Sephy’s Platzish

You would think that there was a big snowstorm out there. However, there isn’t. It’s just cold, as one would expect it to be in winter. We’re having the (in general) annual trip below the zero Fahrenheit mark (that’s -18°C). The weather service says that it’s not expected to go back above zero until Monday sometime, however, they have also issued an advisory about the wind chill until 10 AM Tuesday.

Most people would think, yeah, it’s winter; you’re supposed to get cold weather. But to the TV stations (who have had consultants tell them that a lot of people like this kind of reporting), they have to tell us in excruciating detail the exact weather. Even though it’s close to midnight and very few people are probably actually watching TV, there are two stations who insist on having graphics on screen informing us of the temperature and the wind chill. One of these stations also had a story about the safety in using a space heater, and how to keep warm.

On top of that, invariably, there will be some social functions closing because of the extreme weather (in particular I can think of places that mostly senior citizens would attend, such as Bingo halls). Yesterday one of our vaunted trustworthy local TV stations had a story on if the major school district in the city will shut down on Monday. I could understand this on Sunday, but on Friday? Come on.

Ah well, life will go on even if it is going to get down to 13 or 14 below zero (that’s -25 or -26°C). The same people will be crowing about the heat in August, and for one station, the fact that it stays cooler near the lake until then.

It’s been a while since I’ve been on a bus, but this isn’t about me. It’s about a movie based on this concept - Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Basically, it’s a story of two drag queens and a transvestite who are summoned from their base in Sydney to Alice Springs to perform at a hotel/casino. Now, anyone familiar with even the basics of transport in Australia will know that it it’s a long, hard slog to get from one city to the other, involving long periods of (for the lack of a better term) lonliness, even when travelling with mates.

In fact, during the movie, there are two journeys going on - the one at the centre of the movie, and the running gag - the “Philips Coast-to-Coast Classic”, and somehow, the two paths meet up a couple of times during the movie. Clearly, she is a fast runner.

However, the main journey does encounter some delays, most notably when it is decided to take the shortcut (essentially an unimproved track through the desert) instead of staying on the sealed roads while heading toward Port Augusta. Thus, they are led through the outback (the filming of which featured many of the creatures that are native to the desert lands) and the result is predictable - the dust clogs up the engine and they wind up stranded. Bernadette (the transvestite) heads off for help, finds it, but once they come upon the scene of the bus, now painted purple (or lavender, but it looked pink), they run off quite quickly. Eventually help is found, a pink kite (which later ends up somewhere else in Southeast Asia) is used to locate them, and they hobble their way to a small roadhouse, then onwards to Coober Pedy and to Alice Springs.

One of the recurring themes is that of tolerance. It all starts out well in Sydney where the type of show that they do is generally well-received. However, in Broken Hill, they receive a harsh lesson in how intolerant people can be when after they finish their stay in the hotel, they find their bus adorned with the phrase “AIDS Fuckers Go Home”. At the roadhouse (where they were suggested to perform by the mechanic who helped them out of being stranded), they were essentially booed off of the stage, preferring to be entertained by the wife of the mechanic who did this amazing trick with some pingpong balls. Interestingly, the only people in the country who really tolerated them (aside from some folks in Alice Springs) were a group of Aboriginals who asked them to attend their camp and they put on a show that ended up in the two groups essentially merging their music.

It’s a movie that discusses (indirectly) some interesting aspects of modern society - particularly the acceptance of people who choose to live their lives differently than the rest of us. I personally do accept the fact that there are people who do choose to live this way; if that’s what they think is the right way of living for them, then they should go for it.