for Steve Irwin: 'My Daddy was my hero', by Bindi Irwin - 2006

20 September 2006, Australia Zoo, Queensland, Australia

My Daddy was my hero – he was always there for me when I needed him. He listened to me and taught me so many things, but most of all he was fun. I know that Daddy had an important job. He was working to change the world so everyone would love wildlife like he did. He built a hospital to help animals and he bought lots of land to give animals a safe place to live.

He took me and my brother and my Mum with him all the time.

We filmed together, caught crocodiles together and loved being in the bush together. I don’t want Daddy’s passion to ever end. I want to help endangered wildlife just like he did.

I have the best Daddy in the whole world and I will miss him every day. When I see a crocodile I will always think of him and I know that Daddy made this zoo so everyone could come and learn to love all the animals. Daddy made this place his whole life and now it’s our turn to help Daddy.

Norman Mailer: 'Norman Mailer passed away yesterday after celebrating his fifteenth divorce and sixteenth wedding', (self penned) by Norman Mailer - 1979

1979, published as a joke in Boston Magazine. Mailer died 10 November 2007

Novelist Shelved, By Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer passed away yesterday after celebrating his fifteenth divorce and sixteenth wedding. “I just don’t feel the old vim,” complained the writer recently. He was renowned in publishing circles for his blend of fictional journalism and factual fiction, termed by literary critic William Buckley: Contemporaneous Ratiocinative Aesthetical Prolegomena. Buckley was consequentially sued by Mailer for malicious construction of invidious acronyms. “Norman does take himself seriously,” was Mr. Buckley’s reply. “Of course he is the last of those who do.”

At the author’s bedside were eleven of his fifteen ex-wives, twenty-two of his twenty-four children, and five of his seven grandchildren, of whom four are older than six of their uncles and aunts.

At present, interest revolves around the estate. Executors have warned that Mailer, although earning an average income of one and a half million dollars a year, has had to meet an annual overhead of two million, three hundred thousand, of which two million, two hundred and fifty thousand went in child support, alimony, and back IRS payments. It is estimated that his liabilities outweigh his assets by eight million, six hundred thousand.

When asked, on occasion why he married so often, the former Pulitzer Prize winner replied, “To get divorced. You don’t know anything about a woman until you meet her in court.”

At the memorial service, passages from his favorite literary works, all penned by himself, were read, as well as passages from prominent Americans.

His old friend, Truman Capote, said, “He was always so butch. I thought he’d outlive us all.”

Gore Vidal, his famous TV and cocktail-party adversary, complained sadly, “Norman did lack the wit that copes. I would add that he had the taste of Snopes, but why advertise William Faulkner, who’s responsible for everything godawful in American penmanship—one can’t call it letters.”

Andy Warhol said, “I always thought Norman kept a low profile. That’s what I liked about him so much.”

Gloria Steinem stated: “A pity. He was getting ready to see the light.”

Jimmy Carter, serving his fifth consecutive term as president, replied in answer to a question at his press conference this morning, “It is my wife’s and I regret that we never did get to invite Norman Miller [sic] to the White House, but we will mourn his passing. He did his best to improve the state of American book-writing and reading, which we all need and applaud.”

For Stanley Kubrick: 'It was Kubrick that showed me how the film worked as a whole', by Edward Champion

12 March 1999, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom

Uncompromising. Meticulous. Control freak. Reclusive. These were all words that were attached to Stanley Kubrick throughout his life. But they were also words that described a man who changed the rules of filmmaking. Kubrick merged the artistic film with the commercial, melding his stark independent vision with the coffers of Hollywood in a way that no other filmmaking genius — not even Welles — has managed to accomplish and may never succeed at doing again.

The death of Kubrick came as a shock to me. His legacy — the twelve films that he created (including the forthcoming Eyes Wide Shut) — impacted me personally and made me see film in a completely different way. In 1987, I saw my first Kubrick film, Full Metal Jacket, and discovered that film was more than just a medium that entertained. As I became engrossed with the moral disintegration of Private Gomer Pyle, as I watched raw recruits turn into seasoned veterans without remorse or morality, I realized that film had the ability to transcend mere storytelling and become an unforgettable visceral and visual experience.

I soon found myself renting every Kubrick film I could get my hands on, and became captivated with every frame, every character, and every painstakingly crafted allegorical touch that Kubrick embellished his films with. The giddy lunacy of Dr. Strangelove, the evolutionary epic of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the moral philosophizing of A Clockwork Orange. I was amazed that the man could move seamlessly from one genre to another.

I watched these films over and over. Who was the man that created these images?

I began to read books. I collected an arsenal of magazine articles and clippings and learned that he had moved to England to maintain control of his films after he had become disappointed with the way Hollywood had attempted to wrestle control of Spartacus away from him. Through Kubrick, I learned that directing a film was more than just an artistic challenge. It was, above all, a relentless battle with the people who gave you the money.

I soon found myself experimenting with a video camera, hoping to recapture the visual poignancy of 2001’s bone being tossed up into the air and becoming a spaceship, trying to reproduce the visual beauty of Barry Lyndon’s candlelit imagery. And I soon moved on to Super 8 and 16mm formats, all the while keeping a mental checklist of all the true Kubrickean moments that I remembered.

There were other filmmakers that inspired me, who showed me how to work with the film form in the way in which they executed a scene or accomplished a shot. But it was Kubrick that showed me how the film worked as a whole.

To be fair, Kubrick was frequently tough on his actors. In A Clockwork Orange, he kept Malcolm McDowell’s eyes open to that horrible metal device for nearly twelve hours straight. He shot a relentless number of takes for nearly every shot, 47 takes for a simple shot of Scatman Crothers crossing the street in The Shining. He took years upon years to create a film just to get it right. But his talent was so enormous, so all-encompassing, so vast, so true to the film form, that somehow all the horror stories seemed justified.

With Kubrick now gone, I wonder if film will ever be the same. He was a Dostoevsky, a Melville and a Tolstoy all rolled up in one. He was an uncompromising giant unafraid to tackle controversial issues and explore the human condition through his unique vision.

I can only hope that there will be a filmmaker of equal stature in the years to come.

- See more at: https://www.funeralwise.com/plan/eulogy/kubrick/#sthash.LLHDmd4P.dpuf

for Jim Henson: 'And we did have fun, we had such great silly fun together', by Frank Oz - 1990

21 May 1990, St John the Divine Church, New York, USA

Jim and I were opposites in so many ways.

I think it worked mainly because of patience and understanding, that which we had together both personally and in performance. And in the creative partnership that I shared with him and others.

I knew, not all the time, but in the last fifteen years or so, that he was a very singular human being.

Looking here I think I only realise now how large a man this was.  This man that I just worked with and played with, and had so much fun with.

And we did have fun, we had such great silly fun together. The best thing of all—the best thing—is when you watched Jim laugh until he cried. It usually happened when we were recording something, or performing with the gang ... and we’d get so punch and silly at two in the morning. And Jim would ... just get that high whine ... and  he couldn't speak, and the tears were rolling down, and he'd try to add to the joke and he just couldn't do it, and it was the best thing to see because you knew he was always busy and always working under pressure. And thinking, it was such a purge and a release—it was wonderful, the best thing to see him do that.

I can’t tell you how much he supported me. I joined when I was 19, 27 years ago, and he’s given me the most amazing opportunities. And he’s taught me so much, just by being the person that he is. It’s very important to me. There's so much to tell. Let me just zero in on one little thing.

About fifteen years ago, we were doing Saturday Night Live, the first year of Saturday Night Live, Jim and I and a few others of the gang were doing some puppets there. And it was before Christmas , and it was just prior to dress rehearsal and the other guys had gone away to have lunch or something, so Jim and I were hanging around the halls, and as I recall in the hallway Jim came up with a camera. And he said in his own quiet, enthusiastic way, he said, ‘Frank, I need to go in a dressing room with you, and um, see if you’d take off all of your clothes soI could take a picture of you naked?’

I said, ‘whoooa!’ I said, ‘what?’

He said ‘I really need to do this, I need to take some photos of you naked.’

We discussed this for a while.

I said, ‘okay, alright’.

So we went in the dressing room, and I took off all my clothes, buck naked. Locked the door of course.

And he told me how to pose.

He said, ‘put your hands over your genitals,’ which I was glad to do, ‘Bend over like this, and look into the camera in a state of shock,’ - which was not difficult at that time.

So I bent over and I looked, like that, and he took some photos of me naked. Okay, no problem. Um. I got dressed, we did the show.

It was Christmas time, he gave me a gift. The gift was about this large, I have it, and the gift, I’ll describe it to you, it’s difficult, it’s made of some of Bert’s toys. It was a wall hanging, sculpture kinda thing, about this big. And it was a head of Bert, and Bert’s arms are holding a ledge, and on the ledge are about a dozen little Berts, tiny Berts that you can buy in the store at that time, about an inch and a half high , and you could turn them in different direction, looking over there, looking over there, and you could turn them back to look at the Big Bert’s head while the Big Bert was looking down at the Little Berts. And on that ledge underneath the Berts, were faces, photographs that Jim had obviously taken of many of the workshop people who were responsible in the making of Bert, and certainly all of which were responsible in the making of The Muppets. And they were all looking up to camera, and their little faces were tiny , about that big, all along the top of the ledge.

On the edge of this wooden ledge, Jim had painted layers, these striations, which were I gathered like layers of Bert’s mind. Layers of Bert’s soul. By the way I do Bert to Jim’s Ernie. And within those layers, the striations, he’d painted textures, beautiful little textures.

And then, I noticed, Bert’s eyes, the large Bert, Bert’s eyes, the pupils were cut out.

And you look inside Bert’s brain, and there I am naked, looking like this.

I knew he had a good reason.

I say that, to share that with you ... oh by the way, he titled that ‘Bert in Self Contemplation’. I share it with you because so much of Jim is in that gift. The detail that he loved so much - Persian rugs and trees and the like - the details in the layers, the textures in which he had so much fun. I’d just see him hunched over all gleeful, doing this.

I could just see him cutting all those photo out so he doesn’t cut the ears or the noses off of people, he pasted them on himself. And the generosity of time in order to do this when he was so busy.

The generosity of taking the time to do it.

And not only the giving of the gift, but the anticipation of giving. I can’t tell you so many times Jim would say to me, ‘Oh I can’t wait to give this gift to Janie, or Brian or David, or whoever. The anticipation of giving was so wonderful with Jim. And the complexity of that gift, Bert looking at himself, me inside, the little Berts looking at the people around, the complexity, inwardness of that. And the simplicity of the concept was also Jim. And the quality of the gift, and the craftsmanship, and it all speaks so much of Jim, that gift. And I think the love ... I think that’s when I knew ...  he loved me and I loved him.

For Whitney Houston: 'So what becomes of OUR broken hearts?', by Kevin Costner - 2012

18 February 2012, New Hope Baptists Church, Newark, New jersey, USA

This feels right. I'd like to thank Cissy and Dionne for the honor of being here, for everybody in the church treating my wife and I so gracefully. I'll say some stories, maybe some of them you know, maybe some of them you don't. I wrote them down because I didn't want to - I didn't want to miss anything.

A song 'I Will Always Love You' almost wasn't. It wasn't supposed to be in the movie. The first choice was going to be 'What Becomes of a Broken Heart,' but it had been out the year before in another movie and we felt it wouldn't have the impact, and so we couldn't use it.

So what becomes of OUR broken hearts? Whitney returns home today to the place where it all began, and I urge us all, inside and outside, across the nation and around the world to dry our tears, suspend our sorrow - and perhaps our anger - just long enough, just long enough to remember the sweet miracle of Whitney.

Never forgetting that Cissy and Bobbi Kristina are sitting among us. Your mother and I had a lot in common. I know many at this moment are thinking, 'Really? She's a girl, you're a boy. You're white. She's black. We heard you like to sing, but our sister could really sing.'

So what am I talking about? Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, they don't have anything in common at all. Well, you'd be wrong about that. We both grew up in the Baptist church. [applause]

It wasn't as big as this. My grandmother played the piano, and she led the choir, and her two daughters, my mom and my aunt both sang in it. The rest of my family, uncles, aunts and cousins, sat every Sunday out front and watched. My earliest memories are tied to that old church in Paramount. I remember seeing a gold shovel going into the ground and people praying about it and thinking, 'Wow, something big was going to go here,' and I watched my father and the rest of the men build it from the ground up. I was probably 4 years old and seemed to be always in the way. I wanted to help. I wanted to be in on the action. One of the men snapped down a red line where the choir would be standing one day and said, 'Have at it,' as many nails as you want all in this line.

I always took great comfort in watching my mom and aunt sing, knowing that they would never fall through that floor where I had worked!

The church was the center of our social life and Whitney and I would laugh, knowing it was also the place where we could really get into big trouble, especially when you were allowed to sit with your friends and not your parents in the big church. I remember more than once being pulled from the pew for whispering and passing notes. I don't believe my feet ever hit the floor as my father hauled me outside in front of everyone. I believed even the preacher prayed for me.

Whitney's favorite story of mine was me sneaking into the church kitchen after communion. I liked the little glasses of grape juice that were left over. I liked how they felt in my hand. I couldn't have been over 6 at the time, but I would lean against the table and one by one I would knock them back. Having some near conversation with someone my father would find me and ask me what I was doing. I told him I was a cowboy and I was drinking whiskey. I don't think my feet touched the floor that day, either! [applause]

It was easy for us to laugh. The church was what we knew. It was our private bond. I can see her in my own mind running around here as a skinny little girl knowing everyone, everyone's business, knowing every inch of this place. I can also see her in trouble, too. Trying to use that beautiful smile, trying to talk her way out of it, and Cissy and not having any of it.

Mostly the days of church were good ones for us and we both remembered how our parents tried to explain God and the plan He had for our lives, and we agreed that there was this feeling, this promise that if somehow we listened carefully, God's voice would somehow come to us. I told Whitney that I always worried God was going to ask me to be a preacher. I wasn't sure how much fun ours had. Whitney told me she wasn't worried at all. She wasn't going to wait for a whisper. She was going to be like her cousin Dionne and her beautiful mother Cissy.

There is no doubt that she has joined their ranks and as the debate heats up this century and it surely will, about the greatest singer of the last century, as the lists are drawn, it they will have little meaning to me if her name is not on it. [applause]

But as sure I am in Whitney's place in musical history, from the first time she took center stage here as a teenager, flushed with the excitement that she had exceeded everyone's expectations and awesome promise of what was to come. It's still needing to hear from her mother about how she was received. Was she good enough? Could I have done better? Did they really like me? Or are they just being polite because they were scared of you, Cissy? These are the private questions that Whitney would always have that would always follow her.

At the height of her fame as a singer I asked her to be my co-star in a movie called 'The Bodyguard.' I thought she was the perfect choice, but the red flags came out immediately. 'Maybe I should think this over a bit.' I was reminded that this would be her first acting role. 'We could also think about another singer,' was a suggestion. Maybe somebody white. Nobody ever said it out loud, but it was a fair question, it was. There would be a lot riding on this - maybe a more experienced person was the way to go. It was clear, I needed to think about this.

I told everyone that I had taken notice that Whitney was black. The only problem was, I thought she was perfect for what we were trying to do. There was a bit of a relief in the room when we found out that Whitney was going to be on tour and she wouldn't be available for our movie. The anxiety came right back when I said we should postpone and wait a year. [applause]

That was a lot for the studio to accept, and to their credit, they did, but not without a screen test. Whitney would have to earn it. That was the first time I saw the doubt. The doubt creep into her that she would not be handed the part. She would have to be great. The day the test came and I went into her trailer after the hair and makeup people were done, Whitney was scared. Arguably, the biggest pop star in the world wasn't sure if she was good enough.

She didn't think she looked right. There were a thousand things to her that seemed wrong. I held her hand and told her that she looked beautiful. I told her that I would be with her every step of the way, that everyone there wanted her to succeed, but I could still feel the doubt. I wanted to tell her that the game was rigged. That I didn't care how the test went, that she could fall down and start speaking in tongues, that somehow I would find a way to explain it as an extraordinary acting choice. [applause] and we could expect more to follow, and gee, weren't we lucky to have her? That wouldn't have been fair. It wouldn't have been fair to Lawrence Kasden who had written the screenplay 15 years earlier. It wouldn't have been fair to my brothers at Warner Brothers and it wasn't the right signal to send to Whitney.

She took it all in and asked me if she could have a few minutes by herself and would meet me on the set. I was sure she was praying. After about 20 minutes later she came out. We hadn't said four lines when we had to stop. The lights were turned off, and I walked Whitney off the set and back to her room. She wanted to know what was wrong, and I needed to know what she'd done during those 20 minutes. She said, "Nothing," in only the way she could, 'Nothing.' So I turned her around so that she could see herself in the mirror and she gasped. All of the makeup on Whitney's face was running. It was streaking down her face and she was devastated. She didn't feel like the makeup we put on her was enough so she'd wiped it off and put on the makeup that she was used to wearing in her music videos. It was much thicker and the hot lights had melted it! She asked if anyone had seen - if anyone had saw, I said I didn't think so. It happened so quick.

She seemed so small and sad at that moment, and I asked her why she did it? She said, 'I just wanted to look my best.' It's a tree we can all hang from. Unexplainable burden that comes with fame, call it doubt, call it fear. I've had mine, and I know the famous in the room have had theirs. I asked her to trust me and she said she would. A half-hour later, she went back in to do her screen test and the studio fell in love with her. The Whitney I knew, despite her success and worldwide fame, still wondered am I good enough? Am I pretty enough? Will they like me? It was the burden that made her great, and the part that caused her to stumble in the end.

Whitney, if you could hear me now, I would tell you, you weren't just good enough, you were great. You sang the whole damn song without a band. You made the picture what it was. A lot of leading men could have played my part. A lot of guys - a lot of guys could have filled that role, but you, Whitney, I truly believe were the only one that could have played Rachel Mirren at that time. [applause]

You weren't just pretty, you were as beautiful as a woman could be. People didn't just like you, Whitney. They loved you. I was your pretend bodyguard once not so long ago, and now you're gone, too soon, leaving us with memories - memories of a little girl that stepped bravely in front of this church, in front of the ones that loved you first. In front of the ones that loved you best and loved you the longest. The bolder you stepped into the white-hot light of the world stage, and what you did is the rarest of achievements.

You set the bar so high that professional singers, your own colleagues, they don't want to sing that little country song. What would be the point? Now, the only ones who sings your songs are young girls like you, who are dreaming of being you some day. And so to you, Bobbi Kristina and to all those young girls who are dreaming that dream, that maybe thinking, are they good enough? I think Whitney would tell you, 'Guard your bodies, guard the precious miracle of your own life, and then sing your hearts out,' knowing that there's a lady in heaven who is making God himself wonder how he created something so perfect.

So off you go, Whitney, off you go. Escorted by an army of angels to your heavenly father, and when you sing before him, don't worry . . . you'll be good enough.

for Stella Young: 'That girl was on a rocket to the moon', by Nelly Thomas - 2014

19 December 2014, Melbourne Town Hall, Melbourne, Australia

So, comedians… giving eulogies.

If there’s one thing Stella and I agreed on, it’s that the job of the comedian, like the court jester before us, is to speak the truth.

If people laugh, you’re lucky.

Here goes.

I know what I’m supposed to say.

That I’m ok and we were lucky to have had her and everyone is special and we’re all irreplaceable.

But that’s crap.

The truth is, I don’t feel lucky.

I feel robbed.

And it’s impolite to say, but many humans are pretty unremarkable.

There are literally billions of us on the planet and most of us are a dime a dozen.

But you, my darling Stella, were one of a kind.

Firstly to Stella’s family.

I can only say sorry. Your loss is the most devastating.

No one can create a human like Stella without being an exceptional family. Exceptional parents, exceptional sisters.

Thank you for sharing her with us.

To her friends

What a beautiful, true friend Stella was.

The day after her death my two-year-old daughter looked at me and asked, “Where’s My Stella?” Two years old! One thing I’ve realised this week is that we all thought she was our Stella. That’s because she loved so large.

To her beloved crip community.

She loved you. Oh, how she loved and adored you and spoke about your community like it was a warm blanket that embraced her at every turn.

She was yours and you where hers.

To her ABC, Channel 31, Melbourne Museum, Comedy Festival, comedian, writer and other work friends. We have lost a creative giant.

A pocket-sized giant that filled every room she was in, every stage.

To the activist communities – disability, education, preventing violence against women, youth – we’ve lost a foghorn. A true agent of real change.

Who else but Stella could cut through the BS with a single sentence?

On organised religion:

“I lost faith in god the day I found out there was a stairway to heaven.”

On euthanasia:

“I’m not interested in talking about dignity in death until we all have dignity in life.”

On the apolitical – and currently in vogue – so-called positive psychology movement:

“No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs will turn it into a ramp”.

Who else but Stella could sit with those – sometimes on national television – who believe that people with disabilities should be grateful because, “Things are pretty good in Australia” and who, at the extreme end, think people with disabilities should not exist?

What puny minds!

What highly educated, well read, well-argued, well-researched and puny minds.

If you can’t see the hole – the size of Uluru – just one small cripple in red high heals and some leather pants has left today, then you cannot see anything worth seeing.

And you must not be listened to.

As most of you know, one of the many wonderful things Stella left behind was a letter to her eighty year old self

I am not ready to live in a world where Stella Young doesn’t live to at least eighty, so I’ve chosen to imagine the rest. Go with me.

Next year, as planned, we take her debut solo comedy show on a national tour, starting in Stawell (of course) and ending at the Opera House.

The entire tour is sold out and her reviews are glowing.

One idiot reviewer describes her as “brave” but she rolls her eyes and says, “I tell you what’s brave – dealing with dickheads like you.” At the after party, Stel runs into seventeen gay Qantas hosties she met on the trip up. Why seventeen? I have no idea; but when Stel’s around, gay men magically reproduce themselves. Like a camp kind of compound interest.

They take her to a hot new club. It has a “fabulous basement darling” but they don’t notice that the stairs are a “bit of a problem for Stelz”. Stella grabs a lesbian leaving the club – knowing she’ll know all the accessible venues within a 100km radius (it’s in the handbook) – and they head off to the “Honey Pot”. Bryce and Adam are there.

They’re always there for Stella.

They have a few drinks, party well into the morning and during a particularly vigorous dance session to “Wrecking Ball” Stella is mid way through a pash with Ruby Rose when she falls out of her chair and breaks a few ribs.

Again.

Adam and Bryce take her to the hospital.

Moments later (it’s imaginary) a surgeon walks in. He’s short, squat, and devastatingly handsome. He takes a look at Miss Young and concludes that he’ll need to see her many, many times again.

On day three he proposes marriage.

She says no, “But if you’ll move to Melbourne I’ll consider dating you”.

He does.

Eventually he gives up his surgical career and becomes Stella’s publicist.

(You know, finally does something useful with his life).

The next year we take Crip Tales to London.

Stella is the toast of the town.

One night I notice Dawn French in the audience, the other Kim and Kanye.

Stephen Frye comes a couple of times but it’s when Amy Phoeler rocks up to a Saturday matinee that Stella gets really excited.

Amy wants to chat to Stella after the show, but the crip mafia are forming a crop circle with their chairs and no one gets past that shit.

It’s ok, Amy calls the next day.

She wants to set up a US tour for Stella.

Jay-Z and Beyoncé bankroll it and Stella buys a Rolls and a driver.

By coincidence, the driver is Crazy Eyes from Orange is the New Black.

Just because.

They become BFF’s.

Hilary Clinton comes and says if she’s ever President, she’ll make Stella the Disability Commissioner of the Universe. Stella accepts in advance, but only if she can do an accessibility audit of every building everywhere, ever built.

Hilary says, “No worries.”

Stella returns to Oz and, frankly, has become a bit up herself.

The hot surgeon has started to complain about always playing second fiddle and wants her pull back her career and focus on him. She tells him where the nearest accessible exit is.

Stel goes on to tour nationally and internationally for many years.

She makes sitcoms.

Feature films.

She writes books.

She becomes a regular on Sesame Street.

In 2020 Stella is announced as Australian of the Year.

In 2022 she starts a new Political Party called The Borgen and becomes Australia’s first President.

By 2035 everyone has seen how well she’s done with Australia and she’s running the world!

Carpenters and bricklayers from all the lands rejoice!

All public buildings in the world are made accessible!

If they can’t be made accessible they’re knocked down and rebuilt!

When some heritage ning-nong argues the old buildings should be kept for “history”, Stella reminds him that the human right to access is more important than the human right to nostalgia.

On that note, all the cobblestones in the world are also crushed up and made into garden gnomes!

The Paralympics now includes Wheelchair Synchronised swimming!

Everyone – able bodied or not – has access to hovercraft wheelchairs!

(Of course, they’re solar powered – Stella believed in radical ideas like a round earth and climate change).

Dancing at any opportunity is mandatory!

Women with disabilities are no longer the group most at risk of Family Violence!

There is no family violence!

Full gender equality has been achieved!

Those very few men caught still committing this crime are sent to a gnome factory on Christmas Island to crush the old cobblestones.

And, in a nice twist, all the refugees, are sent to Stella’s beloved South Yarra.

Under Stella’s presidency the ideologies of individualism, neo-liberalism and conservatism die a quick and painless death.

Along with Dr Phil.

These ideologies tell people who face challenges that it is them who are sick rather than the society they live in.

Stella says No.

All Australia number-plates now say:

“Affirmative Action. Not affirmations.”

All mothers and fathers talk to their kids about healthy and equal relationships.

Like Stel’s mum, this happens anywhere from home to work to Coles fruit and veg.

“You know Stel, if you did every possible thing you could think of with another person’s body, you’d never get anything done!”

“I know mum!!!!!”

Diversity audits are mandatory in all workplaces!

RampUp is reinstated.

As is funding for Community TV.

By the way, if you really want to honour Stella’s legacy today you won’t eulogise her endlessly. You’ll do something about it.

On that note, I have to say, Stella would be most bemused, amused and confused by some of the people who’ve been eulogising her over the past week.

With some, she’d be downright ticked off.

It would be inappropriate for me to name names here…

But suffice to say, I’m not going to Pyne over it.

Ironically for such a brilliant wordsmith, words were not enough for Stella Young.

She demanded action. When you leave here today do an access audit on your workplace, a diversity audit, a gender audit. How about you start with asking, “Can everyone get in the building?” and go from there.

Finally, be proud. Really.

Stella’s favourite line was “You get proud by practicing.”

It was tattooed on her arm.

If you loved Stella, you’ll practice pride every single day:

The crips

The queers

The mentals

The fatsos

The weirdos

The refos

The blacks

The browns

The pink and

The purple polka dotted

PRIDE. TAKES. PRACTICE.

Especially if you’re on the margins.

Practice it daily.

By the time Stella dies, at the age of 85, she is our most famous Australian. Ever.

She leaves world a better, brighter, fairer and far more beautiful place.

And, by the way, if you think I’m joking about the most famous Australian ever part, you are wrong. That girl was on a rocket to the moon. She was going there very fast and I have absolutely no doubt that she was about to explode globally.

In the truest sense of the word, she was special.

I know, “Piss off Nelzies!!!”

Stel wherever you are, I will always try to think of you on that rocket – charging around, abusing people who move too fricken slow and ramming into their ankles “accidentally”.

My darling Stella, you were out of this world.

I just so wish you were still in it.

for Stella Young: 'I was worried that my clumsiness would injure her', by Stella Barton - 2014

19 December 2014, Melbourne Town Hall, Melbourne, Australia

Transcript to follow, when available.

For Joan Rivers: 'My mother was fearless and I don’t mean she didn’t have any fears', by Melissa Rivers - 2014

9 December 2014, Hollywood Reporter Women in Entertainment lunch, Los Angeles, USA

There is no full audio or video of this speech.

Ok, now y'all are gonna make me cry. By the way, my son is now fourteen and doesn't look up from his cell phone, so you have one the very few clips of him actually engaging in conversation.

First of all, I just want to thank everyone s much for inviting me here this morning and before we start, I'd like to point out that it is a little overwhelming being in a room with the most beautiful and successful women in Hollywood, but Angelina, I'm very comfortable and really very accessible ... ok? It's all good.

For me, the last three months and six days, not that I'm counting, have been different to say the least. Not just because this is the first time I am actually publicly speaking in tribute to my mother, but because every single person in the room could potentially hire me, and a few of you have actually fired me, but I don't want you to feel badly because technically I now am an orphan, but... and my reel is under all the centerpieces, just so you know.

Lets actually be honest, no one is actually listening to anything any of us are going to be saying, because we're very busy looking at each others bags and shoes and jewellery, and at least that is what I am doing because my mother always taught me that cleanliness is not next to godliness, shallowness is.

A few weeks ago, at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards, Amy Schumer spoke about my mother and she hit on something that actually applies to everyone in this room, and that was that my mother was brave. And I actually never thought of her like that, but when I look back on her life, I think that might actually be the best word that applies to her.

From the time she was a small small child, she took risks. At eight, she went to her parents’ living room and took a picture off of the piano and sent it to MGM. In her mind this little girl was clearly a star so she sent the photo - frame and all. My grandmother was a formidable woman and was not pleased, as it was a $50 frame.

At 10, my mother was sent home from – and I swear this is its name – from Camp Kinnikinnick for organising a bunk strike. See, she didn't like the way the drama counsellor had cast Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They'd given her the part of Dopey, and she was pissed 'cos she had no lines. She said she understood the character, and felt that Dopey's aggressive silence could possibly be seen as an affront to Happy, Grumpy and Doc. My Grandparents again were called and told to come and get her. They apparently told my grandparents, and again, I quote, that they had “either raised the next Hitler or Eleanor Roosevelt”, they were not sure which, but “come and get her”.

I'm going to fast forward to when she was 78, she began hosting Fashion Police, possibly the funniest, edgiest and most controversial show on television. And last week, at 81 she nominated posthumously for a Grammy for her book Diary of a Mad Diva, which had this disclaimer;

This diary was written to the best of Joan Rivers’ memory. As such, some events might not be 100% or even 5% factually correct. Ms. Rivers is, after all, 235 years old and frequently mistakes her daughter Melissa for the actor Laurence Fishburne. Ms. Rivers wrote this diary as a comedic tome, not unlike Saving Private Ryan or The Bell Jar. While Ms Rivers really doesn't like skinny models and actresses, she doesn't actually believe they are all bulimics and carry buckets instead of purses. Similarly, she doesn't really think that all Germans are anti-semitic Nazi sympathisers, and that all Mexican Americans tunnelled under across into the border. Or that all celebrities are drug addicts, shoplifters or closet cases, she also actually doesn't believe that Noah built his ark with non-union labour. Ms Rivers does, however, believe that anyone who takes anything in this book seriously is an idiot. And she says, that if anyone has a problem with that, they can feel free to call her lawyer Clarence Darrow.

My mother was fearless and I don’t mean she didn’t have any fears. I mean that even though she was only 5’2’’, she stood tall and walked through them. And that is what made her such a brilliant performer. She was willing to say what others were thinking and too frightened to admit. She made fun of herself, first and foremost, which gave her the right to joke about others.  She never apologised for a joke, and no topic was taboo, and she was fine with that. Truth be told, my mother never thought of herself as a woman working in a man's world, she just thought of herself as a comic, and had to be funnier than everyone else. And be it man, child, straight, gay, single, married, bi-curious – whatever the hell that means, she just wanted to do her job and that was to make people laugh.

For the last few months there has been tribute after tribute to my mother. I mean she has been called everything from a legend, to a trailblazer, to a bitch...  um, that one kinda can be true, I was grounded a lot as a teenager. Anyway, it is hard for me to really think of her as any those things, because the bottom line is she was really just my mother. I guess it is true that most of the women who are here, and we all have powerful voices in our respective fields, I probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for that brave little girl who sent her photo in. If my mother were here this morning, she’d not only be grateful and proud, she’d be beyond herself and she would be sitting at the table, beaming.

While very discreetly shoving croissants and silverware into her purse.

On behalf of my mother, thank you so, so much for this wonderful honour.

The speech above was delivered at a Hollywood Reporter 'Women in Entertainment' lunch. The letter Melissa read at her mother's actual funeral on 7 September 2014, is below. Joan had been staying one night a week with her daughter and grandson during filming of Fashion Police.

A Letter to my Mom, published in a collection edited by Lisa Erspamer, A Letter to My Mom.

Mom,

I received the note that you slipped under my bedroom door last night. I was very excited to read it, thinking that it would contain amazing, loving advice that you wanted to share with me. Imagine my surprise when I opened it and saw that it began with the salutation, “Dear Landlord.” I have reviewed your complaints and address them below:

1. While I appreciate your desire to “upgrade” your accommodations to a larger space, I cannot, in good conscience, move [my 13-year-old son] Cooper into the laundry room. I do agree that it will teach him a life lesson about fluffing and folding, but since I don’t foresee him having a future in dry cleaning, I must say no.

Also, I know you are a true creative genius (and I am in awe of the depth of your instincts), but breaking down a wall without my permission is not an appropriate way to express that creativity. It is not only a boundary violation but a building-code violation as well. Additionally, the repairman can’t get here until next week, so your expansion plan will have to be put on hold.

2. Re: Your fellow “tenant” (your word), Cooper. While I trust you with him, it is not OK for you to undermine my rules. It is not OK that you let him have chips and ice cream for dinner. It is not OK that you let him skip school to go to the movies. And it is really not OK that the movie was “Last Tango in Paris.”

As for your taking his friends to a “gentlemen’s club,” I accepted your rationale that it was an educational experience for the boys — and you are right, he is the most popular kid in school right now — but I’d prefer he not learn biology from those “gentlemen” and their ladies, Bambi, Trixie and Kitten. And just because I yelled at you, I do not appreciate your claim that I have created a hostile living environment.

3. While I’m glad to see you’re socializing, you must refill the hot tub after your parties. In fact, you need to tone down the parties altogether. Imagine my surprise when I saw the photos you posted on Facebook of your friends frolicking topless in the hot tub.

I think it’s great that you’re entertaining more often, but I can’t keep fielding complaints from the neighbors about your noisy party games like Ring Around the Walker or naked Duck, Duck Caregiver.

I’m more than happy to have you use the house for social gatherings, but you cannot rent it out, advertise as “party central” or hand out T-shirts that say “F— Jimmy Buffett.”

In closing, I hope I have satisfactorily answered your complaints and queries. I love having you live with me, and I am grateful for every minute Cooper and I have with you. You are an inspiration. You are also 30 days late with the rent.

Much love,

Melissa

For Coretta Scott King: 'Born of flesh and destined to become iron', by Maya Angelou - 2006

7 February 2006, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia

(Singing: "I open my mouth to the Lord and I won't turn back, no. I will go, I shall go. I'll see what the end is gonna be.")

In the midst of national tumult, in the medium of international violent uproar, Coretta Scott King's face remained a study in serenity. In times of interior violent storms she sat, her hands resting in her lap calmly, like good children sleeping.

Her passion was never spent in public display. She offered her industry and her energies to action, toward righting ancient and current wrongs in this world.

She believed religiously in non-violent protest.

She believed it could heal a nation mired in a history of slavery and all its excesses.

She believed non-violent protest religiously could lift up a nation rife with racial prejudices and racial bias.

She was a quintessential African-American woman, born in the small town repressive South, born of flesh and destined to become iron, born -- born a cornflower and destined to become a steel magnolia.

She loved her church fervently. She loved and adored her husband and her children. She cherished her race. She cherished women. She cared for the conditions of human beings, of native Americans and Latin -- Latinos and Asian Americans. She cared for gay and straight people. She was concerned for the struggles in Ireland, and she prayed for nightly for Palestine and equally for Israel.

I speak as a -- a sister of a sister. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated on my birthday. And for over 30 years, Coretta Scott King and I have telephoned, or sent cards to each other, or flowers to each other, or met each other somewhere in the world.

We called ourselves "chosen sisters" and when we traveled to South Africa or to the Caribbean or when she came to visit me in North Carolina or in New York, we sat into the late evening hours, calling each other "girl." It's a black woman thing, you know. And even as we reached well into our 70th decade, we still said "girl."

I stand here today for her family -- which is my family -- and for my family and all the other families in the world who would want to be here, but could not be here. I have beside me up here millions of people who are living and standing straight and erect, and knowing something about dignity without being cold and aloof, knowing something about being contained without being unapproachable -- people who have learned something from Coretta Scott King.

I stand here for Eleanor Traylor and for Harry Belafonte, and I stand here for Winnie Mandela. I stand here for women and men who loved her -- [Constancia] "Dinky" Romilly. On those late nights when Coretta and I would talk, I would make her laugh. And she said that Martin King used to tell her, "You don't laugh enough." And there's a recent book out about sisters in which she spoke about her blood sister. But at the end of her essay, she said, I did have -- "I do have a chosen sister, Maya Angelou, who makes me laugh even when I don't want to." And it's true. I told her some jokes only for no-mixed company.

Many times on those late after -- evenings she would say to me, "Sister, it shouldn't be an 'either-or', should it? Peace and justice should belong to all people, everywhere, all the time. Isn't that right?" And I said then and I say now, "Coretta Scott King, you're absolutely right. I do believe that peace and justice should belong to every person, everywhere, all the time."

And those of us who gather here, principalities, presidents, senators, those of us who run great companies, who know something about being parents, who know something about being preachers and teachers -- those of us, we owe something from this minute on; so that this gathering is not just another footnote on the pages of history. We owe something.

I pledge to you, my sister, I will never cease.

I mean to say I want to see a better world.

I mean to say I want to see some peace somewhere.

I mean to say I want to see some honesty, some fair play.

I want to see kindness and justice. This is what I want to see and I want to see it through my eyes and through your eyes, Coretta Scott King.

[Sings: "I open my mouth to the Lord and I won't turn back, no. I will go, I shall go. I'll see what the end is gonna be."]

Thank you.

Preeminent MLK historian Dr Clayborne Carson, the man chosen by Coretta Scott King as the founding director of the Dr Martin Luther King Centre for Education and Research, spoke about Coretta’s life in this episode of the podcast.

For Edward Kennedy: 'I knew it was Jupiter, but it was acting a lot like Teddy', by Caroline Kennedy - 2009

23 December 2011, JFK Presidential Library, Washington, USA

For Ingrid Williams: 'He loved me so much that he gave me a wife that loved every part of me', by husband Monty Williams - 2016

20 February 2016, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

Monty Williams is assistant head coach at Olklahoma City Thunder in the NBA. He lost his wife, Ingrid Williams, suddenly in a head on collision. This expression of forgiveness made the eulogy spread far and wide.

I’m thankful for all the people that showed up today. It’s a pretty tough time, not just for me but for all of you as well. I’m mindful of that.

I’m thankful for my family. My children have been unbelievably resilient this past week. All of my relatives who’ve flown and drove.

Many friends, some people flew in for the day just to spend a few hours with me and didn’t even get that accomplished. But it all is well received by my family and especially me.

The Bible says in Psalms 133:1, “Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.” And I think that’s what we’ve done, and that’s what Ingrid would have wanted.

Psalms 73:1 says, “God is good.”

And I John 4:16 says, “God is love.”

During times like this, it’s easy to forget that because what we’ve gone through is pretty tough and it’s hard and we want an answer. We don’t always get that answer when we want it, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that God loves us and that’s what my wife and that’s what I, however badly, exhibit on a daily basis. But God does love us.

He loved me so much that he sent his son to die for my sins, and I for one know I’m not the man that you guys see every day. And only God could cover that. 

He loved me so much that he gave me a wife that loved every part of me, and she fit me perfectly, and I know different players that I’ve had over the years probably got tired of me talking about my wife. I used to think to myself, “Who else was I going to talk about?” So, that never bothered me.

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

All of this will work out. As hard as this is for me and my family and for you, this will work out. I know this because I’ve seen this in my life.

See, back in 1990, at the University of Notre Dame, I had a doctor look me in the face and say, “You’re gonna die if you keep playing basketball.” And I had testing done. Test after test, shipping me all over the place trying to find a way for me to play, and it didn’t work out.

And I kept that from Ingrid. She knew I was having some tests done, but she didn’t know the severity of the situation.

So, my career was over at the age of 18, and we had a press conference, and I left the press conference by myself and I went to her dorm room and I told her what happened. And the very next word out of her mouth, words out of her mouth after we probably cried a little bit, she said, “Honey, Jesus can heal your heart.”

And I’m evidence that God can work it out.

I don’t care what you’re going through. This is hard for my family, but this will work out. And my wife would punch me if I were to sit up here and whine about what’s going on. That doesn’t take away the pain. But it will work out because God causes all things to work out. You just can’t quit. You can’t give in.

 See, the Bible says Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy. And America teaches us to just numb that and it’s not true. But it is true. All you gotta do is look around you. Get outside of these walls and you know it’s true.

This will work out.

Doesn’t mean it’s not hard. Doesn’t mean it’s not painful. Doesn’t mean we’re don’t have tough times and we’re gonna have tough times. But what we need is the Lord, and that’s what my wife tried to exhibit every single day.

Now, I’m gonna close with this, and I think it’s the most important thing that we need to understand. Everybody’s praying for me and my family, which is right. But let us not forget that there were two people in this situation. And that family needs prayer as well.

And we have no ill will toward that family.

In my house, we have a sign that says, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” We cannot serve the Lord if we don’t have a heart of forgiveness.

That family didn’t wake up wanting to hurt my wife. Life is hard. It is very hard. And that was tough, but we hold no ill will toward the Donaldson family, and we as a group, brothers united in unity, should be praying for that family because they grieve as well. So let’s not lose sight of what's important.

God will work this out. My wife is in heaven. God loves us. God is love. And when we walk away from this place today, let’s celebrate because my wife is where we all need to be. And I’m envious of that.

But I’ve got five crumb-snatchers that I need to deal with.

I love you guys for taking time out of your day to celebrate my wife.

We didn’t lose her. When you lose something, you can’t find it. I know exactly where my wife is.

I’ll miss holding her hand. I’ll miss talking with my wife.

Sam (Presti) and Coach (Billy) Donovan probably couldn’t figure out why I always wanted to get out of the office. Me and Mo Cheeks. Mo probably wanted to go do something else, but we always wanted to get out of the office. I just enjoyed being with my wife. I enjoyed being with my family, and most of the time, we didn’t do anything. We’d just be at the house, sittin’ around, doin’ nothin’. I’m gonna miss that.

Let’s not lose sight of what’s important. God is important. What Christ did on the cross is important.

Let’s not lose sight of that family that also lost someone that they love.

I love you guys. I hope I get a chance to hug and shake a hand and give a kiss on the cheek. But let’s keep what’s important at the forefront.

Thank you.

For Reverend C L Franklin: 'I want my children to say, "I've been a good father", by Rev Jasper Williams - 1984

July 1984, Salem Bible Church, Atlanta, Georgia

Rev C L Franklin, Aretha Franklin's father, was one of the famous preachers of 1950s and 60s. he was shot in his home in Detroit in 1979 during a botched robbery. he lay in a coma for 5 years before life support was switched off. Apart from his famous sermons, released through Chess Records, he also was Martin Luther King's favourite preacher, and walked beside him on Detroit's March to Freedom in 1963 (photo above).

Transcript can be purchased from Salem Bible Church. This one needs to be heard rather than read in any event.

This magnificent article in The Believer tells the story of C.L Franklin.

for John Pinder: 'The Last Laugh was a whole alternate world of wonder and whacked-out whimsy', by Brian Nankervis - 2015

12 June 2015, John Pinder celebration, Circus Oz Spiegeltent, Melbourne, Australia

I’m sure I heard about John Pinder before I met him. I think that was probably par for the course for someone like John. I was a little young for the TF Much Ballroom, but I loved Daddy Cool and knew they’d played there and besides … how cool was that name? T F Much … too fucking much!

In 1980 I was teaching at Wesley in Glen Waverly and my friend Deborah Hoare was managing the Last Laugh … front of house, in the booth, assigning duties. She rang at 5.15 pm on a Friday afternoon and asked if I wanted to work as a waiter. Sure, that would be great, when? Tonight! Be here at 6 pm, wear something weird and be prepared to be yelled at by Andre in the kitchen. I could carry a tray couldn’t I? Write down orders? Could I spell Osso Bucco? If I was any good I could DJ from the record booth after the show and we’d probably go to L’Alba café in Carlton when we finished and I’d be home by daybreak.

I was playing a staff v student cricket match and I was just about to bat. I was torn -- play a heroic innings (against 11 year olds) or throw my wicket away and enter a mysterious, seductive world in Smith Street, Collingwood; a world I’d witnessed from the outside but wanted to know more about. I was caught on the boundary and in the Wolseley by twenty past and looking for a park in Langridge street by 6 (ish) -- always late!

I wore runners, blue and red tights, a medieval cape, make up applied by Rinski Ginsberg, a fish mask that Dave Swann had made for a Swinburne film and an ice cream container with a revolving propeller in honour of Ross Hannaford. The show was Mommas Little Horror Show, directed by the great Nigel Triffet and it blew my tiny, primary school teaching mind. I met Roger Evans who was charming, well dressed, friendly and welcoming and at some point I met John who was not necessarily any of those. John was slightly scary … a big unit … an unmissable flamboyant figure, all untucked shirts and bad trousers, standing up the back of the main room in front of those heavy, swinging double doors, smoking and clapping, laughing uproariously and encouraging, urging, willing the whole room to embrace the craziness …

And so began a decade of being a waiter and a performer and seeing shows like Fairground Snaps, The Brass Band, the Whittle Family, The Bouncing Cheques and Los Trios Ringbarkus downstairs and Shane Bourne, Rachel Berger, Wendy Harmer, Found Objects, Tony Rickards, Blind Billy Polkinghorn and a tiny, crazy, elderly woman who played piano and sang show tunes from the 40s called Elsa Davis. Roger asked me to drive her home one night and a week later she sent me a handkerchief in the mail as a thank you.

John and Roger and Tory McBride produced Let The Blood Run Free upstairs at Le Joke and they gave us complete freedom and total support and not very much money but we loved it and ended up downstairs on that hallowed stage, then in Adelaide at the Fringe Festival where John arrived out of the blue and helped with the bump in … putting up Phil Pinder’s beautifully painted sets (with Lynda Gibson’s Matron Dorothy Conniving Bitch running up the hallway into infinity) … John on his hands and knees. Smoking, telling stories, pontificating, laughing, telling more stories, urging us on. Make it big! Make it loud … and then, make it bigger and louder!”

The Last Laugh was a whole alternate world of wonder and whacked-out whimsy … created, nurtured and set free by John and Roger. A starting place for so many ideas, acts and possibilities. I loved working there. I made so many friends, so many life long friendships and I learned so much about doing shows … and I met the love of my life, Sue Thomson, at the Last Laugh and I’ll thank John (and Roger) until I too go to that great green room in the sky.

After the Last Laugh I saw John occasionally and it was always a pleasure, always exciting to hear his grand plans and check out the colour of his glasses. Sitting on milk crates at a café in Bondi … or one slightly bleary night in Adelaide where we talked for ten minutes and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that in fact I wasn’t Warren Coleman from The Castanet Club.

The last time I saw John was a few years ago at Roger Evan’s funeral and he, like all of us, was a little shell shocked. There was a vulnerability … a sense of loss about how they had drifted apart, but finally a sense of fierce pride in what they’d achieved. John cried and laughed and showed a heart as big and as significant as the personality we saw when he was on fire at The Laugh … doing deals, schmoozing the press, throwing an osso bucco over his shoulder when someone had the cheek to suggest that it was completely and utterly inedible, standing up the back in front of those doors, laughing outrageously and encouraging, urging and willing all of us on. We will go on!

Thank you John Pinder … you changed our lives!

For John Pinder: 'His was a lifelong struggle against the boring, the complacent, the mundane, the ordinary' by Jane Clifton - 2015

12 June 2015, Circus Oz Spielgeltent, Melbourne, Australia

Jane was the MC of the Melbourne memorial event for friend and theatrical colleague John Pinder. She introduced other speakers, in between her own thoughts and memories.

We’ve come to say goodbye to John. To tip our collective hat to his many qualities and give thanks for how fortunate we all were to have known him.

John has already been given a spectacular send-off in Sydney.

Shot out of a canon. Well, of course, he was.

We wouldn’t have expected anything less.

It was a great farewell and there are many of us here tonight who wish we could have been there too, to wave goodbye.

Because we feel a great sense of ownership of John, here in Melbourne - even if he was originally a Kiwi. He’s inextricably woven into the cultural fabric of this city, into our comic and theatrical DNA.

Many of us owe him a huge debt of thanks, not only career-wise, but also for the bloody ol’ good time we had of knowing him.

So, tonight, Melbourne, in, where else, but a great big tent, we extend the wake, in a way, we enlarge the tribute, we rack up the testimonials and share our stories of John Pinder.

So, to start with, let me say…

It is good to die without enemies. A glance around this room is testament to the fact that John Pinder had only one -- and that was boredom.

To hear the word ‘Boring!’ issue from his mouth was to send a chill down the spine of any performer. His was a lifelong struggle against the boring, the complacent, the mundane, the ordinary.

In the late 60s Melbourne – musically speaking - was a boring town.

Boring with a capital B, and that stands for Blues.

Yes, brothers and sisters, the heavy hand of the Blues was upon us. We had it bad and that was not good.

The Blues – in the key of either E or C - in 2 distinct forms, fast or slow – was one, long endless hompa-bompa, 12’y, featuring guitar solos so long that some of them are still being played today, posthumously.

The Blues - delivered to us by squadrons of grim-faced men in, flared jeans, pony tails and grimy t-shirts, and blasted through Marshall stacks so high and wide they were visible from the moon, and at an ear-shattering volume that could be heard on Jupiter.

If there was more than one band on the bill the changeover time between acts was longer than Michael Gudinski’s face on pay day.

The Blues - was a chick-free area because, ‘my baby done left me this morning, man, and I forgot to look in the mirror and ask myself why’.

So, when young Pinder rocked into town he started a band agency.

Well, of course he did.

Let It Be was an agency for bands who did not have the Blues. Bands who were as far from Boring as Tony Abbott’s speech patterns are from conventional English.

A newly graduated from the Pink Finks, Ross Wilson, was currently at the helm of the Sons of the Vegetal Mothers but he was about to strap a foxtail to his arse and plonk a set of furry ears above his curly locks. His buddy, Ross Hannaford had an Archie ‘n Jughead-style helicopter cap at the ready. Daddy Cool was about to bring back the bop, the doo-wop and the sweet harmonies of the 50s to our town.

Mike Rudd and Bill Putt had an ethereal, hard driving unit called Spectrum which featured not only the first Hammond Organ I’d ever heard played live but also - the recorder!

MacKenzie Theory had a chick in the line-up, and she wasn’t wearing satin hot-pants or singing oo-wah-oo with one finger stuck in her ear.

Cleis Pearce was a musician! And her instrument was a very small guitar called a violin – an electricified violin, with a wah-wah pedal.

These were bands who’d heard of The incredible String Band and Country Joe and the Fish, Captain Beefheart and King Crimson. Musicians who yearned for whimsy and eccentricity – bands who were anything but boring.

Where was Pinder gonna get gigs for them?

Before the Chinese, most of Melbourne was owned by the Roman Catholics. Part of their vast real estate portfolio was a rambling old joint up the footy end of Brunswick St, opposite the Sisters of Mercy, called Cathedral Hall (they called it Central Hall for a while but I drove past the other day and it’s back to Cathedral – you should take the tour…)

In 1970 this part of town was in no way hip. You could get stabbed just for walking past the Champion or the Builders Arms. And the only other reason you went to Gertrude St in those halcyon, pre-AIDS days was to visit the clap clinic (where Charcoal Lane now stands)

Well, Pinder threw a party at Cathedral Hall and it was a Too Fucking Much Ball. The hippie freaks and love children of this town flocked to Brunswick St in their droves.

You would walk through the foyer of Cathedral Hall in your rainbow crochet and face-paint, past Benny Zabel and his dancers – incredible what that one man could do with a simple set of bed sheets - and watch Pinder’s party unfold before your half-closed eyes.

Up on the balcony Hugh McSpedden and Ellis D Fogg were hard at it projecting the kind of light shows they do with computers these days. Back then it involved a complex array of colour wheels and glass dishes and paint and slides.

They needn’t have bothered.

By the time most TF Much patrons had walked through the door and paid their $2 admission they could have stared at the floor and seen Disneyland on Ice.

Pinder and Bani McSpeddon –- of the famous Leaping McSpeddons -- created something extraordinary with these events.

The bands like Company Caine, were eclectic and wild. The band I sang with was a vast and sprawling ensemble of sometimes 12 or more members, called Lipp and the Double Dekker Brothers and the Fabulous Lippettes featuring the Fantastic Crystal Tap Dancer.

The interminable breaks between bands were papered over by the remarkable innovation of bringing the curtain in and, in true vaudeville style, putting acts on in front them. 

Sometimes there was a pit orchestra – no pit, just a band on floor level, but a pit orchestra nonetheless.

There was always an MC. Usually Ian Wallace -– aka Pudding. Talking in his Pudding voice, reading aloud from Nick Carter novels, ridiculing everyone.

Jenny Brown -– now Jen Jewel Brown -- in buckskin bikini and peasant skirt would recite her own poetry. Tribe would do sketches. Colin Talbot wrote and performed sketches.

It was the whole kit and kaboodle a la Pinder, and it set the bar very high.

How do I know all this? Because I was the only person in that room who was not stoned.

Yes, I am the exception that proves the rule: I can remember and I was there.

It was a miracle I remained straight in that den of hallucination. The smoke was so thick you could barely see the naked bodies through the haze. And, no way was I buying a lentil burger….No matter how delicious they smelled.

Cathedral Hall held about 2000 people, all paying $2, the rent was 50 bucks. You do the maths. A number of pretenders sprang up. Sunbury borrowed a lot of the structure and over in Toorak Rd, Sth Yarra, at the beautiful old Regent Theatre –- where we used to flock for supper shows in the 60s to see black and white foreign films like the Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Last Year at Marienbad –- an American guy named Joe Monterosa tried to mount his own version of Pinder’s TF Much.

The pay was better but the vision came from a very different place. It was not a success. They were forced to burn the joint down to pay the bills….allegedly.

Years later, Michael Roberts would continue the model Pinder created with the Reefer Cabarets down at Ormond Hall. But by then John had moved on.

Boring!

He and Gini and Katie had tripped around Europe in a Combi van and like Toad of Toad Hall he’d fallen in love with a whole new toy called cabaret…..In early 70s Melbourne if you mentioned the word cabaret, you’d be thinking some ritzy tits and feathers show in St Kilda.

If you mentioned theatre restaurants, you’d be thinking Dirty Dicks. Or the famous Swagman Restaurant –- with the smorgasboard that we’re famous for’. You might even think of the old darling Tikki and Johns.

You wouldn’t be thinking young people or pop culture or Berlin.

But John was. He moved a few blocks down Brunswick St to a tiny venue where the bar swung very low. It was called the Flying Trapeze and it changed, forever, the way Melbourne would think of cabaret and, indeed, comedy.

A few years after that he moved back up Brunswick St but took a left turn at Gertrude, heading for the corner of Smith where he opened a bigger and better cabaret venue.

The first time I walked into that building at 64 Smith St on the cnr of Langridge, it was still the Collingwood Dole Office.

Light streamed through the unpainted windows onto the dull public service green walls and open plan desks.

And as I stood there in one of Malcolm Frazer’s dole queues I had plenty of time to look around –- and up, to the gorgeous band shell, and wonder what the hell the history of this building was.

Next time I walked through its door John had let his cousin Phil Pinder loose with a paintbrush and the place would never be the same again. The whole joint was transformed into the most extraordinary, magical interior I’d ever seen.

He’d done it again, John Pinder, this time with Roger Evans at his side, they’d hocked themselves to the back teeth to set the bar really high. And this time it was high enough to swing a trapeze from –- as Circus Oz would go on to prove.

I’m proud to say I waitressed at both the Flying Trapeze and Last Laugh. In what we like to refer to as John Pinder’s Academy of Performing Arts and Sciences, I was proud to strap on an apron and wield a tray alongside the likes of all the Sallys -– Sliffo, Sbootler, Smill -- Amanda Smith, Richard Stubbs, Bryce and Stewart Menzies, Deborah Hoare, and Mark ‘Cutsie’ Cutler, the vacuum-cleaner-wielding terrorist David Swan and Glen Elston with his purple t-shirt that just said ‘Rosemary’.

We, the survivors of Andre Snr and Junior’s hell’s kitchen, we who know the difference between sprinkle and sprig! Amanda and I reminisced briefly the other day about how fit we were when we waitressed at the Laugh, not just because we were young and working hard but because we danced our arses off before and after the show!

And, ladies and gentlemen, the greatest dancer, the man who put Bobby Blue Bland on for us to set up the tables to and the Stones’ Respectable on 11 for us to dance on stage long after the last patron had left the building. The man who has carried the flame of the Last Laugh, long and high, is here tonight. Please welcome, Last Laugh waiter supremo, and co-host of RockWiz, Brian Nankervis!

Let me finish my part of the story by saying that the city of Melbourne owes John Pinder a huge debt of gratitude for the force of his vision and his great leaps of imagination. He taught us all to think big, think global, to recognize that entertainment is a universal thing, it knows now borders. It’s either exciting or it’s boring.

Furthermore, if Adrian Bloody Rawlins can have a statue in Brunswick then surely Pinder deserves some kind of permanent memorial, too. Maybe not a statue, maybe something more abstract, a giant pair of yellow glasses, maybe -– a new kind of Yellow Peril.

For Joan Kirner: 'a woman who maintained women could do anything, and led the way', by Penny Wong - 2015

9 December 2015, Wheeler Centre, Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne, Australia

Part of a Wheeler Centre event called 'The Show of the Year', where 12 public figures are allocated a month of the year each. Penny Wong dedicated 'June' to the loss of her friend and mentor, Joan Kirner.

Joan Kirner died on Monday, the first of June 2015, aged 76.

Tonight I remember her passing.

I also celebrate her life, and her legacy.

Joan is best remembered as the first and only woman to serve as Premier of Victoria.

But I want to start with the personal.

For me, Joan was the most personal of political figures.

No one who came into contact with her could fail to be touched by her warmth.

No one from politics, no one from business, and certainly no one from the community sector.

Joan listened, encouraged and counselled.

When the occasion demanded it, she provided comfort with a hug.

I loved spending time with Joan – a feeling I know I shared with many others.

As the founder of EMILY’s List Australia Joan was a friend and mentor to me and many other Labor women seeking to enter Parliament.

Joan was a strong supporter of affirmative action rules that helped change the culture of the Labor Party – and bring a wave of progressive women into national and state politics.

Like Joan, I maintain that our parliaments should reflect the society they represent.

And all Australians have Joan to thank for her efforts to make that aspiration a reality.

Joan dedicated her life to the service of others – as a teacher, parents club president, parliamentarian, minister, premier and social justice advocate.

In each phase of her life she demonstrated principle, courage and determination.

Those of us who knew Joan know what strong views she held.

Yet she never allowed disagreement to overcome friendship, or detract from the pursuit of a common cause.

Joan first came to public attention as head of the Victorian Federation of State Schools Parent Clubs in the early 1970s.

She remained an advocate for education throughout her life.

In 1982 Joan was elected to the Victorian Parliament – an election that saw Labor return to office after 27 years on the Opposition benches.

In 1985, just three years later, Joan was appointed Minister for Conservation, Forests and Lands.

In that portfolio Joan established created the Landcare program and created new national parks.

In 1988 Joan was appointed Minister for Education.

Here Joan’s reputation as a reformer was made with the introduction of the new Victorian Certificate of Education.

Joan became Deputy Premier in 1989.

On 9 August 1990 Joan became Victoria’s first and only woman Premier following the unexpected resignation of John Cain.

There were no easy days in the Kirner Premiership.

The state economy was in strife and internal dissension within the caucus and the labour movement undermined Joan’s attempts to get the government back on track.

Under Joan’s leadership the state government took some hard decisions, including the sale of the State Bank of Victoria.

As Premier, Joan was the subject of unprecedented personal vitriol.

Derogatory labels and snide comments about her dress became the norm in a heated political environment encouraged by the Opposition, a hostile press, and internal division.

An environment that might sound familiar to those of us who served with the first woman Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard.

Joan didn’t buckle, but she did lead Labor to a devastating electoral loss in 1992.

After serving in the shadow ministry for a short period Joan resigned her seat in May 1994 – succeeded by a future Labor Premier, Steve Bracks.

Joan kept working when she left Parliament.

Some of that work was in the public gaze, but much of it was in the community, doing the sort of work that doesn’t generate headlines but makes our world a better place.

Joan remained a passionate advocate for Melbourne’s west – particularly Williamstown – a community she loved, and one that loved her in return.

Joan supported a myriad of women’s and arts organisations, and many progressive causes including the campaign for reproductive rights.

She loved the Essendon Football Club.

I was honoured to be present at Joan’s State Funeral, also in June, surrounded by people who adored and appreciated Joan as much as I did.

I miss her dearly.

Joan’s legacy will endure.

Not just for the state she led, the causes she championed, or the women she supported into Parliament.

But for our daughters, yours and mine, who will benefit from the example, and the work, of a woman who maintained women could do anything, and led the way.

Joan Kirner founded EMILY's List Australia, an organisation that campaigns for gender equality, and this speech was sourced from its facebook feed. On this page, you can give a feminist a Christmas present in Joan's name, and raise money for EMILY's List.

For Tom Uren: 'You were a champion, Tom. You’re in the company of legends now', by Martin Flanagan

4 February 2015, Sydney Town Hall, Sydney, New South Wales

There is no video or audio of this speech.

Tom Uren was a mountain of a man. I first met him in 1987 when I rang and asked if I could do a story on him. I’m interested in boxing, I said. He said, I don’t talk about boxing. I said my father was on the Burma railway with you. He immediately invited me into his home.

The article meant a lot to me but the Sydney magazine for which I wrote chose to take my portrait of this big, complex man and make him smaller and simpler to fit their pre-conceptions.  I rang Tom and told him I was resigning. His voice thundered down the phone: “Don’t you ever resign!!! You stay in and maintain the struggle!!” That was when our relationship started in earnest.

Tom was a magnificent mixture of a man. The fact he had been a boxer was used by his political opponents to denigrate him, but the aesthetic side of his nature was unusually strong. He loved beauty and saw it in both his wives, Patricia and Christine.  More than once, in his later years, I saw him call Christine Patricia and, being the remarkable woman that she is, Christine received it as a compliment. Tom was so proud of his friendship with the painter Lloyd Rees. He often related how Whitlam said he made Tom spokesman for the environment because Whitlam admired the home environments Tom created.  Tom could laugh, he could cry. He had wisdom; he had ego. Tom Uren was more than happy being Tom Uren.

I told Tom a couple of months before he died that I thought he had a great life. He saw two Australian legends up close, Weary Dunlop and Gough Whitlam. If he was smeared and attacked for his political beliefs in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, he lived to see himself become someone regarded with sufficient affection by the general public to have him declared a national treasure.

The way Tom told me his story, the major influence on his early life was his mother Agnes. He had an older brother who’d been given to a grieving relative to bring up so that Agnes had twice the love to shower upon Tom. “She taught me to love myself,” he told me. And he did. Tom was the also big kid who has the supreme confidence that comes with being good at most sport. He was a junior champion with the Freshwater Surf Club, he was a good rugby league player. He left school at the age of 13 because he could get a job and his father couldn’t. He took up boxing and aimed to become a champion. At 20, he fought for the Australian heavyweight title and lost.  Tom told me the flu beat him, not the other fighter.

One of the things that sustained him on the Burma Railway was the desire to become a champion boxer. Another was the beauty of the jungle - each evening, he made a point of taking in the trees, the flowers, the birds. At the time, he was still a Christian who kneeled to say his prayers each night. Presumably, none of his army mates said too much because Tom had, after all, fought for the Australian heavyweight title. My father once told me that as a young man Tom Uren had a magnificent physique.

 The five men I have known well who were on the Burma Railway have not been not like other men I’ve met, except maybe some Aboriginal elders. They saw a lot, suffered a lot and each of them had  a deep well of compassion. They went to Hell but weren’t defeated spiritually. Up close, 21-year-old Tom saw a true leader, Weary Dunlop, save lives by taxing his officers to buy medicines and extra food for the seriously ill.  An English group of 400 prisoners camped nearby.  In four weeks, only 50 were left  alive. Tom never forgot stepping over dead bodies going to work each morning.

What kept the Australians alive in greater numbers? Tom’s answer was their “spirit of collectivism”. Tom’s creed became that the strongest man takes the heaviest end of the log. Tom was the strongest man. He stepped between guards and prisoners being beaten. When Tommy got hit, he told his mates it was okay - he could take a punch. He was going to London after the war to be a champion.

He spent the last year of the war in a prison camp in Japan. He saw the discoloured sky above Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. That last year, working in a mine with Japanese civilians, changed him. He realised he didn’t hate the Japanese people. He hated what he called militarism.  And that may have been Yom Uren’s biggest achievement - he grew beyond hate.  

The war ended and he worked a passage on a steamer to England. He took a job stoking the furnaces but the heat re-activated the malaria in his system. A British sportswriter wrote upon his arrival, “He dresses like Anthony Eden, has tons of personality and his name is Tommy Uren”. Another sportswriter wrote that he’d never seen a fighter get up off the canvas as m any times as Tom did in his first fight. One hundred bouts of malaria had taken something from his physical vitality that could never be restored. In the dark of a cinema trying to straighten his broken nose, he was overcome with loneliness. He returned to Australia and Patricia.

If you can judge a man by his friends, you can surely judge him by his great enduring mate from the Burma Railway. For Tom, that was Blue Butterworth. Blue was Weary’s batman and if Weary Dunlop’s is a legend then Blue is a necessary part of that legend also because most of the risks that Weary took  Blue did too. As brave as Weary and as quick-witted, Blue was a bricklayer after the war. He died in 2011; Tom told me he missed Blue every day thereafter.

In 1960, Tom returned to Japan and attended a conference on banning atomic and nuclear weapons. He delivered a speech, giving the Japanese a forthright view of Japanese politics at the time and ended by saying the dropping of atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima was a crime against humanity. And this was just the start of his political career. One day, I asked him, “When did you become an environmentalist?”. He replied, “When I went back to Thailand and found the jungle cut down”.

Tom could drive you mad. How well I remember the day we went to see Gough Whitlam in his offices in central Sydney. Tom was responsible for the building as Minister for Administrative Services in the Hawke government.  The man behind the front desk didn’t know who Tom was.  Didn’t know! He was the Minister for Administrative Services in the Hawke government! There was a minor scene. Then we met Whitlam, which was like looking Australian history in the face. Afterwards we caught a train down to Woy Woy to see Blue and Tom used my left ear to broadcast a speech to the people of western Sydney urging them to rise up against the state government. In the end, I got up and went to another carriage.  When Christine told me it was Tom’s wish that today’s service only go for one hour, I did say to her, “I take it he won’t be speaking then”.

But I also know I’m not the only person here today who can say that Tom Uren was like a godfather to them. Tom believed humans could grow. He had grown -  during his early years in the Labor Party, he had been, in his words, a bigoted anti-Catholic; as an old man, he would list Pope John XXIII as one of his principal influences. If Tom was a person who thought highly of himself, he never stopped thinking of others. When he poured his belief into you, it was like standing beneath a waterfall from which you emerged larger.  Tom lived a public life that ran in a straight line from first to last.  He shrugged off going to prison for his political beliefs and, ultimately, he never despaired,  because Tom Uren believed that, regardless of race or colour or creed, there are always in the world what he called “people of goodwill” to whom we can appeal. You were a champion, Tom. You’re in the company of legends now.

for Christopher Hitchens: 'As if Christopher felt the only person really worth really arguing with was The Hitch'' by Martin Amis - 2012

Video from 1.34.11

20 April 2012, Vanity Fair Memorial, Cooper Union, New York, USA

I'm Martin Amis, or 'Little Keith', as Hitch always called me. 'My dear little Keith', he used to call me, and I used to call him, 'my dear Hitch'. The most salient and striking thing about Christopher is how widely he was loved. Not just by us, family and friends, but by you. And one struggles to think of a public intellectual with a following half as passionate.

I wonder why this is? There are several elements in it I think, before I reach for the central one.

First -- very handsome. In a phrase that he used to like using, 'handsomer than a man has the right to be'. And we were both very fond of Humbert Humbert's self description in Lolita where he says about halfway through the novel, “I wonder if during the course of these tragic notes, I have sufficiently stressed the sending quality of my striking, if perhaps somewhat brutal good looks”.

Hitch wasn't, his good looks weren't brutal, they were sort of full and friendly. And my middle daughter, Fernanda, was once in the kitchen, age 5, and she said “it look's like Hitch”, and the man on the screen was the handsome actor, Sam Neil.

I also think that his voice was very important. It was a perfect voice, without any mannerism or any kinds of poncy intonations, that I can't seem to purge my own voice of. And as I said, contributing as I told you, to the charisma of The Hitch.

“The Hitch has landed”, he used to say on the phone when he landed at Heathrow. And when we did Charlie Rhodes the other night, when we remembered him, I and others. Charlie, I think, was surprised and a bit alarmed to learn that Hitch often referred to himself in the third person.

This is not a habit consonant with cloudless mental health in most cases. Though, The Hitch was one of the sanest people I've ever known -- not always rational, and by no means always prudent, but penetratingly sane. He knew who he was.

He was also something of a self-mythologiser. 'The Hitch has landed'.

When he took up the Cypriot cause, partitioned Cyprus, he told me, “I'm such a good friend of the Cypriot people, that when I arrive, it says in the headlines of the Nicosia Morning Post, it says “Hitch Flies In”. I said, “what does it say when you leave?” he said, “Hitch Flies Out”.

Very early on, in our early twenties, I said, “Does that girl like The Hitch?”, and he said, “She loves The Hitch, she wants to marry The Hitch”.

Another time he said, “Martin, you're always coming out with phrases like this,”, he says, “Whenever there is injustice, immiseration or oppression, the pen of The Hitch will flash from it's scabbard.”

I've got several stories where Hitch comes out with a great line, and he didn't like this one, he said it was anti-climactic, but I'm very fond of this story. And it seems to crystallise something, and lead us to what was perhaps the heart of the charisma of The Hitch.

He and I were in South Hampton in Long Island having driven that far from where we were staying, in search of the most violent possible film on the Island. This was our idea of happiness, it was to take a bottle of whiskey into a film like Dirty Beast or Scum. Nothing could top that, anyway we were pathetically reduced to Wesley Snipes. And trudging rather grimly towards the cinema, and I said, “No one's recognised The Hitch for at least ten minutes”. And usually he is, every few, ten or twenty yards he's stopped by someone, and then he has a long and friendly conversation with them. And if you ever signed books with The Hitch, he would have a long and friendly conversation with everyone in his queue. Anyway, I said ten minutes must have gone by, and he said, “Longer.” He said, “Much longer -- at least fifteen minutes.” And he said, “And I get more and more pissed off, the longer it goes on.”

He said, “I keep thinking, what can they feel, what can they care, what can they know if they don't recognise The Hitch.”

And as we approached the cinema there was a elderly party rather awkwardly perched on a hydrant, and as we were entering the cinema, he said, “Do you love us, or do you hate us?”.

What he meant was, America, and Americans, he didn't mean him and his wife.

And Hitch said, “I beg your pardon?”

He said, “Do you love us or do you hate us?”.

And Hitch said, “It depends on how you behave.” he said, and went straight into the cinema, rather than sort of curling up with him for half an hour.

I thought that was very good, but also slightly misleading, as if what Hitch did was calmly appraise American behaviour, or whatever reality you presented him with, and give it his judicious appraisal, but he wasn't like that. And we wouldn't have loved him so much if he'd been like that -- there are plenty of people who are like that.

It was more, I think that he was bored by the phrase contrarian, but, what he was was an auto-contrarian. He contradicted himself. As if Christopher felt the only person really worth really arguing with was The Hitch. So we see him tie himself up in knots with supporting Ralph Nader, Bush-Cheney in 2004, collusion in the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and Iraq of course.

And what people don't see, but I think sense, is that he suffered very much from those isolations that he brought on himself.

After the Clinton business, I rang him up, and I'd seen him on television looking not well, and I said to him “How are things?” And he said, “Man, I'm living in a world of pain.” he said. This was two or three weeks after he'd broken [the story].

And he suffered very much I think about Iraq, he didn't talk about it, but you watched him watching the news, and when the vote, when the first democratic election took place in Iraq, the excitement was sort of suppressed excitement, it showed; and the misery during the civil war period of 2005/06.

He was like a Houdini, where he was right most of the time, but every now and then he would go out on a limb, and he would shackle himself so dramatically, that had he escaped, or partially escaped, it would have been all the more amazing.

And that was why he was loved, I think.

He made intellection dramatic with this argument with the self.

I'll just end now with one of his favourite phrases was, 'what could be more agreeable', he used to say. It was one of his very English remarks. He would say it while he, I and others settled down for sixteen or seventeen hours of food, drink, tobacco and conversation. And I just want to ask, who could be more agreeable than The Hitch?

To end on a wishful note, what could be more infinitely agreeable, imagine what it would do to your heart, if The Hitch had landed, and he was on his way to join us here, at Cooper Union.

Thank you.

For Mark Fisher: 'We beg, we pray, we demand that this epidemic end!', by Bob Rafsky - 1992

2 November 1992, New York City, NY, USA

Known as the 'Bury Me Furiously' speech. Delivered on the eve of the US presidential election, outside the Bush re-election committee's Manhattan offices, upon the death of AIDS activist Mark Lowe Fisher. Fisher - a key figure in ACT UP - had published a manifesto weeks prior to his death outlining his wishes for a "political funeral", including a public procession: "... I want my death to be as strong a statement as my life continues to be. I want my own funeral to be fierce and defiant, to make the public statement that my death from AIDS is a form of political assassination."

Let everyone here know that this is not a political funeral for Mark Fisher - who wouldn't
let us burn or bury his courage or his love for us anymore than he would let the earth
take his body until it was already in flight. He asked for this ceremony - not so we could
bury him - but so we could celebrate his undying anger.

This isn't a political funeral for Mark. It's a political funeral for the man who killed
him, and so many others, and is slowly killing me: whose name curls my tongue and curdles
my breath.

George Bush, we believe you'll be defeated tomorrow because we believe there's still
justice left in the universe, and some compassion left in the American people. But whether or
not you are - here and now - standing by Mark's body, we put this curse on you. Mark's spirit
will haunt you until the end of your days. So that, in the moment of your defeat - you'll
remember our defeats, and in the moment of your death - you'll remember our deaths.

As for Mark, when the living can no longer speak, the dead may speak for them. Mark's
voice is here with us, as is the voice of Pericles, who two millennia ago mourned the
Athenian soldiers who didn't have to die and in whose death he was complicit, but who had
the nobility to say that their memorial was the whole earth.

Let the whole earth hear us now: We beg, we pray, we DEMAND that this epidemic END.

Not just so that we may live, but so that Mark's soul may rest in peace at last.

In anger and in grief, this fight is not over 'til all of us are safe.

Act up, fight back, fight AIDS.

This is Mark Fisher's 'Bury Me Furiously' request

I am a person with AIDS.

I think about what's happened to my life since I was diagnosed over two years ago. I think about all the passion and precious time I've spent fighting this government's indifference toward me and all people with AIDS. And I realize that a lot of people out there -- gay, lesbian and straight -- still do not believe that the AIDS crisis is a political crisis.

My friends and I have decided we don't want discreet memorial services. We understand our friends and families need to mourn. But we also understand that we are dying because of a government and a health care system that couldn't care less.

I think of the late David Wojnarowicz, who wrote: "I imagine what it would be like if friends had a demonstration each time a lover or a friend or a stranger died of AIDS. I imagine what it would be like if, each time a lover, friend or stranger died of this disease, their friends, lovers or neighbors would take the dead body and drive with it in a car a hundred miles an hour to Washington D.C. and blast though the gates of the White House and come to a screeching halt before the entrance and dump their lifeless form on the front steps."

These words sharpen my thoughts and plan. I have decided that when I die I want my fellow AIDS activists to execute my wishes for my political funeral.

I suspect -- I know -- my funeral will shock people when it happens. We Americans are terrified of death. Death takes place behind closed doors and is removed from reality, from the living. I want to show the reality of my death, to display my body in public; I want the public to bear witness. We are not just spiraling statistics; we are people who have lives, who have purpose, who have lovers, fiends and families. And we are dying of a disease maintained by a degree of criminal neglect so enormous that it amounts to genocide.

I want my death to be as strong a statement as my life continues to be. I want my own funeral to be fierce and defiant, to make the public statement that my death from AIDS is a form of political assassination.

We are taking this action out of love and rage.

Bury Me Furiously
Mark Lowe Fisher, November 17, 1953 - October 29, 1992

For Jonah Lomu: 'I want to thank the Lomus for sharing your son, not just with New Zealand but with the whole world', by Eric Rush - 2015

30 November 2015, Eden Park, Auckland, New Zealand

Eric Rush begins at 1.15.00 approximately. 

It’s a great honour to be up here today to speak on behalf of Jonah’s rugby mates. And there’s a lot of us here today.

Whenever me and big fella got together, we used to take the mickey out of each other. And that’s not going to change today, so, I’m gonna tell a few stories about the big fella, and I hope he doesn’t sit up.

I first met Jonah out at Wesley. I got invited to training out there, and all I saw was this big man-child running around having fun with his mates. You know he was 6’5”, I think he was only 115 kgs at that time, but he was just a beast.

I remember thinking, ‘geez this guy’s not bad, and then I met him playing touch at the Weymouth Rugby Club,  and I wasn’t the fastest winger around, but I was faster than Glenn Oswald, so I wasn’t exactly slow.

And so I saw this big fella marking me, and I had a go at him, on the outside a couple of times, and he was just jogging beside me, smiling, as he caught me. And I thought, far out, this guy’s not bad, alright!’

I went up to him after the game. I said, ‘mate you played pretty good touch, have you ever played Sevens?’

He said, ‘Na.’

I said, ‘we got a bit of a Sevens team, are you keen to have a crack?’

‘Yep.’

I said, ‘Mate, we’re off to Singapore in a few weeks, you wanna come?’

‘Sweet’

That was pretty much the extent of his vocabulary back then ... so 

We took him up to the Cook Island Sevens, and the Singapore Sevens, and he made the New Zealand team the very next year.

And you know he was just a freak right from the start. The first time we played in Hong Kong, his idol was David Campese, and he just talked about Campo the whole time, and when Campo came up to meet him in Hong Kong, he actually greeted Jonah by name. 

And Jonah was being the cool guy, you know, ‘how’re ya bro, how’re ya bro,’ .. he didn’t smile or nothing. As soon as Campo left, man, this big smile come up ... ‘Bro he knows my name! He knows my name! By the end of that weekend, he knew his name all right, cos Jonah run over him, around him and right through him!

After the game Campo came up to me and asked, ‘Who the hell was that big ... ‘ well, that large dark person,  I’ll put it in those words. He said, ‘the sooner he goes away the better,’ but anyway ...

As I got to know the big fella, it’s sort of like he was two different people, because he was an absolute beast on the field -- I knew he was going to play well when the nostrils started flaring up, and I always used to make fun of him, I’d say nobody could catch him because whenever the nostrils flared up, he took all the oxygen and nobody had anything else to catch him .... So as soon as I knew those nostrils were flaring, we were away, man, we were away ...

But off the paddock you know he was such a humble guy, such a humble, respectful, generous guy. You know I’m glad he had managers over the years because the fella would’ve ended up with nothing,  because he’d give it all away.

He was just a typical Islander boy I guess. That’s how they’re brought up. To be respectful. Michael Jones told me there’s an old Polynesian saying: ‘it’s better to walk into a room, sit at the back, and be asked to go to the front, than to go into the room, sit at the front and be told to sit at the back.’

So any time there’s a group thing, all the brown fellas will always be at the back, because it’s not cool to be out the front.

Jonah was one of those fellas. Definitely. He was definitely one of those guys.

But you know, I had the great fortune to travel, to do all of the islands -- Cooks Islands, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, and the Pacific Islanders are the friendliest people in the world. Until the whistle goes. And then it’s, watch out mate, because it’s ...

I think the only way I used to get the big fella up for a game, I only learned two Tongan words, apart from the bad ones, but the only words you had to say to him was, ‘tium tamatine ?? Which loosely translated is ‘kill him!’ So he was a pretty easy fella to motivate, just quietly.

I obviously had a lot to do with him, we did a lot of training on fields around South Auckland. It was a love hate relationship. I loved training. He loved the Manako City Food Court. Though we did it. And that’s one thing. A lot of people said Jonah was never fit enough, I disagree with that, because whenever he played, he never let anybody down through fitness. And he always came to training, and he was always ready to take the challenge on.

And that’s one thing about this fella, he was never scared of a challenge.

And some of those training runs, I know, definitely hurt him.

It was about this time that the cars started coming into his life, and Phil used to have kittens about all the cars this fella started collecting.

And his best mate at the time was this little Asian fella called Arnie. He was his best mate. Arnie used to soup up the cars, and Jonah put the sounds in them.

And that big green truck of his. Man, far out! He’d come and pick you up and you gotta drive along, like this, with your fingers in your ears. And your shirt going like this. And he’s nodding away ... hell, I hated going for rides with that fella!

But he also had a bit of a stubborn streak, I’m sure Nadine would agree with this. And anybody who knows him, Haki, I’m sure she knows about this too. When he had his mind set against something, you didn’t try to talk him around because it was very very hard work. The thing is, you didn’t tell Jonah to do anything. If you asked him, he’d run through a brick wall for you.

And when Laurie [Mains] became the All Black coach, and selected Jonah at the start -- those two never got on very well at all. Because Jonah didn’t know how to talk to this southern man, this Waitangi type from down on the South Island, and Laurie Mains didn’t know how to talk to a young Islands boy from the south side.

So I kinda became the go-between. Between the two of them for many of their conversations. So Laurie would tell me what he wanted to know, I go and ask Jonah to get the answer, go back, tell Laurie.

And for some reason, at All Blacks, Laurie wouldn’t let us eat eggs. And one morning,  it was before one of the trials before the 95 World Cup, the coaches all went to the gym. So we’re in the breakfast room, and the boys are just going for it, man, we’re eating anything we like. And Jonah had this French stick, this baguette, and he had sixteen boiled eggs in it. And he was eating it like this [demonstrates] and somebody was taking photos of him. And anyway, Laurie Mains come walking back into the breakfast room, and he went through the roof.

He comes over to me, and he says, ‘what the bloody hell is he eating now!’

And I’m just having my Weet-Bix man, I’m just trying to stay in the team, you know. He says, ‘you bloody well get over there and tell him to think about what he’s eating.’

So I went over to Jonah, I says, ‘mate, Laurie’s a bit angry about what you’re eating.’

He says to me, ‘you go tell him to go get f***cked’

I’m looking back at Laurie. He’s waiting for the answer.

I walk back over.

‘Oh, he says he’s just about finished.’

So it was pretty rocky at the start, but by the end of that year, Laurie Mains in his last test match was carried off the field on the shoulders of all the players, and Jonah was one of those fellas who carried him off. So they came a very long way. And a great respect and friendship.

And you know it’s never happened to another All Black coach since. Although to be fair to this year’s All Blacks, it’s a pretty hard ask to get Steve Hansen up on shoulders.

Life wasn’t easy being Jonah Lomu. And you know I had the privilege and a lot of the boys who played are here today, they saw it up close.

In New Zealand, we love getting people up onto their pedestal, but soon as they get there we love nothing better than chopping them down. And unfortunately for Jonah he was at the top of that tree for a long time. And I saw some things that had been behind him, away from the cameras, and it was pretty tough stuff. And I really felt sorry for Jo ... you know he was loved by people but you know there was always somebody out there who wanted to have a go at him.

And I saw all that stuff, and so as a consequence, he was actually a very private man. He kept his friends and his family very close, and for the most famous rugby player in the world, I also believe he was one of the loneliest rugby players in the world too.

'Cause he had only a few close friends, and his family. And that was the reason. That all changed when Nadine came along and gave him his two sons. You know all of us mates, when them two boys came along, we got brushed, we got brushed big time, because it had nothing to do with us and it was great, because, you know, it was the first time I seen a real joy in him.

And as Hardy said just before me, the real tragedy of his death is that he's not going to see these fellas grow up.

But Nadine, I just want you to know, I've been around the fella a long time, and it's the happiest I've seen him. It's the happiest I've ever seen that fella. So I know he's gone, but I know he'll be looking down over you and the boys, and all the mates and family will be there to help as well. You are not alone.

Jonah feared no man. But he did fear one person and that was his mum, Hepi. ‘Cause he was the jandal, I think he was still scarred from the jandal, Hepi! But when his  mum said things, he acted. He didn’t listen to anybody else but his mum.

And to you and to Missy and to your sons in law, I just want to thank all of the Lomus for sharing your son, not just with New Zealand but with the whole world.

It must have been hard for you guys because everyone wanted a piece of the big fella. So i just wanted to say thank you for sharing your son with us.

Jonah reached heights on the football field that had never been seen before, and you know it’s hard to imagine anybody reaching those heights ever again.  I’m sure somebody’s gonna come along one day, and it’s going to be a great sight to see, because the benchmark has been set pretty high.

He was an inspiration to a whole generation of kids growing up in this country, and across the world.

And not just in rugby either. I think there’s still another whole generation of Julian Saveas and Joseph Parkers and Manu Vatuvai, and Valerie and Stephen Adams,  there’s a whole generation of kids still to be inspired by this guy. He was feared the world over, probably more so overseas than here in New Zealand as Harley said too, and the best part of this fella is that he did it all without the slightest hint or arrogance or ego.

When the Dallas Cowboys came knocking, and it was a big contract, he showed me that contract, it was a lot of money, and he turned it down.

I said, ‘why’d you turn it down?’, and he said, ‘oh, it’s only money. It’s not everything.’

I said, ‘money’s not everything , but it’s right up there with oxygen, bro, you do need it, you know? And that’s a lot of oxygen, brother. That’s a lot of oxygen.’

All he said to me was, ‘I just want to play rugby with my mates, and I want to play in that black jersey for as long as I can. And that’s the reason he stayed with football.

He’s going to be remembered as a colossus on the football field, no doubt about that. But I‘m going to remember him as a good mate. And most importantly, as a loving dad.

To Joey, on behalf of all your mates who are here today, brother, we’re just blessed [pause] ... we’re just blessed to be a part of your amazing journey, mate. We’re going to miss you big man. We’re definitely going to miss you. So rest in peace, brother. Thank you.

for Tom Hafey: 'Tommy shaped our lives, he was a father figure and mentor, he was an advisor', by Kevin Bartlett - 2014

19 May 2014, Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Australia

Tommy was pretty lucky to kick a goal with his first kick in AFL football, because it was the only goal he kicked.

I can remember Tommy turning up to my daughter Cara's engagement party, and he turned up in just in a pair of shorts. No shoes, no top. And my son-in-law said to him, 'aren't you wearing a shirt, Tommy?'

He said, 'I didn't think it was formal'.

Now for those that don't know, Tommy drove a Jeep, D'you know that? He drove a Jeep. He drove a Jeep, all over the country. He didn't buy a Jeep, he drove a Jeep. He shot a commercial for Jeep, and the deal was that he’d get a new Jeep every three months.

Jeep figured that a man over eighty would drive to church on a Sunday, and maybe pick up the paper.

 Jeep figured that after three months, it would have fifteen hundred ks on the clock, and would be sold as a new car.

Jeep didn't figure that after three months, that it would have eighty four thousand kilometres on the clock, and would be sent to the wreckers.

Tommy drove a Jeep alright, to every football club and netball club in the land.

He had some favourite sayings; 'If you want loyalty, get a dog', That was to all the football committees that sacked him.

'You'd run faster if chased by a crocodile', that's what he used to say to players when he thought they could run a lot faster than they were on the field.

 He always answered the question, 'how do you like your tea, Tommy?' with, 'Hot and strong. If not I'll send it back', and he did.

 'He's so slow he couldn't catch Humphrey B Bear'. That was a player that just couldn't run.

And of course, 'Sensational, but getting better' was his favourite one.

Tommy actually thought that getting up at five twenty in the morning and walking across the road in his Speedo's, swimming across Port Phillip Bay and back, in icy water, and then running ten ks, followed by a thousand sit-ups and a thousand push-ups was a great way to start a day.

He didn't convince me, nor many of his friends.

And then of course, he saw himself as a beach inspector, because then he'd walk along the beach to pick up syringes. His record was thirty eight in one day, he was really proud of that record. No gloves, just put 'em in the towel.

His first training session at Richmond as coach was two laps of the ‘Tan. He said 'Do your best' and off we all went. We never saw him again. Except for the several players he lapped. Those he lapped, please put up your hand in this room. The next training session was ten 440s with sixty seconds break in-between, and then the third one, which was on the Friday night (we trained the Monday Wednesdays and Fridays) the third training session was twenty 200s. Twenty 200s, I should say, with a sixty second rest.

Tommy ran them all until he absolutely dropped because you had a little chunky legs and he ran those four-hundreds, and that's where the legend was made, and everyone at the club said, well how good is this. Because all of a sudden you had this coach who turned up and he's beating everyone around the ‘Tan, and he's beating everyone in the four-hundreds, and he's beating everyone in the two-hundreds. I mean, it was quite remarkable. And the legend was made.

You know, nothing much has changed in football, Tommy's first game as coach of Richmond was against Carlton at Princes Park. And the siren didn't work at the end of the game. So, nothing has changed in football.

And they couldn't find the cow-bell to actually ring.

We believe to this very day -- just a Carlton conspiracy. The game actually continued on, and a policeman on his horse charged out onto the ground to alert the umpires that the game had ended. Richmond full back was a young man called Billy Walford, I played with him in the under nineteens, he was playing full back that day in just his fourth game of AFL football, recalls that he had to run around the horse to actually contest the ball. That should have alerted the umpire that the game was over. The Tigers won by six points, and of course, the Hafey era began.

That game was the start of the clubs golden era of premierships, '67, '69, '73, and '74. When a little club, of course, hadn't played in finals for twenty four years and Tommy took over, with a bunch of very experienced players in Roger Dean and Neville Crow and Mike Patterson andBull Richardson -- Freddy Swift, of course was there -- and a bunch of young kids came up from the under nineteens. A lot of us came up and then he went out and recruited of course, Royce Hart came across from Tasmania, Barry Richardson from Saint Pat's College, Michael Green, of course, also in the under nineteens came down from Assumption College.

And then in 1967 against a very very formidable Geelong side, which at that stage had  the likes of Polly Farmer and Doug Wade, and Billy Goggin and Gordon Hynes, Kenny Newlands and Sam Newman, I mean they had a fantastic side, they were a team of champions like they are today. And Richmond of course, did not have one player who had actually played in any final until that final series. And in that grand final, Richmond won its first grand final in twenty four years against Geelong.

And then of course it carried on in '69, '73 and '74 and Hafey's Heroes were born.

I had the best seat in the house, of course, at Carlton, when he coached his first game, because I was 19th man, so in those days you sat next to the coach. I told him at half time that he didn't have a clue, for I was the greatest rover in the game and I was on the bench. I was eighteen at the time. He ignored me and the following week he dropped me. Should've kept my mouth shut, I reckon.

Most Saturday nights there was a function at Tommy and Maur’s, which was fantastic, Tommy believed in keeping everyone together and it was always at Tommy's and Maur’s. He'd go out and buy the Kentucky Fried Chicken or the Fish n Chips. The players could have a drink, there'd always be a cup of tea on of course around the kitchen.

He would say, of course, at training on the Thursday night, 'there's a function on at my place, it's not compulsory, not compulsory to attend’, he always made that point, ‘not compulsory to attend’, but if you didn't, you won't be selected the following week. There was always a rider, and it was always a packed house, at Tommy and Maur’s.

Tommy was proud that every birthday and every twenty-first, engagement and wedding was a club function, he prided the club on that, that it was a club function, because that's what he thought football was all about, getting the players together, and the wives, and the girlfriends, getting all the kids there, because he felt if you had a happy club, you're going to have a very very good football club.

And that's what Richmond was.

Tommy shaped our lives, he was a father figure and mentor, he was an advisor, and he was a conduit that actually joined us all together.

Tommy's time at Collingwood was an extraordinary one when you look back at it. Wooden spooners to a grand final draw in 1977 was incredible.

I can remember when Tommy rang me and told me he was going over to Collingwood, I was so upset and disappointed that he'd decided to leave Richmond. He rang me and said he was going to resign as the coach of the Richmond Football Club, which to me and I said, ‘Well reconsider, because the players love you,’ and he said, ‘No, I have to move on.’

So it was with great disappointment when he did. But he took Collingwood from wooden spooners to that grand final, and Tommy still maintains they would have won that if the great Phil Carman had've been able to play after being suspended, I think, against North Melbourne. He'd kicked five goals in both games they played that year. So he was a mighty loss and they drew that first grand final, and lost the second one.

Of course, in total, five grand finals in his first five years including that drawn grand final, and then he was sacked.

We had a lunch date at the Commonwealth Cafeteria, we had lunch three times a week for ten years -- Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tommy would always drop in and we'd have lunch at the Commonwealth Cafeteria, 'cause I worked at Telecom, well, I attended Telecom. I became very good at darts and chess and so Tommy would drop in and we'd have lunch at the Commonwealth Cafeteria on the twelfth floor at the top end of Spring Street.

He came to my work on this particular day and I said, 'How're ya going, Tom', and he always said 'Sensational, but getting better', and he said, 'but there has been better days'. And I said, 'Why's that, Tommy?' and he said, 'I've just been sacked as coach of Collingwood’.

He was shocked by that because he had a phone call to come down to the Club, and he went down to the Club and he expected them to say ‘keep going,’ they'd started the season pretty ordinary, ‘keep going, we're a hundred percent behind you, you've done a mighty job.’

But, he was sacked.

And he came to my work, and when he told me that I said to him, 'Well, let's forget lunch, you've probably got so many things on your mind'.

He said, 'Don't be crazy, lamb roast is on the menu today!’

So we went up to the top of the twelfth floor of the Commonwealth Building and there we were having lamb roast and I kept thinking to myself, the biggest story in football is about to break, and here's Tommy having lunch at the Commonwealth Cafeteria -- because he had this great ability to just move on. Just move on. He didn't believe in rejection at all, and was already looking forward to the future.

He loved his time down at Geelong and it was great to see Bruce Nankervis here today, the only person I ever got reported for striking in AFL football. So it’s great to see Bruce, it was an accidental king-hit, too, Bruce, I'm sorry about that. 

But he did love his time down at Geelong, by the sea. In his first game as coach of the Cats, Gary Ablett Senior played his first game for the Cats on a wing, and booted four goals.

Everyone's entitled to an off-day, even Gazza.

In the centre, playing his first game was Greg Williams.

Greg Williams had written a letter to Tommy, asking him to give him a chance. He'd been rejected by Carlton, and he'd been a great player up in Bendigo, but for some reason he wrote this letter to Tommy saying that he was slow, he was small, probably had attributes that some people didn't like, but he said he could win the ball a lot, he could pass it off, he’d like to be a team person, and he liked to bring other people into the game, and he begged Tommy for a chance.

And that's how he got down to Geelong. Tommy answered the letter, got him down there and Greg Williams lined up in the centre in that very first game Tommy coached down at Geelong.

And on the other wing, of course, was the great Michael Turner. Not a bad centre line. Abblett, Williams and Turner. Second only to ... you know who. Bourke, Barrett and Clay.

In Sydney, he did great things, Tommy, in Sydney.

I don't think he quite gets the recognition that he deserves in shaping the national game.

He became coach in 1986, was a great admirer of Geoff Edelston, I know he has a lot of critics, but Tommy said he was absolutely fantastic, in the way that he helped generate interest up there in Sydney.

And with a group of players that went up there, Greg Williams followed Tommy up to Sydney, Gerard Healy, Bernard Toohey were some of the guys that went up there, Geoff Edelston, always, Tommy speaks so highly of.

 He became coach in 1986 after the Swans had finished tenth the previous year, in a twelve team competition. Not easy up in Sydney then, as you know, not even easy today.

In his first year he had Sydney rocking and rolling, and finished second after the home and away season. Which is not a bad effort. Second on top of the ladder. He drew crowds of forty thousand to the Sydney Cricket Ground, can you believe that, in 1986, and forty thousand people went to Sydney Cricket Ground to see Sydney Swans play Hawthorn. And thirty eight thousand turned up to the SCG when they played Carlton.

These are massive figures. This is in the mid nineteen-eighties, could you imagine, even today those figure would stand up and people would be thrilled.

In 1987, the Swans in round sixteen, versus West Coast, Sydney kicked 30.21. In round seventeen, the next week, versus Essendon, his team kicked 36.20. And in round eighteen, the very next week, against Richmond, they booted 31.12.

So, thirty goals, thirty six goals, and thirty one goals. He had Sydney rocking.

What a way to play football. Three weeks of football the likes we've never seen before or since, was when Tommy, of course, was coaching the Sydney Swans.

The following year, the Swans finished seventh, now that today, gets you into the finals.

Back then it got you the sack. In fact today, if you finished seventh you might get a three year contract extension.

Since then of course, he devoted his life, he's inspired and motivated children, young adults around the country, and those in industry.

Tommy started that when he was down at Geelong, there was no full time coaching in those days, so what he did was, to fill in his time, and he thought it'd be great for the Geelong Football Club, to get out there and promote the club, that he would travel around to all the schools in Geelong, and talk to all the kids, as the family has mentioned.

He loved that, it was fantastic. And you heard those great stories, but he wanted to do that. One, you could follow Geelong, and two, he thought it'd be great to educate the kids on living a good life.

Tommy related stories of course, of AFL players, to everyone at every talk, every speech he made. Because he didn't believe in rejection at all, it was just to motivate you to actually go on to do bigger and better things.

He related stories of AFL players being cut from their clubs and then went to other clubs to win Best and Fairest awards, Brownlow medals, win premierships, become All-Australians and captain their clubs. He had a list as long as his arm that he could give some demonstration to kids, to say, if you got knocked back, don't worry about it, pick yourself up, dust yourself down because I've just told you of all these guys who've gone on and done great things.

And he also loved telling about cricketers who left their State, batsmen and bowlers and wicket keepers who went to another State, and then of course, went on to play for Australia in test cricket.

He loved that, he loved those stories. Because he felt they were uplifting.

Tommy of course, lived in Canberra for a period of time, as we know, and played rugby league up there as a young boy, and then when he went to Sydney, he really embraced Rugby League. And he got a lot of the Rugby people around to take training and also for tackling and that was one of the strengths of all Tommy's sides, was tackling.

He only had one player that never tackled, that was me. But, it was impossible for me to tackle because I had the ball all the time, so...

But he used to get it in for the other players, and he did that up in Sydney and the idea was to make them the strongest tackling team in the business, so he loved rugby league, he loved it. He loved Australian Rules Football, it was always number one, but he loved the toughness of the people in rugby league. He loved the way that they went about it, he loved their character.

Just recently I was visiting Tommy in hospital and Craig Bellamy was there. He coach of course, of Melbourne Storm, he loved Melbourne Storm, what a fan he was of Storm, and CEO Frank Ponissi was there as well.

Great friends of Tommy, and they came in to see Tommy.

And Tommy was in bed and I just thought I'd wind him up a bit by saying to Craig Bellamy there in the company of Frank Ponissi as well, I said, 'How do you rate Billy Slater, Tommy?' And he said, 'Billy Slater! Billy Slater would win the Brownlow medal in his first year of AFL footy, he could open the bowling for Australia, he could beat Usain Bolt at the Olympic Games, and he could ride the winner of the Melbourne Cup.'

I think it's fair to say he had a high opinion of Billy Slater.

Tommy loved setting himself goals, we heard the girls talk about this before, you know, silly ones, I used to say to him, 'you're crazy', 'you're silly', 'why wont you have a cake or biscuit?', because forty five years ago in a New Years resolution he got up and said ‘I'm not going to eat cake and biscuit any more.’

I mean, how stupid is that? Then he decided that he wasn't going to eat sweets for the last thirty five years, he hasn't even eaten a sweet. And of course, we heard the girls talk about it, he told me, he said, he rang up the start of this year, I had New Years Eve with him, he said, 'I'm going to read twenty books this year, twenty books, that's my goal', Twenty books. Always sporty books of course, nothing too heavy, always about sport, and people who'd done great things.

He said, 'I'm going to try ten new restaurants this year,' that was another thing he wanted to do, always had to go to ten new restaurants, didn't mean that he didn't go to the old ones, he did eat mainly at Dimattinas, I will say that. Frankie was always very kind with the bill.

Then of course, he had to go to five concerts, five new concerts a year, that was important to him. Five new concerts. Had to go watch people sing, loved it when it was down at the Palais there, and they had the local Go Show was on there recently, and back to the rocking and rolling from forty five years ago. His great mate Danny Finley was there of course, with MPD, ‘Mike, Peter and Danny’ -- managed Tommy for so many years and did a marvellous, marvellous job. When Tommy was at Collingwood, at Sydney and at Geelong, and he was a life-long friend, and Danny of course, was a famous drummer in ‘Mike Peter and Danny’, MPD, Little Boy Blue, Little Boy Sad, I may even sing a few bars if I keep going ...

But, he loved to go to concerts, he loved music and we heard it before, his beautiful granddaughter Sam, singing a marvellous song.

And of course, the other thing he loved to do was ring everyone in Australia, that's what he loved.

No matter where he went, around the country, for some reason, Tommy had this, this memory where he knew where every former player lived, every former player resided, so if was giving a talk somewhere, he'd go fifty ks out of his way because he'd knock on somebody's door and he'd say, 'You won't believe who I saw the other day', and then away he would go.

He would do silly things, in actual fact, he would do things like -- he was a workaholic, he did love talking to people all the time. He had to meet people, he had to be there in their company.

He'd go to Mildura and I'd say, 'What are you doing this weekend, Tommy?' and he'd say, 'I'm going to Mildura.' I'd say, 'that's great',

 'On the Monday,' and then, 'I've got to get up very early Tuesday morning 'cause I've got to drive to Shepparton for a dinner, a luncheon there at Shepparton.'

I'd say, 'That's fair way, Tommy', 'Oh no, she'll be right', so then I'd say so what then, home?'

He'd say, 'No, I've got a function in Mildura.'

I used to say, 'Tommy if you're in Mildura, and you've got to drive all the way to Shepparton, I mean it's a bit difficult to go the whole way back to Mildura, isn't it?',

 'No, no, no, no. She's fine.'

Of course, he was a shocking driver, as everyone knows. Shocking driver.

He got pulled up once, out the front of Punt Road, got pulled up by the (police), he was sitting at the lights -- Tommy drove very very fast, by the way, very fast. He was sitting at the lights, and he was looking in his rear vision mirror, and he was very late for a speaking engagement. And he was at the lights, waiting for the lights to change, and then he took off. He knew the police car was behind him. The police car, very quickly put on their siren and pulled him over. And Tommy was in a hurry.

So the police pulled him over, and as you know, when they pull you over, they sit in their car for a short period of time. Tommy was pulled over in his car. But unlike most people who sit in their car, he jumped out of his car, he ran back and he said, 'I'm in a hurry, what's going on?'

And they said, 'Well, you were travelling too fast'

He said, 'That is rubbish!' he said, 'I saw you in my rear vision mirror, I'm not going to take off and break the speed limit when I can see you in my rear vision mirror!' he said. 'That's rubbish!'

The bloke said, 'Well we clocked you doing seventy five ks.'

And Tommy said, 'Check it out, it's wrong!', and ran back, jumped in his car and took off.

I said to Tommy, 'What did they do?' He said, 'They just sat there in amazement.' Just took off!

Tonight, on behalf of Tommy, I'd say, go home, do five push ups, have five sit ups, go for a walk or go for a jog, and say “sensational, but getting better”.

And always remember, Tommy drove a Jeep.