cheers

In dour St Petersburg, we use dull bluestone and incline towards the serious and writerly. Our campaigning gay Catholics don restrained coloured sashes and engage in doctrinal disputation in the forecourt of (bluestone) St Patrick’s Cathedral. In Tinseltown gays go paaaarty at Mardi Gras, with feather boas and, well, tinsel. Nuns in drag, guys in frocks, the whole Sodom and Begorrah. Cheerful, light sandstone architecture; a Harbour to treasure, pleasure boats bobbing about in the sunshine,ah ……

In Tinseltown you have “colourful racing identities”. In St Petersburg we extol “colourful Church identities”, and we still savour with quiet satisfaction our training of the Cardinal from Pell and our foisting of him upon you. May he be upon you, verily.

You have Monsignor Iemma, who seems to do a little flounce (“well, I AM the Premier, dontcha know!”) whensoever he arrives at the inevitable Press Conference to discuss his latest disaster.

Annoyance? If you have time, try to learn of phlegmatic decorum. Think Hamer, Bracks, Sir Robert Menzies [not Jeff Kennett, there's always a joker in the pack].

cheerio

You would have assumed that a Govt that’s been in office as long as this one has when approached by the WYD organisers would have said – “oh noes, that’s the very worst thing you could do….ban annoying t-shirts.

This store is accepting customer/online entries for annoying t-shirts:
http://remogeneralstore.com/pages/domBrowse.cfm?theme=122

Just browsing the ones already up and there are some sub-standard entries, but I liked these:

Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers

Go ahead Pope hate my gay

Abstinence – it didn’t work for the Virgin Mary

Stop World Youth Day – the Flying Spaghetti Monster Commands You (with picture)

I aborted the Second Coming.

WYD-08 (that’s priest talk for smorgasbord)

New T-shirt – $20
WYD Fine – $ 5,500
Annoying Catholics – Priceless

RATZI YOUTH

Protestant

And my favourite:

Good luck, I’ve been waiting for a miracle at Randwick for years.

[Uncorrupted Flesh] appear to be, well, DEAD. Will that be a problem?

No way! Elvis Presley Enterprises works much better without Elvis – no more diets, no more drug problems, no more embarrassing affairs, just sweeeeeet music and the sound of cash registers.

Since Uncorrupted Flesh have never recorded anything, that could be a slight issue but I believe I solved that at post 100.

Sure, Iemma will want his cut, but we can cut him a bargain (here’s a bag of cash, now leave NSW and don’t come back).

I can’t wait for the “getting back to our roots” tour as per Robert above, it will merely involve digging four holes.

Turning away from the crowds and adoration – a million at that fingertip – he packed his gear into a stationwagon and drove himself into the bush in search of a town along the plain. Twelve people, disinterested even, was wild, when he played. Solo. He’d pack the gear himself when done and head off that night.

What was he seeking? As he told it, it was his creative source. The purpose for his being, to get back in touch with what mattered to him, creatively. He was born in a place which challenged and inspired him, so many years ago, and now, with convolutions of the consequence of his successful striving swirling all around him, he wished for the purity, once again, of what delivered him.

The reason, the purpose.

“It’s hard to be a saint in the city.”

The reverse is interesting. Pick a monk, any monk, safe in a cave. With nought but a bowl on the rock in front to concern him, if at that, one universe upon another, dimension after the next, is there. Right there, within.

But bring that person into Pitt Street, sit them down and even give them time, and how do they do? Saintliness? “Get fucked” looms within that cavernous mind, one way or another. No?

Nothing about this is annoying. Not the starting place nor the challenge and certainly not the destination sought or even just imagined.

Nor that it’s reduced to T-shirts in today’s Australia.

And let’s have condoms fitted for the pissing of laughter.

[apologies for the gender thing in the above comment; have already run out of analogy let alone quantifiable reason. Fair to say women have looked long and hard at that plywood ceiling, without the approbation enjoyed by Blessed Pier all this time while doing so. So much to say "we're all in this together.." no, no, no music, no! outta here ]

Road Manager – Gregory of Tours (sorry)

appear to be, well, DEAD. Will that be a problem? Or does it mean all of the royalties and spinoffs go straight to the promoters: FDB FleshInc? Contracts are ready for signing. Will those greedy little grubs Monsignor Iemma and “The Cardinal” expect a slice of the action??? Will Mark charge exorbitant fees for his Incense Consultancy? One can only hope so.

Think Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy.
Think “Weekend at Bernies”
Think Mario Lanza
Think Le Petomane

Picture the Blessed Pier Giorgo, propped on stage while a specially trained handler gently manipulates his stomach, working his left leg up and down, evoking the gentle strains of “Ave Maria” from the Blessed incorruptible trouser region. Heavenly parping wafting sweetly to the crowds!

I’d be Catholic in seconds if I saw that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BktOzc8m93U

Literally or figuratively?

Nah, it may sound like it but he’s laying down the bassline.

I kind of imagined it like the heavenly parping of trumpets FDB.

Gregory of Tours (sorry)

So you should be! For your penance, say one Our Father and three Hail Marys.

On an unrelated note, do you think Blessed Pier Giorgo farts as much when they move him as Piers Akerman?

Pier Giorgio, AKA Sporty Nature
Francis of Assisi, AKA Troubled Teen
Sebastian, AKA The Indestructible Human Pincushion
Patrick, AKA Tubby Mick

Road Manager – Gregory of Tours (sorry)

The bizarre thing about WYD build-up is the youth will probably be wonderfully behaved and delightful visitors.

Some industry sectors are hoping so Robert.