not really a rant at all, (sorry) - Ridiculous plugs! :

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March 2011 Rant:

The Parade Rant:

So most of the Mardi Gras stuff fell in Feb but the biggest night on the calendar, the parade, fell in March. I didn’t have a great night. I seldom do. I think the last time I had a great night was when I was 12 and went for the first time, with my family and my very close gay-man family friend and the night was full of love and excitement. I remember being insanely jealous, and wanting to be gay so I could feel the party that they had flowing through them. They looked so happy and proud. Little did I know what it took them to be proud and that I was indeed to discover that I was gay and that I’d be on my very own path to claiming that night as my own. And that I’d suffer my own battle to be proud… and that the ‘party’ that the parade looks like is full of individual stories and struggles and grief’s and joys. The thing is, it means so much to so many people that it ends up a bit like NYE… all this hype and expectation and it never quite lives up to your hopes, and, more often than not, the parade explodes in your face and you have a dreadful night. I don’t want to discuss the ways in which this night has fucked up for me, but has, in different ways, not worked out… over the years. One day, maybe, I’ll have a fraught-free parade night… I guess I really just wanted to word-vomit all that, cos, a ridiculous’-take-on-the-parade rant would be a bit disingenuous without mentioning how I felt, cos feelings are such a big part of the event. On a was-the-parade-good? level… yes, yes, yes, and yes. The floats were great. The dances were fun. There were lots of cool political floats. There was lots of passion and energy. There was humour, there was love, there was sadness, there was wit, there was charm.  And, in amongst the fraught-ness I was juggling, I had, really beautiful, proud of being queer moments. And that’s what it’s all about right? The little moments.

Visibility/I hate passing rant:

So visibility is really important to me. I like to see, and I like to be seen. This goes for everyday, walking-down-the-street ‘being seen’ too, not just books, films, TV, theatre etc… that said though, they’re interconnected, the arts inform the real, and teach us how to see in the real world… Anyway, basically, I really like people to know I’m a lesbian, cos, well, I am. It sounds naff but it really is a part of who I am and I feel all irritated when people don’t see it. You can’t take the gay out of Ridiculous and just have the other bits. My sexuality informs so much of my life and my story and my joys and my hardships and… it is me. For me, sexuality isn’t irrelevant. The old ‘I’m just a person and who I choose to sleep with doesn’t matter’ thing doesn’t really hold for me… cos it does matter. It has mattered my whole life. It sat mattering in my closet till I was 19, it mattered all the times I’ve dealt with homophobia, it matters in my work, it matters in how I think, what art I enjoy… Again… it is me. I like films, theatre, the beach, I’m a vegetarian, I’m left-wing, I like coffee, and I’m gay. So, I get really irritated when I ‘pass’ as straight. I hate passing. This March, on the tail end of the Mardi Gras festivities, I had some lows and some highs on the old visibility roller coaster and I thought I’d share them with you. This woman came into the store where I work and was all ‘nudge nudge’ over this guy I was talking to. “Hey Ridiculous, he was a bit cute, and he was asking you lots of questions! Ooooo!” I stood dumbfounded for a sec, not exactly sure I was hearing what I was hearing, cos, I thought it was obvious/common knowledge I was gay. So she continued to natter on about how intelligent and interesting he seemed and all I could muster was a wry look and a: “he’s not my type” hoping, hoping, hoping, she’d get it and get that women were my type. Acutally, that’s exactly what I wanted. I wanted her to say: “what is your type Ridiculous?” so I could go, “well, the type with a vagina” … cept she didn’t, and so I stayed straight in her imagination, and just not into the guy she wanted to tease me about. I was all irritated and confused and wanted to scream “I’M FUCKING GAY” but figured that was a bit obnoxious so I swallowed my frustrated and vowed to try to be more out. Since then, one customer has asked me if I have a nice fella, to which I replied that I didn’t want one, and that I wanted a nice lady instead, he took it really well and didn’t miss a beat. Another customer asked me out and it didn’t go as well, he got all “I can turn you” but it was in a nice-ish way so it wasn’t too bad. Then another I told that my ex was a Virgo when he was discussing his Virgo-ness and he was all knowing and shit and “I bet he broke your heart right?” and I agreed “She certainly did” … He looked really uncomfortable and upset… but I was happy on each occasion that I got to be me. I didn’t feel locked in my cage of passing. I felt liberated and wonderful, and when the cute first customer didn’t miss a beat I felt invincible. Then I was riding my bike to work one day and I had a really absurd, but wonderful, visibility moment with a drunk at a pub. I was stopped at a light and there was a pub right on the corner. I was wearing pink Chuck Taylors and my bike is pink so this drunk old man starts pointing out to me that my shoes match my bike and then more generally ranting that I’m cute. I was politely smiling at his ramblings and then he knocked me for six. He saw me. “Hold up” he said to his friend, “look at her fingernails! We don’t have a chance with this one! Do we?” I smiled, and shook my head, gave them a wave, and rode on… I was ecstatic. I’d just had a sleazy-old-drunk-man-at-a-pub moment that had ended in him, in his own muddled, drunk, way, being super respectful of my sexuality and what it means. Win.

Wot Doing Festival rant:

This March, my friend threw a super gorgeous free festival on her farm in Bulahdelah. It was magical. A natural amphitheatre spilled down the hill to a treehouse-on-the-ground type stage that sported cute band after cute band. I was so proud of her and had such a fucking amazing night, listening to music, staring at stars, dancing, getting drunk on goon, and sleeping in my boot cos I got there too late to pitch a tent. I sadly got super lost on my way there (somehow, “just stay on the Pacific Highway,” proved too difficult for me) so I missed all the yummy daytime giant-slip-and-slide/general-farm-fun festivities but the aftermath of it, and the stories were just gorgeous.  I so, so hope that they do it again!

Imperial Panda Festival rant:

These Pandas have been consistently making great art/theatre/happening for a few years now check them out: theimperialpanda.com … the festival ran 4 – 20^th of March and defiantly injected Sydney with a bit of life and soul. Okay, so I’m super broke so I didn’t actually see anything at this year but, in an attempt to sorta see things, I volunteered. In the end it didn’t work out so well cos I worked for them and then, when I wasn’t working I was doing one of the ten billion other things that Ridiculous does and I didn’t have a chance to use my volunteers-get-free-tix privilege, but. I did get to sorta see the festival fro the edges, and how much time, effort and hard fucking work goes into it. The festival is full to the brim of underground, queer, music-y, arty, filmy, theatre-y, comedy, edgy, different, subversive, hilarious (some of these things all at once, some, separately) fun. It’s all very sit-on-milk-crates-DIY-handmade-yum, and at such a huge scale of that, is super impressive. I think they must have been managing three or 4 different venues a night which is a crazy amount of juggling and super great cos punters got to discover/visit all the gorgeous nooks and crannies of underground Sydney. Anyway, what I saw, from my side of the milk crate, was sold out shows and laughter leaking through walls, and I reckon, when this festival hits the streets again, the plan is to have money, (just to disclaim tho – everything was $15 which is fairly a reasonable price, like I said, I was just brokety-broke) figure out what you want to see, and get in early cos every cool hipster and his dog seemed to be at this festival… including my hipster-as-all-fuck friends who seemed to really dig The Suitcase Royale 1, Test Flight #1 by The Suitcase Royale and What is Soil Erosion? by Claudia O’Doherty. I know it seems really  fucking stupid to write a review-ish thing based on my friends dug it and I worked the door and it sold out and sounded great while I was sitting outside… but deal with it, that’s what I’m doing. Cos theatre is about the foyer too, how theatre feels before you walk in is just as valid as the show you see right? The whole experience of the evening is important. The details, the drinks-by-donation you get at a makeshift bar, the scene, the colour and movement, the sincerity, the buzz, the atmosphere, and so I can’t tell you what the shows were actually like but I feel like I can tell you it was a great festival and definitely worth checking out when it happens again if you never have.

Flicks rant:

I only saw two flicks in March. I discussed how much I loved Bad Behaviour in my can’t-wait-till-the-March-rant rant. Well, they’ve got a new trailer! You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8drh9SE2CvQ&feature=channel_video_title Personally, I prefereed their teaser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZnwdhoqqZ4&feature=relmfu simple. Says everything… but they’re both great. Like I said in my longer rant, it is a really fun genre flick that makes you really proud of, and excited about, Australian cimena… The other Aussie flick I caught in March, A Heartbeat Away, sadly, was not. I’m kinda at a loss of what to write cos it is so, so  fucking bad, I feel like giving it a blog serve is like kicking a heavily disabled puppy. You know me though… I’ll attempt it…There isn’t anything right about this film so I don’t even know where to begin if I’m going to pull it apart… but people really need to not see it. Just don’t do it. We really, really need to get audiences on board with seeing our flicks and this one is likely to put you off Australian cinema for life. It can sorta be enjoyed in an I’m-cringing-so-much-it-hurts sort of way. It’s sad, cos there are good people involved. Gale Edwards, the director, I usually dig when I see her stage-y stuff. I’ve loved a lot of William Zappa’s work (and hated some of it too, but I’ve never hated him on a performance level before, even if I find his one-man show a little self absorbed and pretentious I’ve never been able to fault his performance) and, in amongst the mess, you can tell that Sebastian Gregory is quite good. He’s centred and has an intelligence behind his eyes. I’m convinced he can act despite not getting the chance to do so here. I even sorta get the appeal of Isabel Lucas, She’s got a certain humble-ness, She doesn’t try too hard. The poor thing had to portray the most gendered disgusting idea of femininity though, She got to be a really heavy-handed version of the hot-girl-objectified with no 3dimensional qualities whatsoever. But then no-one had any so I guess I can’t get too feminist-Ridiculous-hot-under-the-collar, but the extended shots of her body in the superfluous dance scene along with the wolf whistles and she’s-a-bit-of-alright-ness approval of the gang made my skin crawl. Seriously. It’s two thousand and fucking eleven, write scenes where characters are respectful to women and treat them like they have a brain please! Anyway, back on track, my original point was, that, without exception, every single performance is hammy and over-acted and false and strange despite the fact good actors are involved… the only nice thing I can think of to say is that, the film is full to the brim with older actors, which was a really nice thing to see cos usually our stories are so youth centred. There was my token compliment. Back to ranting… It’s just so dreadful. It wanted to be cute and 90s and a bit The Castle or Sea Change or something but it missed the memo of being well written and having a heart and not having cartoon characters with stock bad guys and good guys. The Castle characters were funny but they were real, Also I once talked to a guy who didn’t find The Castle funny, he thought it was a really sad story, and when he spoke about it you could see he’d known people like the Kerrigans. I do think the Working Dog team were going for laughs but the fact that my friend can have a totally different, viable, response to the film means there was so much more going on. The film shouldn’t have been made. There wasn’t a plot and there wasn’t a script, it was doomed from the start… seriously, ‘it rained 20 years ago and we lost the band comp’ is an horrific trauma? It didn’t (and couldn’t) establish the desired amount of desire in the audience to see them succeed and induce the euphoria of a triumph-against-the-odds happy ending. And let’s throw in a few “evil developers” and have the band comp decide the outcome of the fate of the town oh and a ludicrous romance in like four minutes with a ludicrous complication in the lover-ish-ness between an 11 year old boy and a 25 year old woman with less chemistry than you’ve ever seen in the history of the universe. AAAAAARRRGGH! Basically, forget you saw this film if you did, and forget you even heard of it if you didn’t…