MAN ABOUT TOWN

As much as I'm enjoying my latest incarnation as editor of Melbourne's queer newspaper MCV, I so want my old life back. I've gone from working two days a week to virtually full time, which means I'm now always tired, preoccupied, and never seem to have the time to do all the other things in my life, like attend board meetings, read emails, plan my radio show, and do my freaking* laundry. *sigh* I got to sleep in this morning til 8.45am. Decadence! Tonight I'm off to see the Pixies, although I'm definitely going to need to get home for a quick this evening before I can muster the energy. That's how tired I am - I can't even muster the energy to be excited about hearing 'Debaser' or 'Monkey Gone to Heaven' played life. Waaaaaaahhhhhhh! * Non-swearing for Bevis's sake, just 'cause.

Walking with Dinosaurs – The Live Experience had its Melbourne premiere on Friday night at the Vodafone arena, and proved a massive success. When narrator Bruce Spence introduced the first dinosaur, a collective gasp went up that echoed throughout the arena, and by the interval, the audiences’ hearts and minds were clearly won over. A $12 million budget has helped designer Sonny Tilders wrought marvels, with 15 life-size dinosaurs brought to life through a sophisticated combination of puppetry and animatronics, convincingly re-creating everything from the illusion of rippling muscles beneath rugose hides to lashing tails and gleaming eyes. This epic production is entertainment on a mammoth scale, and while the narrative occasionally bordered on annoying, being clearly written with children in mind, the dinosaurs themselves, coupled with a stunning lighting design, were more than enough to carry the show. Unfortunately I had to leave at interval to go supervise a photoshoot for MCV ...

Given the parched nature of most of the continent, and the long drought we’ve been suffering through, you would have thought that a free, outdoor festival in Melbourne at the moment was a safe bet, despite our notoriously fickle weather. How unfortunate, then, that the drought appeared to break at the start of the main weekend of the Festival of the 12 th FINA World Championships last Friday. People were thin on the ground as I walked through Federation Square and Birrarung Marr in search of entertainment that evening, and those that were present were soon scared off by the deluge that bucketed down shortly after 6.30pm. It’s indicative of how scarce rain has become, though, that the majority of people being drenched were laughing and smiling as they alternatively ran for cover or walked delightedly through the downpour. The inclement weather meant that crowds were also low on Saturday, so that by the time French pyrotechnic outfit Groupe F performed their underwhelming Flame P...

Last Wednesday witnessed the official opening of the latest exhibition in the subterranean screen gallery at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Centre Pompidou Video Art 1965 – 2005 . Drawn from the Musée national d'art moderne Collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris , the exhibition traces the evolution of the video image in contemporary art, and presents the aesthetic realisations of artists who have utilised video as a creative medium. From early, small-scale works to more recent and ambitious pieces, it’s a remarkably intimate exhibition, featuring numerous small monitors, equipped with multiple sets of headphones, that facilitate an individual appreciation of the various works rather than being dominated by larger, more cinematic displays. That said, more elaborate full and split screen works are also on display, including UK artist and film-maker Isaac Julien ’s Baltimore (a homage to 1970s blacksploitation films such as Shaft and Cleopatra Jones , b...

Oh dear. I've been so busy that instead of the regular, almost daily updates I'd planned to post on the festival, the whole thing has been and gone already, and I haven't even written about day three. Bad, bad blogger... On Day Three of the festival, Sunday March 18 , I was lucky enough to catch what would turn out to be my standout film, the remarkable French documentary Au-delà de la haine , or Beyond Hatred . Shot with stunning simplicity by director Oliver Mayreu, the film focuses on the aftermath of a brutal murder, and the impact of the crime upon the victim's family. In 2002, a young gay man, Francois Chenu, was viciouslly murdered by neo-nazi Skinheads. He was so badly beaten that his sister could only identify her brother's body by his hair extentions: his killers had literally beaten his face to a pulp. The film's focus is on the aftermath of the crime, and the attempts by the Chenu's family to understand both the act, and the deprivations which s...

Voiceworks magazine is seeking submissions for issue #69, IDENTIKIT (deadline Monday 9 April 2007 ). This could include fiction, poetry, non-fiction, columns, comics, photography, portraiture, digital art / graphic design, illustrations. IDENTIKIT theme blurb Walk blindfolded into a house, fall dizzy from the smell of mothballs, know that you’re at Grandma’s again. Walk into a new city, forget your past, say good morning to yourself. Walk into a zoo, ask an orangutan for the sum total of its experiences of life in captivity, get hit by a banana. Identity, that elusive creature. Who are you? Frankenstein's monster was built from parts. Just like you got your mother’s eyes, and your father’s hairy toes. Even personality is a composite. Send us a postcard. WORD LIMIT 3000 (800–2400-word pieces preferred) And although we are a themed publication, remember the Voiceworks motto: themed work: good good work: better good themed work: BEST RATES OF PAY Visual art: $50 for one...

"If you're so funny then why are you on your own tonight? and if you're so clever why are you on your own tonight? if you're so very entertaining why are you on your own tonight? and if you're so terribly good-looking then why do you sleep alone tonight? because tonight is just like any other night " - The Smiths, 'I Know It's Over', The Queen Is Dead

Reading this article about a recent speech by British PM Tony Blair, I am again struck by the difference between leadership and simply governing. Blair may not be the best politician in the world, but he is, at least, committed to certain ideals and principals, of which equality is one. John Howard may possess many characteristics - rat cunning, for example, and the ability to divide and conquer the Australian population by promoting intolerance and suspicion - but one thing he definitely lacks is vision. Howard lacks a vision of what Australian society could be. Instead, he has tried to drag us back to what Australia was . Blair, to his credit, had a vision of a fairer, more equal Britain, and his strong support for queer rights and same-sex relationships is a key platform of such policies. We've lived so long under Howard that it's almost hard to remember when politicians had visions for the future, instead of black-and-white dreams of the White Australia Policy past... ...

I'm having a lazy festival this year, which I'm rather enjoying, aided by the fact that I've already watched preview discs of several of the films. My over-committed lifestyle has also ben a factor, but truth be known, I'm rather enjoying the relaxed course I've set so far. The first film I saw today was one I was quite looking forward to: Eleven Men Out (aka Strákarnir Okkar ), which combined several of my interests simultaneously: manlove, football and Iceland . The President of Queer Sports Alliance Melbourne introduced the session with an interminable speech about a worthy cause (a fund-raising program for the Melbourne 2008 Asia Pacific Outgames - because after all, sport is the new black in the queer community don't you know?) after which, finally, the movie got underway. Opening with the hard-to-swallow premise of having Iceland's top football player, Ottar Thor ( Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson ) coming out in a fit of pique during a magazine interview - ...

Never have your iPod lying beside you as you masturbate/have sex. Cum-splattered iPods stop working. This is going to be fun to explain when I take it in for repairs...*blush*

Just home from dinner with friends: Darren (who proudly announced he'd purchased his first-ever hip-hop CD - this from Mr Indie-Boy, a big step indeed), Glen, who I haven't caught up with since he went to Mardi Gras, and his new bf. All rather lovely. Slept through the heat of the day after presenting SmartArts this morning, only to step outside this evening to discover it was still 33 degrees. Ick - where's autumn when you need it? The equinox was only yesterday, so I can't expect we'll immediately be plunged into crisp mornings and chilly nights, but dammit, we could at least have a hint of appropriate chill in the air. The last few weeks have seen me too busy to blog properly, which always makes me feel guilty. I don't know why, it's not like I have to blog, although I do enjoy leaving an electronic trail of my life and experiences for future biographers, should my life ever warrant such interest (unlikely, I posit, but a boy can dream). Have just had a q...

After an excellent start on opening night, I kicked off the first day of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival with a bang: three sessions in a row. First up was the Canadian feature Whole New Thing (dir. Amnon Buchbinder, 2005), an engaging drama about a homeschooled 13 year old, Emerson Thorsen (Aaron Webber, left) whose bickering parents send him off to secondary school for the first time in his life. Not surprisingly, he doesn't fit in, with his precocious intelligence ensuring he is bullied and beaten. "Think of it as a right of passage", a teacher tells him helpfully, after he gets his first bloodied nose. After a second beating by the school bully, Emerson not surprisingly asks, "How much longer is this rite of passage going to take?" More dramatically, the youth falls in love with his lonely gay English teacher, Don (Daniel McIvor), and is flumoxed when his initial overtures are not returned. At this point in the film, it very successfully unsettles, as I ...

For the first time in several years, the opening night film at the 17th Melbourne Queer Film Festival was actually pretty good. As I've been known to remark, generally the opening night party is more memorable than the film itself. This year, though, instead of an insipid crowd-pleaser such as But I'm a Cheerleader , the festival went with a much stronger film, the 'other Capote biopic', Infamous . Like Capote , which earned Phillip Seymour Hoffman an Oscar, Infamous focuses on the life of writer and bon vivant Truman Capote (a delightful performance by 'the voice of Dobby the House Elf', Toby Jones - not as note-perfect as Hoffman's somehow lifeless impersonation but more vibrant as a consequence) at the time he was researching and writing his landmark work of literary non-fiction, In Cold Blood . I found Capote over-rated - although its lensing was superlative - and while I can't rave about Infamous , I definitely enjoyed it. The films differ in that ...

The story of rodeo-rider, horse-wrangler and gay man Adam Sutton is much more than just a coming out story. As told with the help of his mate, journalist Neil McMahon (who is himself also gay) it's a story about hope, love, loss and fear; about determination and desperation, and how far we we go to hide from the truth about ourselves. Perhaps most importantly, it is a deeply moving story about the pivotal relationships between our parents and ourselves. That said, it is very much a gay man's story, which makes it a human story, and one that will hit home for all who read it. And yes, before anyone asks, I think I've developed a bit of a crush on Sutton while reading it; helped immensely by having lunch with him, McMahon and their publicist after last week's show... *blush* Originally a newspaper article written by McMahon about his mate, 'the real gay cowboy', which appeared on the eve of the 2006 Academy Awards, when Heath Ledger stood a chance to win best act...

I really, really wanted to like this new feature film from director Steven Soderbergh, partially because it stars the luminous Cate Blanchett, and more importantly because it strives to be an uber-faithful homage to my favourite film style, noir . Set in a ravaged Berlin in 1945, before hostilities have ended with Japan but after Hitler's ignominious death, The Good German employs a balanced blend of archival footage and newly-shot scenes to tell a story about guilt, love and double-crossing. It stars George Clooney as journalist-turned-honorary-Captain Jake Geismer, nominally in Berlin to cover the Potsdam conference , where Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt met for the last time as allies, to divide post-war Europe among themselves. Really, he is back in town to look for his lost love, Lena Brandt (an effortlessly world-weary Blanchett). Disembarking at the airport with Congressman Breimer (an almost unrecognisable Jack Thompson) Jake is picked up by his driver, the unscrupulous, ...

Was woken from slumber Saturday by a 9am phone message from an MCV contributor, dumping the two interviews they were supposed to conduct that afternoon back in my lap. Bugger. There are two direct outcomes from this event. 1. No Golden Plains for me this weekend, alas. 2. Spot the freelancer who won't be assigned any more work. On the plus side, I had a lazy evening with the flat to myself, watching DVDs from Mike's collection: Shallow Grave (didn't really work for me) and Michael Mann's poised and polished Manhunter . Such icy precision, such striking cinematography, such a bad 1980s synth soundtrack. A taut, tense and extremely effective thriller, this forerunner to The Silence of the Lambs features Brian Cox's subtle take on the villainous Hannibal Lecter (above), and in the words of Slate magazine film critic David Edelstein, " sired CSI and...ushered in the age of empathy for the devil. " Damn enjoyable film. As was the bottle of red I worked throu...

To quote the grand master of American gothic fiction, H. P. Lovecraft , there are things that "cannot and should not be", and, "By their smell shall ye know them." Lovecraft was talking about the Great Old Ones, and the dread Outer Gods, to whom Earth was a plaything and the human race less than insects. Me, I'm talking about soul-shattering American remakes of classic films: in this instance, Neil La Bute's remake of the British classic The Wicker Man , which really is a stinker. The original is a subtle, understated masterpiece of manipulation, tension and revelation. The other is " hilariously bad " to quote critic James Berardinelli; " direly acted and defiantly non-scary ," according to the BBC's Neil Smith; and " possibly the worst film of 2006 " according to someone called Christopher Smith. Just how and why this remake - starring a remarkably straight-faced Nic Cage (whose cocaine bill must have been vast to compel...

It was 18 years ago today that Darryl James Watts, my dad, died unexpectedly at the age of 47, from an aneurism. The night before, he called me to say he'd just applied for a job as a morgue attendent. Within 24 hours he was lying in one. I turn 40 this year. It's hard to believe that I was only 21 when he died. It's harder still to believe that in a few more years I'll have outlived my old man. I still don't feel grown up, let alone almost equal to him in age. He had a long black beard tinged with grey, a pot belly and a deep voice. At Teachers' College in the early 1960s, where he met my mum, he affected thick black-framed glasses because he thought they would help the working-class boy from Thornbury look more intellectual. Back then, driving across to St Kilda and learning to eat pasta and drink red wine was one of the most bohemian things you could do in Melbourne, according to my mum. Her legs - dangling from the window of a train carriage on a group trip ...

Call me shallow, but I am looking forward to seeing this new Australian documentary about Sydney's "notorious surf tribe" the Bra Boys , even though I suspect it's going to be a badly-directed vanity project... Juding from this poster, and the cover-art for Teenager's debut album Thirteen , blokes showing a hint of pubes are the new black. I'm not complaining!

For some time now I've been considering the idea for a non-fiction book, for which I never seem to have the time to pitch to an appropriate publisher: a travellers' guide to what I consider the real Melbourne. The original idea struck me while browsing through a bookshop in the London suburb of Bloomsbury in 2005. "Fuck," my brain said, in its traditionally crass and vernacular way, "why the hell do Melbourne guide books tell tourists to visit such pissweak 'attractions' as Captain Cook's Cottage when there are so many more interesting sites to be seen off the beaten track?" Should I ever get around to writing or editing such a book, I'd suggest to tourists that they take a full-moon tour of the Melbourne General Cemetery for example, or drink in the front bar of the Espy watching the sun set over Port Phillip Bay. Others might suggest a visit to the Red Hill Market, or lunch on Victoria St, Richmond, followed by an afternoon at the Immigr...

You know, I totally forgot Sydney's gay and lesbian Mardi Gras was on this weekend until reading D.U.P. and R*yan 's blogs a few minutes ago. What kind of gay man am I? One who doesn't really give a stuff about Mardi Gras I guess. The shirtless muscle men and body fascists, the e-suffused dance party crowd, the music - none of it hold any interest for me whatsoever. Instead, I've had a pleasent weekend doing very little, save for catching a screening of The Illusionist (so expository and staged that I walked out), having birthday drinks with Mr Monster and his friends, seeing Arthur Miller's All My Sons at the Arts Centre, and attending two parties, a gay leather-friend's soiree in Preston, and a cult-themed party in North Carlton thrown by Born Dancin' . I've also managed to squeeze in an exhibition opening, a couple of glasses of absinthe, and a trek to the laundrette along the way. So how was your weekend?

After a rather madcap couple of weeks, I am delighted to report that I face a weekend of lolling around decadently. The next two days should entail little save socialising with friends, attending a couple of parties, catching a play, doing my laundry, and possibly placing a man-trap on the street in order to snare myself an eligble bachelor. Actually, now I consider it, the latter sounds far too demanding. Instead I shall limit myself to gazing out the window and loooking A) mysterious, B) handsome, and C) available but not desperate. Concerns about work are henceforth relegated to my subconcious for the next 48 hours, where they are politely requested to manifest in colourful and unusual dreams rather than tediously literal dreams about deadlines, angry designers and co-workers in paroxysms of hysteria. There may or may not be live rock and/or roll. The sin of Onan may be practised, if I can be bothered. Right now, it's time to heat some more sake... I wonder if the Japanese Bath ...

Check out this website , for the Melbourne-based Time Capsules , which screens cinematic gems to delight and confound your senses... The screening and location details are: 8:30 PM Every Thursday ABC GALLERY 127 Campbell St Collingwood

Don't stick to the tried and true questions about their friendships with other celebrities. Ask personal questions - fair game when they're here to talk about the autobiography in which they nominally lay their life bare. Try and get behind the facade, to the real person. Given that these three tactics clearly annoyed Rupert Everett last night at the Athenaeum, I can pretty much guarentee they'd work on - hmm, Madonna, for instance. Despite assuring me before the gig that nothing was off limits, Rupert quickly grew defensive, even narky during last night's conversation when my questions focused on him personally, and what I saw as ommissions from his autobiography (i.e. the curious lack of real emotion that suffuses its pages) rather than asking the stock-standard questions that would have allowed him to present another witty bon-mot or glittering anecdote with a flourish. It was, in short, the most difficult interview I've ever done to date, and made Barry Humphrie...