Bet this driver thinks he's an Aussie Legend

By Gerald Fie

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What’s with Bradley Whitford’s Hair?

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Okay, Zeitgeisters, that’s as shallow an attention-grabbing start as one could ever want, but I really want to know. And sure, I’m really talking about Josh Lyman’s hair. (I’m like one of those people who insist on calling an actor by their character’s name – only in reverse. e.g. “Go Knight Boat!”) Whitford plays Deputy Chief of Staff, Josh Lyman, in the Aaron Sorkin -created, NBC television series The West Wing . He plays this part to a tee and now he’s set to do great things in the new Sorkin drama, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip . I know this last bit because the Angriest Ex-Video Store Clerk in the world told me. Oh, and Whitford ’s married to the awesome Jane Kaczmarek who plays mom, Lois, in the series Malcolm in the Middle. So Mr Whitford’s your regular pop-cultural icon and yardstick for excellence. We’re here in this, frankly, puzzling cultural landscape, because I’ve just finished watching season four of The West Wing on DVD. And Josh Lyman’s hair has bothered me througho...
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What's with George Eads' Hair?

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DailyCeleb.com & David Edwards Hey Zeitgeisters, Bet you thought this blog would never top “ What’s with Bradley Whitford’s Hair? ” For those of you who weren’t part of that historical blog entry, it was the glittering moment where I wondered what’s with West Wing star Bradley Whitford’s hair. Good times. However, tonight, while watching the current series (in Australia) of CSI :Original Recipe , I was forced to witness the unpleasantness of George Eads’ new(ish) 'do and I felt compelled to blog on’t. George plays the part of Nick Stokes and has spent some 5 or 6 seasons with a haircut “you could set your watch to,” as Grandpa Simpson might say. It was always short; it always had that US Marine Corps vibe; it was always as dependable as the ebbing and flowing of the tides. Now in something of an El Nino effect, I note that someone in Jerry Bruckheimer’s organization has decided to mess with the length of George’s crowning glory. Although I chiefly watch CSI wa...
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The Wheels of Perth City

By Gerald Fie
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I am confident that the good folk over at The Worst of Perth will have looked into this, but I couldn't find a mention of this over there. Not that I searched for more than a couple of minutes; their site is dense with Perthcentric gold. Have a look some time. Anyhow, when I was a kid, Transperth–then the Metropolitan Transport Trust–ran a campaign encouraging Perthites to take the bus. There was a jaunty tune which sadly I cannot reproduce here and a sprightly lyric which went something like this: We are the wheels of Perth City Leave the driving to us We are the Wheels of Perth (Take it easy) Come on and take the bus! There was even a mascot for all of this, an actual MTT bus driver nicknamed "Jimmy". This is something like thirty years ago, but my memory has him as John Denver looking fellow. And if you don't know who the late John Denver was - ask your grandfather. I believe Jimmy's brief was to be friendly; being a child at this time, I found t...
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Slap Happy

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Some quick thoughts on the Slap Chop.  NOTE: If you don’t know what that is or how it works spend some time watching the famous infomercial. You won’t even need to watch the whole thing.  You’ll get it before the first minute is over. The Slap Chop seems okay. I don’t like it quite as much as Vince does. But Vince also likes the Sham Wow so his judgement is in question as well as up for sale.  I wanted a Slap Chop because I don’t like chopping vegetables. I do it six days out of seven and find somewhat dull. I first learnt to chop vegetables as a kid working in my parents’ various restaurants, so I’ve have sliced a myriad of onions, a plethora of cabbage and a several tonnes of carrot in my time.  It’s boring and a tiny bit dangerous. Not sky diving dangerous, but certainly ‘get me to the emergency room, stat!’ levels of threat. But my main objection to the Slap Chop is the size of the appliance. The celery, potato etc that go into it, are all sliced at least o...
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My Dream Job #1

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Lamas, Dando and Gugino prepare for PSYCHIC LAW I was watching MEDIUM this evening (which is basically a more intelligent GHOST WHISPERER ) and I discovered my dream job. The boyfriend/husband role in a television series about a female psychic investigator. TITLE : Psychic Law GENRE : Supernatural Police-Legal Comedy-Drama PREMISE : Lacey Del Fuego (Carla Gugino of Spy Kids, Spin City & Sin City ) can see dead people. Unfortunately she sees them while working at her job as a high powered realtor in Los Angeles. After freaking out herself and potential clients at a number of homes open (lots of hilarious opportunities for dead movie star cameos in old Hollywood mansions) Lacey decides to stop fighting her abilities and to use them. Lacey persuades her de facto husband Merrick Fong (Mr Trivia) that their family (their adorable 6 year old Eloise) should up-stakes and move to Austin, Texas where Lacey’s family originally hail from. At first, Merrick is reluctant because this ...
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Missing Links

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If you've somehow become sucked into this 'blog through a Linked In post that came through this morning, my apologies. My erstwhile frenemy, Phil Jeng Kane, hit the wrong tickbox and somehow an invitation became a post. Modern Life, eh? Did the Cro Mags or Paleolithics have this problem? Did Neanderthals ever front at some kind of ritual gathering only to discover that the burning message tree in the valley below was not, in fact, meant for their inbox? Then lots of awkward standing around with one tribe wondering if it should offer these interlopers a haunch of their roast mastadon (pre-history fans send your haughty emails now). During the Middle Ages, did The Pope ever receive a hastily scrawled vellum saying something like: "Look, if you get a parchment from me and the rest of the monks at the Order of St Benedict referring to you in less than glowing terms Your Holiness, then it wasn't actually meant for you - we were having a laugh with the Heironymites of...
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Institutional Memory

By Gerald Fie
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Note: If you’re here, you were connected with Perth’s Film and Television Institute at some point. The FTI in the form that we know it, is being wound up and some of its functions are being taken over by ScreenWest. This is my idiosyncratic tribute to the FTI as it was formerly. I’m not someone who plans things. Depending on how well you know me, you might be saying “Amen to that” right about now. There was no plan to have anything to do with filmmaking when my friends and I entered our first efforts in the WA Film and Video Festival almost 35 years ago (forerunner of the WASAs). We made experimental films on Super 8 movie film; in-camera editing, falling down sand dunes, raw meat and tomato sauce representing the terrible effects of our filmic violence.   Super-8 was the cheapest type of movie film. 8 millimetres in width. You could shoot two-and a-half to three-and-a-half minutes depending on your frames-per-second. We had no money, so shot “longer” at 18 fps. Our ti...
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State of Excitement!

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The W.A. flag. That's a black swan, folks. Zeitgeisters, we Western Australians are supposed to celebrate something called Foundation Day on June the 1st. However this is the kind of thing that you can’t get an entire community behind anymore. Politics, see. So because Mr Trivia’s Tract is about uniting all the people of the world in a dance of joy, I propose to celebrate something about Western Australia in which the people of this great state can feel a warm, glow of pride. Perth is home to Central Park tower which ranks 105th on a listing of the world’s top 200 tallest buildings! 105! Woohoo! One-oh-five! One-oh-five! One-oh-five! One hundred and fifth tallest building in the WORLD! Boo-YAH! Check out the stats here , and sit back in awe, wonder and quiet contemplation at the science, technology and sheer West Aussie know-how that produced this glittering jewel in the crown of Australian Architecture. Elevate the Magnificent, Mr Trivia
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Nothing Up My Sleeves

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Zeitgeisters, Miss Raspberry Beret used to do continuity on film shoots and so she is given to exclaiming “those are not his hands” while we’re watching things on the free-to-air. Put simply, this means that the hands in the close up shot that we see turning a key, loving placing a rose on a pillow or grabbing a knife handle and operating it in a stabbing motion, are not the hands belonging to the actor in the wider shot. There can be many reasons for this. Sometimes close-up hand shots are cutaways done later in that day’s shooting when the actor has left the set already. Sometimes the shot has to be ‘picked up’ which means there was no thought of having the shot in the first place, but editing has revealed that the sequence doesn’t make sense without a close up of the hands. And sometimes the actor is a flippin’ megastar and there’s no way they’ll hang around portraying the part of their character’s hands especially when some shmo can do it. Doesn’t half spoil the magic though, when...
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Other People's Ringtones

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Guten Abend Zeitgeisters, I work in an open plan office (it’s a loft or mezzanine style of thing) and it is a common occurrence to hear other people's mobile phones going off. Graeme downstairs has a “My Sharona” ringtone and Liz, with whom I share my office, has a Madonna ringtone. Like any other oft-heard sound, these cut into my brain like brick-saw into concrete. To be fair, my own ringtone is just as bad. If you have a Nokia 3120 , then you can sample the twittering cacophony that is “Urgency”. Imagine the sound of a finch caught on a length of razor wire, then amplify it. What I love is the reaction when anyone hears it for the first time. “Is that your ringtone?” they ask, as though I might have programmed it by accident. I have very purposely chosen a high, “top-endy” sound so it cuts through the background noise. I propose a new piece of cell phone etiquette. Much in the same way that one doesn’t comment on how other people raise their children – especially not ...
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