Round The Bay

It is so nice when friends organise their own going away events. Sue organised a sprightly trip around Port Phillip Bay, which was made decidedly less sprightly after the first night drinking in Portarlington.

The ferry trip across to Sorento did little to quell the stomachs of some of the crew but that was soon remedied with some coffee and Tatos chips.

JT, lying on the beach, chatting to serial killers in Portsea and dancing under the bright lights of the Conti made for a memorable weekend.

Cheers Sue.

Interpret this!

Interpretative dance can happen in the most unlikely places.

Where is Samara when you need her most?

St Patrick's Day @ The Dan O'Connell Hotel

The theme of the day was green.

The other theme was beer.

Oh, another theme was pirate music for some reason. (Frankly, I've heard better tunes from someone's tie.)

The rest of the photos can be reached by clicking on the pic above.

Andrew Is Leaving (on a jet plane...)

He doesn't know when he'll be back again.



He will be sorely missed. Not quite as sorely as his mother's cat would have been if it had stayed but sorely nonetheless.

He's off back to London to make another go of it.

So, it has happened, the Irish have finally taken over Falconer Street.

The farewell was quite touching. The boys got him a collection of Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and Spike Jonze dvds. It was quite amusing, Andrew was visibly surprised that they'd given such a thoughtful gift. And the boys revelled in it. Those Irish are full of surprises.

Best of luck, Andrew. It has been good catching up again. Even though I am sure you saw more of me than you were expecting to.

Bush Whacking

Sunday, Andrew and I hit the Volvo and drove out to the Dandenongs.

We walked through the lush forests and wondered at the beauty of nature. Awww.

Actually, it was quite stunning. The gum trees just seem to launch into the sky and they drip strips of bark all over the foliage, which leaves the forest looking something like nature's take on Miss Haversham's dining room.

It is a pity that you can never really get out of earshot of a major road but then, being on the edge of Melbourne proper, one can't really complain.

Photos will come soon. They are all trapped in Andrew's camera.

Yarra Valley Jaunt

After much searching for accommodation, even resorting to campsites, Andrew and I succumbed to the group mentality and put our trip down to the Prom on hold for a while. Instead we got on a mini-bus with Richard (not my housemate, the tour guide, who had a penchant for hens) and headed off to the Yarra Valley to hit the wineries.

It was a blast. 5 Irish, 1 Geordie and 2 Aussies. Luckily, the mini-bus had a shamrock plastered on it (and it was powered by leprechauns) so we couldn't get lost.

We spent the day tasting wine, looking at art and dodging hen parties. It was tiring but we got some good wine out of it.

That's all... Photos to come later.

Video Response - The Wicker Man

Richard just posted a bit of a slate against Neil La Bute's rehash of The Wicker Man

I'd like to supply some supporting evidence:



Get the point? Hmmm...

You don't need a man...

It appears I am not the only guy in Melbs at the moment with too much time on his hands.

Tristan, Jimbo and J2 spent the other night with some bath towels, a video camera and a Pussycat Dolls CD.

The result... not suitable to impressionable youngsters, be warned!



Ah, Trist, it's good to have you back.

Full Moon Party

Okay, so the news is I turned 32.

It happened a few days ago. I am still coming down from the whole affair. (Or perhaps coming up is a better term.)

It was a day of weirdity. Silly arguments. No shows. Extravagance.

That is not to say it wasn't fun. Just odd. Must have been the moon.

Fidel's Cigar-tainted Karaoke

Shamil is no longer 32.

We no longer have any shame.

Three observations:-

i) Never believe Andrew when he says he won't sing - you will have to pry the microphone from his bleeding fingers;

ii) Never let Shamil talk about the wait-staff with a microphone in his hand;

iii) Never sing a song that consists almost wholly of Fred Flintstone's catch cry.

The night was an absolute blast. I couldn't speak the next day, though I, along with everyone else, blame that on the very quiet microphones.

Hmmm.

Thanks again to karaoke-wallah for the impressive frivolities.

Happy Ozlandia Day

I love Australia Day.

Not because we get to wave flags and feel proud of our achievememts.

I love Australia Day because we can go down to Edinburgh Gardens and sit in the park and throw frisbees and eat barbecued food and drink wine and throw gum boots and play croquet and talk with friends and listen to the Hottest 100 and dance barefoot.

And everyone else it out doing the same thing.

I don't love Australia Day because some of my friends who don't look "Australian" have been told all their lives to be especially careful on the 26th of January because their parents used to receive death threats every year.

And I don't like that our illustrious leader doesn't think Australia is like that.

Marching Proud

Look how proud he is! That is because he's spent his afternoon watching the gayest of Melbourne's community groups marching through one of Melbourne's gayest precincts.

I jest. But it is true that the Pride March was a heart swelling event. I prefer Melbourne's march to Sydney's parade. It is less flashy, more grounded. There is a real sense of the GBLTI community thanking and praising the movers and shakers that make out community what it is. Of course there is not as much eye candy (even less this year because of the miserable weather) or music but the general warm glow more than makes up for that.



We headed down after saying farewell to Steff. The tram down Nicholson Street was already crammed full of homosexualists of both persuasions and we got to nattering about Friday night. And the rain fell. Heavily.



Luckily, by the time the parade opened with the traditional Dykes on Bykes the clouds were holding their payloads. It didn't rain on the police, or the lesbians parading their bubs for political propaganda. It didn't rain on the gay Greeks or the gay Italians. Hell, it didn't even rain on those butt-fucking koalas that were censored from the Myer Christmas windows this year.

Even though we arrived minutes before the start, there was plenty of room. Attendance was a little disappointing but it didn't hamper the good spirits. It was great to see a few friends marching and, when the parade had finished parading the crowd that followed along revealed itself to be quite sizeable.



Drinks at the POW afterwards, a supper with Shamil and a brief jaunt to see what was happening in the park and then it was all over. Pity about the weather, it would have been a lot more festive without the wind and rain but you get that.

Bring on Carnivale!

Let's Talk About The Weather...

It's been a weird week for weather here in Melbourne. The mercury has been, well, mercurial. Tuesday saw Steff and I sweltering by the pool with half of the Melbourne Storm rugby league team and then, while the temperatures stayed up, the rain came down.

Ondine and I sheltered on the lawn inside Madame Brussels, drinking Pimms and eating toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. It was all very British. It is a great idea and the location (up three flights of stairs inside a dowdy building at the top of Bourke Street) only adds to the atmosphere.



Unfortunately, seeing as we were the only ones there and the bar staff in their tennis kits weren't enough to keep out attention, we ended up picking faults with the decor. I'll definitely be heading back there to see how it works in the evenings.

The weather held out while I caught up with Em at World Wide Wash. Great venue, great company.

So you can see that I have been biding my time waiting for this work to come in. I am getting more and more frustrated as the days go by but it gives me a good excuse to catch up with friends.

Word.

Saturday Night Was A Drag

I admit it. Sitting around Andrews' place eating from Sue's deliciously cooked no-frills barbecue, I was less than impressed when someone mentioned that the plan was to go to the Greyhound afterwards. Less than less than impressed.

But I went. Actually, by the time the time had come I was tippsily up for it.

I am so glad. It was such an enjoyable night.

We dance-staggered to classic pop songs by the likes of Vanessa Amorosi, S Club 7 and the Minogues stagger-danced to the bar to drink some more. As always, Andrew's hat did the rounds.



The drag was hilarious. And sequinny. My personal highlight was the dance rendition of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" performed by singing portraits of the Madonna and Child. Priceless.

Cyrano de Bergerac (or, Make Love AND War, But Mainly Love)

Last week, I think it was Monday or Tuesday, I ate snails.

Don't think I didn't tell you because I was ashamed or anything, it is just that I was waiting to show you the photos. Seeing as I have taken to not carrying my camera around with me as obsessively as I once did, I tend to rely on others to upload theirs to their chosen corner of the web before I can adorn my posts with their prettiness.

So here it is, courtesy of Steff.



It all went down at Bergerac's, a French restaurant on King Street, where we were served by the magnificently French Mathilde. (I think she may have known someone at the table because she was terribly familiar with us and at one point even drank our wine, ZUT ALORS!)

Aaaanyway, as far as long winded introductions go, very few people at our rambunctious table of ten (How do you ask a deaf man if he wants to buy a chicken?) had any idea of why there were numerous portraits of a nasally endowed gentlemen adorning the walls of the establishment.

I took it upon myself to educate at least one of them. I enticed her in with promises of Tuna Surprise and the chance to see me in tears.

I love Cyrano de Bergerac. It is one of the many films I revisit often if I want to give myself a good cry session (though I did manage to refrain this time around). It is one of those films that takes me right back to those introverted days, when I would pine away at the thought of love but never dare to dream of grasping at it.

Deppardieu is resplendent as Cyrano, the self-proclaimed grotesque with a soul full of poetry, a hopeless case of love and a handsome protege/mouthpiece. It is his film. He commands the eyes and ears in every scene. He gets to run around being swashbucklery in countless vistas of beautiful French countryside as well as a chateau or two. He gets to recite his heartfelt poetry to the stirring strings of the magnificently lush score. His plight is plausibly heartbreaking, and made all the more so through the dramatic irony that we know that his love is far from hopeless.

Of course, it is difficult spending a whole movie wanting to slap sense into the main character but the dramatically tragic ending more than makes amends for all that pent up admonishment.

Add Cyrano de Bergerac to my list of films you must see before you go to another French restaurant.

Hey Now, Hey Now - The Boyfriend's Back

I don't know if you'd figured it out or not but the past month has been rather emotionally tumultuous at this end.

Breakups are chops.

I know I have mentioned it once or twice, but to protect the innocent I have refrained from bellyaching about my emotions, post after post, which is more than I can say about my conversations with friends. And total strangers too. Sorry. I know I have bored you all to tears over the past few weeks. It has been pretty much Andrew this and Andrew that. It must have been terribly tedious.

Well, apparently Andrew was feeling the same way as I was (the missing each other crazy part, not the tedious part) and last night we decided to pick up where we left off. I'm still getting my head around it.

Feels strange.

Very strange.

But very good. Such an insanely descriptive word: good. I'd try to think of a better one but I'm too tired.

Diary: Musings From the Top End

More blasts from the past. Seven years ago. We’re catching up quickly.

This entry is a little more of a review so I am sure you’ll find it rather dull. At the very least it has the story of how I managed to catch up with Byron again.

1 August 1999

True to form hey! What 5 months and I write again now. I don’t really have much to write about, well nothing recent anyway, I was just reading through the rest of the diary and thought that I really should write something before it comes to the end of the year and I am talking about leaving and all that. I am going to find it so hard to leave this place and yet so easy as well. I think the hardest thing will be the first week away because it will be the first time since university that I will have nothing to go back to after the holidays. Jigalong has always been the place I could be sure I was going back to, I could always leave the kids and my house safe in the knowledge that I would see them again and that is not going to happen this time. The thing is that if I can get over that in the first few weeks (being in the city and all that) I think that I will be able to cope... I am sure we will go into this more in the months to come.

I have neglected to rabbit on about anything that has happened in the last few months haven’t I and surprise, surprise, it revolves almost entirely around men. Well, what did you expect? No nothing serious, my sister has given me too many hang-ups for that (and I do mean to get tested soon) and I have decided that the next guy I sleep with I will know somewhat better than a quick dance in a nightclub, well I say that anyway. Well, I did get in touch with Byron, I sent a letter to the Builder’s Arms addressed to the DJ with a letter inside addressed to Byron. Anyway, it got to him and he wrote back, unfortunately the bastard is moving to Canada so I probably won’t see him next time I am in Melbourne. Still I don’t know what I am getting so upset about, I hardly know the guy, fuck it is so crazy, of course I would hate you to think that I am going barney, stalkly mind-twisty fucky in the head and thinking about him all the time or anything, but it is still crazy to want to meet him again?

On to more immediate events, we have just returned from our conference/holidays in Broome and Darwin and I have some fantastical stories from both places. Quick rundown... Marcus’s mate, pissing on a window at Buzz Café, the queen at Brave, the speed offer and the long sleeved shirt debarcle, the trip to Katherine (or the trip back), the rock art, the fireworks and Tuesdee’s discussion with Marcus (but he’s a fish man and he will just slip through your fingers), yes we had blow-up number three. Darwin was nice but a little too rednecky and it had an uneasy balance between bush and city (the worst of both worlds).

Broome on the other hand was fucking fantastically awesomely ace! Yes and BIZARRE, well more bizarre than I had expected. I suppose I shall start with a brief description of the days... dinner-movies-pub-nightclub-recuperate by the pool... and once more with feeling, yes it was fun. It has made me realise that the Kimberly will be my next posting if I come back to teaching. The Nippon, castle of bikers, surfers and hippies, was the last place I expected to pull but it was all there one Wendnesday night/Thursday morning. No sooner had I started dancing than this big fat black guy asked in a most camp way if I minded him dancing with me... and then another blackfella but a gorgeous one and one who could MOVE!!! and then two other guys... there were five of us drawing stares and comments from the crowd by the middle of the night, it was a riot.

Of course I passed up a fuck, the guy was cool but it was just a fuck (I think the come on line was “Wanna fuck?” always a classic) but I beat myself up over it for the next three days. Now of course I am totally at ease with my decision but I really could have done with the contact before coming back to Jigalong. And then there was the blackfella, the one who could dance, who fell over in the toilet! It got me to thinking, could I do it? I mean I would love to and all that but there would be so many problems dating (like I have actually dated anyone!!!) a community man. It just got me to thinking, having the offer so palpable, well the offer wasn’t really there in any real form but it could have been if you understand- and of course you do. And then I turn up the next night and the blackfella is back and we exchange a few words which could have been “Are you the guy in the black shirt from last night?” but I fear that was misheard and that it was actually “Are you a teacher from Jigalong, in the red shirt?” I answered yes in any event so I suppose both are right. The greatest irony is that I fear the guy, who was dancing up my arse the night before, is the uncle of Zyrack who I saw in Broome the day before- but then I can get very paranoid...

Previous diary entries:
I Wanna Play
Confessions of an Amateur Melodramatist
Before I Sleep a.k.a. Diary Drowsiness
Goodbye 1996!!!
Back To The Bush
How Time Flies
End Of An Era
Kissy Kissy
Diary Tonic
Diary: Losing My Religion Virginity
Diary: May Burst
Travel Fallout
Return Of The Killer Diary

The Return of the Killer Diary!

Many things have fallen by the wayside here at NNM over the past month. The end of the year wasn’t the best of times for many reasons, which I have hinted at here, obtusely or otherwise, while 2006 was whipping its tail.

Now that 2006 is dead and buried, it is time to lace up our Speedos and dive, bollocks and all, into 2007.

First up on the repatriation line of wayward features is the dusty diary. What better way to start the new year than with the gestation of my Melbournian friendship group.

18 April 1999

Well, I am writing again on the changes in my life, and not as anticipated in the previous entry on the other teachers in Jigalong (as you can imagine that slipped from my mind or I decided to put it off for just a little while too long). And so, I will start with an excerpt from a message I wrote to Becky in Bristol...

Anyway, back to my life. I can't remember what I wrote to you about last but I think that you hadn't been able to read it anyway. So I will try to keep to the things that happened in the last few days since I left Melbourne, a sordid description of my drinking habits over the last three nights (alright it isn't sordid, or even interesting but you are going to hear it anyway). Well it all started on Thursday when we (my sister and I) went to the Cirque du Soleil for my sister's birthday. Have you heard of them before? Well basically a circus with no animals and plenty of absolutely mindblowing acts. Unfortunately the only tickets we could get were VIP tickets and to our dismay they included in the cost all the wine you could ever want so we ended up spending the hour before we got inside drinking like fish and had to keep leaving the tent to go to the toilet. Of course we left the show absolutely plied and my sister had a minor break down so after calming her down we popped into a taxi and went home.

Not content at finishing up so early I kept the taxi around and went right back into Melbourne and to go to a pub to continue my alcohol poisoning. Switching effortlessly from red wine to bourbon I sat listening to the music in this pub come dance bar. As you can imagine I was an absolute barrel of laughs after all the shit that my sister had just planted. I must have been looking like a fucking undertaker because from out of nowhere this guy buys me a beer and disappears... BEER urghhh!!! But never fear your good natured hero was so absolutely far gone that he happily downed the middy (about two thirds of a pint I think) in two gulps. Luckily then a song that I like started up (Tender by Blur) so I hit the dance floor and proceeded to treat it more like a stumble floor. Then the bastards turned the music off and the lights on because it was closing time.

... and it was only 1 a.m.

Luckily, as I stand looking lost under the fluro lights, some complete and utter stranger comes up to me and says, "Hey, my mate bought you a drink earlier... Blah blah Blah (or at least that is how I understood it) so they ended up taking me out to some other clubs where I did such excellent acts as kicking over peoples glasses and not even bothering to say sorry and singing loudly to songs I knew well but with the wrong lyrics. But the most thrilling example of my sobriety was when I tried to run up the stairs in one club and ended up tripping up and running into a gate, now I am sporting a huge gash in my shoulder (and that why did I do it feeling in my gut!) but it was all worth it, unfortunately I was too far gone to get his number before he dropped me off (the friend of the guy who bought me the beer that is), its a small world though so I may see him again (recognising him may be a problem though - I should buy some beer goggles before I go back to Melbourne).

So that was Thursday night, and I flew out of Melbourne the next day, feeling fantastic as you might imagine. But not to be deterred I rang up a good friend and we went out for dinner that night. Starting of course with the wine we polished off a bottle at the cafe and then proceeded to a bar to start on the vodka and listen to this band which was pretty cool. Taking it to the next level we stepped into a nightclub to dance our little souls away, feeling fine in a new (and fucking awsome) shirt bought just that morning in Melbourne, and feeling invincible after taking about four shots of Sambucca, we went at it for about three hours.

Well, that is a sort of half version of what happened, the version which omits all of the things I was feeling and have been feeling since. The fact is I would really like to meet up with Byron again and I don’t have any way of getting in contact with him excepting writing into one of Melbourne’s gay newspapers and hoping that one of the guys sees it and writes back (or of course hanging at the Builder’s Arms in the vain hope that I would recognise him). It is not so much that I was smashed just that I cannot remember the whole night and I have not been that wiped out on just booze before. I think that I remember all those bad things because they seem to stick in your mind more.

I don’t know why I would go to such lengths to find Byron anyway, I don’t want to sleep with him (he was gorgeous but I didn’t go out to pull that night so it didn’t enter my mind- well not that much anyway) but he was so real and down to Earth that I have not stopped thinking about him since. Perhaps it is because meeting him has let me know that there are guys out there who are not just raving queens or purely focussed on Diva songs (I know what I mean). And he loved films, foreign films, I was such an idiot not to get his address.

Stay tuned for the next gripping episode…

Previous diary entries:
I Wanna Play
Confessions of an Amateur Melodramatist
Before I Sleep a.k.a. Diary Drowsiness
Goodbye 1996!!!
Back To The Bush
How Time Flies
End Of An Era
Kissy Kissy
Diary Tonic
Diary: Losing My Religion Virginity
Diary: May Burst
Travel Fallout

FYI NYE @ WPPSC

Well, it’s done.

We’ve arrived.

And what as time it was.

I forced myself to see the New Year in with someone other than me. Most of my friends, old and new, were up in Sydney or out in the country so I ended up opting for the only sensible NYE venue in Melbourne, The Witness Protection Program Social Club at The Public Office.

I was so glad I did. And let me tell you why…

Luckily, my friends who had decided to stick around had all settled on attending. The crowd, resplendent in their white fishnets, bikini bottoms and three inch gold heels, where as friendly as they were diverse.

I bumped into a few bloggers (some recognised me, some didn’t) and some new friends, some friends of friends, whom I had never met and some cute guys

Best of all - my three coffees and one Jaegerbomb managed to place me on an even keel with all the other e-ed up punters. And I won’t get that terribly depressing come down tomorrow.

We peeked the fireworks over the rooftops and we were then regaled with some high-kicks and moons as some of the crowd were chased down from the roof.

The whole affair made a nice change from the straight, straight streets of Melbourne, with their un-ironic mullets and blonder-than-blonde whippets.

I couldn’t think of a better way to bring in the New Year.

Hope yours was as delightful!

x

The Neverending Story @ Rooftop Cinema

Is there any better way than to spend an evening freezing your tits off overlooking the city watching dubiously classic cinema?

I think not.

And now you can! Melbourne's newest outdoor cinema sits atop Cookie and it is replete with deck chairs, faux grass, a bar and bitterly cold winds.

Sounds like a plan.

Steff and I went for the garlic chive dumplings but stayed for the über-germanic fantasy fest, The Neverending Story.

What memories. It still holds up reasonably well but it is interesting how much film making has changed since 1984. The flow of the editing is all very heavy handed and the plot is overly plodding where it needn't be. Important scenes, such as Atreyu's fight with G'mork, which would have been an extended set piece in today's world, are utterly perfunctory.

Still, I loved it. Sliced childhood. Yummy! (And so were the dumplings, by the way.)