As we arrived in the theatre foyer tonight, I noticed a small poster on the wall for Felicity Urquhart. Felicity is an Australian country music singer who I work with. So in addition to the slight buzz of seeing her poster on the wall, there was also a slight sense of confusion.
Minutes later I understood why, as she, Gina Jeffreys, Sara Storer and Beccy Cole are amongst a number of Australian country music singers who are mentioned, and whose works feature in the new David Williamson play, Rhinestone Rex and Miss Monica.
The premise for the play is the apparent odd coupling of a country music loving tradesman and a classical music loving woman whose kitchen he is renovating.
Glen Hazeldine plays Rhinestone Rex, the tradie who used to be a country music performer, and who still appears on community radio. Georgie Parker plays MIss Monica, the classical musician forced to “retire” because of problems with her hands.
Publicity photograph for Rhinestone Rex and Miss Monica
In the early part of the play, they trade barbs about country music and classical music which is all very amusing, and which had the theatre pretty much in stitches. That said, there’s a couple of quite funny “in jokes” about country music – such as how Beccy Cole got an entire album of songs from her divorce experience – which I seemed to be the only person in the theatre laughing at. David Williamson either KNOWS country music very well or at least has done his research very well.
As the play develops an obvious sexual tension develops between the two, despite their apparent “differences”. “So what do you reckon? Are they gonna do it?”, I said to my friend, fellow blogger/twitterer Tom 125 who came with me tonight, as we headed out for interval.
Unlike many plays these days which are far too long – and often laboured – this is about the right length. In fact, it ends quite suddenly, both Tom and I agreed as the play ended.
We also both agreed it was a really fun, lovely play. I’ve been a little bored with some of Williamson’s plays over the last ten years, as he has chronicled the life of Sydney’s middle class. He seems to have been writing for a while about people I really don’t care about: people with “first world problems” of little consequence.
Foyer photographs for Rhinestone Rex and Miss Monica
In the grand scheme of things, this play “solves no problems”, provides no great commentary on modern life. But who cares? It’s bloody good theatre, jumps along at a nice pace, and provided an evening’s entertainment. I really liked it.
It’s Sunday night and I’ve just watched Bob Geldoff on Parkinson. As always, he was really interesting until Parky asked him about music and he began to sing. Watching Parky has topped off an otherwise lazy day where the most energy expended was walking to the supermarket a short while ago and making a salad of tomato, cucumber, chick peas and fetta for dinner. Yes, it’s that kind of weekend.
Yesterday, on the other hand was reasonably busy and interesting as Damien and I caught up for yum cha and then headed to the Captain Cook Hotel at Millers Point to watch the Sydney Swans defeat the West Coast Eagles. The level of interest in Aussie Rules in Sydney is, perhaps, typified by our decision to take newspapers to the pub with us in case it became boring, and our early discussion about whether or not we’d stay if it looked like they were losing.
Noticeably, we were the only people in the pub who watched the whole game, as people wandered in and out, watched for a while, drank beer and then disappeared. And that’s just the people who were at a wedding opposite. One of the blokes attending asked if it was worth watching or should he go back to the wedding. Contrast this with Melbourne, where my friend Sue works for a church, where she tells me there are generally no weddings booked for grand final weekend or Grand Prix weekend. Not a good thing or a bad thing in either situation, but an interesting one. Mind you, I think it was a big night on the town in Sydney last night, judging by the number of already-drunk people I saw on the way home. For this weekend, at least, everyone in Sydney is a Swans fan.
Also this week I went to see Fiddler On The Roof, featuring the legendary Topol reprising his movie role as Tevye. It was a star-studded night, though not with the usual cast of stars from soaps, reality tv, and diy television. Instead, Bronwyn Bishop, Piers Akerman and Gough & Margaret Whitliam were there. The Whitlams continue to look good, although I note that Gough is now mostly walking with a stick. On the way out they ambled slowly prompting my friend to comment, “They’re fabulous, but you wouldn’t want to get stuck behind them in a queue”.
I thought it was a good production, especially the choreography. Oddly enough, however, the occasional Australian accent appeared, and one or two of the actors had obviously been listening too closely to the Broadway production. We also went to the after-show party which featured good food and plenty of booze.
Amongst those attending the party was the very famous musical theatre star, Elaine Paige. I’ll have a story for you about her next week.
“You’ve dropped something back there”, I heard a young man say to a young woman (who was in a small group) as she walked from Istanbul’s “Blue Mosque”. “Oh no”, I thought to myself, it’s one of those tourist scams like I observed a few years ago near the Eifel Tower. As a reflex action, I grabbed hold of my own wallet in my pocket and looked towards what was going on. Putting his hand on my chest, he said “It was my heart”. I don’t know if it was a pick-pocket scam or a terrible pick-up line, but I kept on walking.
I had something similar happen to myself later in the evening as I walked through Beyoğlu, the nightclub district of Istanbul. I knew the area must have been “trouble” for some tourists, because as the taxi driver dropped me of, he specifically pointed out the police station to me. As I walked along, a bloke came up to me and asked me something in Turkish. I kept on walking, as I didn’t understand what he was saying. “Oh, sorry, you don’t speak Turkish, I was asking you for a light” he said. With my hands in my pockets (holding on to my mobile phone and wallet for safety), I kept on walking as he continued to chat to me. He went on to tell me he was from the Turkish party of Cyprus, that he had been to Australia three times and was going to Perth later in the year to attend a friend’s wedding. He then he asked if I would like to join him for a drink. I didn’t come down in the last shower of rain, had read about the invitations to go to bars that end up costing you thousands and so responded with a firm “No, I’m fine thanks. I’m looking for a specific bar”. “Is it a gay bar?”, he asked me. When I said yes, he responded with a rather blunt offer which, of course, I instantly refused.
Blue Mosque, Istanbul
Being a large city (13-million people) Istanbul is a city of contrasts. On the one hand you have grand tourist attractions and obvious wealth, but on the other hand you also have the hustlers, the scammers and the extreme poverty. Every city has poverty, but there were some things I saw today as I walked around Istanbul that upset me. In particular, it was seeing children (who should have been at school) sitting on the busy footpath selling boxes of tissues. And it was the babies being held tightly to the by their mothers, as their mothers also sat on the streets and begged for money. I’m ashamed to admit that, like many, my reaction was not to give them some money, but to look away and pretend it doesn’t exist.
Shopping in Istanbul
Having arrived back in Istanbul at around 11-o’clock last night I went straight back to the hotel and begun uploading some photographs and text from my time visiting Çanakkale and attending the nearby Anzac Day services at Anzac Cove and Lone Pine. By the time
I got to sleep it was one o’clock (or so) and I was really tired from the previous all-nighter. Thus, I slept in until about eleven o’clock. The day started later than I’d planned, but I was just so tired I couldn’t wake up. On top of the all-nighter, I’m also physically a little tired from several weeks on the road.
But I “had” to go and see The Blue Mosque. It was one of those “must do” things I had to visit, I was told by a number of people. It seems as if my friends and colleagues had told many others, judging by the queues to enter the mosque which were very, very long. There were tourist buses everywhere. Included in the large number of people were lots of Australians who had been to Gallipoli. I knew this because they were wearing the “official” Gallipoli T-shirts. Gallipoli T-shirts, shorts and thongs to be precise. “Have you done any eff-ing research about Turkey aside from Gallipoli?” I thought to myself, as I gave the nearby young Australians a “death stare”. Clearly they hadn’t even considered t-shirt, shorts and thongs would have refused men entry to a mosque, let alone women similarly dressed. Thankfully, there was another much quieter couple of young Aussies who had done the research, with one of the girls already with a scarf around her neck, so she could pop it over her head when necessary.
In the end, I gave up on the queue, as it was moving to slowly. I could have spent the whole day in that queue, I concluded. I wasn’t too upset, as I’d already made up my mind Turkey was a country I will DEFINITELY come back to visit, so I’ll get to see The Blue Mosque one day in the future, I’m sure.
And even though I didn’t get to go to The Blue Mosque (which makes me a bad, bad tourist), I did end up at a tiny upstairs karaoke bar in the nightclub district of Istanbul. It was the same bar I went to the other night called Chianti. Many of the same faces from the other night were there also. Literally. With the addition of a young man who was leading the karaoke and a couple of forty-something women who were there for the singing and dancing. Within minutes of walking into the karaoke area of the bar, both had approached me for a dance. There’s a word in Australia for middle-aged straight women who love to hang out in gay bars (a word I really hate, and won’t use it here). I’m sure there’s a word in Turkish also.
Early evening disturbance in Istanbul
All of the songs and all of the music was in Turkish. The music had a reasonably contemporary dance feel to it, but it definitely wasn’t in 4/4. Instead, the music had the sound that’s come to characterise some of the recent entries by Turkey in the Eurovision Song Contest. Vocally, the young man leading the karaoke added to the mixture with a vocal style that was “Typically Turkish” (whatever that means) and to my ears was very much in the style that has been waking me in the morning coming from the nearby mosque.
It was a great way to relax at the end of a busy week travelling in Turkey. I covered a lot of ground and did a lot of great things. I may not have visited The Blue Mosque, but I did dance (badly) with a couple of middle-aged Turkish women at a karaoke night in an Istanbul gay bar, and not many tourists can admit to that.
As I walked today through one of the other great tourist attractions, the Grand Bazaar I also came to a profound conclusion about it. “It’s like IKEA”, I thought to myself, “You come in, you walk around for hours, you buy nothing, and then you can never find your way out”. I’m joking, of course.
I mentioned the other day on this blog that I’d received an autographed copy of the new Edmund White biography. When I got around to putting this in my bookcase, I just sat down for a while and had a look through some of the other autographed books I’ve been lucky enough to obtain.
As each of these books has an interesting story, so I thought I’d choose three at random for your reading pleasure…
At the time of interviewing Peter Ryan he’d recently been relieved of his duties as Commissioner of NSW Police.
At the time of interviewing Peter Ryan, he’d recently been relieved of his duties as Commissioner of NSW Police. There had been rumblings from the grassroots of NSW police about his so-called autocratic style (and the amount of money he was paid), but until fairly recently he had been sill very much in favour with the NSW Government. But clearly, something had changed, and it was time for him to leave. This book was seen, at the time, as either payback or his opportunity to present his side of the story. As a biography, it was interesting at the time, though I’m not sure it still has the currency it once had. However, in hindsight, with a potential political career of her own a possibility, it was interesting that his wife Adrienne Ryan (now separated) was also offered up as “interview talent”. Given the controversy surrounding Ryan at the time, of course, I had to ask for an autograph.
The interview with Major-General Sitiveni Rabuka was also an unexpected one, as I thought I’d organised to interview the biography’s author, John Sharpham from the University of New England.
The interview with Major-General Sitiveni Rabuka was also an unexpected one, as I thought I’d organised to interview the biography’s author, John Sharpham from the University of New England. As such, I’d prepared a series of interview questions that sought to define Sharpham’s understanding of the man who’d led a military coup in Fiji a couple of years earlier. “What did you really think of him?”. Imagine my surprise then, after being told by phone, “Your guest is at reception”, I discovered it was the man himself. A quick re-think and the questions were still useful and still made reasonable sense, though they needed a slight re-wording. Of course, I had to ask for an autograph. After all, how often do you get to meet the leader of a coup?
Asking for an autograph from Caroline Jones, however, was for completely different reasons. I’d admired Caroline Jones for many many years.
Asking for an autograph from Caroline Jones, however, was for completely different reasons. I’d admired Caroline Jones for many many years. I remember her, primarily, as the host of “Four Corners”, and though I’d grown up in the country and hadn’t been all that aware of the finer details of her early radio career, I’d heard some of that work too. I was, however, aware of her terrific program, “The Search For Meaning”, broadcast on Radio National, in which she’d interview people about issues of faith and belief. I ‘d always thought of her as a broadcaster of integrity. I’ll happily admit to being a little daunted to meet her, but I found her natural warmth quickly allowed me to relax. It meant a lot for her to thank me for a “fine interview”. There’s also a great line in this book, “An Authentic Life” which I often quote in which she declares, and I’m paraphrasing, that for many years people have thought that “seeing is believing”, however now an increasing number of people also recognise that “believing is seeing”.
“He’s conscious!“, were the first words that came out of my neighbour’s mouth when she, some other friends, and eight emergency service workers made their way into my apartment.
I’d missed an important work deadline. As a result, friends and family were concerned about my welfare, and when they knocked on my door, without response, they called the police.
As a journalist for several decades, I’m pretty good at meeting deadlines. Each weekend, I do three hours of pre-recorded radio. I don’t recall if I actually completed the programs for the weekend, but when I missed the deadline to send them through, there were concerned phone calls and emails, and finally a call to the police.
Drama in the back laneway
Since arriving back from Cambodia and Vietnam, I had been feeling unwell. I’d put it down to general illness, or maybe COVID. More seriously, an infection was taking over my body, and in particular my foot. The infection on my foot became gangrenous, and eventually led to a below-the-knee amputation.
Having a nap at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney
My nieces and an “army” of other friends have been amazing throughout this, with both emotional and practical support. Such deep love and commitment.
I’m grateful to be alive, and I’m looking forward to the future. More posts to follow, of course.
I reckon it’s two or three years since I last visited Nimbin, not far from my home town of Lismore in Northern NSW. It goes without saying Nimbin has a “reputation” which goes back to the Aquarius Festival in 1973. I remember vividly when “the hippies” arrived in town, as we lived not far from the now-closed Lismore Railway Station.
Since then I’ve visited Nimbin on many occasions, as friends have lived there on and off over the years. The last time I was there was to visit an old school-mate and his partner. And so it was once again tonight. In all, four of us who went to school together, along with Paul’s parter.
Normally, Lismore is the most central point for a pre-Christmas catchup, as most of now live far and wide around the district. But this year, the tradition changed.
The drive to Nimbin was a rather stormy one, with late afternoon mist and rain. As we drove around my friend, Sue, who lived in Nimbin for many years with her parents peered from left to right, as we looked at what was happening around the town. There was little change from her youth, except there are now many more people living in the hills around town.
“There’s a woman up the road who lives half the year in France and half the year here”, we were told over dinner tonight.
It was a night of great company, great food, farm life, rolling hills, chickens, goats cheese, and goat’s milk ice-cream. Very pleasant, indeed.
Chatting with the chooksThe goatsIce-cream made with goat’s milkChristmas lights in the middle of nowhere on the road back in to Lismore
And on the way home, we spotted a house lit up like a Christmas Tree on darkened road half way between Nimbin and Lismore. Of course, we had to stop for a photo :)
These are some of the things I’ve been listening and watching on Youtube lately… Some of it is old, some of it is new. All of it is fantastic!
First, a song by Caroline af Ugglas. I first discovered her in this year’s Melodifestivalen. She’s quite out there in her presentation style which is kinda cool. And she seems to put 100% into her songs, which is even better. Nonetheless, I suspect she might be “hard work”…
Here’s fantastic video from Swedish pop group, Roxette. I don’t think it was ever a hit in Australia, though it should have been.
A singer from Belgium who goes by the name, Kate Ryan with her cover of a 1980s French hit song.
And here’s the original. The clip is thematically quite different, as it’s a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and, presumably, other black American pioneering celebrities..
Swedish pop group, Alcazar’s cover of a song never properly released by Pet Shop Boys.
More Swedish pop, though you’d never know – except for the weather forecast – from the early 2000s.
And even more Swedish pop from their answer to U2, Kent (with English subtitles).
Or this one from Kent where someone has put together piss-take English subtitles to the song. It’s very very very funny, IMHO.
Swedish musical theatre and pop stars sing about about how “he is with me now”.
Another Swedish pop group with jazz, acoustic leanings. Their releases are quite eclectic.
Agnetha Faltskog, formerly from ABBA released this in 2004, after a 17 year break from recording. It’s a song from the 60s, and the video clip is very Scandinavian cinema meets Blair Witch Project. The song, apparently is about date-rape.
Though there’s also quite an interesting video by a guy called David Paris which is worth looking at…
And of course, you can’t have Agnetha without Frida, also formerly from ABBA with her classic 1980s rock song.
A few years after this, when she pretty much retired from an international career, she recorded this fantastic duet with Swedish band, Ratata in both Swedish…
and English…
It’s kind interesting you have both clips running at the same time. The most instantly recognisable thing is how the Swedish clip is much more about the lead singer, Mauro, while the English clip is much more about Mauro and Johan who were in the band together.
But long before that, Frida also appeared on Swedish television singing a Noel Coward classic.
And finally, a video involving male-female-male group sex in a song by French singer, Mylene Farmer. This song made it to #1 in France in 2008.
