#There's some appearances from other nz comedians! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 year ago

Text

All right, this is my post about John Oliver’s appearance on Russell Howard’s podcast that’s going to get way more detailed about the Chocolate Milk Gang than anyone wants (I can already picture the @lastweeksshirttonight reply to this to say they care, so I should amend that to say there is one person who wants that, but they have already listened to the episode and don't really need to be told what's in it, leaving this post still of interest to no people). So here is a cut.

It's been just a little bit over a year now since the couple of months I spent doing constant posts to update everyone on my progress through the rabbit hole of understanding the meaning of "Chocolate Milk Gang". A journey that started with an effort to just explain the name, but grew much bigger than that. Consider this post a continuation of those ones.

Okay. Okay. In order to find all the things I wanted to reference for this post, I decided to make one folder on my hard drive called Chocolate Milk Gang, where I collect all the video, audio, and PDF files that reference or relate to it, and I've got to admit I had a moment of looking at the whole folder and saying, "This is all starting to feel a bit Beautiful Mind." But anyway, it is convenient to have it all in one place.

Anyway. Here are the couple of clips I cut out of that podcast for that folder:

There's a lot to unpack here, comedian gossip-wise. Football stories that I'm always happy to hear again. Between Kitson's radio shows, Russell Howard/Jon Richardson's radio show, and The Bugle, I've heard enough different stories to suggest that apparently Al Pitcher's wedding was a hell of a time.

There's also some stuff in that Edinburgh clip that isn't specifically relevant the the CMG, but is relevant to some other stuff I've been posting about in the last few months. Stuff about the difference between British and American comedy, and how I'm pretty sure those differences are largely shaped by the Edinburgh Festival. Specifically by the fact that anyone can go to the Edinburgh Festival, making it very different from something like Just For Laughs that we have here, which is invite or audition only. And I think this is what makes British comedy much more similar to Australia/NZ comedy than it is to North American comedy, because they have MICF. Though I don't actually know what I'm talking about.

John Oliver sums it up well here:

You can kind of finish your ‘bulletproof’ – to the extent that that was true, which it wasn’t – but as close to a solid set of comedy that you can produce. At that point, you’re finished, really, right? So what are you going to do? Are you going to keep doing that? There’s probably many cautionary tales that will show you that’s not the way to human happiness. So then you start to break it. And that was where Edinburgh, for me, was so massively important, that you throw away that safety blanket, and then the next year you come back with a brand new hour. You spent a number of years making that twenty minutes, now you have to spend eleven months making an hour.

I wish he'd expanded a bit on the "not the way to human happiness" part, because that interests me. Going to comedy around here, I've seen how different it is from what I hear from British stuff, and obviously there are lots of reasons for that, mainly that I'm comparing low-level stuff that's local to me against great comedians from Britain. I know that Britain also has low-level club comedians, I just don't hear much from them all the way over here.

I have heard a little bit of fairly low-level comedy in Britain, and it's still notably different from what I hear here. Also, some of the comedians I hear around here have been doing it a long time (including my brother, who's been doing it 13 years, doing regular pro spots for over ten, makes enough money off comedy each year so he could probably almost live off his comedy income alone if he didn't mind being extremely poor), have done quite well. I've tried to see what their ambitions are, what the path is that they're trying to get on to the next thing. And there just doesn't really seem to be one. There are occasional spots on CBC that people would like, but those are so rare, so few compared to the number of panel show spots that comedians can try for in Britain, if they want to go that way. And obviously, in Britain, the new comedians are all trying to put together something good enough to take to Edinburgh, even if at first it's just the twenty-minute set that John Oliver was talking about in that clip for a mixed bill thing. No one here is doing that. They're pretty much doing the exact thing that John Oliver described as "not the way to human happiness", perfecting their 20-minute set so they can impress increasingly important club promoters for years and years and years.

It seems to me like a bad idea to dedicate your whole life to the thing that John Oliver (probably accurately) described as "not the way to human happiness", but I'm interested in how many other options there are. You can try for TV and radio spots, I guess, but there aren't many of those here. Some comedians around here try to audition for the Winnipeg Comedy Festival and Just For Laughs, but not many get in because there aren't that many spots available. A couple of people around here have started podcasts, but contrary to what the front page of Chortle each week might suggest, surely not everyone in the entire world can start a podcast. You could sell your soul to social media, obviously - that's always an option no matter what your field is. But if you want to do comedy and don't want that, what else are you supposed to do? I don't ask that question facetiously, I would genuinely like to know and I wish John Oliver had expanded on his point in that podcast to answer it. Which I guess he did, and the answer was to go to Edinburgh until you get good enough/enough attention to do your own tours. Or, in his case, you have Ricky Gervais happen to mention your name to Jon Stewart when The Daily Show is looking for a British correspondent. Also you start a podcast.

Anyway. That's the part where John Oliver explained some interesting stuff about the intersections between the comedy industry and the comedy craft, but that's not what we're here for, is it? We're here for some comedian gossip! And this podcast episode provided on that front.

Okay. To explain the significance of one part of that clip, I have to go back a bit. To summer 2022, when I spent ages looking things up to try to find the explanation for the name “Chocolate Milk Gang”. I’d found that it had to do with them being sober when all the other comedians were drunk, to them being considered vaguely nerdy compared to other comedians who were more shouty or smooth or alcoholics. So I got the gist, but this wasn’t enough to fully make sense. I kept coming back to asking: But why chocolate milk, though? Do they drink the chocolate milk? Do they talk about chocolate milk on stage? Do they regularly sacrifice cows in the middle of the night? Or was that just that one time?

The clearest explanation I'd found came from a 2007 article that said:

Part of a new breed of stand-up dubbed the Chocolate Milk Gang for rejecting a hard-living ethos, they include the likes of Daniel Kitson, Demetri Martin, John Oliver, David O’Doherty, Josie Long and Alun Cochrane, and can be characterised by their romantic sensibility, intelligence, geekiness, love of indie music and passive-aggressive, alpha male competitiveness.

But that doesn't explain the name. Sure, chocolate milk is a sort of nerdy drink, but there had to be a reason why that specific drink got used in their nickname. In the early 00s, I was hanging out with my high school friends, and we were nerds who didn't drink (not until I was of age) and liked to imagine ourselves as romantic and intelligent, but we never named ourselves after chocolate milk, because that is not a thing that just automatically happens to everyone who’s not an alcoholic.

So I kept searching. There were just barely enough references to the term on the internet for me to be pretty sure it was really used, but few enough references for me to occasionally wonder if I'd made it all up. There are really very, very few direct references to the actual name “Chocolate Milk Gang” out there.

They are so rare that I once listened to an entire Comedian’s Comedian podcast episode featuring the worst person in the entire world, just because I’d read that he mentions the words “Chocolate Milk Gang” in it, which turned out to not even be true. Actually, in the ComCom podcast, all he did was talk a bunch of shit about David O'Doherty. However, on a different podcast months later, he talked to a different guy about how DO’D had (shockingly) disliked the comments he'd made on the ComCom podcast, and it’s there that he mentions that DO'D was in a Chocolate Milk Gang. And I listened to both episodes. I listened to two hours of the worst person in the world talking, just so I could hear someone say the words “Chocolate Milk Gang”, because instances of that name being dropped were so rare. And he didn’t even actually say “Chocolate Milk Gang” – he got the name wrong and called them the “Chocolate Milk Brigade”. And listening to those two hours pissed me off so much that I temporarily lost respect for Stuart Goldsmith, a guy I very much like, just because he was able to be in a room with that guy and not punch him in the fucking face.

I hate to focus on the worst person in the world, but in the interests of laying all the Chocolate Milk Gang references out in one place, here's a compilation I made of that guy talking shit on two podcasts, and the Chocolate Milk Brigade reference is about 15:30 into it:

I get into the McSavage stuff because me listening to all that bullshit (and taking the time to put it into a compilation) really shows how far I was willing to go to find direct references to the Chocolate Milk Gang. They were not easy to find. I take it for granted now that I've figured it out, but it took ages.

I did, however, find a number of things that described the phenomenon, without using the specific name. Notably, this clip from the Stewart Lee TV show, Alternative Comedy Experience:

Or this clip from Russell Howard and Jon Richardson's BBC 6 Music radio show, recorded live from the Edinburgh Festival in 2007, with Richard Herring as a guest, looking back at Edinburgh 2006:

Interesting that both Lee and Herring identify them specifically as being strange and different for not spending the entire month of August drunk. That probably says more about Lee and Herring than about anything else.

So they go by many names, apparently. The Chocolate Milk Brigade, in the words of David McSavage. The Hanging Around Gang, in the words of Stewart Lee. The annoyingly sober nerds of the circuit, according to Richard Herring. The Guys with the Bags, in the words of Andrew Maxwell. An International Crime Syndicate that Sometimes Organizes Soccer Matches, in the words of John Oliver (okay, he was talking about FIFA when he said those words, but I think they also apply to the CMG).

That Stewart Lee clip came so close to using their actual name, but they still didn't quite say it. The rare instances of the actual name being referenced include that bullshit McSavage saga, that extremely weird Jay Richardson article that I quoted above (honestly the paragraph I quoted barely scratched the surface of how weird that article is, it's worth reading the whole thing), and a few scattered old articles that all seem to be quoting each other. The term "Chocolate Milk Gang" is mentioned on Russell Howard and John Oliver's Wikipedia pages, but not the Wikipedia pages of any of their less internationally famous core members (David O'Doherty, Andy Zaltzman, Daniel Kitson, Alun Cochrane), which is odd as you'd think it would be more likely to come up on pages for people for whom the CMG stuff was a larger proportion of their total career success.

But the main reference to it, of course, was what I called the Holy Grail Audio Clip, because it took me so much effort to find it, a few weeks of scouring the internet. It's the only clip I've found that really clearly lays out an explanation of what the Chocolate Milk Gang was, while using the actual name. It's from David O'Doherty's episode of the Comedian's Comedian podcast, which really should have been the first thing I checked, looking back (I consider it very lucky that David O'Doherty went on the ComCom podcast before the worst person in the world did, because otherwise we wouldn't have gotten his brilliant episode at all):

God, re-listening to that is reminding me of how exciting it was to find it for the first time. Actually, to illustrate how exciting it was, I still need to get a cat and name it Stuart Goldsmith. Early in the episode, DO'D talked a bit about his early Edinburgh days, and I paused the recording to make a post on Tumblr about that discussion, and how close they came to discussing the Chocolate Milk Gang, and how much I wanted my answer. In that post, I said something like: "Stuart Goldsmith, if you can get an explanation out of David O'Doherty for the term 'Chocolate Milk Gang', I will name my first cat after you." As a joke about how I do not want kids but felt that this was important enough to offer something on the same level as letting him name my firstborn. A bit later in the same episode, when Goldsmith delivered on that, I made a follow-up post to 1) share the above clip and declare that the Holy Grail had been found, and 2) admit that I do need to name a cat after Stuart Goldsmith now.

I've just dug up the post that I made after I first heard that clip, and in it, I transcribe what DO'D said. I shall copy/paste:

David O’Doherty: ’02 was the year where I came [to Edinburgh] with a show, I’d been a bit sad and tried to write a show… and I met just a bunch of people. I met Kitson, I met Conchords, I met Taika Waititi, who’s a movie director now, I met Zaltzman, I met John Oliver, I met Josie Long – I’d met her before but, we were all just trying to figure out a kind of a thing that we wanted to do. And it didn’t quite fit with what was successful around then, because none of us were… I guess you could categorize it as quite low-status individuals. As in, we didn’t walk out with smoke machines, and if we did shout from off stage it was something ironic, about, like, “Get ready to try and stay awake for an hour, because this room is bullshit. Ladies and gentlemen!” You know, and that was… whereas before, that was the start of shiny floor comedy that we see on TV now. So it was like people in tailored suits and bowing, and getting the adulation – that was just never a thing I wanted to do. My father’s a jazz musician, and jazz is like the opposite of that.” Stuart Goldsmith: In those comedians that we’ve named, do you see a sort of reflection of your styles in each other’s work? Because there are sort of similarities, like a common trope of that kind of gang is to treat something gentle and meandering and whimsical as if it’s, you know, like a rap battle or something. To kind of pretend like you’re Notorious B.I.G., talking about a unicorn. David O’Doherty: Oh, that. Yeah, I mean, that’s… that’s pretty low, what you’ve just said. Stuart Goldsmith: [laughter] Well it’s something that’s copied a lot now, and I think it originated with Kitson and with you doing Late ‘n Live. That whole thing of going, “strap in, buckle up.” But now, every idiot in tight jeans is going, “Strap in,” but without a sense of why. David O’Doherty: Right, yeah. Yeah, I guess we were… yeah, that’s a good point. I mean, I’ve always felt that I’m trying to say something reasonably profound. I’ve never done a show that was just a load of jokes, and was just trying to fill the time with talking about, you know, fairy lights and bunting, which was sort of the perception, I think, people who never came to the shows, or some people who reviewed it, would have had around the time. Of like, “Where is he from? I don’t know, but I’d like to visit it.” You know, I’ve always tried to talk about the things that were important. It’s just that those things manifested themselves as the tale of a suicidal lobster, which was the first show here, or whatever it was then. So, you know, none of that was very tough. I remember once, we were referred to as… Me: Oh shit. Oh shit. Please, for the love of God, tell me what you were referred to as. David O’Doherty: …because everyone else was getting really drunk backstage at Late ‘n Live, and we used to go over and get, to [inaudible, I assume it’s the name of a shop that sells milkshakes but I can’t tell what he said, it’s not important] and get milkshakes, we were called the Chocolate Milk Gang. Which isn’t something you see… Stuart Goldsmith: By who? David O’Doherty: I think Glenn Wool, or something like that. Stuart Goldsmith: Okay, for people who don’t know Glenn Wool, he very much typifies the… David O’Doherty: Well, he was certainly then, he was like a party, a mega-party dude then. I remember Andrew Maxwell… Stuart Goldsmith: [laughing] Sorry, even your use of the phrase “mega party dude” firmly establishes you as a chocolate milk guy. David O’Doherty: I remember Maxwell, who’s a friend of mine – Andrew Maxwell is such a much more alpha character – brackets, shorter – than me, and he once said to John Oliver, “You lads, you’ve always got bags.” Because we had, as in a backpack or a satchel. And we probably had, like jokes, or like, books, and he was always like, “What’s in your bag?” Like there was something going on, just… we have effigies of you, and we have ceremonies that you’re not allowed to come to.

Before finding that clip, I'd spent an number of Tumblr posts speculating about whether "Chocolate Milk Gang" was a name they'd given themselves, or whether it was something they got called by the media. I never would have guessed that when I got my answer to who coined the term "Chocolate Milk Gang", that answer would be Glenn Wool. So technically, the name "Chocolate Milk Gang" has a Canadian origin. That's fun.

In that copy-paste of that my old post, I would like to draw your attention to this quote: "…because everyone else was getting really drunk backstage at Late ‘n Live, and we used to go over and get, to [inaudible, I assume it’s the name of a shop that sells milkshakes but I can’t tell what he said, it’s not important] and get milkshakes, we were called the Chocolate Milk Gang."

I said at the time that it didn't matter, because I was so happy to have the central mystery answered that I could overlook one little confusing bit. But of course, I still tried for a while to look it up. I couldn't quite understand what DO'D was saying - it sounded to me like "favorait", or maybe "fav-o'rait"?

I Googled all these things, but it was hard when I didn't even know what type of place it was. I was picturing a sort of 7/11-style corner store, a place that was open late and sold milkshakes. But I didn't know for sure, so I was just Googling a word that I didn't know how to spell, with no definite context. Throwing in the word "Edinburgh" didn't help.

At some point I took to Google Maps, and then Google Earth. He said the went "over" to get milkshakes after Late 'n' Live, which suggested to me that it couldn't be far from the Gilded Balloon. They wouldn't travel all that far in the middle of the night when they'd just done a long comedy show. So I looked around the map to see if I could find anything by that name, but nothing came up. I eventually gave up on it.

However. However. Here's a shortened version of the clip I posted earlier, of John Oliver on the recent Russell Howard podcast episode, talking about Edinburgh. A clip of just the part that's relevant to this post, where he talks about the CMG days:

He said it! He said it! He didn't quite say the words "Chocolate Milk Gang" (though he came so close), but he did say the same word DO'D said, the name of the store. And John Oliver said it more clearly than DO'D did, I could be more sure I was hearing him correctly, so I was inspired to try Googling again.

I tried Googling potential spellings with the word "Edinburgh" for a while, but nothing came up. Then I realized something (and this part isn't going to make this post sound less Beautiful Mind-y): this is a tradition that started in 2002. The Gilded Balloon burned down in December 2002, and was rebuilt nearby. So in August 2002, when the CMG started, the Gilded Balloon was in a different place to where it is now. All that searching on Google Maps/Earth, I was looking in the wrong spot.

So I did some Googling to try to find the original address for the Gilded Balloon. My CMG research from the last year has led me to know a hell of a lot about the Gilded Balloon, because so much CMG history took place there, and I cannot emphasize enough how thorough I have been in my research. I know its layout and how the backstage looks quite well, since it was heavily featured in that Tim Minchin documentary (I even know more than I need to about how the dressing rooms look, by which I mean there were more shots than I needed of Tim Minchin with his clothes off). I know all about Karen Koren and Late 'n' Live and all these things. I know about the fire. But I couldn't find its original exact address.

I do, however, know it was originally in a place called Cowgate, which is a neighbourhood and/or street and/or square (this is why I've named the cow sacrificing event Cowgate, even though that occurred at the new location in 2003). And I found that the fire that burned down the original Gilded Balloon started in something called Hastie's Close. So I went to that place on Google Earth, figuring the fire couldn't have spread all that far. I set the year to 2005, which was the closest year to 2002 for which Google Earth had archive data around that location. And I explored the area.

I didn't actually expect to find anything, really. But then, suddenly, it appeared before me:

Mystery solved! Another mystery solved! Look, to be honest, most of this post has just been to give context that tries to explain why the fuck I was so excited to find an Edinburgh diner that, as I now know because once I knew exactly what I was looking for I was able to Google the place, closed down years ago. It's exciting because it's the last little piece of the answer that I was so excited to find last year. I can finally fill in the blanks of the transcript of the Holy Grail audio clip. That's what David O'Doherty actually said: "…because everyone else was getting really drunk backstage at Late ‘n Live, and we used to go over and get, to Favorit and get milkshakes, we were called the Chocolate Milk Gang."

It turns out that Favoirt is not a 7/11-style corner store, it's a diner that even had a license to sell alcohol late (according to its front window), but is the sort of place that appears to be more about the milkshakes than about being a bar. And it is, in fact, very near the original Gilded Balloon. Or at least, it's very near the place where the fire that burned down the original Gilded Balloon started. I am so pleased to tie up this loose end.

Why does that matter? Look, I'm not quite sure, but it definitely seemed important. Look, why does anything matter? Anything at all?

Like I said, a lot to unpack in that podcast episode. I have now unpacked one tiny part of it, and it was the least important part. But I did unpack it. It's unpacked now. You're welcome.

...As I keep saying, there are worse things I could have gotten deeply obsessed with as a way to cope with the changing world in pandemic times. I could have gotten really into Jordan Peterson, like some ex-CMG members/hosts of podcasts about a box for things people like, that I could name. At least I didn't do that. I just occasionally spend two hours on Google Earth to find a long-closed diner in Edinburgh. I'm doing fine.

16 notes · View notes

thecourtneychronicles · 5 years ago

Link

“Courtney Act says she’s enjoying an endless “hot girl summer”. Which, for those not initiated into American rap memes, basically means she’s having a damn good time.

“I’m kind of lubed up and ready for Mardi Gras, so to speak,” she says. As Australia’s most famous drag queen, active since the turn of the century, Courtney helped lead the mainstreaming of queer culture in this country along with figures such as Carlotta and Bob Downe.

But being a leader or pioneer doesn’t guarantee being comfortable in your own skin. Courtney says that until recently her understanding of sexuality and gender was actually quite limited. When she was performing, she was a woman, but when she stripped off her make-up, she went back to being Shane Jenek, a man.

“Although I did drag, my masculinity and femininity were compartmentalised in the binary,” Courtney says.

But over the past few years, as public discussion of gender, sexuality and identity has grown, she has discovered things are more complex than your genitals, clothes and hair.

“I think sometimes people think identity has something to do with the wrapping, but really it’s the gift underneath,” she says. “It’s about how you feel. For me, I definitely feel like I occupy masculine and feminine qualities.”

Courtney explores this journey in her pop-cabaret show, Fluid, showing this week at the Eternity Playhouse in Darlinghurst as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival. It’s a change of pace for her after focusing on television in recent years; first by winning Britain’s Celebrity Big Brother in 2018, then as the runner-up (with Joshua Keefe) on last year’s Australian Dancing with the Stars.

It’s also a far cry from her humble beginnings in the DIY world of drag, which has never been regarded as high art but remains a staple of gay bars and culture worldwide.

“There’s a lot less hot glue and sticky tape in this show, which makes it feel a lot more professional,” Courtney says of Fluid. “I don’t know if that will hold until opening night.”

Set to original music, Fluid was written by Shane and American comedian Brad Loekle. For the most part it’s a one-woman show, with some help from a ballroom dancer in the second half. (“It’d be weird doing a ballroom dance by yourself,” she says.)

The show acknowledges that, more than ever, people are being flooded with “ever-changing and flowing ideas of who we are, what we are and what we might become”.

This is something we should embrace, says Courtney. “We change our clothes every day – we change our hairstyles, we change our jobs. Everything is constantly in motion and constantly fluid. But we have this idea that our identities are fixed. When we look at our lives they’re actually a lot more fluid than we think.”

Courtney, or Shane, doesn’t identify as trans but has said that seeing more transgender people represented in the media was liberating and allowed her to explore her own doubts about gender. She’s previously been described as “gender fluid, pansexual and polyamorous”, although she no longer embraces those labels as she once did.

“They all work,” says Courtney, who prefers to identify as “just generally queer” these days. “It’s funny … so many of our groups identify so strongly with labels and they’re so important to us. I kind of feel less attached to those labels.”

She also understands why some people might feel confused, or even confronted, by the politics of queer identification. The acronym LGBTQIA+, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and others, has expanded over the years to the point that some critics deride it as “alphabet soup”. Even those who are part of the community can be intolerant.

“I get that LGBTIQA+ is a little cumbersome from a marketing standpoint,” says Courtney. “But if you find yourself with the time to complain and be confused by a few extra letters, then you’re one of the lucky ones. If there are people that get to understand themselves more because of a letter in an acronym, I’m all for it.”

“I definitely feel like I occupy masculine and feminine qualities.”

Courtney casts a sceptical eye over everything, including the rise of cancel culture, a predominantly left-wing phenomenon which argues that anyone who says or does something deemed to be racist, sexist, homophobic or in any way offensive should be called out, shamed and, preferably, silenced.

Lamenting the state of political discourse while appearing on the ABC’s Matter of Fact program last year, she said: “The volume’s too loud now and everybody’s yelling.” While history showed that people sometimes need to raise their voices, “when you actually sit down opposite someone and have a conversation with them, you get so much further”.

How, then, does Courtney view the debate over religious freedom that has raged ever since Australians voted to legalise same-sex marriage in 2017? She says it’s clear that sometimes people, especially older white males, perceive other people gaining rights as a threat to their own. She says religion can be a lost cause because it is, by definition, about faith rather than rational argument. Still, queer people have to make the effort to engage.

“The way to do that is to get people to picture themselves in other people’s experiences. That’s the only way you can foster that empathy.

“Rather than yelling aggressively back at the people trying to oppress us, I think the most important thing to do is to share our stories.”

Another thing you can do, of course, is march. This weekend, Mardi Gras culminates in the annual parade up Oxford Street, which will feature more than 200 floats and 10,000 marchers. For the first time, Courtney will co-host the coverage on SBS with comedians Joel Creasey and Zoe Coombs Marr, and Studio 10 presenter Narelda Jacobs.

She had something of a practice run hosting the coverage on Foxtel some years ago. “I saw a clip of it the other day,” she says. “And I’m definitely hoping to redeem myself.”

As a character, Courtney has been on the gay scene for about 20 years. The person behind the facade, Shane, turned 38 last week. He grew up in Brisbane and remembers watching the parade on television as a teenager in the 1990s, huddled up close to the TV so he could quickly switch it off if his parents came downstairs.

Shane came to Sydney when he was 18 and attended his first Mardi Gras. “I just remember it was such a melting pot of people,” he says. “It was the first time I really understood what a community was: that there were all these different parts, and we all faced different challenges and struggles.”

But even then, Shane says he failed to really comprehend about what Mardi Gras was all about. Just like many heterosexual critics over the years, as a young man he gawked at the giant dancing penises, fetish-wear and nudity and wondered: why?

“I remember thinking: why can’t they just be normal?” Shane says. “Have your parade, but why does it have to be about sex and penises? Because I had shame about all of those things. I realise now that the parade’s brash display of sexuality liberates the shame … it’s a really radical way to shake people and say there’s nothing wrong with sexuality – not just homosexuality but sexuality in general.”

The queer community has given Shane a lot: acceptance, identity, a career and fame. It has taken him to Los Angeles, where he was based for some years until 2018, and now to his new home in London.

Love, on the other hand, remains elusive. He is “on the rebound” at the moment, though eternally optimistic. “It’s Mardi Gras time, it’s summer in Sydney, I think this is the perfect time to be single. Maybe I’ll find love under a disco ball at the after-party.”

Incredibly, at 38, Shane is about to attend his first ever wedding, straight or gay – his friend Tim is marrying his partner Ben. It is set to be a baptism of fire. “They have asked my ex-boyfriend and me to give the best man’s speech together, which could be slightly sadistic,” he says.

Shane is still adjusting to the relatively new world of same-sex marriage. It’s not for everyone – many queers still think of it as a conservative and unnecessary institution – but it’s growing on him. “Weirdly, seeing all these people get married, I feel like my cold heart has melted a bit,” he says. “I think there’s something really beautiful about marriage.”

It’s a reminder of why events like the Mardi Gras are still so important – a celebration of diversity at the same time as the old divisions between straight and gay are knocked down. As well as marriage, this can manifest in small shifts, like the politics of Bondi Beach.

“I was at North Bondi on Saturday [and] it was surprisingly unlike North Bondi,” Shane says. “It was all families and those banana umbrella things. I was like, ‘Oh, I remember when this used to be [gay nightclub] ARQ, but with more light.’"

“I guess that’s the progress we fought for – the families are happy occupying the gay beaches now.”

Fashion director Penny McCarthy. Photographer Steven Chee. Hair Benjamin Moir at Wigs By Vanity.

SBS’s Mardi Gras broadcast airs live from 7.30pm on February 29. Fluid will return for a tour of Australia and NZ in spring.

This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale February 23.”

Courtney’s interview for The Sydney Morning Herald - February 21, 2020

#ca interview #21.02.20 #courtney act #sydney mardi gras

3 notes · View notes

anthemnz · 5 years ago

Text

COVID communications conundrums

Our Executive Director, Joanna James, provides some practical recommendations for business owners to communicate effectively to stakeholders as the country moves to Alert Level 2.

As each day passes where New Zealand businesses are either unable to operate, or with heavy restrictions, more Kiwis are hurting.

It’s been uplifting to see that our largely small business nation, as well as Kiwi consumers, have instinctively understood the need to support each other for the recovery of our economy.

In recent weeks, we’ve had many conversations with small business owners who don’t have in-house communications resource and have been grappling with how and when to communicate important news, both the good and the ugly.

Here are a few of the communications tips we’ve been sharing with business leaders and owners:

1. More than ever before, all your communications, both external and internal, needs to hit the right tone.

Demonstrating empathy and authenticity is crucial right now. It’s a balance, but you can show you care, without appearing opportunistic. Has your business been supporting your community? Or negotiated win-win terms within your supply chain? Let your stakeholders know what’s driven your decision.

Recognising the critical role it plays in transporting essential service passengers, Fullers360 provides free ferry services to the Waiheke community during Alert Levels 3 and 4, and have been clearly communicating updates to residents.

As New Zealanders start to think about their local holiday plans heading into Level 2, Fullers360 will no doubt start to see the benefits of Kiwis holidaying at home, but in the meantime, their stakeholders have seen the company’s actions guided by doing the right thing for the Waiheke community.

2. Ask your audiences what they want to hear from you.

Seems like a no-brainer, but even the gesture of asking your audiences inside and outside the business what, and how often, they’d like to hear from you during this time of information overload will be appreciated.

The most effective way to do this is via an audit to identify what’s most important to your stakeholders right now. This allows you to check if your communications approach needs revising, or if there are new tools or channels where your audience would prefer to hear from you.

3. If you have difficult information to communicate, always share it with your people first.

All businesses are having to make tough decisions, and economic predictions suggest there will be many more hard calls to make for business owners. If you’ve got difficult news, always share it with your people first and give them the respect and space to absorb it before you hit send on that media release. The last thing they need is friends asking them how they are when an announcement impacting them has barely sunk in.

When German-owned Bauer Media suddenly shut the doors of its New Zealand arm last month, its 300 staff were asked to attend a 9am Zoom call to be told of the immediate closure. An editor from one of Bauer’s biggest titles told me they had no idea that was the news they’d be getting that morning. Bauer was home to some of our country’s brightest journalism and creative talent, and the staff deserved better from their employer.

4. Exercise sensitivity when timing your news, but don’t freeze any business announcements.

Globally, media consumption across the board has increased. In New Zealand. While advertising revenue may be down, newsrooms have never been busier with new COVID-19 media opportunities and new avenues to tell your story, such as Rebuilding Paradise with Paul Henry and the Bosses in Lockdown podcast series, hosted by Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan.

Yes, think about how to adapt your announcement and its timing, but don’t shy away from sharing it. Kiwis are all at the point now where we want to see examples of business continuity and success, it gives us hope and brings us closer to the economic regeneration we all want to get to.

5. People are turning to their employers for information.

We’re being inundated with information, but research is telling us it is employers that people want to hear from about the state of their business, what’s being done to help keep them safe and maintain continuity with their jobs and performance.

New data from Forrester’s(link is external) PandemicEX survey found people trusted their employers as a source of information about COVID-19 and coronavirus more than they trust governments and social media.

While our own Prime Minister’s COVID-19 communications has been heralded as a masterclass in how to communicate, New Zealand business owners need to be sharing regular and transparent updates with their teams.

In its latest report, ASB economists have predicted that unemployment could approach nine percent this year. Every day, there’s a new version of the unemployment prediction story and these stories won’t be helping with anxiety levels.

Your people want to hear from you on how business is faring. Even if it’s less than rosy, they’ll respect your honesty and your willingness to engage with them. If they understand the part they can play in helping your business through COVID-19, there’s every chance they’ll be more willing to put in the hard yards alongside you.

6. Find ways to keep morale high.

Love or loathe it, video conferencing has become our new work norm, but it’s just as important to use it to keep your team’s spirits high with casual catch ups and happy hours. How can you spice up your team video calls and book in calls where you don’t talk about work?

Australian comedian Hamish Blake has invited workers to share their Zoom call links so he can “gatecrash” video conferences. It’s one of my lockdown highlights, although he’s yet to respond to my invite to our team Friday drinks. I live in hope!

If you’ve been wondering about how you can improve your communications as we head out of lockdown, I hope this provokes some ideas about what you can put in place or change to ensure you’re communicating effectively.

Article featured in NZ Business

#opinion

0 notes

erectiledysfunc · 4 years ago

Text

steve harvey’s & dr phil male enhancement

Contents

Male friends ned

Weinstein company) daniel

National cemetery. interment

Chattanooga national cemetery. arrangements

National cemetery. arrangements

Manager steve sullivan

didn’t seeking further education or training after high school – though their male friends ned, Burt and Dave, none of whom could possibly be as brilliant as Nancy, are all enrolled at Emerson.

Comedian Steve Harvey appears on the "Dr. Phil" show to discuss his book "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man," and his new dating service.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role BRADLEY COOPER / Pat – "SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK" (The weinstein company) daniel DAY-LEWIS / Abraham Lincoln – "LINCOLN" (Touchstone.

The Reverend Steve Duggins will conduct a graveside service on Monday, March 13, at 2 p.m. in Chattanooga national cemetery. interment will be in chattanooga national cemetery. arrangements are by.

This is a major enhancement to the scope of the Janus decision, but government unions are working to minimize its impact. A critical variable, not clearly addressed in today’s Janus decision, is when,

men’s sexual health nz There are free services provided by public sexual health clinics. This is usually based at your local hospital or DHB. A current list of free public sexual health clinics around New Zealand can be found on the NZ Sexual Health Society website.

Dr. Phil explains that men don't think and feel in the same ways as women. Steve Harvey explains how men believe that a fight should be over.

Tana Mongeau shared several snaps on Instagram with Phil Shaw, while Jon Marianek, Ondreaz and Tony Lopez, and others offered peeks inside the party. Not only did the influencers present seem.

Steve Preminger, a California labor organizer, has litigated for four years to ensure that all veterans living on VA property have access to voter registration. Judicial review of VA actions is split.

By Jeannette Catsoulis The documentarian Joseph Hillel chronicles the lives of four brilliant women who helped pave the way in a male-dominated field. By Kristen Yoonsoo Kim A high school senior.

male enhancement single pack pills manufacturers natural male stamina enhancement foods Keep in mind that natural products are not always necessarily. Aphrodisiac property of Trichopus zeylanicus extract in male mice. J Ethnopharmacol 1997;57:21-7. View abstract.what the best natural male enhancement best all around male enhancement pill gnc men’s sexual health vitamins men’s sexual health nz There are free services provided by public sexual health clinics. This is usually based at your local hospital or DHB. A current list of free public sexual health clinics around New Zealand can be found on the NZ Sexual Health Society website.Across the U.S., Americans are trying to help as people who have long struggled to get enough to eat have been joined by.hyper male force is a male enhancement supplement. through the troubles of pharmaceutical pills anymore. Moreover, this supplement helps to: Fix all aspects of one’s sexual health frustrations.Fourth, the present study shows that the enhancement of gut microbiome dysbiosis by a HF in a model of GWI is reversible and leaves open the possibility that dietary modifications or other non.

Steve Harvey Responds to Controversial Staff Memo: 'I Don't. the letter, but it's kind of crazy what people who took this thing and ran, man.” Drop a comment below: What do you think about Steve Harvey's letter to his staff?

Assistant general manager steve sullivan was named interim general manager. Chayka had three years remaining on his contract after this season. "I love our players, coaches, staff and fans and I.

ampallang for male sexual enhancement best rated male enhancement supplement 2016 Claire Campbell, from Historic England, said: ‘We recognise that the proposal would deliver some enhancement to the. Sir Antony, who is best known for the Angel of the North near Gateshead.The ingredients in HRG80 Red Ginseng Male Sexual Enhancement are a powerful combination and work best over time. The thing to bear in mind with this product is that these ingredients work with.

source https://www.erectiledysfunction-pills.com/steve-harveys-dr-phil-male-enhancement/

0 notes

vigrxwarning · 4 years ago

Text

steve harvey’s & dr phil male enhancement

Contents

Dr. john halsey

Common sense: dr. oz

Healthy blood flow

Viaxxl male enhancement pills reviews:

Pills (2. premierzen black 5000 male

Funeral services will be held on Friday, Aug. 22, at 11 a.m. at Grace Baptist Church with Dr. Steve Euler, dr. john halsey, the Reverend Robert Meyer, and the Reverend Kelley O’Rear officiating.

There are tips too, including getting guests to leave the bar by playing eighties rocker Phil Collins’ Greatest Hits album, and a spat with an ex-pat neighbour on the island who tries to haggle.

male enhancement mexico The question is, do any of these "male enhancement" techniques really work? Richard, a mechanic from upstate New York, is a muscular, athletic guy. He has a loving wife who has always enjoyed.

Actor and comedian Steve Harvey has all the secrets to getting inside your man's brain to help strengthen your relationship.

Since Bobby Kennedy, Jr. and attorney Mike Papantonio have now discussed this out loud on the air on their Ring of Fire radio program (where yours truly will be a guest next Saturday, by the way) and.

Prescription Strength common sense: dr. oz, Dr. Phil & Steve Harvey – Kindle edition by Fineman, Ian, Robbin, Tony. Download it once and read it on your.

Thank you to the teenagers who participated this week, and congratulations to our winner, Ava, as well as our many runners-up and honorable mentions. By The Learning Network To participate, submit.

This Is What Steve Harvey Thinks You Should Do if You Ever Get a. of an erection, you do not call your doctor-you flaunt what you got.

male enhancement coupons Get 27 Male Enhancement coupon codes and promo codes at CouponBirds. Click to enjoy the latest deals and coupons of Male Enhancement and save up to 20% when making purchase at checkout. Shop golonggohard.com and enjoy your savings of May, 2020 now!

In a nutshell: Steve McQueen’s shattering adaptation of. In a nutshell: Cult classic featuring Bill Murray as self-centred TV weatherman Phil Connors who gets caught in a time loop while.

euphoric male enhancement pill for sale who makes the best male enhancement pills One of the nation’s best-known authorities on sports. why does it matter what an athlete does? Is neuro-enhancement cheating? What if there were a pill that helped students pass the bar exam?mens sexual health sydney best value male enhancement pills men’s sexual health nz Having a healthy sex life is important, so use natural male sex health products to support hormone function, encourage healthy blood flow, and support sexual health.* view top 50 Overall Products.. Men’s Virility PowerYou think the price can, say the bestmens pills sound to buy, the man will lead you in, let you go to the second floor, Bestmens Male Enhancement Pills the woman will treat bestmens male.Sydney, Australia. Ageless Men's Health Clinics (AMHC) represents Australia's first dedicated holistic Men's Health Network of doctors and nurses actively.If you see a dietary supplement or other product marketed for ED that you can buy without a prescription, be cautious. The product may be fake or even dangerous.which male enhancement did the sharks invest in Shark Tank Male Enhancement Pills Shark Tank has seen almost every possible male-orientated invention and innovation come through its doors. The Shark investors have been pitched many weird ideas for men, such as the UroClub, a fake golf club with a hidden reservoir for urinating into, or the Original Man Candle with scents geared towards men, such as Bacon, Golf Course, and, ahem, Farts.

Male Enhancement titans, Cialis and Viagra, were furious, calling for his. He appeared again on Dr. Phil the next day, not to resign, but to offer. Steve Harvey's words coupled with online reports of amazing results got us.

Steve Harvey, Act Like a Lady, Think Like A Man: What Men Really Think. What do you think of Steve Harvey's 90 Day Rule?. I don't watch Dr. Phil, but when he started out on Oprah, I thought he demonstrated sharp expertise.. days vs those who did not would help enhance the credibility of this theory,

six sided polygon package male enhancement men’s sexual health after 40 best enhancement pills for male viaxxl male enhancement pills reviews: When you’re in bed, the last item you would like to be is little . you would like to be the most important and therefore the best. Now, there’s a supplement which will assist you do this .We’d wish to tell you about ViaXXL Male Enhancement Pills.I KNOW they say men peak in their early twenties, while for women, it's the forties.. For some women, sex really does improve after 40.best research on male enhancement pills that work There are a few ways that Prime Male works to help you best get that. may not work at all – or it may turn into a dangerous product for your health. Thorough research helps you choose a.Buy SupremeZen Gold Male Enhancement Pills #1 Energy Boosting Sex pills (2. premierzen black 5000 male Sexual Performance Enhancing Pill (6 Pill). +. 2 PACK- Supreme Zen is the latest of the ZEN series of male performance boosters .. I was able to peg the wife very proper. the night I took it was great not side.need help with male enhancement In desperate need of supplies, the VA has signed more contracts. (I told this person that journalists don’t help people with their business dealings, and when I followed up with a series.

Through this discussion, the group will also address their experience working and being leaders in their respective fields in historically male-dominated. Agent X), Steve Kriozere (NCIS.

source https://www.vigrxwarning.com/steve-harveys-dr-phil-male-enhancement/

0 notes

tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 11 months ago

Text

Alice Fraser has finally released her 2022 show, Chronos. I heard her advertise it on The Bugle for ages, she’ll come on and at the end will plug its upcoming tour dates, which were sometimes in Australia and sometimes in Britain but fucking never within easy driving distance of my house in Canada. But she said a while ago that she was filming it, and now it’s finally on Go Faster Stripe. For purchase in a bundle with her 2023 show, Twist. Which I think I’ve heard about slightly less often, entirely because she’s been on The Bugle slightly less often in 2023, I guess she’s a bit busy as she’s spent this year raising one very young child while pregnant with another. Fewer Bugle appearances, but still found time to do two new hours in two years, film them both, and now you can buy the two of them for ten pounds, which I think is a good deal. I mean I haven’t seen them yet, so I guess I don’t know for sure, maybe Alice Fraser has suddenly become shit at stand-up comedy. But from Alice Fraser as I know her, two shows for ten pounds is great.

I know Alice Fraser as The Bugle's most frequent guest. And I know that because of the spreadsheet that I obviously keep up to date every time a new episode comes out. Actually, as I write this I've realized this would be a good time for me to post the top rankings as of the end of 2023:

Those are the top 15 most frequent guests, out of 42 guests in total (obviously my spreadsheet contains a lot more information than that, these are just the cliff notes, if anyone for some reason wants a list of every Bugle episode containing any individual guest, that is a thing I can provide). Alice Fraser is first with 120 and Nish Kumar is second with 75, so she's got a pretty comfortable lead. That's a fairly nationally diverse top 15 list. Five Brits, three Americans, three Australians, two Indians, one Irish, one NZ.

Anyway. The point is that I got to know enough about Alice Fraser from The Bugle to know I like what she has to say, and want to hear more. So last year I sought out her stand-up specials, and God, they are good. Talking about "intelligence" as an abstract and general concept is sort of nebulous and maybe meaningless, but if it exists, I think Alice Fraser is maybe the most intelligent stand-up comedian out there. She's from Australia and still lives there but she works in the UK a lot (and obviously she went to Cambridge University, another on my disappointingly long list of favourite comedians who were once in Footlights, I really am a big fan of that unfairly elitist institution) and she used to be a lawyer and she's just really brilliant. She makes a lot of puns and dirty jokes on The Bugle and then she gets up in her stand-up shows and tells complex moving stories about family and heritage and culture and tragedy and personal identity (she was raised Buddhist but is also Jewish and has family from lots of different places and those influences from everywhere come up in her work), and it's also funny, and it's really good.

The completist in me loves that Alice Fraser is one of those comedians where almost all her full-length shows has been released at some point, as a video and/or audio special. Here's a screenshot from her Wikipedia page of all her stand-up hours:

And here's a screenshot of the Alice Fraser subfolder in the stand-up folder of my hard drive:

Pretty similar lists; now that her last two shows are online she's made almost everything available. As you see in the screenshot I've already purchased Chronos and Twist, but I haven't watched them yet. I think I'm going to end this year with a full Alice Fraser re-watch. Start with Savage and watch them in order until I get to the new ones. A lot of Alice Fraser's shows build on each other, showing us her perspective and her ideas and her experiences in more and more depth every time, and I think they're worth doing in order. She specifically said that anyone who buys the Chronos/Twist bundle should watch them in that order, as Twist is a sort of sequel to Chronos.

I watched/heard those first three shows - Savage, The Resistance, Empire - last year. I saw Ethos earlier this year, and I think it's my favourite of her shows I've seen, though it's close. More than that, Ethos is one of my top few shows I've seen in 2023 at all (not just shows from 2023 - as that one isn't, it's from 2018 - but shows I've watched in 2023, which is a lot).

Anyway, I haven't even seen the new shows yet so I can't comment on them, but I just wanted to remind anyone who's unaware that Alice Fraser exists, and she's really really good at what she does. If you like comedy with intellectual ambition but also personal depth, introspective but also trying to tackle abstract ideas, storytelling and emotional impact but also I promise it does remember to be funny, then check out Alice Fraser.

Her first three shows can be heard in audio form for free on ABC Podcasts:

And here's where you can buy her new shows on Go Faster Stripe:

I guess I can't technically recommend those shows as I haven't seen them yet, and I won't until I finish my re-watch up to that point. But I definitely recommend Alice Fraser, just as an entity. Highly recommended entity.

6 notes · View notes