When I was residing in Sydney, we saw three or four State Labor Premiers take the seat, most of which weren’t voted for. In the final state election I voted in years ago, the distaste in state politics was rife amongst the populous. The Labor government was clearly incompetent, but the Liberal party was leaderless and didn’t have anyone with enough gumption to stand up and take charge while screaming that they could do better.

Labor got in by a nose hair, which should have been taken as a clear message from the voters- Clean up your shit before the ALP find someone to lead them because they’re only waiting for someone mildly less incompetent than you. They didn’t listen, and in last year’s election, the Labor party was decimated.

Uhmm.... I think they forgot something..

With the recent dramas in federal politics and the Labor Party’s “meet-you-in-the-carpark-after-school” scuff between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, it leaves me with a severe bruise on my forehead from hitting my head on the desk. The Labor Party’s brand is being overwashed with the ideology of shifty behaviour, back-stabbing and fickle-minded views; far from the socially progressive movements it helped become part of modern society.

Even if their policies are still matching that forward momentum of social policies that are beneficial, they have been upstaged by petty antics and bullshit cat fights that will ultimately cost them the state of QLD today, if not the country in the next federal election.

Much as Can-Do-Whatever-He-Can-To-Fuck-Off-A-Minority-Group Campbell Can’t seem to figure out which community he’d prefer to piss off more; I can’t figure out whether he’s trying to reinvent the legal dramas behind the infamous Prop 8 or if he’s just trying to claw his way so far up Rick Santorum’s ass he’s about to meet the Frog Prince and start a merry adventure.

Bowing to “pressure” from the Australian Christian Lobby (read: three complaint letters involving the word “Jesus” no less than 27 times) he has vehemently stated that should he get into QLD parliament he will appeal the recently introduced Civil Union bill. I can guarantee it’s never crossed his mind that the validity of his marriage should ever be questioned, that he’s never had to wonder whether or not tomorrow will be the morning he wakes up and realises he can’t marry the woman he’s so determined to make out with in front of the cameras.

The man has never had to once question the legally recognised status of his relationship, he’s never had to fight discrimination for it, and yet there he is on his pedestal pandering for votes by saying to one group he wouldn’t appeal the bill and then backflipping at an ACL gathering to keep the seething fanatical masses happy.

Because he has no other clear platform policies other than “Jab Anna Bligh” and “hate on the gays” to keep himself in the news. Because he never has to know what it’s like to be treated like he’s not worthy of happiness or not worthy of being afforded the same rights as everyone else. The conservatives of this country appear to share an opinion on whether or not we should be allowed to love each other to be based on whether or not our relationships are valid and whether or not we deserve happiness.

in 2012 in a supposed enlightened age,  to be still siding with the loony religious vote is antiquated and belongs back in the age when women and blacks were treated as property. We shouldn’t have to still be here, fighting just to be treated like everyone else.

(Rage Alert: Don’t read that article if you’re not a fan of foaming at the mouth by the end of it)

 As Australians many of us do take our sport seriously. I myself have had threats of being written out of family wills if I supported any other football team other than the Balmain Tigers (Yes, Balmain, fuck you Rupert murdoch and your “Superleague” fucking it up for everyone). Swimmers can make a stupid comment on their personal twitter accounts and it makes headline news and they lose sponsorships. And their words matter when sports professionals are given such platforms to trip over. I think that the gay community gave her the opportunity to make noise because we did.

And now she’s been given a megaphone on mainstream media to tell people that the way they feel, the way they are is wrong and they need to be fixed. In a time when we as a community AND a society are working to lower the number of teen suicides, especially gay teens which are at higher risk.

On one hand, I am head-desking to a severe degree due to the backlash from the gay community giving her this kind of platform to spread her closed minded hate. But on the other hand… While I still don’t agree with renaming the arena show court, I do however have this to say;

Margaret Court, Fuck you.

You were the woman I wanted to be when I was growing up playing tennis, and now you sit there on a pedestal telling me that I am  immoral and wrong and I need to be cured because I *chose* this. Yes, because I totally chose to be constantly discriminated against, constantly judged, constantly treated like a second class citizen and constantly made to feel devalued as a human being by religious zealots who tell me I’m an indecent person, an abomination who is going to hell, because I “chose” to be “immoral”.

As per the bible a marriage is between a man and a pack of raped concubines, his sister, or a kitchen condiment (re: pillar of salt story). Further to that, as per the bible man should only be married to god, and women are property so if she’s that fucking fixated on living by the bible’s OBVIOUSLY superior values she should give up her title, her position, her standing in society, all of her posessions and go sit in the corner until her husband gives her up to be raped by the village as a substitute for “god’s messengers” (read: actual story of Sodom and Gomorrah). I mean, if the bible is anything to go by I suppose.

I don’t choose to be constantly discriminated against, its the choice of others to discriminate against me. My plans on this earth consist of living, laughing and loving. Not spending my time crusading against people that don’t intersect my life at all. I don’t like that reality show about the kardashians. Doesn’t mean I go around bitching to the tv channels demanding it’s cancellation. I just don’t watch it and get on with my life. That fucking easy.  I don’t agree with smoking due to its adverse effects on health and people around those who do engage in the practice, SO I DON’T SMOKE AND GET ON WITH MY LIFE.

It really boils down to one simple fact- if you think homosexuality is a sin and wrong, then don’t fucking do it.

Having now successfully escaped a job that ate up most of my life, health and sanity in 2011, I can now sit and construct FIGJAM into the vision I have for it moving forward. There will be a lot of restructuring over the coming months, and yes, a significant amount will be queerer than Lady Bunny. The Steampunking stuff will still continue in another capacity, on another site (details forthcoming).

Stay tuned…

Tennis Australia named their main arena after Margaret Court due to her being the first woman to win all grand slam tournaments in the same year. I’m gay and I’m proud of it, and as a kid I started playing tennis because of women like Margaret and the way she PLAYED, not her personal beliefs and values. I didn’t strive to be like her because she was a deeply religious woman with personal views on homosexuality that strive towards the “phobic” suffix, I strove to be like her because she was a champion tennis player during a time when women were still fighting to prove that they could hold their own in the dominant patriarchal society.

Homophobic minds are always going to be there regardless of how far forward in culture and society we reach. The Civil Rights Movements for blacks and women ended decades ago and there is still sexism and racism today. That isn’t condoning it, but it is playing a realistic card into the scenario. Closed minds that have been locked on the inside aren’t going to open regardless of what is presented to them.

When we ourselves start going “if you don’t agree with us we’re going to take away all your achievements” then we are no better than the people that attempt to oppress us into feeling like second class citizens and telling us that what and who we are is wrong. This kind of reaction due to a couple of idiotic statements from a woman who sleeps with a bible under her pillow every night does nothing to help the cause for equality, especially when she isn’t being given any platforms to spread her fear-filled message.

When we fight for rights, fight to be treated as everyone else in society should be treated, we fight for equality. The “Same But Different” approach is the wrong one to take on the road to equality, because it does nothing but hamper the uphill run. The now infamous Rip ‘n Roll Brisbane campaign started because one group disagreed with the message it was communicating to the populous. Does the GLBTI community want to be in the same barrel as the Australian Christian Lobby because they disagree with one woman’s message she was communicating to the populous?

Margaret Court is a retired tennis player with no real authority. The stir that was caused around her comments and the Australian Open could give her more of a platform to loudly communicate her views in much the same way that Marilyn Manson tickets sell faster to teens when a church pickets how evil he is. Bob Katter, is an independent MP that has actual authority and the ability to make decisions about my life and who I want to marry. The approach could very well lead her to the “oh Jesus help me the gays are attacking me!” martyrdom tactic that many of them fall back on, and she will then be given a loudspeaker to “defend herself” and instead use that to start some seriously hurtful shit.

The option for armchair activism for name changes and knee-jerk reactions towards people that have no real weight in society is a waste of time, energy and resources within the community. If you want to actually make a difference, write to your local MP about the importance of Equality, donate time or resources to a local group trying to make a difference. Clicking on an online petition is not going to push the wheels of change. Get angry, get up out of your chair and do something.

I decided that in all my random Not Cake shenanigans that for once I was going to make one for myself!

The first challenge was that it was for my birthday this time round, so it just had to be fucking fabulous as a given. The second challenge being that I was on a budget of having fuck all employment so couldn’t spend a huge amount of money on fresh fruit.

So I armed myself with all the appropriate tools and cheats like a lot of tinned fruit.  The syrups would be good for an “icing” (read: marinade) for when the whole thing is done.

Upon making the first incision into the watermelon, I discovered my next challenge- There was a massive crack in the middle of the fucking thing, like some kind of fruit chasm set out to hamper all my efforts!

I slowly (and motherfucking carefully) constructed my epic masterpiece in the making, pausing at its completion that it reminded me suspiciously of something…

….

sweet merciful fuck It's Rogg.

Anyway. Overall the job took about two hours to put together, the tinned fruit adding for some interesting garnishes, and then as I was putting it all together I figured out what to do with the shitload of fruit I had leftover and how to conquer the chasm:

I give you, the first attempt at a stuffed Not-Cake. Not a bad effort for a days work, and thank fuck there were a lot of people here to help me finish the thing. Need to pick myself up a blender for next time, when I made these down in Sydney anything we didn’t consume in the first sitting just went into the blender for the most EPIC JUICE YOU HAVE EVER FUCKING TASTED IN YOUR LIFE.

HOW FUCKING DECORATIVE.

Now, for starters, I wish this society was more like Italy. They embrace wine, not as the heavy drinking culture we Australians are so used to, but as what it is. Fermented grapes, whatever. They let their kids have wine at the dinner table and teach them that alcohol isn’t taboo. When the kids come of age, they treat their drinking as an indulgence, and look down on anyone that gets completely shitfaced. Its taboo to get drunk and act like an idiot there. Now I won’t say that that represents Italian people as a whole, as I’m sure there’s a fair few out there that enjoy getting plastered off their tits.

The thing that pisses me off about this article, AND the whole issue about binge drinking in general, is the absolute blind ignorance of the root of the whole thing.

Something I don’t think many people have taken into consideration- Binge drinking isn’t the problem.

Binge drinking, is a SYMPTOM OF the PROBLEM.

Everyone, politicians, family groups, media channels are all focusing on the OMGWHAT rather than actually looking at the WHY.

WHY do people get drunk? What is it about alcohol and its effects on the body that is appealing to younger generations?

I can give a few examples in the hundreds. Alcohol is a form of escapism. Because there’s no education from a young age about stress and anger management, because there’s a detachment from being completely open and honest with family and friends in society, alcohol is a vice that is used for the sake of temporarily escaping the stress. I know this because this was why I drank heavily when I was younger.

Alcohol also lowers inhibitions should you so choose to let it affect you. Self-esteem issues run rampant through today’s society and many people have been imprinted with the “you need to get drunk to feel good and feel normal”.

it fucking pisses me the fuck off because putting tax hikes onto mixers didn’t solve the BINGE DRINKING CRISIS (omg!), it only had the young adults swapping out the low alcohol slutcohol vodka cruisers and Bacardi Breezers for pooling money together and getting a 2 for $50 special on the hard alcohol and mixing their own drinks. “OH YEY!” cried the government a few months after they’d intro’d the tax on pre-mixed drinks. “PREE MIXED ALCOHOL SALEZ ARR DOWN BY 16%!” and then covered their ears and screamed “LALALALALALALALALALA” when someone pointed out that hard liquor sales had jumped by 47%.

Politicians love using the youth binge drinking issue as a political soap box subject for their campaigns, but I’ve yet to hear one actually address the cause of it, and ways to go about resolving it. Why do we drink so much? In our culture. To escape. To relax. To let go and have fun. Why are people turning to drinking instead of other avenues of stress release? Why do people need to be drunk to go out and have a good time?

When they can’t figure out the solution to it, they just slap a ban on it. Education can go a long way in this country, and I wish to fuck they’d start treating the populace with a little bit of respect and educate rather than crash tackle them at the hip pocket. And stop fucking with my alcohol!

See if you can pick what Michele is a fan of. Aside from a fruit sculpture of sorts that is big enough to face plant;

Weirdly kind of looks like a penguin for some reason...

The reason for the toothpicks is about to become clear..

........

Oh yeah. I went there.

Consists Of the following:

-Watermelon layered base
-Pineapple halved rings for decorating
-Ring of blueberries
-Strawberry garnish
-Ring of Honeydew melon “triangles”
-Ring of Nectarine chunks
-”Icing” made of passionfruit and freshly squeezed lime juice.

This probably won’t be the last time I make one of these as it was quite the hit with the household.