Yazzie's dance concert.

My niece is ten.

Last night was her first ever dance recital.
And ours.

I made well sure not to sit next to Hell Boy.

As the first of perhaps forty dances began, I heard him turn to his brother, Duke, the child's father, and say,

"This is no place for the cynical."

Moments before that, I had been alarmed to see Duke glaring at the programme with furrowed brow, as his wife pointed out to him which of the dances Yasmin would be appearing in.
That's not a good sign.

I enjoyed it.

OK, listening to that music was like rubbing a cat the wrong way and false eyelashes and red lipstick on small girls give me the creeps, but I enjoyed watching Yazzie dance so enthusiastically (and well) and looking so deliriously happy as she did it.

Such a little woman now.
A tween.

But Disney music is always sure to bring on an attack of the bile for me, and the attack lasted for 3 hours, plus intermission.
This attack was possibly not helped any by the fact that we were so pushed for time, that I had to eat service station packaged cheese and crackers, a protein ball, chips and a large Freddo frog for dinner.

Anyway, I digress. The music was worse than your average mainstream wedding.

A whole new worrrrld...

Ahhh fuck, just kill me.

In fact, I would have to say that the music selection was, for the most part, more commonplace, predictable and boring than mainstream radio ever could ever strive to be.

Themed mainstream, of course, being a particularly virulent form of mental torture, still promoted and rewarded worldwide.

And if I was doing it tough, God knows how Hell Boy came through.

Commercial music is above all things, abhorrent to him.
He twitches, grows pale, starts muttering, and then comes out swinging.

I've never troubled myself to discourage this, as I know it stems from something wonderful and righteous.
Let's call it good taste.

I can't help but believe that commercial music enjoys it's success due to the fact that most people are so lazy minded as to confuse familiarity with appreciation.

This theory also explains the success of the concept of celebrity, free to air television, and organised religion.

Thank God for Yazzie, I say. She saved the day.

I must make mention of the Dad's Dance, because Jeff leant across his mother to tell me it should make it into my blog.

Half a dozen men in tutus and footy socks doing ballet.

Aussie men, mate, they simply cannot resist a chance to don women's clothing or to expose their arses to one another at the slightest provocation.

Why, just this afternoon, on our way out to pick up Dad's quilt, there was a guy in a G-string running around outside a pub to impress all his beer sodden mates in a bachelor party mini van.

Jeff believes this behaviour is a throw back to convict/colonial days when they'd all started looking mighty good to one another, and that their DNA somehow warped to accommodate this.

With this in mind, I wonder what Charles Darwin would have made of The Footy Show.
My guess is that it would have thrown a greater spanner into his survival of the fittest theory than the humble peacock ever did.

Of course, I much prefer peacocks to drunken men.

But then, who doesn't?