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With JPB and I separated by a few thousand kilometres, there's not very much "gay" happening at the moment. I'm on the phone to Sydney pretty much every night and I did catch up with FagInTheBush but that's about it. Talking. Oh, and telling JPB that I love him and I miss him and JPB being worried about me when I told him about the blowout.

I set up my parent's audiovisual centre a couple of days ago and used Kylie's Showgirl dvd to test it out. Okay so this is not necessarily a "gay" thing but you can't deny that Red Blooded Woman is dripping wet with homo, none of the male dancers seem at all concerned about Kylie and instead would rather flex their muscles at each other. mmm... muscles... Oh, and there's that Pet Shop Boys collaboration with Kylie about some guy who's In Denial.

And on the news I saw Elton John and partner (sorry, dude, for not knowing your name) get "together". Not officially "married", to be sure, but at least recognised and with legal rights to... something... well anyway it was a bit of a shock to hear Tony Blair comment on it, saying that he proud that Britain is taking this step forward, allowing gay civil partnerships to occur. Good on you. Had you not sent troops to Iraq you'd be my favourite pollie.

Tags: Gay, News, Northern Territory, Civil Union, Gay Marriage, Elton John.

Update: Watching more news. Dad grunted disapprovingly and I chirped that it was a good thing. Elton John and partner are currently the face of gay marriage (even though they aren't really married). Lots of talk about the estimated combined annual income of all the poofs in Great Britain and I'm thinking "what's that got to do with love?" Maybe it's because Mr and Mr Elton John aren't really married, which is about love (apparently), they're just "unified civilly", which is more about tax. Oh well, baby steps...

So the last couple of posts have been a touch morbid. So to make up for it, I've got some lovely pictures!

On the right is the main intersection of the town where I grew up. Nothing much has changed, except the traffic lights got put up after I left. Can you feel the heat and humidity? It was about 36C that afternoon and the clouds were threatening to burst; they didn't, though, it was just hot and muggy.
The dog's name is Badyou (pronounced "Badge-oo") he kinda looks cute in a scruffy kind of way. My parents also have goats, and they sure do like to pose!

And finally, here's a picture my Dad took. Seems like it's not just the people that like a good beer...

I just killed something and I'm a bit distressed! I'm still shaking.

It's quite late at night and everyone else has gone to bed. Earlier on the dogs had been barking at something in the shed. It was a rat. Dad got woken up by the dogs and sent me out with a torch and a spear to kill it. Extremely reluctant, I headed off into the garden, spotted the rat, speared... and missed. Though I scared it off which seemed to silence the dogs for a while.

But about an hour later the dogs stared barking again and sure enough the rat had reappeared, it's cute little eyes and it's furry little body... well anyway i took aim again, speared... BULLS EYE!

Unfortunately this wasn't quite enough to pierce the rat's body because the spear was blunt. Instead it was jammed up against the shed wall, letting out this cute little squeal as I tried to ram the prongs through. To no avail. The dogs were going wild by this stage and I was getting quite distressed, I had to prop the spear up against a gas cylinder to keep the rat from getting away so I could walk around to rev myself up. I took up the spear again, looked away and gave one almight shove and... nothing! The rat was wailing to high heaven by this stage and, seeing the bloody hungry dogs jumping around madly, I took the rat by its tail and dangled it in front of the biggest dog, which then ravenously snatched the little critter into it's mouth and finished the job.

... I think I need a lie down...

Tags: Rat, Kill, Spear, Dogs.

The police officer asked me how fast I was going: “I think I was going 110”. “You realise this is a 100 zone?” Crap. Way to go admitting to a cop that I was speeding. In fact, for the entire journey up until the car ended up on its roof on the side of the road I was pretty much averaging 110 anyway, I was in too numb at the time to fabricate a lie. Still, skid marks notwithstanding, there’s no way he could prove I was speeding and, besides, much of the highway from Darwin to Katherine has no speed restrictions so luckily I wasn’t going faster.

Because if I was going faster maybe I would have lost control of the car earlier… maybe…

After the cop had stepped out the length of the skid marks on the road he came back and told me that, in his experience and what information he gathered, it looked like I was ‘gunning it’ more than 110. Earlier on he had referred to me as a ‘boy’ (thanks to my *youthful* complexion) and immediately I got an idea of the kind of person he judged me to be: a reckless young speeding male, he had mentally placed me in THAT demographic. I know that demographic well, I had been in enough cars with lunatic, testosterone fuelled young Katherine male drivers taking all sorts of risks; not a lot, but definitely enough.

A few kilometers down the road, a few moments back in time, I WAS going faster. But not that much faster, it wasn’t like I was ‘gunning it’ at all: I was overtaking and I had hit 120 when the car started to shake. Sensing something wrong I decided to ramp it down to 110 and, knowing that I was only an hour out of town, hoped (foolishly perhaps) that I would make it home to sort it out. At the time of the blow out, I had it in my head that 110 was going to be my maximum speed all the way home. But arguing with the cop wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

There was no acceptable reason why the tyre blew out as they were new and only just replaced a few months ago. But the brand of the tyre was Bridgestone; once the cop and the guys with the tow truck saw this they immediately began to recount stories of other tyre blowouts in the area involving Bridgestone tyres. Apparently Bridgestone tyres are unreliable but knowing this gives me no comfort, they simply shouldn’t have failed.

That being said, as far as tyre blowouts are concerned, this was thankfully a pretty lacklustre event. There was no oncoming traffic. It was a rear tyre, not a front one that blew out. I didn’t panic and slam on the brakes (and I’m really surprised that I didn’t do that!) instead I just kept on telling myself to keep the car on the road as long as possible, which I did, I managed to just miss the large sign on the opposite side of the road. I was wearing a seat belt. I had a satellite phone. The car that I overtook was not that far behind (in my mind, this was the saving grace for the case for me only doing 110 because their car was having problems, too, and they too decided to stick to a reduced speed). The car I was driving was a tank and did not lose any of its structure.

The game of “What If?” is truly a waste of energy. And yet it’s so easy to slip into that mode: Whilst typing the previous paragraph I initially typed by mistake: “I managed to hit the large sign”. Had this actually occurred the outcome would have been much different, and for the worse. Twenty-four hours later and the alternative scenarios (mainly the detrimental ones) still makes their way into my brain. I have to try to focus on what actually happened. Knowing that it could have been a lot worse doesn’t help at all.

I have to remember that it was just a freak accident. I did the best that I could and the car’s sturdiness did the rest. I have to remind myself that I walked away from it without even one scratch.

BTW I unfortunately don’t remember the names of the two people in the car that saw the whole thing, that helped me out and waited with me until the police arrived, but I just want to thank them for being so kind. I’d also like to thank the police officer, the guys with the tow truck, and the firemen for helping out as well, and my Dad for picking me up (he told the people blocking off the road to “fuck off, my son is in there!”) and driving me to Katherine. Thanks to the many people that slowed down to ask if I needed any help (even the random guy that took the opportunity to dump his worn-out shoes on the side of the road). Sorry to all those drivers that had to wait until my car was loaded on the truck.

Tags: Car Accident, Tyre Blowout, Northern Territory, Stuart Highway, Photos.

I finally made it to Katherine last night (big ordeal, tell ya about it later...) It's always like going back in time, nothing much changes. Oh sure we might have different dogs but at least their names don't change. And while the furniture is as uncomfortable as ever, at least there's always a new television or hi-fi component in the living room (this time a huge widescreen CRT which runs rings around LCDs and especially Plasma).

I was digging through all my old stuff and came across a book that I kept a weekly top 10 favourite songs through 1990 (in 1991 it expanded to a top 20). I even had a point system whereby I could collate the year's top songs and even assigned gold and (multi) platinum status to long endurance tracks. Fifteen years ago the chart looked like this (don't laugh!):

15 December 1990
(9) 10. DNA ft Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner
(6) 9. Dee-Lite - Groove is in the Heart
(8) 8. Kylie Minogue - Step Back in Time
(10) 7. Technotronic - Wave
(RE) 6. Jean Michel Jarre - Equinox
(4) 5. Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby
(5) 4. Jean Michel Jarre - Industrial Revolution
(3) 3. Snap - Cult Of Snap
(1) 2. Technotronic - Megamix
(2) 1. Betty Boo - Doin' The Do

Let me explain: Jean Michel Jarre was only in the charts because some boy that I had a crush on started listening to it so, voila the Jarre-meister makes a mid-chart entry. Bad move. Apart from that, everyone thought that my taste in music sucked but I thought I was too cool.

Anyway, the year-end chart went a bit like this
G 10. MC Hammer - U Can't Touch This
G 9. Young MC - Bust A Move
G 8. Kylie Minogue - Better The Devil You Know
G 7. Starlight - Numero Uno
1P 6. Technotronic - Megamix
1P 5. Rococo - Megamix
2P 4. Madonna - Vogue
2P 3. Technotronic - Pump Up The Jam
2P 2. Technotronic - Get Up
4P 1. 49'ers - Touch Me

Sure, I had a thing for crappy girly Euro-housey stuff but, hey there's classic Kylie and Madonna in there! The rest of that chart went past 100 and also included alot of Paula Abdul, Grandmaster Chicken and DJ Duck's Check Out The Chicken and two different versions of Lambada.

Oi! Stop laughing! Things have gotten better: stay tuned for the Top 50 of 2005...

Tags: Music, Pop, House, Charts, Retro.

Thank the Lord for web check-in. And I thought that check-in kiosks were great. Upon arrival at T2 I took a moment to laugh at all the losers waiting in line as I gracefully dumped my bag at the counter, safe in the knowledge that I had window seats all the way. No line. It would have been quicker had I not had to fish my boarding pass (that I printed at JPB's house) out of my bag.

Even without internet access at home I don't know why anyone would bother with lines when there's check-in kiosks that aren't being fully appreciated. Losers.

Anyway, after cuddling up to JPB at gate 31 I was off on my outback tour.

tags: Flying, Goodbye, Northern Territory, Darwin.

It's a bit misleading, that a large chunk of Asia is red when the only place I've been to in China is Hong Kong. Come back in a year's time, when a bit of the Continent and the Isles get coloured in.

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

More: 43places.

Tags: Map, World, Visited Countries.

Wolf Creek.

At the end of the credits there was the usual disclaimer that "any resemblance to characters or events is strictly coincidental" blah blah blah. But the brief on-screen notes book-ending the movie would have you believe otherwise. This is unnecessarily deceitful - it's bad enough that we have the Aussie accents, the not unfamiliar concept of Brit tourists trekking across the country in a bomb, the scorched earth and the blazing sky synonymous with Outback Australia. For me the movie is scary because it is so close to home; your typical Hollywood horror movie (not that I would necessarily watch them) occurs in a land an ocean away.

Sure, it's still thousands of kilometres from Fox Studios to Halls Creek. But to put such horror into a landscape that I find incredibly beautiful just makes it worse. And what pans out is thoroughly disturbing. I don't want to give too much away but I guess the experience of it is something that I just can't convey. It even SOUNDS bad, especially the "head on a stick" scene. And then to juxtapose that with a sunset of such rich and vibrant and beautiful colours is to emphasise the horror even more.

I held on tightly to JPB's hand like the wussy little girl I can be. Later on that night, the memory of the sound of the knife penetrating the flesh kept me up into the early hours.

Tags: Wolf Creek, Movie.

Oh my god has anyone seen Bangarra's tour schedule for 2006? I knew it was going to be a hard year next year but this is bloody ridiculous! On the plus side, we're in Darwin at the end of May, it'll be our second tour destination so the show will still be fresh. But by the time we get to, say, Lismore, I'm going to be a nervous wreck. And what about JPB??? Did anyone at Bangarra consider the consequences this tour will have on my relationship with JPB? Not to mention the two months we'll be spending in Melbourne trying to get the Gathering program together with the Australian Ballet. Or the month that we'll be overseas for the UK tour.

Six months away from Sydney...

In truth, it's not beyond asking, a schedule like this. 2004 was almost as full-on as well. But back then I wasn't leaving anyone behind. This is going to be a problem.

Meanwhile, even though we only have a few more performances left this year, rehearsals have been pretty good. We're re-mounting Rites using a very obscure archive video of a performance from 1999. I guess the best thing about it is that it's NEW (at least for me) after touring a show that we've done for over two-and-a-half years. It's also fast and has alot of movement, alot of which is already familiar, stylistically. Questions oft asked in a Bangarra rehearsal like "is the foot flexed?" are easily answered and taken on ("of course the foot is flexed!") How's that for progress? It's been three years and now I've learnt that feet are usually flexed by default.

and you're probably gonna wanna *knock-knee* as well...

Of course it's not always that simple. But at the very least it no longer seems all that foreign to me anymore.

Tags: Dance, Bangarra, tour, travel.

We were looking down on the homosexuals again. When I arrived, the gang were playing with lighters. Luckily I brought along my camera!

tags: Fire.