The burlesque night at Richmond School of Arts last Saturday was sensational with all but about 15 seats filled, which means we should be treated to another one in two months’ time, organiser Rachel said. (Pictured left is the favourite act of two of the men in our party, ‘Pollianna Jones’. Picture: Lisa Rhodes)
Our bald editor Matt bought tickets in the raffle going around during the evening. When he heard the prize was a hair cut and treatment, he shook his head with sad certainty and said “you know who’s going to win it, don’t you.” Sure enough…. (He gave the ticket to his mate’s wife.)
The Gazette had seats in the front row but Matt instead sat in the back row and refused to come down the front. “It’s this bloody bald head. It’s all they can see from the stage and they always pick me,” he said. And sure enough, Waz in our party with a gleaming bald head, sitting right at the foot of the stairs that come off the stage, got to undo laces in one girl’s tights, and was given a cupcake by another.
It was strange – but delightful – at first, seeing the cheesecake cheeky acts, and I couldn’t put my finger on what the strangeness was. Eventually I realised – my whole life I’d only ever seen this kind of act done by trannies – over the top characterisations of coy and sassy femininity – but this time it was REAL WOMEN doing it! I so enjoyed it, and so did the audience who whooped and cheered and clapped as the acts stripped off to their underwear. Looking around the audience in the auditorium, there were quite a few old ladies there too and quite a few young people.
Nom nom rabbit head
I did a story a while ago about the Hawkesbury vet campaigning to stop us feeding our dogs and cats pet food and instead feed raw meaty bones, (which he now sells as people couldn’t source them). When I went to his Richmond shopfront last week to buy more ’roo tail and chicken frames, I reluctantly said I’d try a rabbit head this week as he’d said before that dogs absolutely love them. He had none, however, because a woman had come in who’d caught the train from the northern beaches to buy 5kg of quail frames, 5kg of rabbit heads and two whole rabbits for her ferrets, so he was fresh out. “They’re very popular,” he said. (For the record, my border collie who’s had nothing but raw drumsticks, wings, ’roo tail, chicken frames and beef and lamb bones for the last year is very glossy and wet-nosed.)