American essayist and gonzo journalist P.J. O’Rourke has just passed away and I am a little sad. From around 1989, when I discovered his collection of essays ‘Republican Party Reptile’, there was a period of about a decade when I would eagerly buy and devour his books as soon as they were released. He could …
Author Archives: Ernest Zanatta
Ageing 1970s Rockers Resist Attempts To Make Them Relevant In The 2020s
Let’s face it, ScoMo’s ukulele solo on 60 Minutes last night was rather cringeworthy. Besides which, he and his advisors might not have thought through the common associations most people have with the words ‘ukulele’ and ‘Hawaii’, as in ‘Hawaiian Holiday’, as in ‘Hawaiian Holiday during the January 2020 bushfires’, as in ‘Nero fiddles while …
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The Vaccine Policy Lottery
I like to play the lottery whenever there is a big draw. I know that the odds are microscopically small (over eight million to one in the case of Tattslotto and even less for the other two major lotteries), but it is unlikely that there will be any other channel through which I will acquire …
The Maribyrnong Explosives Factory Site
I have lived in Avondale Heights about 19 years now. I like it – and whilst I am not particularly Italian, I feel comfortable living in the most Italian suburb in Australia (20% of people here claim Italian descent – compared to 3% in Australia and 4% in Victoria overall). Just over the Canning Street …
The Wokeness of Brown Bread
I used to think, as a child, that Norman Gunston was real. Not even his parody song Kiss Army in 1980 at the height of Kissmania disabused me of this illusion. It was only much later that I discovered that Norman Gunston was a fictional character, just like some others nurtured by the ABC, such …
Fun Fact
Coulrophobia – Kiss Tour Delayed Yet Again!
I received an email this afternoon advising me that the Kiss End Of The Road Tour has now been delayed from next month to August (it was originally due to occur last November). The reason for this latest postponement is Premier McGowan’s announcement that he is keeping the WA borders closed indefinitely. Thank you Premier …
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The Dotage of Rudy Giuliani
About 18 months ago, I admitted that watching The Australian edition of The Masked Singer was one of my more juvenile pleasures, and that I had speculated on whether embarrassed (rather than disgraced) former politician Sam Destyari had been the person inside the Wizard costume. The Masked Singer is one of those shows which is …
Radio Daze – The Toxicity of Shock Jocks
Back when AM radio was still in existence, back in the 1980s, I used to regularly listen to 3XY, the predecessor to FOX FM, particularly whilst doing my home work in high school or writing my uni essays. There was a vibe amongst the DJs which was good humoured and good natured. When they got …
The Great Shakespearean Hoax
We are all familiar with the childhood tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes, where the Emperor so wants to believe that he is wearing a fine new material, and his subjects are too scared to speak truth to power, that it takes a child to point out that he is naked. Hoaxes are much like …
Lost For Words! 