaries in a month.
I'm not sure what this upcoming 90s retro era will bring me, but as someone who lived through the era, I guess I get to play my part in defining the retro comebacks. I suggest we make an icon out of South African cricketer Merryck Pringle, Collingwood great Frankie Raso, and of course, Leilani Kai. At least in the 90s, you could be sick in pubs...what's the world coming to etc, grumble, shakes angry fist...
Friday, July 11, 2008
Thisisajodielow/The Trouble With Sexting, Cheating and Texting
Thisisajodielow
Originally uploaded by JungsPN
Never let it be said I don't do my research on what brings people to read this blog - far and away, it's people looking for pictures of Aerobics Oz Style glamourpuss Jodie Low - the girl who turned the show from Mumsy fitness with June Jones to glamourous legally available perving in an outdoor setting. Hey, I prefer Leilani Kai, but that's just me. The one thing I would like to say about Ms Low is I may have implied that she was really rubbish at doing leg curls, but she did win the Miss Fitness Award in 1996, so she was clearly at least somewhat competent. It was just de-emphasised on the show and they had her doing the most basic exercises. I wonder if there was a rivalry on the show over got to be the head trainer and who got the Effie Michaels simpleton role.
I don't know what's its like in other countries, but it seems like no good at all can come from owning a mobile phone these days. Every second advert on AUSTAR seems to involve some kind of idiotic and time wasting texting scam, generally involving texting a number to find out if someone is your dream partner. The premise of this seems to be you text your name and someone elses name and they text back a percentage that tells you how likely it is your partner is cheating on you, your partner is the right one for you, or if your partner likes the mince you cooked for them last night. I really have no idea how this can possibly work, but I gave it a shot. i took down the line for "dream partners", and then I texted my name and "Leilani", and it came back 67%, I texted "Vilimaina", and it came back 24%, and I texted Jodie, and it came back 87%. So that means that my dream partner is Jodie Low, and I wasted about 3 bucks. Sadly, I then texted the cheating line, and there was a 95% percent chance she was cheating on me. Damn fitness models, you can't trust them. It's an absolute and complete scam, but for some reason, I found the results really compelling and interesting - a bit like that game at school with the psychic predictions through numerals. Technically, isn't Jodie Low cheating on me? I wouldn't have this problem with Effie Michaels...
It did make me wonder though if anyone has actually broken up with someone based on this particular phone scam though. And it also made me think of other scams that have been on TV here in Australia. It was impossible in Tasmania a few years ago to avoid seeing the Mega Memory guy. They had a clip from the Danny Bonaduce chat show where the Mega Memory guy was the guest. It aired long after Dannys joke about the axing of the Chevy Chase show had stopped making sense. From memory, it involved the Mega Memory guy impressing Danny with his ability to remember a list of 30 items forwards and backwards. The reason I remember this was because (allegedly) he was busted for tax evasion and when they asked where the receipts for certain items were, he said he couldn't remember. Someone call Alanis. Closer to home, I remember this little Indian guy who used to be on all the time in Burnie doing the full Franco Cozzo/Ken Bruce shouty ad about the failure of his carpet business, how he couldn't feed his family and if people didn't buy a carpet at his closure sale at West Park, within the next week, he would probably be deported back to India in a crate. The trouble was, this ad was on every week for six years. Every week, closing down, big trouble, can't feed kids, carpets must go within a week, wolves at the door - I think in the end he sold so much carpet, someone told me he bought a yacht and a big house in Launceston.
The big scare campaign here in Australia about mobile phones doesn't have anything to do with scams- right now the big scare is about sexting, which is (so the kids say) when you send your boyfriend a naked picture of yourself and it ends up all over the Internet. Hell, that's not a scare, that crazy guy out of the AGE put his daughter naked on the cover of a magazine, that scared me a whole lot more. The amount of Tar going into the lungs of a pack a day smoker, that's scary. Now, I can imagine being a 16 year old and having your boyfriend show all his mates a naked picture of you, it will be very upsetting, but you'll learn a very valuable lesson - don't text a picture of yourself to Lance Franklin. That's just how he is.
Now, let me see if Ms Kai is cheating on me...
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The Router and The Damage Done
Did you know Pamela Anderson is sleeping in the Versace Hotel instead of the Big Brother House - con!
My computer was down last night, which was annoying, I think my router was just completely mangled or something for about 24 hours, and all it did was make me think about power cuts, electrical failures, community failures, the impending doom of the world - yes, when the lights go out, as opposed to what 5ive might have you believe, there's just more time to think. Plus it was really really cold, so being unable to blog really exacerbated how darn cold it is lately. Down here in Tasmania, the Internet service is amusingly rubbish to begin with. We're not exactly moving at the speed of sound down here and when little Wendy wants to download a pornographic movie or little Billy wants to download the new Coldplay album, there's a hell of a wait. You have to sit through an entire episode of On The Couch with Mike Sheahan just to get to Track 5 off your average picture disc. No one seems to know how to fix the problem, so we just have to put up with it. I guess that's life on an island. Someone should get Hermes Endakis on the case.
The first power cut I can ever remember was when I was about 6 - it was actually a really good experience, I remember it was the first time I ever got all the football cards in a set to make the big picture (something to do with the Sydney Swans - lousy national competition, I should have smelled a conspiracy theory even then) and I sat in the hall quietly assembling the big picture, without a fuss, and Penguin wasn't really the kind of place where you needed to be loaded up with electrical gadgets and it was 1984 anyway. All you really needed was a radio and the two channel TV, with a luxury item like a kettle. I have this really vague memory of a prolonged power cut once, say, two days, where they ended up putting people up in the local Masonic hall and giving them soup - I'd have been outraged by that these days now I'm an old grump, the idea of being on an adjoining property to homeless people, but then I thought it was what communities did, I think it's a bit sad in some ways that I don't feel like that. I think my neighbour is a complete tosser, I hate and despise my boss, and the only other person in my whole street I know is the guy across the road who answered the door to my Mum and Dad naked when they tried to deliver a package (matron) that came to our house. My street is Scotland is still quite close, but cliquey - everyone knows everyone, but 1/2 of them hate each other, especially the nosey fat lady who uses charity drives to try and get into peoples houses for a gossip. Frankly, I don't know which alternative is worse.
As much as I'd quite like to do more for my community, I think that a lot of times the fate of the world and my community and whether the economy is sinking under K-Rudd doesn't matter these days if your boss is a dickhead. We live in really small circles, and no one is a good neighbour, especially me. When my Internet went down last night, I kept thinking about how annoyed I was, and kicking the screen and trying to fix the router. Which of course should be a jumping off point for to realise that I should get a real sense of perspective and kids are dying in the world and what's one night without the Internet? Well, it's an annoyance - the kind that we end up with these days. There's no wars, no famines, no plagues and not usually any really dangerous jobs out there for us to worry about here in Tassie - all our concerns are financial, or gadget based, or mild inconveniences or disturbances at worst. This is what I've worried about this week - The form or otherwise of Dale Thomas (in particular, his media work), the fact Josh Fraser was a #1 draft pick in the same draft as Pavlich, Nathan Buckley being our coach in 2 years, Pamela Anderson sleeping at the Versace hotel and not actually in the Big Brother house, trying to get tickets for Peter Combe, getting woken up by a knock that was much too loud, my boss being evil, the repetition of Take A Bow being played on the radio, my inability to watch a video on Youtube, the impending fear that Jana Pittman is going to "run through the pain" and Lindsay Lohan going out with someone who looks like Shane Woewodin. It's not a giant list of concerns, and yet my Internet goes down and I think it's the end of the world - a sign of madness or a maddening sign? I'm really not sure, but it's made me think and try and get a grip on my life - and not go to bed in a disgusted sulk every time I can't get AUSTAR. I'm going to make an Alisa Camplin style effort to be more positive, and try and relax and lighten up.
Mind you, the fact that Leilani Kais website is no longer active, well, that's a real concern...
My computer was down last night, which was annoying, I think my router was just completely mangled or something for about 24 hours, and all it did was make me think about power cuts, electrical failures, community failures, the impending doom of the world - yes, when the lights go out, as opposed to what 5ive might have you believe, there's just more time to think. Plus it was really really cold, so being unable to blog really exacerbated how darn cold it is lately. Down here in Tasmania, the Internet service is amusingly rubbish to begin with. We're not exactly moving at the speed of sound down here and when little Wendy wants to download a pornographic movie or little Billy wants to download the new Coldplay album, there's a hell of a wait. You have to sit through an entire episode of On The Couch with Mike Sheahan just to get to Track 5 off your average picture disc. No one seems to know how to fix the problem, so we just have to put up with it. I guess that's life on an island. Someone should get Hermes Endakis on the case.
The first power cut I can ever remember was when I was about 6 - it was actually a really good experience, I remember it was the first time I ever got all the football cards in a set to make the big picture (something to do with the Sydney Swans - lousy national competition, I should have smelled a conspiracy theory even then) and I sat in the hall quietly assembling the big picture, without a fuss, and Penguin wasn't really the kind of place where you needed to be loaded up with electrical gadgets and it was 1984 anyway. All you really needed was a radio and the two channel TV, with a luxury item like a kettle. I have this really vague memory of a prolonged power cut once, say, two days, where they ended up putting people up in the local Masonic hall and giving them soup - I'd have been outraged by that these days now I'm an old grump, the idea of being on an adjoining property to homeless people, but then I thought it was what communities did, I think it's a bit sad in some ways that I don't feel like that. I think my neighbour is a complete tosser, I hate and despise my boss, and the only other person in my whole street I know is the guy across the road who answered the door to my Mum and Dad naked when they tried to deliver a package (matron) that came to our house. My street is Scotland is still quite close, but cliquey - everyone knows everyone, but 1/2 of them hate each other, especially the nosey fat lady who uses charity drives to try and get into peoples houses for a gossip. Frankly, I don't know which alternative is worse.
As much as I'd quite like to do more for my community, I think that a lot of times the fate of the world and my community and whether the economy is sinking under K-Rudd doesn't matter these days if your boss is a dickhead. We live in really small circles, and no one is a good neighbour, especially me. When my Internet went down last night, I kept thinking about how annoyed I was, and kicking the screen and trying to fix the router. Which of course should be a jumping off point for to realise that I should get a real sense of perspective and kids are dying in the world and what's one night without the Internet? Well, it's an annoyance - the kind that we end up with these days. There's no wars, no famines, no plagues and not usually any really dangerous jobs out there for us to worry about here in Tassie - all our concerns are financial, or gadget based, or mild inconveniences or disturbances at worst. This is what I've worried about this week - The form or otherwise of Dale Thomas (in particular, his media work), the fact Josh Fraser was a #1 draft pick in the same draft as Pavlich, Nathan Buckley being our coach in 2 years, Pamela Anderson sleeping at the Versace hotel and not actually in the Big Brother house, trying to get tickets for Peter Combe, getting woken up by a knock that was much too loud, my boss being evil, the repetition of Take A Bow being played on the radio, my inability to watch a video on Youtube, the impending fear that Jana Pittman is going to "run through the pain" and Lindsay Lohan going out with someone who looks like Shane Woewodin. It's not a giant list of concerns, and yet my Internet goes down and I think it's the end of the world - a sign of madness or a maddening sign? I'm really not sure, but it's made me think and try and get a grip on my life - and not go to bed in a disgusted sulk every time I can't get AUSTAR. I'm going to make an Alisa Camplin style effort to be more positive, and try and relax and lighten up.
Mind you, the fact that Leilani Kais website is no longer active, well, that's a real concern...
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
The worlds loneliest piano player
I am basically, in societys eyes, an old man, which allows me to reflect nostagically on a bunch of things that no one else seems to remember - Egg Flip Big Ms, Jaffa Orange Big Ms (as opposed to Jaffa Big Ms or Orange Big Ms, completely different Big Ms), Blackberry Cadbury Creme Eggs, Caramel Milky Ways, big chunky Jaffas, DMCs (the forerunner to M&Ms, but bigger and the size of a dinner plate), and best of all, lime Spiders. I'm not all that far away from writing some kind of horrendously awful childhood memoir all about Golden Gaytimes (an ice cream foreigners), Phil Maney Pies, Bubble O Bills and whatever happened to proper Butterscotch Ice Cream, with a proper butterscotch flavour and proper butterscotch colouring (I think caramel ruined the ice cream industry) but really, I've just realised I'm really, really hungry, and it's time for some toast. Mind you, even that isn't as good as it used to be, what with them thinning down the bread and the quality of bakers being on the decl...
Anyway, today I was talking to someone about Lime Spiders today, which if you don't know is lime syrup, ice cream, lemonade, sugar and probably whisky mashed up in a big giant glass of fun. Some people will try and tell you that Lime Spiders were the poor relation of the coke Spider, which is an area of great contention in certain Australia discussion circles. However, I would say that anyone who preferes a Coke Spider to a Lime Spider might as well prefer Velvet McIntyre to Leilani Kai, a Sega Genesis to an ATARI, Glenn Ridge to Tony Barber, Shane Woewodin to Dale Thomas, Ulverstone to Penguin or Darren Kappler to Gavin Brown. You could probably make a very sound argument for your position, you could debate to the ends of time, but you would be completely and utterly wrong. Families were basically only together in the 80s for the one day a week they could send the kids to the shops or the milk bar for a lime spider. No family was ever, ever kept together by a trip for a coke spider. And that is absolutely and completely true, so take your coke spider and go to the corner.
Penguin in Tasmania was just up the road from the city of Burnie, which, given the limited nature of shopping in Penguin (apart from the Soapbox) was like a trip to Paris, New York or Launceston. Now, we hated Burnie, not as much as we hated Ulverstone of course, but we still hated Burnie, made Burnie jokes, mocked the locals and their arrogance, and then ploughed into the car anyway and went off to Fitzgeralds or K-Mart to gawp in awe at racks of slacks or the latest games for the Commodore 64 and the great array of shops. Really, you can't overstate when you grow up in a small town the joys of going to a bigger town (or in Burnies case, a slightly bigger city) to do your shopping. Burnie really isn't a remarkable shopping metropolis now I've seen some of the world, but did I mention it had a K-Mart? Fitzgeralds was probably the most exciting shop though, it had a top floor that you could get at with a ramp. A ramp! It had an entire shelf full of He-Man figures so you always came back to Penguin with something good that you could show your friends. And of course you would go back to Penguin and tell all your friends that even though you had a great time, and brought a Ju-Jitsu Heman figure, the locals in Burnie were complete idiots and you wouldn't live there if they paid you. In Heman figures.
At the end of the day, or the end of the trip when your Mum had finally stopped looking at boring dresses, it was off to the Fitzgeralds cafe for a lime spider. Now, Fitzgeralds cafe was the worst cafe in the entire world. Worse even than the store Santas. The Sausage Rolls were awful, the biscuits tasted like sausage rolls, god knows what was in the macaroni and cheese (the only things ruled out were the macaroni and the cheese), and there was a strong smell of old people. And yet, I loved going there. It wasn't just the lime spiders, the best in the entire world bar none, but also even though I was really young, I spent hours studying the worlds loneliest piano player. In the midst of this dreck of a cafe, full of pissed off kids, dis-integrating families, old people waiting to die and canteen staff wondering where the goat meat sandwich was, was an old man sitting in the corner in a dinner suit and tux, playing classical music on a grand piano. His face was a mask of emotions, on the one hand utter professionalism as he concentrated on his Beethoven and Bach played from a sheet music rendition out of the middle of the Classical Composers series. On the other, contempt, no, not quite contempt...despair? Wondering where his life went? Why his classical training had him playing Bach to 6 year olds? He always looked sad, but stoic, like a captain leading his men to certain doom, but still pretending he could turn it all around.
You can see, I don't know many composers.
I always remember once, I was trying to pretend the chips were made of potatoes, when I caught his eye. With an imperceptible flash of his eyes and a shake of his head, he said a lot with his expression. He looked like the worlds loneliest man, and I've always remembered his face, his sad, desperate face, and then the stoicism he showed as he puffed out his cheeks, caught the eye of an old granny, and clammed up with a professional entertainment smile. I think he got away with it, but only just. I was proud of him, and learned a lot from him about the professionalism of doing your job, in the midst of a personal hell.
I'll try and be like him tomorrow, when I face the general public...like him, and blue eye shadow girl...
Anyway, today I was talking to someone about Lime Spiders today, which if you don't know is lime syrup, ice cream, lemonade, sugar and probably whisky mashed up in a big giant glass of fun. Some people will try and tell you that Lime Spiders were the poor relation of the coke Spider, which is an area of great contention in certain Australia discussion circles. However, I would say that anyone who preferes a Coke Spider to a Lime Spider might as well prefer Velvet McIntyre to Leilani Kai, a Sega Genesis to an ATARI, Glenn Ridge to Tony Barber, Shane Woewodin to Dale Thomas, Ulverstone to Penguin or Darren Kappler to Gavin Brown. You could probably make a very sound argument for your position, you could debate to the ends of time, but you would be completely and utterly wrong. Families were basically only together in the 80s for the one day a week they could send the kids to the shops or the milk bar for a lime spider. No family was ever, ever kept together by a trip for a coke spider. And that is absolutely and completely true, so take your coke spider and go to the corner.
Penguin in Tasmania was just up the road from the city of Burnie, which, given the limited nature of shopping in Penguin (apart from the Soapbox) was like a trip to Paris, New York or Launceston. Now, we hated Burnie, not as much as we hated Ulverstone of course, but we still hated Burnie, made Burnie jokes, mocked the locals and their arrogance, and then ploughed into the car anyway and went off to Fitzgeralds or K-Mart to gawp in awe at racks of slacks or the latest games for the Commodore 64 and the great array of shops. Really, you can't overstate when you grow up in a small town the joys of going to a bigger town (or in Burnies case, a slightly bigger city) to do your shopping. Burnie really isn't a remarkable shopping metropolis now I've seen some of the world, but did I mention it had a K-Mart? Fitzgeralds was probably the most exciting shop though, it had a top floor that you could get at with a ramp. A ramp! It had an entire shelf full of He-Man figures so you always came back to Penguin with something good that you could show your friends. And of course you would go back to Penguin and tell all your friends that even though you had a great time, and brought a Ju-Jitsu Heman figure, the locals in Burnie were complete idiots and you wouldn't live there if they paid you. In Heman figures.
At the end of the day, or the end of the trip when your Mum had finally stopped looking at boring dresses, it was off to the Fitzgeralds cafe for a lime spider. Now, Fitzgeralds cafe was the worst cafe in the entire world. Worse even than the store Santas. The Sausage Rolls were awful, the biscuits tasted like sausage rolls, god knows what was in the macaroni and cheese (the only things ruled out were the macaroni and the cheese), and there was a strong smell of old people. And yet, I loved going there. It wasn't just the lime spiders, the best in the entire world bar none, but also even though I was really young, I spent hours studying the worlds loneliest piano player. In the midst of this dreck of a cafe, full of pissed off kids, dis-integrating families, old people waiting to die and canteen staff wondering where the goat meat sandwich was, was an old man sitting in the corner in a dinner suit and tux, playing classical music on a grand piano. His face was a mask of emotions, on the one hand utter professionalism as he concentrated on his Beethoven and Bach played from a sheet music rendition out of the middle of the Classical Composers series. On the other, contempt, no, not quite contempt...despair? Wondering where his life went? Why his classical training had him playing Bach to 6 year olds? He always looked sad, but stoic, like a captain leading his men to certain doom, but still pretending he could turn it all around.
You can see, I don't know many composers.
I always remember once, I was trying to pretend the chips were made of potatoes, when I caught his eye. With an imperceptible flash of his eyes and a shake of his head, he said a lot with his expression. He looked like the worlds loneliest man, and I've always remembered his face, his sad, desperate face, and then the stoicism he showed as he puffed out his cheeks, caught the eye of an old granny, and clammed up with a professional entertainment smile. I think he got away with it, but only just. I was proud of him, and learned a lot from him about the professionalism of doing your job, in the midst of a personal hell.
I'll try and be like him tomorrow, when I face the general public...like him, and blue eye shadow girl...
Hobart Airport
I told everyone I knew today Lindsay Lohan was a lesbian - no one was really interested. I probably need some new friends.
I'm different to a lot of people (and not just because I run a one man Leilani Kai fanclub) in that I really like hanging out in airports. I don't have any rhyme or reason for this, but I don't mind sitting sipping a nice coffee or reading a magazine specially imported from the UK two months before the regular edition comes out. I like watching couples split up and get back together. I like the sense of adventure that comes from watching people fly off, and above all, I really like Internet machines that charge a dollar for 10 minutes and then block every single website that mentions the word "darn" just in case a child looks at it. The ones in Scotland sometimes make a beeping noise when they block websites - you can't even look at a Vanessa Williams clip on Youtube without alerting the entire airport that you are some kind of sick pervert. Jordin Sparks, oddly, seems to be OK. My favourite airport in the entire world is Amsterdam, because it's a big straight line, and because it's positively filthy with a lot of dodgy looking men trying to sneak a look at porn. Ah, class.
Anyway, if you want to come to Hobart, or for that matter leave Hobart, you have to lob at Hobart Airport, on either a Jetstar or Virgin Blue plane. For some reason they got rid of my favourite thing in the airport, the big truck with all the luggage that parked in the middle of a warehouse and let everyone fight to get their bags. If you take a Jetstar into Hobart, you will land roughly on time on a very cheap plane after a ten minute delay that no one can figure out. If you land on a Virgin Blue plane, you'll probably be twenty minutes late, but convince yourself you had a much better flight because the plane is a bit nicer. We've come a fair way from the glory of Kendall Airlines, the only airline in the world where doing a complete 180 in mid air was considered a smooth ride. No one I know remembers Kendall Airlines down here, but I think we've all tried to shut out the horrors of Kendalls idea of what "turbulence" constituted. Once when I flew out of Burnie to go to Melbourne, I had to get on a Spitfire type military plane due to a pilots strike, with a big landscape painting bolted across as a "door" and a for once taken really seriously lecture on what to do in case we hit a mountain - so I really should stop whinging about Jetstar, now I think about it.
Hobart Airport isn't going to win any classic design awards and most people seem to hate the place. However what I do love about Hobart Airport is the fact that there really is no upper class to the joint - like I said, you either land Jetstar or Virgin Blue, and you'll be in economy, and you'll walk across the tarmac and wait for your bags and look at the world WILKOMMEN in the twinkling lights like the rest of us - so it doesn't matter if you are a celebrity, a faux celebrity or have just won the lottery. You are in that crappy lounge watching the Today show on TV with the rest of us. Cricket teams? On a Jetstar. Football teams? Guess what the choice is? That Australian band I was on the plane with when I thought we were going to crash in the Tasman and wondered if it was worth dying if it meant I took them with me? Get on the Jetstar and stop your rock like posturing. My favourite moment like this wasn't our state Premier Paul Lennon hiding in a coffee shop so disgruntled voters wouldn't hassle him, it was all around dickhead TV, celebrity Carlton cheer squad member and radio football commentator Tim "Timmy" Lane sitting a row in front of me trying to read a book while two drunk Carlton supporters sitting next to him tried to discuss Tasmanias bid for an AFL team and whether Eddie Betts was better than Sean Charles. Every part of his face was screaming for help and the comfort of business class. Oh, that'll teach you Timmy to hate Collingwood so much...
The final reason I think everyone should spend a day at Hobart Airport is this - no one has ever, ever landed in anything other than terrible weater. I'm not sure why this is, but I promise every single time you touch down in Hobart and get off the plane, it's absolutely freezing. Even if the sun is shining, even if they tell you on the plane it's 38 degrees in Hobart, I promise you you land in rain and cold weather every single time. Adam Hills got ten minutes out of that during a stand up show. There must be a scientific explanation for it. It's like a lot of odd things about Hobart - the strange obsession of our nightclubs with Dave Dobbyn, the way the crappier a radio show is, the longer it stays on the air, the fact that we never, ever make anything out of Errol Flynn or Taz to try and promote the state, but hope Ricky Ponting will do the job, and the way that the coffee in the shops at the airport, unlike anywhere in the centre of the city, actually, crazily, tastes like coffee. Something Starbucks should probably try one day.
Ooh, an anti Starbucks reference, how very "The Age"...
I'm different to a lot of people (and not just because I run a one man Leilani Kai fanclub) in that I really like hanging out in airports. I don't have any rhyme or reason for this, but I don't mind sitting sipping a nice coffee or reading a magazine specially imported from the UK two months before the regular edition comes out. I like watching couples split up and get back together. I like the sense of adventure that comes from watching people fly off, and above all, I really like Internet machines that charge a dollar for 10 minutes and then block every single website that mentions the word "darn" just in case a child looks at it. The ones in Scotland sometimes make a beeping noise when they block websites - you can't even look at a Vanessa Williams clip on Youtube without alerting the entire airport that you are some kind of sick pervert. Jordin Sparks, oddly, seems to be OK. My favourite airport in the entire world is Amsterdam, because it's a big straight line, and because it's positively filthy with a lot of dodgy looking men trying to sneak a look at porn. Ah, class.
Anyway, if you want to come to Hobart, or for that matter leave Hobart, you have to lob at Hobart Airport, on either a Jetstar or Virgin Blue plane. For some reason they got rid of my favourite thing in the airport, the big truck with all the luggage that parked in the middle of a warehouse and let everyone fight to get their bags. If you take a Jetstar into Hobart, you will land roughly on time on a very cheap plane after a ten minute delay that no one can figure out. If you land on a Virgin Blue plane, you'll probably be twenty minutes late, but convince yourself you had a much better flight because the plane is a bit nicer. We've come a fair way from the glory of Kendall Airlines, the only airline in the world where doing a complete 180 in mid air was considered a smooth ride. No one I know remembers Kendall Airlines down here, but I think we've all tried to shut out the horrors of Kendalls idea of what "turbulence" constituted. Once when I flew out of Burnie to go to Melbourne, I had to get on a Spitfire type military plane due to a pilots strike, with a big landscape painting bolted across as a "door" and a for once taken really seriously lecture on what to do in case we hit a mountain - so I really should stop whinging about Jetstar, now I think about it.
Hobart Airport isn't going to win any classic design awards and most people seem to hate the place. However what I do love about Hobart Airport is the fact that there really is no upper class to the joint - like I said, you either land Jetstar or Virgin Blue, and you'll be in economy, and you'll walk across the tarmac and wait for your bags and look at the world WILKOMMEN in the twinkling lights like the rest of us - so it doesn't matter if you are a celebrity, a faux celebrity or have just won the lottery. You are in that crappy lounge watching the Today show on TV with the rest of us. Cricket teams? On a Jetstar. Football teams? Guess what the choice is? That Australian band I was on the plane with when I thought we were going to crash in the Tasman and wondered if it was worth dying if it meant I took them with me? Get on the Jetstar and stop your rock like posturing. My favourite moment like this wasn't our state Premier Paul Lennon hiding in a coffee shop so disgruntled voters wouldn't hassle him, it was all around dickhead TV, celebrity Carlton cheer squad member and radio football commentator Tim "Timmy" Lane sitting a row in front of me trying to read a book while two drunk Carlton supporters sitting next to him tried to discuss Tasmanias bid for an AFL team and whether Eddie Betts was better than Sean Charles. Every part of his face was screaming for help and the comfort of business class. Oh, that'll teach you Timmy to hate Collingwood so much...
The final reason I think everyone should spend a day at Hobart Airport is this - no one has ever, ever landed in anything other than terrible weater. I'm not sure why this is, but I promise every single time you touch down in Hobart and get off the plane, it's absolutely freezing. Even if the sun is shining, even if they tell you on the plane it's 38 degrees in Hobart, I promise you you land in rain and cold weather every single time. Adam Hills got ten minutes out of that during a stand up show. There must be a scientific explanation for it. It's like a lot of odd things about Hobart - the strange obsession of our nightclubs with Dave Dobbyn, the way the crappier a radio show is, the longer it stays on the air, the fact that we never, ever make anything out of Errol Flynn or Taz to try and promote the state, but hope Ricky Ponting will do the job, and the way that the coffee in the shops at the airport, unlike anywhere in the centre of the city, actually, crazily, tastes like coffee. Something Starbucks should probably try one day.
Ooh, an anti Starbucks reference, how very "The Age"...
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
The Middle Of Nowhere
I'm really really proud to have lived in Penguin on the North West Coast of Tasmania when I was younger. I lived across the road from the football ground, the hub of the community back in the days before AFL ruined everything that was once good about local football. I loved the jumper the Penguin team wore, since it was dark blue and light blue vertical stripes, a design no one else in Australia had. I loved Hiscutt Park, although I liked it better before it had a name and got a bit poncy. I loved how incredibly fierce and violent the girls basketball competition was (which has lead to my lifelong love of womens wrestling I think). I loved the Penguin shaped rubbish bins. I loved the local milk bar, I loved that on one day we got a new Soapbox and a new Sock Shop, and I loved the long sandy beach that seemingly went on forever, only to come to a crashing halt on a big pile of stones and rocks. It really was a lovely place to spend a childhood, and I really have a lot of local pride (hey, theme!) for the area.
Of course, when I was a bit older, I hated the place as well. Nothing happened. Ever. It was like someone hit the pause button in 1984. It really was the kind of place where Sunday seemed to last a month, and the month seemed to last a year. It was pretty predictable as well. You could tell what day of the week it was after a while by the cakes in the window or by who was collecting their mail. When we moved back there, it was like the entire world had stopped moving for me. Stupid things would bother me - if I saw the same girl two days in a row, I would think life was really boring and want to see different people. We didn't have proper TV, and I couldn't get Irn Bru. Stupid little things that add up to a million little things that add up to massive despair. I would lie in my room immensely frustrated that nothing was happening. Secretly, I would sneak out of the house late at night away from my parents and just walk around. That's why I know what was on sale late at night in the park - I think I ended up selling some tapes myself there one night, although this may be a trick of my imagination (like thinking Chris Tarrant was ever a good player).
A lot of people in conversation ask me if I've ever been truly happy or truly sad, and to be honest, I was both in one night. Now, I don't have any real regrets in my life apart from the usual - I've never left a girl stranded at the altar, I've never shot a man just to watch him die, my regrets are probably to do with time wasted (and never meeting Vilimaina Davu). I could have worked harder, I could have done more with my life, but I don't regret it. It is what it is. But I wonder what my life would have been like if I had really run away the night that I planned to. I couldn't see any good at all in Penguin, and absolutely no way out of my lonely boring life, and so, one night, I went to run away, took some meagre possessions, two hundred dollars and set off out the house really quietly, determined to have a new life away from this town that I couldn't stand.
Now, everyone has done this I'm sure, but I really wasn't doing it for attention, I was genuine about somehow getting back to the UK. Problem was, I decided to sleep in the Penguin football club grandstand. This wouldn't have been a bad thing, especially considering someone (oh the trust of the early 90s) had left two doors unlocked, and I could get easy access to food (all the Orange Jaffa Big Ms and Cherry Ripes a boy could want) but as I was just about to go to sleep (my memory might be off here, I might have been sleeping in the middle of the ground, to be hardcore) I saw the most beautiful star I've ever seen in my entire life. It wasn't just twinkling, it was glowing so brightly, it was illuminating the whole town, lighting up the sky, making it impossible to sleep, but also lighting up the houses dotting the skyline, almost to the point I could see people individually, fighting, arguing, loving, living. Everyone with their own problems, everyone with their own lives, but all of them facing up to them as best they could. It really remains an important part of my life, the night I realised that I could never run away from myself, and while from time to time I've tried, I always really remember that clearly - and how beautiful Penguin looked on that cold October night.
And that's why I always try and have as much local pride as I can - the people in Tasmania are just good people, making the best of what they have. Even with a terrible radio station...
Of course, when I was a bit older, I hated the place as well. Nothing happened. Ever. It was like someone hit the pause button in 1984. It really was the kind of place where Sunday seemed to last a month, and the month seemed to last a year. It was pretty predictable as well. You could tell what day of the week it was after a while by the cakes in the window or by who was collecting their mail. When we moved back there, it was like the entire world had stopped moving for me. Stupid things would bother me - if I saw the same girl two days in a row, I would think life was really boring and want to see different people. We didn't have proper TV, and I couldn't get Irn Bru. Stupid little things that add up to a million little things that add up to massive despair. I would lie in my room immensely frustrated that nothing was happening. Secretly, I would sneak out of the house late at night away from my parents and just walk around. That's why I know what was on sale late at night in the park - I think I ended up selling some tapes myself there one night, although this may be a trick of my imagination (like thinking Chris Tarrant was ever a good player).
A lot of people in conversation ask me if I've ever been truly happy or truly sad, and to be honest, I was both in one night. Now, I don't have any real regrets in my life apart from the usual - I've never left a girl stranded at the altar, I've never shot a man just to watch him die, my regrets are probably to do with time wasted (and never meeting Vilimaina Davu). I could have worked harder, I could have done more with my life, but I don't regret it. It is what it is. But I wonder what my life would have been like if I had really run away the night that I planned to. I couldn't see any good at all in Penguin, and absolutely no way out of my lonely boring life, and so, one night, I went to run away, took some meagre possessions, two hundred dollars and set off out the house really quietly, determined to have a new life away from this town that I couldn't stand.
Now, everyone has done this I'm sure, but I really wasn't doing it for attention, I was genuine about somehow getting back to the UK. Problem was, I decided to sleep in the Penguin football club grandstand. This wouldn't have been a bad thing, especially considering someone (oh the trust of the early 90s) had left two doors unlocked, and I could get easy access to food (all the Orange Jaffa Big Ms and Cherry Ripes a boy could want) but as I was just about to go to sleep (my memory might be off here, I might have been sleeping in the middle of the ground, to be hardcore) I saw the most beautiful star I've ever seen in my entire life. It wasn't just twinkling, it was glowing so brightly, it was illuminating the whole town, lighting up the sky, making it impossible to sleep, but also lighting up the houses dotting the skyline, almost to the point I could see people individually, fighting, arguing, loving, living. Everyone with their own problems, everyone with their own lives, but all of them facing up to them as best they could. It really remains an important part of my life, the night I realised that I could never run away from myself, and while from time to time I've tried, I always really remember that clearly - and how beautiful Penguin looked on that cold October night.
And that's why I always try and have as much local pride as I can - the people in Tasmania are just good people, making the best of what they have. Even with a terrible radio station...
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