Grog's Blahmut

The chap who is Grog's Gamut knew he ran the risk of being unmasked when he first set up an anonymous blog. If he didn't, he wasn't too bright. The fact that he was unmasked may be unfortunate for him, but I don't see it being in any way unethical. No one has a right to anonymity for no reason. Mr. Gamut knew he was doing something his job disallowed him, but he did it anyway, hiding behind anonymity. That's fine so long as it lasts, but like any superhero or villain, if you run around hiding your identity someone, somewhere will work it out. The longer he ran as anonymous, the greater his chances of being unmasked, especially as his profile rose. Why should he remain anonymous if a media worker discovers him? Since when is the media supposed to ignore a fact when nothing but a person's job is at stake, especially when that job was placed in jeopardy by Mr. Gamut's own actions? If Mr. Gamut really wanted to influence politics, he could've quit his public service job at any time and gotten rid of the need to be anonymous in the first place. The notion he was silenced is silly. He chose to be an anonymous blogger running the risk of being outed. The media have always investigated mysteries and uncovered them to the public. That's what they do.

Unless he was a whistle-blower or in a position where his anonymity was crucial for his or someone else's physical security, he had no rights to anonymity, just like any of the rest of us. The dude played a game and lost. Next.

30 Rock and That Joke

People are throwing the all too familiar moral shit fit today over a joke on 30 Rock. Pete Hornberger explains that with his extra free time he made love to his wife, but that she was asleep, so he didn't have to be gentle. We then see a mid-shot of Pete's snoring wife as she starts to jiggle up and down.

The online community have erupted with cries of 'rape joke,' and there's vocalisation that the writers crossed a line.

Now, my girlfriend and I exploded with sustained laughter after this gag and had to watch it again to maximise the hilarity. At the time I didn't even think of rape. I was laughing because being a fan of the show, I know that Pete and his wife have a history of bizarre sex practices, and this was just the next step in their escalating kinkiness. I also laughed at the grotesque nature of his wife's mass of snoring flesh wobbling back and forth as a bald, most likely naked Pete began rutting her. I thought my reaction to that horror show was reflected in Liz Lemon's curdled face when we cut back.

Pete intimates he knows it's gross and we cut back to his wife really shaking. Here I figured the writers knew they'd come up with a great joke and wanted to milk it a little extra.

Maybe this says something about me, that my mind didn't go straight to rape, but if so, it equally says something about those whose minds did race to sexual assault in the framework of an off the wall comedy like 30 Rock.

Now that I read the outcry, I realise this scene could indeed be seen as rape, but I really don't believe that was the point or intention of the comedy, and it's certainly not why I laughed. Maybe the writers were a little dangerous with their humour on this one, but in the context of the show, Pete having sleep-sex with his wife seems completely appropriate. This is the same couple who were happy to have sex in Lemon's bed and whose children beat up their father. I believe that Pete's wife, upon waking, would be fine with Pete having made love to her while asleep, because they've set her character up that way. She's a kinky woman. So maybe Mrs Hornberger is happy to be sleep-sexed. Does that mean she condones the same or worse to other people? Does that mean the writers of the show do? Of course not!

The joke is risky, but I think edgy comedy needs to be observed within its sphere of reality. To leap to the conclusion that the scene, the characters and the writers condone rape is absolutely ludicrous.

YouTube Tuesday: Lisa vs Pooh

Made this after I discovered the joys of decent video on my phone. It's silly, but fun.

I'm sure before long you'll all be enduring five minute vids of my cat playing with a shoe...

YouTube Tuesday!

I couldn't NOT share these with you.

Glorious and stunning.

Melbourne Show Copy Fail

I saw a poster for The Royal Melbourne show that really pointed out why companies need a skilled copywriter.

No doubt if you live in Melbourne, you've seen this poster at tram shelters and train stations. The problem is the prevalence of those unwarranted little apostrophes after Moo, Baa and Ooh. The apostrophe between a word and an s denotes ownership. This poster can be roughly translated as saying the show belongs to Moo, Baa and Ooh - and then someone screams. It could also be saying there are three stores owned or named after Moo, Baa and Ooh, and that this causes someone so much grief they have to scream Aaaggh!

Maybe Moo, Baa and Ooh take the prize for best cow, sheep and carrot cake each year, and the little kids in the picture are frustrated contenders who've had enough of the trinity's dominance? Whatever the case, if those apostrophes were inserted on purpose, the intention isn't very clear. If they were a mistake, then that's a city-wide mistake seen by lots of eyes. If you have a business that's communicating to the world, to a small local network or even to your employees, it's wise to have someone who understands language and communication. A skilled copywriter can save you from putting out what I think we can safely call a copy disaster.

Melbourne

We love Melbourne so much, we once made a show about it.

Hot damn if I don't love Melbourne. It's the city I was raised in and around and I've got a terrible bias because I've never left the country, but I don't rip on junkies who love junk because hot junk is the only drug they shot into their arm. I'm a Melbourne junkie. I even appreciate the place junkies have in my fair city, because I take a tram, and anyone who takes a tram in Melbourne has dealt with a junkie or a drunkie.

Rolling in through North Melbourne has that rather unique combination of horrendously broken men and women screaming at each other and lightly slapping each other's crusty face with limp, track marked arms, sitting right next to upstanding women with sticks up their butt, ignoring the screeching as desperately as their head phones will allow. The hipsters come on and off, scurrying away to either a derelict commercial space that's been illegally transferred into a rental property or, in stark juxtaposition (a word any good hipster loves), their three-quarter of a million dollar townhouse owned by mummy and daddy. If you hear a note of scorn in my voice, I guarantee you've mistaken the true ring of pride. My unshaven, capped, cargo-panted, flannel visage, clinging with all its might to the nineties, blends in with this freaky-deaky mélange like a needle in a public toilet.

Victorian State Gallery : Cameron Zayec 2007

Melbourne is blue. That's its colour. Look at it from a distance, the medium height skyline, and tell me its overall mood isn't blue. The mix of modern look at me please oh god look at me architecture with the old gothic and deco office buildings, holding firm from the fifties when John Brack painted brown and tan bankers moving from work at five o'clock, their lined mouths barely registering emotion beyond a faint urge to climb back into the nest with a scotch and dinner on the table. The Nicholas Building on Elizabeth Street that I would so dearly love to film inside - this is a building with elevators with grated, manually operated doors, with elevators run by attendees who decorate their cell with flowers, pictures of puppies and an electric space heater. Melbourne University's weird, wavy cow building, the home of the Criminology and Psychology department, whose glass is printed with black and white rounded splotches, long vertical wavy steel dividing the bovine skin. Nearby is the Roundabout of Death, where Peel, Elizabeth, Flemington and Royal Parade meet with three different tram lines and a terrifying rite of passage for any young driver who emerges from the right lane into the left, then suddenly has to fly over to the right again, screaming in fear as your dad yells in frustration until, sweating and broken, you find yourself in the path of an oncoming tram and veer back onto your side, stopping at a red light and the Royal Women's, where you wouldn't mind a little lie down.

Smack bang in the middle of the Roundabout of Death is the giant pole and enormous Australian flag, surrounded by lesser minions usually displaying either a museum exhibit or the Grand Prix. I remember coming out from the Royal Children's Hospital, so pleased just to have escaped, and being struck every familiar time with how immense the flag is. I still imagine myself being wrapped up in it, and knowing there'd be so much room left over that I'd drown in navy blue and six white stars. Sometimes old blue would be replaced with a giant Aboriginal flag that dad or an uncle would grimly curse but that I secretly thought was way more interesting and used way cooler colours than ours.

City from Alexandra Ave : Cameron Zayec 2007

When I walk home from work, out of Shed 4 at the end of Victoria Harbour, to my back is a glorious view of the Bolte Bridge, awesome in its simplicity - two giant silver stiffies, constantly surrounded by swirling seagulls chasing moth jizz. The sun sets behind it and the silver reflects the purples and frosting pinks of the burning sky. The air smells of salt and a cool breeze always refreshes me at the height of excruciating summers. At night, the buildings are always lit with vibrant colours, as broadly skewed towards pretty as the dusk sky. Big, huge buildings, interesting from all angles, the ANZ with its bizarre twisty wind turbines. The Shredder over by the Citylink onramp is black, sharp and severe, like an evil turtle-hunting ninja. I like to listen to Bowie and look up as I walk to the tram terminal. That's what started this post. As I round a corner and pass the deceptively broad expanse of Flemington Raceway where creatures with much bigger penises than me are flogged by frustrated little men with much tinier penises than me, I can't help but spurt rhapsodic about Melbourne, all because I walked home listening to As The World Falls Down and thought that's the gayest damn thing. Awesome. And blue.

West Gate Bridge from the harbour : Cameron Zayec 2007

Hot POA

Ladies and gentleman, may I present to you, the hottest piece of ass this side of the Atlantic. She'll steal your dreams, get all up in your head box and destroy your ability to step outside, away form your computer screens.

Aw yeah. Snap!