Peter six months before the operation

They say the third time is the charm, well if it is true then I am really charmed.

This is my third cancer diagnosis; first my tongue, then a kidney and now the good old fashioned prostate. I know I am not the only person out there who is going through this, in fact many friends past and present are fighting their own battles everyday and I draw strength from their courage and humour. I am not asking for or expecting any form of sympathy, I am doing this entirely for me. In fact those of you who know me personally will vouch for what a stubborn, ungracious coot I am and I do not take kindly to offers of help or any form of molly coddling.

I was going to do this last time I had a bad diagnosis but never really got around to putting finger to keypad. This time I am hoping to keep a kind of on-line diary about the next few months and my treatment. Not because I am some Farrah Fawcett Major or Joan Didion ‘wanna be’ but it helps clear my mind and it may help someone else who is reading it, (that’s my ego assuming that others are reading the drivel ‘what I rite’).

So first the background: In 2003 I was diagnosed with throat cancer. It was a little irritation right at the back of my throat that first gave my GP and me a hint that something was wrong. Orange juice would really sting and I found that I was constantly trying to clear my throat. I took the news pretty well; I mean what can you do? There is no point sitting in a puddle of self indulgent wailing. It becomes one of those things that you really just need to get on with and fix as soon as you can.

I tend to be rather pragmatic about such stuff.

So I had the meetings with the surgeons; the ENT man who would cut my throat open from ear to ear and excise the lesion then take a flap of skin from my wrist and sew that into my tongue; then the Plastic Surgeon who would try and sew the tongue back together and reconnect the nerves etc; finally meeting with the Radiotherapist who would over the course of four weeks zap what was left of the cancerous cells out of my body. All pretty standard. I was ready, well as ready as you can be.

At the final surgical consult; this is where a group of surgeons of related disciplines all sit around discuss if this is indeed the best option, I was thrown a curve ball, from out of left field the Radiotherapist said that I would have to have all my molar teeth removed in case the radiation made them crumble and break. This threw me, I mean what the…? It was one of those things that you least expect to happen, it had played no part in my plan for what was coming. Doubly annoying I had just spent the year before having all my old fillings taken out a replaced with sparkling new white composites. I was pissed at this; I took an instant dislike to the radiotherapist, something I still haven’t let go of. Let me tell you that removing twelve (12) molars all at once is not the most pleasant of experiences; its day surgery and when you come out you’re feeling none to bright. But what can you do? You can’t argue because you are already feeling overwhelmed, so in the end you suck it up and have the buggers ripped out.

With teeth removed and my gums starting to heal I checked into St Vincent’s Private. I had been a card carrying member of my private health fund for years, so I was expecting the best. The nurses couldn’t have been nicer; I had a lovely room looking over Victoria Street straight into the Hospice; that made me slightly nervous.

So anyway the next morning I was taken in to the theatre and a very nice lady Anaesthetist put a very sharp needle in my arm and I drifted blissfully off to sleep. They told me later I was on the ‘table’ for just over fourteen hours; that was the best fourteen hours I would spend for the next few months.

Post Op Peter 2003

I woke up, briefly, in the ICU, more drugs and some very strange dreams. I spent a few days there then they pushed me back up to my room and for the first time I saw my reflection. A tube stuck out of my incredibly swollen throat, another one up my nose, approximately 40 odd staples across my neck to hold my Adam’s Apple and other unnamed organs in, various drains to catch the seepage from the several wounds situated all around my by now wasting body.

Oh yes let’s briefly talk about muscle mass, muscle ‘dun last too long’ once you stop going to the gym. I had gone from a decent 78 kilos down to about 60 kilos in what seemed like minutes. To say that I was frail was putting it kindly. I made Posh Spice look like Mamma Cass. Trust me this is not an exaggeration.

Anyhow after I think about two weeks I was able to go home and finish my recuperation in my own bed. Never have I been happier to crawl between my very own flannelette sheets than that first night after release.

Eating was going to be a problem, since essentially I had no teeth to chew with and my throat although healing was still pretty raw and I had to get used to using my now repaired and replaced ‘new’ tongue which seemed to have a mind of its own. Soft food, milk arrowroot biscuits and lukewarm cups of tea became my diet, plus mashed fruit cup of pears and/or apples.
I was given a two week window before being sent back to the nasty tooth fairy for radio.

Rest and recuperation and for some reason I developed a kinky fascination with the Food Channel on Fox; taunting myself with delicious looking dishes I couldn’t even begin to consider eating.

Cancer and the Angry Gemini – the saga continues:

With strength returning thanks mainly to the many packets of milk arrowroot biscuits and mugs of tea consumed while watching Jamie Oliver carve up a leg of Tuscan Lamb I started the weeks of radiotherapy that would finally eradicate the cancerous cells that had been lurking inside my unsuspecting throat.

Every day at 9:15 I would make my way to the radiotherapy centre in St Vincent’s Clinic and there surrounded by others all under going treatment for one form or another of cancer I would change into my hospital gown with the gaping back and sit quietly reading the latest issue of New Idea waiting for my turn to be ‘zapped’. Patients in varying stages of treatment; the luckier ones near the end of their regime, although exhausted by the physical toll the therapy takes on you, had a certain air of triumph knowing that they had got this far and the end was in sight.

The 'Zapping' Machine

For fifteen minutes I would lie on the thin and extremely hard metal bed while my neck from left to right was pounded by hidden rays. After the first few sessions I actually managed to sleep through the treatments. It was here for the first time that I actually had to ask for help; unable to get up from the bed and by now weighing in at a hefty 45 kilos in my croaking voice with a tongue refusing to do what normal tongues do I had to be lifted from the bench and propped back up on shaky chicken legs.
Then dressed and determined I would make my way home to the Food Channel and more soggy biscuits.

It’s funny the things that run through your mind as you shuffle up the street in the middle of winter; I remember one strong thought, “Please don’t let anyone think I am an AIDS victim”. Emaciated and angry I still had my vanity, as misplaced as it was.

The thing with radiation is that at first it seems very easy, there are no visible effects but after three weeks and taking no notice of the nurses who had said, “Make sure you rub a good moisturising cream into the radiation burns to limit the damage to your skin,” I found that indeed the skin around my neck began, quite literally, to melt. So out with the moisturiser and I applied it liberally to the area, a bit like basting a side of lamb, or my case, of mutton.

The upside of radiation, yes there is one, is that I no longer have to shave most of my face or neck, that radiation kills everything, indiscriminately. The downside is that most of my saliva glands were blasted as well, leaving me, permanently, with that cloying dry mouth, you know the feeling where your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth as if you have been out too late having a night on the tiles.

By the time treatment ended and follow up visits to the surgeons had been made almost three months had passed. I was not aware of the movement of time, my world became one of one foot in front of the next; each moment was the only thing that counted. I made no plans, I saw no friends, (ego again) and I began to build up the fortress walls that I thought were needed to keep me safe.

Chris Berger, Richard Lyle, Me (not my best ever pic)

About this time, in New York, a friend of mine was producing the first Australian show to open on Broadway and I decided I needed a treat, a little reward; actually I think I just wanted to escape. My housemate, Richard, was going over for opening night and the day before he was due to fly out I decided why the f**k not. So I made him drive me into town and I bought a return ticket flying Qantas to NYC. Such is my madness. So for the next fourteen days I indulged in shows, shopping and dinners at Sardi’s, all thanks to the wonderful people at Visa.

Getting back to Sydney and feeling strong enough to go back to work I rang my employer and asked when they wanted me back. His response was less than satisfactory; he was of the opinion that I should be made redundant and take a minimal pay-out. For the next few months lawyer’s letters were exchanged. In the end I kept the job but my boss rarely spoke to me again. I became, for want of a better description ‘the fart that lingers in the room that no one will claim’.

People ask me often, “Do you now think of each day is a gift?” Honestly no, each day is just each day; good things happen and bad things happen but I didn’t have a ‘road to Damascus’ epiphany and suddenly become this being of love and light. I’m still the selfish, self centred, grumpy ‘ol coot’ I was before the Big C.

Skip forward three years, 2006 another crisis but that can be saved for later.

Cancer and the Angry Gemini – I mean it’s just ‘offal’

 Now where were we?

Three years after my throat had been worked on a little of the anger and resentment that had been building up in me had started to dissipate. I was back at the gym, I had gained weight (back to 69 kilos) and I had two sparkling new partial dentures, (uppers and lowers), thanks to a very kind cash gift from a very close friend who shall remain nameless.

Michael Ossher

The anger that had been bubbling under the surface of my recovery finally started to move thanks to my Trainer, Michael Ossher. When I was finally ready to go back to the gym and begin weight training again he was coincidentally in his last year of training as a psychotherapist and he proved to be the perfect sounding board for me. I’m not an overly emotional person in my day to day life however I had begun to resent my friends for what I perceived as their good fortune, health and wealth and my lack thereof. Michael never said anything, overtly, but he encouraged me to train while he patiently listened to my ranting and never judged me and he let me find my own path out of the mire of self pity I had sunk into. I owe him a huge debt of thanks for that.

However about June or July of this year, (2006), I began to feel stiffness in my neck that I immediately put down to muscle strain. I found it harder and harder each day to actually turn my head in any direction, the only time it felt even mildly better was after a hot and I mean scalding shower. My housemate who for some reason or other tends to worry about me watched with growing concern as I once again began to rapidly lose weight. I would sit on the couch swallowing numerous Panadol to try and make the pain go away. I would break out in drenching sweat, I couldn’t raise my head, I stopped eating and retreated to my bed, never leaving it unless I had to go to the loo.

During this time I was also participating in a trial of a new treatment that would help restore fat to my face. Fat that had been lost during the great cancer of 2003. ‘Sculptra’ which was normally $1000 per session was being given freely to people who had suffered from massive facial fat loss. In a strange coincidence the doctor running the trial was also the Plastic Surgeon who had put my tongue back together. The reason I mention this is primarily after passing out in his surgery and having no idea where I was I decided that perhaps it may be time to visit my GP and deal with what was happening.

Denial is a long river and I swim it confidently.

A day later I lay in isolation, on a bed in the infectious diseases ward of St Vincent’s Hospital watching with panic as everyone that came into my room was forced to wear a mask, trying to take in that I was being treated as if I had every possible communicable disease known to man. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t swallow; everything I tried to eat ended up in my lungs causing secondary infections. I literally became one of Kevin07 ‘aspirational’ voters. Finally after a week of being force fed a variety of tablets the size of fifty cent coins and, you guessed it, more massive weight loss my lungs collapsed. The last thing I really remember is grabbing the empty ‘pee’ bottle and projectile vomiting into it.

I woke up, if that’s the right word, in ICU in a large room surrounded by windows with oxygen tubes stuffed up my nose and a nurse sitting outside monitoring me. I was her only patient and it didn’t make me feel special. I felt like a Monty Python sketch with all the machines going ‘ping.’

The 'Mask'

Breathing was incredibly hard; oxygen was being forced down into my lungs. I couldn’t finish simple sentences. I had to wear a full face oxygen mask, one of the most claustrophobic experiences of my life, especially as the first mask was faulty and every forty seconds or so refused to pump air.

I can’t describe the feeling of panic I had when, for probably less than a minute, the nurse would disappear from my eye line.

Eventually they let me out of the Isolation Room and into the general population of ICU, still unable to stand or really move. I sat there in a large recliner rocker while a 20 something year old intern inserted a catheter in to my frightened and shrinking willy. (I know this is a lot of unasked for information).

Once more my lungs collapsed, I don’t think it was cause and effect.

My ex boyfriend Thomas flew up from Victoria to be with me, as the end seemed more than possible; Richard my housemate was the mess that only he can be; the Doctors asked me if I ‘crashed’ again did I want them to pull me back or… It was an easy decision and without a seconds hesitation I said, “No let me go.” I signed all the appropriate papers and made what peace I could with myself, the world and God. There were tears, none from me, and suddenly we were all resigned that this was it.

I must like a challenge because two days later I was on the road to recovery and the antibiotics they had been pumping into me to fix the infection that had caused the cysts on my spine started to work.

Thomas Burge

I was returned triumphant to the ward, no longer isolated, but heres the thing, as they say in American TV shows, one of the multitude of scans that I had been through had discovered a lump on my right kidney and of course it was cancerous and of course it needed to be removed and of course they couldn’t do that until this 42 kilo piece of humanity had regained some strength and weight.

Discharged and sent home to regroup and rebuild I was told that in two weeks time I would be back and they would whip out the offending organ. So I did and they did and once again there was some good news; the cancer was not related in anyway to the previous cancer of 2003.

I had spent just under two months in hospital, three weeks in ICU; I had forgotten what it was like to sleep in a bed larger than a stretcher.

Who would have thought two tumours in three years?

Thomas went back to Melbourne; he had stayed with me for almost a month. Who says that ex boyfriends can’t be your closest friends?

Richard from that day on has always looked nervously at me whenever I sneeze or complain of a pain in my neck, naturally being the caring and considerate person that I am, I will often clutch my side and feign agony or to really scare him, I’ll lie on the floor in the kitchen pretending to have lapsed into a coma just as he comes home from work. To quote Alan Bennett, “Oh how we laughed.”

That brings you up to date on most of my health issues until 2009.

Cancer and the Angry Gemini – what a bummer:

Are you all still with me?

Let’s flash forward a few years, three in fact, to 2009. Everything seems to be moving along nicely. All my checkups post cancer operations are really good. In fact, it’s been over five years since they took out the tumour on my tongue and the follow ups for the kidney operation are really encouraging, so life is pretty okay.

In 2005 after finally being made redundant by my Boss, (with a decent pay-out this time), I needed something to do so I started to write. My thought pattern went something along the lines of: well since I find it hard to speak now, I really don’t want to work in hospitality and I still seem to be really opinionated and there is no point just sitting in cafés drinking coffee and reading The Daily Telegraph everyday I should do something, I know I’ll write a TV series. So I did; over about five months I wrote six episodes of a series aimed primarily at SBS or the ABC, set in the wonderful world of politics (something I new little about) called “A House Divided”. I found it easy to write and I seemed to be pretty good at it.

Me in the winter of 2007

Of course no one bought it but the exercise was good for me. I started to write a few opinion pieces for Sydney Star Observer, SX Magazine and The Sydney Morning Herald, I contributed to an ‘E-Book’ called ‘I Am A Camera’; Read here, people were positive about my scribbling. I joined the Australian Writers’ Guild, made contact with a group of film and television writers and became reasonably productive. I finished one screenplay and started on a second.

Everything seemed to be moving nicely forward.

Near the beginning of 2009, maybe a little earlier, I started to have some bowel trouble.

I apologise now because it will be a little graphic for a paragraph or so.

I had what I liked to call ‘incidents’, I found it difficult to walk from my house in Darlinghurst to Surry Hills without having to go, very quickly to the loo. On more than one occasion, I didn’t make it in time. Are you getting the picture; stuck on Oxford St. and unintentionally messy.

You think I would have learned by now that if something is going wrong with my system, see a doctor, but no not me. I made allowances and planned my outings carefully always making sure that wherever I was going had 1: parking and 2: a toilet. I changed cafés because Lumiere didn’t have an onsite toilet. Soon I was set in my new routine and the ‘incidents’ never quite disappeared but they certainly diminished.

I had had a colonoscopy in 2008 and although the results were clear my Prostate was certainly larger than normal. We, the doctors and I, attributed this to my lack of weight. In probably March 2009 I started to experience some real pain in ‘me nether regions’. We thought this was probably Irritable Bowel Syndrome. So with the help of Nurofen and limiting the amount of walking around I did again I established a routine.

Every year, for the last three years, I have been earning some extra cash as an Exam Supervisor at one of the girls’ schools in the Eastern Suburbs. This year I had problems. As most of the supervision requires endless walking up and down rows of desks I found that I needed to sit more often than stand; the pain was building. I’m usually pretty good with pain but this was one of those dull aches that seem to throb incessantly away.

I decided that it was time to stop delaying and see my old friend the doctor.

You see what I mean

Wednesday 12 August: 

I really dislike digital rectal examinations, there I said and I mean it; it’s invasive (obviously) and you don’t get dinner before or after. My doctor is a hummer, as he worked away with swab and finger he hummed; I’m not sure if it was to distract me or him. His beautiful dog Rosie wisely slept through the entire event.

Within twenty minutes of the ‘fingering’ I was back up to St. Vincent’s Clinic and waiting to see a new doctor, one who specialised in ‘that area’, the bum, the anus, my butt. Again with the finger but this time no humming, just a sort of grunt which may have come from him but could also have been mine. He booked me in for a colonoscopy the next day with the sole purpose of taking a biopsy.

So the news was; yes there was a problem, he wouldn’t be able to be more specific until he had done the biopsy, in all probability I would need radiotherapy and a course of chemo, the worse case scenario was ‘a bag’.

Thursday 13 August 2009:

The day is spent at home never far from the loo. It’s a day of fasting and drinking the cleansing of the bowel ‘preparation’.

 Again too much information but I had to do three loads of washing that day, you can guess why.
 
Friday 14 August 2009:

I gingerly made my way, early, up to the 6th floor of St Vincent’s Clinic for my 12.30 appointment. Finally I was invited in, told to change into the gown with the ‘gaping back’ and popped onto a bed. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep but every now and then from behind the curtain to the left of me someone who had just ‘been done’ would let out a rather loud and worrying fart. No one said a word; I suppose it is really a rather normal sound for the recovery room of the colonoscopy centre at St Vincent’s.

I was wheeled into the room, rolled onto my side while the very nice young Anaesthetist put the needle into my wrist, we seemed to be chatting away rather well, in fact I said in my best jaunty voice, “Can I get the good drugs, the ones Michael Jackson took?”; then I woke up in the recovery room, with no memory of anything that had followed the injection.

I can see why Michael Jackson became so enamoured of whatever drug they are pumping into you before you have a procedure.

After an orange juice, a cup of tea and one or two noisy farts I was allowed to dress and join the other post probees.

Another cup of tea, some comforting words from the doctor and I was told to report back on Thursday 20th for the results.

Thursday 20 August 2009:

The 'bad' cells

So I made it to my appointment and had confirmed by my new doctor his previous diagnosis, ‘a tumour in the rectum’, his words not mine, very treatable he thought with a combination of radiotherapy and chemo. He gave me the number of a Radiotherapist at Prince of Wales Hospital and I promised to make contact with her and work out treatment dates etc.

A third tumour, who would have thought?

My intention now is to write each week, much more briefly about what is going on and how the regime is progressing. As I said way back at the start of this I am going to be doing this for me as a way of cleansing and clearing my mind. If it helps or assists anyone else that would be great.

I will try to do it with as much humour and honesty as I can; I am sure there will be times when it will be a rant, times when I rail at the unfairness of life in general, but hopefully this ‘diary’ will dissipate most of the anger.

For those of you who read this far, thanks.

Cancer and the Angry Gemini – have I got a deal for you!

Centennial Park, Sydney

I’m in the ‘Indian Summer’ phase. That’s the safe time between diagnosis and treatment. It’s a good time. You feel as if you have finally owned up to your cancer and have started to take positive steps to deal with it. The great thing is though that nothing has happened but you feel better about yourself. ‘King of the World.’

I made my first appointment Tuesday, (25 August 2009), to see my brand spanking new doctor, Robyn. We’re going to work out the timetable for everything that is to come, treatment-wise. This time I’m off to The Prince of Wales, not as handy as St Vincent’s but much more cost effective.

One of the things I learned very quickly after the 2003 event was that, even with private health care, getting healed ‘ain’t cheap.’ I have to admit I was probably very naïve. I had been paying into my health care fund for a long time and I thought I was covered; I didn’t take into account ‘The Gap’: the amount between what your doctor charges and what Medicare and your fund will reimburse you for. I guess I was expecting to pay something, maybe $300 or $500 dollars for incidentals.

Silly old cancer patient me.

In the end the two funds paid probably about 75% of the total amount. This left me just over $15,000 out of pocket. I wasn’t amused. I wondered what they would do if I refused to pay; put my old tongue back in?

So I learned, fast. By the time 2006 rolled around I remembered my grandfather’s favourite saying, “Get out there and kick the tyres son.” Sure, he was talking about cars but the same principle applies. Apart from everything else that’s going on you have to negotiate just how much this is going to cost you. As long as you are upfront then usually there are no hidden surprises.

So in 2006 as I lay gasping for breath in the Isolation Ward at St Vinnie’s we haggled about who would do what to me, when, where and how I would pay for it all. We came to a mutually agreeable result. I would be admitted as a private patient but there would be no gap. Happy with that, I lay back and coughed up a lung.

Another thought in passing: who do you tell? Some people, clearly not me, like to keep private things private and they don’t want anyone to know that they are ailing but at some stage you have to tell someone and, trust me, if you tell one person then everyone will know sooner rather than later. People’s reactions can be curious; they can range from the solicitous fruit basket to the well meaning, “Anything, and I mean anything, I can do for you, just call,” to the few who avoid even mentioning the word. All reasonable reactions and perfectly understandable, far be it from me to tell someone else how they should react to my diagnosis.

Anyway, back to my ‘Indian Summer’, next week the planning starts so, until then, I am going to enjoy my beer and the Sydney sunshine.

Cue lights, cue sound of birds chirping, and action on Doris Day singing, ‘Que Sera Sera.’

The saga continues.

With strength returning thanks mainly to the many packets of milk arrowroot biscuits and mugs of tea consumed while watching Jamie Oliver carve up a leg of Tuscan Lamb I started the weeks of radiotherapy that would finally eradicate the cancerous cells that had been lurking inside my unsuspecting throat.

Every day at 9:15 I would make my way to the radiotherapy centre in St Vincent’s Clinic and there surrounded by others all under going treatment for one form or another of cancer I would change into my hospital gown with the gaping back and sit quietly reading the latest issue of New Idea waiting for my turn to be ‘zapped’. Patients in varying stages of treatment; the luckier ones near the end of their regime, although exhausted by the physical toll the therapy takes on you, had a certain air of triumph knowing that they had got this far and the end was in sight.

The 'Zapping' Machine

For fifteen minutes I would lie on the thin and extremely hard metal bed while my neck from left to right was pounded by hidden rays. After the first few sessions I actually managed to sleep through the treatments. It was here for the first time that I actually had to ask for help; unable to get up from the bed and by now weighing in at a hefty 45 kilos in my croaking voice with a tongue refusing to do what normal tongues do I had to be lifted from the bench and propped back up on shaky chicken legs.

Then dressed and determined I would make my way home to the Food Channel and more soggy biscuits.

It’s funny the things that run through your mind as you shuffle up the street in the middle of winter; I remember one strong thought, “Please don’t let anyone think I am an AIDS victim”. Emaciated and angry I still had my vanity, as misplaced as it was.

The thing with radiation is that at first it seems very easy, there are no visible effects but after three weeks and taking no notice of the nurses who had said, “Make sure you rub a good moisturising cream into the radiation burns to limit the damage to your skin,” I found that indeed the skin around my neck began, quite literally to melt. So out with the moisturiser and I applied it liberally to the area, a bit like basting a side of lamb, or my case, of mutton.

The upside of radiation, yes there is one, is that I no longer have to shave most of my face or neck, that radiation kills everything, indiscriminately. The downside is that most of my saliva glands were blasted as well, leaving me, permanently, with that cloying dry mouth, you know the feeling where your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth as if you have been out too late having a night on the tiles.

By the time treatment ended and follow up visits to the surgeons had been made almost three months had passed. I was not aware of the movement of time, my world became one of one foot in front of the next; each moment was the only thing that counted. I made no plans, I saw no friends, (ego again) and I began to build up the fortress walls that I thought were needed to keep me safe.

Chris Berger, Richard Lyle, Me (not my best ever pic)

About this time, in New York, a friend of mine was producing the first Australian show to open on Broadway and I decided I needed a treat, a little reward; actually I think I just wanted to escape. My housemate was going over for opening night and the day before he was due to fly out I decided why the f**k not. So I made him drive me into town and I bought a return ticket flying Qantas to NYC. Such is my madness. So for the next fourteen days I indulged in shows, shopping and dinners at Sardi’s, all thanks to the wonderful people at Visa.

Getting back to Sydney and feeling strong enough to go back to work I rang my employer and asked when they wanted me back. His response was less than satisfactory; he was of the opinion that I should be made redundant and take a minimal pay-out. For the next few months lawyer’s letters were exchanged. In the end I kept the job but my boss rarely spoke to me again. I became, for want of a better description ‘the fart that lingers in the room that no one will claim’.

People ask me often, “Do you now think of each day is a gift?” Honestly no, each day is just each day; good things happen and bad things happen but I didn’t have a ‘road to Damascus’ epiphany and suddenly become this being of love and light. I’m still the selfish, self centred, grumpy ‘ol coot’ I was before the Big C.

Skip forward three years, 2006 another crisis but that can be saved for later.

Stay tuned more to come.

Matt Cavenaugh turns 31 today. The hunky Broadway actor, who is currently crooning his way through Arthur Laurent’s You-Gotta-Get-a-Bilingual-Gimmick revival of West Side Story made his Broadway debut topless in the 2003 craptacular Urban Cowboy. Fiancee, and soon to be husband, of Jenny Powers, Cavenaugh is one of a dying bread – good looking straight men who make careers out of playing Broadway male leads.

Matt Cavenaugh in Urban Cowboy

Brooke Shields turns 44 today. Model, turned TV/film star, turned wannabe Broadway star, Shields was a star replacement in three ’90s revivals of previously great musicals – the Tommy Tune Grease, the Encores! Chicago, and the Sam Mendes Cabaret. She also singlehandedly closed Wonderful Town, another Encores! transfer. Hopefully Shields will not be gracing a stage near any of us anytime soon. 

Brooke Shields (seated centre) in Chicago

Todd McKenney also turns 44 today. The oft-forgotten original Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz, McKenney is best known as the tough male judge on the Aussie version of Dancing with the Stars. Having previously enjoyed a stage career, starting in the ensembles of 42nd Street and La Cage aux Folles, his big break came in the Australian production of Crazy for You when he had a Peggy-Sawyer-Sutton-Foster-in-Millie-esque  takeover from the injured Jim Walton in the major role of Bobby Child. McKenney also had a limited season in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert during its final stop in Sydney at the Lyric Theatre in late 2008.

Todd McKenney and Georgie Parker in Crazy for You

Rupert Everett turns 50 today – and he doesn’t look a day younger despite many attempts at defying natural aging via surgery and botox. Currently chewing scenery in the Angela-Lansbury-led-revival of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, Rupert is best known for his film roles: the gay best friend of Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding and the gay best friend of Madonna in The Next Best Thing. Oh and the voice of villain Prince Charming in Shrek 2 and Shrek 3.

Rupert Everett - who does he think he's kidding?

Annette Bening turns 51 today. With only one Broadway credit (in the widely acclaimed Coastal Disturbances) Annette is best know for her performances on film – most of the time playing real estate agents. Her role in American Beauty is her biggest claim to fame … with being the sister-in-law to Shirley McClaine coming a very close second.

Annette Bening in American Beauty

Burt Bacharach turns 80 today. Best known in theatre circles for bringing us that hot mess known as “Turkey Lurkey Time” (from his 1968 musical Promises, Promises), Burt has made a big name for himself writing soppy love ballads some of which have appeared in musicals over the years – including “The Look of Love” which featured in the 2006 Aussie bio-musical Dusty, and also “Arthur’s Theme” which made an appearance in that other Aussie bio-musical that starred the uber-ripped Hugh Jackman The Boy from Oz. RANDOM FACT OF THE DAY: contrary to popular belief (mostly thanks to Seth Rudetsky and his The Q Guide To Broadway) La Jackman didn’t originate the role of Peter Allen … Todd McKenney, known to Aussie audiences as the Simon-Cowell-mean-judge stereotype on the down-under version of Dancing with the Stars, did.

Uberhunk Hugh Jackman - who wants to see a pic of an 80 year old wrinkly guy when you can stare at those abs/arms/pecs/chesthair?

Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig are, without a doubt, two of the brightest stars in Hollywood today.  Both have starred in major blockbuster franchises, and have appealed to people of both genders, and people of all ages. 

Now, both are set to star in the Broadway play “A Steady Rain”.  The play was a hit in Chicago, and tells the story of two policemen who have been friends since childhood.  Their lives take very different paths, however, after one particular incident. 

The play would be Craig’s Broadway debut.  Jackman proved to be a hit on Broadway after he played Peter Allen in “The Boy From Oz”. 

Jackman's eyeing a return to stage...probably without the claws

Will there be a more polarized viewer response to any other movie this summer?  I doubt it.  I’ve heard a lot of things since the tragic Internet leak–many of them bad.  But then it hit big-time at the box office, and I actually rather enjoyed it.

But I’ll go ahead and tell you: I’ve been an X-Men nerd since middle school.  My brother and I had the comics, the trading cards, the action figures, you name it.  We once had an X-Men themed birthday party.  And though I may have stopped reading the comics, my love for X-Men lore has hardly waned.  Check out my outfit for the midnight premier of X3.  Yeah… I have odd passions in life.

So I like to think I know a decent amount about what this film should have been.  That being said, I feel like too many people go into a comic book film thinking it’s not going to be cheesy.  I hate to break it to you, but COMICS ARE CHEESY BY NATURE, folks.  As a traditional film enthusiast, it was hard for me at first to come to grips with this fact, but it should be a lesson in accepting certain film genres for what they are.  Comic films will never be deep and serious; that’s not what they’re going for.  They will be full of pointless action and mind-blowing visuals, and they will employ all your cheesy Hollywood clichés.  In this light, I thought Wolverine was pretty damn decent.

[[My two favorite cheesy shots: (1) the overhead zoom-out shot of Logan screaming "NOOOoooooo!" when he first finds his wife dead; (2) the old-time western-style shot of him carrying his wife into the sunset on the island.  Ah hahahaha!]]

To say I wasn’t pleased when I first heard of Ryan Reynolds‘ appearance in this film would be an understatement.  (He tried so hard to make his best serious face!  To no avail…)  Luckily for me, he really only has one legitimate scene to grace us with his annoying idiosyncrasies before he disappears to become the (thankfully) silent Deadpool.  And by that time, you can hardly tell it’s him anyway.  Nice!

And Victor/Sabretooth… is legit scary.  Very well played and great costuming.

The fight scenes may have gone on a bit longer that I typically like to see in a movie, but they played out EXACTLY like I imagined them in the comics.  True to form.

Gambit may not have transferred to film exactly as he was written (my cousin noted that he didn’t call anyone “cher” like he was so keen to do in the comics), but I guess I was just so damn happy to see one of my favorite X-Men that I didn’t really care.  I thought it was a passable job of Gambit anyway.  He certainly had the attitude.  Rumor is: if Wolverine makes enough money, the next X-Men Origins will be our buddy Gambit.  I could dig it.

The storyline is good.  Especially if you already enjoy the X-Men legends, it’s interesting to see where Wolverine/Logan came from and why he’s so pissed off when he first meets Professor X.

Also: in my opinion, Hugh Jackman is a master.  He knows how to rock an action flick, and I’ve seen him play a gay man on Broadway.  I haven’t seen better versatility in quite a while.

Overall, I had a good time watching it.  Quite a bit more cheesy than I’m used to tolerating, but it works in this kind of film.  I even went back and watched X3 on TV the other day, which I detested in theaters, and I got over myself and realized that it’s not half bad either.

There are much better films, but there are also much worse.  Unleash your inner nerd, and give this one a chance.

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Read More:

• Official site
• IMDB page
• Wikipedia entry (for the comic)
• Marvel comic spotlight on the Wolverine character

Hugh Jackman has refused to deny that he is gay. 

The married actor has been persistently rumoured to be homosexual since he played Australian musician Peter Allen in camp musical The Boy From Oz in 2003.

Jackman is reluctant to refute the allegations because he feels it encourages a derogatory view of homosexuality.

“I’d be happy to go and deny being gay, because I’m not. But by denying it, I’m saying there is something shameful about it, and there isn’t anything shameful,” he said.

“The questions about sexuality I find more in America than anywhere else, because it’s a big hang-up and defines what people think about themselves and others. It’s not a big issue in Australia.”

Jackman also revealed he and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness – who have been married for 13 years – felt very strongly about adopting multi-racial children Oscar, eight, and Ava, three.

He told Parade magazine: “Mixed-race babies have such a hard time being adopted that Deb and I checked off that box specifically when we were filling out our forms.

“Our lawyer brought the form back to us and said, ‘This is not the time to be politically correct. Are you sure this is what you want?’ We were definite about it. Adoption is about taking a baby into your home and your heart. It’s the best thing we’ve ever done.”

4/23/2009

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=5&ContentID=137722

I enjoy Hugh Jackman very much.

 A) He’s Wolverine, and as a University of Michigan graduate aren’t I obligated to like him?  

2) I saw The Boy From Oz and he blew me away.  Really fantastic!  Like Liza.  (The real Liza, tho the Liza in The Boy From Oz was quite good.)

3) Did you see the opening of the Oscars? Enough said. 

4) I actually stood a few feet away from the impossibly handsome Hugh Jackman and his mixed race son, and witnessed one of my favorite interactions ever.  It was so good that I didn’t even pick up on the fact that his son is mixed.  Picture it: New York City. 2006.  The Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.  Heading out of the building, Hugh and son.  Heading into the building, Barbara Walters.  (Standing in between, me, but who cares.)  Hugh sees her and calls out, “Hi Barbara!” Barbara, head down trying desperately not to be recognized, keeps eyes to the ground moves to her left still heading for the escalators.  Hugh keeps grinning and says, “Barbara? Barbara, it’s Hugh.”  At this point they’ve caught up to each other. (Like right next to me, but who cares.) He keeps walking with her and actually bends down to meet her downcast gaze.  ”It’s Hugh.”  She is simultaneously relieved and embarrassed.   She laughs a bit nervously, “Oh, Hugh….”  They have a nice little convo and part ways.   It was funny and cute.

One of the incidental pleasures of this year’s Oscar ceremony was learning that Anne Hathaway can sing. Now it looks like the rising star will have a chance to show off both her acting chops and powerful set of lungs. Cinematical reports that Hathaway will star in both a film and possible stage show about the life of Judy Garland.

The announcement came after The Weinstein Co. purchased the stage and screen rights to Gerald Clarke’s biography Get Happy! The Life of Judy Garland. Garland is infamous for her “I’m only smiling on the outside” life. Groomed as a star from childhood, she found fame with Mickey Rooney in the Andy Hardy movies, was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, then became a by-word for tragedy through a very public disintegration. Hooked on diet drugs and booze, she made occasional phoenix-like comebacks in stage shows. She also became one of the first modern gay icons … Her death is often given as an indirect cause of the 1969 Stonewall riots.

Hathaway knows a little of the territory. She became a teenage star with the success of the Princess Diary movies, then made drastic left turn in her career by flashing her breasts in Brokeback Mountain. (She also acted a little in the film.) While The Devil Wears Prada proved her bankability and Rachel Getting Married was a revelation of her acting ability, she also enjoys a personal life at least as complicated as Garland’s. In 2008, her developer boyfriend Raffaello Follieri was arrested in fraud charges.

Will this work? Well, it’s the Weinsteins, which is always a crap shoot. Playing a real person is a danger for an actor. While everyone admires the impersonation, sometimes it can seem like the only decent performance that actor ever gave (we’re thinking about you, Jamie Foxx.) Hathaway’s track record is good enough to suggest Garland won’t haunt her to the grave. And as her onstage Oscar partner Hugh Jackman showed in The Boy from Oz, there’s nothing like a little Broadway razzle dazzle to make people forget stuff like Deception.

And Mickey Rooney? Elijah Wood owns that part.

Most of it’s unwatchable, but Hathaway’s turn begins about four minutes in.

In the theater world, a “triple threat” is someone who can proficiently sing, act, and dance.  Well no one has shown that they are one more than People’s 2008 “Sexiest Man Alive”, Hugh Jackman.  

Obviously he has the acting and singing thing down pat since winning the Tony Award for Best Actor portraying Australia’s ”boy next door” Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz.  Not to mention, he’s turning into the next Billy Crystal, hosting award show after award show.

Now when it comes to tripping the light fantastic, I was not so sure he was capable of doing it until I saw this….   

Who would have thought Wolverine had those kind of moves in him!

Now the question to ask is who is creepier…Barbara Walters for wanting a lap dance or the sound guy who brought the right music to watch Hugh Jackman give Barbara Walters a lap dance?

The late Peter Allen became an international pop icon of many a disparate part: evocative tunesmith of such unabashed sentimental pop as “Don’t Cry Out Loud” and “I Honestly Love” you (both original versions of which are included here); vigorous stage performer who willfully blurred the line between mere flamboyance and outright camp; the original ex-Mr. Liza Minnelli; one of the first celebrities to openly admit their homosexuality. Such was Allen’s life that it became the basis of the hit stage musical The Boy From Oz in his home country of Australia in the late 90’s, then a Hugh Jackman-starring Broadway edition for the 2003 season. The 20-tracks here make a fine companion piece to that Allen revival, wending their way from early 70’s Australian pop fare like “Honest Queen” and “Tenterfield Saddler” through his embrace–and shamelessly emotional retooling–of the decade’s introspective singer-songwriter mindset that led to MOR hits for Olivia Newton-John, Melissa Manchester, Pablo Cruise, and others, to his ebullient, hard-won career as solo artist in his own right. Culled from Allen’s various albums for A&M, RCA, and Arista, the tracks here display a shameless devotion to tin-pan alley traditions (“Everything Old is New Again,” a cover of “The More I See of You”), American songbook icons (the Judy Garland tribute “Quiet Please�”), and the solid pop craftsmanship that led to mega-hits like “Arthur’s Theme,” all of them powered by an effusive performing sense that was truly bigger than life. –Jerry McCulley

The Very Best of Peter Allen: The Boy from Down Under is available at Amazon for $10.97. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

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Other Products of Interest

• Captured Live at Carnegie Hall
• Peter Allen – The Boy From Oz
• The Boy from Oz (2003 Original Broadway Cast)
• 20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection: The Best of Peter Allen
• Not the Boy Next Door

Baricade Cake

The Boy From Oz Grand Piano Cake

Little Shop of Horrors

These three cakes were created for the Tamworth Musical Society productions of Les Miserables (2007), The Boy From Oz (2008 ) and Little Shop Of Horrors (2007). I am looking forward to creating a cake for the first 2009 production Beauty and The Beast.

Da tempo non eleggiamo un compare, ma almeno questo è col botto. Eletto da People l’uomo più sexy al mondo quest’uomo causa in ogni donna che incroci il suo sguardo palpitazioni, sudorazioni, arrossamenti e soprattutto tanta, ma tanta libido. Stiamo parlando del compare senza se e senza ma, stiamo parlando del compare ante litteram, il compare che mette d’accordo tutte, la quintessenza della bellezza australiana, il solo a ricalcare la beltà che fu di Abel, il fratello figo di Georgie, stiamo parlando ovviamente di quel tronco di pino di Hugh Jackman. Come dire, Cary Grant dopo una sessione di palestra.  Non ci importa un fico secco se è sposato, anche perché lei è brutta come la morte, no non credere che siamo invidiosette, ma rifletti un attimo può una qualsiasi donna essere alla sua altezza? Avremmo voluto andare a intervistarlo fingendoci reporter di Selle e Cavalli, visto che in Australia se ne vedono di parecchi.  Hugh è così bello che le mosche lo scansano, è così bello che Nicole Kidman non voleva recitare accanto a lui, è così bello che ha adottato due bambini per non condividere con altre futili donne il suo sacro e benedetto DNA. E poi è bello sempre e comunque… con le bassettone e gli artigli di Wolverine (donna media della rete noi amiamo Hugh da tempi non sospetti), con capello lungo in versione trucida visto in Van Helsing, in versione sexy hacker, in versione donnaiolo impunito, in versione ottocentesca, in versione mago, in versione giornalista, in versione gaia … insomma dove lo metti sta . Una delle due commari ha avuto anche l’opportunità di vedere la sua ultima stupenda versione senza nome, sì perché nell’ultimo film di Baz lui è solo il drover, il sexy mandriano, come un’entità astratta di innaturale bellezza (questo complimento non vi ricorda la già citata Georgie?). Vedere Hugh sudato per circa 150 minuti è uno spettacolo irrinunciabile e grazie a questa sua ennesima versione vince e stravince il titolo di compare ante litteram, come dire il compare che ha precorso i tempi, il compare che c’era prima ancora dell’esistenza dei compari un po’ come Abel di Georgie, perché diciamolo… la mamma era una stitica emozionale solo perché soffriva di un complesso d’Edipo tendente a più infinito nei confronti del rude Abel.

L'evoluzione della specie: da Abel a Hugh

Hugh è il sexy drover per eccellenza

Perché è il compare ante litteram? Dico… ma dopo che l’avete visto dobbiamo anche spiegarvi perché. A parte l’ovvia bellezza, quest’uomo è davvero un artista completo: sa cantare, ballare, andare a cavallo ed è un bellissimo suppellettile. Hugh è così bello che Baz Luhrmann è diventato gaio durante le riprese del kolossal Australia. Non ci credete?? Guardate qui sotto:

E tanto perché siamo buoneeeee, il trailer di Australia

Aussie Adam Fiorentino Is Walking on Air as the New Bert
Adam Interview

Aussie Adam Fiorentino is making his Broadway debut as the new Bert, the multi-talented chimney sweep in MARY POPPINS.

He was offered his first professional gig in the ensemble of the touring production of the Peter Allen musical The Boy From Oz.

The actor toured around Australia in productions of Cats, Grease, Mamma Mia!, Footloose and Leader of the Pack, and the stage adaptation of Saturday Night Fever in which he played the John Travolta role of Tony Manero. He was invited to take his Boogie Shoes to London where he reprised the role in the West End production.

But he has reached the high point of his career – literally and figuratively – playing Bert, the “Chim-Chim-Cheree”-singing sweep who helps Mary Poppins save the troubled Banks family of 17 Cherry Tree Lane in the Disney/Cameron Macintosh show.

Bert literally flips for Mary. Among his many daring special effects is dancing upside-down on the three-story proscenium of Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre at the climax of the song “Step in Time.”

The New Amsterdam’s resident choreographer Tom Kosis said he trained Fiorentino on a special ten-foot-high practice rig. “He had to learn how to tap without using his weight,” Kosis said. “Tapping upside down is not like tapping on the stage. You have to flip your ankles. It’s much more like drumming.”

“I was never really terrified,” Fiorentino said, “because I’ve done bungee jumping in the past.” He also said he has complete trust in the show’s designers and the stagehands of the New Amsterdam. But there’s something more that helps keep him aloft. “It’s the excitement and the buzz you get from the audience.”

How about magic? Clearly Mary Poppins is magical. But what about Bert?

“Bert is a human being who is able to perform magic when Mary is around,” Fiorentino said. “He helps facilitate some of Mary’s lessons. In order to do that he is able to use magic. He loses those powers when she goes away. He’s got a very deep connection with Mary. When Mary goes, it’s a really sad time for him.”

Fiorentino does have one love story with a decidedly happy ending: his love affair with New York City. The first time he heard the word “Broadway” was when he was 6 or 7. He and his mother used to watch movies on TV together every Sunday, and when the classic film musical On the Town was shown, Fiorentino was hooked. The story of sailors on a 24-hour leave in Manhattan showed them, “running around New York. And I thought: I want to be there! For me, that’s where everything happened.”

Fiorentino also plays the recurring role of Simon on the ABC daytime drama, All My Children.

source:
Mary Poppins

Wait, Hugh Jackman got Sexiest Man Alive this year?

I just wanted to congratulate him for being able to switch between this look

rowr!

…..and this look so effortlessly.

meow?

People Magazine has named Australian actor Hugh Jackman as its “Sexiest Man Alive” for 2008. Jackman, who won a Tony in 2004 for his role in The Boy from Oz, stars in the upcoming epic, Australia.

And for your viewing pleasure, here are some examples of why he was chosen SMA:

As if that weren’t enough, here are some of the other sexy fellas who made the list:

My boyfriend, Daniel Craig (although, People, you could’ve picked a better picture than this. Maybe something without a shirt?).

Don Draper himself, Jon Hamm. YUM.

Is it just me, or does Blair Underwood get hotter with every passing year?

Even when he’s wearing a plaid wife beater, Becks is always a good choice. Have I ever told you how much I love a man with tattoos?

Javier Bardem is just so, well, manly! Penelope Cruz is a lucky woman.

Aw, it’s a shout-out to all us girls who graduated high school in the late ’90s and had the hots for Pacey! Josh Jackson, way to age well!

Although I HATE that hair (seriously, WTF is up with that mess? Is he trying to be the new Heath Ledger?), it warms my heart to see Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) on the list. Saved by the Bell, FTW!

Ele interpreta o cantor e compositor Peter Allen, que o ator viveu no musical “The boy from Oz”. E Sarah Jessica Parker prova que não tem mesmo graça nem jogo de cintura. Foi no Tony Awards de 2004:
.