The Burger King

Addendum to previous notes on JT concert..

Proud of my JT experience I have been gingerly interweaving it into conversations here and there over the past week and have been suprised by the number of people I know who also attended the concert. What has been most interesting peoples reactions to what would outwardly appear to be an inocuous pop show. None more interesting than the observations of a particularly astute advertisig industry colleague - who noted that the JT had actually managed to subliminally integrate the MacDonalds "I'm lovin it" tagline into the last 15 minutes of his show. JT evidently quietly coaxedthe line over and over again whilst intro'ing his band. I guess you have to give the golden arches their creds...on the one hand they appear to be on a media back foot - defending themselves against the public furor of childhood obesity and issues raised by 'Supesize' me, yet on the other very much forward footing - leveraging the incredible influence of a pop idol endrorsing 5,000 teenageers and and the few twenty-somethings to boot.

MacDonalds Shock and awe tactics..

king of pop

so the media Gods looked kindly upon me again this week and offering me tickets to see the man of the bubble gum music hour. Mr Justin Timberlake. Initially I was hesitant - JT's album does not occupy a space on my CD shelf, nor does his likeness adorn my wall in glossy A3 sized glory...for that matter I have even been known to visibly cringe when tracks are radio broadcast. So i went anyway expecting a spectacle and who knows what...

So what did I learn?

1. JT can actually sing, play guitar and beatbox like a champion - thats said there are 3,000 disheartened teenagers who expected allot more gyrating for their $130 bucks
2. Lots of very young girls in very short skirts attend pop concerts (hooray for me)
3. Don't foolishly arrive 10 mins before show commences and think you are going to be allowed to stand in front of a rabid 5Ft teenage girl - who loves JT more then her own father and who probably queued in front of an empty stage from 6am that morning.

Note: Beer in plastic bottles should be avoided at all cost - refer to my current headache for further details.

Notes from the back of the ferry

So.. i was sitting on a relatively empty ferry bound for my home last eve, and I caught myself staring. Now, its often that I have had a similar vantage point, but I guess I have never really looked really hard at what looms above the light blue head rests of our cities high speed water services.

what did I notice this evening were 'heads'. Not just any heads but Giant bloody heads. HUGE masses of skull and hair taken right from the scene's of a milliners worst nightmares.... And not just one or two mind you, we're talking 20 passengers of gargantuan proportion, 20 oddities aboard a merry, fucking, floating freakshow.

you might then as I did wonder - what does having a large head mean? I wondered (not aloud i hope) for I have a humble head, not small but a mere moon in this company. So I wondered; are these people capable of supersonically quick thought? or due to their cranial girth do thoughts indeed take longer to reach the appropriate synapse?...and therfore rattle about their head before a large 'Bing' sound is emanated indicating receipt of the thought. But no just is just plain silly..

... It was about then that Paranoia set in...What if I am the only small headed figure on this boat? and there by accident, and furthermore what if these freaks of nature have charted the vessel and I right this very moment are communicating via ESP about the intruding and very rude 'small headed guy'. These thoughts quickly moved onto a conspiratoral note - maybe there this is some radical large headed government - set to overthrow Clove Moore for the precious Darlinghurst Liberal seat.

At this point I insanely screeched "you'll never catch me you giant headed freaks" and leapt over board...

High Rolling - well kinda

This sounds like the opening to a poorly written joke.. But, what do you get when you spend a weekend in the lap of luxury; flouting ordinary societal convention, gorging on mud crabs that could feed an small family, being chauffeur driven from one decadent location to another... well apart from the obvious benefits - I also managed to catch the flu again...this time hitting my coast with the ferocity of a tidal wave and leaving in its wake a trail of ruined homes and snotty tissues.

so beyond the melodrama - what did i learn from my weekend with the wealthy ? Millionaires & Playboys & hangers onner's (me).

What transpired this last weekend was one better than a fly on the wall experience, perhaps more akin to a fly in the soup experience. It was Twilight Zone -esque, like dream where someone has shifted the goal posts, but actually made them easier to score under. This new world thrives under a different set of societal rules where drinking, eating, gambling and lust are the basic pillars for existence, a place where even some hard and fast rules of fashion no longer apply.

My entourage were the type of men who behind closed doors happily cavort to the tunes of $47,000 Vegas binges, these fellows are personally greeted by Fidel Castro's staff on a cigar buying trip to Cuba. The same types who happily tip $10k to waitresses for smiling sweetly and providing a bottle of Coca-Cola. PIMPS in the millenial sense.

So what have i concluded after 3 days of vicariously living someone's else's life? Well I thank the gentlemen whose generosity i enjoyed, and the next time i suit up will at least always now consider the possibility of matching up my dark coloured suits with a tan pair of shoes. Who needs rules anyway.

Having a shot at winter

So today is the first day of winter... and its gorgeous outside - Its the type of winters' day where one see's pretty girls roaming our fair streets in skirts - despite my expectation that every man, woman and some well maintained dogs are pretty much exclusively wearing wollen garments of some kind these days.

Anyway with winter, apart from wool - comes illness...yes each and every winter strange strains of influenza are somehow miraculously loosed upon the human race by some freakish ecosystic glitch - an unfathmoed meeting between sneezy moth and a butterfly in Siberia which goes onto infect a polar bear, who in turn eats a guy, and who is then eaten by some eskimoe like other guy...anyway by now this bug is a fully fledged cough/sneeze machine and more ferocious than all common colds recorded in history...its taken out an older aged pensioner in Budapest and the people in China are already buying up air particle maskes in their millions.

So what dear reader does that have to do with yours truly ?
Nothing really had a flu shot over the weekend...took my needle like a man...and asked for a lolly pop.

In yo face evil flu..I am safe from you this winter.