Wakakirri

As previously mentioned I attended a concert on Wednesday night at the Wollongong Entertainment Centre to watch my niece perform. Wakakirri is a national festival that celebrates learning via the creation and sharing of stories. To enter the Wakakirri challenge schools create stories using dance, creative movement, acting, song and film to be performed, screened and displayed to audiences across Australia.

The show I watched on Wednesday was a part of this festival, but basically it was a glorified school concert. Not to be derogatory, but my expectations of school concerts are fairly low. I expect to be entertained, and for there to be some talented performers, but overall I know it's going to be a bit lame. They are just children after all. There are exceptions of course but generally, one knows what they are going to get at a school concert, and really, attendance is more about providing support and encouragement for the children, especially those to whom you are related.

Nine schools performed on Wednesday night and most of them were quite fun to watch. I couldn't help admire the amount of work that had gone in to the creation of these dance stories: the costumes, props, choreography and music. A few of the performances stood out, but one of them actually made me cry. It was very dramatic and moving. Overall, I was surprised by the quality and I left on a high, before heading to McDonalds for a sundae with my daughter.

Some of the young performers I watched at Wakakirri may go on to careers in the entertainment industry. I wish them well, and I thank them all for entertaining me, especially Macquarie Fields Public School for moving me.

What has been the best 'school concert' you've seen?

Read more about Wakakirri

The Great Escape

The popularity of television, books and movies testifies to our desire to escape the humdrum of everyday life. Certainly, many books and television shows are watched for their educational value, but what we really want is entertainment. We want to be transported, if only in our imaginations, from where we are to some other fantastic place. From reality to fantasy. Along the way we happily gobble up debaucherous immorality: lies, sex and violence, and why not? We aren't doing it, and it isn't been done to us. Living vicariously through fictional characters is safe. It is also both amusing and instructive vis-a-vis human nature.

After many months of wondering what happened after the explosion in the final episode of season 14 of ER, and then subsequently forgetting about it when we couldn't watch it because it wasn't on TV and Leading Edge video store which supplied us with season 1 -14 didn't have season 15, we watched the final episode of the Australian police drama, Blue Heelers. Not being able to follow the trials and tribulations of the coppers at Mount Thomas was a blow, and by the time we neared the end of season 14 we were in despair. How could we go on without our much loved friends in the Victorian police department? And then, season 15 of ER appeared on the shelf at Leading Edge. Hooray!

Last night we found out what happened after the explosion at the end of season 14. *Spoiler alert. One of the main stars, a favourite character who had morphed from an annoying and narcissistic cowboy of a doctor, into the chief of the ER and everyone's best mate, appeared to have survived the explosion. He made it out of the ambulance and into hospital where it was eventually discovered that he was much more seriously injured than first presumed. Fatally injured in fact. First episode of a new season and they killed off one of the stars of the show. It was shocking, gripping, and emotionally draining, which is exactly what you want from television drama.

Dr.Greg Pratt died a horrible death. After the funeral his friends gathered at the local watering hole to eulogize him and eat deep fried mozarella sticks in honour of him. As we watched those deeply moving scenes, I felt a bit teary and I wanted to eat a deep fried mozarella stick. Then we watched another episode. Life carried on in the emergency room of County General, as it did in our home where after episode two, I brushed my teeth, went to bed and slept peacefully. Untouched. Unscathed. Safe, warm and well.

I cannot imagine a world without such entertainment. The escapism provided by the amusements of our culture is a reflection of who we are: empty, craven, and broken.The breadth of human experience, the highs and the lows, can be encapsulated in a forty minute episode, a two hour film, or a three hundred page novel. And it's all fake. Realistic? Sure, but completely counterfeit. All our hopes, our dreams, our fears, our grief, our suffering and our joy is there for us to enjoy, but how much or how little of this experience is our own?

Fingers aren't Sausages

Some of the cartoons being fed to children as entertainment these days disgust me. They seem to be celebrations of violence, and of the grotesque and macabre. A deformed character with extremely anti-social behaviour, a sick looking beast of some sort with uncontrollable anger, a morbidly obese animal having its blubber filmed in slow motion, and a ghoulish looking chef practicing cannibalism. Oh, it's good stuff. Very uplifting, and morally strong viewing indeed.

The shows to which I have referred, and which you may recognize, are relatively new shows, but violent cartoons are not new. I watched Tom and Jerry as a child, and I saw Wile E. Coyote get blown up and squashed more times than I can remember. It's the same thing isn't it? Not in my book, but you can make up your own mind. The disturbing trend towards increasingly graphic depictions of heinous acts is of course not limited to children's cartoons. How funny is it when Homer throttles Bart, causing his eyes to pop out of his head as he struggles for breath? Children watch a hell of a lot, and I don't use the word 'hell' lightly, of shows that they shouldn't be watching: shows which promote values which most people find abhorrent. Breaking the law if it suits your purposes. Using violence to solve problems. Disrespecting parents and authority in general. The list goes on. Here are the lucky few children's cartoons to be named and shamed in Square Pegs.

Spliced is a show about mixed up, freaky animal mutants and their mixed up freaky animal mutant friends. The happy sounding theme song talks about the animals having been constructed in a lab by being spliced, and diced and regurgitated. In one episode, a large animal eats all the other animals who I thought were his friends. They escape from inside his stomach by detonating an explosive. The result is their liberation while the large animal is stripped off all its skin and stands with its internal organs on display. It's so funny.
Horace in Slow Motion features a lovable, portly pig who performs his greatest bodily acts in slow motion. In one episode, thankfully they are all short, we have the hilarious pleasure of watching this corpulent pig stuffing his face with cake while attempting to run on a treadmill. In Monsterchef, the cook chops off someone's fingers and puts them inside pastry to serve, before ripping our his own intestines and adding them to a soup he is casually stirring. Yummy!


Let your children watch these sick and twisted shows by all means, and call it harmless fun if it makes you feel better, but don't forget to pray that we don't end up with a society swollen with sick and twisted individuals. We've got enough of them already, don't we?

Prisoner Of Obscurity

Natalie Tran. Have you heard that name? What? You haven't? You must have been living in a cave in Kathmandau. Natalie Tran is the most watched Australian on YouTube. In fact she has made it on to the top 20 most watched YouTube videos in the world. In the world, I said. Guess how many hits we are talking about here? Go on, guess. 224 million hits worldwide. 224 million.

I'm at a loss for words which is really bad when you a writer. Check out the story and her video or just the video at http://www.news.com.au/technology/meet-youtubes-224-million-girl-natalie-tran/story-e6 (copy and paste the URL into your browser) and come back here.

So Natalie draws a six pack on herself with a black marker and it's entertaining.I'm not sure if this makes me despair for the future of rational humanity or just insanely jealous. Popularity is like a disease and I want to catch it. The thing is I don't know how. I am apparently inoculated against it by qualities like averageness and blend in with everyone and everything else-ness. I am a prisoner of obscurity. My video had an unbelievable number of hits. I forget the exact number but it was somewhere under twenty. It was supposed to help sell my book. I talk about the book and my writing influences, and it's pretty interesting but 224 million people have watched Natalie Tran draw a six pack on herself with a black marker.

I draw two conclusions. I have virtually no hope, and I have virtually no idea of what appeals to people who like to watch Natalie Tran draw on herself. Okay she's way better looking than me but I bet I could kill her at Scrabble. And apart from the fact that it does not feature an attractive young lady in a bikini top and shorts, my video is an infinitely superior product.

YouTubers of the world. Enjoy your grabs of the mundane and the insane by all means but please at least consider buying my book. You too, Natalie Tran.