last weekend turned out to be quite a pleasant one... i caught up with Larry the librarian on friday evening - we just got 'takeaways' from fitzroy street and came back to my place and ate, chatted and 'choofed' until it was time for him to pick up his partner - a nice couple of hours 'whiled away'...
saturday, well - i just watched st kilda lose the grand final - but there's always next year!
sunday was a miserable day outside so it was just the day to curl up and watch a few episodes of 'weeds' - i'm midway through season 4 at the moment...
irene, louie and the country cuzzin clan came down on monday - it was irene's 55th birthday (she's 6 months older than me) so we went to tien tien in fitzroy street for dinner... it is soooo nice eating with another vegetarian - you get to share different dishes without having to check which dish you're 'tucking into' - and you don't have to watch animal being devoured in front of you!!!
irene and i met in the 70s - she was going out with my brother then - well, they even ended up marrying after a short time (it was one of those 'rebellious' things - they were getting married regardless of what anyone said!!!) it was either late '71 or early '72 and i would have been 16 going on 17 (and the engagement to james was obviously no more because he wasn't at the wedding!!!) - but, like my engagement, the marriage didn't last long (unlike our friendship!!!)
here's a photo of the wedding - check out darrell's coiffured hair and velvet suit - such a 'sign of the times'!!! and i'm wearing hotpants!!!
ahh, the 70s - so much style - colour anyway!!!! pity the photo doesn't show the shoes too - i was wearing really high cork platforms - what's old is new - what's new is old!!!!
i guess you've gathered by now that i lose track, go off on tangents, procrastinate, etc. etc. - i've just had a look through my 60s posts (and i didn't get very far, did i?!) so don't think the 70s will be any different! (except hopefully i will get through to the end of this decade)!!! a post here, one there... lots of other topics thrown in... but that's what blogging's all about isn't it!!!!
the problem is always where to start, buthaving 'touched on' 1970 in my last post, i may as well continue with that year...
Germaine Greer had 'arrived'... "The female eunuch" had just been published... she was an anarchist, a womyn's liberationist, radical and outspoken - i was 15, had just started work and was on my 'journey of discovery', and she would become a major role model for me (and many others)...
two of australia's 'political foremothers' died this year - Jessie Street (suffragist, human rights activist and pacifist) and Doris Blackburn, politician, peace campaigner and civil rights activist...
Jean McLean, Joan Coxsedge, Irene Miller, Chris Cathie and Jo McLaine Ross - founding members of the Save our sons movement in the 60s - were to play a major role in the anti-vietnam moratoriums of 1970 and became household names, and in 1971 were to become known as the Fairlea Five)..
how could you not be political in this era - there was an amazing energy in melbourne - the vietnam moratorium in May had over 100,000 people taking to the streets in Melbourne alone... it was estimated that 200,000 participated Australia-wide... ahhh melbourne - the most political city...
it was still a 'boys own' club on the domestic political front - John Gorton was prime minister - Gough Whitlam was opposition leader - and Bob Hawke had just been elected ACTU president.
we had a major disaster in Victoria... the collapse of the west gate bridge... 35 construction workers died...
unfortunately, they're not the only deaths associated with the bridge - according to wikipedia "police data show up to one suicide happens every three weeks at the west gate bridge."
the 1970 radio ban .. "a dispute between commercial radio stations and major record labels resulting in major UK and Australian pop songs being refused play time on Australian commercial radio stations" .. was to last from May until October.
this is a sample of what australians were watching on television...
Lassie Gunsmoke Australian Bandstand Black & White Minstrel show (!!!!) Z cars My three sons Four corners Dr Who Bewitched Till death us do part Homicide Hogan's heroes Get smart Mission impossible Bellbird This day tonight Mod squad Dad's army It's academic Hawaii five-0 Sesame street Monty Python's flying circus The Partridge family
I have to admit, I was a Mod Squad fan... and check out the clothes... those cardigans are in the shops now for this coming winter - if you just take a look around out there you'll see all the clothes i wore in the 60s and 70s - oh no, i'm living in a timeloop!!!!
I used to go out with my brother a lot in the late 60s/early 70s... we had a good relationship at this time - the parents had split up when i was 8 and Darrell was 11 and i'd gone to live with our mum, and he lived with our dad for a while, and then our grandparents (he was an angry boy when they split up) so we hadn't had a great deal of 'sibling intimacy' for a while - we liked the same music, both had similar (sick) senses of humour and enjoyed each others' company... of course it helped that me mum thought i was safe with me brother, and there was the mandatory midnight 'curfew' - why did parents think that what could be done after midnight couldn't be done before?? (ha, little did she know we often walked out the front door together, occasionally went to the venue together, and then met up afterwards somewhere on the way home!!!)
we used to go to a lot of venues, but one of the best for aussie bands was st kilda town hall (which i'm sure was called Opus at the time, but can't find any mention of it - will have to talk to the local history librarian) where people like Geoff Crozier (aka the Mad Magician) played along with a lot of the others i've mentioned in previous posts - Jeff St John, Wendy Saddington, etc - there was also the likes of Ronnie Burns, John English, Russell Morris, Allison Durbin, Leo De Castro & Black Harvest, Freshwater - there are just too many to name but check out the Milesago website - "Milesago is a work in progress. Our mission is to compile a comprehensive, web-based resource about Australasian (i.e. Australian and New Zealand) popular music, popular culture and social history in the 12 year period from 1 January 1964 to 31 December 1975"... they're doing a good job!!!
we both enjoyed other styles of music too, and went to Winston Charles night club in South Yarra quite often... according to a Stonnington local history document on the social life of Prahran 1950-1990 "by the late 1960s theplace that had once been Claridges had become Winston Charles: 'alcohol was quite legal... there was a discotheque... girls used to dance in cages... strobe lighting..." - we both particularly liked one of the resident bands there - a group called the Vibrants - and this was where i got to feel 'grown up and sophisticated' and drink cocktails like brandy crustas and grasshoppers... and no, i never had a problem getting into any of these venues - Darrell was around 17/18 and 6 foot tall, and i looked older than 14/15 (even though I was only 5 foot 2'ish (but i think i'm shrinking!!!!) - and it was a 'different world' then (can't find a photo of us together during this time - we really weren't big on taking photos then - it was a different technological world too!!!)
okay, i'm going to 'call it a day' for blogging and leave you with a couple of cocktail recipes...
Brandy crusta (this is just one of the many versions out there, but it looks most like the ones they made at winston charles - check out the 'original' version here)
Ingredients:
Sugar for rimming
2 oz brandy
1/2 oz maraschino liqueur
dash of bitters
1/2 oz curacao
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
Rim chilled cocktail glass with sugar - shake all other ingredients with ice - strain into glass and garnish with a twist of lemon peel - quite potent!!! I used to love sucking the sugar off the glass...
Ingredients:
3/4 oz creme de menthe
3/4 oz white creme de cacao
3/4 oz cream (edit - reading this today, 7/2/2017 - this ingredient would be just that, an ingredient, not something stolen from someone who was enslaved, raped and brutalized - any plant-based cream, e.g. coconut, no 'dairy' horror involved...)
Pour ingredients into shaker along with ice - shake, pour into glass and enjoy!!!
(oooh, sounds a bit rich these days... but i was young and loved the thought that i was doing something i shouldn't be - oooh, so rebellious (said with tongue planted firmly in cheek!!!) - but i felt soooo cool, sophisticated and adult - decadent even!!
"Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. It has no mother." "I have always been principally interested in men for sex. I've always thought any sane woman would be a lover of women because loving men is such a mess. I have always wished I'd fall in love with a woman. Damn." "Only one thing is certain: if pot is legalized, it won't be for our benefit but for the authorities. To have it legalized will also be to lose control of it."
"Perhaps women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism."
and you know you're getting old(er) when cards like this start turning up...
feeling very lazy... it's been a good birthday week... caught up with Sailor Lil on tuesday - she made a delicious lunch and we shared a bottle of wine (i had a tad more of it though!)... saw the wee baby Finn and Chris too - they're all doin' okay... just working out their own rhythm - takes a while - such major life change... it was a very enjoyable, companionable afternoon... had another delicious evening meal with Irene and Brann - indian from Kantipur restaurant - best indian i've had for a long time... got some beautiful gifts - don't mind aging at all...
have been scanning some photos this morning and 'playing around' with my first 70s post... trying to get the sequence of things right - not so easy 'these days'...
i definitely 'left' school somewhere around august 1970 - we were very much a working class family and my mother was determined i'd get a good office job before the end of the year when there'd be hordes of school-leavers looking for work - so she arranged an interview for me and i got my very first job as a receptionist - there were a lot of male employees - it was extremely intimidating, but totally exhilarating - after all, i had come straight from a very poor, catholic, all-girls school - holy redeemer (no redeeming went on there!!!)!!!
i was now 'out in the world' - i was earning money - i was 'almost' an adult - I was 15, going on 16 years of age and 'the world' was just opening up for me - it was the start of the 70s, and i was ready to experience 'adult' life!!!
oooh, got caught up 'thinking out loud' and spent more time than i meant to on this - it was just going to be a quick post about my birthday!!! so i need to go and do some other things, think about the past and leave you with this photo (circa 1970 according to me mum's dating, 1971 according to mine!) - anyway i was either 15 or 16 - and i was wearing the fashion of the day - the midi and maxi-skirts we back in vogue!!!! (bet you're sorry you can't see that!!!)
sorry about the quality of the scanned photo... we only had 'crude' technology in those days compared to now...
anyway, more soon... now i'm really taking Louie for his walk, while the old girl is crashed out...
if you missed my last post, i mentioned i might blog about the 70s (another walk down memory lane).. i'm gettin' there (slowly)... the 70s were a 'milestone' era for me - I turned 15 in 1970, left school and started my first job... i was on my way to 'adult independence'... it was an exciting, changing time...
after working yesterday i'm finally off work for the next week - feeling a tad rundown because it's been manic at work for ages - but now i've got a bit of time there's a lot of 'drafting' to be done, memories to be recalled (and research to 'jog' the memory), photos to be scanned, and of course bongs to be stacked and smoked... so while i'm working on all of that i thought i'd give you a taste of the aussie music i was into in the very late 60s/very early 70s - apart from Janis Joplin... no, i know she wasn't australian and I wasn't actually into her at this point - I didn't become addicted until the late 70s - but as she died in 1970 I just couldn't not include a couple of her songs - she was a pioneer, she had an incredible talent, she was a woman in a male dominated field, who lived and played hard because that's what it took - unfortunately she paid the ultimate price...
“Joplin belonged to that select group of pop figures who mattered as much for themselves as for their music. Among American rock performers, she was second only to Bob Dylan in importance as a creator-recorder-embodiment of her generation’s mythology.” (read more here)
we had the talents of Wendy Saddington and Renee Geyer in Australia... and then there were bands like the Masters Apprentices (I now knew what young lust really was - I was 15 and hormonal, and Jim Keays was fucking hot!!!), Zoot (another 'pretty boy' band - and who wasn't drooling over Rick Springfield, male or female??)... and remember, the Palais Theatre was a popular venue 'in those days' so with me mum being head cashier, I got to see a lot of good aussie bands (and for free)... living in St Kilda meant lots of live venues close by as well.. who needed overseas bands - there was a wealth of talent right here!!!
the 70s was an amazing era for music - there are so many aussie bands still to come - ac/dc (with Bon Scott of course!), skyhooks, sherbet, chisels (just to name a few - but they weren't around just yet- and i bet you just can't wait!!!) - it was an 'eclectic' musical experience - a creative and innovative time - and i wouldn't have wanted to grow up in any other era!!! (the 70s posts might take a while - it was a really political, radical and rebellious time too!!!)
enjoy (but there are a lot of 'sync' problems! - and the sound isn't too crash hot!! forgive the era and it's very rudimentary technology!!!)
ever heard of the Global Gag Rule (a.k.a. Mexico City Policy) - it prohibited family planning programs in other nations that receive US aid from using non-US monies for abortion counseling, advocacy, and referrals... can you believe the power america has...
well, Obama's lifted the ban... that's a good thing for women everywhere... but, Clinton already did it, then Bush came along and undid it... Obama's done it - but when is someone going to make it 'unchangeable' or is it going to be able to be undone again some time in the future??? let's hope not... women deserve better... they deserve to know where they stand rather than being pawns in some high-powered male chess game!!!!
of course 'the church' (in all it's forms and denominations) isn't exactly ecstatic by the decision... but all that can be said to them is...
I'm of the 'invasion day' persuasion... so here's some music to go along with my beliefs...
oooohhhhh... sorry, i just get lost in YouTube.... all those songs from my youth - i just have to listen to them... I was lucky that my early life was part of a really political time - the 60s and 70s were full of change, change and more change - consequently it takes me a loooooooooong time to get a playlist together...
but i hope you enjoy... goanna, yothu yindi, the oils, the masters apprentices (now there's a micro-story... Jim Keayes and Glenn Wheatley (when he was spunky - before he was a 'businessman' who didn't pay his taxes - and as you've no doubt have been able to gather, i don't break the law!!!! ha!!!!!) had to wake Irene and me up out of a 'mandy' induced 'coma' (mandrax, the best gutter drug you could ever have experienced - forerunner to sarapax - but oh, sooooo much better! - you could drop it, smoke it, snort it (and who knows what else!!!!) - we were in a laundromat, they wanted the washing machine - pub bands didn't make much money in those days - we all lived in the same street, we all had to do the same shit no matter what state we were in - ahhh, life in suburbia!!!! life was just sex, drugs an' rock'n'roll then.... i think the emphasis was on drugs at that time)... ruby hunter, archie roach... etc. etc. etc.
aaahhhhh, but.... did you also know that Stylus, fronted by Peter Cupples, was the only Australian band ever to be signed to the Motown label???
I couldn't find an original 70s version of the song I remember best from Stylus - Summer Breeze - so you get a 90s version from the original band (well, the original singer anyway - couldn't tell you who else was in the band - hey, it was the 70s!!!! drugs, drugs and more drugs!!!!) but you have to skip over about 1 min 55 of daryl somers crap... and I don't think this version is as good as their original one!!!!!
