I was eaten by a HUNGRY BEAST!

Guys,

It's been a long time between drinks I know. Very sorry. I've been kidnapped by a new TV show called Hungry Beast on the ABC - 9pm each Wednesday!

You can now find me here:

http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/users/mschafter

Make sure you watch the show and follow the website for stacks of new stories and adventures.

Spit handshake,
(sub)urban tomboy

i went to the JOHNNY YOUNG TALENT SCHOOL!

when i was about 7-years-old i got sent to the johnny young talent school. this doesn't mean i was on the tv show... although all the kids who went to the school had that little carrot dangled in front of their noses so the stage mums and dads kept forking out the cash for weekly singing and dancing lessons.

instead we got to sing at MOOMBA and do annual concerts at DALLAS BROOKS HALL which scarred me for life. i'll come back to this in a sec.

each class was divided into two parts. first was the singing. here the teacher hit notes on an electric keyboard and we got to sing them back at her. now don't get me wrong... i loved to sing. i still do. and i can still remember the words to nearly all the songs we learnt... like this one:



and even this
(unfortunately we didn't get to do guns'n'roses):



but i hated the dancing... which was the second part of the lesson. i just felt un-co. and for a kid who lived in dirt covered tracksuits and bubblegummers i hated having to wear a leotard. and i didn't like the other girls at the school who were bossy cos their mums had told them they were gonna be famous... even though my mum liked to tell me that i was gonna be famous... when really, if anyone was gonna be famous it'd be her:



johnny young was every sunday in richmond. and on weekends i liked to play with my cousins down blackburn creek exploring storm water drains and making rope swings. so i resented having to leave the creek early to get back in time for johnny young.

occasionally we were paid a visit by johnny himself... or some of the kids from the tv show. this was special and i liked it. johnny never touched any of us up in case you were wondering. well not that i know of anyways.



i went to johnny young for about 4-5 years. i'd had a gut full of it by grade 5 and decided to play basketball instead which didn't involve sequins.

ah yeah... the scarring. as i mentioned, each year we had a major concert where you could invite anyone who cared. sooo mums, dads and grandparents... and my auntie 'nin' liked to come too. for these occasions we'd learn a big group number and dress up in special coloured leotards with extra sequins and tassels. the singing was pre-recorded at a studio and we'd mime to ourselves while galavanting across the stage.



we were also encouraged to wear make up because our faces would be washed out by the lights... and this was my mum's favourite part... because it meant she got to spend ages colouring in my face with eyeliner, eye shadow, lip stick and blusher transforming me into a star. unfortunately, compared to the other kids... this (sub)urban tomboy ended up looking like a clown... or more accurately, like someone had punched me in the eyes. and the other girly girls used to tell me i had too much make up on which made me feel even more retarded.



i'm the freak standing up on the far right.

here you go... you can see better now:



i come from a loving, supportive, yet eccentric family, but i do believe this is child abuse.

snot blocks and old ladies with whiskery chins

i went to a funeral today. i cried. like you’re supposed to… allowed to... like you do. sometimes i forget what crying feels like but times like these remind me that i’m not a cyborg like the t-1000.

actually i take that back. i do cry a lot. but only when i laugh. when i laugh my eyes piss out water. so much so that the front of my t-shirt gets wet. it’s like i got wired back to front when they built me.

i didn’t really know the old lady who died. it was my nanna ina’s 92 year-old sister, jessie, who i’ve only met about 4 times. but i cried for my nan. i cried cos nan is one of 5 sisters and jessie was the first of them to go. nan is in her 80s and now lives in a nursing home. while she’s still all smiles she’s quickly fading and i’m missing her already.

the morning was beautiful. the funeral was very typical. there were prayers and stuff which didn’t mean anything… and they kept making everyone stand up for these bits which wasn’t fun for my nan and her sisters with their walking frames.

but the photo montage of nan and her sisters growing up… looking pretty and happy and lively and cheeky made me cry… sad and happy tears. happy for the silly times that mean so much… and sad that time is running out for this gang of 5 golden girls from the western suburbs. sad that occasions like these have become the only times they all get to see each other.

i sat behind nan... watching her shake from parkinsons. watching her share crumpled tissues with her sister nancy. watching her embroidered jacket that my auntie dressed her in for the occasion. watching her slowly turn to her sisters when a particular photo brought back a good memory.

i sat next to dad. he knew the words to some of the prayers off by heart which surprised me. must have been the sunday school he got sent to when he was little… which the rest of my uncles wagged (dad was the good kid). and a few of my uncles sat to dad’s right in their jeans and polar fleece tracksuit tops. and when nat king cole’s ‘unforgettable’ played their eyes welled up.



after the service we all went to jessie’s daughter’s house around the corner for morning tea… an elaborate spread of home made snot blocks (vanilla slices if you're uncouth) and curried egg sandwiches and bottomless cups of tea.

i found nan in the sun room with all the other old ladies. i told her about work (cos she likes to know what’s coming up on neighbours) and she squinted at me cos the sun was too bright.

it was here that i met my new friend, mrs charles.

sitting directly opposite nan, mrs charles had long whiskers and hardly any teeth. i said hello and she smiled brightly and said ‘who are you?’ spitting chunks of cake through the gaps in her teeth. i explained that i was ina’s granddaughter and she said she was mrs charles. she’d nearly finished her cake so i asked her if she’d like some more. she thrust her ear in my direction and told me she was deaf so i bent down closer and repeated my offer. she said ‘yes please… but not one of the gooey ones’ so i went to the kitchen and chose 4 cakes for her to choose from… brushing the cake off my face once i was out of the sun room.

she was happy with the cakes i brought back and insisted that i help her eat them… but i was already full and said they were to share with the other ladies. but i don’t think this got through as she ended up eating them all herself.

she asked again who i was and what i did, smiled widely, and said sorry for spitting cake on me again. then she pulled a tissue out of her sleeve to wipe my face. she had a good wipe and finally stopped when she realised my piercing wasn’t another crumb.

i said goodbye to nan and the ladies and left them with their cakes. i had to get back to work to get more neighbours goss for nan. unfortunately this didn’t impress mrs charles. she preferred home and away.

mons'n'roses

i've loved guns'n'roses ever since i was a little kid. i love the music. i love the band. and i love the man... AXL ROSE. so... he might be an egotistical wanker but my love for him is unconditional. the aiyeeyaiyeeeyaiii voice... the bandanna and bike shorts... the distinctive swaying moves... for me, he's the ultimate rock star.

my love for this band peaked in 1991 when the gunners' track YOU COULD BE MINE featured in TERMINATOR 2 JUDGMENT DAY.



those of you familiar with my blog will already know how important this film and arnold schwarzenegger were to me back then. i wanted to be a motorbike riding cyborg like arnie and i wanted to save the future. and the fact that the gunners' music video featured footage from the movie almost made me wet myself every time it came on rage. even though i don't believe in heaven... i reckon it'd have to be as cool as this:



which is why, as an 11-year-old tomboy, i was inspired to recreate the magic that is YOU COULD BE MINE by G'N'R'S at somers caravan park over the christmas holidays:



since then, my love for axl has not subsided. i even entered a drag king competition a few years ago and performed a cave man act to WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE... cutting up my great grandma's fur coat in the process to make a loin cloth.

i didn't win. it was more like weirdo tarzan performance art than a drag act and alienated the lesbians who wanted to see dildo-wearing, moustached dykes miming to emo tunes. but i belted my chest and ate bananas on stage.

and then, last year, axl toured under the name GUNS'N'ROSES even though it was him and a bunch of session musos playing old gunners tracks (cos none of the original band members like him these days). but i fuckin loved it.

my mate sparrow and i dressed up as flannel x acid wash clad cock-rockin bogans and got a spot right up the front... with all the other flannel x acid wash clad cock-rockin bogans who didn't seem to have the same sense of irony as us... but i'm from wantirna so can't really talk.

and we got crushed and had beer tipped on us and it was like being in heaven... if only arnie was there... but these days he's busy saving the future of california or something...

G.A.N.G.

ever been in a gang? when i was little i was always in a gang. my friendship groups became gangs... and the name of the gang was generally a weirdo word made up of the first letters of our names... like J.J.A.M. now that's the shit.

and our gangs always had a base. in primary school our base was the SNOT SHIP... a wooden construction in the playground that we baggsed as our own and the other kids knew not to sit there or there'd be trouble.

my cousins and i were also a gang. a gang of little shits who used to steal kids balls and play 'keepings off' just for the fun of it. yup. we ruled the blacky south primary school oval on weekends... riding mini motorbikes full speed across the footy field and crashing into the metal fence cos we'd lose control showing off to the other kids... and then uncle terry would give us a hiding for being dickheads. suburban justice.

i'm now heading towards my late twenties and find myself about as happy as i was when i was 8 years old. which was a bloody sweet time. at my current age, i feel very similar to who i was when i was a little kid. i play, i take risks and i have a confidence in my gut that only kids have because they just do what feels right regardless of what anyone else thinks. i am once again a little shit. if only i knew i had it right back then.

my teens were spent wondering why it wasn't cool to play 40 / 40 at lunch time and trying to get used to the social ritual of kissing someone you didn't care too much about when you greeted them. and my early 20s were spent trying to be impressive. yawn.

but now... nearly 20 (post-little-shit) years later i have a GANG again and it's cowabunga cool. we're mainly a bunch of tomboys who like to ride bikes on the weekend, crash on each other's couches, dress up for parties like TUFF MUFF, punch each other (tough love) and just hang out. we've got each other's backs and there's a code of respect that just happened by itself. we talk about girls and try to figure them out... and when it all gets too much we kick the footy or go shopping for flannies. ok we're not THAT brain dead. tix moisturises and skillz knows how to screen print and sew. impressive on both fronts. and wheels knows more about history than my nanna. and i can.... ummmm... do stuff too.

the other saturday we went shopping for military gear for the tuff muff 'women in uniform' party. we met at aussie disposals around lunchtime and spent about an hour trying on camo gear and parading around the store like a bunch of excited lezzers.... for us, this was the equivalent of shopping for the school formal dress.

after purchasing our gear we walked back to my car to inspect my back tyre which i had a feeling might have been flat... well it looked pretty flat when tix and i got out of the car before going shopping. sure enough it was flat. THIS WAS A CHALLENGE FOR GANG.

skillz took the lead having a changed a few tyres in her time... whipping off my hubcaps (that sounds dirty but isn't) and getting the bald spare tyre out of my boot. wheels got her camera out and took pictures of the action. tix was the foreman and gave direction... and i was employed to unscrew the nuts which took brute strength (which is my skill apparently).



the following weekend we went to tuff muff. after having an awesome gang roast dinner at tix's place (where i was taught how to roast) the four of us got on the tram and headed to collingwood. cars tooted at us and people stared... and it was awesome... strength in numbers (especially with gay epilates on our shoulders...) lucky we weren't travelling to frankston. as soon as we got off the tram a bunch of drunk (i think) gay-lady-folk rushed at us like groupies and touched our outfits. they even tracked us down later that night. shit hey.

and best of all... (well there were better moments in the evening... for me this was pashing bob the builder at the request of some random punter in the toilet queue who wanted to take a picture of us)... we won the costume comp.

GANGS RULE x

not all famous people are c*nts

tv's night of nights...

in australia that's the logies (according to richard wilkins) and that's where i was last sunday. well i wasn't actually inside... but i was doing funny logies things all day for work.

you see my day job occasionally requires me to follow actors around to create videos for the interweb.

work takes me to all sorts of places and i meet all sorts of people with all sorts of quirks...

like one time i was on a shoot with tara moss (international model, crime writer and unicef ambassador... as you can tell by the pic)



who was hosting this reality show pilot we were making... anyways, instead of going over the script tara spent most of the time telling me about martial arts and motorbikes. and i learnt that she prefers to be called T-BONE, rides a bike and is into kick boxing... and she didn't hesitate to show me her moves (wicked). so i'm on set with this like 7-foot-tall glamazon doing round house kicks above my head. i repeat... wicked.

back to the logies...

i spent sunday afternoon at caitlin stasey's house (she plays 'rachel' on neighbours - the school girl who is on with her teacher) filming her and matt werkmeister (who plays rachel's geeky kid-brother 'zeke') getting ready. it was caitlin's 18th birthday party on the saturday so matt had stayed over cos they're besties in real life. cute hey?

the story behind the shoot was that it was matt's first logies.... so i was trying to capture all the nerves and excitement of the experience.

i rocked up at 2pm and met caitlin's mum, dad, her boyfriend (a very sweet, skinny, pimply emo dude - i was expecting a jock so was pleasantly surprised) as well as matt's mum and a million other siblings and family members. wow... it was like we were getting ready for the school formal only shinier.

while i'd like to be able to tell you that the neighbours kids are obnoxious little turds (for the sake of a funny perez hilton-style blog) i can't. matt and caitlin are lovely, polite, down-to-earth teens. my best footage is of matt's mum repeatedly brushing white cat fur off the bum of his black suit pants with matt getting embarrassed and then narky cos she wouldn't stop. i was waiting for the hanky to come out so she could spit on it and wipe some vegemite off his face.

matt showed me how he did his hair with four different (but essential products) and caitlin didn't mind me filming the argument between her and her mum about who had put the camera down last... and once the camera was found... the mums and dads made them pose together so they could get some photos to show the grandparents.

FYI... the actors aren't allowed to bring plus ones to the logies so the getting ready part is a big deal for their folks who can only wave at their kids once they hit the red carpet.

oh yeah... this is matt and caitlin in case you're wondering:



anyways... once everyone was ready and free-of-cat-hair i jumped in the back seat of the family range rover next to rachel and zeke and we headed off to crown.

before the big extravaganza we were going to the network ten pre-logies party at 'tonic'. i'd arranged for matt to interview the other neighbours cast members as well as any other famous people who'd be prepared to talk about neighbours. like nat bass (who used to be on neighbours) and who looked much nicer in real life than she did on SYTYCD... what was with her eyes?

so we get to tonic and matt and caitlin are awesome and help me lug my camera gear and tripod inside. i let them do a bit of mingling then i grab matt so we can start harassing the famous people.

matt, who had never done anything like this before, was cute and nervous which worked well because it meant the famous people were nice and generous when talking to him. he asked some stupid questions... and managed to make imogen bailey look like a "complete bimbo" (her words not mine)...



(something about how hard she was intending to party later on)... but all in all he did a good job... and he handled the numerous, annoying dad-like comments about the fact that he was too young to drink (easy on the lemonade there kiddo) with maturity and good humour.

so after about half an hour's worth of interviewing... and many failed attempts at luring the neighbours new recruit erin mcnaught (you may know her as miss australia) away from the clutches of my company's CEO... it was time to face the red carpet.



the neighbours gang walked from tonic to crown (no limos this time as ten was doing this whole 'glamorously green' thing... lame considering it was a 2-minute walk) and i filmed them strutting their stuff... yelling out to matt that i'd make a copy of the footage for his mum and dad (who were terribly proud of their boy and disappointed they couldn't be there).

then when they got to the star-studded venue i waved goodbye like a proud parent, got in a taxi and went home to watch gladiators (which is the BEST show on tv)...



i heart AMAZON.

p.s. tara moss would make a good gladiator.

karaoke, punk, guns n' drugs

it's been over a week since my last entry. does it feel like i'm about to confess something? i've actually been recovering from the biggest come down ever after the anzac day long weekend. and it wasn't drug induced. well only a little bit. it was much more hard core... it was fun induced.

starting on the wednesday (yeah... i did work on thurs but weekend celebrations always start one day before they're supposed to... that's how you fit all the fun in) i'd been on a 5-day funfest... and now it's time to blog (or blag) all about it:

DAY 1 (WEDS) - EXTREME KARAOKE WITH MUM



i have discovered the best way (well... the only way) to connect with my mum.

it involves alcohol (a sneaky hip flask of gin is required), a dark karaoke bar and extreme skinhead/sharpie dance moves. me, mum, dad and my auntie ventured to the laundry in fitzroy for extreme karaoke (as well as a bunch of my favourite peeps... many of whom came along just to meet mum). this night had been planned for months. a trip to the city is a big deal for my folks. my dad and my auntie had even taken the following day of work because we all knew it was gonna be big. and it was.

mum brought the gin. i showed her the extensive list of songs (she was disappointed the rolling stones' track 'starfucker' wasn't on there). we picked stacks. zeppelin, gunners, madonna, sabbath, B52s... assigning our names and fake names against them on the list so the karaoke MC wouldn't get sick of us... well actually we knew the karaoke MC would get sick of us which is why we wrote down fake names.

dad (who doesn't drink) sat quietly and happily on the couch near the stage minding our bags and concealing mum's bottle of gin whenever bar staff were near... while mum and i bolted to the stage whenever the next song came up. and if it wasn't our song... we'd grab auntie nin and dance like skinheads with our knees knocking and fists clenched in true sharpie style (regardless of what era the song was from).

FYI... this has been something we've always done (mum taught me the moves for my first primary school disco)... like at christmas night, family reunions, nan's birthday... it doesn't matter... if there's dancing involved... we do it this way.

the highlight of my night (aside from watching mum totally lose herself in sabbath's 'paranoid') was our duet rendition of madonna's 'hanky panky' (as in... 'nothin like a good spanky'... at which point mum would spank my arse like they do in the music video). while i find it hard to relate to my mum over dinner or in any 'normal' situation... i am completely comfortable and proud to be drunk on stage with her singing and acting out a song that is probably inappropriate for a mother and daughter to perform together... suck it up;)

FYI... next extreme karaoke date is june 11. put that in your diary madge:



DAY 2 (THURS) - PUNK BANDS WITH CANNON

while i intended to have a quiet night... a text from cannon wonderful soon changed that. cannon was gonna check out a band at the tote so that was a good enough reason to leave the apartment and hang out with a good egg. and cannon is freaky cool (like... the last time i saw her was at rollerderby training when she fell and re-opened a chunky scab on her knee... so there was a fair bit of blood but she was cool and skated off.... then she comes back after a lap of the concrete and there's blood all over her face... and i'm like 'what the fuck?'... and i worked out she'd applied war paint using the blood from her knee).

i didn't know what bands were playing that night but turns out they were a bunch of old school punk and psychobilly bands (like 6 for 6 bucks or something) that cannon knew from way back. anyways, so the crowd was dirty and the real frickin deal (as in no blink 182 fans) and i thought they were fighting but really they were just dancing... and cannon fought/danced with her house mate and they tipped beer all over each other and then regretted the fact that they'd committed beer crime and reckoned they should've tipped it in each others mouths instead. i felt middle class.

DAYS 3-4 (FRI-SAT) - AK 47's FARM (LESBIAN DISNEYLAND)



so the next morning i felt totally knackered. it was the anzac day holiday but i got up pretty early cos it was time to head to lesbian disneyland. this meant a 4-hour drive to NSW en route to THE farm owned by none other than the enigmatic AK 47.

after 4 wicked hours of iPod magic i arrived at an RSL in the middle of nowhere and met up with licker-royalty and a pot of blonde (which is so not tough but is light on the carbs and tastes nice). from here we followed AK 47 down a thousand sandy, dirt roads (where i almost lost control because my blue mistubishi mirage couldn't handle the terrain at the speed we were traveling).

the next two days were pure fantasy but totally real. think quadbikes... no helmets... 60kms across paddocks filled with hundreds of cows and one sheep who thought it was a cow.

think firing bullets into the sky... only to have the gun spark unexpectedly (which is when AK 47 takes it off you and says it's time for the next activity).

think chainsawing down tall dead trees singlehandedly (after some instruction from the farm folk) like a lumberjack to get wood to make the biggest bonfire you've ever seen in your life.

think yabbying (not so extreme but good fun in a hunter/gatherer sense and very nice to eat i found out).

think numerous drunk, stoned attempts at jumping a boob-height metal fence without actually having to climb over it... and it DIDN'T even end in tears.

FYI... other things that were awesome but not extreme included making chocolate pudding (which involved wearing an apron), scrabble (which was killer cos i won thanks to a 50-point bonus for using all my 7 letters in 'RESTARTS'... the plural is slightly lame i will admit) and learning how to hold live yabbies (which actually was extreme because i shat myself whenever their nippers moved).

and just before leaving lesbian disneyland we made a plan to hold the coolest ever lesbian music festival there sometime down the track... and your ticket would let you ride the motorbikes but not use the chainsaws cos AK 47 reckons that'd be too dangerous.

DAY 5 (SUN) - JULIETTE "OFF CHOPS" LEWIS AND THE LICKS



this is an authentic camera phone pic. just so you know.

so i got back to melbs on the sunday night and after washing the farm off headed to the prince to see the one and only juliette lewis and her band the licks... with nit. to be honest, nit and i had never heard her music before but we were both massive fans of juliette from her role in natural born killers. we were there as starfuckers and were happy to admit it.

the crowd that night was really freaky. this tall, weird forrest gump type dude kept trying to hit on nit (in a gentle but creepy way) and he asked both of us separately if we were either french or italian... which we're not... and don't look it... or sound it??

anyways, when the very hot and very rock and very fucked-off-her-head juliette came on stage we moved away from forrest gump and pushed down the front (forrest did follow but we shook him eventually)... but it was really funny because the people up close to the stage were also totally fucked-off-their-heads. like... not in a happy/lovey kinda way... but in a shake your head and body around violently and keep lunging aggressively at juliette kinda way...

nit and i had to stand with our arms in a defensive position (my stance was learnt from basketball/karate and nit's was from her time as a shopping centre security guard) in order to prevent the drug pigs from breaking our noses with the back of their heads. full on. and then for a minute a couple of the drugs pigs fought each other and one of them got dragged away by someone.

but juliette didn't mind all this. she contorted her face in all sorts of aggressive but euphoric ways and lunged back at them in the crowd. she even crowd surfed and we all got to touch her clammy celebrity skin.

when juliette (who's eyes were really big and sometimes wayward) did a cover of acca dacca's 'dirty deeds' she brought the house down and the drug pigs shook their torsos from side to side as well as their heads. nit and i decided that we may as well do the same... at least this way if the rhythm was right we'd avoid a collision.

LEST WE FORGET these 5 days of fun...