Charlie the Wonder Dog

Who is Charlie the Wonder Dog - well here you go. And just so you get what its all about ...

From Wikipedia:

"Charlie the Wonderdog was a series of short episodes which first aired during The Late Show's second series. Charlie was a parody of fictitious animal shows, such as Lassie and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo in which the animal regularly ends up saving the day. Charlie was a dog owned by Gleisner.

The sketch featured purposely bad overacting from the children and usually involved an unimposing villain or disaster (such as a "poacher" stealing "native fauna" - sticks and twigs - from the bush) that had to be prevented. The actors would constantly praise Charlie as a highly intelligent "wonder dog", in contradiction of the behaviour of Charlie himself, who regularly had to be dragged around by a rope to perform stunts. When the dog was required to bark to alert the others of danger, obvious overdubbing was used over footage of Charlie with his mouth closed or looking distracted.

As the series went on, the problems and situations that Charlie faced became more and more over the top. Charlie was eventually assassinated in one of the sketches, only to come back in the Charlie the Wonderdog Christmas Episode.

Charlie the Wonder Dog ... along with Shit Scared were two of my favourite segments on the iconic The Late Show.

When did you know you were a writer?

Janie over at Write Stuff proposed the following questions to us this week:

"When did you know you were a writer? Was there a moment or period in your life when you realized that you were meant to write? Did a specific event or occurrence compel you to write? Or, like me, have you just always considered yourself a writer?"

My answer is both simple and complex. I remember when I first felt the love for writing. It was 1984, the year of the Los Angeles Olympics. The year that Willy was our Australian Olympic mascot. I was in my second last year of primary school and I must have been 10. We were writing small stories about the exploits of Willy in LA. I wrote one, then another and still another. From there I began writing at home, on one of my mothers cheap lined note pads (used predominately for writing the weekly shopping list) a story about a dog, a golden labrador that lived on a farm. He wasn't like Charlie the Wonder Dog (for those Aussies old enough to remember the D Gen's The Late Show from the early 90's) he was just a dog and it was just a farm. I must have written 10 or 11 pages before I stopped writing.

I found an alternate escape from the world - an escape where I could play God ... which I never really got over (he reminds me of the scene in Overboard where Goldie Hawn's husband says 'At Sea I am a God' and the psychiatrist who happens to be aboard offers to give him a couple of his own valium!) Writing is the ultimate escape hatch - you create the world, the characters and the scenarios that are played out - you choose who wins and who loses (which was big for me as a serial victim of bullying at high school), who is the hero, the heroine, the evil mastemind.

In the summer of 1985 I was staying with my cousin and read my first (and only) Sweet Valley high novel (and I use that term exceedingly loosely). I was appalled at how pathetically it was written and how it really wasn't what life was like. I went back to my Nanna and Pa's and began writing what would be my first novel ... about life and loves of a 13 year old. Over that summer I wrote about 130 A4 pages. I loved every minutes of it and in 1988 when we moved to Queensland I rewrote the novel. I would take the dog and my writing folder down to the beac and we'd hang out there writing (Oakey chewing on coconut husks) until it was time to go home for dinner. In that novel was my safe space while I went about creating a new social space among new friends in a new high school. I still have both handwritten manuscripts downstairs.

Even though I have always known that I loved writing, and have wanted to have it as a 'career' - it took 15 years after finishing highschool to make the big decision to 'just write.' It was last year on the full solar eclipse of the Virgo moon (my natal moon) when it occurred to me that I didn't need to decide whether to return to paid work or not, if I wanted to study and what I wanted to study, plus how all of that would fit around having a child ... I could write. It made such sense for the first time ever. So I did ... and I haven't stopped since.

Finding Write Stuff in late September last year and Fiction Friday opened up creative avenues that bypassed all the hurdles I regularly threw up for myself, so I wouldn't write - lack of ideas, inspiration - blah blah blah. I discovered a great love for short stories that was probably lost through creating them in high school english class for marking. I stopped trying to write the best selling novel, or finding the perfect plot ... I just sat down to write each Friday night and waited to see what magic flew from my fingers ... good magic and crap magic alike. One short story at a a time.

I spent 15 years making up excuses why I couldn't write - and after a certain amount of time you either give up totally, buying into the delusion that you have created for yourself or you stop making excuses and create a writing reality for yourself. The end of the excuses came in December last year - when I made the decision to give up my editorship of Down to Birth magazine - the end of my shadow artist. I would now only invest in me, my writing and whatever the future held for both of us. I stopped running, I looked myself square in the eye and believed that I had the tenacity and the talent to suceed.

The tool box

Sadly, as I'm writing this, I have the backpack song from Dora the Explorer playing away in my head ... but I digress (sorry to anyone who knows this song and now has it stuck in their heads!)

Steven King refers to the writers 'toolbox' in his book 'On Writing'. For months I wrote in my morning pages about finding the 'right' satchel to carry everything around in, as I didn't have a proper bag. Thus I never had a novel with me to capitalise on those few spare moment when waiting in line. My note book was always in a different bag, so I lost countless ideas and snippets and my ecosilk shopping bags were always hung up at home meaning their plastic comrades were planning to mount an offensive from their position in their pantry (given their superior numbers!)

In the weeks leading up to our holiday in Tasmania and Victoria I started dreaming about getting this perfect satchel. There would be room for my novel and my notebook, my recently purchased SLR camera, my eco silk bags, a bottle of water, my lip balm ... you get the idea. My idea was to go to the Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne and find 'this perfect bag.'

It's sad to say that I wrote quite a few lines in my morning pages about this perfect page ... no images of what the perfect bag looked like, just what the perfect bag would hold and what it would do for me as a writer!

Amazingly enough, we walked into the markets the day before we flew out of Victoria. Leanne, my Dad's wife took me straight to the bag seller - the Italian House of Leather, and I started to have a look around. Within a couple of minutes I'd found a leather backpack, did a spot of bargaining, and got it for just under the budgeted price. Voila! I was the proud owner of 'the perfect satchel.'

Since then - I haven't been caught out without my shopping bags and our collection of plastic shopping bags is slowly diminishing - I think we're safe from the revolution they were planning. I always have my novel with me (I make a habit of putting it in my bad before I leave the house) which meant on Saturday while I was waiting in the extra long BBQ line at a school fete, I could whip out my book and read three or four pages until it was my turn to collect our lunch. My lips are much happier (especially coming into winter) for the ever ready supply of rose scented lip balm from Perfect Potions ... and well I do have to admit that I lost my little purple book for all my writing ideas at the grocers last week, but it has been replaced and used. While I'm probably not as vigilant as I should be at writing down ideas (its been a life long habit to store them in my head), I am getting much better at it. And there is both room for my camera (meaning I've snapped a few shots I would never have got) and a water bottle. It's taken a little getting used to the extra weight on my back - but its well worth it.

The right equipment as a writer may be, as in my case, the right bag to carry the tools around in ... because the world of a writer does exist beyond the keyboard.

What is the one writers tool, other than your computer, that you simply could not do without?

Led Zepplin Disco Ninja

Yes you read correctly ... Led Zeppling Disco Ninja was how Ross Noble came out on stage tonight describing himself. His long curly brown, going-to-dreadlocks, hair makes him a dead ringer for a 70's rocker. Then there was the shirt - the black flared at the wrists shirt with groovy electric blue, flame like embellishments at the sleeve ... and then there was the black pants and the electric blue shoes.

The man is a dynamo of a comic. He comes to the gig with three jokes and that's it. All the rest is ad lib ... through audience participation and his own brand of split personality acting/laughfest, impersonation, mime, a bit of singing in there.

And he goes ... and goes and goes and goes. There seriously has to be energiser batteries in the man. He did just over an hour set in the beginning, the there was intermission, another hour or more ... plus questions at the end.

The stalker lady from Spicks and Specks was there - she saw 32 of the Spicks and Specks live shows (now that's creepy) last year. She's only going to see Ross twice - probably lucky for him.

I thought I would laugh more, or laugh harder ... it was just one constant laugh. Dave had tears streaming out his eyes. It was either the comedy or the pain in his back (possibly a combination of the two)

I'd love to reminisce more about the Algerian national anthem, of bum dancing in taxi, Hippogimps, Nanna Jelly Sex and other suck delights from the show - but its well past midnight and I need more beautiful sleep.

Happy Mothers Birthday

Happy Mothers Day to those beautiful and hardworking Mums who may be reading this today. I know that not every country is celebrating/honouring motherhood ... but hey, as a mothers we should be celebrated and honoured every day.

This was the first mothers day in four years that I have actually enjoyed. I spent my first mothers day in bed sick with a cold, then the second one in Cairns with Dave elsewhere, last year was great until the point of a family meltdown around dinner time ... so this year I went in without any preconceived ideas.

The morning began in Dylan's bed, where I had staggered to as some time after dawn ... having been muscled collectively out of the big bed by Dylan and Dave. Dylan came in with a huge smile on his face, gave me a big hug and good morning kiss. He told me that the time was 9:20 (a combination of him telling me what hands were on what numbers) - and thus I began the day thinking I had enjoyed a big sleep in (an hour later I realised that it had been 8:00am and thus had missed out on an hours sleep, but gained an hour of cooking time.)

As I wrote my morning pages there was the rustling of wrapping paper and the chattered that accompanies card making ... Dave getting Dylan to dictate what he wanted to write in my card. I had already been honoured with this beautiful piece of artwork (above on Friday) ... which answered all the questions that had gone unanswered the previous day, as to where his artwork was (as he was covered from head to tow in red paint!).

A while later down came Dave and Dylan. Dylan bouncing onto the bed and chanting 'Happy Mothers Birthday Mum" ... he didn't quite understand that it wasn't a birthday ... so it became all Mums birthdays today, as far as he was concerned.

I got this wonderful card (sadly photographed after the sun went down) ... with the following wording ...

Dear Mummy,

Mummy realls loves this card because its sweet! Happy Mothers Birthday.

Love Dylan

It's now pride of place on my night stand. Dylan doesn't produce a whole heap of craft or artwork, so the little that he does is really special.

Dave hurt his back playing with Dylan yesterday, meaning it was up to me to be a whizz in the kitchen to make dessert. We'd planned to enjoy a joint mothers day lunch with Annie and family, and our contribution was dessert. I'd procrastinated yesterday over what to make - cheesecake, brownies, portugese custard tarts, chocolate ripple log (with lashing of creme de menthe in it!), caramel peanut butter tarts ... decisions decisions decisions. In the end I decided to think about it tomorrow.

I wasn't that upset to be in the kitchen on mothers day - especially considering I was making a new recipe ... a mars bar cheesecake. I had to walk up to the corner shop (grateful for having one now!) and got three Mars Bars ... not a good look at 9:00am. Dylan helped to do some rather vigorous stirring, and drop in the chopped up pieces of mars bar ... then transfer the filling from the bowl into the crust ... before he got interested in something else and left me to finish everything off. In the course of doing this I discovered that my brown sugar didn't want to melt to make a butterscotch sauce and thus had to resort to a can of pre-made caramel. Sounds all very naughty and unhealthy really.

We called all our family, caught up on what's been going on, shared mothers day goodwill and then started getting ready to go out for lunch ... which always seems to take longer than it actually should (I'm blaming it on having a new hair style that requires blow drying.)

The kids played happily at Annie and Adrian's ... the energy at the moment between them is more about cooperation and much less about fighting, which is nice. We had a lovely pork roast cooked by Adrian, along with some champagne liquere cocktails. After lunch the menfolk and children disappeared off to the park and we enjoyed a foot spa, a mini facial and I never buffed my finger nails. Yes - unbelievable I know (perhaps I'll give up biting them now?)

Coffee/tea and more cheese cake later on in the afternoon, more silly jokes (even though the worse of the champagne had worn off) and we ventured into discussions on politics and religion ... mostly about whether Phillip Adams is agnostic or atheist ... so guess we were talking about someone else's religion and politics.

The kids sat down to watch Surfs Up and Dave lying on the loungeroom floor with a hot pack on his back got suckered into it as well. Around 5:00pm Dylan asked when we were going home ... and it was time to go.

Such a relaxing, enjoyable EASY day ... and tomorrow we're off to see comedian Ross Noble (Dave's favourite stand up comedian) We've got front row seats - which is quite possibly quite dangerous seeings Noble bases at least the first half of his shows on just interplay with the audience. Sure that there will be more tales to tell this time tomorrow night.

Fairy Floss

I got to do one of my most favourite things from childhood today ... eat fairy floss (hopefully I'll be able to put the photo up tomorrow). It has to easily have been 25 years since I last ate fairy floss on a stick, more recently in its tri-colour bag version. We were at a school fete and I bought it for Dylan (forgetting that its all sugar and food colouring ... nothing died in the making of it!) He took one mouthful and wasn't impressed with it and handed it over to me. To say I was delighted is the understatement of the year.

Fairy floss, not suprisingly reminds me of going to the carnivale. When I was small, there was a foreshore carnivale over the summer at Rosebud on the Mornington Peninsular, where my grandparents had a holiday house. It was a magical place - flashing lights, crazy music and the smell of hot oil. I'd put the ping pong balls into the mouths of the clowns, never win anything other than a small keyring or some bubbles and on the way home we'd get a bag of fairy floss. With great delight I would tease small tufts from the bag and savour the feeling of the sugarly fluff turning into syrup in my mouth, then a hard ball of sugar. Then fairy floss belonged to The Show - the Melbourne Show one year, but more likely our local country show.

I have only had it on a stick on other time - at a family fun day run by my Dad's work. I must have been no older than eight ... and there was a fairy floss machine. I was transfixed watching the lady weave the cobweb confection onto the stick - prior to this I'd only ever had it from a bag. Best bit was - it was free! And I ate stick after stick until I had a stomach ache.

Where did fairy floss come from? It is unclear who actually invented fairy floss (or cotton candy). What is known is that Thomas Patton first patented the first fairy floss machine in 1900, the same year that it is recoreded as appearing at the Ringling Brothers circus. It was confectioners Morrisson and Wharburton from Tennessee who took fairy floss in 1904 to the St Louis World Fair. They sold 68,655 boxes (at 25c box - which was not cheap at the time!) It was later renamed 'Cotton Candy.'

I got some knowing smiles and nods of heads from adults as we walked out of the school groups, me teasing the fairy floss from the stick with my fingers and angling the sticky bundle into my mouth. I had forgotten how quickly it goes and just how terribly sweet it is. Without a doubt, it is something that I will NEVER grow out of.

What, from childhood, have you never grown out of enjoying? What are your memories of eating fairy floss?

Intercontinental

This Week’s Theme: Using first person narration, logically describe something that is crazy. The blonde behind the counter at Kingsford Smith International smiles at me as I hand over my tickets and passport. “To Paris today sir.” I nod. I’m afraid if I verbalise my exact destination, agree with her that this is where I am headed, my resolve will fail. I’ve made it this far but it would still be too easy to turn back, get the AirRail and go home – I’m not courageous, just crazy if I believe what others are saying. As I lift my backpack onto the conveyor I can still hear my wife screaming at me – her eyes wild with loathing and fear. “Why Paris? What's going on with you? Why the bloody hell do you need to go all the way to France?” “I need to get away. I need time ….. I need space. It’s just for two weeks.” I had wanted to tell her the truth, that had been my intention all along, but I’d taken too long to tell her, always trying to find the right time – but there never is a right time. I was just trying to avoid the fight that I knew would ensue and in the end I waited too long and all I could offer was a half hearted lie when she caught me leaving. “What am I meant to tell the children?” she hurled at me next. I wanted to yell back, really yell for the first time, that I didn’t care. But I do care, always have done - too much perhaps, and especially about the kids. This wasn’t about them after all. How could I explain it all to them – I wanted to protect them for all of this. I wanted them to still look at me with the pure innocence of a child’s love for their father - I wanted to continue to be a hero in my sons' eyes. How could I make them understand it wasn’t them … it was me. So I left while they were out with mates. “Come back,” she screamed, as the taxi tooted from the front. I swung my old backpack over my shoulder and closed the front door behind me, blanking our her sobbing. My bags are tagged and disappear and I feel as though my heart is being torn in two directions … the love of my children and the love of her. The deceit that I swore that I would not play, I’m drowning in. The excitement that courses through me, the thoughts of finally touching her, looking into her eyes, laughing with her, holding her to me is over shadowed at this moment knowing I’m bastard. I’ve let everyone down. I tried to hard to keep everyone happy, to be nice, but I'm ended up just being a coward. I tell myself that I could have done it better – been honest and said that I was in love with another woman … a woman on the other side of the world. A woman who understood me, made my heart sing … looked into my soul, made me ‘me’ again. A woman who sat on the other end of yahoo messenger – patient and without judgement. But there hadn’t been time. There would have been days of fighting instead of the few minutes when she’d come home earlier than planned from dropping the boys off. I’d left a letter telling her I’d gone away – I never intended to just disappeared. I hadn't sent an SMS from the airport to tell her where I was, or told the answering machine. I'd made the effort to hand write a letter. I remind myself that I was never looking to fall in love, to be unfaithful to my wife, to walk out on my kids. It was serendipity that bought us together - a chat room that I went to for the first time, surfing during my lunch break. And she was there, talking to me of London. I’d given her my email address just to learn a little more about England – curious as I was, with relatives living there. And she’d written the next day – a short email about going out in the snow to watch kids from her school play soccer – on a Saturday morning. She didn’t have to be there but she was and we began to trade stories from opposite sides of the world. Love was the furthest thing from my mind that day. It was the thrill of meeting and getting to know someone new, seeing a part of the world I had never been to through the eyes of an intelligent and articulate woman … the love came later. We were both dying in our relationships. I didn’t realise that until she showed me another way of being. I came to understand that I was going through the motions with my wife, partly because of the kids but moreso because I didn’t know anything else. I’d forgotten that I wanted to be loved – to be adored and cherished by another. She made me remember … and I couldn’t shut the door once I’d walked through. She’d been traumatised leaving London. She had told her live in boyfriend about me, that she was in love with me and not him. He'd found my number in her mobile, threatened to ring and tell my wife what had been going on. Later he’d threatened to kill her and them himself when she refused to continue on with him. But she’d got out – made it home to France, to safety. I’d been there, on the other end of the internet connection, loving and encouraging her, feeling the impotence of the intercontinental distance. Sending her cards when she got a new flat, a new job and then ringing with news that we'd both been waiting for. I had to go and see her - I had booked my ticket. I was coming to Paris. Entering Customs there is no turning back and I hum ‘All you need is love’, try to look relaxed and stop rationalising to myself what others think it crazy. This is what I want – what I need. Otherwise I will start to die the slow death of ambivalence in suburbia again. It’s no longer selfish to want to be with the woman who is my soul mate, my life line … the details I will work out later.
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