Untwink #7

Channel Seven had the perfect midday movie yesterday – Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven. Gorgeous melodrama. I really should have seen it on a big screen.

To me – Dennis Quaid as a hot closet case aside – the most magnetic thing in it was Raymond the gardner, played by Dennis Haysbert. Why she didn't just ditch everything and jump into his arms is, well.. that's melodrama.

Haysbert had his first role on Lou Grant! (see Untwink #1.) Then he was on Laverne and Shirley! The Incredible Hulk (as Guard!) The A-Team! Knots Landing! Magnum P.I.! Buck Rogers in the 25th Century!! A lot of other things no one's seen!!!

You might know him as the President of the United States on 24 or as Jonas on The Unit.

Any way you take it, he’s six feet, four-and-a-half inches (if IMDB is anything to go by) of spectacular. And that voice.
I particularly like his Dallas era:

A T'Wanda too far...

Celebrities regularly get a grilling over their choice of name for their offspring. But an article in the Sydney Morning Herald leaves them for dead. And it’s from New Zealand.

Following are my favourite snippets from a piece on a court judgement denying a couple the right to subject their newborn daughter to lifetime of torment, if not alcoholism:

– Parents make fools of their children by giving them eccentric names, says a New Zealand judge.

– Judge Rob Murfitt of the Family Court launched the attack after finding a girl had been named Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.

– Judge Murfitt, who made written findings on the issue public, cited other names such as Number 16 Bus Shelter, Violence and Benson and Hedges (twins).

– “The names Fish and Chips, Masport, and Mower, Yeah Detroit, Stallion, Twisty Poi, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit have not been registered,” Brian Clarke, Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, said in a statement.

I never really liked the name Brad (thanks to Rocky Horror I was repeatedly called Janet), but I do think I think Remorse has a nice manly ring to it…

A cock too far

Mick and Ray met each other for the first time on Saturday; turns out they both grew up in Punchbowl. (That always sounded so glamorous as a child, much like our Beverly Hills – then I went there.)
Ray is 70, Mick is 57: Cue much discussion of premises long gone and still hanging in there, the notorious pub with regular brawls and conversation about other stuff from which I drifted off.
It was a great night, dominated as it was by genuinely fascinating tidbits about past neighbourhood life, shady and otherwise.
For one, back then they were all driving pissed home to the suburbs from the city... sounds terrifying the way Mick cheerfully recounts it.
They were also both thrilled to escape it.

After dinner at the Judgement Bar, Raymond, exhausted pilgrim that he was, went straight back to his room at the Royal Sovereign that I’d booked. Mick and I made a pilgrimage to the Oxford and stayed a while… and crashed some time later.

I bid Ray farewell this morning.
I’ve known him for 16 years and he’s a blast:

He started as a window-dresser then went into TV and advertising,
He has a voice for radio – never used, much to my consternation.
He let me stay at his place for two months, years ago.
He rides a motorbike.
He has several piercings that are NSFW.
He’s a great photographer.
He just polished my parquetry!

Now that’s a good pilgrim.
Although I do worry about him turning my apartment into the House of Cock:

Yum Cha, Dark Knight

Jeffrey picked me up in a cab to head to Chinatown early this afternoon.
I’ve never has such a quick ride through the city; all the threats against pilgrim-threatening motor travel have been most successful.

We had yum cha at the Golden Something in the mammoth Market City complex and then sat down for The Dark Knight. We were a little early, so we sat in an empty theatre for twenty minutes listening to electro music that elicited 5am memories both of us wished we hadn’t had. All it needed was a tweaking queen asking for a ‘spare ciggie’.

The movie itself was great, totally belying its running length and Heath Ledger is fantastic. He absolutely owns every scene he’s in.
A movie star.


Seriously, from his first appearance, where you get that shock of recognition, he tics and snarls and I then forgot he was dead until his final scene, and then it became unnervingly sad.

Still, highly recommended.
I wish I had points system…

HiDarl canoodle

I do love the word 'canoodle', particularly as it seems to be the exclusive domain of celebrities.
No one ever refers to having had a really good canoodle last night, yet magazines are constantly referring to this titillating activity.

Well!
I witnessed a bona fide canoodle on my way up Liverpool Street this afternoon. On my way home after lunch, I noticed a pretty, skinny chick in skintight pants and one of those superfluous loopy scarves. And big sunglasses. She looked vaguely familiar.
Then I noticed she was with a vaguely girly guy in equally tight jeans - Omigod, it's Daniel Johns from Silverchair.

I've seen Daniel Johns up close (at Club Kooky, once, briefly) and the man is fucking gorgeous. Seriously pretty.
Anyway, I clicked and was momentarily thrown - the two of them together seemed definitely aware of their impact, which was fairly fabulous. They stopped outside the Darlo Bar and had a flagrant moment of young love (not quite a pash, more a kiss-and-giggle-I-wuv-you-too moment) but then I realised I was staring - at a rock star and his hot new model girlfriend who's totally made him forget all about Natalie!! - so I crossed the street, happy but perplexed.

Men like Daniel Johns totally jam my gaydar.

WALL-E now, please

WALL-E is by far the most exciting movie prospect since at least two Pixar movies ago.

It looks sensational.
The fact that Ella Fitzgerald's "At Last" is used to introduce the Eve robot is enough:


I'm beyond describing my geek overload.
I just want a job with those people.

I mean - look at him:


Rapturous reviews aside, I honestly think these days Pixar movies are the only ones to genuinely excuse a sickie and/or 'doctor's appointment', etc.

Go fish

Ray took this among his sundry pilgrim shots.
It's my favourite.

Pope-washing

For the past several months - and for periods over years now - Oxford Street has been ablaze with empowering rainbow banners like these:


Now they're gone, thanks to the Pope. But when you think of it, any sort of cultural event takes precedence over this arguably tenuous symbol of community.

Besides, they're a kind of ugly slap in the face when you see the reality on street level...

Voice of the 'community'

A selection of unposted missives from the creme de la creme of the Sydney gay community to yours truly over the past few weeks:

*Sweet cheeks? Don't you mean cracked, dry, flaky cheeks in need of about 1kg of concealer?
*I see your blog is dead and hasnt been updated for ages. Didn't last long did it?
*Why do poncey queens always love trashy camp things like shitty pop 'music' and Eurovision?
*So, have you gone yet? Didn't think so. You'll never leave the ghetto...
*If Lois hates drag queens so much, why does he post a drawing of himself as a drag queen wearing a wig and lipstick? You're really fucked-up, Lois!
*Maybe not but you are an unpleasant bitch as all of Gay Sydney knows!
*anyone who's ever met you would disagree. You're an unpleasant bitch good and proper!
*What a drama queen! How many time have you done this now?????
*Sick bitch, getting your kicks spying on people having sex and taking pics of them. Yuck. I bet you wank with your free hand too. Closest to sex you'd get I reckon...

I fully expect the many pathetic time-wealthy trolls empowered by the anonymity of the internet whose heartfelt messages I've failed to pass on will be in contact shortly.
This could be an ongoing exercise.
Stay tuned...

Took long enough

I finally got broadband today.

I know.

The Holy Grail

The Holy Grail of the capable but lazy is the permanent part-time job.

I think I've got it.

I'm just waiting to hear the two days I can get.
I'm angling for Thursday/Friday... fingers crossed.

This will be my ever-so-brief ciggie break view should this come to pass:

Lest ye be judged

It’s day five of Ray’s pilgrimage and all’s well.
After my night in the bathtub he expressed his mortification and graciously resolved to camp out in my bathroom with the rubber mat and sleeping bag he’d brought with him. Momentary guilt was swiftly overrun by relief and we haven’t had a bad night’s sleep since.

I haven’t seen much of him during the day – he headed to the big mass (sans Pope) yesterday and came home absolutely knackered, although he was pleased he’d taken his step ladder to taker better photos (and infuriate the pilgrims unfortunate enough to be standing behind him).

Anyway, Cheap Gay Beer night at the Oxford this evening had its queens on the smoking deck making fun of the amassed groups of visitors outside – notably the assumption of their repressed sexual urges and their tendency to dress alike – and the irony did not escape me as I surveyed the crossed legs and coordinating cotton casuals around me…
Having taken Ray to the gayest non-gay pub in town, the Green Park, on Sunday, and witnessed its layers of surveillance and whispered asides, I do question our own (self-)judgment.

Howdy pilgrim

An old mate Ray arrived from the Gold Coast on Sunday. He's staying with me for a week and plans to attend a number of papal shenanigans as part of World Youth Day. A former journo, he'll be taking photos for a religious paper, sleeping overnight at Randwick Racecourse and generally wandering about town in his Official Pilgrim T-shirt and Passport.

I think he's insane myself, but hey.

I went with him to the uniform and accreditation centre off Broadway while he picked up his $300 backpack full of tat and was amazed by the number of nuns and priests in casual wear (read: full habit and Reeboks). Everyone seems genuinely excited and I'm finding it difficult to muster my usual level of sarcasm. Ray himself doesn't take it all too seriously and I'm happy to be swept up in the moment.
It's only another week after all.

Problem is, Ray snores like one of those car alarms that has half a dozen different tones. Last night it was relentless and deafening, to the point where I ended up sleeping in the bathtub.
I shit you not. I think I'll load up on beer and Valium tonight.

Honestly, the things I do for the Catholic Church...

Can everyone please log off?

For two days running I've been unable to get on the internet - not even a fucking dial tone.
On the occasion I do get a dial tone, it's interrupted by an infuriatingly polite female voice telling me traffic in my area is 'congested'.

The urge to stick my head out the window and scream 'Get off Gaydar for Christ's sake!' has never been stronger.

I'm typing this in the fluorescent hell that is the internet cafe of Buddys Convenience Store on Oxford Street. Lack of apostrophe duly noted.
It's empty, quietish but, yes, really really bright.
Actually, ditch the 'quiet' - someone outside is yelling at someone to 'fuck off' repeatedly.

I really have to get broadband. I just have to wait for that first paycheck to arrive...