Christmas Time 2007

Aaah, Christmas time. I just love the endless parties and celebrations. Peter and I went to the Art Gallery of NSW for the party of the Contempo arts group. They throw such fun parties. One had to come inspired by an Aussie icon. Peter drew masks on both of us in homage to the famous Ned Kelly painting by Sidney Nolan, one of Australia's most famous painters. Take a look at the image behind us in the picture. We are Ned Kelly - sunburnt.

We also went down to the Gold Coast to visit Peter's family and friends. His family had a get together Christmas party at his sister, Denise's place. We then borrowed Denise's car and drove to Maleny to see a few of his friends. I met Annie who is living in a perma culture environment with her children, and Laurie and Elizabeth who are building their own home in the rainforest. Laurie and Elizabeth had one of the most beautiful Christmas trees I have ever seen.

Manila and Boracay

In October, my company, Card Smart, gave me the opportunity to travel to Manila and work for a couple of weeks in the Makati office of Isphere. We have employed 5 Filipino staff, and Paul Lemaire was eager to forge a bond with them by having the Aussie staff visit. This was a perfect opportunity for me to bring Peter along, and show him the Philippines. Peter met the rest of my family in Manila, and he charmed them. My family in turn was very welcoming of Peter, and went out of their way to drive and show us around. I was very proud of both my family and Peter. It was very heart warming how very accepting they were of each other. Richard and Nitz treated us for dinner at Antonio's in Tagaytay. Peter loved the food, the garden integrated into the Spanish terrace, and the fishpond full of koi fishes. Peter also met my good friends Roland and Lorenzo. They took us out for dinner and took the time to show us around.
My former office mates also took us out for dinner. They, of course, embarrassed me immensely by choosing to bring up things from my past in Peter's presence. Thank you Achie, Rocker, Alice, Riva and Gingo. To escape the frenzy that is Manila, Peter and I went for a few days to Boracay. It is still as beautiful as I remember it. I was first there more than 10 years ago. We stayed at the Artista beachfront resort, which was away from the main tourist drag. The water is still crystal clear and soothingly warm. There is nothing like it anywhere else. We hired a bangka and went island hopping. Peter loved diving from the boat onto clear, deep waters.

Happy Anniversary at Sleaze

Peter and I met one year ago at the Sleaze Ball party. To celebrate our one year anniversary, I wanted to go to Sleaze Ball again this year. It was held last September 29. The theme was “Zirkus”. We went wearing Peter’s penguin costumes from his hair show recently. They were perfect as they looked like ringmaster suits. Upon entering the party, we were immediately set upon by the roving costume committee and invited to join the costume competition. We did not win the top prize, but we were one of the 8 finalists and won tickets to next year’s Mardi Gras party. We were happy with that.

It was a good night, and we ended up staying till the end of the party. At 8 am on Sunday, we can be seen straggling down Cleveland Street in our penguin costumes.

Diva Awards

Sydney drag queen, Freeda Corsett, approached Peter to produce her outfits for the Diva Awards, the drag industry’s equivalent of the Oscar Awards. Aside from an evening gown, she wanted a fitted fur coat with a long train. Peter designed the 2 outfits, with Freeda’s requirements in mind.

Peter had the black gown sewn by his sewer. Peter had to sew the fur coat himself though, and he only had one weekend to finish it. He and I worked on it on Friday from 8 pm to 3 am, and midday to 10 pm on Saturday and Sunday. As you can imagine, fur is a difficult material to sew. Fur flies everywhere when you cut the material. Sewing seams together is difficult because the fur is thick, and it gets harder to flip the coat around to sew as it grows and grows.

Freeda was very happy with the final product. She wanted to make an impact on the night, and as you can see, how can she not with this coat.

Paul Gambin was nice enough to invite Peter and me to join his table at the Diva Awards. He even hired a limousine to take the whole group there. The limousine was very "pimp daddy". At the ball, every drag queen in Sydney was out to outshine one another. We bumped into our friends, Legs Diamond (aka Grant) and Kelly. To our delight, Freeda won “Belle of the Ball”, the best dressed award. Peter and my hard work paid off. It was a fitting finish.

Winter Wonderland

Our company's Annual General Meeting was held in Thredbo recently. There has been lots of snow this year, so we were really looking forward to it.

People brought along their families and partners. It was wonderful catching up with the entire Card Smart family. Peter and I had a great time. The official functions were a welcome dinner and the Card Smart Games. This year's games involved rock climbing and an obstacle course in an inflatable in the pool. It was very funny as, one after another, people fell into the pool. Peter's turn in the obstacle course was hysterical, because of his very unorthodox tactic.

Peter last skiied 10 years ago, but he got the hang of it pretty quickly. I did not ski, but still enjoyed myself very much. There was something so serene and beautiful about the white landscape. Peter and I managed to spend some alone time on the last day by taking the chair lift up Merritts. The hot chocolate up there was very good.

Shows Galore

I saw a couple of new plays and movies recently, which I would highly recommend.

I saw Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” on Friday. The American accents sported by the Aussie actors grated at first till I got used to them. The performances and singing were excellent. What struck me was how I knew most of the songs, but am hearing them for the first time in the context that they were written. It was quite a revelation. “Ladies Who Lunch” and “Being Alive” finally made sense. I must admit that “Being Alive”, sung by the 35 year old single character as he contemplates committing to a relationship, hit a major chord with me.

Saw “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” a few weeks back. This musical was inspired by the movie “Spellbound”, which featured kids preparing and competing in the spelling bee. The show was light and very funny. The songs were not particularly memorable, but they were effective. The actors did a very good job of playing kids. This can be annoying and irritating if done badly, but luckily for the audience, the actors were excellent. A nice fun show to make you forget the worries of the day.

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, Peter and I went to see the French movie “La Vie En Rose”. This is a biopic of Edith Piaf. Reviews of the film criticized it for not telling the story in chronological order. One review described it as a “jigsaw puzzle”. I thought this was going to bother me, but I was pleasantly surprised. Actually, it worked really well, because the film avoided the predictability of most movie biopics. The movie was gripping, dramatic and engrossing. I enjoyed it, and was very impressed with Marion Cotillard, who portrayed Piaf. The movie is worth seeing just for her gut-wrenching performance.

I also caught “Stranger Than Fiction” on DVD. It was about this guy, who discovered he was a character in a book and was about to be killed off by its author. It was implausible, but it somehow worked. I found myself totally charmed by the performance of Will Ferrell in the lead. I was in tears several times as I watched the character try to save himself from extinction in this bittersweet story. I think, once again, I identified with this very solitary character.

Hair Expo 2007

My partner, Peter Dwyer, was hired by Adam Noble, an award winning hairdresser, to design the costumes for his 30-minute show during Hair Expo 2007. Adam’s idea is for the show to feature different birds to represent the various clients that visit a salon. Between Peter and Adam, they chose the canary, magpie, flamingo, penguin, hawk, swan and peacock.

After Peter came up with the designs, we trekked to Cabramatta to purchase the materials for the costumes. Peter gravitated to PVC for the main costume material. PVC is flashy, colorful, and great looking on stage. Not having sewn with PVC before, it was quite a coincidence that we bumped into my friend Grant at the Inquisition party wearing a PVC outfit. Peter somehow enticed Grant to sew the canary costumes.

A week before the show, it was total madness. Several costumes still needed to be sewn and Peter had no more sewers. He had to sew them himself. I was in a panic for him. There was so much work still to be done. I tried to help whichever way I can as I do not know how to sew. We worked all week, weekends and weekdays. We would meet after our day jobs, go to his studio and work till 3 am. It was very tiring and stressful. There were several instances when I gave Peter a hard time, because his working style was different to mine. As it is his project, I tried to let him dictate the tasks, but I could not help but meddle specially when the enormity of the tasks got to me. We took turns panicking during the final days. Luckily, when one panicked, the other managed to stay calm.

On the day of the show, I found myself acting as stylist and dresser as I assisted Peter. There were 32 models to dress from head to foot. Having worked with Peter on the garments, I knew where everything was and how the garments should look. With the assistance of Peter’s students, we were able to handle it pretty well.

THE CANARIES
Everyone who saw these costumes fell in love with them. They all wanted one. Grant did a great job sewing them.

THE MAGPIES
The pant suit is Peter's favorite. The sunglasses were Adam's idea and worked really well.


THE FLAMINGOS
These were Adam's favorite. The puffed sleeves were a late addition. We had to pin them in place using safety pins on the day of the show.

THE PENGUINS
These coats took so long to sew. Peter sew majority of them the night before. We were still sewing the sleeves and collars on the day of the show. They look great though.

THE HAWKS
The coats were removed to reveal the hawks. Peter and I even printed the feather-like patterns on the shirts and cummerbunds.

THE SWANS
Peter was very happy with the tulip-shaped skirt that we achieved. I was very impressed with the inner skirt that Peter created from tulle and cut-up crystal organza.

THE PEACOCKS
We found this excellent shiny material in Cabramatta, which had all the peacock colors. We used it to trim and decorate the green skirt. I had to cut and pin all the trimmings, which took a lot of time and patience.

The show went off without a hitch. It was creative, clever and stylish. It was very well received by the audience. The show had a theme, and the various elements of the show worked towards that concept. I felt that was why the show worked so well. Everyone's hard work had paid off. I felt a sense of satisfaction about being involved, as well as relief that it was all over.

I am very proud of Peter. He deserves all the accolades, because of all his hard work on this project. I have witnessed first-hand his enormous talent and creative skill.

Several weeks after, Adam and Peter were invited to appear on Kerrie-Anne Kennerly’s morning TV show. It was another opportunity to present the costumes, hairstyles and make-up that people have worked so hard on. I assisted Peter at the studio. I must admit that one of the highlights for me was meeting Nigel, the hunky gardener from the show ‘Backyard Blitz’ in the green room.

Two Weddings

Two beautiful friends of mine recently got married.

I worked with Maria Ho in Westpac 8 years ago. She was a fresh graduate when she joined the bank. She was fun and bubbly. Being from Hongkong, she loved shopping. She was an excellent shopping adviser. She convinced me to buy a pair of silver earrings, which I wore for years, and my Armani overcoat, which I still love wearing to this day. She married her long time boyfriend, Samson, in December last year. They live in Hongkong, so I look forward to catching up with her whenever she visits.

I worked with Shane Slavin in CardSmart. We spent quite a bit of time together, when we flew to Europe last year for work. I enjoyed our time, because she was easy going and fun. My most vivid memory was spending an entire day shopping with her in London. We must have entered every shop in the shopping district. She was a great shopping companion. She married her Italian stallion, Pete, in April.

Shane and Pete both looked beautiful on the day, the perfect couple. Doesn't she look like Liz Hurley? It was obvious that they were very much in love. It was a pleasure for Peter and me to be at their wedding. I have never heard more touching and heartfelt speeches in a wedding. Instead of the traditional wedding waltz, they did a sexy salsa. How cool was that?

Two beautiful ladies at very significant times in their lives. I wish them all the happiness in the world.

Dreamgirls - The Original Effie

Dreamgirls, the movie, is pretty good, and it made a star out of Jennifer Hudson, the American Idol finalist. But before Jennifer Hudson, there was Jennifer Holliday. Jennifer Holliday starred as Effie in the original Broadway production of the show in 1982. By now, everyone knows that heart wrenching song "And I Am Telling You". Well, here is Jennifer Holliday singing the song live during the Tony Awards. Be amazed.

2007 Mardi Gras, Toybox, etc.

The Mardi Gras party season is finally over, so things can go back to normal. I now have time to update my blog.

One of the highlights this year would have to be the shutting down of the Harbour Party by the police 2 hours before its scheduled end. They found drugs on a number of patrons, which gave them the justification to shut down the party in the name of public safety. This was obviously a publicity exercise. A girl died a few weeks ago, after attending an all day rock concert. Apparently, she took ecstacy and other drugs. Since an election was coming soon, the government and police had to appear to be doing something. I felt sorry for us on the night, but sorrier for the party organisers.

The weekend after was party overload. On Saturday night, Herman, Jaime, Alex, Finbar and Andre joined Peter and I for some drinks at Peter's place. From there, most of us proceeded to the Mardi Gras party. The party had a good vibe. We enjoyed most dancing to the set of the Freemasons at the RHI. I was happy for Mardi Gras, because the party was well attended. I did not think they could survive another financial loss.

Peter and I left the Mardi Gras party at 7 am. I crashed when we got home. I was able to squeeze in 3 and a half hours sleep, before I had to get up for the Toybox party, which started at noon. Peter did not sleep at all. He was too busy putting the finishing touches on his outfit for Toybox with his good friend, Finbar.

Toybox was fun. It was high energy, sexy and very hot and sweaty. We sweated litres and litres. Luna Park was a fantastic venue. Stayed till the party ended at 8 pm.

I was happy to have my friend, Herman, visit during Mardi Gras. I did not see much of him as I was busy with the new boyfriend. But he was also busy doing his own thing. Believe me, Herman knew how to amuse himself. 357 will never be the same again though.

I brought a date to work's X'mas ball

I volunteered to organise our Christmas function at work last year. It was going to be a 3 course dinner at the Flying Fish Waterfront Restaurant in Pyrmont. People were asked to dress up for the event, and partners were invited. My dilemma was whether to bring a date or not. I have never brought a date to a work function before. I have been dating Peter for 2 months by that time, and thought of asking him. Going via my past record with dating though, I was not sure he was going to be around by the time the party came. I therefore waited till the very last minute to invite him. When I did, he accepted. I was glad and relieved.

On the night of the party, we arranged to meet at the restaurant. He was fashionably late, of course. Everyone was curious to meet him. When he finally arrived, he made an immediate impact. He had his mohawk hair up and was wearing a bright red coat with tails. Think Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Carribean". He looked very handsome and stylish. I was very proud. It turned out to be a great night. The food and wine were good. People were having fun. People were very appreciative of my efforts in organising the event. Plus, I had Peter by my side.