Putin is a piece of shit

 

This was the book cover that got this gay boy interested in the Ripley books. I remember it well, at the Camberwell library after dinner with my dad and my sister. We used to all go to the library and take books out. We'd be there for an hour, or so, looking at the books. It was fun, with dad.

It was a bonus that the Ripley books were great, some of my very favourite. I would nearly say my favourite.

Nicole Kidman

I don't know why, but I always want to hate Nicole Kidman. Not personally, you understand, but as an actor. I'm not sure how I got this in my head, but that is how I think of her as an actor.

I have just finished watching Big Little Lies, and with other things that I watch with Nicole Kidman in them, it has proved, yet again, that I like her as an actress.

That's weird, isn't it?

I just watched The Undoing – oh yes, we’re still in lockdown mode, as I mentioned previously, only watching streaming services in the comfort of our own home – and I liked her in that.

I like her in most things.

Funny thing in The Undoing, I thought she had a weird mouth and in Big Little Lies I thought she had slightly weird teeth, not enough to distract, but duly noted none the less.

Scott Tracy

I bought a Thunderbirds DVD. I was in the secondhand shop and it was just there and it reminded me of old friends.

I remember Saturday mornings, especially if we'd been out all night Fergus and me and Mark and Shane and Anthony and we would smoke joints and watch the Thunderbird, which would invariably lead to discussions of which Thunderbird we fancied the most.

I'm pretty sure Scott was the most popular. It's those blue eyes and square jaw. I think Anthony used to go for Allan, he always had a soft spot for blond hair and blue eyes. Shane might have gone for Virgil, something about his daddy issues.

Watching it today, I love it that TinTin stands there smoking away on a kid’s cartoon.

Funny, I still have an hankering for Scott.

New Normal

When you are not doing very much, it becomes more and more difficult to find something interesting to say. True of life really, hey? But even more true when one is experiencing a pandemic the likes of which most of us haven't seen before. 

So, I’m just going to make shit up. 

Harriet the Hatchet was around during the Spanish flu. The universe blessed her with good genes and longevity. She's 122 this year and has a face like a relief map of Melbourne, all green and blue and brown. She walks with a slight stoop but that is a recent development. She spent a life time collecting male lovers.

"But when they are all dead, so is part of you," she said. “So there is no happy ending.”

“Can you remember them all?”

“Most of them, honey.” She wipes the corner of her mouth almost absentmindedly. “There have been a few, as you may understand.”

Ah, Harriet. What a life.

She kissed Wilbur Snodgrass, her first sweet heart, her first, when he went away to the Great War. They hugged and kissed. He gave a cheeky smile and his last words to her were, “Don’t worry, I’ll be alright.” Then he turned and walked away. She never saw Wilbur again.

The 1920s was the best era in which to live, the pinnacle of human civilisation, the most fun and the most free. It was one long party. They drank a lot.

“Yes, well,” said Harriet. “Certainly, for me and my socio economic group, anyway.”

She met the dashing Jay Devine at university. They spent the 1920s together and were betrothed to each other. Jay’s family were rich from the Devine Perfume Empire.

That was until everyone got greedy and it all came crashing down. It became a downward spiral, with conservative types trying to repress the majority ever since.

Jay’s family lost all their money in the ’29 crash and he disappeared. And Harriet never saw him again.

Her heart broken, she disappeared into bohemian society where the gays picked her up and soothed her torched soul.

She used to dress up in a trench coat and Trilby hat and run with the 1930s gays.

"Those boys were the truest of any boys in any era," she said. "They had to be in their secret society."

She met her girlfriend Sasha Blatt, a PHD scientist, and started going by the name Harry Hatch.

She officiated at same sex weddings and was fabulous at tea parties with her beautiful boys. “It was one long Gin Sling, darling.”

“It was all bebop Jazz in the forties.” She smiled at the memory. 

Henry Star took her heart, but he was drafted into the second great war, and she lost him too. She found out she was pregnant, when she was far too old to be so. And then she had Henry Junior to share her life. She carried him in a papoose.

“All those cool cats. Of course, the religious types protested that we were losing our souls to devil music and that ushered in the 1950s.”

She was mama to the James Dean types of the 1950s. "It wasn't all Porsche sports cars and full skirts, you know," she said. “All that hair cream and repression.” She pulled a face.

She tie-dyed her life in the sixties. She moved to a collective. And smoked a huge amount of pot. They grew their own food and remained barefooted for most of the decade. The children were home schooled with emphasis on freedom to choose your own path in life. “How could we not,” she said.

It was heroin in the 70s. She joined a folk band, Big Red Taxi, and toured the world. She adopted young George when her bandmate lover, Parker Bird, succumbed to his addiction, and then she had a pair of boys. 

Cocaine in the 80s. She organised one large shipment from Bolivia with Pegleg Jack and Murry the Immobilizer (don’t ask, it is too gruesome) and then invested the money in hedge funds and secured her future. “From one crime gang to another crime gang, still you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.” Young Henry Star finished his degree, while young George Bird started his.

Amphetamines in the 90s. She followed the party circuit around the world, dancing to nirvana, on beaches and in deserts, in rain forests and on docks on bays, dressed in cheese cloth dresses with daisies in her hair. 

“Of course, every time we found a good drug, the fun police would move in and make them illegal.”

Ketamine in the noughties. She became a grandmother and started sitting her new grandsons. Henry had a son, Felix, with his best friend, Kayla. George had a son, Hugo, with his girlfriend, Mack. It was all boys in Harriet’s family, she was happy though, of course.

And Crystal meth in the 2010s. She taught her grandsons responsible drug taking and taught them dance party etiquette. Felix told her he liked boys and Hugo told her he liked girls. “One of each,” she replied. “You two should look out for each other, you know, as brothers do.”

She retired to country Daylesford, just beyond the city’s limits. And planted a vegi garden. She and Sasha experimented with human growth hormone in their garage, which managed to halt Harry’s aging process. She bought a red sports car to celebrate.

The world spun on Harriet’s desire. “The problem with the world has always been the conservative element trying to drag society backwards because of their own fears.”

Why hatchet, I hear you ask? That was because Harriet always had an idea, she was always hatching new plans to follow.

 

Always have a plan? I think that is probably a good way to live, even if you don’t follow it religiously, for want of a better word. It is an ideal. It is good to have a dream, it keeps the imagination working, and the old brain cells ticking over. It keeps you thinking and looking forward.

 

I think I am still in lock down mode, I haven't, me and the husband, got back into leaving the house, on a regular basis, just yet. Oh, you know, other than walking the dogs, or sniffing around the supermarket for sustenance. We were a little on the reclusive side before all this happened and while it’s not exactly still fortress-home, it's just like we got out of the habit of going out. Staying home has very much become the order of the day.

I wonder how long it will be before conservative commentators are agitating for govt to instruct us all to go out to save the restaurants and night clubs?

I've taken to collecting Peter Hujar B&W images and reading Allan Bennett's writing.

New Neighbours

New boy Travis moved in next door with his 2 mates. I didn't know the old tenants had moved out. Travis has far too much confidence for one person. (Probably means he’ll go far in life and always be annoying) He had those big questioning eyes as he asked me the favours he came into ask me. And he has a snarl-smile, his face just naturally goes into a grimace when he smiles. (sign of a killer?) It kind of creases up weirdly at his nose, you know like when dogs first show their teeth, but in a benevolent, 21 year old boy full of cum kind of way. It is captivating, and yet repellent all at the same time. If he’d jigged from one foot to the other, and had twitching fingers, at the same time I wouldn’t have been surprised.

I wonder if he'll be like Hunter, who has just moved out, who used to run around the house in his undies? We have a security camera on the side of our house – oh, don't ask, totally useless, except when you have a techno head for a boyfriend – that captures some of their back yard. (next door is in the periphery of the footage but still very clear, but really the camera is focused down the side of our house) My favourite was cute shirtless Hunter in track pants sitting against the outside table hand down his pants tugging away as he spoke on the phone, I assumed, to his girlfriend friend, but it could have been anybody of course. (I pictured a boyfriend, naturally, but somehow, I don't think so) I’d be guessing not his mother.

Shake of the head. Sam loves electronics, what can I say?

I know, I should have looked away, not look at all, not replayed the footage, over and over, sure, bad me. (Who’s going to do that?) If I'd gone upstairs to our second bedroom and looked out the window, I would have seen the same thing. So…

It was a good look, handsome Hunter.

When Hunter’s house mate got drunk and forgot his key and ended up climbing over our wall and then our roof (our place is on the corner) to get to their place, the security camera didn’t even capture it. (I told you, completely useless) We only knew because Sam got up for a piss at 3am and he saw the idiot on our roof. And I called the police. Then we came downstairs and watched his drunk legs dangling over the side of our house as he tried to get his drunk arse over the side fence. All we ended up hearing was him crashing to the ground on their side of the fence with an almighty thud and the obvious destruction of plant life. Oh, that’s gotta hurt I remember thinking. And I immediately regretted calling the police.

The first question Travis asked was, “Were the last guys a problem?”

Not really the first question you want to hear coming out of your new neighbours’ mouth. Does that mean you are going to be a problem, I wondered?

The drunk roof incident came to mind as I was trying to picture Travis shirtless with his hand down his track pants tugging away. I said, “No.” (they weren’t a problem)

Religion Was Invented When The First Con Man Met The First Fool

 

All Good

I signed into work last night, gotta love working from home,  and the partner of the company replied to the correct email and everything is right with the world again. I deleted any of the remaining problem emails. And, I think, we are good. Sigh of relief.

Jesus fuck! I'm never going to do that again. What a head fuck. I was sweating on it, sure. Breath a sigh of relief. Chuckle. Shit.

Of course, it could all still go pear-shaped from here, but the likelihood is far less now.

Cross your fingers.

Cat

 

I Fucked Up

I fucked up at work. I cc'd in the wrong person to a confidential email. Both of their email addresses started with P, and I didn't notice until after I had sent it what I had done. All the details that should have gone to a senior exec went to the manager of a team in Sydney. 

SHIT!

I have never done that before. I really haven't.

I started writing out an explanatory email to send to the exec, when he replied with a question, seeming not noticing the wrong cc email, but replying to all.

SHIT!

So, in a split second decision, I edited and re-addressed the explanatory email and sent it to the team manager, and I replied to the exec with all instances of the incorrect email deleted from my reply email chain.

Then I waited.

Then the panic set in. 

What if the team manager replies despite my explanatory email?

What if the exec replies to a previous email and the team manager gets more confidential details? He would be bound to send a reply.

I should have just owned up, but once I had essentially committed fraud with the deletion of the incorrect email address in the chain of emails, I felt that option was taken away from me.

Grrrrr! I probably wouldn't get in too much trouble over the initial mistake, oh sure there would be words said, and if HR got wind of it, they would do their usual explosion of drama. But, these are smart people, if they work out my attempted cover up, well, that may not end well for me.

What was I thinking?

I stress over things like this, I know that.

I had a bad dream about it?

So, the next morning, I sent the exec another email, blah, blah, blah, once you have completed your review, please reply to this email with the outcomes. People often respond to instructions without thinking too much about it, especially if there was no whiff of error.

That was all I could do.

Let me just conclude by reiterating it was an email of the most confidential information.

Then the sweating set in. Too many variables could go wrong?

Then I was off for two days.

Office Workers Have Found A Better Way To Work

Office workers have found a better way to work, from home, and all those business struggling in the CBD should just pack up and move some where else. 

Conservatives should embrace the change, as it is their beloved market forces at work.

Nobody Cares What Jenny Thinks

 

Antivaxxers

Antivaxxers unwilling to be injected with a free vaccine safely used on hundreds of millions of people advise each other that drinking one’s own wee is curative and somehow “camel urine deals with cancer”.

Do More Choices Always Result In Better Outcomes?

Streaming services are kind of depressing really. They are just an endless stream of mediocrity for the most part. They are a sea of unpickable choices. They are what happens when corporations make TV rather than artists. Some nights I just click through all the choices mindlessly.

Do you think it's mind control? First of all it was smart phones and now it is streaming services? Keeping us distracted from what is really going on in the world. (nervous people might think I'm some kind of crazed conspiracy theorist, and not just a funny guy) 

Ha ha.

I've been watching Black Mirror on Netflix. The first episode of the fifth season was a gay episode, recommend by a gay review. It wimped it in the end, but it was quite good none the less. Then I started from the beginning.

Renewable Energy Is Powering Ahead

 

Religious Discrimination

The religious discrimination bill, aptly named, which Liberal Party enquires found was unnecessary, passes the lower house in the first stage for legislated state sanctioned discrimination to go ahead in Australia. It is a very dark day for this country, as the religious bigots have now won extraordinary special rights over every other citizen of Australia and that is the right to discriminate.

But wait...

And just like that, the vile Christian Lobby directs the Scumo Liberal Govt to ditch the laws as they don't like the amendments protecting gay and queer students that were made to allow the legislation to pass the lower house. It actually speaks volumes about who is making laws in this country.

Stop Making Shit Up About heaven Just Because You Are Uncomfortable Talking About Death

 

David Heads Home, I Sit Up and Smoke

We binge watched And Just Like That... I liked it. Quite frankly, I can't see what all the negativity has been about.

David heads back home. He forgets his cigarettes, which he leaves outside on the garden table, where we sat and smoked and cracked like old witches while he was here.

I sit up watching White Lotus smoking the last of the cigarettes. 

"Oh, just smoke them and get rid of them," I say to myself.

(David doesn’t even smoke)

"Seriously?" questions Sam.

"What can you do," I say? I shrug.

"Not smoke, that's what you can do," says Sam.

"Oh, honey, if only it was that simple."

"It is that simple." Sam's eyes widened.

I tilt my head. "Out of the mouth of someone who has never smoked." I reach out and touch his chin. He pushes my hand away.

 

David Comes To Visit

David comes to visit, first time in... um... I can't remember? A year?Two? (All the usual covid provisos apply) He's been doing his guru thing for the last two weekends in Melbourne. You know, servicing the sycophants, essentially, partnerless middle aged women who fill their lives with the new age spiritual ideas that he professors. From all accounts, well, his, he's very successful.

We laugh, we couldn't be more diametrically opposed in our beliefs and yet we are the best of friends. I laugh at what he believes, and he questions my non-belief continually telling me that I am spiritual deep down, but I just won't admit it. Yeah, right, I say.

We head out for dinner, with our old mate, Tom Vonage and his new boyfriend Matt. Actually, Tom and Matt have been going out for nearly 3 years, but with covid, and what not, it is the first time I have met Matt. He seems really nice. (They are talking about marriage)

We ate Mexican.

David bought cigarettes despite not smoking for years, because it is the first time he has been back in Melbourne without going on a drug bender, and so cigarettes are the worst thing he will allow himself to do now. Of course, I smoked too, which infuriates Sam.

Early Morning Out And About

I'm up at 6am working, just because I am awake. And I kind of like it, and I'm awake early.

I make porridge and coffee pretty early, 7am, I'm hungry. 

Then we walk the dogs to the shops to buy food, primarily for them, but for us too.

On the first corner, the gay guy from a few houses up from us is sitting on a stool waiting for his coffee. Buddy walks right up to him and parks himself practically in the guys crotch. The guy just starts patting Bud, Bud knows how to get a pat.

People love the bulldogs, especially Buddy off his lead. He makes them smile as he walks towards them. A girl reaches out and pats him and he obliges and she looks so happy.

8.45am. Buddy, Bruno and I are waiting out the front of Aldi while Sam shops. I start writing my daily journal on my phone. Bruno lushes out in his super dog pose. Buddy stands for the entire proceedings, as he always does.

8.53. Standing in Johnston Street with the bulldogs standing side by side next to me outside Aldi. There is a cool breeze blowing up Johnston Street. It is a gentle morning. I like being out early, covid withstanding of course.

Sam reappears with bags of groceries. I suspect he gives me the heavy ones to carry, but, whatever, we all do that. He has to hold on to Bruno's lead, where I have no lead to hold.

It is cooler today, shorts and t-shirts and a lovely breeze to blow the days of sweat away.

I’ve still got lots of work to get through this morning, but the bulldogs needed a walk, and it makes a change from walking them every day at 4pm. I guess this is all going to be taken away from me when my work finally insists we go back to the office? That makes me feel sad. I like this free and easy work lifestyle.

And to all the CBD business owners who are trying to get the government to make office workers return to their CBD offices, um, er, don't take this the wrong way, but enjoy your bankruptcy. I mean that in the nicest possible way - well, let me say, I am as concerned about their financials as much as they are concerned about the worker's newly found happiness from working from home.

We’re back at 9.15am.