- Details
- Written by Garry
I’m a little mixed up this morning. I try to keep on top of headlines and opinions, and this morning, just a few days after the darkness of the Sandy Hook massacre, I’m reading stories and articles about how people are angry about being encouraged to give to charity.
It’s a week before Christmas. Matt Young is telling us he won’t be giving to charity to because his inner-Sydney urban lifestyle is too expensive. And also in Sydney, a bar in Surrey Hills has banned the Salvation Army from entering its establishment because apparently the homeless people at the Salvos shelter up the road are often intoxicated, and the pub doesn’t hold with that sort of thing. And to top it off, someone is trying to kill Oxfam Girl, whose only crime is being too imaginary.
I don’t mind people having a go when the charities get a little too cheeky. I’ve been known to have the odd crack at them myself. But the Christmas season is not the time to start whining about people asking for money on behalf of those less fortunate, especially when the only reason we’re complaining is because the cost of living is going up, which, while it’s a nuisance for us, is likely to be catastrophic for those who are struggling to get by as it is. And not struggling in the sense of “I’ve no money left at the end of the pay period," but struggling in the sense of “I guess I can go live in my car for a while.”
Okay, so groceries are expensive. Petrol is insane. Electricity bills are set to go through the roof. The point we all seem to miss in this is that even when they’re expensive, we still have ready access to food, fuel, electricity and roofs. There are plenty of people, even in Australia and in the centre of Sydney who struggle even for these basic things. Not just struggle to pay for them; they don’t get them at all. Thank God for organisations like the Salvos who are prepared to stand in the gap and speak for them.
It’s fine if you don’t like their religious stance. And it’s fine if you want to criticise their corporate structure. But if you can’t spare some change for the homeless while you’re enjoying your nine dollar apple cider, then I don’t care what your philosophical or economic stance is: you’re doing it wrong.
So in this season of giving, try to find a little bit of extra light in your heart, and buy a sandwich for an inner city wanker who might have to unplug his plasma TV for a while to manage his electricity bill.
To the rest of you: Merry Christmas!
Garry with 2 Rs
- Details
- Written by Garry
It’s been a little bit too long between posts hasn’t it?
My problem at the moment isn’t so much that there’s nothing going on for me. It’s more that I’ve got so much on the go constantly I don’t get any time to sit and write any more. And nothing going on that’s really worth a whole post in its own right anyway. Well… nothing that I’m prepared to post to my blog yet, but that’s a non-post for another day.
Meanwhile the Christmas season continues to cartwheel along. I’ve got my usual array of carols services to attend, plus the never ending procession of Christmas parties, housewarming parties and weddings. It’s a hard life, isn’t it?
It looks like of I’ve got work lined up for at least the first six months of next year. Meanwhile I’ve joined the committee for the Australian Sepak Takraw Association and applied for a place at the Uniting Church National Young Adult Leaders’ Conference. I’m really extremely busy and important, don't you know?
I’ve had a few – okay one person – ask me when the next Write-Me-Back Falls episode is due for production. Unfortunately the Mythological Creatures and Imaginary Women’s union have staged a strike and are demanding a pay increase of eight per cent over three years and an end to single episode contracts. I attempted to recast, but the production crew voted in solidarity with the imaginary women (I think they’re a bit frightened of them, which is understandable) and aren’t working until the dispute is resolved.
So bollocks to the unions. They’re a pack of bludgers, the lot of them. If I’m keeping so busy that I don’t have time to write, I can’t see why they can’t deign to show up in a post every now and then. Bally Bolsheviks. So…production on the Write-Me-Back Falls is on hiatus until the cast see reason and come back to work. Apparently they can’t be moved at the moment because they’re standing by the waterside. I pushed Biscuit Lady in, just to make my point, but I don’t think it improved the general situation any.
I’ll keep you posted.
Garry with 2 Rs
- Details
- Written by Garry
So my Nanowrimo campaign has ended successfully. I made it to 50178 words, with just over four hours to spare, in further demonstration that not only can I produce copious amounts of nonsense in a relatively short time span, I can also do it according to a carefully managed schedule. A big thanks to everyone who got behind me to get it done. And a raspberry to those who thought they could stop me.
It still needs some fairly heavy duty proof reading, but if you want a copy of the manuscript let me know. And if you pledged to sponsor me, I’ll be ‘round to collect sometime before Christmas.
Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs
- Details
- Written by Garry
So I’ve written before about my new hobby/job as an organist for hire. We had a big wedding at my church last weekend and I got approached for the job. It was a big Tongan wedding, but I had thought it might be a fairly laid back affair. And judging by the attitudes of the groomsmen, pastor and just about everyone else, I was dead right. But I wasn’t employed by any of them. I was employed by the groom’s mother. Oh my sweet dancing optometrist.
First of all: who in her right mind plans a wedding at two o’clock in the afternoon in Darwin in December in a church with no aircon? The groom’s mother was from Sydney, and might have been excused for not knowing what she was in for, but surely the bride or groom must have had some idea along the way that this was a really stupid idea. Apparently not.
A few weeks out from the big day the stage manager/mother of the groom sent me at list of music for me to learn. I didn’t mind putting a bit of extra work in, as its all an investment in being able to play them in the future for other weddings, but I did think four separate organ voluntaries for the bridal procession was pushing things a little bit. I managed to get them all up and running in time, including a setting of Ave Maria for the Groom’s mother herself to sing as the bride walked down the aisle.
The wedding rehearsal was a bit of a shambles. It must have taken us a dozen tries to get the bride to walk in at the just the right time between Mendelssohn and Bach. And then, after I’d sat up the night before making sure I could play the Bach well enough for soprano to sing along to convincingly, the stage manager/soprano/mother of the groom decided she didn’t like this key after all. I now had less than twenty four hours to relearn it transposed down by a fifth. Sopranos are soft. Lucky for her, I’m really quite something when it comes to throwing a half-arsed effort together at the last minute and disguising it as the real thing. We got there.
The wedding ceremony came at last. We were all there at two o’clock, some in traditional Tongan dress, others in the more contemporary Australian suit and tie. In any case, we were all sweating it out, hoping the ceremony would be fast and on time.
At about a quarter past two the groomsmen arrived. They wandered up and took their place at the front, and then realised that they had only brought one ring with them. They quickly dispatched someone to fetch the other one. The bride was due any minute.
They needn’t have worried. The bridesmaids didn’t arrive until about a quarter to three. I got the nod from the stage manager/groom’s mother and gave Pachelbel’s Canon a whirl. There were five bridesmaids but fortunately no-one really notices the difference if you play the last few bars of Pachelbel’s Canon over and over again; that’s kind of the point. Then the trumpeter came out and played a small fanfare, before marching down the aisle and waiting for the bride to step out so we could play Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. We all kept waiting. And waiting.
Eventually some relative or other came running down the side of the church to the groom’s mother and announced that the bride had disappeared. I played Pachelbel’s Cannon a few more times while we tried to figure out where she had gone. Apparently she’d had a last minute attack of cold feet and had taken a lap around the block in the car to get her head together. She finally reappeared and walked in to the Mendelssohn and the then Ave Maria. Only an hour late.
And then it was done. The ceremony itself took about twenty minutes. I tactfully declined an invitation to the reception: I’m told it went on for about five hours. I swear, one of these days I’m going to get my head around exactly what motivates the finer points of some of these wedding ceremonies.
But not today.
Garry with 2 Rs
- Details
- Written by Garry
Sorry, but it’s time for another pseudo-political rant. I do try to keep these at a minimum, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s more than a little fed up with the quality of ‘debate’ from our federal politicians of late.
Let’s get the biases out of the way first; yes, I lean slightly to the right. No; I probably wasn’t thinking of voting Labor anytime soon anyway. But my rant isn’t really aimed at Labor (although they get the brunt of it by virtue of being in government); it’s aimed at the culture of federal parliament in general.
Firstly, I’m a little bit sick of the overuse/misuse of the word ‘sexist’. And don’t get me started on ‘misogynist’. Having dabbled with a spot of chauvinism myself, I feel qualified to remark that the speech writers charged with driving the rhetoric of political debate either don’t realise that they are mischaracterising what these words mean, in which case they should be fired, or they are fully aware that they’re mischaracterising what these words mean, in which case they should be fired.
It’s old news by now, but just for context let’s look at the attacks on Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.
It’s not sexist to disagree with a woman, particularly if that woman happens to be the leader of the party opposing yours. Questioning the competence and integrity of a government cannot be called misogynistic simply because the Prime Minister is female. One does not automatically earn the label ‘sexist’ by being a member of the Catholic Church.
And – most strikingly of all – it is not sexist to demand the resignation of the speaker if he’s been caught sending highly inappropriate and - yep – sexist messages to his staff concerning female body parts. As rousing as Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s response to this was, as and much as it was a great relief to hear her speak with some sincere passion as opposed to the bland, focus-grouped rhetoric that has come to characterise the Labor party since the Kevin 07 election campaign, the fact that she continued to support such an obviously messed up man right up until he resigned, and that she then jumped up and down calling Tony Abbott, instead of Peter Slipper, a misogynist left me a little bewildered.
Tony’s got issues, there’s no denying it. But I really don’t see how ‘sexism’ is supposed to be one of them.
Fast forward a few weeks and now the Prime Minster has come under renewed scrutiny over some bank records from years ago that might or might not show (if she would just do the right thing and confirm what happened) that Julia Gillard, who was working as a lawyer at the time, was involved in a rort of union funds. Or that her boyfriend at the time was, and gave her the money, or not. Whatever.
The point is that the response from the Labor party, rather than to cooperate and demonstrate to the people they are elected to represent exactly what happened, has been to come out swinging, accusing the Opposition of a smear campaign. Apparently seeking integrity and full disclosure from members of parliament is not as important as ignoring/changing the meaning words to manufacture the idea that the opposition leader has a problem with women. It’s come to the point where the opposition has wisely chosen to have Julie Bishop, rather than Tony Abbott, spearhead the attack on the Prime Minister’s credibility, because she’s obviously not sexist because she’s a woman (just have a sit and think about that one for a bit).
But for me, the clincher came earlier today, when Steve Gibbons broadcast a message on Twitter, in which he called Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop a bimbo, and Opposition Leader Tony Abbot a douche bag.
First, let’s deal with the fact that the quality of political debate in our country has now descended to the level that small children get in trouble for in the playground. Seriously – we teach our kids that this is a bad way to behave. And here are our federal politicians going at it like naughty school kids. That’s bad enough.
But then Steve realised he’d gone and left a muddy footprint all over the hypocrisy line by using what was perceived to a be a sexist term to attack the opposition. He issued a retraction, in which he apologised for using the word ‘bimbo’ and substituted the word ‘fool’. As if that’s any better.
And let me see if I have this straight: If you call the Deputy Opposition Leader (who happens to be a woman) a bimbo, you have to issue an apology because that’s inappropriate, but if you call the Opposition Leader (who happens not to be a woman) a douche bag in an open forum, then that’s fair play. I don’t think I could construct a more ridiculous or ironic situation if I tried: Apparently our leaders are obliged to treat women differently to men, because if they don’t they’re being sexist.
How the hell did that happen?
I don’t even care which ones are and aren’t sexist anymore, the term is so over-used and over-applied that it has practically become meaningless, at least in the political polylogue. I’m just about at the point where I will vote without question for the first party to propose a policy – any policy – without first using it to create a wedge against the other party.
Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs