The Gap Between The Pauses

Zeitgeisters, as you know, this site is has a love-hate relationship with the television series CSI. Today, this continues as we mine the first CSI (the one I insist on referring to as Original Recipe) for verbal gems. William Petersen plays CSI’s resident Sherlock Holmes-type, Gil Grissom. He follows obscure trails of evidence until they reveal the story of that week’s murder. I dug up these quotes from various CSI sites and I observed a good deal of love for The Gris. There are a number of folk on-line who want to dim the lights and get freaky with this fictional forensic ‘tec. Since I only feel that way about Mrs C from Happy Days, I deem the Grissom Groupies sickos whereas I am merely eccentric. Gris has a way with a one-liner. Check it out: “ People don't vanish Jim, it's a molecular impossibility.” “Amazing how the sight of blood can clear a room.” “It took five people to kill him. It would only have taken one person to ask him if he was okay.” “It looks like these guys...

Zeitgeisters, I was buying groceries this evening at my local Super IGA store. I was behind a couple in the dairy aisle. She looked early 20s, tall, blonde, wearing jeans, a scarf and a skivvy. He was late 20s, tall, blonde wearing jeans and a biker jacket. - they were a cute couple, catalogue material. I could also see a very attractive young woman, early 20s, dressed in a black leather jacket and skirt, her hair in a bob – a la Louise Brooks. Biker Man caught sight of Louise and more or less wolf-whistled while his arm was around Skivvy. I say more or less, because he swallowed the sound before it fully resolved into a whistle. It came out like a high-pitched rush of air. A sharp sigh which might have been interpreted as, “Check out all these product lines. Super IGA is really diverse.” A piece of Biker Man’s brain was acting as though he was hanging out with a buddy. “Fwaugh, check it out,” that part emoted, but another bit of his brain was saying, “Abort. Abort. Engage hanging o...

Zeitgeisters, Here’s the scenario: You’re driving and you’ve got the radio on. You’re nearing home. You are right into the song you’re listening to. You can choose to either arrive home and stop the car mid-song or you can take a slightly longer route to your driveway and thereby catch the end of the song. What song have you ever driven just a little bit longer to hear the end of? Or if you’re not a car person, what song do you always have to hear all the way to the end no matter where you are or what you’re doing? I have been known to do this for anything from the “Gos-Gos’ We Got The Beat through to Silverchair’s Straight Lines . So don’t hold back. Elevate the Insignificant, Mr Trivia p.s. The top five favourite things responses from many moons ago, are below.

Zeitgeisters, For those of you who have been with me from the start, you know I’m all about Perth, and even more I’m all about South Perth. If you’re sitting in Shanghai or New York or Salzburg or Rio or somewhere, reading this and thinking, Man, that Perth, Western Australia sounds like the place to be, then you’d be right. The artwork above attempts to give you some idea of the vista you will have in store for you when you arrive. The photo is mid-1990s but basically it only omits the awesome Belltower and the even more awesome Perth Convention Exhibition Centre . My bit, South Perth, is very middle-class and lovely. I’m a short walk from the Swan River (see picture) and can have a coffee whilst watching porpoises frolic at the Mend Street Jetty if I please. Okay, I only saw the porpoises once, but that’s pretty good. Last Sunday I encountered the well-heeled urchins of our area, twice. The first time was at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning or as some would describe it, 9.30am. ...

Zeitgeisters, It’s harsh to judge an artist, an act or any on-going entertainment by the latter part of her/his/its career. Madonna isn’t really Hung Up , just as Sting isn’t only Sting he’s also The Police and HAPPY DAYS isn’t the final years when Richie got posted to Greenland. You will have your own examples, I am sure. This brings me slowly and contrived-ly to Fred MacMurray, of television’s MY THREE SONS (1960-72). MacMurray played widower Steve Douglas. Steve Freakin’ Douglas with the cardigans, pipe and widow’s-peak coiff; he had a “laid-back” but firm way of raising his Three Sons. His supposedly likeable persona, kind of a cut-rate Jimmy Stewart, was phoney as. I’m not referring to the man himself (of whom I know little) but his actual performance as the Douglas patriarch, that, to modern eyes, seems at best phoned in. At worst he comes across like the most distant and uninvolved of the television fathers of that era. Check Steve Douglas’s eyes, people, he doesn’t giv...

Zeitgeisters, Months ago I put out the call for your lists of your favourite things a-la the treacly Rodgers and Hammerstein ditty that we all know so well, from the best anti-nazi feature film of all time, THE SOUND OF MUSIC. I can hear Julie Andrews mannered inflections even as I write this, I wasn’t swamped with replies, but here they are in all their ‘is-ness’. My original list was: 1. Coffee 2. The Internet 3. My iPod 4. My digital Camera 5. Democracy But then I posted this second list: 1. Nena's "99 Luft Balloons" 2. Persian carpets 3. Bruce Lee's "Fists of Fury" 4. The light reflecting off the river at sunset 5. mangoes in any form There followed: 1. sex 2. drugs 3. rock & roll 4. sex 5. drugs -Paul- 1. My aubergine coloured '98 Commodore 2. The Proposition film 3. Gregory Maguire's Wicked book 4. The band Calexico 5. Learning to speak Italian -Jacob- 1. The smell of a clean baby 2. a rain sto...

Zeitgeisters, I don’t mind it when Miss Raspberry Beret asks me if what she’s wearing is hot, happening, kicking out the jams, etc. This is a dread area for many guys but I’ve watched enough Trinny and Susannah or QUEER EYE to give it a red hot go. However, I can’t answer any of her questions about hair. Freakin’ hair. A Woman’s Crowning Glory etc. When posited a follicular styling question, I revert to being Mr C from HAPPY DAYS, or Fred Mertz from I LOVE LUCY or Fred MacMurray from MY THREE SONS (more on MacMurray soon). That is to say, as hapless as any iconic 1950s television husband when faced with something feminine. So the other day we’re getting ready to go out and Miss RB says, “I don’t know what to do with my hair. What do you think?” I try severally to weasel out of it. I distract with light chat about climate change. I attempt to make it a feminist issue that simply doesn’t involve my input. “But I value your opinion,” Miss RB says. So I employ hyperbole. “This c...

CORRECTION: Anonymous has alerted me to the fact that Anni-Frid Lyngstad was, in fact, born in Norway and is of German and Norwegian origin. She is famous for being one of the "A's" is Swedish pop group, ABBA, just in case you're a Generation Y-type for whom all of this is mere ancient history. My incorrect blog entry is here . Thanks for checking my facts, Anonymous. Maybe you're re-claiming her for Norway, which is understandable - she's Anni-Frid. Elevate The Insignificant, Mr Trivia P.S. And yes I see it is Anni-Frid rather than Anna-Frid. Will rectify soon.

Zeitgeisters, It was the March Hare who was pointed out to Alice that saying what you mean is not the same as meaning what you say. Writers deal with this question all the time. Sometimes phrased as “What am I trying to say?” This is always a good thing to ask oneself. You start a piece or a script or an article thinking you have a clear idea of what you wish to express, but by the end, the meaning has leaked away. Or perhaps your powerful notion was only worth a couple of good lines; you can’t tell until you’ve done the work. Sometimes I wonder what others are trying to express. I was driving behind a reasonably expensive, late model vehicle last week and the licence plate that read MBZZLD . Funny. I assumed it was meant, jocularly: “I got this car by embezzling funds from work”. Although, without knowing the context, the plate might have meant: “This is all I have left, after my money was embezzled from my business by my shonky accountant.” Later in the week I saw a woman in the Woo...

Zeitgeisters, Recently saw Video Hits on the telly and witnessed the host, Fuzz, and her American guest, Chris Brown, discussing his tour of Oz in the Fall. Neither seemed aware that this might kinda, sorta mean Australian Spring. They were having a little trouble doing the seasonal translation. It is of course insanely complex. The seasons being reversed between the hemispheres and Fall being the term used there and Autumn here and etc. Crazy times. But according to the Internet, Chris Brown’s Fall might start with the September Equinox (23rd) and go through to the December Solstice (22nd) which co-incides roughly with Australian Spring which begins on September the 1st and goes through to November the 31st. So, Aussie Chris Brown fans, get excited somewhere between the Northern Hemisphere’s Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice. Woot! Elevate The Insignificant Mr Trivia

Zeitgeisters, It’s fashionable in certain types of blogs to be snarky about Australian television’s night of nights, the Logie Awards. Mr Trivia’s Tract will do nothing to reverse this trend. However in the interests of full disclosure, I must admit, that I only occasionally flicked over to last night’s awards show. It just wasn’t that compelling. If you don’t watch something from end to end, then it is quite possible that the bits you missed were brilliant, funny, witty and truly entertaining. If switching over is a matter of timing and accuracy similar to throwing darts, let’s just say I didn’t get near the bullseye all night. The red carpet was brought to us by cosmetic giant Maybelline. Austereo Network’s Jackie O was out-there ‘interviewing’ with a bold look that might be described as ‘exploded Barbie’. Channel 9’s Jules Lund, whom I’ve been very snarky about on occasion, was quite good. He seemed to understand the gig wasn’t too serious. When he interviewed Network 7’s Son...

Zeitgeisters, This is part 2 in an occasional series about the run to next year’s Oscars. And dammit its not too early. As I explained before , it’s the power of zeitgeist that could net these apparent Oscar Outsiders the coveted small, gold bald guy. This, that is to say us, and a word-of-mouth campaign started here, rather than mere talent, could snag someone the entertainment universe’s most coveted touchstone of validation! Glory, glory! Paris Hilton. What can we say that hasn’t already been said? She’s the It girl who produces nothing but whose every step is lit by the flickering light of a thousand flash bulbs. She’s the icon of a culture that celebrates the way things look and the emotional sound-bite over achievement and rational thought. She deserves her own Oscar category. Unfortunately since her turn in the remake of HOUSE OF WAX(2005) her only roles are in a film called BOTTOMS UP (2006) and a National Lampoon flick called PLEDGE THIS! (2006). We can probably let go of th...

Zeitgeisters, you may remember the pineapple fritter of yesteryear. You can still find them where ever people don't give a tinker's cuss about cholesterol, low GI et al. If you've never had the pleasure of eating one of these culinary throwbacks, it's a pineapple ring covered in thick batter and deep fried in animal fat. It's usually served with ice cream that melts quickly upon contact with the searing golden dough-casing. The effect is rather like that of a snowman seating himself on a blazing commode! But only if you find that kind of thing funny which frankly I don't. It's quite puerile. I've never eaten a pineapple fritter that I liked, but the people who used to dine at my parents' various restaurants (owned and run in suburban Perth in the 1980s) used to order these bloated rings of superheated fat time after time. The fritters look something like the picture above, which is sourced from the Australian site of fast food company Red Rooster . ...

Well Zeitgeisters, Our Prime Minister, John Howard, recently kicked off a series of Liberal policies speeches entitled Australia Rising. The title has a US feel – imagine “America Rising” and is of course very heavily about economics, which is the PM playing to his strength. He’s won all his election battles of the last decade using his economic nous and he may win the next one this way, too. Despite my disagreeing with every word he uttered (no surprises there) it’s a very cleverly crafted speech. The only section that really peaked my interest, in terms of perplexing nuttiness, was near the end where he once again doesn’t quite get the notion of climate change. He says, “History shows that economic growth and technological change have given mankind not just greater material wealth, but also cleaner air and water.“ Economic growth and technology made the water and air cleaner? History really shows us that? Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for him, he doesn’t elaborate on this in...