Turkey Moist Fowl

Jeez, S. Gregory, lighten up! That last post was really depressing. Of course, you already know that, S. Gregory, because you wrote it and just reread it again and you are me and so I can say to myself right now, “Boy-o-boy, am I glad I’m over that depressing spell!” (A special thank-you to Darkneuro for her comforting comment, by the way – you’re probably right, D.N., that I’d have walked off thinking foul things but they wouldn’t have been aimed at you.)

Fortunately, dear reader, Shantoozy and I have sorted out, or are clearly on the way to sorting out, those circumstances inspirational of my state of upset and it basically comes down, we agree, to a combination of my stress and nervous tension, her difficulties in explaining herself accurately on the spur of the moment, and my liver condition. So, what the fuck DID I know, after all? Things are good between us now. They rarely get out of hand like they did then, which is a blessing of good fortune from the spirits or eternal, infinite energies or (with all due respect) whatever, that I genuinely appreciate. Yes, I am now feeling much more hopeful than at the time of my last post.

Now, and no relation to walking off thinking ‘fowl’ things (insert vomit here, anti-punsters), what are all these sayings involving turkeys that I’d never heard before? Seriously. Let me explain the deeply pertinent situation.

See, I’d become a little upset at some rude jerk on eBay who had stupidly failed to understand Shantoozy’s clear and concise payment instructions.

“Don’t let the turkeys get you down,” advised Shantoozy.

“Huh?” I replied with all the swift wit of a stale croissant.

“You know, it means something like, don’t let the arseholes get you down,” she explained.

Are these verbal Australiana? I was born here but I’ve never felt at home in this country. (And she is a citizen of U.S.A. as well as of here!) One reason is that, to my observation, Australians have the poorest sense of humour in the western world – and I love to laugh, so it is a BIG reason.

Yesterday, I was introduced to the game, ‘Two-Up’, for the first time – a supposedly Australian game (but I suspect it was pilfered from the Germans). I think I’d heard of it in passing but certainly couldn’t have told you it involved the complex strategic skill of being able to toss two coins in the air from off a wooden paddle and the trenchant intellectual eurhythmy to be able to watch them plummet to the ground. There’s betting involved, too – that admirable art of guessing whether or not you stand to lose everything you own for the most uninteresting and flippant reason possible. I’d have thought that 'Two-Up' was a game involving one hand’s foremost two fingers being held up to the face of John Howard, and that would seem to me to actually have been a more worthwhile game for an Aussie, or at least slightly non-boring.

Yep, I’ll be leaving Australia for good as soon as I am reasonably able. Somewhere snowy, perhaps. I’m dreamin’ of a Xmas that is the shade of Snow White's milky breasts. Which reminds me, the thought of Xmas does, of … the turkeys.

Well, my Mum, who is quite an ocker (I was adopted, semi-incidentally), although really, truly lovely and only a turkey herself in the sense of being too silly or worrisome sometimes, said a few years ago, “Grr! One day that dog’s gonna send me flying head over turkey!” Now, I’d laughed heartily at what I’d deemed to be a mis-warble because Mum does have a number of large turkeys roaming her property and they tend to cluster around one’s feet when they’re hungry, but in time I discovered that this is an actual saying. To declare that one went ‘flying arse over tit’ I can comprehend because the human has an arse and a tit (a breast; a chest region) but this ‘head over turkey’ business makes me confused. We don’t have an appended turkey. Well, maybe a naked man suffering from brewer’s droop may look as though…

Hmmm. This saying, eh? Many a turkey loses its head at Xmas time; I suppose this could possibly have something to do with the saying’s inception, implying that during the wonderfully gluttonous ‘silly season’ we may end up by substituting our heads for the roast turkey’s if we lose too much control of ourselves.

Hey! That season is now upon us! I am no pagan - well, maybe a little bit - but I am no christian or Santa-suited coca-cola addict or other big-business advocate or any otherwise religious personage but I like twinkling lights and present-giving and -receiving and eating yummy tummy-scrum’s and such and so Merry Xmas, all! (Except the arseholy people – youse can get stuffed, turkeys!)

A Good Time Was Bad By All

My partner returned on Wednesday night and it was really wonderful. I'd missed her and she'd missed me. We had a fantastic pork, ate tasty food and chewed the fat. It was a good time.

Tonight is the fourth night she has been back and it shall be the third night in a row that we do not share a bed. I couldn't do it. It's just too depressing and certain other crap emotions. I am quite upset at her. Certain ways of hers have been deeply frustrating me; some of them have even been seriously upsetting me. Maybe we shall be able to sort them out. Maybe it's mainly my liver instigating my anger, upset and frustration. I doubt it, though. And yet, what the fuck do I know? My brain feels cramped.

My face's skin is of poor quality, what with its propensity for redness and flakiness, as it is currently experiencing yet again. I can't stay asleep at night because of the deep, searing pain of my body. And there are many other life turds. Many shitty ordeals. Makes me wonder what's the point of going on. I have to, of course, but it's most annoying.

People - well, most of them - are, in general, arseholes. And genuinely stupid. I'm more intelligent and self-aware than the majority of people and that, all considered, is not saying much. We are all, let's be honest, pathetic little shits. We need to feel loved. We yearn to be respected and well-paid, and considered attractive and talented. Grr! Emotions are crap! Pathetic! The whole matter makes me sick and it makes me angry. I wish I had no conscience and could just kill people but, of course, because I do have a conscience, which it is right for humans to have, I don't really wish that.

In the fig tree in the backyard a bird's nest has fallen down and all the eggs are smashed upon the ground. We are supposed to think that this is not bad because nature is supposedly neither good nor bad.

Hmmph!

I wonder if I'll die in the coming bird 'flu pandemic?

Gone Troppo

My partner has been up in Queensland (Gold Coast and Brisbane) for almost the past two weeks. She has been going semi-troppo from the ordeal. Disgustingly hot and humid sub-tropical Southeast Queensland, how despicable art thou!

They have insects up there – bugs and mosquitoes and cockroaches and some unbalanced, passive-aggressive ex-housemates of a friend who, each in separate incidents, ventured down from there, moved in with my friend, fluttered their inane vagina-sensing antennae whenever females visited him and then left, the grotty critters they, to return to the dank bedwombs of their parents’ home turf, where you can sweat yourself stir crazy to the soul pillaging drone of lawnmowers – millions and millions of lawnmowers – a locust-like swarm on any given Sunday afternoon!

There were warnings of race violence starting this night time on the Gold Coast, similar to that currently pounding the streets of Sydney. She is at the Gold Coast tonight but she is staying indoors, where the Blu-Tak melts and the poster edges curdle.

Well, she comes home this evening next. Yay!

In the meantime...

Last night time, Rupert and I ate fish and chips, squirting tartare sauce whilst watching and critiquing slick, factory-made porn. I agree with what he wrote at Muffbox - that 'there is something sexy about regal orgies performed in period court scenes but this particular one chucked together a bunch of actors with no flow of response to the imagery, the setting or the movement of bodies.'

Twas an amusing night we had. On his mobile telephone's video camera we recorded the most ridiculous mock advertisement for frozen potato chips imaginable. I haven't laughed so heartily in numerous weeks! We'll see if we can adhere it to our respective blogs soon and so share our glorious rubbish with you.

A Lecher In Physiology

The filming is complete. The studio voice work is complete. Now’s there’s post shooting work to be done but that’s nothing to do with me. It should be edited within about four weeks, I’m told, and then there will be a closed screening for cast and crew before its submission into February’s Tropfest Film Festival 2006. After that, it shall ‘do the circuit’, I would imagine. That’s ‘Realising Sigmund’, a short film written and directed by Rupert Owen, produced by Travis Sutherland and starring yours truly. "I'm a lecherer in physiology. I mean..." Well, you'll just have to wait and see!

It was a swift, smooth shoot. Two nights (Wednesday, 30th November & Thursday, 1st December). The biggest film production I’ve yet had major involvement within. (There’s no counting ‘The Extra’, starring Jimeoin, as I was not a main participant in that film – just an extra, in fact. …And now, referencing that film’s plot, I shall shoot THEM, although not with a camera…) ‘Realising Sigmund’ had an hairdresser, two make-up artistes, a clapper-board, food catering, cat-o’-nine-tails, an egg whisk… Eleven crew personnel in total (including my partner, Shantoozy, as costume coördinator, who had to leave for two weeks in Queensland directly prior to shooting), seven other actors (one of whom was the producer, acting as a dead character) and one rabbit, the writer-director's renegade pet, who would occasionally bound into shot.

Then there was one short night in the sound studio with myself, a fellow actor and minimal crew. (Thursday, 8th December).

I must say I’m ultimately content with my performance. I think. Well, the rushes look pretty good. It was quite a difficult rôle, attaining the right tone and balancing the contradictions of a fairly complex character, whilst adhering to Rupert’s fairly stringent vision, and in the limited space of a seven minute film. We should hopefully end up with a pretty funny little movie, though.

I shall be working as lead actor again in a new production with Rupert next year. Something like a raunchy comedy of mistaken identity! And hopefully some other rôles, big or small, that I might find around the traps, the boards, the curtain, the rigging, the auditorium, the concessions stand, the toilets… I got mi mop and bucket, sir.