Goulburn: The Tour continues…

Posted by Natalie Thomas on October 16, 2015 in Australian Art | Leave a comment

I once lived in a country town called Emerald in Central Queensland. I was the Home Economics teacher at Emerald High School, just down the road from Sapphire, 3 hours inland from Rockhampton, a speedy 9 hours drive down to Brisbane. When the new school teachers first turned up in town each year, the Principal hosted a welcoming BBQ for us. All the cow cockies from the whole region turned up at the BBQ too (scented with Old Spice and wearing their Sunday best) to scout the latest educated talent in town. This was because as fast as possible, all the young women who grew up in Emerald fled town for the Cities. This was years before anyone thought up The Farmer Wants a Wife, but it was the same shtick. Emerald is where I met my first husband, and then took him for everything he was worth. Nah, just joking, I got out of Emerald with my hymen intact. Just joking again. Goulburn is just down the road from Sydney, so it doesn’t enjoy the same isolation as a lot of country towns. Goulburn is also close to Canberra, but we won’t hold that against it.

There’s nothing like a Politician to dull the party atmosphere. In Goulburn I met TJ. I was photographing the window of his body building shop (my eye had been caught by a fetching pic of TJ’s ex-wife body builder Christine Anvell, who came 9^th in this year’s Miss Olympia competition). Unfortunately for TJ, the Council had received 163 objections to the photo of Christine in his shop window, so TJ (wearing a formal kilt) was meeting up with the Council to sort it all out, bless him.

Goulburn has a big jail so, if you’re thinking of breaking the law, Goulburn could well be the weekend destination of choice. Jails are an excellent growth industry for ambitious Regional centres looking for employment opportunities. We’re following America’s lead here too and locking up more and more people each year. Jails offer the networking opportunities to criminals that art school offers to artists. It’s like a menacing TAFE, before the Government ripped said TAFE apart.

I’ve been going through a Law and Order phase in my thinking. At my place, it’s all Orange is the New Black and Silks and An Honourable Woman and Breaking Bad and Weeds. You know, if you’re going to do something illegal, you should hide it in a lot of paper work. White-collar criminals just don’t get the soft jail time they deserve, because examining all the paper work to convict them is so damn boring. That’s my theory. Everybody gets so bored, they move on to something more exciting. Like bikies and ‘Dob in a Dealer’; they’re always fun. Tracey Grimshaw on A Current Affair, middle Australia, we love this shit. It’s because it’s like Sons of Anarchy, only local. And not American. Not yet.

Speaking of cultural colonialism and the American Celebrity machine, have you seen Amy Schumer annihilate all guests on this Charlie Sheen roast? Legend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MylhoTBrLrI 5 mins.

Deadpan continues until 21^st November 2015

http://www.goulburnregionalartgallery.com.au/site/

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