Near-Death Cowboy's Last Thought #02

By Gerald Fie

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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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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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Tell Me Venn Will You Be Mine

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So Zeitgeisters, Miss Raspberry Beret and I were driving down Venn Street in North Perth. I said, “Venn diagrams” in that way you do to work your mouth and you have no connecting thought. Fatally, Miss RB asked, “What’s a Venn diagram ?” And I said, “Well you have these two circles see. And there’s things inside them. Points. You know the circles overlap. And where they overlap…hold on. There’s these different objects. Some are in one circle and some are in the other. And there’s an array. No there isn’t. Forget everything I just said, there’s no array and I know f**k all about Venn diagrams.” Everything I learned in high school twenty years ago has dried up into tiny particles which leak out of my ears while I sleep. Elevate the Insignificant, Mr Trivia
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Coiffure Fury

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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...
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The Curmudgeon Replies

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Hey Zeitgeisters, Carla replied to the last post “What Noise Annoys A Curmudgeon” thusly: You speak the truth, Mr Trivia. But I'd wager neither you or anyone else stood up and walked on over to those slobs and told them what was what.You're a member of a passive-aggressive cult to the Individual. Carla has met me and props to her on her analysis, but she is missing one part of my case history. About seven years ago, I started to find that whenever people talked near me in the cinema during a movie I would be moved to shoosh them. And if they were teenage guys I could be quite aggro about it; figuring that a disproportionate amount of vehemence would discourage any further attempts at talking. One day I was sitting in the cinema with my then-partner and three guys behind us were adding comments to all the dialogue and stopping me from enjoying the film, so I turned around and said, “I paid to see this, so you keep your mouths shut.” If you know me, this is out of cha...
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Perth. We love our DON'T signs.

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Don't walk on the bike path. And don’t cycle on the footpath. The City of South Perth has got it sussed. Saw this when out walking along the South Perth foreshore yesterday. This is a shortish piece of cycle path that runs across Sir James Mitchell Park. Most of the path that you might use on the 'Bridges' run, walk or cycle (ie around the Swan from the Narrows Bridge to the Causeway ) is dual use. So what's with this stunted section of single use cycleway? Odd. Mr Trivia
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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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Soup's Up!

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Zeitgeisters, Its winter in the Southern Hemisphere or SoHem as we like to call it down here. Which means its soup-making time. I like to get a ham shank and a leek and some magic beans and boil it up for a couple of hours and then freeze the result in a number of containers. Not quite the way granny would’ve done it, but its as close as I get. Last winter I was doing this very thing on a particularly cold night and managed to mist up my small flat. The windows, the computer and the front of the microwave all had a fine layer of moisture on it. I opened all the doors and windows thinking that equalising the temperature outside and would be in some way effective. You know that way you seize upon half-remembered scientific principles learnt years ago in school? I went about with a towel and dried light switches, the desk lamp and the telly etc. Then I sat on the sofa in a my thickest jacket while a chilly wind blew through the flat. I managed to catch a pretty good documentary on SBS a...
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This Week In Mr Trivia’s Bubble

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Monday. Sick at home and thus unable to educate today’s youth to not say LOL as a word. Not that I can manage this even when I’m there. I discover day-time television is as terrible as night-time television with a couple of subtle differences. Day-time TV is filled with infomercials about buying life insurance without a medical and infomercials for bagless, cyclonic Dyson ripoff vacuum cleaners that can pick up a bowling ball using just suction. Night-time telly is filled with infomercials about how the whole world is going crazy for Zumba and informercials with scantily clad ladies (some of whom can pick up a bowling ball using just suction) who want you to call them NOW for just $20.00 a minute.
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Vending Machine Win

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I had only planned on getting the above items.However, the vending machines in the place I work are programmed to take your money and give you nothing in return. I required a bag of Sour Squirms. They were in the bottom right hand corner compartment - E8. I put a fiver into the note-snatcher, heard $1.50 clatter into the coin return. The large black coil holding The Squirms, rotated one turn and released the bag, it shuffled forward two centimetres, then stood teetering on the ledge, just above the pit you grab your goodies from. I willed it to fall. It trembled on the brink like a plump diver waiting for the referee's whistle. After about five seconds it became clear that my paid-for bag of Squirms was content to stay where it was - like a portly Greg Louganis, frozen in time on a sprinboard to nowhere. There was no way I was going to allow this to happen, but because I too can be described as portly there was also no way I was going to be seen sh...
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