Sunday, February 24, 2008

He's lucky, you're lucky, we're all lucky...

I'm feeling lucky. Lucky to have enjoyed two nights' of fantastic entertainment.

I'll start at the end which is where my inspiration for the above quote comes from. Ring any bells? Any hardcore fans out there?

No? Well, just me then. I'm talking Rocky Horror [Picture] Show. For my money the greatest musical ever written. The new production opened at Star City last week and I've been hanging out for the last few months, the tickets burning a hole in our ticket drawer.

I haven't seen the live version for over 25 years, ever since my rather shell-shocked mum took my then 14 year old self to see it at the Theatre Royal in the early 1980s. But I have seen the wonderful movie version a gazillion times. I'm one of those painful people who know it line by line, and insist on talking and singing along the entire time. You have been warned.

Last night's production was fabulous. A few areas I may have done differently but generally superb. I have to mention Iota as Frank'n'Furter. I was very worried about what take he might have on this character. For me Tim Curry owns this role and always will. Don't mess with the best I say and Iota didn't. He literally had me squirming with delight. Thank you Iota, thank you Richard O'Brien, thank you linesmen, thank you ballboys.

Now let's go back to Friday night. February is Music by Moonlight month here at the Olympic site where we live. Every Friday there is a free performance at The Overflow, a grassy area just across the road from The Stadium (as I'm now calling it, since it has a name change every year or so, depending on who is forking out the sponsorship cash). This is less than a minute's drive from our house and the perfect end-of-week veg out setting for our family.

Sadly the first two Fridays were rained out but we've gone for the third and fourth weeks. The week before there was an African band who were amazing. This week was The Rolling Stones... well, not THE Rolling Stones, but a tribute night of sorts. A hugely talented band with an assortment of male and female singers, each taking a turn at the Stones' classic and not so classic songs. The music was first class and it was amazing to have such an entertaining concert provided for free.

I think it's just the ambience of the night that makes it special. A balmy Sydney summer evening, the stars twinkling overhead, an esky full of cheese, crackers and other gourmet delights. The kids dancing. Our nice neighbours K and B to chat with. A bottle or six of red wine for Big Jay and our new friends. Then back in the car and home within two minutes.

It just doesn't get better than that.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

There is a hoo-ha going on around here (near where I work and Will goes to school, not near home) about a proposal for a brothel.

There are letters to the editor in the local paper and a woman approached me in the school playground to sign a petition against it.

I wish I had the guts to tell this woman what I thought of her prudish piece of crap petition. Instead I'll just tell you.

I can't believe people want to continue to live their lives with their heads in the proverbial sand. Wake up and smell the bullshit people. The sex industry is one of the oldest in the history of humans walking on their hind legs. Pretending it doesn't exist is like closing your eyes and pretending people can't see you. It's real, it exists, deal with it. I certainly prefer the idea of brothels than of poor women freezing their butts off on a corner of William Street or some god-forsaken stretch of the Great Western Highway on a winter's night.

This particular brothel is being planned for a stretch of road inhabitated by panel beaters, car mechanics, a bus terminal and other forms of light industry. The anti-brothel people have picked up on the fact that this bit of road also backs onto the large playing fields of a particular Catholic boys' high school (the actual school buildings being hundreds of meters away from this bit of road). If you ask me, a lot of these boys will probably end up being regular customers. No-one needs a bonk more than a repressed Catholic school boy... well, perhaps the Pope, but that's a whole different story.

So to close I'll just say that I hate prudes, I hate bullshit and I wish I looked better in lingerie like the girls on Satisfaction... when will they screen Season 2?

Sunday, February 17, 2008

JUNO.

LOVE. IT.

This little film gets everything right. A tiny little bit of cinematic perfection.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Want a giggle?

Yesterday was Woolworths' Drough Action Day '08: Backing Our Farmers.

It's good to know the rich bastards at Woolies have a sense of humour and no sense of irony.

I can totally see how screwing the farmers down to the last cent, to a point where they barely make a living from selling their produce to Australia's giant supermarket chain but can't tell them to stick it because of the true lack of competition within the industry in this county, and then having the audacity to give a portion of your mega profits for ONE DAY to the same farmers you've been screwing, is great business logic and fantastic marketing.

Makes me sick to the stomach but what are you going to do.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

CHEEKY!!


This is probably a first, and last. I don't usually promote exercise products (not without a lucrative product placement fee... and I'm still waiting for a call from my agent on that one) on this blog.

Anyway, I've been desperate to get onto some sort of regular exercise program. I need to lose a few kgs FAST (well, before my 40th). After a few false starts I spent a total of $35 at Big W on two DVD sets - The Firm Sculpting Ball Workout (with ball) and The Firm Fat-Burning Cardio Toning (with Resistance Cords).

Like Big Kev, I'm excited. This is the sort of exercise I enjoy. It's easy-ish, I can feel it working muscles I generally haven't used for many years and I can do it in my bedroom early in the morning without worrying about rain, dark or any other potential excuses which used to prevent me from exercising.

[envisage me all made up and presenting on the Kerrie-Anne show on a weekday morning] So ladies... if you need to tone up and look great for summer why not try... It worked for me!
Let's discuss disappointment... not that (it's pretty good really)... or that (no, I can't complain).

The Tudors. I've been so looking forward to it. I have had a soft spot for Jonathan Rhys Meyers since his gorgeous androgynous role in the fabulous Velvet Goldmine (can't believe that was 1998). Generally I don't like girly skinny blokes but he's got something. Those dangerous blue eyes perhaps...

Anyway, this was my chance to drool over JRM and learn something about history. Whatever. Big Jay and I got through about 15 minutes before we decided it was crap. Or should I say crap dressed up as soft porn (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

PLAYGROUP ROCKS!!

(Do you like the T-shirt mum bought me?)

You, Me and Dupree. There's (close to) two hours of my life I'll never get back.

The only sad thing is watching a bland and old(er) Matt Dillon going through the motions. I couldn't help but think back to the crush I had on him circa Little Darlings (1980) and how wonderful he was as part of (possibly) the greatest ensemble cast, in a movie I will never outgrow, The Outsiders.

Friday, February 01, 2008

YES, there is a God (well, not really... it's just an expression, right...). Anyway, my excitement comes with the news that Channel 9 will be screening, amongst it's huuuuuuge line up of reality tv shows for 2008, Weddings - 10 Years On.

The original Weddings was on in the late 1990s and was a particular favourite of mine, especially since I was getting married in 1998 and spent a lot of time thinking of such things. More honestly I loved this show because it gave me a great opportunity to ridicule the poor white trash who made up the majority of its "cast".

Oh please please please let them re-visit the couple whose wedding included a present from the bride to the groom of a Persian kitten, who she attempted to walk down the aisle on a lead. It just doesn't get better than that. I'll remember these people until the day I die.

(No wonder I don't know the capital city of most countries and in, fact, couldn't locate many of them on a map. This is the sort of crap my head is filled with.)
I love Come Dine With Me, a BBC production shown here on Lifestyle Food.

It's a cooking program which runs over five nights and features five amateur home "chefs" who each host a dinner party at their home. The four guests give a score each evening and at the end of the week the winner gets one thousand pounds.

Unarguably it's less about food and more about the people who participate. Though I have picked up a decent recipe or two (the chicken thigh cutlets stuffed with mushrooms and wrapped in pancetta are super easy and totally yummy) most of these people are not Gordon Ramsay by any stretch of the imagination.

It may not be high brow entertainment but where else are you going to meet a bloke who not only owns a vol-au-vent cooking machine (like a home donut making machine but so much weirder) but also did an embalming course and embalmed his own father! But wait there is more. He has a picture of his dead mother, in her coffin, in the guest bedroom. Hands up who wants to stay the night!