Email to:Where You Been?
I’m choked up. Don’t know why. On the face of it, everything in order – split ends under control, wrinkles in remission, friends well-and- kooky, Macolm T looking terrified……
So, it’s NOT as if I’m beyond blue. Just mooching around….highly unusual for a self-proclaimed Instant Gratificationist. Okay, OKAY this is the THINGO: I’ve been been yearning for Jimmy Norman.
Jimmy Norman lobbed in Leeton every year for the Letona Cannery season. He was a neat little bloke with a neat little truck which pulled his neat little caravan down South after the cane season.
I was also at the cannery - on the peach line. The aim? Monitor every peach for brown rot, citrus scabies or peach-blot-riverine. Grab peach and cut out the bad bit: one thousand times a minute, 60 thousand times an hour, 480,000 times a shift.
Sorta press ya ovaries against the line and that’ll take the pressure of ya back…… (the old-hands counselled)
The first thing Jimmy Norman said to me: Would you like me to CAN your lunch little one?
Credit: Anthony Piraino: flickr
I was sitting on a packing case. Brought low. Ovaries on fire. It was a no-brainer:
Sure, I’d LOVE you to can my lunch. How long you been canning lunches? And pray speak, WHO is this lunch canner who suddenly appears and makes everything bright…..?
Your lunch canner is Mr Jimmy Norman.
I handed over my devon sandwiches. Jimmy stuffed them in a can. Put a big texta mark on it. Walked over to the nearest line. Put lunch can on it. Stood behind the lid machine….watching, watching, watching. Grabbed tin with texta mark. Delivered it with can opener. Repeated process with his sandwiches.
Over three seasons, I estimate that Jimmy and I shared more than 400 canned lunches. And we TALKED BIG. We were the last of the canning industry’s BIG WHAT-IFFERS…….
WHAT IF I bought in one of Hec’s self-shot plucked ducks…how would a duck fare if we let it keep moving along the line right into the big cookers? WHAT IF I bought in cake batter? Would cooked tinned cake be better than cooked tinned duck? WHAT IF we canned a big supply of those arrowroot biscuits currently on special? Would they hold it together?
One day, Jimmy came up with a sensational (first non-foodstuff what if ) WHAT IF people brought in treasures like Bronze medallions and marriage certificates and we canned them…for extra safe-keeping….?
Jimmy and I NEVER talked about personal things. We were too busy being canning industry visionaries. And we never canned anything more than sandwiches.
BUT….the word was that Jimmy had been married – and divorced – years and years ago. Told a couple of people that his ex-wife had been - and was still - the only one for him.
You know what? Years down the track, I heard that the lunch canner turned up for the season in his neat little van and neat little truck….with a very neat little sheila (THE sheila) on board.
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So….just for old time’s sake, I’d kill to have a what if canning industry chat with Jimmy. Who would you like to beam up? Why? (Should we exempt Geriatric Chick Magnet from this one?) Maybe you believe the past is exactly that – so you don’t wanna see anyone…..What’s your favourite thing in a can? Anything else?…..first-time posters DON’T be shy.
Just click on the ‘comment’ thingo and follow the simple instructions. The place to write your gems is at the bottom of the last published comment. *A little bit of counsel for people new to this caper. Your email (just called ‘mail’ in this case) address does NOT come up on site. And just ignore the ‘website’ space – not necessary!
Prawn Cutlet Award
February 24th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
KJ,
I would like to beam up the feeling a criminal who has spent long years in prison must have when finally gaining parole from the nunnies. I know I had it the day I first walked in the gates of Leeton High School. I hear it’s still a great place to educate all-comers.
February 24th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Dear Ex-Leetonite,
If ya ever get that feeling back, give me a call…..
I’ll come STRAIGHT around and can it for ya!
KJ
February 24th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Do the right thing or you’ll wind up in the can.
Is this a Leeton expression?
February 24th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
OK, let’s can it!
An expression of Leeton Film Director when making:
Cannery Row: One Girl’s Search for Love and……
Love Among the Peaches.
February 24th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Can Do!
Leeton motto.
KJ: Nup! I’ve just seen Premier Nathan Rees on telly promising business leaders that NSW will NOT be sitting on its big bum during the economic meltdown. Quite the contrary. It’ll come out swingin’……
The secret weapon? A return to a CAN DO attitude!
And who could forget Nathan’s first media conference in the top job?
I’M GUNNA GIVE IT A RED HOT GO!!!!
February 24th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Did you do the Can Can?
That’s p-weak Senor Letona……ONLY on the nightshift……KJ
February 25th, 2009 at 7:33 am
KJ,
There is obviously one item missed in the Leeton production:
Canned Boyfriend.
Can Do?
February 25th, 2009 at 8:16 am
But I shot a man in Lithgow just to watch him die……
February 25th, 2009 at 11:08 am
When I hear that cannery whistle blowin’
I hang my head and cry………
February 25th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
“I hear (Leeton High School) it’s still a great place to educate all-comers.”… (Ex-Leetonite)
The poor kid who had the tripe kicked out of him a week or two ago would probably disagree. Have a look at The Irrigator online.
Hello Roma Street – I’ve had a look. No good at all when things like that happen on the old campus….KJ
……On another matter, have you any Letona canning credentials?
February 25th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
I opened a can of mind today,
But the opener got stuck half way
And all I could find was a memory
Of you and a stolen meat tray.
I just couldn’t find something sharp enough
And the wheel was all rusty and grey
When I put my eye to this can of pain
It came away bloody and sore
And all I could see, what remained of me
Was a silk umbrella just by the door.
And what was so grand was in a syrup of bland
But you left me a fine apple core
The refrigerator now it is broken
So I cannot keep you on ice
I’ll put you right there by the teapot
We can talk like lovers all night.
About what was wrong, what was right
And what was just not very nice.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Ah…..The Big Lebowski,
So that’s why men lay face down in the mud in Nam……..
Fine, fine work! KJ
February 25th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Just dropped in to see what transition my transition was in…..
Did you get canned today from the socks and jocks industry?
Do you have your knickers in a knot over your employment?
Pacific Brands, maker of brands like Bonds, Sheridan, King Gee, Jockey and Holeproof is slashing 1,850 jobs – almost 40 per cent of its local work force – and closing seven factories.
Its CEO Sue Morphett described the canning of the workers as a transition in their lives.
She just dropped in to see what transition their transition was in.
And men lay face down in the mud in Nam for this ?
February 26th, 2009 at 5:38 am
Hello there TBL and everyone,
Lithgow was also once home to a Berlei factory – workers there had their TRANSITION period in the late nineties…..
……I have a friend who worked in TAFE teaching professional garment making.
To meet local demand, she ran an industrial bra making course at Lithgow.
Three local BURLY blokes who’d been out out of work for a long time turned up.
They weren’t the best students – but constantly reported they were enjoying very much learning all about sizing, tensile strap strength….and the latest developments in making bras easier to undo……
….of course, the bra making class had to eventually go on site at Berlei for work experience.
Our three trailblazers resulting reports could NOT be described as glowing.
However, the word was that they’d brightened up life on the factory floor – ruining thousands of dollars of intimate apparel in the process……
February 26th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Is a picture of a ‘woman on the can’ worth so much money?
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/gallerys-11m-purchase-a-wee-too-much-for-hockey-20090225-8hza.html
I have the pastels and perhaps you have the bucket – if you are game – but who has $1.1 million to buy Femme A Sa Potty?
February 26th, 2009 at 10:39 am
My companion said:
You wanted the usual Degas ballet dancer!
February 26th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
“……On another matter, have you any Letona canning credentials?”
No, but I’ve got copious amounts of orange picking on my CV, as well as working in an orange-bagging factory (putting oranges into the string bags), and manning the line at a prominent local winery (label sticking), which was also in the news for the wrong reason some months ago.
Hello Roma Street – You may not have worked the line at Letona but your ‘industry’ credentials are impeccable! I could never work out how anybody in 40-degree heat yanking fruit off trees (particularly apricots) could stay alive – let alone make a bob…. KJ
February 26th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Did Martin Luther open a Can at Worms ?
February 26th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Dear KJ,
I read your “Where You Been?” story a couple of days ago and it just keeps coming to mind. It is quite lovely (I’m not referring to the resting of ovaries on the cannery line).
Jimmy Norman canning lunches, what if discussions and dreams. Yes, just lovely. Thank you.
Dear Megsy – you are too, too much!
Isn’t the Big Lebowski’s poem a killer?
….And all I could see what remained of me
Was a silk umbrella just by the door…..
Go ahead TBL, break our hearts!
KJ
February 26th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I’m still puzzling over your puzzler. You know the one from last week where the audience at the stand up venue hissed at you. The best I can come up with:
a) Keep a change of dress (boiler suit and sensible shoes)
(b) Change your material (extremely hard mid routine)
(c) Physically attack the biggest, ugliest mofo in the audience.
None of these seem particularly satisfactory.
Meanwhile, back in Leeton somebody stole a madonna from a church.
February 26th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Hello Mr O’Slatter (and all the crew)
I spoke publicly for the first time about that woeful experience hoping that by NAMING my shame, I could move on.
And it worked – for a good five days – until I read your missive. That night is suddenly fresh again….
Right now, I want to say something very, very slick and nifty BUT I aint got a gag in me…..I just aint got a gag in me…….
But, I can tell you this: NO-ONE could steal The Madonna statue from St Joseph’s Church, Leeton.
She is magnificent.
She came all the way from Italy.
She is about 4-metres tall, has a gentle (though quietly alarmed) face and has a huge halo of gold stars.
She is surely the best Madonna in the world.
It’s a pity she has to share centre stage with a pretty ordinary looking baby.
February 26th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Hi Bill O”Slatter,
or O’Slatter in your latest posting.
What happened to the ” ? Or has the keyboard fruzz?
A drop of chardonnay can be fatal.
Has “ been sacrificed on the Altar of Sobriety?
If so, well done.
The Chadster has had a few probs in that department, discovering he had more imaginary friends than you can imagine.
Thanks for your advice to KJ.
I could not help her.
Perhaps she could come on stage with a couple of savage dogs poised to spring at throats, saying: Only laughter calms them down.
Onya Bill – tell us, have you ever graced the boards?
February 26th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
I looked you up on my keyboard
On Google Where Are You Now?
But the system went into Sanskrit
And the satellite showed me a cow.
Giving traffic directions to the viewer
Away from the past to the now.
So I left you alone to play Patience
And resumed my own Solitaire
Contemplating the ring on the doorknob
That captured red and gold hair.
February 26th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I stir fried some fresh autumn flowers,
They said they went with the view
They just didn’t go well with doritos
Or kill off the fragrance, of you.
KJ: A change of mood for our poet-in-residence….
You don’t bring me prawn cutlets
I wish you would again…..
But they were from Lees Leeton
And things were different then……
February 27th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Yes Chadster.
I need to upgrade my monitor. I think it is a bit fuzzy.
No, I’ve never trod the boards nor never will: it’s not one of my ambitions.
I’ve faced audiences from time to time however.
Generally it’s a waste of their time and mine.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:29 am
Very nice poetry,KJ.
WHERE IS The Ginger Man? I’m missing him.
What would he make of Mr Jimmy Norman? No doubt that canning line would have been put to good use by his inventive mind……especially in delirium.
Absinthe? For the green brilliance of a liqueur, Chartreuse is the go.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Unions say large pay increases for the top executives at Pacific Brands are obscene in the light of the company’s job cuts this week……
Just dropped in to see what perdition your perdition is in.
And to see what’s happenng in your Special Occasions underwear secret drawer and – for men – your socks and jocks kitbag you brought back from when you lay face down in the mud in Nam.
Do you have Pacific Brands in your Undies Can?
Are you telling the truth? Is your word your Bonds?
We have polygraphs on hand.
Are you buying Perdition Products?
If so, shame on you.
It’s a Can of Shame.
Last year Pacific Brands’ 13 top executives were awarded pay rises, with chief executive Sue Morphett’s pay going up from around $680,000 to more than $1.8 million.
WHERE YOU BEEN?
February 27th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Here’s some advertising (RN)
Big Idea, 1 March, 2009 – 2008 Massey Lectures:
Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. Lecture 5: Payback in Heaven.
You might lern somethin’ from her KJ.
KJ: So, you gotta have ’something for the bloody plate’ – even in Paradise?
February 27th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Meg, m’dear…and friends…
On the road again with Breakfast by my side.
Instant recovery when I discovered I was in an $800 a day private hospital run by an order of nuns.
Head nun arrived to say that I owed thousands.
Did I have health insurance?
No, saith I.
Do I have a rich relative? No, again.
I said: Well as a single woman you might find it difficult to understand where I am coming from….
She said: I am married to the Lord.
I said: Well tell your spouse I’ll fix him up as soon as I get fixed up in the cane fields by Jimmy Norman.
Thus:
Midnight scarper with Breakfast.
Bandages streaming behind me like a banshee.
Lowered on faithful Trinity scarf.
I could real go for an absinthe.
Woman screams as I go by.
Do not worry m’dear I am an actor getting ready for a highway scene.
KJ: Thank goodness you’ve reported in – we’ve all been frantic with worry….
Yesterday, took a call from a man in Accounts Outstanding at The Garden Of Gethsemane Hospital.
DO YOU KNOW THE WHEREABOUTS OF THE GINGER MAN?
NO. I may be many things but I aint no Judas. By the way, do you do stigmata removal…?
That got rid of him!!!
February 27th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Everybody here has been ordered by management to get a gravatar.
February 27th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
At our Internet Cafe they serve sausages, mash and gravatar.
February 27th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Thank heavens for the Irish.
I took refuge at a pre-pre-pre-pre St Pat’s Day celebration that provided drink, bacon and praties and craic.
The craic from The Land o’ The Celtic Tiger is not good…120,000 people marched through Dublin in protest against the gombeen men who’ve lined their pockets and ruined the country.
A piece in the Irish Echo titled Shite’n Fraude says that wine fridges (merely a fridge that you can see through so you can show how far you’ve come from your humble plonk drinking parents) are being sold at discount prices.
Members of the party were rugby mad as Ireland has a good chance of winning the Six Nations.
Of course, I told them, Trinity has the oldest rugby club in the world (1854). I kept a strong hand on my scarf.
I do not feel so bad about Trinity. It had the jinx on it from the start.
James II gave Trinity College to the Jesuits provided they staffed it with English priests.
They (alas) landed in Dublin about the same time as William of Orange and soon were on the boat back home.
That history discourse earned me a few glasses of porter.
No absinthe.
What about The Drinkin’ o’ The Green?
February 27th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
TGM,
My you do get around!
On one St. Patrick’s Day, I got my class to make Frog in a Pond – all green of course. One kid snuck into the canteen and ate most of the 26 half-set offerings.
Twenty five other little students were hysterical. By noon, the offender had to be asked to come down at once! (off the ceiling) so hyped up with sugar was he.
By 3:30pm the classroom had been cleared several times following green projectiles worthy of the Exorcist.
At precisely 3:40pm, I was in the local downing the 1st of many green beers.
No problems keeping them down.
February 27th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
What’s a gravatar?
Oh my God, you go away for a few days……
February 27th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Ex-boyfriend ready with the shears (in a salon)….poised to henna my locks.
From behind, says:
Hi, remember me? I used to be Mark but am now Tanya.
We spent the afternoon together in the back of a second hand sequin shop in Oxford Street.
We’d ridden bareback together as teenagers in the bushy blocks of Terry Hills, yellow daisies hanging from the horse’s mouth.
Must go…
The kids have nits…
Hello, hello Greek and loving it – beautiful! I only wish that things could turn out so well with my former beaus but it’s IMPOSSIBLE. They INSIST of remaining the men they were……..KJ
February 27th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Hi Meg,
Come down at once! I also told Spidie on our Bletchey Park adventure…..
Your post has convinced me that Spider-Man was not changed into a super hero through a spidie bite, but because he’s a sugar junkie.
As a result he cannot pass a tall building (sugar ingestion=vertical thinking).
I am writing to Stan Lee on this topic.
Kind regards,
TGM
February 27th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Greek and loving it,
Click Go The Shears!
Wonderful that friendship can continue even when borders are crossed. The heart is a lonely hunter……
The kids have nits…..
Now, they’re good opening lyrics.
Rhyme with plenty of things.
The kids have nits
We’ve lost our wits
Mustn’t get the shits
Or blow the bastards to bits…….
February 27th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Greek and loving it,
A gravitar is an icon that takes itself seriously because it has gravitas.
February 28th, 2009 at 5:48 am
Dear greek and loving it…….
As someone on the cutting edge of Radio National’s online future I can tell you that a gravatar is………REMEMBER DON’T, DON’T PUT HIS UP UNTIL YOU’VE BEEN INTO WIKI TO GET A DEFINITION!!!!
February 28th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Ye canna throw a gravatar off a bus
No ye canna chuck a gravatar off a bus
No ye canna chuck a gravvy
She’s your avatar’s loving mammy,
No
Ye canna throw a gravatar off a bus.
February 28th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Hey KJ,
When I feel that I need a ‘check up’ (not that horrible reality thing) I talk to myself. If those reminiscences are NOT pretty, I now have those poems from The Big Lebowski to return to.
Megsy has also been of great comfort. She appears to have been in many a tricky situation – and always comes out the sunny side up……
February 28th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Dear KJ,
For better or for worse, I yearn for my dear departed Scruffy. It is true that I have dated many a scruffy BLOKE, but alas, none as treasured as Scruff.
Scruffy is now buried at Waterfall in the Royal National Park.
He came to be there as it seemed fitting for such a fine fellow to rest where waters flow and birds sing.
In the dark of the night, to avoid those piercing eyes of park rangers, Scruffy and I agreed to meet often. In the last seven years, I have received many missives from him.
How so? I hear you say.
Well KJ dear friend, I pen a few lines to him, then in paw like fashion respond on his behalf, address an envelope to me, sender: SCRUFFY, Royal National Park, Waterfall.
KJ – on telling a psychiatrist this – his eyes bulged and HE went all strange. His reaction only served to increase the number of letters I was receiving from my faithful little mate.
Vale sweet pen pal – talk soon……..
February 28th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Dear Marry Me (I almost wrote Marry Me, Dear)
As I write, Scuffy is having a good doggy time. Scuffy is on the lookout for you of course.
When you cross the Rainbow Bridge angels will clap their hands at your reunion, and the Father of Loyalty will smile because He knows everything about loyalty, faith and reunion.
Scruffy, like all dogs, has been very patient.
I was very affected by your post, and dashed off a verse in memory of my dog Virginia (’Ginny’) mother of sixteen, including Spikie, Miss Pinky Paws, Wolverine, Mummy’s Boy…..
The Other Woman sleeps by the kitchen
She rests just outside the doors
Her nose is pointed to Mecca*,
The feed bowl, just near her paws.
Her spirit still guards us from harms
When I cross the bridge by the Rainbow
She’ll leap once again in my arms.
(*In a shroud, a blanket made by Gulf Airways)
Now…..go to:
http://www.indigo.org/rainbowbridge_ver2.html
Love to all, The Big Lebowski….
February 28th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
What’s that thing about beware or you might just get what you asked for?
Brisbane Times report says:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2009/02/22/1235237423253.html
February 28th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Schmoozer,
Suddenly the Tavern has become a scary place!
February 28th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
A woman at the Tavern told me she took home a male Wombat (eats roots and leaves) and after the encounter he said: I’ll be on my way.
But she said get back into bed – you’ll leave when I tell you to.
By the door was a Rottweiler, growling deep in his throat.
The man hopped back into bed.
When the woman told me about this I said women like to play both sides of a record.
Another Tavern patron said was this a case of a long playing record – an LP.
I said – in this man’s case – it was more like a 45 rpm – a short single.
The woman just smiled and ordered another beer.
I thought – what about a CD?
February 28th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
If a one-night stand is a 45, a brief relationship, an LP, what is a CD? Marriage?
Or is that a DVD?
March 1st, 2009 at 10:25 am
Strange you should mention that Madonna statue, KJ.
I feel the same about it, although I’m not sure that it is 4 metres tall.
It is one of the things that always bobs up in my mind’s eye when I think about my home town.
March 1st, 2009 at 10:54 am
Hello there Roma Street,
I think it could have something to with people first seeing the Leeton Madonna as children…..
Look at her, look at her…..looks nothing like mum…..she is SO, so tall….I wish she would say something…..she must have cost so much money…..she is the biggest bestest toy anyone could ever have……
And that pure wonder Roma Street NEVER goes away….(she’ll ALWAYS be four metres as far as I’m concerned!) KJ
March 1st, 2009 at 11:31 am
So you thought Jeff (The Last Picture Show) Bridges, son of Lloyd (Sea Hunt) Bridges and Dorothy Dean Simpson (former actress) was just a pot smoking, acid dropper from The Big Lebowski? (he wore his own clothes….)
Jeff does lots of charity work…
ALSO, on his web site, Jeff talks about how for years His Mom wrote Valentinian poems for her husband, even after his death. Where you been?
http://www.jeffbridges.com/latestfeb09.html
March 1st, 2009 at 12:54 pm
What a wonderful week! Here’s what happened.
I was worried about the Dean’s first lecture in our new course – how would it go? Five-hundred students, a very tired Dean with an overworked fringe flapping dangerously close to the interactive lectern and a (always risky) 9 am start.
Also on site a clutch of Phd tutors (a trussed up mob of cultural studies refugees) unbelievably smug wanting my Dean to possibly fail or, at the very least, fail to engage the undergrads.
You get the picture. I come in a little late, because I have been very busy all week organizing the replacement urn in the kitchen.
Down the front of the lecture hall there is a major fuss going on and the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning strides up the stairs grabs me by the arm and drags me towards the front of the hall.
Do you know anything about lapel microphones? he whispers.
Well frankly no I don’t but faced with the picture of my Dean screaming – or worse miming at 500 students chuckling into their mobile phones – here is my chance to shine.
Gently removing the microphone clip with steady hands I offer reassurance.
I don’t think we’ll be needing the boys from Audio Visual Services just yet.
Having just had the experience with the hot water urn I remember the advice from the electrician about always checking that the device is turned ON before panicking.
And yes the electrician was right!
Smiles and congratulations all round, the Dean almost teary with relief.
What could be a better start to the semester?
I’m so happy I can’t decide which seminar to go to next week.
The crash hot seminar by visiting scholar Sabryna Cornish: Correcting History: The Perils of New Media Correction in a Digital Age or the equally important Adriana de Souza e Silva and Daniel M. Sutko: Mobile Locative Interfaces as Potentiality: Actualizing Information in Space and Space as Information.
Any advice?
Dear The Lonely Scholar……removal of a lapel microphone is one of the most intimate acts imaginable.
** I’d definitely be choosing the Fixing Lapel Microphones: The Perils of New Media Correction in a Digital Age seminar.
KJ
March 1st, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Dear Cohen Tragics and lovers everywhere…..
Isn’t this best case of WHERE YOU BEEN…..EVER?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e842XqQAu-Q
COLOSSAL! KJ
March 1st, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Thank you Fanny. Sunny side up is preferable to scrambled. All the extras are even better. Moonee Ponds is famous for its brekkie joints. Eggs florentine is how I like to think of life: ssu with trimmings.
March 2nd, 2009 at 12:07 am
I just dropped in to tell what talent the talent is in…and believe me if Kitty Starr is any indication the condition is good.
TBL dropped by into Kellys on King Street, Newtown, Sydney, where the pokies ply against the craic, the free sausages against home-going, and the TV sports against entertainment, yet the good guys still win.
Inside the Guiness-soaked plastic tavern, past the genial Samoan guard, one finds singing to around half a dozen patrons a girl in a frizzed blonde wig and a black little hat that a World War II marine would have irresistible as he proffered his nylons.
Wow, it’s Billie Holliday played by KJ!
The voice is 18-stone blues coming from a wee lass you could pick up under an arm and take home to Mum along with a packet of shark and chips… it booms through the room and out into the street, much of it original material though of course she does Minnie the Moocher to please the mugs.
Hey, but she’s not famous!
Not yet. But wait.
Check Kitty Starr out (she’s every teenage lad’s fantasy) Does gigs at the Well Connected Cafe, Glebe Point Road.
March 2nd, 2009 at 12:18 am
The Lonely Scholar,
You can change my lapel mike any time, any time. Even though you have made thousands of male electronic technicians redundant with one small gesture of tender, feminine kindness.
March 2nd, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I refer to the story about the picture of the lady above. If Turnbull thinks that Degas is Day-gah, then he’s only half a smart-arse, and not a full one. Ladies who lunch in Double Bay and Toorak think it is Day-gah. But then again, half of them also think that Moet is pronounced like the name of the Victorian town known for the moccasin-wearing proclivities of its denizens.
It is “D’gar”. It rhymes with “cigar”.
I’m sure Mr Tarnawsky would bear me out on this point.
March 8th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Dear The Big Lebowski,
I often return to your poem which I took the liberty of naming THE OTHER WOMAN.
Scruffy snoozes nightly on the left hand side of the bed, his perference.
I tell him bedside stories, favourite being the one about a lovely girl who lives alone in the woods, but for her dog whom she calls Plush Paws.
It is very cold in their digs.
She lovingly knits four socks and places them on her best friend’s paws.
He returns the favour by helping her gather wood for their little fireplace.
I fear that, should I continue, a well known gas company may pinch this concept for its next advertising campaign.
Scruffy is still alive in You, Me, Ginny, Spikie, Miss Pinky Paws, Wolverine, Mummy’s Boy…..
I haven chosen a raunchy tune for their party music: Yep, How much Is That Doggie In The Window?….I do hope That Doggie’s Not a Dingo!
Dear Marry Me – Precious Scruffy….precious moments….KJ
March 8th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Hi, just wondering if you were up to doing another song.
Would be good if you could come up with another one for Easter, loved you Christmas song.
Why annie, thank you!! Yes, I’d loved to, want to and MUST do another song with the first genius I’ve ever had anything to do with – BIG SWIFTY.
Currently he is interstate, working on the music for one of Australia’s premier circus troupes.
BUT – we will be IN STUDIO again…..
In the meantime, keep readin’ and postin’…..
Cheerio, KJ