Hey Girls, why do you worry about the anonymous THEY? Part 1

Posted on September 1, 2016 by Kerry Cue

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:

Hey Girls, why do you worry about the anonymous THEY? Part II

Posted on September 1, 2016 by Kerry Cue

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.

Greece and the Cloud Cuckooland Theory of Economics!

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Kerry Cue

This comic piece on the Greek Crisis was published on Independent Australia. on 10th July, 2015: Grand Sale. Country for Sale. Dirt Cheap.

Grand Sale. Country for Sale. Dirt Cheap.

By Kerry Cue

Do you ever dream of becoming the dictator of a small European country, but you are too lazy to organise a military coup? Do you have a Hellinic face that looks noble in profile and would suit the newly minted coinage of a realm? Do you like Feta cheese, olives and Nana Mouskouri and have a grand passion for cats?

Then we have the perfect country for you. Greece lies in the idyllic Mediterranean just far enough from the central European banks to avoid excess rational economic thought. It will appeal to anyone who believes ‘everyone except me should pay more tax’ (a policy Australian political parties push during elections) and that the retirement age should be reduced to 14 years (This, of course, is another way to reduce youth unemployment and may be adopted by Aussie politicians in the near future, that or raising the legal school leaving age to 67).

You can own a little bit of paradise for not much more than you pay for a 2-story inner city home in Australia and Greece comes with many Heritage Listed buildings (often listing to the left, but there is scaffolding) and an ensuite with a toilet that flushes every 2nd Tuesday after the local plumber has downed 3 bottles of Retsina and turned up to unblock it.

Greece offers unparalleled panoramic views of glorious beaches, massed sun beds and jumbo-jet loads of fat, drunk UK tourists. Greek islands boast little fishing villages that are so idyllic your eyes water … Or that could be the sewerage again.

The Greeks are a law abiding people with a cousin in Melbourne, who abide by laws on a may or may not be bothered basis, but you can be guaranteed that you will not be run down by a motor scooter driven by a retired 14year old in your own lounge room. This guarantee may not apply to shopping malls or outdoor dining areas. The Greeks also have a great fondness for cement. But they are not like the Italians. There are no cement shoes. They just love cement in all its raw and unfinished glory.

The Greek people are stoic (they invented the word) and devoted to democracy (they invented that the word too). Some say their attitude to their economy is crazy. But they haven’t lost their marbles. Well, they have lost their marbles. They’re in the British Museum. (Subleasing potential there!) Others say, when it comes to their economy, the Greeks are in Cloud Cuckooland (Another word they invented with full credit for this economic theory going to Aristophanes.) Cloud Cuckooland is, however, a very popular economic theory at the moment, but it’s called Quantative Easing in America.

Greece. Buy now. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to rule a realm, own an Acropolis and stage your very own Olympic Games for all the family. Hurry while stocks last. And for no extra cost you get an ancient home amphitheatre with dry stone walls, an as-new roofless Olympic size swimming pool and a holiday island for lesbians.

photo source: Elgin Marbles unsourced.

Tomatoes that taste like Italian Heaven, not flavourless mush

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Kerry Cue

The streets we walk, the food we eat, the people we know and lives we lead become so familiar, so assumed, we hardly notice them at all. So I have travelled halfway across the world at great cost and inconvenience to bring home something vital for a writer namely a yardstick to measure our own culture.

I’m in Italy oohing and ahing over an extraordinary Italian icon, a thing of such beauty it wraps you in total sensory bliss. It is a tomato.

There are lots of tomatoes in Italy and each one of them, it seems, is a culinary temptress. This red beauty isn’t the supermodel of tomland, all fiddled with, half-starved and fake. It is an earthy, fleshy, full-bodied and ripe tomato and it floods my mind with memories of tomatoes from my childhood. The taste is warm, rich and sweet. Its smell recalls my mother shredding the lettuce and whipping up some mayonnaise from, of all things, sweetened condensed milk, vinegar and mustard. But the women’s mag mayo couldn’t kill the taste of the tomatoes. They were real tomatoes.

Read Canberra Times article here: Pomodori by Kerry Cue

Photo source: josiesjuice blog

Oz Day: It’s a Looney Land for Me!

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Kerry Cue

Australia is a scary place. Backpacker murderers, poisonous snakes, killer mozzies, big bloody bats dropping out of the sky, Danni Monogue and bad haircuts.

From Charming and Colliding Blog

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It is a cruel, harsh and unforgiving land. So have some respect. This Australia Day look up from your iPhone, turn off the tellie and take those earbuds out of your ears. You cannot afford to turn your back on this country for a minute.

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I love a psycho country

A land of badass plains

Of whacko mountain ranges

Sick droughts and random rains

I love her weird horizons

I love her aggro sea

Her tarty mad bitch manner

The looney land for me!

Pscho Oz published in The Canberra Times 26/1/2011. Read Full article here.

For a small dog

Image

The Agonising Search for a Swim Suit

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Kerry Cue

Illus by Bronya, The Advertiser

This article has been doing the rounds as an anonymous chain e-mail for some years. Now that it is an amazing 20 years old, I thought it was time to claim it. Tragically, it is as relevant today as when I wrote it.

I have just been through the annual pilgrimage of torture and humiliation known as buying a bathing costume. When I was a child in the fifties, the bathing costume for the woman with a mature figure was designed for a woman with a mature figure. Boned, trussed and reinforced these costumes were not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift and they did a damned good job.

Today’s stretch-fabric bathing suits are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure chipped out of marble. The woman with a mature figure has little to no choice. She can either front up at the maternity-wear department and try on floral costume with a skirt and come away looking like a hippopotamus that has recently escaped from Fantasia or she can wander around any run of the mill bathing suit department and try and make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of fluoro rubber bands.

This article appeared in the Herald Sun 11 Nov 1993, The Advertiser (SA) 18 Nov 1993, The Newcastle Herald Dec 1993. Read The Agonising Search for a Swim Suit.

Cult of me-first fails to meet children’s needs

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Kerry Cue

Classroom
Downey’s Warren HS California

Two factors promote me-me attitudes in schools today: brand marketing and corporate culture.

Schools have whole-heartedly embraced the brand-marketing ethos. They have websites and glossy brochures picturing happy, rosy-cheeked children. They all have an enriching environment that nurtures personal excellence. Most claim to ‘‘provide for the individual student’’ or ‘‘address individual needs’’. This marketing spiel doesn’t simply mould parents’ expectations; it is changing the very nature of schools.
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You can read more of this Edited Extract from MeLand: 10 Ways Self-Obsession Makes You Stupid, by Kerry Cue, Connor Court, $24.95, 2013 here:

The Age, 28 Jul 2013 Education

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OR here …………………………………..

The Sydney Morning Herald, Comment

…OR here……………….

The Canberra Times, Comment

On Bright Kids

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Kerry Cue

Edited Extract: MeLand: 10 Ways Self-Obsession Makes You Stupid, by Kerry Cue, Connor Court, $24.95, 2013

In Schools

The following sentence comes from my daughter’s Grade 5 school
report noting her progress in a subject called technology: ‘This
semester Georgina has successfully role-played a light globe.’

I burst out laughing. How do you role-play a light globe? I imagine
Georgina crouched on the classroom floor until someone yelled out ‘Turn Georgina on’ and she leapt to her feet throwing her hands in the air. The truth is the report was a sham. Teachers did not have time to personalise reports so they wrote three computer-tagged versions equivalent to A, B or C grades in each subject. Every A-grade student like Georgina had successfully role-played a light globe. Of course, these were the A grade students, they’re all very bright.

100W, probably.