Pinnipeds, Penguins, Cows, Poo-Poo, Einstein...

I am not surprised, as I’m sure neither are you, Dear Peruser, that it’s been a whole week since my previous blog update. Time goes by so quickly these days. I’m 34 years old and that cliché rings truer and truer every year. Oh, well. I have actually come to the conclusion, or to what seems like a supportable conclusion but may well just be a product of my own tiresome human arrogance, that I shall possibly die fairly young. I mean, is it likely that I will reach a colostomy-bag-usage age when I have Type 2 Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, and a weak immune system due to the constant stress of having fairly severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and the resultant colds, ’flues and such that regularly bombard this wretched body in which I reluctantly squat? I have my doubts. Oh, well. There is, perhaps, a tad of self-pity here but more so just a bluesy sense of acquiescence. Maybe this mood extends from the fact that I think I am now onto my third viral infection in a row. Yippee!

On a less disconsolate note, here be information on some stuff what I has been up to in the recent past:

On Sunday the 18th of March, Shantoozy and her sister, nicknamed Turkey by me, who had flown down from Brisbane to visit, went for a drive across to Phillip Island, which is about 90 minutes away, by car, from ol’ Melbourne town. Our main reason for this trip was to see the fairy penguins, small groups of whom come back home each dusk from being three weeks at sea. Actually, I should mention that these li’l blue-coated chirpers are now officially called ‘little penguins’ as that is more true to their Latin name but I prefer ‘fairy penguins’ as it seems to suit them more, and also because they are all homosexual, except that that is a falsity I just felt like inventing and the real reason is the former one, that it just seems to suit them more. Aaaaanyways...

Firstly, we went to the Nobbies, where you can look out to Seal Rocks, which is a small rocky clump of land jutting out of the ocean just off the western tip of Phillip Island, where Australian fur seals make their homes. You must look through a telescope for a good glimpse of the critters; you can also take a boat tour out to there, which actually leaves from Melbourne, and I shall certainly be doing that in the near future! Seals and sea lions are my favourite animals, and long have been. So endearingly clompy on land, and so sleek and nimble in the water. Intriguingly odd, those pinnipeds.

We then went to Summerland Beach to watch the penguin parade. Shantoozy had the intelligent idea of asking a ranger there where the best position to view the penguins from was and they replied, on the sand in the upper right corner of the second stall of seating. So we sat there on the beach and the penguins did their best Charlie Chaplin impressions within a metre of us. You might think me a sentimental old fluff (to borrow a phrase from another favourite comedian, Groucho Marx) but I found it very funny and sweet. Some of them had such bellies full of fish that they could barely ‘tramp’ the shingle! We trod the boardwalk then to watch them returning to their abodes in the dunes, and to their partners and young-uns waiting there to greet them. By the time we left, the hubbub of their squawking had grown quite outrageous.


In my photo here, you can see some of the penguins’ housing as constructed by researchers on the island; there are also natural homes all about in the dunes as built by the penguins themselves, of course.

This is one of the penguins who was already home, who I snapped as we made our way along the boardwalk down to the beach:


We ended up spending the night on the island at the Tropicana Motel, which is an interestingly named place considering that Phillip Island is just the place for strutting about in nothing but a lei and promptly dying from hypothermia!

The next day we checked out some secondhand shops, visited a winery for some wine-tasting, and drove across to Churchill Island (a little island nearby) where we encountered the grooviest cows I have ever seen. They are called Highland cows. Here is a photo Shantoozy took of one of the quirky chaps:


And here is a photo I took of one the Highland cows’ poo-poos:


Now, in more reportage of my recent activities:

My episode of the quiz show “The Einstein Factor” was recorded last Wednesday (21st of March). I’d arrived as merely a stand-by contestant in case one of the scheduled contestants proved unable to go on and was initially informed that all looked fine and that I wouldn’t be required to substitute for anybody that day but then, about half an hour before taping time, the situation changed and, lo and behold, my time was up, the plank was laid, and I was forced to walk …straight to the make-up department and to have a shave and to get a substitute shirt from wardrobe as the one I was wearing was too dirty-looking and crumpled – so, as you can tell, I had arrived well prepared that day! (The silly thing is, of course, that I had arrived all prim and proper on my previous days as stand-by!) I won’t say as yet whether or not I won but you can find out when it airs in June – on the 24th, I think – but I’ll let youse know for sure closer to the date. Man, did I ramble on in my responses to questions about myself and my subject of Sir Charlie! Not to mention the lacklustre puns I injected into the activities, now nestling on the ABC’s cutting-room floor, no doubt (I hope!). Well, actually, there’s one stupid comment I think they will have difficulty editing out, unfortunately. Oh, well. Still, it was good fun.

Last Saturday afternoon, Shantoozy and a uni. friend - whom I shall here refer to as Jafar, not that it probably matters but people like their privacy, and could anyone be blamed for wanting to distance themselves from connexion with an Edels like I? Of course they could! However, I am so dang interesting that I can stand alone, a veritable king among poo-bottoms (AKA mammals, like Highland cows, humans, Einsteins, etc.)! – , well, we went to see Melbourne Theatre Co.’s current production of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons”. Was it any chop? Make no mis-steak, it was enthusiastically devoured by me. It cost a mere $16.00 on a ‘day ticket’, where you turn up at the box-office at 9am on the morning you wish to see a play and hopefully are able to grab one of these tickets, which don’t provide the best seats in the house, of course, although they are perfectly acceptable to me at a discount of around a whopping $55.00! We were fortunate this day because we just managed to secure the last three el-cheapo seats for the day! It really is a very good play, too. My enjoyment was barely hindered at all by the actors’ affectations of United States of American accents – the lead male actor, John Stanton,’s was the most sustained and believable (even ol’ Yankee Shantoozy said it sounded genuine) and the lead female actor, Janet Andrewartha (of the soap, “Neighbours”), 's was the worst. This John Stanton chap’s performance was wholly excellent, in fact, and I certainly would like to check out some more productions in which he features. Or at least acquire video footage of him struggling to remove a too-long hair from his nostril - yes, he may prove entertaining doing even that. He may not, too, though. Why am I rambling on like this, in such a foolish and prosaic fashion? Is it in avoidance of composing a 1,250-word critique of Saturday’s production for my Theatre And Drama class? I would not dare to guess!

Chilling Facts

I am so very sick of this weather. (I’m so very sick of being sick, too, and in this horrid, torrid weather – I think I got over my last cold just as I was getting a new one!) Melbourne used to have pretty good weather – excellent, in fact, with coldly crisp winters, regular, if shallow, rainfall throughout the year, and the summers, while occasionally providing very hot days, were never humid and relentlessly sweltering like nowadays. Apparently last night was almost the hottest March night in Melbourne on record. And that is chilling news. Hurumph! Shantoozy & I simply must move to somewhere in the world where the weather is not going to become unreasonable despite old man Global Warming. But who knows when that will be possible? Hopefully someday in the not to distant future.

One can reason that 'twas, therefore, unseasonably hot at 12AM this morning when a new playing-station games console thing-um went on sale, so I hear. I also hear that the reception of the thing was lukewarm, yet, still, can you believe this?: a big deal is made (concocted, that is, by the company’s marketing division gits) whenever a new version of this machine is released, as though it were something really worthwhile. I don’t know for sure, but I doubt any new book release by Kurt Vonnegut has ever had a midnight launch anywhere in Australia, if even the world. It doesn’t make sense to me. Don’t get me wrong, I think the occasional computer-game playing is a fair enough diversion but there are people who will spend time at this entertainment preclusive to ever experiencing an Ibsen or Chekhov play in their lives! (And it seems to me a problem endemic to most computer-games that the player must spend a long, rather than a short, time in order to master but one of the blasted things.)

Now, if this sounds pretentious, well, then valuing depth and wisdom over flippant self-indulgence is pretentious – which it isn’t, and so there! Not that I mind flippant self-indulgence – au contraire, I cherish it like a googly-eyed pet, such as those rocks that were once such a fad – but all things in healthy balance, y’know, what-ho! And, frankly, if people spent more time developing their minds and hearts and less time fiddling with their joysticks then I hassit that there wouldn’t even be such problems as Global Warming.

Yeah, I know it doesn’t help that computer-games are something I, personally, get bored over after a mere few hours’ indulgence at, yet even regardless of this I find it rather sad and a bit irritating that so much cruciality is placed on something so ultimately insubstantial, over something that can prove enlightening, like a good book. …Or, just as good, if not better: a substantial, ‘real-life’ experience.

Anyways, enough bitchin' for me (but only for the moment - mahaHA!). There'll be information in my next post about what I've actually (not merely virtually) been up to of late, ol' beans, so hold onto your throttle-jostlers!

I Thant Cin'k Traighst

I have caught the virus Shantoozy has been suffering with for the past half a week or so. My throat hurts, my ears are imploding and I thant cin'k traighst.

Citing Sightings Sites

On the 19th of March, 2005, at Mayfield’s Bar in Collingwood, Shantoozy (the floozy - hee-hee!) videoed some footage involving a certain Northern European sex poet called Jerzy Beefkowski, who, if you must know the embarrassing details, holds a resemblance to a certain Northern Melbournian Idyller called Edels. You can view the creature HERE. It’s really not an especially interesting video but if you like bulky torsoes with skinny legs then check it orrn out!

Also, the short film, “Cedric”, with which I was involved late last year, should be ready and up on 'youtube' by about midyear. I didn’t mention it on “Daisies” at the time ’cause, well, I was just helping out on the shoot in a small capacity, and I may end up onscreen in a couple of shots, but that’s about all for my meagre contribution. The really good thing about this shoot was that they were actually working with film. 16mm. One of the filmmakers, Ed, was accepted into Victorian College Of The Arts on the merits of his work on this production, and the other co-writer/director, Yianni, is hoping for the same. I must admit that I was somewhat taken aback by just how good the rushes look. Although I’m not a filmmaker, I have done some work in the films or video-movies of others but never had I seen rushes that actually look professional, like these do. These young fellas, in my opinion, may possess real talent – from a technical standpoint, at any rate - and, who knows?, perhaps even artistically. I'm not guaranteeing anything, of course, because, well, the simple fact is that I really don't know nuffin'!

Anyways, dear bloggeroonies, check 'youtube' around midyear for your chance to win a sighting in this next spot-an-Edels contest, otherwise known as the blink-and-you’ll-miss-the-Edels event.

On Hooky

Didn’t go to uni. today. I only had a one-hour lecture for Writing Fiction. I’d like to attend them all but it’s really the tutorials of this subject that are, for me, the important classes not to miss. Being that I have been out of high school and working at my writing for, ooh, about three or sixteen years, I feel that I am, frankly, less in need of attend these second-year lectures than most of my younger fellow scholars. In fact, let me face it, this subject is gonna be a bit of a breeze. And, no, there is no chance that they shall prove to be ‘famous last words’, I dare posit, touch wood, and may I try to resist causing that parasol leaning against the stereo cabinet nearby to bloom indoors.

I didn’t go to uni. today because my back muscles went haywire again yesterday. That will teach me for standing bent over for too long whilst shaving the missus’ legs! Oh, yes, indeed it shall, for I shall never help her like that again! … Oh, it’s the standing bent over part of the equation that elicited the bastardly response from my back? Well, shhh… Any chance to get out of chores… Nah! I actually enjoy the satisfying “chipper-chop! chipper-chop” of the electronic razor as it snips against the leg like a small shears-scissor through iron filings.

But mi back. Aww, mi POOR back!!!

Distillin' Mi Illin'

Laa-dee-daa. What to write? Nothing. …Well, obviously not nothing – I wrote that previous sentence, didn’t I? – and this one. Wow, aren’t you glad? I’m not, particularly.

…Ergghhh! Man, I’m feeling crappy. Still ill.

I've just finished watching ‘The Benny Hill Show’. Prior to that, I’d watched ‘On The Buses’. Prior to that, it was ‘Are You Being Served?’ And prior to that, ‘Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em’. (No ‘George And Mildred’ tonight, though, disappointingly.) All part of Saturday night television’s regular Comedy Classics revue, hosted by some chap called Russell Gilbert whom I think is supposed to be funny but comes across instead as intellectually disabled, the poor dope. I feel awful watching him in case he is being exploited by the TV network somehow.

Anyway, I guess that makes me seem pretty dull, spending my Saturday nights like this, as I do. Yet, I suppose I am a bit dull. No more dull, of course, than anyone else, though. We are but human beings. I try to think of alternative things I could be doing tonight, of what might be more fun. Hmmm? Well, certainly not being ill would be better, for starters. Assuming I was, what then? What does society do? Go out to a pub, drink depressants and talk about inconsequential things and look at asses of people they are almost certainly never going to ball. – Blegghhh! Depressingly drab. Besides, I’ve got enough inconsequential things to think about without having to sit around a bunch of alcoholically retarded fellows exchanging such rubbish.

Um, what else?

Go to the movies. – No more exciting than watching good TV programs like I did tonight. Certainly, I don’t find such activities boring – provided that I am in the right mood – but they’re not exactly what one would deem wild and exciting. But, what is, really? And why do people (myself, at times, included) sometimes (or more often, for some people) feel that life need be wild and exciting? Comfort and contentment are much more tangible emotions.

…Ha! My mood is certainly a bit flat due to my being ill, so apologies to anyone reading this if my tone is coming across as a bit whingey. The fact is that, if you are feeling like it is, you can go take a long jump off a skinny peer – try Nicole Ritchie, if you’re young enough!

Um, what else could one do of a Saturday evening (besides jump off people suffering from eating disorders, what-ho!)? (What ’ho’? I don’t know that she doesn’t give it away. Boom-boom.) Um…

Go over to someone’s house and eat dinner and get pissed. – No more or less dull, really, than doing that at home with one’s partner.

What else?

Go on a date. – Well, that’s not applicable when you already have a partner. Of course, one could go out with the intention of having sex with someone (or someone else, if you’re in a sexually open relationship). – I could find that fun, but only if I were in the mood for it. Sex is overrated, I think. To me, it works nicely as one of life’s delicious side-dishes but the main course must consist of more substantial stuff. I’m interested in what this existential electricity is that passes through my whole body – indeed, my soul – and not just through my genitals. Ultimately, I much prefer having sex than merely having thoughts about it, as, frankly, it really doesn't seem particularly mysterious to me.

What else?

Go and keep reading Henrik Ibsen’s ‘Hedda Gabler’. – Okay, I shall!

A Fresh One (Again)

University has begun afresh for the new year. My first semester subjects are Writing Fiction, Advanced Screenwriting, and Modern Drama. For that subject, this week, we are reading Henrik Ibsen’s ‘Hedda Gabler’; I have read ‘A Doll’s House’ before but that’s it, so this should be interesting. We watched a clip from a TV dramatisation of Henrik's ‘The Master Builder’, and I felt (rather cornily, I admit) that it should perhaps have been entitled ‘The Master-Bator’ instead, ’cause this whole scene was basically about how the dirty old builder wanted to erect big, firm spires on the tops of houses and how his young female friend, remembering (or fantasising – Ibsen couldn’t work out which aroused him more, I think) how, when she was 13, he’d kissed her, and who knows what else beyond – the builder’s fingertip hammering at her clit? or even more? - , was groaning in hot desire for him to take her out and show her his biggest erection. Very funny stuff!

Speaking of unfunny stuff now, I have some kind of viral infection. I got it free, and didn’t even have to pay a tip. My body was all so ache-crimped for a couple of nights that falling asleep and remaining under was none too easy, and by last night I had developed a cough but was physically drained enough to get a good, long slumber and now this morning my throat is feeling rough and swollen and my nostrils a bit drippy and, yeah, I just feel like crap all-round. Unhilarious stuff!

… Onto other news, I hear that the great Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar statuette. This is a real shame. No-one that good deserves the insult of winning something so shoddy as an award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Look at the wonderful company of ne’er-do-wins he leaves (and this is even excluding the so-called ‘foreign’ directors, who are too many to list here, what with my headache and drowsiness): Charles Chaplin, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Preston Sturges, Hal Ashby, Charles Crichton, Stanley Kubrick, and Robert Altman, to name big 'uns who never won a best director Oscar and but come to mind just now. And besides many other problems endemic to such silly rubbish, since when was art or entertainment supposed to be a competition? If you want that kind of aggressive shit, watch or partake in some sporting activity. Although, I don’t begrudge Scorsese his acquirement, for he’d long declared how much he’d love to win the award, and, despite how daft it is for him to have yearned thusly, I am happy for him because such a great artist and entertainer as he deserves to get what they want.

As a footnote to this, if I were ever in such a position to be nominated for an Oscar I would almost certainly accept it. The main reason for doing so would be the benefit of the public exposure that (often, not always) goes along with it all. And so let’s hope recent winners like Roman and Martin are now finding it easier to get proper funding for their projects, for even such big directorial names as these have, of course, experienced difficulties with this in the past.

… And the most important news of all: Shantoozy and I have been together for nine years today! Happy Anniversary, Shantoozy!