the welcome wagon

Time marches on neverending…

…tiiiime keeps its own time. That was a track called “Finally” by Kings of Tomorrow feat. Julie McKnight featured on, amongst other things, Yoshiesque 2 double CD by Deep Dish, something or other mix, few years old now, still quite relevant however, being that classic tunes by nature endure well past the stage of superficial enjoyment and, if prolific enough, imprint themselves in a lasting fashion on one’s psyche, to be regurgitated unprovoked by the brain some years later, long past the point where any thought about said tune had been consciously entertained.

So! Here I am back in Sydney. I’m not back for good, just for a bit, performing web producer like functions from a small cold room containing worryingly little stimuli. Rog, Jon and I are all living and working together in Sydney until we fly back on October 20 (o blessed, blessed, sweet, blessed day) so we can collaborate more closely with our design team, Collider, and periodically fantasise about bludgeoning one another to death with whatever object will produce the most pain.

My job is now a bit of everything but mostly being the fall girl for whenever shit gets heavy. It’s a thankless task because shit getting heavy is basically the theme of Dallus, but I don’t do it for the thanks, I do it for the embarrassingly extravagant salary. It would be tasteless of me to disclose the full amount, but I can say that I buy at least one gourmet sandwich from the deli up the road per day. That’s crazy money, my friends. Don’t let it come between us.

Aside from not really having mountains of cash (I was being sarcastic in the previous paragraph) and getting my ass chaffed for things that have only recently come under my jurisdiction there are beacons of the ridiculous in this chilly, superficial town that force me to crack my jaded face in a half-smile.

My cousin’s wedding for instance. She’s only 23, Christian to the power of infinity, a gorgeous ingénue and definitely too young to get married, but the ceremony itself was lovely. Rog likened it, with respect and awe, to Kip and LaFawndah’s wedding, for the following reasons:

- the attendance of the bride’s prodigal father, my uncle by marriage, a pox on my family. He’s basically a life-long love felon (see what I did there?) and since walking out on his kin earlier this year, we mention him not. He’s more or less interchangeable with Satan – Robert de Niro Satan, not Liz Hurley Satan – all charming and lovely but 100% Prince of Darkness. Anyway, he insisted on being there and doing the Father of the Bride speech. Icing on the cake (or chocolate on the profiterole tower in this case) was this joke: “There are three rings a woman gets in her life: an engagement ring… a wedding ring…… and suffer-ring.” Cue his arch nemesis aka mum very nearly combusting with pure rage.

- Oma having a nerve attack. My grandma is the type of person who, when you sleep in, puts a mirror above your mouth to check that you’re still breathing. [FYI that’s the official way to check if someone’s dead or not. Put a mirror in front of their face. All that heartbeat/pulse shenanigans you see in the movies is just done for the sake of drama; you’ll find real doctors use mirrors to determine death.] Anyway, it goes without saying that this wedding – the first of her grandchildren’s – was a cause of much anxiety. Long story short, my grandma lost control of her bowels just before the bride walked out, had to be ‘contained’ by mum, aunty and uncle, all of whom spent the entire ceremony in the bathroom. The pinnacle of this was mum surrendering her undies so Oma could have a clean pair. The gravity of this underpants thing can’t be fully appreciated if you’ve never met my mum, since she’s like the opposite of Sharon Stone or anyone else you could ever imagine going sans pants. She asked us not to tell anyone, which is like asking Johnny Depp not to be hot, so naturally we told everyone at the wedding plus some people driving by in cars and now you even know and you weren’t even there. Stop imagining my mum with no pants on, pervert!

- the father of the groom being actually the campest man to ever live. He wore a puffy pirate shirt and skinny leg trousers, rocked a curly moustache, cried almost constantly and played a piece on the piano as a gift to his son. It was really quite touching.

- we had fake champagne for the toasts because it was a Christian wedding.

And that’s just a five-hour snapshot of things since I’ve been back. The rest of the time has included: acquisition of mounted kangaroo’s head; awaiting call from Ray Martin for next Obese Pets: Are We Loving them to Death? segment now that cat practically spherical in shape; imbibing many norce worns; consuming brazillion courses that comprise tasting menu at food wonderland, Rockpool; stealing some Jenolan Cave, despite tour guide’s claims doing so will make caves fall in on head; catching up with everyone (almost there!); spotting middle-aged Aussie celebs (Margaret Pomeranz, Terrence Stamp and as-yet unidentified matriarch); getting five-year licence with pic of self sporting Hitler-esque side part; and shivering 'cause it's fucking cold.


At the wedding: me and the scarlet woman. Guess who's not wearing any undiiiieeessss?

So that’s it in a nutshell. See you soon – if you don’t see me first, natch.

yours sincerely,

bek