Play Me, I'm Yours #3

Miraculously, the piano on Taylor Square is still functioning, in tune and only slightly marred by graffiti.

This chick was doing Elton John's 'Song for Guy'.
Lovely:

Pretty distractions

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore just loves a good floral display.
She sprays baskets of flowers across Kings Cross and along Oxford St every now and then. Taylor Square gets a geometrical bedding every so often.

At the moment the William St overpass at the Cross, one of the city's bleaker intersections, is blooming*:



*Okay, that was last week; yesterday it looked less than vibrant but I figured it was best to keep up appearances and refrained from taking a photo.
The new locals have property values to consider.

Play Me, I'm Yours #2

Last Friday afternoon.
This kid had no idea what he was doing but his mother had to drag him away from it.
Very cute.

Untwink #8

“Slamming” Sam Kekovich is a former AFL player turned media personality. He’s a 58-year-old bulldozer currently best known for spruiking lamb in an aggressively deadpan fashion each Australia Day.

He’s fantastic. Once a year I get to fantasise about bumping into Sam – repeatedly as he hurls abuse at me – at a barbeque in some remote location. In between manly, erudite chats mind you.

Thanks to Sam, I was fully engorged with national pride over the Australia Day weekend, so much so I neglected to post.

Saturday we just sweltered but on Sunday Mick and I got the bus to Nielsen Park, where we found a spot on the sand, then went for a swim among the small children with violently coloured inflatable paraphernalia, fleshy couples, family groups and the occasional beefy Mediterranean dad.
It was overcast, but we lasted a couple of hours, long enough to blow $15 for average fish and chips and get a little sunburnt. Mission Vaucluse accomplished.

I didn’t take photos (that whole small children within camera range = pervert thing freaks me out – you should see the size of some of these dads [awesome, just quietly]).

Sparkly mustard

That’s how Karl Stefanovic, reporting for Channel 9, described the colour of Michelle Obama’s inauguration outfit, renewing my belief that he’s an idiot.
Lisa Wilkinson, bless her sensible heart, begged to differ, deeming it chartreuse.

Whatever, I just think she could have done without the necklace:


Having said that, yay!

Modern mystery

iPhoto just had a breakdown.

I downloaded 17 photos, exported a handful to my desktop, nothing unusual.
I then tried to look at an earlier shot. It froze, went blank, turned silver all over at one point (I admit to panicking at this point) and now 500-odd photos have disappeared. Completely.
As if I never took them.

Jeffrey – my hero– put the majority of my photo library on an external hard-drive last year but I really have to ask:

Where the fuck do they go?

Oxford a go-go

Last night was the launch of DBBC at the Oxford.

That stands for Daddies, Boys, Bears and Cubs. I know. I think they actually have 'z' at the end but I can't bring myself to type it.

Anyway, cringey name, good turn-out, with the unexpected bonus (and an Oxford first, I believe) of go-go boys who were - wait for it - actually very good:



It's a pity the last one turned out to be rather short once he got down from his podium, but it's a minor quibble.

Truth in signage

Darley St, Darlinghurst:

Play Me, I'm Yours

The Sydney Festival is one of those things that usually happen to other people.
On such occasions, I just nod politely as they rave on about some show or performance I either couldn't afford or be bothered about.

This year, I must admit I'm seriously pissed about not getting Grace Jones tickets. But at least, as meagre compensation, there's a piano right outside the Oxford...
For the Festival, British artist Luke Jerram has planted pianos around town - Play Me, I'm Yours – and the one on Taylor Square was a magnet for backpackers when I arrived:


There was no discernable playing, just novelty value. But then one man in a cropped muscle singlet, who'd been enjoying several beverages at the next table, decided to run out and have a go.
And quite a go it was:




Despite appearances, he clearly knew – and loved – what he was doing, and at this point I cursed the second-hand dance pap that was drowning out his efforts.
Kylie and Madonna. Again.
Have we gone nowhere?
In any case, the piano kept drawing different people for the next couple of hours. It was great to watch:




I just want someone to get stuck into Rhapsody In Blue early Sunday morning...

Glowsticks at St Mary's

The Sydney Festival kicked off last night.
I hadn’t planned on checking it out, but the thought of another night at home (sitting through a vegetable battle on Iron Chef) sent me to College St where Santogold was scheduled to perform at 9pm.

I hit Hyde Park first, where some vaguely familiar woman was on stage in the kiddie-friendly section:


I was really looking for a food and/or drink stall but there were none to be found, so I followed the sound of thumping dance music to St Mary’s Cathedral:


Dance party promoters Fuzzy were on; some DJ in a hipster trilby had the glowsticks going wild. These were apparently official Sydney Festival glowsticks – blue and flashing – and as night descended people started hurling them into the air with complete disregard to safety and the fact that they’d forked out money they were now literally throwing away.

What Cardinal Pell would have made of this scene I’d love to know.

After a brief and pitiful attempt to teach everyone a dance called The Sydney (a series of moves far too complicated for the predominantly rhythm-challenged crowd), Santogold appeared in what looked like a tricked-up BridgeClimb boilersuit with two fierce back-up dancers. She sounded good and I stayed for ‘L.E.S. Artistes’ but my view was limited and I was surrounded by peaking teenagers so, rather than continue down to the Domain to see Grace Jones, I left for the Oxford.

The Oxford on a Saturday night is not recommended, although I did bump into some friends.
I also now know whom to call if I have plumbing difficulties.
This, for some reason, is above the urinal:

Cheap (hot) gay beer

It was Cheap Gay Beer night at the Oxford.
That’s an unofficial title. I believe Happy Hour is the preferred term (which, funnily enough, didn’t apply last Wednesday for Happy New Year, but anyway).

The weather was truly hot and foul tonight; people were sweating for no good reason, myself included - profusely. Still, it was good to see the venue busy with both new and familiar faces, some more animated/aggressive/amnesiac than others. Quite a few people have yet to go back to work but they didn’t seem any more relaxed than those who’d already woken up at some ungodly hour this morning.
Everyone has the same complaints.


Speaking of which, if you ever suffered on Taylor Square, desperate to take a piss but nervous about those poofter bars and unwilling to go the easy route (Foley St), the council has provided an exciting new toilet:


It’s the lightbox/advertising space on the left. The crane in front was used to help remove the big illuminated metal Christmas tree that lifted our spirits in such a fittingly hollow way for the past month (by day it looked tawdry, but by night it went off!).

I’ve yet to use this new hygienic facility (I did notice amid the signage the universal symbol for ‘nappy changing area’, which unsettled me) but anyone who has seen or used one of those time-sensitive glamourised Portaloos knows what I'm talking about.
A far cry from the old Gents’, needless to say.

Still, for all this questionable 'development', (Elizabeth) Taylor Square has looked far worse.
Remember the obstacle course?


Weather update! The cool change has hit, the tree outside my window is going batshit. All's, if not well, then at leat less clammy.

Meet Locky and Barko!

According to the 380 bus, they both love dick:




I think Locky could afford to put on a few pounds...

Poor Indy

I just watched the South Park Indiana Jones episode.
How the fuck do they get away with that?

I'd seen some of it online and I didn't know it was the one being shown tonight (I was semi-glued to the hitmen on Gangland Graveyards - I miss The Sopranos). As always, I made a scramble for the camera to take a still or two. As usual, the first shot wasn't quite focused, but I think it has an abstract innocence that only highlights the horror to come. It almost looks like a playful animated wildlife documentary.
It also serves as a gentle entree if you're unacquainted with the significance of duelling banjos:


The second shot gives you an idea of the scenario, which is still pleasingly pastoral and fairly ambiguous.
Perhaps it's hot and they've just dropped something?


But then this left nothing to the imagination:


I dropped the camera and just watched in admiration of their balls at that point.
It was the best episode I've seen since Cartman's hand was possessed by Jennifer Lopez.

Taco taco:

Happy (belated and kind of spooky) New Year

I am so out of blog-practice.
I meant to post this photo after I took it on New Year’s night. It really was a dramatic, foreboding sunset, a massive band of cloud, the crescent moon peeking through, all quite Hollywood sci-fi epic and a fitting way to end the shitstorm that was 2008.

Although for me it wasn't so much The Day the Earth Stood Still as The Day the Earth Shrugged and Grabbed Another Beer.

Wherever they lay their head...

Forgot about this. Someone in my building had left a mattress out in the back lane to be picked up by the council.
It stayed there for a few days and I was glad to see one of the working girls put it to good use:


Where the manchester came from, I have no idea...

Departure delayed

Almost two months have passed since I attended to this thing, which I could attribute to sheer laziness or the fact that very little of note has happened.
I also lost a camera, leaving me bereft of visual accompaniment to my random musings, and I had my internet cut off, which really didn’t help matters.

Anyway, life is much as I left it – punctuated by part-time work laying out pages and wondering when the hell Mick and I can move out of town.
We went to Maitland after Christmas in the hope of securing a rental, a kind of stop-gap until he finds a place to buy. The drive up was, you could say, adrenalising. As soon as we got out of Sydney, there was a severe thunderstorm warning on the radio and for the next two hours this was my view:


Terrifying, but we made it.

As for the home-hunt, it was singularly depressing. There were hardly any houses available and those on offer ranged from weatherboard meth-house (security mesh on every window and door) to a bungalow on the New England Highway ten minutes out of town (it was, however, tantalizingly close to KFC). We didn’t even bother looking inside any of them; a cursory external examination was enough to send us back to the pub/drawing board, where we decided we might have to reconsider our options.

I’m glad I haven’t given formal notice to either my work or landlord that I’ll be leaving at the end of January, as I so naively thought. Lord knows when it'll happen.

Maitland is still top of the list as far as destinations go. We even stumbled what appeared to be a gay enclave – the pokie lounge of the Belmore Hotel. About half a dozen or so younger queens were there half-heartedly divesting themselves of money while chatting away. Come to think of it, it’s a little depressing to think that’s all they have but I guess you work with what you’ve got.
Besides, Bogan Bingo sounds pretty funny:

Taxpayer money at work

This was taken at about 8.30pm on New Year’s Eve, a Sydney City Council streetsweeper on Oxford Street clearing the way for revellers to litter and vomit to their hearts’ content.