BEST SONG EVER!!! NUFF SAID

I'M WICKED AND I'M LAAAAZYYY

Well duh...this clearly isn't a revelation, in fact from memory this is a regular occurrence, but fuck me if I don't have a fabulous life that deserves to be lived and can't always be paused so I can write down stuff on here...also, my computer chair is a bitch. The kind of bitch that presses my meaty, rugby thighs together, which in turn pushes into my nuts, which means I slouch so I can spread my legs a bit, which in turn means I start to hurt my back. It's a vicious circle of pain I'm dealing with here clearly. So that is one of my excuses and I'm not only sticking with it, I'm rubbing it into your face as well by spelling it out in way too much detail.

Anyway I thought I'd reveal one of the obsessions I'm currently using to fill a small gap in my week. I've become so obsessed with a local restaurant that I'm now the proud owner of a permanent booking every Thursday night. Yeah I said it, a permanent booking...which means each and every Thursday I can be found sitting at what has turned out to be my personal table with a collection of lovely friends. Fortunately my life isn't likely to inspire a hit of any kind so I feel pretty safe being in one location, once a week at 8.30pm. I'm also usually surrounded by 5 of my lovely friends, so I could always sacrifice one of them as a shield, should the need arise, though it shouldn't.

So no doubt you're wondering, how is it possible to love a place so much that you can factor in being there each and every week, with 5 friends in tow, regardless of what might arise. Well to date, it's worked a treat, in fact I've been there once a week for roughly 5 weeks now...if memory serves me correctly, which generally it doesn't, so do with that what you will. My only stress of late seems to be, can I invite enough friends to fill out all the chairs. I feel like keeping the name of the venue to myself, as since the Age ran a review of it, you need to have a booking to ensure you can sit down and order on arrival and whilst I only have 4 followers, you never know who's reading these things so I'm keeping my lips zipped.

It's safe to say its a few blocks up the street, it creates Asian inspired food with a funky, slightly bent twist. For instance they serve a 5 spice chicken with oriental spices, it's like KFC but if it was created in China not Kentucky. There's a pork stir-fry that contains pork belly that's been roasted till it crackles, so you get the chewy crunch as well as the deep, smooth curry sauce it swims in. Mmmmm my fingers are drooling just typing this, which in hindsight, is probably an affliction I should have medically treated, but you get the idea. Anyway, there's much more that can be added to that list, but I think the resounding beauty of such an arrangement is that each week I get to enjoy top quality food, surrounded by top quality people. The roster of guests always changes too, although there's regulars in the mix now too. They also revel in the inclusion of new guests who sit down to a meal that blows their minds and they get to shake their heads and go...

"I know right"

It's a rewarding gathering that arrives every week so why the hell wouldn't I go out of my way to find time to do it each week. Let's face it, you are jealous aren't you...maybe your invite will come one day and you can join us at the round table of weekly delights...maybe.

ME AM LUB THIS TO DEATH

OK this isn't something I've ever done, but love this song so much I have to tell anyone that will listen, so, I heard this song in the background of a solo performance on the latest season of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE - AMERICA. One of the cool popper guys called Phil did a routine to it. Anyway he is fucken talented as all get out...(what the fuck is with that saying? loves it regardless)...but this song grabbed me even more. So searched it out, downloaded it and now telling anyone who cares and even those who couldn't give a fuck, all about it. Have a listen, it features samples of PC and Mac sound effects and a chorus that raps baby gurgles, Jib you rock my world.

CHECK IT

SAYING GOODBYE TO AN ICON

It's taken me a few days to get around to sharing my feelings about the passing of MJ. Understandably the world is in a tailspin and unless I'm some sort of intergalactic orphan who hasn't discovered my shocking secret yet, I'm part of that world. Honestly, the more I ponder it, the more it saddens me. I was only 14 when 'Thriller" was released and it was my entire world, well, aside from my other love of course. Let's face it, at 14 you soon tire of trying to master the moonwalk and eventually find yourself returning to refining your Star Wars laser sound effects and mock asthma speeches about coming over to the dark side of the force. My family were fortunate enough to have a VHS video player in 1983, the classy type that included a remote control connected to the player via a really, really long cable. I shit you not, it was fucken high tech. Anyway, when they released the entire Thriller short film on video, I can still remember how excited I was about going to the biggest video shop in our neighbourhood to purchase it. I can also remember my excitement at having it in my hands and the desperate need to go home "right now Dad" so I could put it on and watch it.

Back in the early 80's Michael had an amazing effect on me, I'd grown up with a soundtrack of my parents choosing, which ranged from Boney M to Lionel Richie but also included liberal sprinklings of ABBA, Billy Joel and Roberta Flack...I know, it's a wonder I even have the courage to type that huh? Anyway, there clearly was no contest, especially compared to what I was already being delivered, Michael was the coolest man on the planet. Mastering MJ's signature dance move was the be all, and end all, and anyone who could actually do it became the focus of whatever dinner party or BBQ our parents had dragged us along to. If the party was at our place, everyone would gather around our TV, parents and their adult friends included, and I would proudly put the Thriller video into the player and then shush everyone (little wanker that I was) so we could get the full impact of it's brilliance. The minute Michael fell into formation out the front of his Tony Bartuccio dancers from beyond the grave, all the kids in the room would jump up and try and match the routine we saw on the screen. To think about it now, it seems a world away and having spent 20 years in commercial radio, I can't think of anyone who has the ability to draw people to a television like MJ could. Every new music video was an event, we anticipated it, we waited for it, we knew it was going to be amazing and he never let us down. By the mid 80's things slowly started to spiral out of control, there was the oxygen chamber revelation, the bones of the elephant man story and his surgery obsession really started to take control.

As the years progressed I fell in love with Pearl Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and all things flannel and grunge and Michael just didn't seem relevant to me anymore. I think it really hit home for me how strange he'd truly become in 2006. I was sourcing questions online for a pop quiz we were running on a breakfast show I was anchoring. I stumbled on a site of pop culture facts and one of them really stood out because initially, it confused the hell out of me. I can't remember exactly how it was worded, but the basic gist of the fact was that pop singer Michael Jackson used to have dark skin and was an African American. When I first read it my instant reaction was a big fat "well duh" but then it dawned on me. There was an entire generation of people who hadn't known Michael in the 70's or 80's, they'd only witnessed him as the centre of various molestation claims, court cases and balcony dangling baby incidents. They truly didn't know that he used to be the little kid you see above these words. In searching for that image, it actually upset me how many nasty photoshop pictures exist of him. Google his name and click through a few pages and see for yourself. You'll find doctored shots of him without his nose, looking like a half dead zombie and making fun of what he'd done to himself. When you look at this picture however, you can see how cute he was, and even in the early 80's, whilst he was skinny and nowhere near my type, he was still a handsome man. Yet for reasons we will never truly know, he chose to erase a perfectly good face and remodel it into his idea of perfection.

I think the saddest thing is that at the time of his death, he was in rehearsals to perform 50 concerts in London. It was being billed as his final concert tour (not like John Farnham's) and no doubt his hopes and dreams were that he could return himself to the status he used to enjoy. Stories are coming out now about how his addiction to pain killers may have fuelled his constant use of plastic surgery as an easy way to facilitate his drug supply. No doubt even more horrifying revelations are still to come. When I look at that little kid, strutting his bad self in that way too funky brown corduroy jacket, I can't help but wish it could have been different for him. If only we could push rewind and find out what it was that set him on the path, that left him an oddity for universal ridicule and quite possibly the loneliest man on the planet. I can only hope that he really did find happiness with his children and that they got to see him for who he really was, not who we thought he was. Tears have just welled in my eyes writing that and at the sadness of his loss. I really do hope that there is a place, where he can look down and see the joy he gave so many and witness the pain so many now feel from having to say goodbye, before we ever really got a chance to say...

THANK-YOU

R.I.P. MICHAEL

I will never forget you

BEING A GOD PARENT

Over the last few weeks I've been obliterating myself as part of a one month holiday. It's been fabulous spending time with family and friends and just getting to do whatever I want, with the people I love. One of the things that happened as part of that break was my little brother Tom asking me to be a god parent to his new born son Eli. I know can you believe it? Tom has a great sense of humour clearly because when he asked me and I said what does that mean, he said you're there for moral guidance throughout his life and on mention of that we both burst into laughter. The poor little fucker has no idea what he's gotten himself into hehe. Fortunately they've also chosen a lovely female friend of theirs to help...phew, pressure off.

Anyway we had the christening, which involved heading of to catholic mass for an hour and a half before the service...yawn. I had forgotten how boring church really is, to say nothing of the abundant collection of pensioners clinging to the hope that all their sins will be forgiven, it was kind of cute and kind of sad all at once. Eli was a little champion, didn't fuss or make too much noise and the only sticking point for me was when we as god parents were on the altar denouncing the devil and saying we believed in God. I felt like such a liar pretending I believe in God and the devil when really I just think the whole thing is about controlling people and making them scared...but each to their own.

Anyway it's a real privilege to be asked to shadow Eli through his life and be recognised as worthy of helping him through his journey into adulthood. I love everyone in my family so much and I'm so proud of my little brother Tom and his amazing wife Ciara and I know that Eli will have the most incredible life as a result of them. As for loving him, look at the little treasure, he's so beautiful I could sell him on the black market, not that I would of course, but you get the idea.

AND ANOTHER THING...

I rate the name of this entry highly, as it implies that I'm following on from something already posted. It makes me seem fuck off prolific, that's what it does. Truth of the matter is, it doesn't following on from anything, I'm just being creative and using and abusing my domain. It's kind of like pissing on something to tell those with an acute sense of smell that it's yours, or how you used to lick the entire length of any yummy food within your possession when your little brother was eyeing it off. It's about ownership. So that sorted let's move onto some issues from my week. First off, I've become troubled by the blatant abuse of ginger haired people recently...I know, random or what? Anyway, I think it's important at this early stage to admit that I'm actually a bit of a closet fanta-pants-a-phobe. Is Fanta a universal drink? If for some tragic reason it isn't, I want you to think of any fizzy drink that is pretty much neon orange, that is what Fanta looks like. In further explanation, you take the colour of said beverage and relate it to the pants area of any vibrant red head. Their neon pubic hair can then be related to you in a slang term of "Fanta Pants". Simple really, now run off and enjoy it with all your friends. Or stay and read the rest of this entry, the choice is yours.

So now that I've come clean on my genetic racism, I can continue relating my concerns. I've noticed lots of media outlets, comedians and people in general, using ginger kids as the new punch line for a variety of jokes. Normally I would applaud this kind of punch line abuse, throwing in my own version of hilarity to encourage the laughs. Suddenly though, it seems I'm confronted by it every where. Perhaps I'm sensitive to it as I've been such a purveyor of it myself. The end result is that now, I feel sorry for them. I feel like it's time for me to get over it and walk the nose bleeding, moral high ground. Hope they have a hand rail, I'm liable to lose my footing and such as my lungs struggle to absorb what little oxygen exists at that height. After all, I have ginger haired friends and they are all fucken H.O.T., I've also seen a hot one in some nasty gay porn and Prince Harry has already eclipsed his brother on the delectable scale. So clearly I'm not as horrified as my actions proclaim. Oh and apparently, according to that last argument, I also think that if someone is worthy of a root, then that makes their entire species acceptable to me, go figure. Oh and can I just stop for a second and say, I know I'm breaking the laws of science with my classification of red heads as an 'entire species', but go with me. The fact of the matter is, I'm still uncomfortable with it, even though I'm perfectly capable of supplying acceptable examples of ginger haired rootability.

I have never really got the fascination that some people truly have for body hair that looks like it's dropped off something Frank Oz made using felt, craft glue and a bunch of other shit. It seems weird that on some people it's so vividly orange and then it's backed up with skin that is so soft, pristine, white and almost paper thin that you can see the fucken blood moving through their veins for fucks sake. I think I officially became tainted by the ranga (slang shortening of the word orang-utan, the orange furred primate) when I attended a night of the comedy stage show "Puppetry of the Penis". Anyone who knows me properly, knows I love staring at a love truncheon, it's verging on a hobby. Is that even allowed to be referred to as a hobby? Would the Society of Hobby Classification be outraged at me trying to sully their honourable name? Anyway, I'm sitting in the audience with a friend...no idea which one...the lights dim, the promise of penis is in the air, everyone leans forward in anticipation of clever willy routines. Then out on stage wanders two guys, not the original creators of course, but some lowly paid penis manipulators that are the virtual store Santa versions of the original, mythical Santa of pork sword trickery. The trickery started even before the playground of pecker aerobics began, one of them was a ginger in disguise. He had bottle blond hair and on the flicking back of the silky cape that covered his work space he unveiled a shock of extremely bushy, neon orange plumage. This was then further enhanced via the use of a select number of cameras and 2 very large TV screens that made an electronic billboard of this technicolour trimmed schlong.

It was fucken FULL ON! I know, I used capitals and an exclamation mark, it was that serious. I was torn between wanting to settle into a night of revelling in big screen winkie and the shock and horror of the platter it was being served on. I of course allowed the winkie to win and enjoyed the show, although I was glad I didn't pay for it as the continuous muppet fluff displayed under the same sort of illumination used by 7-eleven, did immeasurable harm. Still all the rampant ginger attacks have forced a change that sees me treading slowly towards the entrance for that lovely walk along the moral high ground. I figure it's time I put all of that behind me and get the fuck over it. Simple. There were other things I wanted to mention however I think I've unleashed a tirade of suitable length to allow me to wrap this one up. I also have no fucken idea what those other topics were so move along, there's nothing to see here.

ONCE UPON A TIME...

...when I was much younger, it was the 80's, which seems rather obvious if I'm talking about my younger days but duh and carry on. Anyway it was well before Boy George confused me with his hair, makeup, funny hat and rather skirt like t-shirt. Before I saw that and thought 'wow she's a weird lady and why do they call her a boy?'. I had a baby sitter. Truth be told she was the family baby sitter and she was probably really there to stop my brothers and I from setting the house on fire, fighting, making scary noises that freaked out my little brother and making sure we went to sleep at some stage in the evening. As I was older I used to sit up with her after they went to bed and hang out with her. Eventually we became too old to be looked after, or my parents refused to pay for her or she more than likely refused to look after us as she needed a series of counselling sessions. Anyway we lost contact for a bit.

Then in the final years of my schooling, as I was preparing to leave and become an actor or a radio announcer or a dole bludger, she got a job working as a teacher at the school my brothers and I all went to. She was always funky and different, interesting hair, great glasses, the 80's were meant for a woman like Rosemary. She bought a small scooter which we helped her paint blue with yellow polka dots, including her helmet. This was the 80's people, you didn't do that in Adelaide, the woman was regularly pelted with rocks as she whizzed past your standard variety South Australian bogan. Anyway she faded in and out of our lives over the years. She and her partner took it upon themselves to help me realise I was a massive bender. I didn't realise of course (I was too busy making the occasional brooch or t-shirt decorated with puffer paints for my mums friends, clueless much?) but when I did they laughed and probably thought 'bless'.

Tonight, after not speaking to Rosemary for far too many years, something happened in my life that I knew only she could understand. So I reached out to her, for an ear, a soothing voice and the benefit of her wisdom and we talked for over an hour. Everything she had to say, was considered, soothing and made so much sense. After I'd thanked her and hung up the phone I hassled her for a final piece of advice via SMS. Her reply was beautiful and it closed with the the most perfect advice I've ever been given. It's private so I won't share, but in that instant I realised how incredibly lucky I am to have her in my life. How amazing it is to make contact again and find her as encouraging and thoughtful as she was when I was much too old to be baby sat, when I was burying my sexuality in arts and crafts and when she took the time out from her night with her own family to devote some time to me and my problems right now.

Thank you Rosemary for being who you have always been and sharing your friendship with a little kid who has only just realised, on the crest of his 40th birthday, how truly amazing you really are. I mean I had my suspicions of her amazing qualities but sometimes it takes a crisis to really get rock solid proof. Friends like Rosemary are few and far between, when they step forward and offer their advice, experience and love in times of need, it's one of the greatest gifts you can EVER receive. It also brilliant to know that after all these years, she still has the ability to baby sit me, even via an SMS.