Wednesday, May 9

WHAT EVER YOU DO DON'T CLICK ON THIS LINK...I DARE YOU

Righto this is a Today Tonight story waiting to happen, you've heard about the effects drugs could have on our children. The damage it does to their feeble minds could render them useless members of our society, lost, wandering, mumbling on like demented outcasts from "Children of the Corn". Except they aren't pretty, so as they extinguish the last bit of life from your body, your final image won't be some blond haired catalogue model with a Johnny Young Talent Time grin spread across its face it will be three badly made up....(pause for dramatic effect, also change to capitals, might even throw in an exclamation mark, we'll see, anyway keep reading cos this bit in the brackets is useless, ok now it's going on too long, the dramatic effect is ruined, oh for fucks sake close the brackets and do the final, dramatic word)...CLOWNS!

Yes I'm afraid so, these clowns are all kinds of fucked up and you need to see them, so without further ado hit the fucko link and step into a world you've never seen before and probably won't be able to see again, actually its fucken piss funny and I've been watching it endlessly, so go ahead, click on the link, I dare you woo har har har har...(ok was the scary laugh too much? oh for crying out loud we are in fucken brackets again talking to ourselves, quit it, I said qu..).

Here is the link FUCKO

Tuesday, May 1

FOR KERRIE...ALWAYS IN MY THOUGHTS

I still remember the first day Kerrie came along and introduced herself to me. It was 1984 and I was spending another lunch time sitting by myself at school. Think private Catholic College, full uniform including tie and the usual religious scowls from the brothers and sisters who rammed religion down our throats. The few male friends I had we're always running off to the oval to play sport, something I wasn't interested in, so being the shy, delicate flower that I was, I would spend most lunches sitting by myself, hoping no one would notice me.

One day, my worst nightmare was realised when this girl sauntered up to me with a few of her friends in tow and demanded to know if I had any friends. Of course I protested and announced my popularity, explaining that I wasn't interested in going to the oval with them and chose to stay in the main courtyard waiting for lunch to finish. This didn't seem to satisfy Kerrie, she detailed how she had observed me over the past few days sitting by myself, looking lonely and shy and had decided that she and her friends would now be my friend, so I wouldn't have to sit alone anymore. How amazing is that? This 14 year old girl taking the initiative to reach out to someone who was painfully shy and frequently alone.

I can still remember that day vividly, mostly because her questions and my replies would be rubbed in my face for years to come. Unfortunately one of the ice breakers Kerrie chose to ask was "who's your favourite band?" Now at that age I wasn't even listening to the radio, wasn't buying records and wasn't aware of music unless it was my parents Lionel Richie, Helen Reddy, Boney M or ABBA albums. So in a mad panic I chose the band that immediately sprung to mind. The band? Men At Work! For some reason "Down Under" found its way to the front of my brain and before I could bite down on my tongue and sever it to prevent me from forming the words, I actually said it. I'm sure you could hear the screams inside my head from the other side of the school. You could certainly hear the screams of laughter and ridicule from kerrie and her friends...my secret shame...not so secret now, gulp.

Yes my future friend, when confronted with that answer, this delightful girl who had minutes earlier reached out to this shy boy, pretty much threw her head back and all but pissed herself laughing like I had told the joke of the century. Now one trait of mine, especially when I was younger and a lot less extroverted, was to go bright red in the face whenever the focus was on me or I was embaressed. So you can imagine the shade of red I turned. In fact it's safe to say Kerrie and her friends bore witness to the first human to actually morph into a chamelion and pretend they were pressed flat against a big fuck off fire engine trying to become one with its vivid redness. Once the laughter had died down, probably in 1986...kidding, Kerrie mentioned the band INXS.

I had never heard of them of course but Kerrie's face immediately lit up as she went into detail about how great they were, how I had to hear them and how she would do a mix tape of them and bring it to school the very next day so I could listen to them for myself. She was true to her word and the next day INXS became my favourite band in the world, or at the very least, the only cool one I knew. Kerrie's passion for them knew no bounds, she even wrote a brilliant letter about our local FM radio station (one that I now do voiceovers for) telling either 'Rolling Stone' or 'Countdown' magazine how revolutionary they were for playing real, aussie music (FM radio was a much more underground beast back in the early days of the 80's). It was so well written it was of course printed in the very next issue much to all of our delight.

I had some of the greatest laughs of my life with Kerrie, stupid things that if I tried to recount now would seem pointless and hardly worth a smile. We've all got those classic moments that strangers write off as 'had to be there' moments. Special things that only the two of us understood and appreciated, shared moments that are still burned on my all too foggy memory. Kerrie was what some would call a dag, but also the life of the party, the sort of person who could draw a conversation out of anyone and make them feel like they were the only one that mattered. She was a natural journalist because she was genuinely interested in what other people thought, believed and experienced. She was also brilliantly funny with an intelligence to back it up. She was all kinds of fuck off amazing wonderful and I am so lucky to have had her as a close friend. I need to keep recalling memories of Kerrie and I also need to move on a start writing again. So my thoughts and happenings will return to this page and so will stories of Kerrie. As they come to me I'll give them the space to breathe on this blog for others to read and share.

If you didn't know Kerrie you can never understand how truly incredible she is. Her memory will remain with me FOREVER. I don't want this to end up sounding like one of those annoying emails that encourages you to send it to your 5 best friends to show them how much you love them, but I will say this. Find those special people in your life and keep them close because they mean more to you than you will ever know.