Cablog

Generosity

Last week I took part in an interview for entertainment bible, Time Out magazine. A pleasant surprise was having my portrait taken by a long time Cablog reader. Namely, Time Out snapper and renowned Sydney music photographer, Daniel Boud.

So early this morning I stopped at a newsagent and found the magazine displayed at the front counter. It featured a hot pink cover and latex-clad transvestite, with the headline, Mardi Gras! Your fabulous guide to Sydney’s gay & lesbian festival.

Flipping through the opening pages I briefly envisaged being presented as some sort of gay icon, along with guest scribbler, Danni Minogue. Sheesh! But at page nine the magazine reversed to reveal a double issue with two covers, front and back.

The main cover bears the title, Summer Nights – your dusk to dawn diary, where I come in (with the cute advisory, Flip me – it’s Mardi Gras !)...

Chasing highs

Late on Saturday evening a young woman and man around 25-30 years old approached me on an eastern suburbs rank. Their casual attire of shorts and thongs coupled with a wandering gait suggested, maybe, a lazy afternoon BBQ followed by an informal party.

Rather than being legless and raucous from too much grog, they appeared pleasantly wasted after a relaxed evening. However shortly after they had climbed into the back seat, I detected a different atmosphere when the girl muttered, “Nup, that stuff was shit...I want a real high.”

The fella quietly replied, “Babe, don’t stress over the things you can’t have, ‘cause you’ll never enjoy the things you can have.”  “But I want to,” she countered, “I never had any problems in London. It was always around and I never had to pay for it.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but here it’s the difference between thirty bucks or three hundred, or even four hundred bucks. Even if you could afford it, that’s too much money to go crazy about.”

These figures tallied with the price of ecstasy pills and grams of cocaine....