Across the universe

The Miss Universe is a not-even-remotely guilty pleasure, especially when it comes to the national costume. Every year, Australians who care about such things wring their hands in fear that we’ll be embarrassed by another shrimp-wielding Crocodile Dundette or overly made-up lifesaver.

Jayson Brunsdon did ours this year and I like it. It’s meant to represent the sand, ocean, outback blah blah, but above all it’s pretty:


There are some pretty spectacular efforts elsewhere. I noted a certain superhero tone to some of the European entries (Miss Czech Republic's just begging for disaster in that cape):



While others opted for a more approachable, ‘I’ll be your entertainment for the evening’ vibe:



Many of the smaller nations clearly had global warming on their mind, with dresses that suggested they were already at least half-submerged:




For some bizarre reason, Miss Dominican Republic is dressed like a baseball player:


And as for for Miss Malaysia, I have no idea why she's wearing a shawl (is she worried about getting cold?) but I do like the fact she's carrying a deadly weapon:


Bound to come in handy at some point.

Gay ad horror #3

This is the latest house ad for the Sydney Star Observer. I’m baffled:


While I do concur that yes, it is irritating when one has run out of toilet paper, is it really wise to draw comparisons to one’s publication?

Are they reminding those particularly forgetful readers that it will indeed be back out on the streets next Thursday – like it is every other bloody week?

Or are they advertising a re-design, suggesting the old one looks like shit?

We may never know.

A bridge too far

I admit it. I am not cut out for the world of women's magazines.

I just finished the second day of what was to be a three-week stint at a high-selling women's magazine. After the first hour I knew I was doomed. The people were perfectly pleasant and I was capable of doing the work, but the thought of spending all that time subbing drivel about mums and kiddies and recipes and weight-loss tips, not to mention the travails of Nicole and Keith/Katie and Tom/Princess Mary and her post-baby body was too much to bear.

I get the feeling I gave off a bit of a 'kill me now' vibe – I believe I used the term "I'm not really engaging with the product" – because a mutual decision was made that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't suited to the position.

Cue me doing a happy dance in my living room.

The other downside to the job was that the office is in McMahons Point, across the harbour. Now I love crossing the bridge as much as anyone, but preferably not in a train carriage crammed with grim-faced commuters. It certainly wasn't like this:


That shot is part of a great Harold Cazneaux exhibition on at the Art Gallery of NSW at the moment, which I saw with Mick on the weekend. We wandered around the gallery and saw some other cool stuff, although at some of the contemporary works I could only stand and think, "Well, it is... big, isn't it."
My art-appreciation span seems to have shrunk over the years...

In any case, I have other work lined up and it doesn't involve an Irwin or a Hewitt. I am truly grateful for small mercies.

It's cold outside

It finally feels like winter.
Yesterday was miserable, in the best sense of the word. Cold, windy, wet.
It kept the Oxford’s deck empty:


I don’t get it; this is perfect socialising weather.
I guess everyone was on Manhunt or some other audition/rejection tool…

I'm seeing things

Stumbled on a fantastic website today. Mighty Optical illusions - moillusions.com

It's devoted entirely to optical illusions and related geekery.

It has a lot of Escher stuff, which is beautifully unnerving:



Plus it has even more mindfucking, supposedly real equivalents:


The comments forum alone is worth the visit.

'Headey herey'

I’ve noticed ‘Headey herey’ in repeated form is the peculiar but regular and quite effective way that magazine designers/art people alert their fellow sub-editors that they must come up with a headline to encapsulate the spirit of the article in question. Or just type in something that fits.

I witnessed a truly unpleasant – and wildly unrelated – version of this phrase at 6.30 yesterday morning.

Almost immediately after my wake-up call, I heard a muffled but urgent conversation in Lois Lane – another one. Working-girl sex, I figured. But no…

They were in their early twenties, both male. I witnessed them preparing some sort of drug (I didn’t hover, that bit’s always prolonged and tedious) but when I checked again to see if they were still there as I was ready to head to work a half an hour later, they were both clearly wired, irretrievably flaccid and furiously, pointlessly trying to get off. Lots of head-bobbing and frantic limp dick-tugging; a tragic puppet show.

It was far too depressing to photograph.

Mission semi-accomplished

Well my first shift is over and I’m absolutely knackered.

It started with the chief sub-editor giving me a tour of the program I’d be using along with InDesign, the name of which now eludes me (Sacko? Sago?). He seemed genuinely enthused by its powers, but they frankly scared the shit out of me and I started to glaze over in a kind of involuntary defense response.
I’ve always preferred flight to fight.

Fortunately, I had Eliza sitting next to me, who lived up to her lovely reputation and proved to be unfailingly helpful and polite as I hammered her with inane questions and feeble pleas for help when the computer refused to do what I wanted. When I quietly freaked out as an entire paragraph suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, she calmly came to my desk and, with a few swift keystrokes, conjured up the wayward text.
She was even unflappable when, as I was sub-editing an article on Sydney’s best day spas, I asked her, “It says ‘dessert lime facials’. Do you think that should be ‘desert lime facials’?”
Well, you never know.

It seems I wasn’t completely incompetent because I’m heading there again tomorrow, starting at 8am. It took almost an hour to get there so I’ll use my trusty wake-up call service once more.

I’ll also get a double-strength coffee at Bar Coluzzi beforehand – Alexandria’s semi-industrial wasteland is a confronting sight first thing in the morning.

8 to 6

I head to work tomorrow. A 'casual sub' once more. Tentative 'yay'.

I like this sort of gig; I get to fix the poor writing of others, come up with the occasional glib headline and pic cap (that's industry lingo) and generally switch into auto-pilot.
For a more-than-decent pay, no less.

I owe this to John Burfitt, a fellow journo who I incidentally passed last week as I was walking home along Bourke Street. He asked what I'd been up to; I basically told him 'fuck all'. He made a couple of suggestions and now I have a couple of jobs.
God bless the gay girlfriend network! (This is not to suggest that John is girly in any form, mind you, although the other job, which starts in a couple of weeks, is about as camp as you can get outside the gay press.)

My one concern is that I have to contend with the InDesign program, wherein you sub-edit on screen. I last dealt with this three years ago at the Sydney Morning Herald, so I fully expect to feel like Jane Fonda duelling with the Xerox machine in 9 to 5, minus the curly wig and spectacles:


To make matters worse, the hours are 8 to 6.
Potentially amusing, probably mortifying. I hope I sleep well tonight...

Signs of the times

Taylor Square is currently sponsored by iPod - three huge billboards:


I was gazing at this one on Saturday night when I overheard a bizarre exchange at the Courthouse Hotel. Never let it be said it doesn't provide cultural diversity.

As one bloke handed a photo to another, he said, "Have a Captain Cook, here's me tin lids."

Who knew Cockney rhyming slang was alive and well?

(Translation: Captain Cook = 'look'; tin lids = 'kids')

Troll zen

Had a blissfully computer-free, albeit rainy, long weekend with Mick.
This morning I received my emails and found a bunch of anonymous comments, which prompted me to ponder that zen riddle of the 21st century:

If a troll makes a nasty comment and it doesn't get posted, does it make a sound?

Pleasant surprise

Popped into the Oxford on Tuesday night for a quick beer and discovered it was live performance night.
Fortunately, it didn't involve discount sequins, tired showtunes or the deathless claim, "The more you drink the better we look!":


That's David Andrew and Arrnott Olssen. They both had amazing voices and performed a string of great songs. They'll be there again next week. Well worth checking out.

The end was nigh

The miserable wet weather produced the most fantastic anti-sunset last night - a dramatic pink fog:


It was like the end of the world and looked far prettier than I expected.

Random cool dude

Okay, it's late. I'm putting off going to bed, going through old photos, and I came across this.
New York, 2000.
He didn't say a word - he just gestured for a cigarette as I walked past.
I gave him one then asked if I could take his photograph.
He nodded almost imperceptibly:

I am not 'an unpleasant woman'

Ignorance is bliss; rejection is sweet

I thought I should keep the comments on this blog open, basically because I figured that's what one did on this sort of thing - open forum, you know.
Then the nasty personal comments started, which is fine if they have a whiff of intelligence.
But no, they were about my HIV and imaginary lesions and such - hideous ignorance that would never see the light of day in reality - so I had qualms, you might say.

Someone who calls himself RW stood out as a particularly toxic queen (tough competition) and someone else suggested he was an ex-boyfriend of mine who shares those initials.
I disregarded this, then 'RW' wrote:
"I'm sorry I've been nasty to you. I won't post here anymore. I've been having lots of trouble with substance abuse and when I'm out if it have said terrible things. Please forgive me - I won't post on here again. I've been thinking about you a lot lately and remembering the times we had. If you want, get in touch"
But - goodness me - the 'real' RW now tells me:
"*I* am RW and my name is not Russell. Stop impersonating me dickhead!"

I suppose I should use this opportunity to tell those fucking useless, dickless queens that I am moderating comments from now on. Anyone can comment, but you no longer have a say unless you actually have something to say.

It will still be as tedious for me, but not for others.

I presume most of the cunts belong to the idiot army of B-grade drag queen supporters. We may never know. Feel sorry for them.
Anyway, we can all move on now. That would be a big 'yay' for all concerned.

Tony and Crissy were lovers

The working girls in my neighbourhood, in lieu of mobile phones, use chalk on the sidewalk to leave messages to one another. Sometimes, it’s a pimp, or what I imagine is one.

The two major practitioners of this were Tony and Crissy. For a good two years I’d come across messages, which started off in a romantic tone (note the more formal Carissa in the first one):




Gradually, though, these missives became decidedly less loving, then downright nasty. Clearly, theirs was a tempestuous relationship:



Crissy, though, had her defenders:


But then Tony would lose it and lash out with a totally incongruous insult:


This is just a sampling of their very public relationship and sadly there haven’t been any messages from either Tony or Crissy in over a year now.
I often wonder what became of them, although maybe this was the final plaintive cry:

Lois lane

Believe me, there are plenty more, but this is is the most recent. I also give him points for taking off his pants:

Hughes, Richard Hughes

Last night I met up with Richard at the Oxford and I'm frustrated that this blogspot template I've chosen seems determined to deny me the ability to put up the portrait of me that he created, so I thought I should randomly pop up his artwork again.
We worked together on so many great things that appeared in the Sydney Star Observer, plus he did all those Sleaze posters among sundry other Big Gay Things that people forget about - that cute little ACON icon protecting his crotch that you might have pissed on is his, by the way.
The total absence of illustration or cartooning - his or any others - in the gay papers these days is a disappointment, to say the least. A glossy disembodied torso that is the basis of almost every ad for a gay event seems to sum up a market starved of ideas.
Just saying...

View from a bar

Saturday night started at the Courthouse Hotel; Mick wanted to watch the rugby union match between the Waratahs and the Crusaders. While it resembles rugby league in many ways, union has a really stupid point system – three points for a field goal? – so it kind of irritates me. As always, though, the real entertainment was outside on Taylor Square.

One bloke in particular had me riveted. Gaunt, in his mid-forties I suppose, he was, as they say, “on the nod” – completely smacked out but nonetheless standing. He’d bend over, sway a little, stumble to the side then regain his bearings, eyes closed as he made his way towards the traffic. While the people at the table next to me were pissing themselves laughing at him – “He’s totally noddin’ off!” – I was petrified that he was about to stumble in front of a passing bus. But this is the amazing thing – they never go down. I don’t know how they do it.

When the game was over we headed across the street to the Oxford, where we set up camp in the smoke-in wardrobe in front of the open window: prime people-watching position. And straight away, there was another bloke doing his little ‘on the nod’ shuffle:


He snapped out of it briefly when someone asked if he was okay, then promptly went back into that weird, hunched-over stance, like he was praying or literally shitting himself.
Still, somehow, he didn’t fall over. If he had a home to go to, I don’t know how he got there.

As the evening progressed, we watched another bloke repeatedly pass us, clutching a takeaway coffee and muttering to himself as he paced back and forth, looking angrier each time:


We lost count of his appearances after a couple of hours, but then the traffic, vehicular and human, became more fascinating. Upstaging all the shiny, two-bit cars with their ridiculously oversized spoilers was this anomaly:


But Saturday night on Oxford Street is mostly about suburban chicks these days and they didn’t disappoint.
Actually, now that I think of it, they did – none of them got run down while cackling and clacking across six lanes of traffic in heels they could barely stand in. Seriously, it was an inappropriate footwear festival and I have a feeling there was a Chicago-themed party going on somewhere because there were a lot of teeny sequinned outfits going on:


As for the Oxford Hotel itself, it was pretty quiet. I reckon all the negative “Oxford Street is dead – and dangerous!” publicity has scared off a lot of queens, which is a pity. Lord knows there was enough of a police presence. They were in paddywagons, on foot patrol, on horseback and in some sort of van I haven’t seen before, grilling some poor man about a minor infringement of public decency:


Then again, it might just be the god-awful remix of ‘Careless Whisper’ that emptied the place.