PS: This is the same Advent Calendar as last year. Merry Christmas anyway.
My daughter found a video marked ‘Kerry. Don’t tape over’ in my mother’s handwriting at the back of a cupboard last week. Sadly, my mother has been dead for over 20 years. We don’t have a VCR player anymore. My daughter bought one for $20 on Gumtree.
The tape contained TV interviews. Kerry with Ray Martin. Kerry with Steve Vizard. etc. I was astounded to see my younger SELF of 30 years ago. I was in my thirties. (The pic above is 10 years old). All I can remember was hating going on TV. I was SELF CRITICAL of everything. My looks. What I said. What I didn’t say.
Keep in mind this was live TV. You are often told what to wear, what to say, what not to say. And there was the audience too. I wanted to please them all, the anonymous THEY. But don’t we all do that all too often. Shouldn’t we ask ourselves sometimes ‘who exactly am I trying to please here?’
And why? Why did I care about THEM? Why didn’t I just please myself? See for yourself:
When you arrived at the old Channel 9 studios in Bendigo St, Richmond, and walked into reception on your way to a morning show interview or live cross, the receptionist would ring through to some studio lackey announcing ‘the talent’s here’. That’s how much the TV studio staff cared about performers. No name. Just THE TALENT. The carpark had a sign that read ‘PARKING FOR STAFF AND TALENT’.
I always imagined the Channel 9 carpark teaming of jugglers, violinists and ballerinas on their way to and from some show.
Working for newspapers, publishers and radio shows I did not come under pressure of having to worry about the ANONYMOUS THEY. This pressure to perform or conform only applied to TV, a visual media. But we are all in the visual (social) media today in some form or other.
I ask again ‘who are you trying to please, impress or entertain?’ I was so critical of myself 30 years ago. Here are some more clips from the vault. And 30 years ago I was so critical of myself because I worried too much about the ANONYMOUS THEY.
Judge for yourself.
8am. Saturday. Bored while waiting for the kettle to boil, I pick up The Age Form Guide. Words leap out of the page and hammer my eyeballs. This is gold. Pure gold. I wonder if I could write a story using HORSES’ NAMES from the 10 races scheduled at one race meeting? And here it is: EPIC SAGA* in the new poetic style – Form Guide Poetry.
*See actual form guide below.
I wrote this when my daughter was in the kinder nativity play. And that was in 1993, over 20 years ago! But little has changed from the delightful yuletide chaos known as the kinder Nativity Play.
No Stephen Spielberg, Fred Schepsi or Peter Weir could bring to life a story bursting with the tinselled excitement or wide-eyed wonder of that choreographed chaos known as the Kinder Nativity Play. The job of feverish direction rests with an experienced kindergarten teacher. And the play has become a cherished Christmas tradition of cherubic grins and dimpled mayhem.
The first problem facing the director involves casting. Kinder kids can be very definite about the part they wish to play. They want a good line. And that line is often ‘Baa’.
The kinder teacher is then left with the problem of putting on a nativity play with 25 sheep and no one else. After much begging, pleading and coaxing she can muster one sulking Joseph, a radiant freckled Mary -who is allowed to wear her patent leather shoes and a brides veil – and a donkey, if they can wear the donkey suit.
Full article from The Advertiser, The Herald Sun and The Canberra Times here: CHRISTMAS ACCORDING TO ST JASON
Last night I was the 2nd speaker in a debate arguing for the affirmative on the topic THANK GOD for AMERICA. Apparently, it was meant to be a serious debate. My talent packed team lost on points, possibly because – Ooops! – we thought it was a humorous debate but we won over the crowd. Here is my contribution :
My first book was published in 1983 so – add old timers accent – ‘I been ’round this here old place a long time’. The following event is one of the oddest experiences I had in the world of publishing. That is, if you don’t count, being ‘heckled’ by Barbar The Elephant at the Sydeny Writers’ Festival.
You may think I’m merely a mild mannered reporter. But, dear reader, I have fought a ‘superhero’ battle. It all began years ago when I wrote a book for kids titled ‘How to save the world before breakfast’. Subtitle ‘A magazine for young superheroes’. To cut a long story super-short, D.C. Comics kindly explained to my little Aussie publisher that they owned the word ‘super heroes’ and we could, to cut through the legal jargon, bugger off.
I immediately imagined the D.C Comics legal team was comprised of escapees from Krypton who, having discovered a loophole in the this-planet-will-explode contract, had escaped early in rockets and re-established themselves on the planet Legalon producing a race of Super Lawyers who were taking over our Solar System by suing the pants off every creature in the Universe.
Suffice to say, a barrister-type friend who, in his legal regalia in a high-wind did look quite Batmanish, pointed out that D. C. Comics were right. They owned the words ‘super heroes’. It was not a copyright matter. It’s a trademark!!!! So my publisher pulped the first book cover and I changed the subtitle to ‘The hilarious first addition of the Superkids Magazine’. And so the book, which gave advice on ‘How to select the right cape for you’ and ‘How to keep your hair neat in a cyclone’, was eventually published.
Read Full article published Herald Sun 14 JUL 2004 also The Advertiser (SA): A bird. A plane. An Ozzie mozzie zapper
What can I say? God must have a sense of humour.
My writing career began with humour. I wrote for 2 comedy shows in the eighties.
So this is a belated return to my ‘roots’. Although, as Dr Sibyl would say ‘That sounds rather vulgar, dear’.
kerrycue 