Cyrano De Bergerac & his Cat

 

OH CYRANOSE

I SUPPOSE I KNOWS WHAT I KNOWS

BECAUSE OF YOUR NOSE 

 

Getting dressed up for the Asterion video started me thinking about some of the other times I have gone fancy dress in my life. I was sort of having a laugh to myself about book parades and other such things & it brought back some pretty funny memories.

Some of them possibly even repressed…

It started me thinking about some of the dodgy costumes that you always see at book parades. Go to any book parade in any part of the world & I’ll guarantee you will see:

a Wee Willy Winky costume – translation: parents forgot (1) = wearing the pyjamas you woke up in, a sock on your head & a candle in your hand.

Or The Ghost – translation: parents forgot (2) = worst sheet in the house with 2 holes cut out…

Still the worst costumes can often be much better than the best…

Take the following tale of woe, for eg:

I remember in 1st class one of my mates, Ray went as a Dalek. You know the killer robots from Dr Who. Absolutely fantastic costume – really elaborate & well made. It was sort of round & big enough to fit a small person in & it was made from some type of metal, which had been painted dark silver. It had all these buttons & gadgets glued to it & 2 big extendable arm type claw thingys. It had a thin eye slit cut out of it for vision & bars that you could place on your shoulders & lift it up with. His mum had to deliver it to school in a ute & his dad had spent weeks (maybe months) making it for him. It looked really realistic & Ray loved it – so did everybody else. There were only 2 problems with it. The first was that it was way too heavy for a little 7 year old kid to lug around. It took about 6 kids, his mother & a teacher to get the thing on top of him. So whilst everybody else would walk in a big circle around the playground about 5o times for book parade… Ray could only manage about 6 quick steps & he would be exhausted. He’d wait about 2 minutes & then he’d go again. 6 quick steps & then down. Classic! The 2nd problem was that it had no ventilation & it was a stinking hot day. After about 30 seconds in that thing he was sweating like a pig. So to solve the problem they put him in his undies underneath it. It was pretty funny! Every time you went past him all you could see were these fevered sweaty little eyes peaking out of the eye slits. The dude looked desperate in there. Then he’d take 3 or 4 quick steps & go down again. We still laugh about it whenever we see each other. On a happier note he did win 1st prize…

 I also remember some other absolute shockers. I remember my mum once dressed me as a leprechaun. Sounds cool, but all she really did was dress me in a pair of her green slacks, a very feminine shawl & glued cotton balls all over my face for a beard. I wasn’t a leprechaun – I was a 7 year old drag queen with a shaving problem! Stuff like that can ruin a guy in primary school… My brother went as Robin Hood & the elastic in his tights broke. He spent the whole day with his arse hanging out of his pants. Poor guys nearly 50 & he’s still traumatized. He goes into the foetal position if he sees a Robin Hood movie on TV. My sister got dressed as Prince Charming. Sounds cool.  But when you think about it my mum sent her to school as a dude! & my personal favourite… my wife got sent by her mum as a team costume with her sister.  Her mum dressed her sister as Dick Wittington & sent my wife as ‘and his cat’. Together, standing next to each other they looked great & made sense. “Dick Wittington & his Cat”. But unfortunately, my wife was in kindy & her sister was in year 4 – they didn’t stay together for long. So my poor wife had to walk around all day on her own with a sign that read “and his cat”. Nobody knew who she was – not even her! I still call her “& his cat” for kicks.

Those times were complete bedlam. Chaos! I remember kids walking around in garbage cans as R2D2 … people wrapped in aluminum foil as robots… mummys wrapped in toilet paper… kids just covered in cotton balls & socks – I still don’t know what they were supposed to be??  It was torturous… I’m surprised that there’s not a separate therapy group just for victims of book parades. I know I’d be a proud member of The VBP & I’d take & his cat along with me. Take Ray the Dalek, my cross dressing sister & my bum flashing brother along too!

 My next memory of fancy dress is a bit of a doozy & I have kept it repressed for as long as I could, but it’s time to come clean. It involves the story behind that comical & tragic photo at the top of the page. I’m about 7 or 8 & my parents get invited to a fancy dress party at one of their friend’s houses. My mum gets all excited & dresses the whole family up. She says it’s for kids and everything. Mum always had a thing for romantic literature so she decides to dress me up as Cyrano De Bergerac. You know him – The guy with the big nose who hides behind bushes & whispers poetry to his mate. Anyway, her version of Cyrano De Bergerac looks like this. Very tight Black tights. Big black pointy boots with silver buckles. A frilly white dress shirt with puffy sleeves. A bright purple padded parka that you’d wear to the snow. A big red cape. A round black hat with a huge apricot ostrich feather on top of it. A plastic sword on my hip & if that wasn’t enough… she draws a fake moustache on me & then glues this huge fake nose made of plasticine over my real nose. It was hard to breathe – & it made my 7 yr old voice even squeakier. Believe me I didn’t want to leave the house! But mum convinces me there’s cake waiting for me at the party. I’d like to say it took more than that – but I’d be lying – the 7 year old me would go anywhere for cake!

So anyway we get to the party & everything’s going great except for one thing. It’s an adult party – it’s not for kids! My mum got it wrong! Yes kids were invited, but not to the fancy dress party. What they were invited too was to be locked in the backroom & just sit there. You know the type of room – filled with angry teenagers & pre-pubescent’s that have been dragged to some crap party by their parents; Angry monosyllabic snarling youths. None of them dressed up or anything – just angry! They’re all wearing Kiss & Abba T-shirts & in rocks me in my purple parka, fake 4 inch nose & apricot ostrich feather on my head. They all look at me in disbelief & some kid with pimples all over his face snarls at me “Who the f@#! are you supposed to be?” & I say in a shaky voice “Cyrano De Bergerac” & another angry kid yells at me, “Who the f#@! Is that?” & I scream out in a sort of pig like squeal “I DON”T KNOW!!!” I can’t remember much after that – I think I may have passed out. Either from fright or the plasticine nose stopped me from breathing!

On the brighter side… at least now I know why Cyrano had to hide behind all those bushes!!!

 

 

 

Asterion Youtube Video

 

 

I always planned to do something like this for Asterion. It’s one of those poems that really comes to life when you read it aloud. Nothing like a bit of oxygen to get the fire going! Also it was kind of cool getting a chance to play the brooding bovine prince. We shot this over the weekend & had a bit of a laugh whilst doing it. although I think I nearly gave my dad & my dear old nan a heart attack when I showed my family an advanced screening on Saturday night. they don’t hear too well at the best of times. all dad heard were the parts about bestiality & nan thought I was just naked in a bull mask. which was kinda true! she looked quite shaken by the whole affair. lol! actually it was pretty funny. my sister & my wife thought it was hilarious!! hope you enjoy xx

 

but…be Warned!! The subconscious mind is a strange labyrinth. a winding waterway of dark & twisting streams. watch this more than three times & The Minotaur may find you in your dreams…

 

 

Asterion

 

 

Asterion

 

Located in Knossos just near King Minos’s Cretan Palace

In the centre of a labyrinth designed by Daedalus

The Brooding Dark Prince, with a penchant

for turning young men into blood & mince

A ruminant biped on hungry virgins fed

A prisoner never to be released

Pasiphae’s poor boy child

A wild roaring beast

Furious, Hideous

Incestuous

Lies

Lurking

The Bull of Minos

The Vengeance of Androgeus

The secret crimes of an old vain King

Hidden in a maze at the heart of all things

Locked inside the prison that pride and pain brings

We sometimes become closer to the monster we really are

 

But perhaps I go too far…

 

For our story truly begins

with the seed not the fruit of our sins

 

In a time before Aegeus threw himself into his own sea

& Ariadne led Theseus on a golden thread to victory

 

3500 years ago…

 

King Minos had a beautiful white bull

The most virile in all of Greece

It’s fleece like snow,

silk & ice

 

The God Poseidon wanted it for his sacrifice

 

Minos overcome with greed

betrayed the second son of Cronos for his need

Refusing to pay Poseidon, his patron god of the sea so high a price

He exchanged the bull before the sacred feast

in a gambit to suffice

Poseidon enraged

with fury

turned to Aphrodite

whose bewitching spell was then unleashed

Causing Queen Pasiphae to fall in love with the very same beast

 

His obsessions; his beloved bull,

his beautiful wife. His most coveted

possessions would become the ruination of his life

For in madness, drinking deep from its inverted cup

Pasiphae upon the poison chalice of lust then supped

Seeking false copulation in a contraption of Daedalus’s divination

Her perverted abnormal passions rose and with this white muscled

bovine entwined in the throws of ecstasy she mated

Her warped animal desires revealed, reciprocated

The shameful act of Minos concealed, lest he

be implicated by what his subjects saw

The fate of Crete sealed

Thus was created

 

The Minotaur

 

 ***************************

 

 We all have Minotaur’s hidden within our hearts.

 

We all have desires, wants, needs, faults & flaws that we endeavour to keep locked away from the rest of the world. None of us are perfect. None of us are immune. We are all human. This world could never be that simple.

 

I’m not talking about monsters here. I’m not talking about staring into the abyss. But we definitely seem to be a beast that is in a constant struggle, locked within a tug-of-war with our own nature & divinity. At very best, we are strange inexplicable creatures that will never be fully explainable in all of our depth & essence. We are more self-aware than any other creature on this planet. Yet, we are more cut off from our instincts than any other creature on this planet. We are by far, the best & worst of what we have to offer. We are a mystery unto ourselves. Human hearts & minds are labyrinths. An enigma designed by God, yet forged in the jungle of mankind.

 

Perhaps, this is why I so love the theatre & pageantry of Greek Mythology; the deep complexity of its themes. They seem to grasp some fundamental element hidden away at the very base of the human core. The very fantastical nature of their stories pays homage to the bizarre intricacies of this human existence. They give flight to the great conundrum that is this riddle wrapped up in the encasement of human flesh.

 

& none more so, than that of The Tragic Bovine Boy Prince, Asterion. Better known as The MINOTAUR.

 

It seems I have always been fascinated by Greek Mythology, I can’t remember a time in my life that I wasn’t. Some of my earliest memorable daydreams are of the mighty winged horse, ‘Pegasus’. I’d sit in school, staring dreamily out the window & I’d imagine him swooping down from the clouds & carrying me off upon some great adventure. Normally, I would envision my school chums & teacher looking on with incredulous amazement as I waved goodbye & shouted aloud, ‘Adios Suckers!’

 

But, this time it’s been my pleasure to share the adventure & take you with me. I hope it has been entertaining, thought provoking & just a little bit scary.

 

So, until next time…‘ADIOS SUCKERS!’

 

 

The Little Things

  

 

A glass of water

The smile of your daughter

The smell of grass, a touch, a kiss

The simple things most people miss

 

The moon, the sun

The smoothness of a stone

The mountains covered in mist

The symphonies that exist within a lovers moan

The coolness of a breeze, the whispering of trees

 What do most people care for simple pleasures such as these?

 

Instead

We stare at our feet

When we walk down a city street

We ignore need for the sake of greed

We rip down forests & make rivers bleed

We hear an animals’ cry and we dismiss it

We poison the sky & we kick the earth when we should kiss it

 

What insanity, what vanity, what disdain

We have such a capacity for good

But seem bent on causing pain

 

We see ourselves at the top of the tree

We fool ourselves in the duplicity of our own divinity

Within our eager ascension to this planets throne

We have left ourselves isolated and alone

Within the complexity of our superiority

We have lost the ability to see

 

We have lost the simplicity

The simple truth hidden behind all the lies

 & that is…

 

We don’t need angels’ wings to see the beauty in things

We don’t need Gods’ permission to see the sun rise

 We just have to open our eyes

 

********************************

 

Do you live?

Do you love?

Do you dance?

Do you still believe in a world filled with romance?

 

This world can be a beautiful inspiring place if you take the time to look

For beauty does not just belong in children’s books

Everyday people amaze me with their selflessness…

 

A mother putting her children first

An act of kindness unrehearsed

It can be big. It can be small

It doesn’t matter at all

 

All that matters is that it happens…

 

People fight unbelievable battles, bigotry & hate

They fight unbeatable illnesses, sadness & fate

They devote themselves to helping others,

to protecting animals, to feeding & clothing the poor

They dedicate themselves to giving more

 

They do it with such vitality, such willingness, such grace

They make this world a beautiful place

 

What about you?

How do you see the world?

How do you view it this very moment? this very day?

Do you see the light or does the darkness get in the way?

Do you see the beauty glimmering behind the curtain?

Or has this life left you uncertain?

 

Well…

I see it like this

I see it in all the little things a lot of people miss

 

This world can seem hard & unfair

A place where people don’t care

A world devoid of new beginnings

This life can seem like a lottery with no chance of winning

It can seem futile & unforgiving

For some people it can seem not worth living

　

Tomorrow we may die of cancer

Tomorrow we may get hit by a bus

This world is not permanent for all of us

This world is filled with things we can’t control

But we cannot let the darkness bind our soul.

 

For each new day

We have a chance to say, “This world begins anew”

A chance to fill our hearts with something beautiful.

Something true.

 

We have a chance to shine. A chance to be the light.

It doesn’t matter if we shine as bright as a star

It doesn’t matter if we blind the world with our brilliance.

It doesn’t matter if we shine like the simple sweet smile of a child.

It doesn’t matter if we shine with the gentle luminescence

of a kind thought or tender touch.

The wattage doesn’t matter much.

All that matters is that we shine

 

This world can seem angry, strange & cold.

We can forget the importance of ourselves sometimes.

We can lose ourselves in the dark.

Trapped by our own irrelevance, we cannot see for ourselves a way out.

But within this world there is a thread.

An almost intangible link. An essence that runs thru us all.

That entwines our existence to every living thing.

A divine commonality that connects us all.

A golden thread that is so delicate

it is almost lost to a world of darkness & self obsessions.

But it is held visible within the little things.

The simple things that most people miss.

A touch. A smile. A kiss.

It can seem almost insignificant.

But it is the thread that connects us all.

It is this thread that leads us to the big picture

It is this thread that gives us peace & allows us to shine

& when we shine the world becomes a little clearer.

 

For when we are gone,

the sun will still rise & the stars will still shine.

This world is not yours & this world is not mine.

This world will go on without us

 

The truth is we are not the stars of this play

At best we are merely spotlights in the stands

But for a time we have a chance to show the way

We hold the beacon in our hands

 

For we are the new sun that shines today

 

We are “Dies Natalis Solis Invicti!”

We are, “The Birthday of The Invincible Sun!”

& Our time upon this earth has just begun

 

What you choose to do with your time is your decision

 

But..

Remember this

 

If we shine, then we are the spark

If we shine, we can light up the dark

If we shine, then we can inspire

& If we all shine,

 

WE CAN SET THIS WORLD ON FIRE!!!

 

 

 

Leaves Meander From The Trees

 

 

 I love autumn.

It’s such a glorious time of year.  

I love the smell. I love the touch. I love the feel.

I lose myself within a patchwork world of oranges, yellows & reds.

I love these colours. They smother me with their brilliance.

They encompass me with their warmth. A warmth not born of the sun,

 but of open hearth fires, steaming bowls of soup & warm toasty blankets.

This time of year always makes me feel like a kid again.

 It brings to mind memories of walking home from school & marvelling

at the changing leaves of the Chinese tallowwoods that lined our street.

In visions of my childhood they are like fireworks blistering the silver sky.

 

My question for you is this:

Why is it that only animals and small children understand the glory of

rolling around unabashedly in autumn leaves?

 

The answer:

We never lose magic, we only take it away from ourselves.