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- Written by Garry
A co-worker today described me as “a well groomed gentleman”. I very nearly beat her about the head with the toner cartridge I was carrying for her. The very cheek of the woman.
I didn’t mind so much being called well groomed, although she went on to qualify that remark by saying she was impressed by the fact that I had ironed my shirt, despite the fact that I hadn’t. I believe I did own an iron at one point. Last time I saw it was about seven years ago in Brisbane.
No, my beef was with being called a gentleman. I’m sure she meant well enough by it, but it’s one of those words that never fails to get my hackles up. I can not and will not be classified as such.
“Oh Garry, whatever could you mean by that?” asks an imposing woman in a floral dress holding a plate of biscuits. “How could you be opposed to gentlemanliness?”
To be honest, I do find this state of affairs a little disconcerting. I hadn’t realised there was an anthropomorphic projection of polite society watching over my shoulder, and I’m buggered if I know where she came from. Doesn’t she know it’s bad manners to sneak up on a man when he’s blogging? Good biscuits but.
Obviously it all comes down to definitions, and on that point most people I talk to about this end up disqualifying themselves from the conversation. As I see it, you’re only allowed to talk to me about gentlemanliness if you can define it without using the words “door,” “seat” or “bus”. You would be surprised how many people fail at this, which actually speaks to the heart of the problem more directly than you might think. If a gentleman is defined simply as “someone (presumably a man) who opens doors for ladies and offers them his seat on a bus” then it’s not worth much, is it? Anyone can open a door. So can velociraptors. What’s your point?
“No no no,” says Biscuit Lady, “it’s not just that. It’s about being polite, and showing respect. Being courteous.”
Baloney! Baloney I say! That’s just another slightly more convoluted way of classifying a man by what he does, not who he is. A man may be as well spoken, sophisticated and ‘gentle’ as can be, and still be a complete creep. I’ve heard men speak eloquently and graciously about how they believe the aboriginal race to be inferior, how we ought to just ban Islam outright and how homeless folk on the street really only have themselves to blame, all to the supportive nods and smiles of the ‘gentlemen’ around them. You can keep that, and keep it as far away from me as you can.
So what is a gentleman, really?
A wise man (I think it was Zorro) once said “A nobleman is nothing but a man who says one thing and thinks another”. I think that’s a little closer to the truth than the bus thing, but I’m going to go out on a limb and propose my own working definition. To me, a gentleman is a man who fulfils all the expectations that society makes of him. That sounds like a noble aim, until you start to look under the rugs and behind the cupboards of the society that’s making the expectations. The biscuits may taste delicious at first, but in the end they have a habit of rotting your teeth, turning your stomach and dislocating your shoulder.
Basically, a gentleman is man who does as he’s told.
I, on the other hand, aspire to be a man who tells society where to get off (Yep, that means you Biscuit Lady) and what it can do with its expectations. If that means I don’t get an invitation to your daughter’s coming out party, then so be it. I know who I am and who I am not (so does she, come to that) regardless of whether I fit your preferred mold. And if you think I’m going to do as I’m told by some old bat who isn’t even really there, then you’ve got another thing coming.
Classify that, bitch (you can leave the biscuits, though)!
Meanwhile, back in reality (or what passes for it in my life) the whole revolution is actually a lot less rebellious than it sounds. I’m not going to go around refusing to lift, open or carry things, but if I do open a door for you, it’s not because I’ve been taught I have to; I honestly believe I don’t have to. If I open a door for you, it’s because I choose to, which actually makes it much more meaningful than anything a gentleman could possibly conceptualise, let alone sneer at.
Besides which, I catch busses so rarely these days that it doesn’t really matter. But just be aware that if you call me a gentleman as you sit in my seat, there’s a reasonable chance that I’ll take it back again.
Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs
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- Written by Garry
The blogosphere is a strange, amazing and frightening place.
I’ve been exploring the world of blog networks. I say exploring, but what I really mean is observing from a comfortable distance with a self-satisfied sneer on my face. I would have imagined, from my obviously naive and unrealistic bubble, that writing stuff about your life online would be the resort of people who are fed up with the three dimensional world and need a place where they can wantonly put forth whatever is on their mind without having their performance appraised, motives questioned or grammar corrected (ahem). In short, people like me.
I mean, obviously the premise is flawed from the outset, as the number of blogs out there is huge, and the number of people like me is so small as to be almost immeasurable (and that is probably just as well). But even so, the number of ways people can find to take their own individualised cyber-portal for self expression and make it the same as everyone else’s never fails to amaze me.
There is now a content generating meme available for every day of the week. If you aligned your blog with all of them (and some people do) you’d be writing a meal plan on Monday (that’s not a blog, that’s a shopping list), discussing the funny things your cats do on Tuesday (it doesn’t rhyme or start with the same letter as Tuesday, but apparently it’s a thing. Also, it’s a little bit exclusive of people who don’t own cats, or who do own cats that never do anything interesting (Yes. I’m looking at you, Sis.)), writing wordlessly on Wednesday (that’s not even possible, unless you just post an image with no heading or caption, which is an interesting idea but doesn’t really you help to connect with your readers) being thankful on Thursday (and presumably remaining bitter and ungrateful for the rest of the week) and flogging your blog on Friday. (I’ve already written about how stupid that is). By the time you got to the weekend you’d be so over-memed with your blog that you’d be ready to delete it and start fresh. And I probably wouldn’t blame you.
My first and extremely predictable reaction to this was to declare Cum Tacent Clament a meme free zone. You can take your “Write like everyone else Wednesday” and stick it up your word processor. Unfortunately there is the small matter of the large pink “One Lovely Blog” sticker sitting on my left side bar. There’s more than enough disingenuousness around with regards to things that actually matter as it is, without me getting all hypocritical about something as banal as Novelty Mango Chutney Recipe Tuesday*.
So instead, I’m starting my own meme-based protest movement. I was going to call it “Self-Important Saturday” – a day for people everywhere to show how independent, creative and spontaneous they are by all writing about the same thing at the same time for a day each week. Unfortunately I slept in on Saturday, and then the rest of my day got filled up with opera rehearsal and sepak takraw training.
So instead, I hereby present you with the very first “Meme-free Monday”. It’s a one day in the week when bloggers from all over the community can celebrate the freedom of their online voice by WRITING ABOUT WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANT!
It’s such a great idea, don’t you think? Send the message to five people, and let’s spread the word of meme-free Monday to everyone in the blogosphere! The first person to send me a link to their meme-free Monday post wins a free Cum Tacent Clament T-shirt** signed by Brooke Fraser***. <3 <3 <3 Yay! <3 <3 <3.
Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs
*This might be a real thing, but probably isn’t.
**This probably isn’t a real thing either.
***How cool would that be?
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- Written by Garry
The hat is back on the track, picking up slack, taking no flack, kicking it back and going on the attack. It’s jet black and made of … felt.
And thus ends my brief foray into the swirling morass of the Australian hip-hop subculture.
Yes, almost two years after the cataclysmic tragedy that was the abandonment of my previous hat, and after several utterly frustrating attempts to replace it, my completely awesome family have come to the rescue, pitching in to order me a new one for my birthday that meets my ridiculously strict requirements for acceptable black felt fedoras.
So I’ve now taken possession of a black felt Akubra international style fedora, custom ordered at the Strand hat shop in Sydney and lovingly hand delivered during my parents’ recent trip up for the DMUC jubilee. Yes, I realise that was twelve months ago now, but it's taken me some time to sort out pics to put on my profile and to think up the rhymes for the intro.
I now feel re-licensed to continue being flagrant, which is just as well, because things around here are starting get just a little bit weird. I've had a number of people (I am not discussing what that number might be) ask me about the now infamous (well... not so famous. maybe just inf) Resolution Seven.
Actually I hadn't planned it that way, but "Resolution Seven" sounds awesome. Like it's a bill that enacts the legalisation of unlicensed hoverboard riding, or legsilates for the decriminalisation of deadly force against English backpackers, or something like that.
Okay, even if its application is somewhat more domestic, it's still a cool name. Furthermore, I've realised that I've been approaching Seven from entirely the wrong perspective. I've been wandering around the place feeling like it's somehow my responsibility to find "the right girl" and then impress her.
Bollocks to that. I have a black felt fedora. And I am continuously finding more and more public ways to be blatantly awesome. The right one can come and find me. I'll be the one up the front signing autographs, whether they have been asked for or not.
In anticipation of your comments, please note the following:
Jess: It's probably worth not thinking about this one too hard either
K.Kim: The typographical errors are there deliberately, just to frustrate you.
Harold: It's an interesting point, but your perspective on plasticine algorithms leaves little to the imagination, if you know what I mean.
Rachel: Relax, I'm fine. Same goes for you, Mum.
I don't really care what you make of this one.
Garry with 2 Rs
Damn. I forgot “wiggedy-whack”. That would have been an awesome rhyme.
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Last weekend was all about the show.
For one thing, it was the Show Day long weekend. Every year the Royal Darwin Show unfolds itself on to the showgrounds. For three glorious days people stream through the gates, and then walk around in circles trying to figure out what they’re doing there. It seems to me that if you’re not a small child, a carnie or a farmer there isn’t really much to get excited about apart from eating things outside in glorious dry season weather, which we could do anyway. And then three days later the livestock, balloons and rides fold themselves up into temporal stasis for another year, ready to emerge again, unscathed and unchanged, in twelve months time.
I swear: it’s even the same cows.
Meanwhile, there was another show on in town. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, Corrugated Iron decided that show weekend was a good time to put Tease on. Having long since backed away from an acting role, I was quite keen to put on my writer’s hat (I don’t really have a literal writer’s hat, although I do have a black fedora, which is just about the same thing) and sit and watch the words I’d written come to life on stage. I’d never had that experience before and it was kind of awesome.
I really need to give credit here to the cast; Kadek Hobman, Danielle Andrews and Dylan Bennett, and also to the director Alex Galeazzi. Those guys were awesome, and put in performances that made the play seem a lot better than it was.
All in all it was a great success. I got a lot of really positive feedback from people whose opinions I respect and I’ve had more than a few people ask me what my next project is. It’s a bit embarrassing to have to say I don’t have one. Still, I’m feeling more than a little inspired to find one; after all, you know what they say:
A splash of apple cider never hurt anyone.
Garry with 2 Rs
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Wow. Two weeks without a CTC post. What a breach of trust. Ah well. The plain fact is the last fortnight has barely afforded me time to think, let alone write anything. All of a sudden my life is just a little bit out of control, but not in the good “anything could happen at anytime” way. More in the “stumble from one commitment to another and try not to drop anything” way, which is fun but brings into uncomfortable focus the fact that I’m really not getting any younger and can’t keep treating my mind like this or it will start to triangulate. I mean snap.
Mondays I work until five (usually five thirty) and then attend opera practice from seven thirty to late. I try to grab something to eat in the two hours in between while I’m getting over the stress of starting a new week at work and figuring out how all the vocal parts I’m supposed to have learned during the preceding week go.
Tuesdays are timesheet day at work, which means we do everything we normally do, but we do it with the HR ladies ringing us up every four minutes to ask us why the records being disparately faxed in from communities across several hundred kilometres aren’t perfect and in exact concordance with what the HR ladies think they should be. Then we have to change them to make them what the HR ladies think they should be. Milkfish. Then on Tuesday evenings I have some combination of cricket training, bible study and sepak takraw training, although they tend to overlap a bit, so invariably something gets dropped. Sometimes it’s bible study. Sometimes it’s catches in the outfield.
Wednesdays are hump day and I tend to be waist deep in paperwork by this stage, so after recovering from my customary Wednesday coughing fit, I, in keeping with the theme of the day, am usually fairly comprehensively humped. Wednesdays evenings are a bit nicer as all I have on are a couple of games of indoor beach volleyball. Unfortunately the game times vary each week, so I never know when it’s going to be until Wednesday afternoon. And if it’s really well timed, sometimes I make it home in time to watch Spicks and Specks, new episodes of which are becoming increasingly precious.
Thursdays are a bit of a pickle, which is okay if you like pickles. I don’t. I prefer ice cream. I’m supposed to cram in cricket, sepak takraw, church music practice and opera practice in the same four hour period. So far that’s not going so well, but that’s okay because every second Thursday is pay day. So sometimes I get to have ice cream.
No pickles!
By Friday afternoon I’ve generally had it with my job and I can be heard muttering to myself about finding a new one, or observed posting violent or despairing status updates to Facebook (posting them to the Governor General doesn’t have the same effect, and usually involves a day or so’s delay, plus an inquisitive email from the federal police). So on the one night of the week when I can get out and spend some time not being told what to do by anyone else, I tend to spend my time sitting calmly alone in a dark, quiet room and enjoying having absolutely nothing to think about, at least for one evening. Milkfish. Then it really get’s crazy.
Every second Saturday is prison ministry, which involves getting up on a Saturday morning and pretending to be cheerful, wise and loving. When I get home from prison, there’s usually about an hour before I’m supposed to be meeting someone for lunch, or checking in on the Tease production. Thankfully I’m no longer appearing in that as Phil has also pulled out due to Science. We found two other local guys to play our parts. I use this time to do laundry.
Saturday afternoons are consumed by full cast opera practice, which seems to be gradually expanding to be (milkfish) slightly longer every week, despite the fact that the performance is still three months away. When I catch myself singing the act two finale at my desk at work I’ll know I’ve truly lost it. I estimate this will take about another week and a half to occur.
Saturday night is theoretically sepak takraw again, although this is supplanted more often than not by a wedding, birthday party or quantum analytical chemistry symposium. That last one doesn’t come up that often, but does actually turn out to be a real thing, however ridiculous it might sound, and however doubly ridiculous the idea of my attending it might be.
Sunday is, of course, a day of rest. So all I do on Sunday is get up early for music practice, do church for a couple of hours and then back up with five or so hours of cricket. Fortunately I spend at least half of that time not batting, although not batting in the batting side generally means umpiring or scoring, which requires a level of concentration slightly higher than music practice, but not as high as a kite. The other half I spend not bowling, which just involves standing around in the sun for two hours and occasionally not catching a ball.
At some point on Sunday I call my mother and attempt to convey to her the fact that everything is fine. This is about to become significantly more difficult, as my mother is one of about five people who actually read this blog. Oh well. Yes mum, I’m fine. I ate nearly a whole tomato today. It was a really big one.
By Monday morning I’m ready for a rest to recover from my weekend. So I hit rewind and start the week all over again. It’s getting to be a vicious spiral, and at some point in the next week or two something is going to have to give. Either I’ll triangulate… I mean snap… at work and start singing lines from Princess Ida instead of answering members’ balance enquiries or I’ll start attempting to cover drive a volleyball through the gap between the worship leader and the Governor General. Or maybe I’ll just schedule some time off work.
Make of that what you milkfish.
Garry with 2 Rs