One Thing Leads To Another

Albert Namatjira

Here we go again ... The stream of consciousness is taking off and running the rapids:

Just recently, I was on my favorite political site and a gentleman there put up a recording of "Diamantina Drover" by an American country singer.  Now this site is my favorite simply because if you must discuss politics, do it with outrageously brilliant people who really know music.

This caused me to counter with, "You can't put up 'Diamantina Drover' without hearing John Williamson sing".  Snarky I know, but you have to defend the original whenever possible.



This led to a previous post below where I did one of my arrogant, "If you have never heard" blah blah posts just to expose everyone who stops by to a singer who would be a global treasure if it weren't for a little detail like being born in Australia.  It is only recently that great things from Australia have been acknowledged as being as wonderful as they are.  For once I'm not pointing out Hugh but rather acknowledging artists of both screen and gallery such as  Jacki Weaver who got the AFI for "Animal Kingdom" but was robbed of the Golden Globe and Oscar  ... Take that! Black Swan, emaciated,  twinkle toes.

While listening to the John Williamson recordings again, the lyrics registered in "Raining On The Rock"  and all of a sudden I have something new to chase down and learn:  Who is Albert Namatjira?  This led to one of the first Aboriginal artists to be recognized for their skill and from there to one of my favorite Australian writers to date:  Nevil Shute and my favorite book by him of "A Town Like Alice".  Some of you may have seen the television miniseries production of this book starring Bryan Brown (my first Australian crush in the 1980s who was in the movie Australia as the bad guy cattle baron with Hugh, and more age appropriate if he weren't married to gorgeous Australian actress, Rachel ward ... sigh oh well).

Everything that goes around comes around.  All of the above links should keep you busy, but for me they led to another place I have to stop and explore should I get to do the great Australian adventure:  Alice Springs.






As it turns out, the paintings of Albert Namatijira are now shown in the National Gallery of Australia as a point of national pride for a great Australian artist, Alice Springs has become the center of both the country and Aboriginal art as well as a not to be missed stop over in your travels.

There are times when the seemingly simple are so simple they are glorious:

Once Upon A Memory

Linda over at "Are We There Yet?" asked me to expand on this mention in a tweet about Jerry Northrup and my all too innocent years,  and it was too much fun not to comply

I may be the only straight woman in the world who watched the shower scene in Australia with her hand over her mouth so that no one would hear her shrieking with laughter because a great big memory had just jumped up and bit her in the heart and it is all Jerry Northrup's fault.

Just to refresh your memory (as if you needed it):  Hugh Jackman being unbelievably gorgeous and desirable in Australia with Nicole Kidman's eyes registering the fact:





Now let's step back  (STOP REPLAYING AND COOPERATE NOW!!!) in time to a much more innocent age:  1957 to be exact when I spent the summer with my girlfriend Cookie in Fresno.  What you should know about Fresno in the summer of 1957 is that it is one of the arm pits of the western world -  HOT, DUSTY, and UNBEARABLE and the only relief is under the trees because no one has air conditioning other than swamp coolers which means HUMID and HOT.  Cookie has an older brother Kenny and Kenny has an older friend Jerry.  It is Cookie's birthday and Jerry has been dragooned into being a chaperon for the party because Cookie's mom has to work.  Scenario is now set:

Is there a class somewhere that teaches tall, slender, confident boys how to walk to make an impression so that they look like cats stalking?  Just wondering about that.  Jerry stalks into the yard in said cat like fashion  and after a day of working construction with his dad he is dirty, hot and sweaty and he immediately strips off his T-Shirt, turns on the water faucet and lifts the hose above his body while shaking his hair as the water streams over his face and body that has now formed that perfect line from wrist to hip of muscles only seen on tall slender men who regularly lift heavy objects.  Yum, Drool and Oh My God I'm melting !!!!  See above for object lesson.

Back to 13 year old girl on back stoop of house watching the above as every hormone known to the female species kicks in violent enough to almost knock her off the porch and then above magnificent male sits on the step below her as she watches the teardrop of water run down his back  ... (In case you men don't think this happens at this age, the squelched idea was to lick that water drop ... help help whimper oh yes it did but I didn't but I really, really wanted to yes I did!)

Fast forward to that evening where the "children" are dancing in the garage and then it all quiets down to playing spin the bottle as the newly aware woman-child is bored with the other 13/14 year old babies and comes out into the yard where Jerry is under a tree.  She says, "What are you doing here?"  He says, "Waiting for you." How did he know with that much confidence or was he just trying out the line?   She simply slid into his arms and the kiss that followed was very very special simply because it was the first between a female newly arrived to oh let's call it what it was "lust" and a very young male who was just finding out about his power.  See Princess Bride for the description of said kiss.



What happened next?  - I  leave you to your own scenarios and overheated imaginations if you want to stop here you can.

It truly was an innocent age.  13, 14, 15 summers.  to his 17, 18, 19 summers.   I came to town every year and he broke up with whomever because I was there to make his life a  (only from the waist up for me) living hell from the waist down for him. The rules were simple.  "Good girls"  didn't do that "sort of thing" until their senior year of high school or first year of college.  I had plans for the summer of 16 and then everyone who surrounded me went crazy and I didn't get back to Fresno for ten years when I brought my children to town to meet up with the aunts, uncles, and stepfather but I couldn't find Jerry who I heard had married as well.

It's more than a half century later and I still wonder what happened to that beautiful boy.  Even more important, I remember that first image of a beautiful male body and that first kiss under the tree and the desire to experience innocence lost that didn't happen so I content myself with a remarkably similar shower scene and watch Australia often.

If wishes could come true before the end of my life, this would happen just to feel one more time:

Comparisons

Yesterday's Oprah closed the last Australian show with Hugh Jackman, Olivia Newton John, Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman, and Russell Crowe singing "I Still Call Australia Home", Peter Allen's love song for a country. Unfortunately Peter wasn't there since we lost that magnificent talent to AIDS in 1992 As always, the song made me tear up. Peter Allen was one of the few composers who could make you feel what he was feeling even if you never felt it for yourself. I am officially stating that thanks to that song, I am homesick for Australia.

A few years back Hugh Jackman brought many of Peter's songs to Broadway and won a well deserved Tony for doing it. I can play all the following songs on my IPOD and know immediately which man is singing because Peter is a higher key and a thinner voice while Hugh is a lower key and a beautifully trained theatrical voice. Still when it comes to these particular songs, I really miss the Peter I saw perform in 1981 and truly wish he had been there yesterday.  You would have too if you had ever sat in an audience and watched this just a few feet in front of you.



Peter Allen in performance



I Still Call Australia Home - Peter Allen



I Still Call Australia Home - Hugh Jackman



Once Before I Go - Peter Allen



Once Before I Go - Hugh Jackman

Take This Tune - What Shower Scene?

This week's Take This Tune is about obsessive fans and the objects of their adoration courtesy of "He Rode All The Way to Texas" and "Superstar". As everyone well knows, it is no secret that I am fond of Hugh Jackman (Sheesh folks I may have crossed the line to "senior", but I still have a pulse). What I can say is that I never confuse reel and real. Should I ever bump  into the gentleman, it would be a handshake and "It's a pleasure to meet you" and I wouldn't ask for an autograph because Californians of my era DON'T DO THAT for the simple reason that performance time and private time are two different spheres and "private time" is never to be violated.

Most fans who enjoy an artist rate somewhere along an acceptable range from "I like him/her" to "I see everything ever made or written and lust for more". Then there are those who tip over the edge into some world of obsessive fantasy. The ones who stalk, follow from city to city, turn up in private homes, or actually threaten or injure a star and their family. You have to wonder what is missing from their life that an imaginary relationship has become so desirable or how papparazzi coverage can prod the mentally ill into real and dangerous action.

Hugh Jackman made a movie called Australia.  That movie contained a shower scene for which the majority of women and a certain percentage of men are very, very grateful.  How popular is this particular scene?  Add all of the multiple You Tube postings and it has had several hundred thousand viewings.  Google it and you get over one million references for the shower alone on blog and news sites.  That doesn't include all the possible permutations of searches and uploads that you didn't think of while searching or the almost four million references on his name alone.

Now one fan took that scene, slowed it down, put it in closeup,  highlighted stills, put it on continuous loop and then used the music of Air and the song "Sexy Boy" for the audio.   Frankly she did a better job than the actual editor of the movie which, while a lot of fun as whip lash and bodice rippers go, suffered from scads of technical problems, history mistakes and continuity errors.  Enough to make you wonder why the script supervisor and match move / CGI staff weren't fired on day two of the shoot.  The movie is saved by a fun if derivative story line and great  acting by the whole cast rising above the problems.   Maybe Baz Luhrman should have hired the You Tube lady. 

Fortunately, nothing about this gift given to anyone who likes a beautiful wet male body hints of the dangerous, so sit back and enjoy while remembering that the real man was creating an iconic character, is married, actually seems to love his wife, and truly enjoys his children.  Now back to a good fantasy.

An Antipodean Ghost Story

My buddy, Fairweather, who sometimes helps out on the Take This Tune meme, likes ghost stories. Linda of Are We There Yet likes to hang out at cemeteries. We all know what oddities I'm likely to pick up while swimming in Googled waters as well as my fondness for Australia, so it was a treat to find a poem by "Banjo" Paterson that featured Australia, a ghost story, and a cemetery all in one place.


THE GEEBUNG POLO CLUB
by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson

It was somewhere up the country in a land of rock and scrub,
That they formed an institution called the Geebung Polo Club.
They were long and wiry natives of the rugged mountainside,
And the horse was never saddled that the Geebungs couldn't ride;
But their style of playing polo was irregular and rash -
They had mighty little science, but a mighty lot of dash:
And they played on mountain ponies that were muscular and strong,
Though their coats were quite unpolished, and their manes and tails were long.
And they used to train those ponies wheeling cattle in the scrub:
They were demons, were the members of the Geebung Polo Club.

It was somewhere down the country, in a city's smoke and steam,
That a polo club existed, called the Cuff and Collar Team.
As a social institution 'twas a marvellous success,
For the members were distinguished by exclusiveness and dress.
They had natty little ponies that were nice, and smooth, and sleek,
For their cultivated owners only rode 'em once a week.
So they started up the country in pursuit of sport and fame,
For they meant to show the Geebungs how they ought to play the game;
And they took their valets with them - just to give their boots a rub
Ere they started operations on the Geebung Polo Club.

Now my readers can imagine how the contest ebbed and flowed,
When the Geebung boys got going it was time to clear the road;
And the game was so terrific that ere half the time was gone
A spectator's leg was broken - just from merely looking on.
For they waddied one another till the plain was strewn with dead,
While the score was kept so even that they neither got ahead.
And the Cuff and Collar captain, when he tumbled off to die,
Was the last surviving player - so the game was called a tie.

Then the captain of the Geebungs raised him slowly from the ground,
Though his wounds were mostly mortal, yet he fiercely gazed around;
There was no one to oppose him - all the rest were in a trance,
So he scrambled on his pony for his last expiring chance,
For he meant to make an effort to get victory to his side;
So he struck at goal - and missed it - then he tumbled off and died.

By the old Campaspe River, where the breezes shake the grass,
There's a row of little gravestones that the stockmen never pass,
For they bear a crude inscription saying, "Stranger, drop a tear,
For the Cuff and Collar players and the Geebung boys lie here."
And on misty moonlit evenings, while the dingoes howl around,
You can see their shadows flitting down that phantom polo ground;
You can hear the loud collisions as the flying players meet,
And the rattle of the mallets, and the rush of ponies' feet,
Till the terrified spectator rides like blazes to the pub -
He's been haunted by the spectres of the Geebung Polo Club.
The Antipodean, 1893

I Still Call Australia Home

It was a simple beginning. I went to a movie On The Beach. It was a very good movie with a great cast and was based on a book that I had read by Nevil Shute. Then he kept writing. Damn the man, but he was a good author. I managed to ignore him until PBS did a production of another book: A Town Like Alice.

Now I'm starting to think in terms of Australia stories, movies, people. .... don't you hate it when the world opens up and says, "Come On In".

The Man From Snowy River
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Muriel's Wedding
Tim
Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Damn it they have a whole industry down there for the past thirty years where I wasn't looking and they have shipped their stars north. Now this is fair warning. Buy Peter Allen albums. Go to see Hugh Jackman in the theater. Forgive Mel Gibson and see his movies. Watch Australian mini series on WE or PBS. Pay attention to Nicole Kidman in all her roles, but never never accept an invitation to party with a bunch of Aussies.

I did once. It was about 1983 in the Santa Monica canyons ... they took prisoners on a Friday morning and finally released the hostages late on Sunday. Somewhere in the middle of Saturday night, I crawled off to a corner for a few minutes. You have never been awakened until you open your eyes to a bunch of bouncing bodies singing, "Go Aussies Go". Then there was the politician or why I love Australian women. There I was in a deep conversation of world wide import with a man who actually turned out to be a member of the Australian parliament when he wasn't being an actor/singer filming Pirates of Penzance. Some female trying to start trouble asked his wife if she minded. Confident reply: "I'm just glad someone else wants to listen to him!!!"

Everytime I see a travelogue, view the images of the Sydney Opera House in full sail, contact some distant relatives who migrated to the island continent, or look at the itinerary for a cunard liner just waiting to head for that harbor, the longing to go becomes almost overwhelming. Don't bother telling me they have a snake that can drop you in your tracks not to mention several species of poisonous arachnids and insects and the spur on a platypus. So what if those cute, cuddly Koalas are not quite as cuddly as they appear. All it takes is one Qantas commercial and I want to go. For the two minutes it takes to play one song, I'm dewy eyed and homesick. So even though I've never been: I Still Call Australia Home.

Want Act II

As most of you know, I'm slightly crazy about musical theater. Mo had us do the word "Want" for Monday. Well what I wanted for the birthday was a new window card for the wall. These are the posters used to advertise a broadway show, and one of the best places where you can find them (as well as motion pictures) is Triton Gallery. If you like posters, it is a great place to find just about everything. They also have a fine art section where you can go dreaming as well. For a birthday two years ago, the best son in the whole wide world got me Barnum for my birthday. This year the best son in the whole wide world got me The Boy From Oz.


The Boy From Oz is the Tony Award winning musical is a biography of Peter Allen using the music he wrote to tell the story.



Peter Allen as Peter Allen singing "I Go To Rio". The night I went to see him in Los Angeles for his revue "Up In One", he did the number fairly plain only throwing on multi colored carnival sleeves and wielding a mean pair of maracas.

Now I have to start working on the best son in the whole wide world and the best daughter in the whole wide world for a trip to see the place that Peter Allen made everyone homesick to see: I Still Call Australia Home