All posts by Princess Sparkle

Teenage sikh’s beautiful story of losing the turban and cutting his hair…

On Monday I was doing one of my favorite gigs of the year. An address to Melbourne High’s Political Interest Group.  As usual the boys and I had lunch before hand and I met Aman, who told me the story about losing the turnban and cutting his hair when he was 15. He’s 17 now.  I suggested he write the story and offered to publish it. In less than 24 hours he had. It’s a beautiful story, he’s an extraordinary boy and a gifted writer and I am honoured to host it here on my site. Enjoy! Dev x

006mailI was born a Sikh, which means technically I’m not meant to cut my hair, and, as a male, I should have my hair tied in a bun on top of my head, covered with a turban. Growing up wearing a turban, looking different to everyone, it wasn’t easy. When you look different, you are always remembered, if not by name than by your image. You can’t just blend in with society; you are always being watched and judged by “normal” people. Everything you do is noticed and analysed more than the person next to you. For someone who hasn’t experienced it, it’s very difficult to explain the feeling of everyone’s eyes on you when you walk through a shopping centre. I think that Australia is an incredibly accepting society; I don’t really remember a time when I was actually abused directly because I looked different. The effect was far more subtle, but still very much there. It could be that, while walking in a shopping centre, someone avoids walking directly towards you, clutches their handbag a little tighter, takes a second and even third look, before continuing on. I don’t blame people for this; whenever anyone sees something new or different, we change our behaviours. I am as guilty as anyone is of fearing the different and unfamiliar.

The tradition of keeping hair dates back to 1699, but no amount of googling gave me a definitive reason as to why it was so important. The two most common reasons I came across were, firstly, it was to stand out against the Muslims invading India at the time, to make a statement of boldness. Secondly, because ‘God’ gave us our body in the way we need it, and therefore it should not be altered.

With both these reasons, I had serious concerns. With the statement of boldness, the obvious counter argument is that, well 300 odd years on, it’s kind of irrelevant. The second is slightly more complex, however in a world of 7 billion people, I highly doubt that only the 15 million or so hair-keeping Sikhs are the only ones that have got it right, especially considering how new Sikhism is relative to other religions (I doubt everyone went to hell before Sikhism…) But what stood out most to me was that I couldn’t find an argument that actually explains how, by keeping my hair, I was becoming a better person, contributing more to the world or in any way benefitting. I highly doubt that, if there is a ‘God’, he would care whether a person cuts their hair or not. In the grand scheme of things, surely he would have bigger issues to worry about?

My mum always regretted deciding not to cut my hair and my younger brother’s hair as children, she didn’t want us to miss out on any opportunities or feel held back in any way because of our hair. Both my parents were raised in England during the 60’s and 70s, when racism there was still quite prevalent, and so they experienced firsthand what growing up as “different” is like. She told us that if we wanted to cut our hair, then we could do it, and any social issues it caused we would go through together, as a family. My brother decided to do so about 6 months before I did. He was a lot more uncomfortable I think, with wearing a turban than I was. To be completely honest, until he got his hair cut, the idea that I would do the same was simply that, an idea. I had never actually considered it a reality. But seeing how much freedom it gave him, how he changed as a person, I realised that I needed to do the same.

It was about 2 ½ years ago that I decided to cut my hair and stop wearing a turban. They say that you can feel when you are being watched; the day that stopped for me, I actually felt a difference. I still remember walking through my local shopping centre later that day, and I could actually notice the difference in behaviour that people showed toward me; although subtle, the change was very clear. No one took a second glance or avoided walking towards me, for the first time I was just another person. It was quite easily the best feeling I’ve ever had. These days I walk around, just another teenage boy, blending into society. I find it interesting that so many spend their lives trying to stand out in some way, and yet I simply wanted to blend in. They do say the grass is always greener on the other side.

At this point, I simply have to thank my parents for how amazing they were when dealing with this issue. As different as wearing a turban made me in society in general, it made me completely normal in our community. Allowing us to make such a decision but my parents in the path of possible abuse and disconnection from our own people, and they were willing to take that risk for us. Thankfully, the community backlash was far less than I expected, and I think that is a sign of how times are changing.

2 years down the track – now the novelty has worn off – I feel I can fairly reflect on my decision. There is no doubting that being raised wearing a turban had its benefits. It taught me to be confident within myself, because when you are always being watched and judged, you have to be. With that confidence came the ability to simply be me and not care what anyone else thought. I also think that being so recognisable gives you a certain amount of power. People are always watching you, therefore when you say or do something, they know about it. Sometimes this can be a very useful tool as it gives you more of an audience than the average person, and people are likely to remember you and what you said because you looked different.

But when it comes down to it, I think that the benefits of life without a turban far outweigh any benefits that wearing a turban may have brought. If I could go back in time, I would make the same choice without a doubt.

At the end of the day, I don’t really know if I believe in ‘God’, but I think that if there is a ‘God’ then religion can corrupt his true message and purpose. I like to think that if we aim to live a life of kindness, love and generosity, and try to make the world a better place for having had us in it, then if I’m wrong about everything ’God’ might forgive me for something like cutting my hair.

Send Aman an email and let him know if you enjoyed his piece aman.dhingra@hotmail.com

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Hilarious letter to Cardinal George Pell’s lawyers. Must read!!!!

A copy of this letter to Cardinal George Pell’s lawyers from Phil Degenhardt was sent to me last night in response to Pell trying to sue twitter and I.  I think you’ll enjoy it……

Dear lawyers for George Pell,

It was most gratifying to read your legal threats against Twitter and Catherine Deveny regarding the meme based on Archbishop George Pell and his “we were preparing some young English boys” statement on Q&A last month.

I found the treatment of this man, a man of learning and wisdom, absolutely shameful. While the words did come from the cardinal’s own mouth it was irresponsible for the ABC to broadcast them completely out of context. By inserting that long pause, when he clearly had not finished his sentence, the ABC deliberately injected a comic effect designed to lampoon his ominence. While I would like to see the ABC themselves pursued for this outrageous manipulation of the cardinal’s words, I believe it is more important that all of those present in the studio who laughed during the program need to be pursued. The ABC keep records of audience attendance, and I believe with modern techniques of audio analysis it will be possible to identify the individuals that laughed – they clearly implied that the cardinal was a paedophile. Each of them should be sued so that everyone understands that the church will spare no effort or expense to protect its own.

Most importantly, that heretic and blasphemer Richard Dawkins needs to be pursued. Not only can he be heard laughing but the footage shows him openly doing so and making no attempt to disguise his wicked thoughts. His actions clearly imply that George Pell is a paedophile. It is time that smug destroyer-of-blind-faith got his comeuppance.

On a brighter note, I believe the church, and you their legal counsel, should see this whole affair as an opportunity to diversify revenue streams and get in on the lucrative “interwebs”. The potential revenues from those lampooning George Pell are significant and could well mark the start of a new golden age for the church.  At the very least it offers an opportunity to recoup some of the losses incurred in settlements paid to the so-called “victims” of child abuse and molestation. Twitter is probably a good one to start with. However, I believe Deveny and Twitter are just bit players (pardon the nerdy telecommunications pun!) in a conspiracy to defame the cardinal and the church more broadly. Below, I have laid out a few examples of my extensive files on this matter and implore you to cast your net much wider, for the good of the cardinal and the church and for the glory of God her(/him/it)self.

Here are some screen shots from Google that may well be defamatory. I just typed in “george pell is” and Google suggested this:

HilariousLettersGeorgePell01
Presuming that Google was getting confused with another George Pell, somewhere else on the planet, who has been conclusively shown to be an idiot, I attempted to clarify that I meant George Pell Cardinal. However, I had only typed “george pell c” when Google attempted to link his ominence with child abuse.

HilariousLettersGeorgePell02

I then started to inquire about parishes that George Pell had worked in but only got as far as “george pell p” when Google came up with this:

HilariousLettersGeorgePell03
Google appears to be involved in furthering the same despicable insinuations as Ms Deveny and Twitter but as part of a much broader assault on the cardinal’s reputation. However Google, being one of the most valuable companies on the planet, is a potential source of riches, unmatched by any the church has been able to plunder in recent centuries. I strongly urge you to pursue them vigorously.

I believe the authors, creators and publishers of the following material are part of this conspiracy.

  • memegenerator.net which has a number of other memes impugning his ominence: http://memegenerator.net/QA-Pell. (I will not reproduce them here as I believe my moral health has been jeopardised enough by simply viewing them.)
  • http://i.imgur.com/KHK1L.jpg
  • http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3p5xlc/

(This is just scratching the surface – let me know if you want more material.)

The sad thing about this entire saga is that it has caused everyone to overlook the fact that that ABC program represented a turning point in the history of the church – during that program, the cardinal rewrote centuries of catholic catechism and dogma. He publicly acknowledged the mythical foundation of the bible and finally clarified that atheists are permitted to enter heaven, just to name a couple.

That last one puts the cardinal’s philosophical courage beyond doubt.  For centuries atheists were simply tortured or burned, in fulfilment of biblical prophecy. However, in recent decades, churches have taken a more liberal approach and endeavoured to lure atheists from their dark caves – caves that are lit solely by the dim and flickering flame of rational thought. They have done so with a clever technique. Churches have offered the eternal bliss of heaven but only if the atheists dropped their heretical demand of evidence for the existence of God. It was a shrewd but manufactured conundrum that has served the church profitably. The cardinal, however, has finally and courageously put such nonsense to rest forever. Of course, the non-believers can enter heaven.  He has proclaimed that belief in God is not a pre-requisite to eternal bliss. The cynical laughter broadcast on that evening must be hushed, so we may hear the true joy that began that evening: the sound of millions of atheists and agnostics joined in a chorus of “Hallelujah!”.

During that program, his ominence also made crystal clear the church’s equivocal support for the theory of evolution. After pointing out to Richard Dawkins some of the flaws in the professor’s understanding of evolutionary biology, his ominence indicated the church’s acceptance of the theory. These pronouncements will, one day, be regarded by historians as just what was needed to drag the church, kicking and screaming, into the nineteenth century.

The new doctrines spelt out by the cardinal, will surely become the foundation of the Roman Catholic faith formillennia to come.

We need to get the community’s focus onto the wise words emitted by his ominence that evening. We need to put this nonsense, about the cardinal preparing boys, behind us.

Clearly aggressive legal action is the best way to achieve this.

Good luck with your noble endeavours.

If  can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Phil Degenhardt

Fuck reading. Start writing.  Gunnas Writing Masterclass. BOOK NOW! All over Australia.

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Pell. Deveny. Defamation. Twitter. Q&A.

For all the controversy I’ve gotten into with Twitter, I’ve never received an email from their legal department. Until two weeks ago. Attached to the email was correspondence alerting me the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney’s lawyers were threatening to sue them (and me) for a meme I had tweeted from my account. I’ve removed the offending tweet, but you can read the letters the Archdiocese’s lawyer’s sent Twitter here.

I have no proof Cardinal George Pell is a pedophile. I there is no proof Cardinal George Pell has raped children. I never intended to suggest to others he has.

I apologise unreservedly for any hurt Cardinal Pell may have suffered from me retweeting a meme, (that I didn’t make and didn’t tweet originally)  on April 10 that used his image and five words he said on Q&A the night. Here is the offending meme for your shock and awe.

Clearly it was significant enough hurt and embarrassment caused for him to lawyer up and spend the Catholic Church’s money to pursue defamation action against Twitter and me. There must have been deep deliberation over the decision to spend thousands of dollars of parishioners’ money on legal fees. Spending money that could have been spent feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless or alleviating suffering of the thousands of children raped by priests protected and supported by the wealthy powerful 2000 year old international child sex ring that trades under the business name Roman Catholic Church. Money that could have been spent burying nuns, in the same way as priests in private crypts instead of the mass graves they are currently buried in at Melbourne Cemetary. Instead of  spending it on defamation litigation, clearly illustrates how serious the breach I allegedly committed was in the eyes of Cardinal Pell. 

I assume I’m just one of the many people the Archdiocese’s legal team pursued. There must be many more, considering hundreds of people distributed the meme. I’m certain they would not have decided to commit to potentially lengthy and expensive legal fees pursuing Twitter and only me. My tweet could not have hurt more than others. No one, least of all a high ranking Catholic and follower of the teaching of Jesus Christ would have selectively chosen to attempt to silence one person. A person previously banned from speaking in a basketball court owned by the Catholic Church for International Women’s Day 2010. Such a decision would fly in the face of a Church that promotes their girls’ schools as places that foster ‘pursuit of excellence in a spirit of freedom, justice and sincerity’ and ‘nurture well-informed, articulate and independent young women who respond to the challenge of the real world with spirit and compassion.’

No one will ever see the offending material I tweeted, (unless they do a Google search), but I’d like to comment on what led to my alleged transgression and occasioned this response. It started during the Archbishop’s discussion with Richard Dawkins on Q&A, when the Archbishop was interrupted by laughter when he used the expression “we were preparing young English boys … for Holy Communion”.  The Archbishop hadn’t gotten “Holy Communion” out of his mouth when members of the audience burst into laughter, forcing Cardinal Pell to pause as the laughter grew.

No comedians were needed, because if anyone, be they a comic or cleric, were to say the words that Archbishop Pell said, the way he said them, the part of the brain responsible for the fight or flight response is triggered. This part of the brain is not conscious, it is ancient and is the place were we store our fear of snakes and other things that we think may hurt us. Like priests.

Some would accuse those instructing and pursuing legal processings of vanity, pride, narcissism and being more preoccupied with self-perception than heartfelt concern for the victims of the abuse. I wouldn’t. Though one could argue the name George Pell is so integral to the Catholic faith that the Cardinal’s reputation is indistinguishable from the church itself, he is just a man. And therefore entitled to his reputation – and again, his reputation does not involve sex with boys. The Church’s reputation does.

I’m calling on Archbishop Pell to forgive me as I have forgiven others for alleged damage to his reputation or damage likely to occur as a result of material published. I have been legally advised any reasonable person viewing my tweet could conclude I was suggesting the Archbishop was a pedophile.

Could, not would.

I accept this. But it is one thing to question my words another entirely to assume my intent. I was truly surprised. The humor I found was the type of the gallows. Not a personal attack on the Cardinal but an association created by a response to the large amount of sexual abuse inflicted by priests. A healing response.

Laughter is medicine. And what I do, while offensive to men who oversee the church, is a salve to others. Others who have suffered at the hands of Catholic priests.

I won’t lie, I’ve made the occasional joke that exploits the fact the Catholic Church’s brand has become so linked in people’s minds with child rape, the public doesn’t even need to hear the punch line to get the joke. The situation has been so worked over that comedians have to work very hard to get a laugh, if you don’t believe me, watch how far Lewis CK has to take this to be funny. The reason Louis CK didn’t get a letter from the church’s lawyers for doing this is because, the church isn’t a person.  One of the freedoms people have more or less recently obtained is the freedom to tell jokes about religion and about churches.  As long as no actual clergyman is named, telling jokes about priests raping children is perfectly acceptable. Or even singing songs. 

The Bishop’s words were fed into LOL speak, photoshopped and forwarded via the inter-tubes where I tweeted it – and in so doing I allegedly became complicit in the defamation of Cardinal George Pell.  

The law is the law, and we are all equal before it. Just as priests must be held to the same standards as the laity, so must comics.  It is not OK to call someone a child rapist, unless they are a child rapist, and I’ve made clear I do not believe Cardinal Pell is a child rapist. And I never intended to insinuate it. It is however a fact that that people might quickly wonder if he is a child rapist if he does not choose his words carefully. This is not because there are comedians like me. This is because of what priests have done and what inquires like the Ryan Commission have made it impossible to deny or the response to it by survivors.  As the Q&A footage shows – it doesn’t take a comedian to make the joke work.   

I don’t attack people, I attack ideas. I may prick pomposity, but I don’t tell jokes to tear others down. I’d like to offer a bit of wisdom to the Church’s legal team monitoring my twitter feed. Because while child rape is unquestionably wrong, much of the anger that makes people laugh at Archbishops on national TV, without the aid of my tweets, is from anger at the fact the church appears to many to be more concerned for the reputation of priests and the church rather than the welfare of rape victims.  

We may be all equal before the law but we are not all equal before the banks. Most people can’t afford lawyers to protect their reputations or guard against trespass with the method ‘kill one scare a thousand’. For those people there is laughter.  

I extend the hand of friendship and forgiveness to you Cardinal Pell and suggest we work together to raise money to help heal the pain of the thousands of Australian victims of sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy and the rehabilitation of the pedophile priests.  We could do this by appearing together in a speaking engagement. We could come from a place of love and healing to discuss shame, grief, reputation and forgiveness. We could give all the money to Broken Rites, a grassroots organization that supports victims of sexual abuse at the hands of clergy. Or to raise money for a campaign to call for a Royal Commission into child abuse in religious and other non-government organizations.

Together, let’s change the immediate association with the words ‘Catholic Church’ from ‘child abuse’ to ‘healing’.

I would love to donate some money to help pay the legal costs but unfortunately I am a bit broke right now. If it’s any conciliation generations of my family have donated millions to your institution over centuries.

And Cardinal, if you want to discuss the speaking engagement, do give me a call. I’d be thrilled to hear from you and please, call me Catherine.

Peace be with you.

Catherine

UPDATE

The day I put this response up, that evening I performed in a 002Screen Shot 2012-05-09 at 4.54.16 PMdebate with QC Julain Burnside.

Before we went on stage he offered to represent me pro bono. I tweeted out the news at 6.30pm. By the time we got off stage Cardinal George Pell had caved and called off the defamation litigation.

Want some more Deveny/Pell action?  OF COURSE YOU DO! Some good reads CRIKEY, the hilarious LETTER to George Pell’s lawyers and CARDINAL PELL SINGS STREISAND’S GREATEST HITS. Deliver us from evil …..

The Age Lawyer Judy Courtin speaks on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy here.

Four Corners ‘Unholy Silence’ here

Four Corners ‘Cardinal Pell Guilty’ here

My response to a Catholic school asking me donate to their fete.

Gunnas Writing Masterclass Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Bendigo, Ballarat, Yackandandah, Brisbane, Perth, Apollo Bay, Mildura etc. Also coming up Gunnas Stand Up Comedy with Nelly Thomas and Gunnas Journalism with Michael Lallo. 

 

 

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Hard rubbish is dumpster diving for grown ups. And I love it.

THE People’s Republic of Moreland is pretty trendy these days. I know this because we now have junkies and Pilates. All we need is a juice bar and we’ll be completely up ourselves. Oh, that’s right: we do, and we are.

Right now, we’re excited too. It’s hard rubbish collection season or, as I prefer to call it, the Tightarse Festival. I’ll tell you something for free: if you want to get 60-year-old men walking four times a day, put on a hard rubbish collection. They’re gagging for a shuffle around the block when there’s a possibility they may find a replacement catcher for their mower, a piece of cyclone fencing to store in their shed and never use, or a broken carpet sweeper they can put out out for next year’s collection. (I can only imagine the look on the face of the wife as one of these men drags another air-conditioning unit the size of a Torana up the driveway, explaining: “Before you say anything, love, it’s for parts.”)

Come dusk, every man and his Crocs are out. Pushers, walking frames, scooters and even attractive people with glasses of wine are doing the hard rubbish shuffle. The participants in this Carnival of the Once Loved but Now Unwanted stroll by in a trance. Having a squiz, poking stuff with a foot and, after careful assessment, selecting only the best to proudly lug home. There’s an element of addiction about it, too. “Just one more street,” you hear people saying. “I hear Campbell Avenue has lifted its game this year.”

 

And there’s no shyness about it. Bold as brass. “Look at this,” said a man to me as he pried a smoked-glass coffee table with ornate brass legs from under a piece of corrugated iron. “Why would anyone get rid of this?” I don’t know, maybe because they don’t spend evenings listening to Neil Diamond, snorting cocaine and sharing crack-addicted hookers with David Hasselhoff.

A mate who grew up in Balwyn — beige one minute, beige the next — tells me the hard rubbish festival was very different in that biosphere. People thought of hard rubbish as, you won’t believe it, disgusting garbage! I know; they’re obviously sick. If you see offerings on your neighbour’s nature strip, she told me, or worse, bumped into neighbours putting it out, you avert your eyes and both pretend you haven’t seen a thing. What happens at the hard rubbish collection stays at the hard rubbish collection.

Lady Balwyn was once woken by her father at 1am and forced to liberate their neighbour’s unwanted dresser under the cover of darkness. The object in question was to be used as storage in his shed. She was allowed to go back to sleep only after helping her father paint it a different colour so that no one who dropped by to borrow a shifter would ever know. As he slung her $10, he muttered: “Don’t tell your mother.”

In the People’s Republic of Moreland, it’s a different ball game. For someone to adopt something from your hard rubbish is a great honour. If you appropriate something from someone else’s hard rubbish they are obliged, possibly legally bound, to liberate something from yours. If not, some serious loss of face can result.

“A filing cabinet from outside number 76? Sorry, son, three years back they turned their noses up at our disintegrated urine-soaked sofa, the split compost bin and the decapitated garden gnome after we’d given a good home to their dilapidated card table. We were humiliated. It killed your grandfather.”

When at a neighbour’s place it is custom to acknowledge any item of yours they have liberated. “Hey! There’s our buckled leopard-print toilet seat. It looks so much better here. Well spotted.”

A few years back we dragged to the nature strip a clapped-out stove covered in rancid sausage grease and full of mouse shit. When I arrived with the grill drawer a minute later there were three men with hacksaws going at it like the clappers.

And that’s why I love this place, , a suburb where old Aussies, young Lebanese families, student households, Italian nonnas, Greek yayas, Somalian youths, Indian cab drivers and latte-frothing lefties like me live side by side and covet each other’s rubbish. It’s United Colors of Benetton one day and an episode of Mind Your Language the next.

004228201473But maybe I’ve misjudged it, and this place is changing faster than I’d realised. When the wind blows in the right direction, you can smell the gentrification. Now I’m a little worried about the hard rubbish I’ve selected to release into the wild this year.

Every waking moment I’m perched at my front window hoping the rusted exercise bike, a three-legged plastic outdoor chair and a tangled beaded curtain will catch someone’s eye. So far, nothing. The citizens of the People’s Republic of Moreland must be up themselves. I blame the juice bar.

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Arts Hub profile for Sydney Writer’s Festival 2012

068 catherinedeveny_lookingupWhat did you want to be when you grew up?
Carol Burnett. I actually hated being a child. I wanted to be a grown up.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer/editor/publisher?
I didn’t. I have always written so I never wanted to be a writer I just was. I wanted to be a singer, an actor aMagda Szubanski, alas I couldn’t act. Or sing. I do regret not becoming a dentist, I have always been fascinated by teeth.

How would you describe your work to a complete stranger? 
Australia’s biggest fraud.

What’s your favourite book? 
The Bible. Best joke book ever.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE 
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Canberra Rocks. Two words you will never hear.

NEW York. They say if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Which explains why I’m still here and in the last week have done gigs in Fawkner, Scoresby and Eildon. And why I spent today in Canberra. For work. No one comes to Canberra for fun, just porn, firecrackers and to see if the serves of beef stroganoff in the Parliament House canteen are as stingy as reported. After a day in Canberra I’ll no longer die wondering what it would feel like to be bound, gagged and trapped in a toilet with Wayne Swan. Don’t ask.

The alarm went off at 6am. I didn’t know that 6am existed. The only reason anyone should be up at that hour is if they are coming home from a rave dressed as Tinky Winky, giving birth or dying. On the 7.05am flight to Canberra I’d never seen such a miserable bunch of grey-suited trolls in my life. No one watched the safety demonstration. Everyone was praying the plane would go down and we’d all die. Which you kind of do when you arrive. Canberra’s slogan should be “Save the Airfare. Just Kill Yourself”.

Canberra’s a giant office. No one lives here. People just work here. It’s so squeaky clean and Truman Show-esque I spent the day fighting the urge to make with a spray can and defile the place with dick and balls. People in Canberra don’t have a sense of humour. Well, the ones I caught the taxi from the airport with didn’t. A cabbie pulled up to the rank and said, “Parliament House.” I was one of three randoms to jump in. The driver said, “Does everyone know what multi-faring is?” The other two grunted. I said, “Is it like group sex with cab vouchers?” No one laughed.

After checking out the “night life” and deciding there’d obviously been a biological attack and I was the only survivor, I returned to my hotel room and flicked on the tube. Nothing to watch. Apart from commercials for Magnet Mart and an ad for a store called Bing Lee to the tune of I Like Chinese.

When there’s nothing to watch, I switch to Channel Nine, pour a glass of wine and feel superior. I was sucked into homeMADE by the trendy typography and the name Chontelle. I’d love to tell you it’s a new show but it’s just every makeover show you’ve ever seen but worse, with less money and people who don’t even annoy you enough to hate. homeMADE may as well be called We’ve Given Up. You’ll Obviously Watch Anything. Now It’s Just a Dare.

Two groups of “hot designers” provide renovation porn as they “do up” suburban homes. There are budget blow-outs, spats, feature walls, deadline panics and horrible, horrible makeovers. It’s a great opportunity to see what’s hot in Bacchus Marsh interior design. If someone did that to my place I’d have them sent to Canberra for the term of their natural lives.

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Easter. The 91 kilo chocolate Jesus the Catholics cracked it over.

I DON’T know much about 91-kilogram chocolate statues of Jesus, but I know what I like. When I heard about the giant edible Christ, I badly wanted to make like an Easter egg and smash it on my forehead. Or better still, bite off both ends and suck my coffee through it.

The exhibit of a 1.8-metre chocolate statue of Jesus has angered Catholics, but had this cultural Catholic laughing so hard I almost spat out the coffee scroll in the shape of the Virgin Mary that I was eating. And when I read that the artwork was titled My Sweet Lord, I almost needed to be resuscitated.

Members of the US Catholic League were outraged by this artwork by Cosimo Cavallaro and I could only assume that it was because it was made from milk chocolate and not 70 per cent couverture dark chocolate. Then I thought they were angry because they couldn’t find “91- kilogram chocolate statues of Jesus” on the Weight Watchers list. American Cardinal Edward Egan described it as sickening and I can’t help agreeing with him. I can’t even get through half an Elegant Rabbit without wanting to have my stomach pumped.

Lines just kept popping into my head: “Just like a chocolate milkshake, only Jesus”, and “Helps you work, rest and pray”. All jokes aside, I wonder if chocolate Jesus tastes exactly like chicken.

Not only did these fanatics boycott the New York hotel exhibiting My Sweet Lord, but there were death threats. Death threats? I missed that commandment: Thou Shalt Not Kill Unless Chocolate Statues Of Religious Figures Are Involved. If this exhibition was happening in Australia there’d be no death threats, we’d be rocking up and having our photos taken with a chip off the old family block. Because Aussie Catholics can take a joke. (Note to self, MUST CALL GEORGE PELL.)

Sorry, here comes another one: “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Jesus!”

Don’t you think that they are overreacting just a tad? Are we sitting at the kids’ table or up with the adults? The artist made the statue as a tribute. Why are these fanatics up in arms over a block of chocolate? I think that it’s all claptrap and mumbo-jumbo myself, but what has the artist’s relationship with Jesus got to do with them? Do they own Christ? If Cavallaro goes to hell for upsetting God, that’s his problem.

Prayer is simply the notion of transcending the physical, so how can 91 kilos of chocolate offend the sensibilities of Christians?

Why are they afraid? What’s the fear? If we laugh then what next? People will stop turning up to church? Well, it’s too late for that. Why are they so defensive, so protective? It is a case of “don’t you upset the guy in the sky or we’ll be the ones who get in trouble”. How robust is their faith if it takes a chocolate Jesus to rattle them? Why should any religion be a cordoned-off, joke-free zone? Are they scared that if we push hard enough that it may break and collapse?

Some people are just gagging to be outraged. Check out the statue. If no one had told you, you wouldn’t know it was Jesus; it looks like Oprah’s old boyfriend, Stedman. Keep in mind that the artist’s previous works include coating an entire house and all its surfaces with spray cheese and covering a four-poster bed with processed ham. I’m not hanging that on my wall.

The US Catholic League’s Keira McCaffery said: “Would this art gallery display a naked chocolate statue of Muhammad with his genitals exposed during Ramadan? I think not.” And she’s right. They probably would be too scared by what happened to Salman Rushdie. But there is an unwritten and moral logic that allows Jews to make fun of Jews, Christians to make fun of Christians and Muslims to make fun of Muslims.

It’s OK to piss out of the tent but it’s not OK to piss in.

Reminds me of the controversy over American photographer Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ, a photograph of a plastic Jesus on a crucifix in a glass of the artist’s urine. At the time art critic and Catholic nun Sister Wendy Beckett said that she approved of the work, considering it a legitimate statement on “what we have done to Christ”.

It seems to be fine for some religious folk to sneer and deride other people’s faith but you are not allowed to do it to them. Blasphemy seems to be only when someone offends your faith. In the same way all the people who don’t endorse capital punishment are quite happy to see Saddam hanging from a noose. Because that’s different.

The idea of a chocolate Jesus makes far more sense to me than the alleged resurrection of Christ being celebrated by eggs and rabbits because they symbolise fertility. I thought that the symbol for fertility was Catholic mothers.

Body Of Christ? I’ll have Top Deck, thanks. Is it a good laugh or is it bad art? Maybe it’s both. Happy Easter.

 

Global Atheist Convention April 13-15 2012 tickets still on sale from $135

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Easter. The Zombie Chocolate Jesus Festival.

I DON’T want to offend anyone (actually I do), but let’s be honest here, Easter’s never really taken off. Two thousand years and it’s still the B team of religious celebrations, just ahead of the Feast of the Circumcision. And ain’t that a day when Christians go off like a frog in a sock?

Despite Easter being the Big Kahuna of the Christian holy days, we’re all a bit lukewarm about it. No cards, no customs, no songs. Where’s Deck the Halls with Eggs from Kmart? How about We Wish You a Happy Easter? Or, “On the fourth day of Easter my true love gave to me: four chocolate bilbies, three elegant rabbits, two panatones and a Humpty full of Smarties?”

Christmas even has its own special words, such as “carols” “merry” and “ho, ho, ho”. The fat bloke in the red suit feels like a member of our family with his reindeer, his elves and his bulging sack of love. What’s Easter got? Stuff all. A giant bunny that no one knows anything about. Is it male or female? Where does it live? And what’s with the basket? A bit Tinky Winky, if you ask me.

Never in my life have I met anyone who’s said: “I’m a real Easter person.” There are plenty of Christmas people, the loonies who have tinsel running through their veins and carols running through their heads all year round. Those grinning idiots with their yuletide-themed apron, oven mitts and napkin rings for that One Day in December. But I’ve never met one egg-loving, bunny-crazed nut case who spends their entire year hanging out for some hard-core Easter action.

And it’s not for want of trying, what with the relentless Easter lead-up of Shrove Tuesday, the day we Catholics let our hair down and go pancake crazy, followed by Ash Wednesday, when you can head down for a bit of red hot Mass action and come home looking like someone has butted a cigarette out on your face. Oh, and you get to kiss the feet of Jesus. And, yes, he does taste exactly like chicken. I know what you’re thinking and it’s true, life as a Catholic is just party, party, party. Then genuflect.

Who could forget Maundy Thursday? The day of the year when we put on our Maundy hats and Maundy pants for a bit of mid-March Maundy madness. No we don’t. People don’t even know it’s called Maundy Thursday. Most don’t realise that it’s the day of the Last Supper. It’s generally known as the Day Petrol Doubles in Price and You Have to Pick the Kids Up from School at 2.30.

It never ends: Good Friday (every child has at some point asked, “Jesus died, so why do they call it Good Friday?” Just tell them the name Bad Friday was run past the marketing team and they suggested something more positive), Easter Saturday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday. It goes on forever — Easter Queen’s Birthday, Easter New Year’s Eve, Easter Good Friday. But the holy week still hasn’t got much traction.

 

Easter is the duddest date in the festive calendar. I don’t think it’s even on the festive calendar, because no one knows when it’s on until about a week before. After the Christmas cards get taken down and the ham gets finished, people start muttering: “Does anyone know when Easter is?”

“March, maybe April. Something to do with the moons. We have to wait until they know.” Until who knows? It’s all terribly mysterious. A bit “we’ll keep the unwashed masses in suspense until we’re good and ready”. The Easter marketing department’s mission statement must be “treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen”. We’re gripped with anticipation (no, we’re not) as to when the chocolate orgy is upon us. But the shops get told two months before, which explains why you’ll find elegant rabbits sitting next to the “back to skool” specials.

And the only reason people even want to know the date of Easter is not so they can organise a sumptuous lunch or start erecting a giant flashing rabbit in their front yard, but so they can bugger off and go camping. People are so confused about how little you can do to pay Easter lip service that they just pack up and go bush, instead of staying home thinking: “Well, it is Easter Sunday, so I suppose we should have something more momentous for lunch than a sandwich.”

Time to rebrand Easter, I reckon. Get the Duracell bunny on board, sex up the name to something like “Easter: It’s Fully Sick” and make it the season when you actually do teach your grandmother how to suck eggs.

Maybe even diversify the merchandise a bit. The chocolate bilby is all well and good, but how about something even more Australian, like a chocolate Warnie? Melts in your mouth then sends you eight text messages the next day.

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Let’s Talk About SEX With Cyndi Darnell. Podcast Six. Porn.

Is it art or is it porn? It’s porn. Dangerous, sleazy and dirty or educational, liberating and entertaining?

Welcome to the sixth and last on sex with sex therapist, sex educator, sexologist and founder of Pleasure Salon Melbourne Cyndi Darnell.

We chat about all the different kinds of porn, put it in a historical and cultural context and where to get the good stuff.  Some sites we recommend.

I Shot Myself

I Feel Myself

Beautiful Agony 

Tristan Tormino 

Lady Cheeky

Hilarious bad porn 

Abby Winters

Sonic Erotica

Tony Comstock

In making these podcast my aim is always the sex educaton I would like my kids to have and the idea of sex education for adults. Not about disease and pregancy, we all know that. But about the pleasure, creativity and fun that sex is all about.

Sound production by Anthony Artmann who is also a Multimedia Developer and Audio Visual Guru. Send him an email if you need a mild mannered, can do genius. And swing past Cyndi’s website if you want to find out more about what she does, book an appointment or bone up on Pleasure Salon. I hope you don’t die and I hope you get laid. Dev x

porn

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Let’s Talk About SEX With Cyndi Darnell. Podcast Five. Cocks.

Cocks, dicks, wangs, skin flutes, doodles and dongs. These are a few of our favorite things.

A delightful, entertaining and informative podcasts on penises. How to touch them, blowjobs for beginners, cut verses uncut, orgasm, size and some tips on how to give the perfect wristy. 

Welcome to the fifth in a series of six podcasts on sex with sex therapist, sex educator, sexologist and founder of Pleasure Salon Melbourne Cyndi Darnell, who you may also have heard on TripleJ Hack.

As you can see you can now subscribe with iTunes or RSS. Click and go!

Sound production by Anthony Artmann who is also a Multimedia Developer and Audio Visual Guru. Send him an email if you need a mild mannered, can do genius. And swing past Cyndi’s website if you want to find out more about what she does, book an appointment or bone up on Pleasure Salon. I hope you don’t die and I hope you get laid. Dev x

big_cock

Direct Link to MP3

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