You know that TV ad for the AFL finals with Katy Perry’s Roar in it?
I wrote it.
Have a look here if you haven’t seen it yet.
Reckon I listened to the song a gazillion times in the past few months. Happens when music is part of your work. But I didn’t get sick of hearing it. It’s a banger and I love it. Those metal guru coloured chords, man. Geez. I might listen to it again. See you at the next story when I get back.
I am the butchers friend.
Butchers really like me. As soon as I walk in to their shop, I can feel the mood lift. I can’t just say 800 grams of mince and get out. No, they really want to talk and talk… a lot. It could be because of the way I dress, my jovial nature (though, I never chuckle), or a vibe passed down the generations.
I’m cool with it because I work from home/freelance, a butcher chat can be the only adult talk I have for hours. The only other adult interactions I get during the day is with my fellow work from home/freelancer parents in the school yard at pick up time.
Here are some of the things I’ve learned my butcher chats.
They work looooong hours. I asked one near me how many, “Eighteen. I’m lucky because we (he and the family), live upstairs so I can get started earlier and keep going after closing time.”
Another worker in a now closed butcher told me she loved the only six hours she gets off on Sundays. So, do you watch any TV or movies on those days? “No, I sleep. All I do is sleep.”
I like hearing about their ‘famous’ customers. My favourite of these stories is that 81 year old, Collingwood team of the century ruck rover/superman, Des Tuddenham, pulls out from his ute full of scrap metal (still works in the yard!), to buy his meat every Saturday morning.
Also, even though meat prices are low (butchers are often cheaper than the supermarkets now), rent is too high. Each of the places I’ve seen close down soon after the butchers told me they had to close because of rent, has remained empty ever since.
“I told the landlord this would happen!”
Yeah, that was the final owner of the German butchers in Oakleigh that had been there since my Oma worked there in the 1950s. I guess I inherited the vibe.
The NGV’s $2 billion brick.
A breakdown of Eddie Betts’ crazy torpedo banana invention.
First, watch this. It’s wild. It’s ludicrous. It’s a work of art. You might need to watch it a few times to work out what on earth happens.
Including the time I watched it while you were watching it just then, I’ve watched it on repeat for at least half an hour. I’ve also gone outside and spent some time trying to reenact the kick myself. I’ve succeeded a few times, and I think you can do it too.
First we have to pull the kick apart. He kicks a low, darting torp. Rather than tumbling, the ball skids along the astroturf, then at the sixth bounce, it turns sharply into the doorway.
I replicated it on dry grass with a slippery when dry footy, and the next day with a different footy on astroturf. It wasn’t impossible. You just have to nail and correctly weight the torp on the left side of your boot (instep right footer, outside foot if you’re a left footer like me), and the ball will do the rest.
Eddie Betts is an artist in inventing this kick. I think did it in games with bigger kicks but to do it with such a small kick is some other kind of genius. I wonder what other tricks he’s got.
But wait, there’s Mora… art.
Mirka Mora’s windows at Heide are sublime.
I mean, look at them.
Friend’s story you should watch.
Zoë Dattner trains women to be leaders. I worked for her at Private Media during those COVID/lockdown years. Whether she knows or not, she helped iron out my tendency to talk over quiet people with my sometimes over the top, flamboyant creative guy enthusiasm.
In this video, shot at TedX Maldon (yeah, NY and Vancouver can go bite one), she uses a different kind of real life story to help us work out how to deal with difficult conversations.
It goes where you won’t expect so just let it percolate and in a week or two, you’ll be still thinking about it. I know I have been.
Pups and poops by the scoop.
Let’s end with cakes again, this time, NAUGHTY CAKES from my birthday years ago.
More cake decorating! For my 40th birthday…ahem…several years ago, my sister took over my mum’s cake decorating room to make me this incredible naughty cake.
Look at those ladies! It’s everything a 40 year old man would want, isn’t it?
Two busty ladies topless sun baking on a boat!
Don’t get sunburn!
It was from this bible of naughty cake decorating, a book so naughty, it’s kept under the counter at the cake decorating shops.
I’m told mum’s copy is now in an op shop somewhere in Glen Waverley.
Look out for it!
Nice tits!