MAN ABOUT TOWN

It's the second-last day of the year; another of these pleasantly cool so-called summer days Melbourne has been having lately. In fact it's been the coldest December on record for years, which no doubt annoys the sun-lovers and beach-goers (not to mention gives weight to the 'there's no such thing as climate change' wingnuts), but which this particular heat-hating homo is rather enjoying - especially since I'm off work until January 5 and lack air-conditioning in my inner-city domicile. Speaking of work.... Sigh. A couple of weeks ago, my boss announced that he was going to axe my brand new baby - the arts magazine Canvas - after only five issues, because the economic downturn meant that it wasn't attracting enough ads and so publishing it was no longer financially viable. Instead of being a stand alone magazine, it's now a two-page 'supplement' in MCV , the LGBT newspaper I was editor of until three months ago ; a depressing situation to say t...

I'm in Canberra, at my mum's place, for Christmas. Back in Melbourne late Boxing Day, at which time I shall recommence blogging - no doubt with some head-slapping 'huh?' annecdotes about family life at this particularly deranged time of year...

You'll find it over here on Planet Gallifrey . Squeeeee!! And squeeeeee again! Here it is!

Dorothy Porter, one of Australia's greatest ever poets, died on Wednesday from complications arising from breast cancer, aged 54. She is survived by her partner of many years, Andrea Goldsmith. I was privileged enough, over the years, to have performed alongside Dot at poetry readings at Melbourne Uni, the Builders Arms and elsewhere. During my time as the Artistic Director of Express Media, supervising our mentorship programs, I witnessed Dot's laser-precise intelligence, compassion and passion for the poetic form hone in those young writers in whom she saw creative potential above the ordinary as well as the drive and comprehension necessary to match her own boundless enthusiasm; and I saw how she encouraged them, nurtured them, transfigured them. And I witnessed firsthand the alchemy by which she transmuted ordinary words into gold. Dorothy Porter will be sorely missed by all of Australia's arts community. My most sincere and heartfelt condolences to Andy for this most ...

Nazi zombies running amok in the snow? Oh man, I have to see this!

It's been a busy week, with a few memorable events in the social diary. To whit: The opening of the MTC Theatre The Melbourne Theatre Company has long been without a home of its own. Now, after many years, they've officially opened a new home on Southbank, beside the new Recital Centre. So, last Saturday night I trooped along (albeit glowing with sunburn after an afternoon playing in a charity soccer tournament - and oh, my aching thighs and calves the nest day!) to check out their new digs. The venue itself is very impressive, and an excellent match to the new recital centre next door; I'm particularly impressed by the lack of a balcony in the theatre proper, as I find being seated in the balcony has a distancing effect that removes me physically and emotionally from the performance. The aesthetic of the theatre, with its walls illuminated by lines of text from Australian classics, is also impressive. I also appreciated the nod to the MTC's former home in Russell Stree...

For your Monday amusement: photoshopped potential portraits of what Tom Cruise, Gwen Stephanie and Tobey Maguire may look like in years to come, courtesy of UK newspaper The Telegraph ...

White Whale Theatre's audacious, hilarious, horror movie homage is a sequel to Shakespeare's Macbeth . That's right, a sequel . Turns out the witches' magic is stronger than Macduff's sword; so even though he's been decapitated, Macbeth manages to return from the grave and wreak havoc upon Scotland once more, aided and abetted by the witch-goddess Hecate, his reanimated wife Lady Macbeth (who's now seeing damned spots everywhere , not just on her hands) and a ravening undead horde. Written and directed by David Mence in 2004, and originally staged at Melbourne University that same year, the play and its players then embarked for the Edinburgh Fringe in 2006, where they garnered rave reviews (" Macbeth meets Shaun of the Dead in B-grade movie schlock-horror splendour!" raved The Scotsman ). Now it's been remounted at Trades Hall, with a cast of 13, a magnificent set of crags and standing stones that's more lavish than most independent thea...

The Rocky Horror Show is so good I've now seen it twice, the first time on opening night, and again just last night. The magnificent iOTA was born to play the 'sweet transvestite' Dr Frank'n'Furter, and Paul Capsis makes a suitably manic and malevolent Riff Raff. On opening night, the role of the narrator was performed by Derryn Hinch; thankfully last night's show was someone brand new, and much better; ditto last night's stand-in Rocky, who unlike his predecessor could both sing and act, as well as flex his muscles. The simple but effective set design evokes a tattered and fading theatre (appropriate for this rock homage to 50s horror and SF B-movies), striking costumes riff on the designs we're all familiar with from the film, and the tongue-in-cheek perversity of the show's central conceit stands up well despite the passing of time. Raunchy, rollicking good fun. On at The Comedy Theatre until March 8, 2009.

Avast II - The Welshman Cometh The latest offering from Melbourne's The Black Lung Theatre is the result of a three month residency/creative development process at the Malthouse Theatre, where the The Black Lung boys became, effectively, the mad relatives in the attic; locked away from daylight in the Tower Theatre and dreaming feverish and macabrely beautiful dreams. The results are amazing. A nominal prequel to the company's first ever production, Avast (a new development of which is also showing at The Malthouse , although I haven't had a chance to see it yet), Avast II - The Welshman Cometh is an all- immersive , anti-theatrical experience; a gothic western exploring abject masculinity in a post-apocalyptic world where God is most definitely dead: the audience actually see him shot down before their eyes. The Tower has been transformed for Avast II , resembling less a theatre and more the outpost of another world, adorned with skulls and lanterns and graffiti; a s...

So we're now well into Movember, and if I say so myself, I think the growth on my upper lip is starting to look half decent. That said, I would feel better about it if a few more people were donating to the Movember cause (prostate cancer and men's depression, remember?): please go here to donate should you wish to do so...

The latest feature film by director Gus Van Sant, a biopic of assassinated gay rights activist Harvey Milk , is a restrained and subtle masterpiece. Cinematically, it's an elegant blend of the more traditional narrative structures of Van Sant's confidently commercial films ( Good Will Hunting , Finding Forrester ) leavened with just a dash of the avant-garde approach displayed in more recent works such as Elephant and Paranoid Park , and richly rounded out with the most judicious, insightful use of archival footage I think I've ever seen. Emotionally, it's a rich, warm, tragic and inspiring film that will inspire audiences as well as reduce them to tears. Milk, a New Yorker who relocated to San Francisco in the early 70s, became - in November 1977 - the first openly gay man elected to public office in the USA. Instrumental in defeating an amendment that would have seen gay and lesbian teachers sacked from their jobs in California, Milk was an inspiration to thousands: a...

The National Young Writers' Festival (NYWF) in Newcastle is not your average writers' festival. It's a place for discussions about writing - about the craft, the practise, the point of writing - instead of existing primarily to promote book sales. Every year the NYWF features a vibrant mix of performance poets, bloggers, novelists, screenwriters, journalists, zinesters, short story writers, comic book authors and more; mixing it up, arguing, drinking, engaging, speaking and thinking; and they comprise the audience, too, which results in some truly feisty questions being asked of the speakers on a standard festival panel. I was invited to attend the very first NYWF in 1998, where I spoke about queer zines on one panel and the art of spoken word performance on another; and for several years thereafter, the trek up to 'Newie' each October became a much anticipated annual event. For the 2000 festival I programmed the spoken word stream of the program, while for a few y...

And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks is an early novel written collaboratively by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs over the winter of 1944-1945. Narrated in alternating chapters by the young merchant seaman Mike Ryko (Kerouac) and barman turned private investigator Will Dennison (Burroughs), the book is a semi-fictionalised account of a murder and the events leading up to it - the murder of one of their friends by another - written in terse, unaffected prose. On a muggy summer night in the predawn hours of Monday August 14, 1944, Lucien Carr, 19, stabbed his constant - to the point of stalking - companion, 33 year old former teacher David Kammerer. Thinking Kammerer was dead - he wasn't - Carr weighed the body down and threw it in the Hudson River, where Kammerer drowned. Both Kerouac and Burroughs were retained as material witnesses to the crime, as the following day Carr had confessed to them both about the killing. Burroughs urged Carr to get a good lawyer and t...

Richard Watts explores the state of Melbourne's independent theatre scene A few years ago, things suddenly started happening in Melbourne ’s previously-moribund theatre scene. A rash of new independent companies formed – including Theatre in Decay (established in 2000), The Eleventh Hour (2001), Stuck Pigs Squealing (2001), and Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre (2002) – presenting exciting new work and rapidly winning both critical and popular acclaim. New productions were being staged in inventive locations – cramped basements beneath inner city homes, and in the front seats of parked cars – or in brand new venues, such as The Storeroom in North Fitzroy and Fitzroy’s The Eleventh Hour Theatre. Today, however, The Storeroom stands empty; and many of the companies who were part of Melbourne theatre’s new wave, including Theatre @ Risk and Theatre in Decay, have either folded or are on indefinite hiatus. What went wrong? And where are the new theatre-makers of today? Michael ...

The latest issue of CANVAS - my new 'arts magazine with a queer sensibility' - is out this week. As always, you can go to the website for highlights from the issue, or pick up a hard copy where you'd normally find copies of the LGBT street press (as well as a heap of extra galleries and other places we've added to the mix). And what's in this issue, I hear you ask? Well for starters, there's a special look at the art of The Conceptual Villains, an image from whom - Ancestors (2008) - adorns our cover this week, and is reproduced in its entirety above. Plus there's a special look at the state of independent theatre in Melbourne (part one of a two part article), a introductory guide to collecting Aboriginal art, a feature on the Human Rights Art and Film Festival, and much, much more...

Believe it or not, the Queensland Criminal Code Act still has the following law from 1899 on its books: 83 Aiding pirates Any person who— (a) brings a seducing message from a pirate; or (b) consults or conspires with, or attempts to corrupt, any master or officer of a ship or any sailor, with intent that the person should run away with or yield up any ship, goods, or merchandise, or turn pirate, or go over to pirates; is guilty of a crime, and is liable to imprisonment for life. A seductive message from a pirate ? Arrrr me hearties! It puts International Talk Like A Pirate Day in a whole new light!

The inspiring words of the late, great Harvey Milk ...

That's the question asked by British journalist Matt Wolf in The Times today. Interviewing a range of arts industry types, and playwrights such as Tony Kushner and Edward Albee, Wolf looks at everything from McCain's position on arts funding, to Obama's detailed arts policy: 'Early on in his campaign, he convened a 33-strong National Arts Policy Committee, including the novelist Michael Chabon and the founder of the American Film Institute, George Stevens Jr. The team then issued a two-page document laying out Obama's vision for the arts. There's much talk of arts education, “to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society”. Obama wants an “artist corps” to go into schools and ginger up disadvantaged schoolchildren, and there's talk of more money for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).' The feature also looks at some of the possible impacts of the global economic crisis, drawing parallels with ...

...is out now, and features an interview with Melbourne author Christos Tsiolkas , as well as an exclusive extract from his new novel The Slap (out November 7 through Allen and Unwin). Other highlights in the issue include an interview with Malthouse maestro Michael Kantor and - if you're in the mood for a holiday - a sneak peak at Adelaide's queer Feast Festival; while our visual spotlight in this issue is on the beautifully visceral art of Sam Jinks. As usual, you can read the whole issue here . Enjoy!

I've decided to get with the hirsuite crowd next month, and have signed up for Movember. Come Saturday 1st of November, I'll be shaving myself smooth then seeing what sort of hairy growth I can encourage on my upper lip over the following weeks. And yes, I promise to post photos as we go so you can track the development of my brand new mo (I'm thinking a waxed, melodrama villain style mo might be the go, but that might be too ambitious: we'll just have to see what I can cultivate in the time available...). The money raised by Movember is used to raise awareness of men's health issues and donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia (PCFA) and beyondblue - the national depression initiative. The PCFA and beyondblue will use the funds to fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and depression. Did you know: * Depression affects 1 in 6 men....most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk fact...

Sad news, but not entirely unexpected: after three years in the TARDIS, David Tennant will step down at the end of 2009. Still, at least we have the Christmas Special this year, and four more specials next year before he goes... And over here you can see the follow-up interview in which Tennant reflects on his involvement with the show, and talks about what's still to come. So, who would you like to see as the next Doctor? Any takers for Russell Tovey...?

What does the Malthouse Theatre have in store for the first half of 2009? Michael Kantor spills the beans. “It feels like it’s a season that is attempting, in some way, to respond to a very unstable world,” Michael Kantor says of the first of his two Malthouse Theatre seasons for 2009. “There’s a big focus on making sure we’ve found space to wryly sit back and laugh at ourselves.” Kantor, the Artistic Director of the Malthouse, has programmed nine productions for the first half of 2009, including three world premieres of new Australian works, and three Malthouse Theatre commissions. Central to the season is playwright Tom Wright’s Optimism , a reworking of the classic satire Candide by the French writer Voltaire. “This great story … was a satire about the nature of optimism, and yet 350 years later we’re sitting thinking ‘How can we continue to feel optimistic?’ It’s still the same question, because there’s a natural desire for optimism,” Kantor says. “It’s something that’...

As you might know, I've moved over from editing the weekly LGBT newspaper MCV to heading up a brand new fortnightly arts and entertainment magazine called CANVAS . It's both an arts magazine and a gay magazine, but it's not capital G gay. Think of it as an arts magazine with a queer sensibility, if you like, rather than a magazine about gay art. Quite apart from the fact that there's not enough gay art out there to warrant such a narrow focus, my guidelines for the inclusion of anything in CANVAS are about quality, not sexuality. If it's good art, I'm interested. Two issues of CANVAS have been published to date, and so far the feedback from both the arts sector and the queer community has been extremely positive. The new issue hits the streets this Thursday, so please check it out - especially if you're a fan of contemporary Australian fiction... And hey, if you run a gallery, or an artist-run initiative, or maybe a theatre company, please please please thin...

Thanks to excellent film blog My New Plaid Pants , I've just discovered that producer par excellence Christine Vachon has greenlit a new film called Kill You Darlings , which is based on a little known murder that helped catalyse the birth of the Beat Generation: the 1944 killing of David Kammerer by Lucien Carr , the youth Kammerer had ardently pursued (read stalked) for several years. Both Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs were connected with the murder, indeed Kerouac was jailed as an accessory after the fact; an event which he touches on in both his first novel, The Town and the City, and many years later in The Vanity of Dulouz . Interestingly, a novel which Burroughs and Kerouac co-wrote about that murder, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks is about to be published by Grove Press next month. Yeah, daddy-o!

Let's get one thing clear right from the start. My first ever international media junket was paid for by the 2009 World Outgames , with money provided by Wonderful Copenhagen , the city's official tourist body. In return for flying me over for a crash course in cultural tourism and putting me up in an ideally-located boutique hotel, they want me to place articles about Copenhagen, the Outgames and the games' major cultural event - the OUTcities project - in both the LGBT and mainstream media. So I plan on doing just that. However, that won't stop me being frank and honest about my time there. If I had any negative experiences, trust me, I won't hold back from blogging about them. But I don't think I really have anything bad to say about Copenhagen. My all-too-brief time there was, in all honesty, fan-fucking- tastic . I so didn't want to leave. Anyway, that disclaimer aside, here are some impressions - and the occasional photo - of my four all...