All posts by Princess Sparkle

Just write! – Carla Martins

Thursday, January 15th, 2015Gunnas-MastersPrincess Sparkle

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

I don’t know what to write. I do know that I must write. So many stories inside of me to be told, thought about, bubbling away forever, but in the end I am afraid that there is only one. The story I have avoided telling, the story I have never told. I think of it often, much more than I want to. There are reminders everywhere. In relationships, a fleeting memory, at the edge of a dream. Sometimes more tangible. Like in an unopened email attachment that has sat there for over a year. Or those papers in a box hidden away in the cupboard.

Why does this story remain untold? All of the usual suspects, I suspect – the fear of who else will read it, what will they think, of it and of me. The fear of getting inside my own head and becoming trapped in there. The fear of moving backwards when I have spent so much time moving forwards. Fear, fear, fear. The fear I feel everyday, even though I don’t really look at it. Hidden by the other fears that stops me from thinking about this Fear.

I’m good at not looking. I distract myself. I obsess about the germs on the seat of my pants, picked up out there somewhere. Visualise them transferring from my pants to my couch- my safe space. I track those germs, where will they go next? Who sat there? Where have they taken them? At what point can I stop worrying, tracking them? Are they alive? How long do they survive? What germs where they anyway?

More distractions. I avoid bridges when driving. If you drive over them, I will hang on and keep up a dazzling internal monologue to soothe myself. I can turn a 10 minute car ride into an epic journey, bypassing all bridges. So many bridges. Over freeways, trainlines, other roads, oceans. So many to avoid. It consumes me, tracking them, predicting them, avoiding them.

Where did this all come from? It’s the spillage from the stuff not easily hidden inside my head. The stuff I try not to see, but still know to fear. The fear that feels like quicksand. Struggle, don’t, fight, don’t, rest, stop, go. Haven’t I conquered? I feel like I have, that I’ve indeed won so much. But still it’s there. I feel it spreading.

So let me write it, this story, the real story. Let me tell you about it. Because, I don’t. I tell you the other stories, the ones I know will seduce, captivate, enrapture. I tell you about it and you urge me to hurry, that you can’t wait to read them. But would you be fascinated with the real story? The one I really want to write, the one that might just come out if I stop this procrastinating, if I just sit down and write. Would you be fascinated with me?

I may never write the book you want. I fear I can’t because it’s not the right book. It’s not the book that drives me. It’s not the real story inside of me, the one I keep hiding under other stories. But don’t despair. It may only be a bridge away.

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How Can I Help? – Liz Mutineer

Thursday, January 15th, 2015Gunnas-MastersPrincess Sparkle

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

The Universe feels very interconnected sometimes. In the past few days grief has dominated my thoughts. In particular my thoughts have been occupied by how to comfort someone when they are in pain. And today I met three women who seem to be hurting, deeply.

At work the other day I saw Paul and knew something was wrong. He was different, vacant looking. He’s working this year to save up money to explore America with his best friend, his lifelong buddy. They leave in a month. I ran into David who told me. Then I ran to Paul. His friend was hit by a car the previous day. He didn’t make it. Hearing Paul say the words, looking into his eyes that were dimmer than I’ve ever seen them I would have done anything to be able to place my hand on his chest and heal what I envisaged as a black void. A deep, empty, soulless space. A black hole of barely comprehended sadness, the shock and disbelief still mingled amongst it that had sucked all the light from his eyes.

Because I love to read, my first thought was of all the books, words, authors, songs, that have helped me. Nothing seemed appropriate. Some things don’t heal. Sometimes you have to wake up every day for years with the stomach sickening emptiness that makes you feel like living moment to moment isn’t truly feasible. This type of grief takes its toll.

I’m going to see Paul this week and I still haven’t decided on the right words. One of the ladies referenced above mentioned memorising poetry as a remedy for grief. She spoke of Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day?” That’s one I’ve actually memorized. It’s sweet and loving and certainly readable as a eulogy, a tribute. I don’t think Paul is there yet. His friend got hit by a car. He died and nothing can make that okay. “Veronica Decides to Die” once saved my life. Maybe that will work?

Later in the day, with Paul’s sadness bruising my heart, I sat at the train station waiting for an Upfield line that I fervently hoped would materialise. The possibility that it would simply never arrive is very real. My view of the platform opposite was obscured by the crush of people trying to get home. The woman next to me was having a conversation so loud I could hear it over my audiobook. She stood up suddenly, shouting, and I glared unsubtly at what I assume to be the beginnings of a scene. It is when I hear other people’s screams join with hers in a growing cacophony of panic and distress that I ripped the headphones from my ears and, being very nosy by nature, push myself to the platform’s edge. For a split second I am in limbo, I don’t understand, and then I do. There is a girl standing on the tracks, a fact made horrifying by the oncoming train. People keep screaming and I hear myself from a distance yelling “NO” as I run for the escalator. The atmosphere changes and a cheer rings out as a young Indian man with a baby face jumps onto the tracks and hauls this slip of a girl back on to Platform 6. The horn on the train is still blaring, joined by the girls screams as she fights with her words and her fists and her anger to escape the unwanted hands of her saviour and get back in front of a train.

I run up the escalator with my hands over my ears like a child trying to block out everything that’s scary about the world, but with an adult compulsion to do something, anything, to help. I know the station is covered with met cops but I can’t identify a single one. I run to the first person with a metro uniform and tell him to call the police because there’s a girl on the tracks, well… she’s off the tracks, but I don’t know for how long. He takes an interminable minute to process what I’m saying. I can see him assessing me, unsure whether to listen, whether I’m telling the truth. “The police” he nods and turns from me. Terrified of what I might find I head to Platform 6. The girl, her name is Cindy, continues to fight the now three men desperately trying to anchor her.

Cindy’s arms are a mess. She’s cut them to pieces. Not too deeply I notice, but the cuts are not superficial either. She’s on the floor, bent forward, and I kneel down, and she’s fighting, and I look her in the eye and I promise her it will get better. She quietens for just a moment and looks at me. So I just keep lying. I coo to her like she’s a fraught and colicky baby. I tell her life will improve, pain can be lessened. Her grief, for that’s what it is, is red hot and desperate and I wish I had a hand of cooling balm I could plunge straight into her chest to soothe the red hot, burning, overpowering grief.

I tell her I’ve been where she is and try desperately to think of what someone could have said to me. She’s so young, maybe sixteen. And I don’t believe she truly wants to die and I know she’s hurting too badly to live. She has a roaring heart, only the lion in her chest is wounded. The police come, officialdom in blue. Cindy is handcuffed and the Indian man with the little boy’s face is sitting there, holding her hand and stroking her hair. He is pure love and in that moment I love him back.

As I walk away, hot and tearful, I can’t hold on to that kind and beautiful man. All I can think I that I’m a liar. Things get better, and then they get worse. I promised her it was worth living. I promised her and she heard me and I hope to God she believes me. Because on my worst days I don’t know that I do.

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The Confession – Emma

Thursday, January 15th, 2015Gunnas-MastersPrincess Sparkle

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Uncle Mal was drunk when he told me. It was Christmas night and we were sitting in the courtyard of the house mum and I rented in Fitzroy. Only Mal and I were out there as mum took a nap on the couch in the lounge room. Over the previous few hours the two of them had drunken everything in the house, including a half-bottle of butterscotch schnapps that had been open in the cupboard for as long as I can remember.

They seriously would never grow up. I was the eighteen year-old, and I was the only sober person in the house.

Anyway. I now divide my life into two parts. The phase of my life until that point where everything was a lie, and now, after he ‘spilt the beans’.

Everything in the yard had gone quiet. Mum had fallen asleep on the couch about 15 minutes ago, and the iphone playlist of crappy Christmas songs had just finished. He walked over to the dock and looked through his phone for something. He looked in at mum on the couch, as if to check she was still asleep, and then, a few seconds later, I heard the familiar voice of Noah Fitzgerald wafting through the speakers.

“I’ve never heard this song before” I stated, surprised as I had most of his catalogue in my iTunes.

“This is the band Noah Fitzgerald was in before he got famous”. I nodded slowly, of course I’d read about his history. Being the daughter of a music journalist, it was hard not to know even a little bit about most musicians. But I’d never tried to track down his old albums.

“It’s good”

“You know your mum was friends with him back in the day” he stated.

I shook my head before I’d even processed his comment. Not only would mum have told me if she knew Noah Fitzgerald (she bragged about all the rock stars she had met over the years), but she didn’t make friends with musicians. She said she needed to remain independent.

“She was”, he continued, no doubt reading my mind.

“Mum doesn’t make friends with musicians”. I challenged.

“Now.” He paused for minute “She doesn’t make friends with musicians now. That’s because of Noah Fitzgerald.”

“What?”

“She was in love with him”, he stated as if it was the most normal thing in the world to tell someone that their mother once loved a famous person, “And I’m pretty sure he loved her too. In his own way. Fame is a funny thing”.

The courtyard had become a very uncomfortable place to be. I could see mum inside on the couch, oblivious of the conversation. I stared at her, trying to read her mind to understand if what I was hearing was true or not.

“Why are you telling me this? If it’s true, why has no one told me this before?”

“You’re eighteen, Sarah. You deserve to know who your father is”.

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THE CIRCLE OF LIFE – Helen Hill

Thursday, January 15th, 2015Gunnas-MastersPrincess Sparkle

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

In the fruit section of the supermarket half watermelons sat, richly pink inside, coolly green outer skin. These colours occur on a colour wheel in positions that appeal to us. We find them pleasant. Nature uses all her tricks to enable her partners to continue the continuation of her bounty. Flowers are in colours bees see well, some seeds are sticky or have prickles and hitch a ride on a host, birds eat berries and seeds that go through the digestive canal, then get deposited and grow elsewhere.

So the watermelon gets bought and the cycle of life continues. Except not for this watermelon. This one proudly and assertively proclaims, SEEDLESS. How convenient. Seeds can be such a nuisance, they create a problem, do you bite into the fruit, then swallow them or spit them out? Or do you poke them all out, an almost impossible task and if there’s just one left, that’s the one you crunch on, bringing a shudder of displeasure. So sensibly, that potential for upset has been removed.

My mind goes to a community that would be horrified at this practice. I was a member for six weeks as a teacher on the island of Bougainville, an Autonomous Region of Papua New Guinea. I had come here as the result of a sad event, the death by suicide of my son. I called him Stuart and his family name was Hill. He reinvented himself as Pip Starr and after being a nurse and a student at the Victorian College of the Arts in the Drama Course, he decided what he wanted to do with his life was to be an activist documentary film maker. He was a happy baby and child, during his teenage years he was a loner to a degree, then depression and anxiety became his companions in his twenties. This didn’t stop him, but may have influenced his choice to work in this area, mostly alone, as writer, cameraman and editor.

After making films including stopping uranium mining on aboriginal land in Kakadu National Park, the breakout of asylum seekers from the Woomera Detention Centre, Reclaim the Streets for bicycle riders and looking at the conditions that amount to slavery for people growing coffee for our consumption, it made sense that he would turn his attention to global warming and climate change. His research led him to information about a population of about two thousand on a group of atolls called the Carteret Islands. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them, despite their land being so seriously degraded with the incursion of sea water that they couldn’t grow any vegetables or bananas, staple food for them, and were existing on fish they caught and rice and a few vegetables that were intermittently supplied by the Bougainville Government.

The Council Of Elders were working with Ursula Rakova, an island woman who had been educated in PNG and New Zealand and whose passion was to use her skills to resettle those being displaced. Stuart went there, filmed what was happening and showed the footage to organisations who could bring their resources to publicising and helping the situation. This included a speaking tour of Australian cities and it was in Melbourne on a chilly June night that I met Ursula and others at Fitzroy Town Hall. They spoke simply and movingly about the reality of their situation. The audience responded, offering assistance. I felt the need to do this too. After the meeting Stuart introduced me to Ursula and, knowing that I had been a volunteer teacher overseas, suggested that I do that at a school Ursula had recently established on Bougainville.

Nothing was decided that night but I remembered this conversation later. The struggle my beautiful boy was having trying to live up to the commitment he thought he needed to live by proved too much and he took action to resolve the pain he was in. I knew that I wanted to continue his work in some way. I couldn’t do what he did, but I could contribute by using my teaching skills. I contacted Ursula and it was arranged that I would go to Aita in central Bougainville. Getting there was an adventure, the airline lists many flights a week but the majority never eventuate, so it’s a challenge to find one that is actually operating. With the air journey accomplished, next there was a road trip in a four wheel drive fording about twenty rivers. Mostly there were the remains of bridges that had been there but were ruined during the fighting that became a virtual civil war.

The school had four classes ranging from preparatory, two grade ones and a grade two. The teachers were not from the area so they did not speak the same language as the children, they used either pidgin or english. I was restricted to english only. There was no electricity, I was being housed with a local pastor, Jonah and his wife Jane. There was a small shop in a hut which sold Coco Cola, warm and at an exorbitant price, as well as two-minute noodles and tinned fish and meat. The fighting in the country seems to have interrupted many systems including the growing and producing of food. The teachers were each allocated a plot of land and they were expected to grow their own food. This they did but most day’s lessons finished with an appeal to their classes to bring them food.

So it was that one day a child brought in a watermelon. With a hot climate and no refrigeration, it needed to be eaten quickly, so that night it was cut up and distributed to the teachers, Pastor Jonah, Jane and myself. However we were all given strict instructions not to throw away the seeds. These were the fulfilment of the promise that every seed has in it, the potential of new life. Where does the next generation come from if the circle of life is broken? How do seedless watermelons renew themselves and would the teachers at Aita think that this doing away with the annoyance of seeds was progress? I doubt it.

hh.starrhill@gmail.com

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IN THE END IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU ARE DIFFERENT – Wendy Ronayne

Wednesday, January 14th, 2015Gunnas-MastersPrincess Sparkle

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Once upon a time in a particularly unattractive valley menaced by the Carpathian Mountains there was a village. The climate was hostile, with freezing cold, snowy winters, springs with sleeting rain and humid harsh summers. As there were few trees autumn was redundant.

The people had learned to live frugally. They were insular, keeping to themselves and shunning intimacy even towards each other. The result of this was a small population that barely reproduced sufficiently to sustain their numbers. What the people valued most was the condition of normalcy. Difference was not tolerated.

Every day when the sun finally struggled over the mountains and collapsed weakly into the valley the people stirred. Eventually the ubiquitous odours of sour kale and cabbage soup emerged through the damp air.

One day a baby’s cry was heard. It had been a very long time since this sound had been heard but being the villagers they were there was no rejoicing nor expressions of interest. Soon after, however, a very unusual thing happened. Another small cry joined the first. The villagers then knew that something very different had occurred and it gave them no comfort.

The uneasiness in the village about the Czadlzti family only grew as their twins grew. The boys progressed from infancy to boyhood to adults but they defied the comfortable norms of development for one was a giant and the other a dwarf.

Because of this the Czadlzti family was forever ostracised and their lives became even more desperate. There was little love in the Czadlzti house for Great Jok and Tiny Jek.

And because of that the twins became inseparable. Little by little they explored their valley, which didn’t take a lot of time because there really wasn’t much to discover apart from rocky scree slopes and spindly grasses. Eventually they climbed out of the valley and over the Carpathian Mountains never to return.

Unfortunately Tiny Jek died in the arse of another unattractive village in an equatorial nation from a terribly contagious disease. Not surprisingly, Great Jok soon followed his brother to the grave. No one mourned them.

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Last Resort – Mireille Bucher

Wednesday, January 14th, 2015Gunnas-MastersPrincess Sparkle

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

They don’t understand.

Everything we go to them with is greeted with same look. The same look of feeling sorry for us, a slight tilt of the head, a smile, a pause, and then,

‘How does that make you feel?’

I am feeling so lonely right now. He promised me that I would never be alone again. He said I would have a sense of purpose, a feeling of calm, and true final peace. There is nothing familiar about my surroundings, and I know absolutely no one. Every time I look at someone to say hello, smile, any type of acknowledgement they just look away. I know they see me, because they talk about me and point.

What are they hiding? They all look so lost.

He said I would be safe. He lied. I am anything but safe.

I decided to go after Dane.

I remember when I first saw him. Was is it his posture? Maybe is was the way that he had his legs crossed, with one arm resting over the chair while he was reading the paper. There was something in the way that he looked at me.

He just had this presence.

A long black, yes, that was it, with an extra cup of hot water on the side. That’s not a long black I said. He looked at me, tilted his head, smiled and said

‘I don’t want it too strong, so if I have the extra hot water I can adjust it to the the way I like it, and not the way you think I should like it’

Fair enough I thought and honestly, he could have said anything to me in that moment because I was never the same again.

That morning I had been running late because of another night of lack of sleep courtesy of fellow borders in the house. That night it was Anna that kept me awake with her incessant worrying that someone was going to get her.

You could hear her get out of bed, put her shoes on, check that the windows were locked. Not just check the lock, but slide the window open, slide it back down, and lock it again. Then she would shuffle to the door, unlock it (three locks mind you) then open the door, check outside that no one was there, then lock door again. Off she would shuffle back to bed, and I imaging that she is checking that her phone is plugged in and charging with the police number ready on speed dial. Then click. The light is off.

I would just start to drift off and then I hear Anna start the entire process again. I have no idea how many times she does this during the night, but how the hell she functions during the day I have no bloody idea!

Her exhaustion must have won because I eventually fell asleep, and the only reason I woke up was because of her alarm.

My only motivation for getting my legs to work that morning and not just staying in bed was the chance that I would see Dane again. Serving him his long black, extra cup of hot water, and eventually, not that I knew it then was that I was also serving up my soul.

How did I get to this point with these people? There was no other alternative for me. He knew. He just knew that I needed help that morning, but how he was going to help me I could never have imagined.

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On being a lazy cycling researcher – Georgia Scott

Wednesday, January 14th, 2015Gunnas-MastersPrincess Sparkle

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

When I tell people I’m doing my PhD on cycling, it is a fair assumption for them to make that I am a mad-keen cyclist who is super hardcore about it, and rides everywhere on either a flashy road bike or a super cool vintage bike or a bespoke something or other. That I hate cars and want everyone to cycle and think everyone who doesn’t sucks and is lazy and hates the environment. Then they ask me what kind of bike I have and I’m like… uh…. I have a black one?

Most PhD students, I gather, have a creeping, unhelpful, feeling of fraudulence. That they aren’t proper academics. They don’t know that much about their topic. They have no idea what they’re doing. Well, I have all that (all-the-frickin-day I have that), but I also have this extra feeling of being a total fraud because, well, I’m a really crappy advocate for cycling. And its my research topic.

I am lazy. I don’t like physical exercise that much. Except for yoga, and even then I haven’t made it to a class for weeks. I don’t like the wind. I don’t like the rain. I’m also scared of pretty much everything. I’m scared of being attacked, I’m scared of making eye contact with a crazy person who will start talking to me and then I’ll have to be nice to them and try figure out how to run away. I’m scared of being yelled at by people in cars. I’m scared of drunk people. I’m scared of being hit by a car, as well as being almost hit by a car. I have no idea how to even start with trams. And my fear, combined with laziness and strong aversion to increasing my heart-rate even slightly, means it takes quite a bit to get me on my bike. Did I mention cycling is my research topic?

I moved to Melbourne a couple of months ago. It took a while to find a house, then move in, then get a bike, then go on holiday… then come back, and finally convince myself to ride into the city, where I work from the most glorious giant office (ok it’s called the State Library and I share my office with about a hundred other people who are also looking at eBay for junk they don’t need but would rather browse than reading journal articles).

I had to work up to it over a couple of days, make sure the weather was right, that I was “feeling up to it” or some other bullshit. Eventually, I procrastinated too long and snapped and just quickly packed my bag before I could think too much and smashed out the door with my bike into the midday sun, zooming down Malvern Road so I was quickly too far away to turn around.

When I’m focusing on all my dumb fears, I forget how wonderful it feels to ride a bike. But after all of ten seconds cycling I remember why I want everyone to have the opportunity to travel like this. It’s total independence and freedom. Once you have the bike (and any other little bits you want, like a helmet and lock and lights) it costs nothing to run. You can usually get exactly door to door. No time wasted walking from tram stops or finding a park, and over distances of less than 10km it’s often the fastest option anyway. Given a safe environment to ride in, bikes are often a much more accessible transport option for people with disabilities, older people and children, than cars or public transport.

And riding a bike is fun. You whizz past cars stuck behind someone waiting to turn; you fly down hills, you feel the wind rushing past you, smell lemon scented gums, freshly cut grass, interact in a ridiculously friendly way with pedestrians you pass (bikes makes people happy!). Once on the bike path that follows the Yarra, I could just daydream, notice birds, take a photo of a truck loaded with poor, over hot sheep and think about the politics of live export for a while, stop for a drink, enjoy listening to music, plan my research for the day, and feel pleased with myself that I was using my legs to get where I needed to go. Because I’m pretty unfit, and it was hot in the middle of the day, I arrived at the library drenched in sweat and exhausted but happy. I was able to think much more clearly and focus on my work.

And yet, despite knowing how joyful and awesome it can be to ride a bike, and how it feels to make it to the top of a hill with thighs burning and then experience the relief of coasting breezily down the other side, I still struggle to make myself get on a bike. Being so close to a beautiful river-side bike path certainly helps, but it’s the crappy bit with the hurtling BMWs and my low level of fitness that I have to work to convince myself to overcome. So, perhaps I am a lazy advocate for cycling, but at least I understand many of the fears and excuses people (especially women) use to avoid getting on a bike.

In my research I’m looking at the emotional and physical experiences people have when riding their bikes in different urban settings. I want to be able to take this data and use it to make cities that people can’t wait to ride in, where they wouldn’t even consider taking any other form of transport. I want this because I think that bicycles offer people an economically modest, environmentally responsible and socially accessible mode of transport, and that cities with high levels of bicycle tend to be very cool places to live.

When I remember this it’s a bit easier to get back on my bike to ride up another hill or brace myself against the whoosh of a car passing me. And once I get back on my bike, it’s easy to remember how much fun it is.

Georgia Scott

If you’d like to know more about my research or even volunteer to make experiential cycling maps with me in Melbourne or Perth (it’s fun, I promise!) you can get in touch through my website georgiascott.com.au or Twitter @the_wildwood.

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Submission – Mary Camo

Wednesday, January 14th, 2015Gunnas-MastersPrincess Sparkle

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

“Last Bet”

Money on
a double,
“Win Only”
He lost.

“Pen line”

It went
through
the words
of another’s
bio essay.
Irrelevant,
in the way,
steadfast
on task
their pen
ready for
the next
activity.

“Happy New Year”

Cheer, delight
..”this is the
year for thee”
Overhearing
them
I walk pass
under a fading
Christmas tree.
But today
I feel better
clearer
“Happy new
year ”
I whisper
to me.

“Push”

Ms Deveny,
like the
ABC midwives
pretty bikes,
Telling us
Gunna’s
get
that writing
out of you,
pronto!

In a rush
she breezes
past me,
smiling
wise
eyes,
twinkling
at my
sweaty
scrawls.

“Ovine”

Red egg
she gave
to the soldier
no pen, nor papyrus
for her tale.
Her egg
was
fresh,
ready
for the
enemy
He remembered
the ex
prostitutes
story,
2000
years
this soldier
gave back
an egg
“Happy Easter”
and left
quietly.

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Campbell Newman gets cops to heavy Deveny over Twitter comments

Friday, January 9th, 2015COLUMNSPrincess Sparkle

Yesterday the cops came over. I wasn’t here. They left their card with my teenage son who was home from school. I assume watching porn and mastubating into socks. The cops told Dom to get me to give them a call. They were from the criminal investigation unit.

It was one of those flat knacker days where I had left the house at 8am and was only flying through to put on some fried rice for everyone before jumping back on my bike for a speaking gig in the city.

Cops? WTF? I had no idea. I was concerned. I have had a full on week and was there something I didn’t know?

So I spoke to the cops this morning. They were being directed by the top brass of the Queensland Police to give me a ‘talking to’ about this twitter conversation about Campbell Newman.

The police and I pissed ourselves laughing. Particularly considering the hate mail, death and sexually violent threats I and many I expect, high profile women cop on a regular basis and I particularly this week after my appearance on ABC’s QandA with Peter Jensen.

Did the cops go over to Robbie Farah’s place for his suggestion PM Gillard should get a noose for her birthday, or Alan Jones’ joint for suggesting ‘there is not a chaff bag big enough for Gillard’ or Graeme Morris’ house when he suggested Gillard should be kicked to death?

Women live in fear of men killing them. Men live in fear of women laughing at them.

I never had any intention of procecuting any of the haters, trolls, maggots or creeps. I am not at all scared or intimidated by weak, insecure misogynists who call me an ugly, extremist, stupid, unintelligent, idiotic, thoughtless, self-righteous, self-centred, self-absorbed, nasty, confused, frustrated, bitter, twisted, humourless, un-funny, unreasonable, unrespectable, disrespectful, sarcastic, mocking, catty, hateful, boorish, blustering, bullying bitch.

Clearly they feel very threatened. And so they fucking should. We’re winning.

A note on QandA.

In the green room Chris, Concetta and Jensen all had personal assistants/advisers. Anna and I were there on our own as usual, advising, preparing and looking after ourselves. At one point I watched Jensen’s adviser straighten his tie and wondered how much Jensen had been groomed and prepared for the appearance. He was not wearing his religious garb, clearly a strategic point and requested to be seated next to me. How much more was he coached in?

It did shock me how the creepy ‘gentlemen with manners’ routine managed to distract people from his hateful poisonous rhetoric and speaking in circles, ‘We need to have a conversation about that’. This IS the conversation. Is that code for ‘I need to make you agree with me’? How people were not aware of the sinister, softly spoken clear messenger of hate, inequality and intolerance.

For what it’s worth I have sat next to John Elliot, Corey Bernadi, Peter Dutton, Gerard Henderson, Tony Abbott and of course spent time with Peter Reith, Angry Anderson and Mike Smith and I have never been so physically repelled by anyone as I have by Jensen. He is pure evil.

I think people are unused to seeing someone like me, who does not work for a particular media outlet, political party or religious group and has to couch what they say to push the company line. I speak for no one but myself. And I am not here, there or anywhere to convince people or win arguments. I don’t give a fuck what you think. Even if you agree with me, I simply stand up for what I believe in.

I was called a ‘noisy atheist’ on Q and A. What I find hilarious is that I have spent about 80 hours on stage talking about atheism. Yet people like Peter Jensen spend hundreds of thousands of hours talking about religion, from a pulpit and I’m the one being called preachy. No one has ever accused Peter Jensen of being ‘preachy’.

They can no longer burn me at the stake, put me in jail or throw me in an asylum so all they can do now is accuse me violating some social norm. Offence is a mode of social control. And just because you are offended does not mean you are right. More damage is done by taking offence than giving it. Offence is taken. NOT given.

We’re winning. Thank you all for your support. I hope you don’t die and I hope you get laid.

Check this out! First ‘a spokesman for Mr Newman said the Premier nor anyone from his office had made the complaint after originally saying he would offer no comment because it was a police matter.’ They are now saying it was an anonymous tip off from Crimestoppers. Are you serious?

Not only is Campbell Newman a sooky la la, now his pants are on fire.

And by the way, there’s no point suggesting how better I can get my point across. My point is I will do it however the fuck I want. Go sit at the kids table and watch Packed To The Rafters.

January 1st 2015 – Amy Poynton

Thursday, January 1st, 2015Gunnas-MastersPrincess Sparkle

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

January 1^st 2015 (Resolution – Writing every day – CD…thinking and channelling you!)

I am notoriously a ‘bah-humbug’ where the New Year holiday is concerned. The term ‘holiday’ is used lightly here – because, I have always wondered ‘what makes this a holiday?”. Essentially, a manmade time tracker, known as our calendar, deems a new year every 365. When we are lucky, that becomes 366 days. Either way, it marks the need to order new stationary, remember a new digit and essentially just get on with life.

As a girl, New Year’s Eve had a forbidding lustre of strange and interesting things that happened while I slept. Typically, I was in bed by eight, and likely asleep by nine, therefore anything that happened ‘at midnight’ carried a mystery of intrigue to my little mind. When I pounded my parents with questions, all I got was ‘Oh, we count down until 12 midnight then shout ‘Happy New Year’ and kiss each other’. Yeah, right! Everyone gets all gussied up, they pay for a babysitter (which happened maybe three times a year in our household), just so everyone can countdown a clock? There was no convincing me which meant that the rest of my childhood was spent in search of what really went on at New Years.

During my teenage years, the search ended with truly shattered illusions of the holiday. Not only were the folks right about it being just a countdown; I also learned it was all about drinking and slinking up close to a boy so you can at least get kissed at midnight. This moved into many years of not really wanting to go out unless I had a date – because, who wants to be standing in a crowded party at midnight watching everyone snog while you sip your warm poorly mixed concoction (Yes, that is speaking from experience). One year, I ventured down to the beach, which in California translates to ‘warzone’ on a night like New Years. It was wild and meant to be fun, but to be honest I really just wanted to get home. Then, at midnight, my mom came to collect us. When she finally got there, she was none too happy that a typical 20 minute trip took over an hour because of all the cruising and partying going on throughout the beach strip. Her frustration was completely understandable, but years later I still wonder what made her think it was OK to have a 13 year old hanging at the beach until 1am in all of that? Different time, I know, I know.

Anyway, that said, my very best teenage New Year’s Eve was at a Cheap Trick concert. I went with a bunch of girlfriends and did not have any of that ‘kiss the boy’ pressure at midnight. It was a great show, with lots of encores which always makes me feel that sense of getting my money’s worth. Also, after seeing Cheap Trick perform so many times at the Whiskey-a-go-go (again, another story), I did feel a sort of ownership or ‘inside track’ to see them performing at such a big arena for New Years. All in all – the best concert/party ever.

College years meant typically being home for the holidays – so mostly I stayed in for dinner with the folks, watching TV to see the Time Square ball drop – then off to bed. However, there was one memorable night at a dinner party my friend’s parents hosted. It was at their apartment, which I thought was so sheik – to live in an apartment! With an ocean view! They invited a few sets of adults (couples, again!) with just two younger folk – my best friend and me. What I thought would be a boring evening ended up being so fun. The party started at nine, so we only sat down for dinner at about 10:30pm. There were so many great stories, jokes and just fun conversation. We were allowed a sip of Champagne to toast in the New Year (to this day, one of my greatest joys is that first sip of heaven). At midnight, we stood on the balcony and watched the fireworks off the pier. There were cuddles and kisses all around. It was an absolute treat.

The rest of my New Year’s celebrations essentially are unmemorable to poor. I remember my first New Years as a recent migrant to Australia. We were invited to my brother-in-laws house for dinner. No one wanted to walk down to the pier to see the fireworks, so we watched the Melbourne festivities on TV. At 12:05, my sister in law stood up and said “That was the boring-ist (not a word but the one she used) New Year’s Eve. I’m going to bed’. Welcome to Australia.

In 1999, I was working on a Year 2000 project for a major bank. As you may recall, we got ourselves pretty rattled about the catastrophes that could unfold if we did not spend millions of dollars on IT consultants to help us re-write code using computer languages I learned in freshman year at college. Anyway, that New Years was a real let down, because all the lights stayed on, computers worked, and life pretty much kept going on as usual.

Cut to 2014…we are enjoying summer holidays at the beach, when my youngest son mentions he has been invited to a NYE party …in Melbourne. Ok, I think that is cool. He wants to celebrate which means I have not totally ruined him on the concept of it being a non-holiday. I agree to drive back to town so he can attend the party. We do the 8pm drop off and then I am back home. By myself. On New Year’s Eve. This is a first! I decide to eat a bit of chocolate from the Christmas stocking stash in the fridge, I watch a favourite comedy DVD for the umpteenth time, then get treated to an hour of the ‘best of Graham Norton’ (LOVE that man). At midnight, I step out on my balcony and watch the city skyline light up with fireworks. A drunken party goer at a balcony above me is shouting out in a very sloshy voice, “Happy New Year!” over and over. Finally, she sadly mumbles, “No one is saying Happy New Year back to me!” Her friend consoles her by saying happy New Year and they go inside.

And me? I overwhelmed with the most wonderful feeling – just enjoying the moment with no expectations, no one to entertain and only the joy of watching a beautiful lightshow.

Maybe, not such a bad holiday after all.

Happy 2015!

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