Daringly Bold and Cuttingly Insightful Political Commentary

So in other intermediate-sized news, I’ve applied for a position with a new online publication. And just on the off chance the editors of said publication should happen to click on the link to my blog, I’d really rather the first thing they read not be a blow by blow description of my birthday party. So what I really need now is a nice juicy political topic to write about.

Thank you Kevin Rudd.

That’s got to be the first time I’ve written that sentence since he sent me a thousand dollars while I was on holiday in Spain.

While Kevin Rudd’s re-ascendency to the  Prime Ministry has comprehensively answered some questions, it has also immediately posed a series of others: When will the election be? Can Kevin really turn things around for Labor before then? And, if the Prime Ministry is held by a man now, does that make everyone who disagrees with him a misandrist?

I’m really not sure what I personally make of the whole showdown. Part of me is happy to see Kevin restored, almost as if it’s bringing some cosmological natural justice back into balance. But part of me also remembers the night he was axed in the first place.

Even as a right leaning hyper-conservative nutcase, I hadn’t minded seeing Rudd defeat Howard too much in 2007. It was definitely the right time for a Labor government to bring the Australia political pendulum back into balance. He was all charisma and smiles, and brought promises of a fresh new energy in Australian Politics.

It didn’t take long for the shine to wear off. By the time 2010 rolled around, Rudd’s polling was sinking to levels that the Labor party could not possibly carry into a federal election, largely because there was a perception that the Prime Minister, for all his charm and stage presence, could not be trusted to deliver on the promises he had made to the country. So with a federal election defeat looming, the knives came out and the leadership was up for grabs.

Sound familiar?

I remember being very annoyed that the press conference cut right into the middle of Hey Hey It’s Saturday, and then later that evening suffering confusion on an almost existential level as I went to bed hoping for success on Julia Gillard’s part. When I woke the next day, I was happy to discover we had our first female Prime Minster, but disappointed that the Socceroos, despite beating Serbia, had been knocked out of the World Cup finals.

And then came “Moving Forward,” the Real Julia and the Carbon Tax. And before we knew it, we’d swapped one credibility challenged Prime Minister for another. And that's a real shame because Gillard - despite the precariousness of the government’s hold on the House of Representatives - has done some pretty cool things. NDIS, NBN (sort of) and uniform education standards have all been there, right alongside the budget deficits, petrol watch schemes and pink batt debacles.

And now we’ve come full circle. Kevin Rudd is back in power, and the Socceroos are off to Brazil. But given that Gillard’s ousting of Rudd was largely responsible for a hung parliament and a minority government, the question of whether ousting Julia Gillard as leader will undo the damage that has been done to the Labor brand, or damage it even further will be the defining factor of the election, whenever it is held.

Oh yeah, and Tony Abbott will be there too.

Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs

A Month of Crazy: Dinner Time

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any crazier than the Queen’s birthday, my own decade capping birthday has to come along and step everything up a notch further.

I turned thirty on Friday and guests started arriving in town a full two days before the event. So every night since then I’ve been out eating, drinking and being merry with various combinations of family and friends. And in keeping with the finest traditions of my family, we ate dinner. A lot.

It started on Wednesday with the arrival of my parents. I hadn’t seen them since Christmas, so naturally we went out to dinner to celebrate. That was lovely and a nice way to warm up for the craziness that was yet to come.

On Thursday my sister and her husband joined the party, along with my aunt, uncle and two cousins. Eh Steve had never been to Darwin before, so naturally there was trip down to Mindil Markets for dinner. Apparently there was no sunset. That was weird. I escaped this one and went to sepak takraw training. There was no sunset there either, largely because we were inside. And overnight the craziness was brought to a peak, as I headed out at midnight to pick up Kim – and Phil for some reason – from the airport.

Friday was the big day, and my nearest and dearest gathered to celebrate in fine style. I threw a costume party and had everything from Neo to Wolverine in attendance. It was certainly a colourful gathering with a cake baked and decorated by my truly excellent housemate. And would you believe it? We had dinner. I had ordered five platters of food, and the caterer showed up with seven for the same price, so we were handing out leftovers for people to take home left right and centre.

We all spent Saturday recovering. Well… Kim and I did. The rest of family thought a trip to Crocodylus Park might be in order. But we all gathered again that evening and… went out to dinner. This time we all went out for a sunset dinner cruise, again with no sunset. Something is obviously wrong with the Earth’s orbit just presently. It was a lovely evening all the same.

Sunday arrived, bringing with it my cousin’s thirteenth birthday. After church we had a celebratory lunch, which made a nice break in the pattern. We sat around for a while discussing this and that as families often do, and before we knew it it was time to go home and change just in time to … go out to dinner. This time it was down to the wharf for a chance for friends of my parents to drop by and say hello.

I took Monday off work to spend some extra time with Kim and the family, so we went to spend the day down at Litchfield park, which is my favourite place in the world. We visited Wangi and Buley, Florence and the Magnetic Termite Mounds, and headed home exhausted after a long day. We were all ready to crash and zone out for the night.

So naturally we went out to dinner. And sat down to a full Chinese banquet no less. I'm not even sure how that happened.

I’m spending most of today shipping them all off on various flights. By tomorrow everything might be back to normal, but we’ll see how long that lasts. Something will come up, no doubt. It always does. But have no fear. There appears to be no problem so great that it cannot be solved by going out to dinner.

Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs

A Month of Crazy: The Queen's Birthday

After the unexpected awesomeness of last weekend, I decided to return the favour by jumping on a plane to hang out with Kim in Sydney for a weekend. Unlike Kim’s effort, mine was pre-planned, so we were able to schedule an action packed weekend of glitz, glamour and excitement.

I got in terribly early on Saturday morning after a sleepless flight (thanks Jetstar for once again making everything as inconvenient as possible) so after a quick nap on Kim’s couch we were ready to roll. First up was a trip to the cinema to see the Great Gatsby, which we had both been waiting to see until we could see it together. We both enjoyed it, and spent a considerable part of the bus ride home comparing and contrasting it with the book. We came to the conclusion that naturally the book was able to go into more detail, but that the book could have been improved by the inclusion of Leonardo DiCaprio, who basically carried the film. And the movie was more colourful.

After Gatsby we called in to Saturday Night Church at CBTB in Kirribilli. It was nice to catch up with everyone again, and after church we all went back to a friend’s place for a fellowship meal like the good parishioners we are. That was really cool.

Sunday was even more spectacular. We headed into town for a matinee showing of Jesus Christ Superstar. I’ve been a fan of this show ever since my mum bought the Australian cast recording back in the early nineties and it didn’t disappoint this time either. Tim Minchin as Judas Iscariot was an inspired casting choice, and Andrew O’Keefe was surprisingly good as King Herod too.

After Superstar we had dinner at one of Kim’s favourite restaurants and then wandered down to Darling Harbour to watch the aquatechnic displays for the Vivid festival. That was pretty cool and a nice way to cap off the evening. By the end of all that we were both completely exhausted, so we said goodnight and I crashed in my hotel room.

Monday was a public holiday (thanks Your Majesty) and we met some friends of ours for a nice picnic lunch at Balmoral. And by the time we got back from that, we had just enough time to recuperate before heading off to the airport for my flight back home.

Thankfully I was able to head into work on Tuesday to have a rest from the long weekend.

Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs

Ladies Night

So I’ve been freaking out a bit  about performing stand-up comedy at Ladies Night this week. I get a little bit nervous when it comes to thinking about jokes about women, or jokes by women, or just being a room with women.

Basically the short version is women make me nervous. And usually that’s okay, because the world of stand-up comedy is founded a long tradition of goofy guys who are rubbish with women. There’s nothing funnier than a guy paying himself out for being relationally inept right? Well, maybe monkeys riding unicycles. But I don’t have one of them, so instead I spent my ladies night set presenting a researched treatise on the socio-economic and spatio-political influence of goofy lonely men, and how I’m basically better than all of them.

I think the real strength of goofy lonely guys doing stand-up about being goofy and lonely is that it’s a like a theatrical/romantic model for both socio-economic capitalism and Hegelian dialectic socialism. It also has a lot in common with the messianic writings of the ancient Jewish scholars and also films by the Warchowski siblings.

Basically the premise of capitalism is that in order for a few to be prosperous, the majority have to struggle. So the while the dream might be that if you work hard and use your money well, one day you’ll be rich and successful. It’s basically like The Great Gatsby.

And there’s another thing. Last week I read a review of Baz Luhrmann’s latest effort on the Great Gatsby. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry, when critics, who wrote as if they knew things worth reading about, complained that the Great Gatsby was “over the top” and “all style, and no substance”. If you’re going to review a film, you should, as a bare minimum, know something about the book it’s based on. Apparently “Baz Luhrmann fetishizes romance, rather than feels it”. In other news, Star Trek Into Darkness, was  abit too science-fictiony for my taste, and we were all disappointed that Titanic ended so sadly.

Where was I?

Yes… Romantic capitalism

So in stand-up comedy you’ve always got the big names. The celebrities who made it as professional entertainers. And beneath those bright lights, you’ll always have twisting seedy undercroft of goofy lonely guys, desperately clinging to the dream that women love a guy with a sense of humour. At open mic and amateur comedy nights all across the country, goofy lonely guys are slogging away, working towards the dream. And eventually the goofy lonely guy comedic energy reaches a critical mass, and one lucky goofy lonely guy is catapulted from obscurity onto the grand stage of Australian sketch comedy to enjoy the world of celebrity, where in theory they’re supposed to be able to get any woman they want, but really they continue to be goofy and lonely, but at least they’re slightly less impoverished.

And all the others left behind look up and see the success of the lucky one and salute the new inductee with a heartfelt “oh I could do that” and then get back to writing their next five minute set for open mic night at the RSL club. And the system keeps going.

Now if all of that seems a little dark and cynical and not quite as funny as I had hoped, take heart. My children there is yet hope. Because in every good Jewish messianic scripture, or Warchowski siblings film, there is the coming of the One. The one person who has the ability to turn the system on its head, free the oppressed, bring justice to the streets and punch Hugo Weaving right in his face. And tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I can announce that tonight this Warchowski film has been fulfilled in your presence. I am the one. I’ve turned the system on its head, because despite my long history of writing a series of increasingly ridiculous songs about being single

I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!!!!!!!

Just in case anyone had somehow missed that over the last nearly eleven months.

She’s a lovely girl from Cincinnati Ohio, in the United States of America, but this presents a bit of a problem for my stand-up comedy career, which up until quite recently has consisted of me writing a series of increasingly ridiculous songs about my now defunct inability to get a girlfriend. So since that comedic well is now dry, I now have a new and fascinating life goal to write about, because in August, I get to travel over to the United States of America to meet my girlfriend’s family.

I do have the usual worries that go with meeting your girlfriend’s family for the first time, now combined with the added concern that if they don’t approve of me, they might just shoot me. My girlfriend has very lovingly tried to reassure me that this is unlikely to happen. She actually said these words to me:

“I promise you there are no guns in my parents’ house. We’re a little bit worried about our next door neighbour, but there are none in our house”. So as long as nothing goes down in the house that’s likely to startle the neighbours we should be fine.

Anyway, it’s probably the easiest thing in the world to write a series of increasingly ridiculous songs mocking the United States of America, but I’ve been assured in no uncertain terms that if I do that, I’ll be back writing songs about not having a girlfriend in fairly short order.

So I guess I’ll stick to political/economic commentary. That’s much funnier.

Make of that what you will

Garry with 2 Rs

A Month of Crazy: Surprise!

For quite some time now, June has been shaping up as a month of madness. There’s the usual Comedy and One Body to deal with, plus a trip to Sydney, a potential trip to Malaysia, a mumbleth birthday to negotiate including a visit from my extended family and a new job to find. On Friday the 31st of May, I sat in my room staring down a list of upcoming events, grateful for the chance to get a rare decent rest before crashing face first into June.

At ten past one on Saturday morning there was a knock on my bedroom door. Bleary eyed, I wondered what on earth my housemates could possibly want at this hour. I opened my door to find Kim standing in my flat, and not holidaying in the Blue Mountains as she had told me. It was a very nice surprise, and a good reminder that June had arrived, albeit only for an hour, and things were already getting crazy.

So this week I've already had One Body, which went well, and I've still got Happy Yess Comedy to come on Thursday, before I head for Sydney for the regular scheduled, not-so surprising visit we've been planning for a  while. Maybe after that thigns will settle down a bit.

I doubt it




Garry with 2 Rs